Fire Hydrant of Freedom
Politics, Religion, Science, Culture and Humanities => Politics & Religion => Topic started by: Crafty_Dog on October 04, 2006, 12:22:12 AM
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Woof All:
Herewith begins a catch-all thread.
TAC,
CD
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Bush and the Perception of Weakness
By George Friedman
There is good news for the Republican Party: Things can't get much worse. About five weeks from the midterm elections, a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) asserting that the situation in Iraq will deteriorate in 2007 is leaked. On top of that, Bob Woodward's book is released to massive fanfare, chronicling major disagreements within the White House over prosecution of the Iraq war and warnings to U.S. President George W. Bush in the summer of 2003 that a dangerous insurgency was under way and that the president's strategy of removing Baathists from the government and abolishing the Iraqi army was a mistake. These events are bad enough, but when U.S. Rep. Mark Foley (R-Fla.) -- the head of a congressional committee charged with shutting down child molesters using the Internet -- is caught sending e-mails to 16-year-old male pages, the news doesn't get much worse.
All of this is tied up with the elections of course. The NIE document leak was undoubtedly meant to embarrass the president. The problem is that it did, as it revealed the rift between the intelligence community and the White House's view of the world. The Woodward book was clearly intended to be published more than a month before the elections, and it was expected to have embarrassing revelations in it. The problem is that not a whole lot of people quoted in the book are denying that they said or did what was described. When former White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card is quoted as trying to get U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld out of office and the assertion is made that first lady Laura Bush tried as well, and denials are not flying, you know two things: Woodward intended to embarrass Bush just before the election, and he succeeded. For all we know, the leak about Foley asking about a 16-year-old's boxer shorts may have been timed as well. The problem is that the allegations were true, and Foley admitted what he did and resigned.
These problems might be politically timed, but none of them appears to be based on a lie. The fact is that this confluence of events has created the perception that the Bush White House is disintegrating. Bush long ago lost control of leakers in the intelligence community; he has now started to lose control over former longtime staffers who, having resigned, have turned on him via the Woodward book. Bush appears to be locked into a small circle of advisers (particularly Vice President Dick Cheney and Rumsfeld) and locked into his Iraq strategy, and he generally appears to have suspended decision-making in favor of continuing with decisions already made.
Now, this may not be a fair perception. We are not in the White House and do not know what is going on there. But this is now the perception, and that fact must be entered into the equation. True or not, and fair or not, the president appears to be denying what the intelligence communities are saying and what some of his closest advisers have argued, and it appears that this has been going on for a long time. With the election weeks away, and the Foley scandal adding to the administration's difficulties, there is a reasonable probability that the Republicans will get hammered in the elections, potentially losing both houses of Congress if the current trend continues.
One theory is that Bush doesn't care. He believes in the things he is doing and, whatever happens in the 2006 elections, he will continue to be president for the next two years, with the power of the presidency in his hand. That may be the case, although a hostile Congress with control over the purse strings can force policies on presidents (consider Congress suspending military aid to South Vietnam under Gerald Ford). Congress has substantial power when it chooses to exercise it.
But leaving the question of internal politics aside, the perception that Bush's administration is imploding can have a significant impact on his ability to execute his foreign policy because of how foreign nations will behave. The perception of disarray generates a perception of weakness. The perception of weakness encourages foreign states to take advantage of the situation. Bush has argued that changing his Iraq policy might send the Islamic world a signal of weakness. That might be true, but the perception that Bush is losing control of his administration or of Congress can also signal weakness. If Bush's intent is the reasonable goal of not appearing weak, he obviously must examine the current situation's effects on his ability to reach that goal.
Consider a matter not involving the Islamic world. This week, a crisis blew up in the former Soviet republic of Georgia, which is now closely aligned with the United States. Georgia arrested four Russian military officers, charging them with espionage. The Russians demanded their release and halted the withdrawal of Russian troops from Georgia -- a withdrawal Moscow had promised before the arrests gave it the opportunity to create a fundamental crisis in Russo-Georgian relations.
Normally a crisis of this magnitude involving a U.S. ally like Georgia would rise to the top of the pile of national security issues at the White House, with suitable threats made and action plans drawn up. Furthermore, the Russians would normally have been quite careful about handling such a crisis. There was little evidence of Russian caution; the Russians refrained from turning the situation into a military conflict, but they certainly turned up the heat on Georgia as the crisis evolved on its own. The Kremlin press service said Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin talked about Georgia in a telephone conversation Oct. 2, and that Putin told Bush third parties should be careful about encouraging Georgia.
The Russians frankly do not see the United States as capable of taking meaningful action at this point. That means Moscow can take risks, exert pressure and shift dynamics in ways it might have avoided a year ago out of fear of U.S. reprisals. The Russians know Bush does not have the political base at home, or even the administrative ability, to manage a crisis. Both National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice are obsessed with Iraq and the Washington firestorm. As for Rumsfeld, Woodward quoted the head of U.S. Central Command, Gen. John Abizaid, as saying Rumsfeld lacks credibility. That statement has not been denied. It is bad when a four-star general says that about a secretary of defense. Since the perception of U.S. crisis management is that no one is minding the shop, the Russians tested their strength.
There is, of course, a much more serious matter: Iran. Iran cut its teeth on American domestic politics. After the Iranians seized U.S. Embassy personnel as hostages, they locked the Carter administration into an impossible position, in which its only option was a catastrophic rescue attempt. The Iranians had an enormous impact on the 1980 election, helping to defeat Carter and not releasing the hostages until Ronald Reagan was sworn in as president. They crippled a president once and might like to try it again.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was involved in the hostage-taking and got a close-up view of how to manipulate the United States. Iran already undermined Bush's plans for a stable government in Iraq when it mobilized Shiite forces against the Baghdad government over the summer. Between that and the Israeli-Hezbollah conflict, Iran saw itself in a strong position. Iran then conducted a diplomatic offensive, as a former Iranian president and the current Iranian president both traveled to the United States and tried to make the case that they are more moderate than the Bush administration painted them.
With five weeks until the U.S. congressional midterm elections, the Iranians would love to be able to claim that Bush, having rejected their overtures, was brought down -- or at least crippled -- by Iran. There are rumors swirling about pending major attacks in Iraq by pro-Iranian forces. There are always rumors swirling in Iraq about attacks, but in this particular case, logic would give them credibility. The Iranians might be calculating that if Iranian-sponsored groups could inflict massive casualties on U.S. troops, it would affect the U.S. election enough to get a Democratic Congress in place -- which could cripple Bush's ability to wage war and further weaken the United States' position in the Middle East. This, of course, would increase Iran's standing in the region.
The Iranian perception is that the United States does not have the resources to launch either an invasion or massive airstrikes against Iran. The Bush administration's credibility on weapons of mass destruction (WMD) is too low for that to be regarded as a plausible excuse, and even if strikes were launched to take out WMD, that rationale would not justify an extended, multi-month bombing campaign. Since the Iranians believe the United States lacks the will and ability to try regime change from the air, Tehran is in a position to strike without putting itself at risk.
If the Iranians were to strike hard at the United States in Iraq, and the United States did not respond effectively, then the perception in key countries like Saudi Arabia -- a religious and geopolitical rival of Iran's -- would be that aligning with the United States is a dangerous move because the U.S. ability to protect them is not there, and therefore they need to make other arrangements. Since getting the Saudis' cooperation against al Qaeda was a major achievement for the Bush administration, this would be a major reversal. But if Riyadh perceived the United States as inherently weak, Riyadh would have no choice but to recalculate and relaunch its foreign policy.
Iran and others are feeling encouraged to take risks before the upcoming U.S. election -- either because they see this as a period of maximum American weakness or because they hope to influence the election and further weaken Bush. If they succeed, many U.S. allies will, like the Saudis, have to recalculate their positions relative to the United States and move away. The willingness of people in Iraq and Afghanistan to align with the United States will decline. If the United States is seen as a loser, it will become a loser. Furthermore, the NIE and the Woodward book create the perception that Bush has become isolated in his views and unable to control his own people. He needs to reverse this perception.
It is easy to write that. It is much harder to imagine how he will accomplish it, particularly if there is a major attack in Iraq or elsewhere. Bush's solution has been to refuse to bend. That worked for a while, but that strategy is no longer credible because it is not clear that Bush still has the option of not bending. The disarray in his administration and the real possibility of losing Congress means that merely remaining resolved is not enough. Bush needs to bring perceived order to the perceived chaos in the administration. Between the bad luck of degenerate congressmen and the intentions of the Iranians, he does not have many tools at his disposal. The things he might have done a year ago, like replacing Rumsfeld, are not an option now. It would smell of panic, and he cannot afford to be seen as panicky. Perhaps Bush's only option at this point is to remain self-assured and indifferent to the storm around him.
Whatever the perception in the United States, Bush's enemies overseas are not impressed by his self-assurance, and his allies are getting very worried that, like Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, his political weakness will not allow him to control the U.S. course.
We believe that, in the end, reality governs perception. But we are not convinced that, in this case, the perception and the reality are not one and the same; and we are not convinced that, in the coming weeks, the perception is not in fact more important than the reality. And if the Republicans lose the upcoming elections, the perception that Bush lacks the plans and political power needed for decisive action will become the reality.
For Bush to be able to execute the foreign policy he wants, his party must win the midterm elections. For that to happen, Bush must get control of the political situation quickly. To do that, he must change the perception that his own administration is out of control.
Easy to write. Harder to do.
www.stratfor.com
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October 27, 2006
10:01am EDT
MIKE HENDRICKS COMMENTARY - COMMENTARY: Hey, put that syllable back!
The Kansas City Star | Aug 28, 2006
In open split with Bush, top US conservative calls for independent movement
AFP | May 21, 2006
Minority report: the frustration of some black and Latino operatives raises the question: how much longer can democrats count on historic loyalties?
The American Prospect | Jul 1, 2005
Quills Highlights Librarians
Library Journal | Nov 1, 2006
The Last Word: James Carville
Newsweek | Oct 30, 2006
No Problem With the Veil
Newsweek | Oct 30, 2006
PatriotPost.US
Harvard Political Review says, "The Patriot is leading a surprisingly well-organized charge into the world of Internet politics."
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PEGGY NOONAN
Is There Progress Through Loss?
A national election, a national decision.
Friday, October 27, 2006 12:01 a.m. EDT
A year ago I wrote a column called "A Separate Peace," in which I said America's leaders in all areas--government, business, journalism--were in some deep way checking out. They saw bad things coming in the world and for our country, didn't think they could do anything about it, and were instead building a new pool or buying good memories for their kids. Soon after I was invited to address a group of Capitol Hill staffers to talk about the piece. When the meeting was over a woman walked up to me. She spoke of what was going wrong in Washington--the preoccupation with money, a lack of focus on the essentials, and the relentless dynamic of politics: first thing you do when you get power is move to keep power. And after a while you don't have any move but that move.
I said I thought the Republicans would take it on the chin in 2006, and that would force the beginning of wisdom. She surprised me. She was after all a significant staffer giving all her energy to helping advance conservative ideas within the Congress. "Yes," she said, in a quiet, deadly way. As in: I can't wait. As in: We'll get progress only through loss.
That's a year ago, from the Hill.
This is two weeks ago, from a Bush appointee: "I hope they lose the House." And one week ago, from a veteran of two GOP White Houses: "I hope they lose Congress." Republicans this year don't say "we" so much.
What is behind this? A lot of things, but here's a central one: They want to fire Congress because they can't fire President Bush.
Republican political veterans go easy on ideology, but they're tough on incompetence. They see Mr. Bush through the eyes of experience and maturity. They hate a lack of care. They see Mr. Bush as careless, and on more than Iraq--careless with old alliances, disrespectful of the opinion of mankind. "He never listens," an elected official who is a Bush supporter said with a shrug some months ago. Along the way the president's men and women confused the necessary and legitimate disciplining of a coalition with weird and excessive attempts to silence Republican critics. They have lived in a closed system. They now want to open it but don't know how. Listening is a habit; theirs has long been to suppress.
In the Republican base, that huge and amorphous thing, judgments are less tough, more forgiving. But there too things have changed.
There remains a broad, reflexive, and very Republican kind of loyalty to George Bush. He is a war president with troops in the field. You can see his heart. He led us in a very human way through 9/11, from the early missteps to the later surefootedness. He was literally surefooted on the rubble that day he threw his arm around the retired fireman and said the people who did this will hear from all of us soon.
Images like that fix themselves in the heart. They're why Mr. Bush's popularity is at 38%. Without them it wouldn't be so high.
But there's unease in the base too, again for many reasons. One is that it's clear now to everyone in the Republican Party that Mr. Bush has changed the modern governing definition of "conservative."
He did this without asking. He did it even without explaining. He didn't go to the people whose loyalty and support raised him high and say, "This is what I'm doing, this is why I'm changing things, here's my thinking, here are the implications." The cynics around him likely thought this a good thing. To explain is to make things clearer, or at least to try, and they probably didn't want it clear. They had the best of both worlds, a conservative reputation and a liberal reality.
And Republicans, most of whom are conservative in at least general ways, and who endure the disadvantages of being conservative because they actually believe in ideas, in philosophy, in an understanding of the relation of man and the state, are still somewhat concussed. The conservative tradition on foreign affairs is prudent realism; the conservative position on borders is that they must be governed; the conservative position on high spending is that it is obnoxious and generationally irresponsible. Etc.
This is not how Mr. Bush has governed. And so in the base today personal loyalty, and affection, bumps up against intellectual unease.
The administration tries to get around this, to quiet the unease, with things like the Republican National Committee ad in which Islamic terrorists plot to kill America.
They do want to kill America, and all the grownups know it. But this is a nation of sophisticates, and every Republican sipping a Bud at a bar in Chilicothe, Ill., who looks up and sees that ad thinks: They're trying to scare the base to increase turnout. Turnout's the key.
Here's a thing about American politics. Nobody sees himself as the base. They see themselves as individuals. And they're not dumb. They get it all. They know when you're trying to manipulate. They'll even tell you, with a lovely detachment, if you're doing a good job. (An unreported story this year is the lack of imagination, seriousness and respect in the work of political consultants on both sides. They have got to catch up with American brightness.)
The Republican establishment, the Republican elite, is quietly supporting those candidates and ideas they think should be encouraged. They are thinking about whom they will back in '08. But they're not thinking of this, most of them, with the old excitement. Because they sense, in their tough little guts, that the heroic age of the American presidency is, for now, over. No president is going to come along and save us, and Congress isn't going to save us. Events will cause a reckoning, and then we'll save ourselves. And in this we will refind our greatness.
The base probably thinks pretty much the same. They go through the motions, as patriots are sometimes called to do. As for the election, it reminds me not of 1994 but 1992. That year, at a bipartisan gathering, I was pressed for a prediction. I said it was a contest between depression (if Republicans win) and anxiety (if Democrats win). I said Americans will take anxiety over depression any day, because it's the more awake state.
Al Gore was later told of this, and used it on the campaign trail. Only he changed "anxiety" to "hope." Politicians kill me.
Ms. Noonan is a contributing editor of The Wall Street Journal and author of "John Paul the Great: Remembering a Spiritual Father" (Penguin, 2005), which you can order from the OpinionJournal bookstore. Her column appears Fridays on OpinionJournal.com.
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The Election and Investigatory Powers of Congress
By George Friedman
There is now only a week to go before midterm congressional elections in the United States. The legislative outcome is already fairly clear. President George W. Bush lost the ability to drive legislation through Congress when he had to back away from his Social Security proposals. That situation will continue: The president will not be able to generate legislation without building coalitions. On the other hand, Congress will not be able to override his vetoes. That means that, regardless of whether the Democrats take the House of Representatives (as appears likely) or the Senate (which appears less likely but still possible), the basic architecture of the American legislative process will remain intact. Democrats will not gain much power to legislate; Republicans will not lose much.
If the Democrats take control of the House from the Republicans, the most important change will not be that Nancy Pelosi becomes House Speaker, but that the leadership of House committees will shift -- and even more significant, that there will be upheaval of committee staffs. Republicans will shift to minority staff positions -- and have to let go of a lot of staffers -- while the Democrats will get to hire a lot of new ones. These staffers serve two functions. The first is preparing legislation, the second is managing investigations. Given the likelihood of political gridlock, there will be precious little opportunity for legislation to be signed into law during the next two years -- but there likely will be ample opportunity and motivation for congressional investigations.
Should the Democrats use this power to their advantage, there will be long-term implications for both the next presidential election and foreign policy options in the interim.
One of the most important things that the Republicans achieved, with their control of both the House and Senate, was to establish control over the type and scope of investigations that were permitted. Now, even if control of only the House should change hands, the Democrats will be making those decisions. And, where the GOP's goal was to shut down congressional investigations, the Democrat Party's goal will be to open them up and use them to shape the political landscape ahead of the 2008 presidential election.
It is important to define what we mean by "investigation." On the surface, congressional investigations are opportunities for staffers from the majority party to wield subpoena power in efforts to embarrass their bosses' opponents. The investigations also provide opportunities for members of Congress and senators to make extensive speeches that witnesses have to sit and listen to when they are called to testify -- a very weird process, if you have ever seen it. Congressional investigations are not about coming to the truth of a matter in order for the laws of the republic to be improved for the common good. They are designed to extract political benefit and put opponents in the wrong. (Republicans and Democrats alike use the congressional investigative function to that end, so neither has the right to be indignant.)
For years, however, Democrats have been in no position to unilaterally call hearings and turn their staffs and subpoena powers loose on a topic -- which means they have been precluded from controlling the news cycle. The media focus intensely on major congressional hearings. For television networks, they provide vivid moments of confrontation; and the reams of testimony, leaked or official, give the print media an enormous opportunity to look for embarrassing moments that appear to reveal something newsworthy. In the course of these hearings, there might even be opportunities for witnesses to fall into acts of perjury -- or truth-telling -- that can lead to indictments and trials.
To reverse their position, the Democrats need not capture both the House and Senate next week. In fact, from the party's standpoint, that might not even be desirable. The Senate and House historically have gotten in each other's way in the hearing process. Moreover, there are a lot of Democratic senators considering a run for the presidency, but not many members of Congress with those ambitions. Senators who get caught up in congressional hearings can wind up being embarrassed themselves -- and with the competing goals of Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and some of the other candidates, things could wind up a mess. But if the House alone goes to Democrats, Pelosi would be positioned to orchestrate a series of hearings from multiple committees and effectively control the news cycles. Within three months of the new House being sworn in, the political landscape could be dominated by hearings -- each week bringing new images of witnesses being skewered or news of embarrassing files being released. Against this backdrop, a new generation of Democratic congressmen would be making their debuts on the news networks, both while sitting on panels, and on the news channels afterward.
Politically, this would have two implications. First, the ability of the White House to control and direct public attention would decline dramatically. Not only would the White House not be able to shut down unwanted debate, but it would lack the ability even to take part in setting the agenda. Each week's subject would be chosen by the House Democratic leadership. Second, there will be a presidential election in two years that the Democrats want to win. Therefore, they would use congressional hearings to shape public opinion along the lines their party wants. The goal would be not only to embarrass the administration, but also to showcase Democratic strengths.
The Senate can decide to hold its own hearings, of course, and likely would if left in Republican hands. The problem is that, at the end of the day, the most interesting investigations would involve the Bush administration and corporations that can be linked to it. A GOP-controlled Senate could call useful hearings, but they would be overwhelmed by the Democratic fireworks. They just would not matter as much.
So let's consider, from a foreign policy standpoint, what would be likely matters for investigation:
What did the Bush administration really know about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq? Did Bush dismiss advice from the CIA on Iraq?
Did the administration ignore warnings about al Qaeda attacks prior to 9/11?
These, of course, would be the mothers of all investigations. Everything would be dragged out and pored over. The fact that there have been bipartisan examinations by the 9/11 commission would not matter: The new hearings would be framed as an inquiry into whether the 9/11 commission's recommendations were implemented -- and that would open the door to re-examine all the other issues.
Following close on these would be investigations into:
Whether the Department of Homeland Security is effective.
Whether the new structure of the intelligence community works.
Whether Halliburton received contracts unfairly -- a line of inquiry that could touch Vice President Dick Cheney.
Whether private contractors like Blackwater are doing appropriate jobs in Iraq.
Whether the Geneva Conventions should apply in cases of terrorist detentions.
Whether China is violating international trade agreement.
And so on. Every scab would be opened -- as is the right of Congress, the tendency of the nation in unpopular wars, and likely an inevitable consequence of these midterm elections.
We can expect the charges raised at these hearings to be serious, and to come from two groups. The first will be Democratic critics of the administration. These will be unimportant: Such critics, along with people like former White House security adviser Richard Clarke, already have said everything they have to say. But the second group will include another class -- former members of the administration, the military and the CIA who have, since the invasion of Iraq, broken with the administration. They have occasionally raised their voices -- as, for instance, in Bob Woodward's recent book -- but the new congressional hearings would provide a platform for systematic criticism of the administration. And many of these critics seem bruised and bitter enough to avail themselves of it.
This intersects with internal Republican politics. At this point, the Republicans are divided into two camps. There are those who align with the Bush position: that the war in Iraq made sense and that, despite mistakes, it has been prosecuted fairly well on the whole. And there are those, coalesced around Sens. Chuck Hagel and John Warner, who argue that, though the rationale for the war very well might have made sense, its prosecution by Donald Rumsfeld has led to disaster. The lines might be evenly drawn, but for the strong suspicion that Sen. John McCain is in the latter camp.
McCain clearly intends to run for president and, though he publicly shows support for Bush, there is every evidence that McCain has never forgiven him for the treatment he received in the primaries of 2000. McCain is not going to attack the president, nor does he really oppose the war in Iraq, but he has shown signs that he feels that the war has not been well prosecuted. This view, shared publicly by recently retired military commanders who served in Iraq, holds out Rumsfeld as the villain. It is not something that McCain is going to lead the charge on, but in taking down Rumsfeld, McCain would be positioned to say that he supported the war and the president -- but not his secretary of defense, who was responsible for overseeing the prosecution of the war.
From McCain's point of view, little would be more perfect than an investigation into the war by a Democrat-controlled House during which former military and Defense Department officials pounded the daylights out of Rumsfeld. This would put whole-hearted Republican supporters of the president in a tough position and give McCain -- who, as a senator, would not have to participate in the hearings -- space to defend Bush's decision but not his tactics. The hearings also would allow him to challenge Democratic front-runners (Clinton and Obama) on their credentials for waging a war. They could be maneuvered into either going too far and taking a pure anti-war stance, or into trying to craft a defense policy at which McCain could strike. To put it another way, aggressively investigating an issue like the war could wind up blowing up in the Democrats' faces, but that is so distant and subtle a possibility that we won't worry about it happening -- nor will they.
What does seem certain, however, is this: The American interest in foreign policy is about to take an investigatory turn, as in the waning days of the Vietnam War. Various congressional hearings, like those of the Church Committee, so riveted the United States in the 1970s and so tied down the policymaking bureaucracy that crafting foreign policy became almost impossible.
George W. Bush is a lame duck in the worst sense of the term. Not only are there no more elections he can influence, but he is heading into his last two years in office with terrible poll ratings. And he is likely to lose control of the House of Representatives -- a loss that will generate endless hearings and investigations on foreign policy, placing Bush and his staff on the defensive for two years. Making foreign policy in this environment will be impossible.
Following the elections, five or six months will elapse before the House Democrats get organized and have staff in place. After that, the avalanche will fall in on Bush, and 2008 presidential politics will converge with congressional investigations to overwhelm his ability to manage foreign policy. That means the president has less than half a year to get his house in order if he hopes to control the situation, or at least to manage his response.
Meanwhile, the international window of opportunity for U.S. enemies will open wider and wider.
www.stratfor.com
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Recently the "Levine Breaking News" has started appearing in my email box. Thus it has no track record with me. That said, the following just appeared:
"*4 LEADING MILITARY PAPERS: 'RUMSFELD MUST GO': An editorial set to appear on Monday -- election eve -- in the four leading newspapers for the military calls for the resignation of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. The papers are the Army Times, Air Force Times, Navy Times and Marine Corps Times. They are published by the Military Times Media Group, a subsidiary of Gannett Co., Inc. President Bush said this week that he wanted Rumsfeld to serve out the next two years."
The timing and the political impact of publication the day before such pivotal elections are intriguing to say the least.
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Off one of the lists I peruse:
Midterm elections - history lesson - reality check
Posted on 11/14/2006 6:09:32 AM EST
Time for a history lesson. The media and the Democrats want you to believe that somehow this election was different. No, the losses the GOP suffered WERE to be expected. Let us review, shall we?
President Mid-term Senate House
Grant (R) 1870 -4 -31
Grant (R) 1874 -8 -96
Hayes (R) 1878 -6 -9
Arthur (R) 1882 +3 -33
Cleveland (D) 1886 +3 -12
Harrison (R) 1890 0 -85
Cleveland (D) 1894 -5 -116
McKinley (R) 1898 +7 -21
TR (R) 1902 +2 +9
TR (R) 1906 +3 -28
Taft (R) 1910 -10 -57
Wilson (D) 1914 +5 -59
Wilson (D) 1918 -6 -19
Harding (R) 1922 -8 -75
Coolidge (R) 1926 -6 -10
Hoover (R) 1930 -8 -49
FDR (D) 1934 +10 +9
FDR (D) 1938 -6 -71
FDR (D) 1942 -9 -45
Truman (D) 1946 -12 -55
Truman (D) 1950 -6 -59
Ike (R) 1954 -1 -18
Ike (R) 1958 -13 -48
JFK (D) 1962 +3 -4
LBJ (D) 1966 -4 -47
Nixon (R) 1970 +2 -12
Nixon (R) 1974 -5 -48
Carter (D) 1978 -3 -15
Reagan (R) 1982 +1 -26
Reagan (R) 1986 -8 -5
Bush '41 (R) 1990 -1 -8
Clinton (D) 1994 -9 -54
Clinton (D) 1998 0 +4
Bush '43 (R) 2002 +2 0
Bush '43 (R) 2006 -6 -28
(1) With only four exceptions, EVERY single President since Lincoln has lost seats in the House in the midterm elections. The only ones to buck the trend were the Roosevelts (TR because he was the mostly popular President EVER his first term, FDR because of the Depression), Clinton (because of Republican miscues during the Impeachment) and Bush '43 (because of 9/11). GW was bound to lose this one.
(2) Midterm years in bold are the dreaded "six year itch". I have marked 1966 as one in that LBJ was finishing out what would have been JFK's second term. GW is his sixth year. Losses in the midterm were almost certain.
(3) Wilson (1918), FDR (1942), Truman (1950) and LBJ (1966) all lost seats both in the House and Senate when the country was at war. McKinley (1898) gained Senate seats, but lost seats in the House. Guess the country had mixed feelings about thumping Spain. Bush '41 can also be considered in this group as the country was gearing up for Gulf War I. Another category that GW fits into
(4) In terms of serious setbacks in the midterms this one doesn?t even come close. 1894 ranks as the all-time thumping with an astounding 116 House seats and 5 Senate seats changing hands. 1994, 1974, 1966, 1958 (I thought everyone liked Ike), 1938 (so much for the New Deal being popular), 1946, 1930 or 1874 were much, much worse. So counting our blessings is in order.
(5) Voters don't like scandals and take it out on the party in power. Midterm years underlined are considered scandal midterms. 1994 is in the list due to the number of scandals in Congress plus the Clintons were hip deep in scandals as well. Foley, et al doomed the Republicans at the start.
(6) Voters don't like excess spending. The thumping the Republicans received in 1890 was a voter rebellion against the "Billion Dollar Congress". The same can be said about FDR's spanking in 1938 (New Deal overreach) and Clinton's in 1994 (attempted takeover of the health care system). With bridges to nowhere is it any wonder the GOP lost seats?
(7)The historical average is a loss of 3 Senate seats and 34 House seats for the President's party in the midterms. For the "six year curse" the averge is 6 Senate seats and 39 House seats. The 2006 losses fit the historical norms.
Given the political history of our nation and add in the fact that most of the races were decided by very thin margins all the hand wringing is unjustified. Time to dust off the jeans and get back into the fight. This little history lesson should remind you that in our Republic the political fortunes of the parties ebb and flow. So the next time a liberal gloats in your face, remind him or her that this wasn't 1994, 1946 or 1938 and it sure as heck wasn't 1894.
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I love the spin. I'm sure that had the Republicans won, it would have been nothing but "Told you so, silly lefties!"
Instead you'll break out voting statistics from the past 50+ years, explain that the winning candidates were really moderate to conservative liberals, and basically not admit that you just plain lost. "This year's election results are not a mandate for change!" you'll say, "Just an aberration, par for the course, history proves it!" Funny, when Bush won the last election by a whopping couple of percentage points y'all said the "mandate for change" was clear. Hypocrisy at its finest.
For me the best part of election night was watching the pundits on FOX scratch their heads and say "WTF just happened?!?!?!?" They've been so fattened by the past 6 years' easy meal ticket that they can't understand why the country decided (on its own, might I add) to try a different diet.
And I've been just as disgusted by the Left's gloating about an election that was clearly not about Democrats, but about the? country's perception that the gang in charge is not getting the job done. Hey Dems, how about a plan for the next coupla years, whadda ya say?
Elections are lost because the populace gets tired of mismanagement, corruption, overspending, and (IMHO) the consistent ability of both parties to b.s. until the realities of their respective shortcomings are revealed.
Perhaps we should all take the blinders off for a bit a realize that politician's ultimately serve only one interest group: THEMSELVES
Give either party enough rope... :wink:
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I love the spin. I'm sure that had the Republicans won, it would have been nothing but "Told you so, silly lefties!"
Dang, and I thought I was just cleverly sneaking in that my election day guess Republicans would lose by margins common in interim elections proved true. Clearly some sort of Freudian anti-gloating was instead occurring. Henceforth I will cease all pattern recognition attempts.
Or not.
:wink: back at ya. . . .
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Buz,
You are one of the reasons I continue to return to this forum. Keep it up.
:-D
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I get this via the Wall Street Journal's "Opinion Journal" 5 days a week. Lots of tasty tidbits for poliitical junkies every day.
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November 27, 2006
In today's Political Diary:
Third Party in a Coal Mine
Kingston of All Media
The German Way
Here Comes the Tax Hike (Quote of the Day I)
We Wuzn't Robbed! (Quote of the Day II)
New Zealand Pols Try to Live Up to their Names
Libertarians, Independents and Greens - the New Axis of Evil
Democrats were certainly the big winner from this month's midterm elections, but they shouldn't be too complacent. They won a plurality of votes but not a majority of votes. Both parties need to worry that third party and independent candidates are winning an increasing share of the vote and determining the outcome of more and more close races.
Political analyst Richard Winger has developed the approach of using the top office on each state's ballot to gauge the support of each party. Under his method, Democrats won 49% of the vote in the latest election, Republicans 46% and others 5%. In 36 states, the "top office" he looked at was a governor's race, in eleven states it was U.S. Senator and in the remaining three states without a major statewide contest it was the total vote for U.S. House.
The 5% figure was the second highest vote for alternative candidates at the top of the ballot since 1934, only slightly exceeded by the result in the last midterm election of 2002. This year Republicans would have kept control of the U.S. Senate if voters who backed Libertarian candidates in Montana and Missouri had voted for the GOP incumbents instead. "It's clear that a good way of charting public dissatisfaction with major parties is to see how much they lose market share to candidates everyone knows can't win, but people still want [to use] to send a message," says Larry Sabato, a political analyst at the University of Virginia.
Democrats still bitterly complain that Green Party candidate Ralph Nader cost them the 2000 election in Florida when his 94,000 votes vastly exceeded the 547 votes that Al Gore lost to George W. Bush by. If the new Democratic Congress doesn't deliver on its promises, liberals may be the ones experiencing a critical part of their base defecting to Green Party or other protest candidates next time.
-- John Fund
YouTube Insurgent
Georgia Republican Congressman Jack Kingston has always been one to embrace innovative approaches to politics. As head of the Republican Theme Team, he was one of the first members to start his own blog. He was also eager to sit down with comedian Stephen Colbert of Comedy Central for an interview and unlike some Members who've visited with Mr. Colbert, managed to emerge looking neither arrogant nor clueless.
After this month's GOP loss of Congress, Mr. Kingston decided to campaign for a vacant spot in the GOP leadership, namely the chairmanship of the House Republican Conference. As part of his unconventional effort, he posted a campaign message on YouTube.com, the ubiquitous bulletin board for video junkies. "Thank you very much for opening this," Mr. Kingston told viewers at the beginning of his video. "I'm doing this because so many of you guys haven't been returning my phone calls and anyhow it saves all of us a little time."
Mr. Kingston says the YouTube posting attracted a decent amount of attention and was a useful reminder to Members "that there are lots of fun ways to send a message." Though his high-tech campaigning didn't land him the conference job, he came much closer than expected, losing only narrowly to establishment favorite Rep. Adam Putnam of Florida. Expect to see Mr. Kingston keep honing his alternative media skills as he continues to convince his colleagues that the way to reach younger voters is to supplement traditional media efforts with something completely different.
-- John Fund
How Not To Fix Social Security
Germany just "fixed" its Social Security system and what's frightening is that the same flimsy plan is likely to be heralded here in the U.S.
Under the deal between the conservative Christian Democrats and the leftwing Social Democrats, the German system will be shored up by raising taxes and cutting benefits. How ingenious. William Shipman, a worldwide expert on government pension programs and a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, says under the plan, the payroll taxes paid by a German worker would rise from 19.5% of his income to 22% in 2030. His full retirement benefit would drop from 54% of pre-retirement income to 43% by 2030. The age at which he can begin collecting benefits would rise from 65 to 67.
Germany was the first nation to devise a Social Security system -- under Otto von Bismarck in 1889 -- and when Franklin Roosevelt signed into law our Social Security Act some 50 years later, he cited Germany as the model to emulate. We've been following the German lead ever since. Mr. Shipman calculates that the average young German worker can now expect a monthly benefit upon retirement that pays at best half of what he would have earned if he could have saved the money himself. Here in the U.S. Generation X and Y workers are already facing a similar lousy rate of return from Social Security -- a payoff that would get a lot worse if we go the German direction.
Whether Germany's younger voters will rebel against this kind of financial child abuse is not known yet, but America's kids would be wise to start paying attention. Mr. Bush and the Democrats are said to be planning a grand entitlement program overhaul, and the parameters sound suspiciously like the German fix. Congressional Democrats succeeded in shooting down Mr. Bush's reform proposal based on private savings last year but offered no plan of their own. Today we have a better sense of where Washington politicians are headed. Bottom line: The case for private accounts is stronger than ever especially if you are one of the tens of millions of workers in your mid-40s or younger who would end up paying more and getting less.
-- Stephen Moore
Quote of the Day I
"Judging from the hints flying around Washington, the administration sees how to bridge this divide [on Social Security]. Democrats may be allergic to personal Social Security accounts, but they are enthusiastic about other ideas for personal retirement accounts that just don't have 'Social Security' in the title.... [E]veryone would get the chance to contribute to an account and receive a government contribution as a match, with the most generous match going to low-income workers. To pay for this program, the government could prune the existing $150 billion patchwork of tax breaks for saving. This patchwork is extraordinarily, scandalously regressive: 90 percent of the tax breaks go to the richest 40 percent of taxpayers" -- Washington Post columnist Sebastian Mallaby.
Quote of the Day II
"Diebold, one of the biggest manufacturers of computerized voting machines was until recently headed by a CEO who happened to be a vocal supporter of President Bush. Writing in the New York Times in 2003, Paul Krugman sought to blow the lid off: 'You don't have to believe in a central conspiracy to worry that partisans will take advantage of an insecure, unverifiable voting system to manipulate election results... The credibility of U.S. democracy may be at stake.' That theme was rolled out again this election season on left-wing blogs and in the print media. There was even an HBO documentary, 'Hacking Democracy,' which emphasized the danger of Diebold disenfranchisement. But then, just as the paranoia reached its peak, a funny thing happened: The Democrats won on Election Day. As suddenly as they had blared to life, the alarm bells fell silent. The critics paused for a moment, then burst out in a new refrain: The people have spoken! The realignment is here! Democracy works! And so the Diebold villain has retreated to the shadows for the next two years, at least" -- from an editorial in National Review.
A Brash Exit
New Zealand's governing Labour Party now trails in the polls after winning election last year by only the narrowest of margins. But Prime Minister Helen Clark has little to worry about if the opposition National Party continues to self-destruct.
Despite a strong platform based on lower taxes and less government spending, the Nationals lost last year's election by 2% of the popular vote, for which many members blamed former central banker Don Brash, the Nats' leader. Mr. Brash's public gaffes were many: He excused himself after performing poorly in an debate with Ms. Clark by saying he took it easy because she's a woman; he attacked Labour for neglecting the sanctity of marriage, then admitted to one affair and refused to deny a second.
Mr. Brash, who was once nicknamed Mr. Magoo by his own chief of staff, had vowed to resign if his party lost and many members were growing tired of waiting for him to keep his promise. He finally quit last Thursday amid rumors of an impending revolt led by party finance spokesman John Key, who has now assumed the title of party boss.
Under Labour Finance Minister Roger Douglas in the 1980s, New Zealand arguably bested even Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan in shrinking the state, reducing subsidies and trade barriers, and encouraging market-based growth. But it's been a while since New Zealand was a policy pioneer. Polls today show the Nationals leading Labour by as much as 13%, but the next election isn't scheduled until 2008. Whether the conservative party's popular free-market agenda will prevail then may depend on whether it has found the key leader to match its brash ambitions.
-- Adrian Ho
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LONGTIME JIMMY CARTER AIDE QUITS OVER PALESTINE BOOK 'LIES'...:
A longtime aide to Jimmy Carter has resigned from the Carter Center think tank, calling the former president's new book on Israel and the Arabs one-sided and filled with errors.
Kenneth Stein, the Carter Center's first executive director and founder of its Middle East program, sent a letter that bluntly criticized the book to Carter and others.
Stein wrote that the book, "Palestine: Peace, Not Apartheid," was replete with factual errors, material copied from other sources and "simply invented segments," according to an excerpt of the letter published by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Deanna Congileo, Carter's spokeswoman, said the former president stands by the book.
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Earmark Victory
January 18, 2007; Page A16
If Republicans are wondering how best to shorten their time in the minority, they could do worse than to build on this week's Senate earmark victory. That reform success proves how good policy translates into good politics.
The Senate on Tuesday passed significant earmark reform, 98-0. But that unanimous tally masks the bitter battle that preceded the vote. When Republican freshmen Tom Coburn and Jim DeMint first launched an effort last summer to make earmarks more transparent, they struggled. Republicans had to be dragged into even minimal reform, and among their first acts after losing the election was to attempt to slip thousands more earmarks into their lame-duck spending bills.
Still, minority status has a way of focusing the mind, and combined with continued DeMint-Coburn shaming, Senate Republicans appear to have re-embraced some principles. When Majority Leader Harry Reid last week attempted to water down House Democrats' earmark reform, Messrs. Coburn and DeMint rallied enough fellow Republicans (and a few Democrats) to outmaneuver the spenders. Red-faced at getting caught trying to submarine their own party's plan for reform, Senate Democrats did an about-face and jumped on the earmark-reform bandwagon.
The result was a mini-competition as to which side of the aisle was tougher on earmarks, and a final bill that goes beyond even the House reform. Senator DeMint passed (98-0) an amendment that broadens the definition of an earmark; even those slipped into last-minute conference reports will have to be disclosed. Under the original Senate legislation, 95% of earmarks would have escaped scrutiny.
More amazing was Democrats' new enthusiasm for oversight. Illinois Democrat Dick Durbin -- who started off trying to tank Mr. DeMint's reform -- finished by passing an amendment (also 98-0) that requires lawmakers to post their earmark requests on the Internet 48 hours before a vote. (The House version of the bill simply requires a public disclosure form.) California Democrat Dianne Feinstein also joined in, passing by voice vote a provision that would bar lawmakers from including earmarks in the classified parts of a bill or a conference report unless they also included language in unclassified terms describing the project, funding levels and sponsor. Classified reports were among the ways that former Rep. Duke Cunningham -- now in federal prison -- hid his earmark payoffs.
None of this is to suggest earmarks will disappear in Washington. The real test will be whether lawmakers can restrain themselves from inserting pork-barrel projects. The news isn't encouraging. We hear federal agency telephones have been ringing off the hook, as Congressmen use back-channels to secure earmarks that they'd rather not appear in public.
Still, the reform is a good start. Republicans made headlines with their demands last week, and the news stories were a welcome change for a public appalled by Congress's spend-happy ways. If conservatives had shown this sort of commitment to their small-government ideals back when it mattered, they might still be in the majority.
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Spending Sincerity Test
January 24, 2007; Page A12
Members of Congress applauded President Bush's lines about spending restraint last night, but we are about to get a test of their sincerity when the Senate votes today on the line-item veto.
The official description of New Hampshire Senator Judd Gregg's legislation is "rescission" authority, and it is notably less powerful than the genuine "veto" power Congress granted Bill Clinton in 1996 before it was struck down by the Supreme Court. But the impulse behind it is the same: Give Mr. Bush and his successors the power to single out and send back to Congress the thousands of wasteful "earmark" projects that bloat today's spending bills. Congress would then be required to vote, up or down and within 10 days, on the spending cuts.
It's no accident that Mr. Gregg's bill is nearly identical to a rescission amendment offered by former Democratic Senator (and one-time Majority Leader) Tom Daschle in 1995. In fact, Mr. Daschle's version gave the President more power, allowing him to submit as many as 13 rescissions a year, compared with only four in the Gregg proposal. No fewer than 37 Democrats voted for the Daschle amendment in 1995, and 20 of them are still in the Senate.
Yet how times, and partisanship, have changed. West Virginia's Robert Byrd took to the Senate floor this week to denounce Mr. Gregg's amendment as "garbage" -- his eloquence is legendary -- and to complain that it gave too much power to the President. That's an old Byrd song when Republicans are in the White House. But back in 1995, with Mr. Clinton in office, the earl of earmarks noted that the Daschle proposal "does not result in any shift of power from the legislative branch to the executive. It is clear cut. It gives the President the opportunity to get a vote . . . So I am 100 percent behind the substitute by Mr. Daschle."
California's Dianne Feinstein also hailed rescission authority in 1995 as a "deterrence" to "the pork barrel." Wisconsin's Russ Feingold extolled it as "a useful tool." Washington's Patty Murray said the President should have the power to veto "pork items" that "contribute to our deficit." North Dakota's Byron Dorgan in 1996 said it would be "helpful in imposing budget discipline." Senators Chris Dodd, Carl Levin and Joe Biden also had nice things to say.
If this crowd meant what they said, Mr. Gregg will easily get the 60 votes he needs to overcome a filibuster. Yet so far not a single Democrat has publicly supported the measure, and Republicans had to threaten to hold up the ethics reform bill last week even to get an item-veto vote on the Senate floor. This is all the more remarkable given that the Senate Democratic caucus is teeming with wannabe Presidents who would love the power that Bill Clinton once had if they ever make it to the White House. Perhaps they lack confidence in their candidacies.
Or perhaps they simply don't want to hand Mr. Bush anything he could call a victory. Democrats ran hard against GOP overspending last year, so voters will be watching what they do in the run-up to 2008. A vote against the line-item veto is a vote for earmarks and spending as usual.
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Senator Feingold's Sin
The backseat generals are exposed.
BY KIMBERLEY A. STRASSEL
Friday, February 2, 2007 12:01 a.m. EST
WSJ
The Senate is teeming with courageous souls these days, most of them Republicans who have taken that brave step of following the opinion polls and abandoning their president in a time of war. Meanwhile, one of the few senators showing some backbone in the Iraq debate is being shunned as the skunk at the war critics' party.
Sen. Russ Feingold held a hearing this week on Congress's constitutional power to shut off funds for the Iraq war, and followed it up a day later with legislation that would do just that. The Wisconsin pacifist might not understand the importance of winning in Iraq--or the cost of losing--but at least there's an element of principle to his actions. He's opposed the war from the start and his proposal to cut off money after six months would certainly end it. It also happens to be Congress's one legitimate means of stopping a war.
Mr. Feingold's reward for honesty was to preside over what might have been the least-attended hearing so far in the Iraq debate. And those of his Senate colleagues who did bother to show up looked like they couldn't wait to hit an exit door. "If Congress doesn't stop this war, it's not because it doesn't have the power. It's because it doesn't have the will," declared Mr. Feingold. Ted Kennedy--one of two Democrats who put in an appearance--could be seen shifting uncomfortably in his seat.
That's because Sen. Feingold is coming uncomfortably close to unmasking the political charade playing on the Senate stage. Critics of President Bush want an unhappy public to see them taking action on the war. So we have the Biden-Warner compromise resolution condemning the plan to increase the forces. There is also talk of capping troops, of requiring redeployments to Afghanistan, of benchmarks and progress reports.
All these proposals have one overriding thing in common: While they may hurt the war effort, none are significant enough for Congress to take responsibility when Iraq is irrevocably lost. This is President Bush's war, and his critics won't take any step that puts them on the hook as well. Sen. Feingold's sin is to suggest that Congress do something more than play politics.
It's a delicate high-wire act, made more complex by the opponents' need to reassure the public that their actions, which will surely encourage the enemy and deflate troop morale, won't, in fact, encourage the enemy or deflate troop morale. This has led to the spectacle of the Senate one day unanimously voting to confirm Gen. David Petraeus, and the next taking up resolutions that would kneecap his plan for success. John Warner and Chuck Hagel are all for the troops, just not for letting them win. Very courageous indeed.
Meanwhile, back in the distasteful department, Sen. Feingold's hearing also drew attention (darn him!) to the other pachyderm in the room: the Constitution. The Senate next week may well pass a resolution that criticizes the Iraq troop buildup, yet notably it will be "nonbinding." Should the president ignore it--which he will have the legal and moral right to do--pressure will increase for Congress to take real steps to micromanage the war, say with a troop ceiling.
But as constitutional scholars testified at the hearing, Congress (even one worried about its political backside) does not have an unfettered right to be commander in chief. The Founders specifically chose not to give Congress the right to "make" war, worried that this term might allow legislators to conduct military engagements. Instead, Congress was restricted to "declaring" war, which is what it did when it authorized President Bush to invade Iraq. Another constitutional power is to end war, by refusing to appropriate money. But "in the conduct of war, in the conduct of foreign affairs, the president is in fact the decider," said University of Virginia professor Robert Turner.
It is thus dawning on senators that any plans for tinkering with Iraq might not prove so easy. Mr. Feingold largely focused on the question of cutting off funds, but the three or four other war opponents present were eager to coax the assembled witnesses into giving them constitutional cover for other actions.
Sen. Dick Durbin floated the latest brainstorm: Since Congress's authorization of the Iraq war was premised on finding WMD and deposing Saddam Hussein--and since we never found WMD and Saddam is now gone--doesn't Congress have the constitutional right to revisit the war authorization? Even the liberal scholars, who'd been picked for their willingness to testify that Congress can do whatever it wants, looked peaky at the idea. That included onetime assistant-attorney general Walter Dellinger, who felt so strongly about executive power in the 1990s that he advised President Clinton to invade Haiti without congressional authority, but today believes the Republican in the Oval Office is getting away with too much.
The pesky Constitution is a new hitch for the war critics, whose strategy was to briefly act as backseat generals, get the headlines, and then wait for President Bush to take the fall. Instead, Sen. Arlen Specter was gauche enough at the Feingold hearing to worry out loud that Congress was setting down a path that may lead to a "confrontation" between the two branches.
He might well worry. If one thing has defined the Bush years, it has been the president's willingness to exert his executive authority in defense of America. He's done it with detainees, with wiretaps, with military commissions. And he fervently believes success in Iraq is crucial to American security. In any thorny debate over just how much authority Congress has to interfere, it's a good bet Mr. Bush's own legal team will be pointing out the strong constitutional case that only the president has the right to decide where and how to deploy troops, as well as noting the peril of ceding any of that authority to 535 mini-me commanders in Congress.
What happens then? What happens if President Bush ignores Congress's attempt to direct the war? A few in the Democratic Party would love for an excuse to commence impeachment proceedings, but the rest understand that's political suicide. Then there's court. If liberals were unhappy about the Supremes deciding the 2000 election, imagine the theater of nine black robes deciding the outcome of the Iraq war.
Whatever comes, Congress is to blame. For a month the Senate has been trying to wrestle control of Iraq from the president, but undercover, and in a way that that avoids accountability. Sen. Feingold shone a light under that rock this week, and now the hard questions begin.
Ms. Strassel is a member of The Wall Street Journal's editorial board, based in Washington. Her column appears Fridays.
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Rep. Jefferson is the man in whose refrigerator the FBI found $90,000 in cash.
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Rep. Jefferson to Get Homeland Security Seat
Associated Press
Saturday, February 17, 2007; Page A09
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who yanked embattled Rep. William J. Jefferson off a powerful tax committee last year, has decided to put him on the Homeland Security panel, aides to the Louisiana Democrat confirmed yesterday.
The move infuriated some Republicans, who accuse him of being a potential security risk.
Jefferson has been the subject of an ongoing federal bribery investigation related to a telecommunications deal in Africa. His Capitol Hill office and his homes in Washington and New Orleans have been raided by the FBI, and he was kicked off the Ways and Means Committee last June after affidavits and evidence seized in the raids became public.
Nevertheless, Jefferson won reelection in December to a ninth term, and he has been an outspoken critic of the federal response to Hurricane Katrina. Pelosi's decision to appoint Jefferson to the committee must still be formally approved by House Democrats.
"It sends a terrible message," said Rep. Peter T. King (N.Y.), the committee's ranking Republican. "They couldn't trust him to write tax policy, so why should he be given access to our nation's top secrets or making policy for national defense?
"Members of the committee have access to intelligence secrets, plots here in the country, overseas, and people under suspicion. This shows how unimportant the Democrats think homeland security is," King said.
Jefferson's chief of staff, Eugene Green, called King's criticism "ridiculous and just politics."
"Representing New Orleans as he does, we're very concerned as to what happened in the wake of Hurricane Katrina," Green said. "It's just natural for the congressman to serve his constituents on a committee of this nature."
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REVIEW & OUTLOOK
Democrats at War
Prime Minister Pelosi and Secretary of State Lantos undermine U.S. foreign policy--and maybe their own party.
Friday, April 6, 2007 12:01 a.m. EDT
Democrats took Congress last fall in part by opposing the war in Iraq, but it is becoming clear that they view their election as a mandate for something far more ambitious--to wit, promoting and executing their own foreign policy, albeit without the detail of a Presidential election.
Their intentions were made plain this week with two remarkable acts by their House and Senate leaders. Majority Leader Harry Reid endorsed Senator Russ Feingold's proposal to withdraw from Iraq immediately, cutting off funds entirely within a year. He promised a vote soon, as part of what the Washington Post reported would also be a Democratic offensive to close Guantanamo, reinstate legal rights for terror suspects, and improve relations with Cuba.
Meanwhile, Speaker Nancy Pelosi made her now famous sojourn to Syria, donning a head scarf and advertising that she was conducting shuttle diplomacy between Jerusalem and Damascus. If there was any doubt that her trip was intended as far more than a routine Congressional "fact-finding" trip, House Foreign Affairs Chairman Tom Lantos put it to rest by declaring that, "We have an alternative Democratic foreign policy. I view my job as beginning with restoring overseas credibility and respect for the United States."
Americans should understand how extraordinary this is. There have been previous battles over U.S. foreign policy and fierce domestic criticism. In the 1990s, these columns defended Bill Clinton against "the Republican drift toward isolationism and political opportunism" amid the Kosovo conflict. But rarely in U.S. history have Congressional leaders sought to conduct their own independent diplomacy, with the Speaker acting as a Prime Minister traveling with a Secretary of State in the person of Mr. Lantos.
Yes, Congressional Republicans have visited Syria too. But Ms. Pelosi isn't some minority back-bencher. Without a Democrat in the White House, she and Mr. Reid are the national leaders of their party. Even Newt Gingrich, for all his grand domestic ambitions in 1995, took a muted stand on foreign policy, realizing that in the American system the executive has the bulk of national security power. He also understood he would do the country no favors by sending a mixed message to our enemies--at the time, Slobodan Milosevic.
What was Ms. Pelosi hoping to accomplish, other than embarrassing President Bush? "We were very pleased with reassurances we received from the president that he was ready to resume the peace process," she told reporters after meeting with dictator Bashar Assad. "We expressed our interest in using our good offices in promoting peace between Israel and Syria."
She purported to convey a message from Israel's Ehud Olmert expressing similar interest in "the peace process," except that the Israeli Prime Minister felt obliged to issue a clarification noting that Ms. Pelosi had got the message wrong. Israel hadn't changed its policy, which is that it will negotiate only when Mr. Assad repudiates his support for terrorism and stops trying to dominate Lebanon. As a shuttle diplomat, Ms. Pelosi needs some practice.
Mr. Lantos probably got closer to their real intentions when he told reporters that "this is only the beginning of our constructive dialogue with Syria, and we hope to build on it." The Pelosi cavalcade is intended to show that if only the Bush Administration would engage in "constructive dialogue," the Syrians, Israelis and everyone else could all get along.
This is the same Syrian regime that has facilitated the movement of money and insurgents to kill Americans in Iraq; that has been implicated by a U.N. probe in the murder of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri; and that has snubbed any number of U.S. overtures since the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003. Perhaps if he works hard enough, Mr. Lantos can match the 22 visits to Damascus that Bill Clinton's Secretary of State Warren Christopher made in the 1990s trying to squeeze peace from that same stone.
In fact, Ms. Pelosi and Mr. Lantos both voted for the Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act of 2003 that ordered Mr. Bush to choose from a menu of six sanctions to impose on Damascus. Mr. Bush chose the weakest two sanctions and dispatched a new Ambassador to Syria in a goodwill gesture in 2004. Only later, in the wake of the Hariri murder and clear intelligence of Syria's role in aiding Iraqi Baathists, did Mr. Bush conclude that Mr. Assad's real goal was to reassert control over Lebanon and bleed Americans in Iraq.
With her trip, Ms. Pelosi has now reassured the Syrian strongman that Mr. Bush lacks the domestic support to impose any further pressure on his country. She has also made it less likely that Mr. Assad will cooperate with the Hariri probe, or assist the Iraqi government in defeating Baathist and al Qaeda terrorists.
Back in Washington, Harry Reid says his response to Mr. Bush's certain veto of his Iraq spending bill will be to escalate. He now supports cutting off funds and beginning an immediate withdrawal, even as General David Petraeus's surge in Baghdad unfolds and shows signs of promise. If Mr. Bush were as politically cynical as Democrats think, he'd let Mr. Reid's policy become law. Then Democrats would share responsibility for whatever mayhem happened next.
So this is Democratic foreign policy: Assure our enemies that they can ignore a President who still has 21 months to serve; and wash their hands of Baghdad and of their own guilt for voting to let Mr. Bush go to war. No doubt Democrats think the President's low job approval, and public unhappiness with the war, gives them a kind of political immunity. But we wonder.
Once we leave Iraq, America's enemies will still reside in the Mideast; and they will be stronger if we leave behind a failed government and bloodbath in Iraq. Mr. Bush's successor will have to contain the damage, and that person could even be a Democrat. But by reverting to their Vietnam message of retreat and by blaming Mr. Bush for all the world's ills, Democrats on Capitol Hill may once again convince voters that they can't be trusted with the White House in a dangerous world.
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The Wolfowitz Files
The anatomy of a World Bank smear.
Monday, April 16, 2007 12:01 a.m. EDT
The World Bank released its files in the case of President Paul Wolfowitz's ethics on Friday, and what a revealing download it is. On the evidence in these 109 pages, it is clearer than ever that this flap is a political hit based on highly selective leaks to a willfully gullible press corps.
Mr. Wolfowitz asked the World Bank board to release the documents, after it became possible the 24 executive directors would adjourn early Friday morning without taking any action in the case. This would have allowed Mr. Wolfowitz's anonymous bank enemies to further spin their narrative that he had taken it upon himself to work out a sweetheart deal for his girlfriend and hide it from everyone.
The documents tell a very different story--one that makes us wonder if some bank officials weren't trying to ambush Mr. Wolfowitz from the start. Bear with us as we report the details, because this is a case study in the lack of accountability at these international satrapies.
The paper trail shows that Mr. Wolfowitz had asked to recuse himself from matters related to his girlfriend, a longtime World Bank employee, before he signed his own employment contract. The bank's general counsel at the time, Roberto Danino, wrote in a May 27, 2005 letter to Mr. Wolfowitz's lawyers:
"First, I would like to acknowledge that Mr. Wolfowitz has disclosed to the Board, through you, that he has a pre-existing relationship with a Bank staff member, and that he proposes to resolve the conflict of interest in relation to Staff Rule 3.01, Paragraph 4.02 by recusing himself from all personnel matters and professional contact related to the staff member." (Our emphasis here and elsewhere.)
That would have settled the matter at any rational institution, given that his girlfriend, Shaha Riza, worked four reporting layers below the president in the bank hierarchy. But the bank board--composed of representatives from donor nations--decided to set up an ethics committee to investigate. And it was the ethics committee that concluded that Ms. Riza's job entailed a "de facto conflict of interest" that could only be resolved by her leaving the bank.
Ms. Riza was on a promotion list at the time, and so the bank's ethicists also proposed that she be compensated for this blow to her career. In a July 22, 2005, ethics committee discussion memo, Mr. Danino noted that "there would be two avenues here for promotion--an 'in situ' promotion to Grade GH for the staff member" and promotion through competitive selection to another position." Or, as an alternative, "The Bank can also decide, as part of settlement of claims, to offer an ad hoc salary increase."
Five days later, on July 27, ethics committee chairman Ad Melkert formally advised Mr. Wolfowitz in a memo that "the potential disruption of the staff member's career prospect will be recognized by an in situ promotion on the basis of her qualifying record . . ." In the same memo, Mr. Melkert recommends "that the President, with the General Counsel, communicates this advice" to the vice president for human resources "so as to implement" it immediately.
And in an August 8 letter, Mr. Melkert advised that the president get this done pronto: "The EC [ethics committee] cannot interact directly with staff member situations, hence Xavier [Coll, the human resources vice president] should act upon your instruction." Only then did Mr. Wolfowitz instruct Mr. Coll on the details of Ms. Riza's new job and pay raise.
Needless to say, none of this context has appeared in the media smears suggesting that Mr. Wolfowitz pulled a fast one to pad the pay of Ms. Riza. Yet the record clearly shows he acted only after he had tried to recuse himself but then wasn't allowed to do so by the ethics committee. And he acted only after that same committee advised him to compensate Ms. Riza for the damage to her career from a "conflict of interest" that was no fault of her own.
Based on this paper trail, Mr. Wolfowitz's only real mistake was in assuming that everyone else was acting in good faith. Yet when some of these details leaked to the media, nearly everyone else at the bank dodged responsibility and let Mr. Wolfowitz twist in the wind. Mr. Melkert, a Dutch politician now at the U.N., seems to have played an especially cowardly role.
In an October 24, 2005 letter to Mr. Wolfowitz, he averred that "because the outcome is consistent with the Committee's findings and advice above, the Committee concurs with your view that this matter can be treated as closed." A month later, on November 25, Mr. Melkert even sent Mr. Wolfowitz a personal, hand-written note saying, "I would like to thank you for the very open and constructive spirit of our discussions, knowing in particular the sensitivity to Shaha, who I hope will be happy in her new assignment."
And when anonymous World Bank staffers began to circulate emails making nasty allegations about Ms. Shaha's job transfer and pay in early 2006, Mr. Melkert dismissed them in a letter to Mr. Wolfowitz on February 28, 2006, because they "did not contain new information warranting any further review by the Committee." Yet amid the recent media smears, Mr. Melkert has minimized his own crucial role.
All of this is so unfair that Mr. Wolfowitz could be forgiven for concluding that bank officials insisted he play a role in raising Ms. Riza's pay precisely so they could use it against him later. Even if that isn't true, it's clear that his enemies--especially Europeans who want the bank presidency to go to one of their own--are now using this to force him out of the bank. They especially dislike his anticorruption campaign, as do his opponents in the staff union and such elites of the global poverty industry as Nancy Birdsall of the Center for Global Development. They prefer the status quo that holds them accountable only for how much money they lend, not how much they actually help the poor.
Equally cynical has been the press corps, which slurred Mr. Wolfowitz with selective reporting and now says, in straight-faced solemnity, that the president must leave the bank because his "credibility" has been damaged. Paul Wolfowitz, meet the Duke lacrosse team.
The only way this fiasco could get any worse would be for Mr. Wolfowitz to resign in the teeth of so much dishonesty and cravenness. We're glad the Bush Administration isn't falling for this Euro-bureaucracy-media putsch. Mr. Wolfowitz has apologized for any mistakes he's made, though we're not sure why. He's the one who deserves an apology.
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Hat tip to David Gordon:
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Following the Money Trail Online
From David Pogue comes this referral to an interesting site.
-- David M Gordon / The Deipnosophist
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The first step to solving a problem is recognizing that you have one.
That's what I keep telling myself, anyway, to avoid becoming depressed by Maplight.org.
It's a new Web site with a very simple mission: to correlate lawmakers' voting records with the money they've accepted from special-interest groups.
All of this is public information. All of it has been available for decades. Other sites, including OpenSecrets.org, expose who's giving how much to whom. But nobody has ever revealed the relationship between money given and votes cast to quite such a startling effect.
If you click the "Video Tour" button on the home page, you'll see a six-minute video that illustrates the point. You find out that on H.R.5684, the U. S.-Oman Free Trade Agreement, special interests in favor of this bill (including pharmaceutical companies and aircraft makers) gave each senator an average of $244,000. Lobbyists opposed to the bill (such as anti-poverty groups and consumer groups) coughed up only $38,000 per senator.
Surprise! The bill passed.
If you click "Timeline of Contributions," you find out that -- surprise again! -- contributions to the lawmakers surged during the six weeks leading up to the vote. On this same page, you can click the name of a particular member of Congress to see how much money that person collected.
Another mind-blowing example: from the home page, click "California." Click "Legislators," then click "Fabian Nunez." The resulting page shows you how much this guy has collected from each special-interest group -- $2.2 million so far -- and there, in black-and-white type, how often he voted their way.
Construction unions: 94 percent of the time. Casinos: 95 percent of the time. Law firms: 78 percent of the time. Seems as though if you're an industry lobbyist, giving this fellow money is a pretty good investment.
A little time spent clicking through to these California lawmakers' pages reveals a similar pattern in most of them.
(A few, on the other hand, appear to be deliciously contrary. Jim Brulte has accepted over $67,000 from the tobacco industry, but hasn't voted in their favor a single time. Is that even ethical -- I mean, by the standards of this whole sleazy business?)
For some reason, Maplight.org doesn't reveal these "percent of the time" figures for United States Congress, only for California. You can easily see how much money each member has taken, but the column that correlates those figures with their voting record is missing.
Now, not all bills exhibit the same money-to-outcome relationships. And it's not news that our lawmakers' campaigns accept money from special interests. What this site does, however, is to expose, often embarrassingly, how that money buys votes.
I probably sound absurdly naive here. But truth is, I can't quite figure out why these contributions are even legal. Let the various factions explain their points till they're blue in the face, sure -- but to cut checks for millions of dollars?
Maplight.org isn't always easy to figure out, and not all of its data is complete. In fact, it's not even evident from the list of bills which ones have already been voted on -- a distinct disappointment, since the juicy patterns don't emerge until the vote is complete.
On the other hand, it's painstakingly non-partisan. And it uses very good data; for example, the information on contributions comes from the Center for Responsive Politics (the nonprofit, nonpartisan research group behind OpenSecrets.org), and each special industry's interests (for or against each bill) are taken exclusively from public declarations of support or opposition (Web sites, news articles, Congressional hearings and so on).
Spend a few minutes poking around. Check out a couple of the people you voted for. Have a look at how often their votes align with the interests of the lobbyists who helped to get them elected.
And be glad Maplight.org makes it so easy to spot those correlations.
Labels: Humanities
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Fascinating site. A couple of thoughts about the site.
I perused numerous Cal. Legislatures. It seems to illustrate with special clarity the power of the unions in California. Isn't that what Schwarzenegger learned?
When the government is the largest or one of the largest employers of a state, and these employees have the right to unionize then the rest of the taxpayers are at their mercy.
What the site doesn't address per se is whether these candidates were truly influenced by the money or were inclined to vote that way anyway and *that* is why they garnered such support. Similarly, these people were probably elected with the financial support of said interests, and are merely voting the way that was intended all along. It makes sense for special interests to keep in power "their" guys and gals rather then waste money on those legislaters who will likily use their own money to vote against them.
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CCP, I see your post came through as I was writing - looks like our observations overlap...
I like David Gordon's site and I appreciate the link to maplight. It's important to track money and watch over the people's representatives as closely as we can. After that, I just don't follow their logic to its conclusion. For example, if a pro-life organization gives to a pro-life congressman, or a trade group gives to a free trade supporting congressman, and they vote in the way that they already said they would vote, what have we uncovered? It seems that this system needs to track at least one more variable, such as changing a position in correlation with timing of the money in order to support the claim that "money buys votes".
Quoting the original post: "I probably sound absurdly naive here. But truth is, I can't quite figure out why these contributions are even legal."
My answer: Likewise, maybe I'm missing something, but let's say you have a legitimate business and the regulators are considering legislation that you think is unwise, unfair and would devastate or destroy your investment and lifework. This kind of thing happens all the time. Shouldn't you have the same right to vote, to speak, and to contribute to campaigns that everyone else has?
Let's take his example: "You find out that on H.R.5684, the U. S.-Oman Free Trade Agreement, special interests in favor of this bill (including pharmaceutical companies and aircraft makers) gave each senator an average of $244,000. Lobbyists opposed to the bill (such as anti-poverty groups and consumer groups) coughed up only $38,000 per senator. Surprise! The bill passed."
I've admitted my pro-free-trade views, so forgive me but I have no idea why an anti-poverty or pro-consumer group would oppose a free trade agreement with Oman or how they would justify soliciting money from their members to oppose the sale of American, life saving medications into a friendly foreign market or even into a questionable one. In my view, it's too bad a pharmaceutical or aircraft maker feels they need to contribute to a campaign for the right to sell American products overseas. The fact that there is more money on one side of the issue doesn't tell me anything about whether of not money changed a vote or whether or not the greater public interest got a bum deal.
I'm not saying there is no corruption of motives, but money also plays a positive influence. We saw recently a roomful of Republican candidates debate, share the stage and microphone and receive equal time, no matter how little support they really had. It takes serious amounts of money to run for high office and mount a winning campaign, so contributions raised are one indicator of which candidates are connecting in the campaign. As they see they aren't connecting, some hopefully will drop out voluntarily along the way. If anti-special interest people want campaigns to be public financed in equal amounts, then we might see a hundred or a thousand candidates share the stage and demand equal time.
Don't we spend more money getting out the message on laundry detergent than we do on candidates and positions on public policy?
If we could get the money out of politics, we would then have the pundits, editors and news anchors controlling the message. Some might think that would be better. I don't.
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Peggy Noonan column below rips Bush for breaking the conservative coalition into pieces. As a conservative, the truth hurts. For her, it started in Jan 2005 with the the policy of the United States to eradicate tyranny in the world. For me it began with the partnership with Ted Kennedy for an expanded federal takeover of schools. By the time the Medicare prescription drug entitlement came around I was only a Republican if faced with a choice like Kerry (or Hillary), otherwise homeless. Even when he makes the right decisions, like tax cuts or perhaps Iraq, he can't explain them, so public support flows to the opponents. Noonan makes the obvious point on immigration - do the first part first. http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/pnoonan/?id=110010148
Too Bad
President Bush has torn the conservative coalition asunder.
Peggy Noonan, WSJ
Friday, June 1, 2007 12:00 a.m. EDT
What political conservatives and on-the-ground Republicans must understand at this point is that they are not breaking with the White House on immigration. They are not resisting, fighting and thereby setting down a historical marker--"At this point the break became final." That's not what's happening. What conservatives and Republicans must recognize is that the White House has broken with them. What President Bush is doing, and has been doing for some time, is sundering a great political coalition. This is sad, and it holds implications not only for one political party but for the American future.
The White House doesn't need its traditional supporters anymore, because its problems are way beyond being solved by the base. And the people in the administration don't even much like the base. Desperate straits have left them liberated, and they are acting out their disdain. Leading Democrats often think their base is slightly mad but at least their heart is in the right place. This White House thinks its base is stupid and that its heart is in the wrong place.
For almost three years, arguably longer, conservative Bush supporters have felt like sufferers of battered wife syndrome. You don't like endless gushing spending, the kind that assumes a high and unstoppable affluence will always exist, and the tax receipts will always flow in? Too bad! You don't like expanding governmental authority and power? Too bad. You think the war was wrong or is wrong? Too bad.
But on immigration it has changed from "Too bad" to "You're bad."
The president has taken to suggesting that opponents of his immigration bill are unpatriotic--they "don't want to do what's right for America." His ally Sen. Lindsey Graham has said, "We're gonna tell the bigots to shut up." On Fox last weekend he vowed to "push back." Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff suggested opponents would prefer illegal immigrants be killed; Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez said those who oppose the bill want "mass deportation." Former Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson said those who oppose the bill are "anti-immigrant" and suggested they suffer from "rage" and "national chauvinism."
Why would they speak so insultingly, with such hostility, of opponents who are concerned citizens? And often, though not exclusively, concerned conservatives? It is odd, but it is of a piece with, or a variation on, the "Too bad" governing style. And it is one that has, day by day for at least the past three years, been tearing apart the conservative movement.
I suspect the White House and its allies have turned to name calling because they're defensive, and they're defensive because they know they have produced a big and indecipherable mess of a bill--one that is literally bigger than the Bible, though as someone noted last week, at least we actually had a few years to read the Bible. The White House and its supporters seem to be marshalling not facts but only sentiments, and self-aggrandizing ones at that. They make a call to emotions--this is, always and on every issue, the administration's default position--but not, I think, to seriously influence the debate.
They are trying to lay down markers for history. Having lost the support of most of the country, they are looking to another horizon. The story they would like written in the future is this: Faced with the gathering forces of ethnocentric darkness, a hardy and heroic crew stood firm and held high a candle in the wind. It will make a good chapter. Would that it were true!
If they'd really wanted to help, as opposed to braying about their own wonderfulness, they would have created not one big bill but a series of smaller bills, each of which would do one big clear thing, the first being to close the border. Once that was done--actually and believably done--the country could relax in the knowledge that the situation was finally not day by day getting worse. They could feel some confidence. And in that confidence real progress could begin.
The beginning of my own sense of separation from the Bush administration came in January 2005, when the president declared that it is now the policy of the United States to eradicate tyranny in the world, and that the survival of American liberty is dependent on the liberty of every other nation. This was at once so utopian and so aggressive that it shocked me. For others the beginning of distance might have been Katrina and the incompetence it revealed, or the depth of the mishandling and misjudgments of Iraq.
What I came in time to believe is that the great shortcoming of this White House, the great thing it is missing, is simple wisdom. Just wisdom--a sense that they did not invent history, that this moment is not all there is, that man has lived a long time and there are things that are true of him, that maturity is not the same thing as cowardice, that personal loyalty is not a good enough reason to put anyone in charge of anything, that the way it works in politics is a friend becomes a loyalist becomes a hack, and actually at this point in history we don't need hacks.
One of the things I have come to think the past few years is that the Bushes, father and son, though different in many ways, are great wasters of political inheritance. They throw it away as if they'd earned it and could do with it what they liked. Bush senior inherited a vibrant country and a party at peace with itself. He won the leadership of a party that had finally, at great cost, by 1980, fought itself through to unity and come together on shared principles. Mr. Bush won in 1988 by saying he would govern as Reagan had. Yet he did not understand he'd been elected to Reagan's third term. He thought he'd been elected because they liked him. And so he raised taxes, sundered a hard-won coalition, and found himself shocked to lose his party the presidency, and for eight long and consequential years. He had many virtues, but he wasted his inheritance.
Bush the younger came forward, presented himself as a conservative, garnered all the frustrated hopes of his party, turned them into victory, and not nine months later was handed a historical trauma that left his country rallied around him, lifting him, and his party bonded to him. He was disciplined and often daring, but in time he sundered the party that rallied to him, and broke his coalition into pieces. He threw away his inheritance. I do not understand such squandering.
Now conservatives and Republicans are going to have to win back their party. They are going to have to break from those who have already broken from them. This will require courage, serious thinking and an ability to do what psychologists used to call letting go. This will be painful, but it's time. It's more than time.
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Doug,
Neither Bush senior or Bush junior could communicate very well.
I remember hearing Bush senior after listening to Clinton give a speech on the reasons for and benefits of globalization lament something to the effect, why couldn't I say that (or more or less express myself like that)?
You may be right about Newt. He has great oratory skills but can't seem to put a lid on off handed comments that come off badly in soundbites. Like his recent comments about Rove. While they are not necessarily wrong it is the way he says them that comes off badly. He rose to prominence in the Republican party for being an attack dog not because of diplomatic skills. There is something about his personality that always eventually seeps through that is a turn off. He may be a better policy man then "front man".
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As the Presidential race 2008 thread bears witness, :-) I'm favor Newt at present.
What did he say about Rove?
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***What did Newt say about Rove?*** (article below)
Well it seems to be a calculated move to separate himself from Bush as he plans his bid to run for President. It appears he got the confidence to do this from watching the recent election in France. David Brooks has written an article titled something to the effect that the Republicans need a person of Newt's mind with Fred Thompson's temperment but since I don't subscribe to the NYT or NYT select I can't pull it up. This latter article seems to express my reservations about Newt. I fear he would be unable to broaden his appeal beyond a strictly Republican base. I don't know if he could win against Hillary's dogged determination to babble anything to bribe as many voters as possible to win.
At this time though I'm with you. I would likely vote for Newt. Second would be Romney. But there is something about Romney that he lacks that natural charismatic leadership quality. Perhaps he can yet overcome this with continued careful study
and work, but there is something about the truly great leaders that just can't be taught or learned. It is some innate quality. Reagan had it. Schwarzenneger comes close. Colin Powell had it. I am not a student of him but it appeared Tony Blair had it. I don't think Clinton had it at all. Being a great BS artist is not what I am talking about. Besides he never won more than 48% of the popular vote. Without a great leader our country will go the way of Rome. Newt is the only one with that "it" IMHO. Obama, well as Noonan says, he ain't no Abe Lincoln. On the other hand it may not be obvious who has that "it" until afterwards.
*****Gingrich Lambastes President and Rove
Article Tools Sponsored By
By JIM RUTENBERG
Published: May 30, 2007
WASHINGTON, May 29 — President Bush has presided over a Republican Party in “collapse,” and Karl Rove’s strategy in the 2004 presidential election was “maniacally dumb” for focusing so heavily on the conservative base.
The words, perhaps, of Howard Dean, the Democratic national chairman? Or John Edwards? Nancy Pelosi, maybe?
None of the above.
That harsh assessment of the president and his chief political adviser is being offered rather by former Representative Newt Gingrich, who engineered the Republicans’ Congressional election victory of 1994 and went on to become speaker of the House.
Mr. Gingrich made the comments in an interview with The New Yorker, parts of which were published in this week’s issue. They opened a new feud between himself and the White House, which replied with a stiff defense late Tuesday.
criticism speaks to a question that has hung over the race for the Republican presidential nomination since its early start this year: How will the candidates contend with the unpopularity of the president who heads their party? And will any of them break from him forcefully?
Mr. Gingrich is not in the race at the moment, but he has dropped many hints that he might eventually be. Should he get in, he suggested, he will be considerably more willing than the others have so far been to critique the competence of the incumbent.
He is quoted in The New Yorker as suggesting that a Republican will win the White House by running against Mr. Bush as Nicolas Sarkozy won the presidency in France by running against his fellow party member Jacques Chirac, in whose cabinet he had served.
“What’s fascinating about Sarkozy is that you have an incumbent cabinet member of a very unpopular 12-year presidency,” Mr. Gingrich said, “who over the last three years became the clear advocate of fundamental change.”
He compared the state of the Republican Party now to its state after the Watergate scandal and blamed in part Mr. Rove’s election strategy in 2004.
“You can’t be a governing national party and write off entire regions,” Mr. Gingrich said. “All he proved was that the anti-Kerry vote was bigger than the anti-Bush vote.”
Rick Tyler, a spokesman for Mr. Gingrich, said his remarks had been reported accurately.
Dana Perino, deputy White House press secretary, disputed Mr. Gingrich’s assessment.
“It was President Bush who in 2004 got 25 percent more votes than in 2000,” Ms. Perino said. “He had the largest number of votes ever, and he led his party to increases in seats in both houses of Congress based on a strategy that showcased the president’s vision for the country.”
The 2004 strategy “defined differences between the president and his opponent on major issues like taxes, security, freedom and personal choice,” Ms. Perino said. “It was not at all a strategy about being against something; it was about being for something.”
Ms. Perino had no comment on Mr. Gingrich’s judgment that the Republican nominee would essentially have to run against Mr. Bush to win the election.*****
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Note: It's nice that the system warns of a new reply while typing. CCP covers the Newt story well but I'll put this in anyway FWIW. I agree with CCP that it seems to be a run for President strategy.
"What did [Newt] say about Rove"
Marc, my comments slipped back a page on the 2008 Presidential thread, but the link is here of Newt ripping Bush and Rove in the current New Yorker. 6 pages or so of disgruntled party faithful, but worth the read. http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/06/04/070604fa_fact_goldberg
Not in the that article, but Delay's book says Newt couldn't keep focus, kept jumping to new ideas. I think Dick Armey said of Delay that he combined his solid conservatism with earmarks and pet spending for members' reelections. My comment was that all those negatives seem to hold some truth, though I love all 3 of them when they stick to their principles. - Doug
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Thanks.
Well, I sure don't see anything objectionable to what Newt said or any reason to think him less presidential timber , , ,
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The site should expand to include the nepotism going on with our idealistic pols in DC. Like how many have family memebers who get what any rational person can conclude are bribes for to lobby on the behalf of those paying for influence:
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/DickMorrisandEileenMcGann/2007/06/08/bill_clinton_and_nancy_pelosis_son_get_paid_big_bucks_by_infousa
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June 29, 2007
In today's Political Diary:
Roiling Up Whitewater
Seeking Radio Silence
'Partisan' Is Anyone You Disagree With (Quote of the Day I)
Fairness Indoctrination (Quote of the Day II)
Only His Friends Call Him 'Knuckles'
Whitewater: A Scandal About Nothing?
It's been more than a decade since Mark Fabiani served as a top spinmeister for the Clinton administration, adroitly batting away questions from reporters on the "scandal beat," which covered far more than Monica Lewinsky. There was also the Whitewater land deal, Travelgate, Filegate and Attorney General Janet Reno's sudden firing of every U.S. Attorney in the country in a single day.
Now Mr. Fabiani is chief counsel for the San Diego Chargers, and is deep into trying to secure a new stadium for that football team. But reporters have suddenly been reminded of his old role by a new biography of Hillary Clinton by Carl Bernstein, one of the famous Washington Post reporters who uncovered Watergate. Mr. Fabiani, who evidently spoke at length with Mr. Bernstein for "Women in Charge," appears to be the source for some fascinating revelations about his time protecting the Clintons from scandal probes.
Contrary to all the assertions that the Whitewater land deal was a silly story, Mr. Fabiani's private view was that notwithstanding "the Clintons' protestations to the contrary, it was a reasonable issue to explore in a presidential campaign. [The] governor of a state who had regulatory authority over a savings and loan was in business with the owner of the savings and loan.... And the owner of the savings and loan was probably carrying more than his share of the costs of the business, the piece of [Whitewater] land owned jointly with the Clintons."
Later in the book, Mr. Fabiani says there was a "serious fear" that First Lady Hillary Clinton would be indicted. One of Hillary's lawyers told Mr. Bernstein that Ms. Clinton had "run everything" in the aftermath of the suicide of White House Deputy Counsel Vince Foster, her former law partner. "Then she had denied it. You could see her... getting so intimately involved in... how you handle [Foster's] office, and what you are going to do with the documents, and who's going to search the office. You can see her jumping into this."
Mr. Fabiani left the Clintons' employ shortly after the 1996 presidential election because, as Mr. Bernstein put it, he was "deeply disturbed" about White House senior aide Bruce Lindsey's handling of investigations into the 1996 Clinton-Gore fundraising scandals, which involved illegal foreign money. Mr. Fabiani is reported in the book to have been worried about Mr. Lindsey's use of "continuing false characterizations" with respect to one part of the scandal and the "seeming expectation" that he would "lie as well" about other parts.
As Chris Reed of the San Diego Union-Tribune put it in his blog, "this is fascinating stuff to political junkies, and very relevant given Hillary's good shot at the White House." Indeed, focus groups frequently point out that one of the major obstacles to a Hillary campaign is the general sense of many voters that they'd rather not relive the roller-coaster experience of the Clinton White House. The first ride was quite enough, thank you.
-- John Fund
A Subject Made for Talk Radio
"There's nothing fair about the Fairness Doctrine," is how Rep. Mike Pence, an Indiana Republican and former talk-show host, put it yesterday before the House voted 309 to 115 in favor of his bill to block any future president or the Federal Communications Commission from reinstating the 1949 Fairness Doctrine, the regulation that for some four decades stifled discussion of controversial issues on the airwaves by requiring broadcast stations to provide "equal time" for opposing commentary.
Democrats, many of whom are sympathetic to muzzling conservative talk radio, were spooked by the power of hosts such as Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity to make their lives miserable. Even Democratic Rep. David Obey put on a brave face as he rose to support the Pence bill. "Rush and Sean are just about as important in the scheme of things as Paris Hilton," he told the House. "I would hate to see them gain an ounce of credibility by being forced by a government agency or anybody else to moderate their views enough that they might become modestly influential or respected."
Mr. Obey is, of course, fooling himself. It was precisely the fear of populist talk radio that compelled over half of Democrats in the House to back the Pence bill rather than court the anger of the airwaves.
If Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell doesn't duplicate the Pence bill in the Senate, he'll be missing a great political opportunity. The Senate is a hotbed of pro-Fairness Doctrine sentiment. In recent days, John Kerry, Dick Durbin of Illinois and Dianne Feinstein of California have all touted its revival. "In my view, talk radio tends to be one-sided. It also tends to be dwelling in hyperbole. It's explosive. It pushes people to, I think, extreme views without a lot of information," Ms. Feinstein recently said.
In the language of politicalspeak used by most Members of Congress, what Ms. Feinstein was really saying is that talk radio has gotten too powerful and it's time radio hosts were sent a warning that it's incumbents in Congress who write the rules that determine whether they can stay in business or not.
Mr. Pence's successful effort is just the latest embarrassment the Democratic House majority has suffered at the hands of the Republican minority. "Republicans sure know how to be an effective minority better than the Democrats did," complained Democratic Rep. Zack Space of Ohio.
For now, the Fairness Mongers and their Democratic Congressional allies are clearly on the defensive.
-- John Fund
Quote of the Day I
"The partisanship scolds are extremely vague about which chunk of Americans is being left out by the growing extremism in Washington. It is true that some broadly popular views are underrepresented in national politics. A detailed political typology released by the Pew Center in 2005 showed that Democratic voters are not as socially liberal as their leaders and Republican voters are not nearly as economically conservative. So there is a sizable base of socially traditionalist, economically populist voters to be had. Unfortunately, the partisanship scolds invariably cater to exactly the opposite demographic: elites who favor free trade, open immigration, cutting entitlements, and social tolerance" -- Jonathan Chait, writing in the New Republic on the severe limits of Michael Bloomberg's potential popularity as an independent presidential candidate running against "partisanship."
Quote of the Day II
"I think that [former Clinton White House Chief of Staff] John Podesta's group, the Center for American Progress, produced that report, entitled 'The Structural Imbalance of American Talk Radio,' that set the stage for a number of extremely prominent, powerful people to step forward and begin to make the intellectual case to return the Fairness Doctrine. Should, you know, quite frankly, a Democrat take control of the White House, the FCC in a Democrat administration could simply do this by a change in regulations" -- Indiana Rep. Mike Pence, in an interview on Fox's Hannity & Colmes show, on the origins of the new Democratic effort to quiet talk radio by reinstating the Fairness Doctrine.
Nice Nussle
When Iowa Republican Jim Nussle was chairman of the House Budget Committee a few years ago, he earned a reputation as a political brawler. A few colleagues even gave him the nickname "knuckles." Now that President Bush has tapped him to be the new White House budget director, that reputation is being turned on him. House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey immediately criticized the nominee, comparing him unfavorably to outgoing Budget Director Rob Portman. The White House has "gone from someone who liked to work things out to someone who is actually confrontational," Mr. Obey complained. "It's an act of absolute confrontation."
We know Mr. Nussle a bit. He's not the political bruiser that some now accuse him of being, but certainly knows the ins and outs of the federal budget. He also knows how ridiculous federal spending priorities can be. In his time as budget chairman, he led a brave but failing effort to nick 1% off non-defense spending in every federal department, took a risky stab at entitlement reform while others shied away, and ferreted out some egregious cases of Medicare waste and fraud.
President Bush is still paying a price for not vetoing a single spending bill and developing a reputation for being too indulgent of Congress's spending habits. If bringing in Mr. Nussle is an indication that Mr. Bush intends to knock a few heads on Capitol Hill, he'll likely draw applause from outside the Beltway.
-- Brendan Miniter
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No big shocker here, but I'm curious to hear what everybody who bitched about Paris Hilton thinks of this.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/cia_leak_trial
Bush commutes Libby prison sentence
By BEN FELLER, Associated Press Writer 50 minutes ago
President Bush spared former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby from a 2 1/2-year prison term in the CIA leak case Monday, stepping into a criminal case with heavy political overtones on grounds that the sentence was just too harsh.
Bush's move came hours after a federal appeals panel ruled Libby could not delay his prison term in the CIA leak case. That meant Libby was likely to have to report to prison soon and put new pressure on the president, who had been sidestepping calls by Libby's allies to pardon the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney.
"I respect the jury's verdict," Bush said in a statement. "But I have concluded that the prison sentence given to Mr. Libby is excessive. Therefore, I am commuting the portion of Mr. Libby's sentence that required him to spend thirty months in prison."
Bush left intact a $250,000 fine and two years probation for Libby, and Bush said his action still "leaves in place a harsh punishment for Mr. Libby."
Libby was convicted in March of lying to authorities and obstructing the investigation into the 2003 leak of CIA operative's identity. He was the highest-ranking White House official ordered to prison since the Iran-Contra affair.
Reaction was harsh from Democrats.
"As Independence Day nears, we are reminded that one of the principles our forefathers fought for was equal justice under the law. This commutation completely tramples on that principle," Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said through a spokesman.
Libby's supporters celebrated.
"That's fantastic. It's a great relief," said former Ambassador Richard Carlson, who helped raise millions for Libby's defense fund. "Scooter Libby did not deserve to go to prison and I'm glad the president had the courage to do this."
A message seeking comment from Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's office was not immediately returned.
Bush said Cheney's former aide was not getting off free.
"The reputation he gained through his years of public service and professional work in the legal community is forever damaged," Bush said. "His wife and young children have also suffered immensely. He will remain on probation. The significant fines imposed by the judge will remain in effect. The consequences of his felony conviction on his former life as a lawyer, public servant and private citizen will be long-lasting."
A spokeswoman for Cheney said simply, "The vice president supports the president's decision."
The president's announcement came just as prison seemed likely for Libby. He recently lost an appeals court fight that was his best chance to put the sentence on hold, and the U.S. Bureau of Prisons had already designated him inmate No. 28301-016.
Bush's statement made no mention of the term "pardon," and he made clear that he was not willing to wipe away all penalties for Libby.
The president noted Libby supporters' argument that the punishment did not fit the crime for a "first-time offender with years of exceptional public service."
Yet, he added, "Others point out that a jury of citizens weighed all the evidence and listened to all the testimony and found Mr. Libby guilty of perjury and obstructing justice. They argue, correctly, that our entire system of justice relies on people telling the truth. And if a person does not tell the truth, particularly if he serves in government and holds the public trust, he must be held accountable."
Bush then stripped away the prison time.
The leak case has hung over the White House for years. After CIA operative Valerie Plame's name appeared in a 2003 syndicated newspaper column, Special Prosecutor Fitzgerald questioned top administration officials, including Bush and Cheney, about their possible roles.
Nobody was ever charged with the leak, including Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage or White House political adviser Karl Rove, who provided the information for the original article. Prosecutors said Libby obstructed the investigation by lying about how he learned about Plame and whom he told.
Plame believes Libby and other White House officials conspired to leak her identity to reporters in 2003 as retribution against her husband, Joseph Wilson, who criticized what he said was the administration's misleading use of prewar intelligence on Iraq.
Attorney William Jeffress said he had spoken to Libby briefly by phone and "I'm happy at least that Scooter will be spared any prison time. ... The prison sentence was imminent but obviously the conviction itself is a heavy blow to Scooter."
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Associated Press Writer Matt Appuzo contributed to this report.
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Voting Rights Turnabout
A victory for disfranchised Mississippi voters--and they happen to be white.
Monday, July 2, 2007 12:01 a.m. EDT
Last week a federal district judge found direct evidence that the political machine in Noxubee County, Miss., had discriminated against voters with the intent to infringe their rights and that "these abuses have been racially motivated."
Among the abuses catalogued by Judge Tom Lee were the paying of notaries public to visit voters and illegally mark their absentee ballots, manipulation of the registration rolls, importation of illegal candidates to run for county office, and publication of a list of voters, classified by race, who might have their ballots challenged. The judge criticized state political officials for being "remiss" in addressing the abuses. The U.S. Justice Department, which sued Noxubee officials under the Voting Rights Act, has called conditions there "the most extreme case of racial exclusion seen by the [department's] Voting Section in decades."
Explosive stuff, so why haven't you heard about it? Because the Noxubee case doesn't fit the media stereotype for voting rights abuses. The local political machine is run by Ike Brown, a twice-convicted felon. Mr. Brown is black, and the voters who were discriminated against were white.
Judge Lee concluded that Mr. Brown retained his power "by whatever means were necessary." According to the judge, Mr. Brown believed that "blacks, being the majority race in Noxubee County, should hold all elected offices, to the exclusion of whites." (Whites are 30% of the county's 12,500 people, but only two of the 26 elected county officials.) Judge Lee also criticized top officials of the state Democratic Party for "failing to take action to rectify [Mr. Brown's] abuses."
Last month a memorial service was held in Philadelphia, Miss., about 50 miles southwest of Noxubee, for three civil rights workers who were murdered while trying to register black voters during the "Freedom Summer" of 1964. Their deaths helped spur Congress to pass the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which swept away poll taxes and other impediments to black voting. Ever since then, a consistent media story line has been built around fears that the South's racist past will return to squash black political aspirations.
But the reality isn't so simple. While voter suppression by whites still goes on and must be curbed, so too does incompetence by election officials that calls into question the validity of elections, along with outright voter fraud. The right to vote includes the right not to have one's vote diluted by someone who shouldn't be voting, votes twice or doesn't even exist. Yet mild measures to increase the integrity of the ballot box, such as photo ID laws or efforts to better police absentee ballots are routinely attacked as attempts to restore Jim Crow voting procedures.
Just look at the coverage of the Justice Department's botched removal of seven U.S. attorneys. Congressional Democrats have gone into overdrive to prove the Justice Department canned them for their failure to pursue voter fraud cases, which it felt should be given a higher priority. The confirmation hearing for Hans von Spakovsky, a sitting member of the Federal Election Commission, has drawn bitter opposition because some former Justice Department officials make strained claims he pushed for laws requiring voters to show a photo ID as a means to suppress black voter turnout. He is also accused of derailing two investigations into possible voter discrimination and causing enforcement of voting rights cases to plummet. In fact, the Bush administration filed 35 voting rights cases in its first five years, as opposed to only 25 by the Clinton administration in its last five years.
Critics of the Bush Justice Department bitterly complain that its priorities have shifted away from traditional voting rights enforcement and have questioned if Justice should be filing "reverse discrimination" voting rights cases like Noxubee. Joseph Rich, the chief of Justice's voting section until he resigned in 2005 to join the liberal Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights, has said he thinks the Noxubee case had merit but wonders if it was "really a question of priority" for a department with limited resources. "The Civil Rights Division's core mission is to fight racial discrimination," Mr. Rich told TPMuckracker.com. "That doesn't seem to be happening in this administration."
In reality, what the old civil rights establishment seems to be most upset about is a shift of priorities. They note the Bush administration has so far only filed two complaints on behalf of black voters, compared with eight filed by the Clinton administration during its last six years. Liberals note that of the voting rights cases the Bush administration has filed so far, seven have been on behalf of Hispanics. But Hispanics are now the largest minority in the country, and it's hardly surprising that more cases would arise involving a population that includes many new citizens unfamiliar with how to combat voter discrimination.
Judge Lee's ruling shows that there was extensive evidence of voter fraud in Noxubee County. More than 20% of the county's ballots were routinely cast by absentee voters, despite requirements that everyone have a valid excuse to obtain one. A major reason for their proliferation was that Mr. Brown, in his capacity as head of the Noxubee County Democratic Executive Committee, would pay notaries public to complete absentee ballots for voters, sometimes without their knowledge or consent. According to Judge Lee, Mr. Brown and his allies then "put in place a nearly all black force of poll workers and managers, over whom they had effective influence and control, and who, under Brown's direction, ignored or rejected proper challenges to the ballots of black voters."
During the 2003 primary election, witnesses testified that Mr. Brown personally left the local sheriff's office (where he had set up shop across the hall from where ballots were counted) to tell poll workers to "count every vote, count them every one right now." Kevin Jones, the incumbent superintendent of education, who is black, confirmed that Mr. Brown told poll workers to count the votes and that they complied.
Mr. Brown also went through the absentee ballots in other precincts the night before the Aug. 26, 2003, runoff and put Post-it notes on some ballots with instructions indicating they should be rejected. Judge Lee found that "witnesses who saw the yellow stickers maintained that every sticker seen was on the ballot of a white voter."
The boss left nothing to chance. Witnesses testified that on the day of the runoff, as voters cast ballots in person at polling stations, poll workers walked up unsolicited to black voters "taking their ballots and marking them without consulting the voters." Terry Grassaree, the chief deputy sheriff for the county, threatened Samuel Heard, a candidate for sheriff against Mr. Grassaree's boss, that "I'll put your ass in jail" after Mr. Heard complained about illegal distribution of campaign literature at the polls.
Mr. Brown sounded like Huey Long when he explained his actions. "This isn't Mississippi state law you're dealing with," he told Libby Abrams, a poll watcher for Mr. Heard, Ms. Abrams testified. "This is Ike Brown's law." When Ms. Abrams responded that she planned to have four poll watchers on hand as votes were counted, Mr. Brown told her "Fine, fine, have as many as you want. I'll send the police on around to arrest you."
Mr. Brown also published a list of 174 names of voters he claimed were illegally voting in Democratic primaries while they intended to support Republicans in the fall election, and suggested he would challenge them. He said he planned a crusade to "root out disloyal Democratic elected officials and voters," including Larry Tate, a black county supervisor who had angered Boss Brown by supporting Sen. Thad Cochran and Rep. Chip Pickering, both Republicans.
The defense Mr. Brown mounted against all these charges was that he had acted legally and was motivated solely by a desire to elect Democrats. He called the Justice Department's lawsuit an example of "persecuting the victim" and noted the irony that after the white establishment had oppressed blacks for 135 years federal officials had the "preposterous" effrontery to challenge blacks who had achieved political control of Noxubee County only a dozen years ago.
Judge Lee had none of it. "If the same facts were presented to the court on behalf of the rights of black voters, this court would find that [the Voting Rights Act] was violated," he wrote. As part of his ruling, he gave lawyers on both sides 30 days to file briefs in the civil matter laying out how they will end the election abuses. Defendants who violate his order could face contempt of court and fines.
It's unclear how much Mr. Brown plans to comply. He isn't returning phone calls from reporters. He may not be intimidated by the prospect of fines, having served time in federal prison a decade ago for tax fraud. Last year he refused to sign a consent decree in which county officials promised not to harass or intimidate white voters, fill out absentee ballots for voters, or coach them.
Mr. Brown also contends that Judge Lee's order may be moot because of last month's ruling by another federal judge in a lawsuit filed by state Democratic Party officials. They, like Mr. Brown, were upset by Republicans voting in the Democratic primary under Mississippi's open primary law. "They come over and vote in the Democratic primary and it's for the white candidates and then in the general election they run and vote for Republicans," complained Ellis Turnage, the attorney for the Democratic Party. The Democrats asserted that state law guarantees them the "freedom not to associate" with interlopers in their primary.
District Judge Allen Pepper, a Clinton appointee recommended by Sen. Trent Lott, agreed, but he handed the Democrats a Pyrrhic victory by ordering the state to create closed primaries--but also to require photo ID at the polls. Democrats who have long used incendiary rhetoric to block approval of a photo ID law are howling.
The irony of their complaint wasn't lost on Marty Wiseman, director of the Stennis Institute of Government at Mississippi State University. He noted that "Democrats, many of whom fought long and hard during the bad old days to open up Mississippi's closed political system, are attempting to make their own case for 'freedom not to associate.' " Secretary of State Eric Clark, a Democrat, said his party made a "serious mistake" in filing the lawsuit. "I believe in opening doors to voting and not in closing doors," he said.
But should Judge Pepper's order stand, it may have the salutary effect of finally cleaning up Mississippi's election records, which the Greenwood Commonwealth, the largest newspaper in the Delta, notes "still has people on the rolls from the 1960s who haven't voted in decades, yet federal rules make it almost impossible to purge their names." That is an invitation to voter fraud and manipulation à la Ike Brown.
Despite abundant evidence that protective measures such as photo ID and tighter controls on absentee ballots aren't designed to suppress voter turnout, the civil rights establishment continues to resist against any effort to improve ballot integrity. Yet as former Atlanta mayor Andrew Young has noted, showing ID is a daily fact of life in America now, and getting such IDs in the hands of poor people would help them enter the mainstream of American life. A poll by the Wall Street Journal and NBC News last year found Americans backing a photo ID law by 80% to 7%, with two-thirds support among both blacks and Hispanics.
At the conclusion of his ruling in the Noxubee case, Judge Lee cited the ruling of the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Welch v. McKenzie, a 1985 case in which the court held that "the right to vote includes the right to have one's ballot counted. This includes the right to not have one's ballot diluted by the casting of illegal ballots or weighting of one ballot more than another."
Half century ago the issues involved were literally black and white. Now they are murkier and more nuanced. Not all villains in voting rights cases are white. I've interviewed Democratic candidates from St. Louis to Detroit to Newark who acknowledge that many of our voting systems are so underfunded and sloppy as to invite either rampant incompetence or outright fraud. The Justice Department's victory in Noxubee County isn't a win for one race over another, it's a signal that some rethinking of old stereotypes is in order.
WSJ
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http://hotair.com/archives/2007/07/02/breaking-president-bush-to-commute-libbys-sentenced/
I think the Scooter-pardon is covered well here.
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BY JAMES TARANTO
Tuesday, July 3, 2007 3:23 p.m. EDT
Clemency for Terrorists
In August 1999 President Clinton granted executive clemency to 16 members of FALN, the Puerto Rican terror group behind some 130 bombings, including one that killed four people at New York's Fraunces Tavern in 1975. Even the ultraliberal New York Times looked askance:
To be sure, an American President has an absolute power to pardon. But that does not relieve him of the obligation to defend any and every decision to intervene in the criminal justice system. Indeed, this President's rare use of the pardoning power makes it all the more important for him to reveal his reasoning. Of more than 3,000 applications for clemency filed since 1993, he has granted only 3. The suspicion is rampant that his motivation was a political effort to please the Puerto Rican community that is crucial to Mrs. Clinton's hopes in the coming Senate race from New York.
The House voted 311-41 for a nonbinding resolution "expressing the sense of Congress that the President should not have granted clemency to terrorists." All 41 of those voting "no" were Democrats, as were 71 of the 72 members who voted "present" (the other was a self-styled socialist who abjured formal membership in the party).
Nancy Pelosi, now speaker of the House, did not vote. But the Congressional Record reveals that was only because she showed up late;
Ms. PELOSI. Mr. Chairman, on the last vote, H. Con. Res. 180, I was detained in traffic while returning to the Capitol. Had I been present, I would have voted "no."
Pelosi was unwilling to criticize a president of her own party when he turned loose terrorists convicted of such crimes as seditious conspiracy, possession of unregistered firearms and interstate transportation of a stolen vehicle. Keep that in mind as you read her statement yesterday:
The President's commutation of Scooter Libby's prison sentence does not serve justice, condones criminal conduct, and is a betrayal of trust of the American people.
The President said he would hold accountable anyone involved in the Valerie Plame leak [sic] case. By his action today, the President shows his word is not to be believed. He has abandoned all sense of fairness when it comes to justice, he has failed to uphold the rule of law, and he has failed to hold his Administration accountable.
For our part, we're just happy that a good and patriotic man won't have to go to prison as a sacrifice to the Angry Left. Plame kerfuffle personage Matt Cooper makes a good point:
Why not just pardon the guy? Why leave him with the stigmata of a convicted felon and a $250,000 fine to add to his legal bills--even if they are taken care of by the generosity of so many of his friends. (By the way, can the Scooter defense fund now release the names of donors?) If Bush had the courage of his convictions, he would have been like Jack Nicholson in a A Few Good Men and admitted that he thought [Plame's blowhard husband, Joe] Wilson was a jerk and that he believed what happened afterwards was right. Instead, Bush vowed to take action against the leakers.
By the way, what about the real "leaker" of Plame's "identity," Richard Armitage? Is he ever going to face "justice"?
The Hobgoblin of Little Minds
"Nonviolent offenders should not be serving hard time in our prisons. They need to be diverted from our prison system."--Sen. Hillary Clinton, Democratic debate, June 28
"Today's decision is yet another example that this Administration simply considers itself above the law. . . . This commutation sends the clear signal that in this Administration, cronyism and ideology trump competence and justice."--Sen. Hillary Clinton, press release, July 2
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Second post of the AM, this from the NYTimes. Rog, does this one make sense to you? I respect Kinsley for his intellectual integrity in writing it and he makes a point clearly that I had only vaguely intuited.
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The Lying Game
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By MICHAEL KINSLEY
Published: July 5, 2007
Seattle
WHEN the Republicans in Congress impeached President Bill Clinton over the Monica Lewinsky affair, they insisted that it wasn’t about sex, it was about lying. Of course that wasn’t true. Even at the height of their power-mad self-delusions (when Newt Gingrich was conducting his own affair with an aide while prosecuting the president), Republicans realized that to make lying an impeachable offense was opening a door no politician should eagerly walk through.
Of course it was really about sex. Nevertheless, those of us who thought impeachment was an outrageous abuse of power by the Republicans had to accept that Mr. Clinton had, clearly, lied. And our argument was this: Mr. Clinton made a mistake. He should not have lied. But he lied in answer to questions he should not have been asked. He should not have been put in a position where he had to choose: he could lie under oath, and be impeached or worse, or he could tell the truth, and embarrass himself and his family, and probably still be impeached or worse.
In short, he was caught in a “perjury trap.” Bill Clinton chose wrong — it all came out anyway — and he defeated impeachment, though you wouldn’t say he got away scot-free.
On Tuesday, President Bush commuted the sentence of I. Lewis Libby Jr., Vice President Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff, who was convicted of lying to investigators about the C.I.A. leak case. Mr. Libby will escape prison, but he won’t get away scot-free either. He faces a fine of $250,000 and two years of probation, and if he was thinking of cashing in big on K Street like so many of his administration colleagues, he had better think again.
Mr. Libby’s critics are not the people who criticized Mr. Clinton. And his defenders are not Mr. Clinton’s defenders. But the scripts are similar. The Libbyites believe that their man is being railroaded and shouldn’t have been prosecuted, let alone convicted, for his involvement in a campaign of leaks intended to discredit a critic of the administration, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson. Mr. Libby’s critics respond that this isn’t about leaking, it’s about lying.
But of course this really is about leaking. It’s the nefarious, though inept, campaign to sully Mr. Wilson that outrages critics of the administration. True, Mr. Libby was not the source for Robert Novak, whose column identifying Mr. Wilson’s wife as a C.I.A. operative started the whole business. And Mr. Libby’s most prominent leakee, Judith Miller, the former New York Times reporter who went to jail rather than reveal a source, didn’t actually write about the case. But Mr. Libby was part of the cabal that was conspiring to discredit Mr. Wilson and, more generally, to convince people that Iraq was strewn with nuclear weapons.
So when Mr. Libby was questioned by federal investigators pursuing the leaks, he too was caught in a perjury trap. He could either tell the truth, thereby implicating colleagues and very possibly himself, in leaking classified security information (the identity of Mr. Wilson’s wife), or he could lie. In either case he would be breaking the law or admitting to having done so, and in either case he could have gone to prison. Mr. Libby, like Mr. Clinton, made the wrong choice.
There is nothing wrong with a perjury trap, as long as both sides of the pincer are legitimate. The abuse comes when prosecutors induce a crime (lying under oath) by exploiting an action that is not a crime. The law about “outing” C.I.A. operatives is apparently vague enough that it isn’t clear whether Mr. Libby violated it. But let’s leave that aside. Exposing one of your country’s intelligence officers is a bad thing to do. If it isn’t against the law, it ought to be, right? Well, this is where the press comes in. At first many in the press supported appointing a special prosecutor to investigate.
The crime, if there was one, was leaking government secrets to journalists. If you were investigating that crime, where would you start? Yes, of course, by questioning journalists. The government leakers, if you found them, would be protected by the Fifth Amendment. You would need more and different evidence, and only journalists had it.
The special prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, followed this commonsense logic straight into a First Amendment buzz saw. News organizations that insisted on the need to get to the bottom of the leak also insisted that no journalist should have to supply information to this investigation.
The leaks that The Times and other papers defended so ardently were not laboratory examples of press freedom at work. Quite the opposite: they were part of the nefarious campaign by the vice president’s office to discredit Mr. Wilson — itself part of the larger plot to convince the world that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, which was of course part of the plot to get us into the war in the first place. And it worked.
It takes two to leak. How can it be fair that one party to the leak doesn’t even have to testify about it, because leaks are so vital to the First Amendment, while the other party might go to prison for it? And if that is unfair, how is a perjury trap fair when it forces a leaker to choose between going to prison for the leak and going to prison for lying?
So as much as I dislike the war in Iraq, as much as I dislike President Bush, as much as I expect that I would dislike Mr. Libby if I ever met him, I feel that he should not have had to face a perjury trap: the choice between prison for lying, or prison for his role in a set of transactions that the press regards as not merely O.K. but sacrosanct. In fact, if journalists had a more reasonable view about this, the reporters whom Mr. Libby tried to peddle this story to would have said, “Look, outing C.I.A. agents is bad and we are not going to help you do it anonymously.” I bet that today, commuted sentence and all, Mr. Libby wishes they had done just that.
Michael Kinsley is a columnist for Time magazine.
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Karl Clinton?
The Scooter Libby case may have ended with President Bush's decision to commute the former White House aide's sentence, but attendees at the Aspen Ideas Festival in Colorado, an annual gathering of largely liberal philanthropists, still had to get some final words in.
At a Saturday question-and-answer session with Karl Rove, the White House aide came under fire for his alleged role in the revelation of CIA agent Valerie Plame's name. Mr. Rove outlined his minor role in the scandal, claimed he had cooperated fully with Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald and emphasized that the original leaker of Ms. Plame's name was found to be Richard Armitage, then a top deputy to Secretary of State Colin Powell. "Remember, the underlying offense of Armitage talking to Novak was no violation. There was no indictment," said Mr. Rove.
At that point, Colin Powell, who was in the audience, stood up to provide his own version of the Plame affair. He agreed that no crime had been committed in revealing Ms. Plame's name and that Mr. Libby "got in trouble for an entirely different set of circumstances." Mr. Powell also expressed frustration with how the government's investigation had dragged on. "The FBI knew on Day 1 of Mr. Armitage's involvement, yet for two months after that the FBI kept investigating," he told the Aspen audience. "They kept investigating to see who else might be involved and when they finished their investigation -- they couldn't finish it. Therefore, a special counsel was brought in, Mr. Patrick Fitzgerald, who spent another two years on it.... I think this [would have better] ended early on and not dragged out the way it has been."
The crowd, which was clearly not sympathetic to the Bush administration, was polite during the discussion, in contrast to the incivility with which Mr. Rove was received by some when he appeared at the Ideas Festival last year. The change may have partly been due to his disarming manner. The White House aide began his remarks by noting he had enjoyed driving in from Denver the day before. Along the way, he stopped at an inn in the town of Twin Lakes for coffee. He noted that when a man standing in line at a the registration desk was told Karl Rove was on the premises, his instant response was: "I'd like to hit that son of a bitch."
Mr. Rove then deadpanned: "I knew I was getting close to Aspen." Once in Aspen, Mr. Rove said he had another interesting encounter when he arrived at the Aspen Institute.
"There's a guy in a Land Rover, very expensive, and he's got a car full of people, and takes one look at me, a scowl on his face, and says, 'Go home.' And as he goes off, I say, 'I am home.'" Mr. Rove noted that he had been born in Denver and lived in several Colorado towns, including one very close to Aspen, during his childhood.
All in all, Mr. Rove charmed the crowd. Indeed, Ross Douthat of the Atlantic magazine thinks Mr. Rove managed to "out-Clinton" former President Bill Clinton, who also appeared at the Ideas Festival. He says Mr. Rove won over the audience with his "jokey anecdotes" which were then followed up with a presentation that "drowned the crowd in policy detail, complete with a series of PowerPoint slides on immigration and global warming."
-- John Fund
Political Journal/WSJ
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WSJ
The Southwick Stonewall
July 23, 2007; Page A14
It isn't easy to get Republican moderate Senator Arlen Specter into a fighting partisan mood. But Democrats are achieving this rare feat as they continue to block nearly every nomination by President Bush to the federal appeals courts.
After six months in charge of the Senate, Democrats have approved exactly three appellate court judges. Last Tuesday, the White House announced four more appellate nominees, taking to nine the number now in a Senate holding pattern. Several circuits are in dire need of new judges to cover the work load, but Democrats are betting they can drag things out long enough so Hillary Rodham Clinton or Barack Obama get to fill these posts.
It's important to understand how unusual this is. The Senate and White House have often been run by different parties in the last two years of a Presidency, and at least some judicial nominees have been confirmed. In the last two Reagan years, Democrats confirmed 16. And in the last two Bill Clinton years, Republicans confirmed 15.
During the Clinton years, then-ranking minority member Patrick Leahy was the one deploring judicial vacancies. In February 2000, he lamented that "The Senate is back to a pace of confirming one judge a month. That is not acceptable, does not serve the interests of justice and does not fulfill our constitutional responsibilities." Hmmm. One a month sounds lightening-quick compared to the pace under Senator Leahy's own Judiciary Committee. And that complaint of stalling tactics came seven months closer to a Presidential election than we are today.
The current Senate stonewall has been on particular display in the case of Mississippi State judge Leslie Southwick to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. And that's what has Mr. Specter, the ranking Republican on Judiciary, fired up. Recently he called some conservative activists into his office to disclose that after Judge Southwick was nominated in January, Mr. Specter received explicit promises from Democrats that the nominee would get an up-or-down vote on the Senate floor.
Judge Southwick's nomination was once considered a consensus choice. No one disputes his qualifications, and as a judicial moderate he had been unanimously approved by Democrats for a seat on the federal district court. But the judge has since run afoul of what appears to be a new Democratic racial litmus test for judges from the South. "Mississippi has never had an African-American on the circuit even though it has the largest African-American population of any state," Mr. Leahy remarked last month. Perhaps Mr. Bush could nominate someone more racially suitable, he suggested.
In case this racial quota idea didn't fly, Democrats have also played the familiar race card. Of particular "concern," they claimed, was Judge Southwick's concurrence in a Mississippi decision regarding an employee who wasn't fired after using a racial slur in comments about a co-worker. That case was one of more than 6,000 opinions that Judge Southwick signed or joined. But let's take a closer look, shall we?
Though the racial slur makes the headlines, that's not what the court's ruling condoned. The decision in Richmond v. Mississippi Dept. of Human Services was narrow, affirming the ruling of an employment board created by Mississippi law and given broad latitude to set hiring and firing policies across the state. In reviewing the board's decisions, Mississippi courts must follow specific parameters -- they can only overturn based on a finding of legal error or "arbitrary and capricious" judgment. In other words, by affirming the board's decision, the court's ruling was not on whether it considered racial name-calling grounds for firing, but whether the state board had made distinct and material errors.
Many from Judge Southwick's past have stepped forward to support him. His former African-American law clerk A. La'Verne Edney spoke with particular dismay at the racial charges. "It did not matter the parties' affiliation, color or stature," she wrote about his judicial approach, "what mattered was the law." Now a partner in a Mississippi law firm, Ms. Edney added: "It is unfortunate that there are some who have made [Judge Southwick] the chosen sacrifice to promote agendas and have set out to taint all that [he] has worked so hard to accomplish."
Mr. Leahy's posse maintains that the broader point is the need for more African-Americans on the bench. But African-American judicial nominees don't fare well at the hands of Democrats either. When President Bush nominated Janice Rogers Brown to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, liberal activists called her nomination "window-dressing." Claude Allen's nomination to the Fourth Circuit was opposed by the NAACP. And Justice Clarence Thomas is regularly denounced by those who claim to care about diversity on the bench.
It's hard to get straight answers on this subject, so we were glad for a recent article in the Afro-American Newspapers that at least had the benefit of honesty. "[Judge] Southwick," the paper noted, "is considered by civil rights groups to be too conservative to serve on the Fifth Circuit." That breaks the Democratic code, and we hope Mr. Specter and Republicans are willing to make judicial nominations a very public brawl.
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Whose Ox Is Gored
After Bush's victory, liberals shouted "Voter fraud!" Why have they changed their tune?
WSJ
Monday, July 30, 2007 12:01 a.m. EDT
When Republicans win elections, liberals are quick to cry fraud. But when actual fraud is found, they are just as quick to deny it, if Democrats are the ones who benefit.
Just before the 2004 election, the influential blog DailyKos.com warned of a "nationwide" wave of voter fraud against John Kerry. After the election, liberal blogger Josh Marshall urged Mr. Kerry not to concede because the election had been "too marred with voter suppression, dirty tricks and other unspeakable antics not to press every last possibility" of changing the outcome. When Congress met in January 2005 to certify the election results, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D., Calif.) and Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones (D., Ohio) challenged Mr. Bush's victory and forced Congress to debate the issue. Months later, Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean maintained that blacks had been the victims of "massive voter suppression" in Ohio.
But now liberals are accusing the Bush Justice Department of cooking up spurious claims of voter fraud in the 2006 elections and creating what the New York Times calls a "fantasy" that voter fraud is a problem. Last week Sen. Patrick Leahy, the Judiciary Committee chairman, claimed that the administration fired eight U.S. attorneys last year in order to pressure prosecutors "to bring cases of voter fraud to try to influence elections." He said one replacement U.S. attorney in Kansas City, Mo., was a "partisan operative" sent "to file charges on the eve of an election in violation of Justice Department guidelines." But the Kansas City prosecution was approved by career Justice lawyers, and the guidelines in question have since been rewritten by career lawyers in the Public Integrity section of Justice.
But last week also brought fresh evidence that voter fraud is a real problem and could even branch out into cyberspace:
• California's Secretary of State Debra Bowen, a Democrat, reported that state-approved hackers had been "able to bypass physical and software security in every [voting] machine they tested," although she admitted that the hackers had access to internal security information and source codes that vote thieves wouldn't normally have.
• The Florida secretary of state's office reported it had found "legally sufficient" evidence that some 60 people in Palm Beach County had committed voter fraud by voting both there and in New York state. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement has launched a formal probe. In 2004, New York's Daily News found that 46,000 people were illegally registered to vote in both New York and Florida.
• Prosecutors in Hoboken, N.J., last week announced they are investigating a vagrant who was part of a group of voters observed to be acting suspiciously outside a polling place in an election last month. After he signed a voting register in the name of another man, he was confronted by a campaign worker and fled the scene. He later admitted to cops that he had been paid $10 to vote.
• Last week the U.S. Department of Justice recommended that an outside party be appointed to oversee Democratic primary elections in Noxubee County, Miss. In June, federal district judge Tom Lee found that Ike Brown, the Democratic political boss of Noxubee, had paid notaries public to visit voters and illegally mark their absentee ballots, imported illegal candidates to run for county office and manipulated the registration rolls.
But the most interesting news came out of Seattle, where on Thursday local prosecutors indicted seven workers for Acorn, a union-backed activist group that last year registered more than 540,000 low-income and minority voters nationwide and deployed more than 4,000 get-out-the-vote workers. The Acorn defendants stand accused of submitting phony forms in what Secretary of State Sam Reed says is the "worst case of voter-registration fraud in the history" of the state.
The list of "voters" registered in Washington state included former House Speaker Dennis Hastert, New York Times columnists Frank Rich and Tom Friedman, actress Katie Holmes and nonexistent people with nonsensical names such as Stormi Bays and Fruto Boy. The addresses used for the fake names were local homeless shelters. Given that the state doesn't require the showing of any identification before voting, it is entirely possible people could have illegally voted using those names.
Local officials refused to accept the registrations because they had been delivered after last year's Oct. 7 registration deadline. Initially, Acorn officials demanded the registrations be accepted and threatened to sue King County (Seattle) officials if they were tossed out. But just after four Acorn registration workers were indicted in Kansas City, Mo., on similar charges of fraud, the group reversed its position and said the registrations should be rejected. But by then, local election workers had had a reason to carefully scrutinize the forms and uncovered the fraud. Of the 1,805 names submitted by Acorn, only nine have been confirmed as valid, and another 34 are still being investigated. The rest--over 97%--were fake.
In Kansas City, where two Acorn workers have pleaded guilty to committing registration fraud last year while two others await trial, only 40% of the 35,000 registrations submitted by the group turned out to be bogus. But Melody Powell, chairman of the Kansas City Board of Elections, says Acorn's claim that it brought the fraud in her city to light is "seriously misleading." She says her staff first took the evidence to the FBI, and only then Acorn helped identify the perpetrators. "It's a potential recipe for fraud," she says, noting that "anyone can find a voter card mailed to a false apartment building address lying around a lobby and use it to vote." Ms. Powell also worries that legitimate voters who were registered a second time by someone else under a false address might find it difficult to vote.
In Washington state, King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg said that in lieu of charging Acorn itself as part of the registration fraud case, he had worked out an agreement by which the group will pay $25,000 to reimburse the costs of the investigation and formally agree to tighten supervision of its activities, which Mr. Satterberg said were rife with "lax oversight."
Last year several Acorn employees told me that the Acorn scandals that have cropped up around the country are no accident. "There's no quality control on purpose, no checks and balances," says Nate Toler, who was head of an Acorn campaign against Wal-Mart in California until late last year, when Acorn fired him for speaking to me.
Loretta Barton, another former community organizer for Acorn, told me that "all Acorn wanted from registration drives was results." Ironically, given Acorn's strong backing from unions, Ms. Barton alleges that when she and her co-workers asked about forming a union, they were slapped down: "We were told if you get a union, you won't have a job." There is some history here: In 2003, the National Labor Relations Board ordered Acorn to rehire and pay restitution to three employees it had illegally fired for trying to organize a union.
Acorn president John James told reporters last week that his group will cooperate with election officials to make sure "no one is trying to pull a fast one on us." "We are looking to the future," he said in a statement. "Voter participation is a vital part of our work to increase civic participation."
But the Acorn case points up just how difficult it is to convince prosecutors to bring voter fraud cases. Donald Washington, a former U.S. attorney for northern Louisiana, admits that "most of the time, we can't do much of anything [about fraud] until the election is over. And the closer we get to the election, the less willing we are to get involved because of just the appearance of impropriety, just the appearance of the federal government somehow shading how this election ought to occur." Several prosecutors told me they feared charges of racism or of a return to Jim Crow voter suppression tactics if they pursued touchy voter fraud cases--as indeed is now happening as part of the reaction to the U.S. attorney firings.
Take Washington state, where former U.S. attorney John McKay declined to pursue allegations of voter fraud after that state's hotly contested 2004 governor's race was decided in favor of Democrat Christine Gregoire by 133 votes on a third recount. As the Seattle media widely reported, some "voters" were deceased, others were registered in storage lockers, and still others were ineligible felons. Extra ballots were "found" and declared valid 10 times during the vote count and recount. In some precincts, more votes were cast than voters showed up at the polls.
Mr. McKay insists he left "no stone unturned" in investigating allegations of fraud in the governor's race but found no evidence of a crime. But in an interview with Stefan Sharkansky of SoundPolitics.com in May, Mr. McKay admitted that he "didn't like the way the election was handled" and that it had "smelled really, really bad." His decision not to prosecute was apparently based on the threshold of evidence he insisted be met before he would even deploy FBI agents to investigate: a firsthand account of a conspiracy to alter the outcome of the election.
But Mr. McKay is incorrect in saying that he had to find a conspiracy in order to reach the federal threshold for election crimes. In Milwaukee, after the 2004 election U.S. Attorney Steve Biskupic investigated many of the same problems that were found in Seattle: felons voting, double-voting and more votes cast than voters who signed poll books. In 2005 Mr. Biskupic concluded that he had found nothing that "has shown a plot to try to tip an election," but he nonetheless prosecuted and won six convictions for felon voting and double-voting.
Tom McCabe, executive vice president of the Building Industry Association in Washington state, says he is pleased that the evidence his group compiled was helpful in securing the indictments of the seven Acorn workers last week. But he can't help but wonder if the Acorn workers who forged registrations last year were part of the cadre of election workers who were allowed by a local judge after the 2004 governor's election to seek out voters who had given problematic signatures on their voter-registration cards and helped them "revise" their registrations in order to make their votes valid. "We may never know whether Acorn workers forged signatures in 2004, but we know they did in 2006," he says. "Those who think voter fraud isn't an ongoing problem should come to Washington state."
Instead, Sen. Leahy and other liberals are busy dismissing concerns about voter fraud, no doubt in an effort to make certain the Justice Department drops the issue as a priority before the 2008 election. But the blunders and politicization of parts of the Bush Justice Department notwithstanding, voter fraud deserves to be investigated and prosecuted. The Justice Department may be dysfunctional and poorly led, but the Democratic Congress seems more interested in paralyzing its activities than helping to fix the problem.
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Mad House
Congress needs an intervention.
Monday, August 6, 2007 12:01 a.m. EDT
The House of Representatives almost turned into the Fight Club Thursday night, when Democrats ruled that a GOP motion had failed even though, when the gavel fell, the electronic score board showed it winning 215-213 along with the word FINAL. The presiding officer, Rep. Mike McNulty (D., N.Y.), actually spoke over the clerk who was trying to announce the result.
In the ensuing confusion several members changed their votes and the GOP measure to deny illegal aliens benefits such as food stamps then trailed 212-216. Boiling-mad Republicans stormed off the floor. The next day, their fury increased when they learned electronic records of the vote had disappeared from the House's voting system.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi made matters worse when she told reporters, "There was no mistake made last night." Majority Leader Steny Hoyer had to rescue her by acknowledging that, while he thought no wrongdoing had occurred, the minority party was "understandably angry." Under pressure, the House unanimously agreed to create a select committee, with subpoena powers, to investigate Republican charges the vote had been "stolen."
Congress appears to be gripped by a partisanship that borders on tribal warfare. In a forthcoming book, Los Angeles Times columnist Ron Brownstein compares it to a "second Civil War" that has led to "the virtual collapse of meaningful collaboration" between the two parties. Public disenchantment with Washington is such that now both New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Democratic former senator Sam Nunn of Georgia are musing openly about an independent run for president. But Congress itself has to act if it doesn't want to degenerate into one of those fist-wielding European or Asian parliaments we occasionally see on TV.
The breakdown has been a long time coming. In the 1980s, after almost 40 years of control, House Democrats had become arrogant and casually exercised the near-absolute power that body gives the majority. In 1985, Democrats insisted on handing a disputed Indiana House seat to the Democratic incumbent by a four-vote margin despite clear evidence that ballots had been handled in a completely arbitrary way during a special recount by a House task force. In 1987, Speaker Jim Wright held open a budget vote for an extra 10 minutes in a frantic effort to convince someone to change his vote. The maneuver prompted then-Rep. Dick Cheney to call Mr. Wright "a heavy-handed son of a bitch."
Republicans didn't act any better during the reign of Majority Leader Tom DeLay. In 2003, a massive Medicare prescription drug entitlement was passed only after a vote was held open for three hours at 3 a.m. as Mr. DeLay strong-armed reluctant GOP members into voting for it. Votes were held open at least a dozen times during the last years of the Republicans' troubled control of the House.
Democrats issued a report in early 2006 pointing out the abuses of GOP rule. None other than Newt Gingrich admitted that he thought his party was too dismissive of the rights of the minority and risked a backlash if Democrats regained control.
Indeed, that happened with stunning speed after the GOP's fall from power last November. Despite Ms. Pelosi's pledge that "we would have the most honest and open government," the new majority quickly adopted a whatever-it-takes approach to passing legislation. Last week alone, a dubious ethics bill was passed less than 24 hours after being introduced. The bill expanding health-care coverage to children was rewritten at 1 a.m., a rule harshly limiting debate was passed at 3 a.m., and the bill was sent to the floor for a final vote the same day.
The Senate operates under a different rule book that is more open to debate. But it has its own problems, such as allowing individual senators to put holds on legislation and presidential nominees without revealing that they're behind the delaying tactic. It's become a cliché that nothing passes the Senate without 60 votes. But that wasn't the case in the past. Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson dominated the Senate in the 1950s with just a one- or two-vote advantage over Republicans and routinely passed legislation by margins that close. When filibusters were real and actually required senators to stay on the floor, they were threatened--and employed--less frequently.
But it's the House where the elbows have become sharp as razor blades. Despite efforts by members to form a "civility caucus" to find ways to cooperate across party lines, it is increasingly apparent that the inmates of the House asylum aren't the best judges of how to better working conditions there.
Almost exactly a year ago, former speakers Thomas Foley and Newt Gingrich, a Democrat and his Republican successor, appeared at the American Enterprise Institute to discuss "How Congress Is Failing America." The two old warhorses conducted a remarkably civilized exchange and proved that with the passage of time they had clearly put aside old animosities. Mr. Foley joked that if he heard today's Newt Gingrich on the campaign stump, his reaction would be "I think I'll vote for this guy." He added in a more serious vein, "I think he's absolutely dead right in his diagnosis of what's happening to this country and to the Congress."
Both men decried a runaway spending process, the demise of bipartisan committee deliberations, and the gerrymandered districts that have led to the election of more fierce partisans and fewer centrists. Both called for an end to the earmark culture that distorts budget deliberations. The two agreed that for real change to occur, Congress needs fresh blood. However, they disagreed on the desirability of term limits, with Mr. Gingrich favoring them and Mr. Foley demurring.
Mr. Foley also made a very prescient warning. He urged his fellow Democrats not to exact retribution or respond in kind to heavy-handed GOP tactics should they win back control that November, as they ended up doing: "Democrats [should] clearly and intensely [promise] that if they take the majority back again, they will not go back and try to pay back, so to speak, what they felt were the excesses and even the outrages of this period, but will promise minority rights in reaching those majority decisions."
Clearly, his fellow Democrats in the House haven't been following his advice. Maybe they ought to appoint Messrs. Foley and Gingrich to head an outside task force to recommend ways to make the House work again. If the House had the sense to recognize it had to appoint a select committee to investigate last Friday's vote fiasco, it should see the possible benefits of having an outside group weigh in on its dysfunctional ways.
Democrats and Republicans alike have an interest in reform. Scenes like last Friday's meltdown on the House floor can only lower Congress's dismal approval ratings. With both parties held in low regard, we could be heading for a repeat of the 1990 and 1992 elections, which took place at a time of economic uncertainty and bipartisan congressional scandals involving the House bank and post office. In those years, House incumbents in both parties went down to defeat--14 in 1990 and 24 in 1992.
Incumbents loathe political uncertainty. If Democrats and Republicans don't find a way to stop the erosion of pubic confidence in their work, they could be heading into a 2008 election in which neither party has a clear advantage and voters are looking to take scalps in both their camps. This just might be one of those rare times where House members should resort to outside intervention.
WSJ
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The Mukasey Nomination
Earth to Washington: Mukasey fits the job. Don't screw up this one.
Tuesday, September 18, 2007 12:01 a.m. EDT
WSJ
If the legal issues that have most preoccupied Washington the past six years are suggestive, then President Bush has found the right man to be Attorney General in Michael Mukasey.
From the moment the White House proposed and Congress passed the Patriot Act after September 11, Washington has struggled to create a set of policies for the war on terror that weighs the role of civil liberties with the need to fight a determined and mortal enemy. Mr. Mukasey's professional life stood at the center of these tough legal issues six years before September 11.
As a federal judge in the southern district of New York, Judge Mukasey presided over the 1995 trial of Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, the "blind sheikh," whom the government charged with a plot to blow up the United Nations building, the George Washington Bridge and the Lincoln and Holland tunnels. After a nine-month trial and conviction, Judge Mukasey sentenced Abdel Rahman to life in prison.
In rejecting an appeal of that conviction, the Circuit Court said of Judge Mukasey's handling of the blind-sheikh case that he "presided with extraordinary skill and patience, assuring fairness to the prosecution and to each defendant and helpfulness to the jury. His was an outstanding achievement in the face of challenges far beyond those normally endured by a trial judge." Afterward, along with Judge Kevin Duffy who handled a related case, Judge Mukasey for years received protection from the U.S. Marshals Service, in response to credible threats against him.
That is to say, Judge Mukasey as well as any lawyer in the U.S., understands what is normal and what is not normal about the war on terror. As such he has more than adequate standing to discuss these matters with Congress, in good faith, and then preside over the Justice Department's administration of them.
It remains to discover whether Senate Democrats will be willing to engage Judge Mukasey at this level of seriousness, or whether their primary target remains the Bush Presidency itself. After Ted Olson's name was floated for the job last week, Judiciary Committee Chairman Pat Leahy put out a statement that the AG nominee must be willing to "act as an independent check on this administration's expansive claims of virtually unlimited executive power." We thought Senator Leahy's party had to win the Presidency before writing Justice Department policy.
In the past Judge Mukasey has shown he can push back hard against arid accusations. In 1994, William Kunstler argued that Mr. Mukasey's Judaism demanded recusal in the trial of an accused Muslim terrorist. Citing similar attempts against black judges and even Mormons, Judge Mukasey wrote: "The objection here is not based on race or sex or the Mormon religion, but the motion in this case is in all relevant ways the same as the motions in those cases. It is the same rancid wine in a different bottle."
Judge Mukasey has written op-ed articles for The Wall Street Journal defending the Patriot Act and describing the limitations of existing legal institutions and statutes to handle terrorist cases. On the latter, Judge Mukasey wrote that shaping an adjudicatory framework suitable for handling this special class of terror defendants is Congress's job. Congress, he said, needs to "fix a strained and mismatched legal system before another cataclysm calls forth from the people demands for hastier and harsher results."
If there is reason at all for concern in the Mukasey nomination, it would be that the level of seriousness he has brought to bear on these problems, from the bench and in his writings, has become largely alien to life in official Washington. Thus we wonder whether Judge Mukasey realizes how poisonous Washington has become and whether he has the hide to survive it.
Inside the Administration, he can probably resist those at the State Department who want to close Guantanamo, largely because they haven't offered a credible alternative. The bigger test will be the Democratic demand for a special counsel to investigate the U.S. attorney firings. He'll have to resist this assault on executive authority, even at the risk of not being confirmed.
Notwithstanding Judge Mukasey's past support from Senator Chuck Schumer (with the President's announcement, the Senator's inevitable caveats are already landing), the nomination is going to need active political cover from the White House. Its behavior the past several days makes that an open question.
After Ted Olson's name floated out of the Washington vapors last week, he was subjected to an absurd attack on his "partisanship" from Harry Reid and Mr. Leahy. Set aside that Mr. Olson is widely regarded as one of the nation's top Constitutional lawyers arguing cases before the Supreme Court or that he served as Solicitor General without a peep of partisan accusation.
Shorn of the rhetoric, Mr. Olson's offense was providing legal services to one party's political opponents, a standard that would disqualify half the D.C. bar from serving in a Clinton Administration. The upshot was that Mr. Bush angered natural allies by letting a loyal conservative take it in the neck for days, and he opened himself to the appearance of backing down against Mr. Reid's threat to block an Olson nomination.
Against all this, Michael Mukasey's nomination to be Attorney General is salutary. For the Democrats, it offers an opportunity to set aside wheel-spinning obsessions like the U.S. attorney firings and focus on the manifestly more serious issue of thwarting terror plots. As for the Bush Presidency, it at last may have an Attorney General who has the heft to make the legal case for the tools needed in this war.
Earth to Washington: You finally have the right man for the right job at the right time. Try not to screw this one up.
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WSJ
Schip of State
Can President Bush hold the line on spending?
BY KIMBERLEY A. STRASSEL
Friday, September 21, 2007 12:01 a.m. EDT
Congress will soon ship the White House a bill that throws huge amounts of new dollars at the government's health-insurance program for children. President Bush will veto it. What happens next will demonstrate whether the beleaguered Mr. Bush has any hope of getting his party to toe the fiscal line in upcoming spending battles, and by consequence whether Republicans have any hope of restoring their fiscal credibility with voters.
It's a big moment, all the more so because the battle over the State Children's Health Insurance Program, or Schip, is a perfect first example of how Democrats intend to play their spending fights this fall. They're demanding at least $30 billion more than Mr. Bush's own generous $5 billion Schip increase. Any congressional Republican who votes against this hike will be accused of leaving "poor kids" to suffer without health care. The goal here, as it will be in all the big money fights to come--appropriations bills, a farm bill--will be to make it too politically hot for Republicans to stand by their spending principle.
So far, that strategy is working a treat. Sen. Mitch McConnell and Rep. John Boehner both understand that this fall is their big opportunity to make things right with the base, at least on spending, prior to next year's election. They've been exhorting--or perhaps better to say begging, pleading, beseeching--their members to think about the lost GOP brand, and to help President Bush snap shut the government wallet. At least in private, the members keep assuring their leaders that, yes, yes, they get it.
But as Schip shows, this resolve wafts away in the face of any Democratic press conference accusing Republicans of meanness toward children. It was none other than ranking Finance Committee Sen. Chuck Grassley who helped craft the $35 billion Senate Schip increase; the Iowan went so far as to suggest he was being a fiscal prude because his bill was cheaper than the blowout $50 billion expansion from House Democrats. That proved a good-enough excuse for more than a dozen other spend-happy Republicans to help give Democrats 68 votes for the bill in early August. For the record, that's one more vote than Sen. Harry Reid needs to override a presidential veto.
This bodes ill for big spending battles to come. Despite last year's pledges to restore budget discipline, Democrats have been so busy chasing phantom Justice Department corruption and paying back campaign contributors with symbolic votes that they've yet to finish a single spending bill. With just nine days left in the fiscal year, they'll have to pass a continuing resolution next week to allow the government to keep running.
It also means Democrats are all but assured to try to finish the budget by wrapping most or all of the spending bills into one giant omnibus provision. You can bet that jalopy will screech in at many billions of dollars higher than Mr. Bush's top line number. You can also bet that hanging from its sides will be special-interest booty galore--money for roads, bridges, Katrina victims, low-income seniors, homeless veterans and border security. All this will be designed to make it difficult for Republicans to vote it down. And if temptation isn't enough, Democrats will also claim that GOP members who sustain a presidential veto will be responsible for shutting down government.
Or take the farm bill, the House version of which has earned a veto threat because of its lack of reform, and because it is the first in decades to include a hefty tax increase to pay for all its handouts. Democrats will allege that farm-state Republicans who vote against it are traitors to their ag constituents, who stand to continue getting big subsidies.
Sitting between his party and a potential spending binge is, therefore, the president's veto pen. The fight over Schip has moved to the House, where most Republicans, to their credit, voted against the initial bill. But with House Democrats now promising to pare back the legislation to Senate size, and to remove its more offensive provisions, GOP opposition is crumbling. More than a few are thinking about next year's elections, and how nice it would be to avoid claims that they helped throw impoverished kiddies to the health-care wolves.
Many House Republicans in fact are working under the assumption that Mr. Bush will compromise, and give them cover for blowing through his initial Schip limit. They can't quite bring themselves to believe that the White House would put them in the very public and embarrassing position of having to override their own president on a question of fiscal responsibility.
And, to be fair, why should they? For six years the administration failed to pick a fight on spending when Republicans controlled Congress, instead letting every highway bill, farm giveaway and pork project rush through. The White House's newfound spending religion has unfortunately come at about the same time the president's poll numbers have gone in the tank. Don't think at least a few Republicans won't use that as an excuse to buck him now.
Yet it's precisely the position Mr. Bush is going to have to put his own Republicans in if he hopes to remain relevant in the ensuing spending fights. The big spenders on both sides of the aisle are sniffing for any sign of White House weakness, and will rightly view any slipping or sliding as license to break the piggy bank. If the president rolls on Schip, he'll be rolled on every spending question from now until he packs the china. Mr. Bush seems to understand the bigger stakes, and only yesterday gave a feisty speech outlining yet again why he intends to veto the current Schip legislation, and warning yet again that he won't back down.
Congressional Republicans would be wise to take him at his latest word, for their own sake. The recent GOP campaign over earmark disclosure is good politics and a start to recognizing voter anger over Washington's spending ways. But it's also a one-trick pony. Conservatives voters will see the bigger test of re-found fiscal responsibility in whether its Washington representatives are willing to say no to big new government spending. That begins with Schip.
Ms. Strassel is a member of The Wall Street Journal's editorial board, based in Washington. Her column appears Fridays.
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WSJ
Hillary Talks About 'It'
October 11, 2007; Page A20
In an interview in yesterday's Washington Post, Hillary Clinton said she had contributed to the country's mood of bitter partisanship and wants to "put an end to it." The senator hedged her words for future revision by referring to the problem throughout the interview only as "it."
Thus, she spoke of "having gone through it, having been on the receiving end of it and in campaigns that were hard fought maybe on the giving end of it . . ." When the reporters pressed her to explain her views on polarization, she said: "I've talked about it a lot, and I think I will continue to talk about it in a lot of different ways."
It's a start. I would like to put a question to the senator: Would you defend Rush Limbaugh's speech rights against the pressure that was brought upon him on the floor of the Senate by your colleagues Harry Reid and Ken Salazar? Colorado's Sen. Salazar went so far last week as to say he'd support a Senate vote to "censure" Mr. Limbaugh. Rhymes with censor.
When Sen. Reid attacked Mr. Limbaugh on the floor of the Senate, some felt that Mr. Limbaugh was a big boy and perfectly capable of defending himself. I'm not so sure. If Mr. Limbaugh and his critics at Media Matters want to have a street fight, that's their business. But Sens. Reid and Salazar aren't just a couple of opinionated guys; they are agents of state authority, and they were leaning hard on Mr. Limbaugh. If you are Media Matters, if you are a man or woman of the Left, does state pressure on someone's political speech discomfort you? Or is it a welcome, even defensible, repression of harmful right-wing speech?
This controversy over talk-show hosts is usually fought around Democratic efforts of late to resurrect the Fairness Doctrine. The purpose of this effort -- the reason Sen. Reid has attached himself to it -- is to suppress voter turnout on the right and lift it on the left.
Political talk-radio since its inception has energized voters on the right. In the 2000 presidential election, the left found its own voter-turnout instrument in Howard Dean's Web-based "netroots," now led by MoveOn.org and other leftwing or "progressive" sites such as Daily Kos and Media Matters.
Some of the left-wing sites, however, also do fund raising and political organizing, as in the netroots campaigns against Democratic politicians who didn't hear that dissent is dead. Talk radio does neither. Its hosts mainly excite people. Reimposing the Fairness Doctrine, essentially a toxic cocktail of boredom, would cause a narcotized right-wing base to sit on its hands, handing an advantage in the turnout wars to the (properly) unregulated political organizers of the left-wing Web.
While Mr. Limbaugh fought off the Democratic Senate in one corner, the commentator Juan Williams also found his speech and job status under pressure from Media Matters. In the same week that Mr. Williams, a Fox commentator, appeared on Bill O'Reilly's show to speak critically of black culture, his bosses at NPR rejected a White House request to have Mr. Williams interview President Bush on race.
In a Media Matters posting on all this, Eric Boehlert wrote that "real damage is being done to NPR by having its name, via Williams, associated with Fox News' most opinionated talker." Noting that Mr. Williams supported Clarence Thomas's nomination, Mr. Boehlert said there are "better advocates for genuinely liberal positions," and suggested "now is the time for [NPR] to address the growing problem."
In a now-famous remark this summer at the Kos convention of progressive bloggers, Sen. Clinton described "a real imbalance in the political world" and praised the growth of "progressive infrastructure -- institutions that I helped to start and support like Media Matters."
Who threw the first stone in these media-driven bloodlettings? Good question. But to my knowledge the right has no equivalent to "repressive tolerance," the aggressive theory of scorched-earth political argument laid out in the hothouse years of the 1960s by the late left-wing political philosopher Herbert Marcuse. Just last November, in an admiring essay for the Chronicle of Higher Education, the left polemicist Stanley Fish aptly summed up Marcuse's assertion that "liberal" notions of tolerance for political speech should be overturned.
The rationale for this notion is that standard tolerance is rigged against the left. In practice, tolerance extends only to the ideas and beliefs of the powerful, while it shuts out ideas on behalf of the weak or "marginalized" -- the poor, minorities, women and the rest. Mr. Fish says liberals fail to see "the dark side of their favorite virtue."
Prof. Fish has an alternative to traditions of tolerance, and to anyone awash in American politics today it will sound familiar: "That is to say, and Marcuse says it, anything the right does is bad and should not be tolerated; anything the left does is good and should be welcomed." This would explain the emotional intensity and animosity in politics now: The other side no longer deserves minimal respect.
It's not enough to disagree with conservative viewpoints; one has to undermine and delegitimize them. Mock them. Put them beyond the pale. Incidentally, Marcuse, Fish and others on the left who want to "withdraw" tolerance from the speech and ideas of their opponents count centrist Democrats among them. That is what happened to Joe Lieberman.
Digital technology now fixes someone's random remark forever in the ozone amber of the Web or YouTube. It's easy to make anything anyone may say, such as "macaca," a weeks-long campaign to diminish or even destroy the sayer. Wherever the nonbeliever Marcuse is now, this tool would have put him in heaven. I find it putting us closer than I'd like to be to an American "Lives of Others," media monitors always listening for the vulnerable spoken word.
Sen. Clinton this week told the Post, "I intend to build a centrist coalition." That may depend on how one defines centrist. For her progressive bloggers at Media Matters the center on tolerating speech likely falls closer to Prof. Marcuse than John Locke. So which is it? This summer Sen. Clinton said she was a founder of Media Matters, and this week she said she was a centrist. That doesn't compute. Perhaps in a year we'll know which side she's on.
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Almost a Massachusetts Miracle
It was a special House election in a state that hasn't sent a single Republican to Congress in a decade, held at a time when support for Republicans from President Bush on down is sagging badly. Yet Republican Jim Ogonowski almost pulled off an upset in the Lowell-based 5th District of Massachusetts last night. Democrat Niki Tsongas, widow of the late U.S. Senator, won only 51% of the vote despite outspending Mr. Ogonowski by five-to-one. How could this happen?
For one thing, turnout in the special election was spotty. Though Ms. Tsongas pledged to work to remove all U.S. troops from Iraq by March 2008, Democratic pollster Brad Bannon predicted that the district's liberals were "in a surly mood because of their party's inability to bring a conclusion to the war." It appeared that many of these voters stayed home.
In addition, Mr. Ogonowski, who retired from the Air Force in June after a 28-year career, was also able to effectively make the case that U.S. troops must stay in Iraq. He reminded voters that his own brother had been a pilot on the American Airlines plane flown into the World Trade Center on 9/11. Mr. Ogonowski initially had qualms about the Iraq war but now says the U.S. intervention should continue until stability is achieved there.
The GOP underdog wound up winning 45% of the vote, polling significantly better than President Bush's 41% showing in the district in 2004. While not a winner, Mr. Ogonowski says his populist approach could point the way to recovery for the GOP in the 2008 elections. He told me during a New York fundraising swing last month that he campaigned vigorously against his own party's failings by advocating limits on pork-barrel spending and calling for greater transparency in government. His approach provides lessons for other scrappy Republican challengers next year.
Democrats can be pleased they dodged a bullet with Ms Tsongas' narrow victory, but it could prove a warning that voters are in such a sour mood that they are willing to punish both parties -- a possible portent of what the 2008 election may bring.
-- John Fund
Political Journal WSJ
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“For today’s Democrats, resistance to unilateral presidential war-making reflects not principled constitutionalism but petulance about the current president. Democrats were supine when President Bill Clinton launched a sustained air war against Serbia without congressional authorization. Instead, he cited NATO’s authorization as though that were an adequate substitute for the collective judgment that the Constitution mandates.” —George Will
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Success Is Not an Option--I
Whoops! "As violence declines in Baghdad, the leading Democratic presidential candidates are undertaking a new and challenging balancing act on Iraq," the New York Times reports. Having bet against American success in the hope of benefiting from failure, they are now hedging, "acknowledging that success, trying to shift the focus to the lack of political progress there, and highlighting more domestic concerns like health care and the economy."
The trouble is, many Democratic voters still want America to lose in Iraq. As the Times notes:
This is a delicate matter. By saying the effects of the troop escalation have not led to a healthier political environment, the candidates are tacitly acknowledging that the additional troops have, in fact, made a difference on the ground--a viewpoint many Democratic voters might not embrace.
"Our troops are the best in the world; if you increase their numbers they are going to make a difference," Mrs. Clinton said in a statement after her aides were asked about her views on the ebbing violence in Baghdad.
"The fundamental point here is that the purpose of the surge was to create space for political reconciliation and that has not happened, and there is no indication that it is going to happen, or that the Iraqis will meet the political benchmarks," she said. "We need to stop refereeing their civil war and start getting out of it."
Mrs. Clinton has never had any objection in principle to the Iraq war, which she voted to authorize five years ago. Yet for reasons of rank political opportunism, she now stands for the proposition that America must not win. Is this the kind of leadership America needs in a commander in chief?
Meanwhile, Reuters reports the Dems have found a military spokesman for their Iraq policy, such as it is:
The general who led U.S. forces in Iraq after the invasion . . . spoke out for Democrats on Saturday, backing legislation aimed at withdrawing American troops.
Retired Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, in the Democratic weekly radio address, acknowledged that Bush's escalation strategy this year had improved security in Iraq. But he said Iraqi political leaders had failed to make "hard choices necessary to bring peace to their country." . . .
"It is well past time to adopt a new approach in Iraq that will improve chances to produce stability in the Middle East," he said. "I urge our political leaders to put aside partisan considerations and unite to lessen the burden our troops and their families have been under for nearly five years."
Apparently it didn't occur to Sanchez that the Democratic weekly radio address isn't the best venue to urge people to "put aside partisan considerations."
Reuters notes that Sanchez "commanded the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq from June 2003 until July 2004 as the anti-U.S. insurgency took hold," that he "blamed the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal for wrecking his career," and that last month (as we also noted) he "blamed the Bush administration for a 'catastrophic failure' in leadership of the war."
Whatever the merits of his arguments, Sanchez is far from a disinterested party. He is seeking to avoid blame for the failures in Iraq under his command. Which, come to think of it, makes him quite the fitting spokesman for the Democrats.
Political Journal/WSJ
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The Gospel of Paul
He has some kooky ideas, but he also has lessons for the GOP contenders.
BY KIMBERLEY A. STRASSEL
Friday, December 14, 2007 12:01 a.m. EST
Ron Paul is no compassionate conservative. His supporters love him for it.
If there's been a phenomenon in this Republican presidential race, it's been the strength of a fiery doctor from Texas and his message of limited government. As the GOP front-runners address crowds of dispirited primary voters, Mr. Paul has been tearing across the country, leaving a trail of passionate devotees in his wake.
Paul rallies heave with voters waving placards and shouting "Liberty! Liberty!" Money is pouring in from tens of thousands of individual donors--so much cash that the 10-term congressman recently admitted he wasn't sure he could spend it all. A fund-raising event on Guy Fawkes Day (in tribute to Mr. Paul's rebel persona) netted his campaign $4 million, the biggest one-day haul of any GOP candidate, ever. He continues to inch up in the early primary polls, and even bests Fred Thompson in New Hampshire.
Mr. Paul isn't going to be president. He trails in national polls, in no small part because his lack of a proactive foreign policy makes him an unserious candidate in today's terror world. But his success still holds lessons for the leading Republican candidates, as well as those pundits falling for the argument that the future of the GOP rests in a "heroic conservatism" that embraces big government. Mr. Paul shows that the way to many Republican voters' hearts is still through a spirited belief in lower taxes and smaller government, with more state and individual rights.
It helps, too, if voters know you mean it. In nearly 20 years in the House, Mr. Paul can boast he never voted for a tax hike. Nicknamed "Dr. No," he spent much of the time Republicans held a majority voting against his own party, on the grounds that the legislation his colleagues were trying to pass--Sarbanes-Oxley, new auto mileage standards, a ban on Internet gambling--wasn't expressly authorized by the Constitution. He returns a portion of his annual congressional budget to the U.S. Treasury--on principle.
On the stump, Mr. Paul whips up crowds with his libertarian talk of "less taxation, less regulation, a better economic system." While Mitt Romney explains his support of No Child Left Behind, Mr. Paul gets standing ovations by promising to eliminate the Department of Education. Rudy Giuliani toys with reducing marginal rates; Mr. Paul gets whoops with his dream to ax the income tax (and by extension the IRS). Mike Huckabee lectures on the need for more government-subsidized clean energy; Mr. Paul brings cheers with his motto that environmental problems are best solved with stronger property rights. His rhetoric is based on first principles--carefully connecting his policies to the goals of liberty and freedom--and it fires up the base.
Yes, the Paul campaign--with its call to bring the troops home--is also profiting as the one landing pad in the GOP race for those Republicans and independents unhappy with the Iraq war. Mr. Paul's insistence that he isn't an "isolationist" so much as a "non-interventionist" who rejects nation-building has also won him voters who might otherwise have been wary of his passive foreign policy.
Still, it's Mr. Paul's small-government message that has defined him over the years, winning him election after election in Texas--well before Iraq was a question. His appeal has only grown, too, over seven years of a Bush presidency that has moved the party away from its limited-government roots.
"Compassionate conservatism" was a smart move on George W. Bush's part, maybe even necessary to win. The GOP was dogged by a reputation as the heartless party, amplified by the 1995 government shutdown and the clunky Dole campaign. And it had learned from the success of welfare reform that message matters. Many Republican voters believed Mr. Bush's "compassionate conservatism" was just that: a way of selling conservative reforms. Tax cuts would help the working poor. Vouchers would help minority kids. Charities would fare better getting people off drugs than government bureaucrats.
Mr. Bush got his tax cuts, but voters found out too late that he was no small-government believer. School vouchers were traded away for more education dollars. A new Medicare drug entitlement has added trillions to the burden on future taxpayers. Government-directed energy policy is larded with handouts to political patrons in the corn and ethanol lobbies. A lack of budget discipline encouraged a Republican Congress to go spend-crazy, stuffing bills with porky earmarks. Much of this was simply a Republican majority that had lost its way. But at least some of it was promoted by Bush advisers who specifically argued that "compassionate conservatism" was in fact a license to embrace government--so long as government was promoting Republican ideals.
That idea has become even more vogue, with a wing of the party now arguing that the small-government libertarianism that has defined the Republican Party since Goldwater is not only immoral, but an election-loser. Former Bush speechwriter Michael's Gerson's new book, "Heroic Conservatism," calls on Republicans to give in to big government and co-opt the tools of state for their own purposes. "If Republicans run in future elections with a simplistic, anti-government message, ignoring the poor, the addicted, and children at risk, they will lose, and they will deserve to lose," he writes. Then again, Republicans have already been losing, and losing big, in no small part because they've taken Mr. Gerson's advice.
The men vying to lead the Republican Party might instead make a study of Mr. Paul. One shame of this race is that for all the enthusiasm the Texan has generated among voters, he hasn't managed to pressure the front-runners toward his positions. His more kooky views (say, his belief in a conspiracy to create a "North American Union") and his violent antiwar talk have allowed the other aspirants to dismiss him.
They shouldn't dismiss the passion he's tapped. If Mr. Paul has shown anything, it's that many conservative voters continue to doubt there's anything "heroic" or "compassionate" in a ballooning government that sucks up their dollars to aid a dysfunctional state. When Mr. Paul gracefully exits this race, his followers will be looking for an alternative to take up that cause. Any takers?
Ms. Strassel is a member of The Wall Street Journal's editorial board, based in Washington. Her column appears Fridays.
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Bush on the Comeback Trail
Just as Newt Gingrich was the best thing that ever happened to Bill Clinton, so Nancy Pelosi has become a great political asset to George W. Bush. Mr. Bush is on a roll legislatively and even his poll numbers are inching up while Congress's have sunk into the teens. There's nothing like having a foil in Congress to rehabilitate a president. Just ask Harry Truman.
This time last year it would have been inconceivable that Mr. Bush would have a successful 2007, or that Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic Congress would have fewer than one-in-four voters approving their performance. I've made a list of Mr. Bush's policy victories over the Democrats:
1) S-CHIP -- Mr. Bush vetoed the Democrats' bill expanding middle-class health care subsidies and Democrats were unable to override that veto.
2) Alternative Minimum Tax -- Democrats passed AMT reform without the offsetting tax hikes they had threatened.
3) Energy bill -- What was a monster at the beginning of the year is now just a fairly harmless CAFE standards bill. Environmentalists are fuming.
4) Hate Crimes Legislation -- Mr. Bush blocked it. The Congressional Black Caucus is furious.
5) War funding -- Mr. Bush prevailed without any pull-out date. At the start of the year this looked impossible.
6) The Budget -- Mr. Bush mostly prevailed on domestic spending totals.
7) No new taxes -- all of the Democratic tax proposals were killed, including tobacco taxes, hedge fund taxes and energy company taxes.
It pretty much looks like the White House ran the table. Merry Christmas, Madam Speaker.
-- Stephen Moore
POTUS vs. Pork
President Bush signaled during his news conference yesterday that he just might have had it with earmarks, those special-interest pork projects that are often dropped into spending bills without proper hearings or oversight.
After expressing disappointment at the thousands of earmarks stuffed into the foot-tall Omnibus spending bill passed by Congress, Mr. Bush told reporters: "I am instructing the budget director to review options for dealing with the wasteful spending in the omnibus bill."
The president gave no details, but South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint, a vocal critic of earmarks, has an idea what the president may have in mind. He has long cited a Congressional Research Service opinion that 90% of earmarks are suspect because they were slipped into committee reports and not written into law. "These non-legislated earmarks are not legally binding," Mr. DeMint says. "President Bush could ignore them. He doesn't need a line-item veto." The Club for Growth reports that Mr. Bush might be planning an executive order that would tell federal agencies simply to ignore Congress' earmarks if they aren't written into law and spend the money on higher priorities.
Such a bold move would result in a dramatic boost in President Bush's credibility on the budget. The federal government is now an astounding 185 times as big in real terms as it was a century ago. A general sense that Republicans have forgotten why they were sent to Washington is a big reason why the GOP lost control of Congress last year. The road to redemption has to include a crackdown on earmarks, which Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn calls "the gateway drug to higher spending in many other areas."
-- John Fund
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In Today's Political Diary:
Vice President Voinovich?
Virtual Slur
Temper, Temper
Too Courtly for His Own Good (Quote of the Day I)
A Voice from the Big Tent (Quote of the Day II)
Fred Thompson Hit the Ground Sauntering
Dotting the 'i' in Ohio
Ohio figures again to be a pivotal battleground state in the general election and as we reported several weeks ago, Democrats are eyeing popular new Governor Ted Strickland as a potential Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama running mate.
But now Republicans are also coveting an Ohio Veep candidate. Republican National Committee insiders tell me that one name surfacing a lot is George Voinovich, the former Cleveland mayor and liberal Republican Senator. Mr. Voinovich is the only Republican who has been elected state-wide for governor or senator in Ohio for years.
But Mr. Voinovich would almost certainly infuriate grassroots conservatives as the pick -- especially if the GOP nominee were John McCain, who would likely need a staunch conservative on the ticket for ideological balance. Mr. Voinovich has voted consistently against tax cuts, and even was one of the few Republicans in the Senate to oppose death tax repeal, a bread-and-butter GOP issue. In the '80s, when he was Mayor of Cleveland, he opposed many of the Reagan tax cut policies. Mr. Voinovich calls himself a deficit hawk, as is Mr. McCain, but the Ohio Senator has a middle-of-the-road voting record with the National Taxpayers Union.
If an Ohio favorite son is a must-have on the Republican ticket, another choice might be John Kasich, the former congressman and budget committee chairman from Columbus. Mr. Kasich was on Fox News this past Sunday singing the praises of Mr. McCain, vouching that he is "conservative enough for Republican voters." Mr. Kasich is an anti-Big Government crusader who called for the elimination of some 300 federal programs as part of the GOP's Contract with America. He was also one of the first prominent Republicans to take his colleagues in Congress to task for "not being serious about cutting the budget."
Mr. Kasich is also a dangling live-wire of snap, crackle and pop energy. He is a Type A personality, bordering on ADD -- and a nonstop crusader for tax and spending reform in Washington. He recently told me: "I hate that town. I don't miss it a bit." RNC sources say Mr. Kasich would be a Veep candidate who could neutralize the attacks that liberal Democrats are already launching at John McCain for being too old and tired to serve as president and for being a candidate who can't reach the generation X and Y voters. As one GOP source tells me, Mr. Kasich is, in a lot of ways, a "Republican version of Barack Obama."
-- Stephen Moore
The Spam Campaign
Hillary Clinton held a news conference yesterday in which she explained that Barack Obama's aggressive posture in responding to attacks by Team Clinton during Monday's debate was an example of his "frustration."
Well, Mr. Obama is indeed frustrated by the attacks on his character, as he made clear to David Brody of the Christian Broadcasting Network. What peeves him most are mysterious emails circulating among voters that claim he is actually a Muslim and has sympathy with the ideas of the radical Louis Farrakhan, the leader of the Nation of Islam. Mr. Obama says the charges are preposterous.
"We have no way of tracing where these emails come from, but what I know is they come in waves, and they somehow appear magically wherever the next primary or caucus is, although they're also being distributed all across the country," he told Mr. Brody. "But the volume increases as we get closer to particular elections. That indicates to me that this is something that is being used to try to raise doubts or suspicions about my candidacy."
The Internet is a powerful political tool for disseminating information, but also a sinister transmission belt for character assassination. We will probably never know who is behind the shadowy emails attacking Mr. Obama, but it's clear from my "in" box that the slanders are having an effect. Some voters are so suspicious of the mainstream media's generally laudatory coverage of Mr. Obama that they are easy prey for specious reports that purport to tell the "hidden" story behind him.
-- John Fund
Angry White Female
What a treat for viewers who tuned into the South Carolina debate on Monday night and caught a glimpse of the real Hillary Clinton. Whether it was calculated or not, the senator cleared up any doubts that, for her, winning the presidency is about revenge. Forget about veiled threats. She's already taking names.
It's not always clear who Hillary thinks she owes a kick in the pants to. But it's very clear that, should she get into the White House, baby, it's payback time. "They've been after me for 16 years, and much to their dismay, I am still here. And I intend to be still here when that election comes around and we win in November 2008," she declaimed.
Whoever "they" are, you certainly don't want to be one of "them" come January 20, 2009. For instance, apparently men and/or employers can expect the boom to be lowered for numerous injustices they have wrought. "We obviously still have problems of gender equality. You know, equal pay is not yet equal," she warned her audience.
Also in line for punishment are those who humiliated Mrs. Clinton during her first attempt to administer a heavy dose of government-run health care whether Americans wanted it or not. "I think that the whole idea of universal health care is such a core Democratic principle that I am willing to go to the mat for it. I've been there before. I will be there again. I am not giving in; I am not giving up.... I am not running for president to put Band- Aids on our problems. I want to get to universal health care for every single American." Get in her way and you're toast.
At least she made no effort to hide her hostility, which apparently emerges from being a victim for so long. "I'm used to taking the incoming fire. I've taken it for 16 years." And now, she let us know on Monday, the tables are about to turn. Be afraid.
-- Mary Anastasia O'Grady
Quote of the Day I
"I was surprised by the sniping from our side at Fred based on his sincere and gentlemanly Southern manners. Several important conservative bloggers, including some here at Pajamas, made repeated jokes about his language and style as if they are affectations. They are not. The problem, though, is larger and there is a Northern prejudice that interprets the slower, deliberative Southern style as just dim" -- writer Patrick Cox, who was Fred Thompson's first hire during his exploratory presidential effort, commenting at pajamasmedia.com on the failure of the Thompson candidacy.
Quote of the Day II
"There are people out there who want to strap bombs onto babies and blow up as many men and women as they can. For me, given those circumstances, the candidate you have to support is the candidate that is going to do the best job of protecting this country, her interests, and her people. I don't think I have the luxury of being a single-issue voter on the issue of gay rights. I have made very clear publicly my differences of opinion with certain people in the [Bush] administration on the issue of gay rights" -- Mary Cheney, daughter of Vice President Dick Cheney, on being a Republican in a Q&A with the National Journal.
Thompson Bows Out
Fred Thompson spotted an opening in the field of Republicans candidates last spring: a yearning for an uncomplicated Reaganite who would unite all wings of the party and take the fight to the Democrats with brio. Until late September, Mr. Thompson actually led national polls among GOP voters. But the seeds of his downfall had already been planted.
His first mistake was not fully realizing that in entering the race so late, he would have trouble building the infrastructure necessary for a modern campaign. The best talent had already been snapped up by other candidates. Mr. Thompson ended up hiring a corporate manager to run his campaign. While a good organizer, the man had never run a political effort of any size, and the resulting confusion cost the campaign precious momentum and money. New leadership wasn't installed until just before Mr. Thompson formally entered the race after Labor Day.
The former Tennessee Senator's second mistake was making it too easy for reporters to paint him as a lazy, disinterested candidate. His campaign committed enough unnecessary gaffes to feed that story line (such as speaking for only five minutes before an enthusiastic crowd of Florida Republicans last October) and the perception set in among many supporters that they were backing a walking horse, not a warhorse.
Lastly, the candidate's theme that he was the "Consistent Conservative" in the race was developed too late and could not be sufficiently exploited because of a lack of money. When Mr. Thompson finally did hit his stride in December, he became a good candidate who performed memorably in recent debates. But, by then, his potential audience had already drifted away to other candidates who looked like they had a better chance of winning.
Mr. Thompson intends to remain active in politics and public affairs, although he has flatly ruled out any plans to serve in someone else's administration. Don't be surprised to find him returning to the airwaves he left just a few months ago -- but this time with much higher name-recognition as a political figure.
-- John Fund
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Thompson Exit Is Bad News for Giuliani
Fred Thompson is headed back to Tennessee, or Hollywood. The question is: Where will his supporters go?
In the upcoming Florida primary, Mr. Thompson was competing with Ron Paul in the bottom half of the field, at just 7.3% in the most recent RCP Average (Mr. Paul is at 5.4%). Mr. Thompson's backers may have been few in numbers, but a few is all the top contenders need: The RCP Average has John McCain, Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani all within the margin of error.
To best understand where "Fredheads" might turn, look at the exit polls from South Carolina, where Mr. Thompson had his best day of the primary season. He did well among evangelicals, capturing 15% of their vote, third best behind Mr. McCain and Mike Huckabee (at 27% and 43%, respectively). So it's possible Mr. Thompson's departure might bring is a slight boost to Mr. Huckabee.
But it's also possible some of Mr. Thompson's supporters, who've described themselves in exit polls from earlier states as among the most conservative members of the party, may find themselves moving into Mr. Romney's camp as he grooms himself as Reagan's heir. Others, for whom national security is a top issue, may shift toward Mr. McCain -- a shift that could be enhanced if Mr. Thompson decides to endorse Mr. McCain in the next week, as some have speculated.
So while it's unclear who will benefit most from Mr. Thompson's exit, it's abundantly clear who is hurt: Rudy Giuliani. After failing to compete in the early states and watching his poll numbers slide, Mr. Giuliani has staked his entire campaign on a victory in Florida. That task is made all the more difficult with one less candidate in the field to help split the conservative vote.
-- Blake Dvorak, RealClearPolitics
Quote of the Day I
"Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama are moving so far apart that they might have to run together to save their party's chances in November. In an ominous aside on Wednesday, Obama questioned what might happen if he loses the Democratic presidential nomination to the New York senator and former First Lady. 'I have no doubt that once the nomination contest is over, I will get the people who voted for her,' the Illinois senator told the Christian Broadcast Network. 'Now the question is can she get the people who voted for me?' If Obama is even remotely suggesting that he and his supporters will not support a Clinton-led general election bid, then Clinton might be forced to consider choosing him as her running mate.... Earlier in this campaign, observers assumed that a woman and an African-American on the same ticket would be too much ground-breaking diversity for the nation to handle. But that was before things got so heated between the Clinton and Obama camps. If the feuding get much worse, binding them together might be the only way for Democrats to heal the divide" -- Congressional Quarterly's Craig Crawford.
Quote of the Day II
"The Clintons play dirty when they feel threatened. But we knew that, didn't we? The recent roughing-up of Barack Obama was in the trademark style of the Clinton years in the White House. High-minded and self-important on the surface, smarmily duplicitous underneath, meanwhile jabbing hard to the groin area. They are a slippery pair and come as a package.... Evidently, many of the mainstream party faithful want the Clinton team as their presidential nominee. It's their choice, of course. But does the rest of the country really deserve this?" -- columnist William Greider, writing in the left-wing Nation magazine.
South Carolina 'Sleeper'?
With John Edwards trailing in the polls and reeling from losses in Iowa and New Hampshire, we put a call in to one of his staunchest supporters in South Carolina -- Rep. Leon Howard, chairman of the state legislature's Black Caucus. What he had to say was a little surprising and offered a hint as to why Mr. Edwards hopes the Palmetto State can yet revive his flagging campaign.
Mr. Howard was realistic about his assessment, stating matter-of-factly that Barack Obama is a "force to be reckoned with" who will likely drive to the polls "a lot of people who haven't voted before." He also said that the recent flap about Hillary Clinton's comments on Martin Luther King's legacy "didn't resonate much" in the black community and that he doesn't "want to spend a lot of time on that... it was really a slip of the lip." And yet he still believes that Mr. Edwards' focus on poverty could be the wildcard in the race, and end up capturing sizeable support among African-American voters, a bloc that could make up as much as 60% of the electorate in Saturday's primary.
He called Mr. Edwards "the sleeper candidate," adding that he's "the first candidate who started paying attention to rural South Carolina" with a message of "ending poverty." That message has been well-received in counties that lack trauma hospitals, public water systems and other infrastructure basics. Mr. Howard mentioned, in particular, Lee County, where 62% of the population is black and one resident in five lives below the poverty line; and Allendale County, where 71% of the residents are black and 34.5% of the population lives in poverty.
Across South Carolina, the poverty rate among African Americans is nearly 30%, and the 10 counties with the highest rates of poverty are all majority black counties. The latest polls may have Mr. Edwards running nearly 30 points behind Mr. Obama -- he won't be repeating his favorite-son victory of 2004. But if Mr. Howard is right, a strong showing in rural South Carolina might yet endanger Mr. Obama's expectations of carrying the state over Hillary Clinton. On the whole, any outcome that leaves the issue undecided between Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton gives Mr. Edwards an excuse to stay in the game.
-- Brendan Miniter
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Bush's Economic Surrender
January 25, 2008; Page A14
Here's one group that isn't much stimulated by the White House's economic pact: Republican presidential hopefuls. The general sentiment among most of the campaigns? Thanks for nothing.
The Bush administration unveiled its $150 billion feel-good stimulus package yesterday, with President Bush praising the "good will on all sides." The package, with its "middle-class" tax rebates and minor assortment of business benefits, isn't likely to help the economy. But it did allow the political class to provide itself some cover if things continue to go south. After all, Washington "did something."
Left holding the bag have been Republican presidential candidates as they struggle to explain why their party should again be trusted with the Oval Office. The White House provided no real outreach to let the campaigns know what was coming down the stimulus pipe, forcing them to instead cobble together plans they hoped wouldn't conflict with the president's. With the administration jumping on the Keynesian bandwagon, it was left to the candidates to make the case for conservative ideals and supply-side economics. And since nobody wants to pick a fight with Mr. Bush during a primary, the aspirants were also stuck saying nice things about this no-growth plan. Many inside the campaigns are privately miffed, and with good cause.
Talk about the ultimate missed opportunity. One of the few advantages the GOP starts with in this election is a president who can use his perch to frame the national debate. This was Mr. Bush's chance to explain to voters the stark economic choice they will face this November. They can choose another Republican who is committed to preserving the Bush tax cuts that have done so much over the past five years for economic growth -- plus more. Or they can vote for a Democrat who will raise their taxes at a time of economic uncertainty, causing untold harm.
Instead, the administration abandoned the economic high ground before even a popgun was fired. A year into nonstop investigations and confrontation, Democratic leaders decreed "bipartisanship" the order of the day, and Mr. Bush offered up his other cheek. The administration quickly deserted any principled demands for pro-growth policies, say extending the Bush tax cuts or cutting capital gains. The White House and Republican congressional leaders were left yesterday spinning conservative victory out of the fact that "most" of the non-stimulating rebates would go to people who currently pay income taxes (ooh!), and that businesses will get a depreciation break (ahh!). Imagine what we'd have got if they'd been negotiating against a Democratic Congress with something more than an 18% approval rating.
What didn't appear to factor into the administration's approach was any consideration that the GOP is in the middle of a crucial election. This is odd, given the Bush team's own experience and success in running campaigns, and given that Mr. Bush's best shot at cementing his tax legacy is to see another Republican in the White House.
The president instead seemed more anxious to avoid a repeat of accusations hurled against his father -- that he's indifferent to the struggles of working families. The White House political team also seemed to approach all this from a position of fear, with a view that Mr. Bush needed to take quick action to deflect blame for any further economic fallout. As if Democrats won't blame them whatever the outcome.
It's been left to John McCain, Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani to remind voters that Republicans win economic debates when they promote smart policy. And one good piece of news to come out of these economic jitters is that it has spurred the candidates to engage in a more ambitious tax discussion. Mr. McCain rolled out a strong plan that would eliminate the hated Alternative Minimum Tax, cut corporate rates and reform the R&D tax credit. Mr. Romney wants to cut the lowest tax bracket and has offered a proposal to expand tax-free savings accounts. Mr. Giuliani proposes slashing the tax on capital gains and index it for inflation, and is also pushing a flatter tax code. This is all good stuff, and all aimed at long-term economic growth.
Yet the White House's stimulus plan has overshadowed and confused this discussion, in the process giving the candidates headaches they don't need. Case in point: For several weeks, Mr. Romney has been patiently explaining to voters why it's bad policy to provide tax rebates to people who don't currently pay income taxes. Now comes the White House's stimulus plan, which does just that. Mr. Romney will undoubtedly be asked about this discrepancy. He'll have to diss the president, or come up with some way of squaring a circle. Either way, not fun for him -- and not productive for the broader Republican debate.
The candidates have at least been getting some intellectual cover from conservative Republicans in Congress. Missouri Sen. Kit Bond and California Rep. David Dreier, both Giuliani supporters, this week introduced tax legislation that mirrors Hizzoner's economic plan. The Republican Study Group in the House has also been trying to force the debate back toward forward-looking economic policy, introducing legislation that primarily focuses on freeing up capital for businesses.
"I'm not so nervous about the [stimulus package] as I am nervous about the debate," the chairman of the Republican Study Committee, Jeb Hensarling, admits. If Republicans want to reclaim their economic "brand," they have to make the case for supply-side economics. "I'm happy when the president says he is not giving up the quest to make tax relief permanent, but . . . that should be the centerpoint of this debate." He agrees that "at the moment, it is principally being left up to other folks" to make the case.
Meanwhile, this whole unstimulating exercise is still far from a sure thing. Democrats are already eyeing any legislation as a vehicle for other pet projects. If the bill gets larded up with too many offensive goodies or policies, presumably even the White House would balk.
Maybe that wouldn't be so bad. It would at least give the Bush administration time to remember there's an election going on. And that its party is, in fact, trying to win it.
Write to kim@wsj.com
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What Color Is Your Parachute?
Hillary Clinton's firewall last night was her support among Hispanic voters and, in California, support among both Hispanic and Asian voters.
Barack Obama pulled out all the stops to woo Hispanics, including the last-minute endorsement of Senator Ted Kennedy, who represents a family revered in many Hispanic households. But with the exception of his home state of Illinois, Mr. Obama came up short. In New Mexico, Mr. Obama continues to lead narrowly by carrying Anglo voters but performed less well among the one-third of Democratic voters who were Hispanic.
In California, a much-larger than expected share of the voters were Hispanic or Asian -- some 29% were Hispanic and another 8% were Asian. Mrs. Clinton won a resounding 72% of the Asian vote and two-thirds of the Hispanic vote to put her over the top. Barack Obama carried white voters overall by 49% to 44%. He also won eight out of ten black voters.
The contrast in support was striking in neighborhoods that were practically adjacent to each other. In Los Angeles's 33rd Congressional district represented by black Democrat Diane Watson, Mr. Obama won 61% to 37%. In the nearby 34th district represented by Hispanic Democrat Lucille Roybal-Allard, he lost 73% to 23%.
The split between black voters and brown voters that was so evident in California and other states yesterday will be important in some future contests, especially Texas, which votes on March 4.
-- John Fund
Conventional Weapons
Democratic officials are dusting off something they never thought they would have to consult: convention rule books.
That's because there is a real possibility that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton will arrive in Denver in late August for the convention roughly tied in their number of delegates elected by primary and caucus voters. If so, then the party's so-called "super-delegates" move front and center -- i.e. Democratic governors, members of Congress and other notables, who make up about one-fifth of the total delegate pool and who are free under current rules to commit themselves to any candidate they choose.
Every convention has the right to change or alter its rules on the floor. If Obama and Clinton forces are close enough, look for rules fights reminiscent of the hard-fought 1976 GOP convention. That contest was won in a whisker by Gerald Ford over Ronald Reagan. "Many people will rebel if the party big shots vote differently than the choice of the primary electorate," one leading Democratic parliamentarian tells me. "You could have a fight to force the superdelegates to accept the decision of their home-state voters."
And what if the convention decision comes down to the disputed delegations of Florida and Michigan, neither of whom are currently legally seated because their state parties broke rules against holding early primaries?
"We believe the delegates from Michigan and Florida ought to be seated," says Clinton adviser Howard Wolfson. That's even though Mrs. Clinton was the only name offered primary voters in Michigan and neither Mrs. Clinton or Mr. Obama campaigned in Florida.
A fight over whether delegations should be seated would remind convention mavens of the 1952 GOP fight at that party's Chicago convention. There, Dwight Eisenhower only clinched the Republican nomination over Robert Taft after winning a contentious floor fight over the seating of key Southern delegations.
In other words, for the first time in decades, convention historians may find their skills in demand if this year's Democratic conclave turns out to be something besides the usual exercise in media relations.
-- John Fund
Huckabee's Ace in the Hole
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee revived his campaign last night by winning five Southern states. It was also a big day for West Virginia Republicans, who deliberately sought to revive their flagging fortunes by scheduling a nominating convention for Super Tuesday. The aim was to pick a convention winner hours before the polls closed elsewhere and thereby influence the national outcome. It worked. By mid-afternoon, the buzz from his West Virginia triumph provided Mr. Huckabee with a fresh storyline that he, not Mitt Romney, was the conservative alternative candidate to John McCain.
Small states with just a handful of delegates need creative ways to draw attention. For West Virginia, a nominating convention succeeded wonderfully. Mr. Romney even dropped by personally to make his case, hoping to score a few hours in the media spotlight on Super Tuesday. His efforts initially appeared to be paying off. He won enthusiastic applause by telling conventioneers: "I'll make sure that the house that Reagan built is the house we live in." Mr. Romney led after the first convention ballots were cast, but no candidate won a majority and during an hour-long intermission, Mr. McCain called and asked his supporters to throw in behind Mr. Huckabee. That was enough to change the dynamics on the second ballot and give Mr. Huckabee his new lease on political life.
Moving forward, Mr. Huckabee will continue to take votes mainly from Mr. Romney, even if he remains largely unsuccessful outside the South. Louisiana voters head to the polls on Saturday, and next Tuesday will feature contests in Virginia, Maryland and Washington, D.C. In short, the next few news cycles will be far more friendly to the former Arkansas governor than the former Massachusetts one.
-- Brendan Miniter
Quote of the Day
"California's decades-long isolation from national politics ended Tuesday as voters turned out heavily to vote in two close contests for presidential nominations -- and they could play a critical role again in November. Party identification is weak in California, and both parties have been losing ground in voter registration -- especially the Democrats -- and the rapidly growing ranks of independent voters hold the balance of political power.... Were McCain to win the GOP nomination, therefore, it could put California in play. The Democratic candidate, either Clinton or Obama, would still be favored but could no longer take the state for granted. Without California's 55 electoral votes, Democratic hopes for recapturing the White House are slender, so at the very least, Democrats would have to devote resources to California" -- Sacramento Bee columnist Dan Walters.
Job Losses for Bureaucrats
Friday's lousy jobs report of negative growth wasn't all that bad -- since one of the new unemployed Americans was John Edwards. But economists assure us that there's another reason not to panic just yet. The 17,000 jobs losses in January overshadowed a revision upward to 82,000 new jobs in December. Job growth has certainly slowed dramatically but private employment growth has still not turned negative.
One piece of overlooked good news in the January report is that the net decline was entirely accounted for by government. The public sector had 18,000 fewer workers on its payrolls last month. Folks, that's not an economic downer, but cause for celebration. We should be thrilled to see many more such pink slips issued in Washington, D.C. and state capitals. Fewer government bureaucrats is one of the best economic stimulants we can possibly think of.
Overall, today's 4.9% unemployment rate is hardly a measure of job scarcity for those searching for work. That number underscores the folly of the Democratic proposal to extend unemployment insurance benefits -- a policy that increases joblessness by giving people an incentive to sit on the sidelines rather than aggressively seeking the private-sector jobs that continue to be created.
-- Stephen Moore
WSJ
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McCain Slays Them in the Green Room
Democrats, and even a few Republicans, have suggested that John McCain may not wear well as a candidate, with many making comparisons to Bob Dole, the former war hero and longtime senator who was the uninspired GOP nominee in 1996 against Bill Clinton.
But Mr. McCain put many of those doubts to rest yesterday with a thundering speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington. He couldn't have asked for a better platform -- Mitt Romney had just used the same stage to suspend his candidacy, thus giving Mr. McCain a chance to present himself as the de facto GOP nominee to the party's most enthusiastic activists.
Mr. McCain knew he was addressing a crowd with whom he had many policy disagreements -- from campaign finance reform to global warming. He didn't pretend to paper those over, but instead asked his audience to "examine the totality of my record." He pointed out he has consistently voted for pro-life causes for a quarter century, pledged to appoint judges who would strictly interpret the Constitution and laid into the departed GOP Congress for tarnishing the party's fiscal conservative credentials. "I will not sign a bill with any earmarks in it," he said to thunderous applause. He then roused the crowd again by pointing out that both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama would set an arbitrary timetable for withdrawing from Iraq.
He clearly won over a lot of skeptical conservatives. I was in the green room where many prominent CPAC speakers had gathered to watch the speech, and where Mr. McCain had mingled prior to mounting the stage. "It was a great speech, with a perfect tonal pitch," said Don Devine, a former Reagan administration official who is normally a dour pessimist when it comes to GOP electoral chances. "I think he could beat Hillary." Ken Blackwell, a former GOP candidate for governor from Ohio, called the speech "the start of a great conversation with conservatives and much better than I expected."
Even Tom DeLay, the former House Majority Leader who has clashed often with the Arizona senator in the past, grudgingly acknowledged that he might bring himself to vote for Mr. McCain in the fall -- a major concession from someone who has publicly stated that the party's new presumptive nominee has been "the most destructive force against [the GOP] of any elected official I know."
John McCain strode into the toughest imaginable audience of conservatives yesterday. While he didn't exactly conquer them, he left them feeling hopeful that he will run a spirited campaign based on their fundamental principles. "He said all the right things, and if he now delivers, we have a chance to unite the movement," concluded Richard Viguerie, a conservative who spent much of the last few months denouncing most of the GOP field for apostasy.
Even a week ago, I couldn't have imagined John McCain leaving such a positive impression on the hard-bitten conservatives at CPAC. But he did, and he now has a real chance to lead a united party into the fall campaign.
-- John Fund
Who Is No. 2?
At age 71, John McCain certainly needs a running mate, and picking a solid conservative could help him win over some of his skeptics within the GOP. At the top of nearly every list is South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford. Even Karl Rove mentioned him on Fox News as the Super Tuesday results rolled in.
Mr. Sanford is nearly universally loved by conservatives for good reason. Now serving his second term in South Carolina, he has made himself famous for his unremitting war on pork, even though his own party controls the legislature. A few years ago, he drove the point home by carrying two squealing pigs into the state capitol. Typically he vetoes about 100 bills a years (though his fellow Republican frequently override him). Last year, he vetoed the entire state budget.
Mr. Sanford understands the power of symbolism but also how to work the machinery of government. Sitting on my desk is a copy of an executive budget his office published a few years ago -- the first comprehensive budget a South Carolina governor ever compiled. Previously, governors simply reacted to spending bills as they came along. Mr. Sanford's record also bespeaks a commitment to policy ideas that conservatives hold dear -- expanding school choice, pushing through a broad-based property tax cut and proposing a phase-out the state income tax. One key achievement was enacting a voucher-based state Medicaid reform -- a model for overhauling entitlement programs for the 21st century.
As a member of Congress in the 1990s, Mr. Sanford gave every indication that he wasn't interested in becoming a permanent fixture in Washington. He never bought a house. He slept in his office and commuted home every weekend. He ran on a self-imposed term limit, and unlike some others, actually honored it by returning home to run for governor in 2002. He has consistently reached out to conservatives, making the state capitol in Columbia an important stop for party activists. After supporting Mr. McCain for president in 2000, Mr. Sanford stayed neutral in his state's important primary this year. That's another reason for conservatives to be enthusiastic about the governor of South Carolina. His agreement to sign aboard the McCain ticket would be seen as conferring real comfort about Mr. McCain's conservative bona fides.
-- Brendan Miniter
Hillary's Money
Barack Obama edged closer to one of the enduring Clinton mysteries, the exact source of their sizeable personal wealth. Asked by the New York Times yesterday about news that Hillary Clinton had written her campaign a $5 million check, he responded: "I'll just say that I've released my tax returns. That's been a policy I've maintained. I think the American people deserve to know where you get your income from."
The Clinton campaign offers only hints, telling reporters that Mrs. Clinton didn't have to sell off any assets to raise the money and that she didn't need to win bank approval or put up collateral. The Times sums up the campaign's explanation: "Advisers said the loan was made on Jan. 28 from Mrs. Clinton's share of her personal funds that she has with Mr. Clinton."
And just like that, the Clintons may have rendered all campaign finance restrictions meaningless. For, if Hillary can dip into funds held jointly with her husband, and her husband is free to travel the world collecting large speaking fees without disclosing how much or from whom, it would seem to create a route for unlimited amounts of cash from anyone in the world to be funneled into the campaign without disclosure.
Meeting with the media yesterday, Mrs. Clinton stressed that "it's my money" and called it an "investment" in her campaign. Those expressions may come back to haunt her. Her campaign says she'll release her tax returns just as soon as she wins her party's nomination and that, anyway, all anyone needs to know about her finances can be found in her Senate financial disclosure statements. Stay tuned. The $5 million loan may yet trigger an avalanche of media attention on the Clinton campaign's finances. The issue, of course, would also be a natural for John McCain in the fall.
-- Brendan Miniter
Quote of the Day
"Obamaphilia has gotten creepy.... What the Cult of Obama doesn't realize is that he's a politician. Not a brave one taking risky positions like Ron Paul or Dennis Kucinich, but a mainstream one. He has not been firing up the Senate with stirring Cross-of-Gold-type speeches to end the war. He's a politician so soft and safe, Oprah likes him" -- Los Angeles Times columnist Joel Stein.
Rambo for Real
A measure of Sylvester Stallone's "Rambo" franchise is the fact that most people have forgotten the first movie wasn't called "Rambo." It was called "First Blood." Now the fourth installment is out, finally named just "Rambo," and one place the film is gaining serious critical attention is Burma (recently renamed "Myanmar").
Mr. Stallone's Burmese fans apparently are finding hope in John Rambo's latest plotline, in which he seeks to save Christian aid workers who run afoul of Myanmar's nasty military regime while trying to help members of the Karen ethnic minority. "This movie could fuel the sentiment of Myanmar people to invite American troops to help save them from the junta," one local film enthusiast told Reuters.
That seems unlikely without at least an Oscar nomination or two, but pirated DVDs of "Rambo" have indeed become an underground hit in Rangoon (also known as "Yangon"). In turn, the military regime has ordered street hawkers to discontinue stocking the film. Burma's military junta was already on the world's pariah list for its treatment of democracy activist Aung San Suu Kyi. Now that it's on Hollywood's list of approved baddies too, apparently the regime is really worried.
For his part, Mr. Stallone has embraced Rambo's newfound status as a symbol of resistance. Last week he challenged the regime to defend its human-rights record by allowing him to tour Burma. Alternatively, he invited a representative to debate him in front of a congressional hearing. "But I doubt that's going to happen," he added. Should the desired confrontation materialize, let's hope the actor and the junta both remember that John Rambo is just a character in a movie.
-- Brian M. Carney
WSJ
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Who is Maggie Williams?
At first glance, Maggie Williams is a curious choice to be Hillary Clinton's new campaign manager. Though she ran the First Lady's staff during the Clinton years and served as Hillary's chief gatekeeper, she has never run a political campaign.
But what she lacks in experience, she makes up in fierce loyalty to the Clintons. During the 1993 investigation into the death of White House aide Vince Foster, a Secret Service agent swore under oath that he believed she had obstructed the investigation when he saw her carrying files from Foster's office into the family quarters of the White House on the night of his death. Ms. Williams denied the charge.
Three years later, Ms. Williams accepted a $50,000 political donation in her White House office from Johnny Chung, a fundraiser who was later found to have ties to Chinese intelligence agencies. Mr. Chung later pleaded guilty to campaign finance violations, one of 23 people to do so after the 1996 Clinton fund-raising scandals.
Ms. Williams will certainly play a major role in the Clinton campaign, no doubt because she isn't afraid to "crack heads" as one Democratic strategist told the New York Daily News. She also served for a time as head of former President Clinton's personal and foundation staff. So the real news behind her appointment is that Bill Clinton is now likely to take a more active day-to-day role in campaign strategy. Just as Hillary Clinton came to his rescue during the impeachment fight of 1998, it may now be his turn to see if he can rescue his wife's struggling campaign.
-- John Fund
The Presumptive Stalking Horse
Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have wasted no time trying to convince Democratic voters that each of them is best-equipped to defeat John McCain.
Mr. Obama emphasized the freshness of his message at campaign stops, noting that John McCain has "embraced the failed policies of George Bush's Washington" and defended the war in Iraq.
Mrs. Clinton countered by telling an audience in Maine over the weekend: "I can go toe-to-toe with John McCain every single day," emphasizing that she is battle-tested after nearly two decades of Republican criticism.
"Sen. Obama has never had, I don't think, a single negative ad ever run against him," Mrs. Clinton told CBS News. "He's never had to face this. I am much better prepared and ready to . . . withstand whatever comes my way." Many political observers took her comments to mean Mr. Obama should quickly prepare himself for some negative ads -- from the Clinton campaign.
But for now the two Democrats are focusing on undermining Mr. McCain. Both made veiled references to Mr. McCain's age, which is 71. Mr. Obama saluted the former POW's "half century of service" to the country. For her part, Mrs. Clinton referred to the Arizona senator's "legendary, long background" as a war hero. That's called praising someone while at the same time skillfully inserting a needle into them.
-- John Fund
Quote of the Day I
"Congressional superduo Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi have completed one of the most awesome political collapses since Neville Chamberlain. At long last, the Democratic leaders of Congress have publicly surrendered on the Iraq War, just one year after being swept into power with a firm mandate to end it.... The story of how the Democrats finally betrayed the voters who handed them both houses of Congress a year ago is a depressing preview of what's to come if they win the White House.... [W]e might be stuck with this same bunch of spineless creeps for four more years. With no one but ourselves to blame" -- columnist Matt Tiabbi, writing in the February edition of Rolling Stone magazine.
Quote of the Day II
"In a time when online news supposedly has all the momentum, the vintage mass medium is enjoying a little renaissance. Last week's Democratic debate on CNN was the most watched primary debate in the history of cable news, drawing more than 8 million viewers. All of the major cable-news channels recorded large ratings increases in January versus both the previous month and a year ago. The broadcast networks have experienced the same phenomenon and have responded with their own expanded campaign coverage. ABC, for instance, scrapped its original plans for one hour of Super Tuesday coverage, expanding to a multihour broadcast (the writer's strike also helped -- the networks are desperate for good content)" -- National Journal columnist William Powers.
Judge Not
Senator John McCain's biggest challenge remains proving himself to conservatives on core issues like judges. That's why at last week's CPAC speech, he was at pains to differentiate himself from Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, whom he said would appoint federal judges "intent on achieving political changes that the American people cannot be convinced to accept through the election of their representatives."
He echoed those sentiments in a recent manifesto for a Federalist Society symposium -- and none too soon. Conservative critics, led by Rush Limbaugh, have turned their attention on former New Hampshire Senator Warren Rudman, who endorsed Mr. McCain and served as co-chair of his 2000 campaign. Senator Rudman was a chief sponsor in 1990 of David Souter, now part of the Supreme Court's reliable left flank and a "disaster" for conservatives, according to Mr. Limbaugh. "Rudman... the guy who misled us all on David Souter happens to be a top honcho on McCain's campaign," the radio host told listeners last Tuesday.
As it happens, Mr. Rudman is not a "top honcho" in the campaign this year, but as recently as the Florida debate, Mr. McCain did name him as an important adviser in the "the circle that I have developed over many years." Not helping matters is a remark Mr. McCain reportedly made questioning Bush Justice Sam Alito because he "wore his conservatism on his sleeve." Mr. McCain now says he doesn't recall making the statement.
Voters like to know what they are voting for, and Mr. McCain has gradually come around to making clear, specific promises to appoint "proven" conservative judges. His biggest credibility challenge, however, may be his authorship of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law. Whatever Candidate McCain says now, the only way a President McCain would likely be able to preserve his handwork is by appointing more liberal Justices to the Supreme Court.
-- Collin Levy
Political Diary: WSJ
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Survival of the Wettest
One of the most liberal House Republicans faces a serious primary challenge today, and may survive only because he has more than one opponent running against him.
Maryland GOP Congressman Wayne Gilchrest has charted an increasingly liberal record in Washington over his 18 years in the House. He turned away conservative primary opponents in his Eastern Shore district in 2002 and 2004, but now faces two serious opponents. Former GOP Governor Bob Ehrlich has endorsed State Senator Andy Harris, a former Navy doctor. Meanwhile, State Senator E.J. Pipkin has pumped nearly $1 million of his own money into the race. Private polls show Mr. Gilchrest with one-third of the vote, Mr. Harris with about the same and Mr. Pipkin trailing with about half of their support.
Traditionally incumbents only lose when they face a single opponent. Their superior name ID and ability to deliver constituent services make it difficult to bring them much below 50% in a primary. This has led many people to speculate that Mr. Pipkin, who entered the race at the last minute, is actually in the contest to divert votes from Mr. Harris and ensure a Gilchrest victory. The theory goes that Mr. Pipkin would then get the incumbent's support whenever Mr. Gilchrest decides to retire.
Mr. Pipkin vehemently denies any such motivation, but his candidacy is likely to have the perverse effect of keeping Mr. Gilchrest in office for another term. Mr. Gilchrest makes an odd fit for the conservative district. He often casts liberal votes that are out of step with his voters, such as supporting statehood for the District of Columbia and voting against compensating landowners for the cost of wetlands regulations. If he wins, it will be yet another example of how conservatives lose when they divide their forces.
-- John Fund
The Too-Right Stuff
Rep. Al Wynn has so angered the left-wing base of the Democratic Party that he is in danger of being turfed out of office today by his Maryland constituents.
Mr. Wynn's troubles with the left began in 2002, after he voted for President Bush's Iraq war resolution. He then followed that up with votes against various parts of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance regulation, a vote to repeal the estate tax and a vote to make it harder for people to file for bankruptcy.
In 2006, that record led attorney Donna Edwards to challenge him in a race that Mr. Wynn survived by only 3% of the vote. She's now back with a slew of liberal groups supporting her. Although she has attacked Mr. Wynn for receiving backing from "special interests," some 86% of her own money has been raised outside Maryland.
Mr. Wynn can point to a solid 85% liberal voting record as measured by the Americans for Democratic Action. He says he opposed the ban on soft money donations in McCain-Feingold because "I argued for balance. That's been interpreted as being opposed to campaign finance [reform]; therefore, I'm not a progressive. It's a simplistic analysis, and it's unfortunate."
The distinct that Mr. Wynn and Ms. Edwards are fighting over is 57% African-American and made up of the fairly affluent suburbs surrounding Washington, D.C. Should Mr. Wynn lose today, his defeat will send shock waves through the ranks of Democratic House members who stray occasionally from their party's line. The message to Democrats: No apostasy is forgotten or forgiven. Any who defect from the litmus tests of the liberal bloggers can expect a serious primary challenge from the same left-wing groups that cost Senator Joe Lieberman his 2006 Democratic primary in Connecticut, forcing him to seek re-election as an independent.
-- John Fund
Quote of the Day I
"Mr. Obama's supporters are the latte liberals. These are the people for whom Starbucks, with its $5 cups of coffee and fancy bakeries, is not just a consumer choice but a lifestyle. They not only have the money. They share the values.... Mrs. Clinton is the candidate of what might be called Dunkin' Donut Democrats. They do not have money to waste on multiple-hyphenated coffee drinks -- double-top, no-foam, non-fat lattes and the like. Not for them the bran muffins or the biscotti. They are the 75-cent coffee and doughnut crowd. For them caffeine choice doesn't correlate with their values but simply represents a means of keeping them going through their challenging day" -- columnist Gerard Baker of the Times of London.
Quote of the Day II
"It is not 'the politics of fear' to remind Obama's legions of the blissful that, while they are watching Scarlett Johansson sway to the beat, somewhere deep inside a quasi independent territory we might call Islamistan people are making plans to blow them to bits. (Yes, they can.) One of the striking features of Obama's victory speeches is the absence from these exultations of any lasting allusion to the darker dimensions of our strategic predicament" -- Leon Wieseltier, literary editor of The New Republic.
Raising Kaine
Barack Obama told radio listeners in Richmond yesterday that Virginia's Democratic Gov. Tim Kaine is "somebody who is on my short list to have a role in my administration." As voters head to the polls today in Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C., Mr. Obama is expected to sweep all three contests, but the race in Virginia is the one that bears watching. Mr. Obama hopes to demonstrate with a big victory and stellar turnout that he's the candidate who can put Virginia in play in November.
A central theme of Mr. Obama's campaign is that he, not Hillary, can win "red" states in the general election. A record turnout in his favor today would underline that argument, showing not only that he can outdraw Mrs. Clinton among Democrats, but bring enough new voters to the polls to offset a local GOP advantage.
In the 1990s, Republicans ran the tables in the Virginia, winning back-to-back governor's elections and capturing control of the state legislature for the first time in more than 100 years. George W. Bush carried the state in 2000 and 2004. But with the election of Mark Warner as governor in 2001, Democrats have been on the comeback trail, building a base of support not only in northern Virginia, where many northern transplants live, but in rural counties past Richmond along the coast and into the Blue Ridge Mountains to the west.
Mr. Obama hopes Virginia can be a model for broadening the national Democratic coalition to include more conservative states. Hence the unusually bold tactic of flaunting Mr. Kaine -- Mr. Warner's popular successor as governor -- as a possible running mate. As for Mr. Warner himself, he's already in a race of his own, for the retiring John Warner's (no relation) Senate seat. He's expected to win easily, which would only further his own prominence as a future Democratic presidential contender. For Mr. Obama, establishing credibility as a big-time vote-getter in Virginia is important not just today -- but also for 2012, when he could face Mr. Warner in a Democratic presidential primary.
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No Hurry, Mike
Why is Mike Huckabee staying in the Republican race even though it is now mathematically impossible to win the nomination?
The answer is: Why not? His base among evangelicals is such that he can do surprisingly well in states like Virginia, where he only lost to John McCain by nine points last night. He builds up more media credibility as a possible running mate for Mr. McCain, who might not want to risk alienating Mr. Huckabee's socially conservative followers. And the former Arkansas governor clearly enjoys campaigning.
Republicans would be wise not to pressure Mr. Huckabee to leave the race. "No one is entitled to tell you to drop out of the race except your spouse," is how former White House aide Karl Rove put it last night on Fox News.
Indeed, Dan Schnur, John McCain's communications director in 2000, says that a continued Huckabee candidacy gives the McCain campaign a chance to stay relevant in a news cycle that is now dominated by the knockdown Democratic fight between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. "As long as the Democrats keep fighting it out on the other side, [Huckabee] has got the luxury of time," Mr. Schnur told The Hill newspaper.
-- John Fund
Al Gore to the Rescue?
Democratic political operatives are beginning to think ahead in case the Hillary Clinton-Barack Obama race ends in deadlock and Democrats arrive at their Denver convention in August without a nominee. Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama remain in a virtual dead heat in the delegate count. Despite the Obama momentum and recent landslides in many states, if Hillary were to win Texas, where there is a very large Hispanic vote, she would have won the four big electorate-rich states: New York, California, Florida, and Texas. That would be a strong case for many undecided Democratic superdelegates to support her notwithstanding Mr. Obama's strong showing.
What happens in a deadlocked convention? If neither candidate throws in the towel and neither can get a majority of delegates, one option is a brokered convention, where both candidates step aside for a compromise candidate. That's the way smoke-filled, dealmaking conventions used to work. One name keeps resurfacing as the ideal brokered candidate: Al Gore. Many Democratic pundits still believe the Oscar and Nobel Peace Prize winner would have the best chances against the GOP in November. His record is not nearly as far left as Senator Clinton's or Senator Obama's and he may stand a better chance of winning independent voters than either of them.
But a problem with this scenario, as one Democratic insider tells me, is that Al Gore and Hillary Clinton are "mortal enemies." She would rather sleep on a bed of coals than hand the nomination to her husband's vice president, whom she constantly squabbled with in the White House.
Yet the vitriol between the Clinton and Obama camps is also very real and palpable. That means neither is likely to surrender delegates to the other, ruling out a deal in which, say, Mrs. Clinton would head the ticket and Mr. Obama would serve as running mate -- although it wouldn't be unprecedented for two political enemies to run together on the same ticket. It happened with John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson.
By far the most likely scenario is that the Democrats settle on a candidate in the weeks ahead, but a stalemate isn't out of the question and don't be surprised if you start seeing Al Gore on TV more often in the meantime.
-- Stephen Moore
Maryland Sends a Message
A quarter of Maryland's Congressional delegation went down to defeat in last night's primary. The results demonstrate the increasing polarization of the House. Liberal voters ousted Democratic Rep. Albert Wynn partly for his 2002 vote to intervene in Iraq while conservative voters turned out GOP Rep. Wayne Gilchrest in part for being one of only two House Republicans to vote for a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq. The last time a Maryland congressman lost a party primary was in 1992.
Attorney Donna Edwards built on her 2006 Democratic primary showing against Mr. Wynn, when she lost by only three percentage points. She hammered him on Iraq and for his occasional votes with Republicans on economic issues. A phalanx of liberal groups poured money into the Washington D.C.-area district and Mr. Wynn lost badly. Markos Moulitsas, who runs the left-wing DailyKos.com Web site, was exultant, claiming that Democrats are "once again on notice: If they continue to serve corporate interests rather than their constituents, if they insist on remaining aloof to the nation's popular sentiment, they'll get booted in a Democratic primary like Joe Lieberman in 2006."
Ms. Edwards's victory over an eight-term veteran like Mr. Wynn will certainly make it more difficult for Democrats to cross the aisle and seek bipartisan cooperation with Republicans. Meanwhile, conservatives are exulting in the loss of Mr. Gilchrest, who broke with his party more often than any other House Republican last year. State Senator Andy Harris, a former navy doctor, not only defeated the incumbent, but did so despite the presence of another challenger, State Senator E.J. Pipken, who threatened to split the conservative vote.
In the end, Mr. Pipken trailed badly despite his efforts to tie both Mr. Harris and Rep. Gilchrest to policies he claimed were soft on illegal aliens. He even put up an ad that linked his GOP opponents to Maryland's Democratic Governor Martin O'Malley, portraying the trio as "Three Amigos" in sombreros. Mr. Pipken wound up spending over $1 million of his own money to no avail.
"They told me nine months ago that you could never possibly take on an incumbent, it could never happen, don't even try it," the victorious Mr. Harris told his supporters last night. "They don't know me; they don't know my volunteers."
Environmental groups and unions wound up coming to Mr. Gilchrest's side when it became clear he was in trouble and that no Democrat would stand a chance in the fall election against the winner of the GOP primary. But the free-market Club for Growth helped assemble a stunning $500,000 in contributions for Mr. Harris, allowing him to remain financially competitive against the nine-term incumbent Mr. Gilchrest.
-- John Fund
Quote of the Day I
"The wonder, really, is that the nomination train wreck confronting the Democratic Party didn't happen years earlier. The stage was set for the current stalemate over five marathon days of negotiations in June 1988. In the fifth-floor conference room of a Washington law firm, representatives of Michael Dukakis, the party's nominee, and Jesse Jackson, his unsuccessful challenger, hashed out a new set of delegate selection rules. Jackson felt aggrieved that he had not amassed as many delegates as his popular vote total would have suggested. In the 1984 primary campaign, for instance, Jackson won 19 percent of the popular vote but received just 10 percent of the delegates. So Jackson's rules guru, Harold M. Ickes, insisted on adopting proportional representation rules that would award insurgent candidates a bigger share of delegates in future contests. Twenty years later, the rules Ickes advocated seem to be working against his current candidate, Hillary Clinton, reducing the impact of her wins in delegate-rich states such as California, New York and New Jersey" -- Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus.
Quote of the Day II
"There are fault lines -- of race, gender and generation -- in the Democratic party that have opened in the course of the campaign. An insurgency threatens an establishment. And if a battle over contested delegations goes clear to the convention, if the superdelegates anoint a nominee in a process and for a reason that isn't clear to all, then the fight in Denver, like the fight 40 years ago [at the Chicago Democratic convention in 1968], won't simply be over an issue or even a nomination. It could well be a furious battle among core Democratic constituencies for the future of the party. And the only winner of that fight would be John McCain" -- Harold Meyerson, editor of the liberal American Prospect magazine.
Hillary as Underdog
It wasn't the six debates she had demanded, but Hillary Clinton did finally get Barack Obama last week to agree to debate her again before the next big-state primaries. After her trouncing last night in the so-called Potomac races, Mrs. Clinton needs more than ever to find ways to undercut the Obama momentum.
For a supposed front-runner, Mrs. Clinton was in the unusual position of demanding that her challenger debate her once a week until the Democratic primaries effectively conclude in April. Mr. Obama, knowing that Mrs. Clinton is trying to draw him into forums where she can expose him as less substantive and detailed on issues, had resisted. But his advisers finally convinced him that ignoring her calls for further exchanges would hurt him with undecided voters and that she was just as likely to make a major stumble in a debate as he was.
The next debate will be held in Cleveland on February 26, just before the crucial Ohio primary. The sub-prime mortgage crisis, which has caused nearly 10% of Cleveland homes to slip into possible foreclosure, will certainly be a major topic -- and at the center of it will be Mrs. Clinton's bizarre notion that mortgage interest rates can be frozen for five years without drying up lending for new borrowers.
The second debate will be in Texas just before the state's March 4 primary. Both candidates will no doubt be asked about immigration issues, where Mrs. Clinton will likely bash Mr. Obama for his support of driver's licenses for illegal aliens. Mr. Obama hopes to use her position to point out her insensitivity to Hispanic concerns and undermine her strong reliance on the Hispanic vote.
-- John Fund
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The John Edwards Factor
Hillary Clinton still has fight left in her. She is pulling out all the stops to entice John Edwards to endorse her over Barack Obama, including a secret visit to his North Carolina home so she could make her pitch in person.
"There is a lot John and I have in common," Mrs. Clinton told reporters later. "I will be a fighter, and I intend to ask John Edwards to be a part of anything I do in the White House." Could that include his being her Attorney General?
ABC News reports that several of Mr. Edwards' advisers "likened his thought process to a heart-versus-head split with his heart favoring Sen. Barack Obama's strong message of change, and his head attracted to Clinton's tested nature and commitment to tough fights."
Mr. Edwards also must know that, if he were to endorse Mr. Obama now, he might seem merely to be joining the media bandwagon. Endorsing Mrs. Clinton, on the other hand, would be the surprising move and might allow him to take personal credit for reenergizing her flagging campaign. Mr. Edwards won 40 delegates before ending his own race, and his powers of persuasion could put many of those now uncommitted votes into the New York senator's corner.
Should Mr. Edwards endorse Mrs. Clinton, speculation would be rife that he would get the top job at the Justice Department for helping her win the White House. That slot would keep him in the public eye, provide him with a platform for his anti-corporate views and leave open the chance he could run for president again.
-- John Fund
The Iraq Factor
A Strategic Vision poll in Wisconsin -- next week's big Democratic primary battle -- shows Barack Obama holding a 45% to 41% lead over Hillary Clinton. But the real news in the poll are its intriguing hints on just how sour the electorate in that critical swing state is over the war in Iraq.
Not surprisingly, 68% of the state's voters disapproved of President Bush's handling of Iraq, but a stunning 74% also disapproved of how Congress is conducting itself. The money question was: Do you believe that Democrats in Congress have a better plan to resolve the Iraq War than President Bush?
The answer in thoroughly dovish Wisconsin was 71% "no," 18% "yes" and 11% undecided. Small wonder that the war in Iraq has faded as a campaign issue, even in Democratic primaries. Voters simply don't believe claims by any candidate that they have a monopoly of wisdom on dealing with the situation in Iraq.
-- John Fund
Hillary Needs Debates, So MSNBC Is Forgiven
"Voters want more debates," Clinton Communications Director Howard Wolfson told reporters yesterday, citing record-breaking viewership of previous televised encounters as proof of his claim.
Despite the fact Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have stood on stage together 18 times this year, the Clinton campaign is aggressively pushing Mr. Obama to commit to further one-on-one televised debates. Yesterday, the campaign launched a statewide television ad in Wisconsin slamming Mr. Obama for refusing to agree to debate before the state's primary next Tuesday. "Maybe he'd prefer to give speeches than have to answer questions," the ad says. Mr. Wolfson followed up yesterday by accusing Mr. Obama of "hiding" from voters in Wisconsin and displaying an "unwillingness" to discuss issues.
Also yesterday, Mrs. Clinton announced she would take part in a debate hosted by NBC in Cleveland, Ohio, on February 26. Mrs. Clinton had threatened to skip the debate after MSNBC's David Shuster suggested on a broadcast last week that the Clintons had "pimped out" 27-year old Chelsea Clinton on behalf of her mother's campaign. Mr. Shuster apologized and was suspended immediately, but the campaign cited previous derogatory statements about Mrs. Clinton by host Chris Matthews (who also apologized) as part of a pattern of behavior at the network that justified boycotting the debate.
In the end, however, the campaign's desire -- or need -- to engage with Mr. Obama won the day. "We have expressed concerns about that network," Mr. Wolfson said yesterday, "but we don't believe those concerns should stand in the way allowing the people of Ohio to see important distinctions between the candidates."
The only other debate currently on the calendar will take place on February 21 at the LBJ Library in Austin, Texas.
Reeling from Mr. Obama's win streak of eight straight contests over the past week, the Clinton campaign now sees one-on-one debates as among the precious few opportunities to change the narrative and regain positive momentum heading into make-or-break contests for Mrs. Clinton in Texas and Ohio on March 4. Mr. Obama has generally been outmatched by Mrs. Clinton in debate forums throughout the year, but with the status of frontrunner comes the luxury of choosing when and where he wants to meet his opponent.
-- Tom Bevan, executive editor of RealClearPolitics.com
Quote of the Day
"You know, when it comes down to a general election -- looks like it's going to be Obama versus McCain -- any number of ways of playing this, and one of them, I don't necessarily have to tout McCain, but I certainly will be critical of Obama. Once we get down to the general, you start examining what this guy's policies are. Right now [Obama is] saying nothing better than anybody has ever said it. At least in my lifetime. It's going have to get specific at some point" -- radio host Rush Limbaugh, in an interview with Time Magazine.
We Interrupt This Campaign...
Mike Huckabee is spurning suggestions that he drop out of the presidential race because he has no mathematical chance to win the GOP nomination. He is stubbornly staying in the race, holding fundraisers, attending rallies and giving interviews.
Except for this coming Saturday, when Mr. Huckabee will abandon the campaign trail to give a speech to a group of business leaders -- in the Cayman Islands. Huh? When did that British overseas territory start sending delegates to American political conventions?
It turns out he will be giving a paid speech in the offshore banking center. "I have to make a living," Mr. Huckabee told reporters in Wisconsin yesterday. "There will be a few other times when I go out and make sure I can pay my mortgage payment like everybody else has to."
There will be other detours in Mr. Huckabee's campaign schedule this month. On February 22 he will address a group of Colorado business leaders, a fine audience no doubt, but not one that will do his campaign much good. Colorado Republicans already selected their delegates to the GOP's national convention last week. But give him credit. In exploiting his newfound fame to troll not just for votes but personal income as well, Mr. Huckabee is clearly charting an unusual course.
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Well can McCain beat BO at his own game? Or is he going to sound as old as he looks and continue the Repub'Can mantra, "I'm for tax cuts!"? That won't do it this time. I think Newt is on the right tract about the need for 'Cans to sound like they are for change. However, I think he seriously underestimates the intangible element to OB's appeal. It's far more than change. It's far more than another "Declaration of Independence" or "Contact with America" redux.
I don't think Newt gets it .
OB is more than change. He is aspiring to people's hopes, their dreams their aspirations. Clinton is right about it being a fairy tale. For goodness sakes, it is spiritual, or worse, blind faith. Some have already called BO a Messiah. But like it or not that's what BO's opponents are up against. McCain is going to have to do the same. Be inspirational, be the figure who can take us to the promised land. Use his life which in my opnion is more remarkable than OBs' and prove to the country he can take us to the next level.
I just don't know if a 70 year old warhorse can do that. In China they revere their elders. Here we throw them in the trashbin.
In any case according to Zogby (poll f
rom a Dem superdelegate) BO is already wiping McCain up:
http://www.zogby.com/news/ReadNews.dbm?ID=1449
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THE FOUNDATION
“The public cannot be too curious concerning the characters of public men.” —Samuel Adams
PATRIOT PERSPECTIVE
Patriot Candidate Profile: Mike Huckabee
By Mark Alexander
In his victory speech after sweeping the Potomac Primaries, John McCain had this to say about his primary Republican opponent: “I want to commend my friend, Governor Huckabee, whose spirited campaign, many gifts as a communicator and advocate, and passionate supporters are a credit to him and our party.”
That wasn’t exactly an invitation for Mike Huckabee to join McCain’s ticket, but the prospect is an evermore-distinct possibility.
I first met Mike Huckabee in 1992 at the onset of the Clintonista siege. I was a few pounds lighter, and he a few pounds heavier.
A mutual friend (who was, at that time, the strongest Reagan Republican in Tennessee’s State Senate) thought enough of Mike that he pulled together a group of the Volunteer State’s conservative mafia to see what we could do to help this guy fill the seat of a Clinton crony, former Lt. Gov. Jim Guy Tucker, who had moved up to take Clinton’s post.
We pitched in, and a year later, Mike won a special election, becoming only the second Republican elected Lt. Governor since the War Between the States. He was re-elected to a full term as Lt. Gov. in 1994.
Two years later, Tucker was among the Clinton front men convicted for Whitewater shenanigans, in his case for arranging nearly $3 million in fraudulent loans. He was forced to resign, and he thus gave the keys to the Governor’s mansion to Mike Huckabee.
Huckabee served out the remainder of Tucker’s term and was elected outright to a full term in 1998, and re-elected in 2002.
Mike Huckabee and Bill Clinton have some things in common: They were both born in Hope, Arkansas, both served as Governor of Arkansas, both chaired the National Governors Association and both are amateur musicians—Huckabee playing bass guitar with his band, Capitol Offense.
The similarities end there.
Huckabee grew up in a caring, intact family. His father was a fireman, and his mother a clerk. They scraped together enough to live modestly. “Some of us know what it’s like to start at the bottom of the ladder,” he says, “but where you finish is up to you.” Mike’s formative years were steeped in Christian teaching and discipline. He says that his father was “the ultimate patriot. You know, he’d lay on the stripes, and I’d see stars.”
He was president of Hope High School in 1973, and two-and-a-half years later he graduated magna cum laude with a bachelor’s degree from Ouachita Baptist University, a small, academically competitive institution.
In 1974, he married (and notably, is still married to) Janet McCain (no relation). They have three children.
My original impression of Mike was that he was an honest, intelligent, plainspoken man guided by an indissoluble reliance on God. He made no apology for the fact that his political views were shaped by his faith. “Politics are totally directed by worldview,” says Huckabee. “That’s why when people say, ‘We ought to separate politics from religion,’ I say to separate the two is absolutely impossible.”
However, that impression has, to be polite, weathered a bit over the years.
Huckabee’s overall Patriot Candidate Rating is a “6”, placing him between John McCain (5) and Mitt Romney (7). He gets high marks for his character, leadership ability and record as a constitutional constructionist, but low marks on experience, and his contemptible record on taxation and spending, which is, well, Bushy.
During his tenure, he rolled the South’s economic boom—and his state’s subsequent increases in tax collections—into a 65-percent increase in state spending by 2004. According to the Arkansas Department of Finance and Administration, between 1996 and 2006 Huckabee signed 90 tax-reduction measures totaling $378 million, and 21 tax increases totaling $883 million.
When Huckabee entered office, Arkansas had a $200-million deficit. When he left, it had an $850-million surplus, though the state’s general-debt obligations increased by almost $1 billion. His tax-and-spend policies undermined the integrity of Arkansas’ state Republican Party.
As Fred Thompson observed, “Mike Huckabee talks like a Republican but taxes like a Democrat.”
Predictably, and commendably, he supported many conservative initiatives to strengthen marriage and families while governor.
In his quest for the presidency, Huckabee’s support for Operation Iraqi Freedom and his support for border security and comprehensive immigration reform mirror positions advocated by The Patriot, with the notable exception that he does not support an end to the Constitution’s misinterpreted provision regarding birthright citizenship, which has perpetuated the “anchor baby” influx.
He supports conservative family and faith initiatives, including the affirmation of life at conception and the objection to same-sex “marriage.” He would maintain the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy on homosexuals in the military and a prohibition on women in combat roles.
However, he opposes school choice, which won him the dubious endorsement of the National Education Association of New Hampshire.
He supports the constructionist interpretation of First and Second Amendment rights.
Despite his record on taxes in Arkansas, Huckabee says the FairTax should replace the current tax system: “That’s the first thing I’d love to do as president, put a ‘Going Out of Business’ sign on the Internal Revenue Service and stop the $10 billion a year that it costs just for them to operate. If we had a fair tax, it would eliminate not just the alternative minimum tax, personal income tax, corporate tax, it would eliminate all the various taxes that are hidden in our system, and Americans don’t realize what they’re paying. It would be revenue neutral. It’s the best proposal that we ought to have, because it’s flatter, it’s fairer, it’s finite, it’s family-friendly.”
Perhaps the most significant reason to keep a skeptical eye on Huckabee is, as we noted with John McCain, the Leftmedia’s sycophantic accolades for these two campaigns.
Never, NEVER take advice from your enemy.
Perhaps the best thing I can say about Mike now is that McCain/Huckabee has a much nicer ring than McCain/Giuliani.
(Publisher’s Note: The Patriot’s editors have provided Presidential Candidate Ratings on our Patriot Policy Papers page. These ratings are based on comprehensive analysis of many factors, including each candidate’s record, experience, capability, character, leadership qualifications and, of course, demonstrated ability to grasp the plain language of our Constitution—and promote it accordingly.)
Quote of the week
“Ed Rollins, [Mike] Huckabee’s campaign manager, recently dismissed the Reagan coalition as ‘gone,’ saying ‘it doesn’t mean a whole lot to people anymore.’ That’s quite the claim, but perhaps it shouldn’t be a surprise. Huckabee has every incentive to distance himself from the GOP coalition: his nomination rests on its demise. Allowing Mike Huckabee to become the face of conservatism would trade unity and principle for an ill-advised romance with a flighty, flaky new brand of politics.” —Former House Majority Leader, Dick Armey
Open query
Q: “Compassionate conservatism started out as a program to help the poor while decreasing the size of government by increasing the role of civil society. Bush administration spending led some Republicans to call it a euphemism for big government. What’s your view of compassionate conservatism?” —Marvin Olasky to Mike Huckabee
A: “I believe each of us has an obligation to give of our treasure, time and talent to help those less fortunate. However, I don’t support trying to have big government substitute for individual and community responsibility. I don’t view compassionate conservatism as ‘big government,’ but rather as encouraging individuals and groups to do more for those less fortunate, sometimes with help from government at various levels. The most valuable thing the government can do for the poor is protect the opportunity created by our free-market economy, enacting pro-growth policies that create jobs, make certain that every child has access to a first-rate education, and adopt policies [like tax policies] that encourage marriage and the family. Much of the poverty in this country is in families headed by a single mother.” —Mike Huckabee
GOVERNMENT & POLITICS
News from the Swamp: Stimulus signed
President George W. Bush signed the $168-billion Economic Stimulus Act on Wednesday saying it would be a “booster shot” to help the economy get through a “rough patch.” Americans will begin to see their tax-rebate checks arrive in May—$600 for individuals, $1,200 for couples and $300 for each dependent child, sent to 128 million households. Meanwhile, government spending is up eight percent this year and the deficit will skyrocket, but Congress and the President have decided to borrow $168 billion from China to get consumers to buy stuff from... China. Actually, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke says he hopes consumers will “spend it on things that are domestically produced,” but all we can say is good luck with that. We in our humble shop do have a plan for that little extra cash: specifically, purchasing a number of domestically produced Bushmaster ACR and Robinson XCR “assault” rifles. That should be stimulating.
We also understand, as do most economists, that this is little more than an election-year gimmick to save politicians’ jobs. Real solutions to the economy lie in reducing the tax burden, not in income redistribution. It’s high time Congress made the tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 permanent. That assurance alone would truly stimulate the economy.
On the Hill: Surveillance Act
For anyone wondering how a McCain administration would be different from a Hillary or Obama administration, the Senate offered a sneak preview this week. In a 68-29 vote, the Senate reauthorized the surveillance law that allows American intelligence agencies to monitor the communications between suspected terrorists overseas and their contacts in the United States. The bill also includes a provision for retroactive immunity for telephone companies that have cooperated with the government’s wiretapping program and have been sued as a result. Approximately 40 such lawsuits have been filed, prompting President Bush to insist that an immunity provision be made into law if these companies are expected to continue assisting the intelligence community in the War on Terror. The Senate Intelligence Committee agreed, saying that the telcos had “acted in good faith.” Seventeen Democrats crossed the aisle to vote for the bill, including the chairman of the intelligence committee, Sen. John Rockefeller IV (D-WV).
Another senator who voted in favor of the bill was Republican presidential candidate John McCain, who continues to demonstrate a solid understanding of national-security issues. The Democrat presidential candidates were not so astute: Sen. Barack Hussein Obama voted against reauthorizing the terrorist-surveillance program, and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton was too busy campaigning to vote at all.
House Democrats still oppose granting immunity. The House voted Wednesday to reject a 21-day extension of the law, which would have given them more time to iron out differences. President Bush has said he will not sign another extension and accused House Democrats of risking national security. The law expires tonight if nothing is done.
In the House: Earmark reform
Aiming to “change the way Washington spends taxpayer dollars,” House Republicans have set up EarmarkReform.House.gov as a way to inform taxpayers regarding earmarks. Republican Leader John Boehner (OH) said the site will contain news releases, opinion editorials and other information that “will shine a spotlight on [Democrats’] broken promises and empty rhetoric on earmarks.” Meanwhile, Reps. Jack Kingston (R-GA) and Frank Wolf (R-VA) introduced legislation that would stop the earmark process entirely until a panel is established to reform the practice permanently. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi declined to support the legislation, despite her incessant promises for fiscal discipline in Congress. However, several House Republicans, along with Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), have pledged that they will not request earmarks in appropriations bills this year.
In other House news, conservative stalwart John Shadegg (R-AZ) has announced that he will not seek re-election this year—the 29th Republican to decide so. Shadegg had run for minority leader and has been a fiscal hawk since his election with the Republican Revolution of 1994. There is speculation that he may run for a certain open Arizona Senate seat or possibly for governor, but he has not confirmed either.
Rep. Tom Lantos (D-CA) died this week of esophageal cancer at age 80. Lantos was the only Holocaust survivor elected to Congress and was an influential member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs. A special election will be held on 3 June to fill the seat.
New & notable legislation
The Senate passed a bill Wednesday to ban the CIA from using waterboarding and other harsh interrogation tactics to extract critical information from terrorists. The CIA has waterboarded three terrorists for a total of less than five minutes since 2001. The military was similarly banned from using waterboarding in 2006, but President Bush has promised to veto this bill.
Rep. Christopher Shays (RINO-CT) announced a proposal to provide universal healthcare that is modeled after the plan offered to federal employees. This latest incarnation of socialized medicine would call for the federal government to negotiate benefit packages with private insurers that would be less expensive but provide more comprehensive coverage. Premiums under the current federal plan rise less than in the private market, but the public plan proposed by Shays would call for the government to pay up to 75 percent of the enrollee’s total premium. In reality, the money saved through lower insurance premiums would be paid for with higher taxes.
Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) and Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-CA) introduced the National Crime Gun Identification Act in both the Senate and House this week. CNS News reports that the bill “would require all semiautomatic pistols to have ‘microstamped identifiers’ —tiny internal markings that transfer themselves onto bullet cartridges fired from a gun.” The markings would supposedly make crime solving easier, though the NRA points out that criminals usually steal guns for their criminal endeavors rather than buy them, making this bill unnecessary and costly gun control. It is similar to a bill recently passed in California. One manufacturer has already stopped sales to California as a result.
On Thursday, House Democrats took up H. Res. 979 and 980 to find in contempt of Congress former White House lawyer Harriet Miers and Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten for assertions of executive privilege against House Judiciary Committee subpoenas. The Grand Inquisitors want to pillory the pair with queries about the firing of eight U.S. attorneys. In response to the topsy-turvy Democrat priorities for floor action, Republicans walked out of the chamber. The final vote was 232-32 in favor of contempt, and the matter now goes to the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia.
Campaign watch: GOP primaries
John McCain continues his steady climb toward the 1,191 delegates needed to clinch the GOP nomination, but his main competitor, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, is not making it easy for him. McCain’s only victory in last weekend’s contests was Washington, leaving Huckabee with a narrow win in Louisiana and a resounding victory in Kansas. McCain bounced back this week, winning the so-called Potomac Primary (Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia) by respectable margins. We note that McCain opted out of public funding for his campaign this week, which will vastly increase his fundraising potential while also opening up the co-author of our current campaign-finance “reform” laws to some well-deserved criticism. After all, isn’t private money the root of all political evil? Indeed, McCain is still having trouble gaining the confidence of conservatives, though Mitt Romney endorsed him Thursday and requested that his delegates get behind the likely nominee.
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Part Two
Meanwhile, Ron Paul has vowed to continue his campaign, though it will be significantly scaled back and meant more to influence the debate than to win the nomination. Consideration for his House seat is a large factor in the pullback, given that he faces a primary battle on 4 March. “If I were to lose the primary for my congressional seat,” Paul said, “all our opponents would react with glee and pretend it was a rejection of our ideas. I cannot and will not let that happen.” Paul’s incredibly loyal supporters continue to rally around his message of “limited government, non-interventionism, respect for individual rights and strict adherence to the Constitution,” but Paul has repeatedly promised not to run as a third-party candidate.
From the Left: Democrat primaries
Barack Obama remains undefeated since Super Tuesday, racking up smashing victories in recent days in Washington, Nebraska, Louisiana, Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia. “At this moment, the cynics can no longer say that our hope is false,” Obama told supporters after Tuesday’s Potomac Primary. “We have now won East and West, North and South, across the heartland.” Obama has edged ahead of Hillary Clinton in the delegate count, and Clinton’s campaign made some leadership changes as a result of her inability to gain traction. Her campaign manager, Patti Solis Doyle, and deputy campaign manager, Mike Henry, got the boot after Tuesday’s losses. Doyle, who served as Hillary’s scheduler in the White House, had brought Henry onto the campaign.
Maggie Williams, yet another crony from the old days, is now running the campaign. Williams fits the classic Clinton mold of ethically challenged individuals, having served as Hillary’s chief of staff in the White House. Williams is the person who accepted the $50,000 check from Johnny Chung, the crooked Chinese fundraiser who wanted a photo-op with President Bill in 1996. Williams was also seen removing documents from Vince Foster’s office the night after the mysterious death of the White House counsel.
Clinton has pinned her campaign’s future on the Texas and Ohio primaries on 4 March. Never count a Clinton out of the game, as there is always one more trick in the bag. For instance, Hillary is still ahead of Obama in the competition for so-called super delegates. Super delegates are a creation of the Democratic National Committee that allows elected officials to have input into the nomination process. Democrat super delegates include Bill Clinton and such Clintonistas as Terry McAuliffe and Harold Ickes. The contest for super delegates is basically a Washington schmooze fest in which surrogates for Clinton and Obama will crisscross the country and burn up the phone lines in an attempt to sway votes in favor of their candidate.
Another issue that threatens to boil over is the question about what to do with the delegates from Florida and Michigan. The DNC ruled that these delegates could not be seated at the convention because the two states violated party rules by moving their primaries too close to New Hampshire’s on the calendar. Obama and John Edwards obeyed the DNC mandate and did not campaign in either state, but Clinton, consistently unburdened by rules made by others, campaigned vigorously in both states and unsurprisingly walked away with a lion’s share of the delegates. Now that it looks as if she will need virtually every delegate she can muster, Clinton has begun a push to get the DNC to reverse its earlier decision.
This week’s ‘Braying Jenny’ award
“I think that both in Michigan and in Florida, the Democratic [sic] Party should really give these people who came out and voted—they weren’t involved in the rulemaking—give them a chance.” —Hillary Clinton
Che Obama and the Cuban flag
Barack Obama has some ‘splainin’ to do. Fox News cameras captured a disturbing image in a campaign office in Houston: that of a Cuban flag with Communist mass murderer Che Guevara’s face printed on it. Naturally, Obama’s “explanation” was that the volunteer office is independently run, so he has no control over what goes on there. And that’s supposed to make voters want him elected president? Che Guevara may be fashionable among the nation’s leftist college students, but we remind readers that it was Guevara who was “supreme prosecutor” during the show trials after Fidel Castro seized power, overseeing the execution of countless people. Cuba is also still under a U.S. embargo and, last time we checked, is still a Communist dictatorship. Seems the Obama campaign is trying to communicate an idea, even if the candidate himself appears bereft of them.
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NATIONAL SECURITY
Warfront with Jihadistan: Justice served
“You can run, but you can’t hide.” So said President Ronald Reagan to terrorists nearly 20 years ago. This week, one jihadi who had been running was finally found, and let’s just say he won’t be in the terror business anymore. Senior Hizballah planner and operative Imad Mugniyah, wanted for more than 25 years, was killed Tuesday in Damascus by a car bomb, a fitting end for the man who pioneered vehicle bombings as an act of terror. Mugniyah was behind some of the most significant acts of terrorist violence ever perpetrated against Americans, including the 1983 bombings of the U.S. Embassy and the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, and the 1985 murder of U.S. Navy diver Robert Stethem during an airline hijacking. However, he had virtually disappeared since the early 1990s. Syrian, Iranian and Hizballah spokesmen immediately blamed Israel and the United States for the car bomb, a charge Israel promptly denied. The authors of this bombing will likely never be known, but the end result is the same: justice served at long last to a terrorist with the blood of hundreds on his hands.
Turning to the ongoing terrorist threat, two documents recently recovered by U.S. forces in Iraq offer insight into the current state of mind of al-Qa’ida in Iraq: gloom and doom. Citing the sweeping changes that have taken place since the U.S. troop surge began, one captured document’s author laments, “[T]he Islamic State of Iraq is faced with an extraordinary crisis, especially in al-Anbar.” Patriot readers will no doubt remember that just 18 months ago the Marines’ top intelligence officer judged that “there is almost nothing the U.S. military can do to improve the political and social situation [in Anbar].” While these documents represent the views of only two individuals, the enemy’s own words are the clearest possible indication of what effect the surge and the Sunni Awakening have had in Iraq, no matter how many times Harry Reid (D-nial) and Nancy Pelosi (D-featist) tell us it isn’t so.
This week’s ‘Alpha Jackass’ award
“The gains [in Iraq] have not produced the desired effect, which is the reconciliation of Iraq. This is a failure. This is a failure! The troops have succeeded. God bless them. We owe them the greatest debt of gratitude, the sacrifice, their patriotism, and for their courage, and to their families as well. This is a disaster, and we cannot perpetuate it.” —House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who, uh, supports the troops, God bless them!
Pentagon seeks death for 9/11 suspects
Finally, justice for 9/11 may be served. On Monday, the Pentagon formally charged six jihadi suspects held at Guantanamo Bay with murder and war crimes related to the September 11th attacks, with Pentagon officials saying they will seek the death penalty should the suspects be convicted. Among the six is Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, suspected mastermind of the 9/11 attacks. Brigadier General Thomas Hartmann, legal adviser to the U.S. military-tribunal system, said of the 169 charges to be brought against the suspects, “These charges allege a long-term, highly sophisticated, organized plan by al-Qa’ida to attack the United States of America.” The other five jihadis include Mohammed al-Qahtani, the alleged 20th hijacker; Ramzi Binalshibh, liaison between the hijackers and al-Qa’ida; Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali (a.k.a. Ammar al-Baluchi), a nephew of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and lieutenant for operations; Mustafa Ahmad al-Hawsawi, one of al-Baluchi’s assistants; and Waleed bin Attash, who selected and trained some of the 9/11 hijackers. Needless to say, they are as fine a group as any to kick off the first capital trial under the military’s tribunal system.
Of course, the usual cadre of leftists, pacifists and dimwits (but we repeat ourselves) started howling that the indicted jihadis had been tortured and denied due process. We are not entirely clear on how making the Pentagon jump though years of legal hoops and modify its tribunal rules is not due process. As for torture, waterboarding may or may not be torture, but that has no bearing on the jihadis’ involvement in 9/11. We may soon see the Jihadi 6 sent to meet their 72 virgins.
Leftists ‘support’ the Marines
Last week, we reported that the city of Berkeley, California, had resolved that the United States Marine Corps was not welcome to continue recruiting there. If they continued, it would be as “uninvited and unwelcome intruders.” It seems that news raised the ire of many a patriotic American, forcing the city council to reconsider—now they will not send their hateful letter to the USMC. Not only that, but they issued a statement saying they “deeply respect and support” the men and women who serve in the U.S. Armed Forces. Something makes us doubt their sincerity. Maybe it’s the fact that the angry anti-war group Code Pink still has a special parking space reserved outside the recruiting office.
In Congress, Rep. John Campbell (R-CA) and Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) responded by introducing the Semper Fi Act, which would strip Berkeley of all federal earmarks for fiscal year 2008, instead giving the money to the United States Marines for recruiting.
Apparently, the mayor of Toledo, Ohio, hadn’t seen this news as he ordered 200 members of Company A, 1st Battalion, 24th Marines to turn around and leave rather than engage in urban-patrol exercises in the downtown area. Despite the fact that Toledo police knew about the exercise days in advance and the Marines have held exercises there before, Mayor Carty Finkbeiner (yes, that’s his real name) “asked them to leave because they frighten people,” according to a spokesman. “I wish they would have told us this four hours ago,” Staff Sgt. Andre Davis said. Indeed, the aborted exercise—busing the Marines from Grand Rapids, Michigan—cost roughly $10,000.
Profiles of valor: USAF Tech. Sgt. Chapman
United States Air Force Tech. Sgt. John Chapman, from Fayetteville, North Carolina, was involved in a reconnaissance mission in northern Afghanistan on 4 March 2002 when the team’s twin-engine Chinook helicopter came under heavy fire. It was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade and crash-landed. Chapman called in air support to cover the team, which was now exposed to enemy fire. He also directed a helicopter rescue of his team and aircrew members and led the search for a Navy SEAL who had fallen from the helicopter. Chapman killed two jihadis during the search, but came upon a machine-gun nest. Though the enemy fired on the rescue team on three sides, Chapman fired back. Soon, however, multiple wounds claimed his life, though he is credited with saving the lives of the others in the rescue team. For his actions, Chapman was posthumously awarded the Air Force Cross, and a U.S. Navy cargo ship was named in his honor.
Immigration front: Hasta la vista
In recent days, hard evidence has shown that illegal aliens in Arizona are “self-deporting” in droves, with many thousands more planning to leave soon. Mexican officials in Arizona are being inundated with requests for documents that will let them enroll their children in Mexican schools and return to Mexico without paying taxes on their furniture and other belongings. The mass exodus is in response to a new Arizona law that makes it nearly impossible for illegals to hold a job in the state, which boasts the highest number of illegals in its workforce—a whopping 12 percent. Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio has gotten in on the fun, of course, establishing a hotline for citizens to report those who hire illegals. Additionally, authority has been given to local law enforcement by Customs and Border Protection for the enforcement of federal immigration law, which should prove valuable. The new law goes into effect on 1 March. Who needs amnesty when simple law enforcement will do?
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BUSINESS & ECONOMY
Regulatory Commissars: Health ‘mandates’
In a classic case of deception by projection, politicians blame health insurers for the rising costs of health insurance. Yet, the Council for Affordable Health Insurance has counted 1,961 legislatively required “mandates” added to these costs since the early days of the Clinton administration, only 15 years ago. These “mandates” expand insurance coverage to procedures that typically are not medically necessary, because legislators have cozied up with sellers of the products and services. Sellers profit from increased business, and users of the products and services enjoy lower out-of-pocket costs.
Like each raindrop that doesn’t believe it is responsible for the flood, legislators have continued to act as if health insurance is their personal social experiment because someone else always pays the bill and takes the blame. While the cost of most government mandates adds between one and three percent to the cost of coverage, their cumulative costs are the main force driving up premiums. These mandates include covering slacker “children” up to age 30, as well as wigs, massages and obesity treatments.
Eventually, costs may be forced high enough to grant liberals their dream of socialized medicine. Americans would do well, however, to remember President Reagan’s cutting of the regulatory burdens, thereby giving industries the breathing room to become more competitive and affordable once again.
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Part Three
Biofuels wreck the environment
To the surprise of absolutely no one who greets climate change alarmism with even a hint of skepticism, two new scientific studies have concluded that biofuels do more harm than good. Both studies were published in the peer-reviewed journal Science.
According to the first study, which was conducted by ecologists from Princeton and the Woods Hole Research Center, biofuel advocates have made massive accounting errors by ignoring renewable energy’s “hidden costs.” For example, there is 2.7 times more carbon stored in plant material than the atmosphere, and massive amounts of this plant material would have to be burned off to make room to grow biofuel crops. Moreover, plant material serves as a sort of “carbon sink,” absorbing large amounts of CO2. By removing trees to make room for biofuel crops, the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere will only increase. The study ultimately concludes that when one considers production costs, the amount of greenhouse-gas emissions from ethanol over a period of 30 years will be twice as high as from gasoline, and that it will take 167 years for ethanol to “pay back” the carbon released by making land suitable for biofuel crops.
The second study was conducted by the University of Minnesota and the Nature Conservancy, which decided to take an even closer look at the issue of “carbon debt.” The conclusion? It would take between 48 and 93 years for the United States to bring corn ethanol to parity with gasoline as a net emitter of carbon. In Malaysia and Indonesia, where palm oil is created for European biodiesel, deforestation exceeds 1.5 percent annually, resulting in a carbon debt of 423 years.
Of course this news comes as Congress has just passed an energy bill providing huge federal subsidies and tax credits for corn ethanol research and development. One would think that if the politicians in Washington really cared about safe, cost-efficient, environmentally friendly energy, they would take another look at nuclear power. There’s nothing to be afraid of—just ask the French.
Exxon Mobil takes on thug dictator
What happens when the world’s largest publicly traded oil company takes on one of the world’s most notorious dictators? Exxon Mobil decided to find out. After Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez seized Exxon’s stake in two ventures in the country, including one 42.5-percent stake worth at least $4 billion, Exxon took Chavez to international court, targeting the assets of the country’s state-run oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela, SA, in U.S., British and Dutch courts. Last week, a British court sided with Exxon, issuing an injunction to freeze $12 billion in assets. A U.S. court also backed the company, freezing $315 million in Venezuelan cash.
In response, Chavez and his political puppets screamed “judicial terrorism” and stopped oil sales to Exxon. Despite Chavez’s intimidation attempts, however, experts say his actions will have little real impact on oil production. While Venezuela supplies approximately 11 percent of U.S. oil, the South American dictatorship is far more dependent on oil revenue than the U.S. is on Venezuelan oil. Exxon will easily be able to buy oil from other sources. Venezuela, however, has nowhere else to go for U.S. money. So, who’s holding the trump card now, Hugo?
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CULTURE
All Heller breaking loose
Vice President Dick Cheney broke with his own administration last week when he signed onto a Supreme Court brief filed by a majority of Congress instead of the brief filed by President Bush’s own solicitor general. The Amicus Curiae brief filed by Congress asks the Supreme Court to uphold a lower-court ruling that affirmed the Second Amendment as an individual right and declared the District of Columbia’s handgun ban to be unconstitutional. Vice President Cheney signed the brief as “President of the United States Senate, Richard B. Cheney,” a rarely used title that denotes the vice president’s dual role as member of both the executive and legislative branches. Legal experts believe this may be the first time in history that a vice president has gone against his own administration in an Amicus Curiae brief. It seems that Vice President Cheney sensed—as we did—that the brief filed by the Bush administration was gutless and indecisive. According to Cheney’s press secretary, Megan Mitchell, “The Vice President believes strongly in the Second Amendment.” Apparently, so do 55 senators and 250 House members, a number that NRA Vice President Wayne LaPierre says should send “a historical message to the court.” We can only hope.
As the Supreme Court considers the constitutional right to bear arms in DC, those on college campuses are also still denied the right. And once again, a murderous psychopath ignored the “gun-free zone” and killed six people Thursday—this time at Northern Illinois University. Unarmed students and professors were helpless until police arrived, by which time the shooter had determined that he was done and killed himself.
Frontiers of Junk Science: Maunder Minimum
Not all scientists are on board with Al Gore’s global warming mythology and accompanying hysteria. In fact, many scientists are currently seeking funding to research the possibility that we may be on the verge of a new ice age. The Danish Meteorological Institute released a study in 1991 showing that global temperatures follow solar cycles. Canadian scientists are planning to analyze the impact of the sun on the earth’s climate and the possibility that another ice age is imminent. Solar activity occurs in cycles of 11 years, and thus far, in the current cycle, the sun has been unusually quiet. The sun’s inactivity could indicate the beginning of what is known as the Maunder Minimum. This event occurs every few hundred years and lasts possibly as long as a century. The last Maunder Minimum occurred in 1650 and was marked by 50 years of terribly freezing winters and cool summers. These findings prove once again what should be blatantly obvious: that Al Gore’s man-made global-warming circus is not scientific, but rather is a scare tactic used for the promotion of class warfare and the redistribution of wealth. Liberals hope that, in addition to piling up political capital with global warming, they can also guilt-trip Americans into surrendering their quality of life.
Faith and Family: UK Sharia
Proposing an arrangement that would leave Britons with a multiple-choice legal system, Dr. Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury and leader of the global Anglican Church, caused an uproar last week by stating that adopting portions of Sharia law in the UK is “unavoidable.” While he has since said, “Some of what has been heard is a very long way indeed from what was actually said,” Dr. Williams has yet to negate the sentiment of his statement—that Islamic law should be welcomed and that the country should consider a “constructive relationship between Islamic law and the statutory law of the United Kingdom.”
Interestingly, according to Shaista Gohir, director of Muslim Voice UK, “[T]he majority of Muslims do not want it [Sharia law].” Gohir stated that formally adopting Sharia law would be “impossible because Muslims wouldn’t agree on one interpretation, and women would face discrimination from male-dominated councils.” Yet, Dr. Williams wants the UK to “face up to the fact” that not all citizens relate to the British legal system.
A better idea would be for Dr. Williams to “face up to the fact” that law does not depend on “relatability,” and, as Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s office stated, “British laws should be based on British values.”
Speaking of Islam, Danish police foiled a plot to murder one of the cartoonists that drew some rather humorous cartoons of Mohammed two years ago. Two Tunisians and a Dane of Moroccan descent were arrested and will likely be expelled from Denmark. Denmark’s leading newspapers republished the cartoons.
And last...
When it comes to gun control and its advocates, examples of hypocrisy abound. There is Sarah Brady of the Brady Campaign, who once purchased a Remington.30-06 rifle for her son as a Christmas present. There are entertainers like Rosie O’Donnell and Oprah Winfrey, who speak out about the evils of gun ownership under the protection of their armed guards. There is anti-gun Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Ca.), who holds one of the only concealed weapon permits in San Francisco. There is New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, who confiscated guns after Hurricane Katrina but thinks a photo op with an “assault rifle” is funny. And then there is Josh Sugarmann, gun-control activist and... gun dealer?
Sugarmann is the founder and executive director of the Violence Policy Center, a Washington lobby dedicated to banning handguns and semi-automatic weapons. Among other things, Sugarmann is notorious for coining the misleading term “assault weapon” and writing inane rants for the Huffington Post, but he also seems to have a side business, or at least a permit for one. According to the website of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, a federal firearms license (FFL) is registered to one Joshua Alan Sugarmann at the same Washington, DC, address as the headquarters of the Violence Policy Center. The federal government requires that all gun dealers obtain an FFL before buying, selling and manufacturing firearms.
We’re not quite sure what to make of this, except that maybe Josh Sugarmann foresees a booming gun business in the District of Columbia if the Supreme Court affirms the individual right interpretation of the Second Amendment later this year in District of Columbia v. Heller. Or maybe he’s merely Sen. Feinstein’s private gun dealer. Whatever the case, it can’t be easy selling guns in a dry county.
Veritas vos Liberabit—Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus, et Fidelis! Mark Alexander, Publisher, for The Patriot’s editors and staff. (Please pray for our Patriot Armed Forces standing in harm’s way around the world, and for their families—especially families of those fallen Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen, who granted their lives in defense of American liberty.)
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Reagan is dead. So is the past. Now a vision for the future:
http://jewishworldreview.com/cols/thomas021208.php3
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Now this "superdelegate" wants to change the rules in midgame. Why is the press not pointing out that this guy (who has worked for the Clintons since 1992 and who helped HC get the NY State Senate seat) is now poised to be one of those who votes as a superdelegate. Is this not corrupt or what?
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20080216/D8URLU1O0.html
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Pundits who think the Clinton people wouldn't dare go after superdelegates and (now it is revealed) even pledged delegates (who we now learn are not really pledged) better think again. If necessary the Clintons *will* steal the election and then con every fool who ever followed them into believing it was really the right thing to do for the party and the country:
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0208/8583.html
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This is how I see it too. I think Charles is right on this. His point about short memories is what the Clintons are counting on. Finagle the nomination. Blacks and other Obama fans will fall right back into line when faced with the prospect of choosing Hillary or McCain. Then he and she will soothe anger by praising Obama and promise he has a great *future* and his time will come but now we need someone with more experience and of course they are what we *all* need:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/31/AR2008013102627_2.html
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Oh god, please let the Clintons steal the nomination!!!! How great would that be? Democrat civil war!
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Exit polls in Wisconsin paint a grim picture for Hillary Clinton. Some 53% of Democratic voters thought she engaged in unfair negative campaigning, and fully 35% said they would be unhappy if she were the Democratic nominee. Such findings will certainly have an impact on the superdelegates who are likely to ultimately to decide the Democratic nomination and who believe electability is Job One for any nominee.
Almost as disturbing for Mrs. Clinton was her collapse among key demographic groups that supported her in earlier primaries. She only tied Mr. Obama among white women in Wisconsin, while losing white men 59% to 38%. She lost voters without college degrees and lost every age group except senior citizens. Mr. Obama won a staggering 71% of voters under the age of 30, a group that turned out in record numbers for a primary.
Apply that template to the upcoming March 4 contests in Ohio and Texas: Mrs. Clinton looks likely to lose both of those states, which would severely diminish her chances of swaying superdelegates into her corner with an argument that she can win the crucial big states in the fall.
Even if Mrs. Clinton recovers and does well from here on out, she would have to win 65% of the remaining delegates in order to regain the lead from Barack Obama. That near-impossibility effectively means that any superdelegates who ultimately support her would have to do so in full knowledge that they are voting for the candidate who was not the first choice of Democratic voters.
-- John Fund
Obama's Advantage: Flex-Time Workers
Ever since her drubbing in the Iowa caucuses, Hillary Clinton has complained that fixed-time, low-turnout caucus events give advantages to her opponent while she does better in primaries where more voters have a say. "You have a limited period of time on one day to have your voices heard," she has told reporters. "That is troubling to me.... People who work during that time -- they're disenfranchised."
Well, some evidence has surfaced that she may have a point. Ten days ago, Washington State Democrats selected all 78 of their delegates proportionately through a caucus system. Mr. Obama won a crushing 68% majority.
Then yesterday, Democrats trouped to the polls again and voted in a beauty contest presidential primary that won't allocate a single delegate. Still, many more voters participated and this time Mr. Obama won again, but despite his incredible momentum and favorable publicity since Super Tuesday, he won only 50% of the vote.
But while Mrs. Clinton can take home a talking point from last night's Washington state results, that doesn't explain her crushing defeat in Wisconsin, a state that held an open primary and from which she withdrew ad money after her internal polls showed her falling victim to Obamamania. Bottom line: Obamamania increasingly knows few boundaries no matter whether Democrats vote in a caucus or a primary.
-- John Fund
Not Yet Gone, Certainly Not Forgotten
Last week Arizona Representative John Shadegg's announcement that he would retire from the House caused a collective groan from the conservative movement. Mr. Shadegg, who was elected as part of the 1994 Contract with America class, said he was "burned out," and no longer felt he could be an effective voice for free markets and entitlement reform.
But -- put away those hankies. Mr. Shadegg may be staying after all.
After his stunning announcement, conservative leaders banded together and decided they had to persuade him to stick around. Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana worked the inside game, telling his colleague, "We can't win without you. You're vital to the conservative movement." Mr. Pence and a handful of others, including Texas Rep. Jeb Hensarling and Michigan's Peter Hoekstra, drafted a letter on behalf of their House colleagues asking Mr. Shadegg to stay. "Within 3 hours, we had some 140 signatures," Mr. Pence tells me. "People were coming up to me asking, 'How do I get on the letter?'"
More than two dozen Republicans are retiring this year, but only one has been implored by colleagues to stay with words like these from the Pence letter: "We fear that without you and the long-term perspective you bring to every debate, our battles will be difficult to win. This is especially true in the area of health care where you are one of the leading experts.... The Republican Conference needs you here, the Conservative Movement needs you here, and the country needs you here."
Heritage Foundation President Ed Feulner and other leading outside conservatives have circulated a similar letter. In a phone conversation last weekend, Mr. Shadegg told me he's "truly moved" by the expressions of support and will reconsider. Mr. Pence put it best when he quoted Abraham Lincoln, who said of General Grant: "I cannot spare the man, he fights."
-- Stephen Moore
Quote of the Day
"If you examine [Barack Obama's] agenda, it is completely ordinary, highly partisan, not candid and mostly unresponsive to many pressing national problems.... The contrast between his broad rhetoric and his narrow agenda is stark, and yet the press corps -- preoccupied with the political 'horse race' -- has treated his invocation of 'change' as a serious idea rather than a shallow campaign slogan. He seems to have hypnotized much of the media and the public with his eloquence and the symbolism of his life story. The result is a mass delusion that Obama is forthrightly engaging the nation's major problems when, so far, he isn't" -- Washington Post columnist Robert Samuelson.
Exculpating the Machines
In her campaign to unseat Florida Republican Rep. Vern Buchanan, Democrat Christine Jennings suffered a harsh blow last week from an unlikely source -- the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office.
Ms. Jennings claims she actually won the seat two years ago in a closely fought election. But Mr. Buchanan was declared the winner by 369 votes and Ms. Jennings was left to argue foul play. Picking up on the controversy, and looking to pad their new majority in the House, some Democrats in Congress even wanted to block Mr. Buchanan from taking his seat.
It didn't help that Mr. Buchanan had won a seat that was being vacated by Republican Katherine Harris, a bête noire to Democrats because of her role in Florida's 2000 presidential election controversy. It also didn't help that the voters used new electronic voting machines that did not leave a paper trail and that 18,000 voters in Sarasota County who cast votes in other races somehow failed to record a vote in the Congressional race. These "undervotes," amounting to 12% of the ballots cast in the county, fueled accusations that this was yet another "stolen" election in Florida.
But now the GAO, after an exhaustive study under the direction of a bipartisan House Committee, concludes that there was no foul play. GAO investigators closely inspected the machines used in the election, comparing their software to copies put in escrow before the election -- and the software matched up. The GAO also ran hundreds of tests to simulate what voters would have seen inside the voting booth. Finally, the GAO deliberately miscalibrated some of the machines to see if they could be fooled into missing votes. They couldn't.
What about the mystery of the "undervotes," which were three times higher in Sarasota than in other counties? They remain a mystery, but the GAO concluded that no machine error was involved, and that a confusing ballot design probably deterred some voters from voting in the House race.
-- Brendan Miniter
PD of the WSJ
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The Spirit of Mary Mapes Lives On
Expect the John McCain campaign to attack the "liberal media" as part of its strategy to overcome the innuendo-rich New York Times story alleging that the Arizona Senator had questionable ties with a telecom lobbyist.
The Times has had the story since last December when the Drudge Report published a bare-bones outline of the paper's investigation. After top-flight Washington lawyer Robert Bennett was wheeled in by Team McCain and the Senator hotly denied the report's thesis to New York Times Editor Bill Keller, the story disappeared. So why has it returned now just as Mr. McCain has wrapped up the GOP nomination?
The New Republic confirms that it was set to run a major story by reporter Gabe Sherman on how the lobbyist story was handled by the Times newsroom. McCain aide Charlie Black says it looks as if the paper decided it would rather hobble the thinly-sourced story out now rather than be subjected to criticism from media peers for "covering" it up.
Even so, you can expect some of that criticism to persist. The New Republic's Noam Scheiber writes on the magazine's blog: "The [New York Times] story reads to me like it had originally been much more ambitious, but had its guts ripped out somewhere along the way. The obvious question is whether those guts will ever trickle out now that this story has surfaced."
You can expect a lot of reporters to begin their own digging into the relationship between Mr. McCain and lobbyist Vicki Iseman. Assuming no major revelations emerge, the McCain campaign should be able to weather the controversy given the hostility the Republican base feels towards the New York Times. I just wouldn't count on a lot of warmth in relations between the Times and the McCain forces in the months ahead. Indeed, the McCain campaign is promising to "go to war" with the Times in its efforts to knock down the story.
-- John Fund
Luckabee
Has Mike Huckabee been delaying his pull-out from the presidential race in order to see if something untoward happens to John McCain, such as today's New York Times story linking the Arizona senator to a female lobbyist?
At a recent breakfast with Washington reporters, Mr. Huckabee admitted that, absent a "stumble," his rival would get the GOP nomination. Perhaps the New York Times story was the "stumble" Mr. Huckabee was waiting for. If so, unless more damning revelations are on their way, the vague innuendo of the Times piece seems insufficient to improve the former Arkansas governor's chances.
But the Times story is likely to embolden Mr. Huckabee to stay in the race at least through Texas. Exit polls in Wisconsin this week found that 42% of GOP voters didn't think Mr. McCain's positions were "conservative enough." If that's the case in Wisconsin, what about deeply-red Texas? Huckabee aides believe their candidate still has an outside chance of upsetting Mr. McCain, so it looks as if Mike Huckabee will be bedeviling the frontrunner at least until Texas votes on March 4.
-- John Fund
Campaign Finance Fallout
For a textbook case on the problems with campaign finance regulation, look no further than this morning's New York Times. The Grey Lady suggests Republican Presidential frontrunner John McCain had an improper relationship with lobbyist Vicki Iseman, although the story doesn't offer much in the way of evidence. For good measure, the paper also dredges up Mr. McCain's role in the decades-old Keating Five scandal to tarnish his more recent squeaky-clean reputation as a scourge of "special interests" and cleanser of money from politics.
Here's the irony: Lobbyists and other moneyed interests have been pouring enough cash into Mr. McCain's campaign that he can effectively answer the attacks. Given the strict fund-raising law that he coauthored, that might not have been possible had the Times story landed last summer when his campaign was out of favor with large numbers of donors.
Mr. McCain raised $11.7 million in January, largely from individual contributors -- money that he can spend on TV spots, radio ads and direct mailings and to pay campaign professionals to work the press and counter the Times allegations. Having money to spend is tantamount to having a chance to be heard amidst the booming media echo chamber. Notice that though the Times itself mentions Mr. McCain's denial of romantic involvement with Ms. Iseman in the fourth paragraph, it doesn't bother to quote a response from Team McCain until the 49th paragraph.
Mr. McCain is lucky he's the front-runner and has a wide funding-raising base. Under the onerous restrictions of McCain-Feingold, which would have prohibited him from raising large sums quickly from a handful of dedicated supporters, another candidate would have a hard time being heard over the media din. Indeed, if the Times had held back its story until Nov. 1, 2008, even a well-financed frontrunner would have been limited in his ability to respond -- because the law tightly restricts advertising just before an election.
-- Joseph Sternberg
Tsunama
Calling Sen. Barack Obama's 10 victories since February 5 a "winning streak" severely understates what has taken place since Super Duper Tuesday.
Mr. Obama has not only defeated Sen. Hillary Clinton; he has crushed her. Not including the Virgin Islands, for which exact results are not yet available, Obama has won eight states and Washington, D.C., by an average of 32 percentage points.
Mr. Obama's 17-point win Tuesday in Wisconsin was his smallest margin of victory among the nine elections. He carried Hawaii and the District of Columbia by more than 50 points, and Virginia by a surprisingly large 29 points. He won Nebraska by 36 points and Washington State by 37 points, carrying every one of Washington's 39 counties. This monumental stomping over the past two weeks has given Mr. Obama a lead of about 160 pledged delegates, according to the latest RealClearPolitics count.
Conventional wisdom -- and polls -- suggest this run of lopsided victories will not continue through the March 4 primaries in Texas and Ohio, where Mrs. Clinton's support among Latinos and labor unions, respectively, presumably allows her a strong shot at winning both states. However, Mrs. Clinton's lead has begun to slip in recent days, with Mr. Obama pulling even in the two most recent Texas polls. Get ready to throw conventional wisdom out the window one more time this year: The gravitational force of Obamamania might pull even Texas and Ohio out of Hillary's orbit in the next two weeks.
-- Kyle Trygstad, RealClearPolitics.com
Oh Brother
Fidel Castro always has been notorious for giving his little brother Raúl the dirty work. Some things never change.
With Fidel's announcement that he will not accept the role of "president" for another term when the national assembly meets on Sunday, Raúl inherits the power just as things appear to be coming unglued. One such warning came from a group of university students several weeks ago.
Attending university in Cuba has always implied a willingness to support, or at least passively accept, the Castro dictatorship. Fail to conform and there is no chance of higher education. That's why students and student leaders have typically tended to be patsies for the regime. Yet when Ricardo Alarcón, speaker of the Cuban national assembly and a Fidel loyalist, went to the Computer Sciences University in January, he was met by a group of students who publicly challenged government policies. In comments that were captured on video tape, they criticized the Cuban electoral system, the pricing of many consumer goods in scarce U.S. dollars, restrictions on travel abroad, lack of Internet access and the prohibition against Cubans staying at resort hotels in their own country.
Shockwaves reverberated throughout the island. Not long after, the mother of one of the students reported that her son had been detained by state security. He later appeared on national television to deny that he had come under any pressure from the regime. He added that any critical comments made by the students were merely suggestions for "improving socialism."
The Cuban people, of course, know better, but more and more are willing to speak such heresies, which is perhaps something Fidel took into account when he decided to step down. It's too early to call it a burgeoning free-speech movement, but sooner than he thinks, Raúl may face an unappetizing choice: Ratchet up repression to preserve the now-questioned Castro dictatorship or tolerate more open dissent in hope of some kind of honeymoon with the U.S. and other Western nations.
-- Mary Anastasia O'Grady
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February 29, 2008
In Today's Political Diary:
Can Hillary Sue Her Way to the Nomination?
Global Drop Out
Insult to McCain, Injury to Clinton (Quote of the Day I)
Will on Bill (Quote of the Day II)
John McCain and the Other Irish Miracle
Here Come the Lawyers
The Clinton campaign has a few surprises left. Yesterday, Texas Democratic Party officials warned that Team Clinton was threatening to sue to overturn the state's Byzantine system of selecting delegates in next Tuesday's primary. "Such action could prove to be a tragedy for a reinvigorated Democratic process," wrote Chad Dunn, a lawyer for the Texas Democratic Party.
Texas has 228 delegates at stake next Tuesday, but only 126 of them will be determined by voters going to the polls. Another 67 will be allocated based on the number of people who show up at low-turnout "caucuses" that begin at 8 p.m., after the regular polls close. The remaining 35 are "superdelegate" slots reserved for party officials.
Mr. Obama has used the caucus system -- which puts a premium on voter enthusiasm and campaign organization -- to his advantage in many states, prompting complaints from the Clinton camp. Sources told McClatchy News that Mrs. Clinton 's political director, Guy Cecil, had made it clear on a telephone call with Texas officials that she might go to court to stop the caucuses. What actually appears to be going on is a high-stakes game of chicken, in which the Clinton forces are seeking to stir up controversy and any kind of last-minute adjustment in the caucus rules that might give her a leg up. It's late in the day for rule changes, but that didn't stop Clinton allies from filing a lawsuit against the Nevada caucus organizers back in January. Her effort failed, but Mrs. Clinton was able to stir up sufficient voter interest to eke out a narrow victory over Mr. Obama.
-- John Fund
Obama vs. the World
Is Barack Obama climbing out so far on his campaign's left wing as to court a potential political crash as his party's nominee?
Mr. Obama used to make soothing, moderate noises on the economy, well aware that projecting an image as a wild-eyed populist could hurt him with independent voters in the fall. But in the heat of the Texas and Ohio primaries, he has thrown restraint aside and joined Hillary Clinton in a jihad against globalization.
Most infamously, Mr. Obama paired his endorsement by the anti-trade Teamsters Union with a pledge to block "open trucking" with Mexico, by which cargo vehicles can easily cross the border without transferring their shipments to U.S. trucks.
As for NAFTA, which has proven a boon to many border areas of Texas, Mr. Obama now claims that the agreement with Mexico cost "millions of jobs" and says he wants to renegotiate the treaty. On the outsourcing of U.S. jobs overseas, Mr. Obama has come up with a Rube Goldberg plan to levy lower corporate taxes on firms that become "patriot employers" and keep jobs in the U.S. "What he is effectively saying is that companies that offshore jobs are unpatriotic," economist Gary Hufbauer told the Financial Times. "This is serious language."
It may also be serious politics. John McCain advisers believe that Mr. Obama's "stop the world" rhetoric combined with his designation as the most liberal senator by the National Journal magazine give them an angle to appeal to business owners and workers in export industries. "The only Democrat to win the White House in the last generation was Bill Clinton, who was moderate on trade," says one McCain adviser. "If Obama wants to try trade extremism instead as a campaign tactic, that's a battlefield we will be happy to meet him on."
Advisers to Mr. McCain believe that Mr. Obama would present a juicy target as nominee. "We see him as a classic liberal whose proposals come straight out of the 1970s," says Douglas Holtz-Eakin, senior McCain adviser. "It is hard to understand his stance on trade. Access to the U.S. market is a vital element of our foreign policy."
-- John Fund
Quote of the Day I
"The irony of the [New York Times story about John McCain's alleged relationship with a female lobbyist] is that if it hurt anyone, it was [Hillary] Clinton. If she still had a chance of catching up with Obama, it was dependent upon her getting some traction on one of three criticisms of Obama. The first is the claim that Obama lifted lines from Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick's speeches (a valid argument). The second is that he was breaking his pledge to rely on federal matching funds and abide by spending limits in a general election. Finally, there was Michelle Obama's recent remarks about being proud of her country for the first time in her adult life. The Times story effectively ended any chance that these three attack lines would get any traction. Game, set and match" -- political handicapper Charlie Cook, writing in National Journal.
Quote of the Day II
"n the plodding political arguments within the flaccid liberal consensus of the post-World War II intelligentsia, conservatism's face was that of another Yale man, Robert Taft, somewhat dour, often sour, three-piece suits, wire-rim glasses. The word 'fun' did not spring to mind. The fun began when Bill [Buckley] picked up his clipboard, and conservatives' spirits, by bringing his distinctive brio and elan to political skirmishing.... Politics was not Bill's life -- he had many competing and compensating enthusiasms -- but it mattered to him, and he mattered to the course of political events" -- columnist George F. Will on the late William F. Buckley Jr.
The Irish in John McCain
The other day Paul Krugman of the New York Times once again attacked supply-side tax cutting ideas and snarled that "Reaganomics was oversold" and its successes were "shortlived." We won't fight that fight again, but it is interesting that for all their attacks against supply-side economics and all their prophesies that high tax rates don't hurt, the one thing economists and politicians on the left cannot explain is the Irish Economic Miracle.
In the 1970s and '80s Ireland had one of the highest percentage of its citizens on welfare or collecting unemployment benefits, and the country of four million people was losing population each year. An estimated one million Irish-born immigrants were living in America -- many of them illegal aliens, and many of them their country's best and brightest.
Starting in 1989, Ireland's politicians began cutting tax rates, and now its corporate tax rate is 12.5% -- by far the lowest in Europe. The highest personal income tax rate came down to 41% from 58%. In the following years, Ireland's growth rate soared to 8% per year, more than twice the U.S. growth rate and nearly three times Europe's. Ireland is now the continent's third-richest nation on a per capita basis. Over the last 18 years the nation's employment has increased by an astonishing 75%.
A key element of John McCain's platform is cutting taxes on corporate profits to 25% from 35% -- bringing America's corporate tax rate closer to the average of our European and Asian competitors. In selling his plan, Mr. McCain might talk not only about what Ireland has achieved, but what it means for U.S. competitiveness. An Intel executive confided recently that his company builds most of its new plants offshore because of the high U.S. tax on corporate profits. According to Barry O'Leary, head of the Investment and Development Agency of Ireland, a U.S.-based plant would have to grow profits by 45% a year "to achieve the same [after-tax] income available in Ireland. He adds: "Our tax cutting has made Ireland the highest growth nation in Europe over the last decade. We are importing firms and workers."
Meanwhile, Senators Clinton and Obama are peddling the idea that the U.S. can tax its ways to prosperity in the competitive global economy. If one of these two wins in November, Ireland is going to get richer than ever.
WSJ
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Barack Obama demonstrated he can be just as testy as the next politician when uncomfortable issues come up. During a news conference in Texas yesterday, he clearly did not welcome inquiries about his former fundraiser Tony Rezko, who goes on trial this week in Chicago on charges he extorted contributions from companies seeking state business.
NBC's Aswini Anburajan reports that Mr. Obama cut off questions from Carol Marin, a columnist at the Chicago Sun-Times, after she pressed him on why he had not met with individual Chicago reporters who were knowledgeable on the Rezko scandal.
Mr. Obama repeated an earlier statement that his entering into a land deal with Mr. Rezko that helped the Illinois senator buy his new Chicago home in 2005 was "boneheaded," but maintained "there have been no allegations that I betrayed the public trust."
Another reporter asked Mr. Obama why he wouldn't release information about various fundraisers that Mr. Rezko had held for Mr. Obama and why details about their relationship continue to dribble out. Mr. Obama claimed he would provide more details but added: "What happens is these requests I think can go on forever, and, at some point, we've tried to respond to what's pertinent to the question that's been raised."
A short while later, Mr. Obama was asked about a meeting one of his aides held with Canadian officials over the Nafta trade treaty. At that point, Mr. Obama apparently lost patience with reporters, answered curtly and then walked out. As reporters shouted at him to stay, he yelled back: "Come on guys; I answered like eight questions. We're running late."
I suspect Mr. Obama will end up answering a lot more than eight questions before the Rezko trial is over, as more details of his relationship to the indicted fundraiser and Chicago’s Daley machine continue to tumble out.
-- John Fund
Last Call
If Hillary Clinton gets knocked out of the race today, she will have every reason to wonder if a few more days of campaigning might have produced a different outcome. Between the media's belated interest in the Rezko matter and the revealing Team Obama scheme to send different signals on Nafta to different audiences, Mrs. Clinton might finally be getting some traction with the question, "Who is this guy, anyway?"
After Mr. Obama's chief economic advisor was exposed for apparently telling the Canadian consulate that the candidate's statements on Nafta were just for show, the Canadian consulate began bending over backwards to apologize for any impression that Mr. Obama was back-channeling around voters. "We deeply regret any inference that may have been drawn to that effect," the Canadians offered profusely.
It's certainly a political first to watch the Canadian government falling over itself to assure Americans that a U.S. presidential candidate really does have Canada's worst interests at heart. For her part, Sen. Clinton seized on the incident to say Mr. Obama was playing the old game of telling ordinary voters one thing while giving the "wink wink" to more sophisticated audiences. Unfortunately for her campaign, she came up short yesterday of embodying all the Obama doubts in a soundbite to help move the needle in the last hours before Ohio and Texas vote. Where's Bill Clinton, author of the "fairy-tale" zinger, when she needs him? Nor did she hit the ball out of the park with her comment to CBS's "60 Minutes" that Mr. Obama is not a Muslim "as far as I know."
Still, Mr. Obama's out-of-character assault on Nafta, which was clearly a calculated strategy to deal Mrs. Clinton a knockout punch in Ohio, may have backfired. Mrs. Clinton didn't play the controversy adroitly, but late polls nonetheless suggest movement in her direction. If she loses anyway, her wheeziness in crystallizing the case against her rival will be the sound of last-minute opportunity slipping through her fingers.
-- Collin Levy
Trouble in Hastertland
Republicans are nervous that they could lose a high-profile special election in Illinois today. A loss would be especially embarrassing because the district was vacated by former House Speaker Dennis Hastert and should be Republican, having given President Bush 55% of the vote in 2004.
But a recent Democratic poll found physicist Bill Foster, the Democrat, with a narrow lead over GOP businessman Bill Oberweis. Republicans dismiss the poll and say their man is comfortably ahead. But national Democratic groups have seized on the apparent closeness of the contest and put out a TV commercial blasting Mr. Oberweis for saying he supported President Bush on "almost everything." The ad goes on to link the Republican to "Bush's scheme to privatize Social Security" and claims he supports "staying in Iraq" for another ten years.
Special elections often send signals about the national mood. In 1974, a series of special election losses proved to be a harbinger of the GOP rout in that fall's Watergate-dominated election. In 1994, Bill Clinton's unpopularity resulted in several Democratic defeats in special elections, which proved a good predictor of that fall's GOP takeover of Congress. A GOP defeat in the Chicago district where the last Republican House speaker won ten straight elections would be a devastating blow to conservative morale.
-- John Fund
The Party of Obama
Voters in Ohio and Texas could put an end to Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign today. If they do, more than a few Democrats will breath a sigh of relief. At its core, Mr. Obama's candidacy forced a set of uncomfortable questions on Democrats: Will they live up to their rhetoric and support a liberal, black candidate running a positive campaign? Will Hispanics rally behind such a candidate? Or, alternatively, will deep fissures open up within the party that will take years to close up again?
So far, it appears those fissures are not materializing. James Aldrete, who handles much of the Hispanic outreach for the Obama campaign in Texas, including Spanish language ads, tells us he's seen a few surprising things on the campaign trail this year. The first came a year ago when some 20,000 people turned out to hear Mr. Obama speak in Austin, an early sign that the Illinois senator could appeal to large numbers of younger Hispanics. The second came more recently when Mr. Aldrete noticed a lot of new voters turning up in largely Hispanic areas of the state. Along the border, which is 90% Hispanic, early voting indicates that perhaps one-third of the votes cast are coming from individuals who haven't voted in the past three Texas Democratic primaries. In other Hispanic areas, the number is as high as one-half. That's a sign that turnout will be high this year and likely swelled by new Hispanic voters.
The split Mr. Aldrete sees is not along racial lines. "Tejanos," Hispanics who have been in Texas a long time, he told us, share many concerns with African-Americans, including health care, education and so on. If there is a split, it comes in the state's bigger cities -- Dallas, Houston -- and is between Hispanics who are foreign-born and those who were born in the U.S. The more Hispanic voters define themselves as "immigrants," it seems, the more they perceive a clash of interests between themselves and black voters. But Mr. Obama may be rapidly realigning the Democratic Party to put this traditional Hispanic-Black divide in the past.
-- Brendan Miniter
WSJ
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Naturally...
She'll buy him off with the VP but of course she's the p:
http://wcbstv.com/topstories/clinton.obama.ticket.2.669799.html
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Thief vs. Thief
The Clinton campaign was on the warpath last night against what it called attempts by Barack Obama's campaign to steal yesterday's primary elections.
In Ohio, Team Clinton claims that Obama attorneys cherry-picked black precincts in Cleveland in their effort to keep certain polling places open late due to bad weather and long lines. The evidence Mr. Obama presented to a local judge was scant at best, but the judge issued a hand-written note ordering some 21 precincts to stay open. Even Democratic Secretary of State Jennifer Bruner was unhappy with the maneuver, but she realized too late what was happening.
In Texas, Bill Clinton himself complained of reports of "canceled" caucuses and sign-in sheets for caucus attendees that were improperly collected before the start of last night's precinct conventions. (Sign-in sheets are only valid if signatures are collected after the caucus begins.) "Some people have been told apparently that there is going to be an effort to sign up in advance and slip the sheets in," the former president told reporters.
Indeed, the Clinton campaign went so far as to hold an 8:45 pm conference call for reporters last night in which Clinton staff members alleged that Obama supporters were locking Clinton voters out of some caucus locations. "It's truly an outrage," claimed Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson. "It's really undemocratic."
Mr. Wolfson was interrupted during his complaint by Bob Bauer, the lead attorney for Barack Obama, who intervened in the media call to complain that the Clinton campaign was exhibiting a pattern of trying to restrict access to caucus elections.
"In Nevada, you filed a lawsuit in advance of the caucus.... In Iowa, you threatened various students," the Obama lawyer claimed. Mr. Wolfson dismissed the claims and ridiculed Mr. Bauer for his "vigorous defense of the indefensible" and said Team Clinton was looking "forward to asking our own questions" in future Obama conference calls to reporters.
It's fascinating to see Democrats, who normally deny the existence of voter fraud, choosing between two presidential candidates who hurl those charges against each other with abandon.
-- John Fund
Down and Dirty
Pundits and political reporters decry negative campaigns, but such campaigns can provide useful information about candidates. That's why they often work. Ask Hillary Clinton.
After weeks of dancing around and hesitating to attack Barack Obama directly, Mrs. Clinton challenged his fitness to be Commander in Chief with an ad depicting a 3:00 am. crisis in the White House. She also flooded Texas and Ohio with telephone calls claiming Mr. Obama had told voters he wanted to renegotiate the NAFTA trade deal while telling Canadian diplomats that was mere rhetoric.
It worked. One out of five Texas Democrats said they waited to make up their minds until the last three days before the election. Mrs. Clinton carried this group by a stunning 23 points (61-38%). In Ohio, she carried late-deciders by a hefty 11 points.
Team Obama now says it expects an increasingly vigorous attack from Mrs. Clinton and her surrogates, playing up the current criminal trial in Chicago of Tony Rezko, who was once Mr. Obama's top fundraiser. Mrs. Clinton has demanded Mr. Obama answer questions about Mr. Rezko's role in a land deal that enabled the Illinois senator to buy his house. "The vetting of Obama has just begun.... If the primary contest ends prematurely and Obama is the nominee, Democrats may have a nominee who will be a lightning rod of controversy," wrote Clinton strategists Mark Penn and Harold Ickes in a memo to reporters this morning.
For its part, the Obama campaign is no less ready to return fire on Clinton ethics and finances, according to Obama strategist David Axelrod: "I've said before I don't know why they'd want to go there, but I guess that's where they'll take the race.''
-- John Fund
Quote of the Day I
"The first rule of politics is, 'Never count out the Clintons.' Their political conglomerate, Clinton Inc., is like Glenn Close in that bathtub scene in the movie 'Fatal Attraction.' It always comes back to life a second or third time" -- columnist Salena Zito, writing in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.
Quote of the Day II
"Just when you thought no one watched 'Saturday Night Live' anymore, the show made a star cameo on this year's trail. The Not Ready for Prime Time Players were brutally effective in exposing the fawning coverage of Obama. Never underestimate the power of shame in journalism. 'SNL's' mockery went straight to reporters' insecurities. Being accused of falling 'in the tank' for a candidate is the journalistic equivalent of a nerdish high school freshman getting a wedgie from the jocks. It is no coincidence that the past few days have seen reporters acting tough with stories about Obama's relationship with a Chicago influence-peddler, his sincerity in opposing NAFTA and his stiff-arming of questions from the press" -- Jim VandeHei and John Harris of Politico.com, writing on the change in tenor of media coverage of Barack Obama.
The 'Superdelegate' Primary
The next big Democratic primary is April 22, when Pennsylvanians will head to the polls. But it increasingly looks like neither Hillary Clinton nor Barack Obama can win enough pledged delegates to clinch the party's nomination before the convention this summer. The real contest now is the race for "superdelegates" -- the 795 prominent Democrats, mostly elected officials, who will enter the convention free to vote for whomever they choose.
In this battle, two trends are breaking for Barack Obama. The first is talk in Democratic circles of orchestrating a mass movement of superdelegates in favor of the Illinois senator. The idea is to create a dramatic signal that the party has settled on a nominee and is closing ranks behind him to prepare for a hard fought campaign against John McCain in the fall. If this mass movement occurs, Mrs. Clinton likely won't be able to wage a successful floor fight at the convention and, in any case, will suffer weeks of intense pressure to abandon her campaign in the name of uniting the party.
Team Clinton recognizes the danger. With last night's results sinking in, her supporters are pushing for superdelegates to preemptively commit themselves to Mrs. Clinton. Her Ohio victory, they argue, proves she’s the best candidate to win in key battleground states in the fall. They also point to exit polls suggesting she’s the best candidate to go head-to-head with John McCain on national security.
But another trend also favors Mr. Obama -- the intense pressure on black superdelegates, especially members of the Congressional Black Caucus, to line up behind him. One of those leading the push is James Rucker, a 36-year-old former software executive who entered politics in 2003 by going to work for MoveOn.org. Three years ago he launched his own group, ColorForChange.org, to pressure black elected officials. He says many black officeholders have become too cozy in power to serve the needs of the black community. His latest strategy has been to collect signatures from black voters aimed at shaming members of the Black Caucus into supporting Mr. Obama.
With 14,000 signatures in hand, Mr. Rucker's biggest success came late last month when Rep. John Lewis, a Georgia Democrat and African-American leader, dropped his support for Mrs. Clinton and endorsed Mr. Obama. Mr. Lewis is an influential figure in the black community and his defection could yet force other superdelegates to follow his lead. Stay tuned. The superdelegate primary is far from over. Should Mrs. Clinton become the nominee, it has the potential to open a rift with black voters that could hobble the party in November.
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"For its part, the Obama campaign is no less ready to return fire on Clinton ethics and finances, according to Obama strategist David Axelrod: "I've said before I don't know why they'd want to go there, but I guess that's where they'll take the race.''
No doubt the Obama campaign will have to stoop to the Clinton lows. Morris on the obvoius:
« HILLARY UNMASKED
OBAMA BETTER BATTLE BACK BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE
Mar 5 2008
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Published in the New York Post on March 5, 2008.
With big wins in Ohio and Texas last night, Hillary Clinton has finally broken her losing streak and sent a clear message to Barack Obama: I’m not getting out.
For the Illinois senator, the meaning of the primaries is clear - he has to get tough. Hillary can still win this nomination. The proportional representation system of allocating delegates chosen by primaries and caucuses mutes the impact of the popular vote.
By the time the Texas caucuses are fully counted, Obama may have maintained or even expanded his delegate lead, despite Hillary’s victories in three out of four states.
Among the remaining 600 delegates to be chosen, Obama should be able to add to his lead.
But there remain 800 superdelegates, each entitled to a full vote. No matter if Obama leads among elected delegates, they can still deliver the nomination to Hillary.
Do they dare?
If Clinton is able to score a series of popular-vote victories in these late primaries, she could lay the basis for an appeal to the superdelegates to disregard the results of January and February and look instead at her success in the later contests.
The battle of Hillary is over. The battle of Obama has begun.
The question of his readiness and experience looms ever larger in the minds of the media and of voters.
Her red-phone ad, citing her supposedly superior readiness to be commander in chief, evidently cut deeply among the electorate.
It’s time that Obama counters her strategy by hitting back. His lofty politics of hope will avail him little in the aggressive, rough-and-tumble world of modern politics.
He’s got to spell out the special-interest connections that stigmatize Hillary as the tool of the lobbyists.
He must underscore the need for her to release her tax returns for 2007 and 2006 to show the source of her new-found wealth.
He’s got to learn to trade blows with the Clintons, the best counterpunchers in the business.
Looming above the primaries is the specter of the unseated delegations from Michigan - chosen in a primary with only Hillary’s name on the ballot - and Florida.
Obama needs to stop her gathering momentum by shedding his ingenue status and fighting hard for the nomination his previous victories have earned him.
Copyright © 2008 DickMorris.com
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I confess I don't see what is so terrible about raising the issue of BO's readiness to be CIC. His resume is even thinner than Hillary's. Maybe he should run an ad showing a 3AM phone call asking "Do you know where your husband is?" :lol:
More seriously though, WTF is Hillary's "experience"? After she got run over trying to nationalize health care, what did she do? What substantive international experience did she have? Would anyone talk of Nancy Reagan's or Lauara Bush's "experience"?
What twaddle!
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I couldn't agree with you more Crafty. I believe Obama will have to start attacking Clinton and have his surrogates go negative and hard. "Do we really want another four or eight more years of deception, sleeziness, manipulation, outright lies, narcissism, etc?'
His campaign's "hope" and "unity" theme seems to have run out of gas when up against the slime machine of the grifters.
Limbaugh was totally wrong. We should get rid of the Clintons anytime we are able. Indeed McCain may be facing both of them now.
(Hill and Obam).
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/05/AR2008030502888_pf.html
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Dean's been bought off. Anyone can be bribed if the price is right. And Clintons are rich with power and money. Clinton would have had their army of lawyers sue for this anyway. I am telling you she would have Obama assisinated if that is what it takes.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080306/ap_on_el_pr/primary_scramble
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Pardon Me?
Obama campaign manager David Plouffe isn't mincing words about what he thinks of Hillary Clinton's attacks on his candidate's ethics. "Sen. Clinton is the most secretive politician in America today. This has been a pattern throughout her career of the lack of disclosure," he told reporters this week.
Some backup for Mr. Plouffe's statement arrived yesterday when it was revealed that archivists at the Clinton Presidential Library are declining to release material on just how President Clinton issued dozens of suspect pardons in the final hours of his administration in 2001, including the infamous pardon of Marc Rich, the fugitive commodities trader convicted of tax evasion and selling oil to Iran in violation of a U.S. embargo.
The archivists acted according to guidelines set down by Mr. Clinton. All told, some 1,500 pages of documents are being redacted or kept secret, including 300 pages on the pardon selection process, including reports on why the Clinton Justice Department opposed certain pardons. Mr. Clinton pardoned two men who each paid Hugh Rodham, Hillary Clinton's brother, some $200,000 to lobby the White House in search of a pardon. One was sought for a drug dealer and another for someone convicted of mail fraud and perjury. Mr. Clinton denied knowing anything about the payments before making his decisions.
While the decision to withhold the pardon materials was made by Clinton library archivists, who work for the federal government, Mr. Clinton had the right to review their decision and have the documents released. But Bruce Lindsey, his former deputy White House counsel, declined to examine them, which means they will remain under lock and key for the duration of this presidential campaign. How convenient.
-- John Fund
Mr. Old School on Mr. New School
Willie Brown is one of the most successful minority politicians in America. A full quarter-century ago he became the first African American to lead the California Assembly as its Speaker. He was only forced out of that job in 1995 by term limits. He went on to be elected to two terms as San Francisco mayor.
Mr. Brown is now making the rounds promoting his autobiography, "Basic Brown: My Life and Our Times." At a recent appearance near California's state capital of Sacramento, he opined on the historic presidential candidacy of Barack Obama. Mr. Brown confessed that his own political antennae suffered a short when it came to Mr. Obama. He recalled being asked to help Mr. Obama when he first ran for the U.S. Senate in 2004. "I figured nobody with a name like that's going to get elected to anything," he ruefully noted.
As for the Illinois senator's current success seeking the Democratic nomination, Mr. Brown ascribed it to two factors. Mr. Obama "does not frighten white people" and thus can secure votes from a broad cross-section of Americans. Secondly, while Mr. Obama "does absolutely nothing to address a black agenda, he gets the same support from African Americans that you get if you're Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson -- because we have such great race pride."
Mr. Brown said in admiration that "this guy is absolutely operating in hog heaven without having to do anything for it, and if he can keep it up he may be president." Yet in a comment that foreshadowed this week's defeats in Texas and Ohio, Mr. Brown also warned that November is still a long way off and Mr. Obama's winning streak might not last forever.
-- John Fund
Al Gore's Favorite Cause?
Al Gore was famous for saying there was "no controlling legal authority" over his murkier fundraising activities for the Clinton-Gore ticket in 1996. Now, just as he's being touted as a power broker in the Democratic presidential race, inconvenient questions are being raised about his activities in the private sector.
In January, TheStreet.com's Kevin Kelleher perused the SEC filing for a planned IPO by Mr. Gore's company, Current Media, which purchased a profitable international cable news channel in 2004, transforming it into a cutting-edge, interactive -- and money-losing -- multimedia experience. The company now hopes to raise $100 million by selling stock to the public. Says Mr. Kelleher, "...reading the company's filing, you can't help feeling that it's going public now largely because it's close to running out of cash."
Of course, it's possible to believe that Mr. Gore's new direction and unique leadership will lead to large profits in the future. That is, if Mr. Gore even plans to stick around. Another critic, Ron Grover of BusinessWeek, notes: "In fact, Gore doesn't even have a contract. Six months down the road -- at the end of a lock-up for him to sell his stock -- he could bolt altogether." He adds: "I like Al Gore -- his politics, his steadfast defense of a cleaner environment.... But I am totally bewildered by what possessed a good man to make a bad decision like this IPO."
Al Gore has leveraged his political standing into personal wealth more shrewdly than any former vice president in history. He won an Oscar and Nobel Prize for promoting belief in a pending climate catastrophe, then took a high-paying position with venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins, whose investments in alternative energy stand to benefit richly from Congressional mandates and subsidies to combat climate change. Mr. Gore makes his money by putting his name on things, not by running companies. Let’s hope no investor is so foolish as to think otherwise.
-- James Freeman
Pondering the Meaning of Jumbuck, Billabong and Obama
Who says conservatives don't have fun? More than 1,000 policy wonks gathered Wednesday evening in a Washington hotel for the annual dinner of the American Enterprise Institute. They pursued their favorite activity -- talking politics -- over cocktails, a four-course dinner, and the swing sounds of the Eric Felten Orchestra.
But first a singalong: "Waltzing Matilda" -- all eight beguiling verses -- in honor of the evening's special guest, John Howard, who recently stepped down after 12 transforming years as prime minister of Australia. No translation was provided, so it's unclear how many of the bejeweled and tuxedoed assembly grasped the meaning of such Aussie-isms as "jumbuck," "tucker bag," "billabong" and "swagman."
But no matter. The meaning of Mr. Howard's remarks was abundantly clear. This was his first public address since he left office last year after his center-right Liberal Party lost to the Labor Party, and his speech was the former PM's effort to set the record straight about his achievements. These included a soaring economy and landmark reforms in taxation, welfare policy, labor law, deregulation and education, as well as a boost in defense spending and the deployment of troops to Iraq, Afghanistan, East Timor and the Solomon Islands.
But it was his comments on the U.S.-Australian alliance that drew the crowd's warmest applause. Mr. Howard told the story of the first time he met President Bush -- at the White House on September 10, 2001. In the following 24 hours, he said, "the world was turned on its head" and he realized it was "not a time for the United States to have 80-percent allies. This was a time for the United States to have 100-percent allies."
Before and after the speech, conversation turned to John McCain's conservative credentials and George W. Bush's legacy. Opinions varied, to put it politely. And it was noted that Mr. Howard was ousted in November by an antiwar candidate who promised "change."
-- Melanie Kirkpatrick
Quote of the Day
"Arnold Schwarzenegger, secretary of homeland security. Or, perhaps, ambassador to the United Nations. Hey, you heard it here first. As he locks up the GOP nod, John McCain and his deputies are talking boldly this week about redrawing the electoral map into one where California lights up red on Nov. 4 for the first time in 20 years. The Golden State's 55 electoral votes falling into the GOP column would pose a virtually insurmountable challenge to Democrats, no matter who wins that party's nod.... [T]here is one way for McCain to make the Golden State a red state, or at least give it an honest shot. And he's just sitting there in Sacramento, waiting to be asked" -- National Journal columnist John Mercurio.
Bogus Caucus
Is any further evidence needed to show that party primaries are superior to caucuses? It's been over three days since Texas Democrats wrapped up the caucuses designed to parcel out one-third of their state's delegates. But a mere 41% of the caucus sites have reported their results, raising the prospect of massive confusion, possible fraud and lawsuits over whatever results finally trickle in.
Unlike the Texas primary vote, which Hillary Clinton won by four points, the caucus results point to a good showing for Barack Obama, who has 56% of the results that have been released.
But no one knows what the final caucus count will be because, amazingly, the 8,247 precinct officials who ran the caucuses are not required to phone in the results. "Texas is a large state, and this is a voluntary call-in system," says Democratic Party spokesman Hector Nieto. The official rules only require precinct officials to mail in their vote count. How 19th Century.
Indeed, the caucus system seems an anachronism in a time when voters can get instant information and easily vote by absentee or early ballot if they can't make it to the polls on Election Day. Caucuses this year have too often resulted in confusion and controversy. Nevada's caucuses degenerated into lawsuits and competing claims of voter fraud. In New Mexico's caucuses last month, voting was so chaotic that the results were not known for nine days.
Caucuses also discriminate against voters who can't show up at a specific time and place on Election Day, resulting in vastly lower turnout than a primary. And they tend to be manipulated by political insiders who have the patience to sit in hot rooms on uncomfortable chairs as party officials spend hours going through caucus procedures. The end result can be dramatically different from what a primary would produce as evidenced by the Texas results (or at least whatever portion of those results we currently have).
PD: WSJ
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The stunning loss of former House Speaker Dennis Hastert's Illinois seat in a special election has Republicans wondering what went wrong. Certainly, national trends and the prickly nature of defeated GOP nominee Jim Oberweis played a role.
But Illinois Republicans, who have not won a major statewide race in a decade, should look in the mirror. Support for Republican candidates in the "collar" counties around Chicago has been declining for a generation. Not helping has been a rash of Republicans caught up in the corruption that seems to be endemic to Illinois politics. Certainly, Democrats bear the bulk of the blame for the state's "corruption tax" (estimated by some at $1 billion in padded contracts and ghost employees). But Republicans lost a great deal of credibility when George Ryan, the last GOP governor, went to prison for accepting bribes. Several GOP figures are also participants in the Rezko scandal, in which Barack Obama's top fundraiser is currently standing trial over a political shakedown scheme. No wonder, as one conservative activist put it, "the hapless and hopeless GOP cannot get traction."
Republicans haven't given up on taking the Hastert seat back this fall, given the district's conservative leaning (President Bush won 55% of its votes in 2004). But the campaign of Mr. Oberweis, who will again carry the GOP banner in November against now-incumbent Democrat Bill Foster, will have to be retooled. Mr. Oberweis needlessly created enemies with the slashing campaign he waged to win the GOP nomination for the special election, earning a condemnation from the Chicago Tribune for a campaign style the paper called "consistently nasty, smug, condescending and dishonest."
Look for Mr. Oberweis to get a makeover as former Speaker Hastert urges him to become more soft-spoken with voters and less confrontational with his fellow Republicans. Even so, Republicans will have an uphill fight taking back the seat this fall, especially if Illinois native Barack Obama is heading the Democratic presidential ticket.
-- John Fund
Reverend Al Enters the Fray
When a leading Democrat starts talking about filing lawsuits over a disputed election in Florida, other Democrats have a right to get nervous. They have too many bad memories of the nightmare of Florida's 2000 Bush v. Gore election fiasco.
That's exactly the feeling that the Reverend Al Sharpton caused this weekend when he began threatening to sue the Democratic National Committee if it counts Florida's rogue primary results for purposes of allocating delegates in the presidential race between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.
The New York Sun reports that Mr. Sharpton is heading to Florida to collect lists of people willing to claim they didn't vote in that state's January primary because they believed the DNC when it said (because of the Florida primary's illicit scheduling) their votes wouldn't count. Mr. Sharpton says millions of Florida voters will have been disenfranchised if delegates selected in an illicit primary (the majority of whom back Hillary Clinton) now are seated at the national convention.
Mr. Sharpton is widely seen as a stalking horse for Barack Obama, who doesn't want the disputed delegates from either Florida or Michigan seated. Mr. Sharpton told Fox News that if Mr. Obama loses the nomination because of "back-room deals" made by superdelegates, "you not only would see people like me demonstrating, you may see us talking about whether or not we can support that [Democratic] ticket."
Democrats are deep in discussions about how to seat delegations from Florida and Michigan without triggering a backlash from a rabble-rouser such as Mr. Sharpton. Over the weekend, a possible solution emerged when two governors who back Hillary Clinton, Jon Corzine of New Jersey and Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania, said they were willing to privately raise half the $30 million it would take to run new primaries in both states.
Whatever the solution, it had better come quickly. The Florida and Michigan dispute is threatening to raise the rancor among Democrats to unacceptable levels. The last thing the party needs is to have its own Rube Goldberg primary rules dominate political news coverage.
-- John Fund
Quote of the Day
"She has no idea how many times I defended her. How many right-leaning friends and relatives I battled with. How many times I played down her shady business deals and penchant for scandals.... She has no idea how frequently I dismissed her husband's serial adultery as an unfortunate trait of an otherwise brilliant man. For sixteen years, I was a proud soldier in the legion of 'Clinton apologists'.... And then she ran for president. She's proven that she cares more about 'Hillary' than 'unity.' More about defeating Obama than defeating the Republicans. She's become a political suicide-bomber, happy to blow herself to bits -- as long as she takes everyone else with her. On Friday, one of Barack Obama's foreign policy advisors, Samantha Power, resigned after calling Senator Clinton 'a monster' during an off-the-record exchange. It was an unfortunate slip, but one that echoed the sentiments of many Clinton apologists like me -- who've watched Hillary's descent into pettiness and fear-mongering with the heartbreak of a child who grows up to realize that his beloved mother has been a terrible person all along. Are the conservatives right about the Clintons? Will they do and say anything to get elected? I don't know. All I know is... I'm through apologizing" -- Seth Grahame-Smith, author of "Letters of Apology for Eight Years of George W. Bush," writing about Hillary Clinton at HuffingtonPost.com.
Heather Wilson's War
Republican Sen. Pete Domenici is retiring after more than three decades in office and all three of the state's congressmen are running to replace him. Rep. Tom Udall, a Democrat, is virtually assured of winning his party's nomination and is sitting on nearly $2 million in campaign funds. On the right, however, there is a real horse race developing between Rep. Heather Wilson and Rep. Steve Pearce. The latter is a conservative Republican who represents a large swath of rural New Mexico, while Ms. Wilson is a moderate with a more suburban base, as well as strong support from military hawks because of her service in the Air Force and as a defense and intelligence expert.
Ms. Wilson had a near-death experience two years ago when she was challenged by popular Democratic State Attorney General Patricia Madrid, who charged that Ms. Wilson, as a member of the House intelligence committee, should have stopped the invasion of Iraq. With polls showing her trailing by four points, Ms. Wilson pulled off an 800-vote win in an Albuquerque district that boasts more Democrats than Republicans and that went for John Kerry in 2004.
It was an impressive victory under the circumstances, and running statewide plays even more to her strengths. Pollster Brian Sanderoff tells us that the national security vote is especially important because New Mexico is home to the Los Alamos Labs, numerous military bases and a large number of Energy Department employees (many whom handle nuclear-weapons issues). Her GOP rival Mr. Pearce didn't help himself any this month when he carelessly suggested at a campaign stop that England "exports more radical Islamic terrorists today than any country in the Middle East." He couldn't back up the statement and Ms. Wilson quickly pounced, calling it an irresponsible comment that could alienate a key ally in the war on terror and was unbecoming of a would-be senator.
Either Republican would face a steep climb in the fall. Polls show Mr. Udall, who benefits from massive name recognition thanks to his family's heritage in New Mexico politics, leading by 20 points. That should tighten, however, once a GOP nominee is picked and the public gets up to speed on personalities, ideology and issues. And either Republican would also benefit from Hillary Clinton being the Democratic nominee. Recent match-up polls show her lead in New Mexico over John McCain much narrower than Barack Obama's.
-- Brendan Miniter
PD/WSJ
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Just What the Doctor Ordered
House Ways and Means Chairman Charles Rangel has been spending time in the hospital with the flu the last few days, but he is likely to have gotten a real morale booster yesterday with the news of Gov. Eliot Spitzer's meltdown.
Mr. Rangel, who has represented Harlem in Congress for 38 years, is known to hold the prickly governor in minimal high regard. He has often snidely referred to Mr. Spitzer as "the smartest man in the world," a reference to the governor's well-known arrogance.
Should Mr. Spitzer resign, Mr. Rangel would also be in the catbird's seat. Lt. Gov. David Paterson, a former state senator from Harlem, is a longtime protege of Mr. Rangel and would likely grant his mentor wide influence over patronage and fiscal issues. "Rangel could have instant access to Paterson anytime of the day or night," is how one New York Democratic leader evaluates Mr. Rangel's likely importance in a Patterson administration.
So if Mr. Rangel makes an even swifter recovery from the flu than is expected, there will be good reasons for that new spring in his step and twinkle in his eye.
-- John Fund
Deus Ex Machine Politics
There is little chance that New York will be competitive in the presidential race this year, but the Spitzer scandal will breathe new life into New York's battered GOP. Poised to fill the governor's seat is Lt. Gov. David A. Paterson, a Democrat who has little name recognition and lacks the force of personality that animated Mr. Spitzer's political career. Mr. Paterson, an ally of Rep. Charlie Rangel, will likely be a seat-warmer while both parties prepare to battle for the governor's mansion in 2010. Democrat Attorney General Andrew Cuomo will likely now become the de facto leader of his party in the state.
Meanwhile, Senate Republican leader Joe Bruno, a veteran political infighter, will take the lieutenant governor's seat, giving him a larger platform to use for Republican advantage. He could run for governor himself in two years. But it's more likely that he'll find someone else within his party to carry the Republican banner. If Rudy Giuliani wants to get back into the game, this is his chance. There's also a possibility that New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg could be interested. And then there's John Spencer, the former mayor of Yonkers who ran against Hillary Clinton for senate in 2006. He has a fundraising base, knows what it takes to run a statewide campaign and has executive experience.
A little more than a year ago, Eliot Spitzer's gubernatorial landslide (69%) was the biggest the state had ever seen. New York seemed on a path to becoming a one-party state. Democrats tightened their grip on the state's General Assembly, won every state-wide elective office and even won in a few upstate congressional districts that traditionally favor Republicans. This year, led by Mr. Spitzer, Democrats looked likely to win control of the last vestige of Republican power in New York, the state Senate. How quickly things change. Republicans now see an opening to reverse their fortunes in New York, only helped if Mr. Spitzer tries to cling to office. It remains to be seen if the state and national GOPs are up to seizing the opportunity.
-- Brendan Miniter
Quote of the Day
"In lead stories Monday night about New York Governor Eliot Spitzer being linked to a prostitution ring, neither ABC's World News nor the NBC Nightly News verbally identified Spitzer's political party. Must mean he's a liberal Democrat -- and he is. CBS anchor Katie Couric, however, managed to squeeze in a mention of his party. On ABC, the only hints as to Spitzer's party were a few seconds of video of Spitzer beside Hillary Clinton as they walked down some steps and a (D) on screen by Spitzer's name over part of one soundbite. NBC didn't even do that. While ABC and NBC failed to cite Spitzer's political affiliation in the four minutes or so each network dedicated to the revelations, both managed to find time to applaud his reputation and effectiveness as the Empire State's Attorney General before becoming Governor" -- Brent Baker of the conservative Media Research Institute.
Follow the Money
The fall of Eliot Spitzer, caught in the roll-up of a high-end prostitution ring, is bound to be an occasion for a great deal of dime-store psychoanalysis about what led to his self-destructive behavior.
But perhaps the most interesting detail isn’t the all-too-familiar tale of a politician imagining himself immune to the laws and standards he prescribes for others. The most interesting detail is how he got caught.
The New York Governor, who made his bones doggedly pursuing alleged financial crimes, was undone by his own bankers. The financial transactions by which he endeavored to conceal his payments to the Emperors Club were unusual enough that they prompted a referral by his bank to the IRS, which in turn brought in the FBI and ultimately the prosecutors. Based on the information currently available, Mr. Spitzer himself was the thread that began the unraveling of the Emperor's Club prostitution ring.
Prosecutors are supposed to know better. But in this case, Mr. Spitzer appears to have left behind precisely the kind of paper trail that he once used himself in pursuit of Wall Street malefactors, real or imagined. The latest burble from the TV talking heads this morning now suggests that Mr. Spitzer is delaying his resignation as leverage for a favorable plea bargain. If so, he apparently learned at least one thing from his years as a dictator of humiliating plea bargains to those caught up in his publicity-seeking investigations. All the more ironic, then, that the Sheriff of Wall Street gave himself away with his slippery financial dealings, rather than his sordid appetites, ending in his disgrace.
-- Brian M. Carney
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Political Diary
James Taranto will return Monday, March 17. While he's away, please enjoy complimentary access to the WSJ's subscription newsletter, Political Diary.
March 13, 2008
Is a 'Dump Hillary' Movement Starting to Crystallize?
Hillary Clinton doesn't easily apologize. But she did last night, telling a group of more than 200 black newspaper editors that she was sorry about comments made by her supporters that have upset African-Americans.
"I am sorry if anyone was offended," she said of remarks by her husband comparing Barack Obama's victory in the South Carolina primary to that of Jesse Jackson in the 1980s. "We can be proud of both Jesse Jackson and Barack Obama."
She went on to "repudiate" remarks that Geraldine Ferraro, a Clinton supporter and 1984 Democratic vice-presidential running-mate, made suggesting Mr. Obama would not have been so successful if he were white. Mrs. Clinton pointed out that Mrs. Ferraro had resigned her post with the Clinton finance committee.
Mrs. Clinton made her retreat on the same night that one of her most stalwart liberal supporters turned on her. In a blistering "special comment" tacked on to his MSNBC show, host Keith Olbermann accused Mrs. Clinton of "now campaigning as if Barack Obama were the Democrat, and you were the Republican." Mr. Olbermann didn't mince words -- he accused Clinton advisers of sending "Senator Clinton's campaign back into the vocabulary of David Duke." He tagged Team Clinton with "slowly killing the chances for any Democrat to become president" with its divisive campaign tactics.
While Ms. Ferraro's words were certainly inartful, no one in their right mind believes they should be compared with the rhetoric of David Duke. The fact that former Clinton allies such as Mr. Olbermann are becoming so apoplectic is a sure sign that Mrs. Clinton is wearing out her welcome on the primary stage in many quarters.
-- John Fund
On School Choice, New Guv Is Anything But a Knee-Jerk Democrat
Lt. Gov. David Paterson will become New York's governor next Monday at noon. But while news reports have focused on the trailblazing aspects of his rise -- he will become the state's first African-American governor and the first legally blind governor of any state -- Albany politicos are talking about how policy priorities will change under Mr. Paterson.
On many levels, Mr. Paterson is likely to be even more liberal than Eliot Spitzer. Rick Brookhiser of National Review calls him "liberal to the marrow." The new governor opposes the death penalty in all circumstances and wants to revise the state's harsh Rockefeller-era drug laws. Last year, he stirred up controversy when he appeared to endorse a proposal to let legal residents who were non-citizens have the right to vote. Even pro-immigrant Mayor Mike Bloomberg refused to join that crusade, asking: "If voting is given to everybody, what's the point of becoming a citizen?" On taxes, Mr. Paterson is likely to be even more in favor than Mr. Spitzer of redistribution and tax hikes targeted at the "wealthy."
But on at least one issue, Mr. Paterson breaks from liberal orthodoxy. He is passionately in favor of school choice and has even spoken at two conferences held by the Alliance for School Choice. At one, he pulled off the rare feat of quoting both Martin Luther King Jr. and individualistic philosopher Ayn Rand approvingly in the same speech.
Here's hoping Mr. Paterson puts education reform ahead of tax policy as he draws up his list of priorities.
-- John Fund
It Pours, Man, It Pours
The news just keeps getting worse for Republicans in Congress: After losing a Congressional seat that once belonged to former Speaker Dennis Hastert in Illinois, the party lost what may have been a winnable seat in Indiana. Adding insult to injury, the National Republican Congressional Committee spent more than $1.2 million losing the Illinois race and yet didn't spend a penny in Indiana despite its candidate getting slammed by the NRCC's heavy-spending Democratic counterpart.
But members of the House Republican Caucus aren't ready to pack it in and go home just yet. The party raised $8.6 million at an annual dinner in Washington last night, headlined by President Bush, exceeding even the $7.5 million goal set for the shindig. And members of Congress let it be known they consider the loss of the former Hastert seat an aberration that can be blamed on the candidate.
While the loss was a blow, GOP leaders blamed dairy owner and wealthy businessman Jim Oberweis for being a flawed candidate. "Jim Oberweis went from being perceived [as] the tenacious guy to just being a wealthy individual looking for a gig," one Republican Member of Congress said. "There's nothing the NRCC is going to do about that. To lay [the loss] on the doorstep of the NRCC, it would be inaccurate."
In turn, a strategist familiar with the Illinois campaign suggested Mr. Oberweis lost because Democrats effectively tied him to President Bush, even casting the special election as an opportunity to vote against the current administration. That has to be troubling to national Republican leaders, who have long maintained that Mr. Bush will not be on the ballot, and thus not a factor, in 2008.
Shrugging off the Bush albatross would be difficult enough if the party were on an equal financial footing with Democrats. But that's hardly the case. Even after last night's dinner (and assuming they spent nothing on the dinner), the NRCC still trails House Democrats by more than $20 million in cash on hand. The job of defending a stunning number of vulnerable open seats will be even more difficult if the GOP has an empty checking account.
-- Reid Wilson, RealClearPolitics.com
Quote of the Day I
"[T]he percentage of Republican identifiers voting in Democratic nomination contests has increased significantly in recent weeks -- from 4 percent in states that held primaries in January and February to 9 percent in the March 4 primaries to 12 percent in Mississippi on Tuesday.... Overall, 9 percent of the Mississippi Democratic primary voters were self-identified Republicans who voted for Clinton.... But did these Republicans just turn out to assist McCain by prolonging the Democratic fight or boosting a candidate they consider easier to beat? The exit poll suggests another motivation. These Clinton Republicans also expressed very negative views of Barack Obama... [so] the primary motivation of Clinton's Mississippi Republicans may be a desire to stop Barack Obama, although many may be motivated by tactical shenanigans as well" -- Mark Blumenthal, editor and publisher of Pollster.com, writing in the National Journal.
Quote of the Day II
"I met Eliot Spitzer during his first semester in law school, my first year teaching criminal law at Harvard. He was smart and ambitious, which certainly didn't set him apart from the rest of his classmates at Harvard. What did, and what brought him to my door, was that he was interested in a career in politics.... Maybe he was absent the day we discussed the Mann Act. But I don't think so.... Eliot Spitzer knew better, but he clearly forgot that the rules apply to everyone. Especially him. Now, the face in the mirror is the one that did him in. Poor Eliot. I do feel sorry for him. But there are some things you can't teach, some things that can only be learned through painful experience. Hubris is what it's called" -- Susan Estrich, former campaign manager for Democratic nominee Michael Dukakis in 1988, reflecting on her time teaching Eliot Spitzer at Harvard Law School.
Getting Religion on Earmarks, Slowly
Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have both become last-minute converts to a proposal to declare a moratorium on earmarks, the pork-barrel projects dropped into legislation with little scrutiny or oversight. But don't expect Democratic Senate leaders to follow them as the moratorium comes to a vote on the Senate floor today.
Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin of Illinois is a big booster of Mr. Obama, but he declares himself "disappointed" in his Illinois colleague's embrace of the moratorium proposed by GOP Senator Jim DeMint. Similarly, New York Senator Chuck Schumer has parted ways with Hillary Clinton over the proposed time-out on earmarks. Mr. Schumer privately expressed disgust when Senator DeMint held a news conference outside the Capitol building that featured a man in a 6-foot-tall pink pig suit ridiculing Congressional excess.
No wonder, then, Mr. Obama raised the eyebrows of more than a few Democratic colleagues when he announced this week that Congress' "earmark culture" was broken and "needs to be re-examined and reformed." Republican Senate leaders now are in danger of being outflanked unless they step up the pace and embrace the DeMint moratorium themselves. Yet the Hill newspaper reports that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is delaying any statement on earmarks until a task force he appointed two months ago to study the subject reports back to him. Missouri Republican Kit Bond isn't on the task force but had a succinct summary description of the moratorium idea: "Stupid." Statements like that have spending foes worrying that the task force is simply designed to punt on reform.
For his part, Mr. DeMint says his colleagues are acting like addicts who refuse to admit they have a problem. He told Politico.com this week: "We need to go cold turkey." Anything less would be "like telling an alcoholic, 'Don't drink as much.'"
PD:WSJ
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Jay Leno: New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer has admitted that he has been involved in a prostitution ring. This is the same man who when he was attorney general went after the prostitution rings. So apparently for not giving him good service. ... [This] means Hillary Clinton [is] now only the second angriest wife in the state of New York. ... Neither Barack nor Hillary can win the nomination outright. You know, because it’s so close. So Hillary’s kind of caught between Barack and a hard place. ... Technically, neither of them can win. It shows you how bad it’s gotten for the Democrats. Forget winning the general election, they can’t even win their own election. ... You know, there’s talk in some Democratic circles of letting the states of Michigan and Florida re-vote. Today, Al Gore said, “Oh, now you think of this! Great!” ... They’re talking about a re-vote primary where people would mail in their ballots. That’s a great idea, combine the reliability of the people in Florida who count the ballots with the efficiency of the Post Office. What could go wrong there?
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Racial Politics
Trying to hang on, Detroit's mayor says the issue is not his sex scandal, but racism.
Keith Naughton
NEWSWEEK WEB EXCLUSIVE
Updated: 1:02 PM ET Mar 13, 2008
You might think the resignation of New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer would put more pressure on Detroit's embattled mayor, Kwame Kilpatrick, to do the same. But Kilpatrick, seven weeks into his own text sex scandal, shows no signs of giving up the fight. In fact, with a prosecutor contemplating perjury charges and his city council in revolt, Kilpatrick has chosen the nuclear option in this deeply divided city. At the end of an otherwise routine state-of-the-city speech Tuesday night, Kilpatrick went off on a racially explosive tirade against his critics and the media.
"In the past 30 days I've been called a n----- more than any time in my entire life," he told a cheering, invitation-only crowd of 1,500 at Detroit's gilded Orchestra Hall. "In the past three days I've received more death threats than I have in my entire administration. I've heard these words, but I've never heard people say them about my wife and children. I have to say this, because it's very personal to me." He stole a glance at his wife and twin 12-year-old sons standing at attention in a luxury box above the stage. "I don't believe a Nielsen rating is worth the life of my children or your children. This unethical, illegal lynch-mob mentality has to stop."
An African-American man might be making a serious run at the White House, but here in Motown the old-school politics of race still define this struggling city. Census data show this is the most racially divided urban center in America, with 81 percent of the city black and a roughly equal percentage of the surrounding suburbs white. Politicians on both sides of Detroit's cultural fault line—the 8 Mile Road made famous by Eminem—have stoked racial fears for decades in order to get elected and stay in power. Kilpatrick, a Democrat, is no stranger to this tactic. There was plenty of racial rhetoric in his bruising 2005 re-election campaign. But last summer, long before this scandal erupted, Kilpatrick joined with the NAACP to bury the N word in a ceremony complete with horse-drawn casket and burial plot. "Today we're not just burying the N word, we're taking it out of our spirit," Kilpatrick said in his eulogy. "Die, N word, and we don't want to see you 'round here no more."
That was then. Now Kilpatrick, 37, is fighting for his political life as he faces the prospect of perjury charges—a felony punishable by 15-years in jail—for what many people now believe was lying under oath about an illicit affair with his then-chief of staff, Christine Beatty. Last summer, while testifying in a whistleblower lawsuit brought by two Detroit cops, Kilpatrick and Beatty vehemently denied they were lovers and that they had fired the cops for investigating the mayor's security detail, which could have revealed their clandestine relationship. Then the Detroit Free Press in January unearthed text messages that contradicted their sworn testimony. (Example: "I need you soooo bad," Kilpatrick texted Beatty on his city-issued pager in 2002. "I want to wake up in the morning and you are there.") Since then, court documents have become public—despite Kilpatrick's efforts to keep them sealed—that disclose a secret deal the mayor cut last fall to settle the whistleblower suit in exchange for destroying the incriminating text messages, which mysteriously never came out at trial. The settlement cost Detroit taxpayers $9 million.
Kilpatrick's strategy for survival initially followed a familiar narrative arc. After a week of seclusion he emerged, with wife Carlita by his side, to make a vague public apology, while admitting no legal wrongdoing. (Carlita, like Hillary, didn't simply stand by her man but spoke up for him, saying that while she is "hurt," "there is no question I love my husband.") Kilpatrick also embraced the Almighty, whom he said was "whipping" him for his transgression but had "ordained" him to be the mayor of Detroit. "I believe I'm on an assignment from God," he told local radio station WMXD.
Then his tone turned tough. First there was the unsuccessful court battle over the lawsuit settlement, which went all the way to the Michigan Supreme Court. More recently Kilpatrick hired an A-list legal and PR team known for defending high-profile political figures. He lawyered up with Chicago defense attorney Daniel Webb, who represented former Illinois governor George Ryan in the racketeering trial he lost last year. (Kilpatrick has already indicated a willingness to fight any charges, with Detroit's general counsel, Sharon McPhail, arguing there isn't a strong enough case to prove perjury.) Kilpatrick also brought in Washington PR pro Judy Smith, who represented Monica Lewinsky and provided counsel to Clarence Thomas during his confirmation hearings, when he famously accused his critics of engaging in a "high-tech lynching."
Kilpatrick's fiery oratory on live TV Tuesday night seemed to echo those long-ago confirmation hearings. "And it's seriously time," Kilpatrick thundered, as ministers in the audience raised their hands in praise. "We've never been here before—and I don't care if they cut the TV off—we've never been in a situation like this before where you can say anything, do anything, have no facts, no research, no nothing, and you can launch a hate-driven, bigoted assault on a family."
Will it work? One former Kilpatrick adviser sure doesn't think so. "The mayor engaged in the most repulsive form of race baiting I've seen in 30 years of political consulting," said veteran Detroit political operative Sam Riddle, who worked on Kilpatrick's 2005 re-election. "That was no ad-lib. That was a calculated move to pimp the emotions of Detroit so he can build a political base predicted on the politics of race. But it won't work. Detroit is fed up with this guy. They know he used their money to cover up the text messages, and they know he lied on the stand. He ought to man up like Eliot Spitzer and resign." Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox, a Republican, Wednesday called on Kilpatrick to resign after condemning his speech as "race baiting on par with David Duke and George Wallace."
Kilpatrick reiterated in his speech: "I won't quit." The mayor's press secretary Denise Tolliver defended his use of the N word, saying he was just repeating what is being written to him in e-mails, one of which she read to NEWSWEEK. It contained many uses of the N word and other racial slurs directed at Kilpatrick and his family. She said the Detroit police are investigating that e-mail and other threats the mayor received. She also acknowledged that three Detroit business leaders, including former Detroit Pistons star Dave Bing, met with Kilpatrick Wednesday morning and raised concerns about the "emotional" nature of his unscripted ending. "He did get emotional," says Tolliver. "The mayor is human."
The businessmen weren't the only ones raising concerns. African-American commentators in Detroit's local media scorned Kilpatrick's racial remarks. "The shameful, divisive words he used to draw false lines between those who want him to own up and those he expects to give him a pass will serve only to prolong the agony in this community," wrote Detroit Free Press columnist Stephen Henderson. "His words represent the height of irresponsibility, and seeped into gross negligence."
But for Kilpatrick, media attacks like that will only serve to strengthen his case with his base. Decades of divisive politics in Detroit have conditioned voters on both sides of 8 Mile to believe that each is out to get the other. That's why white suburbanites boast about how many years it has been since they've visited the city. And it's why Kilpatrick finds an accepting audience for his accusations of bigotry. "Using the N word was part of the necessary pandering he had to make to his voters," said Detroit political consultant Eric Foster. "He's telling his base, 'The white media and the white folks are attacking your black mayor, and I need you to rally around me'."
Whether they actually will remains to be seen next year, when Kilpatrick hopes to run for re-election. First he has to get past Kym Worthy, the county prosecutor, another powerful African-American politician up for re-election. The key difference is that Worthy's constituents in Wayne County include a majority of mostly white suburbanites. And nine out of 10 of those in the suburbs have an unfavorable opinion of Kilpatrick, according to pollster Steve Mitchell. On Wednesday Worthy said she needs two more weeks to decide if she'll bring charges, because she received new information that she declined to specify. "It's about being thorough," she said.
If Kilpatrick does manage to survive where Spitzer and so many others have fallen, the mayor of Motown will write a new chapter in the politics of scandal. "This is a political-science lesson," says Foster. "If Kilpatrick can make it through this he will be a case study for a lot of politicians in trouble." If he doesn't, though, he'll join Spitzer and all those others in the growing political hall of shame.
URL: http://www.newsweek.com/id/123035
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Home Alone on Earmarks
John McCain may be cruising to a presidential nomination, but he holds limited clout in the chamber he has worked in for over 20 years. Last night, the Senate turned back one of his pet projects, a proposed one-year moratorium on earmarks.
The vote, which technically was on a procedural motion, wasn't even close, with 71 senators voting against the motion by South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint, and 29 in favor. Mr. McCain, who has made opposition to pork-barrel spending a highlight of his presidential campaign, couldn't even sway a majority of GOP Senators to his side. He did bag a surprise supporter in Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a longtime member of the Appropriations Committee, who has traditionally defended earmarks.
Democratic Senators clearly are betting that attacks on pork-barrel spending won't resonate with voters this fall. Only three Democrats joined with Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, last-minute converts to the anti-pork barrel cause.
Senator McCain said the defeat of the moratorium proved Congress was "the last bastion in America that doesn't get it" regarding government spending. "It wasn't the war in Iraq that caused [the GOP] to lose in 2006, it was the wasteful, pork-barrel spending," he told reporters. "Ask any county Republican chairman in America. Ask any Republican operative in America."
Senator McCain says he still plans to target outrageous government spending as a campaign issue. He just won't be doing it with much support from his Senate colleagues, which may help him even more easily portray himself as someone who would shake up Beltway practices.
-- John Fund
Eliot Aftermath?
How efficient is the Clinton campaign machine? According to RadarOnline, Hillary Clinton's crack Web team had purged Eliot Spitzer's endorsement from the campaign site less than an hour after the New York Times broke the story of his "involvement" with a prostitution ring Monday.
So far, Mrs. Clinton has declined to comment on the Governor's alleged assignations, beyond a terse remark that her thoughts were with his family. But she probably won't be able to dodge the issue if Mr. Spitzer is indicted -- or if a debate catches fire in the media over prostitution, misogyny and related gender concerns. This is touchy territory for Mrs. Clinton, given her own husband's philandering. A Monica-esque debate about powerful older men and vulnerable young women would hardly be a convenient subject right now for the Clinton campaign.
Mrs. Clinton may have airbrushed the New York Governor from her campaign site, but with at least two debates coming up before the crucial Pennsylvania primary, Mrs. Clinton will be lucky if she doesn't have to offer a more elaborate denunciation of Mr. Spitzer's actions.
-- Brian M. Carney
Minister of Hate
Mitt Romney was constantly challenged about the tenets of his Mormon faith and its past treatment of blacks, and finally under pressure had to give a speech in which he discussed the influence of his religious beliefs on his political actions.
Barack Obama says on the campaign trail that his campaign transcends race, but he has refused to discuss beyond cursory comments what he thinks about his own pastor's wild hate speech -- speech that includes dark racial overtones.
Mr. Obama has attended the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's church for some 20 years, and has attended countless sermons there. But when a Jewish group in Ohio confronted him with a list of outrageous statements by Rev. Wright, including calling on blacks to sing "God Damn America" for giving the minority community drugs and engaging in "state terrorism," Mr. Obama more or less waved away the objections.
"I don't think my church is actually particularly controversial," he told the group. He said Rev. Wright "is like an old uncle who says things I don't always agree with," adding that everyone has someone like that in their family.
Mr. Obama won't comment specifically on Rev. Wright's denunciations of the United States, but he did authorize a campaign aide to say that he "repudiated" those comments.
But in presidential politics, that won't be good enough. In a summary of Wright sermons that Ron Kessler offers in today's Wall Street Journal, it's clear that Mr. Obama's pastor has done far more than merely speak favorably of Louis Farrakhan. On the Sunday after 9/11, Rev. Wright mounted his pulpit and claimed that the U.S. itself had brought on the attacks because of its own history of terrorism. "We bombed Hiroshima, we bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon, and we never batted an eye," he told his congregation. "God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human."
At some point, in some venue, Mr. Obama is going to have to give a speech directly addressing his longtime pastor's views and answering a simple question: Why didn't he find another church that didn't include a leader who so frequently engaged in such hate speech?
-- John Fund
Quote of the Day I
"The Democrats also must enjoy this bit of trivia: They now control the district that includes the birthplace and boyhood home of the late President Ronald Reagan, the leading Republican icon of our day. But it is the practical political details of the GOP's loss in Illinois 14 that suggest how far the party has slipped.... For starters, it's not just that Hastert long-dominated the district. He personally had the current district drawn in hopes of securing the Republican Party's longstanding hold.... Prior to the 2006 turning point in national partisan politics, the idea of Democrat Foster winning in this improbable place might have seemed laughable" -- Congressional Quarterly's Bob Benenson on this week's special election victory of Democrat Bill Foster in a seat held by retired former GOP House Speaker Denny Hastert.
Quote of the Day II
"The pillars of American liberalism -- the Democratic Party, the universities and the mass media -- are obsessed with biological markers, most particularly race and gender. They have insisted, moreover, that pedagogy and culture and politics be just as seized with the primacy of these distinctions and with the resulting 'privileging' that allegedly haunts every aspect of our social relations. They have gotten their wish. This primary campaign represents the full flowering of identity politics. It's not a pretty picture. Geraldine Ferraro says Obama is only where he is because he's black. Professor Orlando Patterson says the 3 a.m. phone call ad is not about a foreign policy crisis but a subliminal Klan-like appeal to the fear of 'black men lurking in the bushes around white society.' Good grief." -- Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer.
Counting Down the Blue Dogs
November poses daunting prospects for the House GOP. Until yesterday, only five Democrats were retiring from their seats, while 24 Republicans were leaving. Now comes the sixth Democratic retirement, and this one may be a gift to Republicans.
Alabama Rep. Bud Cramer, of Huntsville, is calling it quits after nine terms. Among the last of the Blue Dogs, he easily held down a seat in his state's 5th district despite a heavy Republican lean. George W. Bush won 60% of the vote in 2004 even as Mr. Cramer was reelected with the 73%. As recently as January he was obliged to tell AP he wasn't thinking of changing parties: "I've always been a conservative Democrat who's been a bit of a thorn in the side of our leadership. I'll continue to be a thorn in the side of our leadership."
A thorn no more. His departure not only puts his party at high risk of losing a seat; he will be missed by its dwindling number of conservative voices and also by Nasa, which always had a friend on the appropriations committee. Mr. Cramer's announcement was undoubtedly intended to catch both Democrats and Republicans by surprise. With a June primary scheduled, would-be successors will have to make up their minds quickly and file for an April 4 deadline. Should he choose to make one, Mr. Cramer's endorsement would likely be especially influential in such a contest.
He says only that he's retiring to "spend more time with my family and begin another chapter in my life." Mr. Cramer may not have been thrilled with the direction of his now-majority party under ultraliberal Nancy Pelosi, but a likelier motive for leaving is to make some money. He has spent the past 36 years as an army tank officer, county prosecutor and Member of Congress, none of which (under normal circumstances) is highly lucrative.
-- Holman W. Jenkins Jr.
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David Mamet: Why I Am No Longer a 'Brain-Dead Liberal'
An election-season essay
by David Mamet
March 11th, 2008 12:00 AM
John Maynard Keynes was twitted with changing his mind. He replied, "When the facts change, I change my opinion. What do you do, sir?"
My favorite example of a change of mind was Norman Mailer at The Village Voice.
Norman took on the role of drama critic, weighing in on the New York premiere of Waiting for Godot.
Twentieth century's greatest play. Without bothering to go, Mailer called it a piece of garbage.
When he did get around to seeing it, he realized his mistake. He was no longer a Voice columnist, however, so he bought a page in the paper and wrote a retraction, praising the play as the masterpiece it is.
Every playwright's dream.
I once won one of Mary Ann Madden's "Competitions" in New York magazine. The task was to name or create a "10" of anything, and mine was the World's Perfect Theatrical Review. It went like this: "I never understood the theater until last night. Please forgive everything I've ever written. When you read this I'll be dead." That, of course, is the only review anybody in the theater ever wants to get.
My prize, in a stunning example of irony, was a year's subscription to New York, which rag (apart from Mary Ann's "Competition") I considered an open running sore on the body of world literacy—this due to the presence in its pages of John Simon, whose stunning amalgam of superciliousness and savagery, over the years, was appreciated by that readership searching for an endorsement of proactive mediocrity.
But I digress.
I wrote a play about politics (November, Barrymore Theater, Broadway, some seats still available). And as part of the "writing process," as I believe it's called, I started thinking about politics. This comment is not actually as jejune as it might seem. Porgy and Bess is a buncha good songs but has nothing to do with race relations, which is the flag of convenience under which it sailed.
But my play, it turned out, was actually about politics, which is to say, about the polemic between persons of two opposing views. The argument in my play is between a president who is self-interested, corrupt, suborned, and realistic, and his leftish, lesbian, utopian-socialist speechwriter.
The play, while being a laugh a minute, is, when it's at home, a disputation between reason and faith, or perhaps between the conservative (or tragic) view and the liberal (or perfectionist) view. The conservative president in the piece holds that people are each out to make a living, and the best way for government to facilitate that is to stay out of the way, as the inevitable abuses and failures of this system (free-market economics) are less than those of government intervention.
I took the liberal view for many decades, but I believe I have changed my mind.
As a child of the '60s, I accepted as an article of faith that government is corrupt, that business is exploitative, and that people are generally good at heart.
These cherished precepts had, over the years, become ingrained as increasingly impracticable prejudices. Why do I say impracticable? Because although I still held these beliefs, I no longer applied them in my life. How do I know? My wife informed me. We were riding along and listening to NPR. I felt my facial muscles tightening, and the words beginning to form in my mind: Shut the fuck up. "?" she prompted. And her terse, elegant summation, as always, awakened me to a deeper truth: I had been listening to NPR and reading various organs of national opinion for years, wonder and rage contending for pride of place. Further: I found I had been—rather charmingly, I thought—referring to myself for years as "a brain-dead liberal," and to NPR as "National Palestinian Radio."
This is, to me, the synthesis of this worldview with which I now found myself disenchanted: that everything is always wrong.
But in my life, a brief review revealed, everything was not always wrong, and neither was nor is always wrong in the community in which I live, or in my country. Further, it was not always wrong in previous communities in which I lived, and among the various and mobile classes of which I was at various times a part.
And, I wondered, how could I have spent decades thinking that I thought everything was always wrong at the same time that I thought I thought that people were basically good at heart? Which was it? I began to question what I actually thought and found that I do not think that people are basically good at heart; indeed, that view of human nature has both prompted and informed my writing for the last 40 years. I think that people, in circumstances of stress, can behave like swine, and that this, indeed, is not only a fit subject, but the only subject, of drama.
I'd observed that lust, greed, envy, sloth, and their pals are giving the world a good run for its money, but that nonetheless, people in general seem to get from day to day; and that we in the United States get from day to day under rather wonderful and privileged circumstances—that we are not and never have been the villains that some of the world and some of our citizens make us out to be, but that we are a confection of normal (greedy, lustful, duplicitous, corrupt, inspired—in short, human) individuals living under a spectacularly effective compact called the Constitution, and lucky to get it.
For the Constitution, rather than suggesting that all behave in a godlike manner, recognizes that, to the contrary, people are swine and will take any opportunity to subvert any agreement in order to pursue what they consider to be their proper interests.
To that end, the Constitution separates the power of the state into those three branches which are for most of us (I include myself) the only thing we remember from 12 years of schooling.
The Constitution, written by men with some experience of actual government, assumes that the chief executive will work to be king, the Parliament will scheme to sell off the silverware, and the judiciary will consider itself Olympian and do everything it can to much improve (destroy) the work of the other two branches. So the Constitution pits them against each other, in the attempt not to achieve stasis, but rather to allow for the constant corrections necessary to prevent one branch from getting too much power for too long.
Rather brilliant. For, in the abstract, we may envision an Olympian perfection of perfect beings in Washington doing the business of their employers, the people, but any of us who has ever been at a zoning meeting with our property at stake is aware of the urge to cut through all the pernicious bullshit and go straight to firearms.
I found not only that I didn't trust the current government (that, to me, was no surprise), but that an impartial review revealed that the faults of this president—whom I, a good liberal, considered a monster—were little different from those of a president whom I revered.
Bush got us into Iraq, JFK into Vietnam. Bush stole the election in Florida; Kennedy stole his in Chicago. Bush outed a CIA agent; Kennedy left hundreds of them to die in the surf at the Bay of Pigs. Bush lied about his military service; Kennedy accepted a Pulitzer Prize for a book written by Ted Sorenson. Bush was in bed with the Saudis, Kennedy with the Mafia. Oh.
And I began to question my hatred for "the Corporations"—the hatred of which, I found, was but the flip side of my hunger for those goods and services they provide and without which we could not live.
And I began to question my distrust of the "Bad, Bad Military" of my youth, which, I saw, was then and is now made up of those men and women who actually risk their lives to protect the rest of us from a very hostile world. Is the military always right? No. Neither is government, nor are the corporations—they are just different signposts for the particular amalgamation of our country into separate working groups, if you will. Are these groups infallible, free from the possibility of mismanagement, corruption, or crime? No, and neither are you or I. So, taking the tragic view, the question was not "Is everything perfect?" but "How could it be better, at what cost, and according to whose definition?" Put into which form, things appeared to me to be unfolding pretty well.
Do I speak as a member of the "privileged class"? If you will—but classes in the United States are mobile, not static, which is the Marxist view. That is: Immigrants came and continue to come here penniless and can (and do) become rich; the nerd makes a trillion dollars; the single mother, penniless and ignorant of English, sends her two sons to college (my grandmother). On the other hand, the rich and the children of the rich can go belly-up; the hegemony of the railroads is appropriated by the airlines, that of the networks by the Internet; and the individual may and probably will change status more than once within his lifetime.
What about the role of government? Well, in the abstract, coming from my time and background, I thought it was a rather good thing, but tallying up the ledger in those things which affect me and in those things I observe, I am hard-pressed to see an instance where the intervention of the government led to much beyond sorrow.
But if the government is not to intervene, how will we, mere human beings, work it all out?
I wondered and read, and it occurred to me that I knew the answer, and here it is: We just seem to. How do I know? From experience. I referred to my own—take away the director from the staged play and what do you get? Usually a diminution of strife, a shorter rehearsal period, and a better production.
The director, generally, does not cause strife, but his or her presence impels the actors to direct (and manufacture) claims designed to appeal to Authority—that is, to set aside the original goal (staging a play for the audience) and indulge in politics, the purpose of which may be to gain status and influence outside the ostensible goal of the endeavor.
Strand unacquainted bus travelers in the middle of the night, and what do you get? A lot of bad drama, and a shake-and-bake Mayflower Compact. Each, instantly, adds what he or she can to the solution. Why? Each wants, and in fact needs, to contribute—to throw into the pot what gifts each has in order to achieve the overall goal, as well as status in the new-formed community. And so they work it out.
See also that most magnificent of schools, the jury system, where, again, each brings nothing into the room save his or her own prejudices, and, through the course of deliberation, comes not to a perfect solution, but a solution acceptable to the community—a solution the community can live with.
Prior to the midterm elections, my rabbi was taking a lot of flack. The congregation is exclusively liberal, he is a self-described independent (read "conservative"), and he was driving the flock wild. Why? Because a) he never discussed politics; and b) he taught that the quality of political discourse must be addressed first—that Jewish law teaches that it is incumbent upon each person to hear the other fellow out.
And so I, like many of the liberal congregation, began, teeth grinding, to attempt to do so. And in doing so, I recognized that I held those two views of America (politics, government, corporations, the military). One was of a state where everything was magically wrong and must be immediately corrected at any cost; and the other—the world in which I actually functioned day to day—was made up of people, most of whom were reasonably trying to maximize their comfort by getting along with each other (in the workplace, the marketplace, the jury room, on the freeway, even at the school-board meeting).
And I realized that the time had come for me to avow my participation in that America in which I chose to live, and that that country was not a schoolroom teaching values, but a marketplace.
"Aha," you will say, and you are right. I began reading not only the economics of Thomas Sowell (our greatest contemporary philosopher) but Milton Friedman, Paul Johnson, and Shelby Steele, and a host of conservative writers, and found that I agreed with them: a free-market understanding of the world meshes more perfectly with my experience than that idealistic vision I called liberalism.
At the same time, I was writing my play about a president, corrupt, venal, cunning, and vengeful (as I assume all of them are), and two turkeys. And I gave this fictional president a speechwriter who, in his view, is a "brain-dead liberal," much like my earlier self; and in the course of the play, they have to work it out. And they eventually do come to a human understanding of the political process. As I believe I am trying to do, and in which I believe I may be succeeding, and I will try to summarize it in the words of William Allen White.
White was for 40 years the editor of the Emporia Gazette in rural Kansas, and a prominent and powerful political commentator. He was a great friend of Theodore Roosevelt and wrote the best book I've ever read about the presidency. It's called Masks in a Pageant, and it profiles presidents from McKinley to Wilson, and I recommend it unreservedly.
White was a pretty clear-headed man, and he'd seen human nature as few can. (As Twain wrote, you want to understand men, run a country paper.) White knew that people need both to get ahead and to get along, and that they're always working at one or the other, and that government should most probably stay out of the way and let them get on with it. But, he added, there is such a thing as liberalism, and it may be reduced to these saddest of words: " . . . and yet . . . "
The right is mooing about faith, the left is mooing about change, and many are incensed about the fools on the other side—but, at the end of the day, they are the same folks we meet at the water cooler. Happy election season.
http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0811,374064,374064,1.html
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Earmarks as Usual
March 15, 2008; Page A10
For Congressional Appropriators, Thursday night's vote cashiering the earmark moratorium was an embarrassment of riches, with some 71 Senators endorsing Capitol Hill's spending culture. For everyone else, it was merely embarrassing.
The amendment, sponsored by Jim DeMint (R., S.C.), would have imposed a one-year earmark freeze, and it seemed to be gaining momentum earlier in the week, even cheered on by Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. But the Appropriations empire struck back, twisting every arm to preserve its spending privileges. The measure was voted down after being ruled "non-germane" to the budget. That's as good a measure as any of the Congressional mentality: Apparently earmarks, which totaled $18.3 billion for 2008, aren't relevant to overall spending.
Just three Republican Appropriators voted for the amendment, including surprise support from longtime skeptic Mitch McConnell. No such shockers from the Democrats, with all Appropriators going against and only six Senators bucking the party line, especially Missouri's Claire McCaskill, one of the more courageous antipork champions.
Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton no doubt backed the moratorium to insulate themselves against one of John McCain's signature themes. But they're also bending to the broader political winds. In an election year, voters understand the waste and corruption that pork enables, leading even House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to say, "I'm losing patience with earmarks."
That Mr. McCain's Republican colleagues fail, or refuse, to recognize the political potency is not a good sign. More GOP Senators voted against the moratorium than voted for it, proving that they are just as complacent about pork as most Democrats. And this vote comes on the heels of offenses like appointing ranking GOP Appropriator Thad Cochran ($837 million in pork last year) to the earmark-reform "working committee." The Republicans appear to be settling in comfortably with their minority status.
See all of today's editorials and op-eds, plus video commentary, on Opinion Journal.
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THE FOUNDATION: RELIGION AND MORALITY
“Religion and good morals are the only solid foundation of public liberty and happiness.” —Samuel Adams
IChThUS IMPRIMIS
“Christ beside me, Christ before me, Christ behind me, Christ within me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me.” —Saint Patrick
THE GIPPER
“Well, Seamus Wright, I’ll keep this brief. On St. Patrick’s Day, you should spend time with saints and scholars, so of course, you know, I have two more stops I have to make. I turned back to the ancient days of Ireland to find a suitable toast, and I think I have found it. St. Patrick was a gentleman who through strategy and stealth drove all the snakes from Ireland. Here’s toasting to his health—but not too many toastings lest you lose yourself and then forget the good St. Patrick and see all those snakes again. I believe that, you know, let those who love us, love us, and those who don’t love us, let God turn their hearts. And if He won’t turn their hearts, let Him turn their ankles so we’ll know them by their limp. May you have warm words on a cold evening and a full moon on a dark night and a smooth road all the way to your door.” —Ronald Reagan (17 March 1988) joshing then-House Speaker Jim Wright
INSIGHT
“The most unresolved problem of the day is precisely the problem that concerned the founders of this nation: how to limit the scope and power of government. Tyranny, restrictions on human freedom, come primarily from governmental restrictions that we ourselves have set up.” —Milton Friedman
FAMILY
“I was, in many ways, luckier than kids are today. Many parents didn’t have the dough to spoil their kids with material junk. Peer pressure has always existed, but most kids in the ‘70s couldn’t use materialism as a means to express it. No, parents used their limited means to give us only what we needed. And what every kid needs more than stuff is love and stability and a mother and father who are always there for him. Lucky for me, my parents provided an abundance of that. And that was even more valuable than a Schwinn Orange Krate spider bike, the most coveted two-wheeled machine in the history of kid-dom.” —Tom Purcell
LIBERTY
“Liberals have for years been talking about how they are really the champions of the Constitution. They’re not, but they talk like they are. And year after year people fawn over their claims and vote for them because they actually believe that acting counter to almost everything the Constitution itself stands for is supporting and preserving the Constitution. The Constitution is a pretty simple document. It says that the federal government has very limited authority. And it goes on to say that every authority not granted to the federal government through it is reserved by the States and the people.” —J.J. Jackson
OPINION IN BRIEF
“The presidential campaign currently underway has missed the historically rare opportunity to engage the candidates for president in a serious discussion about how they would respond to a very likely impending recession brought on by twin banking and currency crises... After all, in 10 months, one of them—either McCain, Obama or Clinton—will be president and quite likely will be facing one of the worst financial and economic conditions of recent decades. Instead, we get yet more discussion on who is for hope, who has experience, and who is better able to answer the phone at 3 a.m. Why not have a novel three-way debate on one of the networks for two hours and see what the three great minds who would be president have to say about what they would do if the likely turns out to happen?... I have the first question for them. Since World War I, economic historians divide the world’s financial history into three parts: interwar (1919-1939); the Bretton Woods period (1945-1971); and the present period. In reaction to the Great Depression of the interwar period, Bretton Woods provided strict regulations of financial institutions. As a result, there were few financial crises. Then we liberalized and deregulated during the present period and have had several deep crises. Questions for the candidates: In 2009, should we re-regulate or not? And should we try to ease the pain of the crisis if it comes or let natural economic forces clear out the dry rot and find the natural bottom? No points for slogans. Extra credit for honest, thoughtful responses. Or we continue with Obama’s people suggesting Hillary is a monster and her people suggesting Obama is a Muslim (and McCain off in the margin somewhere).” —Tony Blankley
GOVERNMENT
“The sub-prime mortgage collapse is another tale of unintended consequences. The crisis has its roots in the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977, a Carter-era law that purported to prevent ‘redlining’ —denying mortgages to black borrowers—by pressuring banks to make home loans in ‘low- and moderate-income neighborhoods.’ Under the act, banks were to be graded on their attentiveness to the ‘credit needs’ of ‘predominantly minority neighborhoods.’...[T]o earn high ratings, banks were forced to make increasingly risky loans to borrowers who wouldn’t qualify for a mortgage under normal standards of creditworthiness. The CRA, made even more stringent during the Clinton administration, trapped lenders in a Catch-22. ‘If they comply,’ wrote Loyola College economist Thomas DiLorenzo, ‘they know they will have to suffer from more loan defaults. If they don’t comply, they face financial penalties... which can cost a large corporation like Bank of America billions of dollars.’ Banks nationwide thus ended up making more and more ‘sub-prime’ loans and agreeing to dangerously lax underwriting standards—no down payment, no verification of income, interest-only payment plans, weak credit history. If they tried to compensate for the higher risks they were taking by charging higher interest rates, they were accused of unfairly steering borrowers into ‘predatory’ loans they couldn’t afford. Trapped in a no-win situation entirely of the government’s making, lenders could only hope that home prices would continue to rise, staving off the inevitable collapse. But once the housing bubble burst, there was no escape. Mortgage lenders have been bankrupted, thousands of sub-prime homeowners have been foreclosed on, and countless would-be borrowers can no longer get credit. The financial fallout has hurt investors around the world. And all of it thanks to the government, which was sure it understood the credit industry better than the free market did, and confidently created the conditions that made disaster unavoidable.” —Jeff Jacoby
CULTURE
“In this age, when it is considered the height of sophistication to be ‘non-judgmental,’ one of the corollaries is that ‘personal’ failings have no relevance to the performance of official duties. What that amounts to, ultimately, is that character doesn’t matter. In reality, character matters enormously, more so than most things that can be seen, measured or documented. Character is what we have to depend on when we entrust power over ourselves, our children, and our society to government officials. We cannot risk all that for the sake of the fashionable affectation of being more non-judgmental than thou. Currently, various facts are belatedly beginning to leak out that give us clues to the character of Barack Obama. But to report these facts is being characterized as a ‘personal’ attack. Barack Obama’s personal and financial association with a man under criminal indictment in Illinois is not just a ‘personal’ matter. Nor is his 20 years of going to a church whose pastor has praised Louis Farrakhan and condemned the United States in both sweeping terms and with obscene language. The Obama camp likens mentioning such things to criticizing him because of what members of his family might have said or done. But it was said, long ago, that you can pick your friends but not your relatives. Obama chose to be part of that church for 20 years. He was not born into it. His ‘personal’ character matters, just as Eliot Spitzer’s ‘personal’ character matters—and just as Hillary Clinton’s character would matter if she had any.” —Thomas Sowell
RE: THE LEFT
“Patriotism is a species of unity that has some redeeming moral and philosophical substance to it. In America, patriotism—as opposed to, say, nationalism—is a love for a creed, a dedication to what is best about the ‘American way.’ Nationalism, a romantic sensibility, says, ‘My country is always right.’ Patriots hope that their nation will make the right choice. If you read the speeches of leading Democrats before the Vietnam War, it’s amazing how comfortable they were with patriotic rhetoric... ‘Suicide’ might be strong, but the Left certainly amputated itself from full-throated patriotic sentiment. Most Democrats speak mellifluously about unity but get tongue-tied or sound as if they’re just delivering words plucked from a political consultant’s memo when they talk of patriotism... When Democrats do speak of patriotism, it is usually as a means of finding fault with Republicans, corporations or America itself. Hence the irony that questioning the patriotism of liberals is a grievous sin, but doing likewise to conservatives is fine... Better that our politics be an argument about why and how we should love our country, not about whether some do and some don’t.” —Jonah Goldberg
POLITICAL FUTURES
“Obama’s 100-day agenda would be designed, in part, to improve America’s global image. But there is something worse than being unpopular in the world—and that is being a pleading, panting joke. By simultaneously embracing appeasement, protectionism and retreat, President Obama would manage to make Jimmy Carter look like Teddy Roosevelt. Which is why President Obama would probably not take these actions—at least in the form he has pledged. Sitting behind the Resolute desk is a sobering experience that makes foolish campaign promises seem suddenly less binding. But it is a bad sign for a candidate when the best we can hope is for him to violate his commitments. And that’s a good sign for John McCain.” —Michael Gerson
FOR THE RECORD
“So now we are in this silly situation, in which at one time Obama was happy enough to remind some that his middle name was Hussein and now it is a slur for other less well-intentioned to do so; in which his wife’s browbeating of America was salve to guilty liberals and now it is considered illiberal to question her assumptions; in which a candidate who rose to prominence as a ‘black’ candidate and garners majority margins of 90% among African-American against a very liberal female opponent insists that he has transcended race and to suggest otherwise is, well, racist. Nothing is new in all this: all candidates expand beyond their base and try to play down their former zealotry, on issues as diverse as abortion to guns to gay rights. But what is unique is that the usual flak that meets a politician’s readjustments and opportunism in the case of Obama is additionally questioned as being racist or at least insensitive.” —Victor Davis Hanson
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Second post of the morning
THE FOUNDATION
“We should never despair, our Situation before has been unpromising and has changed for the better, so I trust, it will again. If new difficulties arise, we must only put forth new Exertions and proportion our Efforts to the exigency of the times.” —George Washington
Quote of the week
“The Democratic party is very close to being the [Communist-controlled Progressive] party of Henry Wallace... Today’s left sees the world pretty much in the same terms as the Stalinists did. What has happened is that it has lost its faith in the working class, so its agenda is entirely negative. They’ve dropped the dictatorship of the proletariat and they all say they’re democrats, but so did Lenin. The vast bulk of the American left is a Communist left and they’ve introduced some fascist ideas like ‘identity politics,’ which is straight out of Mussolini. They don’t talk about the working class, they talk about women and race. There’s not much that they’ve learned from the history of the 20th century.” —David Horowitz
New & notable legislation
Speaking of posturing and preening, Democrats brought to the House floor Tuesday a vote on so-called “ethics reform” —H.R. 1031, which passed 229-182 by dubious maneuverings. The measure creates an independent Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE), no longer self-policing House members but instead relying on an OCE composed of six board members, none of whom are sitting lawmakers. This new “ethics” office could conduct partisan witch hunts against members based on accusations from outside groups and individuals, which could then go forward to the full congressional ethics committee for further investigation. What’s most interesting, though, is that the voting on this purported improvement in congressional “ethics” seems to have itself violated new “ethical” rules put in place by the Democrats—holding the voting open longer than officially specified in order to change the outcome. That’s correct—House Democrat leaders could get this passed only by an ethical violation, and House Republican Leader John Boehner has called for an investigation into the floor actions.
Former Hastert seat goes to Democrats
Bad news for Republicans’ election prospects: Democrat Bill Foster won the special election to fill former House Speaker Dennis Hastert’s congressional seat this week, defeating Republican Jim Oberweis with 53 percent of the vote. Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Chris Van Hollen was quick to frame the race as a predictor of the national mood by noting that Barack Obama campaigned for Foster and Oberweis had the support of Hastert and John McCain. “The people of Illinois have sent an unmistakable message that they’re tired of business as usual in Washington,” Obama wrote in a letter. This may be true if putting yet another millionaire businessman in Congress is now being considered a rejection of “business as usual.”
Campaign watch: Fighting for votes
Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean has stepped out of the decision-making process regarding the unseated primary delegates in Florida and Michigan. Rather than acting like, well, a chairman, and making a decision on the matter, Dean is letting the states come up with ideas on how to fix the mess that could sway the Democrat nomination. Naturally, everyone involved in this process has an allegiance to either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama.
Counting the delegates as they currently stand doesn’t make sense to Obama’s supporters, because he didn’t campaign in either Florida or Michigan after the DNC punished the two states for moving their primaries earlier than Super Tuesday. In fact, Obama’s name wasn’t even on the ballot in Michigan. Clinton won a majority of the delegates in both states—though she would be well advised not to crow too much about having won Michigan, where her closest competitor, “Uncommitted,” received 40 percent of the vote. Of course, Clinton wants to count the delegates as it stands because she desperately needs every single one she can get her entitled hands on.
Obama won big again in Mississippi this week, 61 percent to 37 percent, putting further pressure on Clinton to do something—anything—to stay in the running. Look for some parlor tricks from Team Hillary as the debate over what to do with Florida and Michigan heats up.
Never one to consider himself a backbencher, professional race hustler Al Sharpton has wormed his way into the fight by threatening to sue the DNC if Florida’s primary results are allowed to stand at the convention. Sharpton has met with state residents who claim they skipped the primary because they believed their votes wouldn’t count. While he claims to have no preference in the race, Sharpton’s move clearly favors Obama. Of course, the current proposal is for a mail-in redo in Florida. As late-night comedian Jay Leno joked, “That’s a great idea, combine the reliability of the people in Florida who count the ballots with the efficiency of the Post Office. What could go wrong there?”
From the Left: The candidates’ race
Geraldine Ferraro stepped down from Hillary Clinton’s finance committee this week after Barack Obama’s presidential campaign objected to comments made by the former congresswoman and 1984 vice presidential candidate. To the surprise of nearly everyone, the offending statement was actually quite perceptive: “If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position,” Ferraro said. “And if he was a woman of any color, he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept.” To which The Wall Street Journal responded, “Her remarks reveal little more than a firm grasp of the obvious... There is no disputing that Mr. Obama’s skin color has been a political boon for him to date.” Yet the avowedly “post-racial” Obama campaign decided to dispute it anyway by playing the race card, resulting in Ferraro’s resignation.
In the same “controversial” interview, Ferraro made another statement that again demonstrated uncommon insight: “I was reading an article that said young Republicans are out there campaigning for Obama because they believe he’s going to be able to put an end to partisanship. Dear God! Anyone that has worked in the Congress knows that for over 200 years this country has had partisanship—that’s the way our country is.” Against all odds, it seems that the truth becomes a Democrat’s ally only when said Democrat is losing to another Democrat.
NATIONAL SECURITY
Admiral Fallon resigns Central Command
CENTCOM Commander Admiral William J. Fallon was relieved this week by President Bush for insubordination, although the President had enough respect for his 41 years of service to the Navy that he allowed him to resign. Since taking over CENTCOM in March 2007, Admiral Fallon had built up a significant record of offering opinions and making statements that were at odds with the administration. While a recent Esquire Magazine article probably overplayed the idea of Fallon as “a lone voice of reason trying to forestall war with Iran,” Fallon in fact missed few opportunities to cross the White House when it came to Iran. Fallon also reportedly butted heads with General David Petraeus, Commander of Multi-National Forces Iraq and a White House favorite, although both Fallon and Petraeus deny any significant clashes. Fallon’s replacement has not yet been named.
The usual suspects made the usual asinine statements following Fallon’s resignation, claiming that he had been fired for offering honest but unwelcome advice to the President. Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Stalingrad) said, “It’s distressing... President Bush’s oft-repeated claims that he follows the advice of his commanders rings hollow if our commanders don’t feel free to disagree with the President.” Kennedy, who served two years in the U.S. Army, doubtless knows that subordinates offer disagreements to their seniors in private, not in public. The subordinates then either publicly support their seniors’ policies, or they resign. One wonders how Kennedy would react to his chief of staff disagreeing with him in a Boston Globe article, for instance.
While we are not sad to see Admiral Fallon go given his soft stance on Iran, we do take this opportunity to thank a man who gave 41 years of highly distinguished service to his country. Admiral Fallon was one of the few remaining Vietnam veterans on active service and was the Navy’s senior aviator. His awards include, among numerous others, the Defense Distinguished Service medal, the Legion of Merit, the Bronze Star and the Meritorious Service Medal. We wish him well in his future endeavors.
Homeland Security front: Tortured politics
Two security items captured the headlines this week. In the first, Congress failed to override President Bush’s veto of a bill that would severely restrict CIA interrogation techniques—namely barring waterboarding—limiting them to the same techniques used by military interrogators.
The limits placed on the military are designed for interrogating armed combatants in traditional military scenarios. However, even the Army Field Manual (FM 34-52) clearly states that in Low Intensity Combat, “Specific applications of the general principles and techniques must be varied to meet local peculiarities.” Insurgent forces are not protected by the Geneva Convention beyond the basic protections of Article 3, which does prohibit “torture.” Congress and international law are pretty clear on what constitutes torture, and there is no credible evidence that the CIA is violating that limitation in any way. Waterboarding is simply a nice propaganda ploy used equally by Democrats and al-Qa’ida sympathizers to embarrass the President.
The second proposed bill would place more restrictions on terrorist surveillance, while it also fails to protect telecommunication companies from litigation surrounding such surveillance—a pre-condition on which the President has held firm. Civil litigation, and all the civil discovery rules that apply, could quickly reveal and undermine the intelligence capabilities we currently employ. The plaintiff-friendly financial burden this bill could place on those companies that chose to cooperate would effectively end the program. A House vote could take place Friday.
The bottom line: These two bills are nothing but partisan political games designed to fire up the Democrats’ anti-war base. President Bush is right for holding firm, and if they could understand the term, we would say shame on Sen. Harry Reid and Speaker Nancy Pelosi for playing politics with national security.
Profiles of valor: U.S. Army Lt. Peterson
U.S. Army Lt. Timothy C. Peterson went to Iraq in 2006 with the 321st Engineer Battalion and spent a year leading his platoon in route clearance throughout Anbar province—not exactly an easy task. In pre-surge Iraq, jihadis in Anbar routinely attacked coalition forces. Peterson recalled of his earlier missions, “We’d only go at night because it was too dangerous during the day,” adding that almost every night they were shot at and came across IEDs. His soldiers’ duty was to disarm the IEDs.
In the first phases of the surge, the 321st was on 24-hour patrol for days at a time. During one such stretch, another platoon was hit by an IED, which disabled the lead vehicle. Peterson and three members of his unit took their Buffalo MRAP truck and assumed command of the patrol. As they moved further into hostile territory, Peterson’s Buffalo was hit by a series of IEDs, crippling the vehicle and injuring all four occupants. For his bold actions in leading the convoy, Peterson was awarded the Army Commendation Medal with Valor, and his third Purple Heart. After recovery, he resumed the lead on an arduous patrol schedule. He tells of an Iraq that is vastly improved because of the surge. Soldiers walked freely during the daytime and citizens were no longer afraid to assist them. As he left Iraq, Peterson said, “Things were changing, what we were doing was working... For the people that lived there, there was a transition.” Due to the courage he displayed and the success of his missions, Peterson was also awarded the Bronze Star.
BUSINESS & ECONOMY
The trouble with Iraq’s money
U.S. auditors reported to Congress this week that Iraq is riding oil revenues to a large budget surplus because it isn’t spending much of its own money. “The Iraqis have a budget surplus; we have a huge budget deficit,” said U.S. Comptroller General David Walker. “One of the questions is who should be paying.” On one point, we agree with the Democrats: “They ought to be able to use some of their oil to pay for their own costs and not keep sending the bill to the United States,” said Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-WV). However, the Associated Press reports that “Democrats say the assessment is proof that the Iraq war as a waste of time and money.” On the contrary, Operation Iraqi Freedom is part of our critical national interest. If one is looking for a waste of time and money, start with practically any other endeavor of the federal government—Social Security, Medicare, counting grizzly bears, etc. As for Iraq, one of the problems with spending the surplus, according to U.S. officials, is that the Iraqi government can’t always allocate the money without it being wasted or stolen by corrupt officials. On that point, we offer this solution: How about reimbursing the $45 billion the U.S. has spent rebuilding Iraq? After all, there aren’t any corrupt officials in Washington.
CULTURE
From the Leftjudiciary: CA court v. homeschool
A California appeals court ruling has created a major hurdle for parents without teaching credentials who want to homeschool their children. In a child-welfare dispute between the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services and parents who had been homeschooling their eight children, the Second District Court of Appeal ruled that California law requires parents to send their children to full-time public or private schools or have them taught by credentialed tutors at home. Failure to comply could result in the criminal prosecution of the parents, though State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell promises to not enforce the ruling.
According to the court, California parents do not have a constitutional right to homeschool their children, though they failed to point out the constitutional right the government has to educate your children. The court’s opinion states, “A primary purpose of the educational system is to train school children in good citizenship, patriotism and loyalty to the state and the nation as a means of protecting the public welfare,” quoting from a 1961 case on a similar issue. Does this sound slightly familiar? Recall the Elian Gonzalez case in 2000.
A 1978 Cuban Law mandates that parents and teachers raise children with a “Communist personality,” and it forbids “influences contrary to communist development.” The “Code of the Child,” a government mandated handbook for raising and educating children, includes passages such as these: from Article 3—the purpose of education is to “foster in youth the ideological values of communism;” from Article 8—“Society and the state work for the efficient protection of youth against all influences contrary to their communist formation.” Any adult who violates the “Code of the Child” can be imprisoned.
Given the “patriotism” in places like San Francisco and Berkeley, it is fair to ask what is taught about “good citizenship, patriotism and loyalty to the state and the nation” in California’s mandated education system. It seems that, on this one, the California court would have felt right at home in Cuba.
Around the nation: Violence for animals
More news from California... Regents at the University of California in Los Angeles recently filed a lawsuit for an injunction against several animal-rights groups in an attempt to disrupt violent tactics used against university scientists involved in animal research. Scientists have reported use of explosives, firecrackers and middle-of-the-night visits by activists who threatened to burn down their homes. Named in the suit are UCLA Primate Freedom, the Animal Liberation Brigade and the Animal Liberation Front, plus five individuals associated with the organizations.
While a legal battle may bring the issue of such violence to the public spotlight, it is doubtful that a court ruling will keep scientists safe. “If killing [animal-research scientists] is the only way to stop them, then I said killing them would certainly be justified,” said a spokesman for the North American Animal Liberation Press Office. Despite the presence of hired security for one UCLA scientist’s home, he worried enough about his family’s safety that he has given up animal research altogether.
As violence against scientists escalates, so does concern about filling biomedical-research positions. “I do hear scientists say that they have open positions and nobody to fill them because it’s animal research,” said Frankie Trull, president of the Foundation for Biomedical Research. We think we’re finally getting the hang of this tolerance thing.
And last...
In the continuing saga of District of Columbia v. Heller, 39 of Montana’s elected officials have signed a resolution declaring that a Supreme Court ruling against the individual right of gun ownership would give their state grounds for leaving the union. It seems that when Montana’s settlers signed a statehood contract in 1889, one of the conditions was that the federal government agreed that individuals had the right to keep and bear arms. If the Supreme Court rules that firearm ownership is merely a state or “collective” right, Montana officials say that the statehood contract will have been breeched. “The U.S. would do well to keep its contractual promises to the states that the Second Amendment secures an individual right now as it did upon execution of the statehood contract,” Montana Secretary of State Brad Johnson said in a letter to The Washington Times. The Times also notes that the “collective right” interpretation of the Second Amendment doesn’t hold water in Montana because the state didn’t have a militia in the 1880s. “It’s pretty disingenuous as an argument,” Gary Marbut, president of the Montana Shooting Sports Association, said. “At the time, they had no image of what a National Guard was. But history and logic don’t always prevail in these matters.” Indeed. Our advice to the Supreme Court is that before they upset somebody with their ruling, they might want to consider which side has the guns.
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Barack Obama insists he wasn't present at his local church when his longtime pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, made incendiary remarks attacking America. Mr. Obama also insists he wasn't aware of many of Rev. Wright's controversial opinions.
His claims may already be unraveling. Ron Kessler of Newsmax.com reports that on July 22 of last year, Mr. Obama was at Mr. Wright's Trinity United Church of Christ. He was observed in the pews by Jim Davis, a freelance reporter for Newsmax, and was also seen to be nodding in agreement with the fiery minister's remarks. In his sermon that day, Mr. Wright condemned America as the "United States of White America" and said young blacks were "dying for nothing" in Iraq. He called the Iraq war an "illegal" war based on lies and "fought for oil money." The Obama campaign says that the candidate did not attend church services that day, flying instead to speak to an Hispanic group in Chicago. Mr. Kessler stands by his story.
Still more evidence has surfaced that Mr. Obama likely knew a great deal about the content of his pastor's sermons. Last year, the New York Times reported Mr. Obama personally called Mr. Wright to tell him he was being disinvited from giving the public invocation at the announcement of Mr. Obama's candidacy. Mr. Obama explained the move by pointing out to his pastor that a recent Rolling Stone story called "The Radical Roots of Barack Obama" had reprinted excerpts from Wright sermons. "You can get kind of rough in the sermons, so what we've decided is that it's best for you not to be out there in public," was Rev. Wright's recollection of what Mr. Obama told him.
The Rolling Stone story included the following Wright quote describing the United States: "We are deeply involved in the importing of drugs, the exporting of guns and the training of professional KILLERS.... We believe in white supremacy and black inferiority and believe it more than we believe in God.... We conducted radiation experiments on our own people.... We care nothing about human life if the ends justify the means!... GAWD! Has GOT! To be SICK! OF THIS S***!"
At least one member of Rev. Wright's church apparently had her fill of such rhetoric. Oprah Winfrey, a staunch backer of Mr. Obama, began attending the church in 1984. But sometime in the mid-1990s, Christianity Today reports the superstar abruptly stopped going. It may well have had something to do with her desire to distance herself from his fiery speech. Rev. Wright criticized her absence, claiming that Ms. Winfrey has broken with his notion of "traditional faith."
Mr. Obama took a different path. He not only remained in the church, but in 2001, the same year Ms. Winfrey left, had his daughter Natasha baptized by Rev. Wright. The question more and more people are asking is: Why?
-- John Fund
Spitzer's Wanderlust
When Eliot Spitzer was New York's attorney general, he used to bat ideas around with his staff on how criminals could try to evade detection. One day, as Brooke Masters of the Financial Times reports, the conversation veered away from how someone would, say, evade price-fixing laws to how someone might use prostitutes without getting caught. Mr. Spitzer had an instant opinion: "You don't do it in your own community."
That may explain the former governor's habit of using prostitutes on road trips -- whether to Washington, D.C., Texas or Florida. While it's true Mr. Spitzer was less likely to be recognized in those places, he also knew that his security detail was cut by half or more when he left the state -- thus rendering it easier to give them the slip. In addition, as a lawyer, Mr. Spitzer would have known that the state police troopers accompanying him were only sworn to uphold the laws of New York State. A prominent figure in state government told me that Mr. Spitzer may well have thought that if he only purchased the services of prostitutes while violating out-of-state laws, his troopers would be more forgiving if they learned about it and less prone to talk.
As Mr. Spitzer's arrogance, secret life and penchant for perverting the law in order to bully all around him come into focus, it's clear which New Yorker of times past he most resembles: the late Roy Cohn, the nasty underling of Senator Joseph McCarthy, who after his patron's fall from power became an infamous operator in New York legal circles. One hopes that one difference between Mr. Spitzer and Cohn is that the latter continued to do a lot of damage after the McCarthy years. Perhaps we can count ourselves lucky if Mr. Spitzer now disappears into obscurity as a functionary of his family's real estate business.
-- John Fund
Quote of the Day I
"This is a psychologically broken administration: exhausted, passive, prematurely aged, self-defeated. It is lying on the mat moaning as its opponents kick it, unwilling/unable to block a blow or raise a hand in self-defense. The indifference to quality of personnel -- always a problem -- has now become the defining characteristic of the administration. The president continues to imagine he is pursuing one set of policies. But because he allows retiring principals to be succeeded by their deputies, and then those deputies to be followed by their deputies, he has passively acquiesced in allowing his administration to be staffed by people who regard his policies as at best impossible, at worst actively wrong. And then he is surprised when his administration does the opposite of what he wished! Of course it does! If you won't steer the car, it won't go where you want!" -- David Frum, former speechwriter for President Bush, writing at NationalReview.com.
Quote of the Day II
"You have a very unhappy electorate, which is no surprise, with oil at $108 a barrel, stocks down a few thousand points, a war in Iraq with no end in sight and a president who is still very, very unpopular. He's just killed the Republican brand" -- GOP Rep. Tom Davis of Virginia, retiring this year after 14 years in office, on the political legacy of President Bush.
Bearish on Bush
Perhaps President Bush should be named in the lawsuits soon to be filed by Bear Stearns shareholders over the knockdown sale of their company to JP Morgan for two dollars a share.
In superintending the sale, the Federal Reserve's bogey was bucking up short-term financial confidence -- understandably, it wasn't focused on getting top dollar for Bear's probably still quite valuable, if temporarily unfinanceable, portfolio of mortgage and other debt. And if confidence is profoundly shaky at the moment, Mr. Bush's unimpressive performance at the New York Economic Club on Friday hardly did anything to help. Nor did his brief comments this morning. Ben Bernanke, who in public carefully stays within his lane, undoubtedly would like to shake Mr. Bush by the lapels and shout that if the Fed is left to solve the mortgage disaster alone, the likely consequence will be a collapsing dollar and an inflationary crisis on top of a mortgage crisis.
What could the administration contribute? How about pulling together the incipient bipartisan consensus for a cut in our exceptionally high corporate income taxes? As Chicago fund manager Seymour Lotsoff points out in his invaluable newsletter, currency markets tend to reflect a judgment about "where a rational and unbiased long term investor would choose to place his money. Right now the U.S. is not such a place." With such a tax cut, he predicts, the dollar would "reverse course and head toward the sky."
Some kind of mortgage bailout also seems inevitable, but Washington is profoundly misguided if it thinks what's needed is a bailout that keeps subprime borrowers in their homes. A great deal of housing debt was created in the last few years to give speculative buyers nominal title to homes that they no longer want. The shortest road back from this perdition would be to foreclose and demolish a lot of these houses, with taxpayer money if necessary.
When politicians understand that, they may finally have something useful to contribute. Mr. Bush and Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson tout "Hope Now" and other federal initiatives but wonder why so few homeowners are taking advantage. It's because many subprime borrowers only want to get as far away from their houses as possible. Putting to the bulldozer some large, unoccupied housing tracts especially in overbuilt parts of California, Nevada and a handful other states would do a lot more to fix the underlying problem than any heroic action Mr. Bernanke can take through the Fed's discount window.
-- Holman W. Jenkins Jr.
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Liberals: Show Us the Money!
Liberals may rail about money in politics, but liberal groups this year are pulling out all the stops to raise money outside the normal Democratic Party structure in order win back the White House and solidify their control of Congress.
Today, two large labor groups -- the AFL-CIO and Change to Win -- will team up with the left-wing MoveOn.org and the housing advocacy group ACORN to announce plans to spend a whopping $150 million this fall. "In '04 the right mobilized its base and its resources," Bob Borosage, a co-director of the liberal Campaign for America's Future, told the Associated Press. "Well, we've continued to build and expand and gotten more enthusiastic and more mobilized and their coalition has collapsed."
Conservatives would beg to differ about that. They note that their own fundraising has finally started to pick up since John McCain became the presumptive GOP nominee. They also say Democrats are wasting a lot of resources on the trench warfare between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton over which candidate will win the Democratic nomination.
But there's no denying there's a lot of new liberal money flooding the system. John Podesta, a former chief of staff for President Clinton, has set up a group called The Fund for America, which plans to raise and spend $100 million. Among its heavy contributors are George Soros, who ponied up $2.5 million last year, and the Service Employees International Union, which gave an equal amount.
All in all, liberals apparently have decided to counter what they have long perceived as a vast right-wing conspiracy with a vast financial conspiracy of their own creation. Perhaps that's why talk of new campaign finance reform laws was almost absent from the Democratic Party primary debates this year.
-- John Fund
McCain's Warning to Immigration Hotheads
John McCain has a message for Republican candidates who are planning to run on strong anti-immigration themes this fall. Pay attention to recent election defeats by get-tough candidates and modulate your message accordingly.
Mr. McCain told National Public Radio on Monday that he believes noisy anti-immigration rhetoric helped defeat Republicans in several high-profile border state races in Texas and Arizona. He also singled out Pennsylvania, where Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania lost re-election in 2006, and Illinois, where Jim Oberweis stunned the GOP this month by losing the special election to fill the seat of former House Speaker Denny Hastert.
"Senator Santorum emphasized that issue [immigration] and lost by a large number," Mr. McCain told NPR. "We just had a loss of Denny Hastert's seat out in Illinois. The Republican candidate out there, I am told, had very strong anti-immigrant rhetoric also, so I would hope that many of our Republican candidates would understand the political practicalities of this issue."
Mr. Oberweis lost for a variety of reasons, but his high-octane immigration rhetoric clearly didn't help him as he lagged well behind normal GOP totals in the suburban Chicago seat. As a millionaire he spent big bucks from his own pocket airing an ad decrying how Washington politicians "can't seem to fix" the problem and calling for "tougher sanctions" on employers and illegal immigrants. Mr. Oberweis ran similar ads during his 2004 primary race for U.S. Senate, which he also lost.
Indeed, the Oberweis electoral track record is such that many local GOP leaders are urging him to step aside and allow the Republican he beat in the special election primary, State Senator Chris Lauzen, to replace him when the former Hastert seat comes up again in November. But Mr. Oberweis is nothing if not proud and insists he has a good chance of evening the score by defeating the new Democratic incumbent Bill Foster this fall. Nonetheless, Congressional Quarterly now rates the race in the normally Republican seat as Mr. Foster's to lose.
-- John Fund
Quote of the Day
"Rev. [Jeremiah] Wright drives a wedge into the central contradiction of Obama's campaign -- an orthodox liberal politician who rose to prominence in a left-wing milieu in Chicago and has never broken with his party on anything of consequence is campaigning on unifying the country. There is nothing particularly unifying about Obama's past and his voting record. The senator has risen on his words, and will be hard-pressed to talk his way out of his long, jarring association with the gleefully divisive Rev. Wright" -- National Review editor Rich Lowry.
Putting the 'Super' Back in Superdelegate
Kudos to Kentucky Rep. John Yarmuth. When asked recently why he is supporting Barack Obama for president, the first-term Democrat dispensed with the usual civic-minded blather and instead said the Illinois Senator was the best candidate to help him hold onto his seat in Congress. "In my district, there's no question Barack would be better," Mr. Yarmuth told Congressional Quarterly last week. In 2006, Mr. Yarmuth defeated incumbent Republican Ann Northup by fewer than 6,000 votes in a district that usually trends Republican. In that race, black voters made up just 10% of the electorate. If Mr. Obama is at the top of the ticket, "my guess is it will be three-to-five percent higher," Mr. Yarmuth said, which could tip the race in his favor in a rematch against Ms. Northup.
Mr. Yarmuth isn't the only one. CQ identifies four Indiana Democrats who are likely to support Mr. Obama in hopes of saving their seats in Congress. Reps. Andre Carson, Baron Hill, Joe Donnelly and Brad Ellsworth are all freshmen congressmen from districts that could swing Republican in a competitive year.
Naturally, this is music to the Obama campaign's ears. His staff has tried to make a high principle out of the idea that superdelegates should rigidly vote as their districts do -- which, of course, defeats the purpose of having superdelegates in the first place. From 1954 until 1994, Democrats managed to win more than 50% of the popular vote in a presidential election just once, when Lyndon Johnson crushed Barry Goldwater in 1964, despite Democrats' nearly uninterrupted dominance of Congress during the period. Indeed, no Democratic candidate since then has hit the 50% mark, though Al Gore came close in 2000. This history suggests the party base is better at dutifully reelecting Congressmen than at picking presidential winners. Had they learned this history better, Democrats might be sticking with the plan to let superdelegates use their own judgment.
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Barack Obama's speech on race in America was a tour de force in many ways, but one section made me cringe and deserves some rebuke. There is an expression about ambitious politicians who would "walk over their grandmothers" in pursuit of their goals. Mr. Obama almost did that yesterday.
In explaining why he would not repudiate his extremist pastor, Mr. Obama said, "I can no more disown [Rev. Jeremiah Wright] than I can my white grandmother -- a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe."
Now Mr. Obama’s campaign has made clear that his 84-year old grandmother, who has asked to be left alone, should be considered off-limits to political reporters. But yesterday, it was Mr. Obama who didn't leave her alone when he used her for one of the central themes of his speech. His behavior recalls the time when Bill Clinton regularly trashed his stepfather as a violent drunk as part of his 1992 campaign. The idea of talking about his stepfather's human frailties to advance himself politically struck many people then as a selfish act and a gross distortion of the loyalty family members owe to each other.
-- John Fund
Quick-Draw Dellinger, He's Not
Talk out being outgunned. Former Clinton Solicitor General Walter Dellinger apparently had a bulls-eye on him when he faced the Supreme Court yesterday to defend the crime-ridden District of Columbia's handgun ban.
Mr. Dellinger didn't do himself any favors by taking the most extreme view -- that the Constitution's right to bear arms applies only to members of a militia, none of which exist anymore. He was barely a few sentences into his argument before the Court's conservative majority opened fire. Chief Justice John Roberts asked why the Second Amendment mentions "the people" if it didn't mean... the people? Justice Antonin Scalia followed up with a sermon on the eminent 18th-century English legal authority William Blackstone, who placed a high value on a right to self-defense that likely animated the Founding Fathers too.
But what really had observers buzzing was the intervention of Anthony Kennedy, seen as a swing vote on this case. He quizzed Mr. Dellinger about whether the right of self-defense wasn't at the heart of the Framer's deliberations, given their natural concern for a "remote settler" who needed "to defend himself and his family against hostile Indian tribes and outlaws, wolves and bears and grizzlies and things like that."
Anything can happen behind the Court's closed doors, but yesterday's oral argument strongly indicates that the District's comprehensive ban on private handgun ownership may be headed for history's ash-heap. Gun controllers will be outraged, but leading Democrats, who have all but abandoned the gun-control issue in their pursuit of national majority status, are likely to find some other subject to get worked up about when the Court's decision comes down.
-- Kim Strassel
Grudge Match
Democratic debates are coming back! While some voters might be exhausted from the two dozen that were held earlier this year, others of us welcome their return because the pitched battle between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton has finally gotten interesting.
The next championship bouts look to be on April 16 in Philadelphia, hosted by ABC, and on April 19 in North Carolina, hosted by CBS. Mrs. Clinton hasn't accepted the North Carolina debate yet, but that's likely a formality. The CBS debate would feature Katie Couric and Bob Schieffer, two veteran journalists who so far haven't had a star turn as debate moderators.
As for whether the debates will be worth watching, just consider how contentious the last few weeks of campaigning between the two candidates have been. Given the stakes, that intensity is likely to keep building until they confront each other in Philadelphia. The debate should be an interesting one, but don't expect to see much "brotherly love" present.
-- John Fund
Quote of the Day
"How is it possible that a campaign apparatus that sniffed out Geraldine Ferraro's offensive statement to a local California newspaper (the Daily Breeze, 12th paragraph) did not know that Wright's statements condemning America were all over the Internet and had been cited March 6 by the (reputable) anti-Obama columnist Ronald Kessler? The sermon was also available on YouTube. In other words, how is it possible that a man who has made judgment the centerpiece of his presidential campaign has shown so little of it in this matter? One possible answer to these questions is that Obama has learned to rely on a sycophantic media that hears any criticism of him as either (1) racist, (2) vaguely racist or (3) doing the bidding of Hillary and Bill Clinton" -- Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen.
He Saw the Future More Clearly Than the Present
The last member of the great science fiction-writing trio of the 20th century has left us with the death of British writer Arthur C. Clarke at his home in Sri Lanka. The other members were Robert Heinlein and Isaac Asimov.
Although Mr. Clarke wrote, co-wrote or edited some 100 books, he is perhaps best known as the author of "2001: A Space Odyssey," which was turned into an iconic 1960s film by Stanley Kubrick. But Mr. Clarke's other books were a treasure trove of predictions in which he anticipated, with remarkable accuracy, everything from communications satellites to the Internet and cloning.
Mr. Clarke had pithy notions about social and technological change. "Every revolutionary idea," he once said, "evokes three stages of reaction. They may be summed up by the phrases: (1) it's completely impossible; (2) it's possible but it's not worth doing; (3) I said it was a good idea all along." Mr. Clarke also sagely noted that the short-term impact of any new technology tends to be overestimated, while its long-term impact is underestimated.
But when it came to politics, Mr. Clarke was often frightfully wooly-headed. He called President Reagan's missile-defense plans "technological obscenities" and testified against them before Congress. He failed to foresee how Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative would contribute to the Soviet Union's peaceful downfall. He also ignored the lesson of his own novel, "The Trigger," in which a physicist invents a machine that can safely detonate any explosive, rendering weapons obsolete.
In 2000, Mr. Clarke also signed onto the so-called Human Manifesto, which one British newspaper sniffed was "a messy ideological goulash -- a conflicting mess of hard-core individualism, fettered capitalism, left-over socialism, dreamy one-worldism and goofy Al Gore environmentalism."
Still, despite such lapses Mr. Clarke leaves us at age 90 with a body of work that will inspire readers for hundreds of years with the potential of human accomplishment.
-- John Fund
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Will the Last Republican in New York Turn Out the Lights?
How does House Minority Leader John Boehner know he has an unusually challenging election year on his hands? When even the most recent chairman of the House Republican campaign committee joins the avalanche of GOP House Members who are retiring this year.
Rep. Tom Reynolds, who represents an upstate New York district wedged between Buffalo and Rochester, will announce he's leaving office after a decade of service. He becomes the 29th House Republican to decide the party is unlikely to win back a House majority this year and thus is heading for the exits. Only six Democrats so far have announced they are leaving the House.
Mr. Reynolds only won with 52% of the vote last time, and since then he has endured an ongoing scandal involving the National Republican Campaign Committee he headed until 2006. The committee's treasurer during his time is alleged to have embezzled nearly $1 million because of lax supervision.
Republicans hold only six out of the Empire State's 29 House seats. Now they will have to defend two because of retirements. The seat held by departing Rep. James Walsh is truly marginal, but Republicans believe they should be able to hold the Reynolds seat. It gave President Bush a solid 55% of the vote in 2004, normally sign of a safe GOP seat. But Democrats have found a candidate they think perfectly suited for the district: John Powers, a schoolteacher who happens to be an Iraq War veteran.
-- John Fund
Manna for Document Nerds
What will the bloodhounds be pawing for now that the National Archives has bequeathed its first major document dump related to Hillary Clinton's time as First Lady?
The press for the immediate moment will be zeroing in on titillating details, such as where Mrs. Clinton was on that fateful day when hubby Bill introduced Monica Lewinsky to the Oval Office. But that's shooting fish in a barrel. Investigative reporters also will be looking for promising leads about, say, Mrs. Clinton's contact with the now deceased Vince Foster or her possible meetings with former Democratic fundraiser (and now convicted felon) Johnny Chung.
Meanwhile, those focused on the current presidential race will be trawling for info that would either buttress or dismantle Mrs. Clinton's claims that she was an instrumental policy player in the Clinton White House. Britain's Guardian newspaper was already reporting yesterday that "Mrs. Clinton was a long way from the White House at key foreign policy moments," such as NATO air strikes against Serbia, or the Northern Ireland peace agreement.
Finally expect a brouhaha (which has already begun) over some 4,746 schedule items that have been redacted. The National Archives says this was done to protect the privacy of third parties, but what isn't yet clear is whether the redactions were imposed by Clinton representative Bruce Lindsey, who was allowed to vet the documents before their release. Christopher Farrell of Judicial Watch -- a conservative organization that sued to get the information -- says he doesn't expect to find any "smoking gun," since Mr. Lindsey had "enormous discretion" to redact potentially damaging material.
Naturally, the release has spurred a new round of "Who's More Transparent?" bickering between the Clinton and Barack Obama campaigns. Clinton advisor Howard Wolfson says Mrs. Clinton's public record now reflects "11,000 more documents than the Obama campaign has released up until this point relating to any part of his service especially as state Senator." The Obama campaign, meanwhile, continues to ask why Mrs. Clinton has yet to photocopy and release recent tax records.
-- Kim Strassel
Back In The Game
Oregon is ecstatic right now. For the first time in 60 years the state may hold a meaningful presidential primary.
Stymied in its attempts at relevancy in 1992 and 1996, Oregon in 2000 decided to move its presidential primary back to its traditional placement in May, having found that a March primary was still overshadowed by bigger states. Now, two months before Oregon voters get to decide between Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton in one of the most competitive primary seasons ever, the state's late slot on the primary calendar has suddenly turned into a virtue.
Mr. Obama, anticipating the importance of Oregon's 52 pledged delegates, already plans to hold rallies Friday in Portland and Eugene -- two of the state's three largest cities. In any other presidential year, Oregonians would likely have known the candidates only from seeing them on TV.
The state's last significant presidential primary came in 1948, when New York Gov. Thomas Dewey squeaked past former Minnesota Gov. Harold Stassen with 52% of the vote, essentially ending Stassen's presidential hopes. Leading up to that primary, between 40 million and 80 million people heard the two Republican candidates debate from a Portland radio station studio on whether the U.S. should outlaw the Communist Party. According to the Commission on Presidential Debates, this was the first and last time a presidential debate was ever limited to one issue.
-- Kyle Trygstad, RealClearPolitics.com
Alaska's Changing of the Guard, with Prejudice
Rep. Don Young of Alaska has been cheerfully hauling back pork to his native state for years. But in 2005, he and fellow Republican Senator Ted Stevens were caught promoting the "Bridge to Nowhere," which became an instant symbol for bloated federal earmarks. Then last year, both men came under federal investigation over their cozy ties to companies that often sought earmarks. Mr. Young has spent $845,000 on legal fees related to the investigation, but refuses to answer any questions on the subject.
Senator Stevens has already drawn a primary opponent in his re-election race, and now Mr. Young faces a top-flight challenger: Sean Parnell, Alaska's lieutenant governor. Mr. Parnell hopes to replicate the success of his boss, Governor Sarah Palin, who in 2006 defeated then-Gov. Frank Murkowski in a GOP primary by playing up the corruption surrounding his political machine. Mr. Parnell certainly will benefit from the popular Republican governor's backing. Ms. Palin personally accompanied her deputy to the state election office when he filed to enter the primary.
Rep. Young isn't giving up, but polls show he has only a 40% approval rating and many voters realize that as an ethically challenged member of the minority party his best pork-salting days are probably over.
-- John Fund
Whiz Wit English
A small blow for sanity was struck yesterday when a local regulatory body in Philadelphia ruled that a famous cheesesteak restaurant did not violate anyone's human rights by posting a small sign: "This is America: WHEN ORDERING PLEASE SPEAK ENGLISH."
Joe Vento, owner of Geno's Steaks, says he never in fact refused service to anyone who didn't speak English and only put up the sign out of concern that so many in the neighborhood were lapsing into their native tongues when they could have used basic English.
By a 2 to 1 vote, the city's Commission on Human Relations ruled that Mr. Vento's sign did not convey any message that business will be "refused, withheld or denied." The ruling was a surprise because just last year the commission had found probable cause to charge Mr. Vento with violation of anti-discrimination laws. The same panel later decided to charge him only with posting an "offensive" sign.
The ruling comes just days after the U.S. Senate voted 54 to 44 to approve a common-sense amendment barring federal employment regulators from suing small businesses that require employees to speak English on the job.
Senator Lamar Alexander, a sponsor of the amendment, says his goal is to end "frivolous lawsuits" such as one filed by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission against the Salvation Army and 125 other organizations for requiring English in the workplace except during breaks and lunch periods. Mr. Alexander's amendment would direct the EEOC to spend the money being used to finance the lawsuits to support programs to teach adults English instead.
Senator Alexander is under no illusions that his amendment will now pass the House. Last November, a previous version was approved by both House and Senate, but Speaker Nancy Pelosi cancelled a conference committee scheduled to finalize the bill under pressure from liberal groups. The legislation then died, but not before House Democrats came under withering criticism for undermining the use of English as America's common language.
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The Lady's Not for Turning
Hillary Clinton has an answer for those who demand that she recognize the odds against her and give up a race that is dividing the Democratic Party. At a news conference yesterday in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, she pointed to recent polls showing her building a commanding lead in that state: "We have to wait and see what happens in the next three months. There's been a lot of talk about what if, what if, what if. Let's wait until we get some facts.... Over the next months, millions of people are going to vote. And we should wait and see the outcome of those votes."
While the Obama camp says Mrs. Clinton can't win the nomination, her strategist Harold Ickes dryly notes that none of the Democratic delegates elected on Obama slates are legally bound to their choice. He also notes that "many things" can happen in the next few weeks to change the dynamics of the race.
Who would argue with that after a year like the one we've had? It took this long for the Jeremiah Wright controversy to explode, and more surprise twists and turns may well be in store before the race reaches the convention.
-- John Fund
Dean's Plea
Radio show host and sometime Democratic Party activist Mario Solis-Marich reports this week that Democratic Chairman Howard Dean has been quietly meeting with Latino DNC members and asking them to step up and "make a call for Democratic unity to Latin voters."
The worry, Mr. Solis-Marich suspects, is that Latino Democrats, who favor Hillary Clinton over Barack Obama by a two-to-one margin, "will prove hard to deliver should Obama take the nomination."
It's true that to remain competitive in Ohio, Michigan, Missouri, Pennsylvania and a few other states, the Democratic presidential nominee will need a large turnout of black voters. It's also true that to be competitive in Colorado, Florida, New Mexico and elsewhere, Democrats will need broad support from Hispanic voters. But there's one big difference: Disgruntled Hispanic voters are much more likely to take a serious look at the Republican candidate, John McCain, if disappointed or angry about the Democratic race. In the hard-math of electoral politics, an alienated Hispanic voter could be twice as damaging to the Democrats as an alienated black voter.
This isn't a discussion Democrats hoped to be having come spring and it certainly isn't one that will boost the party's chances of winning in November. But rest assured, it's an argument Mrs. Clinton's supporters will be using while she tries to claw her way to the nomination.
-- Brendan Miniter
Quote of the Day I
"Ninety days ago, everybody was talking in warm terms about both the candidates: 'Isn't it wonderful? Whoever's president is going to be great.' It has gotten vastly more polarized now, and that really concerns me.... The bottom line here is that we have a problem, and I think we need to take it off autopilot and try to find some way of resolving it. I don't know any way that is not going to generate some hard feeling and some divisions in the party. But if we do it early, we've got a chance to patch them up" -- Tennessee Democratic Gov. Phil Bredesen, quoted at Politico.com. on why Democratic superdelegates should get together and settle the presidential nomination sooner rather than later.
Quote of the Day II
"[Hillary Clinton] is being punished, not for one episode of 'mis-speaking' [about her Bosnian trip], but a whole record of dishonesty. In Bosnian terms it's more disgraceful than many remember. In 1992 Bill Clinton ran against George Bush Snr promising to help the Bosnians survive genocide -- then repeatedly went back on his word.... And I shall never forget meeting his Defense Secretary Les Aspin, who said he had wanted to land his plane under fire at Sarajevo airport to at least show some solidarity but was dissuaded by the White House. They told him it would distract from Hillary's healthcare initiative. Now Bosnia has had its small, belated revenge on her" -- columnist Christopher Hitchens, writing in Britain's Daily Mirror.
Democrats Look Into the Abyss
The first evidence that the bitterness of the Democratic nomination contest is eating into the party's chances in November is starting to show up in polls. The latest Gallup Poll finds that maverick John McCain may be just the kind of Republican who can attract disaffected supporters of whichever Democratic candidate loses the nomination fight in Denver.
As Gallup reports, only 59% of Democrats who back Hillary Clinton say they would vote for Mr. Obama against Mr. McCain; 28% of these Clinton supporters say they would cross the aisle to vote for Mr. McCain. Should Ms. Clinton be the nominee, 73% of Mr. Obama's supporters would back her in the fall while 19% would plump for Mr. McCain.
No one expects the number of defectors to be that large come November, after months of efforts by Democrats to restore party unity. In Gallup's historical final pre-election polls from 1992 to 2004, 10% or fewer of Republicans and Democrats typically vote for the other party's presidential nominee. However, as Gallup also reports: "When almost 3 out of 10 Clinton supporters say they would vote for McCain over Obama, it suggests that divisions are running deep within the Democratic Party." Expect the Gallup result to be a major talking point for Team Clinton in its upcoming conversations with superdelegates.
No surprise, then, that many Democratic superdelegates are scrambling to find a way to cut short the nomination fight and informally anoint a winner after the final states hold their primaries in early June.
-- John Fund
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...And Ryan Seacrest Can Host
It's five long months till Democrats meet in Denver for their convention. The infighting between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton worries many in the party. "If we continue down the path we are on, we might as well hand the keys of the White House to John McCain," Rep. Emanuel Cleaver of Missouri tells McClatchy Newspapers.
That's why many Democrats are discussing the idea of holding a June "mini-convention" in which the party's 800 superdelegates would congregate and put an end to the bruising nomination battle. "There would be a final opportunity for the candidates to make their arguments to these delegates, and then one transparent vote," Tennessee Gov. Philip Bredesen recently suggested.
Significantly, neither Democratic candidate has poured ice water on the idea. Mr. Obama called the notion "interesting." Hillary Clinton did not reject the idea in a conversation with Governor Bredesen. But at least one superdelegate, Leila Medley of Missouri, is wary of a mini-convention. "I'm sure there are a number of us who would get beat up behind closed doors," she says. She has a better idea: "I think what we need to do is get the two of them [Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton] in a room and resolve this."
Now that encounter would indeed be an interesting "mini-convention."
-- John Fund
Meet Chris Cox
While the Democratic slugfest sucks up all the media attention, John McCain will have at least one big chance to move back to center-stage -- when he picks his veep nominee.
Mr. McCain needs to bolster his economic street cred, especially after admitting minimal expertise on the subject. He needs to rally pro-growth Republicans and calm the fears of ordinary voters amid the mortgage meltdown. Who to call? California Republican Chris Cox was on George W. Bush's shortlist eight years ago and didn't get the nod. Now his moment may have arrived, judging by a growing murmur among his GOP fans.
At 55, he's youthful and confidence-inspiring, with ample experience to serve as understudy to a well-traveled 72-year-old. He has a reputation as a serious and sober minded politician. He earned both a law and business degree from Harvard. He's fluent in Russian -- before entering politics he started a company that translated Soviet publications into English. He served a stint in the Reagan White House, then ran successfully for Congress from Orange County, serving nine terms and amassing a strong record as a fiscal conservative and tax cutter. He also led a bipartisan Congressional commission that wrote the book on Chinese technological espionage.
In 2005, he became chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, where he has walked a careful, and successful, line in eschewing over-regulation while expanding investor information on CEO pay and other governance hot buttons.
Not widely known is a chapter in his personal history. At age 25, Mr. Cox faced the possibility that he might never walk again when a Jeep he was riding in flipped over and pinned him to the ground. His spine was crushed. It took him six months and a steel brace that he wore around his chest before he regained the ability to walk. Today, he still suffers severe pain, especially if he sits for long periods of time, so he often uses a desk that allows him to work while standing up.
-- Brendan Miniter
Quote of the Day I
"The consequence [of Barack Obama's speech on race], which you can already feel, is an inchoate resentment among many white voters who are damned if they will be called bigots by a man who associates with Jeremiah Wright. So here we go with all that again. And this is the fresh, clean, new post-racial politics?" -- author Christopher Hitchens, writing at Slate.com on Barack Obama's relationship with Rev. Wright.
Quote of the Day II
"As a Philadelphian, I attended Central High School -- the same public school Jeremiah Wright attended from 1955 to 1959.... I attended Central a few years after Rev. Wright, so I did not know him personally. But I knew of him and I know where he used to live -- in a tree-lined neighborhood of large stone houses in the Germantown section of Philadelphia. This is a lovely neighborhood to this day. Moreover, Rev. Wright's father was a prominent pastor and his mother was a teacher and later vice-principal and disciplinarian of the Philadelphia High School for Girls, also a distinguished academic high school. Two of my acquaintances remember her as an intimidating and strict disciplinarian and excellent math teacher. In short, Rev. Wright had a comfortable upper-middle class upbringing. It was hardly the scene of poverty and indignity suggested by Senator Obama to explain what he calls Wright's anger and what I describe as his hatred" -- Morton Klein, president of the Zionist Organization of America, writing in the New Republic.
Huckabee's Woes of the Pharisees
Mike Huckabee is as busy as ever since he ended his campaign for the GOP nomination. Invitations to speak and join the boards of various organizations are pouring in. But this week the former Arkansas governor took time to contemplate why he failed to best John McCain in this winter's primaries. His partial answer: his fellow Christian leaders.
"Rank-and-file evangelicals supported me strongly, but a lot of the leadership did not," he told Ralph Hallow of the Washington Times. "Let's face it, if you're not going to be king, the next best thing is to be the kingmaker. And if the person gets there without you, you become less relevant."
Mr. Huckabee has a point. Pat Robertson of TV's "The 700 Club" was a surprise backer of Rudy Giuliani. Former presidential candidate Gary Bauer had kind words for Fred Thompson and Jay Sekulow, who heads the American Center for Law and Justice, backed Mitt Romney.
But what Mr. Huckabee fails to note is that the Christian leaders I spoke with all had passionate reasons for not backing the Baptist minister. Several singled out his critique of President Bush's foreign policy for being "arrogant," and several noted Mr. Huckabee's endorsement of a discredited "cap-and-trade" regulatory approach to global warming. "He's the leading exponent of Christian left principles in our party," one Christian leader told me. Paul Pressler, who led the successful ouster of the moderate leadership of the Southern Baptist convention in the 1980s, recalled Mr. Huckabee was on the other side in that dispute. For his part, Mr. Bauer says he "saw no evidence that [Huckabee] could bring together the three main parts of the Reagan electoral constituency -- defense, economic and social conservatives."
Mr. Huckabee does acknowledge the role of some critics in stopping his march to the nomination. He singles out the free-market Club for Growth for running damaging ads against him in South Carolina, where he narrowly lost the primary to John McCain.
"It was very frustrating to be presented as an economic liberal, because I have a very different record, as an economic conservative," Mr. Huckabee told the Washington Times. His big problem here is that so few of Mr. Huckabee's fellow Republicans in Arkansas agree with him. Only a handful of the state's 33 GOP state legislators endorsed him for president. Blant Hurt, a former owner of Arkansas Business magazine, was brutally candid on the reasons: "He's hostile to free trade, hiked sales and grocery taxes, backed sales taxes on Internet purchases, and presided over state spending going up more than twice the inflation rate."
Rather than blame shadowy "kingmakers" in the Republican Party, it's time Mr. Huckabee acknowledged that for all of his rhetorical gifts, he wasn't able to close the sale with conservative leaders -- both Christian and others -- who examined his record closely.
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http://michellemalkin.com/2008/03/26/we-dont-call-him-baghdad-jim-for-nothing/?print=1
We don’t call him “Baghdad Jim” for nothing; Plus: Another treacherous CAIR official
By Michelle Malkin • March 26, 2008 07:18 PM
When I lived in Seattle, he was well-known as “Baghdad Jim McDermott” and the name has stuck over the years.
With good reason. Back in 2002, Stephen Hayes reported on how Baghdad Democrats David Bonior, Jim McDermott, and Mike Thompson took a trip to Iraq in the run up to the invasion and followed up with a report on how Saddam’s cash paid for the junkets.
Now, the AP has a new report on the payments:
Federal prosecutors say Saddam Hussein’s intelligence agency secretly financed a trip to Iraq for three U.S. lawmakers during the run-up to the U.S.-led invasion.
An indictment in Detroit accuses Muthanna Al-Hanooti of arranging for three members of Congress to travel to Iraq in October 2002 at the behest of Saddam’s regime. Prosecutors say Iraqi intelligence officials paid for the trip through an intermediary.
In exchange, Al-Hanooti allegedly received 2 million barrels of Iraqi oil.
The lawmakers are not mentioned but the dates correspond to a trip by Democratic Reps. Jim McDermott of Washington, David Bonior of Michigan and Mike Thompson of California. There was no indication the three lawmakers knew the trip was underwritten by Saddam.
“There was no indication the three lawmakers knew the trip was underwritten by Saddam?”
Uh-huh.
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Debbie Schlussel has the lowdown on the al-Hanooti case:
For at least six years, I’ve been asking why the Justice Department–specifically the Islamo-pandering parade of U.S. Attorneys for the Eastern District of Michigan–were breaking pita with officials of LIFE for Relief and Development, including Muthanna Al-Hanooti.
Today, Al-Hanooti, a former chief of CAIR-Michigan was indicted for acting as a spy for Saddam Hussein in America. (And–shocker–he has a second wife and family in Iraq.) To me and anyone who followed the story and read a newspaper, that isn’t news. In fact, the indictment is far too little, far too late. The indictment says that a trip taken by three Congressmen–liberal Democrats Jim McDermott, David Bonior, and Jim Thompson–to Iraq in 2002, was funded by Saddam Hussein, using a third party to arrange the financing, and Al-Hanooti to put the trip together. Again, not news, since I wrote about it repeatedly on this site and also in The New York Post as far back as 2003.
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Are Democrats overrating the political appeal of a federal housing bailout?
Rep. Tom Feeney, from Florida of all places, called us this week to slam House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank's draft mortgage bill. Although Mr. Feeney represents more than 70 miles of coastline in a state that is ground zero in the housing downturn, he calls a taxpayer-financed rescue a "terrible idea." During the Easter recess, Mr. Feeney has been strolling along Daytona Beach talking to voters. His findings are bracing. "My constituents for the most part have no sympathy for the lenders, and they are not terribly sympathetic with borrowers who made bad decisions," he says. In fact, relief for borrowers is not even at the top of the list of housing concerns. He hears more complaints about high property taxes based on bubble-era assessments.
Mr. Feeney says his constituents realize that most of the pending plans to help strapped borrowers will benefit a relative few, while raising costs for all borrowers. Mr. Feeney says of a specific plan to let bankruptcy judges knock down the loan amount due on a house: "The percentage of people who will benefit is minuscule. The other 99.5% of Americans will pay for it."
-- James Freeman
Reading the Matchup Tea Leaves
The argument rages over whether Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton would do better against John McCain in the fall. Nationally, the two fare about the same, with the latest Wall Street Journal/NBC poll showing Mr. Obama leading Mr. McCain by 2 points, and Mr. McCain slightly ahead of Mrs. Clinton, results that are all within the margin of error.
But the results vary dramatically from state to state. In Pennsylvania, Mr. McCain picks up a lot of the old Reagan Democrats in a matchup with Mr. Obama, putting that state in play even though it hasn't voted for a Republican for president in 20 years. The latest Susquehanna Poll finds Mr. McCain leads Mr. Obama by four points, but trails Hillary Clinton in a fall matchup by three points.
In Connecticut, the results are dramatically different. Mr. McCain has a fighting chance against Mrs. Clinton, trailing her by only 45% to 42%. Against Mrs. Clinton, Mr. McCain certainly benefits from an endorsement by independent Senator Joe Lieberman, a former Democrat. But it's a different story when the Arizonan is paired up against Mr. Obama -- he loses by a whopping 52% to 35%. The reason? Mr. Obama is phenomenally popular with voters under age 35 -- he gets almost three quarters of their votes.
But a big caveat for Mr. Obama is the past pattern of younger enthusiasts drifting off before Election Day and failing to vote. Should Mr. Obama be the Democratic nominee, he will need to make sure his young supporters don't exhaust the "audacity of hope."
-- John Fund
Superwusses
A letter of protest from some of Hillary Clinton's big donors to Nancy Pelosi has stirred up the "She can't win, why is she running?" caucus in the media one more time.
But the premise is false. Neither Mrs. Clinton nor Barack Obama can win on pledged delegates, and party rules prescribe that the deciding votes fall to the superdelegates. Mrs. Clinton's donors, led by New York financier Steven Rattner and media mogul Robert Johnson, yesterday wrote to the House Speaker and rightly demanded that she stop trying to fix the outcome by insisting superdelegates must follow the popular vote in their states or districts and vote (in effect) for Barack Obama.
That's not what party rules say, specifically empowering superdelegates to make up their own minds. One who is ironically unimpressed by Ms. Pelosi's reasoning is Pennsylvania Senator Bob Casey Jr., possessed of one of the most powerful Democratic names in the state. He plans to endorse Mr. Obama today despite polls showing Mrs. Clinton leading by double digits in Pennsylvania.
Of course, the pro-Clinton letter writers weren't about to highlight the real problem. The most influential superdelegates, such as Ms. Pelosi and Al Gore, should simply stop being so coy and throw their lot behind a candidate, while urging their fellow superdelegates to do the same. They could settle this race now if they are so concerned about it dragging out. The likely result would be to put Mr. Obama over the top, but at least rank-and-file voters in the coming primaries would know where the superdelegates stand.
Then again, don't discount the possibility that Mr. Gore and Ms. Pelosi don't want the stalemate to end. Each would play a starring role at the most dramatic convention in decades. In a total breakdown, they might even end up being drafted for a party unity ticket.
-- Holman W. Jenkins Jr.
Mugabe's Election Farce
Independent surveys show Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe with only 20% support as the country heads toward a March 29 election in the midst of an economic nightmare in which 80% of the population lacks a regular job.
But no one expects Mr. Mugabe to lose. He has gerrymandered districts to ensure his rural supporters carry much more weight in the election. Then there's the vote fraud he is actively promoting. Tendai Biti, secretary general of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, says leaked documents from the government's security printers show nine million ballots have been ordered for the 5.9 million people registered to vote on Saturday. Under amended laws, police will also be allowed to go into polling booths to "assist" illiterate people in voting -- a clear violation of Mr. Mugabe's previous pledges not to have police moonlight as election officials.
Then there are the voter rolls themselves, which are stuffed with the names of the dead or nonexistent. The London Times reports one electoral register included people born in 1900 and 1901, along with a former minister of justice who died a quarter-century ago. Mugabe opponents say these "ghost voters" will give the government a ready means of stuffing ballot boxes.
Before the last election, Mugabe critics were able to obtain voter rolls for 12 districts. An independent analysis found that 45% of the named individuals didn't exist. This year, the government has kept the voter rolls under lock and key.
It's true Mr. Mugabe only won 54% of the vote in the last rigged election, and strongmen ranging from Slobodan Milosevic and Hugo Chavez have in the past miscalculated the amount of fraud necessary to steal an election. But few in Zimbabwe doubt that the wily 84-year-old Mr. Mugabe will stop at nothing in order to maintain his grip on power.
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THE FOUNDATION: CHARACTER
“In selecting men for office, let principle be your guide. Regard not the particular sect or denomination of the candidate - look to his character...” —Noah Webster
CAMPAIGN WATCH
“What, really, is Mrs. Clinton doing? She is having the worst case of cognitive dissonance in the history of modern politics. She cannot come up with a credible, realistic path to the nomination. She can’t trace the line from ‘this moment’s difficulties’ to ‘my triumphant end.’ But she cannot admit to herself that she can lose. Because Clintons don’t lose. She can’t figure out how to win, and she can’t accept the idea of not winning. She cannot accept that this nobody from nowhere could have beaten her, quietly and silently, every day. (She cannot accept that she still doesn’t know how he did it!) She is concussed. But she is a scrapper, a fighter, and she’s doing what she knows how to do: scrap and fight. Only harder.” —Peggy Noonan
POLITICAL FUTURES
“Hillary Clinton’s presidential prospects continue to dim. The door is closing. Night is coming. The end, however, is not near. Last week, an important Clinton adviser...[said] that Clinton had no more than a 10 percent chance of getting the nomination. Now, she’s probably down to a 5 percent chance. Five percent. Let’s take a look at what she’s going to put her party through for the sake of that 5 percent chance: The Democratic Party is probably going to have to endure another three months of daily sniping. For another three months, we’ll have the Carvilles likening the Obamaites to Judas and former generals accusing Clintonites of McCarthyism... We’ll have campaign aides blurting ‘blue dress’ and only-because-he’s-black references as they let slip their private contempt. For three more months (maybe more!) the campaign will proceed along in its Verdun-like pattern. There will be a steady rifle fire of character assassination from the underlings, interrupted by the occasional firestorm of artillery when the contest touches upon race, gender or patriotism. The policy debates between the two have been long exhausted, so the only way to get the public really engaged is by poking some raw national wound... And all this is happening so she can preserve that 5 percent chance. When you step back and think about it, she is amazing. She possesses the audacity of hopelessness.” —David Brooks
RE: THE LEFT
“Hillary is being ‘swiftboated’! She claimed that she came under sniper fire when she visited in Bosnia in 1996, but was contradicted by videotape showing her sauntering off the plane and stopping on the tarmac to listen to a little girl read her a poem. Similarly, John Kerry’s claim to heroism in Vietnam was contradicted by 264 Swift Boat Veterans who served with him. His claim to having been on a secret mission to Cambodia for President Nixon on Christmas 1968 was contradicted not only by all of his commanders—who said he would have been court-martialed if he had gone anywhere near Cambodia—but also the simple fact that Nixon wasn’t president on Christmas 1968. In Hillary’s defense, she probably deserves a Purple Heart about as much as Kerry did for his service in Vietnam. Also, unlike Kerry, Hillary acknowledged her error, telling the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review: ‘I was sleep-deprived, and I misspoke.’ (What if she’s sleep-deprived when she gets that call on the red phone at 3 a.m., imagines a Russian nuclear attack and responds with mutual assured destruction? Oops. ‘It proves I’m human.’)” —Ann Coulter
OPINION IN BRIEF
“It being a free country and all, no one has to have a ‘conversation’ he doesn’t want to have, a fact that explains our longstanding non-conversation on race: the one we’re going to continue not having, never mind the pundits and Barack Obama. A conversation has at least two participants. That’s one more than most American liberals desire. A liberal, black or white, doesn’t by and large want an exchange of viewpoints on racial questions of consequence. What he wants is a microphone and an audience—preferably white, but he’ll take what he can get. This audience he proposes to instruct as to the collective iniquity of white America in its dealings with non-white America. That isn’t all he wants. He wants utter silence from the audience. No back talk. You couldn’t characterize a one-sided lecture as ‘conversation,’ and yet it’s pretty much what we get every time the matter of race intrudes itself into public affairs.” —William Murchison
INSIGHT
“There is a class of colored people who make a business of keeping the troubles, the wrongs, and the hardships of the Negro race before the public. Having learned that they are able to make a living out of their troubles, they have grown into the settled habit of advertising their wrongs—partly because they want sympathy and partly because it pays. Some of these people do not want the Negro to lose his grievances, because they do not want to lose their jobs.” —Booker T. Washington
THE GIPPER
“The spendthrifts who mangled America with the nightmare of double-digit inflation, record interest rates, unfair tax increases, too much regulation, credit controls, farm embargoes, gas lines, no-growth at home, weakness abroad, and phony excuses about ‘malaise’ are the last people who should be giving sermonettes about fairness and compassion... Believe me, you cannot create a desert, hand a person a cup of water, and call that compassion. You cannot pour billions of dollars into make-work jobs while destroying the economy that supports them and call that opportunity. And you cannot build up years of dependence on government and dare call that hope.” —Ronald Reagan
FOR THE RECORD
“Sixteen months ago, Arthur C. Brooks, a professor at Syracuse University, published ‘Who Really Cares: The Surprising Truth About Compassionate Conservatism.’ The surprise is that liberals are markedly less charitable than conservatives. If many conservatives are liberals who have been mugged by reality, Brooks, a registered independent, is, as a reviewer of his book said, a social scientist who has been mugged by data. They include these findings:—Although liberal families’ incomes average 6 percent higher than those of conservative families, conservative-headed households give, on average, 30 percent more to charity than the average liberal-headed household ($1,600 per year vs. $1,227).—Conservatives also donate more time and give more blood.—Residents of the states that voted for John Kerry in 2004 gave smaller percentages of their incomes to charity than did residents of states that voted for George Bush.—Bush carried 24 of the 25 states where charitable giving was above average.—In the 10 reddest states, in which Bush got more than 60 percent majorities, the average percentage of personal income donated to charity was 3.5. Residents of the bluest states, which gave Bush less than 40 percent, donated just 1.9 percent.—People who reject the idea that ‘government has a responsibility to reduce income inequality’ give an average of four times more than people who accept that proposition.” —George Will
CULTURE
“Two weeks ago, the story came from a town with a college that has been a leading force in the advancement of Christian civilization for 900 years: Oxford, England... It seems that authorities at the Oxford Central Mosque have requested permission to use loadspeakers to blast the call to prayer five times a day from atop their minaret across the town that has heard for the past 900 summers, falls, winters and springs only the bells of the local churches. Unsurprisingly, the Church of England’s bishop for Oxford, the Right Rev. John Pritchard, has announced his support, calling on his congregation to ‘enjoy community diversity.’ He would be a likely successor to the current archbishop of Canterbury, who called for Shariah law for England recently. Perhaps surprisingly, two Englishmen stepped forward to oppose the proposal: professor Allan Chapman, an Oxford University historian, and Charlie Cleverly, the rector of St. Aldates Church in the heart of Oxford. ‘I don’t have any problem with Islam, but don’t force it on the people. I’m a liberal; I want to be inclusive, but I don’t want to be walked over,’ stated the professor. The Anglican rector of St. Aldates was a bit more blunt: ‘It is common knowledge, though few will say it, that radical Islam has a program to take Europe, take England and take Oxford. In this strategy, some say the prayer call is like a bridgehead, spreading to other mosques in the city.’ As if to support this politically incorrect assertion, Inayat Bunglawala, the assistant secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain rejected the complaint dismissively, asserting that the ‘call to prayer will be part of Britain and Europe in the future.’... England, in her tolerance, has admitted into her midst—and given succor—those who loathe her. But more loathsome yet are the natural born Englishmen—most in high places—who have forgotten the simple truth of [a] World War II song: ‘There’ll always be an England, And England shall be free, If England means as much to you, As England means to me’.” —Tony Blankley
LIBERTY
“Freedom is not a natural state—otherwise more people would be free. Tyranny, oppression, dictatorship and the denial of human rights are the norm for much of the planet. Mankind’s lower nature dictates that far too many seek to reduce others to servitude in order to elevate themselves. President Bush has repeatedly said that freedom is a God-given right that resides in the heart of every human. Maybe, but sometimes one must fight to extract it from the hardened hearts of others who want it exclusively for themselves. Looking at the faces of those who have fallen and driving by Arlington National Cemetery, I am reminded of the cost of freedom. Those who died allow me to travel freely. Those who sacrificed everything invested in freedom for my family and yours so that we can all live our lives where we choose to live them and worship where, and however, we please. These are freedoms most of the world can only dream about.” —Cal Thomas
SELECT READER COMMENTS
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“As a career military officer, I have no doubt that anti-war media rhetoric and ‘pollaganda’ have needlessly contributed to the deaths of soldiers and to the lessening of our nation’s defense. However, I am concerned about Mark Alexander’s claim in Democrats, more ‘aid and comfort’ to the enemy that General Giap attributed his victory in part Leftists influence on American public opinion. The web is full rumors run without checking, often becoming resurrected after a trip around the world. It would seem that Urban Legends refutes the Giap assertion.” —Houston, Texas
Publisher’s Reply: Most of the urban legends circulating refer to false claims about Giap’s “memoirs” and claims that he directly implicated that John Kerry’s cadre played a role in brining down the U.S. I did not make either claim. The facts are not derived from Internet e-mails propagating urban legends. We know that Giap knew full well the value the Kerry/Fonda cadres had in undermining U.S. war fighting resolve, and we also know that Giap, a faithful Communist, would not single out such efforts from fellow Socialists in this country, during a CBS interview. Additionally, in a 1996 CNN interview Giap stated, “And [after Tet] the Americans had to back down and come to the negotiating table, because the war was not only moving into the cities, to dozens of cities and towns in South Vietnam, but also to the living rooms of Americans back home for some time. And that’s why we could claim the achievement of the objective.” I do not have to tell you who was bringing defeatist propaganda “into the living rooms of Americans back home,” and which side of the war they were on.
More to the point, in a 1995 interview with The Wall Street Journal, Bui Tin, a communist contemporary of Giap and Ho Chi Minh, who was serving as an NVA colonel assigned to the general staff at the time Saigon fell, had this to say about the Leftmedia and Soviet puppets like “Hanoi” Jane Fonda: “[They were] essential to our strategy. Support of the war from our rear was completely secure while the American rear was vulnerable. Every day our leadership would listen to world news over the radio to follow the growth of the American antiwar movement. Visits to Hanoi by people like Jane Fonda, and former Attorney General Ramsey Clark and ministers gave us confidence that we should hold on in the face of battlefield reverses.” Bui stated further, “Those people represented the conscience of America. The conscience of America was part of its war-making capability, and we were turning that power in our favor...[T]hrough dissent and protest [America] lost the ability to mobilize a will to win.” Make no mistake, Giap and Bui know “aid and comfort” from those, ostensibly, on our side.
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Second post of the AM
The Conspiracy Conspiracy
Give Hillary Clinton credit for a willingness to confront her adversaries and often besting them. Take last week's memorable meeting between her and Richard Mellon Scaife, the Pittsburgh billionaire who bankrolled much of the "vast right-wing conspiracy" that bedeviled her husband before the Monica Lewinsky scandal in 1998.
Mr. Scaife, owner of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, wrote a publisher's letter on Sunday in which he made clear his "very favorable" impressions of the former First Lady after she stopped by for an editorial board session prior to the April 22 Pennsylvania primary.
"It was so counterintuitive, I just thought it would be fun to do," she told the group. Mr. Scaife reports that "the room erupted in laughter. Her remark defused what could have been a confrontational meeting."
Mrs. Clinton spent 90 minutes at the paper and clearly scored points. "Walking into our conference room, not knowing what to expect, took courage and confidence," wrote Mr. Scaife. "Not many politicians have political or personal courage today.... I have a very different impression of Hillary Clinton today than before last Tuesday's meeting -- and it's a very favorable one indeed.... Her answers were thoughtful, well-stated, and often dead-on."
Mr. Scaife made it clear he wasn't endorsing Mrs. Clinton in the Democratic primary, but he left open that possibility after his paper's editorial board meets with Barack Obama. Should that stunning event happen, you can bet the vast left-wing blogging community will create new conspiracy theories to explain the Hillary-Scaife alliance of convenience.
-- John Fund
Rhymes with Vice President
Had Al Gore carried his home state, he would have been sworn in as the 43rd president irrespective of what happened in Florida. Maybe that's why Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen is now getting a serious look as a possible Democratic vice presidential candidate.
To win in November, Democrats need to upend the electoral map and win in formerly Republican territory. Mr. Bredesen has several qualities that make him attractive, especially facing an opponent with the cross-over appeal of John McCain: Mr. Bredesen hails from outside the Beltway, has a fiscally conservative record and has shown a willingness to run against the party's left-wing orthodoxy. First elected in 2002, he made his political bones by trimming the state's health-care entitlement program -- TennCare -- which was then eating up a third of the state's budget. He was blasted by Sen. Ted Kennedy, but won plaudits from voters for not trying to solve the budget mess by introducing a state income tax, as his predecessor, Republican Gov. Don Sundquist, did.
Lately Mr. Bredesen has emerged on the national stage with a novel solution to his party's Presidential nomination impasse -- he wants the party's superdelegates to meet in June in a mini-convention to settle on either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama. Some political analysts -- Larry Sabato, for one -- discount the idea of Mr. Bredesen for veep. But if some version of Mr. Bredesen's idea is adopted and he spares the party a divisive national convention, the eventual nominee will have reason to thank him for his levelheaded intervention. Plus, there's always those 11 Tennessee electoral votes that would have put Al Gore in the White House.
-- Brendan Miniter
Gaseous
Predictably, Democrats exploded when EPA chief Stephen Johnson last week decided to open to public comment the question of how the agency should respond to a Supreme Court decision saying it must consider whether to regulate carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas. Said Nancy Pelosi's point-man on global warming, Ed Markey: "This is the latest quack from a lame-duck EPA intent on running out the clock on the entire Bush Presidency without doing a thing to combat global warming."
Mr. Markey's crocodile outrage is just a huge exercise in buck-passing. The Democrats haven't themselves pasted together a global-warming bill. It's much easier to blame the Bush Administration than to do the hard work of passing actual legislation -- and accepting the consequences. Last year, the Supreme Court ruled that the EPA has to decide if carbon dioxide is a dangerous pollutant under the Clean Air Act, and if so, to regulate emissions. That process is underway. In refusing to act the imperial bureaucrat, Mr. Johnson deserves credit for not inventing a carbon regime out of whole cloth -- though it would have served Democrats in Congress right, since they would have been the first target for voters angry over rapid hikes in their energy bills.
Mr. Johnson's issuance of a so-called Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking may even prove a landmark in public education. The global-warming chorus has proceeded without any serious cost-benefit analysis. Whatever the truth about a human contribution to climate change, the costs of carbon controls would be vast, and the benefits to the American people or the global atmosphere would be negligible or non-existent -- usually a political non-starter when you get down to it.
-- Joseph Rago
Irony Curtain
Canada may now have a Conservative government led by Prime Minister Stephen Harper, but you'd never know it from the programming on CBC, the country's national public broadcaster.
Last night Canadians had inflicted on them the first part of a two-part miniseries called "Trojan Horse." It's the story of how Canadians were bamboozled into voting by the slimmest of margins into surrendering their sovereignty and merging with the superpower to the south. The Maple Leaf flag is lowered, and the nation's ten proud provinces are dismembered and turned into six U.S. states.
Watching this in horror is former Canadian Prime Minister Tom McLaughlin (played by Tom Gross). Intent on revenge against the new U.S. Empire, he conspires with three European nations to run as an independent for President and restore Canada to its rightful place. Meanwhile, a British journalist (played by Greta Scacchi) is targeted for assassination by sinister intelligence agents after she uncovers a computer program designed to fix the vote in U.S. elections. She wonders if the vote to end Canada's independence was similarly manipulated. She joins forces with Mr. McLaughlin in hopes of uncovering the deep corruption at the heart of the administration of U.S. President Stanfield (Tom Skerritt), who plans to invade Saudi Arabia in order to cut off China's oil supply.
While I have no doubt "Trojan Horse" is entertaining, maybe its airing helps explain why relations between the two countries are frostier than they used to be. Canada's media has been unrelentingly hostile towards U.S. administrations for most of the past three decades and now even its popular culture has been turned into a vehicle for paranoid fantasies that portray the U.S. as a new "evil empire."
-- John Fund
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- Mad as Hell
- Mentioning Portman
- The Middle Rich (Quote of the Day)
- The Edwards Distraction
Ferraro Takes No Bull
Geraldine Ferraro, the Democratic Party's 1984 presidential candidate, is still
smarting from attacks leveled against her last month for suggesting that Barack
Obama owes his meteoric political rise partly to his skin color.
She was at Fox News in New York last night to comment on the suspension of Air
America liberal talk show host Randi Rhodes for her comments this week calling both
Ms. Ferraro and Hillary Clinton "whores" and for comparing Ms. Ferraro to "David
Duke in drag."
Ms. Ferraro told me in the green room that she doesn't miss having stepped down from
Mrs. Clinton's fundraising committee as a result of the controversy, but the charge
of racism rankles her. She is contemplating legal action against Ms. Rhodes because
her words "were clearly inflammatory.... they come on top of the threats I've been
getting for weeks."
Ms. Ferraro says her comments have been twisted completely out of context. She
showed me a Chicago Tribune article from June 2005. It reported that Mr. Obama
himself had "bluntly noted" that if he were white, "he would simply be one of nine
freshman senators almost certainly without a multi-million-dollar book deal and a
shred of celebrity. Nor would he have been elected at all." Mr. Obama summed up his
good fortune by telling the Tribune: "I was not a child of the civil rights
movement. I was a beneficiary of the civil rights movement."
Given those comments, Ms. Ferraro says it is the height of hypocrisy for the Obama
campaign to stir up criticism of her. "David Axelrod, who's his white campaign
manager, has played this race card time and time and time again," Ms. Ferraro told
Hannity & Colmes last night. "I've had attempts to have me fired, threats.... [The
Obama campaign] can just say 'OK, that's it. No more of this stuff.' Once they stop
it, I stop."
-- John Fund
Mr. Humble
Although he appears on many short lists to become John McCain's running mate, former
Bush budget director Rob Portman downplays his chances so much that reporters are
starting to believe there may be something to the boomlet for him.
Mr. Portman, who represented Cincinnati in the House for over a decade, was back in
Washington this week for the signing of a bill he had championed to provide released
convicts with job training and mentoring from faith-based groups. As part of his
visit, he endured questioning from reporters about becoming Mr. McCain's political
wingman. One reporter even presented him with a "Vice Presidential Busts" pamphlet
with a youthful photo of Portman glued to the cover.
Mr. Portman wasn't biting. "I am happy being home. I don't aspire to go back to
Washington right now," he told Roll Call. "I think [John McCain's] got a lot of
other really great choices." Among those widely admired potential candidates are
Governor Mark Sanford of South Carolina, Securities and Exchange Chairman Chris Cox,
and Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas.
But that won't stop the speculation. In many ways, Mr. Portman makes a natural fit
for the GOP ticket. He's from Ohio, a key state in any Electoral College
calculation. At age 52, he has had a wealth of experience, including stints as
budget director and trade representative. In the House, he steered a bipartisan
package that made the IRS a more user-friendly place and also won repeal of the 3%
excise tax on telephones, which had survived for over a century after being
instituted as a temporary measure to finance the Spanish-American War.
Mr. Portman may not be lobbying for the job of vice president, but that won't stop
his boosters -- who include National Association of Manufacturers head John Engler.
Columnist Robert Novak claims that Mr. Portman actually tops the short list for VP
above all of "those other really great choices" that the former Congressman takes
pains to praise.
-- John Fund
Quote of the Day
"When people think of the 'rich,' they might imagine billionaire plutocrats
presiding over yacht fleets. Reality shows have made these folks appear remarkably
prevalent. Lost in our obsession with the extremely rich, though, is another trend:
over the past two decades, the ranks of the somewhat rich have also exploded.
Indeed, the 8.4 million American households -- some 7.6 percent of all U.S.
households -- with a net worth between $1 million and $10 million comprise one of
the fastest growing demographics in the country. 'The rich are different from you
and me,' F. Scott Fitzgerald once said. But according to The Middle-Class
Millionaire by Russ Alan Prince and Lewis Schiff, these working-rich households are
not so different from the rest of us, at least in their stated values....
Predominantly small business owners or principals in professional partnerships,
these millionaires 'have achieved the American dream the American way'" -- writer
Laura Vanderkam, writing at American.com.
Cancer Talk
Is Elizabeth Edwards getting ready to swap in as the Democrats' new health policy
doyenne? With Hillary Clinton's campaign guttering out, there may be an opening.
First, she gave a speech over the weekend attacking John McCain's health case plan
for insufficient regulation of insurance companies. She further spelled out her
critique on the liberal Web site Think Progress, then on NBC's today show (Meredith
Viera: How are you feeling? Ms. Edwards: I feel great. I have good health care
coverage).
The point she makes over and over is that neither she (breast cancer) nor John
McCain (melanoma) could get health insurance under a plan that allows health
insurers to continue to reject people with pre-existing conditions. Of course the
McCain camp has nothing to gain by engaging the cancer-stricken wife of a former
Democratic candidate, and it didn't help that McCain adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin
suggested she did not "understand" the McCain plan, allowing commentators to portray
her as sick woman who had been talked down to by a stuffy economist.
Yet the general argument is one Mr. McCain ought to welcome. By shifting the tax
preference so it doesn't favor employer-provided insurance, Mr. McCain would make
insurance portable, so fewer people would find themselves having to reapply for
insurance just because they changed jobs. Secondly, his plan offers a government
backstop for expensive cases.
But the bigger problem is the magical pass Democrats take on the challenge of
relentlessly rising costs. Like virtually all Democrats, Ms. Edwards simply refuses
to acknowledge a long-standing recognition by economists of how our employer-based
system drives costs out of sight by hiding price tags from those who ultimately pay.
Mr. McCain will likely do fine when voters actually look to see which candidate has
a way of addressing the cost problem.
-- Joseph Rago
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Garin-teed
The reason for Clinton strategist Mark Penn's departure from the campaign last night was ostensibly his conflict of interest in representing the government of Colombia's position in favor of a trade treaty while his candidate, Hillary Clinton, was a fierce opponent of the same trade agreement.
In reality, Mr. Penn had to go because the Clinton campaign needs a new strategy. The latest polls show Barack Obama's massive saturation ad buys in Pennsylvania are working. He is now tied with Mrs. Clinton in that state's April 22 primary. Hillary has perhaps one more Hail Mary pass in her and Mr. Penn wasn't the man to execute it.
That job will now go to Geoff Garin, a respected pollster and a man with a reputation for digging candidates out of holes they've put themselves in. In 2001, he helped craft the message that enabled Mark Warner to be elected governor of Virginia, a state that hadn't voted Democratic for president in a quarter century. Many of the leading Democrats in the Senate, from Dick Durbin to Chuck Schumer, have relied on Mr. Garin's advice.
Of course, Mr. Garin would be the first to admit that some candidates are beyond help. In 2004, he was the pollster for General Wesley Clark's ill-fated presidential campaign, an effort that no amount of resuscitation could save.
-- John Fund
Not Ready for Prime Time
First Barack Obama's economic adviser is caught telling the Canadian government not to worry about the candidate's threats to renegotiate Nafta. Now Hillary Clinton's top campaign adviser has been caught dividing his time between promoting a free trade treaty with Colombia and promoting a presidential candidate who opposes the same treaty.
Mark Penn, who resigned over the weekend, was not only top dog behind Hillary Clinton's presidential run but also served as president and CEO of Burson-Marsteller, among the world's biggest PR agencies. One of his firm's clients was the government of Colombia, a U.S. ally that has been fighting successfully against a narco-insurgency and serving as a counterexample to the failing radicalism of Hugo Chavez. As such, Mr. Penn saw it as appropriate to meet with the Colombian ambassador to the U.S. on March 31 -- that is, until the union heavyweights in the Democratic camp got wind of the meeting. Then suddenly it was an "error in judgment" and Mr. Penn said so in a public apology.
That's a lousy way to treat a client, especially an honorable one with an honorable cause. "The Colombian government considers this a lack of respect to Colombians, and finds this response unacceptable," the government said as it fired Burson-Marsteller. Colombia also said it would "continue its efforts to obtain a favorable vote on the pending Free Trade Agreement with the United States, for greater wellbeing and prosperity for all."
Perhaps in their upcoming debate in Philadelphia, someone will ask both candidates which of their many messages on trade is the one we're supposed to believe. Meanwhile, Mrs. Clinton, who likes to paint Barack Obama as too naive and untested to be trusted with the nation's affairs, might hold up a mirror.
-- Mary Anastasia O'Grady
Quote of the Day I
"Audiences project onto [Barack Obama] the personal qualities and political positions they want in a president. They look at Obama and see their hopes and dreams. Glamour is more than beauty or stage presence. You can't generate it just by having a wife who dresses like Jackie Kennedy. Glamour is a beautiful illusion -- the word glamour originally meant a literal magic spell -- that promises to transcend ordinary life and make the ideal real.... Too much information breaks the spell. So does obvious effort. That's why glamour is so rare in contemporary politics. In post-Vietnam, post-Watergate America, skeptical voters demand full disclosure of everything from candidates' finances to their medical records, and spin-savvy accounts of backstage machinations dominate political coverage. Obama's glamour gives him a powerful political advantage. But it also poses special problems for the candidate and, if he succeeds, for the country" -- Virginia Postrel, writing in The Atlantic magazine.
Quote of the Day II
"There is growing evidence that liberals are losing ground among blacks. In 1972, only one in ten of African-Americans identified themselves as conservative. Today, nearly 30% African-Americans publicly and openly identify themselves as conservative. Not Republican, mind you, but conservative" -- Christopher Alan Bracey, author of "Saviors or Sellouts: The Promise and Peril of Black Conservatism, from Booker T. Washington to Condoleezza Rice."
His Promised Land Was America
Charlton Heston, who died over the weekend at age 84, once had impeccable credentials for acceptance in Hollywood circles. In addition to his acting talent, Mr. Heston served as a six-term president of the Screen Actors Guild and chairman of the American Film Institute. He backed John F. Kennedy for president in 1960 and three years later accompanied Martin Luther King on his famous March on Washington.
But Mr. Heston began to feel that liberalism lost its moorings in the turbulent '60s and in 1972 he broke with his fellow actors and attended his first Republican convention, explaining to reporters he wanted to be at a place where they "didn't spell America with a 'k.'" He later became a staunch supporter of Ronald Reagan and told Britain's Daily Telegraph in 1989: "Today, I am about as right-wing as a man can be." But he spurned appeals to enter politics, saying: "I'd rather play a senator than be one."
In Hollywood his political conversion did not go unnoticed. He was shunned in many circles when he became president of the National Rifle Association, a job he said was consistent with his "record of supporting civil rights." Blogger Ed Morrissey notes the irony of how "Hollywood turned its back on one of its biggest icons for the sin of supporting gun rights" at the same time the industry was churning "out more and more films dedicated to mass shootings and indiscriminate violence."
-- John Fund
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-- John Fund
White House, Green House
Our sources in the White House confirm recent news reports that President Bush is now poised to join the global warming brigades. The administration is motivated by two political developments. First, it believes the courts will soon command the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. Second, there is a growing sentiment in the White House that acting now will prevent even more draconian steps by a McCain, Obama, or Clinton administration in 2009.
The White House is right to fear worse may be coming from the next administration. Hillary Clinton, for one, seems to relish the opportunity to enact cap-and-trade rules to regulate industry output and energy use. She has even said that "California "has prospered" through its green energy efficiency policies. Prospered? The state is in economic free-fall.
No one should be fooled that anti-global warming initiatives can be bought on the cheap -- despite arguments by Democrats and their environmentalist pals who say global warming laws will be good for the U.S. economy, thanks to all the "green" technology jobs these regulations and mandates will create. Ken Green of the American Enterprise Institute aptly likens this Keynesian impulse to philosopher Frédéric Bastiat's "broken window fallacy" -- the idea that breaking shop windows leaves society better off because it creates jobs for glassmakers. Of course, those glassmaker jobs come at the expense of jobs and output that would have gone to creating new wealth and new goods and services. However, the last thing advocates of greenhouse regulation want to do is submit their proposals to real cost-benefit analysis.
But even if the Bush administration acts this year, it's doubtful a Democratic administration would be deterred from piling on more onerous rules in 2009. Democrats in Congress are content to wait for a friendlier administration. For his part, Mr. McCain has been a global warming alarmist in the past and co-sponsored a cap-and-trade bill. But there may be some hope: "Just as there is danger in doing too little," he says, "there is peril in going too far, too fast, in a way that imposes unsustainable costs on the economy."
-- Stephen Moore and Tyler Grimm
Quote of the Day
"There is even a slight chance that Obama's words in San Francisco could cost him the nomination. Obama is almost certain to have more elected delegates in June than Hillary Clinton, but if he loses Pennsylvania by 15 percentage points (which is not out of the question), that could start a media firestorm around his candidacy that could contribute to other primary defeats and to superdelegate support for Clinton. It's not likely to happen, but after Obama spoke his mind, and, perhaps, lost small-town voters' hearts, in San Francisco, it has suddenly become conceivable" -- John Judis, a senior editor at The New Republic, on presidential candidate Barack Obama's criticism of blue-collar voters for voting on religion and gun rights.
The Horror, the Horror
Albert Einstein once said that the most complicated thing on earth was the U.S. tax code -- and he was speaking at time when the tax code was about one-tenth as costly and time-consuming to fill out as today.
According to the Tax Foundation, the tax code now comprises 67,200 pages. It takes the average taxpayer 24 hours a year to do his or her taxes, and the average small business spends 52 man-hours a week on taxes. Many businesses now correctly complain that the cost of complying with the income tax is higher than the cost of actually paying their taxes -- and that's not counting the cost of a potential audit. Dick Armey, chairman of FreedomWorks.org and the former congressional sponsor of the flat tax, says that tax compliance now costs the economy at least $250 billion a year.
As bad as Tax Day is today, it will get a lot worse for millions of Americans. Five million filers swept up by the Alternative Minimum Tax will soon become 30 million unless the law is changed. Happy April 15th.
-- Stephen Moore
The 'Waterloo' of Italian Communism
The return of Silvio Berlusconi as Italy's prime minister after 20 months in political exile is receiving a mixed greeting by Italian conservatives. On the one hand they are pleased with the sweeping defeat of the left-wing coalition led by Walter Veltroni, a former Communist. However, they recall Mr. Berlusconi's previous two stints as prime minister, where he showed a disturbing tendency to forget his small-government platform, tie himself to vested interests and look the other way at corruption. Italy needs strong leadership, and Italian conservatives aren't sure Mr. Berlusconi will rise to the challenge.
But no matter what kind of leader Mr. Berlusconi becomes, Italian politics has taken a dramatic turn in this election. The number of parties in parliament has gone down to just six, from 26. For the first time in over 60 years, not a single Communist will sit in parliament -- ending the damaging influence that Marx's heirs have long exercised in Italian politics. Indeed, far-left parties were the biggest losers in the election, receiving only 3.5% of the vote, down from 11.5% in the 2006 election.
That result prompted the resignation of the long-time leader of the Communist Refoundation Party, Fausto Bertinott. "It's a complete defeat of unforetold proportions," he told supporters.
"It's a Waterloo," agreed the headline in Tuesday's edition of the left-wing daily Il Riformista. Antonio Polito, the paper's editor, noted sadly that Italian politics will never be the same. "The left is disappearing for the first time in history."
-- John Fund
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Campaign-Finance Meltdown
April 16, 2008; Page A18
Someone get Harry Reid a handkerchief. On Monday, the Senate Majority Leader sent a letter to White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten lamenting the news that a Democratic nominee to the Federal Election Commission, Robert Lenhard, has withdrawn his name from consideration since the process is taking so long.
This is yet another nail in the coffin of the campaign-finance reform movement. One of its goals has been to reduce the role of "money" in elections, and thereby elevate the tenor of campaigns. Pretty much the opposite has resulted.
Amid a campaign season, the FEC has been languishing without a quorum of commissioners to rule on election-law questions. Democrats created the FEC standoff last year by attacking the confirmation of Bush nominee Hans von Spakovsky. This has mainly increased campaign-finance partisanship, for example by elevating the clout of so-called 527 groups, which run "independent" advertising on behalf of candidates. If you're George Soros, that means spend now, ask questions later. Thanks to Mr. Lenhard's untimely withdrawal, it will probably take "several months" for the Democrats to find a new nominee, Mr. Reid noted soberly in his letter. This means that if there are any campaign-finance violations this year, someone will be fined for it in, oh, say, 2011.
If Democrats really want the commission to get back to business, they should return to the protocol of confirming nominees in groups or in bipartisan pairs. Their behavior suggests what they really want is the politicized breakdown of the campaign-finance system.
WSJ
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PD/WSJ
Harry's Got His Back
Joe Lieberman is perhaps the most mild-mannered of Senators, but his fellow Democrats are stewing over the prospect of him giving a keynote address for his friend John McCain at the GOP National Convention in Minneapolis. Though nothing appears to have been decided, Lieberman staffers think it very likely that such a speech will be made.
Mr. Lieberman lost his Democratic primary in 2006 but ran and won in the fall as an independent. Because he never left the party and Democrats desperately needed his vote to reach the 51 seats required to control the Senate, he was allowed to become chairman of the Homeland Security Committee. But Democrats expect to gain seats in the November elections, leaving them free to punish Mr. Lieberman for his apostasy and strip him of his chairmanship. Columnist Robert Novak recently reported that some of Mr. Lieberman's colleagues are salivating at the prospect of punishing him for his pro-Iraq War views.
But Mr. Lieberman is a clever operator and one Democratic leadership aide admitted to The Hill newspaper "the bar would have to be very high" for any Lieberman behavior to trigger much retaliation.
The reason is that Connecticut Joe has a powerful supporter in Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who continued to stand by him even after his 2006 primary loss to liberal Ned Lamont. "I can tell you Sen. Reid had talked to me a few times and said he knows there will be talk if we get more than 51 Democrats next year," Mr. Lieberman told The Hartford Courant this month. "As far as he is concerned, I will retain my seniority, et cetera, no matter how many Democrats there are next year."
Indeed, when asked yesterday if Mr. Lieberman's chairmanship would be in jeopardy in a more Democratic Senate, Mr. Reid told reporters tersely: "No."
Nonetheless, you can bet there will be a lot of clenched teeth and tongue-biting if Mr. Lieberman mounts the stage of the Minneapolis convention and endorses a Republican on national television.
-- John Fund
The Long Hello
Peter Keisler, former Acting Attorney General, has gone back to private practice in Washington DC. Why is this job-switch announcement news? Because Mr. Keisler's nomination to the DC Circuit Court of Appeals is pending -- and pending, and pending, and has been for two years.
Seeking to disperse the blame, Senate Judiciary Chairman Pat Leahy last month attributed the delay to the Bush administration's failure to give enough deference to home-state senators. On an earlier go-round, Mr. Keisler was blocked by Democratic Sens. Barbara Mikulski and Paul Sarbanes, on the grounds that the Bethesda resident didn't practice law in Maryland. More recently, Mr. Keisler has been blamed for arguing the Pentagon's case in favor of military tribunals in Hamden v. Rumsfeld. The New York Times apparently decided that doing his job at Justice qualified him as a "hard line movement conservative."
But there's some sign that pushback from Republicans, especially Sen. Arlen Specter, is starting to work. On the Sixth Circuit, a bipartisan deal is now afoot between Sen. Carl Levin and the White House, which nominated Democratic choice Helene White as a package deal with Republican choice Raymond Kethledge. A relative of Sen. Levin's, Helene White is often considered the reason for the deadlock on the Sixth Circuit, beginning when her nomination was blocked by Spence Abraham.
What's more, Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid said yesterday he would hold votes for three of the President's appeals court nominees by Memorial Day. Why the urge to be seen getting something done? Polls show John McCain besting either of the two possible Democratic nominees, and Senate Democrats likely recall how Republican complaints about "obstructionism" on judges helped defeat their then-leader Tom Daschle in his 2004 re-election bid. Nonetheless, Mr. Keisler would be wise to keep his day job a while longer.
-- Collin Levy
Quote of the Day I
"It reminds me of the moment back in 1971 when Richard Nixon proclaimed, 'We are all Keynesians now' -- eight years after Milton Friedman had published his book 'A Monetary History of the United States, 1867-1960' and about an hour and a half before a consensus built that Friedman's work consigned Keynes to the dustbin of economic history. Now it is Bush's turn to be the last man to join a losing proposition. In how many ways is this proposal not useful? First of all, as Chris Horner, the author of 'The Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming and Environmentalism,' shrewdly has pointed out, the Democrats desperately want Bush and the Republicans 'to take ownership' of the global alarmists' issues before he goes. This is important. Whatever restraint likely to be exercised by the Democratic Party majority next year will be induced by the political fear that the Republicans would be able to say I told you so if the Democrats' policies contract the economy and put yet more people out of work" -- Washington Times columnist Tony Blankley.
Quote of the Day II
"In politics, the clearer a statement is, the more certain it is to be followed by a 'clarification.' Obama and his supporters were still busy 'clarifying' Jeremiah Wright's very plain statements when it suddenly became necessary to 'clarify' Senator Obama's own statements in San Francisco. However inconsistent Obama's words, his behavior has been remarkably consistent over the years. He has sought out and joined with the radical, anti-Western left, whether Jeremiah Wright, William Ayers of the terrorist Weatherman underground or pro-Palestinian and anti-Israeli Rashid Khalidi. Obama is also part of a long tradition on the left of being for the working class in the abstract, or as people potentially useful for the purposes of the left, but having disdain or contempt for them as human beings" -- Thomas Sowell, a scholar at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, writing at RealClearPolitics.com.
Oberstar in the Way
Oil is at $114 a barrel, airline company profits are nothing but a dream and four U.S. carriers have filed for bankruptcy in just the past month. But House Transportation Committee Chairman James Oberstar will throw his legislative weight in front of the proposed merger between Delta Air Lines and Northwest Airlines in order to delay the deal long enough so a new president might stop it.
"We have no legal authority to block the merger, but we can continue to raise issues about it and ask the [transportation Department] and [Justice Department] to address them," Oberstar spokesman John Schadl told Politico.com. "Simply put: Jim may be able to run out the clock on this."
Mr. Oberstar, now in his 17th term, plans a blizzard of paperwork and hearings to slow down what he thinks could be a wave of consolidation and monopoly behavior in the airline industry. Executives at Delta and Northwest say their route structures overlap on only 12 long-haul routes and that the new carrier will be able to offer consumers a truly global airline.
But Mr. Oberstar is an old union man -- his father worked in the Minnesota mines for 40 years -- and he's convinced that Northwest, which is based in Minnesota, would lose its identity in a merger and stop flying to small, out-of-the-way towns in his area. Given the global forces buffeting the airline industry, Mr. Oberstar's parochialism strikes many as both short-sighted and paternalistic. After all, the worst airline service a small town can possibly get it is from a carrier that is no longer in business.
-- John Fund
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Oh Bomber
Bill Ayers, the former member of the anti-Vietnam War group the Weathermen, was unknown to most Americans until this week when ABC moderator George Stephanopoulos pressed Barack Obama about his association with the retired revolutionary. Now Mr. Ayers has piped up in his blog to introduce himself.
Mr. Ayers claims on his personal blog that he has been misinterpreted over his infamous remarks that appeared in the New York Times on September 11, 2001, in which he said about the 25 bombings that his group carried out against the Vietnam War: "I don't regret setting bombs; I feel we didn't do enough."
Mr. Ayers, now a professor of education at the University of Illinois, says that when it comes to "anything I did to oppose the war in Viet Nam... I say 'No, I don't regret anything I did to try to stop the slaughter of millions of human beings by my own government.'" But he also complains that his statements have been "elided" to mean "he has no regrets for setting bombs and thinks there should be more bombings."
That's a distinction without a difference in my book. He has never retracted his statement to the New York Times and to this day claims to "have never advocated terrorism, never participated in it, never defended it. The U.S. government, by contrast, does it routinely and defends the use of it in its own cause consistently."
All of this raises continued questions about why Mr. Obama refuses to discuss his relationship with Mr. Ayers, even though his campaign recently described them as "friendly." Bloomberg News reports the two men have crossed paths repeatedly starting in 1995, when Mr. Ayers held an organizing meeting for Mr. Obama's candidacy for the state legislature in his home and personally introduced him to friends.
In 1997, Mr. Obama cited Mr. Ayers' work on criminal justice in a Chicago Tribune article on what prominent Chicagoans were reading. For a year after the infamous comments in the New York Times, Mr. Obama served with Mr. Ayers on the board of the Woods Fund of Chicago.
No one suggests that Mr. Obama has ever endorsed any of the actions of the Weathermen, which occurred when he was still a child. But to this day he won't discuss how he came to know him, why he chose to associate with Mr. Ayers and what he thinks of his current opinions about the U.S. government. All that will continue to fuel questions about Mr. Obama's associations -- just as his continued relationship with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright has.
-- John Fund
School of Finance
One of the loudest promises made by Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats when they regained control of Congress was to make college "more affordable." Sure enough, a new Democrat-sponsored law aimed to do just that... and now student lenders are dropping out of the business like so many frat boys after the first round of finals. Millions of students are being left in the lurch just as they're seeking help with next fall's tuition.
By one count, some four-dozen student lenders have either curtailed loans to students in recent months or closed up shop entirely. Sallie Mae, the biggest, rolled out its Chief Executive Al Lord yesterday to warn of a "train wreck" in the $85 billion student loan market without a federal bailout.
The broader credit crunch is certainly playing a role, but Mr. Lord laid most of the blame on a Democrat-sponsored law that took effect in October. As part of her "First 100 Hours" agenda, Ms. Pelosi and Co. slashed interest rates banks can charge students in half to 3.4%, leaving Uncle Sam to make up the difference. Democrats also pushed through cuts to the fees the federal government pays to banks for underwriting student loans. "It's not even a matter of break-even. [The lenders] lose money on these loans if they originate them," one financial analyst told Dow Jones Newswires last month.
The Federal Family Education Loan Program likes to boast that it's now the dominant source of college loan funding, making "it possible for borrowers with no income, credit history, cosigner or collateral to get student loans at low interest rates." Talk about subprime. All this federal money is also a substantial reason for the rapid inflation in tuition costs. Every Congressionally-created problem must have a Congressional solution. Pelosi ally Rep. Mike Miller, chairman of the House Education and Workforce Committee, is now pushing legislation through that will both lift the cap on federally subsidized student loans and expand Uncle Sam's direct loan program -- completing Washington's takeover of the business and no doubt setting the stage for bigger meltdowns ahead.
-- Brendan Miniter
Quote of the Day
"There is a dearth of talent on the business side of this industry that is shocking to me. No one goes to Wharton and says, 'I want to run circulation at Knight-Ridder.' The business side has let down the journalistic side of newspapers.... I've got some [unionized ad] salesmen who make $100,000 a year and have no interest in making $120,000" -- Brian Tierney, new owner of the Philadelphia Inquirer, quoted by former New York Times editor Howell Raines at Portfolio.com.
The Fiscal Consequences of Divorce
Families that stay together, save together. That's the conclusion of a new study indicating that U.S. taxpayers are forking out at least $112 billion annually, and over $1 trillion dollars per decade, on divorces and unwed childbearing. This estimate is based on federal, state, and local government programs and lost tax revenue.
Says the study's principal author, Ben Scafidi of Georgia State University: "These costs are due to increased taxpayer expenditures for anti-poverty, criminal justice and education programs, and through lower levels of taxes paid by individuals whose adult productivity has been negatively affected by increased childhood poverty caused by family fragmentation." Similar work by Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation has found that children who grow up in fatherless homes are far more likely to have behavior problems, drug abuse, high school drop out rates, and to be in poverty as adults.
What can government do? The Institute for American Values, which underwrote the Scafidi research, recommends modest taxpayer funds to support efforts to decrease divorce rates and unwed childbearing. That may be a waste of money, as these are the types of activities best undertaken by churches and private support networks. The best hope is that the lesson will be taken to heart by the media, politicians and educators, reversing some of the casualness with which divorces are sought and granted. In the 1970s and '80s, a school of thought maintained that breaking up troubled marriages was a win-win. Feminists argued it was a form of women's liberation, the children were better off, etc. But a steady drumbeat of research has shown that in most cases almost everyone is rendered worse off by divorce and separation. That includes taxpayers.
-- Stephen Moore and Tyler Grimm
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Keystone for McCain
Pennsylvania delivered a 10-point win for Hillary Clinton last night, the same margin by which she carried demographically similar Ohio last month. Since the two states together are vital to Democratic chances in the fall, their primary results provide an important window on how Mrs. Clinton and Barack Obama are faring with key voter groups after the events of the last seven weeks.
The circumstantial evidence is that Mr. Obama lost ground among those "bitter" rural voters he described in his infamous San Francisco comments as likely to "cling" to religion and guns.
Mr. Obama lost weekly churchgoers (who made up over a third of Pennsylvania voters) by a clear 58% to 42% margin. In Ohio last month, weekly churchgoers voted 51% to 49% for Mrs. Clinton. Catholics, a conservative social group in both states, gave Mr. Obama only 31% of their votes in Pennsylvania and only 37% in Ohio. No numbers are available for gun owners in Ohio, but in Pennsylvania gun owners turned thumbs down on Mr. Obama by 62% to 38%.
All in all, only 63% of Pennsylvania Democratic voters told exit pollsters they would be satisfied if Mr. Obama won the nomination, down from 66% who said the same thing in Ohio. This translates into an opportunity for John McCain. Ten percent of Democrats said they would sit on their hands in a McCain-Obama race, and 15% said they would vote for McCain over the Illinois senator. That's a significantly higher "grumble factor" than in a possible McCain-Clinton race, in which 6% of those voting said they would stay home and 11% said they would vote for Mr. McCain over Mrs. Clinton.
Given that Pennsylvania voted for John Kerry over George W. Bush by barely two points in 2004, the exit polls in last night's Democratic primary are an open invitation for Mr. McCain to spend lots of time and money in the state.
-- John Fund
Bubbas Off the Reservation?
In another sign that this November may be a rough one for Republican House candidates, the GOP came within a few hundred votes of losing one of its strongest districts in the Deep South in a special election yesterday.
Voters in Mississippi's 1st District, centered around Tupelo, almost committed the unlikely act of electing Democrat Travis Childers last night. He won 49% of the vote against 47% for Republican Greg Davis, who may have only been saved by a smattering of votes awarded to a handful of candidates who had dropped out or belong to minor parties. The two men will now face off in a May 13 runoff.
What worries Republicans is that based on the district's national voting patterns, the race shouldn't even have been close. The 1st District gave George W. Bush a crushing 62% of its votes in 2004, and GOP Governor Haley Barbour has carried it easily in two elections.
The Republican Congressional campaign committee has already spent $300,000 in a district that should have been a free win. Even more precious resources will now have to be poured in to try to prevent a Democratic runoff victory next month. All in all, Republicans are coming to realize just how dispirited their ranks are right now and how important it is for John McCain to gear up a strong campaign that will energize them.
-- John Fund
Quote of the Day
"'Why can't he close the deal?' Hillary taunted at a polling place on Tuesday. She's been running ads about it, suggesting [opponent Barack Obama] doesn't have 'what it takes' to run the country. Her message is unapologetically emasculating: If he does not have the gumption to put me in my place, when superdelegates are deserting me, money is drying up, he's outspending me 2-to-1 on TV ads, my husband's going crackers and party leaders are sick of me, how can he be trusted to totally obliterate Iran and stop Osama?" -- New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd, on Hillary Clinton's Pennsylvania victory.
China Seeks Return to Maoist Isolation
HONG KONG -- There's a new fight brewing over the Olympics, but it has nothing to do with Darfur or Tibet. It has to do with easy visas for business-class visitors who are used to painless shuttling back and forth across the border from Hong Kong.
The latest Olympics-related kerfuffle is burning just as bright as the torch protests. Earlier this month -- with nary a warning -- China's foreign ministry stopped the long tradition of issuing multiple-entry visas to the mainland, which once made it convenient for the many thousands who routinely go back and forth. Anyone who wants a single entry visa now has to have a return ticket and a hotel voucher. The local Chinese visa agency suddenly has a daily "quota," and once that's filled, you're out of luck. The morning line outside the China visa office now stretches around the block.
Naturally the suspicion is that China wants to block activists from using Hong Kong to enter the country. "Businesspeople need stability to operate and the Hong Kong business community has been thrown into great turmoil as a result of the new and largely misunderstood visa policies," complained U.S. Chamber of Commerce chief Richard Vuylsteke in a letter to the Foreign Ministry. The Aussies were more Confucian, calling for "patience" and "negotiation." The Brits are just confused.
Beijing is playing dumb. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs claims there's "no change" to procedures, while its Web site is silent, too. Meanwhile, business across the world's busiest border is slowing down perceptibly. How ironic if the Olympic games -- meant to symbolize China's emergence -- lead to a paranoid lockdown of China's No. 1 window on the world.
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Hillary Math
We keep hearing that Barack Obama leads Hillary Clinton in both the number of elected delegates and the total popular vote cast in primaries and caucuses. But Mrs. Clinton herself makes the argument that she now leads in popular votes in the wake of her 10-point win in Pennsylvania.
It all depends on how you do the counting. Barack Obama's campaign says Mr. Obama has won 14.4 million votes compared to 13.9 million for Mrs. Clinton, a 49% to 47% lead. But yesterday in Indianapolis, Mrs. Clinton hauled out her New Math.
"As of today, I have received more votes by the people who have voted than anybody else, and I am proud of that," she told a rally. "It's a very close race, but if you count, as I count, the 2.3 million people who voted in Michigan and Florida, then we are going to build on that." Indeed, if you count the Florida and Michigan results, she leads Mr. Obama by 15.1 million votes to 15. million.
The status of the rogue Michigan and Florida primaries continues to bedevil Democrats. Delegates from both states have been stripped of their votes at the Denver convention because their state parties held primaries too early. In Florida, no one campaigned and Mrs. Clinton won a 50% to 33% victory. In Michigan, Mr. Obama's name didn't appear on the ballot and Mrs. Clinton won 55% of the vote. An uncommitted slate of delegates favoring Mr. Obama won 40% of the vote.
Mr. Obama didn't put up a big fuss about Mrs. Clinton's numbers. "I guess there have been a number of different formulations that the Clinton campaign has been trying to arrive at to suggest that somehow they're not behind," he told reporters on Wednesday. "I'll leave that up to you guys. If you want to count [Florida and Michigan] for some abstract measure, you're free to do so." His point was simple: He has more delegates and that's what will count in choosing the nominee.
But at least until Indiana and North Carolina vote in two weeks, Mrs. Clinton has a new rhetorical talking point to make with voters and superdelegates -- if you count every vote cast so far in a recognized or unrecognized primary, she is the temporary leader.
-- John Fund
Big Labor Bada Bing
And the Oscar for best performance in a humorous political ad goes to... Vince Curatola, better known as "Johnny Sack" in the Sopranos, for a new ad about unfair union organizing.
Big Labor has been desperate to replace the system of secret ballots in union-organizing elections with a "card check" method, in which a majority of employees would simply have to sign a card. The Democratic House passed a "card check" bill last year at union bidding, but polls shows a majority of the public hates the idea, recognizing that workers would be subject to intimidation and peer pressure.
In the ad, created by the business-backed Coalition for a Democratic Workplace, a worker walks into a voting booth to cast a ballot. A hand suddenly clamps him on the shoulder and "Johnny Sack" appears in the booth, looking as mobsterish as ever. "Whaddya got there?" he asks. My "secret ballot" replies the worker. "Not any more it ain't," says Mr. Curatola, who snaps his fingers to make the curtains disappear, leaving the man in front of a crowd of intimidating colleagues pressuring him to sign a card.
The Coalition for a Democratic Workplace is made up of about 500 business associations and groups across the country fighting card check legislation. It will soon start running the educational ad on national cable stations, and will presumably tailor it for districts of specific Democratic House members who last year voted to get rid of the secret ballot. As for Mr. Curatola, word is he's simply a paid actor, and takes no public stand on card check one way or another. But his menacing mob face is sure to stick in voters' minds come November.
--Kim Strassel
The Pope of California
Arnold Schwarzenegger once did a movie called "Twins." Now he's become so close to his bicoastal buddy, New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg, they might as well do a political sequel to that film.
The California governor was in New York last week for a round of fundraisers for his ballot initiative that would change the way state legislative lines are drawn in California. Mayor Bloomberg rolled out the red carpet, donating $250,000 to the cause and opening his Upper East Side home for a fundraiser.
Governor Schwarzenegger was in good form at the event, saying that the mayor had at first "pumped him up" at a luncheon earlier in the day by telling a crowd that "we have an important guest in town who speaks with a German accent, has millions of people who hang on his every word and is infallible." Then Mr. Schwarzenegger paused dramatically and delivered the punch line: "You can imagine how I was deflated when he explained it was the Pope!"
Then it was down to the serious business of explaining his proposal to end the conflict of interest that allows California legislators to draw their own districts. Noting that the lines are so carefully designed to protect incumbents that not a single state legislator was defeated in the 2004 or 2006 elections, the governor told the audience: "They just had an election in Russia in which only the people Putin wanted elected won. Well, sometimes I think the legislators back in California have gone Putin one better in making sure the people have no say."
Assuming his initiative collects the required signatures, Mr. Schwarzenegger's ballot measure will appear before voters in November.
-- John Fund
Canadian Tiger
Democratic Members of Congress look yearningly to Canada as a model for all kinds of things. They might do well to adopt the Canadian model of tax policy.
Canadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty was in New York yesterday to give a speech touting the economic achievements of the relatively new government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper. He stopped by the Journal offices to give a preview. Since coming to office two years ago, Mr. Flaherty told us, the Harper government has succeeded in steadily whacking down the corporate income tax to 18% from 22%, and is headed for 15% by 2012. Aiming for a total tax burden or no more than 25%, Ottawa has also been pushing the provinces to cut their own taxes on business profits. Ontario (Canada's Taxachusetts) has been a notable holdout and some in the Canadian press even accused Mr. Flaherty yesterday of leaving Ontario out of his sales pitch to U.S. investors. Mr. Flaherty joked in return that he was "gently prodding [Provincial] Premier [Dalton] McGuinty in my own subtle way to reduce business taxes."
Canada's cuts come none too soon. Business tax-cutting has been a global phenomenon, with the OECD countries now averaging less than 27%, down from 38% in 1993 (the U.S. average is 40%). It's also of a piece with the Harper government's broader pro-growth agenda, which includes free trade deals with Colombia, Peru and South Korea and work to speed up transit of goods at the Windsor-Detroit border crossing.
What about Nafta? Canada believes Nafta "is working well," said Mr. Flaherty, but he also noted that Canada exports a great deal of oil to the U.S., so Canada would have no shortage of bargaining leverage if the trade pact were opened for renegotiation as threatened on the campaign trail by the two Democratic presidential contenders.
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Can Hillary Sue Her Way to the Nomination?
It was inevitable that the lawyers would be lining up to contest the Democratic nomination race.
Yesterday, a key supporter of Hillary Clinton's filed a challenge demanding that the Democratic National Committee seat all of Michigan's pledged delegates -- 55% of whom backed Mrs. Clinton in a January primary that Barack Obama didn't participate in and whose results the national Democratic Party has so far refused to recognize.
DNC member Joel Ferguson says Michigan's 128 pledged delegates should be given half a vote each at the Denver convention and its 28 superdelegates -- such as himself -- should be given a full vote. He says such a settlement would represent a fair punishment for the state's decision to break party rules and hold an early primary.
The Obama campaign is making clear that it will oppose Mr. Ferguson's proposal -- and also any similar move by Florida to seat its own delegates, which were also selected in a primary held outside party rules. The dispute will now go to the DNC's Rules Committee.
Mr. Ferguson agrees that rules are rules, but notes that the controversy is now hurting the party's chances in the fall. If nothing is done to assuage the feelings of the Michigan faithful, he warns, the outcome would end up "weakening the Democratic Party in Michigan and harming its ability to cast its electoral votes for the Democratic nominee for president."
Stay tuned. This could become as controversial as the Florida recount battle of 2000.
-- John Fund
The 'Gaffe' Calculus
Sen. John McCain is all over the map these days -- literally and rhetorically. He's just wrapping up his second national tour, named the "It's Time for Action Tour," today in Little Rock, Arkansas. The tour has taken him to Alabama, Ohio, Kentucky and Louisiana. Before that, there was the "Service to America Tour," which found him in Mississippi, Virginia, Maryland, Florida and Arizona. At this rate, Mr. McCain could easily hit all 50 states before the Democrats even have a nominee.
But it's on the rhetorical side that Mr. McCain seems to be charting a stranger path. When the country was unwillingly introduced to Rev. Jeremiah Wright and his Chicago church back in March, Mr. McCain, with the lowest of low-hanging fruit dangling before him, declined to criticize his would-be opponent. As if to show that his generosity cut both ways, he was equally hushed on Sen. Hillary Clinton's Bosnian sniper tale.
Contrast those examples, however, with what Mr. McCain had to say about Barack Obama's infamous "bitter" comments regarding Pennsylvania voters. He released a statement shortly afterward condemning the remarks and just yesterday he repeated that they were "elitist."
Mr. McCain is not finicky about criticizing his opponents over matters of policy like the Iraq war or the economy. But on gaffes -- those inopportune, unscripted moments that can be extremely embarrassing and even damaging to political candidates -- Mr. McCain has shown a curious discipline. What, for instance, makes Mr. Obama's ideas about Pennsylvanians "clinging" to guns and God worthier of comment than Rev. Wright's grotesque anti-Americanism?
The method in his madness seems to be that Mr. McCain is adopting rules for the coming election, a standard of conduct that he hopes voters will appreciate as honorable. Mr. Obama's "bitter" comments insult average Americans, while Rev. Wright, as insulting as he is, is not running for president. Mrs. Clinton got caught telling a fib, but it was a harmless fib that insulted only voters' intelligence.
Of course by showing voters exactly how he plans to conduct himself, Mr. McCain is anticipating that his eventual rival won't be so honorable. There's your setup. But there is also a trap. As with the brouhaha over a North Carolina Republican Party ad that highlighted Mr. Obama's connection with Rev. Wright, Mr. McCain's opponents will insist on tying him to these outside efforts no matter what he says. Which is just one reason why honor is so rarely rewarded in politics.
-- Blake Dvorak,
Quote of the Day I
"Most of us in news are not smart enough to figure out what's going on. We may pretend that we're good enough to do that. But in fact, when we look you in the eye, in the camera, we're really just making it up" -- MSNBC anchor Keith Olbermann, speaking on David Letterman's "Late Show."
Quote of the Day II
"If you look at Obama's vote in Pennsylvania, you begin to see the outlines of the old George McGovern coalition that haunted the Democrats during the '70s and '80s, led by college students and minorities. In Pennsylvania, Obama did best in college towns (60 to 40 percent in Penn State's Centre County) and in heavily black areas like Philadelphia. Its ideology is very liberal. Whereas in the first primaries and caucuses, Obama benefited from being seen as middle-of-the-road or even conservative, he is now receiving his strongest support from voters who see themselves as 'very liberal'.... There is nothing wrong with winning over voters who are very liberal and who never attend religious services; but if they begin to become Obama's most fervent base of support, he will have trouble (to say the least) in November" -- New Republic senior editor John Judis.
Quote of the Day III
"For the first time, Democratic loyalists not necessarily committed to Hillary Clinton are wondering whether the party's system for picking a nominee is their problem. If all caucuses were eliminated and only primaries used in picking nominees, Obama's lead of 130 in delegates would become an advantage for Clinton of 45 delegates. The bigger problem is proportional representation replacing the winner-take-all system that enabled Republicans to get their nominee on Feb. 5 Super Tuesday. Without the 'reforms' enacted by Democrats during the decade following the party's 1968 fiasco, Clinton might have clinched the nomination by now" -- columnist Robert Novak.
He May Be Plastic, But He Doesn't Carry Any
World leaders spend their time coddled in comfort and care so they can focus on more important problems. Once out of office, they often have trouble making the adjustment to the real world, where individuals are actually expected to take responsibility for their lives.
Take Tony Blair. Until last June, he was prime minister of the United Kingdom. Now he's a private citizen, albeit an increasingly rich and sought-after one who is constantly flitting from speech to speech. That hectic schedule might explain why he was caught last week on a British train without either a ticket or the cash to pay for one. He was also carrying no credit cards.
The story begins with Mr. Blair rushing to catch a plane to the U.S. from London's Heathrow Airport. The fastest route is the Heathrow Express, a special non-stop train from London's downtown. While Mr. Blair was making the 15-minute journey, he was approached by a ticket inspector who asked for proof he had paid the $49 fare.
Mr. Blair, whose income last year topped $1 million, explained that he didn't have any money or credit cards with him. His bodyguard spoke up and offered to pay the fare but, astonishingly, the inspector insisted that wouldn't be necessary.
The incident has sparked a bit of an uproar in Britain. The Daily Mail reports that travelers it spoke with "were outraged that Mr. Blair had been given a free ride."
Mr. Blair's spokesman says his boss wasn't at fault. "Payment was offered and was refused," he told reporters, though the spokesman was unable to answer any questions about why Mr. Blair travels with fewer resources on his person than the average homeless person. It's one thing for the Queen to proceed through life without having to worry about carrying any of the coins or bills that bear her image. But now that he's a private citizen, Mr. Blair should make at least an effort to pretend once again he's a normal human being.
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This past weekend, official Washington gathered for its fancy prom night, otherwise known as the White House Correspondents dinner. At a garden party preceding the event, Terry McAuliffe, Hillary Clinton's finance chair, was nonplussed when asked at the registration table to fill out a ballot asking whom he thought would win this fall's presidential election.
"You gotta be kidding me, you know who I am? You still want me to vote?" he said. He was told the party's organizers still wanted him to vote. Mr. McAuliffe then attempted to use a pen to fill out his ballot. But no matter how hard he put pen to paper, it wouldn't write, frustrating the top Clinton honcho. The lady at the registration table told him just to rip a hole in the ballot paper. A guest standing behind him yelled out, "Dude, just hang a chad."
Mr. McAuliffe wasn't amused, especially when another guest shouted out that the pen incident was a clear sign from the heavens that the Clinton fund-raising machine was running dry too.
-- John Fund
The Wright Target
Senator John McCain has had some trouble making up his mind whether or not the Rev. Jeremiah Wright is a valid campaign issue against Barack Obama. He told NBC last week that the North Carolina Republican Party was "out of touch with reality" for airing an ad criticizing Mr. Obama for sitting in Mr. Wright's pew for 20 years. Mr. McCain said "this kind of campaigning is unacceptable."
But Mr. McCain was singing a different tune yesterday, saying that while he didn't plan to raise the Wright issue against Mr. Obama, "it will be in the arena" and raised by others. Mr. McCain said he still disagrees with the ad but that he no longer thinks the North Carolina Party should face any repercussions and that he no longer wants "to be the referee" in the dispute. He noted that the Illinois Democrat himself had told Fox News Sunday yesterday "the fact that [Mr. Wright] is my former pastor I think makes it a legitimate political issue."
Senator McCain clearly has trouble resolving just how tough he will be against Mr. Obama. Many Republicans were appalled that he repudiated the North Carolina GOP ad, thus making it appear it was somehow racist to bring up Rev. Wright's controversial comments. "McCain made a tactical mistake weeks ago when he announced that who Obama's pastor had been was somehow illegitimate," Bill Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard, tells me.
Indeed, with the Rev. Wright speaking yesterday at the Detroit NAACP and today at Washington's National Press Club, it's clear that he will continue to feature prominently in the discussion about this year's election. Just last week more controversial statements by the Rev. Wright surfaced, including one that compared the U.S. Marines with Roman Legionnaires and another that said that al Qaeda's flag and the U.S. flag were the same flag.
With material like this surfacing, any qualms Mr. McCain has about raising the Wright issue appear quaint and foolish -- especially after Mr. Obama himself has said he expects questions to be raised about his judgment.
-- John Fund
Quote of the Day I
"The whole idea that the Rev. Jeremiah Wright has been attacked over 'soundbites,' and if Americans saw his entire sermons, in context, they'd feel differently, now seems ludicrous.... He used his hour with [PBS's Bill] Moyers to argue that his thoroughgoing critique of American evil is, well, true. And I'm on the left. I know huge chunks of it are true. But Wright casts his critique in such an extreme way that the possibility of redemption, the evidence that America can and has and will change for the better, is never considered.... Watching Wright and Moyers I also couldn't help thinking: Is Wright trying to ruin Obama?" -- Joan Walsh, editor of the liberal website Salon.com.
Quote of the Day II
"Obama is the internationalist opposed to free trade.... He is the proponent of courage in the face of powerful interests who lacked the courage to break with Reverend Wright. He is the man who would lead our efforts against terrorism yet was friendly with Bill Ayers, the unrepentant 1960s terrorist. He is the post-racialist supporter of affirmative action. He is the enemy of Big Oil who takes money from executives at Exxon-Mobil, Shell, and British Petroleum. Obama has, in a sense, represented a new version of the Invisible Man, a candidate whose color obscures his failings. Perhaps his remarks about bitter Pennsylvanians' clinging to their guns have finally made visible the real man and his Harvard hauteur" -- Fred Siegel, a political scientist at New York's Cooper Union, writing in National Review.
Spiking Tibet
HONG KONG -- Every signatory to the United Nations Charter has agreed to respect the right of self-determination. China is a signatory to the UN Charter. Must China therefore respect Tibet's right to self-determination?
That's the kind of debating point you might expect to find in a soon-to-be dusty law journal, but don't look for the question of autonomy for Tibet to receive an airing in the "Hong Kong Lawyer," a magazine of the Law Society of Hong Kong. Prominent local barrister Paul Harris had been commissioned to write a just such an article not long after his shorter op-ed on the same subject appeared in the local South China Morning Post. In his op-ed, Mr. Harris argued that the Dalai Lama was a reasonable man and Tibet was entitled to semi-autonomy on terms similar to those granted Hong Kong when it returned to China in 1997.
Mr. Harris was told on April 9 that the Law Society had accepted his article, only to learn this weekend that the magazine had changed its mind after an "extraordinary" meeting of its editorial board Friday. A spokesperson for the editorial board did not respond to multiple phone calls.
The Law Society may suspect Beijing of being in a sensitive mood with the Olympic torch landing in Hong Kong this week. Still, Hong Kong was once a bastion of free expression and it's troubling to see the Law Society preemptively self-censoring on such an important issue. Happily, such efforts usually backfire and that's the case here, with Hong Kong politicians and even the local press now criticizing the Law Society for its political timidity.
-- Leslie Hook
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The Wright Stuff
A new Fox News poll may provide some evidence that the Rev. Wright affair is
damaging the campaign of Barack Obama.
The poll shows that Mr. Obama's favorable ratings have declined among Democrats to a
point where Hillary Clinton now has higher net positive ratings. Mr. Obama is viewed
favorably by 63% of Democrats and negatively by 27%. Mrs. Clinton has a 73%
favorable rating and is viewed negatively by 22% of Democrats. Specifically on Rev.
Wright, 36% of Democrats say they would be disinclined to vote for Mr. Obama because
of his ties to his former pastor.
Perhaps this explains why Travis Childers, the Democratic frontrunner in a special
House election this month in Mississippi, has now gone out of his way to combat GOP
attempts to associate him with the Illinois Senator. In a new TV ad, Mr. Childers
appears to be running away from Mr. Obama's endorsement of him, protesting "the lies
and attacks linking me to politicians I don't know, and have never even met."
He is only one candidate, and in a deeply conservative district. But should Mr.
Childers, who came within an eyelash of winning the seat outright in the first round
of voting for the special election, lose in the May 13 runoff, you can bet the
Wright fracas will be blamed.
-- John Fund
Gas Tax Burlesque: Two Down, One to Go
INDIANAPOLIS -- Hillary Clinton won Pennsylvania by feeling the pain of blue-collar
voters. Now she's trying for a repeat here in Indiana, playing on voter frustration
over high gas prices.
Mrs. Clinton spent part of Tuesday addressing factory workers at this city's Miller
Veneers plant, which produces hardwood veneers. She railed against high pump prices
and the "record" profits of oil companies, then introduced her latest five-point
plan, which consists of equal parts fulminating at Big Oil and OPEC and waiving the
federal gas tax for the summer while possibly releasing oil from the strategic
reserve.
Somehow, the New York Senator kept mum on her separate plans for a cap-and-trade
climate program that would raise energy costs further.
Yet her gas-tax proposal did have the immediate effect of making Barack Obama the
odd-man-out in a presidential race now focused on "doing something" about gasoline
prices. John McCain was the first to float the tax-holiday gimmick, and received
backing from President Bush this week. Mr. Obama has refused to go along, correctly
noting a gas-tax holiday won't do much. His stand has prompted pats on the head from
pundits but misses the point, which is to identify with Middle America's gas pains.
He may yet have to find a way to join the gas-tax holiday party.
-- Kim Strassel
Clyde Lives!
In what could be coined the "Basketball Primaries," Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton
will face off Tuesday in two states rich in basketball tradition. North Carolina and
Indiana have produced such all-time greats as Michael Jordan and Larry Bird,
respectively, and include powerhouse college basketball programs at Indiana
University, Duke and the University of North Carolina. Mr. Obama is well aware of
this.
He starred on the basketball court during his high school days in Hawaii, and his
skills don't appear to have eroded much over the past 30 years. Last week, he played
a three-on-three game with high school students in Kokomo, Ind., and this week took
on members of the U.N.C. team in Chapel Hill, including national collegiate player
of the year Tyler Hansbrough. Tar Heels head coach Roy Williams was quoted telling
his players: "You guys are leaving the next president of the United States wide
open."
If Mr. Obama wins both states on Tuesday, his basketball skills probably won't be
the deciding factor. However, presidential candidates look for every opportunity to
connect with voters on a personal level and prove they are down to earth (see the
two Democrats' exploits in several Pennsylvania bars). In North Carolina and
Indiana, the ability to play basketball -- and play it well -- is as a good a way to
do so as any. It's also a great way to appear genuine, since an effective jump shot
is hard to fake.
-- Kyle Trygstad, RealClearPolitics.com
(http://oj1.opinionjournal.com/redir3/eKG.ObBAB!http//www.realclearpolitics.com/)
Big Shoulders Revisionism
His father was a stern, law-and-order man whose 21-year tenure as Chicago mayor will
forever be associated with the 1968 Democratic convention protests over the Vietnam
War.
But his son, current Mayor Richard M. Daley, has a much more conciliatory view about
that history than you might expect. In an interview with the Financial Times, he
declared off-limits attempts to make political capital out of links between two of
his constituents -- Barack Obama and Bill Ayers, a former leader of the Weather
Underground radical group that bombed the U.S. Capitol and other targets in the
1970s. Mr. Obama has declared that he and Mr. Ayers have a "friendly" relationship
and served together on a foundation board. Mr. Ayers has become controversial again
because, in a newspaper interview that happened to be published on 9/11, he declared
not only that he didn't regret setting bombs but that he and his colleagues "didn't
do enough."
Today's Mayor Daley says that both Mr. Ayers and the Vietnam War era have to be seen
in context: "Vietnam tore up families. It was a very difficult, challenging time for
the country. But this is 2008. Over the years I've got to know Bill Ayers. He's been
very active in school reform and education and a very active person in the
community."
Indeed, in a case of turning the other cheek, Mr. Daley says he rejects the notion
that the Weathermen who rampaged through the city's streets in the infamous protests
known as the "Days of Rage" had much against his father. "They were more targeted at
[President Lyndon] Johnson and the federal government. The 'Days of Rage' was more
against the Vietnam War. And the Weathermen, they were all over the country -- in
San Francisco, New York, other places. So it wasn't against my father. There were
never any threats."
But that's not how John Murtagh, now a city council member in Yonkers, N.Y.,
remembers the Weathermen. Writing in the Manhattan Institute's City Journal
yesterday, he recalled that the Weathermen did more than threaten his own father, a
New York State Supreme Court justice presiding over a Black Panther trial. "They
tried to kill us," Mr. Murtagh writes, noting that the Weathermen exploded three
gasoline-filled firebombs at his home in 1970, when he was nine years old. "For the
next 18 months, I went to school in an unmarked police car," he writes. The bombs
were later linked to Mr. Ayers' New York-based contingent of the Weather
Underground.
Part of the job of mayor is to be a conciliator, but Mr. Daley has taken that notion
to an extreme. Perhaps his attitude has something to do with the fact that Mr. Obama
has been a strong supporter of his own political career and, in turn, Mr. Daley has
lent his own top strategist, David Axelrod, to serve in the same role in the Obama
campaign. After all, it's been a long time since the Daley machine has had a taste
of real influence at the presidential level. If that end requires making sure that
the political fires swirling around the Obama-Ayers relationship are tamped down, so
be it.
-- John Fund
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I harpooned the idea of another "contract with America" awhile back on this board. Hannity is now proposing that the Cans need to do this now to grab front and center stage. Maybe he is right and I was wrong. Maybe that would work. Are there any other Republican leaders on the horizon? Newt points out that the Republicans need to reach out to the independent voters.
***"I probably would have created a very intensive training program [on] how to be a majoritarian Republican solving problems. That was a huge mistake, and it led to the collapse of 2006 because you had the party over the past six years reverting to a Republican Party which is incapable of being in the majority."***
Touche. They blew it. Absolutely blew it. Tom Daschle left in disgrace and it became every man for himself. Increase spending. Greed. Pitiful. The crats are going to sweep in and we will have massive increased government spending, government expansion in breadth and reach and scope, and wealth redistribution.
I asked my sister, a teacher, why so many teachers are such ardent Crats and her response, "it's the union mentality". Increasing government increased the dole mentality. I recently read thatthe number of local and county government jobs is expanding. Just no end in sight. I hope McCain can do something to halt this endless cancerour trend. I just don't know about him though. I don't see any big thinker other than Newt out there. But I doubt very much he could ever be popular enough with independents to win. And I suspect that is why he didn't run. He knows he could not win - at least for now.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1734839,00.html
Friday, May 02, 2008
Time Issue
****He's been Speaker of the House, a professor and a best-selling author. His World War II novel, Days of Infamy, hits bookstores on April 29. Newt Gingrich will now take your questions
Upcoming: DNC Chair Howard Dean
His 2004 presidential bid ended after his infamous yell but he'd harnessed the web's fundraising power far before most. Now as Democratic National Committee chair he plays a crucial role in the party's choice for nominee. Submit questions for Howard Dean
10 Questions for Rachael Ray
The perky Food Network host's empire includes a magazine, a talk show and a nonprofit group. Her latest book, Yum-O! The Family Cookbook, comes out April 29. Rachael Ray will now take your questions
More 10 Questions
Is there anything you feel you could have done while you were in Congress but didn't? —Abe Weiss, Monsey, N.Y.
In retrospect, I probably would have created a very intensive training program [on] how to be a majoritarian Republican solving problems. That was a huge mistake, and it led to the collapse of 2006 because you had the party over the past six years reverting to a Republican Party which is incapable of being in the majority.
Are the Republicans headed for another decades-long stretch as the minority party? —J. De May, Kew Gardens, N.Y.
Until there is a resurgence of a Republicanism that meets the demand of independent voters to be a reform party, to care about the environment, to deal with a national energy strategy and to deal with education, I think that there is a real danger that the Republicans will be at a disadvantage.
How do you feel about Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's proposal to expand the powers of the Fed? —Josh Lyman, Seattle
I'm very cautious because it represents the former head of a very large Wall Street firm, acting as Secretary of the Treasury, explaining how we could regulate the economy further to the advantage of Wall Street and the disadvantage of the rest of the country.
What will the next six months bring for the American dollar? —Diana West, Memphis, Tenn.
My guess is, the dollar will stabilize, to the huge disadvantage of the euro. The only zone where the dollar's value matters to us is the purchase of oil. If we weren' buying foreign oil, we wouldn't care about the value of the dollar.
You have criticized the partisanship of Washington, but your time as Speaker of the House was known for extreme division. How do you explain this? —Dan Kane, Durham, N.H.
I helped pass NAFTA on behalf of President Bill Clinton. And in 1996 [when] we passed welfare reform, about half the Democrats in the House voted with us. I don't think either party can force a narrowly partisan set of solutions.
When do you think elected leaders will gain the political will to tackle climate change? —Kurt Wilms, San Francisco
If you really care about the environment, you want to develop green technologies that are so inexpensive that it is profitable to be environmentally sensitive. It's not a question of political will. Can you develop solutions with broad enough support so that it is relatively easy for politicians to do them?
In light of Bill Buckley's passing, who are the remaining intellectual giants in modern American conservatism? —Orlando Gutierrez, Boston
There are a lot of very, very smart conservative intellectuals like Thomas Sowell, Michael Novak [and] George Weigal. There are a lot of very thoughtful advocates of what I would call a serious conservatism, by which I mean the preservation of the traditions of freedom and the understanding of the realities within which you have to make decisions.
As a military historian, do you see a clear path for a resolution to the Iraq occupation? —Halston Howard Torrance, Calif.
Well, I said in December 2003, "We've gone off a cliff." I think [special envoy to Iraq L. Paul] Bremer's decisions in June of 2003 were an absolute, total strategic fiasco. When political leaders decide they can violate all the rules of war, they get beat.
Give me your breakdown of general-election matchups. Who is John McCain stronger against? —Danny Collins, Chantilly, VA.
I think Senator Hillary Clinton has a lower ceiling and a higher floor. She probably can't get much above 53% or 54% [of the vote], and she probably can't drop much below 47%. Senator Barack Obama is a bigger gamble for the Democrats. He could be a unifying national leader. He could collapse as well.
Why did you decide not to run for President? —Brian Lemieux, Los Angeles
The scale of solutions we need for the next 20 years is so enormous that I could not both do what I'm doing and run for President. I may someday run, but I think my primary contribution is to go to the root of problems, to try to understand the scale of change we need.
Copyright © 2008 Time Inc. All rights reserved.****
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Queenfish
If Hillary Clinton loses in North Carolina tonight, it will not have been for lack of effort to pander to her audiences.
First, came the accent. Often ridiculed for adopting a Southern twang when south of the Mason-Dixon line, Mrs. Clinton hauled out her best local pronunciation in her campaign stops. "It's time to quit wringin' our hands and start rollin' up our sleeves," she told a crowd at High Point this past weekend. The town's name rolled off her tongue sounding like "Hah Point."
China-bashing, always popular in a state that has lost many textile jobs, was a staple of her stump speech. She claimed China was no longer a trading partner and had become "our trading master." She said Beijing had cheated Americans out of jobs and "sends us back lead-based toys, contaminated pet food and polluted pharmaceuticals. This is going to end when I am president of the United States," she shouted.
Mr. Obama was implausibly portrayed as both out of touch and a tool of the oil companies. "Senator Obama wants you to pay the gas tax this summer instead of trying to get the oil companies to pay it out of their record profits," she told her listeners. She also criticized him for refusing to back her call for a freeze on home foreclosures, a step many economists say would be ruinous to the housing market. His failure, she said, just proved Mr. Obama's unwillingness to "take on the Wall Street bankers and mortgage companies that misled so many people into these sub-prime mortgages."
Team Obama is aghast at the audacity of the Clinton machine's tactics in the Tar Heel State. Buoyed by 92% support from African-American voters, they still expect to win. But if Mr. Obama loses, it will once again prove the potency of good, ol' fashioned demagoguery.
-- John Fund
Hillary and the Bush Voter
Can Hillary Clinton win the Democratic presidential nomination on the back of Bush voters? Today in North Carolina, she may find out.
The Tar Heel State has become a key state for the former First Lady. With a large black population and sandwiched between two southern states Barack Obama has already won handily, her rival was once expected to win by a wide margin. If Mrs. Clinton can pull off an upset, it would transform the dynamics of the Democratic nomination race and immeasurably strengthen her appeal to the superdelegates. Though behind in overall fundraising, Mrs. Clinton has pulled out the stops and is outspending Mr. Obama in North Carolina. She also made the strategic decision to focus her time exclusively there in the campaign’s final days, rather than in Indiana, where Democrats also are voting today.
Any upset, however, would likely depend on mobilizing voters who pulled the lever for George W. Bush four years ago. Under Democratic Party rules, the bulk of the state's delegates will be handed out proportionally based on how the two candidates perform in 13 districts. Congressional Quarterly did a close analysis and found that the former First Lady is running strongest in districts that have a lot of Bush voters, such as the districts that include the Army's Fort Bragg and the Marine Corps' Camp Lejeune. Based on polling, the magazine still expects Mr. Obama to walk away with a slight lead in delegates (40 to 37) -- partly because Democratic Party rules assign fewer delegates to districts that voted heavily for Republican presidential candidates.
But Mr. Obama tends to perform slightly better in polls than he does on Election Day. Another wild card is North Carolina's "open primary," in which the state's 21% of "unaffiliated" voters can vote in either party's primary. Today's outcome may well come down to whether Mrs. Clinton can convince enough conservative Southerners -- who have tended to vote Republican for national office, but who have also voted for Gov. Mike Easley (a Clinton endorser) and other Democrats at the state level -- to turn out for Hillary.
-- Brendan Miniter
Quote of the Day
"[W]hen I hear people say let's bring the troops home and end the war, good God, it's not going to end the war. I think it's going to give you a war of significantly increased proportions. I remember how we reacted to Rwanda. How could we have let that happen? Why didn't we step in? Why didn't we get the international community engaged? Well, you know, what if you have a humanitarian catastrophe in Iraq and it's not a question of why didn't we step in, it's we stepped out. How is that going to affect people?" -- Ryan Crocker, U.S. ambassador to Iraq.
Next Stop, Hamas
Fresh from his presidential campaign and his splashy endorsement of Barack Obama, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson has now been to Venezuela to meet with President Hugo Chávez and seek the release of three Americans held hostage by Colombian guerrillas.
Mr. Chávez clearly enjoyed the role he was asked to play as the magnanimous host, empathetic listener and potentially heroic intermediary. For his part, Mr. Richardson undoubtedly relished the chance to continue playing on a global stage, compared to which administering the state of New Mexico must seem unglamorous. Unfortunately, the only thing his trip accomplished was to clarify why the governor's bid for the U.S. presidency flopped.
For starters, Mr. Richardson came off looking ignorant about the realities of Venezuela. Intelligence agencies have long known that the FARC, which is holding the American hostages, makes a good part of its income by running illegal drugs through Venezuela. If Mr. Chávez wants to force the FARC to hand over the hostages, he needs only to threaten to cut off its transit routes.
He won't do that, of course, because he is ideologically, tactically and strategically wedded to the FARC. On his return to the U.S., Mr. Richardson only further advertised his ignorance by explaining to the media that negotiation was "difficult" because "you're dealing with a rebel group that's out in the jungle. You don't know where they are. You don't know what they want."
Huh? As the world knows, a captured laptop belonging to slain rebel leader Raul Reyes has already exposed not only the extent of Mr. Chávez's complicity with the Colombian rebels -- he obviously knows how to communicate with them -- but also what FARC is seeking in exchange for the hostages, namely a safe haven inside Venezuela where they can build bombs, store weapons and otherwise plan for attacks on civilians.
Mr. Richardson may want to position himself in U.S. politics as a cool Hispanic statesman with a sophisticated understanding of the region. But after this trip, he's looking like just one more naïve gringo.
-- Mary Anastasia O'Grady
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Newt is the Paul Revere of the republican party. Problem who in Republican leadership is ready able and willing to take up the call to arms? It seems that besides him and McCain there is a total vacuum out there.
I have signed up for his emails and I got this one today:
**** Subject: My Plea to Republicans
Newt Gingrich
May 6, 2008
Vol. 3, No. 19
My Plea to Republicans: It's Time for Real Change to Avoid Real Disaster
By Newt Gingrich
The Republican loss in the special election for Louisiana's Sixth Congressional District last Saturday should be a sharp wake up call for Republicans: Either Congressional Republicans are going to chart a bold course of real change or they are going to suffer decisive losses this November.
The facts are clear and compelling.
Saturday's loss was in a district that President Bush carried by 19 percentage points in 2004 and that the Republicans have held since 1975.
This defeat follows on the loss of Speaker Hastert's seat in Illinois. That seat had been held by a Republican for 76 years with the single exception of the 1974 Watergate election when the Democrats held it for one term. That same seat had been carried by President Bush 55-44% in 2004.
Two GOP Losses That Validate a National Pattern
These two special elections validate a national polling pattern that is bad news for Republicans. According to a New York Times/CBS Poll, Americans disapprove of the President's job performance by 63 to 28 (and he has been below 40% job approval since December 2006, the longest such period for any president in the history of polling).
A separate New York Times/CBS Poll shows that a full 81 percent of Americans believe the economy is on the wrong track.
The current generic ballot for Congress according to the NY Times/CBS poll is 50 to 32 in favor of the Democrats. That is an 18-point margin, reminiscent of the depths of the Watergate disaster.
Congressional Republicans Can't Take Comfort in McCain's Poll Numbers
Senator McCain is currently running ahead of the Republican congressional ballot by about 16 percentage points. But there are two reasons that this extraordinary personal achievement should not comfort congressional Republicans.
First, McCain's lead is a sign of the gap between the McCain brand of independence and the GOP brand. No regular Republican would be tying or slightly beating the Democratic candidates in this atmosphere. It is a sign of how much McCain is a non-traditional Republican that he is sustaining his personal popularity despite his party's collapse.
Second, there is a grave danger for the McCain campaign that if the generic ballot stays at only 32 % for the GOP it will ultimately outweigh McCain's personal appeal and drag his candidacy into defeat.
The Anti-Obama, Anti-Wright, and Anti-Clinton GOP Model Has Been Tested -- And It Failed
The Republican brand has been so badly damaged that if Republicans try to run an anti-Obama, anti- Reverend Wright, or (if Senator Clinton wins), anti-Clinton campaign, they are simply going to fail.
This model has already been tested with disastrous results.
In 2006, there were six incumbent Republican Senators who had plenty of money, the advantage of incumbency, and traditionally successful consultants.
But the voters in all six states had adopted a simple position: "Not you." No matter what the GOP Senators attacked their opponents with, the voters shrugged off the attacks and returned to, "Not you."
The danger for House and Senate Republicans in 2008 is that the voters will say, "Not the Republicans."
Republicans Have Lost the Advantage on Every Single-Issue Poll
A February Washington Post poll shows that Republicans have lost the advantage to the Democrats on which party can handle an issue better -- on every single topic.
Americans now believe that Democrats can handle the deficit better (52 to 31), taxes better (48 to 40) and even terrorism better (44 to 37).
This is a catastrophic collapse of trust in Republicans built up over three generations on the deficit, two generations on taxes, and two generations on national security.
House Republicans Should Call an Emergency, Members-Only Conference
Faced with these election results, the House Republicans should hold an emergency members-only meeting. At the meeting, they should pose this stark choice: Real change or certain defeat.
If a majority of the House Republicans vote for real change, they should instruct Republican Leader John Boehner and his team to come back with a new plan by the Wednesday before the Memorial Day recess. This plan should involve real change in legislative, communications, and campaign strategy and involve immediate, real action, including a complete overhaul of the Congressional Campaign Committee. The House Republican Conference would then vote for the plan or insist on its revision.
If a majority of the House Republicans are opposed to acting then the minority who are activists should establish a parallel organization dedicated to real change. This group should focus its energies on creating the changes necessary to survive despite a conference with a minority mindset that accepts defeat rather than fights for real change (which is what we had when I entered Congress in 1978).
Nine Acts of Real Change That Could Restore the GOP Brand
Here are nine acts of real change that would begin to rebuild the American people's confidence that Republicans share their values, understand their worries, and are prepared to act instead of just talk. The Republicans in Congress could get a start on all nine this week if they had the will to do so.
1. Repeal the gas tax for the summer, and pay for the repeal by cutting domestic discretionary spending so that the transportation infrastructure trust fund would not be hurt. At a time when, according to The Hill newspaper, Senator Clinton is asking for $2.3billion in earmarks, it should be possible for Republicans to establish a "government spending versus your pocketbook" fight over cutting the gas tax that would resonate with most Americans. Lower taxes and less government spending should be a battle cry most taxpayers and all conservatives could rally behind.
2. Redirect the oil being put into the national petroleum reserve onto the open market. That oil would lower the price of gasoline an extra 5 to 6 cents per gallon, and its sale would lower the deficit.
3. Introduce a "more energy at lower cost with less environmental damage and greater national security bill" as a replacement for the Warner-Lieberman "tax and trade" bill which is coming to the floor of the Senate in the next few weeks (see my newsletter next week for an outline of a solid pro-economy, pro-national security, pro-environment energy bill). When the American people realize how much the current energy prices are actually a "politicians' energy crisis" they will demand real change in our policies.
4. Establish an earmark moratorium for one year and pledge to uphold the presidential veto of bills with earmarks through the end of 2009. The American people are fed up with politicians spending their money. They currently believe both parties are equally bad. This is a real opportunity to show the difference.
5. Overhaul the census and cut its budget radically. The recent announcement that the Census Bureau could not build an effective hand-held computer for $1.3 billion and is turning instead to 600,000 temporary workers to do a paper and pencil census in 2010 is an opportunity to slash its budget, shrink its bureaucracy, and turn to entrepreneurial internet-based companies to build an information-age census. This is an absurdity that cries out for bold, decisive reform (see my YouTube video "FedEx versus federal bureaucracy" for an example of what I mean).
6. Implement a space-based, GPS-style air traffic control system. The problems of the Federal Aviation Administration are symptoms of a union-dominated bureaucracy resisting change. If we implemented a space-based GPS-style air traffic system we would get 40% more air travel with one-half the bureaucrats. The union has stopped 200,000,000 passengers from enjoying more reliable air travel to protect 7,000 obsolete jobs. This real change would allow the millions of frustrated travelers to have champions in congress trying to help them get places better, safer, faster.
7. Declare English the official language of government. This real change is supported by 87% of the American people including a majority of Democrats, Republicans, Independents, and Latinos. It is an issue of national unity that brings Americans together in a red, white, and blue majority.
8. Protect the workers' right to a secret ballot. The vast majority (around 81%) of Americans believe that American workers have a right to have a secret ballot election before they are forced to join a union. Last year the House Democrats passed a bill that would strip American workers of the secret ballot. A new bill should be introduced reaffirming that right, and it should be brought up again and again until marginal Democrats are forced to vote with the American people against the union power structure.
9. Remind Americans that judges matter. Senate Republicans should mount an ongoing fight (including a filibuster of other activities if necessary) to get the American people to realize that liberals want to block all current judicial appointments in order to maximize the number of left wing radical judges they can appoint if they win the White House. This issue has three advantages. It reminds people that judges matter and that a leftwing radical Supreme Court would be bad for the values of most (70 to 90 percent, depending on the issue) Americans. It shows the Democrats are not engaged in fair play. It arouses the activism of those who have been disappointed by Republicans and have forgotten how bad a liberal Democratic Presidency would be.
What Is at Stake
No Republicans should kid themselves. It's time to face up to a stark choice. Without change we could face a catastrophic election this fall.
Without change the Republican Party in the House could revert to the permanent minority status it had from 1930 to 1994. Without change, the majorities of Americans who support the Republican principle of smaller, more efficient, smarter and fairer government will be in for a rude awakening.
It's time for real change to avoid a real disaster.
The "May Day Massacre": Can Liberals Govern in a Global Economy?
Despite the poor outlook for conservatives in our elections this November, there is encouraging news from across the Atlantic. The conservative wave sweeping Europe hit England last week when the liberal Labor Party suffered its worst local election results in 40 years.
Boris Johnson became the first Conservative Party member elected mayor of London when he defeated Labour candidate "Red" Ken Livingstone. In contests for more than 4,000 local seats across England, Conservatives captured 44 percent of the vote, compared to 25 percent for the Liberal Democrats and just 24 percent for Labour.
This Conservative victory in England comes on the heels of a history-making rout of the Communists and the Greens in parliamentary elections Italy two weeks ago. And the Italian results follow center-right victories in France (Sarkozy) and Germany (Merkel). The countries of so-called "old" Europe are turning away from the liberal high tax, big government policies that have crippled their economies and are turning toward pro-growth, pro-competitive center-right solutions.
All of which raises the question: Can the Left successfully govern in a modern, global economy? The voters of Europe seem to be saying no.
Your friend,
Newt Gingrich *****
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I so wish Newt were the candidate for the Republicans , , , , anyway, here's this:
Guns for Oil
May 7, 2008; Page A18
Speaking of energy (see here), we can't help but give more attention to a recent press release from some of the Senate's leading liberals. Charles Schumer, Byron Dorgan, Bernie Sanders, Bob Casey and Mary Landrieu are demanding that President Bush tell OPEC nations to increase their oil supplies or risk losing arms deals with the United States. The Senators say U.S. consumers need the price relief that only increased oil production can bring.
Yes, that Senator Schumer and that Senator Dorgan, both of whom voted against increasing U.S. oil production because they couldn't abide drilling across 1% of Alaska's wilderness. Yes, that Senator Casey, who has called for mandatory reductions in emissions of carbon dioxide. At least Senator Landrieu of Louisiana has fought to allow more offshore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.
All of these Senate Democrats are willing to accept greater carbon emissions, as long as we can also outsource jobs in the petroleum industry to Middle Eastern dictatorships. The Senators do aver that "some of us have concerns in general about arming this region to the teeth," but apparently cheap fossil fuel buys a lot of peace of mind.
A special word of concern about Mr. Sanders: He is the only avowed socialist in Congress, but the Vermonter appears to be losing his religion over $122-a-barrel oil. By signing this letter, not only is he officially recognizing the law of supply and demand; he's also proposing a more crassly commercial trade of guns for oil than anything we've ever heard from the most candid realpolitician.
To top it off, the Senator whose Web site proudly proclaims that the first bill he introduced was to combat global warming now wants more fossil fuels ready for burning. We hope his friends are closely watching Mr. Sanders, in case he blows a gasket over all of this cognitive ideological dissonance.
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Both Democratic candidates have to face some hard realities in the aftermath of the Indiana and North Carolina primaries.
For Hillary Clinton, it's that Mr. Obama's overwhelming victory in North Carolina now makes it almost impossible for her to take the popular vote lead when the primaries finish on June 3. That, combined with her certain deficit in elected delegates, will make her case to undecided superdelegates a hard sell.
She will also have to confront the fact that a major reason she lost is that, according to yesterday's exit polls, half of the Democratic primary electorate does not think she is honest or trustworthy. It has been 15 years since the Clintons burst onto the national stage and it now appears that all of the scandals involving the First Lady -- Travelgate, Filegate, Whitewater, various presidential pardons and countless others -- have sapped her credibility. No matter how pointed her case about Mr. Obama's electability in the fall, she is too flawed a messenger to fully capitalize on those concerns.
Mr. Obama is going to have to address his continued weakness with white, working-class voters. He won North Carolina on the strength of getting 93% of the black vote, and since blacks made up a third of the electorate in the Tar Heel State, the African-American vote was able to carry him to victory. But he won only 38% of white Democrats and only 42% of independent voters.
In Indiana it was no better. He won half of the vote on the strength of his showing in urban Gary and Indianapolis, but was trounced 65% to 35% among white Democrats and also lost independent voters. The Rev. Wright and Mr. Obama's remarks in San Francisco about rural voters have taken a toll -- two-thirds of Democrats in both states who voted for Mrs. Clinton told exit pollsters they would be dissatisfied with Mr. Obama as the nominee.
In the end, most of those voters will come home to Mr. Obama. But with national polls showing John McCain essentially tied with him, that may not be good enough. Democrats are closer than ever to having a nominee after Mr. Obama's showing last night. But once again they appear to have handed Republicans ammunition to paint that nominee as an out-of-touch liberal.
-- John Fund
In Your Dreams...
That didn't take long.
Within hours of the polls closing in North Carolina and Indiana, a group called VoteBoth.com began emailing reporters and others to announce the launching of an effort to unite Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton on the same ticket -- a so called Democratic "Dream Team."
The Web site is catchy. There is a banner that alternates between "Clinton-Obama" and "Obama-Clinton" and features a hybrid of their campaign logos. Readers are urged to contact superdelegates and press them to insist on a unity ticket.
However, Barack Obama supporters would be forgiven if they viewed the effort with some suspicion. As columnist Salena Zito points out, the VoteBoth.com site was originally known as Clinton-Obama 08. Founder Adam Parkhomenko admits Hillary was his original preference but now he wants to be more ecumenical.
Anything is possible but one Democratic superdelegate I spoke with is highly skeptical that Mr. Obama could be talked into sharing the ticket with his current rival. "We have seen the Clinton machine in action and it is not pretty," he told me. "If Hillary were the vice president you would have Bill rattling around the West Wing and Obama would need a food taster for four years. No way."
-- John Fund
Quote of the Day I
"A top Democratic source with insight into Bill's and Hillary's states of mind says the Clintons are convinced that a Democratic presidency is all but certain no matter how messy the fight for the nomination. In that scenario -- which the Obama side and some Democratic elders worry is wishful thinking at best, delusional at worst -- there's no downside for Hillary doing whatever it takes for as long as it takes. 'At the end of the day,' a Hillary loyalist who talks regularly to campaign headquarters sighs, 'I think he still wins the nomination.' But not without a bigger -- and longer -- fight than Obama, and many in the party, had hoped for" -- New York Daily News Washington Bureau Chief Thomas DeFrank.
Quote of the Day II
"The view that nature was in some sort of preferred, yet fragile, state of balance before humans came along is arbitrary and philosophical -- even religious. It is entirely possible that there are other, more preferable states of balance in nature which are more robust and less fragile than whatever the state of nature was before we came along. You would think that science is the last place you would find such religious opinions, yet they dominate the worldview of scientists. Natural scientists tend to worship nature, and they then teach others to worship nature, too . . . all under the guise of 'science'" -- University of Alabama climate scientist Roy Spencer, writing in National Review.
Kryptonite for Superdelegates?
Last night, Hillary Clinton eked out a victory in Indiana, which she will likely use to justify continuing on. But her big loss in North Carolina undoubtedly finished off any real hope of swinging the superdelegates behind her campaign. Had she won even a decent sliver of the black vote, demonstrating that her appeal isn't merely the situational one of appealing to white, blue-collar voters who won't vote for Barack Obama, she could have made a case that nominating her wouldn't necessarily split the party in the fall. But that story went out the window when she won a pitiful 9% of the black vote.
The next stop is West Virginia, which holds its presidential contest next week. Mrs. Clinton is expected to win handily there, because white, blue-collar voters dominate the state's electorate. But it won't matter. This is a fight the party's nearly 800 superdelegates will now have to settle -- a denouement party leaders had wanted to avoid, since it smacks of the backroom deals of old.
Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen has floated the idea of holding a mini-superdelegate convention in June, getting the dirty work out of the way before the August convention. But there's another option for the party to avoid the awkwardness of having superdelegates decide on the nominee -- simply strip the superdelegates of their right to vote and allow Mr. Obama to claim the nomination based on his lead in pledged delegates. Connecticut stripped Sen. Joe Lieberman of his superdelegate status earlier this year, as punishment for endorsing John McCain's bid for the White House. There's no reason the other superdelegates couldn't be stripped of their votes as well. Doing so would get a lot of attention and likely win the Democratic National Committee plaudits for its willingness to trust the judgment of voters over party poobahs.
-- Brendan Miniter
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Well it is no surprise. "People do it all the time".
How can anyone not be disgusted with our politicians (including corrupt Republicans) when the American people can all be sold down the river? I guess it was always this way. Perhaps it is just more obvious now with the dissemination of news and the gross pandering, polls, say anything to anybody that we see on a national scale but it really makes me question why I should think this country is so "great". I watch a cable program on John Adams, and than, I look at most of the policticians of today and all I can do is get disgusted.
I don't always agree with his policies but I would step up and say I feel McCain is a hero and more admirable than most. So he is a "loose cannon" and sometimes speaks in anger. I do admire him far more than most policticians I can think of. I guess as the campaign progresses we will learn more about the candidates and if my impression will still hold. BO ain't no ABe Lincoln that's for sure. And we all know about the Clintons. She is no Abigail Adams. What a laugh - she says her "dream date" would be with Abe Lincoln! One of the world's most honest human beings to have ever lived with one of the world's biggest damn liars to have ever lived. Talk about contrast (not likeness) as she would like to have us think.
I get disgusted when she tries to manipulate public opinion with her wardrobe that reminisces of the clothes we see the distinguished fathers/mopthers of our country are wearing as we see it in the old oil paintings. Like she has one one hundreth the character of any of them. Am I the only one who is disgusted by this?
***DNC Superdelegate Puts His Vote Up For Sale
Steven Ybarra Wants $20 Million For His Vote
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (CBS13) ― In this tight battle for the democratic nomination we've heard a lot about the candidates courting super-delegates.
But, one superdelegate is courting the candidates. He says he'll sell his vote for a price. A very high price: $20 million.
Sacramento superdelegate Steven Ybarra says that eight-figure price is peanuts for the presidency.
When asked whether it was right to offer what is clearly a quid pro quo?
"Yeah, absolutely. People do it all the time," answered Ybarra.
But, not like this. Not in public, and not for such big bucks.
It begs the question. Is he crazy?
"Nobody's said I'm crazy," said Ybarra.
Ybarra wants every cent of the $20 million to go toward registering and educating eligible Mexican-American voters, who he calls the key to the white house.
"And I keep asking the question of the DNC, 'why won't you earmark money for these voters?' And their answer is, 'oh, we can't do that' which is a lie," said Ybarra.
With the Democratic National Committee saying 'no,' Ybarra waits for a 'yes' from already cash-strapped Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama.
Would he accept less? How about $5 million?
"No, $5 million is nothing," said Ybarra.
It might be a moot point as neither campaign has come calling.
"No, I think most people right now are looking at this as some crazy guy in California because after all I'm from California," said Ybarra.
He thinks his own party is crazy for not aggressively pursuing the Mexican-American vote especially with such a large Mexican-American population in the southwest.
"We should kick John McCain's a** in his own hometown," said Ybarra.
This superdelegate thinks his vote would be the best 20 million a candidate could ever spend. After all he says, in 2004 John Kerry spent a billion dollars to lose.
(© MMVIII, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.***
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How Obama Won the Cable TV Primary
Broadcasters on cable TV shows used to pride themselves on their efforts to be objective or at least not overt in their biases. But much has changed as the cable TV news universe has been morphed into a fierce competition with the emergence of ratings leader Fox News, which clearly appeals to a conservative-leaning audience. CNN, the old ratings favorite, still leans left but has made efforts at balance. MSNBC, on the other hand, seems to be seeking out more and more liberal-minded viewers.
But not all liberals are created equal, which has resulted in frequent complaints from Hillary Clinton supporters that the network is biased against her in the current primary fights. Last night, Hardball host Chris Matthews added fuel to that fire when he appeared for a speech at Harvard's Institute of Politics.
According to attendees, Mr. Matthews heaped praise upon Mr. Obama during his talk. So much so that during the Q&A, he was asked by an audience member if MSNBC officially backed the Illinois Senator. "Well, it's not official," Mr. Matthews replied in a burst of candor. He then launched into a rambling answer that appeared aimed at partially retracting his admission and ended with the assertion that all of his bosses at MSNBC had backed the Iraq war.
But MSNBC does not have much of a defense. During Tuesday night's primary coverage, the pro-Obama spin was so obvious that the political tipsheet Hotline joked that MSNBC's enthusiasm level for the Obama campaign registered somewhere between Richard Simmons and the "American Idol" girl who cried over Sanjaya.
The storyline of the 2008 election has been dramatically influenced by the favoritism shown Mr. Obama in certain media circles. John Harris, editor of Politico.com, has said he was forced to put certain reporters sent to cover Mr. Obama through a rehab program after they returned to the office. Back in January, NBC News anchor Brian Williams noted that Lee Cowan, the reporter NBC had sent to cover Mr. Obama, had told him that "it is hard to stay objective covering this guy."
Some media reevaluations of Mr. Obama are now taking place, fueled in part by revelations such as the Rev. Jeremiah Wright that are hard to ignore. But the simple truth is that Mr. Obama has had a free media ride for so long that he effectively wrapped up the Democratic nomination before any of his political weaknesses were generally known.
As Hillary Clinton wrestles with a way to continue her underdog fight against Mr. Obama, she is said to be seething about the kid-glove coverage he was accorded for so long. What she forgets is that back in 1992, when Bill Clinton and she were the new kids on the political block, they too benefited from glowing coverage that pushed off close analysis of their many problems until after 1992 election was over.
-- John Fund
Continuing the Jones Act
The Jones family has represented a Congressional district in North Carolina for 40 out of the last 42 years, with Democrat Walter Jones Sr. leaving office in 1992 and his son Walter Jr. taking over two years later -- though, in a twist, this younger Jones was elected as a Republican.
And a rare kind of Republican too. In recent years, he has aligned himself with the Ron Paul school of Republicanism, and voted against many Bush administration foreign policy priorities. An original supporter of the Iraq war, the younger Mr. Jones started voting against the war in 2005 and had warm words for Mr. Paul during the latter's presidential bid.
That brought him a vigorous challenge in Tuesday's GOP primary from Joe McLaughlin, a conservative local official who said Mr. Jones was consorting with the far left and undermining U.S. troops who are stationed in the strongly pro-military district. The race "is not even about Walter Jones. It's about the future of the Republican Party in the 3rd District. And if he wins, it's virtually the end of the party," Mr. McLaughlin claimed.
But beating an incumbent is always an uphill struggle, and Rep. Jones was able to outspend his challenger some five to one. In the end, Mr. McLaughlin's apocalyptic warnings did not resonate with district voters who had known the Jones family for decades. The congressman won 60% of the vote on Tuesday.
No doubt his victory does not mean his constituents share his anti-war views. But it does mean that if a congressman has built up enough credibility on other issues, voters will often forgive him for going against them so long as it appears to them to be a principled stand.
-- John Fund
Quote of the Day I
"There are various exit strategies right now. Number one would be, go out on a win. So, stay in until West Virginia, where Sen. Clinton is likely the winner, and Kentucky on May 20, and after that, bow out.... But the big one, Charlie -- and this is what some people close to the Clintons are talking about: Is there a way to negotiate a settlement with Barack Obama to have Sen. Clinton on the ticket...? Can he get over the bitterness of this campaign? Can he be convinced that it's the strongest ticket? Third, of course, would Sen. Clinton take it? I think if it was offered in the right way, yes" -- ABC News' George Stephanopoulos, last night reporting that Hillary Clinton is angling for the No. 2 spot on an Obama ticket.
Quote of the Day II
"Most of all, [Hillary Clinton] was too late in understanding how much the Democratic Party's mania for 'fairness,' as mandated by liberals like her, has, by forbidding winner-take-all primaries, made it nearly impossible for her to overcome Obama's early lead in delegates.... If even, say, Texas, California and Ohio were permitted to have winner-take-all primaries (as 48 states have winner-take-all allocation of their electoral votes), Clinton would have been more than 400 delegates ahead of Obama before Tuesday and today would be at her ancestral home in New York planning to return some of its furniture to the White House next January" -- syndicated columnist George F. Will.
Healing the Breach with Hispanics
The fast-growing Hispanic population in America has also proved a growing political problem for the Republican Party. The GOP's share of the Hispanic vote plummeted after the last Republican Congress's angry debate on immigration reform. That episode, which quickly focused on fence-building and deportations, created a portion of the electorate that now holds the Republican Party in increasing contempt.
Exit polls from the 2004 election show Hispanic voters favored Democratic candidates in Congressional elections by 55%-44% margin. Two years later, that margin more than doubled, with Hispanics favoring Democratic candidates by 62%-37%. In some states, several enforcement-only hardliners lost what had been Republican districts to more moderate Democratic challengers. In Arizona alone, Rep. J.D. Hayworth lost his seat to Democrat Harry Mitchell, while State Senator Gabrielle Giffords, also a Democrat, won an open seat previously held by a senior Republican when she beat an anti-illegal immigration activist.
This year, GOP strategists have warned that their party is in danger of categorically ruling out competing among Hispanic voters for perhaps a generation to come.
At least one state Republican Party is trying to engage Hispanic voters before it's too late. This weekend, the Florida GOP will host a Hispanic Leadership Council Conference featuring keynote addresses from Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez, Rep. Luis Fortuno of Puerto Rico, and home-state Senator Mel Martinez -- three of the leading Hispanic voices in the party today.
"The Hispanic vote and the African American vote is the future of the Republican Party," Florida party chair Jim Greer says (Mr. Greer held a similar event aimed at African American voters late last year). To get the groups involved, he adds: "We ensure that they have a seat at the table, and wherever [the Republican Party has] failed in the past, we correct that."
It is a help to the GOP that John McCain is the party's standard-bearer in this year's presidential contest. Mr. McCain is far more moderate on immigration issues than most of his primary rivals were, several of whom proposed steps just short of outright deportation of undocumented aliens. And while Mr. McCain has recently backed off his support for a comprehensive approach that would include a guest-worker program, telling conservative voters in his own base that he understands their concerns about rewarding illegal behavior, his legislative and political record could prove more appealing to Hispanic voters, or at least less damaging to the party's chances with those voters, than anything his erstwhile rivals could have offered.
If Mr. Greer's efforts to woo Hispanic voters works (and he says the Hispanic constituency is "critically important" to a successful GOP presidential campaign in Florida), the idea could be exported to other states in time for Congressional elections in 2010. But if others choose the route of ex-Rep. Hayworth and the immigration hardliners, the damage to party's reputation with Hispanic voters could be severe and long lasting.
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Pay Me to Go
Why is she still running? That's what Democrats are asking about Hillary Clinton in the wake of her disappointing performance in Tuesday's primaries.
One explanation is that something could always turn up once again to knock Mr. Obama off-stride, just as happened with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and Mr. Obama's infamous "bitter" comments. Another possible reason is that she can't afford to leave the race. So far, Mrs. Clinton has loaned over $11 million of her own money into the campaign and still has substantial debts, including $4.5 million to her former chief strategist Mark Penn.
A little-known provision of the McCain-Feingold election law makes her exit a difficult question. If she hopes to get paid back for the money she lent her campaign, she can only accept repayment until the date of the Democratic convention in August. After that she can only accept a maximum of $250,000 from contributors.
"If she wants to be repaid, she'd have to move on that between now and the national convention," former Federal Election Commission chairman Michael Toner told U.S. News & World Report. The longer Mrs. Clinton stays in the race, the greater the chance she can still find some donors who have not already given her the maximum contribution allowed by law. Should she drop out, her chances of raising money from anyone effectively become zero.
There's also the chance of negotiating her exit from the race with Barack Obama, whose campaign is so flush with cash he doesn't know how to spend it all. Mr. Obama could offer to appear at fundraisers on her behalf to retire her campaign debt as well as suggest to his donors that they write a check to her campaign.
Perhaps the resolution of the endless Democratic primary struggle is close at hand. It may take only a few phone calls between the two camps for Mrs. Clinton to suddenly discover her long-suppressed desire for party unity.
-- John Fund
She Don't Need No Stinkin' Economists
Why didn't we think of that?
Campaigning in Indiana on Monday, Hillary Clinton proposed to fix the problem of high oil prices once and for all -- by breaking up OPEC. "We're going to go right at OPEC," she promised a crowd. "They can no longer be a cartel . . ."
Maybe she'll stop the tide from coming in next. Mrs. Clinton ignores a salient fact: OPEC isn't nearly as powerful as it sometimes pretends to be -- and as its critics like to declaim. We would never have seen $15 oil a decade ago. Five years ago, OPEC established a policy of maintaining the world price of oil in a $10 band around $25 a barrel. See how well that worked out.
But Mrs. Clinton's real innovation lies elsewhere -- in breaking with the tradition of politicians seeking validation for their economic nostrums from economic experts. Indeed, she dismissed the very idea of needing approval from the pointy-headed, saying, "I'm not going to put my lot in with economists." Mrs. Clinton was defending specifically her gas-tax holiday proposal, which virtually all economists judge to be worthless. But her handy "just say no" strategy when it comes to carping experts is something budding demagogues everywhere will want to note.
-- Brian M. Carney
Quote of the Day I
"There's only one remaining chapter in this fascinating spectacle. Negotiating the terms of Hillary's surrender. After which we will have six months of watching her enthusiastically stumping the country for Obama, denying with utter conviction Republican charges that he is the out of touch, latte-sipping elitist she warned Democrats against so urgently in the last, late leg of her doomed campaign" -- Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer.
Quote of the Day II
"We cannot win with eggheads and African Americans. That's the Dukakis coalition which carried ten states" -- former Bill Clinton campaign adviser Paul Begala, on CNN arguing that Barack Obama needs to win back the white working-class voters who rejected him for Hillary Clinton.
It's Morning in London
The most satisfying part of the news that London ousted Labour Party Mayor Ken Livingstone in favor of Conservative Boris Johnson is that the list of notables honored by the city will now change dramatically. Mayor Livingstone, known as "Red Ken" for his avowedly socialist beliefs, had announced plans to honor the 50th anniversary of Communist Cuba's revolution on January 1, 2009 with a week-long series of street parties and a celebration of Fidel Castro's life in Trafalgar Square. With the election of Mr. Johnson, a staunch anti-Communist, you can bet that party is heading for the dustbin of history.
The political earthquake that swept Mr. Johnson into office with 53% of the vote can be compared to the voter revolts of the 1990s that led New York and Los Angeles to elect Republican mayors. Mr. Johnson ran on a campaign of getting tougher on crime, withdrawing free transit rights from people who abuse them, and giving better value for the high taxes Londoners pay. He also called for peeling away the excesses of multiculturalism that had Mr. Livingstone simultaneously passing out grants to lesbian dance collectives while he defended a local Muslim cleric, Yusuf al-Quaradawi, who supported wife-beating and the execution of gays.
Mr. Johnson will now share with Tory leader David Cameron the spotlight as the two most prominent Conservative politicians in Britain. Should he govern London successfully, it will be a further blow to the Labour government of Prime Minister Gordon Brown, which backed Mr. Livingstone to no avail and on the same night as Mr. Johnson won was badly beaten in local elections across Britain.
While it will be Mr. Cameron who will lead the Tories into battle in the next general election in 2010, observers have already noted that at age 44 the new mayor of London could have a prominent role in British politics for years to come -- perhaps even on the national stage someday.
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Newt is one of my favorites too. He identifies the problem and the need for a solution beautifully, but I don't think he or anyone else has honed in on the right answer yet. I challenge anyone out there to make a top ten list of what you believe in and what policies get us there. I take my stab at it below.
Newt's contract with America in 1994 included some fluff (term limits) but also included at least a couple of grand slam home runs: welfare reform and capital gains tax rate cuts that, along with New's help passing NAFTA, formed the only pro-growth policies of the allegedly successful Clinton years. The Contract also included failures such as budget process reform and zero based budgeting which are in just as bad shape today as they were then.
My comments on Newt's new list:
1) Temporary repeal of the gas tax paid for with spending restraint - a gimick
2) Use National Petroleum Reserve to alleviate current gas prices - a gimick
3) Energy Bill - This should be front and center!
4) One year Earmark Moratorium - gimick, but maybe useful making it hard to ever start again.
5) Overhaul Census - good policy, but not top ten for marketing
6) Space-based Air Traffic - ditto, not a top ten problem. I thought he was going to say traffic control to get stoplights, lanes and cars moving where YOU drive, then I would be with him.
7) Make English the language of government - An obvious good policy, but not a brand maker for the party.
8. Secret Ballots for Labor votes - Again, good policy but only relevant to some 13% anymore.
9) Judges Matter - This also should be front and center!
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Rough draft of my top ten:
1) Energy - Bigger and better energy supplies for a growing economy: use the cleanest and best known sources and methods and start producing real energy in America, oil, gas, nuclear, clean coal, solar and wind - all of it! Our government should regulate safety and require best methods but NOT prohibit or stop production. On the demand side we should encourage conservation and smarter use. Big government is the number one user of energy in this country and should lead by example, cutting non-essential uses immediately and aggressively.
2) Health Care - Mandate catastrophic coverage for accidents and illnesses like we do car insurance. Pay regular costs individually out of health savings accounts. Require transparency in health care costs. Use market discipline to control cost.
3) National Security - Take the job of protecting Americans seriously, from terrorist surveillance and preventing new attacks to shutting down terror pipelines to killing and capturing those who would destroy us.
4) Balance the Budget using spending restraint. Two and a half trillion in today's dollars ought to be enough!
5) Protect our Environment - zero tolerance for polluters. Pass and enforce real protection based on known science.
6) Appoint and confirm judges who will uphold the constitution.
7) Immigration - More fences, more surveillance but also more legal entry points. Significantly expand legal immigration combined with zero tolerance for new trespassers. No tolerance for current illegals who break a second law. One strike and you're out. Plea bargain and settle with otherwise law-abiding illegals in America AFTER evidence proves the borders are now sealed.
8. Education aimed at global competitiveness - Local control, state guidance and increased parental choices. Limited federal involvement.
9) Taxes(McCain Plan): New alternative 2 step 'flat' tax with generous standard deduction. Eliminate the AMT. Make the corporate tax competitive.
10) Break down trade barriers across the globe to keep spreading economic freedom and prosperity.
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John McCain's campaign is strongly considering presenting Barack Obama with a proposal for a completely new kind of presidential debates -- a series of town hall meetings in which the two men would debate without a moderator.
"The town hall meeting is John's best format," writes Mark McKinnon, a former media strategist for President Bush who is now supporting the Arizona senator. "He's a natural campaigner up close with the public. That would test Obama's claims that he wants a clean fight on the issues."
The idea for Lincoln-Douglas style debates isn't new on the presidential level. The late Barry Goldwater once said that he and President John Kennedy discussed barnstorming across the country together and debating in joint appearances. But no candidate has ever taken the tremendous risks such a series of appearances would involve.
For all that Mr. Obama says he wants a "New Politics," don't place large bets on him accepting a McCain offer on free-wheeling debates. Over the weekend, Mr. Obama told reporters he would be open to appearing in "town hall" style events, but indicated such appearances would have to be negotiated. His campaign adviser David Axelrod said only that any invitation from the McCain camp would be considered "very seriously."
Most analysts don't expect Mr. Obama to take the plunge. Mr. McCain is an uneven debater, but the memory of Mr. Obama's last debate in mid-April on ABC is still fresh on the minds of his advisers. Mr. Obama was generally viewed as turning in a peevish and tentative performance and since then has avoided other invitations.
Mr. Obama might view more favorably the traditional tightly-controlled debates such as the ones normally hosted in the fall by PBS anchor Jim Lehrer, who would be unlikely to bring up any of the divisive character issues that Mr. Obama had to confront in the mid-April ABC debate.
-- John Fund
Pitching Pawlenty
Not entirely oblivious to the talk of his possible future as John McCain's running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty recently launched in his state what he calls a "21st Century Tax Reform Commission." The idea is to rewrite the state's tax code to reflect changes in its more diversified and modern economy -- though one reporter jokingly asked if it should have been called the "Pawlenty No New Taxes Commission."
No wonder the Minnesota governor is on almost everyone's shortlist of potential GOP VP candidates. Karl Rove floated his name on Fox News recently. Mr. Pawlenty has managed to win election twice in a swing state that Republicans would love to win in November. President Bush ran well in the Twin Cities suburbs in 2004. The GOP hopes to build on the momentum by holding the party's national convention in Minneapolis late this summer. Picking Mr. Pawlenty, the thinking goes, would give Mr. McCain a solid foundation in the upper Midwest.
But vice presidential contenders need to bring more to the table than possibly winning a state. Not since John F. Kennedy tapped Lyndon Johnson has a running mate tipped a state to a presidential ticket (though some credit Al Gore with helping Bill Clinton in Tennessee in 1992). For a more complete case for Pawlenty, we spoke recently with former Rep. Mark Kennedy, who's close to the governor and knows the ins and outs of Minnesota politics (he lost a hard fought Senate campaign two years ago). His case for his Minnesota colleague goes as follows: In a liberal state with a profligate legislature, Mr. Pawlenty has amassed a respectable record as a fiscal conservative. He's fought against spending hikes and closed a multi-billion-dollar hole in the budget (15% of state spending) without raising taxes. He's now looking to reform the state's tax code. Gov. Pawlenty has presided over "the smallest government growth in 40 years," Mr. Kennedy says, and been a champion of performance pay for teachers, eminent domain reform and tort reform.
That impressive record hasn't stopped certain GOP conservatives from criticizing Mr. Pawlenty for months, hoping to quash a potential McCain/Pawlenty ticket. One red flag is Mr. Pawlenty's statement in 2006 that "the era of small government is over. . . Government has to be more proactive, more aggressive." But Mr. Kennedy brushes the conservative worries aside. Looking at the totality of the governor's record, he says, "Pawlenty would be a great vice presidential candidate."
-- Brendan Miniter
Quote of the Day I
"The presumptive Democratic presidential candidate's politics were born in Chicago. Yet [Barack Obama] is presented to the nation as not truly being of this place, as if he floats just above the political corruption here, uninfected, untouched by the stain of it or by any sin of commission or omission.... My argument is not with him -- but with the national political media pack that refuses to look closely at what Chicago is.... Why is Obama allowed to campaign as a reformer, virtually unchallenged by the media, though he's a product of Chicago politics and has never condemned the wholesale political corruption in his home town the way he condemns those darn Washington lobbyists" -- Chicago Tribune columnist John Kass.
Quote of the Day II
"Obama has run a brilliant campaign. He has won over many white voters by making them proud to vote for a supremely educated and capable man who, at his best, makes race a secondary concern. It is not inconsistent, unfair or unsavory to point out, at the same time, that Obama has been growing weaker over the months in his ability to win all but black voters. Nor am I necessarily suggesting that white voters are drifting from him because of his race -- as opposed to judgments about the content of his character or candidacy. This is about facing facts. And history will reflect poorly on Democrats if they believe it is virtuous to ignore race in the name of nominating the first black candidate for the White House - even if it means giving the Republicans a better chance to once again walk away with the big prize of the presidency" -- Juan Williams, a political analyst with NPR and Fox News, writing in the New York Daily News.
Greens Going for the Green
Even with the human tragedy of Cyclone Nargis still unfolding in Burma, environmentalists aren't wasting any time linking the disaster to global warming. Or at least one isn't: Al Gore. Citing the deadly Burmese storm and recent storms in China and Bangladesh, he declared on National Public Radio: "We're seeing consequences that scientists have long predicted might be associated with continued global warming."
There's just one problem -- it's not clear there's any link between climate change and hurricane numbers or intensity. The number of big storms has been falling, not rising. As for intensity, researchers led by Christopher Landsea of the National Hurricane Center have found that earlier generations of hurricane-watchers using inferior satellite imagery incorrectly classified many storms as weaker than they actually were. After correcting for this mismeasurement, the "increase" in storm intensity since the 1970s nearly disappears.
But Mr. Gore is perhaps too busy these days to follow the science closely. In April, a London-based company he chairs began selling shares in its so-called Global Sustainability Fund to small investors in New Zealand, following a similar offer to investors in Australia (interestingly, out of sight of the U.S. press). He was also a conspicuously invoked presence when the Silicon Valley firm Kleiner Perkins this month announced a new $500 million "green growth" fund in partnership with Mr. Gore's London firm. Asked by the San Jose Mercury News if Mr. Gore had been helpful in raising money, co-manager John Denniston replied: "That's not been his primary responsibility."
Uh huh. Mr. Gore's primary responsibility, from the looks of it, is to spread alarm about global warming and create the political conditions (subsidies, mandates) without which Kleiner's "green" energy ventures are unlikely to flourish. Expect the payoff to come next year as a new Congress and President debate global warming policy.
-- Joseph Sternberg
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Political analysts in both Washington and New York's Staten Island now expect GOP Rep. Vito Fossella not to seek re-election. His media adviser says only he plans to continue working on behalf of his constituents "in the weeks" and months to come. But Mr. Fossella's political future probably became untenable after he revealed he fathered a secret daughter three years ago with Laura Fay, a retired Air Force officer.
It was Ms. Fay who picked him up from jail in Alexandria, Virginia when Mr. Fossella was arrested for drunk driving on May 1, after which the story came out.
Mr. Fossella has been urged to resign by the largest paper in his district, the Staten Island Advance, as well as by the New York Post, the tabloid that is a staple of the island's conservative and largely Catholic voters. The district, which includes a portion of Brooklyn, gave President Bush 58% of its vote in 2004.
But don't look for Mr. Fossella to resign immediately. If he left office before July 1, New York's Democratic Gov. David Paterson would call a special election, which would probably force cash-strapped Republicans to spend $2 million in a potentially losing battle. Even should the GOP win the election, it would likely have to spend a like amount to hold the seat again in November.
Candidates are already lining up for the expected vacancy. On the Republican side. State Senator Andrew Lanza would be a strong candidate but his departure from the State Senate could imperil the slim GOP majority in that body. A more likely candidate is Staten Island District Attorney Daniel Donavan, who has close ties to both New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and former Mayor Rudy Giuliani. He won re-election last year with 68% of the vote.
Democrats have several potential candidates, including State Sen. Diane Savino and Assemblyman Michael Cusick, a former aide to Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer. But Ms. Savino would also be under pressure from party officials not to run because her departure from the Senate could allow Republicans to capture her seat.
-- John Fund
The Manchin Candidate
Inside the confines of a voting booth today, popular West Virginia Democratic Gov. Joe Manchin will cast a ballot for either Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton.
Mr. Manchin finds himself in the midst of his party’s most contentious nomination fight in 40 years, and the first nomination fight to reach his state since JFK campaigned there in 1960. But Mr. Manchin has steadfastly refused publicly to endorse either candidate. He's offered to appear at campaign rallies for both. His wife delivered opening remarks at one event that featured a keynote address from Mrs. Clinton. But Mr. Manchin has mainly used the election coverage to boost his state in national media outlets.
More than a few analysts wonder where Mr. Manchin comes down. West Virginia has a hefty proportion of unionized blue-collar workers. It has more senior citizens per capita than nearly any other state. These demographics give Hillary Clinton a near a lock on winning the state's primary. Yet Mr. Manchin is also uniquely suited to be a strong vice presidential candidate under Barack Obama. Mr. Obama would need to move quickly to the political center. He also needs to find a way to win voters he hasn't won in the primaries -- rural, poor and middle class whites. Mr. Manchin's political base of support are West Virginians who own guns, head to church on Sundays and carry union cards in their wallets.
Yet he’s also shown himself to be an effective, practical, moderate reformer. Over his four years in office, he's cut taxes, reformed the state's worker's compensation program and pushed fiscally responsible policies that have left the state in surplus. He brags about the Japanese companies he's attracted to the state. And he has publicly criticized his own party for being in love with "renewable" energy at the expense of coal -- something that could make him appealing to voters given the backlash against ethanol and high food and gas prices.
Going by voter registration alone, West Virginia is a heavily Democratic State. Democrats outnumber Republicans by two-to-one and control the governor's mansion, the state legislature and both U.S. Senate seats. But George W. Bush carried the Mountain State twice in presidential years and Democrats certainly noticed that had Al Gore won there in 2000, he would have won the presidency regardless of the outcome of Florida. Maybe that explains Mr. Manchin’s caginess. Helping to carry West Virginia might earn him a close look as veep by either nominee -- after all, the last Democrat to win the White House without carrying West Virginia was Woodrow Wilson in 1916.
-- Brendan Miniter
Quote of the Day I
"In last Tuesday's North Carolina primary, [Hillary] Clinton got only 7% of the black vote -- a lower percentage than Nixon or Reagan had won in general elections.... No constituency has swung as much over the past few months. The Clintons are used to loving and supporting minorities -- as long as the minorities know their place and see the Clintons as the instrument of their salvation. Obama broke that dependency and that relationship. And that was why the Clintons had to do all they could to destroy and belittle and besmirch him. But in that venture the Clintons are destroying themselves and their legacy and their capacity to bridge the very gaps they now must widen to stay in the race. It is a Clinton tragedy -- and one that most Americans seem slowly, cautiously but palpably determined not to make their own" -- columnist Andrew Sullivan writing in the London Times.
Quote of the Day II
"The Clintons find themselves victimized and under siege. The presidency is being stolen from them. The press is out to get them. They deride elites and champion the masses. They live in a constant state of emergency. But they will endure any humiliation, ride out any crisis, fight on even when fighting seems hopeless. That might sound like a fair summary of how Bill and Hillary Clinton have viewed the past five months. But it also happens to describe what, until now, was the greatest ordeal of the Clintons' almost comically turbulent political careers: impeachment. That baroque saga hardened the Clintonian worldview about politics and helps to explain their approach to this brutal campaign season. The Clintons have been here before, you see. They're being impeached all over again" -- columnist Michael Crowley, writing in the New Republic.
Re-Airing Ronald Reagan
It's been two decades since Ronald Reagan left office and so many young people under 30 have little or no understanding of him or what he represented.
The Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation hopes to remedy that by producing a series of two-minute radio retrospectives featuring excerpts from the over 1,000 commentaries Reagan did in the 1970s between his years as governor and president. Those radio commentaries, published in annotated form recently, have played no small role in forcing even liberals to have a second look and give the Gipper his due as a thinker and writer. Additional broadcasts will use portions of Reagan's Saturday radio addresses as president.
Harry O'Connor, the original producer of what was called "Reagan Radio," is working with the Foundation to produce the commentaries. Peter Hannaford, who wrote some of the commentaries that Reagan himself did not pen, will provide an introduction to each segment. Each one, while non-partisan in nature, will address an issue such as taxes, terrorism, abortion and the economy and in Mr. O'Connor's words "establish the connection between the classic radio addresses and contemporary issues."
-- John Fund
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Could Bob Barr become this year's Ralph Nader, helping to "spoil" the White House ambitions of John McCain.
The former Georgia Republican congressman announced he was seeking the Libertarian nomination for president this week, and immediately disputed that he is spoiling things for anyone. "The American voters deserve better than simply the lesser of two evils," he said as he outlined his platform to freeze discretionary spending and withdraw from Iraq.
Mr. Barr first has to win the nomination of the fractious Libertarians in Denver later this month. He faces opposition from 13 candidates, including former Democratic Senator Mike Gravel, an amusing oddity in this year's Democratic presidential contest.
If Mr. Barr wins the LP nomination, he would likely appear on some 45 state ballots and could tip some close races to the Democrats. "Barr obviously is dangerous. At least he negates any possible Nader benefit," says David Norcross, chairman of the Rules Committee at the GOP convention. Mr. Nader, widely credited with hurting Al Gore in the 2000 election, is running again as a liberal independent.
Still, Republicans claim they aren't concerned by Mr. Barr's possible appearance on all those state ballots. But they should be. You can bet cable TV producers who are backing Barack Obama will book the quotable Mr. Barr dozens of times. Don't be surprised if he even teams up with Mr. Nader for tag-team appearances, with the consumer advocate primarily blasting Democrats and Mr. Barr eviscerating Republicans.
So how should Republicans limit the potential damage Mr. Barr could cause them? For starters, John McCain should avoid giving unfortunate speeches such as the one he gave Monday endorsing the discredited cap-and-trade approach to limiting global warming -- a system that has flopped in Europe. Mr. McCain went so far as to say: "If the efforts to negotiate an international solution that includes China and India do not succeed, we still have an obligation to act" against global warming. Given the growth in carbon emissions of those two countries, that is a preposterous statement.
Mr. McCain may believe he can attract the votes of young people with his green street cred, but he would be advised not to go too far in alienating his conservative base. Mr. Barr will likely be there every step of the way exploiting conservative discontent with the GOP nominee.
-- John Fund
Tom Cole In the GOP's Stocking
Following the 2006 elections, Republicans faced a 30-seat deficit in the House of Representatives. With that number now grown to 37 seats, National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Tom Cole finds himself in possibly the most unenviable position in Washington. The Democrats' majority is almost sure to increase even more come November, leaving Mr. Cole, whose basic role is to help elect as many Republicans to the House as possible, facing what appears to be inevitable failure.
Since Tuesday's loss in Mississippi's 1st District, Mr. Cole has spoken in rather blunt terms about the state of affairs of the GOP. It was the third recent special election defeat in districts the GOP once dominated.
"When you lose three of these in a row, you have to get beyond campaign tactics and take a long hard look, 'Is there something wrong with your product?'" Mr. Cole said yesterday in a conference call with reporters. "What we've got right now is a deficiency in our message and a loss of confidence by the American people that we are going to do what we say we're going to do. We're not winning in places that Republicans probably ought to win on the basis of just being Republican."
Still, Mr. Cole didn't sound totally defeated, noting that two Democratic special election winners in Mississippi and Louisiana ran on platforms so conservative that they would have been welcomed "to the Republican caucus with open arms." He conceded that the Democratic strategy of running more conservative candidates in Republican districts was proving successful in winning seats now, but he also maintained that it would not be sustainable over the long term. Unfortunately for Mr. Cole, he may not have his NRCC chairmanship long enough to see if that statement proves true.
-- Kyle Trygstad, RealClearPolitics.com
Quote of the Day I
"Edwards stood next to Obama Wednesday night, basking in the applause of thousands of Michigan Democrats who were, for all practical purposes, cheering the end of the Clinton campaign.... No one missed the fact that Barack Obama and John Edwards looked right together. 'They looked fantastic together,' gushed Jill Zuckman, the Chicago Tribune's able political writer. 'They looked like a ticket'" -- The Nation magazine's John Nichols, covering yesterday's endorsement, in the future battleground state of Michigan, of Barack Obama by former rival John Edwards.
Quote of the Day II
"It is unusual for a single individual to hold the fate of an entire industry in his hand -- but that will be the case for the next president of the United States. He or she will have the power to enact unbearably strict fuel economy standards on the cars and trucks sold in half the country. By so doing, he could render vast swaths of the current car and truck lineup obsolete and doom their manufacturers to the scrapyard" -- Fortune Magazine's Alex Taylor III, on whether the next president will allow California and several other states to impose their own stringent CO2 emissions standards on automakers.
Steak Source
South Korea has been swept by mad cow fever in recent weeks, ever since President Lee Myung-bak agreed to re-open the country to imports of U.S. beef. Korea's protectionist farm lobby quickly mobilized in force, aided by a bizarre scaremongering campaign in the South Korean media. One TV documentary claimed Americans themselves don't eat American beef, preferring to import beef from Australia instead (not true: more than 90% of U.S. beef is consumed at home).
The same TV show also purported to prove that Koreans are genetically predisposed to contract the human form of mad cow, an odd assertion since no ethnic Korean has ever fallen victim to the disease.
But now an unexpected ally has leapt to the defense of American ranchers. From their U.S. homes, various Korean-American groups have entered the fight, with noticeable results. "We trust the American public health system," Lee Chang-yup of the Korean-American Chamber of Commerce of Los Angeles was quoted as saying in South Korea's Chosun Ilbo newspaper. Other groups have held their own press conferences and issued statements saying their members eat U.S. beef safely all the time and South Koreans should too.
Word from Seoul suggests the campaign is working. Passions have begun to cool as the scientific realities are given their due. Though the Seoul government just announced a 10-delay, President Lee insists the beef imports will eventually resume. If so, U.S. ranchers will have reason to thank Americans of Korean descent who defended American beef in its hour of need.
-- Joseph Sternberg
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One More Time, Liberals Overplay Their Hand on Gay Marriage
Activist judges and how far they go to position themselves above the legislature or electorate has suddenly become an issue in the presidential race with the narrow 4 to 3 decision by California's Supreme Court to legalize gay marriage.
Barack Obama is unlikely to be pleased by the court's decision. He will recall how the issue of judicial interference with the political process bedeviled John Kerry's 2004 campaign after the high court in Mr. Kerry's home state of Massachusetts legalized gay marriage. Anti-gay marriage initiatives eventually passed that year in nearly a dozen states.
In California, the issue is guaranteed to be a hot political topic this fall. More than 1.1 million signatures have already been collected to put a measure on the November ballot that would change California's ban on gay marriage from a statutory provision to a Constitutional clause. Putting their preferences into the state Constitution is the last recourse of the state's citizens against being dictated to by the state's Supreme Court.
Public opinion seems fairly clear. In 2000, 61% of California voters approved a statutory ban on gay marriage while also leaving open a chance for other legal protections to be extended to gays. The measure, Proposition 22, passed in all but four Bay Area counties and even won a third of the vote in San Francisco.
Supporters of gay marriage assert that public attitudes have shifted since 2000, but they seem unwilling to test that belief through the democratic process. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a very friendly governor to gays, has twice vetoed bills to legalize gay marriage. All gay marriage supporters have to do is elect an even more gay-friendly governor, but instead they insist on court action. Once again, an overreliance on the courts to achieve social change may prompt a public reaction that rebounds to the benefit of conservative candidates.
-- John Fund
Winning the Votes of the Smarter Half
House Republicans started rolling out their election-year agenda this week. The initial object of their attention: Women.
The brainchild of Rep. Kay Granger, the new "American Families Agenda" is an attempt to pitch the GOP's free-market ideals at modern working moms (and dads). Ms. Granger says she tried to zero in on the biggest day-to-day needs for families: more "flex time," fewer burdens on small businesses (a huge number of which are owned by women), portable health care, school choice and college savings. Under her plan, military families would receive extra help and sexual predators would be cracked down on.
"This is an agenda that recognizes that while American families have changed, the laws that affect families, and in particular women, have not," Ms. Granger, a six term congresswomen from Texas, tells me. She should know --- having taught school, run a small business and served as mayor and legislator, all while raising three kids on her own.
House Republicans suffered a devastating loss in a special election in Mississippi this week, and the big goal of the "families" agenda is to show disillusioned voters that the party has a forward-looking agenda. Selling it will be a tough job given recent GOP scandals and spending frenzies, but women are a smart place to start. For decades now "women's issues" have been defined by the left, usually around the hot-button questions of abortion or "equal pay." Yet while many women care about such subjects, polls show the vast majority (including 60% of those women who hold down jobs while caring for a child at home under six) are most concerned with health care, the cost of living and the struggle to balance work and family obligations. And women make up the majority of the electorate now, so it's about time Republicans started listening.
By the way, Ms. Granger makes a point of giving a shout-out to two colleagues in particular for help in drafting the new agenda. One of them, Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington, last year became the first Member in more than a decade to give birth while serving in Congress. The other, Tennessee Rep. Marsha Blackburn, just became a grandmother.
-- Kim Strassel
Quote of the Day I
"When Michael Dukakis ran for President in 1988, crime was perhaps the biggest issue in the campaign. It splintered his coalition, pitting blacks who saw the death penalty as racially unfair against blue-collar whites who demanded a hard line against crime and too often associated that crime with blacks. Today, by contrast, roughly 1% of Americans say crime is their top issue, and no one even knows what Obama's position on the death penalty is. For Obama, that's an enormous boon, and Bill Clinton deserves a lot of the credit. His policies -- especially his bold proposal for 100,000 new cops -- helped bring down the crime rate. And by embracing the death penalty, he eliminated one of the GOP's best wedge issues. That embrace was ugly at times, as when Clinton flew back to Arkansas during the 1992 campaign to oversee the execution of a mentally retarded man. But it was politically shrewd. And because Clinton did it then, Obama doesn't have to now" -- former New Republic editor Peter Beinart, writing at Time.com.
Quote of the Day II
"Should Obama even care about making tactical mistakes [such as writing off West Virginia and the working-class white electorate] when McCain's conservative base is disappearing before his eyes? While Obama was going down Tuesday, Democrat Travis Childers helped his party complete its trend-setting trifecta of upset wins in special elections in ruby-red, GOP-held House districts. So, despite boatloads of polling that shows McCain is competitive this fall, the fact remains that when Republicans vote these days, they're often voting for Democrats. In Childers' case, it wasn't even close. A last-minute visit from Vice President Dick Cheney couldn't even rescue Republican Greg Davis.... Indeed, while Democrats publicly worry that the drawn-out primary has drawn down their chances this fall, Childers' victory is yet another reason that party leaders' private confidence continues to soar" -- National Journal's "Politiscope" columnist, John Mercurio.
Bearish on McCain
BRUSSELS -- If Westerners don't like what they hear about Vladimir Putin's successor in the Kremlin, Dmitry Medvedev, maybe they're tuned in to the wrong news sources. And if Americans want better relations, maybe they should elect someone other than John McCain.
Those were the messages Thursday from the chairman of the Duma's foreign affairs committee, Konstantin Kosachev, who chalks up the West's criticism of Russia to "misinformation and bias." "Very often when I read" what the West has to report about Russia, "I don't even recognize my country," he says.
But that's not all. He blamed the West for the more aggressive bear it's facing today. Messrs. Putin and Medvedev -- he named them in that order -- are "ready for a different form of dialogue and cooperation with the West. But... the current position of Russia toward the West is very much provoked by a too-harsh approach by the West."
So which U.S. presidential candidate would be best able to improve relations? Mr. Kosachev left little doubt about his druthers. John McCain "is a person who has all his life fought against communism and yet [he] doesn't seem to distinguish between the Soviet Union and Russia," he says. "That may be a problem. We may need a broader approach, and that may come from one of the other hypothetical winners of the election."
This reassertive Russia might not have much use for democrats, but Democrats are another story.
-- Kyle Wingfield
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I am not sure really. But I sense BO has run with the "Hymietown" crowd. That is enough for me to be suspicious yet nothing here is ironclad:
May 10, 2008
Jews can’t vote for Obama and be pro-Israel at the same time
By Ted Belman
ted-4.jpgIn the poll of Jewish voters (conducted April 1-30), it showed Obama getting 61% of the Jewish vote against John McCain (32%). Yet in the same poll Hillary Clinton beat Obama among Jewish voters 62% - 38%. So obviously Jews are lifelong democrats who will vote for Obama, whom they rejected in the primaries, rather than vote for McCain. Thus, for them, party loyalty is preferable to Israel loyalty.
Recently I posted two articles by Yarom Ettinger, former Israeli Ambassador to the US, The Prospects of a Palestinian State and National Interests of the United States and It’s American interests, stupid, both of which clearly demonstrate that keeping Israel strong is to keep America strong. Thus to be pro-Israel is to be pro-America.
Now some would argue that most Jewish Americans are not one issue voters but they must realize that to favour a basket of issues or the Democratic Party above favouring Israel, makes them less pro-Israel and thus less pro-American. This I am sure will get howls of protest from the J-Street Lobby which represents progressive Jewry, who would have you believe that by forcing Israel to capitulate, they are acting in the best interests of Israel and the US. I hope you don’t buy their thinking. These articles fly in the face of such thinking. Consider them carefully it is important.
While most Jews favour Obama in a run off with McCain because he is a Democrat, they ignore how pro-Palestinian and anti-American he is.
Let me list the ways.
- Obama said “Nobody is suffering more than the Palestinian people,”
- Obama said “If there is an Arab American family [in the US] being rounded up without benefit of an attorney, those are my civil liberties!”
- Everyone on Obama’s foreign policy team, McPeak, Hamilton, Kurtzer, Brezezinski, are anti- Israel and The Israel Lobby. Their policies are closely aligned with Carter’s and Baker’s.
- Obama has been in bed with Jew haters and Islamic jihad for years. Farrakhan and his dear friend Reverend Wright, Obama’s spiritual guru, is a vile Jew hater.
- Obama is the first Presidential candidate endorsed by Hamas. He is the toast of the Islamic world. Obama’s church posted a Hamas manifesto.
- Obama has been endorsed by William Ayers (Weatherman Underground bomber, unrepentant domestic terrorist) (Member Communist Party USA, Early mentor to Obama) Jeremiah Wright (Black Liberation militant, racist, and Pastor) Tony Rezko (Corrupt Financier, ties to Terror Financing) Louis Farrakhan (Nation of Islam Leader, racist, anti-American) Hamas Terrorist Organization (Islamic Terrorist Organization) Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades (Islamic Terror Irganization) Raila Odinga (Fundamental Islamic Candidate, Kenya, Obama’s Cousin) Daniel Ortega (Marxist Sandinista Leader. Nicaragua Raul Castro (Hard-line Communist Leader, Communist Party Illinois (US Communist Political Party) Socialist Party USA (Marxist Socialist Political Party) The New Black Panther Party (Black Militant Organization, anti-American and racist Mosques are preaching for Obama (muslims vote inshallah!)
- We know from this blog entry by the pro-Palestinian blogger Ali Abunimah at The Electronic Intifadah, that Obama has moved to a move pro-Israel position as his national aspirations developed. “The last time I spoke to Obama was in the winter of 2004 at a gathering in Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood,” Abunimah writes. “He was in the midst of a primary campaign to secure the Democratic nomination for the United States Senate seat he now occupies. But at that time polls showed him trailing. “As he came in from the cold and took off his coat, I went up to greet him. He responded warmly, and volunteered, “Hey, I’m sorry I haven’t said more about Palestine right now, but we are in a tough primary race. I’m hoping when things calm down I can be more up front.’ He referred to my activism, including columns I was contributing to the The Chicago Tribune critical of Israeli and US policy, ‘Keep up the good work!”
- Ralph Nader agrees.“(Obama) has run a brilliant tactical campaign. But his better instincts and his knowledge have been censored by himself….He was pro-Palestinian when he was in Illinois before he ran for the state Senate, during he ran–during the state Senate.”
- Obama served as a paid director on the board of a nonprofit organization that granted funding to a controversial Arab group that mourns the establishment of Israel as a “catastrophe.” (Obama has also reportedly spoken at fundraisers for Palestinians living in what the United Nations terms refugee camps.). The co-founder of that Arab group, Columbia University professor Rashid Khalidi, is a harsh critic of Israel who reportedly worked on behalf of the Palestine Liberation Organization when it was labeled a terror group by the State Department. Khalidi held a fundraiser in 2000 for Obama’s failed bid for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives.
- Ten years ago Obama went to a pro-Palestinian dinner at which Edward Said was the guest speaker and they sat at the same table.
- Obama employed and continues to employ several Farrakhan acolytes in high positions on his Illinois and U.S. Senate campaign and office staffs.
- Obama very recently and previously referred to the “cycle of violence” in the Middle East. He thereby equates Arab criminal violence with legitimate Israeli self-defence.
- Obama’s Church reprinted the outrageous claim that Israel planned an “ethnic bomb” to kill blacks and Arabs.
All items listed above cannot be characterized as a smear as they are all true.
How can Jews ignore all this or dismiss it as inconsequential? I don’t get it.
ADDENDUM ( found this article after writing mine.)
A Curious Kind of Friendship; Barack Obama’s dubious record on Israel
MARK HEMINGWAY, NRO
On April 21, Barack Obama found himself at a diner in Scranton, Pa. The Illinois senator hadn’t been available to the press in ten days, so a reporter approached him.
Perhaps Obama was in a bad mood because he foresaw a drubbing — the next day, Pennsylvanian primary voters went for Hillary. Or maybe he just didn’t like the reporter’s question: “Senator, did you hear about Jimmy Carter’s trip? He said he could get Hamas to negotiate.”
Looking down at his breakfast, the senator snapped back, “Why can’t I just eat my waffle?”
The week before, two important things had happened. One, Obama had declined to condemn Carter’s meeting with Hamas, though Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had opposed the trip. Two, the Palestinian terrorist group took the unusual step of endorsing him. When asked about the endorsement, Obama’s chief strategist, David Axelrod, was flattered that Hamas compared his candidate to JFK: “We all agree that John Kennedy was a great president, and it’s flattering when anybody says that Barack Obama would follow in his footsteps.”
Republican nominee John McCain quickly took note. “We need change in America, but not the kind of change that wins kind words from Hamas,” he said.
The day following Wafflegate, Obama told the press it was a “bad idea” for Carter to meet with Hamas, as it gave the group “a legitimacy that was unnecessary.”
It’s understandable that Obama would rather do just about anything than talk about the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Questions about Obama’s support for Israel have percolated in Jewish publications and elsewhere for more than a year, and now they threaten to spill over into the mainstream media. In March, speaking to reporters in Texas, Obama defended his record: “Nobody has ever been able to point to statements that I made or positions that I’ve taken that are contrary to the long-term security interests in Israel and in any way diminish the special relationship we have with that country.” Trouble is, this claim is simply not true.
Obama has been battling the perception that he is insufficiently supportive of Israel since last year, when he told the Des Moines Register, “Nobody is suffering more than the Palestinian people.” An Iowa Democrat and member of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), David Adelman, called Obama’s comments “deeply troubling.” Obama claimed the remark was taken out of context, but the Politico noted that talk of Obama’s comment was one of many reasons that a “real, if kind of inchoate, skepticism” dominated discussions of Obama at AIPAC’s annual policy conference in March of last year.
Whatever the context of that specific remark, many subsequent revelations have given ample reason for skepticism: Obama has repeatedly claimed to support Israel, but his record doesn’t jibe with his rhetoric. Last year, he announced he would vote against an amendment in the Senate declaring Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps — which has long supported Hezbollah terrorists and otherwise abetted the murder of Israelis — a terrorist group. The resolution passed 76–22, with the support of Hillary Clinton, Illinois senator Dick Durbin, and a host of other reliable liberals. Obama missed the vote while campaigning in New Hampshire, but he attacked Clinton on the issue, saying the non-binding amendment might exacerbate tensions with Iran.
What’s more, his life is marked by ties to anti-Israeli causes. A recent report in the Los Angeles Times detailed Obama’s close relationship with Rashid Khalidi, a professor of Arab studies at Columbia University. In the late 1970s Khalidi worked with WAFA, the official news agency of the Palestinian Liberation Organization; during this period, the PLO and its factions
engaged in acts of terrorism. In 2005 Khalidi gained national attention when he argued that, under international law, Palestinians have a right to violently resist Israeli occupation.
While teaching at the University of Chicago, Khalidi co-founded the Arab American Action Network (AAAN), an organization with a history of churning out anti-Israeli propaganda. AAAN’s current projects include “The Arab American Oral History Project.” The group’s website asks, “Do you have photos, letters or other memories you could share about Al-Nakba-1948?” “Al Nakba” translates as “the catastrophe,” and 1948 is the year in which Israel became a
state.
Khalidi held a fundraiser for Obama’s failed congressional bid in 2000, while Obama was a state senator representing the liberal Hyde Park area of Chicago. In 2003, Obama attended a tribute dinner for Khalidi where, according to the Los Angeles Times, a speaker likened “Zionist settlers on the West Bank” to Osama bin Laden.
The largess flowed in both directions. From 1999 to 2002 Obama served on the board of directors of the Woods Fund, a grant-making foundation with assets of $68 million whose nominal goal is “to increase opportunities for less advantaged people and communities in the [Chicago] metropolitan area.” According to tax forms and annual reports, in 2001 and 2002 the Woods Fund gave AAAN a total of $75,000 in grants. Bill Ayers, a former (and unrepentant) member of the left-wing terrorist group the Weather Underground, sat on the board with
Obama.
The aforementioned Politico article also noted “[anti-Israeli] sentiment . .. circulating largely on private email lists and in chatter about a posting on the pro-Palestinian blog Electronic Intifada, which claimed (with little evidence) that Obama was once on the Palestinian side.” For some time Electronic Intifada co-founder Ali Abunimah has been saying that, in private
conversations, Obama expressed unequivocal pro-Palestinian views. Abunimah is an activist in Chicago’s Palestinian community, and is on the board of AAAN, with which he has a long history of involvement. Given Obama’s own involvement with Khalidi and AAAN, Abunimah’s claim to have had such conversations with Obama seems plausible.
There have also been flaps over campaign advisers. Zbigniew Brzezinski, Jimmy Carter’s national security adviser, has recently endorsed and campaigned with Obama. Brzezinski was singled out recently for defending The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, a book arguing that “the United States has been willing to set aside its own security in order to advance the interests of another state [Israel].” After a campaign press release described Robert Malley, an adviser to the Clinton administration on the Arab-Israeli conflict, as an Obama adviser, the campaign sought to distance itself from Malley — whom New Republic editor-in-chief Marty Peretz has called “a rabid hater of Israel.”
When it comes to Israel, perhaps the most controversial member of Obama’s campaign is his chief military adviser and national-campaign co-chairman, Gen. Merrill McPeak. In 1976, McPeak wrote an article for Foreign Affairs criticizing Israel for not returning to its 1967 borders and handing the Golan Heights back to Syria. McPeak accused Jewish and evangelical voters of placing their interest in Israel above U.S. interests in a 2003 interview with the
Oregonian. When asked what was holding back world peace, McPeak responded, “New York City. Miami. We have a large vote . . . here in favor of Israel. And no politician wants to run against it.” Obama disavowed McPeak’s stance on Israel, but stands behind the campaign’s relationship with the general.
Then there’s Obama’s pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright: “The Israelis have illegally occupied Palestinian territories for over 40 years now. . . . [We need to] wake Americans up concerning the injustice and the racism under which the Palestinians have lived because of Zionism.” Last year, the bulletin at Wright ’s church reprinted an article by a Hamas official.
Given Obama’s past and current relationships, the Jewish community is taking his rhetoric with hefty portions of sodium chloride. One well-known Jewish Democratic strategist says that with Obama running, McCain could equal or even surpass the 39 percent of the Jewish vote that Ronald Reagan captured against Jimmy Carter in 1980. This could be a major factor in swing states with significant Jewish populations, notably Florida and Pennsylvania. According to Pennsylvania-primary exit polls, Jews went for Hillary, 62 to 38 percent.
There are two ways of looking at all this. Perhaps Obama is privately hostile to Israel. Or perhaps he comes from a Hyde Park milieu so leftist that he saw these relationships as normal political connections. In a sense it doesn’t matter: Regardless of why Obama tolerates terrorist sympathizers, the fact that he has a history of doing so could destroy his candidacy. On the national stage, and particularly in the Democratic party, Jews play a prominent role.
“A normal liberal politician wouldn’t get near this — the political instinct would be, ‘I don’t want to touch this’ — but none of it offended his sensibilities,” the Jewish Democratic strategist said. “He sat there in rooms where Israel was likened to Osama bin Laden. He didn’t walk out.”
Posted by Ted Belman @ 12:07 pm |
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Top Ten Skeletons in the Left's Closet
By Daniel J. Flynn
FrontPageMagazine.com | Friday, May 16, 2008
When the Left writes its own history, the past gets rewritten to suit the needs of the present. This is why I wrote A Conservative History of the American Left, to conserve not only fascinating figures now forgotten but to retrieve from the memory hole all that the Left has tossed down it. What is the history of the American Left that leftists want you to forget?
10. Ayatollah Khomeini, Leftist Hero
Reflexive anti-Americanism initially moved the Left to embrace the Islamic Revolution in Iran. Mother Jones, for instance, in 1979 predicted that “if Khomeini or his followers take power” then “democratic reforms, freedom for political prisoners, an end to the astronomical waste of huge arms purchases, and a constitutional government” would follow. The Nation, Michel Foucault, and other pillars of the Left similarly projected their ideals upon Khomeini and company.
9. Manson Family Values
“I fell in love with Charlie Manson the first time I saw his cherub face and sparkling eyes on TV,” hippie guru Jerry Rubin professed. “His words and courage inspired us.” Weatherman hoisted “Charles Manson Power” banners, adopted a spread-fingered greeting to symbolize the fork with which the Manson murderers impaled a victim’s stomach, and even boasted a cell nicknamed “The Fork.” Weatherman matriarch Bernardine Dohrn infamously proclaimed: “Dig it: first they killed those pigs, then they ate dinner in the same room with them, then they even shoved a fork into the victim’s stomach. Wild!”
8. Gay Activists Sue to Block AIDS Test
Today, homosexual activists blame Ronald Reagan and the clergy for the spread of AIDS. But in the mid-1980s, the National Gay Task Force and the Lambda Legal Defense, citing civil-liberties concerns, actually sued the federal government to stop the AIDS test. Thankfully, they lost and scores of lives have been saved as a result.
7. Murder Chic
The easiest way to become a hero on the Left is to kill another human being. John Brown, the Molly Maguires, the Haymarket Square Bombers, Joe Hill, Huey Newton, and Mumia Abu-Jamal—murderers all—have been venerated by the Left in song and on screen. The people they murdered are not even an afterthought.
6. Jonestown Kool-Aid
Before orchestrating the murder/suicides 900+ people in Guyana, Jim Jones was the darling of the San Francisco Left. Huey Newton, Angela Davis, and Willie Brown embraced a man who killed more blacks than the KKK. Democrats Rosalynn Carter, Walter Mondale, and Gerry Brown made campaign visits to the Peoples Temple’s “comrade leader.” The mayor of San Francisco even rewarded Jones for his activism by appointing him chairman of the city’s housing commission. “The temple was as much a left-wing political crusade as a church,” The Nation reported in 1978. Unfortunately, as the years progressed, more Americans gulped down the Left’s Kool-Aid that Jones was of the religious Right and not an atheist leftist.
5. Concentration Camps, American Style
A year before Hitler came to power in Germany, Margaret Sanger called for a vast system of concentration camps for the United States. The Planned Parenthood founder demanded “a stern and rigid policy of segregation or sterilization” for “dysgenic” Americans who “would be taught to work under competent instructors for the period of their entire lives.” The 1932 speech concluded that “fifteen or twenty millions of our population would then be organized into soldiers of defense—defending the unborn against their own disabilities.”
4. Heaven on Earth
American intellectuals looked upon the hell on earth that was post-revolutionary Russia and saw a heaven on earth. The New Republic credited the Russian Revolution with providing “the most democratic franchise yet devised in our world,” while The Nation found that “the franchise is more democratic in Russia than in England or in the United States.” Lincoln Steffens marveled after a visit to the Soviet Union, “The revolution in Russia is to establish the Kingdom of Heaven here on earth.”
3. Eugenics
Even before the progressive era when most states instituted eugenics laws, the American Left had agitated for state controls over procreation. John Humphrey Noyes’ Bible Communists lamented that freedom of marital choice “leaves mating to be determined by a general scramble, without attempt at scientific direction” and devised the first eugenic experiment in the U.S.—“stirpiculture”—that produced dozens of children and prevented hundreds more. In Looking Backward, Edward Bellamy dreamed of “race purification” to “preserve and transmit the better types of the race, and let the inferior types drop out.” Other proponents included Margaret Sanger, W.E.B. Du Bois, and Oliver Wendell Holmes, who famously decreed in Buck v. Bell, “Three generations of imbeciles are enough.” State governments ultimately sterilized upwards of 60,000.
2. Assassinating Presidents
Three of the four presidential assassins have been left-wing radicals. Bible Communist Charles Guiteau murdered President Garfield, anarcho-communist Leon Czolgosz murdered President McKinley, and Soviet Communist Lee Harvey Oswald murdered John F. Kennedy. Rather than own that history, the Left has invented conspiracy theories that absolve leftists from responsibility.
1. Nazi-Soviet Pact
The Left switched from pacifists to warmongers overnight once the Nazi attack upon the Communists dissolved the Hitler-Stalin Pact. Communist Party USA chief Earl Browder, who had dubbed WWII “the second imperialist war” during the pact, so thoroughly switched course when the Nazis attacked the Communists that he embraced conscription (after his opposition to it led to jail in WWI), endorsed a ‘no-strike’ pledge for labor unions (after encouraging strikes to impede the war effort), and kicked out Japanese Americans from the CP (after ostensibly championing civil rights). The Hollywood Anti-Nazi League ceased operations during the pact. The Communists’ New Masses panned the anti-Nazi Watch on the Rhine when it appeared as a play during the pact only to praise it when it appeared as a movie when Hitler and Stalin were again enemies.
Daniel J. Flynn is the author of Intellectual Morons: How Ideology Makes Smart People Fall for Stupid Ideas and A Conservative History of the American Left. He is also the editor of www.flynnfiles.com.
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Doug,
I like your list better than Newt's! I have changed my mind and agree with those who are calling for a new contract with America if the Republicans could even have *any* hope of convincing voters to vote for them again. This seems at this time to be the best hope to stave off a complete election disaster in November.
The Republicans led by that crook Tom Delay who as far as I am concerned should be in jail have really let me down.
Problem is is what good is a Republican contract if they will no longer have any power to get any of it done. Or worse Democrats will pass some of it and claim it was their idea like Clinton does with Welfare reform. Some Blacks love him for welfare reform yet he was the biggest obstacle to it early on until he saw the national polls favored reform. Then and only then did the poll driven President jump on the bandwagon.
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Six-Gun Salute
Proving that time heals some wounds, John McCain spoke Friday at the National Rifle Association, where he made nice with some of his tougher critics over the years. CEO Wayne LaPierre acknowledged that the group has had differences with the candidate, but emphasized the positive. "We're not foolish enough to ignore the vast areas of agreement in which John McCain has been a friend to gun owners," he told the Associated Press.
That may be news to NRA-ers who have not yet forgiven Mr. McCain for his campaign-finance reform. As the architect of McCain-Feingold, the Senator ticked off many NRA members who see the campaign-finance law as an infringement on their freedom to engage in the political process and defend Second Amendment rights. At the group's national convention in 2001, Mr. LaPierre noted that McCain-Feingold would all but kick the NRA out of politics by prohibiting the group's ability to run ads within 60 days of an election season. "Is it possible that John McCain thinks you have too much freedom?" the NRA chief asked at the time.
Mr. McCain has also ticked off gun owners for his support of mandatory background checks at gun shows, which he refers to "closing the gun show loophole"—a position he still takes. On other issues however, the Arizona Senator is seen as a strong supporter of Second Amendment rights. He voted against bans on assault rifles and against limitations on types of ammunition. According to his campaign's Web site, he has also opposed attempts to hold gun manufacturers liable for crimes committed with guns.
Mr. McCain is walking a delicate balance into the general election, letting traditional GOP groups know he cares about their issues while avoiding the kind of flip-flops that did in John Kerry. By declining to sugarcoat things for the NRA audience, Mr. McCain could also gain points with some swing voters, who may only need a few issues to be won over.
-- Collin Levy
The Sweetie Vote
As Hillary Clinton's campaign enters its final days or weeks, it's exposing new rifts within the feminist big tent. The head of Emily's List, Ellen Malcolm, recently attacked NARAL Pro-Choice America for its endorsement of Barack Obama. Though that endorsement came only when Mr. Obama's nomination was all but a fait accompli, Ms. Malcolm still saw betrayal. "I think it is tremendously disrespectful to Senator Clinton," she said, "and it certainly must be disconcerting for elected leaders who stand up for reproductive rights and expect the choice community will stand with them."
But that's not what it's really about, is it? Mr. Obama is also a pro-choice candidate. The real sting is that feminist groups are now abandoning a candidate who has been caught in the ultimate switchback — a woman with decades of career experience losing out to a charming male newcomer who can't equal her credentials but may beat her anyway.
During the campaign, NARAL acted as a frequent fact-checker on the abortion politics of both candidates. It showed some preference for Mr. Obama earlier on when it asked Mrs. Clinton not to go after Mr. Obama's "present" votes on abortion issues while in the Illinois State Senate-positions many of his critics see as an effort to fence sit on controversial issues.
The argument among feminists has been present throughout the primary as many of the most liberal women preferred the antiwar politics of Mr. Obama, even over the unity of the sisterhood. But the Clinton campaign has survived as long as it has largely because of the 60% of white women she has consistently drawn in the primaries. The feminists may give Mr. Obama their vote, but he won't get a free pass: They were out in force to critique him last week when he called a news reporter "sweetie." He apologized.
-- Collin Levy
Michiganders and Floridians Unite!
Hillary Clinton's campaign fired its latest salvo in the fight over Michigan's and Florida's delegates Friday. In an email blast, the former First Lady called on supporters to pressure the Rules Committee of the Democratic Convention to "count every vote."
"Count every vote" has been the mantra of the Democratic Party since Florida in 2000. But it's never made much sense. The goal should be to make every properly cast vote count. If someone shows up a day early or a day late to the polls, his vote doesn't—and shouldn't—count. Likewise, if a Democrat or Republican tries to cast a vote in the wrong party's primary (when that primary is not "open"), it doesn't—and shouldn't—count. (This happened to your correspondent in the New York state primary this year. He hadn't filed his party registration in a timely fashion, so his provisional ballot was rejected.)
In the case of Florida and Michigan, every ballot was cast in violation of party rules that were well known to everyone involved at the time. We'll never know how many Floridians and Michiganders chose not to vote because they understood what was going on. Changing the rules after the votes have been cast isn't democracy.
Knowing the rules before an election is run is essential to a fair ballot. If it were anyone else's delegates in jeopardy, you'd better believe that's the argument that Candidate Clinton would be making.
-- Brian M. Carney
Quote of the Day
Conservatism is alive and well in America; don't let anyone tell you differently. And by conservatism, I don't mean the warmed-over "raise your hand if you believe ..." kind of conservatism we see blooming every election cycle. No, I'm speaking of the conservatism grounded in principles based upon enduring truths: an understanding of the importance of human nature in the affairs of individuals and nations. Respect for the lessons of history, the importance of faith and tradition. The understanding that while man is prone to err, he is capable of great things when not subjugated by a too-powerful government -- Fred Thompson, writing at Townhall.com.
Lobbyists Overboard
John McCain spent much of last week suffering self-inflicted wounds over his ties with Washington lobbyists.
Over the weekend, former Texas Congressman Tom Loeffler stepped down as a key McCain adviser after the campaign issued a stringent new hiring policy stipulating that no staffer could work for the campaign if he was also a registered lobbyist or did business on behalf of foreign interests. Mr. Loeffler was the fifth McCain aide to step aside over lobbying connections.
In February, the Arizona Senator easily weathered a New York Times story attempting to tie his official actions to his friendship with a female lobbyist.
Now the list of departing McCain lobbyists has unnecessarily revived the issue and allowed Barack Obama to piously claim that "John McCain is very much a creature of Washington." Mr. Obama can do this and get a media pass for it because he hasn't made a major issue of his lack of ties to lobbyists. While he will boast that he declines to take money from political action committees run by interest groups, he cheerfully has many lobbyists as part of his team and allows them to bundle contributions they've collected from other political players.
It was inevitable that Mr. McCain's occasional sanctimony on matters relating to money in politics would trip him up if he failed to meet an impossible standard for a practicing politician. He would have been better off to state simply that his career demonstrates his independence from special interest groups and disclose which of his advisers were working for outside interests. That would have been better than the parade of McCain officials who have left in the past week, creating the image of a campaign in disarray.
-- John Fund
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Reid's Reversal
Virginia Supreme Court Judge Steven Agee was confirmed unanimously this week to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, fulfilling one-third of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's pledge to put through three Bush appeals-court picks by Memorial Day.
With the deadline bearing down, Mr. Reid has skittered away from his earlier promises. He reminded Senators this week that he "explicitly" said he "couldn't guarantee" the trio of confirmations. Mr. Reid blames Republicans for holding up two Michigan nominees - Raymond Kethledge and Helene White -- whose nominations for the Sixth Circuit were worked out as a compromise package between Michigan's senators and the White House. Mr. Kethledge is the Administration's pick; Judge White is the Democrats' choice.
Democrats are eager to take credit for the White-Kethledge confirmations, hurrying them through a process that has left other highly qualified nominees beached for years. Judge White is being pushed through even without her ABA rating, a qualification Democrats have insisted on in the past.
But these are hardly the only two nominees available for confirmation in order for Mr. Reid to fulfill his end of the bargain. Also waiting in the wings are strong appeals-court nominees like Peter Keisler for the D.C. Circuit as well as Robert Conrad and Steve Matthew for the Fourth Circuit. Yet Democrats refuse to give them an up-or-down vote.
Sen. Arlen Specter has said before that he would not hesitate to shut down the Senate over Democrats' obstruction of judicial nominees. Republicans have declined to take such steps in recent weeks out of good faith, taking Sen. Reid at his word on the Memorial Day deal. If the deal falls through, it's a good bet that won't happen twice.
-- Collin Levy
How High Can Tax Rates Go?
Tax rates under a Barack Obama presidency are expected to rise to as high as 52.2% when combining the income-tax increase the candidate supports and his proposed elimination of the payroll tax cap. These would be the highest rates since the late 1970s, when the economy went haywire. "That's a frightening proposition, especially when the rest of the world is cutting tax rates," says Jim Carter, chief economist on the Senate Budget Committee's minority staff.
Now a new study by the Congressional Budget Office suggests that rates would have to go even higher if entitlement spending isn't reined in. The report, which was requested by Republican Rep. Paul Ryan, finds that the top rate of personal income tax would have to rise to 88% from 35% to pay all the nation's bills. Even the lowest tax rate would have to more than double. This is the price we pay for running up unfunded liabilities in Medicare and Social Security.
Faster economic growth would help ease the burden of these long-term costs, but if tax rates are raised, economic growth will slow. That's the point of Mr. Ryan's inquiry. If we don't get serious about reforming health care programs and Social Security, Democrats will argue that only super-sized tax hikes will solve the problem.
Ryan Ellis of the American Shareholders Association states the obvious when he says that income-tax rates of 88% are a surefire way to create a massive outflow of capital away from the U.S.
-- Stephen Moore
Quote of the Day
Today, according to the most recent CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey, "71 percent of the American public disapproves of how Bush is handling his job as President, an all-time high in polling." His position can be compared with that of Harry Truman who left Washington unpopular and alone in 1953. Today, with the passage of time, most historians and certainly the American people, see Truman in a different light, primarily for his willingness to stand firm against Soviet aggression, whether against Greece or South Korea, and proclaim the Truman Doctrine, effectively defending the free world from Soviet efforts to expand their hegemony. Like Truman, George W. Bush, in my view, will be seen as one of the few world leaders who recognized the danger of Islamic terrorism and was willing with Tony Blair to stand up to it and not capitulate. - columnist and former New York Mayor Ed Koch
Obama's China Policy
Barack Obama wrote yesterday to Taiwan's new president, Ma Ying-jeou. "A sound U.S.-Taiwan relationship will certainly be the goal of my Administration," he said, while confirming his support of America's "One China" policy. " And, "I will do all that I can to support Taiwan's democracy in the years ahead." The Kuomintang News Network reports that Richard Bush, former chairman of the American Institute in Taiwan, hand-delivered the missive.
Mr. Obama is smart to reach out to Mr. Ma, an eager U.S. ally who's working hard to mend Taiwan's ties with Beijing, which was on bad terms with Mr. Ma's pro-independence predecessor. In his inaugural address Tuesday, Mr. Ma called for "cross-strait peace and regional stability" and pledged not to pursue unification, independence or use of force. Mr. Ma also emphasized Taiwan's role as the "sole ethnic Chinese society to complete a second democratic turnover of power" and called the island a "beacon of democracy to Asia and the world."
U.S. policy toward China and Taiwan is a tricky balancing act. Ever since Nixon recognized the mainland as the "one China," U.S. administrations of both parties have given Taiwan presidents the cold shoulder while taking pains to maintain good relations with the island. Mr. Obama indicates he's willing to talk to dictators. Someone should ask him whether he is also willing to talk to the elected leader of the world's only Chinese democracy.
-- Mary Kissel
A British Omen for Nov. 4?
The U.S. isn't the only country with an electorate that appears to be fed up with the party in power. Yesterday, British voters in the Labour stronghold of Crewe and Nantwich swung sharply away from the governing party to elect a Conservative to Parliament.
It had been three decades since the Tories last won a special election. Yesterday's was held to replace Gwyneth Dunwoody, who died last month after 34 years in the House of Commons. Ms. Dunwoody had been the only person to hold the seat since the Crewe and Nantwich constituencies were merged in 1983; Crewe had gone for Labour since 1945. Conservative candidate Edward Timpson ended those streaks, winning 49.5% of a large turnout to defeat Ms. Dunwoody's daughter, Tamsin, and eight other candidates.
Like their American cousins, though, British voters have been unclear as to whether they're shifting party allegiances out of enthusiasm for an ascendant opposition or mere frustration with the party in power. Tory leader David Cameron last night boasted that the election marked "the end of New Labour." The result is certainly a bad sign for Prime Minister Gordon Brown, whose desperate party had resorted to using class as a wedge issue: During the latter stages of the campaign, Labour supporters dressed in tail-coats and top hats trailed Mr. Timpson, trying to paint him as an out-of-touch "toff."
The more common refrain about Cameron's Tories is that it's a party with no ideas. But with the Brown government stumbling into a new crisis seemingly every day, simply being different is enough for now.
-- Kyle Wingfield
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Senator Vicki?
It took only hours after news of Senator Ted Kennedy's cancerous brain tumor before family retainers began maneuvering to keep the seat in the family.
The New York Daily News reports that Mr. Kennedy has told confidants he would like his wife Vicki to take his Senate seat. The 54-year-old Victoria Reggie Kennedy is the daughter of a politically active judge from Louisiana and has worked as a Washington lawyer.
But she isn't the only Kennedy with possible designs on the seat. Ted's nephew Joseph is sitting on $2 million in campaign funds left over from his time in Congress. On the downside, the younger Kennedy has baggage from a messy divorce and close ties to Venezuelan dictator Hugh Chavez, a benefactor of his Boston-based fuel company.
Some cynics speculate that the family is so eager to keep the seat that it might push one of the senator's sons, Rep. Patrick Kennedy, into running. There is the small matter that Mr. Kennedy currently represents neighboring Rhode Island in the House, but Boston wags note that Robert F. Kennedy had little connection with New York before he sought that state's Senate seat in 1964.
Given that this year's presidential election once was shaping up as the sixth consecutive race in which a Bush or Clinton was the presidential candidate of a major party, it's safe to say nepotism is making a comeback in America's public life. There remains a deep-seated American belief that those who gain public office through artificial privilege should be viewed with suspicion. But voters nevertheless seem to be resigned to the art form that nepotism has become. If another Kennedy should now take over the Senate seat that has been in the family for 54 of the last 56 years, it will only be one of the most brazen examples of a troubling trend in U.S. politics.
-- John Fund
Thanks for the Memories, Tom
Virginia Rep. Tom Davis stirred the pot with his widely-distributed memo last week on the failings of the Republican Party as it heads into the fall elections. In media interviews, Mr. Davis went further and predicted that John McCain would be a "20-point loser" if Democrats succeed in tagging him as "Bush III."
On paper, Mr. Davis's critique of Republican prospects offers some useful insights as he prepares to take himself out of the fray by retiring in the fall. In real life, his own career offers a vivid example of why the GOP is in big trouble.
Mr. Davis roiled the party with his 20-page assertion that this year's political atmosphere is the worst for Republicans "since Watergate and is far more toxic than the fall of 2006." He plunged into the unfavorable polling data, surveyed the Democratic money advantage and concluded that the "Republican brand is in the trash can." Mr. Davis offered advice on policies the GOP might put forward to address voter concern about high energy prices and housing woes and the war in Iraq.
Yet this is the same Mr. Davis who last year requested a $1.5 billion earmark for the Washington D.C. Metro -- one of the largest requests in Congressional history. This is the same Mr. Davis who has made a career out of bragging about the federal money he's secured for Fairfax County, the wealthy Washington suburb he's represented for the last decade and half. In fact, take a look back through his 20-page memo and the one word you won't see is "earmark."
What's the old saying about actions speaking louder than words? Voters aren't going to believe Republicans have changed so long as they continue feeding at the trough. Mr. Davis suggested the GOP get a new "wardrobe." Voters might be looking for a GOP whose reforms go just a little deeper.
-- Kim Strassel
Quote of the Day I
"The Obama advocates declare that we have entered an entirely new political era. It is not only possible but also desirable, they say, for Democrats to win by turning away from those whom 'progressive' pundits and bloggers disdain variously as 'Nascar man,' whites, 'rubes, fools, and hate-mongers'.... In fact, all of the evidence demonstrates that white racism has not been a principal or even secondary motivation in any of this year's Democratic primaries. Every poll shows that economics, health care, and national security are the leading issues for white working class voters -- and for Latino working class voters as well. These constituencies have cast positive ballots for Hillary Clinton not because she is white, but because they regard her as better on these issues. Obama's campaign and its passionate supporters refuse to acknowledge that these voters consider him weaker.... Instead they impute racism to working class Democrats who, the polls also show, happen to be liberal on every leading issue. The effort to taint anyone who does not support Obama as motivated by racism has now become a major factor in alienating core Democrats from Obama's campaign" -- Princeton historian Sean Wilentz, writing at HuffingtonPost.com.
Quote of the Day II
"t seems increasingly clear that what we have avoided with fire-arms is now being delivered through another weapon and, terrifyingly, one which is tougher to control. There have been 100 stabbings in London in the first five months of this year -- including, in the past six days, the Oxford Street murder of Steven Bigby, 22, and the baker's shop killing of 16-year-old Jimmy Mizen, who now joins Stephen Lawrence and Damilola Taylor among the symbolic martyrs of a despairing era of street-life. Our biggest mistake was to assume guns are the greatest threat to life. Knives are easier to find -- they are present in every kitchen -- and simpler to use. It is impossible to improvise a gun from stuff found in the gutter or on a supermarket shelf, but a bottle can become a dagger with one smash. Gun control is difficult; knife control is all but impossible" -- Mark Lawson, a columnist for the Guardian, on the failure of Britain's sweeping ban on private gun ownership to halt violent crime.
Spoiler vs. Spoiler
Former Georgia Congressman Bob Barr had to sweat to become the Libertarian Party's presidential nominee over the weekend. The former Republican won 54% of the delegates on the sixth ballot, beating out Mary Ruwart, a scientist and educator whose individualistic purity is such that she believes child pornography shouldn't be outlawed.
To win, Mr. Barr had to renounce many of his votes in Congress, including those in favor of the Patriot Act and the federal Defense of Marriage Act. Such concessions along with a strong debate performance apparently satisfied enough delegates that his less-than-pure record was outweighed by the media attention a Barr candidacy would gather for the Libertarian cause.
But will that attention translate into enough votes to cost John McCain the presidential election, much as Ralph Nader is said to have "spoiled" Florida for Al Gore in 2000? Libertarians say that's the wrong question, because while journalists routinely assume the party's supporters are disgruntled conservatives, many are actually liberals who oppose drug laws, foreign policy interventions and federal surveillance measures.
Indeed, a new Rasmussen Reports poll finds that in a four-way race, Barack Obama wins 42% of the vote, McCain 38%, Bob Barr 6% and Ralph Nader 4%. Significantly, Mr. Barr picks up 7% of the Republican vote, only slightly more than the 5% vote he draws from Democrats. He also wins 5% of those unaffiliated with any party. If anything, Mr. Nader's backers skew more in the direction of Mr. Nader's own leftish views. The consumer advocate collects only 1% of the Republican vote, but 3% of the Democratic vote and 8% support from the unaffiliated.
Of course, third-party candidates always poll better in the summer before the fall campaign, which usually ends up driving voters into one major party camp or the other. Ralph Nader wound up with only 2.7% of the vote in 2000, and well under 1% four years later. The best Libertarian showing came in 1980, when Ed Clark won 1.1% of the national vote.
Only if this fall's election is as close as the Bush-Gore race of 2000, Mr. Barr or Mr. Nader could indeed play a determining role in who ultimately wins. But caution is advised in drawing conclusions about which major party either man will draw the most votes from.
-- John Fund
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Tsunami
If elections for the U.S. Senate were held today, they would be a disaster for the Republican Party approaching the scale of its 2006 defeat when the GOP lost six seats in the upper chamber. That's the conclusion as analysts examine the latest polling on the 35 seats in contention this November.
The Hill newspaper reports that Democratic candidates now have a lead or are within the margin of error in races for a stunning 11 Senate seats held by the GOP -- meaning almost half of the 23 Republican-held seats are in serious jeopardy. In contrast, only one of the 12 Democratic seats in play this year (Mary Landrieu's in Louisiana) is currently at serious risk.
Admittedly, polls at this stage in a race often prove poor forecasting tools, especially if one of the candidates is not well known. In addition, incumbents often are able eventually to recover by bringing their superior fund-raising firepower to bear and resetting the campaign agenda to their advantage.
Still, Republicans admit to being worried that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is trailing his Democratic challenger by five points in a new Rasmussen Reports poll. A rattled McConnell campaign promptly released its own poll showing their man with an 11-point lead.
Similar worry is being expressed about Senator Elizabeth Dole in North Carolina. A new poll from the Civitas Institute has her holding only a two-point lead over her Democratic opponent.
Other seats held by GOP Senators John Cornyn of Texas and Roger Wicker of Mississippi are also in jeopardy. No one expects Republicans to lose all of the seats now threatened, but Democrats in theory could achieve their goal of a filibuster-proof 60 seat majority in the Senate, allowing them potentially to ram through a far-reaching agenda with the help of a Democratic House and a new Democratic president.
-- John Fund
Mugged by Reality
John McCain is discovering just how tricky it can be to comply with our nation's Byzantine campaign-finance laws. At least it couldn't have happened to a nicer guy, since he wrote many of those laws and defends them so vigorously.
Last week he cashiered Craig Shirley, a consultant to the campaign, after Politico.com asked how Mr. Shirley could be working for the McCain campaign at the same time that he was being paid by a 527 group called "Stop Her Now." Mr. Shirley describes "Stop Her Now" as a "lighthearted" 527, not a swift-boating operation, but that wasn't enough to save his McCain account.
Mr. Shirley downplayed the connection, and the McCain campaign pleaded ignorance. But it's just the latest sign that even a careful campaign can run afoul of McCain-Feingold's intrusive restrictions on political speech. Such 527 groups were created to evade the law's restrictions on fund-raising and spending by candidates, so to pass legal muster they have to evince "independence" and a lack of "coordination" with any candidate's campaign. That's harder to do when the same personnel are working for both.
You can expect more such stories between now and November about campaign consultants and staffers with fingers in multiple pies -- the hapless Rube Goldbergism of the campaign finance laws virtually guarantees it. And the Senator from Arizona has himself to thank.
-- Brian M. Carney
The Obama Doctrine
HONG KONG -- Look no further than this week's meeting between South Korean President Lee Myung-bak and Chinese leader Hu Jintao. The international trading order is reshaping itself in ways that seem to anticipate a Democratic victory in November's U.S. presidential election.
As difficult as the China-Korea relationship has been, China is already Korea's largest trading partner, and now both have placed a possible free-trade agreement on their to-do lists. South Korea is considering moving forward with such a deal (and, for that matter, a similar pact with the European Union) even as its free-trade deal with the U.S. languishes unratified in Washington. The message to the Democratic Congress is clear: The world will move on while American politicians stall.
Barack Obama, who has been all over the map on trade, should take note. He recently pledged to "maintain strong ties" with South Korea, yet has adopted the Democratic litmus stance of opposing free-trade deals. The Europeans and China's Mr. Hu understand why this won't fly in today's world even if Mr. Obama apparently doesn't.
-- Joseph Sternberg
Quote of the Day
"Imagine that John McCain named a young running mate to campaign with him, and this national rookie suggested America had 58 states, repeatedly used the wrong names for the cities he was visiting, and honored a Memorial Day crowd by acknowledging the 'fallen heroes' who were present, somehow alive and standing in the audience. How long would it take for the national media to see another Dan Quayle caricature? Let's raise the stakes. What if it was the GOP presidential candidate making these thoroughly ridiculous comments? This scenario is very real, except it isn't McCain. It's the other fellow. ABC reporter Jake Tapper follows politicians around for a living. On his blog, he suggested Barack Obama has a problem: 'The man has been a one-man gaffe machine'" -- Brent Bozell, head of the conservative Media Research Center.
He's Seen Their Kind Before
The Senate is poised to debate a controversial "cap and trade" system that would put an overall limit on U.S. carbon emissions in an effort to combat global warming. Czech President Vaclav Klaus, an economist who has studied Europe's experience with cap-and-trade, flew into Washington yesterday to tell the National Press Club just how bad an idea it really is.
Mr. Klaus is the author of a new book, "Blue Planet in Green Shackles -- What is Endangered: Climate or Freedom?" He argues that the regulatory ambitions of today's global warming crowd "resemble very much the dreams of communist central planners" who ruled his country from 1948 to 1989.
"The largest threat to freedom, democracy, the market economy and prosperity at the beginning of the 21st century is no longer socialism,'' he told the National Press Club. "It is, instead, the ambitious, arrogant, unscrupulous ideology of environmentalism. Like their [communist] predecessors, they will be certain that they have the right to sacrifice man and his freedom to make their idea reality. In the past, it was in the name of the Marxists or of the proletariat -- this time, in the name of the planet."
After his talk, Mr. Klaus was asked why so many scientists seem to have climbed onto the global warming bandwagon. He replied that the careers and funding sources of many scientists now are dependent on "climate alarmism" and climate alarmists have become an interest group with the power to intimidate into silence skeptical colleagues and public figures. The climate issue, he added, "is in the hands of climatologists and other related scientists who are highly motivated to look in one direction only."
Yesterday, Mr. Klaus demonstrated that he remains one influential figure more than happy to challenge the conventional wisdom in public. He noted that he had several times challenged Al Gore to debate but had been refused. Mr. Gore has said that such debates would only elevate the skeptics, but he may have another motivation for avoiding Mr. Klaus. As the late William F. Buckley once put it, "Why does bologna reject the grinder?"
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Clinton Time
Hillary Clinton continues to feverishly campaign, convinced she can pull out a symbolic nationwide popular-vote lead when the final states finish their primaries on June 3.
Right now, she actually leads Barack Obama by a hair if the Florida and Michigan primary votes are counted, but the Democratic National Committee has ruled those votes invalid. If Mrs. Clinton does well in Puerto Rico this coming weekend, she could overtake Mr. Obama in the popular vote even excluding Michigan, where he removed himself from the ballot and she didn't.
Of course, Mr. Obama's simple reply is that it's only delegates that count and right now he has 190 more delegates than she does. But that won't stop Mrs. Clinton from using every argument on the party's Rules and Bylaws Committee's special meeting that will be held this Saturday. She has already compared the need to seat the delegations of the two states to the abolition of slavery and the likely stolen election in Zimbabwe. She scored a half victory when party lawyers conceded at least the principle this week, issuing a brief recommending that half the Florida and Michigan delegates be seated.
In the end, the result will likely be determined more by raw political power than rhetoric, logical or strained. The 30-member committee has 13 Hillary backers serving on it, eight Obama supporters and the rest haven't declared a preference. The most likely outcome? Don Fowler, a former chair of the DNC who supports Mrs. Clinton, thinks the committee is likely to relent and seat some delegates, but he says "even I would assert that there has to be some kind of retribution, some kind of sanction" for the two states jumping the DNC's primary calendar.
But that may not end the matter. If Mrs. Clinton doesn't like the result and is still contesting the nomination, she is free to appeal any decision to the party's Credentials Committee. That committee could hold its first meeting on the matter as early as June 29.
Mr. Obama and the media have more or less declared the Democratic nomination fight over. But Mrs. Clinton knows that as soon as the primaries end, the contest moves into the backrooms where legal maneuvering and strong-arm tactics are in play. For those looking for a reason why Mrs. Clinton is continuing to fight on, everyone knows those are skills the Clintons excel in.
-- John Fund
Democrats, Be Careful What You Wish For
On Tuesday, Sen. Hillary Clinton sent a letter to all Democratic superdelegates in which she makes what may be her final plea for the nomination. Brush away the gobbledygook and we are left with this key paragraph:
"I am ahead in states that have been critical to victory in the past two elections. From Ohio, to Pennsylvania, to West Virginia and beyond, the results of recent primaries in battleground states show that I have strong support from the regions and demographics Democrats need to take back the White House. I am also currently ahead of Senator McCain in Gallup national tracking polls, while Senator Obama is behind him. And nearly all independent analyses show that I am in a stronger position to win the Electoral College, primarily because I lead Senator McCain in Florida and Ohio."
Unfortunately for Mrs. Clinton, it is also almost certainly too late. Whether it's the superdelegates or the Democratic National Committee, everyone wants the race to end soon after the final primaries are held next week. And the only way for it to end quickly is to give the nomination to Sen. Barack Obama.
That may turn out to be a mistake for Democrats, because Mrs. Clinton's case -- that she is the strongest general election candidate -- continues to be supported by the polls. Gallup recently looked at the 20 states where Mrs. Clinton has prevailed in the popular vote this primary season and found that she "is currently running ahead of McCain... while Obama is tied with McCain in those same states." Those states include Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Arkansas, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida and Michigan -- all swing states come the general election. In Gallup's analysis of these swing states, Mrs. Clinton leads Mr. McCain by six points, while Mr. Obama is losing to Mr. McCain by three points.
Gallup further notes that "Clinton's 20 states represent more than 300 Electoral College votes while Obama's 28 states and the District of Columbia represent only 224 Electoral College votes." In the general election, Mrs. Clinton would not win every state she has won in the primaries, nor would Mr. Obama lose every state in the general he has lost in the primaries. But things get trickier for Mr. Obama. As Gallup found, in the 28 states Mr. Obama has won this primary season, "he is performing no better than Clinton is in general-election trial heats versus McCain." With little else to go on at this stage in the general election, Gallup's analysis should be a powerful tool in Mrs. Clinton's campaign for superdelegates.
And yet at this point there is not much the superdelegates can do if they wish to avoid a contested convention. But remember these numbers (and Mrs. Clinton's letter), because if nominating Mr. Obama turns out to be the blunder this data suggests it could be, then all the finger-pointing and recriminations that will come after the first Tuesday in November will wind its way back to where we are right now.
-- Blake Dvorak, RealClearPolitics.com
Quote of the Day I
"If Scott McClellan's allegations about President Bush sound as if he copied them from the editorial page of any liberal newspaper, there is a reason for it: As White House press secretary, McClellan was not privy to sensitive policy decisions and therefore has no specifics to back up his charges.... [H]e alleges that the administration repeatedly shaded the truth [in making the case for the Iraq war] and that Bush 'managed the crisis in a way that almost guaranteed that the use of force would become the only feasible option.' McClellan cites no details, and for good reason. McClellan was not invited to attend classified meetings where the decisions about going to war were discussed" -- Ronald Kessler, Washington bureau chief for Newsmax.com, on former White House media adviser Scott McClellan's new book criticizing the selling of the Iraq war.
Quote of the Day II
"If he revs up the Republican convention and speaks for John McCain... I will feel a disappointment and a hurt. But I hope Democrats will give him a pass for the same reason that I would give him a pass and forgive him, because he's a progressive Democrat who gave us [control of] the U.S. Senate. To do otherwise smacks of cynicism, revenge, and lack of gratitude" -- former Clinton adviser and Lieberman friend Lanny Davis, quoted in the National Journal on the growing mood among Senate Democrats and staffers to punish Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman for supporting Republican John McCain for president.
Local Hero
Mitt Romney may be adding another state to the long list for which he can claim a personal connection should he choose to run for president again. Later this month, the former venture capitalist and governor is closing on a home in La Jolla, just north of San Diego. Mr. Romney's office says he has no intention of running for statewide office in California, noting that one of his five sons lives near San Diego and his wife Ann often visits the area to ride horses.
But owning a house in the state that sends the largest single delegation to Republican conventions certainly could help Mr. Romney, as it would facilitate building relationships with donors, officeholders and volunteers. Last week, Mr. Romney announced he was forming the Free and Strong America political action committee to facilitate his funneling support to fellow Republicans.
With California added, Mr. Romney now has an impressive list of places he can sort of call "home." He was born in Michigan, where his late father's record as governor helped him carry that state's primary this year. He successfully ran the 2000 Winter Olympics in Utah, where he also maintains a home. Then there is his summer home in New Hampshire, a useful staging area for meeting voters in the nation's first primary state. Oh, and then finally there is Massachusetts, where Mr. Romney spent much of his business career and where he served as governor from 2003 to 2007.
All in all, an impressive haul. The five states where Mr. Romney either has homes or family ties represent a fifth of the country's population. That puts to shame even Hillary Clinton's multiple state connections which involved Illinois where she was born, Arkansas where she was First Lady, and New York where she was elected to the Senate.
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June 4, 2008
In today's Political Diary:
- Obama By a Nose (Uplifted)
- Hillary for Veep?
- Osama School of Journalism (Quote of the Day I)
- Bad Man (Quote of the Day II)
- Voters vs. the Climate Gang
A Less Than Convincing Victory
Barack Obama effectively won the Democratic nomination last night, and he must be
relieved the long primary season is over. Every primary since early March has
demonstrated a worrying inability on his part to expand his coalition within the
Democratic Party. The Montana and South Dakota primaries last night showed him once
again winning upper-class Democrats who frequent Starbucks, while salt-of-the-earth
Democrats who like Dunkin Donuts coffee are still with Hillary Clinton.
In Montana, Mr. Obama won 75% of the vote in trendy Bozeman, where Ted Turner and
other celebrities have ranches. He won only 50% in Billings, the state's largest
city. He won college-educated voters but not those without college educations.
Meanwhile, in winning South Dakota yesterday, Mrs. Clinton won six out of ten female
voters and split men with Mr. Obama.
There are other troubling signs for Mr. Obama in yesterday's primary numbers. Once
again, Mrs. Clinton carried the one-fifth of voters who made up their minds in the
last week of campaigning -- winning that group by six points in Montana and a
stunning 26 points in South Dakota.
Worse for Mr. Obama, about one-fourth of Clinton voters in Montana told exit
pollsters they would plump for John McCain in November if his opponent is Barack
Obama. Another 10% said they planned to stay home. In South Dakota, about 15% of
Clinton supporters indicated a preference for Mr. McCain and an equal number said
they didn't plan to vote in the fall.
Mr. Obama has pulled off a remarkable feat in snatching the nomination from someone
who once appeared to be an invincible frontrunner. But he did so without ever
cracking into Mrs. Clinton's support among working-class, female, and older white
voters. Mr. Obama's hopes of winning the White House will hinge on whether he can
reach those voters in the fall election.
-- John Fund.
Inside the Tent or Out?
Can Hillary Clinton cajole or bully Barack Obama into putting her on his ticket as
the vice presidential candidate? It won't be for lack of trying. Yesterday, Mrs.
Clinton said she "was open" to the idea. In reality, her allies behind the scenes
are pushing the idea hard, with the emphasis on bullying.
"Last night, when Obama went over the top in delegates and could claim the
nomination as his, Hillary organized a rally of all of her supporters, directly
competing for airtime with the newly minted nominee," notes Dick Morris, the former
Clinton political consultant who is now a strong critic of the couple.
On another front, a group called HillaryGrassrootsCampaign.com sent out an email
last night claiming to represent a half-million Hillary backers "who are ready to be
'former' Democrats because of the contempt and disregard that has been shown to the
many party faithful who support Sen. Clinton's presidential candidacy." The implied
message is that Hillary backers might be coaxed back into the fold if she were made
the vice presidential nominee.
On the surface, Mrs. Clinton has a good argument that she could combine her
lower-income supporters with the upscale liberals that form the heart of Mr. Obama's
coalition. But in reality, the bitterness that Obama advisers, especially his wife
Michelle, harbor against Mrs. Clinton may override any matchmaking efforts.
Then there is the issue of governing. Should Mr. Obama become president, no doubt
Mrs. Clinton will demand a relevant role shaping public policy -- and one that could
conflict with Obama priorities. There's also the issue of Bill Clinton, who would
soak up Washington media attention as the spouse of a vice president. Given the
former president's recent penchant for seemingly uncontrollable outbursts, not all
the attention would necessarily be good.
Mrs. Clinton may desperately want the visibility of the vice presidential nomination
as a way to extend her political shelf life for a future presidential run. But right
now, she is far from having convinced Team Obama that she can transform herself into
a trusted and loyal member of their team.
-- John Fund
Quote of the Day I
"The New York Times won the Pulitzer for revealing the fact of the Terrorist
Surveillance Program. Now, with all due respect to being here in the National Press
Club with a lot of my friends in the press, I thought the idea that The New York
Times would win the Pulitzer Prize, one of the highest awards in journalism, for
revealing one of the nation's most important secrets and telling the enemy how it
was we were intercepting their communications, frankly was less than honorable. It
bothered me, greatly" -- Vice President Dick Cheney, speaking Monday at the Gerald
R. Ford Journalism Prize Luncheon:
Quote of the Day II
"Why do we love to believe that mankind is a plague upon the Earth? We view anything
and everything that happens in nature, no matter how barbaric, bloody, or
destructive, as good. Indeed, the word 'natural' has no negative connotation at all.
If a volcano like Mt. Pinatubo in the Philippines dumps millions of tons of sulfur
into the stratosphere, cooling the Earth for two or three years, this is simply
Mother Nature at work. If humans did it, we would call it an environmental
catastrophe" -- University of Alabama climate scientist Roy Spencer, writing in
National Review.
Voters on Cap and Trade: Just Say No
Today the Senate will take its first major vote on the cap-and-trade
Lieberman-Warner bill to reduce global warming. It's expected to fail to get the 60
votes needed for passage, but what's more important is that the U.S. voting public
is almost universally against paying the costs.
A just-released Wilson Research Poll commissioned by the National Center for Public
Policy Research finds that 91% of respondents do not want to pay even the
conservative cost estimates associated with cap and trade. The poll also found that
71% are not willing to pay more for electricity and 65% don't want to pay even a
penny more at the pump for gasoline.
"If you ask the public do they want to do something to fight global warming, they
say 'sure,'" says David Ridenour, the director of NCPPR. "But when you ask them if
they want to pay more for cap and trade, they almost universally say 'no.'" In other
words, only if it's a free lunch are voters willing to go along. And given the high
costs and uncertainty of any benefits from policies to prevent climate change, it's
far from clear that voters are being irrational here.
A spokesman from the Pew Center on Global Climate Change objects that such polls and
studies don't take account of the "offsetting benefits to the economy from cap and
trade." But those benefits are speculative at best. A study by climate expert
Patrick J. Michaels of the University of Virginia estimates that cap and trade would
only lower temperatures by 0.01 degrees by 2050, which is hardly going to yield
major economic windfalls.
The Lieberman-Warner plan would increase petroleum prices by 5.9% by 2015, according
to Duke University's Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions. The
National Association of Manufacturers estimates that the Lieberman-Warner proposal
would increase electricity prices by about 13%. With oil prices exceeding $120 a
barrel, Americans want the Senate to find ways to lower, not raise, their energy
bills.
-- Stephen Moore
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BO picks Holder who helped get Marc Rich pardoned in Clinton's final days. The Clintons are down but we all know they will *not* go away. There people will still be trying to control behind the scenes. Hillary will probably be made a health care czar which for me as a primary care physician is not something I would want to see. She will spend every second positioning for her next run. I really don't wish anything bad on anyone. But it just seems the only way our country will be rid of them is when they die. And then we will have Chelsea....
McCain can beat BO. The Republicans have to wake up and rally behind him. As usual the religious right holds the center of the Republican party hostage.
BO's first mistake:
***By Dick Morris And Eileen McGann
06.4.2008
Published in The New York Post on June 5, 2008.
On his first day as the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, Barack Obama made his first clear, serious mistake: He named Eric Holder as one of three people charged with vice-presidential vetting.
As deputy attorney general, Holder was the key person who made the pardon of Marc Rich possible in the final hours of the Clinton presidency. Now, Obama will be stuck in the Marc Rich mess.
If ever there was a person who did not deserve a presidential pardon, it’s Marc Rich, the fugitive billionaire who renounced his US citizenship and moved to Switzerland to avoid prosecution for racketeering, wire fraud, 51 counts of tax fraud, evading $48 million in taxes, and engaging in illegal trades with Iran in violation of the US embargo following the 1979-80 hostage crisis.
Seventeen years later, Rich wanted a pardon, and he retained Jack Quinn, former counsel to the president, to lobby his old boss.
It was Holder who had originally recommended Quinn to one of Rich’s advisers, although he claims that he did not know the identity of the client.
And he gave substantive advice to Quinn along the way. According to Quinn’s notes that were produced to Congress, Holder told Quinn to take the pardon application “straight to the White House” because “the timing is good.”
And once the pardon was granted, Holder sent his congratulations to Quinn.
In 2002, a congressional committee reported that Holder was a “willing participant in the plan to keep the Justice Department from knowing about and opposing” the Rich pardon.
It is one thing to reach back to Obama’s pastor to raise doubts about his values. But it is quite another to scrutinize the record of his first appointee.
It couldn’t be a bigger mistake.***
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Disagreeing strongly with one of my favorite posters, CCP:
"The Republicans have to wake up and rally behind him (McCain). As usual the religious right holds the center of the Republican party hostage."
McCain has made a career out of opposing his party and especially the right wing. I wrote previously about loving his tax plan. His support for Cap and Trade IMO wipes out my enthusiasm entirely. Same goes for opposition to producing oil in America, ANWR etc. My intensity is doubled by having a clone of his on our ballot for re-election, Sen. Norm Coleman (R-MN).
The 'religious right' made a mistake going for Huckabee who wasn't a conservative, could never win the nomination, could NEVER win the election, and tipped the balance to McCain.
McCain's problems with conservatives are his own choice and strategy. He thinks there is more future for him courting independents and he assumes they have nowhere else to go. So far that has worked fine for him.
I've already argued hard with conservative friends and relatives that it is worth it just for judicial appointments and prosecuting the war on terror, for examples, to have McCain and not a liberal Democrat in White House. Yet it makes arguing political differences nearly impossible when we see prominent Republican fingerprints on failed liberal programs and policies. Those who say they will sit out also have a point. Fiscal conservatism was not advanced by having Bush rather than Gore in the White House. Out of control spending would likely have been the same either way but now there isn't a party left to turn to for spending restraint.
I plan to vote for McCain and Sen. Coleman, but I wouldn't travel far or wait in line to do it. I didn't show up as a delegate for our state convention last week. It didn't make sense for me to drive to Rochester, MN to endorse 2 candidates who don't support my right to buy and consume modest amounts of gasoline to get there while they jet across the country and around the world without conscience or apology.
Our other Senator is an Obama liberal, Amy Klobuchar. Against a conservative, she must have invoked the name John McCain on her side on issues at least twelve times in her debates to validate that her posistion was not that of a fringe liberal extremist.
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Doug:
You make your points well.
For me not throwing away our sacrifices in Iraq especially now that things are looking up, carries A LOT of weight with me. BO opposed the Surge, and now wants to undo the proof that he was profoundly wrong.
McCain's record on gun rights is not perfect, but BO's intentions are absolutley terrible.
BO would open the borders, give driver licenses to illegals and make dariver licenses sufficient proof to vote.
BO would socialize health care. You think it is expensive now-- wait until BO makes it free! McCain at least seeks steps towards freer markets.
The matter of judicial appointments also carries heavy weight with me-- BO would be affirmative action for liberals in action-- the juidges he would appoint would put us under the UN, castrate the second amendment, and much more and worse.
===========
June 5, 2008
In today's Political Diary:
- From Green to Blue
- Haunted by Rezko
- Yes, Virginia, Virginia Will Matter in 2008
- Not Ready for Prime Time
Climate Change Collapse
Environmentalists are stunned that their global warming agenda is in collapse.
Senator Harry Reid has all but conceded he lacks the vote for passage in the Senate
and that it's time to move on. Backers of the Warner-Lieberman cap-and-trade bill
always knew they would face a veto from President Bush, but they wanted to flex
their political muscle and build momentum for 2009. That strategy backfired. The
green groups now look as politically intimidating as the skinny kid on the beach who
gets sand kicked in his face.
Those groups spent millions advertising and lobbying to push the cap-and-trade bill
through the Senate. But it would appear the political consensus on global warming
was as exaggerated as the alleged scientific consensus. "With gasoline selling at $4
a gallon, the Democrats picked the worst possible time to bring up cap and trade,"
says Dan Clifton, a political analyst for Strategas Research Partners. "This issue
is starting to feel like the Hillary health care plan."
It's a good analogy. Originally, Hillary health care had towering levels of support,
but once people looked at the cost and complexity they cringed. Jobs were on the
mind yesterday of Senator Arlen Specter, who has endorsed a tamer version of
cap-and-trade. "Workers in Pennsylvania worry that this will send jobs to China," he
tells me. They're smart to worry. Look no further than the failure of the Kyoto
countries to live up to their promised emissions cuts. Bjorn Lomborg, the author of
the Skeptical Environmentalist, tells me: "The Europeans are so far behind schedule,
it is almost inconceivable that they will meet their targets."
Even John McCain, a cap-and-trade original co-sponsor, now says that this scheme
won't fly until China and India sign on -- which could be never.
Senators also criticized Warner-Lieberman's failure to clearly specify what would
happen with the vast revenues the climate bill would generate -- some $1 trillion
over the first decade, which environmental groups wanted as a slush fund to finance
"green technologies." Senator Judd Gregg of New Hampshire insisted the proceeds be
used for other tax cuts, like the elimination of the corporate income tax. The
Natural Resources Defense Council desperately tried to persuade Congress in the 11th
hour that the expensive price tag is a bargain because "the cost of inaction" would
reach $1.8 trillion by 2100 due to increased hurricanes and rising oceans -- an
argument without a shred of scientific or fiscal credibility.
Republicans in the Senate this week did such a masterful job of picking the cap and
trade bill apart with objections, yesterday Barbara Boxer of California was pulling
her hair out with frustration, as one Republican leadership staffer put it.
Environmentalists have always eyed 2009 as the real target year for enactment. But
there was no show of strength this week and cap-and-trade may have reached its
political high water mark. Conservatives at least are in a far stronger position now
to demand major pro-growth tax cuts in exchange for new global warming taxes.
-- Stephen Moore
And Then There's Rezko
Barack Obama released a statement last night saying he was "saddened" that Tony
Rezko, his old friend and top fundraiser, had been convicted on 16 out of 24 counts
of fraud and political corruption by a Chicago jury. Previously, Mr. Obama felt
compelled to donate over $150,000 in Rezko-linked campaign contributions to charity.
But that probably won't be enough to erase Tony Rezko from the 2008 fall campaign as
an issue. Mr. Rezko offered Mr. Obama a job back in 1990 just as he was leaving
Harvard Law School. Mr. Obama didn't take it, but nonetheless became close to the
Syrian-born political fixer. In 2005, Mr. Rezko was helpful in Mr. Obama's purchase
of a large Hyde Park house by having his wife, Rita, buy the adjoining garden on the
same day Mr. Obama closed his transaction. Mr. Obama has since said the move was a
"bone-headed" mistake, especially since newspapers were already full of reports that
Mr. Rezko was being investigated on charges he had corruptly influenced appointments
made by Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich.
Mr. Obama has yet to answer a lot of questions about his relationship with Mr. Rezko
or his business partner, Iraqi-British billionaire Nadhmi Auchi. He claims the Rezko
case simply highlights the need for more campaign finance reform laws. Yesterday, he
issued a statement adding that the man convicted in a Chicago courtroom "isn't the
Tony Rezko I knew." Hmmm... But Mr. Obama knew him as a close friend and ally for
over 20 years as Mr. Rezko rose to become Illinois' top political fixer. Exactly
which Tony Rezko did Mr. Obama know?
As for Gov. Blagojevich, Chicago political observers believe the Rezko verdict will
tighten the net around him. Federal prosecutors have already subpoenaed his campaign
records, scrutinized his donors, and looked into his wife's real estate dealings.
-- John Fund
Obama in Wilder Country
Like Barack Obama, Doug Wilder was serving only his second year in state-wide office
when, in September 1991, he launched a run for president. Elected in 1989 as
governor of Virginia and the first black governor of any state, his achievement had
been all the more impressive for coming in a state where just three decades earlier
much of the Democratic Party leadership had declared "Massive Resistance" to
desegregation.
However, his presidential star never burned as brightly as Mr. Obama's and Mr.
Wilder is now finishing up a stint as the reformist mayor of troubled Richmond. But
his home state could still play a pivotal role in sending the first African-American
to the White House. Tonight Mr. Obama will speak in Virginia in his first campaign
event since wrapping up the nomination.
Despite the fact that Virginia has voted Republican in 10 straight presidential
elections, the Old Dominion appears up for grabs in Mr. Obama's fall race against
John McCain. The Illinois Senator will need to score big gains in the overwhelmingly
Democratic suburbs in Northern Virginia if he's to carry the state. He'll also
likely need to win some Appalachian counties in western Virginia, which Hillary
Clinton won in the February 12 primary and where Mr. Wilder won a surprising amount
of support in his 1989 gubernatorial victory.
According to his Richmond mayoral office, Mr. Wilder will not be attending Mr.
Obama's event tonight, but he's sure to campaign for him over the next five months.
"As I watched last night the certification of the nomination of Barack Obama, I was
filled with many emotions," Mr. Wilder said yesterday. "I was proud and appreciative
of how far we had come in this country.... He has done this without making any
claims to be running to 'make history' but instead, to be the best possible
candidate for the position."
-- Kyle Trygstad, RealClearPolitics.com
(http://oj1.opinionjournal.com/redir3/9RG.ObBAB!http//www.realclearpolitics.com/)
The Gang That Couldn't Primary Straight
Republicans have had terrible problems recruiting top-notch Senate candidates this
year, but in Massachusetts and Montana they appear to have recruited Keystone Kops.
In Massachusetts, former Air Force officer Jim Ogonowski was at least a credible
candidate, having nearly won a special election for the House last year. He promptly
built on that showing by announcing he would challenge Sen. John Kerry. But there
was the small matter of making the ballot.
This week it was revealed that Mr. Ogonowski had only turned in 9,970 legal
signatures on his petitions, falling 30 short of the required number. This means the
lone GOP candidate on the primary ballot will be security business owner Jeff Beatty
-- by no means the party's first choice.
But at least Mr. Beatty is serious. In Montana, Republicans this week had to witness
the humiliating spectacle of seeing their Senate nomination go to an 85-year-old
eccentric who was the Green Party's candidate in the last statewide election and
only ran as a Republican this time because he wanted a bigger stage for his platform
to turn the U.S. into a parliamentary democracy.
Butte attorney Bob Kelleher has lost 14 previous races for office, having started
out as a Democrat who finally switched to the Greens after 30 years of losses. The
Green Party repudiated him, saying he didn't represent its views either. Now he's
the Republican Party's headache. At least the debates between Mr. Kelleher and
Senate incumbent Max Baucus will be entertaining.
-- John Fund
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Doug,
I'm glad you posted your thoughts. McCain is certainly not ideal to me either. But appeasing the religious right is simply not going to win an election on a national scale IMO anymore. Reagan is history. His second term was not so great. Remember the stupid Iran - Contra, savings and loan mess that he did absolutely nothing about. Thanks to him we have the illegal immigrant mess we have to today. the entire face and nature of the country is changing today because of that. And the vast majority of immigrants who come here vote Democrat. *There were no entitlements* when my grandparents came off the boat. So people who say the comparison is legit are lying - it ain't.
That all said Reagan was still the only president who I loved in my life time. But he's over. So are the 1980's. The party needs new ideas and leaders.
My thoughts are exactly with Marc's. BO will be a *disaster* for this country. He is a flaming liberal who as one blogger noted is a wolf in sheep's clothing. If the religious right wants to keep promoting ideals while the crats are promising free everything to everyone then the election is over. We need concrete answers. The repubs need to compromise. I see no compromise from the religious right. And without winning over the Independents or "Reagan Democrats" forget about holding on to the White House. It is a nightmare to me if the crats get all 3 branches of government (including the Supreme Court).
As you know, if the right stays home they will get the worse of two evils - far worse. Please keep encouraging your conservative friends the same as you are doing.
I would personally have preferred Romney. But I doubt he had any chance to win a general election. By the way his universal health care in Massachusetts is I have read a disaster. Wait till BO and the crats do it on a national scale as Marc suggests.
-
A headline from the future with President Obama: "The Sunni-Shia Nuclear Arms Race Escalates".
I wonder how much gas will be then....
-
June 9, 2008
In today's Political Diary:
- Talk About Talk
- That Judge Thang
- Old and In the Way (Quote of the Day I)
- Warming Cooling (Quote of the Day II)
- Republic of the Media
Who's Lincoln? Who's Douglas?
For two candidates who have both benefited greatly from favorable media coverage,
Barack Obama and John McCain are now keeping the press at arms-length as they
negotiate a possible series of town hall meetings.
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and ABC News had jointly proposed a 90-minute
network special from Federal Hall in Manhattan as the kickoff event. ABC proposed
that its Diane Sawyer moderate the event.
But emissaries for the two candidates quickly decided they didn't want media
sponsors for any events they might agree to do. "Both campaigns have indicated that
any additional appearances will be open to all networks for broadcast on TV or
Internet... rather than sponsored by a single network or news organization," said a
statement from Team Obama. Sounds like both candidates have had quite enough of the
media picking the questions during this past campaign season's interminable series
of debates. Some of the debate questions turned out to be either downright silly or
demeaning.
But the candidates seem intrigued by the Lincoln-Douglas style debates where
candidates themselves control the agenda and the flow of the exchanges. The idea
isn't new on the presidential level. The late Barry Goldwater once said that he and
President John Kennedy discussed barnstorming across the country together and
debating in joint appearances. But no candidate has ever taken the tremendous risks
such a series of appearances would involve. Should the two candidates come to an
agreement this year, it would truly represent a whiff of the "new politics" that
both men proclaim they want to encourage.
-- John Fund
Judges Readathon
Last week's Senate reading of a 492-page climate bill amendment, demanded by
Republicans who blocked the customary vote to waive the reading, was more than a
parliamentary trick to slow consideration of the massive energy tax-and-spend
legislation. It was payback for Harry Reid's treatment of Bush administration
judicial nominations.
Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said the reading, which slowed Senate work to a halt
for much of last Wednesday, would "give the majority time to contemplate and
consider the importance of keeping your word."
Here's the background: In the days before the Memorial Day recess, Senate Majority
Leader Harry Reid abandoned a spring pledge to Republicans to do his "utmost" to
confirm three of the President's circuit court nominees. So far, only Steven Agee,
appointed to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, has been confirmed under Mr.
Reid's promised timeline. Two others for the same court, Bob Conrad and Steve
Matthews, have seen their nominations languish for nearly a year. As of today, only
eight circuit judges have been confirmed since the mid-term elections -- well off
the historical averages of 17 for President Reagan's last two years and 15 for
President Bill Clinton's. Mr. Reid had originally promised at least to equal the
pace of previous administrations, but his overriding goal now is to keep as many
judicial seats open as possible for the next Democratic president -- his party being
committed to the idea of rule through judges to enact a "progressive" agenda that
voters may not favor at the ballot box.
Which brings us to the irony of the climate bill. The GOP reading gambit ended up
saving Barack Obama from having to cast an unpopular vote for higher energy prices.
Having made a legislative gesture, Democrats can now return to Plan A -- relying on
the courts to deliver greenhouse regulation via the EPA and California's contested
auto mileage mandates.
-- Collin Levy
Quote of the Day I
"Expect open season in the coming campaign for implicitly bashing the elderly as
McCain's political foes and some media personalities stereotype him in ways that are
justifiably considered off limits regarding Barack Obama's race. Still, there is a
silver lining for McCain if Clinton's experience is any guide. Women voters rallied
to Clinton in response to the rampant sexism.... Democrats and media commentators
who relentlessly mock his age could end up rallying elder votes to his side" --
Congressional Quarterly political analyst Craig Crawford.
Quote of the Day II
"If tomorrow the theory of manmade global warming were proved to be a false alarm,
one might reasonably expect a collective sigh of relief from everyone. But instead
there would be cries of anguish from vested interests. About the only thing that
might cause global warming hysteria to end will be a prolonged period of cooling...
or at least, very little warming. We have now had at least six years without
warming, and no one really knows what the future will bring. And if warming does
indeed end, I predict that there will be no announcement from the scientific
community that they were wrong. There will simply be silence" -- University of
Alabama climate scientist Roy Spencer, writing at EnergyTribune.com.
The Media Primary
The presidential primaries are finally over. We know how the candidates fared with
voters but what did voters think of the news media that covered the race? If
objectivity and balance are the goals, not well at all. A new Rasmussen Reports
survey finds that 68% of Americans "believe most reporters try to help the candidate
that they want to win." Not surprisingly, a majority of voters also thought that
Barack Obama received the most favorable coverage during the primary season.
The belief that news reporters are often news twisters isn't confined to cranky
ideologues. It cuts across all racial, gender and income groups. A full 82% of
Republicans, 56% of Democrats and 69% of independents believe reporters try to give
an assist to the candidate they prefer. Only 17% of all voters believe most
reporters actually attempt to deliver unbiased coverage.
Barack Obama is likely to be the beneficiary of this favoritism come the fall
campaign. During the primaries 54% of those surveyed by Rasmussen thought he
received the most favorable coverage vs. 22% for John McCain and only 14% for
Hillary Clinton.
This fall, a full 44% of voters think the media will try to make Senator Obama look
good while only 13% think most reporters will tilt in Senator McCain's direction.
Even Democrats believe that the news media will be part of the Obama cheering
section -- 27% believe reporters will shape coverage in Mr. Obama's favor, 16% think
they will want Mr. McCain to win, while 34% think reporters will be largely
unbiased.
No real surprises in any of this. Nonetheless, I am still struck by how many
reporters insist to me that they "just report the facts" and firmly believe the
public overwhelmingly views them as impartial. Poll results like Rasmussen's show
most readers and viewers continue to be a lot more savvy than the people delivering
the news give them credit for being. Shouldn't that also be news? Somehow I doubt
the Rasmussen survey will get much coverage -- thereby proving its central message.
-- John Fund
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June 10, 2008
In today's Political Diary:
- If You Work, You're Rich
- Revolt of the Conservatives
- Shilly-Shallying on Shale (Quote of the Day)
- Beware the Food Police
Obama and the 'Rich'
Barack Obama has been on a class warfare tirade since he locked up the nomination,
accusing John McCain of defending Bush tax cuts for "the rich." "For eight long
years," he said yesterday in a speech laying out his economic agenda, "our president
sacrificed investments in health care, and education, and energy, and infrastructure
on the altar of tax breaks for big corporations and wealthy CEOs."
Hmmm. Anybody even dimly acquainted with the record, especially President Bush's
vast expansion of Medicare, might doubt the factual basis of such a statement. Never
mind. Mr. Obama and the Congressional Democrats promise to sock it to "rich"
taxpayers next year to pay for "middle class tax cuts" as well as some $300 billion
in new spending. But there's a problem: They won't tell us exactly who the rich are.
In various tax proposals Mr. Obama has set the definition of rich at levels of
$100,000, $200,000 and $250,000 in annual income. He has vowed, for example, to
erase the Bush tax cuts not only for those who make more than $250,000, but to end
the cap on Social Security taxes, which amounts to a tax hike on anyone who makes
more than $100,000 in income. More recently, Austan Goolsbee, an Obama economic
adviser, told me the new cap might be set at $200,000.
All of this has caused some heartburn among certain Democrats in high cost-of-living
states. New York Rep. Joseph Crowley says a couple with earnings of $100,000 could
be "a police officer and nurse." "In New York City," he adds, "they'd be
struggling."
A similar argument came to the fore as Democrats debated the recent farm bill. Under
the new law, farmers will be able to retain full subsidies even if they have incomes
of $750,000. Because of various gimmicks, the USDA says that farmers could even have
incomes up to $2 million and still be eligible for a farm welfare check. When it
comes to farmers, Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama apparently believe
that "soaking the rich" means soaking them with handouts.
This is not just a rhetorical exercise. It could tell us a lot about whether
Democrats can come anywhere close to paying for all their spending promises and
still meet their vow to balance the budget. One problem for Senator Obama and his
class-warfare crowd is that repealing the Bush tax cuts for those with earnings of
more than $250,000 would raise only about $40 billion a year, according to Cato
Institute economist Alan Reynolds. That would leave President Obama with a $360
billion shortfall to meet his other proposals. Either those nurses and policemen are
going to have to be defined as "rich" by Team Obama, or the Democrats' pledge of
balancing the budget in five years is a fantasy. Add the fact that his various
spending proposals will certainly prove more costly than projected. It sounds like
not just the top 2% but most of the bottom 98% had better get ready for higher taxes
under an Obama administration.
-- Stephen Moore
The Road Back
When told recently that Alaska Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell is running to unseat him in an
August Republican primary, Rep. Don Young had this to say to his challenger:
"Congratulations. I beat your dad and I'm going to beat you."
Mr. Young is the kind of politician journalists love to cover. He's quotable, feisty
and now he's in a real jam. Federal investigators have already searched his house
and are looking into his fundraising practices. One issue is an earmark the
congressman stuck into a spending bill for a Florida highway project that benefited
a campaign contributor. There's open speculation in Alaska that Mr. Young could be
indicted before the November election. His approval ratings are in the low 30s and
one recent poll found him dead even with Mr. Parnell.
This is where Mr. Parnell steps in. He hopes to become part of a growing trend of
conservatives rising up and defeating moderate and free-spending Republicans in GOP
primaries. Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, previously mayor of the town of Wasilla, started
the trend two years ago when she picked off Gov. Frank Murkowski. The imperious Mr.
Murkowski had drawn flak for appointing his daughter to a senate seat he vacated and
for insisting taxpayers pay for a new plane to ferry him about the state. And the
stable-cleaning movement has accelerated since then. Consider three congressional
races. In March, State Sen. Andy Harris defeated Capitol Hill veteran Rep. Wayne
Gilchrist in Maryland. In April, Pennsylvania entrepreneur Chris Hackett won an open
primary against wheelchair-manufacturer Dan Meuser, who had a record of campaign
donations to Democrats. And last week conservative State Sen. Tom McClintock
defeated former Congressman Doug Ose in California. On the Senate side, Steve Pearce
beat Heather Wilson in a New Mexico GOP primary despite her last-minute endorsement
by retiring Sen. Pete Domenici. In all these races, the winning candidate ran an
anti-pork campaign and promised conspicuously to remain true to his conservative
principles once in Washington.
Mr. Parnell say he isn't seeking revenge for his father Pat Parnell, who ran as a
Democrat and lost to Mr. Young in a blowout in 1980. But he is seeking to be a
leader in a campaign by conservatives to regain control of the Republican Party.
When the GOP lost control of Congress two years ago, optimists on the right said
that a detour into the political wilderness would be good for Republicans. The GOP,
they hoped, would rediscover its principles of fiscal conservatism, low taxes and
limited government. Mr. Young survived two years ago despite being the author the
infamous "Bridge to Nowhere" earmark. There may be no better way to bring the GOP
back to its principles than to send him to the showers.
-- Brendan Miniter
Quote of the Day
"I'm generally the last guy to lambaste the media, but generally you do not hear
these facts. We're sending $600 billion annually to enemies of our country. If one
acre of oil shale produces 1 million barrels of oil, that's 1 million barrels that
we would not be importing from Russia and the Middle East. People are going to go
berserk when they find out that all along we had the capacity, within our own
borders, to alleviate our dependency in an environmentally friendly way. Ironically,
the local governments in Colorado's oil shale areas do support oil shale
development, but it's being stopped by the ski-resort elites.... Now if those nice,
rich people in Aspen really cared about the environment, they might save an acre or
two of those beautiful forests they're building on and support some oil-shale
development in the not-so-nearby and not-so-beautiful oil shale areas of Colorado"
-- Sen. Orrin Hatch, in an interview with Fortune magazine, about political
obstacles to tapping the humongous 800 billion barrels of recoverable oil shale in
Colorado, Utah and Wyoming.
Gustapo
Democrats have laid down the environmental law for their Denver presidential
convention this August.
The convention organizing committee is going green to such an extent that any liquid
served in an individual plastic container will be banned at all 22 events hosted by
the convention. Also banned will be fried foods. Any plates must be reusable or
compostable. Catered meals will be expected to follow a strict color code. Such
meals must not only be locally or organically grown, but consist of at least three
of the following five colors -- red, green, yellow, blue/purple and white. (Oranges
and carrots would appear to be have lost out.)
"Blue could be a challenge," Ed Janos, owner of the local Cook's Fresh Market, told
the Denver Post. "All I can think of are blueberries." Nick Agro, owner of Whirled
Peas Catering, is worried. "I question the feasibility," he says, noting that the
growing season in Colorado is short and that using "organic stuff pretty much
doubles your price."
Then there are ethical dilemmas. Compostable products, such as forks and knives made
from cornstarch, usually are imported from Asia on massive, fuel-consuming
freighters. Are they a better environmental choice than recyclable plates?
Back in 2003, Democrats snickered at the intolerance of a Republican House chairman
who expressed his disdain for France's refusal to back the Iraq War by insisting
that "Freedom Fries" be served in the House cafeteria. Now, Democrats are going much
further with their political correctness. French fries -- and all other fried foods
-- will be banned from their convention's parties. Food critics are already
wondering what else liberals may have in store for us if they have control of both
the White House and Congress next January.
-- John Fund
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McCain Tiptoes Back to Reality on Energy
"When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?" is a famous riposte attributed to the economist John Maynard Keynes.
John McCain could employ a political version of that line tonight when he delivers a major speech on energy in the Oil Patch capital of Houston, Texas. Faced with $4 gasoline and evidence that China is about to drill for oil off U.S. shores with Cuban help, Mr. McCain will call for ending the federal moratorium on offshore drilling. I'm further told he may be given air cover by an executive order from the Bush administration that will address that very issue on Wednesday.
"I don't want to dictate to the states what they should do," Mr. McCain told reporters in explaining why he was dropping his objection to offshore drilling. At the same time, he reiterated his view that areas such as the Alaska coastal plain are "pristine" and should continue to be off limits.
The Barack Obama campaign quickly set up a confrontation with Mr. McCain over his new stance. "John McCain's plan to simply drill our way out of our energy crisis is the same misguided approach backed by President Bush that has failed our families for too long and only serves to benefit the big oil companies," Obama spokesman Hari Sevugan told reporters.
Shaping up here is a debate worth having, one that will present suffering motorists with a clear contrast between the candidates.
-- John Fund
Obama Says 'Hi' with One Finger
Barack Obama has sent a clear but unmistakable response to the pressure he's been getting to put Hillary Clinton on his ticket as the vice presidential nominee. Yesterday, his campaign named Patti Solis Doyle, the former Clinton campaign manager who was fired in February and has not spoken to Mrs. Clinton since, as the chief of staff who will help guide whomever he picks as his running mate.
A major Clinton fundraiser told the New York Observer he considered the move "the biggest f--- you I have ever seen in politics." According to the unnamed Clinton donor, "Clinton loyalists view [Ms. Doyle] with deep suspicion and believe that she is shopping around a book deal and acted as a background source for an extremely harsh Vanity Fair piece about Bill Clinton."
"Either one of two things happen," predicted the fundraiser. "Hillary is selected as vice president and they fire Patti, or Hillary is not going to be the vice president."
Team Obama insists no message is being sent in the hiring of Ms. Doyle, who was one of several campaign staffers whose appointment was announced on Monday. But Clinton insiders say the former First Couple is livid over the appointment and it will not make repairing relations between the two camps any easier.
Syndicated columnist Selena Zito couldn't resist speculation about other possible Obama hiring decisions. "What's next?" she joked. "I wonder if Obama plans on hiring [estranged Clinton strategist] Mark Penn as chief of staff for the future First Lady?"
-- John Fund
Quote of the Day I
"Rather than issuing statements, Sen. [Chris] Dodd needs to answer any and all questions about the circumstances of his attaining the Countrywide loans. We join the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington in calling for the Senate and House ethics committees to investigate whether the acceptance of bargain rate loans violated the prohibition against accepting gifts. The committees need to determine if any other congressmen received favorable loans in possible violation of the ethics rules.... The public needs confidence that those proposing ways to solve the subprime mortgage crisis did not take advantage of their positions to get deals from the very folks largely responsible for causing the crisis" -- editorial in The Day newspaper in New London, Ct., on Connecticut Senator and Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd's acceptance of sweetheart loans from subprime lender Countrywide Financial.
Quote of the Day II
"If Barack Obama really wants to sell his message of hope to American voters this November, he needs to stop treating us like pathetic victims unable to compete economically with people in Mexico or China.... Disappointingly, but not surprisingly, Obama pandered in the Democratic Party primaries to labor unions and others in the party base who blame low-wage foreign countries for stealing American jobs. He vowed to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement and he whined about China's currency" -- columnist Tom Walsh, writing in the Detroit Free Press.
No Message, But Please Accept this Toy
My sources at the Republican National Committee say they are stunned by the dropoff in contributions this election cycle, but a big part of the problem is an absence of an agenda. It's getting harder and harder to finish this sentence: "Vote for Republicans in November because..." The Republican campaign committees are getting more angry mail than checks as a result of failing to stop earmarked spending and the GOP's recent failure to support President Bush's veto of the inexcusable $300 billion farm bill.
So instead of a message this fall, the GOP is trying to promote donations with a new stuffed animal elephant with the RNC logo on its belly. For $35 donations, donors can get the toy elephant, which party fundraising letters declare will be the "hit of your July Fourth Party." The fundraising letter continues: "The RNC elephants are wonderful plush toys and make a perfect gift for your favorite Republicans."
Several big Republican donors have told me they're infuriated by the juvenile fundraising pitch. "What has the RNC turned into, Sesame Street?" one donor fumed. Others complain that the letters are just further evidence that the party has no message right now -- especially on the core issue of cutting government spending.
No word yet as to whether "Sam" the GOP elephant is jumping off the shelves, but if this is the best pitch Republicans have to wrench money out of donors, perhaps another couple of years in the wilderness is what the party needs -- and deserves.
-- Stephen Moore
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Tom Brokaw and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger are old friends, having met 30 years ago when Mr. Brokaw was NBC's correspondent in Los Angeles. But that didn't spare Arnold from tough questioning in the mold of the late Tim Russert when Mr. Brokaw interviewed him for "Meet the Press" yesterday.
Mr. Brokaw began by asking just how much had really changed in California. "When you ran for governor in 2003, you ran as a fiscal conservative who would change the system, who would bring business-like techniques," the host said. "Now, you are facing a $15-billion deficit here in California. Unemployment is running at about 6.8%; you've got the worst housing crisis since the Great Depression. If you were the CEO of a public company, the board would probably say, 'It is time to go.'"
Mr. Schwarzenegger joked: "Are you always this positive?" He then launched into a defense of some of his spending -- especially on infrastructure -- and said economic conditions were sour everywhere: "People are struggling, and I think we see that all over the world."
But Mr. Brokaw wasn't done. "Before you came in, governor, you said the spending was out of control. Your rate of increase in spending is about the same as your predecessor, Gov. Gray Davis. It has grown at about 34% since you took office."
A startled governor, who rode into office during the 2003 recall campaign excoriating the spending record of Democrat Davis, insisted: "The numbers are misleading. We have paid off a lot of debt. . . . I am very proud that we paid off a lot of debt and that we got the economy going again."
In truth, California's state government has taken on billions in new debt to pay for infrastructure projects. It also faces massive new obligations. Just last month, a federal court-appointed prison medical czar ordered the state to pay an additional $7 billion to build new facilities for inmates.
California's tough times have led to a slide in Mr. Schwarzenegger's approval ratings to about 40%, a fact the NBC host dryly noted by saying: "It is tough to govern under those circumstances."
But the governor was unfazed. "Not at all. I'm having a great time."
No one doubts that. Arnold has the role of a lifetime. But Californians aren't having a great time. The millions of Californians who voted for the Terminator five years ago in part because of his pledge to "blow up the boxes" of state government are wondering why their state is once again in the same fiscal fix as in 2003.
-- John Fund
A Sun Rises in the West
Governor Bill Ritter, who grew up on a Colorado farm, aced his first appearance on "Meet the Press" yesterday, appearing unpretentious and focused -- and hardly put off by host Tom Brokaw's questions about how a Western, pro-life Democratic Governor fits with the national party's "progressive" platform.
"I think the Democratic Party in the West has been able to say that [a pro-choice position on abortion] is not going to be a litmus test," Mr. Ritter answered. The national Democratic Party may have a pro-choice platform in Denver, but such planks hardly mean Democrats "don't very much embrace people who might have different views. I'm a great example of that."
Wow. How the party must have changed since popular Pennsylvania Gov. Bob Casey was denied a speaking turn at the 1992 Democratic convention because he adhered to Catholic teaching on abortion. Mr. Ritter, 51, is a former Catholic missionary in Africa who endorsed Mr. Obama on June 3. Numerous liberal blogs, from DailyKos to Democratic Underground, have buzzed ever since about Mr. Ritter's chances to be Mr. Obama's vice presidential nominee.
A recent Quinnipiac/Wall Street Journal/Washington Post poll shows Mr. Obama leading Senator John McCain by 49%-44% in Colorado, where the Democratic Convention will be held this summer. Colorado is one of several states potentially in position to swing a close election and Mr. Ritter could presumably help Mr. Obama with westerners, men and Catholics. Governor Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas is another Catholic Democrat considered a viable Obama veep choice, though Ms. Sebelius, unlike Mr. Ritter, is pro-choice.
That said, history has not beamed on Catholic Democrats seeking the vice presidency. Edmund Muskie, who grew up in a large Polish Roman Catholic family, lost alongside Hubert Humphrey in 1968. George McGovern failed with two Catholic vice presidential nominees in 1972, Thomas Eagleton and Sargent Shriver. In 1984, Walter Mondale selected pro-choice Catholic Rep. Geraldine Ferraro, who struggled throughout the campaign with the abortion issue.
Of course, the problem in all these cases wasn't the veep candidate but the headliner. So the real question may not be whether Mr. Obama wants Mr. Ritter, but the other way around.
-- Robert Costa
His Best Work Was on Super-8
Bob Barr, now running for president on the Libertarian ticket, couldn't be more excited about having former movie actor Sonny Landham running on the same party line in Kentucky, where Mr. Landham announced last week he will challenge the powerful four-term GOP Sen. Mitch McConnell.
"I think that throughout the South there are a lot of disenchanted Republican voters and blue-collar Democrats who are looking for a new choice," Mr. Barr, a former Republican Congressman from Georgia, tells PD. "We both want an open political system, lower taxes and a rational defense policy. I think those issues will resonate among those groups."
Mr. Barr says his favorite Landham film was "Predator," the 1987 Oscar-nominated blockbuster directed by John McTiernan. And no wonder -- the same film also features Arnold Schwarzenegger (a future governor of California) and Jesse Ventura (a future governor of Minnesota). How could Mr. Landham be anything but a shoo-in now that he has turned to electoral politics?
"One of the best movies of all time," adds Mr. Barr.
For his part, Mr. Landham says the Kentucky race is his "to lose" (though the polls may beg to differ). He seems to enjoy calling Mr. McConnell "Boss Hogg" after the corrupt politician from "The Dukes of Hazzard." He also calls the Democratic challenger in the race, millionaire businessman Bruce Lunsford, an "elitist." "This whole campaign is about the economy," says Mr. Landham. "We have to start to drill everywhere -- onshore, offshore, build more refineries, start using coal and burn it cleanly and efficiently. We have to reindustrialize America," he adds. "I am for unionizing the whole globe."
On presidential politics, Mr. Landham has warmer feelings for the Democrat than the Republican. "Senator Obama is like Ronald Reagan, in that he thinks America's best days are ahead," he says, though Mr. Landham still intends to support the Libertarian candidate Mr. Barr. "This country is ready for revolution," says Mr. Landham. "John McCain is the same, old ancient Washington politics. . . . John McCain has not figured out who he is. One minute he's for something, the next minute he's against."
Mr. Landham, who says Barry Goldwater, Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon influenced him politically, will bring a whole Pullman coach of baggage into the race. He spent 31 months in jail on assault charges, though the conviction was reportedly overturned on appeal. And he began his acting career in adult films in the 1970s. "The only thing I can say is that if you've seen my movies, you've seen my shortcomings," he says.
"I did it for the money. Did I enjoy it? Yes. Anybody who enjoys sex, yes, they'll enjoy it," says Mr. Landham, adding that "Andrea True and Georgina Spellman were two of the best actresses I worked with in adult films."
Now if only Ms. True and Ms. Spellman are registered to vote in Kentucky. . . .
-- Robert Costa
Quote of the Day
"The New Deal exists principally on an emotional plane for Barack Obama. To him the New Deal is something you play like a song, to make you or your constituents feel better. Let me be clear: It's too early to judge Obama on economics. But he does seem unaware of the economic consequences of government expansion that happens under the New Deal name. Politicians generally act as if there is no cost to reconnecting with voters by building new New Deals. But the whole exercise of writing law out of New Deal nostalgia is a form of national narcissism. Call it New Deal narcissism" -- Amity Shlaes, author of the New Deal history "The Forgotten Man," writing in National Review.
The Spirit of 13
It was 30 years ago this month that the Reagan revolution was launched. To be exact, on June 6th, 1978 California voters by a two-to-one margin approved the property tax cut called Proposition 13. Arthur Laffer, one of the few economists in the state to endorse the measure, called it "the greatest tax revolt since the Boston Tea Party."
Despite dire claims that Prop. 13 would cause the prisons to open, the police to lay down their guns and the schools to board up, a strong majority of voters approved the measure. Howard Jarvis, the proposition's author, was decried as a "rabble rouser" by the Los Angeles Times. Prop. 13 slashed property taxes by 30% and capped annual increases to 1%. The Jarvis Foundation points out that even a majority of firefighters voted for it, though their union was fiercely against it.
For the next 20 years, California's economy grew at a record pace. Population and income growth surged almost 30% faster than the rest of the nation. Mr. Laffer projected that the measure would cause the greatest housing boom in California history, and he was right. As a consequence, the static revenue losses from the tax cuts were minimal. Ronald Reagan witnessed the policy and political success of Prop. 13 and -- having originally opposed the measure -- latched on to supply-side economics as a consequence.
The left has tried to condemn Proposition 13 every time the state runs into financial trouble -- like right now. But a new Field Poll finds that 30 years after its passage, 57% of Californians say they would still vote for it and only 23% say they would be against it -- i.e., the same two-to-one margin.
According to Field Research: "Voters in this state remain highly supportive of [Prop 13] and its main provisions." Arnold Schwarzenegger should be paying close attention.
California has enormous budget problems today with housing values down by more than 30% over the past 18 months. The only thing that can save the state and return its economy to high growth might be another Proposition 13-type tax rebellion.
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In the category of "better late than never" (and also "barely above a whisper"), Barack Obama offered an overdue critique of his own side of the Iraq war debate in his speech on patriotism yesterday. Mr. Obama, surrounded by flags (and wearing -- 'tis true! -- a flag pin on his lapel) in Independence, Missouri, bemoaned the fact that "a general providing his best counsel on how to move forward in Iraq was accused of betrayal." That would be General David Petraeus, who last year was the focus of a MoveOn.org smear ad in major newspapers under the headline: "General Petraeus or General Betray Us?"
Recall that an uproar ensued at the time and Democratic politicians across the country disavowed the slur. Some 72 Senators even voted for a "sense of the Senate" resolution that condemned the attack and offered support for Gen. Petraeus. Yet one who didn't was none other than Sen. Obama. He managed to miss the Senate resolution vote, despite the fact he was in Washington and voted on two other measures that day. Indeed, when given an opportunity to criticize the ad, Mr. Obama instead criticized the Senate's decision to hold a vote denouncing it. "The focus of the United States Senate should be on ending this war, not on criticizing newspaper advertisements," Mr. Obama said. "This amendment was a stunt designed only to score cheap political points while what we should be doing is focusing on the deadly serious challenge we face in Iraq."
That was then -- back when Mr. Obama was apparently eager not to ruffle the Netroots activists. This is now -- with the MoveOn.org endorsement firmly in hand, Mr. Obama evidently feels free to pander in the opposite direction. Mr. Obama is certainly serving up the audacity of something, but I wouldn't call it hope.
-- Kim Strassel
The Madness of King George
He was governor of New York for twelve years and only left office on the last day of 2006. But George Pataki can't get any respect from his own Republican Party, which unceremoniously dumped him from its list of delegates invited to the GOP national convention in Minneapolis.
Everyone thinks it all has something to do with a feud between Mr. Pataki and GOP State Chairman Joe Mondello, who became angry in 2004 when the then-governor stripped him of a national party post.
But there are broader reasons for the snub. The state Republican Party disintegrated under Gov. Pataki's leadership, with party building and candidate recruitment largely ignored as deals were increasingly cut with Democratic teacher and health worker unions to preserve the shrinking GOP majority in the state senate. In 2006, the house of cards came crashing down when Republicans failed to win a single statewide office for the first time since the 1940s. Republicans now hold the state senate by a single seat.
Democrats were chortling yesterday over Mr. Pataki's discomfiture. "He should have tried to go to the Democratic convention," joked consultant Basil Smikle. "He'd have been named a super-delegate for all the help he gave Democrats in taking over control of the state."
-- John Fund
Quote of the Day
"Barack Obama is under hostile fire for changing his position on the D.C. gun ban. Oh, I'm sorry. He didn't change his position, apparently. He reworded a clumsy statement. That, at least, is what his campaign is saying. The same campaign that tried to spin his flip-flop in rejecting public financing as embracing the spirit of reform, if not the actual position he had once promised to embrace. Is this becoming a pattern? Wouldn't it be better for Obama to say he had thought more about such-and-such an issue and simply changed his mind? Is that verboten in American politics? Is it better to engage in linguistic pretzel-twisting in an effort to prove that you didn't change your mind?" -- Howard Kurtz, the Washington Post's media columnist.
Too Little, Too Late Is Africa's Response to Mugabe
Robert Mugabe didn't exactly receive an enthusiastic welcome when he arrived yesterday for a meeting of the 53-member African Union in Egypt. While he was seated as Zimbabwe's president despite the obviously fraudulent nature of his re-election last Friday, he was nonetheless roundly condemned by many of the leaders present.
Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga urged the Union to "not accept or entertain Mr. Mugabe." He told an audience in Kenya on Sunday that the Union should "take its soldiers to Zimbabwe to free the people in that country."
Most surprising to conference attendees was the publication yesterday in a South African paper of a document that South African President Thabo Mbeki is said to have written in 2001, just as Mr. Mugabe took his own country down the path towards nationalization of agriculture and a totalitarian police state. Mr. Mbeki has been severely criticized for his public stance towards Zimbabwe, including his decision earlier this year to hold hands with the dictator and proclaim that Zimbabwe was not in crisis.
But in a 37-page "discussion document" he drafted for Mr. Mugabe's Zanu-PF party in 2001, Mr. Mbeki expressed private frustration and concern with the direction of the country. He warned of the need "to ensure that Zimbabwe does not end up in a situation of isolation, confronted by an array of international forces she cannot defeat, condemned to sink into an ever-deepening social and economic crisis."
Mr. Mbeki deplored the direction of Mr. Mugabe's policies, urging him to "encourage free, open and critical discussion" and "ensure the freedom of the press." He warned that the recruitment of unofficial militias made up of war veterans from the days of the party's struggle against white rule would undermine public support. He urged a U-turn in economic policy and predicted that resorting "to anti-imperialist rhetoric will not solve the problems of Zimbabwe, but may compound them."
Mr. Mbeki will leave office next year, having utterly failed to use any significant leverage to force changes in Mr. Mugabe's murderous and destructive policies. The leaked document is obviously an attempt to repair his battered public image. Mr. Mbeki clearly foresaw the disaster his old colleague in the liberation struggle was inflicting on his country. Too bad Mr. Mbeki, whose country is the economic powerhouse and moral leader of the region, did so little to prevent what Mr. Odinga, Kenya's prime minister, says has become an embarrassing stain on all of Africa.
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$600 Million Baby
July 8, 2008; Page A20
As the Senate prepares to vote on its mortgage bailout this week, one part of Banking Chairman Chris Dodd's bill deserves more scrutiny. It's a section called "affordable housing allocations," and while it sounds innocuous, in practice it amounts to a new tax to create a permanent subsidy for state governments and political activists.
Like the bailout that has already passed the House, the Senate bill features a special new tax on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. We have long urged reform of the two mortgage giants, which operate with an implicit government guarantee and therefore a license to endanger the taxpayer if they take on too much risk. The shares of both plunged yesterday to new lows based on their credit risks. But as a price for allowing more oversight of the two companies, Mr. Dodd and House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank want to cut their allies in on even more of the action.
Mr. Dodd creates an annual tax of 4.2 basis points on the mortgages that Fan and Fred purchase each year. Initially this money will go to finance losses resulting from the bill's bailout of refinanced mortgages. But by 2012 most of the cash from this tax will be directed to the new "affordable housing" funds. Mr. Frank applies a 1.2 basis-point tax on the value of all the loans Fan and Fred hold or have guaranteed, to collect roughly the same amount of money. The annual windfall here could amount to more than $600 million at the start, growing to perhaps $1 billion or more, depending on how fast the companies grow.
Even better for the pols, this money won't end up in the Treasury's general fund. Instead, they've written the bill to steer the cash toward some of their favorite political allies. In the Senate bill, the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development gets the largest pot to distribute, a full 65% of the "affordable housing" funds. Within guidelines established by the bill, the HUD chief has discretion to favor particular states while punishing others in creating a formula for doling out block grants.
Much of the political clout will be enjoyed by state politicians once they receive the checks from HUD. The state pols will be free to share the wealth with favored organizations, which will include both nonprofit and for-profit groups with an agenda.
Back at the federal level, the Treasury Secretary receives 35% of the affordable housing funds to distribute, but he doesn't have to ship it off to the states in the form of block grants. Treasury can make grants directly to nonprofits, and the one certainty is that most of this cash will be directed to the most powerful allies of the politicians in power. While Mr. Frank's version only authorizes this river of cash until 2012, the Senate would make it permanent and don't expect the House to object in conference.
Democrats claim the bill has ample protection against money going for electioneering and lobbying, but it will surely go to activists who promote ever-more taxes and spending. We see nothing in either the House or Senate bills to prevent money from flowing to Acorn, the left-wing activist outfit that was infamous for its bare-knuckle politics even before eight of its employees pleaded guilty in April to election fraud in St. Louis.
Acorn operates an "affordable housing" arm, so it is structured to immediately board the new federal gravy train. The Center for Responsible Lending, which lobbies and litigates against market rates in consumer banking, also should be able to tap these funds via its affiliated Center for Community Self-Help. If later investigations prove that taxpayer funds were misused, the bills provide that recipients can simply return the amount of the grant, with no further financial penalty.
The affordable housing funds also give Members of Congress an even larger stake in the growth of Fannie and Freddie. Heretofore, the companies have had to influence Congress through lobbying and campaign donations. But now Congress will get a direct percentage in how much new business the companies do.
This, in turn, will give the companies more incentive to take even greater financial risks. While the bill gives Fan and Fred's regulator more power to limit their business, good luck to the human regulator who tries to do so. The companies will go to Messrs. Dodd and Frank, who will quickly let the regulator know he's not supposed to cut into their share of the loot. A bill that allegedly reins in the companies after their multibillion-dollar accounting frauds will thus make Fannie and Freddie even more politically invulnerable.
With rare exceptions, Republicans seem happy to go along with all this in the name of "doing something" about housing before the election. We doubt it will stem their electoral losses this year, and in return they'll be funding their political opponents for decades to come. Genius.
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Anti-Sharia for Congress
By Jamie Glazov
FrontPageMagazine.com | Tuesday, July 08, 2008
Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Vijay Kumar, an émigré from India who is seeking the Republican nomination in a Tennessee primary Congressional race set for August. He is running on an anti-Sharia platform. Visit his website at kumarforcongress.com.
FP: Vijay Kumar, welcome to Frontpage Interview.
Kumar: Thank you. It is a pleasure to speak with you.
FP: I would like to speak to you today about the anti-Sharia program you are running on. But first let’s begin with your background. Tell us about your life in India, your emigration to the United States, and how you came to your anti-Sharia views.
Kumar: I was born in Hyderabad, India, in 1954. I grew up there in India, in a conservative, middle-class family. I studied classics, political science, and philosophy. During the late 1970s, I was working in human resources for a European construction company, and that work took me to Iran. From 1977 to 1979 I witnessed, firsthand, the radical transformation of Iran from a modern nation to a repressed, fundamentalist state and it left a lasting impression on me. I suppose you could say that my anti-Sharia views began there.
The American way of life and its values resonated strongly with me. I emigrated here in 1979 and have been living in the Bellevue area of Nashville for twenty years. I’ve been raising a family and managing my own insurance business, and during it all I’ve been interested in politics.
Right now, our country is dealing with issues – issues like illegal immigration, healthcare reform, the War on Terror – that will shape our politics for the rest of this century. Like many Americans, I’ve grown to feel that the politicians of this country are simply not accomplishing anything on these fronts. As low as the President’s approval rating has gotten, the approval rating for Congress is even lower. So, as a concerned and informed citizen, I’ve decided to run for Congress and help put things on the right track. That’s what living in a democracy is all about.
FP: What has made you make an anti-Sharia platform the central tenet of your campaign?
Kumar: The main focus of my campaign is the War on Terror. What so many politicians do not seem to realize is that our struggle is against more than just “terror.” Terrorism is simply a method, not an end itself. Terrorism is just one tactic being used by Islamic extremists in their effort to force their way of life on the rest of the world. Ultimately, then, this is a struggle over whether the nations of this world will be ruled under Sharia law or not. As Omar Ahmad, founder of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said: “Islam isn’t in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant.”
FP: What are your thoughts about CAIR?
Kumar: CAIR is a direct manifestation of Mohammed’s Sunna and jihad. CAIR is actually just one part of Islam’s strategy to annihilate the Western culture. It is far more dangerous than any Mohammed Atta or any other jihadists.
Lies and deceit are CAIR’s stock-in-trade. They claim to be akin to a “Muslim NAACP,” but everyone from the Department of Homeland Security, to FBI counterterrorism chiefs, to moderate American Muslims recognizes the extreme rhetoric that CAIR endorses. At least five of CAIR’s board members and employees have been linked to terrorism-related activities. They are fifth columnists, preying upon our values of tolerance and multiculturalism.
But CAIR is just one of an untold number of Islamic organizations in our government and university centers. People forget that Mohammed’s last words were to keep giving the money to kafir ambassadors and that is what Islam is doing in Washington, DC. Capitol Hill is awash in Saudi money and our dhimmi political types cannot get enough of it.
FP: What do you think it says about Islam that non-Muslims cannot enjoy the same freedoms in Muslim nations as Muslims enjoy in America and the West – and many countries around the world?
Kumar: This is proof of the legal inequalities that are built into Sharia law. Sharia is a set of laws designed to apply not just to Mulsims, but to non-Muslims as well. Everyone, believer and kafir alike, is supposed to live a life based upon Mohammed. However, kafirs – those who do not believe – are given distinctly different treatment than believers.
In America, we believe that all human beings are created equal, and that all human beings possess certain natural rights; our entire Constitution is just a logical extension of that one idea. To us, Muslims are humans just like everyone else, and therefore they should have the same legal rights as everyone else. Sharia law, on the other hand, is not based on logic or a belief in natural equality. It is based on religious customs, and part of its design is to elevate believers over non-believers.
Yet, we never bring up this inequality and lack of freedom under Muslim rule. We never point out Islam’s long history of destroying or oppressing other cultures. We never remember the suffering of non-Muslims in Muslim nations. We never teach that Turkey was once Christian, or that Islamic jihad has reduced Hindustani culture to half of what it once was. Muslim groups often like to point to Christians as aggressors, citing the Crusades of the Dark Ages, but the West remains silent about people being oppressed in the Middle East today, right now.
FP: Why do you think there is such a silence in the West about Muslim tyranny? Why do you think the Left refuses to stand up for those who suffer under Islamic despotism?
Kumar: The Left and Islam share many of the same values. Both deny that individuals have a personal ethic. A central authority should control all things. Both insult and denigrate their opponents and see themselves as victors in the movement of history. Both hate the native cultures and individual efforts.
The mindset of the Leftist is one of deliberate ignorance. I was a Leftist, a bleeding heart liberal until a few years ago. I came from a Marxist family in India. The Left, by its silence on the issue of radical Islam, has betrayed its own professed ideals, if it has any.
The fight against Political Islam should have been led by the liberal intellectuals in our universities, but instead they deliberately and systematically support a seventh century totalitarian ideology that negates all forms of rational thinking, intellectual pursuit, and pluralism - the very ideals which are supposed to be central to the philosophy of the Left.
The Liberals have become the lackeys of Islamic imperialism in their words and deeds. They fail to mention the 1,400 years of Jihadists' terror in this world. How can we cry for the genocide in Darfur and ignore the cause?
The media only has a concern for white oppression and white evil. If the source of evil is non-white and non-Christian, they don’t care. Our Leftist media is forcing us to fight this ideological struggle with both hands tied behind our backs. To them, saying anything negative about other countries or cultures is not telling the truth, it is racism. To them, portraying America’s values and accomplishments in a positive light is propaganda – and God forbid they indulge in anything so base as pro-American propaganda.
Another aspect of Leftist thought is that there is no absolute morality. Everything is relative, every kind of behavior and belief should be tolerated, and therefore the American system isn’t better than any other. How can we engage in a battle of ideologies when you see all ways of life – even those that preach an end to tolerance and an end to intellectual freedom – as acceptable? And as we can see in the Obama campaign, you can talk about change as long as you serve the same menu of old ideas with a new smile.
We cannot see what we do not understand. Our education system is bankrupt at all levels. Our universities do not prepare our young minds to see anything bad about Islam. Here in Nashville at Vanderbilt University you can get a degree in Islamic Studies and never read the life of Mohammed—and never read the entire Koran. You study Sufi poetry, Islamic art and Islamic history viewed as a glorious triumph. No kafirs suffer in this program and there is no history of Jew, Christian, Hindu or Buddhist suffering under Islamic rule for the past 1,400 years. A graduate from this program then goes out into the world professionally trained to be an apologist for Islam, a dhimmi. And this program is standard at all schools, not just Vanderbilt.
All of our textbooks teach a CAIR approved history and doctrine of Islam. All of the young minds are trained to never see any wrong in Islam and to blame all the faults of Islam on us.
FP: What should be done about Sharia law in America?
Kumar: First we have to understand that Sharia denies the values of our Constitutional government and that it has been the constant goal of radical Islam to make all peoples submit to Sharia. We must educate ourselves as to the actual nature of Sharia law and its history. Any American who is reasonably informed about Sharia law should recognize that it is incompatible with freedom and our way of life.
Sharia is the legal condensation of the Koran and the Sunna – the words and actions of Mohammed. Because it is based upon the political submission of everyone – Muslim and non-Muslim – to Islamic law, the Koran is a political document. Sharia dictates what literature and art must be. It dictates public behavior. It asserts that kafirs are legally inferior to Muslims. Sharia can’t be reformed, since it is based on religion and ideology. It is unchangeable and its laws can only be interpreted by select Islamic scholars. The heart of political Islam is that Sharia law must rule over everyone, not just those who choose to be Muslim. Sharia denies the Bill of Rights – it allows slavery; it asserts that women are legally inferior; it dictates cruel and unusual punishment, such as stoning or cutting off the offender’s hands and feet; it denies freedom of religion, freedom of the press, or freedom of expression. The goal of Islamic extremists is to see Sharia annihilate all other forms of law, including our Constitution.
Second, we must demand from any Muslim running for public office where they stand on the application of Sharia law in America. In fact, we should demand that all our politicians make their position on Sharia law clear. We must pass laws that ensure the brutality of Sharia law can never be applied to an American woman. Ultimately, it is vital that all of us understand that we are in a struggle of ideologies, with the ways of freedom, democracy, and human rights on one hand, and the ways of oppression, intolerance, and ignorance on the other.
FP: Are you optimistic that the West can prevail against Islamo-Fascism and that we will be able to defend ourselves against Sharia?
Kumar: No. Too many of our intellectuals do not recognize the threat of Islamo-Fascism. Our public is not being educated about the goals and beliefs of our enemies. Our government is trying to fight organizations, not the beliefs that give rise to them.
Terrorists are products of militant ideologies, not vice-versa. Unless we confront the ideology logically and persistently our efforts are futile. However, in the land of the brave and the home of the free we choke on the truth. Our culture is drowning in the growing cesspool of political correctness. The liberal left in the United States and Europe have become apologists for militant Islamic radicalism. They say that the terrorist attacks are the consequence of America's foreign policy in the Middle East and its unconditional support for Israel rather than the continuation of 1,400 years of jihad. How does this explain Al-Qaeda’s attacks in Indonesia and Saudi Arabia? The Left fails to understand the fact that there are few Americans or Jews in India, Thailand, The Philippines, Bali, Nigeria, Sudan, Russia and host of other countries where Islamic radicalism has been waging a relentless campaign of terror.
It is a moral imperative to oppose the nations that practice Sharia Law. We must start scrutinizing way more carefully immigration from Sharia practicing nations. Why should we let on our shores those who want to install and live by Sharia? The progenitors of Sharia Law and Universal Jihad are Iran, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia – the true Axis of Evil. Pakistan and Saudi Arabia are not our allies; they are our enemies. These outlaw nations must be demilitarized, secularized, and democratized. That should be the goal of our "War on Terror.” Make no mistake: unless these nations forego their fundamentalist and militarist theology and join the secular humanity there will not be a lasting peace in the world.
FP: Well, the idea of demilitarizing, secularizing and democratizing these regions all sounds good – to an extent. For instance, it has to be ascertained who exactly we are demilitarizing and the problems this may cause, as there are forces in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, for instance, that are confronting Islamist terrorists. This doesn’t mean, of course, that those we think are our friends truly are our friends – many are our enemies and we have to become wiser about this. I am just saying there is a certain balancing act we have to shrewdly play. And how one goes about secularizing and democratizing the Muslim world with Muslim populations is a whole other story – and though it would be a providential godsend if this really did occur, it would be an “objective” on our part with huge complications and obstacles, and we’ll have to leave the discussion of this issue for another time and place.
Vijay Kumar, thank you for joining us.
Kumar: You’re welcome; it’s been a pleasure.
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Barack Obama is a slight favorite to win the presidential election, but John McCain can win if he gets his campaign focused and mounts a targeted attack on his opponent. That was the conclusion of Democratic pollster Doug Schoen, who has worked for both President Bill Clinton and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, when he presented the findings of a new survey he conducted for the Aspen Institute's Ideas Festival.
His overall survey put Mr. Obama ahead by 47% to 42%, but the head-to-head margin shrinks to dead even after voters are given both positive and negative information about the two men. Overall, both candidates have nearly identical favorability ratings (54% and 53%, respectively). That explains why Mr. McCain is making the race competitive, even though voters clearly show a general desire for change in control of the White House: 51% of voters want a Democrat to win the general election, while only 35% want a Republican.
"What's most surprising is how much potential there is for John McCain, but that potential has not yet been realized," Mr. Schoen told the Aspen attendees. "The Obama campaign has done a better job getting its message out." Thus, if Mr. Schoen had to bet on the result, he would plump for Mr. Obama, unless Mr. McCain's recent staff shakeup signals a new campaign approach. He says the old strategy wasn't working: "You can't have an attack du jour. You need to have an attack you stick to."
If he were designing campaign slogans for both candidates, Mr. Schoen says he would advise the Obama campaign to use: "Don't Vote For a Third Bush Term. Reject the Politics of the Past." For Mr. McCain he suggests: "Inexperience America Can't Afford."
"I think there is a desire for change, but there is some doubt about Barack Obama," Mr. Schoen concluded. "I think what swing voters are saying [is that] he's an attractive guy, a good guy, but we don't really know what he's about."
-- John Fund
Harry Reid's Position Paper on Drilling
Congressional Democrats are eager to turn the gas-price debate away from calls for more oil drilling, since the very idea sends its environmental lobby around the bend. Senate Democrats have tried everything from excoriating oil companies for allegedly sitting on federal leases to attacking "speculators" as the real reason for high gas prices. But none of these imaginative decoys has ranked anywhere near Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's convincing explanation for Democratic inaction on the energy crisis, now playing on endless loop on YouTube.
In an interview with Fox News Business Channel last week, Mr. Reid, who was evidently fed up with questions about drilling, suddenly exclaimed: "Coal makes us sick, oil makes us sick; it's global warming. It's ruining our country, it's ruining the world. We've got to stop using fossil fuel."
Mr. Reid's rant quickly became the No. 1 video on the Internet, approaching a half-million views. The pollster Rasmussen even took the unusual step of conducting a survey to see how many Americans agreed with the Nevadan's view. Let's just say he didn't win a majority.
But give Mr. Reid marks for honesty. To many liberal Democrats, cheap fossil fuels are the root cause of excessive materialism, suburban sprawl, a despoiled environment -- and they've been demanding for decades that government raise the price of energy to discourage Americans from driving big cars and living in large, well-heated homes. Democrats may never have had the political courage to impose such towering European-style gasoline taxes directly, but Mr. Reid's policy diatribe at least explains why Democrats have found it so easy to sit on their hands rather than take steps to increase domestic supply and bring down $4 gasoline.
-- Kim Strassel
Profiles in Name Recognition
John Kennedy for Senate? No, it's not Massachusetts in 1952, but Louisiana in 2008, where the state treasurer with a famous name -- middle name "Neely" -- is running against incumbent Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu. Mr. Kennedy, a Democrat himself until he switched parties last year, is no relation to the famous political Kennedys but he represents the GOP's best shot to pick up a Senate seat in a year when the GOP is looking down the barrel of major setbacks on Congress.
Recent polls show Ms. Landrieu, despite considerable support from the national party, leading by a mere four points. Financially, Mr. Kennedy's fund-raising is beginning to catch fire. Yesterday, he announced he raised nearly $1.5 million in the second quarter and now has $2.7 million in cash on hand. Asked by PD about the Republican troubles nationally, Mr. Kennedy laments, "I don't know what's going on," but says his own strong bid just proves that "politics really is local." "We're experiencing a wave of reform in Louisiana," he adds, noting the success of reformist GOP Gov. Bobby Jindal, who's now being touted as a John McCain veep possibility.
"Reform" could be Mr. Kennedy's middle name, since how he has reformed himself is unavoidably an issue in the campaign. In 2004, Mr. Kennedy was an unsuccessful Democratic candidate for Senate, coming in a distant third to Republican David Vitter. He ran on a distinctly liberal platform and endorsed John Kerry, who promptly lost the state by 15 points.
Apparently having gotten the message, Mr. Kennedy last August left the Democratic Party, ostensibly to run as a Republican for his third term as State Treasurer -- but mainly, it was rumored, so he could challenge Ms. Landrieu this fall. So how does he expect to beat her now? "By speaking bluntly about the out-of-control spending in Washington," says Mr. Kennedy. "The spending is outrageous. . . we need tax cuts."
And he expects to be on the right side of this year's presidential split: "Senator McCain will do very well in Louisiana because he is a fiscal conservative." Mr. McCain currently holds a 52%-36% percent lead over the Democratic nominee Barack Obama, whom Mr. Kennedy has described as "the embodiment of old Europe liberalism." Perhaps speaking from experience, he even tells this morning's New Orleans Times-Picayune that Ms. Landrieu made a "huge mistake" embracing Mr. Obama.
-- Robert Costa
The Prisoner Returns
No TV series -- not even "Star Trek" -- has quite achieved the quirky cult status of "The Prisoner," which first ran 40 years ago. Now the show is being revived by a joint partnership between Britain's ITV and America's AMC networks.
Jim Caviezel, who played Jesus in "Passion of the Christ," will play Prisoner No. 6, a former secret agent who is kidnapped and dumped in a strange seaside village where everyone is known only by a number. He is told that "by hook or by crook" the reasons for his mysterious resignation as an agent will be extracted from him. Sir Ian McKellen, who played Gandalf in "Lord of the Rings," will play the sinister Number Two, who runs the Village on behalf of unseen parties.
In the original 1960's Cold War version, series creator and star Patrick McGoohan explored issues of privacy, individualism and mind control. I always viewed the original series as Mr. McGoohan's take on George Orwell's novel "1984," but with a sense of humor. An AMC executive says the new series will pay homage in "winks and nods" to the original but will be "reinterpreted" to reflect "21st century concerns and anxieties, such as liberty, security and surveillance."
Sadly, the new "Prisoner" will be shot in Namibia, where the seaside resort of Swakopmund has preserved a quirky collection of colonial German buildings. The original was shot in the Welsh village of Portmeirion, a strange, planned community with eclectic Mediterranean architecture. Known simply as "The Village" in the original series, Portmeirion still attracts thousands of "Prisoner" fans a year who tour the grounds with the help of a guidebook. But in a clear sign of today's times, visitors are under constant surveillance. The resort recently installed CCTV security cameras throughout the complex. As the original Number Two in the "The Prisoner" used to say: "Be Seeing You."
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Jesse Ventura, who parlayed his fame as a professional wrestler into a single term as governor of Minnesota, looks as if he's stepping back into the political arena. The man known as "The Body," who left office almost six years ago, is apparently spoiling to return and represent Minnesota in the U.S. Senate.
Mr. Ventura's motivation seems to be antipathy towards the two major-party candidates: GOP incumbent Senator Norm Coleman and former satirist Al Franken, a Democrat. Mr. Ventura told National Public Radio: "I run because it angers me. All you Minnesotans take a good hard look at all three of us. And you decide: If you were in a dark alley which one of the three of us would you want with you?"
Mr. Ventura starts the race with almost universal name ID in the state and the support of some 24% of voters if he runs as an independent. "The press doesn't love him, but the people do," says campaign media strategist Bill Hillsman, who handled Mr. Ventura's 1998 ads.
While most experts don't think Mr. Ventura can win, he certainly would shake up the race. Jennifer Duffy, Senate analyst for the Cook Political Report in Washington, believes the contest was already slipping away from Mr. Franken following revelations that he had not paid taxes in several states where he had performed. Ms. Duffy told the Minneapolis Star-Tribune that she's close to moving the Minnesota Senate contest into the "leans Republican" category. A Ventura bid, she added, "would seal the deal" for Mr. Coleman because Mr. Ventura would likely capture those voters most eager for dramatic change in Washington. Absent his entry into the race, many of those same voters would likely opt for the upstart Mr. Franken.
-- John Fund
Webb Is Gone - And Virginia Too?
Losing Jim Webb as a VP option means Barack Obama might have lost his best, and perhaps only, chance of turning Virginia blue this November.
Of all the possible running mates, Sen. Webb was the most intriguing. Here was a Vietnam combat veteran and former Secretary of the Navy under Ronald Reagan who had unseated a Republican incumbent in a state Democrats hope to win this year. An economic populist, Mr. Webb has proven appeal with the blue-collar voters in Virginia whom Mr. Obama failed to win in his contest against Sen. Hillary Clinton. Impeccable national-security credentials and working-class appeal -- the two very qualities Mr. Obama lacks.
In June, a SurveyUSA poll of Virginia voters found that when various tickets were matched against each other, an Obama/Webb ticket performed the best. So when Mr. Webb removed his name from the shortlist earlier this week, Mr. Obama lost one of his strongest potential running mates.
Naturally, lots of names are being thrown around as alternatives, but none would balance the Democratic ticket as nicely as Mr. Webb. In Virginia, two remaining possible selections are former Gov. Mark Warner and current Gov. Tim Kaine. Mr. Warner, however, has signaled that he's focused on his Senate campaign to fill the seat left by the retiring John Warner. Mr. Kaine, although a highly popular governor with a moderate record, is relatively unknown outside the Old Dominion. Perhaps more importantly, neither Mr. Warner nor Mr. Kaine has any national-security experience. Either ticket would be vulnerable to Republicans attacks as a duo dangerously naïve in foreign affairs.
-- Blake Dvorak, RealClearPolitics.com
Live Free (to Drill) Or Die
New Hampshire is famous for spawning Comeback Kids, which perhaps is one of the few sprigs of hope for GOP Sen. John Sununu. He faces an uphill re-election battle against former Gov. Jeanne Shaheen, who lost the same seat six years ago by fewer than 20,000 votes. This year, National Journal calls the New Hampshire race the No. 1 Senate pick-up opportunity for Democrats. Ms. Shaheen enjoys a double-digit lead in the polls and has been outraising Mr. Sununu in the money battle by two-to-one.
But all may not be totally lost for Mr. Sununu. John Kerry barely won the state in 2004 and President Bush won it in 2000, even after Al Gore pulled out those natty flannel shirts. Polls show Barack Obama leading John McCain by 11 points, but Mr. McCain's historic popularity in the state could still come through and provide Mr. Sununu with coattails.
More importantly, God's gift to hapless GOPers this year has been high gas prices and Mr. Sununu's race is one more test of whether Republicans can exploit this lifesaver. New Hampshire voters tend in a green direction and Mr. Sununu loudly touts his conservation votes. Nonetheless, he took a chance by voting two months ago to allow oil drilling offshore and in a small corner of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Ms. Shaheen promptly attacked, saying taxes should be raised on oil companies instead and the money used to subsidize windmills. She even tried to change the subject to stem cells this week, suggesting Mr. Sununu's presumed backwardness on medical science disqualified him to talk about energy technology. Mr. Sununu retorted: "With oil at $140 a barrel, Jeanne Shaheen continues to toe the extreme liberal line, ignoring technological improvements that allow us to produce new energy deep offshore while providing better protection of the environment than ever before."
On Wednesday, Ms. Shaheen snagged the endorsement of the largest firefighters union in the state, the same union that stacked all of its chips with Chris Dodd before the state's presidential primary. Mr. Sununu probably was never going to win over the union bosses, but he may yet win the rank-and-file on the issue of fighting high gas prices.
-- Robert Costa
Quote of the Day
"Of course, McCain himself could take control of the [chaotic state of his campaign] by calling all of his competing advisors together and ordering them to work together. But that would be a dramatic break with past practice. As the former McCain advisor puts it, 'McCain's style is, call everyone into a room, say you guys work it out, and then turn off the lights. And then throw in a knife'" -- New Republic senior editor Jason Zengerle.
Detroit Pol: Aliens Abducted My Blackberry
Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick has come up with a unique legal defense against charges that he committed perjury when he denied in a legal proceeding a romantic affair with Christine Beatty, his then chief-of-staff.
It turns out, according to Mayor Kilpatrick's lawyers, that the government prosecutors have no way of proving that the hundreds of text messages sent on city Blackberrys between the mayor and his aide are legitimate. Kilpatrick attorneys argue that the "allegedly incriminating messages could be the work of a hacker" accessing the system through the Internet. "Any number of persons would know his style of correspondence and might effectively imitate it," a document filed by Kilpatrick lawyers stated.
Ms. Beatty, who has also been indicted, is on the same page as her former boss. "There's nothing to prevent some people just sitting there sending messages and responding to themselves," her attorney argued.
A jury will have to sort all this out, but mark me down as skeptical that the "somebody else did it" defense will fly very far in court.
-- John Fund
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Obama's Liberal Shock Troops
By JOHN FUND
July 12, 2008; Page A11
Denver
While he is a skilled candidate, Barack Obama's ability to surprise, stun and sweep over the vaunted Clinton Machine to capture the Democratic nomination was rooted in his background as a community organizer. He's now turning those skills to the general election.
But liberals aren't just on the march on the presidential level. This year, liberal activists are spending parts of the fortunes of their wealthy donors to transform politics at the state and local level.
AP Photo/Kiichiro Sato
Marchers organized by Acorn rally for a higher minimum wage in Columbus, Ohio, July 10, 2006.
In 2005, billionaire investor George Soros convened a group of 70 super-rich liberal donors in Phoenix to evaluate why their efforts to defeat President Bush had failed. One conclusion was that they needed to step up their long-term efforts to dominate key battleground states. The donors formed a group called Democracy Alliance to make grants in four areas: media, ideas, leadership and civic engagement. Since then, Democracy Alliance partners have donated over $100 million to key progressive organizations.
Take Colorado, which has voted Republican for president in nine of the last 10 presidential elections. But in 2006, Colorado elected a Democratic governor and legislature for the first time in over 30 years. Denver will be the site for the party's 2008 presidential convention. Polls show Barack Obama would carry the state today. This hasn't happened by chance. The Democracy Alliance poured money into Colorado to make it a proving ground for how progressives can take over a state.
Offshoots of leading liberal national groups were set up including Colorado Media Matters in 2006, to correct "conservative misinformation" in the media. Ethics Watch, a group modeled after Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, was started and proceeded to file a flurry of complaints over alleged campaign finance violations -- while refusing to name its own donors.
Western Progress, a think tank to advance "progressive solutions," opened its doors as did the Colorado Fiscal Policy Institute, one of 29 such groups around the country. Then there's Colorado Confidential, a project of The Center for Independent Media, which subsidized liberal bloggers. CIM has set up similar ventures in Iowa, Minnesota and Michigan, with funding from groups such as the Service Employees International Union, and George Soros's Open Society Institute.
On the electoral front, Progressive Majority Colorado has set up seven offices with the goal of "recruiting progressive leaders" as candidates. America Votes-Colorado promises to coordinate the largest voter mobilization effort in the state's history. "All of this activity has flown under the radar," says Ed Morrissey of the conservative blog Captain's Quarters. "But efforts to change the political ground game may have real long-term consequences."
More audaciously, in Michigan, signatures have been filed to put a sweeping reorganization of state government on this November's ballot. The measure, pushed by a group called "Reform Michigan Government Now," contains at least 36 distinct provisions that take up a dozen pages of fine type. "It's a Trojan Horse dressed up as My Friend Flicka," says Lawrence Reed, president of the conservative Mackinac Center.
In a recession-wracked state seething with public anger at elected officials, the measure hits populist notes by cutting the size of the legislature and reducing the salaries of top officeholders. But on voting, it would mandate no-excuse-needed absentee voting -- despite a long history of vote-fraud scandals involving absentee votes in Detroit and other cities. A redistricting commission would be set up to reshape political boundaries, but state courts would be barred from reviewing any plans it draws up. (Only federal courts could review the boundaries.) Voters would also be barred from rejecting or amending the commission's work by initiative.
There is also a direct attack on the judiciary. The initiative reduces the state's Supreme Court to five members, down from seven, and the state's Court of Appeals to 20 judges, down from 28. Saving money appears not to be the motive: Democratic Gov. Jennifer Granholm could appoint 10 newly created circuit court judges. The net result would be that conservatives would lose control of the state Supreme Court, because the two justices who would be removed would be the last two appointed by GOP Gov. John Engler. Of the eight appeals court judgeships that would be eliminated, six are now held by people with GOP backgrounds.
"It's a strange reform that benefits one political party exclusively at all three levels of the judiciary," observes Mr. Reed. "Is the intent that the judiciary become just another arm of one of the political parties?"
The financing for the initiative is mysterious and will not be publicly revealed until campaign finance reports are due in late September or early October. But the measure appears to be a Democratic effort. The campaign is being quarterbacked by a former Democratic state legislative leader, and Mark Brewer, the state's Democratic Party chair, says his party supports the measure.
Should Mr. Obama be elected, he would become not just the head of the Democratic Party but also the inspiration for a large number of liberal groups. Some of them would no doubt lobby him to hand out taxpayer grants and contracts for their nonpolitical "community" efforts.
Indeed, Mr. Obama has extensive connections with the granddaddy of activist groups, Acorn (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now), which has gotten millions in government grants for its low-income housing programs. In 1992, Acorn hired Mr. Obama to run a voter registration effort. He later became a trainer for the group, as well as its lawyer in election law cases.
Acorn's political arm has endorsed Mr. Obama while its "voter education" arm has pledged to spend $35 million to register people this fall -- despite a history of vote fraud scandals that have led to guilty pleas by many Acorn employees.
The housing bill now before Congress would set up a slush fund for community organizations such as Acorn. But Acorn has gone quiet in its lobbying for the bill this week with the news that one of its employees -- the brother of Acorn founder Wade Rathke -- had stolen nearly $1 million from the group. Mr. Rathke decided not to alert law enforcement or the organization's board, and kept his brother employed at Acorn until last month. "Is this the kind of group we want getting taxpayer money?" asks Rep. Ed Royce (R., Calif.)
But Acorn may play, along with other liberal groups, a leading role in electing Mr. Obama. Such groups deserve a closer look now, before their influence and possibly their clout grow dramatically after the November election.
Mr. Fund is a columnist for WSJ.com.
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Ron Paul Won't Be Home Alone
Last July, Paul Broun shocked Georgia pundits when the poorly funded physician narrowly defeated a longtime legislative leader in a GOP primary for a special election in an overwhelmingly Republican U.S. House seat. Party grandees were convinced Dr. Broun's victory was a fluke and this year backed a challenge from state Rep. Barry Fleming, who hails from the district's population center of Augusta. Mr. Fleming promptly raised nearly $1 million and proceeded to throw the kitchen sink at Dr. Broun, including mailers claiming he was soft on Internet perverts and chiding him for failing to bring home earmarks for the district.
Well, Dr. Broun will be going back to Washington next year, having won 71% in last night's primary to defeat the GOP establishment's consensus choice in his district for the second time in a year. Mr. Broun says his victory demonstrates that a Member of Congress can prosper politically even when he votes against any federal program that isn't explicitly authorized by the Constitution.
Dr. Broun was outspent again this time, but raised about $760,000 to put out his message that he was a different kind of Congressman. He touted endorsements from the free-market Club for Growth and social conservative leader Paul Weyrich. But the centerpiece of his campaign was a pledge to continue applying a four-way test before voting on any bill: Is it constitutional and a proper function of government? Is it morally correct? Is it something we really need? Is it something we can afford? Like libertarian congressman and fellow physician Ron Paul of Texas, he always carries a copy of the Constitution in his pocket and consults it before voting. "Today's federal government is too big, too powerful, and too expensive because it is doing things beyond the scope of what our Founders envisioned the national government should be doing," he told constituents. "This is foolish and it is dangerous."
Dr. Broun will once again do battle with more liberal Members of Congress, many of whom no doubt view him as foolish or dangerous. The conventional wisdom in Washington is that someone in Congress who votes against federal spending that isn't in accord with the original conception of the Constitution will have trouble getting re-elected. Dr. Broun has just won an overwhelming endorsement from his constituents, despite being outspent and shunned by his party's establishment. Maybe there's a lesson there for other Members.
-- John Fund
Gone in 60 Seconds
A symbol of California's car culture is now picking up and moving a big chunk of its operations out-of-state. Yesterday, the California State Automobile Association, an affiliate of the national AAA, announced it is closing all three of its call centers in the state at a loss of 900 jobs. Spokeswoman Cynthia Harris was quite blunt about the reason: "It costs more to do business in California than other states." Her group will now will be answering calls from California motorists from new centers in lower-cost Arizona and Oklahoma.
Few entities in California are better known than the California State Automobile Association, which for decades has provided the car-happy state with auto insurance, towing services and travel planning. Its departure is one more sign that California's current tax and regulatory climate is driving jobs away. California's liberals seem oblivious to such developments. One seventh of California's pending $101 billion state budget is red ink, the result of the state's leadership once again failing to rein in spending and develop a less volatile tax base. The Democratic legislature has proposed over $8 billion in higher taxes to plug part of the gap, but for the last month there has been a budget stalemate as the GOP minority refuses to consider higher taxes and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger dances between the two sides.
The state's Democrats not only insist on higher taxes, but are blocking a proposal from Governor Schwarzenegger to limit future spending increases to the growth of the state's population and inflation in an attempt to cushion the impact of future economic downturns. "I think that we have to be very, very careful about tying the hands of future governors and future legislatures," says Democratic Assemblyman Dave Jones. Apparently, he and his colleagues prefer tying the hands of California businesses so they feel compelled to flee the state.
-- John Fund
Freak Show II
New York City always gets interesting in September, when world leaders gather for the United Nations General Assembly. Two years ago, Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez brandished a Noam Chomsky tome from the rostrum and told the Assembly that George Bush is "the devil" and reeks of sulfur. Last year Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stopped by Columbia University to explain to students that "in Iran, we don't have homosexuals, like in your country."
Now it turns out Mr. Ahmadinejad will be returning to New York for this fall’s UN meetings, though no word was given on whether he will repeat his attempt to lay a wreath at Ground Zero, which he explained last time by saying, "We obviously are very much against any terrorist action and any killing." In proof that all politics really is ultra local, however, New York Magazine's Daily Intel blog seized on the news to propose that downtown's New York University steal a little notoriety from its uptown rival. "Now's your chance NYU: Invite him onstage and get him to pretend there are no women in Iran, and you'll be able to totally rub it in Columbia's face."
The possibilities are rich. Columbia hosted Mr. Ahmadinejad at a student center named for Alfred Lerner, a Jewish banking magnate and veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps. NYU is located near Washington Square Park, marked by grand marble arches honoring George Washington. In Iran, of course, such public squares are used for stoning adulterers and other undesirables . . . on second thought, let's not give Mr. Ahmadinejad's event planners any ideas.
-- David Feith
Sofia Goes Flat
Last week I interviewed the instigator of the world's lowest flat tax, Svetla Kostidinova, director of the Institute for Market Economics located in Sofia, Bulgaria. Ms. Kostidinova insists that the most amazing part of her story is that the Bulgarian government is still overtly socialist. Nonetheless, she and her colleagues managed to persuade politicians that replacing the existing tax system with a 10% flat tax would increase revenues and give the government extra money to finance social programs and unfunded pensions. If only Nancy Pelosi were as amenable to economic logic and the lessons of the real world.
Ms. Kostidinova, who speaks English with a thick Eastern European accent, tells me: "The situation was getting desperate in Bulgaria. We were losing our population and our best workers. They were leaving for Western Europe to find jobs and the No.1 form of foreign capital came from remittances." All that began to change when the corporate tax was cut to 10% in 2007 and the personal income tax to 10% in January of this year. "We told the politicians that it was symbolically important for Bulgaria to have the lowest flat tax. We were surrounded by flat tax countries, we wanted to be the nation most friendly to capital and business."
Result: A country that ten years ago had a 12% unemployment rate now has a 6% jobless rate. Instead of people leaving Bulgaria to find jobs, "now it is the reverse. Western Europeans now come to Bulgaria for jobs. We're gaining population now," she says.
Bulgaria is one of 24 nations, most of them in Eastern Europe, that have adopted the flat tax. A unique feature of the Bulgarian system is an absence of exemptions -- everyone pays the 10% tax regardless of income. Because the rate is so low, Ms. Kostidinova says, the plan's promoters figured that everyone could afford to pay. But don't lefties insist that the rich should pay more? "Of course, many do, and they want to raise the rates, but most understand that the flat tax gives us more jobs and more revenues."
If avowed socialist politicians in East Europe are open to new ideas about how to make their tax systems more growth-oriented, why aren't Republicans or Democrats in Washington? Says Richard Rahn, former chief economist for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and now an economic consultant in Eastern Europe: "These countries understand that the flat tax is the key to their prosperity -- even the former communists." Only stultified political tactics -- certainly not clear thinking -- explains why somebody like Barack Obama could be running on a platform of making America's tax rates among the highest in the world when other nations are proving the competitive advantages of flatter tax systems.
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Hosted by Dieter and His Monkey
Barack Obama's rally in Berlin today will be different in many ways from the ones he's held in America.
Unlike his U.S. rallies, which normally require attendees to get tickets, Obama in Berlin will be open to everyone who wishes to come -- providing exactly the kind of chaotic cheering crowd scenes suitable for TV commercials. The campaign acknowledges it may hire a film crew to shoot footage, providing potential raw material for a commercial highlighting a campaign theme that America's standing in the world would improve under a President Obama.
Nonetheless, Team Obama insists the speech will not be a campaign rally. "It is not going to be a political speech," a senior Obama foreign policy adviser told reporters in Jordan this week. "When the president of the United States goes and gives a speech, it is not a political speech or a political rally."
"But [Mr. Obama] is not president of the United States," a reporter gently reminded the adviser. After all, this is the campaign that sometimes has to be told the inconvenient truth that the election remains to be held.
-- John Fund
Republicans in Love
The Obamacans -- past or present Republicans who are backing Barack Obama for president -- are about to go public.
The Hill newspaper reports that Team Obama has held a conference call with a small group of GOP apostates to plot strategy and see how they can be utilized in the fall.
The most prominent Obamacan is former Sen. Lincoln Chafee, who served with Mr. Obama from 2005 to 2007 until the Rhode Islander was defeated by a Democrat. Since then, Mr. Chafee has become an independent. He said he "hadn't thought about" whether he would address the Democratic convention, providing a counterpoint to Senator Joe Lieberman from next-door Connecticut, who is expected to address the GOP convention. Mr. Lieberman has broken ranks with Democrats by endorsing John McCain.
Douglas Kmiec, a professor at the Pepperdine University School of Law, says the Obamacan effort is just getting started, but he expects there will eventually be a Web site, print ads and a surrogate speakers program.
Another prominent Obama supporter is Susan Eisenhower, granddaughter of President Eisenhower and a lifelong Republican. She told me at a recent Aspen Institute meeting that she hasn't decided what role she might play in campaigning for Mr. Obama. I asked her what she would do if Mr. Obama were to lose. "I'd probably become an independent," she told me. "I'm certainly not a Democrat, but the Republican Party has lost me the last few years."
-- John Fund
The GOP Needs Governors
In 2006, Colorado Democrat Bill Ritter captured his state's governorship with a hard-fought, pricey campaign. Two years earlier, New Hampshire Democrat John Lynch unseated incumbent Republican Craig Benson in a very tight race. Now, according to Congressional Quarterly, both states feature Senate races that "lean Democratic." That's a change from just a few weeks ago, when both Senate races seemed to be toss-ups.
As Democrats seek to build on their congressional gains from two years ago, one overlooked ingredient has been their success in gradually shaking off the "liberal" label thanks to strong governors or gubernatorial candidates who've helped redefine their state parties as more conservative than the party's national Democratic leadership. This is true in Colorado, where Rep. Mark Udall, is running strong in his bid for the Senate despite his opposition to increased drilling for oil and natural gas. And it's true in New Hampshire where former Gov. Jeanne Shaheen is putting the screws to incumbent Sen. John Sununu.
But it's also paying off in Pennsylvania, where Democratic Gov. Ed Rendell probably did more than any state official across the country to nail down congressional majorities for his party. Democrats picked up House seats in the suburbs of Philadelphia and a Senate seat in 2006 by picking off Republican Sen. Rick Santorum. That seat now represents the balance of power in the Senate. A similar dynamic is also paying off in Montana. Democrat Gov. Brian Schweitzer has helped redefine his party's image in the state, setting the stage for Jon Tester to knock off incumbent Republican Sen. Conrad Burns two years ago. It's also working in Ohio. Democrats didn't control much there in 2006. But they were able to win both the governor's mansion and a Senate seat thanks to Republican scandals and strong campaigns by Ted Strickland and Sherrod Brown.
In presidential politics, governors can't always deliver their states for their party's candidate. Kentucky, Virginia and North Carolina are three states where Democrats have held governorships in recent years while Republicans won solid presidential victories. Another state that comes to mind is West Virginia, where George W. Bush prevailed in 2004 even as Democrats held onto the governor's mansion in electing Joe Manchin. But if Republicans want to find their way out of the congressional wilderness and start picking up seats in the House and Senate, they might want try winning a few governor's races in competitive states.
-- Brendan Miniter
Quote of the Day
"[Barack] Obama will visit Germany, France and England this week. It just happens that those Western European nations have turned to right-of-center coalitions to remedy corrosive welfare systems, never-ending entitlements, unchecked union power and overregulation of industry. In England mere months ago, the left-of-center Labor Party lost more than 400 seats in local elections, including finishing off the reign of London Mayor Ken 'The Red' Livingstone. In France, Prime Minister Nicolas Sarkozy swept into power in 2007, promising to cut back welfare rolls and revitalize the floundering French economy. In Germany, Angela Merkel vowed free-market reforms to undo theoretical social 'safety nets' that have led to 'terrifyingly high unemployment.' Then, Silvio Berlusconi unexpectedly won Italy's election this year, in part on the pledge to unknot the tangle of economic regulations hampering that nation. Those are the top four economic powers in Europe. That's officially a trend" -- Denver Post columnist David Harsanyi.
The Buck Stops . . . Where?
In the better-late-than-never department, Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson finally came out on Tuesday with a statement in favor of a strong U.S. dollar. If he decides to spend the last five months of his tenure working on bailing out the currency rather than bailing out more financial institutions, his legacy may not turn out a complete disaster for GOP election prospects after all.
Without a doubt, John McCain's campaign has been harmed by the public's shrinking purchasing power, an impoverishment blamed on George W. Bush because it happened on his watch. Gasoline prices are through the roof. Food prices are up. Costco, where millions of Americans shop, warned yesterday that inflationary forces are getting the upper hand. History shows over and over that a rising cost of living equals a voting public that believes the country is "on the wrong track" and needs "change" at the top.
Speaking at the New York Public Library Mr. Paulson said that a strong dollar is "really very important." Coming from an administration that has otherwise been largely agnostic about the value of the U.S. currency, this seemingly pro-forma statement was greeted by the market as an unqualified endorsement. Stocks rallied, oil sank further and the dollar moved up against the yen and euro.
Admittedly, Mr. Paulson had some help when Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank President Charles Plosser raised his already hawkish profile on Tuesday by saying the Fed will need to begin raising rates soon rather than later. Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke has been the chief proponent of the easy money policy that has fueled the dollar's decline. With Congress passing a housing bill and bank stocks rallying, he may now have more political room to begin raising rates. If so, the move is overdue and may help take the wind out of energy and grain prices.
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The Fan/Fred Bailout Is a Scandal
By DICK ARMEY
July 25, 2008; Page A15
Americans who work hard, pay taxes and play by the rules can't seem to get fair representation in Washington, D.C., these days. In the current debate over a government bailout of speculators, irresponsible banks, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the responsible majority has once again been pushed aside in a legislative rush to "do something."
This should have been a perfect opportunity for Republicans, struggling to regain some standing with the American people, to rise united and demand real accountability and reform.
Remember how Democrats put the collapse of Enron and the subsequent losses to shareholders at the feet of the Bush White House? Freddie and Fannie are like Enron on steroids. There's a well-documented history of accounting corruption to benefit senior management; hundreds of millions of dollars spent lobbying against oversight and reform; and myriad connections to both Democratic committee chairmen and subprime lender Countrywide Financial.
Actions by Fannie and Freddie management and their regulators this year precipitated the current crisis. Under pressure from the Democrat-controlled Congress, the Bush administration lifted Fannie and Freddie's portfolio caps in February and reduced their capital reserve requirements in March. In this year's stimulus bill, Congress went further and nearly doubled the size of the loans that Fannie and Freddie can purchase or guarantee.
As a result of this reckless expansion, the government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) now touch nearly 70% of all new mortgages. At the same time, they are insolvent by most measures. The ostensible purpose of Fannie and Freddie is to provide liquidity to America's housing markets. In practice, they are the source of systemic risk and instability in a time of need.
What is needed now is an orderly restructuring that protects taxpayers from such financial exposure in the future, such as the plan proposed by Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R., Texas). Mr. Hensarling's legislation would phase out the charter of either GSE over a five-year period if they access credit lines from the Federal Reserve or Treasury. It also provides a receivership option if the GSEs continue to stumble. Instead, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson offered the beleaguered GSEs and their patrons in Congress a blank check signed by the taxpayers, promising potentially unlimited funds to backstop the lenders. Not surprisingly, House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank and Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd accepted.
Just as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi predicted last week, President Bush withdrew his previous veto threats against the overall legislative package on Wednesday, having gotten virtually nothing in return. The emboldened Democrats have simply attached the Paulson proposal to their housing bailout legislation. Having repeatedly called for Fannie and Freddie restructuring in the past, Mr. Paulson now fights to defend them in their current form.
An explicit government guarantee for Fannie and Freddie could ultimately end up costing taxpayers more than $1 trillion, according to an analysis by Standard & Poor's in April.
The entire spectacle reinforces a persistent public prejudice that the GOP routinely defends the interests of their big business and Wall Street cronies at the expense of the little guy. Messrs. Dodd and Frank won't likely wear this political albatross. Republicans who go along with this GSE bailout certainly will.
So what will congressional Republicans do? Ironically, a veto-sustaining majority of House Republicans -- led by House Minority Leader John Boehner, Financial Services ranking minority member Spencer Bachus, and Republican Study Committee Chairman Hensarling -- voted against the bill on the very same day that the Bush administration caved. "I'm deeply disappointed the White House will sign this bill in its current form," said Mr. Boehner in a statement. "We must take responsible steps to ensure our financial and housing markets are sound, but the Democrats' bill represents a multibillion dollar bailout for scam artists and speculative lenders at the expense of American taxpayers."
The final Senate floor battle on the proposed housing bailout could prove to be a definitive one for Republicans. Will they be the party defending taxpayers that play by the rules, or will they continue to indulge the Beltway crony capitalism advanced by this bill? Will they be a compliant minority browbeaten into "doing something," or will they stand for accountability and fiscal responsibility?
When Mr. Paulson appeared before the Senate Banking Committee, only Jim Bunning (R., Ky.) directly challenged his proposed blank check. Jim DeMint (R., S.C.) is still fighting to offer an amendment that would prohibit Fan and Fred from lobbying while on the federal dole. That's a great first step. Expect these two brave senators to force a full and rigorous debate.
The American public is way ahead of the Beltway intelligentsia on this issue. Multiple polls show that majorities oppose a federal mortgage bailout by a two-to-one margin. For Republican senators, a "nay" vote on the mortgage bailout is both good policy and good politics.
Mr. Armey, House majority leader from 1995 to 2002, is chairman of FreedomWorks.
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I couldn't agree more with Dick Armey.
Another example of politics trumping leadership and long term interests of Americans in Washington.
We are all being sold down the river.
Hopefully the messiah will save us. Obama the messiah. :x :-( :roll: :wink:
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Where did the phrase "American *people*" come from? What ever happened to simply "Americans"?
I think Clinton was the first to use this from what I recall. I don't recall anything like this before.
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The Real Revelation: Not All Pressies Are Skinflints
John McCain used to be famous for his fawning coverage by Big Media and his friendships with Bigfoot reporters. No longer. Media types have fallen hard for Barack Obama and their donation records show just how much. Writing at the blog American Thinker, former journalist William Tate has documented that employees of big media companies are donating to Democrats over Republicans by more than 10 to 1.
Federal Election Commission records show, for instance, that Democrats collected 15 times as much money from those who described themselves as journalists as Republicans did. A total of 235 "journalists" donated some $225,563 to Democrats, while 20 gave $16,298 Republicans. A database search of other newsroom categories (reporter, correspondent, news editor, anchor, newspaper editor and publisher) found a total of 311 donors to Democrats and only 30 to Republicans.
When one adds up all contributions listed by the FEC as coming from employees of major media organizations, the totals are $315,533 to Democrats and a mere $22,656 for Republicans. And most of the money donated to Republicans went to Rep. Ron Paul, a maverick libertarian who supports an immediate withdrawal from Iraq and decriminalization of drugs, not exactly traditional conservative positions.
Most large media organizations have policies against news employees donating to political campaigns, so the numbers unearthed from the FEC certainly aren't definitive. But the overwhelming tilt of non-newsroom employees combined with those reporters who violated such bans or described themselves as "self-employed" certainly provide a clear signpost as to where the media's political leanings are. Is it at all surprising that Barack Obama is receiving such laudatory coverage?
-- John Fund
Great Lakes of Indecision
"Just as we thought, it's going to be a close race in Michigan."
That was the verdict of Dave Dulio, a political science professor at Oakland University in the Detroit suburbs, after the Detroit News produced a new poll showing Barack Obama with the narrowest of leads in the battleground state. Mr. Obama is ahead of John McCain by 43% to 41%, with 12% of voters undecided and 5% supporting either Libertarian Bob Barr or consumer activist Ralph Nader.
In a memo to Michigan Republicans, Mr. McCain's regional campaign manager Jennifer Hallowell said seven regional campaign offices are now open in the state and several more will be up and running in coming weeks. They will be staffed by "paid staff and several thousand volunteer leaders," said Ms. Hallowell. Commenting on the new poll, she added: "For Senator Obama to be polling in the low 40's in this Democrat-leaning state despite his 100% name identification is almost unprecedented."
In 2005, John Kerry beat out George W. Bush for Michigan's 13 Electoral College votes after a close race, propelled by strong support from women voters and independents. Michigan has gone blue in the last four presidential elections, but usually by narrow margins. This year, however, the double whammy of high gas prices and the subprime meltdown has hit Michigan and its autoworkers hard -- and when voters are hurting, they are more susceptible to rethinking their allegiances. Team McCain is airing a new television ad blaming Mr. Obama for high gas prices and Mitt Romney, whose father was once governor of Michigan, has risen again to the top of Mr. McCain's murmured Veep list. Would Mr. Romney really be much help in Michigan? We may soon find out. Today's Washington Post revives the idea that Mr. McCain may speed up announcement of his vice presidential choice in hopes of reclaiming media attention from Mr. Obama and the upcoming Beijing Olympics.
-- Robert Costa
A Stonewall Crumbles
Eliot Spitzer got a pass yesterday when New York's Public Integrity Commission charged four of his aides with ethics violations in the infamous Troopergate scandal. Three members of the governor's former staff plus his former state police commissioner will be taking the rap -- at least for now.
A year ago Troopergate seemed that rarest of beasts -- a successful coverup. At its heart was a plot allegedly hatched in Mr. Spitzer's office to use the State Police to smear a political rival, GOP Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno, suggesting he used state aircraft to attend political fundraisers. Unearthed by investigators was a complete set of talking points from Mr. Spitzer's office that closely mirrored the original story attacking Mr. Bruno in the Albany Times-Union. Once the plot unraveled, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo issued an "investigation" clearing Mr. Spitzer. Indeed, it's depressing to consider that Mr. Spitzer's stonewalling likely would have worked if he hadn't gotten caught with his, um, pants down in a different context.
He may not have been charged yesterday, but the investigation isn't over and the commission leaves open the possibility of additional developments. Mr. Spitzer, meanwhile, has rendered himself invisible since his resignation from office over his dalliance with a prostitute. A period of invisibility is the standard prescription before launching a rehabilitation campaign. Of course, such a campaign would be much harder if, in addition to a personal failing, he now had to answer in court for abuse of power and ethics violations during his short stint as governor.
-- Brian M. Carney
Quote of the Day
"Barack Obama always was a larger-than-life candidate with a healthy ego. Now he's turning into the A-Rod of politics. It's all about him. He's giving his opponent something other than issues to attack him on: narcissism. A convention hall isn't good enough for the presumptive Democratic nominee. He plans to deliver his acceptance speech in the 75,000-seat stadium where the Denver Broncos play. Before a vote is cast, he's embarking on a foreign-policy tour that will use cheering Europeans -- and America's top news anchors -- as extras in his campaign. . . . There's no such thing as a humble politician. But when Obama looks into the mirror, he doesn't just see a president; he sees JFK" -- Boston Globe columnist Joan Vennochi.
A Perk Too Far
Barack Obama may have ridiculed John McCain's call for a gasoline tax holiday this summer, but the committee hosting the Democratic National Convention -- until this week -- was enjoying its own vacation from state and federal fuel taxes. The Rocky Mountain News blew the scheme sky-high by reporting that the host committee, responsible for raising money to put on the convention, was using the City of Denver's municipal gas pumps to fill up vehicles driven by its members, avoiding some 40 cents per gallon in state and federal fuel taxes.
Chris Lopez, a spokesman for the committee, claimed the practice was adopted "for safety and security reasons." He explained that by using city pumps "we know the gas is not tainted."
After first defending the practice by incorrectly claiming that Minneapolis, host city for the Republican convention, was doing the same thing, Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper slammed on the brakes this week after suggestions from the state attorney general that the practice might be illegal. He ordered that convention committee members pay full retail for gas.
-- John Fund
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The paragraph below about the fund raising advantage for Dems in the Congressional races scares the bejeezus out of me. It looks like the Dems will have a veto/filibuster proof majority :-o :cry: :cry:
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Despite Barack Obama's moves to the center, the Democratic presidential nominee has planted his flag firmly with liberals when it comes to one issue: race and gender preferences in public education, employment and contracting.
Over the weekend, Mr. Obama accused his Republican rival of flip-flopping after John McCain endorsed an initiative to ban preferential treatment pushed by former University of California regent Ward Connerly. Such proposals will be on ballots this fall in Arizona, Colorado and Nebraska.
"I do not believe in quotas," Mr. McCain said yesterday on ABC's This Week With George Stephanopoulos. "I have not seen the details of some of these proposals. But I've always opposed quotas." Mr. Obama was quick to point out that a decade ago Mr. McCain had told a Hispanic group that "rather than engage in divisive ballot initiatives, we must have a dialogue and cooperation and mutual efforts together to provide for every child in America to fulfill their expectations."
Mr. McCain has certainly been guilty of flip-flops during this campaign, but this is one case where the charge rings hollow. Mr. McCain also told the same group he opposed race-based hiring quotas. Like Jeb Bush when he was governor of Florida, Mr. McCain is leery of ballot initiatives that would arouse strong passions and divide communities. Governor Bush worked with the Florida legislature to pass a ban on racial preferences rather than submit the idea directly to voters, something Mr. Connerly was unable to do in California, Michigan and Washington -- the three states where his initiative has passed to date. Yet Gov. Bush, like Mr. McCain, also always made clear that he opposed quotas.
But then Mr. Obama also claims to oppose quotas, saying he supports "affirmative action as a means of overcoming both historic and potentially current discrimination." Any such programs can't be "simply applied without looking at the whole person." In other words, he wants it both ways: He favors race preferences but they need to be packaged "individually."
Should the issue of racial preferences come up in the debates this fall, you can expect both candidates to try to engage in "nuance." But Mr. Obama will have the harder time. Even in Michigan, which hasn't voted Republican for president in 20 years, the initiative Mr. Obama campaigned against won easily with 58% of the vote.
-- John Fund
Men Bite Dogs, Challengers Outraise Incumbents
As Federal Election Commission reports streamed into Washington last week, political watchers in both parties focused on a number of promising challengers who are actually managing to raise more money than presumably entrenched incumbents. As each party narrows its target list before November, watch for well-funded challengers to be among their top priorities.
At least 16 Democrats running against incumbent Republicans outraised their rivals, while six Republicans outpaced Democratic incumbents (thanks to August primaries and tardy filings, not every report has been filed). To be sure, some challengers have managed to raise substantial sums and yet aren't deemed serious competitors. Democratic businesswoman Linda Ketner outraised South Carolina Rep. Henry Brown, but Mr. Brown is expected to win easily in a district that gave President Bush 61% in 2004. Likewise, Deborah Honeycutt, a physician from suburban Atlanta, probably won't beat Democratic Rep. David Scott, to whom she lost by a 69%-31% margin in 2006.
Among the rest, several promising recruits stand out as result of recent fund-raising success. For Democrats, bright spots include Nevada State Senator Dina Titus, former Alaska State Representative Ethan Berkowitz and businesswoman Darcy Burner, who is running for Congress in Washington State. For Republicans, Anne Northup, a former member of Congress who lost her Kentucky seat in 2006, has made an impressive financial start against Democrat John Yarmuth; and former Congressional aide Pete Olson in Texas and one-time Assembly Speaker John Gard in Wisconsin have both outraised Democratic incumbents in their districts.
Perhaps most indicative of long-term trends, Democrats have managed to field two high-profile recruits in what has been solid Republican territory. Raul Martinez and Joe Garcia, both Cuban American Democrats in Florida, are going up against GOP Reps. Lincoln Diaz-Balart and Mario Diaz-Balart, brothers who represent districts near Miami that are each more than 60% Hispanic (mostly Cuban). Cubans have been a reliable voting bloc for the GOP for the past four decades, but a new generation could indicate a power shift towards Democrats. The incumbent Diaz-Balarts still have more cash on hand than their challengers, but Messrs. Martinez and Garcia outraised the incumbents last quarter and a recent poll for the Miami Herald showed them within striking distance.
Democrats, with an approximately six-to-one cash advantage over their House Republican opponents, have begun laying the foundation for an aggressive advertising campaign in 51 districts around the country, including seven where the Democratic candidate outraised the Republican incumbent. Of the $53 million earmarked for House races, Democrats are aiming $1.4 million at the Diaz-Balarts in Florida and a neighboring Republican-held district.
-- Reid Wilson, RealClearPolitics.com
Brownout
A year ago, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown was enjoying a honeymoon as a new prime minister, building on a decade of Labour Party dominance under Tony Blair. How things have changed. A poll yesterday for the Independent newspaper found nearly a quarter of Labour voters believe Conservative Party leader David Cameron would make a better prime minister than their own Mr. Brown. Among all voters, Mr. Cameron held an 18-point lead on that question.
That's why the Scotsman, the leading newspaper in Mr. Brown's native Scotland, is rattling political china with its report that Labour ministers are considering a "suicide election" to give the party a fresh start under a new leader. Under this scenario, Mr. Brown would be dumped either this fall or next spring, and the party would call an immediate election in which defeat would be the most likely outcome.
Labour ministers "believe such a move would be better than Brown clinging on to office until 2010 when, they fear, the party would face a wipe-out on the scale of that inflicted on the Tories by Labour in 1997," the Scotsman reported. To Labour's future advantage, Mr. Cameron's Conservatives as a result would be propelled into power "without having prepared enough for the tough economic times ahead."
Normally, such gloomy talk would be discounted as exaggerated, but panic has been the norm in Labour Party circles since it lost a special election for a vacant seat in Parliament last week. The defeat came in Glasgow East, deemed one of the safest Labour seats in the entire country. "If we aren't safe in Glasgow, we could lose everywhere," is how one Labour Party political analyst put it to me over the weekend.
-- John Fund
Quote of the Day
"In Germany, it was all wunderbar. Addressing the throng [in Berlin] as a 'proud citizen of the United States,' but also 'a fellow citizen of the world,' Obama seemed to be giving Europeans a role and a voice in an election in which they have no vote. . . . Who can forget Operation Clark County? That was the campaign waged by British paper the Guardian that encouraged Brits to write to voters in a swing county in the swing state of Ohio to urge them to vote for 2004 Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry -- because 'the result of the U.S. election will affect the lives of millions around the world, but those of us outside the 50 states have had no say in it.' Well, they had their say, and Clark was the only county in Ohio to switch from supporting Gore in 2000 to Bush GOP in 2004"-- San Francisco Chronicle columnist Deborah Saunders, on the potential political impact of Barack Obama's overseas trip.
Jesus's Walkman
For a certain part of the electorate, the contents of Barack Obama's iPod are the most vital political issue of the day. That Mr. Obama also won a Grammy (albeit for the audio version of his memoir) doesn't hurt either.
Now the music blogosphere is abuzz with chatter of its own dream ticket -- Mr. Obama and Kanye West. Reports suggest that Mr. West indeed will lead an all-star rap music lineup at the Democratic Convention (or at least the surrounding parties), including Wyclef Jean and N.E.R.D. All three are known Obama favorites, especially Mr. West who was raised in Chicago and gained a taste of political notoriety when he told a live national audience at a benefit concert for victims of Hurricane Katrina that "George Bush doesn't like black people." Recently, he's been in a more ecumenical spotlight for rapping about religion with his hit single "Jesus Walks."
Mr. Obama, who has never failed to utter the appropriate sentiment on any subject, has said he is "troubled sometimes by the misogyny and materialism of rap lyrics." And Mr. Obama's iPod wouldn't be Mr. Obama's iPod if it didn't contain something for everybody, including Bruce Springsteen and Bob Dylan. In the end, however, careful polling will likely decide exactly which rainbow of musicians will be seen fawning over the candidate at the convention.
-- Collin Levy
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Lip Reading John McCain
John McCain has fallen into an age-old trap of GOP presidential candidates: Sending mixed messages on tax increases.
One of Mr. McCain's problems with the conservative base in the GOP primaries was his past opposition to President Bush's 2001 and 2003 tax cuts. He won in part by taking care to acknowledge that the tax cuts had worked to grow the economy and vowing to preserve them when they expire in 2010. On the campaign trail, he's fond of saying: "Senator Obama will raise your taxes. I won't."
But on Sunday, Mr. McCain was asked by ABC News how he planned to address Social Security without raising taxes. "There is nothing that's off the table. I have my positions, and I'll articulate them. But nothing's off the table," he told host George Stephanopoulos. "I don't want tax increases. But that doesn't mean that anything is off the table."
The Club For Growth, a leading free-market group, reacted quickly, issuing a letter telling Mr. McCain that his comments were "shocking because you have been adamant in your opposition to raising taxes under any circumstances." The letter cited the McCain campaign's criticism back in June of Mr. Obama's support for a Social Security payroll tax hike for workers earning above $250,000 a year. Douglas Holtz-Eakin, Mr. McCain's top economic adviser, told reporters at the time a President McCain would not consider a payroll tax increase "under any imaginable circumstance."
Mr. McCain has enough problems with his base without causing Republican voters further agita by blurring his position on tax increases. He should recall just how much political damage President George H.W. Bush suffered in 1992 when he had to face voters after going back on his 1988 pledge, "Read my lips, no new taxes." Make no mistake, the Democratic National Committee is already issuing press releases pointing out the latest wrinkle in Mr. McCain's tax position. He needs to clarify his approach before press releases are followed by TV commercials attacking him.
-- John Fund
The Irrepressible Novak
Robert Novak is widely regarded as the dean of Washington journalists, having covered and commented on national politics for more than half a century. That's why so many were shocked and saddened to learn that the 77-year-old columnist has been diagnosed with a brain tumor and has taken a temporary leave from his column.
It will be the first time in anyone's memory that he has missed a deadline. When he broke his hip in a hotel bathroom a few years ago shortly before his column was due, Mr. Novak crawled to a phone, summoned help and later dictated the rest of his column by phone from his hospital bed. He has written more than 7,000 columns since his start as a syndicated columnist in 1963.
In his recent best-selling memoir "The Prince of Darkness," Mr. Novak said some of his goals as a journalist were "to tell the world things people do not want me to reveal, to advocate limited government, economic freedom, and a strong, prudent America -- and to have fun doing it."
Fun is exactly what Mr. Novak has always had. He along with his late partner Rowland Evans gave me my first job in journalism. Much of what I know today about writing comes from the two years I spent as a reporter for Evans & Novak.
I had dinner with Bob just ten days ago after we both spoke at an Americans for Prosperity conference of conservative bloggers in Austin, Texas. It was hard to drag him away from his admiring fans and their requests for photos. He expressed satisfaction that so many people still wanted to hear from him, and spoke about how proud he was that another former reporter, David Freddoso, was about to publish a new book called "The Case Against Barack Obama: The Unlikely Rise and Unexamined Agenda of the Media's Favorite Candidate."
Bob Novak has beaten cancer three times. He has an iron will, and I hope he can beat this latest health challenge. Don't be surprised if you see him back in the column-writing saddle before the November election. A fall presidential campaign just wouldn't be the same without Bob Novak's pungent reporting.
-- John Fund
Quote of the Day
"The ANWR ban is the work of environmental restriction groups that depend on direct-mail fundraising to pay their bills and keep their jobs. That means they must always claim the sky is falling. They can't get people to send a check or mouse-click a donation because they did a good job, the restrictions they imposed on the Alaska pipeline in the 1970s have done a good job in preserving the environment or because clean air acts of the past have vastly reduced air pollution. ANWR is a precious cause for them because it can be portrayed (dishonestly) as a national treasure and because the pressure for drilling there has been unrelenting. . . . Democrats have enlisted solidly in their army, and they have also been able to recruit Republicans who wanted to get good environmental scorecards to impress enviro-conscious voters in states like Florida, New Jersey and Minnesota. Now all that is in danger, because [of] the pain of paying $60 for a tank of gas . . ." -- US New & World Report's Michael Barone, on the unraveling of an environmental fund-raising racket.
Why Doesn't China Get a Haircut?
Now that Congress has approved the bailout of housing giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, those who voted "yes" are soon going to be asked an uncomfortable question: Why are you taking money from U.S. taxpayers to bail out the Bank of China and other nations' central banks?
It turns out the biggest supporter of the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac bailouts has been the Chinese government. The Chinese own about half a trillion dollars in Fannie and Freddie securities and they've put the warning out to Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson they expect to be repaid in full. The fear among Mr. Paulson and other Treasury officials is that if Fannie and Freddie debt isn't repaid at 100% par, the Chinese may start dumping their hundreds of billions of dollars of Treasury securities, possibly causing a run on U.S. government debt and sharply raising Uncle Sam's borrowing costs.
China isn't the only foreign nation with a big stake in the bailout legislation. Many foreign governments have loaded up on Fannie and Freddie securities, according to data gathered by the Council on Foreign Relations. No. 2 on the list is the central bank in Russia, which holds about $200 billion in these twin housing giants' securities. The oil nations in the Gulf region also own large holdings of the debt as well.
The Chinese, Russians and Saudis evidently can't tell the difference between the full faith and credit of the U.S. government, which is what stands behind U.S. Treasury securities, and the once officially-denied "implicit guarantee" that some in the market chose to see behind Fannie and Freddie paper. The federal bailout that President Bush agreed reluctantly to sign has effectively conferred upon Fannie and Freddie securities equal status to Treasury securities. This means going forward, the housing GSEs now effectively have unlimited use of every taxpayer's credit card.
Naturally, this has conservative fiscal watchdog groups like Dick Armey's Freedom Works and the National Taxpayers Union up in arms. There's a reason that Fannie and Freddie paper has paid out interest rates roughly half a point higher than Treasury securities over the years: higher risk of nonpayment. Former House Majority Leader Mr. Armey asks why Congress now feels compelled to pay back Fannie and Freddie's lenders 100%? Why not pay back, say, 90 cents on the dollar? Their lenders already have been compensated for higher risk of default, and this would not only save taxpayers money but also help delineate Treasury bills from GSE debt going forward.
So far, just about everyone has been made whole in this financial fiasco except taxpayers. Why Democrats and Republicans think it's good economics, let alone good politics, to put the interests of the Chinese and Russian governments ahead of their own constituents is a question members should be asked over and over between now and the election.
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DEZINFORMATSIA
Obama buster: “Obama has benefited from a week of good images. But substantively, optimism without reality isn’t eloquence. It’s just Disney.” —New York Times columnist David Brooks
Drooling over Obama: “What, what do you make of this? Let’s take another bite here because it was quite a speech. You have to judge for yourself but the speech had its thrill factor, certainly once again. Here he was.” —MSNBC’s Chris Matthews “Barack Obama’s overseas trip—it was almost flawless.” —CNN’s Jack Cafferty
The Big Con: “And I think what [Barack Obama is] trying to say, one of the messages that I heard was, ‘look, I’m not some wooly-headed liberal lefty that thinks we should all sing Kumbaya together. I’m here to tell them that we need international cooperation to beat the terrorists, to beat the extremists, to win the war in Afghanistan.’... But I think for the American voter he was saying, ‘look, I’m here speaking for our national security interests... My metaphor is the wall that Reagan used, not John Kennedy’s metaphor.” —CBS’s Jeff Greenfield “[Obama] doesn’t have to equal McCain in [foreign policy and national security issues], he just has to make voters seem like he’s okay, he knows what he’s talking about.” —CBS’s Jeff Greenfield
Right from the left: “Why can’t Obama bring himself to acknowledge the surge worked better than he and other skeptics, including this page, thought it would? What does that stubbornness say about the kind of president he’d be?” —USA Today
Tinfoil hat: “The price of oil has been high. The people who can affect the price of oil would prefer a Republican presidential candidate. Watch the price of oil. If it goes down, which it may very well, it could help John McCain quite a bit.” —fake-but-accurate Dan Rather **Talk about voodoo economics!
Newspulper Headlines: Be Careful What You Wish For: “Texas Oilman: Clear Path for Wind Power” —Associated Press “Hurricane Dolly Slams South Texas Before Weakening” —Associated Press
We Blame Global Warming: “While Sun Shines on Obama, Storm Trips Up McCain” —Boston Globe “Maine Governor Fears Cold Winter” —Boston Globe
Help Wanted: “Authorities Seek Indicted Polygamist Sect Members” —Associated Press
Everything Seemingly Is Spinning Out of Control: “Dwarf Pops Out of Suitcase at Airport Counter” —Atlanta Journal-Constitution “Flesh-Eating Slug Invades Wales” —ScienceBlogs.com “Global Warming Could Be Causing a Kitten Boom, Experts Say” —InfoZine.com “Angry Man Shoots Lawn Mower for Not Starting” —Associated Press “New Jersey Man Killed by Flying Cocktail Glass” —Associated Press
News You Can Use: “A Place to Take That Lamborghini for a Spin” —Reuters
Bottom Stories of the Day: “Star Explodes and No One Notices” —FoxNews.com (Thanks to The Wall Street Journal’s James Taranto)
THE DEMO-GOGUES
Talk about arrogance: “I have become a symbol of the possibility of America returning to our best traditions.” —Barack Obama to House members
Unreal: “Let us... answer our destiny and remake the world once again.” —Barack Obama in Berlin
Always the articulate orator: “You know, it’s always a bad practice to say ‘always’ or ‘never’.” —Barack Obama “Many of the crisises [sic] that we face are the, uh, a direct result of putting off tough decisions for too many years.” —Barack Obama **“Crisises”?
History for dummies: “Throughout our history, America’s confronted constantly evolving danger, from the oppression of an empire, to the lawlessness of the frontier, from the bomb that fell on Pearl Harbor, to the threat of nuclear annihilation. Americans have adapted to the threats posed by an ever-changing world.” —Barack Obama **“The bomb that fell on Pearl Harbor”?
Supporting the troops?: “So the point that I was making at the time was that the political dynamic [in Iraq] was the driving force between that sectarian violence. And we could try to keep a lid on it, but if these underlining dynamic continued to bubble up and explode the way they were, then we would be in a difficult situation. I am glad that in fact those political dynamic shifted at the same time that our troops did outstanding work.” —Barack Obama on the surge
Bad energy policy: “I’m trying to save the planet; I’m trying to save the planet. I will not have this [energy] debate trivialized by their excuse for their failed policy. I respect the office that I hold. And when you win the election, you win the majority, and what is the power of the speaker? To set the agenda, the power of recognition, and I am not giving the gavel away to anyone.” —Nancy Pelosi, who refuses to allow offshore drilling
World’s smallest violin: “I go on the floor of the House every day and deal with people who don’t want to give health care to poor little children in America.” —Nancy Pelosi
INSIGHT
“People who make careers out of helping others—sometimes at great sacrifice, often not—usually don’t like to hear that those others might get along fine, might even get along better, without their help.” —John Holt
“Success is not final, failure is not fatal. It is the courage to continue that counts.” —Winston Churchill
“A fool and his money are soon elected.” —Will Rogers
“It is essential to the triumph of reform that it should never succeed.” —William Hazlitt
UPRIGHT
“What is amazing this year is how many people have bought the fundamentally childish notion that, if you don’t like the way things are going, the answer is to write a blank check for generic ‘change,’ empowering someone chosen not on the basis of any track record but on the basis of his skill with words.” —Thomas Sowell
“Barack Obama concedes that America’s troops have contributed to improvements on the ground in Iraq, but he still stands by his vote against the surge. Why not just admit that he was wrong?... Obama has fallen to pride in part because he has bought his own myth. By staking his future on a past of supernatural vision, he has made it difficult to admit human fault. The magic isn’t working anymore. And Obama, the visionary one, can’t even see what everyone else sees: He was wrong.” —Kathleen Parker
“So Senator Obama and his campaign decided that it would be inappropriate to visit wounded soldiers in Germany while touring Europe as a candidate for the presidency. Senator McCain hit this one right on the head: it is never inappropriate to visit our wounded men and women in uniform.” —Bobby Eberle
“Barack Obama represents an obnoxiously elitist attitude that reeks of paternalistic government...” —Kathryn Lopez
“Sen. Obama owes it to the public to let us know how much of our hard-earned money he, in his wisdom, believes we have a moral obligation to give away to poor people around the world—and how much of our money that he has a moral obligation to extract from our wages forcefully, through federal taxation.” —Tony Blankley
“The time may be coming when our lunatic environmental policies are swept away by a rising tide of common sense.” —Michael Barone
EDITORIAL EXEGESIS
“Reneging on his no-new-taxes pledge cost President George H.W. Bush a second term. Will John McCain play into Barack Obama’s hands by making the same mistake on Social Security taxes?... Asked Sunday by George Stephanopoulos on ABC about Social Security payroll-tax increases, McCain replied: ‘Nothing is off the table. I don’t want tax increases. Of course, I’d like to have young Americans have some of their money put into an account with their name on it, but that doesn’t mean that anything is off the table.’... The repercussions of McCain backpedaling on his commitment are serious... Fortunately, it’s not too late for McCain to regain his footing from this misstep. No one has more credibility as a spending hawk. Instead of talking about payroll tax hikes, he should use this presidential campaign to talk up the country’s impending entitlement crisis and embrace the fundamental reforms necessary to prevent fiscal disaster. The solutions to the catastrophes that lie ahead for Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are not new taxes that only delay the day of reckoning by a few more years. The answers are innovations like personal retirement accounts controlled by the individual and the expansion of tax-free health savings accounts to help pay private insurance costs. Voters appreciate being told the facts. They will elect a straight talker with the guts to fix our biggest fiscal challenge. Right now John McCain is missing an opportunity that seems tailor-made for him—which could mean the election of a president whose socialistic intentions will only shorten the fuse on America’s entitlement time bomb.” —Investor’s Business Daily
VILLAGE IDIOTS
Delusional: “I think in general [Barack Obama has] shown people he’s not a left-wing ideologue. If anything, he’s center, even center-right, on foreign policy issues in the way he was talking on this trip.” —Fred Kempe, President of the Atlantic Council of the United States
Audacity of hope: “If [Obama] picks Hillary he gets her 18 million supporters and we would win in a cakewalk and control the White House for 16 years.” —former DNC chief and permanent Clintonista Terry McAuliffe
From the Moonbat files: “You’ve ruled against impeaching George Bush and Dick Cheney, and now Kucinich is trying to pass that. Why do you, why do you insist on not impeaching these people so that the world and America can really see the crimes that they’ve committed?” —Joy Behar of “The View” to Nancy Pelosi
Trouble on the home front?: “The story is false. It’s completely untrue, ridiculous. Anyone who knows me knows that I have been in love with the same woman for 30-plus years.” —John Edwards on his “extracurricular activities”
It ain’t easy being green: “It has become increasingly clear that damage is occurring daily to our Earth and its creatures. Among the gravest concerns is the peril imposed by global warming and vanishing sea ice. The polar bear has become the iconic image of this threat, but all of us know that the polar bear is literally the tip of the iceberg. Climate change is threatening flora and fauna of all types—and that includes we humans. The heat is on. The time is now.” —Robert Buchanan, Polar Bears International President
SHORT CUTS
“Obama is a three-year senator without a single important legislative achievement to his name, a former Illinois state senator who voted ‘present’ nearly 130 times. As president of the Harvard Law Review, as law professor and as legislator, has he ever produced a single notable piece of scholarship? Written a single memorable article? His most memorable work is a biography of his favorite subject: himself.” —Charles Krauthammer
“Barack Obama wrote a prayer to God which he placed in Jerusalem’s Wailing Wall last week. The prayer note was retrieved by a seminary student and published in an Israeli newspaper. Everybody in Israel wanted to know if it was addressed, ‘Dear Dad’.” —Argus Hamilton
“Barack Obama finally played the Palace, or at least the Tiergarten, and he left a lot of promises in his wake. He’ll get Christians, Muslims and Jews to hit the sawdust trail together, to repent their sins and suspicions and remake the world. He’ll tear down walls between nations, between races, tribes and immigrants; between East and West, between the haves and the have-nots. And with his spare change he’ll buy the world a Coke.” —Wesley Pruden
“Obama was in Germany [last week], and 200,000 people showed up. There was so many Germans shouting and screaming that France surrendered just in case.” —Craig Ferguson
David Letterman: From the “Top Ten Signs Barack Obama is Overconfident”: Proposed bill to change Oklahoma to “Oklobama”; Offered Bush 20 bucks for the “Mission Accomplished” banner; Asked guy at Staples, “Which chair will work best in an oval-shaped office?”; The affair with Barbara Walters; Having head measured for Mount Rushmore; He’s voting for Nader; Offered McCain a job in gift shop at Obama Presidential Library; Been cruising for chicks with John Edwards.
Jay Leno: Barack Obama is back from his big European tour. Did you see him in Europe? People were cheering him, holding up signs, blowing him kisses. And that was just the American media covering the story. ... Barack Obama was on “Meet the Press” Sunday. John McCain was on a new show called, “I Wish I Could Meet the Press.” ... Polls show Obama more popular than McCain in Germany, France, and Great Britain. However, McCain leads in Mesopotamia, Gaul and the Holy Roman Empire. So, it’s pretty balanced. ... In world news, I guess you’ve heard Barack Obama [was] elected Chancellor of Germany. ... You can tell the French are still a little gun shy. After speaking in front of 200,000 Germans, when Obama arrived in France, they said, “You came alone, right?” ... You know, they said on the news earlier [this week] that this political campaign has only 100 days left. Only! Anybody complaining that this thing was dragging out? ... I don’t know what’s less likely, Barack Obama getting enough experience in 100 days, or John McCain living another 100 days. ... The National Enquirer caught former presidential candidate John Edwards sneaking out of his girlfriend’s hotel room at the 2:40 in the morning. See, Edwards got caught ‘cause the reporters were there waiting for him...f Edwards didn’t want to get caught, he should have met this woman at the hotel where John McCain was staying. There are no reporters. ... If this story turns out to be true, there go his chances at becoming vice president. He could still be governor of New York. ... And in Puerto Rico, it [was] Constitution Day [Friday]. So, that’s where the Constitution went. I knew we weren’t using it anymore.
Veritas vos Liberabit—Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus, et Fidelis! Mark Alexander, Publisher, for The Patriot’s editors and staff. (Please pray for our Patriot Armed Forces standing in harm’s way around the world, and for their families—especially families of those fallen Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen, who granted their lives in defense of American liberty.)
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Secoond post of the day
Welfare State
It looks as if the senator who brought us the "Bridge to Nowhere" may be heading in the same direction politically. Alaska Senator Ted Stevens' indictment yesterday on seven counts of lying on his financial disclosure forms has certainly ended his political career. He's accused of covering up a total of $250,000 in gifts
The indictment appears to be about as airtight as a prosecutor could wish for. The FBI recorded two phone calls between Sen. Stevens and Bill Allen, a Stevens patron who dominated state politics as the head of the oil-services firm VECO until he pleaded guilty to bribing state legislators this year. Mr. Allen has already testified in open court that he paid some of the bills incurred in the expensive remodeling of Mr. Stevens's Alaska home. A year ago today, FBI agents raided the senator's home to secure evidence about the remodeling work.
Political experts in Alaska tell me that Mr. Stevens, who has served since 1968 and rose to become chairman of the powerful Appropriations Committee, will almost certainly lose his August 26 Republican primary. His major opponent is David Cuddy, a banker who held Mr. Stevens to 58% of the vote in a 1996 primary by attacking his spendthrift ways. An era is ending in Alaska politics. Rep. Don Young, Alaska's lone House member, is himself under investigation by the Feds for his ties to VECO. Polls show him trailing his primary opponent, Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell.
For decades Alaska justified its raids on the federal Treasury because Washington owned so much of the state and had locked up so many of its natural resources from development (the oil underneath the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge being the most famous example). In what some called "compensation," the state made sure it became No. 1 in the nation for pork per person -- $984.85 for each Alaskan in 2005. With the abrupt loss of seniority the state is about to experience in Congress, it may now have to come up with a new model of economic development. Here's hoping Congress contributes by opening more of the state's resources to development. Producing real wealth would be a healthier strategy for most Alaskans than the continuing pillage of the U.S. taxpayer the state's raiding parties in Congress have been conducting for decades.
-- John Fund
McCain on Taxes: The Picture Gets Fuzzy
The McCain campaign is starting to wrap itself around just how much of a potential problem it created for itself with the candidate's claim on ABC News last Sunday that "nothing's off the table" -- including raising taxes -- when a President John McCain tackles Social Security reform.
The Democratic National Committee quickly pounced, issuing a press release headlined, "McCain Tax Pledge? Not so much." It listed the many times Mr. McCain has pledged not to raise taxes and contrasted these statements with his "nothing's off the table" line. Some Republicans predict this is only the opening barrage in a Democratic attack theme -- regardless of Mr. Obama's own publicly stated plans to raise Social Security taxes on upper-income earners. "Raising Social Security taxes is a pretty easy issue to scare folks about -- and kills small business," is how one GOP consultant put it to me.
Sensing that Democrats were already cueing up their tape machines to prepare commercials for the fall campaign, McCain aides are now pressing their boss to return to his often-stated anti-tax message. Yesterday, at a town hall meeting in Sparks, Nevada, Mr. McCain was asked by a young girl if he planned to raise taxes as president. "No," was his stern one-word answer.
Now if he can elaborate on that a bit he may be able to portray his ABC News answer as a one-day blunder rather than a self-launched torpedo aimed directly at one of his most effective arguments against Barack Obama. The Democratic candidate has extensive plans to raise taxes at a time of economic weakness -- something that no school of economics, Keynesian or supply-side, would advocate.
-- John Fund
This Bud's for Belgium
Politicians and Wall Streeters are starting to ask why the Belgian beer company InBev purchased Anheuser-Busch and not the other way around. Anheuser-Busch is an iconic American firm and some find it almost unpatriotic that Anheuser CEO August Busch IV allowed the "King of Beers" to relocate across the Atlantic -- though shareholders were the big winners here with a $50 billion-plus takeaway.
But here's the real question: Was the takeover basically financed by the savings Anheuser expected from escaping America's increasingly uncompetitive corporate tax system? According to the Tax Foundation, Belgium's corporate tax rate is 33%, but the effective tax rate can be half the nominal rate thanks to adjustments for something the OECD calls a "notional allowance for corporate equity." Bottom line: InBev was paying around 20% of its profits in corporate taxes, compared to Anheuser-Busch's rate of 38.4%.
Things have gotten pretty bad when U.S. companies relocate to Europe to cut their tax payments. But a research analysis by Morgan Stanley finds the combined company's corporate tax bill will be lower than in the U.S. and that the tax differential indeed figured into the economics of the sale.
So while John McCain may have benefited from his wife's ownership of Anheuser stock (estimated at between 40,000 and 80,000 shares), the country will continue to see its competitive edge wither away without a corporate tax rate cut. Mr. McCain to his credit wants to cut the corporate tax rate to 25%, close to the global average. Senator Obama is more interested in raising tax rates than cutting them.
Wall Street dealmakers tell us to expect more sales of U.S. companies to European rivals thanks to the combination of America's higher corporate taxes and the weak dollar. They're right. New data from the OECD for 2008 indicate that the international average for corporate tax rates fell by another percentage point last year, meaning the U.S. is pricing itself out of the market as a corporate headquarters. "America's 35% corporate tax rate is not just bad economics, it's downright unpatriotic," says tax expert Kevin Hassett of the American Enterprise Institute.
-- Stephen Moore and Tyler Grimm
Quote of the Day
"Barack Obama has long been his party's presumptive nominee. Now he's becoming its presumptuous nominee. . . . In the latest issue of the New Republic, Gabriel Sherman found reporters complaining that Obama's campaign was 'acting like the Prom Queen' and being more secretive than Bush. The magazine quoted the New York Times' Adam Nagourney's reaction to the Obama campaign's memo attacking one of his stories: 'I've never had an experience like this, with this campaign or others.' Then came Obama's overseas trip and the campaign's selection of which news organizations could come aboard. Among those excluded: the New Yorker magazine, which had just published a satirical cover about Obama that offended the campaign. Even Bush hasn't tried that" -- Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank.
In the China Shop
China watchers got a glimpse of the Obama staff's leanings today, courtesy of a widely distributed op-ed entitled "Obama, McCain Must Tread Lightly On China" by two of the senator's advisers on China policy.
The authors, Jeffrey Bader and Richard Bush III, both affiliated with the Brookings Institution and both advisers to Barack Obama, suggest that presidential candidates should "avoid condemning China" as a campaign stunt to win votes. Fair enough: Candidates from both parties have pulled that trick in the past, and it was a special curse for Bill Clinton's later China policy. But the authors go further, insisting that China policy should remain "tethered firmly to reality," noting that "China's human rights record is poor, but its people are much freer than were their parents under Mao."
That's a pretty low bar, indicating little enthusiasm for challenging China's treatment of political prisoners or Tibet. "Personal relationships of trust are highly valued," they write. "The Chinese will react negatively if a new president throws difficult issues on the table before establishing such trust." That sounds like China, not the U.S., setting the agenda.
But perhaps we shouldn't be surprised. As the latest issue of Harper's Magazine points out, Mr. Bader isn't merely a Brookings scholar or necessarily an independent voice on China -- he's also listed as a senior director at lobbying group Stonebridge International's China office.
-- Mary Kissel
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I don't know why I haven't heard anyone clarify ***why*** McCain was popular with the newsmedia, or as this article claims (which I doubt) with Hollywood types. The reason was as far as I know: his support for campaign finance reform.
When McCain was strong in support of this (I am too BTW since politics is just too corrupt the way it is) it was clearly seen as something that would support the Democrats because Republicans always out raised the crats. So supporting reform would have hurt Republicans. So cans were against it and the liberal media, and some in Holier-than-thou-wood loved him. Now it is not his big issue and he is the Republican candidate and as could easily have been predicted the liberals who loved him have left him in the dust and turn around and claim he has flip flopped. As usual the self serving in the media and the rich and famous LA and NYC liberal hypocrits try to BS their way out of liking him. But they only liked him from the start because McCain's views often differed from the Republican "cause".
Bottom line, Hollywood and the liberal media are full of it as usual.
I have no problem with the ad.
CAUSE CÉLÈBRE / TINA DAUNT
John McCain ad irritates many in Hollywood
Rick Hilton, Kathy Hilton
Dan Steinberg / Associated Press
MCCAIN BACKERS: Socialite Kathy Hilton, left, and husband Rick Hilton.
E-mail Picture
The celebrity backers of Barack Obama say they are not like Paris and Britney.
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
7:04 PM PDT, July 31, 2008
TO HOLLYWOOD it smacked of desperation.
That's why the reaction to a new John McCain ad attempting to portray Barack Obama as a kind of mindless celebrity -- likening him to Paris Hilton and Britney Spears -- drew collective yawns and shrugs of irritation from politically active members of the entertainment industry.
"I didn't think McCain could look silly," mused Norman Lear. "But that ad diminishes him and makes him look silly."
Related
* And the stars support .... whom?
Photos:
And the stars support .... whom?
Just for a start, industry types say the ad is wrong: In the Hollywood lexicon, Obama is not a celebrity. He's a rock star. (Note to McCain strategists: That's the difference between Jessica Simpson and Bono.)
Then there's the small inconvenience that Paris' parents, Rick and Kathleen Hilton, are supporters of McCain's Republican presidential bid. According to federal campaign records, they gave the maximum $4,600.
No word on their plans for the general election, but this much is certain: Their daughter has never paid to attend an Obama campaign fundraiser. (It's unclear whether she's even met the senator, or whether she's even registered to vote. The same goes for Spears.)
McCain's latest attempt at discrediting his handsome, photogenic young rival particularly galls stars and executives with a memory, because only eight years ago, McCain was a fixture in Hollywood fundraising circles when he tried to raise money from the very people his ad now ridicules.
At the time, dozens of people in Hollywood -- including Lear, Harrison Ford, Quincy Jones, Berry Gordy and Michael Douglas -- gave to McCain because they thought he was a Republican celebrity ď with a great personal story. And, dare we say, some celebrities, namely Warren Beatty, even became friends with the Arizona senator.
But the truth is most of Hollywood won't return McCain's calls nowadays because many of the stars and executives he initially impressed now believe the maverick stance they found so attractive was just a pose. Hollywood doesn't object to a good pose -- unless, of course, it doesn't work.
(For his part, McCain said at a recent appearance that he stands by the ad and is proud of the way his campaign has been conducted).
Meanwhile, Hollywood is gearing up for pro-Obama events -- concerts, parties and galas -- between now and November.
A soundtrack CD with songs dedicated to Obama is in the works (think of all that musical hope available for download to your iPod.) A black and white ball is planned for Aug. 21 in Beverly Hills where celebrities are being invited to celebrate Obama's candidacy.
(The candidate, however, will not actually be there. He will be busy working on his acceptance speech, which he'll deliver four days later at the Democratic National Convention in Denver.)
Some of the celebrities who've already signed up to attend the ball, which is being organized independently of Obama's campaign, include: Lucy Liu, Ashley Judd, Jessica Alba, Don Cheadle, Khaled Hosseini, Shohreh Aghdashloo, Dennis Haysbert, Kathy Griffin, Zach Braff, Regina King, Hill Harper, Ben McKenzie, Melanie Brown and "many executives and industry professionals," according event chairwoman Asal Masomi.
"The theme of the gala will focus on celebrating diversity and promoting cultural awareness," Masomi said, adding that Obama's campaign is expected to send a representative.
Some of Obama's strongest celebrity backers, like George Clooney, have been careful to keep their distance because they don't want to compromise the candidate's image as a serious politician. Moreover, as many in the industry have noted, the Obama campaign has been especially careful about vetting stars before they're allowed to work the campaign trail on the senator's behalf.
"Surrogates and high-profile supporters have their place in the campaign," said Democratic strategist Michael Feldman, a former advisor to Al Gore. "They can help draw crowds, raise money and communicate enthusiasm for the campaign. Like every other asset, they need to be leveraged carefully."
The fact of the matter is that for all his popularity in the entertainment industry, Obama has kept Hollywood at a friendly but slight distance. He's hardly waded into the scene with the sort of relish that Bill Clinton did in the 1990s.
"Celebrities are coming onboard because they're excited about Obama, like the rest of America," said Hollywood publicist Howard Bragman. "It's not because he's pandering to them." Bragman called the McCain ad "inauthentic."
"Anyone who knows and listens to Barack Obama doesn't think he's empty-headed," said Bragman, who has known more than his share of vacant skulls. "All this feels very Roveian to me."
Like many in Hollywood, Bragman thinks this is the bottom line: "McCain is trying to use Obama's popularity against him, but guess what? Obama is popular."
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I always thought it was good to have the Secret Service protect ex Presidents for the rest of their lives but shouldn't we be questioning if tax payers should foot the bill in this day and age where ex pols go out and earn big dollars exploiting their former "public service"?
Why should tax dollars go into paying for a security detail for wealthy exes?
I remember when some in the leftist media made a big stink out of Reagan going to Japan to make a speech for $2milliion but that is tip money now for these guys.
If wealthier citizens should be paying higher taxes than wealthier Presidents like the Clintons should not get all these tax payer perks.
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OTOH what you propose could "force" a non-rich ex-president to peddle his services to have protection money. In short, its fine by me that an ex-P. gets protected.
Changing subjects:
The Race Issue Isn't Going Away
By JUAN WILLIAMS
August 4, 2008
With polls showing the presidential contest between John McCain and Barack Obama getting closer, a question is now looming larger and larger. Is skin color going to be the deciding factor?
Just last week, Sen. Obama warned voters that Sen. McCain's campaign will exploit the race issue by telling voters that "he doesn't look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills." A few weeks earlier, he said they will attack his lack of experience but also added, "And did I mention he's black?"
AP
The McCain campaign did not counter the first punch, but after last week's jab -- fearing that Mr. Obama was getting away with calling his candidate a racist -- campaign manager Rick Davis responded to the dollar-bill attack by saying, "Barack Obama has played the race card, and he played it from the bottom of the deck. It's divisive, negative, shameful and wrong."
Mr. Obama's campaign concedes it has no clear example of a Republican attack that expressly cites Mr. Obama's name or race. Yet in the last few days some Obama supporters were at it again, suggesting that a McCain ad attacking Mr. Obama as little more than a "celebrity," by featuring young white women such as Britney Spears, is an appeal to white anxiety about black men and white women.
The race issue is clearly not going away. And the key reason -- to be blunt -- is because there is no telling how many white voters are lying to pollsters when they say they plan to vote for a black man to be president. Still, it is possible to look elsewhere in the polling numbers to see where white voters acknowledge their racial feelings and get a truer measure of racism.
In a Wall Street Journal poll last month, 8% of white voters said outright that race is the most important factor when it comes to looking at these two candidates -- a three percentage point increase since Mr. Obama claimed the Democratic nomination. An added 15% of white voters admit the candidates' race is a factor for them. Race is even more important to black voters: 20% say it is the top factor influencing their view of the candidates, and another 14% admit it is among the key factors that will determine their vote. All this contributes to the idea that the presidential contest will boil down to black guy versus white guy.
Consider also a recent Washington Post poll. Thirty percent of all voters admitted to racial prejudice, and more than a half of white voters categorized Mr. Obama as "risky" (two-thirds judged Mr. McCain the "safe" choice). Yet about 90% of whites said they would be "comfortable" with a black president. And about a third of white voters acknowledged they would not be "entirely comfortable" with an African-American president. Why the contradictory responses? My guess is that some whites are not telling the truth about their racial attitudes.
A recent New York Times poll found that only 31% of white voters said they had a favorable opinion of Mr. Obama. That compares to 83% of blacks with a favorable opinion. This is a huge, polarizing differential.
But polling can be tricky. In May, a Pew poll asked voters about Mr. Obama but did not give them the option of saying they are undecided. In that poll, whites split on the candidate, 45% saying they had a favorable opinion, 46% unfavorable. When white voters had the option of being undecided, as they did in the Times poll, 37% of whites said they had an unfavorable opinion of him, but 26% said they were undecided.
To win this campaign, Mr. Obama needs to assure undecided white voters that he shares their values and is worthy of their trust. To do that he has to minimize attention to different racial attitudes toward his candidacy as well as racially polarizing issues, and appeal to the common experiences that bind Americans regardless of color.
Mr. Obama has shown an unprecedented ability to cross the racial divide in American politics. He did particularly well in managing caucus states, such as Iowa, where highly energized supporters, especially idealistic young white supporters, minimized the impact of negative racial attitudes with passionate participation.
But the white Democratic caucus voters in Iowa, where there are relatively few racial issues, are decidedly more liberal than white voters nationally. In primary states from New Hampshire to Texas and California, Mr. Obama lost when one of two things happened. Either working-class white voters did not participate in polls, or some white voters lied and told pollsters they planned to vote for him before casting their votes for another candidate.
There are going to be more of those wobbly white voters in November. The size of the white vote in a general election race dwarfs the white vote in the Democratic primary. Based on the 2004 presidential contest, whites make up about 77% of voters and blacks 11%.
In the Democratic primaries there were states, especially in the South, where blacks made up nearly half of the electorate. But in the general election there are no states where blacks make up so large a percentage. Even in Southern states such as Georgia and North Carolina, where blacks made up about a quarter of the vote in the last presidential election, it will be an upset if Mr. Obama manages to win. Those states have a history of Republican dominance in presidential contests. Even an energized black vote is unlikely to make Mr. Obama a winner anywhere in the South, although some Democrats hold out hope for Virginia.
In 2004, John Kerry had a 46% favorable rating among white voters, barely better than Barack Obama's. But Mr. Kerry lost. Mr. Obama needs to do better with whites. But the white voters' view of him is still clearly unsettled.
Polls show white voters struggling to identify with him as a fellow American who, to quote Bill Clinton, is able to "feel your pain." When the New York Times poll asked whether Mr. Obama cares about "the needs and problems of people like yourself," 70% of whites answered "a lot" or "some." But 28% of whites said Mr. Obama cared about them "not much" or "not at all." Compare that with the 72% of black voters who said Mr. Obama cared about them "a lot." The same Times poll had Mr. Obama leading Mr. McCain by six percentage points, 45-39, but trailing by nine points among white voters, 37-46.
After Jesse Jackson's vicious comments about Mr. Obama, some political strategists suggested that a split with Mr. Jackson and his racially divisive politics could help Mr. Obama with white voters. But polls have yet to reveal this.
Could a Jackson-Obama split cause black voters to lose enthusiasm for him -- dividing their loyalties between the two most prominent black political voices of this era? Opinion surveys do not indicate this is likely. Polling done by Gallup just before Mr. Jackson's outburst indicated that 29% of black Americans chose Mr. Obama as the "individual or leader in the U.S. to speak for you on issues of race." Mr. Jackson came in third with only 4% support (behind Al Sharpton, who had 6%). Last year, a Pew poll focusing on racial attitudes found 76% of blacks judged Mr. Obama a "good influence," a full eight points higher than Mr. Jackson.
Jodie Allen, a senior editor at Pew, wrote recently that a poll Pew conducted last November showed clearly that "the black community is at least as traditional in its views as the larger American public." Blacks in the Pew poll were just as likely as whites to take a hard line opposing crime (as long as black neighborhoods are not unfairly targeted), to condemn the shocking number of children born out of wedlock and express disgust with the violence and misogyny in rap music.
Mr. Obama needs to hammer home these conservative social values to capture undecided white voters. He might lose Mr. Jackson's vote. But he won't lose many black votes, and he will win the undecided white votes he needs to become America's first African-American president.
Mr. Williams is a political analyst for National Public Radio and Fox News.
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California Attorney General Jerry Brown is stepping outside his law enforcement role and playing politics with a November ballot measure that would ban same-sex marriage in the state.
Backers of the measure collected some one million signatures this spring under a title approved by Mr. Brown's office that made it clear the measure would "provide that only marriage between a man and a woman is valid." Since the signatures were collected, the state Supreme Court has ruled same-sex marriage constitutional but also allowed the ballot measure to go before voters.
Mr. Brown, a candidate for governor in 2010, has apparently decided to make a play for liberal Democratic primary voters by changing his own office's description of the measure. It now reads that the ballot initiative seeks "to eliminate the right of same-sex couples to marry," a much more negative way of describing the measure. His office says the meaning is the same.
But both supporters and opponents of same-sex marriage "know that to some voters -- perhaps a decisive bloc in a close election -- the new ballot title language could make the measure sound punitive by eliminating a 'right,'" notes Sacramento Bee columnist Dan Walters.
Lawyers question the validity of Mr. Brown's move. If the meaning is the same, why is the change needed? If the meaning is different, the change contradicts the petition that placed the proposition on the ballot. Either way, the change is groundless.
Mr. Brown has pulled this trick before. Back in February he obscured the title language of a ballot measure that would have watered down the state's term limit law. Luckily, voters saw through the subterfuge and voted down the proposal, which had been sponsored by key state legislators who were about to be turned out of office.
The courts will have to decide on the validity of Mr. Brown's latest ploy, but political analysts say it's yet more evidence of the 70-year-old Mr. Brown's ability to further his ambitions in creative ways. "He may not have been governor for over a quarter century, but he is doing everything he can to win the office back," says Jon Fleischman, editor of the political news service FlashReport.org.
-- John Fund
Vetting Tim Kaine
A week before his election as Virginia governor in 2005, Democrat Tim Kaine won the endorsement of the irascible Doug Wilder, a former governor. Three days later Mr. Kaine's campaign paid Paul Goldman, a top aide to Mr. Wilder, $15,000 in consulting fees, setting off a storm of criticism.
No evidence has surfaced to show the two events are connected, but it points to one set of concerns as the Obama campaign vets Mr. Kaine for a possible nomination to the vice presidency -- his reputation as dutiful attendant to the Virginia machine and its key movers and shakers.
Mr. Kaine is a popular and moderately successful governor of what until recently was considered a reliably conservative state. He has kept the state's GOP on the defensive, brought his party to within striking distance of retaking the state legislature and has run a competent administration. He doesn't have a major overhaul of the state's transportation system to his credit or any other major reform to point to, but instead has quietly built his political persona as someone who can work the levers of government, play hardball when necessary and operate comfortably in the shadow of larger political personalities.
He was happy to cede the spotlight to his predecessor, Democrat Mark Warner, who became a media darling by passing a massive tax increase through a Republican legislature in 2004 when Democrats were floundering nationally. Rather than resent the focus on Mr. Warner, Mr. Kaine embraced it. He campaigned with Mr. Warner and, as the sitting lieutenant governor, promised to carry on his tax and education policies. Once elected, he retained Mr. Warner's chief of staff and demonstrated his willingness to cross swords with the GOP by nominating Daniel LeBlanc, head of the state's AFL-CIO, to be a member of his cabinet as Secretary of the Commonwealth.
Republicans rejected the nomination, drawing a rebuke from Mr. Kaine who promised a budget fight in response. He made good on the threat by forcing the legislature into a special session to debate details of various transportation proposals (finally winning passage of a transportation bill last year). On the stump, Mr. Kaine turned the rejection of Mr. LeBlanc to his advantage, using it to rally union support and raise money for other Democrats, including Jim Webb in his successful bid to unseat Republican Sen. George Allen two years ago.
Bottom line: If Mr. Obama is looking for someone who is non-threatening to the average voter, but who will be a loyal liberal soldier, Mr. Kaine fits the bill. The base will be happy with him; he brings the possibility of carrying Virginia, potentially a crucial battleground state. On the margins he will appeal to swing voters. The one thing he won't deliver is a reputation for major policy accomplishments or conspicuous substantive experience that would offset Mr. Obama's own weakness in these areas.
-- Brendan Miniter
The Show Me (A Good Race) State
Looking for exciting races to watch outside of the presidential election? You can almost skip right over this year's contests for governor, which feature a severe dearth of competition. One reason is that only 11 of the 50 states hold elections for their top spot in presidential years; another reason is that of this year's 11 contests, only three feature open seats and just two of those will be competitive in November.
However, one race to keep an eye on is Missouri's, where things got a lot more interesting in January when Republican Gov. Matt Blunt announced unexpectedly that he would not seek re-election. Suddenly, Democratic Attorney General Jay Nixon, who had been running against Blunt since 2005, was given a huge edge in the race. Mr. Nixon did not face a competitive primary challenge, unlike the GOP, which had a number of people interested in filling Mr. Blunt's shoes. The winner was Rep. Kenny Hulshof, who's held the 9th Congressional District seat since 1996. He will now face Mr. Nixon after squeaking past state Treasurer Sarah Steelman in Tuesday's GOP primary by 49% to 45%.
Interestingly, even the eventual loser of this race could be someone to watch. The last two candidates defeated in Missouri governor races have gone on to win a U.S. Senate seat. Republican Jim Talent lost to Bob Holden in 2000 and two years later defeated Jean Carnahan in the special election to fill the Senate seat won by her late husband. In 2004, Democrat Claire McCaskill lost to Mr. Blunt and two years later knocked Mr. Talent out of his Senate seat. Think Republican Sen. Kit Bond, who's up for re-election in 2010, is watching this one with interest?
-- Kyle Trygstad, RealClearPolitics.com
Quote of the Day
"[Hillary] Clinton has been giving tacit encouragement to suggestions that her name be placed in nomination at the [Democratic] convention, a symbolic move that would be a reminder of the bruising primary battle. 'No decisions have been made,' Clinton said when asked in California -- to whoops and applause -- about that possibility. Still, it was hard to miss what Clinton would like to see in the pointed way she added, 'Delegates can decide to do this on their own. They don't need permission'" -- Time magazine, reporting on the lingering bitterness of the Clinton forces over their defeat by Barack Obama.
Talking Freedom to China
HONG KONG -- President Bush's remarks in Bangkok today show that he, for one, is going to China with his eyes open. At his stop in Thailand, he delivered a speech that was pitch-perfect on the legitimate interest the outside world takes in China's human rights.
"America stands in firm opposition to China's detention of political dissidents and human rights advocates and religious activists," he said. "We speak out for a free press, freedom of assembly, and labor rights -- not to antagonize China's leaders, but because trusting its people with greater freedom is the only way for China to develop its full potential."
China invariably takes umbrage at such meddling in its "internal affairs," but is certainly glad to have Mr. Bush's attendance at the Olympics. The Communist Party regime had hoped -- and activists feared -- that the world would see only China's economic growth and ignore its political and religious oppression during the Games. At this point, given concerns about everything from pollution and visas for outspoken athletes to power outages and traffic jams, Beijing perhaps will be satisfied if the show comes off without major embarrassments.
Mr. Bush's critics, for their part, still insist he never should have made the trip. His approach, however, has been consistent with the Freedom Agenda that has been a cornerstone of his foreign policy -- that progress on democracy and human rights is as much in China's interests as our own. That's not a message that would come through by treating China as a pariah or an enemy.
-- Abheek Bhattacharya
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The Race Card Is a Losing Hand
Memphis voters overwhelmingly rejected the tactics of black attorney Nikki Tinker in yesterday's Democratic primary for Congress in Tennessee. Her campaign had run an ad featuring Democratic Rep. Steve Cohen, who is white and Jewish, next to a picture of a hooded Klansman while an announcer criticized him for voting against removing a statue of a Confederate general from a local park. A later ad attacked Mr. Cohen for "praying in our churches" while opposing mandatory school prayer.
The raw appeals backfired as Mr. Cohen won a stunning 79% of the vote, to Ms. Tinker's 19%. Indeed, Ms. Tinker pulled off the feat of receiving fewer votes than she got in 2006, when she was part of a nine-candidate slate fighting for the then-vacant Congressional seat. Mr. Cohen narrowly won that primary in the majority-black district as the only white candidate, winning 31% of the vote to Ms. Tinker's 25%.
"It says that we have come a long, long way and that the people who were counting on racial voting to prevail are thinking of a Memphis that doesn't exist anymore," Mr. Cohen told Politico.com last night. "The people of Memphis are more sophisticated voters that deal with issues and someone's record and not simply race."
-- John Fund
Obama's Got a Tiger in His Tank
Democrats think they can gain some extra political mileage -- tires properly inflated, of course -- by linking John McCain to the oil-and-gas industry. This week, the Democratic National Committee debuted an advertising campaign that floats Exxon as the GOP running mate. Har, har.
Barack Obama, meanwhile, is up with television spots that accuse Mr. McCain of being "in the pocket of Big Oil" before touting a plan for a windfall profits tax.
But wait. According to FEC data examined by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics in a new report released yesterday, Exxon executives and employees have broken in favor of Mr. Obama over Mr. McCain this election cycle -- by $41,100 to $35,166. Chevron's and BP's contribution margins also favor the Democrat -- by about $6,600 and $4,500, respectively. Guess those Democratic commercials now could use a footnote or two.
Of course, Mr. McCain has received in total more than three times as much money from the oil sector as Mr. Obama this election cycle. (The larger Republican Party also tops out easily.) That's hardly surprising, given that Mr. McCain is somewhat less likely to yoke the industry with punitive new taxes and regulation. Besides, a lot of this money comes from smaller, more entrepreneurial companies that are even less likely than Exxon to influence the price of gas and aren't usually whipping boys of Democratic rhetoric.
The real question is how the McCain camp handles the CRP revelations, if it does. Mr. McCain's immediate impulse will be to demagogue the "gotcha" angle. But he might take his cue from Republican candidates across the country, most notably Colorado's Bob Schaffer. A growing GOP band has been able to profitably turn supposedly being "in the pocket of Big Oil" into an electoral asset. After all, the oil industry provides a product that America can't do without.
-- Joseph Rago
Terms of Endearment
Chalk up another boilerplate liberal position for Barack Obama on a major congressional reform issue: term limits. Asked about whether he supports term limits last week, the Illinois Senator was unequivocal: "I'm generally not in favor of term limits. Nobody is term-limiting the lobbyists or the slick operators walking around the halls of Congress. I believe in one form of term limits. They're called elections."
Let's translate that answer: You can almost hear the K Street "lobbyists" and "slick operators," who despise term limits, breathing a sigh of relief.
U.S. Term Limits president Philip Blumel mocks Mr. Obama's attitude as "utter nonsense." He notes that lobbyists derive their power and influence from careerist politicians, giving rise to the so-called "iron triangle" of power in Washington: career politicians, federal agency bureaucrats and lobbyists. The idea of term limits is to break up that symbiotic and corruptive pact.
The argument that elections are a form of term limits is the standard reply from the business-as-usual crowd in Washington. "As an incumbent," says Mr. Blumel, "Mr. Obama knows full well that members of Congress have now skewed the laws to give themselves a virtual guarantee of a lifetime job. And as the self-appointed apostle of change, he ought to be taking the lead to change all that inequity."
The statistics back up Mr. Blumel's point. Even in 2006 midterm elections, when Republicans lost control of Congress and voters were angry with incumbents, 94% of incumbents won reelection. Normally, reelection rates in the House are closer to 96% and here's one reason: Incumbents on average raise $2 million per election -- or three times more than challengers.
So, the corrupting power structure in Washington and lifetime politicians can relax. When it comes to cleaning up the swamp of special interests inside the Washington beltway, Mr. Obama may be touting a slogan of "change you can believe in" but he sounds more and more like a defender of the status quo.
-- Stephen Moore
Quote of the Day
"Obama allowed that it was not hard to understand a recent Pew survey's findings that some voters feel they are hearing too much about him, coming off the 'longest primary in history.' He said his upcoming weeklong trip with his family to visit his grandmother in Hawaii should result in less coverage, with the media's help. 'I think that the majority of people have been fed a constant stream of political chatter,' he said. 'And I'm sure that having a couple weeks off and enjoying the Olympics is probably what the doctor ordered for everybody'" -- National Journal's Athena Jones, covering the Barack Obama campaign.
The Prodigal Hugo
Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez has tried make himself a global powerbroker and the leader of a socialist resurgence, but his methods have been less than statesman-like. Calling the president of the United States an unflattering part of the human anatomy is one example. Hanging with Colombian terrorists is another.
Yet, according to the State Department's Assistant Secretary for Western Hemisphere Tom Shannon, blowback may be starting to force the Venezuelan leader to rethink his antisocial ways. "Countries around the region have seen the political space open to Venezuela shrinking," the Bush Administration's top diplomat for Latin America told a House subcommittee last month. "The re-emergence of countries that have traditionally been regional leaders has constricted Venezuela's diplomatic movements."
This is a polite way of saying Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Peru and Mexico, thanks to their economic achievements and the evolution of their institutions, have been elevated to the realm of serious countries -- while Venezuela has sunk to banana-republic status.
Venezuela has been further damaged, Mr. Shannon added, by Mr. Chávez's failed campaign for a U.N. Security Council seat and his country's growing "internal problems" -- of which the most visible are skyrocketing crime, inflation, food shortages and unemployment.
Where Mr. Shannon ventured into questionable territory, however, was a suggestion that the loose cannon in Caracas may be seeing the error of his ways. "For the first time in many years," he said, Venezuela has "expressed a willingness to explore improved relations with the U.S. President Chávez recently told our Ambassador that he wanted to improve our counter-drug cooperation. . . . "
How wonderful. Venezuela under Mr. Chávez has become a key transshipment agent for cocaine destined for the U.S., Europe and -- lately -- West Africa, where (as even Mr. Shannon noted) "the drug trade is exploding and causing instability to the region."
Mr. Chávez may well be softening his tone since he can only conduct so many fights at one time. At home, he's trying to brace up his troubled rule with new decrees seizing control of the economy and setting up a personal militia. But to mistake his tactical maneuvers as a sign of new maturity would be wishful thinking. Let's hope the Bush Administration -- and whoever comes next -- is not so unwise.
-- Mary Anastasia O'Grady
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Some House Democrats are privately fuming at the pickle Speaker Nancy Pelosi put them in when she turned off the lights in the House chamber and breezed out of Washington for the summer recess without addressing voter concerns about high gas prices. By denying Republicans a chance to make floor speeches about the gas crisis on the day Congress was set to adjourn, she set off an ongoing protest on the House floor that has garnered much publicity.
The Republican floor protest was a completely spontaneous reaction against her heavy-handed tactics. Since then, many Democratic Members have been pressed by voters at town hall meetings and radio call-in shows about why they won't allow a vote on the GOP proposal for more domestic oil production.
"It's annoying," one Democratic House Member admitted to me. "We don't go back in session until September 8 and this leaves us hanging out there the whole time."
Even more annoying to some Democrats is that Speaker Pelosi's rush to adjourn and leave town seems to have been motivated in part by her desire to start a book tour promoting her new memoir "Know Your Power."
-- John Fund
Nonperson
To anyone around in the 1970s, the late Russian writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn was a larger-than-life, even inspirational figure. For those who've come of age in the years since his 1974 expulsion from the Soviet Union and the 1989 collapse of Communism, apparently, he's been airbrushed out of the cultural narrative.
A 20-something clerk in Borders' Lower Manhattan store drew a complete blank last week when I asked her for a copy of "The Gulag Archipelago." She'd never heard of the book, couldn't spell the words in the title to search the store's database, was unfamiliar with the author and, therefore, was unaware that he'd recently died.
Given Solzhenitsyn's sometimes acerbic comments about Western culture and values, I doubt he would have been surprised. On the bright side, when I checked both the Literature and Russian History sections, the noticeable gaps indicated that they'd been cleaned out of Solzhenitsyn's works, so at least the ignorance isn't universal. Generation Y may not be reading him on its Kindles on the subway, but someone apparently recognized his death for the historic passing it was.
-- Eric Gibson
Playing All the Veep Angles
Most speculation about whom Barack Obama and John McCain might pick as their vice-presidential running-mates ignores a key consideration. While presidential nominees are free to ask anyone to join them, they almost never pick someone holding a statewide office whose elevation would allow the opposition party to capture a governorship or Senate seat. After all, especially this year, Democrats are keen on getting as close as possible to the 60 seats in the U.S. Senate they would need to overcome GOP filibusters.
With the exception of Al Gore's choice of Senator Joe Lieberman in 2000 (which would have allowed a Republican governor to appoint his successor), you have to go back many decades to find examples of a presidential nominee putting a Senate seat or governor's mansion at risk in choosing a Veep nominee. Indeed, historian and radio talk-show host John Batchelor reminds me that a key element in Dwight Eisenhower's decision to pick Richard Nixon as his running-mate in 1952 was that Nixon's Senate seat would be turned over to another Republican if the Eisenhower-Nixon ticket were to be elected.
How might this factor influence the current crop of front-runners for each party's VP nomination? Joe Biden would be a safe choice for Barack Obama because his Delaware Senate seat would be filled by a Democratic governor. But Mr. Obama might look askance at picking Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine because a vacancy in that job would be filled by a Republican Lt. Governor. Rhode Island Senator Jack Reed would have to step down as senator in order to become vice president -- and his seat would be filled by a GOP governor. Indiana Senator Evan Bayh is a special case. His state's governor is Republican Mitch Daniels, who is up for re-election this year. Should Democratic candidate Jill Long Thompson defeat Mr. Daniels, she would appoint someone to fill the vacancy. But if Mr. Daniels wins, he would deny the Democrats a key Senate seat they might have a hard time winning back in a GOP-leaning state like Indiana.
On the Republican side, Mr. McCain's choice is made easier because his short list is light on statewide officeholders. Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty represents no problem because he would be succeeded by GOP Lt. Gov. Carol Molnau. Similarly, Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour would be succeeded by his lieutenant governor, Phil Bryant. If Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas were tapped as vice president, her seat would be filled by a special election but GOP Governor Rick Perry would be allowed to appoint an interim successor.
No one should assume that concerns about losing a Senate seat or gubernatorial office will be an overriding consideration in the political calculus either Mr. Obama or Mr. McCain will make. But it would be foolish to believe it will play no role at all.
-- John Fund
Quote of the Day
"The country's still pretty divided. . . . People may want a divided government. They want change but I'm not sure that the Democratic agenda has the support of a majority of Americans" -- former Nebraska Senator and 1992 Democratic presidential candidate Bob Kerrey, speaking to Politico.com on how John McCain could argue against turning the government entirely over to the Democratic triumvirate of Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid.
Electric Al
Al Gore wasn't too happy with a PD update a few weeks ago on his energy consumption habits at his Nashville palace. His environmental adviser, Kalee Kreider, contacted us to clarify a few things about the former vice president's carbon footprint.
For one thing, she says Mr. Gore now buys his power through Nashville Electric's "Green Powerswitch" program, which -- like similar programs offered by other utilities around the country -- allows customers to pay extra and receive assurances that their power nominally comes from a solar or wind facility. (However, for the record, Nashville Electric purchases all its power from the Tennessee Valley Authority, which says the "backbone of the system" is its eleven coal-burning plants. They account for 60% of its power; nuclear for 30%.)
Ms. Kreider also says the "Inconvenient Truth" impresario has installed solar panels, feeding electricity back to the local grid. She says this power is metered separately, so wasn't deducted from the embarrassing figures about Mr. Gore's energy consumption reported by the Tennessee Center for Public Policy. Finally, she says the Gores have installed a geothermal system for heat and hot water -- an unspecified "problem" with which even prompted a visit from the fire department last year.
The effect of these improvements and modifications, Ms. Kreider says, has been to reduce the Gore household's net energy use by 40% since the Tennessee Center's Drew Johnson first publicized Mr. Gore's energy bills last year.
Hooray! The Gores still spend more in a month than most households do in a year. Nor have they released the cost of all these retrofits, which only seem to prove that you can spend a fortune on green indulgences and still maintain a sizeable carbon footprint. But it would be nice to have some cost figures -- if only to know what Mr. Gore would have in store for the rest of us. The former vice president has lately become a partner in a Silicon Valley firm positioning itself to profit from "green energy" mandates that would be imposed by law.
-- Brian M. Carney
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'I Owe My Soul to the Obama Company Store'
Now we may know why Barack Obama's campaign decided to move his acceptance speech to Denver's 75,000-seat Invesco Field -- the better to extort hours of volunteer campaign labor out of thousands of people clamoring for tickets to the big event.
Denver media outlets were full of complaints yesterday from people who had entered a lottery for tickets but were told reservations for the event would come with a catch -- they must contribute six hours of volunteer labor for the campaign no later than this coming Friday in order to secure a coveted seat.
"I got a call that if I want the tickets, I have to volunteer two shifts of three hours apiece -- for one ticket. If I want two tickets, then it's four shifts of two hours apiece," Berenice Christensen told Denver's ABC-TV affiliate. Ms. Christensen says she still wants the tickets, but feels victimized by the bait-and-switch. "I mean, they made it seem like any Coloradoan could go, and now you have to work for your ticket."
The Obama campaign says it's all a big misunderstanding and nobody has to work in order to get a ticket. People who were asked to volunteer were only those who had checked a box on a Web site saying they were willing to work on the campaign thus becoming eligible for "All Star" tickets closer to the stage, says Stephanie Mueller, a campaign spokeswoman.
But several people who've been asked to volunteer insist they made no such pledge.
"Absolutely not," Heather Kreider of Centennial told the Rocky Mountain News, denying she had offered to volunteer when seeking a ticket. Another man, who declined to give his name, said he received a message informing him that he had to perform 12 hours of phone calling or precinct work for two tickets. He called the campaign's tactics "blackmail."
Naturally, the Obama campaign is free to set any conditions it wants for seats to their man's acceptance speech. But the tactics reported by the Denver media yesterday seem to reek of the "old politics" the campaign says it wants to transcend. It reminds me more of the Daley machine in Chicago than the "politics of hope."
-- John Fund
Can McCain Surf a Stronger Dollar?
All sorts of economic models scour the data and seek to forecast who will win the presidential race. But such models are generally poor predictors in close races -- which explains why Al Gore isn't sitting in the White House today.
One of the best economic predictors of election outcomes turns out to be the dollar. A strong dollar is good for the incumbent party. A weak dollar usually means voters are receptive to an Obama-style chant of "change." John Tammy of RealClearMarkets.com looked at the numbers and found a clear pattern of voter behavior. "Weak dollars mean weak presidents," he says.
Using the price of gold as a proxy for dollar strength, he found that Presidents Reagan and Clinton rallied the dollar and were rewarded at the polls -- gold fell 28% during the Gipper's administration and 19% during Mr. Clinton's. In contrast, Presidents Nixon, Ford and Carter all pursued weak dollar strategies. During the Nixon/Ford years, the price of gold was up 276% and during the Carter years it was up 316%. The dollar also weakened against gold during George H. W. Bush's presidency, though only by 4%, but his tax hikes and a recession also saddled him with a reputation as a bad economic manager by time Election Day rolled around.
Pundits today blame George W. Bush's lousy poll numbers on the War in Iraq, but the dollar collapse, rising gas prices and loss of economic confidence hit closer to home for most voters. The dollar price of gold is up 236% since Mr. Bush entered office, rising from $300 to nearly $1000 earlier this year.
All of this may mean, however, that the recent dollar rally is good news for John McCain -- if it hasn't come too late. As one McCain adviser recently put it: "Go greenback."
-- Stephen Moore
Quote of the Day I
"The massive leak of inside dope on the [Hillary] Clinton primary campaign is remarkable in the annals of presidential election history. . . . What does it say about Sen. Clinton that so many aides were willing to share private matters publicly? Clearly, many are eager to shift blame to her and away from themselves. That is not particularly new for losing bids. But giving so many campaign documents to the press? That suggests a certain hostility between candidate and underlings that should give pause to those who believed that Clinton was ready 'on day one' to take command of the White House. Beyond this mutiny, the behind-the-scenes paperwork shows how Clinton horribly mismanaged her own people. Postponing critical decisions until the roof caved in, and then forcing her staff to manage the damage control" -- Congressional Quarterly columnist Craig Crawford on a flood of Clinton campaign memos reported in The Atlantic Monthly and elsewhere.
Quote of the Day II
"If we could get a firm commitment to expanded supply of oil on the market three and a half years from now, that would change spot market prices three and half years from now, that would change futures prices today and that would translate into pressure on prices instantaneously. You know, Mr. Krugman's a good economist; he can go back and read his finance text" -- McCain economist Douglas Holtz-Eakin, quoted by the National Journal responding to New York Times columnist Paul Krugman's criticism of John McCain's pro-drilling stance.
Obama's Weird Abortion Vote
Barack Obama's carefully sculpted image as a moderate may be showing some cracks.
It turns out that while in the Illinois legislature ,he voted against a bill that would have defined a fully born baby who survived an abortion as a "person." The concept isn't that controversial even among liberal Democrats. Senator Barbara Boxer of California, the Senate's leading pro-choice champion, urged her fellow Democrats to vote for a federal version of the same concept back in 2001, saying such a provision did not impinge on the rights enshrined in the Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion. The Born Alive Infants bill eventually passed the U.S. Senate by 98 to 0.
But in the Illinois Senate, when Mr. Obama chaired the Health and Human Services Committee, records show a bill consisting of exactly the same language two years later was voted down by six to four. Mr. Obama was one of the legislators opposing it.
Mr. Obama has consistently denied the two bills were identical. During his 2004 U.S. Senate campaign, he responded to a question about the Born Alive Infants bill, saying: "At the federal level there was a similar bill that passed because it had an amendment saying this does not encroach on Roe v. Wade. I would have voted for that bill."
But documents recovered from the Illinois Senate archives contradict his statement. "In essence, Obama voted to successfully amend the bill in a way Obama has said would have enabled him to support it, before he voted against it," says columnist Amanda Carpenter of TownHall.com. The National Right to Life Committee's Legislative Counsel Susan Muskett calls the documents a "smoking gun" that finally resolve the Obama abortion vote controversy.
The Obama campaign has strenuously attacked critics who bring up the "Born Alive" bill. Last June 30, Team Obama issued a statement accusing talk show host Bill Bennett of "outright false statements" for contending that Mr. Obama wouldn't support a bill that even leading pro-choice groups declined to oppose. Here's hoping journalists try to pin Mr. Obama down on just why he appears to be to the left of his own party on abortion.
-- John Fund
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Puma Whipped
The Obama campaign was in full spin mode yesterday touting its decision to allow Hillary Clinton to have a roll call vote at the convention so her delegates can register their support of her.
"It's an olive branch that we think will pay dividends in party unity," one Democratic congressman told me. I'm not so sure. Many Clinton supporters will be appreciative of the symbolic gesture, but others such as those who unofficially call themselves Pumas (Party Unity My Ass) may see it as an opportunity to make more trouble for Mr. Obama both on and off the convention floor.
"The one thing that Obama should never have agreed to is a roll-call vote with Hillary Clinton," says Jeff Birnbaum, a Washington Post columnist. Mr. Birnbaum nonetheless admits to being "so grateful that we are going to have a story, which is Hillary Clinton's attempt tacitly to take over the Obama victory, and that [story] will go through virtually every day of the convention" given how frequently Bill and Hillary Clinton are scheduled to appear before delegates.
Indeed, the Clinton people I spoke with appear emboldened by the Obama concessions. They have already secured language in the Democratic platform denouncing the mainstream media for its "sexist" coverage of the Democratic primaries. You can bet one of the few genuinely newsworthy stories the hordes of reporters in Denver will chew on is just how much Hillary Clinton is supporting Barack Obama -- and how much merely laying groundwork for a comeback effort in 2012 if he loses in the fall.
-- John Fund
Darragh vs. the Obama Bots
If he can't face down the Pumas, how will he ever face down Putin? That question may be in the back of a few Democratic minds today, but Hillary Clinton's fans were all smiles over their success in rolling a possible president-to-be before he ever takes office.
"We're very happy with the news," Darragh Murphy, executive director of PumaPAC, tells us. "This is the first time in six months the DNC has stood up for the Democratic process."
"Puma" in her case stands for People United Means Action," though Ms. Murphy is happy to acknowledge the more common preexisting meaning ballyhooed in the blogosphere. She says the group has gathered 10,000 members and more than a million page views just since its launch in June. An early John Edwards supporter -- "to my everlasting shame at this point," she says -- Ms. Murphy has enjoyed her own meteoric rise to fame. We reached her by phone yesterday just as she was coming from an appearance on "Hardball."
A product of the Dorchester section of Boston, "I've always been a Democrat," she says. "But the most I'd ever do come election time would be to hold a sign at the Rotary." That hasn't stopped some from noticing that she voted for John McCain in the 2000 GOP primary and muttering about suspect motives. "People try to paint me as a Republican," she sighs.
How much Mr. Obama should worry remains to be seen. The New York Observer recently surveyed several wealthy Clinton backers like Lady Lynn Forester de Rothschild who claim to be committed to making the case for Hillary in Denver. Ms. Murphy says her own members are "hoppin' mad" and "convinced" that Mr. Obama's nomination is "coming from above," forced down the throats of the Democratic rank-and-file by Howard Dean.
"Fall in line, get on the Obama train, go to the Obama indoctrination session and don't mention Hillary Clinton" is the message Ms. Murphy says the DNC leadership is pushing. "The Obama campaign has become a movement of transcendence that is practically religious, with a wave of money and religious fervor taking over the party."
Ms. Murphy happily acknowledges hosting "secret" strategy sessions in a northern Virginia hotel last weekend, shielded from infiltrators she calls "Obama Bots." But she says any protests in Denver are intended to be peaceful. "Who knows what will happen on the convention floor? Many of our members hope there will be a spark of some kind."
-- Robert Costa
Quote of the Day
"Obama blinked and stands guilty of appeasing Clinton by agreeing to a roll call vote for her nomination. That he might not have had much choice if he wanted peace only proves the point that he's playing defense at his own convention. . . Those who refuse to accept him as the legitimate winner aren't likely to do so just because he caves into her demands. It makes him look weak and ratifies Clinton's sense of entitlement to share party leadership and the convention spotlight. It was supposed to be his party. Now it's theirs. His and hers" -- the New York Daily News' Michael Goodwin.
The GOP's Road Back
Gov. Mark Sanford didn't actually say "dude" when we met recently at the Hyatt in New York City. But the South Carolina Republican did ask, "Have you seen my video on YouTube?"
The governor was waiting at the Hyatt without a politician's usual retinue and we walked over to the hotel's restaurant, only to find it was closed. "Let's make our way inside anyway and sit until someone yells at us," he said. The YouTube video was his speech at the South Carolina GOP convention in May, in which he laid out why the Republican Party has found itself in the minority in Washington. In it, he says: "The crisis of what's happened in Washington, D.C. is born not because of the rank-and-file not knowing what they believe, but because of its political leadership, at times, being completely disconnected from the core beliefs of what the party is all about."
"An optimist would say" the party has productively used these past two years in the political wilderness to learn from its mistakes, he tells me now. "But there's not a lot of room for optimism" in the party's performance so far. One way of looking at the GOP, he adds, is as "nothing more than a brand" -- a brand that was badly eroded in the last few years through reckless spending and undisciplined politics.
But he's also quick to add that the solution is not some charismatic Obama-like newcomer to buff up the party's image. A salesman who knows his product and believes in his product, he says, is always more effective than one who is all flash and no substance. Though Mr. Sanford annoyed some in the McCain camp by standing by a pledge to remain neutral in the South Carolina primary, his name was still touted as a veep possibility. The South Carolina press once again played taps for his hopes after he was widely seen flubbing a question from CNN's Wolf Blitzer about differences between Mr. McCain and President Bush on economics -- though we met him not long before his CNN performance and noticed that he seemed exhausted. (Maybe the lesson is that he should just get more sleep.)
In any case, the popular governor -- a strong supporter of school choice, low taxes, spending restraint and economic growth -- is an attractive up-and-comer who understands what the modern GOP stands for. You can see his video here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chuwp_Dmapo). Mr. McCain would do well to check it out too before making his choice.
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Barack Obama had made real strides in defusing the abortion issue with pro-life voters as late as last week. The Democratic platform had been modified to include language signaling the party's commitment to reducing the number of abortions and supporting women who decide to have a child. In a significant symbolic move, pro-life Senator Bob Casey Jr. of Pennsylvania has been invited to address the Democratic National Convention on its second night. Back in 1992, Democrats did enormous damage to themselves with pro-life voters when they blocked Mr. Casey's father, the late Pennsylvania Gov. Robert P. Casey, from speaking.
But Mr. Obama eroded many of those gains last Saturday when he told Pastor Rick Warren during a nationally televised forum that deciding when the rights of personhood should be extended to the unborn was "above my pay grade." Even Doug Kmiec, a conservative Pepperdine University lawyer who has become one of Mr. Obama's most prominent pro-life backers, was unsettled. He called the candidate's answer "much too glib for something this serious."
Mr. Obama compounded his problems after the forum when in an interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network, he accused pro-life groups of "lying" about his record in the Illinois State Senate on legislation that would have protected viable babies born after botched abortions. Mr. Obama acknowledged voting against the bill but said he would have voted "yes" if the bill had contained language similar to a federal bill's language making clear that the intention wasn't to diminish overall abortion rights. But, as recently revealed, the Illinois bill had indeed included such language and Mr. Obama still voted against it.
"Senator Obama got caught in the twisting of the truth," says Tony Perkins, head of the Family Research Council. "His campaign was later forced to put out a clarifying statement that it was the Senator himself who was actually wrong on the facts. He did indeed vote against a bill in the Illinois State Senate that was identical to the federal legislation that sought to protect babies who survive abortions."
Mr. Obama's stand on the issue is significant. The federal "Born Alive Infant Protection Act" sailed through the Senate in 2001 on a vote of 98 to 0. The bill was supported by Senator Barbara Boxer, the body's leading pro-choice spokeswoman, and was not opposed by the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League. By getting his facts wrong, Mr. Obama is now in the difficult position of trying to explain why he voted against a bill that the legislative record shows addressed infanticide rather than abortion.
The Associated Press reported on Sunday that a group calling itself The Real Truth About Obama is working to establish a Web site and air radio ads to publicize its view of Mr. Obama's voting record. MSNBC commentator Pat Buchanan says he's been told other outside groups are planning their own ad campaigns on Mr. Obama's abortion votes.
-- John Fund
Pennsylvania Play
Senator Barack Obama's strong poll showings in Pennsylvania are not being taken for granted by the Democratic National Committee -- and for good reason. He was leading by 12 points as recently as June, but two new polls show him going backward. Quinnipiac's latest has him just seven points ahead of John McCain; Franklin & Marshall shows him leading by eight.
Mr. Obama still runs far ahead in the Democratic stronghold of Philadelphia and does well in the suburbs (a battleground in 2004), but hasn't been able close the deal with blue collar, socially conservative and Catholic voters in western and rural Pennsylvania. To help stem the tide, his campaign and the DNC announced last week that pro-life Senator Bob Casey Jr. will speak the second night of the convention, alongside Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell. Mr. Obama also tapped freshman Democratic Congressman Patrick J. Murphy of the Philadelphia suburbs, the House's only Iraq veteran, to deliver a tribute to veterans the following day.
What should John McCain's countermove be? According to Philadelphia Inquirer columnist and cable-show host Michael Smerconish, the answer is former Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge. "If you can't stomach [Mitt] Romney, take Tom Ridge [as Veep nominee]. This guy has an amazing story: Raised in public housing, he's a Harvard-educated Vietnam veteran. Ex-governor, secretary of Homeland Security, he's a Pennsylvanian with a Central Casting dynamic. Disregard those who say you need a pro-life running mate. Those who say they'll throw you under the bus on this issue hate Obama, and will never sit home. You'll lose by running to the right -- you can only win by running to the middle."
-- Robert Costa
George 'Offshore' Soros
George Soros, one of the richest individuals in the world, has made a name for himself as a financier of the American left, which has been staunchly, stubbornly opposed to offshore drilling in the U.S. Mr. Soros is a big-time backer of Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi, and his nongovernmental organization Open Society is on a campaign "to spread resource wealth in less developed countries." Mr. Soros himself has personally endorsed Al Gore's crusade on global warming and accuses the Bush Administration of being "in denial" about the threat.
But as one of the world's most successful investors and speculators, Mr. Soros seems to have a different set of standards when it comes to his own wallet. His moral indignation takes a back seat to the profit motive. To wit, the billionaire do-gooder has purchased an $811 million stake in Petrobras, "making the Brazilian state-controlled oil company," according to Bloomberg News on Friday, "his investment fund's largest holding."
It's not only that Petrobras is a fossil fuel company. The more interesting aspect of the Soros investment is that Mr. Soros's Petrobras investment cannot be profitable if the company does not exploit its Tupi oil field, the largest offshore find in the hemisphere. Indeed, Petrobras is rapidly emerging as a world leader in technology to exploit such no-no reserves, while Brazil has thousands of miles of pristine coastline and a large indigenous population. Is Mr. Soros not outraged that he will be funding corporate interests that threaten these? Apparently not as long as there is money to be made that will go into his own pocket.
-- Mary Anastasia O'Grady
Quote of the Day I
"A former Senator and vice-presidential candidate misused campaign contributions and money pledged to fight poverty so he could bring his mistress on the campaign trail with him during the presidential campaign where he was constantly making appearances with his widely admired cancer stricken wife then fathered the mistress's child sometime around the time he was getting a Father Of The Year Award and then asked his loyal aide who already has a wife and kids to falsely claim paternity while the fake dad and the mistress were funneled money so they could move to be near the mistress's psychic healer friend while the former candidate continued to meet the mistress and baby until he was caught by tabloid reporters and hid in the bathroom and then confessed on national TV a couple of weeks later but both he and his wife continued to lie during that interview and in subsequent statements. And the press is supposed to yawn that story off?" -- liberal blogger Lee Stranahan, writing at HuffingtonPost.com on why media interest in the John Edwards scandal isn't going away.
Quote of the Day II
"[Anti-Obama author Jerome] Corsi's approach to politics is both destructive and self-destructive. If Senator Obama loses, he should lose on the merits: his record in public life and his political philosophy. And while it's legitimate to take into account Obama's past associations with people like the Reverend Jeremiah Wright -- especially for someone like Obama, about whom relatively little is known -- it's wrong and reckless to throw out unsubstantiated charges and smears against Senator Obama. Conservatism has been an intellectual home to people like Burke and Buckley. The GOP is the party that gave us Lincoln and Reagan. It seems to me that its leaders ought to make it clear that they find what Dr. Corsi is doing to be both wrong and repellent. To have their movement and their party associated with such a figure would be a terrible thing and it will only help the cause of those who hold both the GOP and the conservative movement in contempt" -- Peter Wehner, a former aide to President Bush, writing at Commentary magazine's blog on Jerome Corsi's controversial new biography of Barack Obama.
A Time for Mouth Action?
The Russian invasion of Georgia benefits John McCain by allowing him to show off his foreign-policy credentials -- that's conventional political wisdom and Barack Obama did his best to confirm it last week with his halting and shifting responses from his vacation spot in Hawaii.
After initially even-handedly blaming both sides for the fighting, Mr. Obama got "tough." But even his toughness had a way of betraying him. "Now is the time for action -- not just words," Mr. Obama finally got around to saying Tuesday. But Mr. Obama couldn't list any actions that America, as a country, should take, or that Mr. Obama, as president, would take.
Instead, his action plan was a list of things for the Russians to do: "It is past time for the Russian government to immediately sign and implement a cease-fire. Russia must halt its violation of Georgian airspace and withdraw its ground forces from Georgia."
Mr. Obama's statement was, well, just words, offering little comfort to those wondering how Mr. Obama would handle himself in a foreign policy crisis.
-- Brian M. Carney
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Coming from Mayor Daley's Chicago, Barack Obama's promise to transcend the "old politics" has always been viewed with skepticism by Democratic Party bosses. During Pennsylvania's hard-fought Democratic primary in March, Mr. Obama said: "We're not going to pay for votes, or pay for turnout." He was referring to the practice of handing out "street money" -- i.e. cash paid to partisan workers to get out the vote. Mr. Obama wound up losing Pennsylvania badly, with many party leaders blaming his failure to provide the traditional lubrication. One ward leader told me he expected Mr. Obama would change his tune in November if he became the party's nominee.
Indeed he has. The Philadelphia Daily News quotes Congressman Bob Brady, chairman of the city's Democratic Party, as saying street money is now back in vogue. "They [the Obama campaign] told me there are going to be resources here. That's what we do in Philadelphia; we pay people to work," Mr. Brady said.
Mr. Brady went on to say that by his calculations, Mr. Obama needs a massive Philadelphia win in order to carry the state's 21 electoral votes because he doesn't have the support in central and western Pennsylvania that Al Gore or John Kerry enjoyed. "I think we're going to need that because of the middle part of the state. McCain plays right in there," he said.
Of course, the massive size of Democratic margins in Philadelphia (often exceeding half a million votes) has regularly been a subject of controversy. A key state legislative victory by Democrats was thrown out by a federal judge a few years back due to massive vote fraud. The rolls of city voters have for years contained more registrations than the city contains people over 18, according to Census data. These excess registrations represent an open invitation to turn "street money" into phantom votes if a sufficient number of the living kind can't be drummed up.
For all the hype about his successful Internet campaign, it appears Mr. Obama has reluctantly decided that the "old politics" has it uses after all and must now be embraced.
-- John Fund
Even Cowgirls Give the Blues
In filling a nomination slot for their state's vacant House seat yesterday, Wyoming Republicans rejected a moderate candidate who had backed John Kerry over George Bush in favor of a female conservative who was born on a local ranch.
Businessman Mark Gordon was a much-touted symbol of a "kinder, gentler" Republican Party, and campaigned as a relative moderate for the seat now held by retiring Rep. Barbara Cubin. He was an early favorite for the GOP nomination based on a huge fundraising advantage over former state Treasurer Cynthia Lummis. But then Mr. Gordon's political record came tumbling out. Ms. Lummis issued a mailer noting that Mr. Gordon had been "a board member of the Sierra Club" in the 1990s and had supported Democratic nominee John Kerry for president in 2004. "Just what kind of a Republican is he?" the mailer asked.
Mr. Gordon fought back, calling the attack "incendiary" and "designed to throw people off." But his high-flying campaign never recovered. Ms. Lummis won a clear 46% to 38% victory yesterday, sweeping the state's "cow counties."
She must now face Democrat Gary Trauner, who won 49% of the vote against Ms. Cubin in 2006. But he may have a tougher time this year because Ms. Lummis lacks the incumbent's political baggage and because Mr. Trauner suffers from his own "authenticity" issues as an MBA graduate from New York University who moved to Wyoming in the 1990s to become an Internet entrepreneur. Bottom line: This fall's contest looks like a classic contest between the Old West and the New West. My money is on the cowgirl.
-- John Fund
Quote of the Day I
"I got [Senator Evan Bayh] the keynote speech at the `96 Democratic convention, and for three weeks, I played telephone tag with him to try and put on anti-Dole negatives in the speech, but he wouldn't go negative, he wouldn't attack anybody, he was going to be absolutely virginal. So finally, we ended up scheduling his keynote at midnight because there was nothing in it. . . . If [Barack Obama] wants an attack dog for vice president, this is not the guy" -- former Clinton political consultant Dick Morris, ruminating on Fox News on the prospect of Evan Bayh as a Democratic vice presidential candidate.
Quote of the Day II
"First, various regulators put pressure on lenders to loosen underwriting standards for minorities and low-income borrowers. That provided the kindling for the housing bubble. Next, increasing numbers of borrowers started speculating in homes. These borrowers were attracted by adjustable-rate mortgages, because they expected to sell the homes for a profit before the rates adjusted. The fact that we now have such a large inventory of unoccupied homes is consistent with the view that many of the new owners were speculators, not owner-occupants. . . . Although I think it is important to point out the role that government policy played in forcing regulated institutions to relax underwriting standards, I do not think that the private sector is blameless here. There was some very serious mispricing of risk going on" -- economist and blogger Arnold Kling, on the origins of a subprime meltdown.
Almost Famous
John McCain may not have the media choir behind him anymore, but he's been on a roll lately and it's starting to show. According to a Reuters/Zogby poll released this morning, the Arizona Senator has finally pulled ahead of Democrat Barack Obama by 46% to 41% among likely voters. Just last month, the same poll showed Mr. Obama ahead by seven points.
"There is no doubt the campaign to discredit Obama is paying off for McCain right now," pollster John Zogby said in a statement. "This is a significant ebb for Obama."
In the same poll, Mr. McCain earned a nine-point edge on the question of which candidate would make a better manager of the economy. Policy shifts could be taking a toll on Obama support, Mr. Zogby notes, especially with the far left of the Democratic Party. "That hairline difference between nuance and what appears to be flip-flopping is hurting him with liberal voters."
Though it was widely skewered by media commentators, a McCain ad comparing Mr. Obama to Britney Spears and Paris Hilton appears now to have been a breakthrough moment just as many Americans were tuning in to the fall race. Mr. McCain followed up with a strong performance at Pastor Rick Warren's presidential forum on Saturday. Even if voters didn't watch, they heard about Mr. McCain's performance from Team Obama -- which accused him of cheating.
Still, Tuesday's Gallup and Quinnipiac polls both showed Mr. Obama continuing to lead, but the race is clearly in flux. A separate Gallup tracking poll out today shows the contest narrowing to a tie in the last five days. "The mainstream media spent months ignoring the National Enquirer's scoop about John Edwards' mistress," writes Robert Stacy McCain, assistant national editor for the Washington Times, in a new posting at the American Spectator Web site. "Now they're ignoring a potentially bigger Democratic scandal: The political incompetence of Team Obama."
That may be an overstatement given the number of handwringing stories about Mr. Obama's failure to "close the deal." But Team McCain is starting to deserve come credit too.
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The risks of BO heading a filibuster proof majority seem to me an strong point that McC should be making.
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2008; Page A13
Here's an intriguing thought: The John McCain-Barack Obama fight isn't this season's biggest political story. That honor should be reserved for the intense Democratic push to win a filibuster-proof Senate majority.
Democrats know this is a huge prize, and they are throwing at least as much money and sweat into that effort as they are into electing Mr. Obama. What isn't clear is that voters are as aware of the stakes. An unstoppable Democratic Senate has the potential to alter the balance of power in Washington in ways not yet seen.
Martin Kozlowski
A quick recap of the numbers: Republicans must defend 23 seats, compared to 12 for the Democrats. Of those GOP slots, 10 are at potential risk: Virginia, New Mexico, New Hampshire, Minnesota, Oregon, Colorado, Alaska, Mississippi, Maine and North Carolina. The Democrats claim only one vulnerable senator this year, Louisiana's Mary Landrieu. Depending on how big a day the party has in November, it is at least conceivable Democrats could get the nine seats they need to hit the magic 60.
The nation has had prior almighty Senates, of course, and it hasn't been pretty. Free of the filibuster check, the world's greatest deliberative body tends to go on benders. It was a filibuster-proof Democratic majority (or near to it, in his first years) that allowed FDR to pass his New Deal. It was a filibuster-proof Democratic Senate that allowed Lyndon Johnson to pass his Great Society.
Note, however, that it could have been worse. These were days with more varied political parties. Rebellious Democrats teamed up with Republicans to tangle with Roosevelt. Johnson ran the risk that the GOP would ally with Southern Democrats. There was some check.
As Karl Rove pointed out to me recently, the real risk of a 2009 filibuster-proof Senate is that the dissidents are gone. According to Congressional Quarterly, in 1994 Senate Democrats voted with their party 84% of the time. By 1998, that number was 86%. CQ's most recent analysis, of votes during the George W. Bush presidency, showed Democratic senators remained united 91% of the time. Should he get his 60 seats, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will be arguably more influential than the president.
Sure, 60 votes isn't enough to override a presidential veto. But a filibuster-proof majority would put Mr. Reid in almost complete control of the agenda. That holds equally true whether we have a President McCain or a President Obama.
A lot of voters are drawn to Mr. Obama's promises of bipartisanship. But with a filibuster-proof Senate, what Mr. Obama promised will be of secondary concern. Even if the presidential hopeful is sincere about working across the aisle (and that's a big if), Ted Kennedy, Pat Leahy, Barbara Boxer and Russ Feingold will prefer to do things their way. They'll be looking for opportunities to let their former rookie Senate colleague know who is in charge.
Mr. Reid won't necessarily need 60 votes to hold Washington's whip hand. With a contingent of blue-state Republicans (think Maine's Olympia Snowe), Mr. Reid could peel off votes and have an "effective" filibuster with just 57 or 58 seats. That may not be enough to accomplish every last item on his wish list, but close.
That wish list? Take a look at what House Democrats (who aren't burdened with a filibuster) unilaterally passed last year: The biggest tax increase in history; card check, which eliminates secret ballots in union organizing elections; an "energy" bill that lacks drilling; vastly expanded government health insurance; new powers to restrict pharmaceutical prices. Add to this a global warming program, new trade restrictions (certainly no new trade deals) and fewer private options in Medicare.
This explains why Congressional Democrats currently aren't moving spending bills, or energy bills, or anything. They are waiting for next year, when they hope to no longer have to deal with pesky Republicans. This also explains the Senate's paltry judicial confirmations this Congress. They want more vacancies. With a filibuster-proof majority, Democrats could reshape the judiciary under a President Obama, or refuse to confirm any Antonin Scalia-type appointments made by a President McCain.
Party leaders feel the Senate GOP can remain an effective opposition if it holds Democrats to 55 seats. If Republicans can continue to ride the energy debate, that just might be possible. As it is, they are feeling more confident about even tough fights in states like Colorado, Oregon or Minnesota.
Then again, it's a long way to November. Anything can happen. And if Congressional Democrats have their way, that "anything" will be undiluted power in Washington.
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In today's Political Diary:
- Note to Readers
- Who's Higher in the Rocky Mountains?
- The Card Check Party
- A Crumbling Economy? Voters Didn't Get the Memo
- South Side Man of Mystery (Quote of the Day I)
- We're Not Worthy (Quote of the Day II)
- Mark Foley's Successor Faces His Own Waterloo
Note to Readers
PD will be putting down its keyboard on Monday and picking up its weed-wacker. Enjoy
the Labor Day weekend. We'll be back on Tuesday.
-- The Mgmt.
Colorado Ladies Love McCain
DENVER -- Colorado is up for grabs, one of a handful of states that could swing this
year's presidential election. That was partly the Obama campaign's argument for
holding last night's acceptance speech in Invesco Field, making room for tens of
thousands of extra spectators, including many locals. And so Wednesday I pulled up a
chair at a downtown restaurant with Dick Wadhams, chairman of the Colorado State
Republican Party, to hear what factor is mostly likely to determine the winner of
Colorado's nine electoral votes. His answer: Women.
In particular, women aged 30 to 50, located in several suburban counties to the
south of Denver. According to Mr. Wadhams, who's also running Bob Schaffer's Senate
campaign, suburban women have been the must-have constituency of recent elections.
These suburbanite females tend to be socially liberal and fiscally conservative --
but place their voting emphasis on the latter. And they are capable of voting for
either party: They were the swing voters who elected retiring GOP Senator Wayne
Allard and former GOP Governor Bob Owens, but also elected Democratic Senator Ken
Salazar and Democratic Governor Bob Ritter.
This year, Mr. Wadhams is surprisingly bullish on GOP chances because, he says, John
McCain is uniquely situated to capture the suburban female swing vote. Mr. McCain's
emphasis on fiscal responsibility plays especially well with this crowd and, as
"security moms," they value his leadership on foreign policy. Moreover, helping to
shift the needle recently,
"these voters are really moved by the energy issue" and highly supportive of Mr.
McCain's call for more drilling. (Ditto Mr. Wadhams' Senate candidate, Bob Schaffer,
who has used the energy issue to gain on his Democratic opponent, Rep. Mark Udall.)
Predicts Mr. Wadhams: "John McCain will carry Colorado." Sure enough, recent polls
show him tied with or pulling ahead of Barack Obama. What really had Mr. Wadhams
smiling, though, is that these polls are coming out even as Democrats have been
hosting their convention in his home state. And though we spoke before Sarah Palin,
the pro-drilling, pro-fiscal restraint governor of Alaska, emerged as Mr. McCain's
Veep pick, presumably Ms. Palin can only help close the deal with so many
like-minded suburban women of Colorado.
-- Kim Strassel
Democrats and the Non-secret Ballot
DENVER -- Democrats narrowly avoided a major embarrassment before holding their
abbreviated roll call of the states here on Wednesday night.
Politico.com reported that the Obama campaign was seriously considering letting
delegates vote by secret ballot, the better to avoid intimidation and fear of
reprisal from local party bosses. But the plan -- which was pushed on the Obama camp
by supporters of Hillary Clinton -- was suddenly dropped when it was realized that a
key plank of the Democratic Party platform backs a so-called "card check" provision
being added to the nation's labor laws. Card check would effectively strip workers
of the protection of secret ballots in union elections. Business groups and former
Democratic presidential nominee George McGovern oppose the measure on the grounds
that it exposes workers to harassment and intimidation.
That was precisely the concern of Democratic delegates who wanted to cast a secret
ballot vote on the convention floor. The Obama campaign thought seriously about
accommodating them until it realized how such a naked contradiction to the party's
stance union balloting might look to voters and the media.
-- John Fund
Um, And Now a Moment of Realism
Barack Obama last night played a riff on Phil Gramm's impolitic remarks about a
"mental recession" and a "nation of whiners." Like a succession of Democrats at the
podium, he painted the economy in the darkest, most hopeless of colors -- never mind
that the economy is actually growing and unemployment is still lower than it was
during much of the Clinton presidency.
But here's the bad news for the dour Democrats in Denver -- most Americans don't
share their economic pessimism. That's the finding of public opinion expert Karlyn
Bowman of the American Enterprise Institute. "Most Americans are feeling pretty good
about their jobs and their personal lives," she says after investigating the fine
details of recent polls. Her report goes right to Mr. Gramm's concern about the gap
between actual economic performance and the dreary negativity of politicians and the
media.
She finds that 76% of Americans say they are actually optimistic about the direction
of their own lives and their personal economic situations -- even though only 18%
are optimistic about the country. That's the big disconnect. "These numbers haven't
changed much over time," Ms. Bowman tells me.
Job security and job satisfaction are both high in America too. "In Gallup's August
2008 survey, 48% working Americans said they were completely satisfied, and another
42% somewhat satisfied. Only 9% were dissatisfied with their jobs." And, sorry Lou
Dobbs, that war on the middle class and the outsourcing of America that you complain
about every night? Americans aren't buying it. Only 8% worry about their jobs being
outsourced to foreign competition. Scott Hodge of the Tax Foundation tells me this
squares with the economic data. "Very few jobs are lost each year to companies
moving jobs offshore," he says.
What's the No. 1 economic worry for Americans? Gas prices. Some three-quarters of
Americans in Gallup's July 2008 survey blame gas prices for financial hardship,
compared to 40% eight years ago. Mr. Obama last night offered a vague but dramatic
promise to "end our dependence" on Middle East oil within a decade. (The AP candidly
led its report by pointing out this "goal likely would be difficult -- perhaps
impossible -- to achieve and flies in the face of how global oil markets work.")
Voters don't seem to buy that either. Repeated polling has shown that, with their
mantra of "drill, drill, drill," Republicans seem to be offering a solution voters
find more credible.
I asked Ms. Bowman what accounts for the gap between people's attitudes about their
own lives and the economy in general. Her answer is no big surprise: "The relentless
negativity of the media."
The Democratic message in Denver was about all that is wrong in America, though any
balanced perspective would notice how remarkably resilient the U.S. economy has been
amid the housing bust and high oil prices. Former Clinton economist Brad DeLong
noted in his blog recently: "If you had asked me a year ago whether this degree of
financial chaos was consistent with a domestic U.S. economy not clearly in
recession, I would have said no."
Given all this, John McCain might want to sound a more Reaganite note next week. As
the Gipper proved in the 1980s, the economic optimist is likely to win in November.
-- Stephen Moore
Quote of the Day I
"The air of unease at the Democratic convention this week was not just a result of
the Clinton psychodrama. The deeper anxiety was that the party was nominating a man
of many gifts but precious few accomplishments -- bearing even fewer witnesses. When
John Kerry was introduced at his convention four years ago, an honor guard of a
dozen mates from his Vietnam days surrounded him on the podium attesting to his
character and readiness to lead. Such personal testimonials are the norm. . . . The
oddity of this convention is that its central figure is the ultimate self-made man,
a dazzling mysterious Gatsby. The palpable apprehension is that the anointed is a
stranger -- a deeply engaging, elegant, brilliant stranger with whom the Democrats
had a torrid affair. Having slowly woken up, they see the ring and wonder who
exactly they married last night" -- Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer.
Quote of the Day II
"We got to know Barack and Michelle Obama, two tall, thin, rich, beautiful people
who don't perspire, but who nonetheless feel compassion for their squatter and
smellier fellow citizens. We know that Barack could have gone to a prestigious law
firm, like his big donors in the luxury boxes, but he chose to put his ego aside to
become a professional politician, president of the United States and redeemer of the
human race. We heard about his time as a community organizer, the three most
fulfilling months of his life. We were thrilled by his speech in front of the Greek
columns, which were conscientiously recycled from the concert, 'Yanni, Live at the
Acropolis.' We were honored by his pledge, that if elected president, he will serve
at least four months before running for higher office. We were moved by his campaign
slogan, 'Vote Obama: He's better than you'll ever be.' We were inspired by dozens of
Democratic senators who declared their lifelong love of John McCain before
denouncing him as a reactionary opportunist who would destroy the country" -- New
York Times columnist David Brooks.
No Foley This Time
Who's possibly the most vulnerable House Democrat in the country? The prize goes to
the congressman from Florida's 16th Congressional District, freshman Rep. Tim
Mahoney.
After being recruited by Democrats in 2005, Mr. Mahoney, a born-again Christian and
wealthy computer executive, switched parties to run against six-term Rep. Mark
Foley, a firmly entrenched Republican in a GOP-leaning district. Mr. Mahoney was a
long-shot candidate from the day he entered the race until six weeks before the
election, when news broke that Mr. Foley had exchanged inappropriate emails with a
former House page. Two weeks later, Mr. Foley resigned from Congress in disgrace.
Adding to GOP difficulties, his name remained on the ballot and Republican voters
were forced to select Mr. Foley's name if they wanted to vote for his replacement,
Joe Negron.
Despite all these advantages and a national Democratic wave, Mr. Mahoney won by just
2 points. Things didn't get much better in his first few months of Congress, when he
admitted to a reporter: "This isn't the greatest job I've had" -- a line he can
expect Republicans to repeat continuously until the election.
On Tuesday, Attorney Tom Rooney won a close Republican primary and will now seek to
reclaim the seat for the GOP. Mr. Rooney, a former military lawyer and supporter of
Congressional term limits, received early backing from two of the state's most
popular GOPers, Reps. Tom Feeney and Connie Mack. Furthermore, the serpentine
district -- stretching from the Atlantic Ocean through sparsely populated citrus
farms all the way to the Gulf Coast -- is a better cultural fit for Republicans.
Even Mr. Mahoney seems to know the cards are stacked against him, despite the
advantages of incumbency and a four-to-one financial lead -- and is approaching the
election almost as a challenger would. Immediately after Mr. Rooney's victory, the
incumbent challenged him to three televised debates, one in each of the district's
media markets.
-- Kyle Trygstad, RealClearPolitics.com
(http://oj1.opinionjournal.com/redir3/HjG.ObBAB!http//www.realclearpolitics.com/)
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Traveling Violation - Obama Fails to Bounce
It's starting to become clear why Democrats are mounting such a sustained assault on Sarah Palin. So far the polls leading out of last week's Democratic convention show Barack Obama didn't get much of a bounce, if any.
Gallup poll numbers indicate Mr. Obama got a four-point bounce from the convention but quickly gave up half those gains in the wake of John McCain's announcement of Sarah Palin as his running mate. The latest Zogby poll actually shows Mr. McCain with a narrow two-point lead and a CNN poll shows the race dead even.
Mr. Obama's bounce is less than one-third of the boost that Al Gore got after his 2000 convention or the bounce Bill Clinton was able to achieve in 1992. Even hapless GOP nominee Bob Dole got a four-point bounce out of his 1996 convention.
The Obama acceptance speech last Thursday night was a ratings hit, with 40 million people tuning in. But the race remains essentially where it was before the Democratic convention. Republicans now have the rest of this week to attempt to create a favorable impression of their ticket.
-- John Fund
The Claws Are Out
The snarkiness of many of the comments ridiculing and belittling Sarah Palin is stunning.
Newsweek's Eleanor Clift reported on the McLaughlin Group that the reaction in many newsrooms to the announcement the Alaska governor would join the McCain team was "literally laughter." Ms. Clift, who has written admiringly about many women pioneers in politics, said: "This is not a serious choice. It makes it look like a made-for-TV movie."
Sally Quinn of the Washington Post picked up that theme in discussing the pregnancy of Ms. Palin's 17-year-old daughter. She said this would raise concerns if Ms. Palin "had been enough of a hands-on mother." Time magazine went even further by noting that "if elected, Palin will be the first vice-president in memory to take the oath of office with a child and a grandchild in diapers," a reference to Ms. Palin giving birth to her fifth child only last April.
Democrats, who were so anxious to avoid discussing the John Edwards affair even after clear evidence surfaced of his adultery and alleged illicit parenthood, can't stop talking about Ms. Palin's family troubles. "The name on the tongues of gleeful Dems, meanwhile: Eagleton," notes Politico.com. That's a reference to the 1972 Democratic vice presidential nominee Tom Eagleton, who had to withdraw from the ticket after reports he had been hospitalized for depression.
Somehow I think Democrats and their media allies will be laughing a little less after Wednesday night when Sarah Palin gets her own chance to speak to the American people without a media filter. They may find that all the ridicule will strike many Americans as excessive if the Alaska governor delivers a solid good performance.
-- John Fund
Sarah Steals the Show
Democratic bloggers are manically promoting the theme that the McCain campaign is "in crisis." Is it true?
"What did he know and when did he know it...?" asks Huffington Post in block letters. A blogger at DailyKos gazes longingly into the inverted telescope and declares: "This is a Tom Eagleton disaster for the GOP."
Well, maybe if John McCain is suddenly and uncharacteristically prone to panic. But give the media credit for quickly identifying the Democratic script and trying to turn a story about a teenage pregnancy into one about Mr. McCain's fitness for office. Voters, who have their heads screwed on straighter, undoubtedly still think the story is about an unmarried daughter's readiness to bear a child, not about a vetting miscue. Should Mr. McCain have passed out pregnancy test kits to relatives of his short list? Should he have skipped over a woman he obviously likes and admires because her daughter is having a baby? How silly is this going to get?
A psychologist could explain what the hysteria is really about: overcompensation and a desperate passion to change the subject. We don't know how Ms. Palin will perform under the onslaught, but Republicans who complain Mr. McCain threw away the "experience card" are missing the point. The Palin nomination is a poisoned arrow aimed right at Barack Obama's credentials. It sets up the question: Who's more inexperienced? Ms. Palin repeatedly challenged an incumbent machine and prevailed in fiercely contested battles. Mr. Obama was the output of a machine (Chicago's) and advanced because his electoral opponents (Blair Hull in the Democratic Senate primary, Jack Ryan in the general) conveniently dropped out amid scandals. Yes, Mr. Obama managed to be elected to the Senate but whether he actually did the job is a matter of definitions. Ms. Palin was elected governor and actually set about being governor -- not angling for the next job based on some calculation about her charm.
The Clintons have always been right about one thing: Mr. Obama has risen on a mighty puff of air. Democrats are taking a culpable gamble on whether that puff will dissipate before Election Day or after. By any rational standard, it's their "judgment" and their "vetting process" that should be on trial. And may still be -- with help from Sarah Palin.
-- Holman W. Jenkins Jr.
Quote of the Day
"Obama began his campaign for the nomination as the outsider candidate, promising fundamental change in Washington and offering a post-partisan approach to politics. With time, he has come to be seen as a much more conventional Democrat who is now half of a ticket based in Congress, the least admired institution in a widely scorned capital. Millions who saw his acceptance speech heard a standard recital of liberal Democratic programs. By picking Palin, McCain has strengthened his reputation not as an ideologue, not as a partisan, but as a reformer -- ready to shake up Washington as his hero, Teddy Roosevelt, once did. My guess is that cleansing Washington of its poisonous partisanship, its wasteful spending and its incompetence will become McCain's major theme" -- Washington Post columnist David Broder.
Palin's Cause
In fall of 2007, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin called her legislature into special session to rewrite an oil bill signed a year earlier by her predecessor, Republican Gov. Frank Murkowski. This legislative fight will likely earn more scrutiny and carry more weight with voters than any revelation about her unmarried 17-year-old pregnant daughter.
On the surface, she hiked taxes on the oil industry -- a risky political move for a rookie in her first year in office. But the fight in Juneau last year was about much more than taxes. A federal corruption probe had unveiled credible allegations that the 2006 bill had passed only because oil industry executives had bribed enough legislators to allow it to survive very close votes. This came even as separate federal probes were closing in on the state's two GOP legislative powers, Sen. Ted Stevens and Rep. Don Young. Ms. Palin ran for office in 2006 not only to push better public policies, but as an avowed change agent within her own party. Not for nothing is she called "Saint Sarah" by some state GOPers. She's not anti-business, but pro-honesty and accountability in government. Her rewritten oil bill forced energy companies to pay more than they otherwise would, but she rebated much of the new revenue back to state residents and has championed a new gas pipeline to bring natural gas to the lower 48 states -- laying the groundwork for a new energy boom in the state.
By putting Ms. Palin on the ticket, Mr. McCain has turned his race into an anti-Washington campaign. That will likely prove a more powerful and enduring storyline than the one preoccupying the media for the past 24 hours
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He's No Ed McMahon, But He'll Do
MINNEAPOLIS -- Who will introduce Sarah Palin tonight? The word in town is that President Bush will do the honors in a surprise appearance before the convention. After canceling his appearance for Monday night because of Hurricane Gustav, he addressed the delegates last night by a video hook-up. The feed was live, but he apparently couldn't hear the crowd and didn't pause long enough for the cheers, which kept on coming. LBJ was the last President to miss being physically present at a convention -- he stayed away in 1968.
A rallying cry at last week's Democratic convention was "Eight Is Enough," and when Mr. Bush's appearance was canceled Monday, some Republicans were talking about it being a "blessing in disguise." The conventional wisdom holds that John McCain needs to keep a polite distance from the unpopular President. But Mr. McCain isn't known for hewing to the conventional wisdom.
The other whisper about town is that Mr. McCain has chosen another Texan to introduce him tomorrow night: Michael Williams, chairman of the Railroad Commission of Texas and the first African-American in Texas history to hold a statewide elected post. He's a champion of alternative energy and his "Breathe Easy" campaign urges the transformation of the state's bus fleets, especially school buses, from diesel and gasoline to natural gas and propane, which are cheaper and environmentally cleaner.
-- Melanie Kirkpatrick
Scouting Report on Palin: Natural Talent, Needs Coaching
MINNEAPOLIS -- Speculation about how GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin will fare in her October 2 debate with Joe Biden is rife here in the Twin Cities.
But thanks to the archives of C-SPAN, it's possible to watch a debate she conducted during her 2006 race for governor. Her opponent was popular Democrat and former two-term governor Tony Knowles. Ms. Palin performed well, showing an organized mind and a populist bent (twice referring to "the will of the people"). In an ironic twist given recent news events, she was even asked what she would counsel her daughter to do if she became pregnant. "I would choose life," Ms. Palin said emphatically.
The one strange note came when the feisty former point guard for her high school basketball team (nickname "Sarah Barracuda") went after Mr. Knowles' qualifications to return to the governor's mansion. "Do we need a chef down in [the state capital of] Juneau?" she asked the debate audience. Mr. Knowles, who owns a restaurant in Anchorage, looked pained and the joust was quickly parried. If she's going to go after Joe Biden's vulnerabilities, such as the fact that he's a Washington lifer who ranks No. 17 in seniority among all senators who've ever served in Congress, Ms. Palin will need some better attack lines.
-- John Fund
The Thrill is Gone
The love affair between John McCain and the elite media is over. The cause of the final estrangement was alienation of affection -- namely Mr. McCain's decision to hook up with a pro-life, moose-hunting unknown governor of Alaska named Sarah Palin.
The resulting media attacks on the fitness and experience of Mr. McCain's running mate led to a quick series of "Dear Media" letters putting the relationship on ice. CNN's Wolf Blitzer told viewers yesterday that the McCain campaign had abruptly canceled an interview with Larry King after a contentious exchange between CNN's Campbell Brown and McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds. Ms. Brown had sharply questioned Sarah Palin's foreign policy experience.
That was followed by an attack on the New York Times' Elisabeth Bumiller for suggesting that the McCain campaign had not vetted the Alaska governor properly. The campaign's blogger Michael Goldfarb wrote: "Ms. Bumiller, if you'd like to try reporting instead of writing fiction, here's a link to our press line," offering up the campaign's telephone number.
Other McCain supporters were even more pointed. At a rally yesterday organized by Phyllis Schlafly's Eagle Forum, radio talk show host Laura Ingraham told the audience that the media doesn't understand what the GOP convention is all about: "Life is the first. Big families. Hunting. Patriotism. Gun ownership. Beating back fat, bloated bureaucracy. Holding government accountable. Fighting liberal corruption. Sarah Palin stands for all of these principles that if taken away from the left, it's over for them. It's over."
I don't know about that, but clearly Mr. McCain and his former media chums won't be exchanging chocolates and flowers much over the next two months.
-- John Fund
Quote of the Day
"Never mind the naysayers and inside-the-Beltway snobs who mock John McCain's selection of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate. This was a brilliant choice. . . . t offered an alternative to Americans who are ready to shake up Washington but who don't think that Obama is the one to do the shaking. It also showed that neither party is wedded to the old and tired image of four white males vying to lead the country. Besides, those who know Palin best -- her Alaska constituents -- tell reporters they like her, trust her and find her easy to relate to, which happen to be the same personal qualities that many Americans say they find lacking in the Democratic nominee. And anyone who thinks those qualities aren't important in a presidential candidate probably doesn't understand why Bill Clinton beat Bob Dole in 1996 and George W. Bush beat John Kerry in 2004" -- San Diego Union-Tribune columnist Ruben Navarrette.
Open for Business (Kindly Ignore the Russian Troops)
BRUSSELS -- On Georgian Prime Minister Lado Gurgenidze's to-do list, somewhere below "get Russian army to leave," is making sure that economic aid comes to his war-ravaged country quickly enough that foreign investors continue to flock its way. The Bush administration is expected to announce today a $1 billion aid package, and Mr. Gurgenidze, while visiting the EU's capital this week, told me he hopes Europe "matches or exceeds that number" when it finally extends its own offer.
Before the Russian troops arrived almost a month ago, Georgia was a budding Caucasian Tiger. As democracy and free-market economics took hold following the Rose Revolution, foreign direct investment quadrupled last year. Those investors should keep coming, Mr. Gurgenidze said, "because fundamentally nothing has changed." The country is still being led by "the same people with the same libertarian leanings"-- the, ahem, visitors from up north notwithstanding.
Mr. Gurgenidze, who has an MBA from Emory University in that other Georgia and formerly played The Donald's role in a local version of TV's "The Apprentice," notes that Georgia's utilities and transportation recovered quickly and there was no meltdown in the country's financial sector. The national currency, the lari, has even appreciated slightly against the dollar during a time when the euro and pound have weakened.
Georgia still has severe problems and will have to lean on its Western allies economically for years to come. Whether or not Mr. Gurgenidze and especially President Mikheil Saakashvili eventually pay a price at the voting booth for taking the Russian bait, the country's future freedom will depend largely on its ability to remain an open and dynamic market.
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GOP to Media: Please, Please Attack Sarah Palin
MINNEAPOLIS -- Liberal reaction to Sarah Palin's roof-raising speech last night was somewhat subdued. And there was some surprising agreement from Hillary Clinton's camp that Mrs. Palin had been treated unfairly because of her gender.
Barack Obama's campaign issued a terse statement saying: "The speech that Gov. Palin gave was well delivered, but it was written by George Bush's speechwriter and sounds exactly like the same divisive, partisan attacks we've heard from George Bush for the last eight years."
Keith Olbermann, MSNBC's official attack dog, could muster only this as commentary on Mrs. Palin's performance: "People who like this sort of thing will find this . . . the sort of thing they like." His colleague Andrea Mitchell, who had effusively praised Barack Obama's acceptance speech last week, could only say glumly: "The war has begun."
War is exactly what some Hillary Clinton allies think has been waged on Governor Palin. Georgetown University professor Deborah Tannen says some in the media have improperly questioned if Mrs. Palin can adequately take care of her family while she runs for vice president. "There's no way those questions would be asked of a male candidate," agrees Howard Wolfson, Hillary Clinton's spokesman during her presidential campaign.
Phil Singer, who helped Mr. Wolfson deal with media issues on the Clinton campaign, concurred with his colleague and told Politico.com: "The real indictment that needs to be prosecuted is about her views, not her personal life."
My view is that some liberal commentators have done a good job of enraging not just conservative Republicans but many Hillary supporters with their coverage of Mrs. Palin. I received e-mails last night from two moderate voters who had been leaning towards Barack Obama and are now firmly in the McCain-Palin camp. In the space of less than a week, Sarah Palin has become a part of the culture war and in a way that may catch Barack Obama in the crossfire.
-- John Fund
Advice to Dems: Stop Digging
ST. PAUL -- What did we learn about Gov. Sarah Palin last night? That Democrats aren't the only ones with a budding star political talent in this election. Following a harsh week for the McCain campaign's decision to put up this political newcomer, Mrs. Palin not only eased fears but gave conservative Republicans a reason to be excited this year. Equally important, she has given Democrats a reason to start worrying.
Which leaves the Obama campaign with an interesting choice. Does it continue the Palin discussion which has dominated the news cycle this past week -- and will dominate it going into the weekend -- or should Mr. Obama and his surrogates quickly try to change the subject?
Mrs. Palin still has much to prove on the campaign trail, but it's clear the McCain campaign wants its opponents to continue going after her. Just yesterday, Team McCain released an ad titled "Alaska Maverick," comparing Mrs. Palin's experience not to her counterpart Sen. Joe Biden but to Sen. Barack Obama. If not a first in modern presidential politics, this line of attack is certainly something we haven't seen in a while. And it displays a level of confidence the McCain campaign isn't supposed to be feeling, given the powerful political winds the Democrats have at their backs this year.
In its first attempt at criticizing Mrs. Palin, the Obama campaign sent mixed messages. A statement by spokesman Bill Burton attacking her experience was rejected by the candidate himself only hours later. The lesson? Stop getting into specifics with Mrs. Palin and go back to tying Sen. John McCain to President Bush. There's a reason Mr. Bush -- and his own vice president -- weren't mentioned once in Mrs. Palin's speech last night. Nor in Rudy Giuliani's. Nor in Mike Huckabee's. And just once by Mitt Romney. The strategy for Democrats: Attack what your opponent is trying to hide, not what he's trying to promote. Attack Bush-Cheney, not Mrs. Palin.
-- Blake Dvorak, RealClearPolitics.com
Sarah, Get Thee to Chapel Hill
Sarah Palin thrilled the GOP last night in St. Paul, reminding more than a few GOP veterans of how Elizabeth Dole wowed them at the 1996 Republican convention in San Diego. Too bad Mrs. Dole wasn't there to enjoy it. She skipped this week's festivities to focus on her reelection battle against state Senator Kay Hagan in what has become a must-watch race.
And for good reason: A new poll by a Democratic firm shows Mrs. Hagan with a five-point lead, echoing a host of recent polls that show a tight race getting tighter. Mrs. Dole is the biggest star on the North Carolina stage now that John Edwards is in disgrace. Chapel Hill-based venture capitalist Alston Gardner emailed us to explain why she's in trouble: "Much like John Edwards, she's just another pretty face that hasn't delivered for the citizens and leaders of North Carolina. Her focus has always been on a national audience and not doing the less glamorous, but politically necessary constituent services." Ouch.
On Wednesday Mrs. Dole launched her first attack ad against her opponent. The spot portrays Ms. Hagan as a yapping dog and calls her "Fibber Kay," and defends Mrs. Dole as "one of the 10 most admired women in the world" whose "clout works wonders for North Carolina." The campaign also turned up the heat over a scheduled fundraiser for Ms. Hagan in two weeks hosted by author Wendy Kaminer, whose real estate developer husband is a board member of the Secular Coalition for America. Says a Dole press release: "Kay Hagan does not represent the values of this state; she is a Trojan horse for a long list of wacky left-wing outside groups bent on policies that would horrify most North Carolinians if they knew about it."
Husband Bob Dole, who did make an appearance on the Xcel Center floor before Mrs. Palin's speech yesterday, told the Washington Post that he's been busy on the trail supporting his wife as well. "I'm spending three days a week down there helping out," he said. "I just work the side streets. I don't go down Main Street."
Partly to assist in North Carolina, the cash-strapped National Republican Senatorial Committee on Tuesday pulled its ads from New Mexico, abandoning Republican Rep. Steve Pearce in his own fight with Rep. Tom Udall for the retiring Pete Domenici's seat. Bottom line: The Republican triage has begun and Election Day is still two months away.
-- Robert Costa
Quote of the Day
"He may have pulled off the impossible by finding someone who fires up independents and Reagan Democrats while not turning off social conservatives" -- Republican Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas, commenting on John McCain's selection of Sarah Palin.
How to Pick Out the Navy Enthusiasts at the RNC
MINNEAPOLIS -- The Twin Cities are providing a hearty welcome to Republicans this week. Store windows carry welcome signs. Red, white and blue decorations abound. And the elephant, well, the elephant is everywhere. At a downtown Minneapolis hotel, a herd of topiary elephants, trunks raised, greet the guests. The leader of the pachyderms is an immense creature, almost life size, and visitors must pass beneath her trunk in order to reach the concierge's desk. I say "she" because the lady elephant sports red roses for toenails and more red roses bedeck her tail. A floral G-O-P is emblazoned on her saddle.
The elephant is everywhere at the convention too: on hats, tote bags, lapel pins and every form of jewelry. A delegate from Maine was spied wearing elephant earrings. But another popular accessory features no elephants -- rather, it's a pale blue tie or scarf sported by some Republicans featuring three of the international marine signal flags used by ships at sea. Strung together, the flags spell out the letters JSM, for John Sidney McCain.
-- Melanie Kirkpatrick
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THE FOUNDATION: RELIGIOUS LIBERTY
“Let us hear of the dignity of man’s nature, and the noble rank he holds among the works of God.” —John Adams
FAMILY
“This is hardly the first presidential campaign to pit an antiabortion Republican ticket against pro-choice Democrats. Never before, however, has the difference been so stark. Obama advocates abortion rights even more sweeping than those enacted under Roe v. Wade. ‘The first thing I’d do as president,’ he assured the Planned Parenthood Action Fund last year, ‘is sign the Freedom of Choice Act.’ The measure would not only codify Roe, it would eliminate even restrictions on abortion that the Supreme Court has allowed—the federal ban on government funding of abortion, for example, or the law prohibiting partial-birth abortion. During last month’s forum at the Saddleback Church, Obama was asked when ‘a baby gets human rights.’ He fudged: ‘Answering that question with specificity, you know, is above my pay grade.’ But there is nothing hesitant about Obama’s abortion stance. As an Illinois lawmaker, he opposed a bill making it clear that premature babies born alive after surviving a failed abortion must be protected and cannot be killed or simply left to die. Even after virtually identical legislation—the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act of 2002—passed unanimously in the U.S. House and Senate, Obama continued to oppose the state version. On abortion, no presidential candidate has ever been so extreme. And when has a Republican ticket ever been so unabashedly antiabortion?” —Jeff Jacoby
CULTURE
“Let me say of myself and almost everyone I know in the press, all the chattering classes and political strategists and inside dopesters of the Amtrak Acela Line: We live in a bubble and have around us bubble people. We are Bubbleheads... And when you forget you’re a Bubblehead you get in trouble, you misjudge things. For one thing, you assume evangelical Christians will be appalled and left agitated by the circumstances of Mrs. Palin’s daughter. But modern American evangelicals are among the last people who’d judge her harshly. It is the left that is about to go crazy with Puritan judgments; it is the right that is about to show what mellow looks like. Religious conservatives know something’s wrong with us, that man’s a mess. They are not left dazed by the latest applications of this fact. ‘This just in—there’s a lot of sinning going on out there’ is not a headline they’d understand to be news. So the media’s going to wait for the Christian right to rise up and condemn Mrs. Palin, and they’re not going to do it because it’s not their way, and in any case her problems are their problems. Christians lived through the second half of the 20th century, and the first years of the 21st. They weren’t immune from the culture, they just eventually broke from it, or came to hold themselves in some ways apart from it. I think the media will explain the lack of condemnation as ‘Republican loyalty’ and ‘talking points.’ But that’s not what it will be. Another Bubblehead blind spot. I’m bumping into a lot of critics who do not buy the legitimacy of small town mayorship... and executive as opposed to legislative experience. But executives, even of small towns, run something. There are 262 cities in this country with a population of 100,000 or more. But there are close to a hundred thousand small towns with ten thousand people or less. ‘You do the math,’ the conservative pollster Kellyanne Conway told me. ‘We are a nation of Wasillas, not Chicagos’.” —Peggy Noonan
RE: THE LEFT
“[Sarah Palin is]... the object of the cultural disdain of a left that loves the working class in theory, but is mystified or offended by its lifestyle and conservative values in reality. If there’s ever been an exemplar of the rural America that, in Barack Obama’s telling, ‘bitterly’ clings to its guns and religion, it’s Sarah Palin. It’s her misfortune to be a pioneer with the wrong ideology. So much bile was directed at Clarence Thomas because he was the ‘wrong’ kind of black man. Pro-life, pro-gun and a down-the-line, if populist, conservative, Palin is a traitor to her gender and thus encounters the sort of fury always directed at apostates... A lot of Palin-hatred is couched in terms of her lack of experience. Fair enough, but there’s a tone of contemptuous dismissiveness about the experience that she does have—fueled no doubt by her career in ‘fly-over country’ so remote no one really flies over it. The Obama campaign is loath to admit that she’s governor of Alaska, pretending instead she’s still mayor of tiny Wasilla, and the outraged commentary in the press makes it sound like the vice presidency is an office of such import that it would be better if the newcomer were at the top of the ticket and the wizened pro at the bottom—just like the Democrats.” —Rich Lowry
FOR THE RECORD
“Unlike Barack Obama, who thought so highly of himself that he wrote two autobiographies before he accomplished anything, Mrs. Palin has raised a family, run a business, managed a city and governed a state. She took on corrupt members of her own party, toppled a sitting Republican governor and said ‘no’ to Alaska’s infamous ‘Bridge to Nowhere.’ She is pro-life, pro-family, pro-Second Amendment and pro-free enterprise. She is the governor of America’s most natural resource-rich state and is an advocate of oil drilling in ANWR. (Perhaps she can talk some sense into McCain on that issue.) Oh, and she has an 80 percent approval rating among Alaskans.” —Doug Patton
THE GIPPER
“In our administration, our mission has been to appoint the best qualified people we could find, to fill substantial jobs with substantial individuals. And the result of this merit-based approach, not surprisingly, is that more women have served in top-level policy positions in our administration than in any previous one. And they’ve served with distinction, earning promotions and reappointments at a very high rate. We can be proud of what you and the other women have accomplished...I’m very happy about everything that American women are doing, yes, because it is good for women, but also because it’s good for America.” —Ronald Reagan
CAMPAIGN WATCH
“Frankly, what the tank ride did for Michael Dukakis, the plywood Parthenon just might do for Obama. Then again, this entire event, seemingly a miscalculation of epic proportions, could have been an example of perfect political acumen. For example, before becoming transfixed by Temple Obama, I was reading up on Obama’s relationship with ex-Weather Underground member and unrepentant Capitol- and Pentagon-bomber William Ayers—news of which the Obama campaign has been eager to downplay if not squelch entirely. I was also trying to unravel the ties between Obama, Obama’s unsavory fundraiser Antoin ‘Tony’ Rezko, and Rezko’s unsavory money source Iraqi-British billionaire Nadhmi Auchi. (This is another story journalists are being pressured not to cover, as Andrew Walden at Accuracy in Media has shockingly and extensively documented, in this case by Auchi’s legal eagles.) And who knew Obama’s veep nominee Joe Biden had Rezko connections through a longtime associate named Joseph Cari Jr., who admitted involvement in a Rezko kickback scheme? And on it goes. But then, suddenly, Temple Obama went up, and with it, like incense in the fire, all patience for hard news.” —Diana West
GOVERNMENT
“Currently, the United States has the second-highest corporate tax rate of all industrial societies, after economically anemic Japan. The U.S. federal rate of taxation is 35 percent, and when the average state and local corporate tax rates are added, American corporations pay, on average, a 39.27 percent tax on their incomes. China is at 25 percent; Mexico is at 28 percent; socialist Sweden is at 28 percent; and prosperous Ireland is at a mere 12.5 percent. If these comparative rates continue for much longer, the United States economy will mortally bleed jobs and prosperity to a world—both nominally socialist and free market—that has learned the low corporate tax lesson from Reagan’s America that current Washington has forgotten. Obama’s solution to the problem of jobs and industry going offshore is to lean toward protectionist policies (renegotiate NAFTA, oppose new free trade treaties, etc.). When one combines Obama’s plans to tighten international trade, create carbon trading regulations that will be the equivalent of a further $100 billion corporate tax, raise taxes generally on business, as well as his mind-numbingly counterproductive ‘windfall’ profit taxes on petroleum product companies (full disclosure: as a rational person, I support and provide professional advice to the petroleum industry), one has a formula for economic catastrophe not seen since Herbert Hoover’s similar Depression-inducing policy in 1929.” —Tony Blankley
POLITICAL FUTURES
“Beginning in the 1950s, conservatives forged a political philosophy and, over the next several decades, built an intellectual infrastructure to popularize their principles and apply them to policy problems. And they found political leaders who could implement those solutions. In short, conservatism advanced because conservatives refused to get in tune with the times. They possessed the moral vision and intellectual courage to compose a better tune. They offered leadership, and they accepted the responsibilities that go with it. But too many Republicans have spent the last several years demonstrating that they can’t be trusted to lead... If they want to regain power, Republicans would be wise to re-embrace conservative principles. Liberalism is a bankrupt philosophy that has been tried and found wanting in one major policy issue after another, from national defense to social welfare, from education to the national economic policy. That’s why candidates run away from liberal ideas when it’s time for a general election. Republicans must run toward conservative policies if they want the tides of history to sweep them back into power.” —Ed Feulner
SELECT READER COMMENTS
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September 10, 2008
In today's Political Diary:
- House of the Living
- See No Rangel, Hear No Rangel
- Reversal of Fortune (Quote of the Day I)
- Paglia in Love (Quote of the Day II)
- Juneau Soap Opera
Back From the Dead
Most political analysts still predict GOP House losses in November and a wider
Democratic majority in 2009, but gone is talk of landslide casualties. House
Republicans returned to Washington this week positively overjoyed that they've not
only caught up with Democrats in generic congressional polls, but pulled into the
lead. The latest USA Today poll has Republicans up by four points on the question:
Who do you support, the Republican or the Democrat for Congress in your district?
This is an amazing turnaround in the polls and even more pronounced turnaround in
the mood of Congressional Republicans. When House GOP members convened on Monday,
there was little talk of the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac bailout package, but lots of
celebration of the new poll numbers. "Not too long ago, the feeling in our caucus
was near suicidal," one House Republican tells me. "It was every man for himself.
And there was no campaign money to spread around."
Now, says Rep. Scott Garrett of New Jersey, "Republicans actually think we can gain
seats in the House."
One reason the polls have shifted is that Democrats have become even more unpopular
than Republicans. Says Mr. Garrett: "Voters are finally aware that it's the
Democrats, not us, who control Congress." The public has begun directing its angst
and anger at Democratic leaders like Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, rather than the
long-gone Tom DeLay.
Another coup for Republicans was the pro-drilling campaign launched by conservative
House GOPers while Democrats went home for summer vacation. Each day, House
Republicans held a vigil for a pro-exploration energy policy even though Democrats
turned out the House lights and shut off the microphones. Mike Pence of Indiana was
one of the ringleaders who gave the Pelosi Democrats heartburn. In his district, he
says, voters paid attention. Nancy Pelosi's decision to take what he called a
"five-week paid vacation" backfired because it "angered voters when gas prices are
so high."
Finally, Republicans in the House also are celebrating the Sarah Palin effect.
"She's helping big-time with fundraising," says one conservative House member. "We
saw the effect immediately after she was chosen by McCain." Earlier this year, GOP
money woes had given Democrats a multitude of GOP incumbents to shoot at without
fear of retaliation. Not any more.
"I actually think we can win back the majority in the house," says Rep. Garrett,
ever the optimist. "But I'm probably the only one who thinks that." Yes, well, in
1994 Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich were the only ones who foresaw a GOP sweep in
that election.
-- Stephen Moore
Charlie's Angel
Speaker Nancy Pelosi is standing by her chairman.
Charles Rangel, the embattled head of the House Ways and Means Committee, has asked
for three separate House Ethics Committee investigations of himself in recent weeks.
That has led House Republicans to demand he step down as chairman until the issues
are resolved. Speaker Pelosi, who ran her 2006 campaign to take back the House from
"a culture of corruption," is having none of it.
"Charlie Rangel is a very distinguished member of the House of Representatives," Ms.
Pelosi told Politico.com on Monday. "Whatever the leaders on their side say, he is
very well-respected by members on both sides of the aisle."
Still, it is embarrassing that Mr. Rangel has had to announce this week that he must
pay overdue state, local and city taxes on $75,0000 in unreported rental income from
a vacation property in the Dominican Republic. That follows a controversy over how
he was able to obtain several rent-stabilized apartments in Harlem, one of which he
used improperly as a campaign office. Then there's the matter of his use of
Congressional stationery and influence to raise money for a public affairs institute
in New York that bears his name. "Since this is the man who writes the tax laws of
the United States, we need new leadership until we get all the facts," Rep. Eric
Cantor, a member of the House Republican leadership, told me.
Of course, Republicans can't afford to parade around on too high a horse. Two of
their Appropriations Committee members, Reps. Jerry Lewis of California and Don
Young of Alaska, have come under federal investigation over earmarks secured for
supporters. Neither Republican has been charged with wrongdoing, but the probes have
tarnished the ability of Republicans to carry on crusades against Mr. Rangel and
other errant Democrats.
-- John Fund
Quote of the Day I
"First [Barack Obama's] startling and lofty rhetoric grew stale from overuse. And
now his once engaging (for some) ideas are being overtaken by events. His call for
quick retreat from Iraq, overtaken by the surge and the smell of victory, has forced
him to reverse field and admit the surge has been an unexpected (by him) success.
Then the declining economy forced him this week to back away from his soak-the-rich
tax increases for fear of further damaging the economy. Of course, the perils of
Pauline still may threaten Gov. Palin, and two months is time enough for many more
strange twists. But one week on from the Republican convention, it is fair to say
that never in modern history has a presidential ticket benefited so much from its
convention. And never have the hopes and energy of a moribund party risen so quickly
or so high" -- Washington Times columnist Tony Blankley, on how Sarah Palin and the
reemergence of John McCain "maverick" persona have lifted the GOP.
Quote of the Day II
"Pow! Wham! The Republicans unleashed a doozy -- one of the most stunning surprises
that I have ever witnessed in my adult life. By lunchtime, Obama's triumph of the
night before had been wiped right off the national radar screen. In a bold move I
would never have thought him capable of, McCain introduced Gov. Sarah Palin of
Alaska as his pick for vice president. I had heard vaguely about Palin but had never
heard her speak. I nearly fell out of my chair. . . . This woman turned out to be a
tough, scrappy fighter with a mischievous sense of humor. . . . In terms of
redefining the persona for female authority and leadership, Palin has made the
biggest step forward in feminism since Madonna channeled the dominatrix persona of
high-glam Marlene Dietrich and rammed pro-sex, pro-beauty feminism down the throats
of the prissy, victim-mongering, philistine feminist establishment" -- feminist
critic Camille Paglia, writing at Salon.com.
Trooper Stupor
Half the Washington press corps is now winging its way to Alaska to scour the record
for something embarrassing on Gov. Sarah Palin. Luring them is a seeming scandal
already called Troopergate that broke in July, when Mrs. Palin fired Department of
Public Safety Commissioner Walter Monegan. In recent weeks the state legislature has
opened an investigation into the dismissal and hired an independent counsel to
determine if laws were broken.
Her critics accuse Mrs. Palin of firing Mr. Monegan because he had refused to fire
State Trooper Michael Wooten, who had gone through a messy divorce with the
governor's sister. If the charge is true, it would certainly hurt Mrs. Palin's
reformist credentials -- although her powers of office entitled her to fire
Commissioner Monegan for any reason or no reason at all.
Still, there is reason to suspect the scandal is little more than a political smear
attempt. The investigation is being run by a Democrat in the state Senate (the
Republican who would have been in charge recently stepped down to fight allegations
of his own corruption). Mr. Monegan is a disgruntled former employee who never told
anyone about the alleged pressure to fire Trooper Wooten before his own firing. And
Mr. Monegan broke his allegations on a blog run by an also-ran gubernatorial
candidate who was crushed by Mrs. Palin in the 2006 elections. What's more, Trooper
Wooten's record would hardly seem to make him ideal state trooper material. He's a
four-time divorcee whom Mrs. Palin says threatened to kill her father. He admitted
to using a Taser on his 11-year-old stepson and to killing a moose out of season.
He's also had to fight allegations of drunk driving and other infractions.
The scandal also seems trumped up in light of legitimate reasons Mrs. Palin had for
firing Commissioner Monegan. The two disagreed over cuts in the public safety
department's budget as well as her insistence that he focus state trooper attention
on rural drug use. Mr. Monegan had been forced out of his previous job running the
police force of Anchorage. The man who fired him then was Mayor Mark Begich, the
Democrat now running for U.S. Senate against embattled Republican Ted Stevens.
In Alaska, politics always seems a little inbred. Mrs. Palin has remained mum since
she was tapped to be John McCain's running mate nearly two weeks ago, but seven
members of her administration have declined requests by investigators to be
interviewed. The state legislature is now weighing whether to hand down subpoenas --
though it's unlikely that the governor herself would be subpoenaed. With so much
fodder, however, any reporter with an eye for detail will be able to come back from
an Alaska trip with attention-getting tidbits. You don't become a change agent by
making friends, so there will be plenty of pols on both sides of the aisle eager to
fill a reporter's notebook with their criticisms of Mrs. Palin. To beat this story,
the McCain/Palin campaign may need to start filling a few of those pages itself.
-- Brendan Miniter
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***The latest USA Today poll has Republicans up by four points on the question:
Who do you support, the Republican or the Democrat for Congress in your district?***
I must be dreaming. :-D
Although I must admit it's not like the cans deserve to win anything in the Houses this year.
To say they were a letdown is an understatement. I don't go quite as far as Lou Dobbs but I do agree with a lot of his views at least in principal.
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Lost amid last week's controversy over whether Barack Obama had insulted Sarah Palin with his "lipstick on a pig" reference was his inspiration for the dig. Once again the issue was whether he was borrowing material without citation.
What landed Mr. Obama in hot water was this statement: "John McCain says he's about change, too -- except for economic policy, health care policy, tax policy, education policy, foreign policy, and Karl Rove-style politics. That's just calling the same thing something different. You can put lipstick on a pig; it's still a pig. You can wrap an old fish in a piece of paper called change; it's still going to stink after eight years."
The McCain campaign shamelessly claimed that because Ms. Palin had used a lipstick reference in her acceptance speech at the GOP convention, Mr. Obama was issuing a porcine insult of her. That was a stretch. A better riposte might have been to note that Mr. Obama seemed to be channeling a hard-left newspaper cartoonist named Tom Toles. Only four days earlier, Mr. Toles drew a picture of Mr. McCain and his running mate standing outside the White House. The punch line: "Watch out, Mr. Bush! With the exception of economic policy and energy policy and social issues and tax policy and foreign policy and Supreme Court appointments and Rove-style politics, we're coming in there to shake things up!"
Mr. Obama has had previous problems with appropriating the words of others -- such as channeling a speech on civil rights previously delivered by Gov. Deval Patrick of Massachusetts. Michael Miner of the Chicago Reader even proposed a McCain TV ad showing Mr. Obama making his "change" argument against the background of the Toles cartoon. An announcer would quizzically ask: "Change? Or the same thing?" Then Mr. McCain would say: "I'm John McCain and I approve this message."
Such an ad, puncturing the media myth of Mr. Obama's vaunted eloquence, might have been devastating.
-- John Fund
I Was Raised in a Small Town Too
I had to chuckle at the charge in the New York Times that Sarah Palin had hired "cronies" from her high school when she was governor -- in a small state, that's hard not to do, and even harder in Alaska where recruiting from out of state is a special challenge.
I had to smile too at the alleged claim from a campaign contributor that he'd used his "influence" with Mrs. Palin to get the head of the town museum fired. Not only does the contributor deny the story, but any veteran of small town politics will tell you it's rife with colorful characters who sometimes think they wield more influence than they actually do.
A lot about the New York Times' front-page dissection of Sarah Palin's Alaska record on Sunday brought back memories of my own experiences growing up in a small town in a rural state. My erstwhile hometown, Rutland, Vt. (pop. 17,000), itself recently went through similar personnel upheaval following the election of a mayor and city treasurer determined to run the city more efficiently. And who knows what the Times would have made of a controversy in the 1990s about whether the town library should shelf "Daddy's Roommate," a children's book about same-sex couples?
The point being, the kind of small-town politics the Times describes would only come as news to, well, the New York Times. There may yet be undiscovered dirt in Mrs. Palin's Wasilla record, but on the evidence so far, her experiences will be pretty recognizable to many Americans. Contrast that with Barack Obama's mysterious record as a "community organizer" -- I don't remember many of those in Rutland.
-- Joseph Sternberg
Quote of the Day
"Until now, the crisis seemed like a confusing Wall Street story. That all ended with the fast-moving events of Sunday. . . . The candidates had hoped to put off their detailed prescriptions until they were in office, unrolling an economic agenda in conjunction with an address to the new Congress. Now, there's no way to duck it. . . . 'This is the financial equivalent of Russia invading Georgia -- an unexpected event that calls for leadership and direction,' said James Rickards, senior managing director for market intelligence at Omnis Inc., a research and analysis firm" -- Politico.com's Mike Allen on the political repercussions of Wall Street's crisis.
Your Wallet Still Isn't Safe
In the Fed's and Treasury's game of whack a mole, the moles are winning. Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson didn't bail out Lehman, correctly judging that a bailout would be no real solution. But don't think this marks the end of government attempts to relieve the financial crisis.
If there has been one uninterrupted trend of the past century, it has been the steady socialization of risk -- especially financial risk. Deposit insurance was created and then expanded. In the S&L meltdown, even uninsured depositors were saved. Subsidy after subsidy was piled up to encourage mortgage debt. All the fiscal and monetary powers were mounted to rescue banks from their Third World lending misadventures. The "system" was protected from the failures of Penn Central, Continental Illinois, Long Term Capital, the crashing dotcoms and telecoms, etc.
And when even massive liquidity provided by a government lender of last resort proves insufficient? Today’s confidence hemorrhage probably won't stop until government supplies what the financial markets have failed to supply (except in small instances) -- a buyer of last resort for unwanted mortgage-related assets.
It was careless, of course, to hold a financial crisis in the middle of a presidential election. And neither ticket this year is especially confidence inspiring when it comes to economics -- more likely to one-up each other in denouncing "bailouts" and "greed" than to contribute anything constructive. Note the rich irony of Barack Obama and John McCain's sudden, after-the-fact recriminations over the severance packages of Fannie's and Freddie's departed chiefs -- for, if there ever was a case where two U.S. Senators had a duty to be on the ball before-the-fact, it was in overseeing these two "government sponsored enterprises."
For all that, a taxpayer bailout of the financial system is inevitable. The political calendar only means it likely won't arrive until next year.
What did Merrill get for its mortgage-related holdings, unloaded on a single hedge-fund buyer in late July? 22 cents on the dollar was surely a lowball value. In London, a competitive auction of the remains of Cheyne Finance's structured mortgage portfolio fetched 44 cents.
Let's say a flat price of 25 cents on the dollar, no questions asked. A new Resolution Trust Corporation, instead of taking over failed banks, would stand ready to buy any mortgage-related assets that any financial institution cares to bring it. We already have the makings of such an institution in place, in the form of the quasi-nationalized Fannie and Freddie (who already own about half the nation's foreclosed homes). No, not every down-on-its-luck firm would be saved, but banks would have a pawnshop willing to inject new capital into them by taking soggy assets off their hands at a price fair to the taxpayer. Even if such an offer tempted few takers, a floor on mortgage-debt prices might do a lot more to restore confidence (especially given the role of misguided government accounting rules for financial institutions) than the endless mole-whacking of Washington's first responders so far.
-- Holman W. Jenkins Jr.
Red Ink in the Golden State
After a stalemate that lasted two and a half months, California lawmakers reached a tentative deal to end the state's budget impasse.
Last week, Democrats dropped their insistence on new taxes to resolve a $16.3 billion deficit problem. Republicans then promptly signed on to a series of accounting gimmicks and one-time fixes, many involving accelerated tax payments so they count in the current fiscal year rather than the next one.
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who angered his fellow Republicans earlier this month by proposing a "temporary" sales tax, is keeping mum on whether he will sign off on the deal. His office professes to be worried about insufficient reform of the budget process. But everyone in Sacramento wants to cut a short-term deal and "get out of town." Elections involving 100 of the state's 120 legislators are only six weeks away and politicians are antsy to hit the campaign trail.
Regardless of any deal, California faces another budget crisis next year. "Both parties are papering over the problems," a longtime state budget analyst told me. "They've agreed not to raise taxes or make real spending reforms this year when the voters can pass judgment on their work in November. Next year, with everyone safely re-elected, they will then mete out the real pain."
This gamesmanship cries out for real budgetary reform. During the 1980s, California operated under the Gann Limit, a voter-approved constitutional restriction that prevented spending from growing faster than population growth and inflation. Unfortunately, Gann was cleverly watered down to the point of meaninglessness as part of a bait-and-switch transportation bond measure narrowly approved by voters in 1990. Ever since, California's legislators have pigged out on spending sprees during good economic times and then muddled through in downturns.
It's time for a new Gann Limit to be placed before voters, because state legislators and Governor Schwarzenegger have shown themselves of steering the state's fiscal vehicle without some budgetary guardrails installed.
-
Return of the Keating Five
For a second day in a row, Barack Obama has added references to the 1980s savings and loan scandal as a way of highlighting why John McCain isn't capable of addressing the crisis in financial markets. That Mr. McCain was embroiled in the S&L meltdown as a player in the "Keating Five" scandal is well known to Obama aides.
"When we loosened restrictions on savings and loans and appointed regulators who ignored even these weaker rules, too many S&Ls took advantage of the lax rules set by Washington to gamble that they could make big money in speculative real estate," Mr. Obama told audiences yesterday. "Confident of their clout in Washington, they made hundreds of billions in bad loans, knowing that if they lost money, the government would bail them out. And they were right. The gambles did not pay off, our economy went into recession, and the taxpayers ended up footing the bill. Does that sound familiar?"
Mr. Obama went on to say Mr. McCain's new support for regulation should be contrasted with his "scornful attitude towards oversight and enforcement. . . . John McCain has shown time and again that he doesn't believe" in regulation.
While he didn't specifically tie Mr. McCain to the Keating Five scandal, you can bet other Democrats and outside groups will. In the late 1980s, Mr. McCain was linked with four other senators who met with federal banking regulators in an effort to aid financier Charles Keating, a major campaign contributor. Mr. Keating's S&L empire later collapsed and he spent time in prison.
The scandal ended the careers of Democratic Senators Alan Cranston, Don Riegle and Dennis DeConcini. Two others, Democrat John Glenn and Mr. McCain, were judged less culpable and won re-election. Mr. McCain was found to have used "poor judgment" by the Senate Ethics Committee, and the experience launched his efforts to reform the campaign finance laws that ultimately became the McCain-Feingold law.
While his allies will no doubt bring up the Keating Five scandal, Mr. Obama is likely to remain above the fray on that issue. He has his own vulnerabilities, having received $9.9 million in contributions from the financial services industry. He is also the third-largest recipient of political contributions from the home mortgage giant Fannie Mae, which was recently taken over by the government.
-- John Fund
What's to Debate?
Barack Obama came under unusually tough questioning from ABC's Chris Cuomo this week. The "Good Morning America" co-host challenged the Democratic candidate on why he ducked an offer from the McCain campaign for a series of town hall meetings with voters in addition to the normal trio of debates.
"You're saying the issues are all that matter here," Mr. Cuomo told Mr. Obama during their interview on a train winding its way through Massachusetts. "Why don't you pick up the phone to him and say, 'What are you doing next week? How about Tuesday? How about Wednesday? How about Thursday? Let's get out there as much as possible, you and me and talk about what matters most?'"
Mr. Obama responded that the idea of town hall meetings "is a little bit of a gimmick" and that he had agreed to do three debates in coming weeks. When asked why there wouldn't be more, Mr. Obama responded with impatience, "Listen, I've gone through 22. . . . Nobody's debated more than I have."
What Mr. Obama didn't note is that the Democratic debates he referred to were almost completely taken up by discussions of which Democratic candidate could best take the fight to Republicans. Issue differences -- save for a dispute between Mr. Obama and Hillary Clinton over whether government should mandate that an individual buy health insurance -- were conspicuous for their absence. "We were primarily concerned with explaining to Democratic primary voters why each of us would be the best candidate to represent their values in the fall election," New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson said last spring.
If Mr. Obama really believes that his political philosophy and proposals were challenged during those debates, he attended a different set of encounters than the other candidates did.
-- John Fund
Congratulations, You're in Private Equity!
Politicians in Washington may have to stop sliming hedge fund and private equity operators -- because now they're one.
The Treasury owns warrants for 80% of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac's equity, and the Fed just took a similar position in AIG. These highly leveraged "bailouts" -- Washington has yet to put in any real cash -- may be controversial now but could be huge political winners when they pay off. The profits are potentially enormous and potentially a sure thing -- since Washington influences the competitive and regulatory environment for the businesses its owns.
In fact, Washington hardly has to put up cash at all -- just breathe a hint about whether it wishes the share price well or ill. As Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson explained to CNBC's Maria Bartiromo after the Fannie and Freddie operation: "There are a number of reasonable cases where even the existing shareholders will end up having their stock price come back."
Translation: The now-minority shareholders would be wise to shut up about the force majeure takeover and enjoy the ride if they know what's good for them.
Wall Street must be disgusted at how it's been outdone by Washington. Private buyout operators obviously don't have the privilege of dictating that their quarries are insolvent or at what price they'll be taken over. AIG shareholders in particular must be scratching their heads at all the whacks their fundamentally solvent company has taken from politicians in the past three years -- and now the politicians own it.
Why, it almost sounds like . . . Russia under Vladimir Putin. AIG's Hank Greenberg perhaps should strike up a correspondence with Mikhail Khodorkovsky (if he can find the address of the jail he's in) to compare notes.
-- Holman W. Jenkins Jr.
Democratic Breakdown in Upstate New York
The open seat of retiring Republican Congressman Tom Reynolds was supposed to be ripe for a Democratic pickup this year. Mr. Reynolds won by just four points in his last re-election campaign against self-funded millionaire Jack Davis. In a presidential year, the Dems especially liked their chances.
But last week, Mr. Davis lost his bid to take a third run at Mr. Reynolds's seat. In a bruising three-way primary with Iraq war veteran Jon Powers and a little-known lawyer named Alice Kryzan, Ms. Kryzan pulled out a surprise victory after Messrs. Powers and Davis expended all their energy attacking each other. The Democratic Party establishment, which had unified behind Mr. Powers, now finds itself in a bind. Mr. Powers is still on the ballot on the Working Families Party line. A week after his defeat, though, he still won't say whether he'll step aside in favor of Ms. Kryzan, only that he is still "deciding how best to proceed."
That, in turn, puts the diminutive Working Families Party in an awkward position. It has already announced that it will support Ms. Kryzan in November, even though Mr. Powers will remain its candidate on the ballot.
All this is good news for the Republican candidate, business executive Christopher Lee, Mr. Reynolds's anointed successor. Even though President Bush won the upstate district by 12 points in 2004, Mr. Lee was facing an uphill battle thanks to Mr. Reynolds' ties to the scandal-tarred former Republican majority. But serendipity has arrived. He now faces an underfunded Democrat who could see her support siphoned off by Mr. Powers' presence on the ballot. Call it one more way that Election 2008 isn't going according to script for the Democrats.
-- Brian M. Carney
Terminator 4: Arnold Versus the Republicans
"Arnold has lost his mind." That's what one long-time GOP budget aide in California told me in response to news that Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger will veto the state budget.
Everyone is confused by this latest action, because just a few weeks ago the governor was running around the state insisting on a tax increase to balance the budget. Now that conservative Republicans have won a major victory in forcing the majority Democrats to pass a no-tax-increase version, Arnold seethes that he wants a budget that puts "our fiscal house in order, and I promise the people of California that I will not stop until the job is done."
The problem is that Arnold doesn't have any allies left in the legislature in either party. Conservatives are still fuming for good reason that Arnold tried to ram a tax increase through by going into Republican districts to attack lawmakers in his own party who wouldn't vote for his tax hike. When Republicans in the state assembly tried to insist on a hard spending cap, Arnold was cutting deals with Democrats. Meanwhile, Democrats are angry they didn't get a tax increase or the big spending increases they wanted.
But the budget that Arnold will veto is a victory of sorts for taxpayers and conservatives know it. That's because the budget, three months overdue, does not include a sales tax or income tax increase to close a $15 billion budget deficit. Heroically, Republicans neither bent nor broke and effectively vetoed the tax increase plan the Democrats and their left wing interest groups coveted.
One hero here was House Minority Leader Mike Villines, who convinced his GOP caucus to rally behind the "no new taxes" position despite a big lobbying campaign by the media and recipients of government spending and the governor. "We're all taxed out in California," Mr. Villines tells me. "We all agreed that taxes would be counterproductive, because we are losing so many businesses and families to low tax states in the West."
But now along comes Arnold trying to recreate himself as a fiscal conservative. Many in the state think he's a budgetary Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde. Mr. Villines points out that state spending has risen more than 40% in four years on Arnold's watch. Where was the concern then about "putting the fiscal house in order?" Senate Republicans, including the minority leader Dave Cogdill, are vowing to override the governor's veto.
Arnold has betrayed Republicans too often on too many issues -- taxes, environmental regulation, health care, global warming -- to have any credibility left. His budget veto comes years too late and billions of dollars short.
-- Stephen Moore
-
Remember the press expressing immediate and united outrage when anyone says anything nasty about blacks. What was that guys name commedian last year, or Imus, etc.
Lets see the outrage from MSNBC, CNN et al over this:
Sandra Bernhard: Palin Would Be Gang-Raped By Blacks in Manhattan
By Tim Graham (Bio | Archive)
September 19, 2008 - 07:59 ET
The Washington Post isn’t the only daily D.C. newspaper to rave about Sandra Bernhard’s anti-Palin ranting. Wednesday’s Washington Examiner joined in, with the headline "Comedienne delivers enraged optimism." Barbara Mackay claimed "in the end, oddly and subtly, Bernhard’s message is positive."
That’s not the impression you’d get from the blog of Theater J, where Bernhard is appearing. It has video of Bernhard calling Palin "Uncle Women," a "turncoat b—h" and a "whore." One complaint on the blog that Bernhard crosses a line of political incorrectness draws a defense from Ari Roth of Theater J that really drops the curtain on how coarse this show is:
In fact, the play wears its politically VERY correct heart on its sleeve with its indictment of America as "A Man’s World, It’s a White Man’s World, It’s a F–ked Up White Man’s Racist World" and can only be suggested to be racist in its content if one is hell-bent on protecting White Folk for Sandra’s blistering indictment.When Sandra warns Sarah Palin not to come into Manhattan lest she get gang-raped by some of Sandra’s big black brothers, she’s being provocative, combative, humorous, and yes, let’s allow, disgusting.
The fact that the show has a few riffs like this does not — to my mind — make it a "disgusting show." there’s too much beauty, variety, vitality, and intelligence to label the entire show as "disgusting." I’ll agree with you that we produced this show because we did find it to be edgy — because we wanted to give right wing conservative Jews a good run for their money by being on the receiving end of some blistering indictments from Sandra.Does it go over the edge sometimes? On the gang-rape joke, yes. Sure. Not much else. It goes over the edge and then comes right back to the cutting edge. [Profanity editing is mine.]
Forgive me if gang-rape jokes don't greet my ears as oddly and subtly positive, as the Examiner suggests, and forgive me if gang-rape jokes aren't "a rotating sprinkler that a spectator washes in most happily," like the Washington Post insists.
Roth insisted to the complainer that the D.C. Jewish Community Center is loving their Bernhard show, and partied with Bernhard on opening night. They’re in tune with her right-bashing rage:
We’re proud of our producing -- proud of Sandra’s sense of timing -- taking the fight out to the house and to the street beyond, channeling so much of our rage and frustration at the bizarre recent twists of fortune since Karl Rove trotted out Sarah Palin for John McCain to briefly meet and then get in bed with.Sandra’s face is hanging 10 feet tall in a banner over the DCJCC steps and we’re proud that she’s a new emblem and ambassador for our theater and our center. She’s not the only one who represents us. But her large heart, her generous talent, and her big mouth are all a big part of who we are.
"Who we are" at this theater clearly isn't someone who's interesting in presenting anything other than rage. The video itself, presented like a commercial for the show, explains who the show is intended to please. The average person probably wouldn’t find it the least bit funny. But if you really, really hate Sarah Palin or Christian conservatives, this show is for you. Here’s some of what she says in the promo:
Now you got Uncle Women, like Sarah Palin, who jumps on the s--t and points her fingers at other women. Turncoat b---h! Don’t you f--kin’ reference Old Testament, bitch! You stay with your new Goyish crappy shiksa funky bulls--t! Don’t you touch my Old Testament, you b---h! Because we have left it open for interpre-ta-tion! It is no longer taken literally! You whore in your f--kin' cheap New Vision cheap-ass plastic glasses and your [sneering voice] hair up. A Tina Fey-Megan Mullally brokedown bulls--t moment.
Is it too broad an interpretation to suggest that when Bernhard attacks Palin's "new Goyish crappy shiksa funky bulls--t," she means the New Testament? It sounds like she's telling the Christian to stay away from "her" Old Testament, as if Christians don't have an Old Testament in their Bible. It's quite clear that the D.C. Jewish Community Center is not attempting an interfaith dialogue with this rantfest.
Here is the video. Decide for yourself:
—Tim Graham is Director of Media Analysis at the Media Research Center
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Rant
September 19, 2008 - 08:06 ET by Texndoc
Is there anyone who supports Obama who could read this and think to themselves :"Wow, this only means good things down the road!" ? I suggest the "she's a Rove plant" defense. Her and her pal Madonna.
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sicko
September 19, 2008 - 08:16 ET by Burgher
This says more about her 'brothers' in Manhattan than is does about Gov. Palin.
Berntard is derainged, her hatred of all things consevative ( and possibly good) has blackened her soul. I see no redeaming quilities in someone who would wish violent sexual violation on anyone.
Hide the scissors she may hurt herself.
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This says more about her
September 19, 2008 - 09:26 ET by DontFeedTheTrolls
This says more about her 'brothers' in Manhattan than is does about Gov. Palin.
Actually, I think this says more about Bernhard and what, exactly, she thinks of blacks, i.e., they are violent criminals. Must be her circle of friends.
D
Keep the ILLEGALS out, join NumbersUSA to send free faxes to your reps.
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"Comedy" : The genre
September 19, 2008 - 08:14 ET by motherbelt
"Comedy" : The genre that gives liberals the artistic license to say vicious things about conservatives that, if reversed, would be called "hate speech."
Sandra Bernhard is not, and never has been, funny. But then again, liberal humor never is.
When Don Rickles made fun of everyone, everyone knew he was a good guy underneath, so they laughed with him.
These liberal comedians today do nothing more than spew schoolyard taunts and ridicule at others.
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ARTISTIC LICENCE...
September 19, 2008 - 08:48 ET by danybhoy
mb,
1st things 1st, I lve Don Rickles, he is still 1 of the funniest people I have ever seen, on TV anyway.
As for Sandy Bernhard, she is a liberal trapped by classic racial & gender stereotypes. Bernhard seems to think that black guys are into gang rape, I would think the NAACP would be axing her for an explanation. They should be, but I won't hold my breath.
I believe we have been given a look into Sandra Bernhard's true views & beliefs. She seems to hate herself for being a white chick, & has a thing about gang rape with a racial component. Quit while you are behind Sandy , YOU ARE PROJECTING. Now go away.
"...it's still We The People, Right?" Megadeth
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Speaking of racist
September 19, 2008 - 09:16 ET by general company
Good grief this woman insults every Blackman, and will probably recieve praise for it. Maybe she is jealous, Sahra has a great family a good man and all she has is her hate. Never could understand what Dave saw in her, she has always been gross.
"Television is a freak show" Bernie Goldberg
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Bernhard?
September 19, 2008 - 08:27 ET by Kirk Turner
Insulting conservatives is a time-honored method for failing stars to rejuvenate their careers. Nothing could be more definitive of the values of left-wing culture in America. They are mean-spirited, small-minded losers.
Sandra Bernhard is no-talent never-was hack who became famous for a few appearances on Letterman in the 80s. She keeps her name in the news by doing outrageous things every so often because "the talent thing" never worked for her.
Ignore her and she'll go away--it is our outrage that keeps her alive.
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Geez!! I didn't know
September 19, 2008 - 08:38 ET by MrDebater
Sarah was still alive. I thought she fell into a black hole of irrelevancy 25 years ago. I guess it took her all that time to figure out that she could resurrect herself by bashing conservatives...that's always a career booster! I guess being a dopey lesbian pig has lost it's glamour...since being gay is no longer "edgy".
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Sandra Berhardt is yet another atheist low-life
September 19, 2008 - 08:39 ET by c5then
She doesn't practice her supposed religion, she uses it to get into places that otherwise would shun her. The only thing "jewish" about her is her poor humiliated parents. As far as her embracing the Tanak, she's probably a modern day YezahBa'al.
But more to the point, she is laughed at as much or more then she is laughed with. As far as clout and authority, she has none. Whatever she says has to be vile and disgusting just to get any notice at all, because otherwise she is completely irrelevant.
You want change? Give me a dollar.
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Hmmm...what about Black Men Raping White Women?
September 19, 2008 - 08:39 ET by Guy Arthur Thomas
Never minding Bernhard's comments that if made by a conservative the Axis Media (comprising the old and new liberal establishment of Print, Television and Internet) would of course found this racist and enter Spike Lee.
But what provokes such thoughts in Bernhard? Even the absurd oft is born in some element of reality. What about BLACK MEN RAPING WHITE WOMEN?
What are the statistics of:
Of All White Women Raped, What Percent Are Raped By Blacks?
Of All Black Women Raped, What Percent Are Raped By Whites?
Maybe it is an unpleasant question but one must be bold enough to discover where Bernhard derived such a concept.
The answer to terrorism IS war. Next Please!
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The "Borking" of Palin
September 19, 2008 - 08:52 ET by ahusser
Aside from the obvious viciousness and offensiveness of what's her name's remarks the "Borking" of Palin continues unabated. Palin really struck a nerve in the dim camp. The drooling hyperbolic hysterical frenzy of spewed filth and hatred towards Palin has reached a fever pitch. Haven't seen such lefty fireworks since the nomination hearings of Clarence Thomas. You can tell when the dims are scared because the spew meter is off the charts.
"...no civilization, no matter how rich, no matter how refined, can long survive once it loses the power to meet force with equal or superior force." - Bernard Knox
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What a foul mouthed female
September 19, 2008 - 08:58 ET by Clear thinker
What a foul mouthed female cretin, trying desperately to get attention.
Sandra B. is NOT the kind of woman that feminists want representing them. Oooops, my mistake, I think she is the perfect example.
Don't worry Gov. Palin you are miles ahead of this woman in class, intelligence, integrity, and morality, so Sandra should be a ZERO threat to you.
Hate Rush Limbaugh Week - Again
Making Fun of AGW http://giovanniworld.wordpress.com/
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Aye, seems this wench has
September 19, 2008 - 08:59 ET by Hero Squad
Aye, seems this wench has been sippin' a bit too much of the grog, and is speaking out of her hornpipe, just to appeal to the lowest bilge rats in the galley. Arrgh!
*****
"Rapscallions only be insistin' that a scrum be halted when they are afraid of walking the plank if it continues." - Cap'n George Will
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LOL! 'Tis slipped my mind
September 19, 2008 - 09:30 ET by Mean Gene Dr. Love
LOL!
'Tis slipped my mind that today is international talk like a pirate day! Arrr! I'll be gettin' 50 lashes wit a cat-o-nine tail for that one!
"An armed society be a polite society. Manners be good when one may have t' aft up his acts with his life." --Midshipman Robert A. Heinlein, "Beyond This Horizon", 1942
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Those Jews will be laughing....
September 19, 2008 - 09:00 ET by sjanus11
At the D.C. Jewish Community center even more when Isreal is whiped off map Woaaa good one, barry nice talking ya did there. Fortunatly, that's just a visit from barry future, When Sen Glenn and Gov Palin Win, The Isreal , Iran problem will already be taken care of, Mark my words, Isreal is gonna act before election to take out Nuke sites on the of chance barry actually wins,. You did see recent sale of ours to Israel of smaller Bunker Busters, which are very acurate, And Isreal has plenty of Big Bunker busters, Or hell once the shell has been cracked , just a couple of well Placed Tactical Nukes would put there enrichment back 10 yrs.,,, Big boom, lot's of smoke, and fire, Old bearded ones say hey candle light not so bad....Please stop bombing us Steve
"If your 20 and not a Liberal, You have no Heart. If you are 40 and not a Conservative, You have no Brain" Sir Winston Churchhill
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So, the Left is now pro-rape?
September 19, 2008 - 09:03 ET by lotr
So, am I to take it that the Left (including the Democratic Party) is now pro-rape?
I guess it's a good thing that Palin is pro-gun.
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rape issue
September 19, 2008 - 09:06 ET by Agnostic
Don't forget the media just attacked Gov Palin a few days ago for having a weak stand against rape problems in Alaska. A statement like this even if condemned could bring that issue more publicity.
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The marquee outside Theater
September 19, 2008 - 09:07 ET by BuxomAnnieMcGreggor
The marquee outside Theater J must read something like... "Come see BANGIN' DAMN UGLY on display!" ...ask about senior and gang rapist discounts.
"We retort..... you decide."
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You know what they say ...
September 19, 2008 - 09:08 ET by 10ksnooker
You can't rape a 38.
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NOW is the time to discuss
September 19, 2008 - 09:14 ET by billb
NOW is the time to discuss the pig/lipstick controversy!
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Jewish slapstick!
September 19, 2008 - 09:26 ET by Kansasgirl
Wow, libs really love to hate.
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I think, in keeping with
September 19, 2008 - 09:29 ET by DontFeedTheTrolls
I think, in keeping with the sensationalism evident in the MSM, the headline should read:
Prominent Democrat Says 'Obama Should Rape Palin'
D
Keep the ILLEGALS out, join NumbersUSA to send free faxes to your reps.
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A Mirror Image
September 19, 2008 - 09:36 ET by TakeaRight
Look into her face, Democrats, and there you will see yourselves. Sandra Bernhard is a portrait of the modern American liberal.
Are you proud?
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Sandra who?
September 19, 2008 - 09:32 ET by HockeyKid
Sandra who?
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"in the end, oddly and subtly, Bernhard’s message is positive."
September 19, 2008 - 09:33 ET by JohnMcGrew
Excuse me? Never before could I imagine that gang rape could be spun as a "positive" message. If anyone on the right dared utter such a thing, there'd be demonstrations demanding a "hate crime" procecution.
Thank you, and keep it up Sandra and friends in the media. It's stuff like this that's causing the likelyhood of an Obama administration to evaporate more daily.
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While I do not approve of Sandra Bernhard's "humor", this is a show being produced by and at the D.C. Jewish Community Center.
The DCJCC is entitled to their opinion and they have a right to produce this show. Imus made his inappropriate comments on the public airwaves.
There is a big difference.
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My point wansn't about silly legal subtles it was about the idea that its ok by the msm for people to make outragiously offensive remarks about whites, or conservatives or christians etc, but if low and behold someone makes the same type of offensive remarks against their favorite victims of the day be it gays, hispanics, blacks, jews, etc then it is plastered all over the news media and that person's career as a comedian is over.
What was the name of the Seinfeld guy again? That was not pulbic airways and the msm furor over his disparaging comments about blacks ruined his life like it almost did with Imus who btw made.
BTW I am not, and never was a fan of Imus or Seinfeld or his colleague. I am also not a fan of Jews who think it ok to have comedians speak like this in a Jewish Community Center and it is ok because it is about a republican or conservative who like I have posted before they despise more than Nazis in their misguided bigotry.
That said you can give me the "I don't aprove of ... humor", *but* we have freedom of speech in the US all you want. You won't change my outrage at this crap. ANd don't think that lets them off the hook. "Oh but it is their right..." It doens't let you off the hook either, but I am not going to change your mind. :-(
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Actually, it isn't some "silly legal subties" it's in our Constitution. The D.C. Jewish Community Center is entitled to their viewpoint.
However, as I said, I don't approve of nor would I attend "humor" of this type whether is was directed at whites, christians, conservatives, blacks, muslims, or jews.
It simply isn't appropriate, yet to deny freedom of speech is also very very wrong.
You don't have to buy a ticket and go to the show, do you?
Also, while I am not Jewish, "I don't necessarily think Jews despise republicans or conservatives more than Nazis in their misguided bigotry."
I have some Jewish friends who abhor my democratic politics and are staunch conservative Republicans; really, these Conservative Republicans are everywhere :-D
Still, we manage to get along just fine. :-)
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JDN:
Forgive me, but unless I misunderstand here you are missing the point. The one is not of legal or constitutional rights, it is about whether the responses, or lack thereof, are hypocritical.
CCP:
For future reference there is a thread on "Politically (in)correct" which is where this would have been a better fit.
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Yes, it was about the hypocrisy of the politically correct media (synomous with "MSM" and to a large degree with the "left wing media").
I thought there was a political correctness thread. Is there an easier way to find it rather than having to go throught all the thread headings. Can on search for the thread title?
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Yes, go to Search or Advanced Search and type in "Correct" and click the box for "thread titles". In that you might not have remembered whether it was titled "Politically Corrret" or Politically Incorrect" this seach command will find you the thread no mater what.
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Marriage in the Balance
Opponents of a measure that would cement a definition of marriage as between a man and a woman in the California constitution were cheered by a new Field Poll last week showing the measure losing 55% to 38%. Just a few weeks ago, the measure was trailing by only nine points.
But the battle over Proposition 8, which seeks to reestablish a traditional definition of marriage that was overturned by the state's Supreme Court this summer, isn't over.
A new study of polling in 26 states -- including California -- that have voted on the issue of gay marriage shows that support for such measures is often under-reported in polls. For example, in 2000 when California first voted on gay marriage, polls showed that Proposition 22 -- which would have banned gay marriage -- had 53% support in the final pre-election poll. It wound up winning with 61%.
"I can't say for sure why polls almost always understate support for traditional marriage," says Frank Schubert, a strategist for anti-gay marriage forces. "I believe it is because the media portrays same-sex marriage as being politically correct. Supporters of traditional marriage don't want pollsters to consider them intolerant, so they mask their true feelings on the issue."
In states that have voted on gay marriage, the study found that polls underestimated support for traditional marriage by an average of seven points. In only two states (Texas and South Carolina) did pre-election polls accurately predict the outcome of the vote. In only one state (Arizona), polls overstated the final percentage of voters who backed traditional marriage.
While that history may be of some solace to opponents of gay marriage, their trailing in California is at the outer edges of the survey errors. Buoyed by a favorable rewording of the ballot summary for November's Proposition 8 by California's Attorney General Jerry Brown, supporters of gay marriage may be on their way to an historic reversal of their state's 2000 vote.
-- John Fund
Quote of the Day
"Seven days ago, Democrats were in a state of political panic after Sarah Palin's selection as running mate had helped push John McCain ahead in the polls. Now it may be the Republicans' turn . . . because the GOP is closely identified with big business in the minds of voters [in the current financial crisis]. . . . No poll numbers or headlines between now and Friday are as likely to influence the final outcome of election as much as [this week's first presidential] debate. Obama has avoided debates since his poor showing in April against Clinton in Philadelphia, and also did poorly in a Sept. 16 forum at California's Saddleback Church. If Obama doesn't turn in a solid performance Friday, his recent poll advantage could fade quickly. A week from now, Democrats may find themselves pushing the panic button again" -- Robert Stacy McCain, writing at the American Spectator's web site spectator.org.
Barney Frank Creates a Diversion
Nobody said Barney Frank wasn't smart, but his cynicism is getting the best of him. His House Finance committee quietly voted out a reversal of a recent mortgage reform. The latest bill would again require the Federal Housing Administration to allow seller financed downpayments -- which even the FHA calls an engine of fraud. Yet, meanwhile, in a shadow play of accountability, he noisily demands that Hank Paulson's mortgage bailout package be conditioned with caps on CEO pay for financial firms that participate.
Mr. Frank is being frivolous. If the idea is to get the financial system working again, depriving firms of the means to compete for talent is a strange way to do it. But he doesn't really mean it -- he's flogging his initiative on the hot button of CEO pay merely to create a simulation of debate while he and Mr. Paulson rush through a vast new subsidy machine for the housing lobby.
That's not to say incentives aren't important. Redesigning incentives is a big part of the day-to-day work of capitalism and that's going on now -- think of the near-constant stream of innovations aimed at fine-tuning CEO contracts. But the urgent target for political reform should be government's own contribution -- its massive subsidies and incentives for rich and poor alike to incur housing debt, including egregious things like FHA guarantees for no-downpayment loans. A lot of questions ought to be asked before Congress enacts the Paulson plan. Don't expect Mr. Frank to ask them -- he's too busy carrying water for the housing lobby that got us here in the first place.
-- Holman W. Jenkins Jr.
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Conservatives Ponder the End of Capitalism
Conservatives on Capitol Hill are starting to push back against the Bush-Paulson $700 billion bank bailout plan. One lead member of the conservative House Republican Study Committee asked me in a panicked phone call this weekend: "Is this the end of free market capitalism?" Republican Mike Pence of Indiana is advising caution and has come out against the rescue. "Congress must not hastily embrace a cure that may do more harm to our economy than the disease of bad debt," he warns.
Outside conservative groups are also divided. We're told an intense debate is going on in the hallowed halls of the Heritage Foundation, where some support the bailout and others are aghast at the idea. "If this were Obama proposing such a massive government expansion of power, we would be calling him a commie," grouses one high level Heritage manager who fears panic may trump free market principles at the think tank.
All this means the plan may not flow through Congress as seamlessly as the White House had hoped. There are two problems: On the one hand are congressional Democrats like Barney Frank of Massachusetts who are demanding their own priorities, such as a $50 billion stimulus spending plan. (Apparently $700 billion is not enough stimulus.) They also want to impose new regulations on bailed-out institutions, including CEO pay limits and curbs on leverage. This leads to the second complication: All these add-ons only have made Republican conservatives more squeamish. In the Senate, Jim DeMint of South Carolina is rounding up opponents with the line that the bailout "is not capitalism. It is the opposite of capitalism."
Conservatives are dividing into two camps: Those who believe the Paulson plan is the only way to prevent a collapse of capitalism and those who see it exposing the markets to massive governmental interference in the future and huge new powers to regulate industry. "We will be hard-pressed to block any government expansions in the future if we support this plan," a Senate leadership aide tells me.
Rep. Pence also complains that all this talk about expanding government debt and spending to bail out Wall Street wrongdoers is getting John McCain and the GOP off message just before the election. He wants Republicans instead talking about "indexing the Capital Gains tax to inflation (which the Treasury Department can do without any help from Congress) . . . passing an energy bill that lessens the price of gasoline at the pump through more domestic drilling . . . and a reform of entitlements." He adds: "We should also find budget savings to pay for what we spend."
Now there's an old-fashioned conservative idea that has fallen by the wayside.
-- Stephen Moore
Pining for Sarah
Last week, Jewish groups were abuzz with news that an annual pro-Israel rally scheduled for yesterday in Manhattan had lost one of its most loyal speakers. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton pulled out after getting pressure from Obama supporters not to attend once it became clear Sarah Palin would also be there. The scene would have drawn enormous attention coming on the heels of the "Saturday Night Live" skit featuring comedians Tina Fey and Amy Poehler as the two women. In the end, rally organizers decided to scrub all political speakers -- including Mrs. Palin -- from the program.
The rally went on as scheduled but in a way that didn't make Team Obama happy. Anti-Obama and pro-Republican signs were common at the event. One read: "We Want Sarah. Shame On The Rally Organizer."
Democratic Congressman Anthony Wiener said the event was still a success because it proved how many people care about Israel and came out to protest a visit of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to New York. But he acknowledged the awkward political theater behind it: "I think it would have been fine for Sarah to speak. We just needed someone of equal stature from the Obama campaign to speak."
In the end, Republicans clearly scored points from the controversy, according to Democratic political consultant Hank Sheinkopf. He told WCBS-TV: "Sarah Palin wanted to be there, but it looks like she was purposely told not to and rejected. It gives her standing, particularly among those people who are thinking about voting Republican anyway."
-- John Fund
Rule of Lawyers
As some states begin early voting for president, battalions of lawyers recruited by both presidential candidates are already filing lawsuits before the ballots are even received. "We're waiting for the day that pols can cut out the middleman and settle all elections in court," jokes the political newsletter Hotline.
William Todd, a lawyer advising the John McCain campaign, filed suit in Ohio court yesterday. He claims Democratic Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner has shown favoritism in rejecting some applications by voters for absentee ballots.
The Associated Press reports that voters Paul Doucher and Deloris Eagle say they wanted to vote by mail, which Ohio allows starting this week. But they did not check a box that indicated they are qualified voters. Ms. Brunner says that without a check mark, she can't process the applications. Look for flyspecking by the courts to see if she has held all applications to the same standard.
In next-door Michigan, it's the Obama campaign that filed a lawsuit in federal court, claiming the Michigan Republican Party had a plan to use foreclosure lists to challenge voters' residency at the polls.
The Michigan Messenger, a liberal Web site, reported earlier this month that James Carabelli, chairman of the Macomb County GOP, had said: "We will have a list of foreclosed homes and will make sure people aren't voting from those addresses." Mr. Carabelli has flatly denied making such a statement and has won a partial retraction from the Web site over its claim that a similar plan was afoot by GOP operatives in Ohio. It sounds like both sides can't wait to subpoena each other's emails and memos to see what they've been up to.
Voters are still used to having the final word in an election. But that could change if the November outcome degenerates into voters being overruled by often unelected judges and trial lawyers practicing scorched-earth tactics. Brad Smith, a law professor and former chairman of the Federal Election Commission, says the trend toward "election by litigation" isn't healthy and steps should be taken to minimize its spread. "It's good to have added attention on elections and federal money to run them," he told me. "But people have to relax, be reasonable and have some level of good faith." Right now, there's precious little evidence of any of that on the campaign trail.
-- John Fund
Quote of the Day
"He loved the Senate, he loved Arizona, he loved his wife, and he hated being told what to do. . . . He may have also sensed that his popularity, which was considerable, would change once he became a candidate for president. As many people have discovered, a politician can go a long way in Washington until he becomes a serious presidential candidate. At that precise moment the Washington press corps digs in, and reputations are destroyed in no time" -- from a discussion of Barry Goldwater's 1964 presidential race in Alfred Regnery's new book on the conservative movement "Upstream."
Sometimes a Cigar Isn't a Cigar
Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer has since said he was joshing, but that's almost beside the point. Speaking before an audience in July, the governor detailed how he supposedly used his official position to "turn some dials" on Election Day to ensure the victory of Democrat Jon Tester over incumbent Republican Conrad Burns in the 2006 U.S. Senate race. Those "dials" included harassing GOP poll watchers on Indian reservations, timing the release of vote tallies from key precincts, and pressing the Associated Press to call the race for Mr. Tester while votes were still being counted. Mr. Tester won by fewer than 3500 votes
Mr. Schweitzer now says he was "just joking around and making it colorful" for his audience -- the American Association for Justice, the banner the nation's trial lawyers now operate under. Ho, ho. His spokeswoman later removed a link to a transcript from Mr. Schweitzer's entry on Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia.
Whatever the satire quotient, one thing the venue and Mr. Schweitzer's choice of applause lines makes clear: The trial lawyers are still the trial lawyers. He had good reason to think a group nominally devoted to "justice" would enjoy hearing about abuse of official power to cement Democratic control of the Senate, which the trial bar uses to block tort reform and protect its livelihood. A previous head of the association, attorney Fred Baron, once complained in a speech about a Wall Street Journal editorial that alleged "the plaintiffs bar is all but running the Senate." He didn't like the words "all but."
Now you know why important debates such as limits on electronic eavesdropping devolve into frivolities over whether phone companies can be sued for cooperating with the government. That's the agenda of the trial lawyers infecting everything the senate does.
Montana Democratic Attorney General Mike McGrath has accepted Mr. Schweitzer's explanation that he was joking and has declined to investigate his claims, over objections from Republicans, including Mr. Schweitzer's Republican challenger this fall, state Sen. Roy Brown.
-- Holman W. Jenkins Jr.
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October 8, 2008
In today's Political Diary
The 'Voter Registration' Racket
McCain Is an Unguided Missile
The Housing Skit Is Back - Minus the Incitement to Homicide
Looking on the Bright Side of President Obama
A Smelly Acorn
Members of the left-wing activist group ACORN had a quick and predictable response to yesterday's raid of their Nevada offices by authorities investigating a possible massive voter registration fraud scheme.
The Las Vegas Sun reports that ACORN volunteer Frank Beaty immediately claimed the raid, which removed computers and files from the group's offices, was a conspiracy designed to prevent the registration of new voters. ACORN's national chief Bertha Lewis called the raid "a stunt that serves no useful purpose other than [to] discredit our work registering Nevadans and distracting us from the important work ahead of getting every eligible vote to the polls."
Reverting to the rhetoric of the 1960s voting rights struggle in the South may be politically useful, but it bears precious little resemblance to the reality of ACORN today. The group has constantly faced charges it mistreats its employees and even broke up their internal efforts to unionize their workplace.
Clark County Registrar of Voters Larry Lomax told the Sun that ACORN has been registering voters in Las Vegas since January and "we started having problems with them almost immediately." His staff met with ACORN and was offered promises that fraudulent registrations would no longer be turned in. "But those controls weren't sufficient," Mr. Lomax said.
Indeed, the more his office and that of Nevada's Secretary of State looked into ACORN's effort, the more worried they became. Jason Anderson rose to the rank of supervisor in ACORN even though he was a convicted felon. Other employees had served time for identity theft. Another former inmate who worked for ACORN told authorities his co-workers were "lazy crack heads."
ACORN's activities are under investigation or suspicion in a dozen states, with one of its workers indicted just last week in Wisconsin. Perhaps the Nevada raid will spur authorities elsewhere to dig down and conclude their investigations by Election Day -- before ACORN can do even more damage to the integrity of the vote.
-- John Fund
Maverick Without a Cause
When she was introduced as John McCain's running mate in Ohio six weeks ago, Gov. Sarah Palin hit on one of the most powerful themes Republicans have going this year when she said, "Join our cause." As a reformer from Alaska who unseated a governor of her own party, she was joining the ticket, she said, not just for a big job, but to help John McCain "reform" the Republican Party and the government in Washington. To many conservatives and independents across the country, she seemed the change agent they've been waiting for since Ronald Reagan.
But Sen. McCain showed little evidence in yesterday's debate of understanding why his Veep candidate is drawing crowds of 20,000 or why she ever had the potential to change the dynamics of this presidential race. In Nashville last night, Mr. McCain repeatedly asked voters to look at his record to see that he has reached across the aisle to work with Sens. Joe Lieberman, Russ Feingold and Ted Kennedy -- a litany of the most liberal Democrats. That's fine as far as it goes. It may even swing a few independents who are uncomfortable with Barack Obama and might vote for a Republican if he's willing to outsource large sections of domestic policy to Democratic senators.
But without a guiding set of principles to explain when and why Mr. McCain bucks his own party, "the maverick" gives the impression that he's flying by the seat of his pants. To win back the old Reagan Democrats while also reassembling the Republican coalition that has kept the GOP in power for decades, Mr. McCain needs a coherent set of principles that guide his actions and that voters can rally behind -- such as shrinking government, flattening the tax burden and reforming the federal policies that have contributed to America's health care and housing woes.
Mr. McCain needs a Maverick Manifesto -- and he didn't have one last night. If the last two debates are really his last chance to change the dynamic of the race, it may soon be over.
-- Brendan Miniter
NBC Explains Itself
NBC's "Saturday Night Live" has lampooned everyone over the years. Just two weeks ago it descended into tastelessness by implying that Todd Palin had committed incest. An actor portraying a New York Times reporter was shown ruminating about Palin scandals: "What about the husband? You know he's doing those daughters. I mean, come on. It's Alaska."
As raw as that was, it was passed off as humor and defended by NBC. But the network's reaction was quite different after last Saturday night's sketch dumping responsibility for the housing meltdown on the political fecklessness of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Finance Committee Chairman Barney Frank. Financier George Soros and mortgage investors Herb and Marion Sandler were depicted as benefiting from the subprime boom and its subsequent collapse. The Sandlers were given especially brutal treatment over their $24 billion sale of subprime mortgages to Wachovia Bank, which helped precipitate that institution's collapse. A caption underneath the couple's name indicated they were "people who should be shot."
NBC yanked the video off its Web site sometime early Monday. It appears NBC acted because it feared a lawsuit from the Sandlers, who are prominent funders of such left-wing groups as Air America and MoveOn.org. While no legal threat was received from the couple, Mr. Sandler did tell the Associated Press the skit was "crap."
Apparently, NBC acted preemptively to appease the Sandlers. It explains that the sketch did not meet its "standards." It has now reinstated the missing sketch on its Web site, having removed the "people who should be shot" line as well as a reference to "allegations of corruption" against the couple.
Veteran Hollywood journalist Nikki Finke says "NBC surely could have handled this better." While broadly accepting its explanation, she notes that "today's action may or may not silence critics like conservative commentator Michelle Malkin."
In my view, NBC may have acted appropriately, but its hasty response to liberal outrage over the sketch is likely to have a chilling effect on the network's future satire of leading liberals -- especially if Barack Obama is elected president.
-- John Fund
Candidates and Crisis
Anybody who knows markets probably went to bed last night wondering if today would be the day things really come unglued. By now, the wealth wiped out in the market collapse is already twice as big as the underlying housing losses, and the income losses to workers and investors, if the economy tanks, will be many times the losses in unreceived mortgage payments. We're at the place now where the politics of the housing meltdown could be far worse for the economy than the housing meltdown.
If you assume John McCain and Barack Obama are both idiot squirrels, at least one found the relevant nut last night. John McCain harped on the word "confidence" several times. Now if he could just have weaved the word into a coherent narrative of where we are in the financial crisis and how we get out. But he didn't.
Yet the cool deliberation with which Mr. Obama says whatever will get him where he's going -- last night it was the accusation "deregulation" repeated over and over -- is reassuring in its own way. Where's the evidence that he would be the least bit bound by anything he said during the campaign -- on taxes, regulation, health care or anything else? His dispassion in hitting his talking points is the dispassion of the truly noncommittal.
He wants to win and he wants to be reelected. Plus, he will have been elected without the help of Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic Congress -- or, rather, despite them (Congress has a 9% favorable rating). Presumably he won't feel obligated to deliver their wish list. He wants Bill Clinton's presidency (he's already got Bill Clinton's economic advisers) without the intern baggage or other compulsive aspects.
Now Mr. McCain -- he's the one you might have to worry about. A one-term president, he might actually have some weird agenda that "honor" compels him to pursue. At least, that's the best argument we can think of for President Obama -- admittedly not much to weigh against the Halloween horror of one-party Democratic rule at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue.
-- Holman W. Jenkins Jr.
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Can McCain 'Mondale' Obama?
In tonight's debate look for John McCain to tie Barack Obama to liberal positions that are essential to elements of the Democratic nominee's coalition.
Chief among them is so-called "card check" legislation that passed the House in 2007 only to be bogged down in the Senate. The bill is the No. 1 priority of Mr. Obama's union supporters and would provide a way to bypass the requirement for secret-ballot elections to unionize a company. Instead, employees would be deemed to have selected a union when a majority of workers sign a card stating support for such a move -- often in the presence of union organizers.
Mr. McCain briefly raised card check in a previous debate with Mr. Obama, but he now has an iconic liberal he can cite as a prominent opponent of the idea. Former Sen. George McGovern calls secret ballots in union elections a "basic right." He has even agreed to appear in an ad sponsored by a pro-business group that is running in seven states holding Senate elections.
"It's hard to believe that any politician would agree to a law denying millions of employees the right to a private vote," Mr. McGovern says in the ad. "I have always been a champion of labor unions. But I fear that today's union leaders are turning their backs on democratic workplace elections." In a follow-up interview with The Hill newspaper, Mr. McGovern said a secret ballot is fundamental to American understandings of democracy: "When we elect a president, sheriff or member of Congress, we walk into the voting booth and pull the curtain free of anyone trying to twist our arm."
Mr. Obama has been a staunch supporter of card check and will no doubt have to defend it if pressed in tonight's debate. As for the unions backing card check, they have done little to hide their displeasure with Mr. McGovern. "It is deeply, deeply disappointing that someone like Sen. McGovern, who got so much support from labor unions, has sided . . . against labor's top priority," AFL-CIO Organizing Director Stuart Acuff says. "It's shocking."
-- John Fund
Liddy Opens the Jar
How bad are things for Elizabeth Dole in North Carolina? One of the Senate GOP's headliners and stellar fundraisers has now been forced to reach into her own pocket to counter a Democratic spending onslaught.
Mrs. Dole has been battered by Democratic ads in support of State Senator Kay Hagan, who accuses Mrs. Dole of being a Washington show horse who doesn't deliver for North Carolina. One brutal ad sponsored by Chuck Schumer's Democratic Senate Campaign Committee shows two old-timers arguing about whether Mrs. Dole is "92 or 93." The ad clearly is meant to get voters thinking Mrs. Dole, 72, is older than she is -- though the real subject is a Roll Call ranking that found her the 93rd most effective Senator and another survey showing she voted 92% of the time with the Bush administration.
The DSCC spent $1.5 million against Mrs. Dole just in August, with Mr. Schumer personally defending the controversial ad, saying, "She's not the Elizabeth Dole that was elected when she first ran" in 2002.
Mrs. Dole told the Associated Press: "You get such a lot coming at you and spending a great deal of time raising money -- there just comes a point when you feel like you need to put some skin in the game."
Yet the decisive factor may be out of her control -- turnout in the McCain-Obama race. So far, Barack Obama has been outspending John McCain in the state, pouring money into voter mobilization. Pro-Democratic polling analyst Nate Silver calculates that the percentage of black registered voters has increased from 20.3% to 21.4%, while the number of white voters decreased from 76.7% to 75.2%.
A scheduled rally by Sarah Palin tomorrow near Greensboro may help Mrs. Dole and Senate Republicans more than it does Mr. McCain at this point. An ABC News analysis says the Dole-Hagan battle might determine whether Democrats storm to a filibuster-proof majority after November. Mrs. Palin will be joined by country singer Hank Williams Jr., performing his new song "The McCain-Palin Tradition."
-- Holman W. Jenkins Jr.
Quote of the Day
"Democratic politicians and activists are giddy over visions of a 60-seat majority in the Senate next year, but experts say they don't need quite that many to rewrite a wide range of national policies to reflect the priorities of their presidential nominee, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, if he is elected. Primarily, that's because Senate rules provide for expedited consideration of the budget bills, known as 'reconciliation' measures, that have become the favored legislative vehicles for the most ambitious spending and tax plans of recent presidents... [E]ven outside the reconciliation process, Democrats are likely to be able to attract crossover Republican votes on various domestic and foreign policy measures . . . and there is a strong possibility that a President Obama would be operating with more senators from his own party than any president since Jimmy Carter, even if Democrats do not make it to 60 seats" -- Congressional Quarterly's Jonathan Allen.
The Chaos Strategy
A federal appeals court ruled last night that Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner must provide county election boards with state voter registration information so they can check the validity of some 666,000 new voter registrations submitted to Ohio officials in recent months.
The order, which Ms. Brunner vigorously resisted, will mean county boards will be able to stop counting absentee ballots if the registration linked to them doesn't match the name of a real person listed in government databases.
Ms. Brunner's office had argued that the federal Help America Vote Act did not require any such matching, and that delays in processing absentee votes could mean some valid votes wouldn't be counted.
Meanwhile, thousands of additional suspect registrations turned in by activist groups like Acorn have surfaced in Ohio. Local election officials tell me the volume of possibly fraudulent registrations will make it difficult for them to process those that are valid. "It's almost as if groups like Acorn want deliberate chaos in the election system, which they can then exploit on Election Day to demand that suspect votes be given the benefit of the doubt and counted," one county official told me.
-- John Fund
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Ambushed By History
By Michael Gerson
Wednesday, October 15, 2008; A21
For all their talk about respecting the constraints of reality, conservatives generally hold to the "great man" theory of history. It is leftists who embrace economic determinism. Conservatives read biographies of Winston Churchill and wait in constant expectation for the second coming of Ronald Reagan. Charisma and truth, in this view, can always overwhelm material conditions.
And this often leads to the "small man" theory of electoral setbacks. A losing Republican is not merely unfortunate; he must be incompetent, politically blind and betrayed by his bumbling underlings. If he is not a winner, he is a fool.
John McCain has reached this stage of criticism among conservatives. Some attack him for "frenetic improvisation," while others urge him to frenetically improvise. His campaign is in a "defensive crouch" while also being "obnoxious" in its "phony populism." McCain's running mate is a "fatal cancer" who should "read more books."
This kind of cheap shot is, thank goodness, the prerogative of the commentator -- an option I will doubtlessly exercise in the future. But having once been on the political side of the divide, I remember how truly obnoxious such advice can become. If only the candidate would fire his entire campaign staff and travel the country in a used Yugo, speaking in the parking lots of 7-Elevens, the gap would be closed. If only the candidate would buy three hours in prime time and give a bold, historic speech (which has been helpfully sent under separate cover), the entire election would be turned around. If only the candidate would finally highlight his opponent's ties to Colombian drug cartels, the illuminati and the British royal family -- or perhaps abandon all this suicidal negativity -- the election could certainly be won. And yes, above all, the candidate must be himself.
McCain might benefit from shifts in strategy: a retooled stump speech has already been rolled out. But sometimes a candidate who is down in the polls is not an incompetent but a bystander. While America remains a center-right country, this may well be a Marxist election in which economic realities are determining the political superstructure.
The diverging political fortunes of Barack Obama and McCain can be traced to a single moment. In the middle of September, the net favorable rating for each candidate was about the same. By Oct. 7, Obama was ahead on this measure by about 16 points. Did McCain suddenly become a stumbling failure? No, the world suddenly went into an economic slide. Americans blamed the party with executive power, which is also the party most closely tied in the public mind to bankers and Wall Street. None of this was fair to McCain, who has never been the Wall Street type. But party images are vivid, durable and almost impossible to shift on short notice.
Previous to this economic free fall -- and after his transformative vice-presidential choice -- McCain was about tied in a race he should have been losing by a large margin. The public clearly had questions about Obama's leadership qualities. But the McCain campaign also proved itself capable of constructing an effective narrative: Obama as lightweight celebrity, McCain as maverick reformer. Until history intervened.
Following the onset of the crisis, McCain was left with flawed options. He reasonably chose to work for a responsible bailout while hoping the markets would stabilize quickly. Instead, the bailout proved politically unpopular and the markets gyrated like the Pussycat Dolls. Then McCain raised Obama's past association with William Ayers -- a valid attack if properly raised. (Can anyone doubt that the past political association of McCain with a right-wing terrorist would attract some attention?) But this accusation naturally looks small compared to the nation's outsized economic fears.
Obama's task has been easier. He needs only to ride a historical current instead of fighting it. And this plays to his greatest political strength: the easy, laid-back self-assurance of a 1940s crooner. During the financial crisis Obama has contributed nothing of note or consequence. His only recent accomplishment has been to say questionable things in the debates -- attacking Republicans and capitalism for a credit meltdown that congressional Democrats helped to cause, blaming America for Iran's nuclear ambitions, talking piously about genocide prevention when his own early Iraq policies might have resulted in genocide -- all while sounding supremely reassuring and presidential.
Obama's current success is not enjoyable for conservatives. But this does not make McCain an incompetent. Maybe he is a great man running at the most difficult of times.
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A Voice from the Grassy Knoll
Joe Biden's home town of Scranton, Pa. got a bit of a black eye on Tuesday when the local paper reported someone at a GOP rally featuring Sarah Palin had yelled "Kill him" when Barack Obama's name was mentioned. But it turns out neither the Secret Service or anyone in the crowd can substantiate the story.
The Scranton Times-Tribune reported on Tuesday that when congressional candidate Chris Hackett mentioned Mr. Obama's name, a man in the audience shouted "Kill him." But the Scranton News-Leader reports on its Web site today that Secret Service agent Bill Slavoski said that neither he nor any of 20 law enforcement agents present heard anything like that.
"I was baffled," he said, noting that an investigation by his team couldn't turn up even one person who had heard the threat.
The Times-Tribune reporter who reported the incident stands by his story but referred all media questions to his editor. "The facts reported are true and that's really all there is," said reporter David Singleton. Perhaps the Times-Tribune's motto could be: "We report. You decide if we're making it up."
-- John Fund
Thank Goodness His Name Is Joe
In the 2000 presidential election, "soccer moms" got inordinate media attention as a key voting group. In 2004, the voting bloc du jour was "security Moms" influenced by 9/11. This year hasn't yet seen the emergence of a similar overstudied group. Instead we have "Joe the Plumber," the undisputed winner of last night's presidential debate -- he was mentioned more than a dozen times by the two candidates.
Joe Wurzelbacher is a blue-collar Everyman who confronted Barack Obama about his plans to raise taxes on those earning over $250,000 a year when the Democratic candidate toured his neighborhood near Toledo last Sunday. Mr. Obama famously defended his tax program by saying he believed it was best to "share the wealth." Last night, Joe's resistance to higher taxes became a central dispute between John McCain and Barack Obama.
Mr. Wurzelbacher is taking his new fame in stride. He made the rounds of network talk shows without any stage fright or a major faux pas. He told CBS's Katie Couric that he was suspicious of Mr. Obama's pledge not to raise taxes on the middle class. "So he's going to [raise taxes] for people who make $250,000 a year. When's he going to decide that $100,000 is too much, you know? I mean, you're on a slippery slope here."
On ABC's "Nightline," he added that Mr. Obama's tax plan "infuriates me." Indeed, the Ohio plumber is an opponent of progressive taxation in general. "Bill Gates, I don't care who you are. If you worked for it, if it was your idea, and you implemented it, it's not right for someone to decide you made too much."
While he's not talking about whom he's voting for, Mr. Obama seems unlikely to get Joe's vote. The Illinois Senator may regret stepping into his neighborhood last Sunday, because it sounds like he's going to be hounded by Joe the Plumber from now till Election Day.
-- John Fund
Vote Early, Vote Often?
A lot of ink has recently been spilled on the subject of how John McCain can turn his campaign around in the three weeks between now and Election Day. Less noticed is that the election has started already, and Barack Obama, so far, is running away with it.
Survey USA has put out data on early voting in New Mexico, Ohio, North Carolina, Georgia and Iowa -- all important states for Mr. McCain. Even where Mr. McCain still leads among "likely voters," the polling results show Mr. Obama leading by as much as 34% (in Iowa and North Carolina) among "early voters." Even Georgia, where Mr. McCain holds an 11-point overall lead in Survey USA's polling, Mr. Obama is ahead by 6% among early voters.
This reflects, in part, a conscious strategy by the Obama campaign to get supporters to vote early wherever possible. As the election-tracking Web site FiveThirtyEight.com points out, George W. Bush won the early-voting race in 2000 and 2004. If nothing else, Mr. Obama's headstart among early voters suggests that the Democrat-Republican enthusiasm gap is already being felt at the ballot box. Worse, though these probably aren't voters Mr. McCain could have persuaded anyway, the huge gaps may bode ill for the GOP if they testify to a general superiority of Mr. Obama's ability to get out his vote.
-- Brian M. Carney
Bizarre-Oh-Canada
In less time than John McCain has been the Republican nominee, Canada has completed yet another national election campaign, its third in four years. In the short span of 37 days, Conservative Party leader Stephen Harper won his second consecutive minority government with 143 seats, up from 127, inching toward a coveted 155-seat majority. Meanwhile, the opposition Liberal Party once again is in tatters.
Little short of scathing has been the Canadian press on the failures of Stéphane Dion, leader of the Liberals. Jeffrey Simpson of the Globe and Mail pronounces Mr. Dion "finished" and blames him for leaving his party "weakened financially, beaten politically, and split intellectually."
Battered by corruption scandals, the Liberals are stuck with just 76 seats in Parliament, down from 95, the party's lowest level of popular support ever. Mr. Dion's own trademark green streak -- he was formerly the Minister of the Environment and has a dog named Kyoto -- suggests his defeat may signal a turning away of Canadian voters from the agenda of the global warming activists. His so-called "Green Shift" carbon-tax platform was clearly rejected for Mr. Harper's pro-business, pro-defense, tax-cutting stance.
What's next for the Liberals? Two potential leaders -- hawkish Michael Ignatieff and socialist former Ontario Premier Bob Rae -- are once again circling each other. Either man would likely march the party even farther away from the center, guaranteeing a protracted period of soul searching. That would likely bolster Mr. Harper's ability to proceed with a conservative agenda, while the rest of the West seems to be careening to the left.
-- Adrian Ho
Have We Seen Our Last Lehman?
Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson let slip in an interview with CNBC's Larry Kudlow last night that a "foreign regulator" had blocked a rescue deal for Lehman Brothers, whose bankruptcy now appears to have been the triggering event of a global collapse of confidence in lending markets.
Mr. Paulson was certainly referring to Britain's Financial Services Authority, widely rumored to have shot down a proposed Barclays rescue of Lehman (much as JP Morgan had rescued Bear Stearns). The FSA no doubt had good reason for not wanting a bank under its purview to be stuck with Lehman's questionable balance sheet. Nonetheless, the decision now seems penny-wise, pound-foolish in light of the $64 billion in British taxpayer money that subsequently had to be injected into British banks (assuming, of course, an injection wasn't going to be necessary anyway).
The episode also illustrates why Tuesday's global bailout may not be the magic bullet many hope. Commentators universally overlooked it, but Mr. Paulson acknowledged a practical limit to the safety net when he vowed the government's historic steps would serve to "avoid, where possible, the failure of any systemically important institution."
That "where possible" you could drive a truck through. It means our year-and-a-half of living dangerously, with banks distrusting each other in wholesale transactions, may not be over.
Mr. Paulson and Fed Chief Ben Bernanke, in separate comments yesterday, both waved off Lehman recriminations, saying at the time they lacked legal authority to prevent the firm's bankruptcy. TARP presumably has now given them that authority -- but not necessarily the ammunition. Even $200 billion in government capital injected in banks so far could end up being a drop in the bucket if more big writedowns are coming. Likewise, blanket guarantees to bank creditors could rapidly become non-credible if a couple very large banks go down -- that is, short of the Federal Reserve simply printing money to make good on the guarantees, which may yet be the solution.
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I love it - the new Republican party's hero
Joe the plumber.
I think this guy would be a instant shoe-in for a Senate seat from a red state. 8-)
He has my vote.
Lets see...
common sense logic
honesty
here is where I really stand
I support and talk UP my country
My country has done a great humanitarian service in Iraq
I believe in freedom from government tyranny
I don't like socialism
vs
intellectualizing
ivory tower I know what is best for everyone whether they like it or not
dishonesty
deception
pretend I am something I are not
pretend I am a patriot
I think my country stinks
I think my country is shameful
I need to bebuild our country the way I see fit
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On cross-examination
“Reviewing the polls printed in The New York Times and The Washington Post in the last month of every presidential election since 1976, I found the polls were never wrong in a friendly way to Republicans. When the polls were wrong, which was often, they overestimated support for the Democrat, usually by about 6 to 10 points.” —Ann Coulter
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GOVERNMENT & POLITICS
Campaign watch: Debate number three
Apparently, John McCain doesn’t think this campaign is over—he came out swinging in Wednesday night’s debate. McCain hit Obama hard on his alliances with domestic terrorist Bill Ayers and the voter registration front ACORN (more on that below). Obama did his best to shrug off the charges, but we think they are beginning to stick. Issues of character are indeed important, contrary to Obama’s wish to focus on “the issues.”
On the issues, McCain pounded Obama on taxes, citing “Joe the Plumber” (more on that below, as well) and pointing out that Obama is lying about just how many Americans will see their taxes go up under an Obama administration with a Democrat-controlled Congress. Obama responded with more class warfare. “[W]e both want to cut taxes, the difference is who we want to cut taxes for,” he said. In other words, Barack Obama decides who makes too much.
One of the highlights of the night was McCain’s retort to Obama regarding comparisons to President George W. Bush: “I am not President Bush. If you wanted to run against President Bush, you should have run four years ago.”
Of course, the topper was an inadvertent slip by McCain. During one exchange, he referred to Obama as “Senator Government.” McCain noted, “This really gets down to the fundamental difference in our philosophies. If you notice that in all of this proposal, Senator government wants—Senator Obama wants government to do the job.” We’d say that pretty much sums it up. Obama’s solutions always seem to grow the size of government.
It remains to be seen where this debate puts the poll numbers, but one thing we have noticed is that when Obama’s poll numbers go up, the market goes down, and vice versa. Maybe there’s something to that.
Inside ACORN
The Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now (ACORN) is an organization that is tailor-made for Barack Obama. It is community based, it is ultra-liberal, and it will do and say just about anything to achieve its political ends. ACORN has drawn questions regarding its operating practices since its inception in 1970, but now the 350,000-member (their number) organization has been caught up in a nationwide scandal for its illegal voter registration practices.
In recent weeks there have been myriad charges filed against the organization from all around the country. In Las Vegas, ACORN offices were raided after complaints over thousands of fraudulent registration applications were submitted by ACORN workers and volunteers. The Michigan Secretary of State is on record noting that ACORN submitted “a sizeable number of duplicate and fraudulent applications.” Other states that are taking action against ACORN include New Mexico, Ohio, Florida, North Carolina, Missouri and Indiana—not coincidentally, these are all battleground states. Furthermore, the FBI has opened an investigation into the group.
The scope of the fraud clearly shows that it is a systematic campaign. And it is no GOP witch-hunt as the knee-jerk leftist reaction fired off by the media suggested in recent days. A look at just who is filing the complaints and pressing the charges readily demonstrates that the outrage is nonpartisan. These crimes are endemic to the organization as a whole and undermine our republic. The ACORN organization must be held accountable from top to bottom.
ACORN often hires urban poor and recently released felons to register voters. In some cases, they don’t even pay minimum wage—yet another example of the grand hypocrisy of the “mother” organization, but that’s another can of worms. Only so many Democrats can be registered in any given area, and when that limit is reached, ACORN’s minions sign up dead people, the Dallas Cowboys’ offensive line and Mickey Mouse. Homeless people are next, and since they stay in various places, they can vote once for each non-home. Given the level of recidivism among felons, we can only assume that ACORN’s felonious fellows do not experience a guilty conscience for committing such a “chump” crime.
Millions of us “simple-minded” citizens wonder how an organization that flouts our sacred right to vote and shamelessly works to undermine our institutions can continue executing costly programs and “getting out the vote.” Who pays for it all? Answer: We do. Liberal politicians like Barack Obama and his Demo colleagues benefit directly from ACORN’s antics, so, of course, they’re going to ensure their public funding. And now Obama—who has trained ACORN staffers, served as the organization’s lawyer, and recently contributed an eye-popping $832,000 to its coffers—wants to disavow their ties. As Bob Dole once asked, “Where’s the outrage?”
This week’s ‘Alpha Jackass’ award
“There is no question that western Pennsylvania is a racist area.” —Rep. John Murtha (D-PA), who, when not slandering our brave Marines, apparently enjoys slandering his own constituents
From the Left: Who wrote Obama’s memoir?
Suspension of disbelief is defined as “the willingness of a person to accept as true the premises of a work of fiction, even if... fantastic or impossible.” When it comes to Barack Obama, the American people have been asked to suspend disbelief regarding a number of things, including: Obama’s desire to bring people together despite his relationship with “Reverend” Jeremiah Wright, who preaches divisiveness and hatred; and Obama’s patriotism, despite his association with Weatherman terrorist William Ayers. According to writer Jack Cashill, Obama’s authorship of his much-celebrated memoir, Dreams From My Father, may be simply another fiction.
Cashill points out Obama’s lack of published works before contracting to write Dreams in 1990 at age 28. He did publish a few items: two poems in a college magazine (which Obama himself admitted were “very bad”), and a piece in the Harvard Law Review, referred to by Politco researchers as a “fairly standard example of the genre.”
Also telling is Obama’s inability to finish the Dreams manuscript on time, despite being given a year and a large advance to do so. Then, suddenly, the finished work appeared, and it demonstrated a level of literary skill that Obama had never before displayed.
Cashill proceeds to explore the possibility that Bill Ayers wrote Dreams. In doing so, he offers several technical comparisons in writing style and viewpoints to Ayers’ own memoir, Fugitive Days, right down to their shared penchants for untruths, changed names and faulty timelines. But Ayers is just a guy in Obama’s neighborhood. Right. Suspension of disbelief works for a movie, for two hours; it won’t work for this country for four years.
What the Palin probe really found
An Alaska state legislative investigator found in its final report of the so-called trooper scandal that Gov. Sarah Palin abused her power in trying to get State Trooper Michael Wooten fired. Democrat state senator and ardent Obama supporter Hollis French oversaw the investigation and insisted it be finished and released before Election Day. Predictably, the Leftmedia and the anti-Palin attack dogs (but we repeat ourselves) jumped on the abuse-of-power finding, but they do not wish to follow the facts of the story to its logical conclusion. Let’s take a look at what happened.
Wooten had a record of violent behavior, drinking alcohol on the job, illegal hunting, using a Taser on his 10-year-old stepson and threatening to kill a member of the Palin family. These were all valid reasons to seek Wooten’s removal from the force, and Palin apparently told Public Safety Commissioner Walter Monegan to fire him. Monegan refused and was in turn fired by Palin.
The report also recognizes that it was within Palin’s right as governor to fire Monegan, but the supposed problem that was raised by the report was that Monegan’s removal came in part because he would not fire Wooten, who was Palin’s sister’s ex-husband. The related history that Wooten shared with the Palin family is immaterial, or at least it would be in a non-election year. Look at the facts specifically. Wooten was a lousy officer and had no business keeping his job with the kind of behavior he displayed on numerous occasions. Monegan is responsible for the officers under his command; if he cannot, or for some reason will not, discipline them or remove them when necessary, then he is not doing his job and he should be removed. Where exactly does the abuse of power charge come from here? This report contains no recommendations for further action, so it holds little real value except as a campaign weapon for the Democrats.
Another Democrat family man
Rep. Tim Mahoney (D-FL) won Florida’s 16th congressional seat in 2006 after Republican Mark Foley was booted for sending lewd emails to teenage male pages in Congress. Foley became a national scandal and the butt of more than a few jokes on late-night talk shows. His disgraceful behavior, coming to light as it did just weeks before the 2006 mid-term elections, undoubtedly exacerbated Republican losses that year. Mahoney, his successor, was presumably going to restore honor to the seat, but we now learn that Mahoney is embroiled in a sex scandal of his own. He agreed to pay $121,000 to a former mistress who worked on his staff, was fired, and threatened to sue for wrongful termination. Additionally, as an incentive to keep her from spilling the beans to his wife and his constituents, he promised her a $50,000 per year job with Fletcher Rowley Chao Riddle, the agency that handled his campaign advertising. The CEO of the firm, Bill Fletcher, categorically denied any knowledge of the quid pro quo.
Furthermore, Mahoney was apparently engaged in more than one affair. His mistress wanted to end the relationship upon finding this out, but Mahoney threatened and fired her. “You work at my pleasure,” he said in a recorded phone conversation. “If you do the job that I think you should do, you get to keep your job. Whenever I don’t feel like you’re doing your job, then you lose your job.” Just in case the message wasn’t clear, he added, “And guess what? The only person that matters is, guess who? Me.”
The issue for Democrats now is what to do with Mahoney. They are in a quite similar position that Republicans faced with Foley. It is too close to the election to get a replacement on the ballot, so the Demos could run someone else under Mahoney’s name. However, Mahoney plans to stick it out. And Republican candidate Tom Rooney gains daily.
NATIONAL SECURITY
Warfront with Jihadistan: Afghanistan update
After “losing” the Iraq War because American troops are winning, the Left and its MSM handmaidens are now turning their attention to Afghanistan, chanting the all-too-familiar “we’re losing, and it’s time to get out” mantra. With a resurgent Taliban and al-Qa’ida, they claim the Afghan situation is hopeless. Fortunately, facts on the ground speak otherwise. On Sunday in Kabul, just 12 hours after coalition troops killed dozens of Taliban fighters, General David McKiernan, American commander in Afghanistan, told a news conference that there were “too many” recent reports asserting that the Coalition and their Afghan allies were losing the war, and he urged doubters to believe that the war against the Taliban could and would be won.
While there has been an upturn in enemy attacks in Afghanistan, leading to increased allied casualties and some erosion of support among the populace, the reasons for, and results of, the enemy attacks are anything but bad for the Coalition. One reason for the increase in attacks is that jihadis are giving up Iraq and moving to Afghanistan, clearly a sign that Iraq is being won. And although the number of Afghan attacks has increased, so has the death rate for the jihadis, as each attack has, for the most part, been disastrous for them.
The New York Times reports that the insurgents “have shown that they are capable of massing hundreds of fighters,” but those masses are typically cut to pieces by Coalition forces, with thousands being killed in the last year. As Canadian Brigadier General Richard Blanchette said about the recent attacks, “If the insurgents planned a spectacular attack prior to the winter, this was a spectacular failure.” Best to heed the words of Governor Sarah Palin from the VP debate: This is no time to “raise the white flag” of surrender.
Profiles of valor: Civil Affairs Team 745
United States Army Sgt. 1st Class Drew Kimmey, Capt. Stephen Ward and Staff Sgt. Carlo Alcazar, members of Civil Affairs Team 745, were recently recognized for their daring rescue of a Special Forces team leader during an Afghanistan mission last November. CA Team 745 was stationed at Firebase Cobra in Oruzgan, Afghanistan, alongside special operations detachments from the 3rd Special Forces Group, as well as personnel from the Afghan National Army and National Police. The teams left to provide humanitarian aid to a nearby village, only to discover that the village had already been evacuated. Ward noted that “the buildings had locks and barricaded doors, which was a clear indication that the village wasn’t abandoned, but had been turned into a defendable position.” Indeed, 300 Taliban fighters soon engaged the teams in a firefight.
After an hour of fighting, two Army disabled vehicles were pulled to the rear of the fight, leaving the ground forces commander in front of coalition lines, pinned down in a vulnerable building. Ward, Alcazar and Kimmey used their vehicle to get to the commander for a rescue but crashed into an enemy position, rendering their vehicle immobile. Ward and Alcazar were momentarily knocked unconscious in the crash. When they recovered, Alcazar began reloading ammunition belts so that Kimmey, the gunner, could continue pounding enemy fighters. Ward directed the effort to reach the ground commander under Kimmey’s cover fire. The unit remained under “continual, accurate and effective” enemy fire but managed to rescue the commander nonetheless. Once out of the building, team 745 stripped their vehicle to prevent the enemy from obtaining anything and ran beside a Special Forces vehicle for cover, there being no room for them on the truck.
For their bravery and heroic acts that day, Sgt. Kimmey, Capt. Ward and Staff Sgt. Alcazar were each awarded the Bronze Star with Combat “V” for valor.
Another agreement with North Korea
The Bush administration’s decision to ink an agreement with North Korea over its nuclear program last week has no redeeming value—except that doing nothing might possibly have been worse. In exchange for Pyongyang’s promise, yet again, to allow inspectors into its nuclear facilities, the State Department will remove North Korea from its list of terrorist sponsors. Neither Jimmy Carter nor Charlie Brown could be reached for comment on what seems about the hundredth time North Korea has yanked away the football after giving its solemn word to play by the rules. The agreement also angered Japan, the United States’ most trustworthy and vital ally in the Pacific Rim, as it trampled Tokyo’s demand that Pyongyang account for kidnapped Japanese.
The single upside to the America’s appeasement is that the next president might enjoy an Inauguration Day free from North Korean threats. But the crisis will be delayed only for a time. The “oral agreements” that constitute the latest deal seem tailor made for Pyonyang to go back on—probably the only thing the corrupt regime can ever be trusted to do. Additionally, there is widespread belief that Kim Jong-Il may have suffered a debilitating stroke, or may even be dead, as he has not been seen publicly for months. A succession struggle among his cronies will do nothing to stabilize this already lunatic regime, adding to the possibility of a diplomatic crisis going kinetic. If this deal delays such infighting beyond the transition phase as the new administration settles into office, we are willing to make lemonade out of lemons and accept it as a necessary evil. But it is evil all the same, and no amount of State Department lipstick will change that fact.
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Part Two
BUSINESS & ECONOMY
Big Brother turns banker
“The government’s role will be limited and temporary... These measures are not intended to take over the free market but to preserve it.” So promised President Bush, the day after Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson outlined plans to “invest” $250 billion to bail out the U.S. banking system. This measure, part of the recently enacted $700-billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TRAP, er, TARP), is ostensibly designed to encourage banks to resume lending to each other and to customers. In reality, however, the bailout legislation will reward poor banking practices as an unintended consequence of government attempts to supervene natural economic laws. Rather than replaying this tired song, shouldn’t we instead hold accountable those most responsible for creating the subprime bubble by making them bear the economic brunt of its bursting?
At the heart of this debacle is a fundamental disconnect between views of the role of government. One the one hand is the view that government is a guarantor, not a provider, of rights, and that people should have the same opportunity to succeed—or fail. On the other is the view that government is a grantor of “rights” —privileges, really—and that those privileges should be granted to “even out” unfair disparities existing between haves and have-nots. TARP is shaping up to be a tool of the latter view, unfortunately.
Adding a socialist tint to this measure, Paulson explained that participation in this “investment” program is mandatory. That’s right: the nation’s nine largest banks must accept the government’s largess, independent of financial standing. This gives rise to the maxim, “One person soils his pants, and now everyone’s gotta wear diapers.” Given that since before the beginning of the subprime meltdown free market principles have been compassionately, conservatively thrown under the bus, this maneuver should come as no surprise. Still, those charged with torchbearer duties should display a much firmer grasp of principles informing the Party of Reagan than to promulgate such positions. Worse still, the terms “limited” and “temporary” are wholly unrecognizable in the government’s lexicon. If these measures are indeed “not intended to take over the market,” why, then, is the U.S. government establishing a very significant ownership stake in our banking system? According to Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke’s Wall Street Journal op-ed piece, the reason is to “restore more normal market functioning.” Well, okay then!
But wait a minute: isn’t government intervention in “normal market functioning” what got us into this mess in the first place? So are we now willing to believe that even more intervention into complex financial markets by individuals and entities with demonstrably bad track records of managing the governmental levers on America’s economic engine will yield better results? Certainly, government’s role in setting the stage for this crisis—from removing the wall between residential mortgage and equity markets, to mandating mark-to-market accounting, to poor oversight and bad practices of government sponsored entities (GSEs) Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac—cannot be overstated.
Maybe there’s a lesson here. The Great Depression wasn’t “great” because of evil bankers, stockbrokers or investors. What made the worst economic meltdown in U.S. history so bad was pervasive, prolonged government meddling in economic markets, accompanied by shockingly poor governmental monetary policy. As one of the foremost scholars on the financial aspects of the Great Depression, Bernanke ought to know this well. So rather than championing “help” from one of the most obviously culpable players in the Great Depression, perhaps Bernanke would be better served by taking a page from studies with which—ideally, at least—he’s already familiar.
For a comprehensive look at the current economic crisis, don’t miss Mark Alexander’s essays: Economics 101: Crisis of Confidence (a comprehensive but quick reading analysis of the current financial crisis), Bailout v. Workout—The continuing crisis (an update on the crisis), and Drive-by Observations on the continuing crisis (a supplement of current opinion on the continuing crisis, updated regularly).
Income Redistribution: ‘Spread the wealth’
Joe Wurzelbacher, now simply known as “Joe the Plumber,” has been thrust into the spotlight as “everyman” representing the people who want to live the American Dream—all because he questioned Barack Obama about his tax plan at a rally this week. He didn’t believe that Obama was truthful when he stated in the second presidential debate, “Only a few percent of small businesses make more than $250,000 a year. So the vast majority of small businesses would get a tax cut under my plan.” But Obama reassured him, “It’s not that I want to punish your success. I just want to make sure that everybody who is behind you, that they’ve got a chance for success too. I think when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody.” That’s known around our humble shop as “trickle up poverty.”
In fact, most people who taste success the hard way, through entrepreneurship, would indeed be hit with extra expenses by Obama’s government—and not just in higher taxes, but also by being forced to provide health insurance to employees. Further, the definition of “small business” varies by type: according to the Small Business Administration a “small business” can have up to $33 million in receipts, easily exceeding the $250,000 threshold.
One of Barack’s promises, that 95 percent of taxpayers are promised a tax cut, is a grand piece of misinformation that would make Josef Stalin proud. Forty percent of Americans already pay no income tax whatsoever and thus would simply be the beneficiaries of increased income redistribution. It’s yet another chance for Democrats to ensnare people into government dependence. And the $250,000 figure is only for couples. Individuals would have to make only $200,000 to be slapped with higher taxes. Finally, lest we forget, Obama has promised to “roll back the Bush tax cuts.” Translation: higher taxes for everyone, rich and poor alike.
As for Joe, his fame has earned him the scrutiny of the Leftmedia for daring to question their messiah. The New York Times carried a front-page hit piece about him today. So it’s official: The Times has now spent more time investigating the plumber from Toledo than they have the senator from Illinois.
From the ‘Non Compos Mentis’ File
The rigors of campaigning are taking their toll on Joe Biden. Talking about the economy this week, the Delaware Democrat said, “Look, John [McCain]’s last-minute economic plan does nothing to tackle the number-one job facing the middle class, and it happens to be, as Barack says, a three-letter word: jobs. J-O-B-S, jobs.” At least he didn’t say anything totally ridiculous like claiming to campaign in all 57 states.
As the old saying goes, there are three kinds of people in the world—those who can count, and those who can’t.
Nobel Prize devalued again
Whatever shred of dignity remained attached to the Nobel Prize following Yasser Arafat’s win in 1994, Jimmy Carter’s win in 2002 and Al Gore’s win in 2007 further eroded with Paul Krugman’s receipt of this year’s Nobel Prize in economics. Krugman, a Princeton University Professor, New York Times columnist and former Enron adviser, purportedly won for his trade theories—which advocate subsidizing some industries to maintain international competition. This used to be known as mercantilism. But the timing of the Nobel committee’s decision, just three weeks before the election, and the fact that over the past several years Krugman has become far better known for his scathing criticisms of the Bush administration than for his economic activity, more than suggest political motivations are at play.
In fact, Krugman the pundit is so far removed from Krugman the economist that investment officer and National Review Online contributing editor Donald Luskin noted that this is the first year the Prize has ever been awarded posthumously.
Although it’s remotely possible that Krugman—a self-proclaimed “unabashed defender of the welfare state” who has said that his “economic theories have no doubt been influenced by my relationship with my cats” —deserved the prize, it’s more likely the committee was continuing its pattern of selecting winners based not on merit but on degree of anti-Bush sentiment. Either that, or someone on the committee really likes cats.
Let us know what you think: Click here to comment on this section
CULTURE
Judicial Benchmarks: CT court redefines marriage
As California voters prepare to weigh in on a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, the Supreme Court of Connecticut took a cue from the California Supreme Court and extended the right of marriage to same-sex couples. The 4-3 ruling is little more than typical liberal legislating from the bench.
Like California, Connecticut had already enacted a civil-union statute that bestowed upon same-sex couples all of the same legal rights that marriage provides. Illustrating their keen sense of the obvious, the majority’s opinion stated in part, “It is abundantly clear that preserving the institution of marriage as a union between a man and a woman is the overriding reason why same-sex couples have been barred from marrying in this state.” Unfortunately, however, that bit of sanity had no bearing on their eventual decision. “Interpreting our state constitutional provisions in accordance with firmly established equal protection principles leads inevitably to the conclusion that gay persons are entitled to marry the otherwise qualified same sex partner of their choice,” Justice Richard Palmer wrote in the majority opinion. “To decide otherwise would require us to apply one set of constitutional principles to gay persons and another to all others.”
Justice Peter Zarella, in the minority opinion, wrote, “The ancient definition of marriage as the union of one man and one woman has its basis in biology, not bigotry.” He added that if that is to be changed, it should be “a decision for the legislature or the people of the state and not this court.” What a concept.
Village Academic Curriculum: Chicago schools
The Chicago Board of Education is set to vote next week on whether to approve a “School of Social Justice Pride Campus” to provide a “safe haven” for homosexual, transgender and bisexual students. “It is not going to be a ‘gay high school,’ but... it is meant to target kids who feel they have been victims of bullying for their sexual orientation or perceived orientation,” said an executive officer with the school system. Officials cite studies showing that students harassed because of sexual orientation do not perform as well in school as their heterosexual peers and have higher dropout rates. Since those studies were conducted by groups that advocate homosexual rights and their allies in the Chicago School district itself, we’re sure they are completely balanced.
In addition to providing counseling, the Pride Campus’s curriculum would include history and literature topics on sexual identity. In other words, the school board is promoting the homosexual agenda by normalizing such behavior through segregation and indoctrination. The students “won’t be told forthrightly about the risks of homosexual behavior... They’ll be confirmed in their confusion, and they won’t get the other side,” said Peter LaBarbera of Americans for Truth About Homosexuality.
As noted in Mark Alexander’s essay, [“Gender Identity, The Homosexual Agenda and the Christian Response,”] children who are raised in homes without fathers are at a much greater risk for sexually deviant behaviors, and that “currently, only one in three children—and only one in five inner-city children—is in a home with a mother and father.” Could it be that the families of Chicago students would fall into that category? While we view homosexuality as a moral issue, the liberal agenda will continue to whittle it down to a biological destiny, one which special schools will help nurture and taxpayers will fund.
Regulatory Commissars: Car seats
Never mind mortgage and banking regulations. Since the 1970s, government has all but taken over one industry, regulating it to the hilt—and beyond. Whereas merely 38 years ago, the car seat industry enjoyed relative government-free obscurity, in 1971, the feds assumed the role of Super Nanny and issued the first standard for child safety seats. It’s been a bumpy ride ever since.
Today, every state as well as the District of Columbia has some type of law requiring car seat use, and it doesn’t end there. In Maine, children over 40 pounds must travel in a booster seat until they are 80 pounds or eight years old, whichever comes last. In Massachusetts, kids out of boosters must ride seat-belted in the back seat until they are 12, and parents violating these laws may garner fines of up to $500.
Still, there’s more. Deeming parents unqualified to install their own car seats, governments encourage professional installation at an inspection center, such as a police or fire station—and if your seat has reached its expiration date, an inspector may refuse to install it.
There’s no doubt car seats are important safety devices, but this mountain of mandates leads us to wonder, who’s getting a boost from car seat manufacturers?
And last...
At last, God can rest easy. He is no longer the target of a lawsuit in Nebraska where state senator Ernie Chambers filed his case in September of last year. Chambers, a Democrat and self-identified agnostic, was suing God for a permanent injunction preventing the Almighty from wreaking havoc and causing harm through such “acts of God” as tornados and earthquakes. The court’s Judge Marlon Polk tossed out the case, with prejudice, however, declaring the suit could not go forward because Chambers could produce no proof that he had served the Deity with papers informing of the lawsuit. Chambers took issue with the ruling, saying, “The court itself acknowledges the existence of God. A consequence of that acknowledgment is a recognition of God’s omniscience.” Therefore, Chambers said, “Since God knows everything, God has notice of this lawsuit.” We won’t argue with that, though Judge Polk was not persuaded. Perhaps he took the command “judge not” a little too literally.
Veritas vos Liberabit—Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus, et Fidelis! Mark Alexander, Publisher, for The Patriot’s editors and staff. (Please pray for our Patriot Armed Forces standing in harm’s way around the world, and for their families—especially families of those fallen Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen, who granted their lives in defense of American liberty.)
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common sense logic
honesty
here is where I really stand
I support and talk UP my country
My country has done a great humanitarian service in Iraq
I believe in freedom from government tyranny
I don't like socialism
You left out:
I owe back taxes and have a lien on my house.
I'm not actually a licensed plumber
I make less than $250,000 a year, so Obama's tax raise won't effect me.
Link courtesy Drudge Report:
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1008/14652.html
The back and forth over Joe the Plumber during the debate was just plain embarrassing. Who are we pandering to next week?
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Poor Joe. That guy can't catch a break:
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/10/17/america/17joe.php
Another example of why I am very hesitant to give interviews, be photographed, or offer my opinion in a public (non-internet) forum.
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A point which I have been trying to make with GM on our SCE! Come join me on the thread!
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Acorn Crackup
As news that the FBI is launching an investigation of its voter registration activities hit yesterday, the left-wing housing lobby Acorn received another blow. The group's dirty laundry will be aired at a board meeting today in New Orleans as its national board debates the merits of a lawsuit filed against Acorn by two of its own board members.
Karen Inman and Marcel Reid are the Acorn directors demanding that audits and other financial records of Acorn be turned over to them so they can complete an internal management review. They claim the records will show the organization is rife with financial irregularities created during the 38-year leadership of Wade Rathke, its founder.
Mr. Rathke left Acorn earlier this year after it was revealed his brother Dale had embezzled some $1 million from the group and that Mr. Rathke had concealed that scandal from his own board for eight years.
But Ms. Inman says the lawsuit is about far more than gaining access to financial records. She held a news conference yesterday and expressed concern that Wade Rathke continues to run Acorn from behind the scenes even though Acorn's board voted over the summer to sever all ties with him.
The internal divisions inside Acorn have led several organizers to form a dissident group called Speaking Truth To Power. The dissidents called on Barack Obama this week to support their efforts at reforming the organization. Mr. Obama has gone to great lengths to distance himself from the roles he played as a top trainer and attorney for Acorn during the 1990s.
-- John Fund
McCain's Missed Opportunity: Exposing Obama's Welfarism
This week's Washington Post/ABC News poll contains a disturbing finding for Sen. John McCain. As the Post's own report puts it: "[Barack] Obama's pitch to the middle class on taxes is beginning to sink in; nearly as many [voters] said they think their taxes would go up under a McCain administration as under an Obama presidency, and more see their burdens easing with the Democrat in the White House."
When Republicans aren't even winning the tax question, you know it's probably going to be a bad year for the GOP.
At Wednesday night's debate, Mr. McCain went hard after Sen. Obama's plan to raise tax rates on the wealthy and on businesses, and may have done himself some good. A CBS News post-debate poll found 64% of viewers thought Mr. Obama would raise their taxes versus 50% who thought Mr. McCain would. What Mr. McCain failed to do, however, was rebut Mr. Obama's claim he would cut taxes for "95% of working families," the core of his pitch to the middle class.
As the Wall Street Journal and others have pointed out, this claim depends on including "refundable" tax credits -- i.e., tax money taken from some voters and given to others. When Mr. Obama talks about "sharing the wealth," he means it in the old-fashioned redistributionist sense -- but he calls it "tax cuts." Sufficing to burst this pretense would have been a simple question: "Mr. Obama, what rate would you cut working-class families' taxes to?" Mr. Obama would have had to explain he was really talking about sending income-leveling checks to large numbers of households -- something most voters would better understand as "welfare."
Mr. McCain turned in a solid debate performance but missed an opportunity to dismantle Mr. Obama's biggest selling point to voters on taxes.
-- Blake Dvorak, RealClearPolitics.com
Ms. Information
Why are Democrats trying to cover up their sweetheart relationships with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac? And why does the media allow it?
This past week I appeared on Bill Maher's HBO show Real Time with Representative Maxine Waters of California. Ms. Waters fibbed on the air about her connections to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
It all began when Mr. Maher tried to the lay blame for the credit meltdown on inadequate regulation of Wall Street. I pointed out that among the biggest failures this year were Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and that Democrats had protected them against tougher regulation. I said to Ms. Waters: "You said [the system for regulating the mortgage giants] wasn't broke five years ago at a Congressional hearing, and you took $15,000 of campaign contributions from Fannie and Freddie."
Responded Ms. Waters: "That is a lie and I challenge you to find $15,000 that I took from Fannie PAC."
Naturally, on hearing such a categorical insistence from Ms. Waters that my facts were wrong, I double-checked the numbers on the Center for Responsive Politics' OpenSecrets.org Web site. CRP had listed all the political contributions from the Fannie Mae Pac after the federal bailout of Fannie and Freddie late in the summer. Sure enough, the report confirms that Maxine Waters was recipient of $15,000 in Fannie Mae Pac dollars since 1989. Altogether, some 354 current members of Congress had received a total of $4.8 million from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
This has become a pattern of congressional Democrats, who deny their incestuous relationship with Fannie and Freddie, even when it means strangling the truth on national TV. Ms. Waters said to me during and after the show that she had wanted to regulate Fannie. But here's what she said in a 2004 congressional hearing: "Through nearly a dozen hearings, we were frankly trying to fix something that wasn't broke. Mr. Chairman, we do not have a crisis at Freddie Mac, and particularly at Fannie Mae, under the outstanding leadership of Franklin Raines."
Imagine the number of times network news would be playing the clip of a Republican congresswoman caught lying on national TV. Ms. Waters no doubt felt her allies in most of the major media outlets would protect her. And the real scandal here is that, regrettably, she was right.
-- Stephen Moore
Quote of the Day
"If you talk to most of the scientists who are ardent about the issue, they have a political or ideological worldview that says mankind needs to stop putting CO2 into the atmosphere. It's a religious belief and it's widespread in the scientific community. . . . This wouldn't be important if it weren't for the policy implications. The direction we're going on policy is going to kill millions of people for no good reason. As it is environmentalists have already killed millions of people for no good reason, with the DDT ban" -- climate scientist Roy Spencer, a team leader on NASA's precipitation-monitoring Aqua satellite, in an interview on the San Francisco Chronicle's Web site.
Will the Real John McCain Please Stand Up?
John McCain often comes across as stodgy and stiff. Well, last night, at the nonpartisan Alfred E. Smith Memorial Dinner in New York, the senator brought down the house with his hilarious remarks on the election so far. With pitch-perfect delivery and impeccable timing, who knew that a white-tie affair would actually loosen him up?
On his penchant to overhaul his campaign staff, Mr. McCain self-mockingly announced that, once again, he's replaced his entire team of senior advisors, this time by one man: Joe the Plumber. Joe's concerned about getting hit by an Obama tax increase, Mr. McCain continued, because he recently signed "a very lucrative contract with a wealthy couple to handle the work on all seven of their houses " -- a shot at the McCains and their controversial housing assets.
On his relationship with Barack Obama, who was seated nearby, Mr. McCain revealed that while he likes to call his "friend and colleague . . . 'That One,'" Mr. Obama "even has a pet name for me: George Bush."
And in recognizing his underdog status, he lamented that "his friend " Chris Matthews of MSNBC was not a McCain supporter. "We've talked about it, and I've told him: 'Maverick I can do, but Messiah is above my paygrade.'"
Still, Mr. McCain said there was much cause for hope: "Even in this room full of proud Manhattan Democrats, I can't shake that feeling that some people here are pulling for me. I'm delighted to see you here tonight, Hillary!"
Like many other McCain speeches, this one was given from behind a podium and read from notes. Yet the crowd clearly loved him, as you could tell by the extended applause. If only every stop along the campaign trail was an Al Smith memorial dinner.
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Palin's Failin'
What is it she stands for? After seven weeks, we don't know.
Peggy Noonan
"Sometimes the leak is so bad that even a plumber can't fix it." This was the concise summation of a cable political strategist the other day, after the third and final presidential debate. That sounds about right, and yet the race in its final days retains a feeling of dynamism. I think it is going to burst open or tighten, not just mosey along. I can well imagine hearing, the day after Election Day, a lot of "You won't believe it but I was literally in line at the polling station when I decided."
[Declarations] AP
John McCain won the debate, and he did it by making the case more effectively than he has in the past that Barack Obama will raise taxes, when "now, of all times in America, we need to cut people's taxes." He also scored Mr. Obama on his eloquence, using it against him more effectively than Hillary Clinton ever did. When she said he was "just words," it sounded like a bitter complaint. Mr. McCain made it a charge: Young man, you attempt to obscure truth with the mellifluous power of your words. From Mrs. Clinton it sounded jealous, but when Mr. McCain said it, you looked at Mr. Obama and wondered if you'd just heard something that was true. For the first time, Mr. Obama's unruffled demeanor didn't really work for him. His cool made him seem hidden.
There is now something infantilizing about this election. Mr. Obama continued to claim he will remove wasteful spending by sitting down with the federal budget and going through it "line by line." This is absurd, and he must know it. Mr. McCain continued to vow he will "balance the budget" in the next four years. Who believes that? Does even he?
More than ever on the campaign trail, the candidates are dropping their G's. Hardworkin' families are strainin' and tryin'a get ahead. It's not only Sarah Palin but Mr. McCain, too, occasionally Mr. Obama, and, of course, George W. Bush when he darts out like the bird in a cuckoo clock to tell us we are in crisis. All of the candidates say "mom and dad": "our moms and dads who are struggling." This is Mr. Bush's former communications adviser Karen Hughes's contribution to our democratic life, that you cannot speak like an adult in politics now, that's too austere and detached, snobby. No one can say mothers and fathers, it's all now the faux down-home, patronizing—and infantilizing—moms and dads. Do politicians ever remember that in a nation obsessed with politics, our children—sorry, our kids—look to political figures for a model as to how adults sound?
There has never been a second's debate among liberals, to use an old-fashioned word that may yet return to vogue, over Mrs. Palin: She was a dope and unqualified from the start. Conservatives and Republicans, on the other hand, continue to battle it out: Was her choice a success or a disaster? And if one holds negative views, should one say so? For conservatives in general, but certainly for writers, the answer is a variation on Edmund Burke: You owe your readers not your industry only but your judgment, and you betray instead of serve them if you sacrifice it to what may or may not be their opinion.
Here is a fact of life that is also a fact of politics: You have to hold open the possibility of magic. People can come from nowhere, with modest backgrounds and short résumés, and yet be individuals of real gifts, gifts that had previously been unseen, that had been gleaming quietly under a bushel, and are suddenly revealed. Mrs. Palin came, essentially, from nowhere. But there was a man who came from nowhere, the seeming tool of a political machine, a tidy, narrow, unsophisticated senator appointed to high office and then thrust into power by a careless Franklin D. Roosevelt, whose vanity told him he would live forever. And yet that limited little man was Harry S. Truman. Of the Marshall Plan, of containment. Little Harry was big. He had magic. You have to give people time to show what they have. Because maybe they have magic too.
But we have seen Mrs. Palin on the national stage for seven weeks now, and there is little sign that she has the tools, the equipment, the knowledge or the philosophical grounding one hopes for, and expects, in a holder of high office. She is a person of great ambition, but the question remains: What is the purpose of the ambition? She wants to rise, but what for? For seven weeks I've listened to her, trying to understand if she is Bushian or Reaganite—a spender, to speak briefly, whose political decisions seem untethered to a political philosophy, and whose foreign policy is shaped by a certain emotionalism, or a conservative whose principles are rooted in philosophy, and whose foreign policy leans more toward what might be called romantic realism, and that is speak truth, know America, be America, move diplomatically, respect public opinion, and move within an awareness and appreciation of reality.
But it's unclear whether she is Bushian or Reaganite. She doesn't think aloud. She just . . . says things.
Her supporters accuse her critics of snobbery: Maybe she's not a big "egghead" but she has brilliant instincts and inner toughness. But what instincts? "I'm Joe Six-Pack"? She does not speak seriously but attempts to excite sensation—"palling around with terrorists." If the Ayers case is a serious issue, treat it seriously. She is not as thoughtful or persuasive as Joe the Plumber, who in an extended cable interview Thursday made a better case for the Republican ticket than the Republican ticket has made. In the past two weeks she has spent her time throwing out tinny lines to crowds she doesn't, really, understand. This is not a leader, this is a follower, and she follows what she imagines is the base, which is in fact a vast and broken-hearted thing whose pain she cannot, actually, imagine. She could reinspire and reinspirit; she chooses merely to excite. She doesn't seem to understand the implications of her own thoughts.
No news conferences? Interviews now only with friendly journalists? You can't be president or vice president and govern in that style, as a sequestered figure. This has been Mr. Bush's style the past few years, and see where it got us. You must address America in its entirety, not as a sliver or a series of slivers but as a full and whole entity, a great nation trying to hold together. When you don't, when you play only to your little piece, you contribute to its fracturing.
In the end the Palin candidacy is a symptom and expression of a new vulgarization in American politics. It's no good, not for conservatism and not for the country. And yes, it is a mark against John McCain, against his judgment and idealism.
I gather this week from conservative publications that those whose thoughts lead them to criticism in this area are to be shunned, and accused of the lowest motives. In one now-famous case, Christopher Buckley was shooed from the great magazine his father invented. In all this, the conservative intelligentsia are doing what they have done for five years. They bitterly attacked those who came to stand against the Bush administration. This was destructive. If they had stood for conservative principle and the full expression of views, instead of attempting to silence those who opposed mere party, their movement, and the party, would be in a better, and healthier, position.
At any rate, come and get me, copper.
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Has General Powell Heard of 'The Surge'?
NBC's Tom Brokaw certainly landed the big news that former Secretary of State Colin Powell was supporting Barack Obama. But in nearly half an our of airtime on "Meet the Press," Mr. Brokaw didn't bother to ask Gen. Powell about the success of the surge in Iraq or Mr. Obama's vote against General David Petraeus's winning strategy.
Newsbusters.com, a watchdog site run by the Media Research Center, notes that Mr. Powell, at one point, did suggest Iraqis are "going to make the political decisions, their security forces are going to take over, and they're going to have to create an environment of reconciliation where all the people can come together and make Iraq a much, much better place."
As Newsbusters observes, "This would have been an ideal moment for Brokaw to ask Powell if it was the surge that put America in a position to draw down troops . . . and what it says about Obama's military and foreign policy acumen that he opposed this strategy?" Instead, Mr. Brokaw suddenly changed the subject and veered into a question about William Ayers, the Obama associate and former Weather Underground member whom John McCain has criticized. Oh, how we miss Tim Russert, the late host of "Meet the Press," who would never have let go of a subject until he had drained the last ounce of news value from it.
-- John Fund
Bad Blood
Colin Powell attributed his endorsement of Barack Obama on "Meet the Press" yesterday not just to the unreadiness of Sarah Palin to serve as president but also to John McCain's reaction to the financial crisis, the general rightward tilt of the GOP and comments anonymous senior Republican officials privately made in recent months about Mr. Obama's faith.
In fact, Mr. Powell's estrangement from the GOP predates the McCain campaign and goes back to his speech on Feb. 5, 2003 making the case in the United Nations for war against Iraq.
The best reporting on this turning point was done by Karen DeYoung, an associate editor at the Washington Post. In a lengthy article published two years ago, she recounted how at one point Dick Cheney poked Mr. Powell in the chest and told him: "You've got high poll ratings; you can afford to lose a few points."
The rest is history: In the months after the invasion, when no stockpiled WMD were found in Iraq, Mr. Powell grew disenchanted with the White House and offered at least two dissenting public statements about WMD that drew a rebuke (including calls from Condoleezza Rice asking him how he was going to clean up the mess his comments created). When a special prosecutor was appointed to look into who leaked the name of CIA agent Valeria Plame, Mr. Powell never stepped forward with the leaker's name, even though he knew all along it was his own deputy Richard Armitage. Instead, Mr. Powell allowed the special prosecutor to spend months questioning White House staffers and journalists, eventually leading to the indictment of Cheney aide Lewis Libby for obstruction and perjury.
Shortly after Mr. Bush won re-election in 2004, Mr. Powell resigned and has spent much of the past year making noises about endorsing Mr. Obama, including praising the speech the Democratic presidential candidate gave on race in Philadelphia and defending his intention of holding presidential level talks with Iran. When asked about Mr. Powell's endorsement, John McCain yesterday said it "doesn't come as a surprise." Given the history, what's surprising is that it took Mr. Powell so long to leave the GOP.
-- Brendan Miniter
Quote of the Day
"We have never had a presidential race, since 1944, where the contest was not the most important news in the four weeks before the election. (In 1944, the war overshadowed the election much to the frustration of the Republican candidate Thomas E. Dewey). The candidates seem unable to get a word in edgewise as the financial news dominates. People follow the Dow Jones more than the Gallup, Rasmussen or Zogby polls. If the presidential race remains an afterthought, crowded out by the financial news, Obama will waltz into the White House by a comfortable margin. But if the stock market stops its gyrations for a while and no new household name/corporation or bank goes broke, the negatives against Obama will compel attention at last. And then the race may close swiftly and dramatically" -- former Clinton consultant Dick Morris, writing in The Hill newspaper.
Extraordinary Joe
I caught up with the most famous man in America these days, Joe Wurzelbacher, aka Joe the Plumber, when we appeared together on the new Fox TV show Huckabee. Joe has a shiny bald head and a burly, chiseled body. Though resolute in his beliefs and always polite, he seemed a bit overwhelmed by the attention he's received in the past week. He also gave me a first-hand account of his encounter with Barack Obama and his reaction to the vicious left-wing attack machine that has been turned on him over the past week.
"I just thought his tax plan would really hurt small businesses," he told me, explaining why he spoke up when the Democratic nominee came canvassing down his street outside of Toledo, Ohio. "It seemed contrary to the American dream to me. Why tax success?" Joe said he hoped to build a business as a plumbing contractor, and those taxes "would really hit that kind of small business." "It's not just the taxes," he added. "The health care plan that Obama has will also add to employer costs."
He's right on the mark there. The Obama pay-or-play health care plan imposes new costs on small and medium-sized businesses that don't pay health care for their employees. "A lot of these employers just can't afford it," he says.
I asked him why he had not joined the plumbers union, which seems to have caused heartache among his liberal critics. "I don't have anything against the unions," he says. "I just didn't see the purpose of paying the dues. Never wanted to." No wonder the left is out to get him. He also brushes off the criticism altogether of his unpaid $1200 tax bill. "That's all beside the point. I just raised a question about how the Obama plan would affect people like me. This election is about America and what our country will look like."
As for the attacks mounted in the New York Times and elsewhere on his character, "To be honest, I never saw this coming," he tells me with a pained expression. "It's not fair to my family."
Mr. Wurzelbacher was accompanied by his father, also a blue-collar worker, and his 12-year-old son in his visit to Fox News -- seemingly a tight-knit Midwestern family feeling the same tough times that many Americans from states like Ohio are confronting. On talk radio shows this past week, we have learned there are thousands of people like Joe the Plumber, all raising the same questions. These are voters Democrats say they stand behind and whose economic interests they protect -- as long as they don't question the left's vision of America. If John McCain pulls off an upset, he will have Joe Wurzelbacher and others like him to thank.
-- Stephen Moore
Joe, Take Two
I also crossed paths with Joe the Plumber over the weekend and found him to be a common-sense, down-to-earth guy who knows a lot more than just pipes.
Asked about his exchange with Barack Obama on the candidate's tax plan, he said Mr. Obama was a smooth talker but not a good listener. He seemed mistakenly to think Joe was already making a lot of money, not merely that he hoped someday to own a business that would make over $250,000 a year. "I don't make nearly that much now, but I hope to in the business I buy someday," Mr. Wurzelbacher told me.
Mr. Obama also muffed details of his own tax plan, confusing a small business's revenue and net income, and the tax rate that would apply under his proposals. He also seemed hazy about the Flat Tax, put forward by Steve Forbes and Dick Armey a decade ago, confusing it with proposals for a national sales tax and saying the rate would have to go to 40%. "I was talking about one thing, and he was answering me about something else," Mr. Wurzelbacher recalls.
The Heartland Institute, a free-market think tank in Chicago, points out that a flat tax would let Americans see exactly how much government costs in one easy, transparent and accountable tax. Mr. Obama's reforms, in contrast, would only add to the thousands of loopholes, exemptions and complications of the current 67,000 page tax code. "A candidate for president should at least know the difference between a flat tax and a national sales tax," Heartland concludes. "But both a flat tax and a national sales tax are head and shoulders over the convoluted tax system we have now."
-- John Fund
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NBC's Tom Brokaw certainly landed the big news that former Secretary of State Colin Powell was supporting Barack Obama. But in nearly half an our of airtime on "Meet the Press," Mr. Brokaw didn't bother to ask Gen. Powell about the success of the surge in Iraq or Mr. Obama's vote against General David Petraeus's winning strategy.
Press conference transcript:
Reporter: Mr. Secretary, there were a number of chinks in your own armor, actually, because of the lead-up to the Iraq war and the events. How much did that play into your decision about this? And will it be taken perhaps by some, because of your previous high-profile position, won't it be taken by some as a repudiation of the Iraq war?
Powell: I don't know why. The Iraq war is the Iraq war. We now see that things are a lot better in Iraq. Maybe if we had put a surge in at the beginning, it would have been a lot better years ago, but it's a lot better now, and we can see ahead to where U.S. forces will start to come out. And so, my concern was not my past or what happened in Iraq, but where we're going in the future. My sole concern was where are we going after January 20 of 2009, not what happened in 2003.
I'm well aware of the role I played. My role has been very, very straightforward. I wanted to avoid a war. The president agreed with me. We tried to do that. We couldn't get it through the U.N. and when the president made the decision, I supported that decision. And I've never blinked from that. I've never said I didn't support a decision to go to war.
And the war looked great until the 9th of April, when the statue fell, everybody thought it was terrific. And it was terrific. The troops had done a great job. But then we failed to understand that the war really was not over, that a new phase of the war was beginning. And we weren't ready for it and we didn't respond to it well enough, and things went very, very -- very, very south, very bad.
And now it's starting to turn around through the work of Gen. Petraeus and the troops, through the work of the Iraqi government, through our diplomatic efforts, and I hope now that this war will be brought to an end, at least as far as American involvement is concerned, and the Iraqis are going to have to be responsible for their own security and for their own political future. ...
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I'm not clear here. Are you saying that transcript is of Brokaw?
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Post "Meet the Press" press conference...
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Well here is one source of what I am talking about. I am not a fan or advocate of wealth confiscation and redistribution but there must be a fair way of getting the middle and bottom echelons to do better along with the top.
As Clinton used to say the problems in this world stem from the haves vs. the have nots.
Despite his tax raises he noted how the wealthy got wealthier faster then the others.
We may be seeing a "peaceful" revolution in the US
http://www.cbpp.org/4-9-08sfp.htm
*** All Reports by DateAll Reports by Date
A state-by-state examination of trends in income inequality over the past two business cycles finds that inequality has grown in most parts of the country since the late 1980s. The incomes of the country’s highest-income families have climbed substantially, while middle- and lower-income families have seen only modest increases.
In fact, the long-standing trend of growing income inequality accelerated between the late 1990s and the mid-2000s (the latest period for which state data are available).
On average, incomes have declined by 2.5 percent among the bottom fifth of families since the late 1990s, while increasing by 9.1 percent among the top fifth.
In 19 states, average incomes have grown more quickly among the top fifth of families than among the bottom fifth since the late 1990s. In no state has the bottom fifth grown significantly faster than the top fifth.
For very high-income families — the richest 5 percent — income growth since the late 1990s has been especially dramatic, and much faster than among the poorest fifth of families.
Similarly, families in the middle of the income distribution have fallen farther behind upper-income families in many states since the late 1990s:
On average, incomes have grown by just 1.3 percent among the middle fifth of families since the late 1990s, well below the 9.1 percent gain among the top fifth. Income disparities between the top and middle fifths have increased significantly in Alabama, California, Florida, Illinois, Mississippi, Missouri, New Mexico, and Texas. Income disparities did not decline significantly in any state.
The benefits of economic growth were broadly shared for a few years in the late 1990s — the only period in the past two decades for which this was true — but this broad-based growth ended with the 2001 downturn. Once the effects of the recession were left behind, the trend toward greater inequality quickened, as the incomes of the richest families climbed while those of low- and moderate-income families stagnated or declined.
Methodology
This analysis uses the latest Census Bureau data to measure post-federal-tax changes in real incomes among high-, middle- and low-income families in each of the 50 states between the late 1980s, the late 1990s, and the mid-2000s — similar points in the business cycle (“peaks”).
In order to generate large enough sample sizes for state-level analysis, the study compares combined data from 2004-2006 with data from 1987-1989 and 1998-2000. The study is based on Census income data that have been adjusted to account for inflation, the impact of federal taxes, and the cash value of food stamps, subsidized school lunches, housing vouchers, and other government transfers, such as Social Security and welfare benefits.
Realized capital gains and losses are not included, due to data limitations. As a result, our results show somewhat less inequality than would be the case were we to include realized capital gains.
In this analysis, changes in income inequality are determined by calculating the income gap — i.e., the ratio between the average family income in the top fifth of the income spectrum and the average family income in the bottom fifth (or the middle fifth) — and examining changes in this ratio over time. These changes are then tested to see if they are statistically significant.
States fall into one of two categories: (1) those where inequality increased (that is, the ratio increased by a statistically significant amount), or (2) those where there was no change in inequality (the change in the ratio was not statistically significant). It also would be possible for a state to fall into a third category — states where inequality decreased by a statistically significant amount. In this analysis, however, no state experienced a decline in income inequality.
Specifically, real wages for low- and moderate-income families grew more slowly in 2002 and the first part of 2003 and then began to decline; on average, they are now the same or lower than they were in 2001. The highest-income families also saw declines in real income during the 2001 downturn (due both to the broad sweep of that recession in the job market and to the loss of realized capital gains), but their incomes grew rapidly once they recovered from these losses. The federal tax cuts of the early 2000s, which were targeted primarily on wealthy families, helped widen the income gap between the wealthiest families and those with low and moderate incomes.
An examination of income trends over a longer period — from the late 1980s to the mid-2000s — shows that inequality increased across the country.
In 37 states, incomes have grown faster among the top fifth of families than the bottom fifth of families since the late 1980s. No state has seen a significant decline in inequality during this period. Nationally, the richest fifth of families have enjoyed larger average income gains each year ($2,060, after adjusting for inflation) than the poorest fifth of families have experienced during the entire two decades ($1,814).
Middle-income families have also lost ground compared to those at the top. In 36 states, the income gap between the average middle-income family and the average family in the richest fifth has widened significantly since the late 1980s.
Top 5 Percent of Families Pulling Away Even Faster
The widening income gap is even more pronounced when one compares families in the top 5 percent of the income distribution (rather than the top fifth) to the bottom 20 percent. The higher one goes up the income scale, the greater is the degree of income concentration.
In the 11 large states analyzed, the average income of the top 5 percent of families rose by more than $90,000 on average. (In three states — New Jersey, New York, and Massachusetts — the increase exceeded $100,000.) By contrast, the largest increase in average income for the bottom fifth of families in these states was only $3,000. In New York, for example, average incomes grew by $108,000 among the top 5 percent of families but by less than $1,000 among the bottom 20 percent of families.
In the 11 large states for which this comparison is possible, the incomes of the top 5 percent of families have increased by 34 percent to 91 percent since the late 1980s. By contrast, the percentage increase in incomes of the bottom fifth of families in these states ranged from no change to 20 percent over the same period.[1]
Wide and Growing Gap Separates High-Income Families from Poor and Middle Class
The resulting disparities between the incomes of high- and low-income families are substantial.
In the United States as a whole, the poorest fifth of families have an average income of $18,120, while the top fifth of families have an average income of $132,130 — more than seven times as much. In 22 states, this top-to-bottom income ratio exceeds 7.0. (In the late 1980s, in contrast, just one state — Louisiana — had a top-to-bottom ratio exceeding 7.0.) The states with the biggest increases in income disparities since the late 1980s are Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Alabama, New York, Kentucky, Maryland, Kansas, New Jersey and Washington.
The average incomes of the top 5 percent of families are 12 times the average incomes of the bottom fifth. The states with the largest such gap are New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Mississippi, New Jersey, Tennessee, New Mexico, Alabama, California, and Virginia.
Similarly, income gaps between high-income and middle-income families have grown.
In over two-thirds of states, incomes have grown faster over the past two decades among the richest families than among families in the middle of the income spectrum — more than twice as fast, on average. In the remaining states, incomes have grown at about the same rate for the middle and top fifths of families.
The states with the largest gaps between high-income and middle-income families are Oklahoma, Mississippi, California, New York, Texas, New Mexico, Florida, Arizona, Louisiana, and Virginia.
Causes of Rising Inequality
Several factors have contributed to the large and growing income gaps in most states.
Growth in wage inequality. This has been the biggest factor. Wages at the bottom and middle of the wage scale have been stagnant or have grown only modestly for much of the last two decades. The wages of the very highest-paid employees, however, have grown significantly.
Wage inequality is growing for several reasons, including long periods of high unemployment, globalization, the shrinkage of manufacturing jobs and the expansion of low-wage service jobs, and immigration, as well as the lower real value of the minimum wage and fewer and weaker unions. As a result, wages have eroded for workers with less than a college education, who make up approximately the lowest-earning 70 percent of the workforce. More recently, wages have been relatively stagnant even for college-educated workers (up only 2.5 percent between 2000 and 2007), in part due to the bursting of the tech bubble, but also due to the downward pressure on wages from offshore competition.
Only in the later part of the 1990s did this picture improve modestly, as persistent low unemployment, an increase in the minimum wage, and rapid productivity growth fueled real wage gains at the bottom and middle of the income scale. Yet those few years of more broadly shared growth were insufficient to counteract the two-decade-long pattern of growing inequality. Today, inequality between low- and high-income families — and between middle- and high-income families — is greater than it was in the late 1980s or the late 1990s.
Expansion of investment income. Forms of income such as dividends, rent, interest, and capital gains, which primarily accrue to those at the top of the income structure, increased substantially during the 1990s. (Our analysis captures only a part of this growth, as we are not able to include capital gains income due to data limitations.) The large increase in corporate profits during the recent economic recovery has also contributed to growing inequality by boosting investors’ incomes.
Government policies. Government actions — and, in some cases, inaction — have contributed to the increase in wage and income inequality in most states. Examples include deregulation and trade liberalization, the weakening of the social safety net, the lack of effective labor laws regulating the right to collective bargaining, and the declining real value of the minimum wage. In addition, changes in federal, state, and local tax structures and benefit programs have, in many cases, accelerated the trend toward growing inequality emerging from the labor market.
States Can Mitigate the Growth in Inequality
Growing income inequality not only raises basic issues of fairness, but also adversely affects the nation’s economy and political system. The country has now entered a new economic downturn — quite possibly a recession — and already there are unmistakable signs that low- and middle-income workers will be hard hit. The uneven distribution of the country’s prosperity over the last two decades has left families at the bottom and middle of the income scale ill-prepared to weather this latest downturn. While the recent decline in the stock market is affecting the incomes of the wealthiest families, they have more savings to cushion the impact, and, if the 2001 experience is repeated, their incomes will again bounce back strongly.
A significant amount of increasing income inequality results from economic forces that are largely outside state policymakers’ control. State policies, however, can mitigate the effects of these outside forces. State options include:
Raise, and index, the minimum wage. Until Congress acted in 2007, the federal minimum wage had not been adjusted for inflation for almost ten years, and its real value had fallen considerably. Even with the 2007 increase, however, the minimum wage is not indexed to inflation — that is, it will not automatically keep up with the rising cost of living — so its value will begin to erode again after 2009 unless Congress acts. In addition, its value still falls well short of the amount necessary to meet a family’s needs, especially in states with a high cost of living. States can help raise wages for workers at the bottom of the pay scale by enacting a higher state minimum wage and indexing it for inflation.
Improve the unemployment insurance system. In 2007, the share of unemployed workers receiving benefits was only 37 percent — a sign that the current unemployment insurance system does not reflect the realities of work and family today. The current economic downturn makes it all the more urgent that federal and state policymakers act to make more jobless workers eligible for unemployment assistance by modernizing the system.
Make state tax systems more progressive. The federal income tax system is progressive — that is, it narrows income inequalities — but has become less so over the past two decades as a result of changes such as the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts. Nearly all state tax systems, in contrast, are regressive. This is because states rely more on sales taxes and user fees, which hit low-income families especially hard, than on progressive income taxes. (The income inequality data in this report reflect the effects of federal taxes but not state taxes.)
Many states made their tax systems more regressive during the 1990s. Early in the decade, when a recession created budget problems, states were more likely to raise sales and excise taxes than income taxes. Later in the decade, when many states cut taxes in response to the strong economy, nearly all chose to make the majority of the cuts in their income taxes rather than sales and excise taxes.
States now appear to be on the brink of another fiscal crisis, and a new round of tax increases is both likely and appropriate if the economy remains weak and the fiscal crisis deepens. Economists recognize that tax increases and other revenue measures, especially if targeted to high-income taxpayers, can be a reasonable alternative to spending cuts, and can actually be less harmful for a state’s economy than big spending cuts.
There are many ways a state can increase taxes in a way that makes its tax system more progressive at the same time. For example, it can reduce its reliance on sales taxes by increasing its income tax on a temporary or permanent basis. If states instead turn to increases in sales taxes or fees to balance their budgets, they can offset the impact on those least able to pay by enacting or expanding tax credits targeted to low-income taxpayers. For example, more states could follow the lead of the 23 states that have adopted state earned income tax credits.
States can also improve the progressivity of their tax systems by not enacting at the state level the corporate tax cuts included in the federal economic stimulus package and by restoring state estate taxes eliminated as a result of the phase-out of the federal estate tax.
Strengthen the social safety net. Federal and state changes to programs that assist low-income families have contributed to the increase in income inequality in recent years. While welfare reform efforts in the mid- and late 1990s succeeded in helping more families move to work, they often made it harder for very poor families unable to find jobs or work consistently to get income assistance — and intensive job preparation and training — they need both to make ends meet in the short run and to become employable over the longer period of time.
States can take steps — such as improving assessment procedures and establishing job preparation programs for those with barriers to employment — that will make their assistance programs more responsive to those at the very bottom of the income scale while maintaining the work-focused nature of the program.
States can also strengthen their social safety nets by providing low-wage workers with supportive services such as health coverage, child care, and transportation. In addition, they can provide intensive case management and other services to help current and former welfare recipients maintain their current jobs, move into better jobs, or obtain the education and training needed for career advancement.
While these are all useful steps, state policies are only one of a range of factors that have contributed to increasing income disparities over the past decade. If low- and middle-income families are to stop receiving steadily smaller shares of the income pie, federal as well as state policies will have to play an important role.
TABLE A:
TOP TEN STATES FOR SELECTED INCOME INEQUALITY MEASURES
Greatest Income Inequality
Between the Top and the Bottom, Mid 2000s Greatest Income Inequality Between the Top and the Middle, Mid 2000s
1. New York 1. Oklahoma
2. Alabama 2. Mississippi
3. Mississippi 3. California
4. Massachusetts 4. New York
5. Tennessee 5. Texas
6. New Mexico 6. New Mexico
7. Connecticut 7. Florida
8. California 8. Arizona
9. Texas 9. Louisiana
10.Kentucky 10.Virginia
Greatest Increases
in Income Inequality Between the Top and the Bottom,
Late 1980s to Mid 2000s Greatest Increases in Income Inequality Between the Top and the Middle,
Late 1980s to Mid 2000s
1. Connecticut 1. Connecticut
2. Rhode Island 2. Oregon
3. Massachusetts 3. Oklahoma
4. Alabama 4. Maryland
5. New York 5. California
6. Kentucky 6. New York
7. Maryland 7. New Jersey
8. Kansas 8. Rhode Island
9. New Jersey 9. Washington
10. Washington 10. Mississippi
Greatest Increases
in Income Inequality
Between the Top and the Bottom, Late 1990s to Mid 2000s States Where
Income Inequality Increased Between the Top and the Middle,
Late 1990s to Mid 2000s
1. Mississippi 1. Mississippi
2. Alabama 2. New Mexico
3. New Mexico 3. Missouri
4. Connecticut 4. Illinois
5. Indiana 5. Alabama
6. Illinois 6. Florida
7. South Dakota 7. California
8. West Virginia 8. Texas
9. South Carolina
10.Massachusetts
Click here for PDF of full report.
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End Notes:
[1] An analysis of the average income of the top 5 percent of families was conducted for 11 large states that have sufficient observations in the Current Population Survey to allow the calculation of reliable estimates of the average income of the top 5 percent of families. These states are California, Florida, Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Texas.
To ask questions, or send comments, write to bazie@cbpp.org
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
820 First Street, NE, Suite 510
Washington, DC 20002
Ph: (202) 408-1080
Fax: (202) 408-1056
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I'm on my way out the door so no time to give that a proper read.
I do note though that the Dems screamed concentraiton when the Reagan tax cuts took effect. Turns out the reason was that the rick were allowing their wealth to be taxed at the lower rates under Reagan. This proved hard for the Dems to comprehend , , , :roll:
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Crafty,
you keep responding to this with a comment agaisnt taxing the rich as have others on the board.
I am not advocating taxing the rich to give to those who don't contribute.
I am saying that there is a growing welth dipsparity in the US and if the Rebpublicans do not address this in some fashion they will continue to swim against the dmeographic currents and may never recover.
I don't want to punish succesful people. Hell I would like to be one of them.
There has to be some other answer to this.
Ignoring this has resulted in the Demcocrat tsunami in my opinion.
The Republicans today are in part not those of 1980 because they tried no to alienate the "middle class". They treid to reach out to Latinos and immigrants. So they got incredibly careless with spending thinking they won't turn off the majority.
Well that didn't work, that didn't attract more voters.
They must rethink the whole thing out.
There must be another way to raise the living standards of the majority of Americans who are running in place and indeed slowly slipping behind while that has not been true for the rich..
They can ignore it at their own peril.
People I think are tired of REagan's mantra philosopy and ideals. They want action. They want results.
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Socialism has never worked before, why would it work here and now? I guess since most people can't be bothered to learn history we get to re-learn this lesson the hard way. "Soak the rich" class warfare only hurts the middle class and the poor in the long run and removes opportunity for social mobility. Oh well, brace for "Carter II". :roll:
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CCP:
I found that interesting and will think about it.
Thank you,
Marc
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Perhaps Doug can chime in here as I don't have the economic background to explain this sense if full, but the problem with most redistributionist schemes is that most "wealth" is based on symbols in some account somewhere. Those symbols have value based on their liquidity and ability to trade them for goods and services. If the government comes along and starts taking a greater percentage of each symbol as it is passed around--symbols they ultimately create and arbitrate--then not only are the number of symbols in a given account reduced, but the belief that a given symbol will purchase X amount of goods or service also takes a hit. After all, if the government can take back 10 percent of every one of their symbols when transferred, there's nothing to prevent them from snagging 20, 40, or 60 percent, particularly when "soak the rich" is the shrill cry.
The sad thing here is that the rich are much more versant in the language of symbols, and have many more options when a given government starts redistributing symbols. The rich find precious metals, offshore accounts, different currencies etc. in which to warehouse their symbols, or, more sadly still, say wealth creation is not worth tax hit, and pick their chips off the table and move on. It's the middle and lower classes who don't have the option of moving what symbols they do have elsewhere and hence end up sucking it up when the government dilutes what can be obtained with their symbols by taking a greater percentage off the top.
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Correct me if I'm wrong, but with information technology and the global financial grid, isn't it easier today than any time before for capital to flee the US if taxes get worse?
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Guiness: "the problem with most redistributionist schemes is that most "wealth" is based on symbols in some account somewhere."
I find that theme more helpful in understanding the mortgage meltdown than for redistribution. In the mortgage fiasco, a deed to a property (a piece of paper) or a claim on a deed (a line item on a piece of paper) was packaged with similar and dissimilar items. The new product at each level introduced new risk of uncertainty of product, risk, value and information that worsened the collapse.
Back to redistribution: I think redistribution has 3 main two problems:
1) Redistribution transfers take what would be investment assets away from their most productive use and gives to a consuming class not likely invest at all. Less invested in capital assets means a lower productivity of labor, lower output and fewer new jobs created.
2) Redistribution involves raising marginal tax rates on those most able to rearrange their economic activities - incentive to produce and reportnless income; redistribution creates a disincentive to put the resources not yet confiscated to their most productive use -maybe you will choose to buy a south pacific island instead of investing to build a new plant requiring new jobs.
3) The free lunch mentality injures the recipient. Look at families with multi-generational welfare and program dependency. Everything in their lives and neighborhoods can get ripped apart including the moral structure of the family. The importance of the father and husband - two functional parents - is replaced by (false) security from the state. Nonproductive activities get encouraged and rewarded, expanded and prolonged for the dependent class. JMHO.
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Anyone want to converse with CCP about the point(s) he raises?
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I think CCP already said it honestly and very succinctly.
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If the housing market was allowed to find it's real bottom pricing without interference, would that not reduce the cost of living for the working stiffs, like me?
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http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122506830024970697.html?mod=rss_opinion_main#
The Age of Prosperity Is Over
This administration and Congress will be remembered like Herbert Hoover.
By ARTHUR B. LAFFER
About a year ago Stephen Moore, Peter Tanous and I set about writing a book about our vision for the future entitled "The End of Prosperity." Little did we know then how appropriate its release would be earlier this month.
Financial panics, if left alone, rarely cause much damage to the real economy, output, employment or production. Asset values fall sharply and wipe out those who borrowed and lent too much, thereby redistributing wealth from the foolish to the prudent. This process is the topic of Nassim Nicholas Taleb's book "Fooled by Randomness."
When markets are free, asset values are supposed to go up and down, and competition opens up opportunities for profits and losses. Profits and stock appreciation are not rights, but rewards for insight mixed with a willingness to take risk. People who buy homes and the banks who give them mortgages are no different, in principle, than investors in the stock market, commodity speculators or shop owners. Good decisions should be rewarded and bad decisions should be punished. The market does just that with its profits and losses.
No one likes to see people lose their homes when housing prices fall and they can't afford to pay their mortgages; nor does any one of us enjoy watching banks go belly-up for making subprime loans without enough equity. But the taxpayers had nothing to do with either side of the mortgage transaction. If the house's value had appreciated, believe you me the overleveraged homeowner and the overly aggressive bank would never have shared their gain with taxpayers. Housing price declines and their consequences are signals to the market to stop building so many houses, pure and simple.
But here's the rub. Now enter the government and the prospects of a kinder and gentler economy. To alleviate the obvious hardships to both homeowners and banks, the government commits to buy mortgages and inject capital into banks, which on the face of it seems like a very nice thing to do. But unfortunately in this world there is no tooth fairy. And the government doesn't create anything; it just redistributes. Whenever the government bails someone out of trouble, they always put someone into trouble, plus of course a toll for the troll. Every $100 billion in bailout requires at least $130 billion in taxes, where the $30 billion extra is the cost of getting government involved.
If you don't believe me, just watch how Congress and Barney Frank run the banks. If you thought they did a bad job running the post office, Amtrak, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the military, just wait till you see what they'll do with Wall Street.
Some 14 months ago, the projected deficit for the 2008 fiscal year was about 0.6% of GDP. With the $170 billion stimulus package last March, the add-ons to housing and agriculture bills, and the slowdown in tax receipts, the deficit for 2008 actually came in at 3.2% of GDP, with the 2009 deficit projected at 3.8% of GDP. And this is just the beginning.
The net national debt in 2001 was at a 20-year low of about 35% of GDP, and today it stands at 50% of GDP. But this 50% number makes no allowance for anything resulting from the over $5.2 trillion guarantee of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac assets, or the $700 billion Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP). Nor does the 50% number include any of the asset swaps done by the Federal Reserve when they bailed out Bear Stearns, AIG and others.
But the government isn't finished. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid -- and yes, even Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke -- are preparing for a new $300 billion stimulus package in the next Congress. Each of these actions separately increases the tax burden on the economy and does nothing to encourage economic growth. Giving more money to people when they fail and taking more money away from people when they work doesn't increase work. And the stock market knows it.
The stock market is forward looking, reflecting the current value of future expected after-tax profits. An improving economy carries with it the prospects of enhanced profitability as well as higher employment, higher wages, more productivity and more output. Just look at the era beginning with President Reagan's tax cuts, Paul Volcker's sound money, and all the other pro-growth, supply-side policies.
Bill Clinton and Alan Greenspan added their efforts to strengthen what had begun under President Reagan. President Clinton signed into law welfare reform, so people actually have to look for a job before being eligible for welfare. He ended the "retirement test" for Social Security benefits (a huge tax cut for elderly workers), pushed the North American Free Trade Agreement through Congress against his union supporters and many of his own party members, signed the largest capital gains tax cut ever (which exempted owner-occupied homes from capital gains taxes), and finally reduced government spending as a share of GDP by an amazing three ?189 percentage points (more than the next four best presidents combined). The stock market loved Mr. Clinton as it had loved Reagan, and for good reasons.
The stock market is obviously no fan of second-term George W. Bush, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Ben Bernanke, Barack Obama or John McCain, and again for good reasons.
These issues aren't Republican or Democrat, left or right, liberal or conservative. They are simply economics, and wish as you might, bad economics will sink any economy no matter how much they believe this time things are different. They aren't.
I was on the White House staff as George Shultz's economist in the Office of Management and Budget when Richard Nixon imposed wage and price controls, the dollar was taken off gold, import surcharges were implemented, and other similar measures were enacted from a panicked decision made in August of 1971 at Camp David.
I witnessed, like everyone else, the consequences of another panicked decision to cover up the Watergate break-in. I saw up close and personal Presidents Gerald Ford and George H.W. Bush succumb to panicked decisions to raise taxes, as well as Jimmy Carter's emergency energy plan, which included wellhead price controls, excess profits taxes on oil companies, and gasoline price controls at the pump.
The consequences of these actions were disastrous. Just look at the stock market from the post-Kennedy high in early 1966 to the pre-Reagan low in August of 1982. The average annual real return for U.S. assets compounded annually was -6% per year for 16 ?189 years. That, ladies and gentlemen, is a bear market. And it is something that you may well experience again. Yikes!
Then we have this administration's panicked Sarbanes-Oxley legislation, and of course the deer-in-the-headlights Mr. Bernanke in his bungling of monetary policy.
There are many more examples, but none hold a candle to what's happening right now. Twenty-five years down the line, what this administration and Congress have done will be viewed in much the same light as what Herbert Hoover did in the years 1929 through 1932. Whenever people make decisions when they are panicked, the consequences are rarely pretty. We are now witnessing the end of prosperity.
Mr. Laffer is chairman of Laffer Associates and co-author of "The End of Prosperity: How Higher Taxes Will Doom the Economy -- If We Let it Happen," just out by Threshold.
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If the housing market was allowed to find it's real bottom pricing without interference, would that not reduce the cost of living for the working stiffs, like me?
Actually, that is true; why is it so bad if inflated/bubble housing prices reduce? And continue to reduce. Bubbles burst; is that so bad?
And don't blame the banks, government, (democrats or republicans) etc; people agreed and bought these houses with nothing down and without the means to support the payment.
I could buy a Ferrari (red) with nothing down too. Guess what? They dealer/bank would take it back real fast after they figured out I couldn't pay.
Why am I suppose to feel sorry for homeowners? I don't. And the upside? in the end as GM mentioned, the cost for everyone will go down.
I don't see why the government is interfering so much not to mention with our tax dollars. Buy up these bad mortgages with tax dollars and reduce the cost basis? Give me a break!
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Thanks for the responses. I think this is a fundamental problem for the Republicnas that needs to be addressed soemhow in some fashion before they can ever regain power. Maybe we can come up with ideas. WE need new leaders in the Rebuplican ranks. Is anyone out there?
I am pleased with the bombshells on Drudge this morning.
I don't think most people in this country realize that BO is a marxist and a socialist and what they are actually voting for.
IF he gets in with full power in the House and Senate and can pack the court with judges who liberally interpret the constitution in ways that is not equal to all Americans we are headed for the end of AMerica as we now it and will second rate status.
As Mark Levin has apply put:
BO's philosophy is a form of reparations. I don't think America really understands that and of coursse the mainstream media wants to ignore this in their hatred of Bush and Republicans in general.
I am terrified at the thought of a Dem controlled government with the likes of crazy loons like Pelosi and Reid, and BO. I am terrfied for our great country and our future. The younger generation has no clue what they are doing and who they are giving power to and what it means to their future. As they said in ancient Greece - "youth is wasted on the young".
And BO will get everything he wants with them controlling all of governement. I can just hear it now - oh how he is such a compromiser and he gets all sides to work together - even though the Dems are ramming everything throught for hims with a helpless opposition.
Yes - "clusterf..k" is right.
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http://frum.nationalreview.com/post/?q=OGZiODc3MThiOTg3ODZjNjM5ODk4NWJmMTU4ZDNmMmI=
Rush's Blueprint
by David Frum
Last week, Tony Blankley published and Rush Limbaugh publicized what may prove one of the most important articles of 2008. I don't mean that the article was good - very much the contrary. But bad work can be even more important than good, if enough people can be got to believe it.
Here's Tony:
I suspect that the conservative movement we start rebuilding on the ashes of Nov. 4 (even if McCain wins) will have little use for overwritten, over-delicate commentary. The new movement will be plain-spoken and socially networked up from the Interneted streets, suburbs and small towns of America.
Here's Rush:
Since there is not a strong elected conservative anywhere, then conservatism right now is sort of like wandering in the distance with every conservative thinking that they're the smartest person in the room trying to show the way to the light. The way to the light is plainly visible. But everybody wants to be considered the smartest people in the room, so they come up with all these new things like "the era of Reagan is over."
And more Rush:
[T]here's a blueprint for winning it, 1980, there's a blueprint. McCain is not the blueprint for how Republicans win landslides. Going after moderates, independents, and all these yokels is not the blueprint. The blueprint's there, 1994, taking back the House, the blueprint's there. Why are these people ignoring it?
If I understand it correctly, the Blankley/Rush argument goes like this:
1) Reagan-style conservatism remains wildly popular with the American people. It was the "blueprint" for winning landslides between 1980 and 1994, and it remains the blueprint today.
2) Yet for some unaccountable mysterious reason, politicians are ignoring this blueprint! There is not a strong elected conservative voice in the country today.
3) So obviously what we need to do is return to the politics of the 1980s - and sit back and collect the rewards.
This argument raises one big question:
Could it be possible that the reason that we lack Reagan-style conservatives in elected office today is that they are having trouble getting elected?
Still more Rush, referring by name to people like Peggy Noonan, David Brooks, Christopher Buckley, Kathleen Parker, and me:
These are the people who are embarrassed by Sarah Palin 'cause she's not an intellectual and she didn't go to Harvard or have a college degree from approved universities and she drops her g's from words like morning and says mornin'. She's embarrassing, and I think something else really bothering these people is that they believe that she may become one of the key leaders of the conservative movement beyond 2008 if she and McCain lose this.
OK, let's develop this a little.
1) Sarah Palin has the potential to become a key leader of the conservative movement beyond 2008.
2) If that happens, she will follow "the blueprint" and achieve another conservative landslide - and another successful presidency!
3) But snobs like Peggy, David, Christopher, Kathleen and me are embarrassed that she drops her Gs. Our motto: "Unless we can nominate a Harvard graduate, we'd rather lose."
I have to wonder:
Can even Rush himself believe this junk?
I think Rush is a great entertainer and has often been a force for good in the conservative movement. But right now, he is feeding his audience pleasing illusions that can only lead conservatives to even greater troubles in the days ahead.
Take a look at this poll from Stanley Greenberg (http://www.democracycorps.com/strategy/2008/10/the-republican-disconnect/ (http://www.democracycorps.com/strategy/2008/10/the-republican-disconnect/)). (Yes Greenberg's a Democrat - but he's long proven himself a realistic analyst of American politics. Greenberg is the guy who identified Macomb County, Michigan, as the heartland of the "Reagan Democrats" - and warned Democrats that they were losing both Macomb and the nation.)
While a sizeable majority of voters say Republicans have lost in 2006 and 2008 because they have been “too conservative,” a sizeable plurality of Republicans say, it is because they have “not been conservative enough.”
Over three-quarters of Republicans say Palin was good choice, while a majority of the electorate says the opposite.
Two-thirds of Republicans say McCain has not been aggressive enough, but a majority of voters think they have been too aggressive.
Looking to the future, a large majority of Republicans say the party needs to “move more to the right and back to conservative principles,” while an even larger majority of all voters say, it should move to the “center to win over moderate and independent voters.”
When Rush and Blankley tell us the blueprint is there, if only we would follow it, they are telling us something that is not true. They are offering flattering illusions when we need truth. They are leading us to disaster - and beyond disaster, to irrelevance.
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SB,
Yes, yes, yes.
I agree with your commentary 100%.
Reagan *is* over. They are wrong. The country has moved left - though hopefully still right of center wherever that is exactly.
I am surprised by Blankley who I thought was more practical but not by Rush who simply doesn't get it.
"Could it be possible that the reason that we lack Reagan-style conservatives in elected office today is that they are having trouble getting elected?"
Absolutely.
That is the reason why Romney who ran on "Reagan ideals" did not excite a single person who was not from the far right.
You hit the nail on the head. Rush and the religious right are pulling the Republican party off the cliff. In fact they may have already done it. I don' t personally disgaree with them or have any avarice towards the religious rights views but they are NOT mainstream. They cannot keep winning with the population becoming more minority, with the middle class struggling harder and harder and more and more people happier than hell to have government add them to the doles.
Wake up. Latinos are not Reagan Dems. Younger people are not Reaganites either. Blacks appear to be hopeless targets for the Republicans thought they must try. And women? Impossible to understand as always :cry:
The majority in the middle, left of middle and right of middle are screwed. Now we go from Rush Limbaugh right to Pelosi, Bama radical left.
Why can't we get a party that is truly in the middle that represents most Americans???
To hell with the fringes before they send us all to hell.
Give me centrism or give me death!!! :wink:
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AND centrism gives us the economically incoherent McCain. A major disaster in American political culture is being imprinted right now--aided and abetted by McC's pandering populism about greed on Wall Street being the cause-- NONE OF THIS COULD HAVE HAPPENED BUT FOR THE GOVERNMENT/FED PRINTING TOO MUCH MONEY. GOLD FROM $250 TO $900?!? BASKET OF COMMODITIES EXPLODING PRICES?!? OIL?!? NEGATIVE INTEREST RATES?!? DOLLAR COLLAPSING?!? ITS NOT LIKE THERE WEREN'T SOME REAL IN PLAIN SITE CLUES!!!
SERVING AS A MULTIPLIER WERE THE FMs, THE CRA, mark to market rules, etc.
THE WORLD-WIDE NATURE OF THE MELTDOWN PHENOMENON SHOWS THAT BY INFLATING AND DEVALUING THE WORLD's DOMINANT CURRECNY, THE FED HAS EXPORTED A LIQUIDITY FLOOD THROUGHOUT THE INTERNATIONAL SYSTEM.
Instead we get buffoonery from McC about Wall Street Greed and he's going to go after Wall Street even more than BO. Barf.
OF COURSE, there was outrageous and unprincipled greed on Wall Street that greatly accelerated the process. DUH. Its Wall Street! Its what they do! AND THAT IS WHY YOU STICK TO YOUR F^&*(^(&G JOB OF KEEPING THE CURRENCY STABLE.
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I don't equate centrism with populism.
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"Elect us, hold us accountable, and make a judgment and then go from there. But I do tell you that if the Democrats win and have substantial majorities, Congress of the United States will be more bipartisan," said Pelosi
I am not sure anyone other than Pelosi could make such a statement.
A house divided cannot stand. With Pelosi who is the least bipartisan and thus the most partisan conspiring pol there is, there is no hope of any bipartisanship. I suspect BO will cruise way left as well. He may be more conspiring then all of them. But he might surprise us as he probably wants to be the popular king so he may just continue to kiss up to the pollsters data.
We'll see.
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Running Against Reid, Pelosi and What's-His-Name.
Senator John McCain's snake-bit campaign may finally have hit on a theme that could resonate with independent voters in the runup to next Tuesday's election.
He has begun raising the specter of what a complete Democratic takeover of Washington would mean. He told a crowd in New Mexico last weekend that if Mr. Obama were elected, the public would have no effective brake on the liberal agenda of Democratic Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader Harry Reid.
"Senator Obama's tax increase would put even more people out of work," Mr. McCain said. "But that is exactly what's going to happen if the Democrats have total control of Washington. We can't let that happen. Are you ready for Obama, Pelosi and Reid?"
Other Republicans are raising the dire prospect of one-party government. Senator Liddy Dole of North Carolina is running an ad warning voters not to hand Democrats "a blank check."
All of this harkens back to one of the most successful GOP rescue operations in recent political history. As Bob Dole fell behind the charismatic Bill Clinton in 1996, Republicans boldly appealed to independents to vote in favor of divided government. They put out ads featuring a fortune-teller gazing into a crystal ball showing over-the-top scenes of Biblical devastation, plague and conflict. An announcer warned: "Remember the last time Democrats ran everything? The largest tax increase in history. Government-run health care. More wasteful spending. Who wants that again? Don't let the media stop you from voting. And don't hand Bill Clinton a blank check."
It worked. Republicans kept control of Congress. Haley Barbour, then GOP national chairman and now governor of Mississippi, said at the time voters had responded to the idea of an insurance policy against one-party rule. With time running out, the GOP is resurrecting this golden oldie in hopes that independent voters may not like the idea of having the government completely controlled by the trio of Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid.
-- John Fund
The Disarming Mr. Obama
There's at least one government program Democrats are planning to cut deeply next year. Rep. Barney Frank last week told the editorial board of his home district's South Coast Standard-Times that defense spending will be slashed by 25% in the next Congress. He said such dramatic cuts would likely force the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq and a rollback in Pentagon plans for high-tech weaponry. "We don't need all these fancy new weapons," the Massachusetts liberal told the paper's editors.
Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has made similar comments on the campaign trail. In a video circulating on the Web (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnTaWTfwsFU&feature=related), he says he intends to cut "tens of billions of dollars in wasteful spending" at the Pentagon. "I will cut investments in unproven missile defense systems. I will not weaponize space. I will slow our investments in future combat systems." He also would institute a new oversight panel to monitor the DoD's existing planning panel to make sure "it is not used to justify unnecessary spending."
On his campaign Web site, Mr. Obama says he also wants to increase the size of Army by 65,000 and the Marine Corps by 27,000, while expanding health care, special ops, civil affairs and other specialties and introducing a "Military Families Advisory Board." The Pentagon has worked in recent years to reduce overhead and increase what it calls "the tooth to tail ratio." Mr. Obama's clear agenda is to invest in more military tail, less tooth.
-- Brendan Miniter
Ted Stevens Joins the Pantheon
We now know that the infamous "Bridge to Nowhere" championed by Alaska GOP Senator Ted Stevens did indeed lead somewhere: to the end of his career.
The senator was convicted yesterday on seven felony counts of failing to report gifts from the Alaskan oil-services company Veco on his financial disclosure forms.
Make no mistake. The fall of Ted Stevens was tied directly to his endless quest for earmarks -- pork barrel projects -- he could drag home to Alaska. While the federal indictment did not allege a clear quid-pro-quo, Veco CEO Bill Allen was demonstrably seeking earmarks from Mr. Stevens when he helped renovate the senator's house in suburban Anchorage while forgetting to send the senator most of the bills.
I vividly recall a conversation with Mr. Stevens about the earmark process back in 2006, when the testy senator was chairmonster of the Appropriations Committee. Our talk was surreal as he claimed "discretionary federal spending isn't out of whack," despite all evidence to the contrary.
But he also had moments of blinding candor. He acknowledged that a lot of the spending earmarks wouldn't have passed Constitutional muster before the Great Society. "Back when I was a lawyer in the Interior Department under Eisenhower, we wouldn't have dreamed much of this was anything but a state and local responsibility," he said. "But now that these are the rule, there is no one more tenacious in seeing my state is taken care of."
Sadly, Mr. Stevens also took care of himself, accepting gifts "on loan" for his house that ranged from a used La-Z-Boy recliner to an awful fish sculpture that he never reported on his financial disclosure forms.
There hasn't been a more sordid end to a Congressional career since former House Speaker Jim Wright resigned over bulk sales of a vanity press book or former House Ways and Means Chairman Daniel Rostenkowski went to prison for pilfering postage stamps and office furniture from the House.
-- John Fund
Quote of the Day
"[A]ccording to The Huffington Post, Obama's lack of experience is immune from criticism because he attended Ivy League schools, ‘was a serious and successful student,’ is a well-traveled, published author, and has a diverse background. Heck, he's me! Yet, in every one of my encounters with America's rural communities, the diversity of my privileged experience was eclipsed by the depth of theirs. I had rhetoric; they had well-measured speech, punctuated by forbearing silences. I had easy answers; they knew there was no such thing. It is not that the Republican base is anti-intellectual, as David Broder claims; they are anti-elitist. An Ivy League education is hardly a universal signal of competence in anything other than the liberal cultural canon " -- Joan Chevalier, a New York City speechwriter and essayist, writing in the Boston Globe.
From Joe the Plumber to Joe the Non-Taxpayer
Under Barack Obama's tax plan, millions of Americans who have zero federal income tax liability would nonetheless receive tax rebate checks from the government. Liberals claim these handouts are not really handouts, but would partially offset what recipients pay in FICA taxes for Social Security and Medicare. That's how Mr. Obama can claim 95% of Americans would receive a "tax cut" under his plan.
How big is the bill for Mr. Obama's rebate program? A new study from the Heritage Foundation counts a prospective 10 million net new recipients of federal dollars, who would receive an average of more than $2,000 each year. That adds up to a massive $20 billion-a-year new welfare program. The left-leaning Tax Policy Center similarly forecasts a massive increase in spending on Obama's "refundable tax credits."
Now we know where a President Obama would spend some of the money he takes from Joe the Plumber. With Washington staring at a near-trillion-dollar deficit next year, his interest in "spreading the wealth" clearly isn't a sideshow. It's a central priority even amid the country's unprecedented economic troubles.
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From CCP: "there is a growing wealth disparity in the US and if the Republicans do not address this in some fashion they will continue to swim against the demographic currents and may never recover. I don't want to punish successful people... There has to be some other answer to this. Ignoring this has resulted in the Democrat tsunami in my opinion."
"There must be another way to raise the living standards of the majority of Americans who are running in place and indeed slowly slipping behind while that has not been true for the rich.. They can ignore it at their own peril."
"People I think are tired of Reagan's mantra, philosophy and ideals. They want action. They want results."
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It's true that too many Americans feel like they are running in place economically. I think the reason is because of certain runaway costs rather than low income, an important distinction IMO. Incomes are high and growing at least until recently. Americans have a median household income of over $50,000. That might be enough to get by if not for runaway costs in certain market segments have been escalated by meddling. Sectors like energy, housing, healthcare, college tuition and overall tax burden come to mind. Also I notice a wealth and debt mentality - we have so much access to money we say no to almost nothing. So we find ourselves strapped.
The point about income and wealth disparity has flaws IMO.
Most obvious is that the Census Bureau pretends to measure poverty but doesn't count non-cash subsidies which can the the bulk of the income for people in programs like section 8, food debit cards, taxpayer health care, subsidized transportation etc etc. So they constantly understate the 'wealth' of the have-nots.
Secondly, there is significant income mobility - it isn't always the same people that are rich and getting richer. Also there is a difference between wealth and income. Some with low income have wealth and some with high incomes lack accumulations of wealth.
Another flaw is wealth disparity increases when wealth increases and we've just come through about a 24 year boom. Wealth disparity certainly DECREASED during the current collapse of real estate and other investment values. Disparity is a contrary indicator to wealth creation.
If Reagan mantras have been worn out lately it's from false use not because they are no longer true. Even Reagan expanded government in compromise, like a centrist or a pragmatist.
The desire to move up economically and to achieve more personal and family financial security should push people toward pro-growth policies, not leftism, but conservatism has suffered IMO from a leadership and salesmanship gap for a long time.
McCain keeps trying to fight redistributionism but the clearest words against class envy came from this wise author:
"You shall not covet your neighbour’s house; you shall not covet your neighbour’s wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbour." - God
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Bit of a tangent here:
I notice that this quote:
""You shall not covet your neighbour’s house; you shall not covet your neighbour’s wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbour." - God"
is a bit longer than the usual "Thou shall not covet thy neighbor's goods". Why is that? What you quote here resonates to me as being more what the original Hebrew would have said.
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Crafty, The quote I attributed to God actually came through http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_Commandments. They link to this anglicized version: http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=exodus+20:2-20:17&version=nrsvae
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I was trying to one-up Obama's impressive endorsement of Gen. Powell by finding someone with even more gravitas for my side of the argument, lol. He basically covers the car, the house the employees, even the wife. We aren't supposed to be looking over our neighbor's stuff except maybe in the interest of friendly conversation, but not for theft or public takings.
If we buy into the concept that disparity politics is valid and relevant, then what is the right amount of disparity? The former Mpls congressman Martin Sabo (Keith Ellison's predecessor) proposed that companies could not pay it's highest paid employee more than 20 times what it pays its lowest paid worker. If you buy fully into the unfairness concept and right to a remedy, why stop at 20-fold? What is the right amount of disparity? If unequal pay is unfair, why not mandate outcomes to be equal? The answer of course is that that system would be even more unfair not to mention extremely inefficient. Some have more invested in training, skills and resources. Some people work harder, smarter or longer hours. Some build products demanded in the marketplace and some build GM cars. How do you explain to an Obamist or Naderite that Tiger Woods deserves high pay for his golf and I don't...
When we focus on disparity we lose out to policies that move in the direction of Marxism, public ownership, and mandated outcomes that don't make economic sense. Inherent in that is that to achieve lower disparity we have to remove or reduce the incentives and rewards to produce especially for the most productive among us and the result is less production, less income, less wealth throughout the economy. But if we can change the argument to whether or not to open pro-growth opportunities, to remove barriers to success, to give all taxpayers a piece of the responsibility for public spending and to recognize that the burden of achievement rests on the individual, then I think we move toward a more free and prosperous society.
Who would want that?
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"Doug,
My thoughts,
"It's true that too many Americans feel like they are running in place economically. I think the reason is because of certain runaway costs rather than low income, an important distinction IMO. Incomes are high and growing at least until recently"
They don't just feel this way - whatever the reason whether increase costs or incomes not rising fast enough - they are running in place.
"If Reagan mantras have been worn out lately it's from false use not because they are no longer true."
Reagan also remained oddly silent while money was hemmorrhaging out the window with the Savings and Loan mess. Thanks to his kindness we have quadruple the number of illegals in the US. How many of their offspring (now citizens) vote for members of his party?
"but conservatism has suffered IMO from a leadership and salesmanship gap for a long time."
I think simple Reaganism is not the answer alone. What about the costs of education, health care, energy? Free markets are not controlling these costs (although one could argue the greens have suppressed energy growth such as nuclear power and offshore drilling). And this is a huge reason the Republicans are in the tank. I don't want Obamanomics. He is an angry nut job IMO. But also IMO the republicans neeed to come up with more ideas and salesmenship but not the latter alone.
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Just ran across this quote in an Christian Science Monitor story
http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20081030/cm_csm/yboudreaux
Socialist Party of America presidential candidate Norman Thomas: "The American people will never knowingly adopt socialism, but under the name of liberalism, they will adopt every fragment of the socialist program until one day America will be a socialist nation without ever knowing how it happened."
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IMO just simply touting Reaganism does not imply *change*. And the concept of "change" is I think where BO has won the hearts and minds of many.
For 72 years old McCain is truly an inspiring man.
Someone called Rush on the radio earlier this pm and claimed that McCain destroyed the Republican party. Really?
IS that what some Rebublicans think? I really think any Republican further to the right would get wiped up. If Romeny was running on the Reagan mantra he would even be further behind.
We need a Republican party that can speak to change.
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Just ran across this quote in an Christian Science Monitor story
http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20081030/cm_csm/yboudreaux
Socialist Party of America presidential candidate Norman Thomas: "The American people will never knowingly adopt socialism, but under the name of liberalism, they will adopt every fragment of the socialist program until one day America will be a socialist nation without ever knowing how it happened."
I fear he will be proven correct.
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October 31, 2008
In today's Political Diary:
- Return of the Clinton Administration
- John Kerry as Secretary of State?
- Pelosi's Punching Bag
- McConnell's Last Stand
- Californication
- The Obama-Acorn Connection
Clinton III?
Barack Obama and Bill Clinton still have deep differences, but they managed to make
nice while campaigning together this week in Florida.
Mr. Obama may pay Mr. Clinton the ultimate compliment if elected. He's likely to
appoint Chicago Congressman Rahm Emanuel as his new White House chief of staff and
John Podesta of the Center for American Progress as his transition chief. Mr.
Emanuel served in the Clinton White House as a top aide, and Mr. Podesta is a former
chief of staff for President Clinton.
The Associated Press reports that an aide to Rep. Emanuel, Sarah Feinberg, said in
an email that her boss "has not been contacted to take a job in an administration
that does not yet exist. Everyone is focused on Election Day, as they should be."
But the AP also confirms that both Mr. Emanuel and former Senate Majority Leader Tom
Daschle have received feelers about the top White House staff job.
Mr. Emanuel was the architect of the successful Democratic takeover of the House in
2006, and is well known for tough talk and hyper-aggressive tactics. Should he get
the job, the Obama White House might well take on the look and feel of the Clinton
political "war room" that Dick Morris ran in the mid-1990s. The longer Mr. Obama is
a candidate, the more he has seemed to appreciate the Clinton approach. If this is
the "change" Mr. Obama has in mind, voters may be surprised how much it turns out to
be an updated edition of the last Democratic White House.
-- John Fund
Who Will Run the 'No Preconditions' Portfolio?
Jostling for jobs in a Barack Obama Administration is well underway, especially the
plumb Secretary of State position. While Mr. Obama tends to keep his own counsel, he
has relied so far on a small circle of advisers -- headed by Tony Lake and Susan
Rice -- while selectively allowing an array of former Hillary Clinton backers into
his tent since he secured the nomination.
The elder statesman in his circle, Mr. Lake had a bad run atop the Clinton National
Security Council, then failed in his Senate confirmation bid for the CIA. He doesn't
sound eager to try his luck again at the State Department. Meanwhile, just like
George W. Bush's "Dr. Rice," Susan Rice is the candidate's closest adviser on
foreign affairs. But she's also young (44), rung up a spotty record in the Clinton
Administration (overseeing Africa policy) and may lack the gravitas expected in a
post recently held by the likes of Colin Powell and Warren Christopher.
Who are some other contenders? John Kerry tells friends in Boston that he and Mr.
Obama have "an understanding." Mr. Kerry is desperate for a change from the Senate
and clearly has his eye on State. Richard Lugar and Chuck Hagel are two Republicans
who also might fit in an Obama Administration. A strike against Sen. Lugar is his
age (76) and the fact that he hardly seems an agent of "change." Mr. Hagel, the
Nebraska Republican, is leaving the Senate and agrees with Mr. Obama on most things,
primarily Iraq. But he's unpopular in the GOP and wouldn't win Mr. Obama many points
for "bipartisanship." Mr. Obama may prefer to stick with Robert Gates at the
Pentagon as his token Republican.
From the Democratic establishment, two names that come up for the state department
are Strobe Talbott and Richard Holbrooke, both intimate Clintonistas, Shunned by the
Obama crowd after the primaries, Mr. Holbrooke finally joined a "senior working
group" gathering in Richmond last week with the candidate. He hadn't been invited
last time. Sam Nunn and Lee Hamilton -- also on the long list -- were there too. "It
was done to keep them happy," says one Obama aide. Aside from his Hillary links, the
problem with Mr. Holbrooke is "he's too much his own guy. I don't think Obama wants
someone over there conducting his own foreign policy," my Obama source says.
Mr. Talbott, who served as No. 2 in the Clinton state department, would be easier to
control. He also heads the Brookings Institution, home to several other Obama
advisers, and (like several Obama associates) also happens to be a Rhodes Scholar.
"That seems to count a lot for those people," says one prominent Democrat.
If Mr. Obama wins next week, his personnel picks will shed light on a foreign policy
agenda that remains partly murky. He most clearly wants to withdraw from Iraq
quickly and make Afghanistan "Barack's War." But otherwise he's laid out a foreign
policy agenda consisting of more style than substance at this point.
-- Matthew Kaminski
Tilting at Nancy's Well-Fortified Windmill
Nancy Pelosi occupies one of the least competitive districts in the country. The
Speaker of the House routinely pulls in more than 80% of the vote, with Republican
challengers often struggling just to stay ahead of whichever wacky third-party
candidates happen to be running.
This year, the latter category is ably nailed down by Cindy Sheehan, the anti-war
activist best known for camping outside President Bush's Texas ranch. Ms. Sheehan,
who's running as an independent, has enlisted Roseanne Barr to record robo-calls on
her behalf and was this week escorted to an event by Sean Penn. With Ms. Sheehan in
the contest, the brave, hapless Republican in the race, Dana Walsh, says she's
"running against the two most dangerous women in America." In a district where
Democrats outnumber Republicans eight to one, she might be lucky to outpoll Ms.
Sheehan next Tuesday.
Ms. Walsh is an interior designer who admits in a campaign video that when the
financial crisis hit, she "was totally unprepared to understand it." She added:
"Most people in Congress didn't understand it either." Truth in politics.
While she's not unduly optimistic about her chances, Ms. Walsh maintains that
"someone has to run." And she's already raised twice as much money as Ms. Pelosi's
last Republican challenger. The vast majority of that money came not only from
outside the district, but from outside the state.
In her defense, Ms. Pelosi's extraordinarily safe seat is not the product of a
cynical gerrymander. Her district covers most of San Francisco and doesn't resemble
a snake slithering across the state to pick up just the right demographic to keep
Ms. Pelosi in office in perpetuity. Ms. Pelosi's dominance simply reflects the
ultraliberal politics of her town. Give Ms. Walsh credit, then, for standing up for
the principle that one-party elections have no place even in San Francisco.
-- Brian M. Carney
Kentucky Firewall
Will Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell be among the Republican casualties on Election
Day? In the latest Lexington Herald-Leader/WKYT poll, Mr. McConnell, the GOP Senate
leader, has slipped below the magic number for incumbents of 50%. If tradition
holds, he can't expect to win many late-deciding voters amid a barrage of attack ads
funded by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee in the closing days. Though
the Herald-Leader poll still has him clinging to a slim lead, 47% to 43%, he's
anything but a shoo-in.
Democrats relish the thought of knocking off Mr. McConnell as payback for the defeat
four years ago of their own then-Majority Leader Tom Daschle. Mr. McConnell's defeat
would also move them closer to a 60-seat, filibuster-proof Senate majority. One of
the party's top stars, Hillary Clinton, will even spend the last Sunday before
Election Day stumping for Mr. McConnell's Democratic challenger Bruce Lunsford.
Democrats were emboldened by last year's crushing defeat of incumbent Republican
Gov. Ernie Fletcher by Steve Beshear. But they may be reading too much into that
victory. South Dakota voters saw Mr. Daschle as an "obstructionist" and sent him
packing in 2004 while giving President George W. Bush a reelection margin of 22
points. Mr. McConnell's situation is totally different. He's still a conservative in
a red state that will almost certainly vote overwhelmingly for the Republican
presidential candidate. In the past, Mr. McConnell has managed to hold his seat with
the largest victory margins of any Republican in Kentucky history.
At the moment, though, he's being flayed for his support of the $700 billion Wall
Street bailout -- which the state's other Republican senator, Jim Bunning, denounced
as "socialism." Kentucky voters have a hard time understanding why they should pay
for a financial meltdown that so far has barely touched their state. Still, Mr.
McConnell may start to get some credit for making the hard decisions as Kentucky
begins to feel the pain.
Then there's this: Both he and his opponent have taken to calling their contest "the
second most important" in the country because of the prospect of a Democratic
supermajority in the Senate. As Mr. McConnell told supporters Wednesday: "There is
nothing the far left would like better besides winning the White House than to take
me out." That argument may yet be salvation for him and several other embattled GOP
Senators around the country.
-- Brendan Miniter
'Election Deception,' California-style
The profligate spending of California's local governments means pols are going to
extreme lengths to grab revenue. Voters in more than two dozen California
jurisdictions, including Los Angeles and San Francisco, will be asked next week to
approve telephone tax increases. Thanks to misleading summaries on local ballots,
many will actually think they're voting for tax cuts.
The California Taxpayers' Association calls it "Deception 2008." Only two
jurisdictions, Eureka and Seaside, appear to have legitimate phone tax repeals on
the ballot.
It all started in 2006, when the U.S. Treasury ruled that an antiquated "utility
user tax," created to fund the Spanish-American War, no longer applies to many of
today's phone services. Local pols realized they would need to get voter approval to
continue collecting the hefty taxes. But how to dupe voters into going along?
Answer: With ballot proposals that offer modest "cuts" in the phone tax and don't
clearly mention that, absent a vote, the tax would disappear altogether.
In some jurisdictions, politicians have gone so far as to craft tricky language to
expand the taxes to text messaging and other digital services. Sacramento's "Utility
Tax Reduction and Fairness Measure," for instance, fails to mention the new services
subject to tax, but promises to "preserve funding for essential municipal services
like police, fire protection and youth programs."
Bottom line: California voters should exercise extreme caution before voting for
something that sounds like a reduction in the tax on talking.
-- James Freeman
Follow the Money
Earlier this week, Anita MonCrief, a former employee of Acorn's Project Vote,
testified in a Pennsylvania court that she was given donor lists from the Obama and
other Democratic campaigns so she could approach donors who had "maxed out" on
candidate donations but could still contribute to Project Vote's registration
efforts.
Both the Obama campaign and Project Vote strenuously deny the charge. Project Vote
says it "does not have any cooperation with the Obama campaign." Team Obama's
Pennsylvania campaign spokesman, Sean Smith, added that anyone was free to download
a list of Obama's donors from the Internet.
Ms. MonCrief gave me spreadsheets of donors from several Democratic campaigns that
were clearly not downloaded from the Internet. In any case, it's illegal for a
nonprofit group to use Federal Election Commission lists to help its own activities.
If the Obama campaign did give its lists to Project Vote, that would be very strong
evidence of illegal coordination between the two entities.
Whether or not the Obama campaign shared its lists, it certainly hasn't shown any
interest in going beyond the letter of the law when it comes to disclosing its
donors to the general public. Despite pleas from campaign-finance reform groups such
as Common Cause and Democracy 21, Team Obama has refused to follow Senator McCain's
lead and release names of donors who have given less than $200, even though such
donors supplied half of the $605 million the Obama campaign raised through September
30.
Perhaps one reason is that, as the Washington Post reported this week, the Obama
campaign has turned off its Address Verification System, or AVS, at its Web site.
That program should have stopped most contributions coming in from citizens of
foreign countries -- a violation of federal law. The Federal Election Commission,
which does receive a complete list of donors, has a list of several thousand small
Obama donors it suspects may have contributed illegally from foreign countries.
Somewhere Richard Nixon, who in inflation-adjusted terms previously set the record
for the most expensive and controversial presidential fund-raising apparatus ever in
1972, must be smiling at the audacity of Mr. Obama's fundraising.
-- John Fund
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Obama's Miracle: He Makes Pollsters Look Good for a Change
Pollsters ended up not having a bad Election Night in most races. Scott Rasmussen of Rasmussen Reports notes that his final daily tracking survey had Barack Obama leading John McCain by 52% to 46%, which is exactly where the actual results stand this morning.
Mr. Rasmussen says the race was "basically decided in those two weeks in September when the financial markets melted down." The crisis enabled Mr. Obama to break out of his tie with Mr. McCain and open up a five-point lead. "He then hit between 50% of the vote and 52% of the vote for the entire 40-day period before the Election," Mr. Rasmussen tells me. "As for McCain, his number stayed between 44% and 47% on each and every one of the campaign's last 40 days."
The financial meltdown apparently eroded voter confidence in Republicans in general and prompted many to support Mr. Obama on "faith" that he represented the needed change. "Obama's successful finish came out of the fact he was able to hold his lead by appearing smooth, calm and disciplined," says Mr. Rasmussen. In other words, Mr. Obama was able to establish a comfort level with enough Americans to guarantee him an historic win.
-- John Fund
The Tournament of Blame
What were the biggest mistakes of the McCain campaign? Most everyone will cite the candidate's sudden decision during September's financial crisis to suspend his campaign and rush to Washington, D.C., where he proved an ineffective stage manager for Congressional Republicans leery of the first bailout package.
A survey of Republican strategists and officials yielded the following runner-up contenders for worst campaign failure:
1) Sarah Palin's handling by the McCain staff was abysmal, even if all the stories about her alleged flightiness were true. She was carefully held back from media interviews, then made her debut in a shaky interview with ABC's Charlie Gibson. Then it was decided to have her sit down next with CBS's Katie Couric, whose network was given freedom to edit and promote the interview in such a way as to cause her maximum embarrassment.
2) The McCain campaign never had an effective get-out-the-vote effort. When Republican National Committee officials met with McCain staffmembers in May, they were shocked that McCain aides had little interest in the RNC's vaunted voter contact list. McCain representatives assured RNC officials that the election wouldn't be won with Republicans, but with independents and moderates.
In the end, the McCain campaign stripped away funding for its get-out-the-vote efforts in the key battleground state of Pennsylvania and replaced them with high-cost TV ads. The results were not good. Mr. Obama romped to a solid 55% victory in the Keystone State.
3) John McCain himself took off the table the option of airing TV ads critical of Mr. Obama's association with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Former Democratic consultants Dick Morris and Bob Beckel both agree that Mr. McCain unwisely and artificially circumscribed his campaign. "The Wright issue could have been framed as a judgment issue rather than as a racial issue," Mr. Beckel told me. "But they boxed themselves in only to discover that by comparison with 2004, there were few if any outside groups running independent ad campaigns critical of Mr. Obama's history and record."
It's not uncommon for losing campaigns quickly to descend into finger-pointing and recriminations once the election results are in. But some on the McCain campaign staff seem more eager than most to settle scores. I received at least three phone calls last night from McCain staffers who seemed to want to use me as a conduit for their complaints about the campaign.
Campaigns come and go, but political reputations in Washington have to be protected at all costs.
-- John Fund
Phew!
Is it possible only two Senate Republican incumbents lost seats yesterday, keeping Democrats well short of a filibuster-proof 60? Three others are still in danger as votes are counted or recounted. It may have been a crummy year to be a Republican but not as crummy as many had feared.
Not much else besides an "R" bound together the GOP senators among yesterday's losers and near losers. Definitely out of office are North Carolina's Elizabeth Dole (former Reagan cabinet secretary) and New Hampshire's John Sununu (young reformer). Clinging to narrow leads are Alaska's Ted Stevens (pork king), Minnesota's Norm Coleman (middle-of-the-roader) and Oregon's Gordon Smith (ditto).
The losers had the misfortune of hailing from states where the anti-GOP mood was at its highest. New Hampshire sported some of the lowest Bush approval ratings in the country. North Carolina headed the list of red states that appeared ready to go blue. Yet the biggest news of the night may be the two GOPers who are hanging on in Oregon and Minnesota, states John McCain lost by double digits. The ticket-splitting that nonetheless apparently kept GOP Senators Smith and Coleman in the game is a glimmer of hope in a year when so many voters were willing to repudiate Republicans indiscriminately. In New Hampshire, Mr. Sununu was among the few warning against Fannie and Freddie years ago, trying to head off the financial crisis that ultimately came. He's now history.
Most of the Democratic challengers in these races spent far more time blaming their opponents for today's problems than promoting their own policies -- making it hard to extract a theme from their successes and near successes. Former New Hampshire Governor Jeanne Shaheen largely won her race by tying Mr. Sununu to President Bush. North Carolina's Kay Hagen spent most of her race complaining that Mrs. Dole hadn't spent more time in the state. Anchorage mayor Mark Begich was running against a senator who just last week was convicted of seven felony charges. In Minnesota, Al Franken's entire shtick is attack dog, not policy wonk.
Lots of Democrats yesterday enjoyed a slick ride on Mr. Obama's coattails. His get-out-the-vote operations were nothing short of extraordinary. A flood of new registrations and high turnout resulted in a boost all the way down the ticket. Democrats, for instance, signed up 137,000 new voters (compared with 50,000 for the GOP) in North Carolina this cycle. Turnout was expected to hit 75% in the state.
All the more impressive, then, is that GOP Senators in Oregon and Minnesota may live to fight another day because even Obama voters apparently decided Mr. Obama should have a loyal opposition looking over his shoulder.
-- Kim Strassel
Return of the Newt
Sixteen years ago, Republicans were in a position as dire as today's when Congressman Newt Gingrich assumed the mantle of leader of the opposition. Two years later Republicans won one of their biggest landslide victories in half a century. No wonder we're hearing that Republican leaders are trying to recruit Newt back as a new head of the Republican National Committee.
Other names under consideration include former Maryland Lt. Governor Michael Steele, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney and Dick Armey of Texas, the former House Majority Leader.
But Mr. Gingrich, the Speaker of the House from 1995 to 1998, is the one who can energize the party, some RNC committee members are saying. One is Rep. Jack Kingston, who says: "If Newt assumed that role of RNC chair, he would be at home with the position. He has served before during dark and dreary times" for the party.
"Newt has baggage to be sure," adds another longtime committee member, "but he is a strategic political thinker par excellence." Mr. Gingrich was the mastermind behind the Contract with America that helped win the first Republican House majority in 40 years. Shawn Steel, an RNC member from California, says: "Newt is one of the few people who knows how to be an effective party builder, and to unify the party around conservative ideas. He wakes every morning thinking about how he can put the hurt to the other team."
We're told Mr. Gingrich would be interested in the job, though he's pulling down a big income with his various enterprises and his association with various think tanks. Newt is also said still to be a master fundraiser with conservatives, a big asset given the party's depleted coffers. Most importantly, "one of the problems McCain and George Bush both have is that they are not good speakers," says Mr. Kingston. "Obviously, Mr. Obama is. And I think Newt could go head to head with him."
-- Stephen Moore
Words, More Words and History
Barack Obama's victory speech last night undoubtedly went through many drafts and was labored over long and hard -- and it sounded like it. For the first time, his eloquence seemed to become a barrier erected between himself and the world. With his first State of the Union address just weeks away, let's hope he learns to say simply and clearly that he wants a prosperous economy, disciplined government and a sustainable system for financing the country's health care consumption and retirement lifestyles.
John McCain's concession speech certainly was heavily worked-over too -- and yet didn't sound written at all. It sounded like the Mr. McCain we've all come to know directly revealing what we've all come to know about him. Mr. Obama's speechwriters should take note.
As for the third and invisible player in last night's drama, President Bush now heads for the history books, whose opinion he claims not to worry about. Whatever it might be, the "verdict of history" is hardly infallible and doesn't require or deserve universal assent. That said, if Harry Truman and Woodrow Wilson can recruit legions of admirers among subsequent historians, Mr. Bush will too -- and then some. After all, he doesn't bequeath his successor a futile stalemate in Iraq. He didn't win the war only to lose the peace. His military performance looks like genius compared to the Korean near-disasters of Pusan and Yalu. What's more, if the next president or two squander his success in Iraq, he's virtually guaranteed a place in the pantheon -- because historians are usually friendly to the visionary risktaker whose legacy is undermined by mere politicians.
-- Holman W. Jenkins Jr.
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Temporary Ted
People are scratching their heads that Alaska Senator Ted Stevens appears to have won re-election despite being convicted on seven felony counts of concealing improper gifts received from an oil services company executive. He clings to a 4,000-vote lead over Democrat Mark Begich, Anchorage's mayor, with several thousand absentee ballots not yet counted.
That Alaska is a Republican state and turnout was high due to the presence of Governor Sarah Palin on the GOP ticket isn't enough to explain how the 84-year-old Stevens appears to have become a political Lazarus. For one thing, turnout wasn't up very much, if at all. Certainly loyalty to Mr. Stevens, whose control over the levers of the federal budget has allowed him to play the state's Santa Claus for four decades, was a factor.
But the real reason for his survival appears to be tactical voting on the part of the state's voters. GOP sources tell me word was spread that the only way to keep the seat in the Republican column and prevent a possible 60-seat filibuster-proof Democratic majority was for voters to hold their noses and re-elect Mr. Stevens. Mr. Stevens himself implied as much in the race's only debate, held after his conviction.
The drama is now likely to play out as follows: Should Mr. Stevens be certified the winner, he will likely be told he won't be seated when the new Senate convenes in January. Governor Palin then would fill the vacancy for a period not to exceed 90 days, when a special election would have to be held. Mrs. Palin is likely to appoint her lieutenant governor, Sean Parnell, to the seat. Mr. Parnell, in turn, would likely face Mr. Begich early next year. Watch for a great deal of money to be poured into the race by Democrats, who hope that the absence of the legendary Mr. Stevens from the ballot will finally give them a chance to win.
-- John Fund
Obama v. Pelosi
Barack Obama obviously has thought carefully about mistakes made by previous Democratic presidential winners who wrongly believed a Congress controlled by their own party would help make them a success.
Pollster Doug Schoen, who helped Bill Clinton win re-election in 1996 over overwhelming odds after the 1994 Democratic debacle, recently warned in a Journal op-ed: "If the Democrats govern as if there is no Republican Party, they are likely headed to the kind of reaction that Bill Clinton faced when he made the same misjudgment after the 1992 election victory." Mr. Schoen cites specifically a meeting in Little Rock after the election with Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell and House Speaker Tom Foley, when Mr. Clinton agreed to defer to Congress on key elements of his legislative agenda. The subsequent lurch to the left did incalculable damage to his presidency.
That may be one reason why Mr. Obama has chosen Rahm Emanuel, a respected member of the Congressional leadership, to become his new White House Chief of Staff. Mr. Emanuel has a reputation as a tough partisan, but he has also exhibited impatience with left-wing members of his party who have overly ambitious ideological agendas. A likely first assignment for Mr. Emanuel will be reminding House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid that, after only two years of Democratic control, Congress already has a lower approval rating than even President Bush's.
To the extent Mr. Obama becomes a successful president, it will be because he remains his own man and trusts the brilliant political instincts that have gotten him this far, this fast.
-- John Fund
Throw the Bums In
For an idea of just how ugly the anti-GOP tide was in this election, and how powerful was Barack Obama's influence on the ticket, consider the Democrats who survived. Not even earmark scandals or constituent insults were enough to dislodge Pennsylvania's Paul Kanjorski and Jack Murtha.
Mr. Kanjorski was considered the Democratic Party's most vulnerable member this year, and for reasons of his own making. The twelve-termer from Northeast Pennsylvania's 11th District landed in the soup after directing millions in defense funding to a research company owned by his relatives that ultimately went bankrupt. Mr. Kanjorski was widely expected to lose to his well-known Republican challenger, Hazleton Mayor Lou Barletta. Instead, a flood of newly registered voters came out to support Mr. Obama and brought Mr. Kanjorski along for the ride.
That was also the case in Western Pennsylvania, where 17-term Rep. Murtha had managed to offend most of his district by claiming his constituents were "rednecks" who might be too "racist" to vote for Mr. Obama. That got voters thinking about Mr. Murtha's long and checkered past, and wondering if they wouldn't like something new in the person of retired Army lieutenant colonel William Russell. Closing polls showed the race surprisingly tight, yet Mr. Murtha, after an emergency visit by Bill Clinton to the district, pulled 58% of the vote. "You keep sending me back regardless of what I say," Mr. Murtha chortled afterward.
True, if unfortunate.
-- Kim Strassel
Quote of the Day
"[John] McCain deserves credit for a respectable showing and dodging the full-on disaster his party could have faced. How did he achieve that? One word: 'Maverick.' While Obama made a strong case tying McCain to President Bush, McCain was able to cut loose some of that dead weight by distancing himself from Bush over the campaign's final weeks. McCain won a striking 31 percent of voters who said they disapprove of Bush, including 16 percent of voters who said they 'strongly disapprove' of Bush. In 2000, by way of comparison, Al Gore carried just 9 percent of voters who disapproved of Bill Clinton" -- National Journal's John Mercurio.
Leading With Ideas
With the election results pouring in early Tuesday night, Florida Rep. Adam Putnam announced he was resigning from his post as the No. 3 Republican in the House, saying: "It is time to step off the leadership ladder and return my focus to crafting public policy solutions for America's generational challenges -- the very reason I ran for Congress in the first place."
Mr. Putnam is one of his party's most promising young leaders -- smart, principled and gifted politically. He also is living evidence that at least some Republicans understand why their party has so quickly become irrelevant.
Potentially another is GOP House Minority Leader John Boehner. He didn't step down to take responsibility for Tuesday's outcome, but he did send a letter to his members spelling out the party's need to win back credibility "issue by issue" by showing voters that Republicans have better solutions to the problems facing the country.
History will show the GOP's slide from power began earlier but became precipitous with Hurricane Katrina. Remember, in the weeks before the storm hit, Republicans were talking about votes on tax cuts and Social Security reform. But between President George W. Bush's slow response to the devastation and Congress's giddy rush to spend billions indiscriminately to "rebuild" from the storm, the small-government, low-taxes agenda that had animated the GOP since Ronald Reagan was swept away.
Majority Leader Tom DeLay went so far as to pooh-pooh concerns by saying the budget had already been stripped of wasteful spending. Mr. DeLay unceremoniously refused to support efforts by Rep. Mike Pence and other conservatives to offset any Katrina spending with corresponding cuts. The Bridge to Nowhere only became the most visible sign of the utter collapse of GOP credibility on bread-and-butter issues.
After Tuesday, there will no longer be a Republican in the House from New England. Republicans already have taken a pounding in recent years in New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Michigan and Iowa -- regions hit hard by the loss of manufacturing jobs but also suffering under a burden of taxes and regulation that have driven businesses and households to friendlier climes. These are states where the GOP agenda, if enacted, might actually do some visible good. Instead Republicans themselves are an endangered species.
The path back to power is to do what Rep. Putnam is suggesting. The GOP has to show itself to be relevant again in the upper Midwest, Mid-Atlantic and New England. Writing off much of this territory has left the party with a shrinking base. If the GOP's hold on the South is now in jeopardy -- as the results from Virginia suggest -- that's all the more reason to start back at the grass-roots level. How long Republicans will remain in the political wilderness depends on what they start doing today.
-- Brendan Miniter
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Great dialogue on future of the GOP and conservative movement from Slate. I broke it into two parts.
http://www.slate.com/id/2203800/entry/2203801/
From: Jim Manzi
To: Tucker Carlson, Ross Douthat, Douglas Kmiec, Kathleen Parker, Christine Todd Whitman
Subject: A Return to Reaganism Won't Be Enough
Posted Wednesday, Nov. 5, 2008, at 9:04 AM ET
Tucker, Ross, Douglas, Kathleen, and Christine,
What should the GOP, and the conservative movement more generally, be concentrating on for the next few years? Developing, demonstrating, and communicating solutions to the current problems of the middle class.
Most conservatives who propose a return to "Reagan conservatism" don't understand either the motivations or structure of the Reagan economic revolution. The 1970s were a period of economic crisis for America as it emerged from global supremacy to a new world of real economic competition. The Reagan economic strategy for meeting this challenge was sound money plus deregulation, broadly defined. It succeeded, but it exacerbated a number of pre-existing trends that began or accelerated in the '70s that tended to increase inequality.
International competition is now vastly more severe than it was 30 years ago. The economic rise of the Asian heartland is the fundamental geostrategic fact of the current era. In aggregate, America is rich and economically successful but increasingly unequal, with a stagnating middle class. If we give up the market-based reforms that allow us to prosper, we will lose by eventually allowing international competitors to defeat us. But if we let inequality grow unchecked, we will lose by eventually hollowing out the middle class and threatening social cohesion. This rock-and-a-hard-place problem, not some happy talk about the end of history, is what "globalization" means for the United States.
Seen in this light, the challenge in front of conservatives is clear: How do we continue to increase the market orientation of the American economy while helping more Americans to participate in it more equally?
Here are two ideas among many.
First, improve K-12 schools. U.S. public schools are in desperate need of improvement and have been for decades. We do not prepare the average American child to succeed versus international competition. Schools can do only so much to fix this—in a nation where 37 percent of births are out-of-wedlock, many children will be left behind—but it would be a great start if the average school didn't go out of its way to make kids lazy and stupid.
No amount of money or number of "programs" will create anything more than marginal improvements, because public schools are organized to serve teachers and administrators rather than students and families. We need, at least initially, competition for students among public schools in which funding moves with students and in which schools are far freer to change how they operate. As we have seen in the private economy, only markets will force the unpleasant restructuring necessary to unleash potential. Conservatives have long had this goal but are unprepared to win the fight. Achieving it would be at least a decade-long project.
The role of the federal government could be limited but crucial. Suppose it established a comprehensive national exam by grade level to be administered by all schools and universities that receive any federal money and required each school to publish all results, along with other detailed data about school budgets, performance, and so forth each year. Secondary, profit-driven information providers, analogous to credit-rating agencies and equity analysts, would arise to inform decision-making. The federal role would be very much like that of the Securities and Exchange Commission for equity markets: to ensure that each school published accurate, timely, and detailed data. This would not only improve schools in the aggregate but also serve to provide a more realistic path of economic advancement to anybody with a reasonably responsible family and help to acculturate more Americans to a market economy. This would also become a model for other reform of entitlement programs, from retirement accounts to medial care.
Second, reconsider immigration policy. What if, once we had control of our southern border, we came to view the goal of immigration policy as recruiting instead of law enforcement? Once we established a target number of immigrants per year, we could set up recruiting offices looking for the best possible talent everywhere from Beijing to Helsinki. It would be great for America as a whole to have, say, 500,000 very smart, motivated people move here each year with the intention of becoming citizens. It would also do wonders for equality if they were not almost all desperately poor, unskilled, and competing with already low-wage workers.
Other examples of policies that can raise competitiveness and lower inequality, ranging from reduced small-business regulation to allowing individuals tax deductibility for private health care purchases to automatic (with an opt-out) enrollment for 401(k) plans, become obvious once you start to look for them. What they tend to have in common is a focus on building human capital and effective market institutions. That is, they build the key resources of the new economy.
The conservative movement has become excessively dogmatic and detached from realities on the ground. It needs to become more empirical and practical—which strike me as traditionally conservative attitudes.
From: Douglas W. Kmiec
To: Tucker Carlson, Ross Douthat, Jim Manzi, Kathleen Parker, and Christine Todd Whitman
Subject: The Not-So-Grand, Really-Old-Idea Party
Posted Wednesday, Nov. 5, 2008, at 10:22 AM ET
Tucker, Ross, Jim, Kathleen, and Christine,
Ronald Reagan attracted me to his side in 1980 with five words: "family, work, neighborhood, peace, and freedom." It was Barack Obama who spoke in those timeless terms in this election, and he received his just reward Tuesday evening. What's more, he spoke about them by using well-considered, new ideas—for example, universal health insurance, as well as a national commitment (and not just an anemic executive order) for faith-based and often neighborhood social-service delivery.
How might Republicans catch up? With respect to family, it has been a good many years since the Supreme Court approved vouchers, yet Republicans have yet to pursue the opportunity. A nationwide voucher effort for math and science, or a voucher for full tuition, for low-achieving children would have plenty of social-science research and support behind it. It would also put families back in charge of the upbringing of their children.
The right to life remains a highly important and sensitive topic. Republicans have been trying to sell themselves for so long on the basis of judicial appointments and the supposed "fifth vote" to overturn Roe, sometimes you wonder if they realize how selecting judges on that basis disserves the rule of law. It also keeps Republicans perennially looking like the gang that can't shoot straight—given the number of "fifth votes" they've already appointed to the court, from Sandra Day O'Connor to Anthony Kennedy to David Souter.
The Democrats had a brilliant strategy on abortion this year: Don't play the futile court speculation game. Instead, Obama's team promoted life in ways that don't depend upon a Supreme Court vacancy and cooperating nominee. Specifically, Obama had the Dems commit to promote life with enhanced social and economic assistance. This idea had traction—the Catholic vote literally switched from Republican to Democrat, going (in preliminary numbers) 55-45 for Obama nationwide, which is amazing given the amount of outright lies and falsehoods the GOP was purveying about the president-elect on this issue. (Not to mention the co-conspiring clergy the Republicans captured, who were literally preaching that voters would go to hell for voting for Barack.) The Republicans became the party of fear and damnation rather than solution or respect for life. As a consequence, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, and Virginia are in the Democratic, not the Republican, column.
It's admittedly hard to untie the abortion knot, but here's a thought: Republicans could have moved a constitutional amendment that would presume life to begin at conception, while further providing that no government, federal or state, is competent to legislate on the question absent a supermajority. The effect? Taking the Supreme Court's "activist" thumb off the scale against life while at the same time avoiding the criminalization of a woman's freedom. This is not the ideal Catholic position, but it's closer, and the Catholic Church has less standing to complain about a grant of freedom that could then be fairly influenced by the moral instruction associated with a woman's religious choice.
Of course, respecting the dignity of work requires Republicans to think past the pretense of the unregulated market, which as an ideal has never truly existed. One might expect that Republicans, as the proponents of the benefits of vibrant competition, would not promote antitrust principles that reduce competition by making mergers and consolidation too available. Incentives promoting both employment security and better work/family balance are also worth exploring.
As for peace, it is well past time that the neoconservatives be given a good swift boot out of the Pentagon, if not the town. Then Republicans could give up trying to sell us the stale bill of goods that Iraq is the central front of anything or that the surge is working. Trade, too, remains an opportunity for expanded freedom. Our principles of international trade should match the stronger EU market integration that minimizes impediments to commerce, rather than permit even the most heavy-handed regulation so long as it is facially nondiscriminatory between in-state and out-of-state commerce.
Finally, beyond these somewhat wonkish ideas for policy innovation, Republicans ought to remember occasionally that they are—or at least were—the party of Lincoln, and ought to promote civil and human rights. That is better than dragging one's feet on reasonable ways to break up the systematic racism or gender stereotypes that still inhabit much of our culture.
The GOP also needs to recruit some new blood. Ron Paul was young at heart and amusingly nonconformist, and Sarah Palin was well-dressed, if somewhat goofy in demeanor. Mitt Romney looked, thought, and acted like a president, which is probably why a party that indulges far too much gratuitous intramural sniping over whether Hayek or von Mises is the better thinker eliminated him with embarrassing sniping about his faith.
Given the historic opportunities embodied by the talented and inspiring Barack Obama, it is not clear to me that any GOP candidate could have prevailed. But one thing is obvious even to the man on the street: A campaign without a fresh face or new ideas was more of the same—and if nothing succeeds like success, nothing new succeeds at even less.
Welcome to the wilderness. It is time to think, rather than grouse or govern.
From: Ross Douthat
To: Tucker Carlson, Douglas W. Kmiec, Jim Manzi, Kathleen Parker, and Christine Todd Whitman
Subject: No One To Blame but Ourselves
Posted Wednesday, Nov. 5, 2008, at 11:30 AM ET
Tucker, Doug, Jim, Kathleen, and Christine,
Two years ago, while the Republicans were busy losing the House and the Senate, a young conservative writer named Michael Brendan Dougherty inclined his ear to the sound of right-wing recriminations and observed that "at the end of the day, the arguments all seem to boil down to something similar: If it were more like me, the Republican Party would be better off. It's failing because it's like you."
In the wake of Barack Obama's victory, this will be the pattern of conservative commentary for months and perhaps years to come. Foreign-policy realists will insist neoconservatism doomed the Bush administration to failure. Anti-immigration activists will claim that the Republican Party would have beaten Obama if only it had nominated somebody who actually opposed illegal immigration, instead of just pretending. Small-government conservatives will claim that if the Bush administration had only held the line on domestic spending, everything would have turned out differently. The dwindling band of Rockefeller Republicans will blame the whole thing on social conservatives for being too strident about abortion and gay marriage and turning off moderates; social conservatives, for their part, will argue that John McCain didn't talk enough about abortion and gay marriage. And so on.
I have my own dog in a number of these fights, but it's important to point out that nearly every faction will be able to score some points and lay some blame: A pair of defeats as resounding as '06 and '08 have a thousand fathers, no matter how much every right-winger would like to assign paternity to someone else. Which means that the best thing, by far, for the American right would be for every sect within the conservative temple to spend some time in self-examination before it turns to flinging blame.
Social conservatives, a group in which I count myself, might profitably meditate on how to disentangle our primary political goal—the protection of the unborn—from secondary issues like, say, abstinence-only education and the debate over evolution and intelligent design, which dovetail too easily with caricatures of religious fundamentalism (as Mike Huckabee and Sarah Palin both discovered in the media coverage of their campaigns). Meanwhile, those Republicans who wish that the GOP spend more time talking about, say, capital-gains tax rates and less time talking about abortion should recognize that in this election, the McCain ticket did exactly that, sidestepping the social issues and instead emphasizing a business-friendly tax agenda and (late in the game) Joe the Plumber's case against progressive taxation. This strategy did not exactly reap impressive returns.
Or, again, anti-immigration hawks should ponder the fact that in the long run, the GOP cannot win without Hispanic votes, and recognize that the party's increasingly poor showing in the Southwest has a lot to do with the bile that some conservatives direct at illegal immigrants. But advocates of comprehensive immigration reform should recognize that they lack credibility with many voters who are motivated by concerns for law and order rather than by bigotry; that by nominating John McCain, the most pro-immigration figure among the primary contenders, the GOP gained exactly nothing with Hispanic voters; and that the party will need other ways to win Latinos than simply pandering to their ethnic loyalties.
Likewise, in foreign policy, neoconservatives would do well to draw chastening lessons—about the utility of pre-emptive war, America's capacity for nation-building, and so on—from the debacles of the last four years. But neoconservatism did not give us Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney, and it's not as though there was a groundswell of opposition to the invasion of Iraq among non-neocon right-wingers. And the realist community, in particular, might profitably ponder how so many of its members found themselves supporting the invasion of Iraq and then opposing the only strategy—the surge—that's offered any hope of a decent outcome in that country.
There's a great deal of talk about a conservative crackup at the moment, as there always is after a big defeat. And some cracking-up will no doubt take place: Some factions and demographics will leave the right-wing tent, never to return, and others will (I hope!) join up in their place. But I suspect that the conservative coalition won't change all that much, once the dust has settled: There will still be free-marketeers and religious conservatives, idealists and realists, libertarians and law-and-order types. And as long as we're all going to be living together, each faction would do well to give the beams in their own eyes at least as much attention as they give the motes in the eyes of their neighbors.
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Part Two...
From: Christine Todd Whitman
To: Tucker Carlson, Ross Douthat, Douglas W. Kmiec, Jim Manzi, and Kathleen Parker
Subject: It Was Obama's Victory, Not Liberalism's
Posted Wednesday, Nov. 5, 2008, at 2:19 PM ET
Tucker, Ross, Doug, Jim, and Kathleen,
As conservatives, we have some questions to ask ourselves today. Has the country really embraced the idea of "redistributing the wealth"? Are Americans convinced that Washington is going to have the answers to all our needs? I don't think so. One pollster I heard zeroed in on people's obsession with Barack Obama the person, not necessarily Obama the ideology, and I have to agree. When the dust settles, I don't think we'll find a liberally recalibrated nation on our hands. Obama's victory showed that the majority of the American people aren't narrow-minded and don't object to bipartisan policy solutions.
I see this election as being more about hope than just change. It was about the hope that we can and should expect more out of our government—an area where Republicans have disappointed, but economic conservatism has not. This election was a clear repudiation of the last eight years. I can't tell you how many longtime Republicans have been in touch with me to say that they really wanted to vote for John McCain but couldn't accept the rightward tilt of the campaign, which they had seen too much of during the Bush administration. Thomas Friedman said it well in today's New York Times:
Bush & Co. did not believe that government could be an instrument of the common good. They neutered their cabinet secretaries and appointed hacks to big jobs. For them, pursuit of the common good was all about pursuit of individual self-interest. Voters rebelled against that. But there was also a rebellion against a traditional Democratic version of the common good—that it is simply the sum of all interest groups clamoring for their share.
What this means for Republicans and what this means for conservatives are two different things. For economic conservatives, we have to examine where we fit in American politics today—sadly, the party that used to represent us has strayed from the fundamentals. I hope that our home will lie with the GOP in the future, but that is not a given in light of the last eight years.
For the GOP, I hope that we are investing time in figuring out how to hold a coalition of economic conservatives, social moderates and conservatives, and foreign-policy conservatives under one umbrella. As Ross implied, we must resist the temptation to form a circular firing squad that casts blame on one or the other faction within the party. I, for one, am content to have the GOP wander in the Obama wilderness for four years if it forces my party to have a serious self-examination.
From: Tucker Carlson
To: Ross Douthat, Douglas W. Kmiec, Jim Manzi, Kathleen Parker, Christine Todd Whitman
Subject: Let's Find Someone Who Speaks English
Posted Thursday, Nov. 6, 2008, at 12:08 PM ET
Ross, Douglas, Kathleen, Jim, and Christine,
These entries are so smart that I don't have much to add, apart from the obvious: The various Republican constituencies need some reason to hang together. It's not obvious what socially conservative, big-government types like Mike Huckabee have in common with economically conservative libertines like Rudy Giuliani. So why are they in the same party? It used to be because they both hated communism. Then it was Bill Clinton. Most recently, it was a shared fear of Islamic extremism. What now? Time to think of something—quick. There's no natural reason these two groups should be connected. In fact, they sort of despise each other, as you'll notice immediately if you ever eat with them.
Once the party figures out what it's for—or more precisely, against—it ought to stick to its story. People respect principle, even if they disagree with it. That was Ron Paul's secret. (The gold standard? Who's for that? Didn't matter. Paul seemed like he sincerely was.) Let's say you spent decades extolling the genius of the free market, then, the moment an economic crisis struck, your first instinct was to swoop in and nationalize entire industries.
People might begin to suspect you weren't really sincere in the first place. They might also wonder if you ever really understood your own policies. You could lose an entire election over something like that.
Finally, after the party has settled on what it believes, it ought to go shopping for a leader. I recommend someone who speaks fluent English. This matters, it turns out, and not just for aesthetic reasons. In a democracy, eloquence is a basic condition of leadership. A president has a moral as well as a political obligation to explain his program. His constitutional powers are limited to just a few (war, the veto). His real authority comes from persuasion.
It helps if you can talk.
From: Ross Douthat
To: Tucker Carlson, Douglas M. Kmiec, Jim Manzi, Kathleen Parker, and Christine Todd Whitman
Subject: Kmiec's Abortion Folly
Posted Thursday, Nov. 6, 2008, at 1:40 PM ET
Tucker, Douglas, Jim, Kathleen, and Christine,
I tend to think that the GOP's position on abortion is pretty low on the list of topics that conservatives should be fretting about at the moment: My impression is that the life issue (or the choice issue, if you prefer) had very little impact on either party's fortunes in this cycle. But since Douglas Kmiec suggests that conservatives could profit from Barack Obama's example on the issue, let me offer a few words in response.
The trouble with seeking common ground on abortion is that the legal regime enacted by Roe and reaffirmed in Casey permits only the most minimal regulation of the practice, which means that any plausible "compromise" that leaves Roe in place will offer almost nothing to pro-lifers. Even the modest restrictions that prevail in many European countries (and that, not coincidentally, coincide with lower abortion rates) are out of the question under the current legal dispensation. This, in turn, explains why the national debate inevitably revolves around the composition of the Supreme Court and the either/or question of whether a president will appoint justices likely to chip away the Roe-Casey regime or justices likely to uphold it.
This state of affairs creates enormous frustration for pro-choice Republicans, a group in which I know some of the participants in this discussion count themselves, since it makes it next to impossible for pro-life primary voters to consider supporting a pro-choice candidate for the presidency or vice presidency. I think this frustration is somewhat misplaced, since to my mind any pro-choice American who sincerely seeks a national consensus on the subject of abortion should support overturning Roe and returning the issue to the democratic process—a position that I would have liked to see the pro-choice Rudy Giuliani experiment with, for instance, in his quest to become the GOP nominee. But I certainly understand why pro-choicers don't see things quite that way.
What I don't understand at all is Kmiec's position, which seems to be that the contemporary Democratic Party, and particularly the candidacy of Barack Obama, offered nearly as much to pro-lifers as the Republican Party does. I am sure that Kmiec is weary of being called a fool by opponents of abortion for his tireless pro-Obama advocacy during this election cycle, but if so, then the thing for him to do is to cease acting like the sort of person for whom the term "useful idiot" was coined, rather than persisting in his folly.
Those seeking a primer on the case against Kmiec's putatively pro-life position on Obama and abortion can begin here or here or here. Suffice to say that what he calls "outright lies and falsehoods" about Obama's views were, in fact, more or less the truth: The Democratic nominee ran on a record that can only be described as "very, very pro-choice," and his stated positions on abortion would involve rolling back nearly all the modest—but also modestly effective—restrictions that pro-lifers have placed upon the practice and/or appointing judges who would do the same. There may have been reasons for anti-abortion Americans to vote for Barack Obama in spite of his position that abortion should be essentially unregulated and funded by taxpayer dollars. But Kmiec's suggestion that Obama took the Democrats in anything like a pro-life direction on the issue doesn't pass the laugh test. (And nor, I might add, does his bizarre argument that because the goal of placing a fifth anti-Roe justice on the court is somehow unrealistic, the pro-life movement should pursue a far more implausible constitutional amendment instead.)
I suppose I could find a thing or three to agree with in Kmiec's longer list of ideas for how the party he abandoned could win back his vote. But frankly, I don't see the point. I understand that the pro-life position on abortion does not command majority support in the United States and that people of good will can disagree on the subject. And I have no doubt that the Republican Party can profit from greater dialogue between its pro-life and pro-choice constituents—and do a better job, as well, of addressing itself to both pro-lifers and pro-choicers who aren't already inside its tent. But I can't begin to fathom why the GOP should consider taking any advice whatsoever from a "pro-lifer" who has spent the past year serving as an increasingly embarrassing shill for the opposition party's objectively pro-abortion nominee.
Tucker Carlson is an author and commentator for MSNBC and The Daily Beast.
Ross Douthat is the author of Grand New Party and a blogger for the Atlantic.
Douglas Kmiec is a professor of constitutional law at Pepperdine University.
Jim Manzi, chairman of an applied artificial-intelligence software company, is a contributing editor of National Review.
Kathleen Parker is an author and syndicated columnist who also blogs for the Washington Post.
Christine Todd Whitman is the former governor of New Jersey and author of It's My Party, Too.
Article URL: http://www.slate.com/id/2203800/
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I like the one from Jim Manzi (whoever he is).
That is preciesly my position as to where we need to go not just as a party but as a country.
We don't need more Ann Coulter's analysis whose shrill (as usual) discourse from her stonified position on the far right is beyond obnoxious. I wouldn't bother to post it. You all know where to go if you want to waste your time as I did reading it.
Her brand of exclusionism is exactly why so many in this country despise Republicans.
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Good post from SBMig.
I too liked Manzi's comments in particular but found all of them assaying to be thoughtful and not just chattering class chatter.
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Where Did All the Voters Go?
Everyone was predicting a record voter turnout this year. It didn't happen. About half of young people, for example, stayed home, though those who did vote went overwhelmingly by 2 to 1 for Barack Obama.
What also happened was that Republicans stayed home, falling to 28.7% of the electorate from the 30% in 2004. Democrats turned out in slightly higher numbers, representing 31.3% of the total vote, up from the 28.7% in 2004.
At least one Democratic strategist says he's surprised overall turnout did not increase over 2004, despite rabid anti-Bush feeling, Barack Obama's rock star candidacy and massive investments in get-out-the-vote operations (GOTV).
"It sort of calls into question some of the vaunted ground game discussion, the whole turnout machine," the unnamed Democrat told Politico.com. "The GOTV effort was redoubled in 2008 compared to 2004, but it did not seem to make that big of a difference." Among states where voter turnout actually declined this year were such battlegrounds as Ohio and Pennsylvania.
In historical terms, political scientist Curtis Gans says this year's turnout was about the same as the 1968 Nixon vs. Humphrey race as a percentage of the voting-age population. Factoring in the big increase in black participation since then, this year's turnout was actually below that of the 1960 and 1964 elections.
-- John Fund
At Least Al Franken Can Play Himself in HBO's 'Recount II'
What to expect in the stalemated Minnesota Senate race between Norm Coleman and Al Franken? Mr. Coleman now leads by a mere 238 votes after local officials corrected a few errors in their counts. Next comes an audit of selected precincts followed by a mandatory hand recount of 2.9 million ballots.
The first deadline comes today, when all 87 counties are scheduled to submit official counts. This should be the last time the vote count shifts before the official recount. Ballot challenges are all but inevitable. Minnesota isn't Florida -- the state uses optically-scanned paper ballots, so there won't be any hanging chads. But state officials expect to discover that election machines miscounted an unusual number of ballots because so many first-time voters are believed to have mismarked their ballots. By one estimate, two votes out of 1,000 may be mismarked, which would mean the machines improperly counted as many as 5,800 votes.
Ultimately, challenged ballots will go before a state canvassing board that consists of two state Supreme Court justices, two district court judges and is chaired by Secretary of State Mark Ritchie, a Democrat. Starting on Dec. 16, the board will review the challenged ballots to see if "voter intent" can be fairly determined. Barring legal challenges, Mr. Ritchie hopes the process can be wrapped up a week before Christmas.
But court challenges are almost certain. The Coleman campaign already lost a bid to discard 32 absentee ballots from heavily Democratic Hennepin County. The campaign says the ballots weren't properly secured and could have been tampered with. Both camps now are directing volunteers to keep watch on ballot boxes throughout the state. Meanwhile, Mr. Coleman is still trying to recruit an election expert to monitor the recount on his behalf. U.S. Attorney Tom Heffelfinger had agreed to take the job but bowed out after realizing it conflicted with his current assignment of investigating possible police misconduct at the Republican National Convention in the Twin Cities last summer.
Mr. Coleman, who was a Democrat until 1996, has experienced his share of unusual campaigns, so at least he's steeled for the roller-coaster ride. Not only was he bested by pro wrestler Jesse Ventura in the 1998 governor's race. In 2002, he was running neck and neck in the polls with popular Democratic Senator Paul Wellstone when Mr. Wellstone died in a plane crash less than two weeks before Election Day. To take Wellstone's place, Democrats quickly nominated former Vice President Walter Mondale, who held the seat from 1964 to 1977. But Mr. Coleman still managed to eke out a 60,000-vote victory.
-- Brendan Miniter
The Palin Factor
In the closing days of the election, it was an article of faith among the pundits that Gov. Sarah Palin had become a drag on the Republican ticket. Whether because of the "Troopergate" investigation or her primetime network interviews, Mrs. Palin's popularity with the public declined considerably. Once hailed as an inspired pick, Sen. John McCain's choice of the unknown Alaskan governor was generally viewed as a missed opportunity.
So now that we have piles of exit polling data to sift through, what can we say about Mrs. Palin's effect on the election?
Asked if she was "a factor" in their vote, 60% said yes, while 33% said no. Yet of those who said Mrs. Palin was a factor, 56% voted for Mr. McCain, while 43% voted for Mr. Obama. Even among independent voters (a group Mr. McCain lost by eight points) she was a net vote-getter for the Republican ticket among those independents who said Mrs. Palin was a factor.
Mrs. Palin, however, didn't come through with one big group of voters -- those who supported Sen. Hillary Clinton in the primaries. In the immediate aftermath of Mrs. Clinton's defeat, polls suggested that a good portion of these voters were ready to support the Republican ticket. It must have seemed too tantalizing a prospect for the McCain campaign to pass up by choosing a man as a running mate. Yet, in the end, Mrs. Palin didn't seal the deal with Hillary voters, who went for Mr. Obama 83% to 16%.
On other important voting blocs, such as white women, gun owners and Evangelicals, the McCain-Palin ticket performed about the same as the Bush-Cheney team in 2004.
The conclusion? Mrs. Palin failed to win the election for Mr. McCain, but that's setting the bar awfully high. Given the headwinds, Mr. McCain perhaps was lucky to do as well as he did -- and his showing might well have been worse without Mrs. Palin on the ticket.
-- Blake Dvorak, RealClearPolitics.com
The Mercurial Mr. Jones
Nothing illustrates the Republican party's fortunes in North Carolina since 1994 better than the career of Congressman Walter Jones, a Democrat turned Republican and now apparently turned Democrat again.
In 1992, Mr. Jones ran for Congress as a Democrat to succeed his father, Walter B. Jones Sr., who was retiring after a 25-year career. The younger Mr. Jones lost the primary narrowly. Sensing that political tides were shifting in the state, he ran in a reconfigured district in 1994 as a Republican and won.
But he was never a close fit with his new colleagues, opposing the Iraq war and routinely voting as a less-than-party-line stalwart on other issues. In 2006, Congressional Quarterly called him the third most likely Republican and eighth most likely House Member to defect from his party's caucus, doing so about 36% of the time.
That record of apostasy generated a primary challenge to Mr. Jones this year, but one he weathered with 59% of the vote and the continued support of GOP party leaders. He coasted to victory over a weak Democrat last week in a district that the Cook Political Report says leans about 15 points more Republican than the nation as a whole in presidential elections.
Mr. Jones has long hinted he might be a double-switcher, especially after he was denied an Armed Services subcommittee chairmanship in 2006. He admitted being approached by Democrats at the time but told The Hill newspaper: "I just take each day as it comes; I certainly think about where I will be a year or two, three years from now, but that's God's plan, not mine. . . . I think at the present time, because of the pro-life issue primarily, I am where I need to be. But I am an independent."
Well, it's been two years since that statement and, sure enough, Mr. Jones is poised today to rejoin the Democrats. The news couldn't come at a worse time for the North Carolina GOP, which just lost a U.S. Senate seat, a U.S. House seat and saw the state shift to the Democratic column for president for only the second time since Ronald Reagan's 1980 election.
Party switchers have an indifferent record of winning their next races, which clearly is why Mr. Jones is making his switch early so as to give voters as much time as possible to acclimate themselves to his latest change in political fashion.
-- John Fund
Quote of the Day
"[Barack] Obama, who is not without an ego, regarded himself as just as gifted as his top strategists in the art and practice of politics. Patrick Gaspard, the campaign's political director, said that when, in early 2007, he interviewed for a job with Obama and [campaign adviser David] Plouffe, Obama said that he liked being surrounded by people who expressed strong opinions, but he also said, 'I think that I'm a better speechwriter than my speechwriters. I know more about policies on any particular issue than my policy directors. And I'll tell you right now that I'm gonna think I'm a better political director than my political director.' After Obama's first debate with McCain, on September 26th, Gaspard sent him an e-mail. 'You are more clutch than Michael Jordan,' he wrote. Obama replied, 'Just give me the ball'" -- New Yorker writer Ryan Lizza on "How Obama Won."
Extreme Makeover
The liberal news media apparently have some advice for John McCain on how to crawl back into their approval zone.
You'll recall that Mr. McCain was the toast of liberal pundits and journalists during the 2000 campaign and for many subsequent years. As he courted conservatives to win the GOP nomination this year, however, all that changed. The media wondered how Mr. McCain had wound up embracing his "dark side." But now that the election is over, he can redeem himself.
Christopher Beam, a political reporter for Slate.com, offers a guide on how Senator McCain can "rehabilitate" his image following the alleged nastiness of the just-concluded campaign.
"The media, a group John McCain once called his 'base,' have fallen off the boat," Mr. Beam writes. "Now is the time to rebuild." He suggests Mr. McCain begin by acknowledging "mistakes" in his campaign (or what the media believe are mistakes) such as his choice of Sarah Palin as running mate. He should also write a tell-all memoir, painting his own campaign in unvarnished colors. In addition to working overtime now to support President Obama, he should also make it a point to "p--- off Republicans" by adopting political stances that please the media.
Mr. McCain is certainly getting similar strategy tips from many of his aides and confidants. Just how much of that advice he takes will tell us a lot about John McCain's need for media attention and approval.
-- John Fund
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Can Newt Save the GOP?
Both the Democratic and Republican National Committees are likely to have new leadership next year.
Former Democratic Governor Howard Dean of Vermont is stepping down, having completely recovered from his unfortunate reputation as an erratic and wildly liberal 2004 presidential contender. As chairman of the DNC, he adopted a controversial "50-state strategy" that had the party pouring resources into states it normally didn't contest. His strategy paid off this year as Barack Obama won such states as Indiana and Virginia that had not voted Democratic at the presidential level since Barry Goldwater's landslide loss in 1964.
Unknown yet is whom Mr. Dean's replacement will be, but it's certainly going to be someone President-elect Obama will have confidence in -- campaign manager David Plouffe comes to mind.
On the Republican side, the jockeying to replace current GOP Chairman Mike Duncan has begun. Mr. Duncan has been a competent administrator and fundraiser but the widely perceived need for new blood in the wake of the party's second consecutive drubbing at the polls makes him unlikely to be re-elected.
Several candidates are lining up to replace him. Michigan GOP State Chairman Saul Anuzis is actively campaigning on a platform of reinvigorating the party's grass roots and returning to basic conservative principles. South Carolina Party Chairman Kalton Dawson is touting his fundraising abilities as he rounds up votes among fellow RNC members.
But several insiders believe the next RNC chairman must have some star power and an ability to get on national talk shows at a time when the new Obama administration will dominate media coverage. Former Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael Steele, now chairman of the GOPAC conservative training academy, is allowing friends to make calls on his behalf. Mr. Steele is already a fixture on cable TV news shows and well known in Washington D.C. conservative circles.
But some Republicans are touting someone with an even bigger media profile -- former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. "The Republican National Committee has to ask itself if it wants someone who has successfully led a revolution," Randy Evans, Mr. Gingrich's personal attorney, told the Washington Times this week. "If it does, Newt's the one."
While it sounds implausible, many Republicans think a return of Mr. Gingrich to the national stage would be the jolt of energy the party needs. They point out that many were also skeptical that Howard Dean could sublimate his ego enough to become a successful party leader -- a worry clearly now proven wrong in Mr. Dean's case.
-- John Fund
Belushi and Ackroyd, They're Not
C-SPAN unearthed a remarkable video from its archives this week. Back in 2005, freshly minted U.S. Senator Barack Obama was part of a celebrity roast for his Chicago pal Rep. Rahm Emanuel, who is now about to become his White House chief of staff. The event, a charity benefit for an epilepsy foundation run by the wife of Obama strategist David Axelrod, provides an eerie preview of the new top players in Washington.
During his turn at the microphone, Mr. Obama took a risk and joked about an accident the teenage Emanuel suffered that caused him to lose part of his middle finger. "As a result, this rendered him practically mute," Mr. Obama joked about the famously profane Mr. Emanuel.
Mr. Obama also had fun with the fact that the young Rahm practiced ballet, quipping that his friend was "the very first to develop Machiavelli's 'The Prince' for dance. It was an intriguing piece -- a lot of kicks below the waist."
No dinner honoring a Chicago pol would have been complete without a few pokes at the city's rich tradition of political corruption. Mr. Obama obliged, noting that he was in awe of the fact that Mr. Emanuel had avoided appearing before a criminal grand jury. He chalked it up to the fact that Mr. Emanuel shared the same lawyer as Chicago Sun-Times columnist Robert Novak, who was then in hot water over the Valerie Plame affair.
All in good fun, but here's hoping that notwithstanding the jokes about Chicago, not too many of its cultural mores and patronage politics seep into the DNA of the Obama administration.
-- John Fund
Read Their Lips
It wasn't all bad news for conservatives on November 4th. Voters across the country decided the fate of scores of ballot initiatives dealing with taxes and government spending. With our friends at the National Taxpayers Union and Americans for Tax Reform, we've compiled some of the most important results. For the most part, voters aren't in a full-fledged tax revolt but they're a lot less enthusiastic about new taxes than President-elect Obama seems to be.
First, the defeats. Two of the most prominent anti-tax initiatives, one in Massachusetts to abolish the income tax and another in North Dakota to cut income taxes by 15%, failed by two-to-one margins. In a previous election, an initiative to abolish the Massachusetts income tax had come within four percentage points of winning. What changed? Carla Howell, who led the effort to repeal the tax, was quoted in the Boston Globe: "The teachers unions spent 100 times more on advertising than we did. The message to voters: advertising works."
Minnesotans were among the few voters in the country who said "yes" to new taxes. An initiative to raise the sales tax by 3/8ths of a percentage point pay for the arts was approved.
But otherwise, the left's crusade to raise revenues for new spending programs was mostly beaten back and in some cases trounced. Arizonans voted to ban transfer taxes on property sales by 77% to 23%. Maine voters repealed an alcohol and soda pop tax by 64% to 36%. Coloradoans rejected a teensy 0.2 percentage point sales tax hike to benefit the disabled by 63% to 37%. Floridians defeated a measure that would have allowed localities to propose new sales taxes to benefit community colleges by 57% to 43%. The left's latest crusade to impose "fat taxes" on McDonalds and other fast food purchases was clobbered in localities in North Carolina and Virginia, even as these voters helped elect Barack Obama. Finally, one of the biggest successes for anti-tax activists was defeating an amendment to gut the spending limits in Colorado's Taxpayer's Bill of Rights, despite huge money spent by the spending constituencies.
Though California was home to one of the nation's seminal tax revolts -- 1978's Proposition 13 -- the latest results in the Golden State were mixed. Voters inexplicably approved a high-speed rail bond of $10 billion, with at least another $30 billion of spending required to complete the project. This is a state that's already hopelessly mired in debt.
On the other hand, renewable energy may be a liberal and environmentalist panacea, but even Californians apparently aren't too eager to pay for it. Voters rejected $5 billion in renewable energy program bonds by 60% to 40% and thrashed a measure requiring all utilities to generate at least one-fifth of their power from renewable energy by 2010 (it lost by 65% to 35%). Colorado voters also crushed Governor Bill Ritter's tax on "big oil."
"We had some big victories last Tuesday," says National Taxpayer Union spokesman Pete Sepp. "We blocked a lot of bad things from happening." That's what Republicans in Congress will have to learn to do over the next four years.
-- Stephen Moore
Quote of the Day I
"Sarah Palin made a vast difference in John McCain's favor. Compared to 2004, McCain lost 11 points among white men according to the Fox News exit poll but only 4 points among white women. Barack Obama's underperformance among white women, evident throughout the fall, may be chalked up, in large part, to the influence of Palin. She provided a rallying point for women who saw their political agenda in terms larger than abortion. She addressed the question of what it is like to be a working mother in today's economy and society, and resonated with tens of millions of white women who have not responded to the more traditional, and liberal, advocates for their gender" -- political analyst Dick Morris in his syndicated column.
Quote of the Day II
"Now it's starting to get creepy. In an odd way, the selection of Rahm Emanuel as Barack Obama's chief of staff fulfills yet another plot line that unfolded during the final season of NBC's 'West Wing,' which must have been written by Nostradamus. As aficionados of the long-running show will know, Emanuel is widely cited as inspiration for the character of Josh Lyman, who becomes the chief of staff to the new president, Matthew Santos. And the real conspiracy theorists know why that's important: The Santos character is modeled after Obama. (The writers spoke repeatedly with David Axelrod while composing their prophetic plot lines.) This isn't the first parallel to emerge from the show. . . . At this rate, John McCain will be named as Obama's secretary of state. After all, that's how the season ends, with Santos picking his former rival in the ultimate gesture of bipartisanship" -- Lucas Grindley, writing at Government Executive magazine's "Lost in Transition" blog.
Voters vs. Tort Sharks
One heartening aspect of last week's election was a surge of voters taking a new -- and inspired -- interest in elections for state attorneys general. The public clearly has become wary of top law officers with ties to the tort bar who campaign to increase litigation and target the business community.
In West Virginia, a little known GOP lawyer Dan Greear came within a few thousand votes of knocking off state AG and institution Darrell McGraw, who now begins his 16th year in the job. Mr. Greear was supposed to be a write-off -- he was outmatched in funding, name recognition, and up against a powerful, populist AG who has long used his position to dole out political patronage (culled from legal settlements) to favored constituencies. Mr. Greear nonetheless managed to surprise the political establishment by nearly pulling off an upset. In the process, he educated a lot of voters about what their state's reputation as a legal hellhole was costing its economy. He also inspired a cowed West Virginia business community to take a stand against Mr. McGraw's pro-litigation agenda.
Mr. Greear may have lost, but his efforts will likely have a lasting impact. Call it the Eliot Spitzer effect: Mr. McGraw is now on notice that a lot more voters have been clued in to the game he's been playing and don't approve.
Meanwhile, sitting GOP attorneys general in Pennsylvania, Utah and Washington State handily fought off challenges from Democratic opponents who had campaigned in favor of bigger, nastier litigation. In Indiana, Greg Zoeller, chief deputy for the current attorney general, won the top slot in part by noting that his office never had been close to trial lawyers. His Democratic opponent, Linda Pence, was a trial attorney. In North Carolina, a pro-business Democrat, Roy Cooper (who as attorney general threw out the Duke rape case) was reelected in his race against a Republican personal injury lawyer.
Sadly, Missouri and Oregon both elected particularly anti-business Democrats to the AG's office -- for which they may eventually pay a price in lost jobs and investment. In the middle of hard economic times, voters elsewhere have figured out that they make their states more competitive by electing an attorney general committed to the rule of law, rather than to shaking down business for the benefit of special interest groups.
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November 13, 2008
In today's Political Diary
'Election Day' Won't End Till Democrats Have 60
Nancy Rules
Pence for His Thoughts
The Man, Not the Plan (Quote of the Day)
Howard Shows How
Nightmare on Constitution Avenue
With news that Democratic candidate Mark Begich has taken the lead from incumbent GOP Senator Ted Stevens in Alaska's Senate race, Republicans are beginning to visualize a nightmare scenario in which Democrats actually reach the goal of 60 Senate seats that would allow them to stop any GOP filibuster.
The scenario runs like this:
First, Republicans lose the Alaska seat. At least 15,000 provisional ballots and an estimated 20,000 mailed absentee ballots remain to be counted. Ominously for Republicans, Mr. Begich now holds an 814-vote lead after some 50,000 absentee ballots were counted this week. The race could remain undecided for some time. Alaska will continue to accept absentee ballots through Nov. 19 if they were postmarked by Election Day.
Democrats also have an excellent opportunity to pick up a Georgia Senate seat if President-elect Obama decides it's vital for his party to win the December 2 runoff between GOP incumbent Saxby Chambliss and Democrat Jim Martin. With a snap of Mr. Obama's fingers, money and resources from Team Obama's vaunted organization would pour in. Dispirited Republicans might well stay home, allowing Democrats to capture the seat much as Republicans took a Georgia Senate seat in a similar 1992 runoff. "We're a long way away from having the resources we need to match the Democrats," Senator Chambliss told reporters.
Then there's Minnesota, where GOP Senator Norm Coleman's lead over comedian Al Franken has just dwindled to 206 votes even before a statewide recount begins next week. Republicans fear that Democratic Secretary of State Mark Ritchie, an ally of the activist group ACORN, will attempt to put his thumb on the scale during the process.
If bad breaks occur in all of these races, Democrats will win the important strategic and psychological prize of 60 seats, and Republicans will have lost 15 Senate seats in just two election cycles -- a modern record.
-- John Fund
The Godmother
How determined is House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to start the new term with her caucus marching in lockstep behind here? Take a look at the House Democratic leadership races -- if you can stay awake.
Barack Obama's tapping of Illinois Rep. Rahm Emanuel as his White House chief of staff opened up his powerful position as chair of the Democratic Caucus. Just a few days ago, rumors were flying that at least two challengers would seek his job. Connecticut Rep. John Larson, currently vice-chairman, made clear his intention to run. Maryland Rep. Chris Van Hollen, architect of this cycle's House wins, said he wanted to run as well, setting up a showdown. Meanwhile, the vice-chairman's job that Mr. Larson is vacating quickly attracted competing bids from Illinois Rep. Jan Schakowsky, New York Rep. Joe Crowley, and Florida Rep. Kendrick Meek.
But Mrs. Pelosi was apparently having none of it. Suddenly Mr. Van Hollen announced that he'd decided to stay put as chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee as well as accepting an additional title as "assistant" to Speaker Pelosi. That left Mr. Larson unopposed for the caucus chairmanship. At the same time, Reps. Shakowsky, Crowley and Meeks all changed their minds and decided not to run for the vice-chair slot. Instead, most will be supporting Mrs. Pelosi's handpicked ally for the job, California Rep. Xavier Becerra, who now appears a shoe-in.
In short, Mrs. Pelosi seems to have orchestrated the party's internal reorganization without any major infighting. Then again, she's also leaving some ambitious caucus members without prizes. We'll see how they respond once the legislating begins.
-- Kim Strassel
Hoosier Hero
The message of this election and the 2006 election is simple: "Big government Republicanism is a failed experiment."
So says Rep. Mike Pence, the Indiana Republican. Mr. Pence is running to become chairman of the House Republican Conference, the No. 3 power slot and effectively the communications director of the Republican Party. He is currently unopposed, but Dan Lungren of California has hinted he might also vie for the job. The leadership elections are next week.
I caught up with Mr. Pence on Wednesday and he was in a feisty mood. "Our job," he tells me, "is to expose and defeat the liberal agenda that is coming." He sees the first round being fought over a big-spending "stimulus" plan from the Obama administration as well as an attempt to reinstate the ban on offshore drilling. Mr. Pence says his party needs to discover its inner Reagan and bring back a "vision of policy contrast" with the Obama liberals. The only thing embattled Republicans have going for them, he adds, is that America "is still a center-right country. Voters know that we can't tax, spend and bailout our way back to prosperity."
Mr. Pence is ideally suited to rehab the Republican Party. He voted against three Bush initiatives that have grown the government mightily: the Medicare prescription drug benefit, the No Child Left Behind school spending law, and September's $700 billion financial rescue plan. Mr. Pence says he got into the race for conference chairman after a call from House Minority Leader John Boehner, who told him the party needs his crisp message.
Mr. Pence is a Reaganite optimist who tells me something that seems paradoxical but true. "For the first time in eight years, we as conservative Republicans have the wind at our backs." He means that being in the minority can be liberating, allowing the party to rediscover its bearings and figure out how to modernize the GOP message. Step One, he says, will be repudiating the Bush-era philosophy of "big government Republicanism."
Good riddance.
-- Stephen Moore
Quote of the Day
"First, the good news for Obama: Sixty-two percent of Americans expect him to be a 'good' or 'great' president, and 70 percent expect the economy to improve over the next four years, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today. . . But data in the Quinnipiac poll shows that overall goodwill won't necessarily translate into automatic support for Obama's policy proposals. Obama called for the closing of the prison at Guantanamo Bay during the campaign, and it was reported on Tuesday that the president-elect is already looking into shuttering the facility. But a 44 percent plurality of voters said Guantanamo should remain open, compared with 29 percent who wanted it closed and 27 percent who weren't sure. On Iraq, Obama's plans don't match voter sentiment right now, either. . . . And even on some Obama proposals with widespread support, Americans don't seem optimistic they'll be enacted. Fifty-four percent of voters believe the president-elect will not follow through on his oft-repeated campaign pledge to lower taxes for 95 percent of Americans" -- David Herbert, National Journal "Poll Track" columnist, on new post-election polling of voter attitudes about a Barack Obama presidency.
They're All Deaniacs Now
Four years after Howard Dean took over the Democratic National Committee with promises to invest in party building even in heavily Republican territory, his would-be counterparts in the Republican Party are talking about imitating Mr. Dean's approach. After all, it's tough to argue with two straight cycles of nearly unparalleled Democratic success.
Mr. Dean's "50-state strategy," which invested financial and human resources everywhere from Alaska to Wyoming and the Deep South, is credited with reviving the party in states where it had lately withered. In turn, those states helped steal more than 50 House seats from Republicans over two cycles, some in districts that gave President Bush more than 60% of the vote in 2004.
No wonder candidates looking to replace RNC chairman Mike Duncan are touting the Dean model as a way to rebuild the GOP. "We have to come up with our own 50-state strategy, so to speak," says Michigan GOP chair Saul Anuzis, who made his candidacy official on Wednesday.
"I thought Howard Dean had a pretty good idea with his 50-state strategy," echoes Oklahoma Republican Party chief Gary Jones, who is backing a combined ticket of former Senator Fred Thompson and one-time Michigan National Committeeman Chuck Yob for the RNC post.
Mr. Dean, the former Vermont governor who made a name for himself during the 2004 presidential primaries for his anti-war appeal to liberals, is an unlikely role model for Republican Party strategists. But they know a good idea when they see it. Along with gains in Congressional elections and picking up Electoral College votes from enemy territory in Indiana, North Carolina and even Nebraska's Second Congressional District, Democrats under Mr. Dean made impressive gains in state legislatures, including netting about 100 legislative seats this cycle (though several are being disputed in recounts).
Another great idea Republicans are adopting from Mr. Dean: If a candidate for public office helps raise money and manpower for state and local party organizations, the national party will always return the favor.
-- Reid Wilson, RealClearPolitics.com
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second post of the day:
Political races are about candidates and issues. But election results, in the end, are about numbers. So now that the dust is settling on the 2008 presidential race, what do the numbers tell us?
First, the predicted huge turnout surge didn't happen. The final tally is likely to show that fewer than 128.5 million people voted. That's up marginally from 122 million in 2004. But 17 million more people voted in 2004 than in 2000 (three times the change from 2004 to 2008).
Second, a substantial victory was won by modest improvement in the Democratic share of the vote. Barack Obama received 2.1 points more in the popular vote than President Bush received in 2004, 3.1 points more than Vice President Al Gore in 2000, and 4.6 points more than John Kerry in 2004. In raw numbers, the latest tally shows that Mr. Obama received 66.1 million votes, about 7.1 million more than Mr. Kerry.
About Karl Rove
Karl Rove served as Senior Advisor to President George W. Bush from 2000–2007 and Deputy Chief of Staff from 2004–2007. At the White House he oversaw the Offices of Strategic Initiatives, Political Affairs, Public Liaison, and Intergovernmental Affairs and was Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy, coordinating the White House policy making process.
Before Karl became known as "The Architect" of President Bush's 2000 and 2004 campaigns, he was president of Karl Rove + Company, an Austin-based public affairs firm that worked for Republican candidates, nonpartisan causes, and nonprofit groups. His clients included over 75 Republican U.S. Senate, Congressional and gubernatorial candidates in 24 states, as well as the Moderate Party of Sweden.
Karl writes a weekly op-ed for The Wall Street Journal, is a Newsweek columnist and is now writing a book to be published by Simon & Schuster. Email the author at Karl@Rove.com or visit him on the web at Rove.com.
Four out of five of these additional votes came from minorities. Mr. Obama got nearly 3.3 million more votes from African-Americans than did Mr. Kerry; 2.9 million of them were from younger blacks aged 18-29. A quarter of Mr. Obama's improvement among blacks -- 811,000 votes -- came from African-Americans who voted Republican in 2004. Mr. Obama also received 2.5 million more Hispanic votes than Mr. Kerry. Over a third of these votes -- 719,000 -- cast ballots for Republicans in 2004.
One of the most important shifts was Hispanic support for Democrats. John McCain got the votes of 32% of Hispanic voters. That's down from the 44% Mr. Bush won four years ago. If this trend continues, the GOP will find it difficult to regain the majority.
Mr. Obama won 4.6 million more votes in the West and 1.4 million more in the Midwest than Mr. Kerry. Mr. McCain, on the other hand, got more than 2.6 million fewer votes in the Midwest than Mr. Bush. In Ohio, for example, Mr. Obama received 32,000 fewer votes than Mr. Kerry in 2004 -- but Mr. McCain got 360,000 fewer votes than Mr. Bush. That turned a 119,000 vote GOP victory in 2004 into a 206,000 vote Democratic win this year.
Then there were those who didn't show up. There were 4.1 million fewer Republicans voting this year than in 2004. Some missing Republicans had turned independent or Democratic for this election. But most simply stayed home. Ironically for a campaign that featured probably the last Vietnam veteran to run for president, 2.7 million fewer veterans voted. There were also 4.1 million fewer voters who attend religious services more than once a week. Americans aren't suddenly going to church less; something was missing from the campaign to draw out the more religiously observant.
In a sign Mr. Obama's victory may have been more personal than partisan or philosophical, Democrats picked up just 10 state senate seats (out of 1,971) and 94 state house seats (out of 5,411). By comparison, when Ronald Reagan beat Jimmy Carter in 1980, Republicans picked up 112 state senate seats (out of 1,981) and 190 state house seats (out of 5,501).
In the states this year, five chambers shifted from Republican to Democrats, while four shifted from either tied or Democratic control to Republican control. In the South, Mr. Obama had "reverse coattails." Republicans gained legislative seats across the region. In Tennessee both the house and senate now have GOP majorities for the first time since the Civil War.
In today's Opinion Journal
REVIEW & OUTLOOK
A Barack MarketEmpire State ImplosionThe Greens Get Harpooned
TODAY'S COLUMNISTS
Wonder Land: A Monument to Government Power
– Daniel HenningerHistory Favors Republicans in 2010
– Karl Rove
COMMENTARY
How to Put the Squeeze on Iran
– Orde F. KittrieObama and Missile Defense
– John R. BoltonIt's Time to Rethink Our Retirement Plans
– Roger W. Ferguson Jr.This matters because the 2010 Census could allocate as many as four additional congressional districts to Texas, two each to Arizona and Florida, and one district to each of a number of (mostly) red-leaning states, while subtracting seats from (mostly) blue-leaning states like Michigan, New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania and, for the first time, California. Redistricting and reapportionment could help tilt the playing field back to the GOP in Congress and the race for the White House by moving seven House seats (and electoral votes) from mostly blue to mostly red states.
History will favor Republicans in 2010. Since World War II, the out-party has gained an average of 23 seats in the U.S. House and two in the U.S. Senate in a new president's first midterm election. Other than FDR and George W. Bush, no president has gained seats in his first midterm election in both chambers.
Since 1966, the incumbent party has lost an average of 63 state senate and 262 state house seats, and six governorships, in a president's first midterm election. That 2010 is likely to see Republicans begin rebounding just before redistricting is one silver lining in an otherwise dismal year for the GOP.
In politics, good years follow bad years. Republicans and Democrats have experienced both during the past 15 years. A GOP comeback, while certainly possible, won't be self-executing and automatic. It will require Republicans to be skillful at both defense (opposing Mr. Obama on some issues) and offense (creating a compelling agenda that resonates with voters). And it will require leaders to emerge who give the right public face to the GOP. None of this will be easy. All of this will be necessary.
Mr. Rove is a former senior adviser and deputy chief of staff to President George W. Bush.
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WSJ: What do bleeding Detroit auto makers, Colombia and green groups have in common? Not a lot, unless you are Nancy Pelosi.
If there was a moment that highlights to what extent the Democratic Party has become captive to its special interests, this might be it. Mrs. Pelosi and Harry Reid have spent this week demanding that Washington stave off a car-maker collapse. What makes this a little weird is that Mrs. Pelosi and Mr. Reid are Washington. If they so desperately want a Detroit bailout they could always, you know, pass one.
Ken FallinInstead, having punted the Detroit question in the past, and having failed to offload it on the Bush administration, Mrs. Pelosi is now stuck dealing with it in the middle of a lame-duck session that is tangled in Colombia trade politics. Detroit's demands are meanwhile pressing in a postelection environment where Big Labor and greens are presenting their own bills for political services rendered. If you're wondering why Mrs. Pelosi hasn't yet decided what will happen when Congress returns, it's because she hasn't decided which group to annoy.
Democrats have been trying to shuffle money to Detroit since summer, but their timing has been off. The Michigan delegation's big push for auto funds coincided with September's financial crisis. With Washington in a panic, voters howling over $700 billion for banks, and an election in the offing, the leadership decided a Detroit bailout was one hot potato too many.
This decision was made easier by the fact that the Big Three's balance sheets have made even sympathetic Washington spenders worry about throwing money at a bankruptcy. Democrats decided it would be better to direct the funds in a way that allowed them to later deny fault.
The plan? Make it the Bush administration's responsibility to give Detroit cash -- namely by claiming after the event that the $700 billion rescue package for financial institutions was in fact a rescue package for auto makers. This was attempted with several hilarious "colloquys" -- pre-scripted dialogues between members that were quietly inserted into the Congressional Record after the vote, all aimed at rewriting the "intent" of the law. Say, this one, from Oct. 1:
Michigan Sen. Carl Levin: "As Treasury implements this new program, it is clear to me from reading the definition of financial institution that auto financing companies would be among the many financial institutions that would be eligible sellers to the government. Do you agree?"
Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd: "Yes, for purposes of this act, I agree that financial institution may encompass auto financing companies."
Fun. Meanwhile, Democrats passed $25 billion in aid for Detroit, though under the careful guise of "green" funds to help it meet new fuel-efficiency standards.
Alas! All for naught! Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson has stubbornly insisted that -- whatever the dreamy "intent" of Sen. Levin -- the $700 billion is, indeed, earmarked for financial institutions. Even a last-ditch letter-writing campaign by Mrs. Pelosi and the Michigan members this weekend, begging the administration to let them off the hook, wouldn't budge Mr. Paulson.
If that weren't enough, the administration has had the temerity to take Democrats at their legislative word, and demand the auto makers actually use that $25 billion in green funds for . . . green retooling. Which, needless to say, isn't going to help the Big Three CEOs pay their upcoming health-care bills.
And so Mrs. Pelosi has been landed with Detroit, again. The auto makers have staged a brilliant PR campaign, tying their misfortunes to today's financial mess -- never mind those decades of mismanagement. They've warned that the ripple effect of a crash could cost three million to four million jobs. Democrats have also undoubtedly been reminded by UAW President Ron Gettelfinger that those come from his union, which recently helped Mrs. Pelosi win an election.
The problem is how not to offend the other groups that just helped her win an election. The White House has intimated that its price for Democratic legislation in a lame-duck session would be the passage of the Colombia trade agreement. Yet Mrs. Pelosi has successfully sat on that deal for months at the demand of the broader union movement, which just spent hundreds of millions to increase Democratic majority.
Meanwhile, another trial balloon -- a proposal to loosen the rules governing the $25 billion in green money -- sent Mrs. Pelosi's environmental friends bonkers. They also just spent big helping Democrats, and insist the money go to building clean cars, not digging out Detroit.
Mrs. Pelosi has since tasked Barney Frank with "drafting" a bailout bill. Yet by yesterday, Democrats were backing away from a vote, complaining they weren't getting help from Republicans. That might work now, though come January, a bigger Democratic majority will no longer have the GOP as an excuse. By the looks of this week, that's when the real fun begins.
Write to kim@wsj.com
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I'm a little surprised about Hillary as SOS.
Actually I thought it was going to be Bill as the payoff for their support of BO at the end of the Pres campaign.
It looks like the CLintons are going to win big with all their people getting on the BO bandwagon and Hill set up for her run in 2012 or 2016 whenever BO leaves the stage. We all know it won't be his VP - Biden - for 2012 or 16.
Amazing isn't it? Practically my entire adult life I will have to put up with the Clintons.
At least we will not have to hear how she is the "first" SOS who is a broad and another "glass ceiling broken" blah blah blah be de blah.
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November 17, 2008
In today's Political Diary
More Clinton Melodrama
They Vote Secretly So You Won't Have To
Grand Old Toupee (Quote of the Day I)
The New Affirmative Action Babies (Quote of the Day II)
Three Musketeers
What's Behind the Hillary Head Fake?
In floating the idea of Hillary Clinton becoming his Secretary of State, Barack Obama has scored a two-fer. If she accepted such an offer, he would instantly neutralize his strongest potential adversary within the Democratic Party, enhance his relationship with Democratic women and gain a tough-minded operator who might actually be able to manage the notoriously independent Foggy Bottom bureaucracy.
But Reason #1 also makes it very unlikely Mrs. Clinton will become Secretary of State. As the nation's top diplomat, she would be barred by both law and custom from any partisan politics. Fundraisers for the Democratic Party or Democratic candidates would be off the table. She would have to dismantle her formidable political operation. Finally, she would be forced to follow Obama administration policy and rule out, as a loyal soldier, any possibility of challenging him for the 2012 Democratic nomination if his administration were widely seen to be unsuccessful.
Look for a face-saving maneuver that will, in the end, keep her out of the cabinet. One excuse would be the difficulty of unwinding the large number of conflicts of interest arising from Bill Clinton's global foundation, whose myriad of donors Mr. Clinton would be less than anxious to make public. As the New York Daily News dryly notes: "Questions about those donors, some say, might trip up a new administration that has made itself all about promoting a new kind of politics."
Thus Barack Obama will get credit for having considered Hillary Clinton to be the nation's top diplomat and none of the blame when it doesn't happen. Mr. Obama may be good at shooting hoops on the basketball court, but his real skill is in the political head fake.
-- John Fund
A Secret Ballot for Me, Not Thee
Last year, Democratic Senators voted for so-called "card check" legislation that would have deprived millions of employees of the right to vote secretly on whether they want to be represented by a labor union. Tomorrow many of those same Democratic Senators will insist on using a secret ballot process to determine whether Joe Lieberman will be stripped of his chairmanship of the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.
That same day, Republican Senators are likely to use a secret ballot to decide whether to expel convicted colleague Ted Stevens from their caucus. Later in January, the House Democratic Caucus will use a secret ballot to determine whether Michigan Rep. John Dingell keeps his chairmanship of the House Energy & Commerce Committee against a challenge from California Rep. Henry Waxman.
In other words, many legislators who value a secret ballot to preserve their own privacy and freedom from intimidation in conducting Congressional business are nonetheless prepared to support union-backed "card check" legislation to strip American workers of the same privacy and freedom. Instead, a workplace would be deemed "organized" as soon as 50%-plus-one-worker signed cards carried around by union organizers authorizing such a move.
If card-check passes, workers in company after company might soon see their workplaces dominated by the same kind of union shop arrangements that helped bring Detroit's auto making industry to its knees -- and all without workers being able to choose their fate in the privacy of a voting booth.
-- John Fund
Quote of the Day I
"We're going to need more than just a political comb-over" -- Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty at a meeting of the Republican Governors Association on the current state of the Republican Party.
Quote of the Day II
"ome of the conservatives' complaints about a liberal tilt are valid. Journalism naturally draws liberals; we like to change the world. I'll bet that most Post journalists voted for Obama. I did. . . . Are there ways to tackle this? More conservatives in newsrooms and rigorous editing would be two. The first is not easy: Editors hire not on the basis of beliefs but on talent in reporting, photography and editing, and hiring is at a standstill because of the economy. But newspapers have hired more minorities and women, so it can be done" -- Washington Post ombudsman Deborah Howell, in an article called "Remedying the Bias Perception."
No Room for RINOs
South Carolina's Mark Sanford is one of three GOP governors now being widely mentioned as potential saviors of the Republican Party between now and 2012. All are conspicuous for calling on their own party to live up to its principles. Most notably, none have advocated the GOP move to the left.
Mr. Sanford is a two-term governor known for vetoing spending bills, pushing market-oriented policy reforms (such as moving his state's Medicaid system to a private account-based model) and criticizing the lapses of the national GOP. "Some on the left will say our electoral losses are a repudiation of our principles of lower taxes, smaller government and individual liberty," he wrote on CNN.com after this month's elections. "But Tuesday was not in fact a rejection of those principles -- it was a rejection of Republicans' failure to live up to those principles."
In the same op-ed he took a swing at Alaska Republican Sen. Ted Stevens, identifying him as someone who "personifies what went wrong in the election. . . He was a proud champion of pork barrel spending and bridges to nowhere and stayed so long that he developed a blind eye to ethical lapses that would be readily seen by scout leaders and soccer moms alike."
Two other leading lights for a troubled GOP are Govs. Sarah Palin of Alaska and Bobby Jindal of Louisiana. Before she became John McCain's running mate, Mrs. Palin was best known for challenging her own state GOP to cure its spendthrift, corrupt ways. She unseated a sitting mayor in her first bid for office and became a giant killer by knocking off the high-handed, free-spending Gov. Frank Murkowski in a Republican primary.
Mr. Jindal is a boy wonder of the party. At 25, he was appointed to fix Louisiana's failing Medicaid program, and succeeded. At 32, he lost a hard-fought campaign for governor but later landed a Congressional seat from which he criticized bureaucratic bungling in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Last year, after Katrina had destroyed Democratic Gov. Kathleen Blanco's reputation, he won his second bid for the office by promising sweeping reform of Louisiana's corrupt and inefficient government culture.
That Republicans are coalescing around these three governors is also revealing for who is not included. Several years ago Christie Todd Whitman, former governor of New Jersey and EPA administrator, wrote a book called "It's My Party Too." She used that treatise to argue for the party to abandon its conservative roots. Even after two serious GOP drubbings at the polls, she has found no takers. Likewise, Lincoln Chaffee, the former Rhode Island Senator once labeled a "Republican in Name Only," was still complaining last week to the Washington Post that "right-wing talk show hosts and the Ann Coulters and that ilk" never understood that the GOP needs people like him.
Maybe that's because Republicans have looked closely at the election results. The country hasn't so much moved left as it has abandoned a GOP that abandoned its own principles. In Ohio, Barack Obama actually won about 40,000 fewer votes than John Kerry did four years ago. Mr. Obama took Ohio only because John McCain pulled 350,000 fewer votes than George W. Bush did in 2004. Republicans and Republican-leaning voters stayed home.
That's not an endorsement of the ideas of the left. It's a lack enthusiasm for a party that failed to deliver the smaller government it promised in Washington. At least the GOP, in settling on future leaders like Governors Jindal, Sanford and Palin, seems to understand that.
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Going for the Big Money
A highly placed Democrat tells the Arizona Republic that Governor Janet Napolitano's nomination to head the Department of Homeland Security in an Obama administration is "a pretty done deal."
Some national Democrats are puzzling over why Gov. Napolitano would leave midway through her second term, turning over the job to Arizona's Republican Secretary of State Jan Brewer, thus giving the GOP control of both houses of the legislature and the executive branch.
The answer may be twofold. A change of scenery might be welcome given Arizona's ugly budget crisis, brought on by years of overspending and lax oversight by all the state's political players. Secondly, a cabinet secretary earns $191,300 a year, more than double the stingy $90,000 annual salary that Arizona's constitution allows its governor. Arizona is also one of a handful of states that doesn't provide its chief executive with a governor's mansion. "It's a win-win for Janet," one Arizona elected official told me. "She escapes having to make massive budget cuts or tax hikes that would be unpopular and gets to play with the major players in Washington."
-- John Fund
If Hillary Gets the Nod . . .
It still seems unlikely, but the camps of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton seem to be working hard to smooth her appointment as Secretary of State. Many of Mr. Obama's advisers still have doubts about the wisdom of the choice, but others are swept away by what Politico.com calls a potential "masterstroke on the road to creating the most unified, powerful Democratic leadership in living memory." With Mrs. Clinton out of the Senate, only Wisconsin maverick Russ Feingold might be left to stir up meaningful Democratic opposition to Obama policy initiatives in the U.S. Senate.
New York Governor David Paterson is already reviewing potential replacements for Mrs. Clinton's Senate seat should it fall vacant. Topping the list is Andrew Cuomo, the state's attorney general and a potential rival to Mr. Paterson's ambitions to win a term in his own right in 2010 (Mr. Paterson was elevated from the Lt. Governorship when Eliot Spitzer resigned in a prostitution scandal). Other possibilities include Rep. Nita Lowey, a strong Hillary ally who would likely hold the seat for a short time given her age -- 71. Another is Rep. Nydia Velazquez, whose appointment would recognize the growing clout of Hispanics in New York state politics.
Meanwhile, key to Mrs. Clinton's appointment are discussions over Bill Clinton's conflict-laden philanthropic efforts. Representing Mr. Clinton in negotiations are his former White House counsels Bruce Lindsey and Cheryl Mills. Representing Mr. Obama is his transition chief John Podesta, himself a former Clinton chief of staff. Together, in meetings that must be surreal, these former Clintonites are hashing out disclosure rules for Mr. Clinton and his high-rolling donors.
-- John Fund
Howard's End
Tom Daschle yesterday quickly accepted Barack Obama's offer to head the Health and Human Services Department. Perhaps even more interesting is who didn't get the job: Soon-to-be-former DNC Chief Howard Dean.
Mr. Dean certainly had a liberal fan club pushing for him. A medical doctor by training, he burst onto the presidential scene in 2004 on the strength of his "universal health care" plan as governor of Vermont. The militant Netroots crowd -- which he was among the first Democrats to cultivate -- has remained loyal and has been howling for his appointment. Some left-wing Democrats also felt he deserved the job as payment for the electoral victories he oversaw as head of the DNC.
Back in reality, however, Mr. Obama was having none of it. Plenty of top Democrats were fine with letting Mr. Dean run the DNC. His attack-dog style and Internet savvy were well suited to a job that was focused on winning elections. But his personal aggressiveness couldn't be more at odds with Mr. Obama's cool demeanor. And putting Mr. Dean in control of one of Mr. Obama's most cherished initiatives (health care) would've made John McCain's Sarah Palin pick look safe.
Mr. Dean didn't help himself by squabbling endlessly with party leaders during his DNC tenure. He had some particularly nasty go-rounds with Illinois Rep. Rahm Emanuel, who was angry the DNC chair wasn't sending him more money to help elect Congressional Democrats. Mr. Emanuel will now be Mr. Obama's White House chief of staff.
Mr. Dean has already said he won't seek a second DNC term, no doubt because he knows the position would lose much of its profile with a Democratic president in the White House. Team Obama may well feel the need to reward Mr. Dean with a post, but finding one that would match his expectations could prove tough. Any job that Mr. Dean might want is a job that Mr. Obama might prefer not to entrust to an unpredictable rabble-rouser with a notoriously sharp tongue.
-- Kim Strassel
Quote of the Day I
"I honestly think I will not mind not having to answer to the press. It's very different than a few years ago. The press doesn't focus on issues anymore -- it's whether who's winning or losing, who's happy or sad and so on, and educating the public about issues isn't something the press wants to do anymore. I will not miss that aspect of it. I will love having my privacy. Let me put it in a positive way" -- retiring Connecticut Republican Rep. Chris Shays, quoted at Politico.com about what he will miss least about his job.
Quote of the Day II
"[A]s every horror fan knows the monster never dies. In the case of the credit-crunch the risk of a final lunge comes from a damaging political response. . . . The major lesson from the Great Depression of the 1930s was that terrible policies managed to turn a financial crisis into a disaster. The infamous Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930 was introduced by US policymakers to block imports in a desperate attempt to protect domestic jobs. But it helped worsen the recession by freezing world trade. At the same time policymakers were encouraging firms to collude and workers to unionize to raise prices and wages. The current backlash against capitalism risks leading to this repeat. . . . Although 2009 will be a year of shrinking rapidly, if politicians protect free markets 2010 should see a return to growth" -- Stanford economist Nicholas Bloom, writing at Voxeu.org.
Boehner Hangs On
Despite low enthusiasm for the party's House leadership, Ohio Rep. John Boehner kept his spot atop the GOP House conference yesterday after beating back a weak challenge from California Rep. Dan Lungren.
Mr. Boehner, who despite the party's lackluster performance keeps good personal relations with much of the caucus, survived by giving conservatives what they wanted. House Minority Whip Roy Blunt of Missouri announced shortly after Election Day that he wouldn't seek the post again. He will be replaced by his chief deputy, Virginia Rep. Eric Cantor, a brainy up-and-coming conservative voice in the conference.
Florida Rep. Adam Putnam, last cycle's Conference Chairman, also agreed to forgo a re-election bid. He will hand his conference gavel to Indiana Rep. Mike Pence, a former head of the Republican Study Committee and a popular ex-radio host with a big following among conservatives.
Reps. Cantor and Pence were both rumored to be interested in Mr. Boehner's job, so accommodating them with new positions might have spared Mr. Boehner a tougher challenge than he got from the late entry Mr. Lungren. Mr. Pence had previously tried to unseat the Minority Leader after the 2006 elections. Mr. Boehner's reelection comes despite antagonizing some conservatives by cooperating with Democrats to approve this fall's $700 billion bank bailout. As Republicans move right, meanwhile, House Democrats are moving left. The Democratic caucus this morning voted to oust John Dingell from the powerful energy and commerce committee in favor of the ultraliberal class-warrior Rep. Henry Waxman.
Mr. Boehner also succeeded this week in electing a new chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, a thankless position over the last two cycles, which have seen the GOP lose more than 50 seats and the majority. Texas Rep. Pete Sessions ousted Oklahoma Rep. Tom Cole to take the helm for what most expect will be a brighter year for Republicans.
Messrs. Boehner and Cole had clashed often over staffing issues and what some called Mr. Cole's hands-off approach in Republican primaries. Democrats were much more active during the primaries in helping those candidates they considered the best fit for the districts in question. Republicans did not adopt a similar strategy until late in the cycle.
-- Reid Wilson, RealClearPolitics.com
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Laughing All the Way to the Senate
The Minnesota Senate recount is starting to resemble a "Saturday Night Live" skit that could have been part of Democratic candidate Al Franken's repertoire as a comedian.
This week, Ramsey County elections officials found an additional 171 ballots that hadn't been counted on election night. It turns out a broken voting machine had been replaced, but voters who used the first machine never had their ballots recounted. Mr. Franken picked up 37 votes from that error, but promptly lost 36 votes the next day after neighboring Hennepin County found that 133 votes in one precinct had been counted twice. Minneapolis elections director Cindy Reichert said she believes the error occurred when election judges at the precinct on election night mistakenly ran ballots with write-in candidates through a counting machine a second time. "There are human errors that are made on Election Day," she deadpanned.
Meanwhile, the recount in Minnesota's other 85 counties grinds on. With 93% of votes recounted, Mr. Franken's lawyers claimed yesterday they were now 22 votes ahead -- the first time their man has taken the lead from GOP incumbent Norm Coleman. The Coleman campaign promptly fired back with a press release puckishly claiming they were some 2,200 votes ahead. The Minneapolis Star Tribune's scoreboard right now has a Coleman lead of some 303 votes.
But the final outcome is likely to hinge on just how many of the 12,000 absentee ballots that were rejected for various reasons will ultimately be counted. In some cases, voters failed to follow instructions on the ballot. In some cases, they were submitted by people who had never registered to vote. The Franken campaign insists some 1,000 of the rejected ballots represent valid votes and vows to go to court to make sure the ballots are counted. The dispute may ultimately have to be resolved by the U.S. Senate itself, which has been known in the past to keep seats vacant while it conducts its own investigation.
"I have no doubt in my mind that Al Franken got more votes in this election than Norm Coleman," says Franken attorney Mark Elias. "I don't know what that margin's going to be. But the direction is all in one place, and we believe that's going to continue."
In other words, the Franken campaign is bound and determined to keep counting votes until their man is ahead -- and only then will it be time to stop counting lest the next batch of uncounted votes turn out to favor Mr. Coleman. It's an approach that certainly deserves a laugh, but hardly the way an important election should be resolved.
-- John Fund
The Rangel Time Bomb
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has two ethical time bombs on her hands. She'd be smart to defuse them quickly before they interfere with executing the Obama agenda.
One big headache for Ms. Pelosi is New York Democrat Charlie Rangel, chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, who faces multiple tax and regulatory scandals involving his many residential properties. Last week the New York Times also raised serious questions about Mr. Rangel's promotion of a tax loophole that benefited a major donor to a library to be named after him. Both the Washington Post and New York Times have editorialized for Mr. Rangel to step down, but Ms. Pelosi is apparently having none of it. "She told me I am her chairman of the Ways and Means Committee as long as I want to be," Mr. Rangel told reporters at a Harlem ribbon-cutting yesterday.
She may be sticking with Mr. Rangel because she has no stomach for the succession fight that would come. The next ranking Democrat on the important tax-writing committee is California Rep. Pete Stark, whose greatest hits include accusing GOP lawmakers of sending troops in Iraq to die "for the president's amusement." As an unnamed lobbyist told Congress Daily, the business community "would go nuclear" and Republicans would "have a field day" if the gaffe-prone left-winger Mr. Stark were to seek the chairmanship.
No less uncertain has been Mrs. Pelosi's trumpet on the Democrats' other nagging ethical liability, namely Louisiana Rep. William Jefferson, who gained unwelcome notoriety when an FBI raid found $90,000 in cash in his home freezer. He was indicted last year on 16 criminal corruption charges and will soon face trial.
Two scandals might be unfortunate, but a third, if it crops up, could seriously undermine Ms. Pelosi's ambitious agenda. Recall how GOP House leadership passivity amid a succession of ethical lapses finally gobbled up the GOP's political capital in the eyes of voters. Lest the names be forgotten, the hall of ignominy includes Rep. Randy Duke's conviction on corruption charges, Rep. Bob Ney's criminal entanglement with lobbyist Jack Abramoff and Rep. Mark Foley's salacious emails with House pages.
Lesson: These things build slowly but tend to overwhelm party leaders who don't act soon enough. Ms. Pelosi has been warned.
-- Brendan Miniter
Quote of the Day I
"My staff tells me not to say this, but I'm going to say it anyway. In the summer because of the heat and high humidity, you could literally smell the tourists coming into the Capitol" -- Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, in remarks yesterday welcoming the new, air-conditioned Capitol Visitors Center.
Quote of the Day II
"Republicans were happy to make [Tuesday's Georgia Senate runoff] a referendum on Obama; [GOP Senator Saxby] Chambliss consistently warned Georgians of giving the president-elect a 'blank check' in Washington. But can [Democratic challenger Jim] Martin's loss really be seen as a repudiation of Obama, given that he'd already lost the state by 5 percentage points? And what about the 'short coattail' theory -- that without Obama at the top of the ticket in 2010, lots of Democrats are going to be vulnerable? In preparation for this line of attack, House Democratic strategists are already making sure to point out the significant number of House candidates who overperformed Obama's showing in their districts this November, arguing that his effect on downballot races has consistently been overstated. The theory: House Democrats took control of Congress in 2006 without Obama on the ticket and can do just fine on their own in 2010, thank you very much" -- Hotline editor Amy Walter.
The Obama-Gore Consensus
Barack Obama's great virtue is his ability to behave like a cynical politician without getting a reputation as a cynical politician.
The latest example is his left-pleasing promise during the campaign for a windfall oil tax, now quietly removed from his transition web site. Explained an aide, the tax was all along meant to apply only if oil prices are over $80 a barrel. "They are below that now and expected to stay below that."
Mr. Obama here makes a choice in favor of good economic policy. But there's something else going on. He's a student of the late radical thinker Saul Alinsky, who argued that you do or say what's necessary in a democracy to gain power, while keeping your true aims to yourself. Mr. Obama's novel contribution has been to turn this exploitation on his supporters on the left (who admittedly are so wedded to their hero that, so far, they don't seem to mind).
His next big challenge is an upcoming conference updating the Kyoto targets. Mr. Obama has not backed off his overwrought climate rhetoric, but listen carefully to Al Gore. Now that Democrats are on the verge of power, he's backing off cap-and-trade and carbon tax proposals (i.e. visible energy price hikes for consumers) in favor of a new approach, massive government subsidies for "green technology."
Two fans, Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaustell, co-founders of the Breakthrough Institute, write approvingly of what they call Mr. Gore's highly "significant shift." "He knows that cap-and-trade, and most any new regulation, would raise energy prices -- a political nonstarter during a recession."
Uh huh. Mr. Gore, when he's close to power, always drops the politically unpopular medicine his climate views would seem to necessitate. When he ran for president, he tried to lower gasoline prices by opening up the petroleum reserve. There was no recession at the time.
But the former veep is perfectly in sync with Mr. Obama. Energy taxes popular with the left but unpopular with voters will soon be off the table to preserve his second term hopes. But that doesn't mean an end to "climate policy, " which can still be used to foster a network of trade groups willing to kick back some of their taxpayer subsidies to maintain Democrats in power. This will do nothing for climate change (and indeed nothing proposed or entertained in Washington would make a difference to climate). But it will help cement Democratic ascendancy over Washington's iron triangle of interest groups, politicians and the bureaucracy.
Indeed, Mr. Gore, as an investor and promoter of several green energy funds himself, is a walking conflict of interest here -- one whose bogus credibility Mr. Obama will happily make use of. Alinsky would be proud.
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A Coup in Canada
No Way to Run a Country
Clubbed
Life and Times of Harvey Milk
A Confederacy of Hosers
Canada voted only seven weeks ago to bring back Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservative government for another term, but this week a cobbled-together party coalition of Liberals, left-wing New Democrats and Quebec separatists almost threw him out of office. What began as a revolution ended as farce yesterday as it became clear Mr. Harper would keep his job.
Mr. Harper clearly blundered last month when he proposed to end the government subsidies that go to all of Canada's political parties, a move that advantaged his incumbent administration's ability to collect private donations. The outraged three opposition parties promptly met and signed a coalition agreement in which they would vote "no confidence" in Mr. Harper's government and take over with a slim majority. The Liberals and New Democrats would govern with the Bloc Quebecois providing support in exchange for more concessions on financial aid and autonomy.
The problem is that Canadians had just voted, and having parties that recently lost an election take power without a new election struck many as profoundly undemocratic. A Globe and Mail poll found that some 60% of Canadians opposed the deal. The poll also found that, if a new election were held today, the Conservatives would win a commanding 45%, while the Liberals would get only 24% and the New Democrats a mere 14%. Just seven weeks ago, the Conservatives had won re-election with 37%.
When all was said and done, the movement opposing Mr. Harper quickly unraveled once he met with Canada's Governor-General, the country's head of state, and won her approval to shut down Parliament till January 26. With Parliament not in session, there was no way the "no confidence" vote could be held next week as planned.
David McGuinty, a Liberal member of Parliament from Ottawa, summed up developments by saying the Governor-General had effectively given a tongue lashing to all players in the drama and told them to go home and play nice. It certainly looks as if no one comes out of this episode with political stature enhanced.
-- John Fund
Uh-oh, Canada
Just as U.S. voters are heading left, Canada's seemed to be heading right. But then Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper blew up his coalition this week (see above). If he doesn't patch it back together by the time Parliament reconvenes in late January, his government could still fall and be replaced by a coalition of parties never chosen by voters.
Even sillier, the new prime minister would be the head of the defeated Liberal Party. Right now that honor belongs to Stephane Dion, who actually resigned as party head after the LP's terrible performance at the polls. His successor won't be named until May, so Mr. Dion would serve as the head of government until then. In other words, Canada would be led by the lame-duck chief of a party that was rejected at the polls two elections in a row. He would then be replaced by a member of Parliament who'd never been subjected to voter scrutiny as the government's possible leader.
-- Michael Philips
The Club for Breaking Even
Republican Tom McClintock finally won his race for a California House seat yesterday, after the district's counties turned in their final vote tallies to the secretary of state, giving Mr. McClintock a lead of nearly 1,800 votes over retired Air Force Lt. Col. Charlie Brown. Mr. McClintock, the leading spokesman for Southern California conservatives, had been term-limited out of his state senate seat.
His victory is also a victory for the anti-tax Club for Growth, boosting its winning percentage in House and Senate races to .500. Mr. McClintock's Democratic opponent conceded the race rather than request a recount in the tight contest, giving the Club -- whose PAC spends money in support of candidates with anti-tax platforms -- eight wins and eight losses at the end of the 2008 general election season.
Of course, that decent-sounding record is somewhat dimmed by the fact that four of the Club's eight losses were incumbents. These include New Hampshire Sen. John Sununu and three House Republicans: Florida's Tom Feeney, Idaho's Bill Sali and Tim Walberg of Michigan. On the other hand, the Club can boast knocking off freshman Democrat Rep. Nick Lampson, who occupied Tom DeLay's old suburban Houston seat. He was beaten by the Club-supported former Pentagon aide Pete Olson.
But Mr. Walberg's loss in Michigan's 7th District is particularly significant. In 2006, he became the first Club-backed candidate to oust a fellow Republican in a primary. He defeated GOP moderate Rep. Joe Schwarz and then went on to win by just four points against an underfunded Democrat in that year's general election. This year, though, he lost to Democrat Mark Schauer by three points.
A similar outcome in Maryland gave the last laugh to another moderate Republican unseated with the Club's help -- Rep. Wayne Gilchrest, a nine-term congressman in Maryland's 1st Congressional District. Mr. Gilchrest had faced primary challenges before, but he fell victim back in February to Andy Harris, for whom the Club offered substantial financial backing. Mr. Gilchrest went on to endorse Mr. Harris's Democratic opponent, Frank Kratovil, who won by fewer than 3,000 votes last month.
Club for Growth President Pat Toomey knew it was a difficult year for Republicans and made the best of his group's break-even performance. "As the Republican Party struggles to rebuild itself in the coming months and years, these conservative stalwarts will be major players in that crucial effort," he said.
-- Kyle Trygstad, RealClearPolitics.com
Got 'Milk'?
You can bet that "Milk," the new film starring Sean Penn as the first openly gay politician elected to office in a major city, will be an Oscar contender. Ballots for the Academy Awards will be cast early next year in the aftermath of California's passage of Proposition 8, a statewide ban on gay marriage. Already, the film has been caught up in politics as some are urging a nationwide boycott against Cinemark movie theaters after Cinemark CEO Alan Stock donated $10,000 to the "Yes on 8" campaign. "He should not profit from now showing 'Milk' in his theaters," says the boycott Web site.
Politics aside, "Milk" is a fascinating celebration of a man who was both a symbol of gay empowerment and a martyr to gay rights. The film premiered on the 30th anniversary of his death in 1978. Harvey Milk only served as a member of San Francisco's Board of Supervisors for 11 months before he, along with Mayor George Moscone, was gunned down at age 48 by Dan White, a former Supervisor who nursed political grudges against both men. White was convicted only of manslaughter after putting up a preposterous defense that too much junk food had impaired his judgment -- a foretaste of even stranger legal arguments in later years as more and more people have sought to avoid responsibility for their actions.
Milk is celebrated in the film for his aggressive leadership on gay rights, especially for helping defeat the Briggs Initiative in 1978, which would have banned gays from teaching in public schools -- a measure also opposed by Ronald Reagan and many conservatives. But the story of Harvey Milk as a politician was more complicated than his sexual orientation. At the heart of all of his campaigns was the notion that government had to be responsive to the rights of individuals.
Although he espoused left-wing politics in his later years, Milk was a political conservative until he was almost 40. He had served as a Navy officer, worked on Wall Street and enthusiastically handed out flyers for Barry Goldwater at subway stops in Manhattan in 1964. It was the Vietnam War and Richard Nixon's invasion of Cambodia that most influenced his move to the left. In 1970, he settled in San Francisco and opened an independent camera store in the then-emerging gay neighborhood around Castro Street.
His interest in local politics began when, not long after opening his business, he was visited by a state bureaucrat who demanded a pre-payment of sales taxes on products he hadn't yet sold. Next, a local public school teacher asked if he could borrow a film projector because none of those at his school worked. Then a local business association tried to discourage city bureaucrats from issuing business licenses to gays. Milk promptly organized the still-popular Castro Street Fair to demonstrate the clout of the gay business community.
He ran for office several times, appealing for gay votes but also as an angry populist demanding government accountability. "Milk has something for everybody," was his slogan.
Despite some unfortunate political correctness, the film "Milk" is a powerful statement in favor of tolerance and the power of one individual to bring about change. Like Spike Lee's "Malcolm X," the film takes a controversial historical figure about whom many people have only a sketchy idea and makes him both human and accessible.
-- John Fund
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Let Caroline Run
Is there a divine right for the Kennedy family to hold a U.S. Senate seat, as they have for 54 of the last 56 years? Nepotism on Capitol Hill has become an art form, and there is no better practitioner than Senator Ted Kennedy. Only hours after news of his cancerous brain tumor last spring, the New York Daily News reported that he was telling friends he wanted his wife Vicki to take his Massachusetts seat.
Now the New York Post is reporting that Mr. Kennedy "has been working back channels to promote niece Caroline as the replacement for Hillary Rodham Clinton in the Senate." New York Governor David Paterson has already spoken with Ms. Kennedy about her interest in the job, the paper says, and her uncle has helpfully sent word to the governor that if she were appointed "legislation affecting New York would receive prompt attention."
Two generations after anti-nepotism laws began to open up civil service positions to excluded groups like Jews and blacks, "the pendulum seems to be swinging the other way," says Adam Bellow, author of a book called "In Praise of Nepotism." The National Journal reports that 63 current members of Congress, including at least one-third of U.S. Senators, have relatives who have lobbied or consulted on government relations at the federal or state level in recent years. At least eight former legislators who are now registered as lobbyists were replaced by relatives in their former Congressional seats.
Yet I sense a backlash is brewing. A deep-seated American belief holds that those who gain public office through artificial privilege should be viewed with suspicion. That wariness can certainly be overcome, as the electoral success of political workhorses Senator Evan Bayh and former Governor Jeb Bush of Florida demonstrates, but some brighter lines are certainly in order. Back in 1960, a Scripps-Howard reporter shocked the country and won a Pulitzer Prize with the revelation that one in five members of Congress had relatives on the official payroll. There ought to be some decent restraint on official nepotism, and now is the time to show it. If Caroline Kennedy really wants to represent New York in the Senate, she has the visibility and the connections to raise money and run for the office in her own right.
-- John Fund
Who's Multicultural Now?
Louisiana isn't known as a leading indicator of political diversity even though it has always been a mixture of northern Baptists, New Orleans blacks and Bayou Cajuns. But the state sports a governor whose parents came from India, a Lebanese-American Congressman and now the nation's first Vietnamese-American congressman.
Anh "Joseph" Cao fled South Vietnam as a boy in 1975 when a Communist invasion threw the last remnants of U.S. influence out of the country. He quickly taught himself English and earned degrees in philosophy and physics. In 2000 he became a lawyer specializing in immigration work.
He, like many anti-Communist Vietnamese refugees, also became a Republican. While a half-dozen Democrats fought to challenge indicted Congressman Bill Jefferson in their party's primary, Mr. Cao held back and husbanded his resources. After Mr. Jefferson won a Democratic primary runoff against Hispanic former news anchor Helena Moreno by 57% to 43% last month, Mr. Cao began collecting endorsements from Democrats who were furious at the revelation that Mr. Jefferson had hidden $90,000 in alleged bribe money in his home freezer.
On Election Day, Mr. Cao's campaign flooded local voters with two automated "robo" calls from Ms. Moreno and from respected former New Orleans District Attorney Harry Connick Sr. Both urged voters to abandon Mr. Jefferson and vote for Mr. Cao, a former law professor who specialized in teaching ethics.
Mr. Cao was aided by low voter turnout on Saturday, but he also managed to win black votes that few Republicans have ever gotten before. "It's no longer an issue of black and white," he explained, noting that his Asian heritage meant he hadn't been part of the old racial rivalries in the city. "It now goes to the issue of who's going to better represent the 2nd District to bring about change, to bring about reform." After his victory, Mr. Cao exulted that "the American Dream is well and alive."
Indeed, the country's 1.5 million Vietnamese Americans are coming into their own politically. Mr. Cao was able to draw on the votes and support of more than 20,000 who live in the New Orleans area. In California's Orange County, Janet Nguyen serves on the Board of Supervisors and much of the area is represented in the State Assembly by Republican Van Tran. Last month, the city of Westminster in Orange County (pop. 90,000) elected its first city council in which a majority of members are Vietnamese-Americans.
Republicans now have Mr. Cao as a national spokesman to carry their message to Asian voters. Two-thirds of Vietnamese Americans indicated they were voting for John McCain over Barack Obama in this year's election, a clear break from the voting pattern of other Asian groups. Democrats acknowledge the historic nature of Mr. Cao's victory, but they also note that he will be hard pressed to keep his seat in a normal turnout election two years from now in a district that went overwhelmingly for Barack Obama.
-- John Fund
The Vietnamese Swing Vote
"The future is Cao." So wrote House Republican Leader John Boehner in a note to his GOP colleagues last night. "The Cao victory is a symbol of what can be achieved when we think big, present a positive alternative, and work aggressively to earn the trust of the American people."
Saturday's victory by Republican Anh "Joseph" Cao in the battle for a New Orleans House seat is also a big opportunity for the Republican Party to visibly reach out to an immigrant group that has traditionally supported the GOP but is in danger of slipping away. When he is sworn in next year, Mr. Cao will become the first Vietnamese American to serve in Congress in history. He will therefore become an ambassador to a community that is small in total numbers but heavily concentrated in a handful of states and capable of tipping the scales in close elections.
Though the largest Vietnamese community can be found in California's Orange County, Virginia is the state with the second largest. And one reason Barack Obama surprised many by carrying that traditional red state was his aggressive outreach to the Vietnamese community. Ironically, Vietnam veteran John McCain never bothered to court what should have been a well-disposed constituency. Two years earlier, another Vietnam vet, Democrat Jim Webb, made a strong play for their support in his Senate race. Mr. Webb, whose wife is Vietnamese American, ended up defeating incumbent Republican Sen. George Allen by a few thousand votes. Had Mr. Allen run more strongly among Vietnamese-American voters, he'd likely be in the Senate today.
After Mr. Cao's victory on Saturday, he was flanked by his wheelchair-bound father who had, as one press report put it, "spent seven years in a North Vietnamese prison camp during that country's civil war." One reason Republicans could long count on Vietnamese-American support was that they didn't call the Vietnam War a "civil war" but a case of communist aggression against a free country. Mr. Cao's victory is now an opportunity for the GOP to reconnect with a Vietnamese community that's likely to grow in electoral importance in the future.
-- Brendan Miniter
Quote of the Day
"I was embarrassed . . . ashamed at their treatment. They [the lawmakers] wanted to unload on [the Detroit executives in last week's bailout hearings]. They wanted to grandstand, smack them around. . . . I said to [GM Chief] Rick [Wagoner], 'You're a better man than me.' I would have told the committee, 'Kiss my butt,' and walked out" - mega-auto dealer and Nascar championship team owner Rick Hendrick, on last week's Congressional hearings with the Big Three auto makers.
Baby Al, It's Cold Outside
Al Gore is having a bad decade. So far, 2000-2008 has seen a very slight cooling. According to Climate Research News, "This year is set to be the coolest since 2000."
Even more amazing is that 2009 isn't expected to get any better for Democrats on Capitol Hill who will be pushing cap-and-trade legislation to slow down catastrophic global warming. The Farmer's Almanac predicts another colder than usual year in 2009 with the highest snowfall in years. We will see if the 200-year-old Farmer's Almanac is more reliable than the NASA multi-billion dollar climate forecasting models.
More bad news for the "heat is on" crowd: A new U.S. military report says that "scientific conclusions about the causes and potential effects of global warming are contradictory." The report, titled Joint Operating Environment 2008, states that global warming's impact on rising sea levels, hurricanes and other natural disasters is "controversial." Why? Because, as the report correctly notes, scientists themselves are in disagreement about what a warming planet would mean: "Some argue that there will be more and greater storms and natural disasters, others that there will be fewer."
Environmentalists are quick to respond that a few years of cooling prove nothing, and they are mostly right. But the important point is that the global climate computer models -- which Mr. Gore cites in his Oscar-winning docudrama "An Inconvenient Truth" and which are the sole basis for predictions of dangerous human-caused warming -- have a terrible track record when matched against actual climate experience. Many of the same alarmists who now downplay a year or two (or eight) of cooling once pointed to the seemingly hot years in 2004 and 2005 as proof positive of manmade global warming. Most readers will remember the screaming headlines about the "The Hottest Year Ever." But as we've learned since, the data were actually in error. The hottest years of the past century were in the 1930s, before 90% of the manmade carbon emissions even took place. Talk about inconvenient truths.
The latest cooling data give the alarmists something really to be alarmed about. Precisely because the science is so uncertain, anecdotes have tended to drive public and political perception of climate change. But the anecdotes today are of a planet that has stopped warming and may be cooling, and of climate lobbyists who repeatedly have been forced to back off their most alarming claims about recent temperature trends.
-- Stephen Moore
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For the RNC, What Kind of 'Conservative'?
The race for the GOP party chairmanship has now jelled. Some 168 members of the Republican National Committee will make their selection from a half-dozen candidates at their meeting in Washington D.C. on January 29.
All of the candidates claim to be conservative, all insist that the party has to compete in states outside its Southern and Western bases, and all agree that the party needs to rediscover its basic principles.
But there are variations in approach.
Mike Duncan, the current RNC chairman, is running a low-key campaign touting his technocratic skills and taking some credit for the party's successes in Georgia and Louisiana runoff elections this month. Michael Steele, a former lieutenant governor of Maryland who is a frequent guest on Fox News, is a little more moderate on social issues than some of the other candidates, saying that Republican Congressional leaders misjudged the mood of the country when they pressed for a federal solution in the case of Terri Schiavo, a comatose woman who was allowed to die in accord with her husband's wishes. Mr. Steele has a good headstart in building support among Republicans who like his direct style and smooth television presence.
Other candidates include: Former Tennessee Republican Chairman Chip Saltsman, who made many contacts this year while managing Mike Huckabee's presidential campaign and is seen as someone in accord with the former Arkansas governor's populist pitch; Saul Anuzis, the chair of the Michigan GOP, who appeals to many Northeastern Republicans who say that the party needs to get away from its over-reliance on support in Southern states; and Katon Dawson, the current chair of the South Carolina party, who says the party can't afford geographic snobbery and is sending out a slick DVD touting his achievements in building a state party.
Last week, a new entrant joined the field. Ken Blackwell, a former state treasurer and secretary of state in Ohio who was his party's gubernatorial candidate in 2006, sent a letter to all RNC members. He calls for returning the party to its Reaganite roots and touts internal reform at the RNC, including "spending smarter, replacing staff and consultants and modernizing our fundraising infrastructure." Mr. Blackwell is the favorite of many movement conservatives, having served on the boards of the National Rifle Association, the National Taxpayers Union and the Club for Growth.
But this will be no conventional election. RNC members are concerned not just with the big picture but also with two very parochial issues: Members want somebody who will keep them personally in the loop on what's happening inside the party, and they also recognize the need for a good manager to keep on top of the sprawling Republican National Committee army of staff members and consultants.
"It's fair to say that the Republican Party has a habit of retaining old consultants and old Beltway players for far too long," one RNC member told me. "We saw the benefit the Obama campaign got by getting some fresh blood for their campaign versus the sluggish response of the retreads around Hillary Clinton. I think the candidate who is most likely to win is the one who will solve the party's 'staff infection.'"
-- John Fund
That Immigration Dog Don't Hunt
National and Louisiana Democrats pulled out all the stops in trying to elect longtime Shreveport District Attorney Paul Carmouche to Congress last Saturday. They touted Mr. Carmouche's anti-crime record and ran ads attacking Republican John Fleming, a physician, for advocating a private alternative to Social Security. Barack Obama taped a radio ad calling on voters to send Mr. Carmouche to Washington so he could back the Obama agenda.
But Democrats also made a blatant attempt to poach conservative votes from Mr. Fleming by attacking him on the immigration issue. Earlier this year, Dr. Fleming spoke in favor of allowing easier entry for foreigners with valid work permits and expressed general support for legal immigration: "We will welcome the positive contributions that they can make to our society. We will encourage them to [pursue] the American dream. And when they become citizens, we will gladly call them our fellow Americans."
Mr. Carmouche claimed Mr. Fleming's position was tantamount to wanting to bring more illegal immigrants into the U.S. "We certainly don't need to bus illegal aliens into the country, to take jobs that belong to Americans," he said in a recent debate. He told voters that on immigration, he was "completely in opposition to my opponent, John Fleming."
Mr. Fleming evenly responded that he supported strict enforcement of border controls, but bravely added that a policy that focused only on enforcement could only go so far. "Just simply deporting [people] is not going to solve the problem," he told voters.
In the end, voters had a clear choice. The final outcome was very close, but in a very anti-Republican year and running a handpicked centrist candidate, Democrats still lost. The lesson appears to be one that more than a few Republican candidates have learned in recent years: While a hard line on immigration may poll well, its concrete political benefits at the ballot box remain elusive.
-- John Fund
Quote of the Day I
"We've never seen anything like [Barack Obama's campaign organization] in this country. They have 4 million contributors, but they have several million more people who are on their e-mail lists. That's just a very, very powerful base for grassroots lobbying . . . We probably put too much weight on [having 60 Democratic votes for a filibuster-proof Senate majority] and not enough weight on the fact that a lot of Republicans, I think, either genuinely want to cooperate or are going to be fearful of the political consequences of not cooperating with President Obama in a period like this. So I think you'll see Arlen Specter, Susan Collins, Olympia Snowe and even some more conservative Republicans -- John McCain, for example, on issues like torture and Guantanamo could end up being a real ally of the new president" -- Democratic strategist and former John Kerry campaign manager Bob Shrum, in a Q&A with National Journal's XM Radio show.
Quote of the Day II
"On November 10, in a lengthy telephone call with numerous advisors that included discussion about Blagojevich obtaining a lucrative job with a union-affiliated organization in exchange for appointing a particular Senate Candidate whom he believed was favored by the President-elect and which is described in more detail below, Blagojevich and others discussed various ways Blagojevich could 'monetize' the relationships he has made as governor to make money after leaving that office . . . . Throughout the intercepted conversations, Blagojevich also allegedly spent significant time weighing the option of appointing himself to the open Senate seat and expressed a variety of reasons for doing so, including: frustration at being 'stuck' as governor; a belief that he will be able to obtain greater resources if he is indicted as a sitting Senator as opposed to a sitting governor; a desire to remake his image in consideration of a possible run for President in 2016; avoiding impeachment by the Illinois legislature; making corporate contacts that would be of value to him after leaving public office; facilitating his wife’s employment as a lobbyist; and generating speaking fees should he decide to leave public office"-- from a Justice Department press release today announcing the arrest of Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich and his chief of staff John Harris on federal corruption charges.
Kozying Up with the Dalai Lama
President Nicolas Sarkozy has been regaining lost ground in the French polls, despite the global financial crisis and France's rising unemployment and personal controveries. Over the weekend, he further bolstered his popularity with a risky but crowd-pleasing move: meeting the Dalai Lama.
Mr. Sarkozy's sit-down on Saturday in Gdansk, Poland was his first meeting with the Tibetan spiritual leader, who was in Poland to attend a gathering of Nobel Laureates. China's reaction was the usual fit of pique, which French Minister for Human Rights Rama Yade described as a "psychodrama." Not only did Beijing cancel a trade summit that was supposed to take place in Lyons on December 1. An editorial in the People's Daily denounced Mr. Sarkozy as "stubborn" and called his move "provocative and dangerous." The paper added: "He must pay for it."
"I am free to decide on my agenda as president of the French Republic," Mr. Sarkozy told reporters in response. "I represent values, convictions."
In this case, he also represented Europe's love affair with the Dalai Lama. In April, pro-Tibet protesters attacked the Olympic torch as it relayed through Paris. And last week, in honor of the Dalai Lama's visit, some 30 members of the European Parliament fasted for a day to greet his arrival.
But trade is important too. And more worrisome than the fulminating of the Chinese-language People's Daily may have been Beijing's English-language paper, China Daily, which warned darkly that the spat might hurt the image of such French brands as the Carrefour supermarket chain and Louis Vuitton luxury goods, both of which do good business on the mainland.
Having earned his bouquets for meeting the Dalai Lama, Mr. Sarkozy on Monday quickly tried to limit the damage by dispelling any notion that he was stirring up Tibetan separatism, saying there is "only one China."
-- Leslie Hook
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The Son Almost Rises
One key political casualty in the fallout from the Blagojevich scandal is likely to be Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., who yesterday stepped forward to acknowledge he was "Senate Candidate 5" in the federal criminal complaint against Illinois' governor.
According to federal prosecutors, Mr. Blagojevich told allies that a representative of Candidate 5 had approached him on a "pay to play" basis and offered over $1 million in contributions in exchange for appointing Rep. Jackson as the U.S. Senator replacing Barack Obama.
Mr. Jackson said he had nothing to do with any such offer, although his attorney indicated that it was possible someone in Mr. Jackson's orbit had approached the governor without his consent.
Regardless of what ultimately happens legally, Mr. Jackson has now been captured on tape reading carefully from a prepared statement denying his guilt and then refusing to take questions from reporters on the advice of his attorneys -- hardly a launching platform to political greatness.
Mr. Jackson has been angling for a bigger political stage to play on for years, having frequently clashed with Chicago Mayor Richard Daley to the point that he almost challenged him for the office in 2007. Lately, though, the fiery congressman from Chicago's South Side had made peace with the Daley machine and was on track to secure its blessing for a bid for statewide office. At a breakfast held at last fall's Democratic National Convention in Denver, Mr. Jackson effusively hugged Mayor Daley and had to use a tissue to wipe away some tears as he explained the meaning of the reconciliation. "I've been trying to get to know Mayor Daley for 14 years," he told the assembled crowd.
Political reporters interpreted the performance as an obvious attempt to secure Mr. Daley's blessing as the next U.S. Senator from Illinois. It was a good strategy, but it crashed and burned this week as Mr. Jackson was caught up in L'Affaire Blagojevich.
Now, instead of moving to the U.S. Senate, Mr. Jackson faces months of uncertainty as federal prosecutors probe his relationship to the disgraced Illinois governor and the possible indictment of his associates or even himself.
-- John Fund
Kissing the Olympic Rings Goodbye?
Chicago's Olympic committee is holding its breath, hoping that the high-profile drama surrounding Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich's arrest on federal corruption charges won't adversely impact the city's bid to win the 2016 Games. Earlier this year, Chicago was announced as one of the four finalists by the IOC along with Tokyo, Madrid, and Rio de Janeiro.
Though generally considered an underdog, most observers believe the election of Barack Obama as president significantly boosted Chicago's chances of becoming only the fourth American city to host the Games (St. Louis hosted in 1904, Los Angeles in 1984, and Atlanta in 1996). Indeed, Mr. Obama wasted no time in putting his new global clout to work on behalf of the Windy City: One of his first acts as President-elect was to tape a video message to IOC members that was submitted along with city's final bid on November 21.
"The United States would be honored to have the opportunity to host the games and serve the Olympic movement," Mr. Obama said in the video. "As president-elect, I see the Olympics and Paralympic Games as an opportunity for our nation to reach out, welcome the world to our shores and strengthen our friendships across the globe."
Olympic officials say Governor Blagojevich hasn't played much of a role in the bidding process thus far, but the Governor did pledge to contribute $150 million in guaranteed state funds as part of Chicago's overall $1.5 billion bid package to the IOC. These financial guarantees are critical to Chicago's chances, since Chicago is the only city among the final four whose financial commitments are not being fully backed by the host country's national government.
Initial reactions suggest that while the Blagojevich scandal is unseemly and not necessarily helpful in the short term, it won't have much impact, if any, on the final outcome. Then again, the IOC won't make the final decision until next October, and in the world of Chicago politics, who knows what could happen by then.
-- Tom Bevan, executive editor of RealClearPolitics.com
Those Tragic Al Franken Voters
Al Franken, the Democratic Senate candidate locked in an acrimonious recount battle with GOP Senator Norm Coleman of Minnesota, has turned to YouTube.com to make the case that Minnesota officials aren't counting ballots that should be counted.
The Franken campaign released its latest video just before the State Canvassing Board's scheduled meeting on Friday, in an effort to convince the board to count several hundred absentee ballots that Team Franken claims were rejected for specious reasons. The video, which features seven voters who claim their votes should have been counted, is an effective piece of propaganda. As the Minneapolis Star-Tribune reports: "In one scene, quadriplegic Mike Brickley of Bloomington is shown lying in bed -- with his head resting on a Minnesota Vikings pillow -- as he pleads with officials to count his vote."
Mr. Brickley tells the camera: "I may be a quadriplegic, but we are still someone, and we deserve to have our votes counted."
The Coleman campaign claims Mr. Brickley had his ballot rejected because officials found he was not registered to vote and that his signature on the absentee ballot didn't match the one used on the application for an absentee ballot. Mr. Brickley maintains he was registered and that his wife had to sign his ballot on his behalf because of his disability.
If Mr. Brickley is indeed registered to vote, I have no doubt a way will be found to have his ballot counted. But his hard-luck case doesn't address the many thousands of absentee ballots rejected for legitimate reasons. With Mr. Coleman holding a lead of between 190 and 300 votes as the recount ends, Mr. Franken has little chance of winning unless he can convince state officials to count a large number of absentee ballots that were originally rejected for not meeting legal requirements. There is precious little evidence that enough such ballots exist to turn the tide.
-- John Fund
Quote of the Day I
"When it comes to Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D-Dead Meat), many national TV talking heads can't resist playing amateur psychiatrist. 'He's crazy,' said one talking head of our governor. 'A sociopath!' said another. 'He should have been put in a straitjacket, not handcuffs,' said a third, all of them diagnosing Blagojevich as cuckoo. . . . - ne thing is clear: The pundits who make such diagnoses have never talked to a Chicago machine politician in their lives. How do they think Chicago politicians talk in private when they're muscling some other guy for cash? Like Helen Mirren playing the queen?" -- Chicago Tribune columnist John Kass.
Quote of the Day II
"Idiocy and greed aren't just for Republicans. For every Larry Craig, there's an Eliot Spitzer; for every Ted Stevens, there's a Rod Blagojevich. In our heads, we Democrats know that. It's just that in our hearts, we don't want to believe it. Because we're the good guys, right? But it's precisely when a party achieves power that its members need to start worrying the most about idiocy and greed. . . Gaining political power also corrupts in far more subtle ways. Members of political majorities succumb easily to smugness and complacency, to the conviction that explaining and justifying ideas is no longer necessary, to the temptation to dismiss critics as so many irrelevant cranks. 'Groupthink' is mainly a disease of the powerful and complacent, not the fractious opposition" -- Los Angeles Times columnist Rosa Brooks.
The Next Senator from New Yawk?
When Hillary Clinton vacates her Senate seat, there won't be any need for another carpetbagger to fill the spot. Among those applying for the job is Fran Drescher, star of "The Nanny" and a childhood resident of the outer boroughs of New York City. The actress best known for her role as a nasally New Yorker feels she could play that role just as convincingly in the U.S. Senate.
Ms. Drescher's publicist notes that she has been an advocate for women's health, notably the "Cancer Schmancer" movement, encouraging early testing. For that matter, she's also been a public diplomacy envoy for the State Department, a frequent visitor to Capitol Hill to lobby for cancer funding, and a fixture at Democratic conventions and fundraisers. For a celebrity, in other words, she's been far more of a political workhorse than, say, fellow small-screener and loud mouth Al Franken.
The rap on Ms. Drescher, of course, has always been that she's too annoying to listen to. Then again, being known for whining isn't necessarily a liability in politics. As she told People Magazine, her audiences on the lecture circuit have been goading her to get into politics for ages. "It was one of the single most-asked questions: When are you going to run? Only second to: Is that your real voice?"
Why should New York Gov. David Paterson pick her to fill the Hillary seat? "I would hope he would take into consideration that I'm a beloved New Yorker who gets the New York constituents probably as good, if not better, than any of the other people being considered," she told People magazine.
One other potential qualification is that Ms. Drescher was an energetic Hillary supporter in the Democratic primaries. If Mrs. Clinton has a say, the Nanny might be a shoo-in compared to current pollster favorite Caroline Kennedy, who famously stiffed her home-state senator and instead came out for Barack Obama.
-- Collin Levy
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The New Blacklist
Hollywood has spent more than half a century railing against the anti-Communist blacklists of the 1950s that prevented some people from working in the movie industry. Woody Allen, George Clooney and countless other celebrities have produced liberal-minded films purporting to show how evil the blacklist was and upbraiding those who were silent while it was imposed.
Well, a real live blacklist is going on in California now and only a few liberals are daring to question it. Last month, after California voters approved Proposition 8 prohibiting gay marriage, many activists were bound and determined to hound anyone who supported the measure. Scott Eckern, artistic director of the California Musical Theater in Sacramento, the state's largest nonprofit performing arts company, donated $1,000 to the "Yes on 8" campaign. Protests from the producer of the Broadway musical "Hairspray" and many other show business people soon forced him to resign.
Similarly, Los Angeles Film Festival Director Richard Raddon was forced to step down after it was revealed he had donated $1,500 to "Yes on 8." The festival's organizer put out a statement blandly saying, "Our organization does not police the personal, religious or political choices of any employee, member or filmmaker." Behind the scenes, however, many of the festival's board members pressured Mr. Raddon to resign. "From now on, no one in entertainment is going to feel safe making a donation as measly as $100 to a conservative defense-of-marriage campaign," says Brent Bozell, head of the conservative Media Research Center.
Nor is the modern-day blacklist confined to entertainment. This week, Marjorie Christoffersen, manager of the famous Los Angeles restaurant El Coyote, resigned after her restaurant was subjected to a month of boycotts and demonstrations because she had contributed $100 to the campaign against gay marriage. Ms. Christoffersen, who had been with El Coyote for 26 years, insisted her stance had nothing to do with prejudice against gays, but rather with her Mormon faith. That didn't impress the blacklisters. Fellow employees at El Coyote vouched for her kindness to gay employees, including personally paying for the mother of an employee who died of AIDS to attend his funeral. That didn't matter either. And neither did the fact that the managers of El Coyote sent $10,000 to gay groups to "make up" for Ms. Christofferson's contribution. The boycott continued.
The slowdown in business forced Ms. Christoffersen to leave, prompting Charles Karal Bouley, a former columnist for the gay publication The Advocate, to ask in the Huffington Post if the reaction against some Prop 8 supporters hasn't been "overkill." "Marjorie Christoffersen had the right to donate $100 to yes on 8," he wrote. "Americans have the right to be wrong. . . . Even Barack Obama said marriage was between a man and a woman at a time when we needed his voice on our side on equality. He let us down, too, remember, and many of you still gave him a job."
At least the Hollywood blacklist targeted those who either professed Communist sympathies or refused to sign loyalty oaths. As columnist Maggie Gallagher points out, "Targeting an entire business because one person associated with it made (in their personal capacity) a donation to a cause is brand new." Some gay activists are one step away from claiming that if someone disagrees with them, they shouldn't be allowed to work anywhere. The original Hollywood blacklist never went that far, but you won't see any movies made about the current intolerance mounted against supporters of traditional marriage.
-- John Fund
The Spector of Specter
Last night’s auto bailout collapse was not the last word on taxpayer dollars for Detroit, but the showdown was certainly a down payment on an even bigger Senate fight next year over labor unions.
In a conference call with bloggers yesterday, Republican Senator Jim DeMint said the biggest battle in next year’s Congress would be over card check legislation -- and pointed to Republican Senator Arlen Specter as the weak point in Republican defenses.
You might think Detroit’s troubles would be a warning against enlarging union power to dictate wages and terms to American business. Card check would allow union organizers to take over workplaces without a secret ballot vote. But Mr. Specter faced a tough primary fight in 2004 from conservative GOP Rep. Pat Toomey, and won largely because the state AFL-CIO strongly urged its Republican members to support him. Mr. Specter paid the union back by voting for card check in 2007, albeit at a time when Republicans had enough votes to stop it from becoming law.
Next year, Democrats will likely be only two votes short of the 60 votes needed in the Senate. And if Al Franken prevails in the Minnesota recount, Mr. Specter could end up being the deciding vote. Already, Pennsylvania AFL-CIO Chief Bill George is telling reporters that the card check vote would be “critical” in determining whether the union throws its weight behind Mr. Specter again. Meanwhile, conservative activist Grover Norquist and Mr. Toomey, who now runs the Club for Growth, are laying down markers for Mr. Specter on the right. Mr. Toomey tells The Hill newspaper he might consider running against Mr. Specter again in the 2010 primary if Mr. Specter supports labor's agenda.
This morning, the UAW’s Ron Gettelfinger blamed failure of the auto bailout talks on GOP desire to get a “win” in advance of the card check fight. The talks collapsed over Democratic refusal to force the UAW to accept a reduction in wages and benefits to match the transplant factories of the foreign manufacturers.
Mr. Gettelfinger didn’t quite say so, but card check is also part of Big Labor’s increasingly hopeless strategy to preserve its Big Three pay levels. The idea is to drive up wage and benefit costs at Toyota, Nissan and other transplants. Card check is key. The UAW has racked up a goose egg in 20 years of trying to organize the foreign-owned plants, and Detroit's recent troubles are not exactly a big advertisement to workers in Tennessee or Alabama to welcome the UAW. Whether even card check would help is doubtful in any case. But certainly a process that continues to rely on a secret ballot free from intimidation is unlikely to advance the UAW’s cause.
-- Holman W. Jenkins Jr.
Quote of the Day
"Like his memoir, Fugitive Days , 'The Real Bill Ayers' is a sentimentalized, self-justifying whitewash of his role in the weirdo violent fringe of the 1960s-70s antiwar left. 'I never killed or injured anyone,' Ayers writes. 'In 1970, I co-founded the Weather Underground, an organization that was created after an accidental explosion that claimed the lives of three of our comrades in Greenwich Village.' Right. Those people belonged to Weatherman, as did Ayers himself and Bernardine Dohrn, now his wife. Weatherman, Weather Underground, completely different! And never mind either that that 'accidental explosion' was caused by the making of a nail bomb intended for a dance at Fort Dix. . . . I wish Ayers would make a real apology for the harm he did to the antiwar movement and the left. . . . I'd like him to say he's sorry for his part in the destruction of Students for a Democratic Society. He's sorry he helped Nixon make the antiwar movement look like the enemy of ordinary people. He's sorry for his more-radical-than-thou posturing, and the climate of apocalyptic nuttiness he helped fuel . . ." -- columnist Katha Pollitt, writing in The Nation magazine, in response to a New York Times op-ed by Obama friend and former Weather Underground terrorist William Ayers.
In Search of . . . Margaret Thatcher
Britain's Conservative Party was depressed to learn this week that it's not making up a great deal of ground against Prime Minister Gordon Brown despite a U.K. economy even harder hit by the credit crisis than the U.S.
On the third anniversary of David Cameron's rise to become leader of the Tories, a new Times of London poll shows his party garnering the support of just 39% of Britons. These are lousy numbers for a party long out of power and with the opportunity to blame a serious recession on Mr. Brown's Labour Party. The only good news for Conservatives is that Labour's approval rating is even lower at 35%, not much higher than George W. Bush's numbers.
Maybe that's why down is beginning to look a little like up to Conservatives, who've been on the wrong side of British pollsters for more than a decade. Mr. Cameron, who figures to square off against Mr. Brown in an election in 2009 or 2010, finally has begun differentiating himself from Mr. Brown's tax-and-spend policies. He has been warning voters of Labour's "unsustainably high" spending and of the inevitable tax hikes ahead. Some see this as evidence Tories are finally recapturing their Thatcherite mojo. In the last three years, Mr. Cameron has made many mistakes, from messily fussing over the Conservative "brand" to lacking an early and articulate rebuttal to Mr. Brown's statist maneuvers. Many voters on the right still wonder just how conservative this Conservative Party leader really is. He remains a vocal supporter of public services such as the National Health Service, one of the biggest reasons for uncontrolled spending growth.
Mr. Cameron's challenge is not dissimilar to the challenge faced by Republicans in Washington. After an orgy of "Big Government" conservatism, the latter are now trying to regain their status as a voice for fiscal restraint amid a crisis-spawned explosion of interventionism. Of course, it doesn't help that a president of their own party has been a big contributor to the spree. Mr. Cameron at least has the advantage of being able to sound a more credible trumpet -- if he's willing to use it. It took a decade of economic crisis on both sides of the Atlantic before voters gave the Thatcher-Reagan solution a chance. Let's hope it doesn't take so long this time.
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A long National Taxpayers Union piece about congressional perks. Particularly galling is information about congressional felons still drawing pensions:
http://www.ntu.org/main/press.php?PressID=343
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Good look at Illinois politics and corruption:
http://reason.com/blog/show/130548.html (http://reason.com/blog/show/130548.html)
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Can David Paterson Say 'No' to a Kennedy?
Media reaction to news that Caroline Kennedy is actively seeking appointment to the U.S. Senate seat held by Hillary Clinton was certainly different from how the media responded to Sarah Palin's arrival on the national stage. Mrs. Palin may have been a mayor, chairwoman of a major state regulatory commission and a governor, but her entrance into big-time politics was widely ridiculed.
In contrast, the 51-year-old Ms. Kennedy is a shy and private person who has never held a job in public life beyond her 22 months planning strategic partnerships for New York City's public schools. She has co-authored books such as "The Right to Privacy" and also co-chaired Barack Obama's vice-presidential selection committee.
But her political experience is painfully limited. A family friend, noting that she had never campaigned for anyone outside her immediate family before Mr. Obama, had to reach in explaining to Newsweek magazine that she could handle the rigors of campaigning. "She worked rope lines and spoke at campaign stops for Obama and was not turned off by that," the friend said. "In fact, she enjoyed herself."
There is no doubt Ms. Kennedy could raise tens of millions of dollars for the two Senate races she would have to run in quick succession -- one in 2010 for the remaining two years of Mrs. Clinton's term and another in 2012 for a full six-year term. She no doubt would also receive the same kind of kid-glove treatment from most of the media that Barack Obama has.
But don't count on a Kennedy continuing the dynasty that has kept a member of the family in the U.S. Senate for all but two of the last 56 years. A key factor in who will be appointed to the Senate seat is how the selection would benefit the political interests of New York Governor David Paterson, the man who will make the decision.
Mr. Paterson is himself a governor who happened into his job by accident after the spectacular fall of Eliot Spitzer. With a slowing economy, the prospect of massive tax increases and a volatile group of special interests making demands on the state's budget, his job in winning a full term in his own right won't be easy.
That's why the safest choice for Mr. Paterson might be to appoint state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, who has been viewed as a possible primary challenger to the governor in 2010. Promoting Mr. Cuomo would remove the largest single obstacle to Mr. Paterson's election to the office he now holds, but it might also irritate women voters who were used to having Mrs. Clinton represent New York in the nation's capital.
"My heart goes out to David Paterson," Democratic political strategist Dan Gerstein says. "He's sadly become the grand champion of the no-win situation. No matter who he picks, he will alienate a lot of different communities."
Now, with Ms. Kennedy's openly public interest in going to the U.S. Senate, the question is whether he is willing to "just say no" to the Democratic Party's most powerful family dynasty.
-- John Fund
Obama's School Choice Is to Punt
In picking Chicago public schools chief Arne Duncan to be his Education Secretary, Barack Obama chose a middle course between appointing a fiery reformer and a favorite of the politically powerful teachers' unions that backed his candidacy.
Mr. Obama had been under pressure from liberals to appoint Linda Darling-Hammond, a Stanford University education professor viewed as an "old guard" defender of the educational status quo. On the other hand, many of his business supporters were backing Joel Klein, chancellor of New York City's public schools and someone who has often confronted teacher unions.
Mr. Obama instead opted for Mr. Duncan, a friend and Hyde Park neighbor who has often played basketball with the President-elect. Nonetheless, education reformers pronounced themselves pleased with the choice. Whitney Tilson, a founder of Democrats for Education Reform, said he had been impressed by Mr. Duncan's support for merit pay for teachers and willingness to shut down some failing public schools. Mr. Tilson said Mr. Duncan had been able to bring "real change" to the nation's third largest public school system and was the "perfect balance of being strong and getting what he wants and doing it in a way that wins."
All that may be true, but after seven years of Mr. Duncan's tenure in Chicago, its schools still remain seriously troubled. Mr. Obama, for his part, certainly never entrusted his own children to the Chicago public school system -- even schools in the affluent Hyde Park neighborhood where he lived. Instead, he sent both of his children to private schools -- as he intends to do when he moves to Washington, D.C.
-- John Fund
Quote of the Day
"For the last decade or so, the Democrats have not been as strong on education reform as the Republicans have. The Republicans have been much, much better, in my opinion, on ensuring strict accountability for schools and for districts, for ensuring that people are held responsible for closing the achievement gap and significantly increasing student achievement levels for every single child. What worries me about the Democrats is that they tend to be softer on these things, and soft is not what we need right now. Allowing schools to continue to fail year in and year out without significant ramifications either to the district or to the school is doing a disservice to the children. . . . I don't think it's too much for the children of this country to ask for to have somebody who's leading the education system who is always going to put their interests first and foremost, who is not going to care about the politics, the political flak, how many adults get mad at them, keeping the adults happy" -- District of Columbia Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee, on why despite being an Obama voter she is "somewhat terrified of what the Democrats are going to do on education," in an interview with NationalJournal.com's Amy Harder.
What If Sarah Palin Had Come from Chicago and Barack Obama from Alaska?
What's the difference between a hockey mom and a Chicago pol?
Apparently, it's more than lipstick. During the presidential campaign, Sarah Palin was criticized for having too thin a résumé to be vice president. But one portion of her record stands out now as being particularly relevant in the wake of Illinois Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich's arrest last week and Barack Obama's long-standing silence of Chicago ethics.
In 2003, Ms. Palin was appointed chairwoman and ethics supervisor of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission by then-Gov. Frank Murkowski. Before long she spotted what appeared to be ethical violations by fellow Republicans and also found the governor's response to be so sluggish that it bordered on willful blindness. The two Republicans she pointed fingers at were Randy Ruedrich, the state GOP chairman and a fellow oil and gas commissioner, and Gregg Renkes, the state's attorney general. Her beef with Mr. Ruedrich was that he appeared to be too close to a company he was supposed to be regulating. And Mr. Renkes appeared to have a financial conflict of interest in negotiating a coal-exporting trade agreement.
Mrs. Palin blew the whistle internally on both men. When nothing happened, she quit less than two years into her term. Later, when she was criticized by some Republicans for unfairly pointing an accusatory finger, she penned an op-ed and, using her famous hockey-mom metaphor, underlined the importance of holding government officials -- even members of her own party -- to high ethical standards. The incident cemented her reputation as a reformer when both men were later forced to resign and Mr. Ruedrich paid a $12,000 fine. Mrs. Palin went on to unseat Mr. Murkowski in a hard-fought GOP primary in 2006.
Compare this record to Mr. Obama's. An ethical cloud has been hanging over Mr. Blagojevich for years. We now know federal officials began looking into his affairs within months after he was elected in 2002. Mr. Obama came up in Chicago politics, shared at least one fundraiser with Mr. Blagojevich -- Tony Rezko, who was recently convicted of fraud and bribery -- and several other acquaintances, including top labor officials. But he apparently never saw any reason to publicly question the governor's ethics. In the past week the Obama camp has been compiling a list of contacts with Mr. Blagojevich and his inner circle since Election Day, which it will supposedly release next week. When that list comes out, let's hope it accurately portrays the overlap between the Obama and Blagojevich circles in Chicago. The question that will remain, however, is why didn't Mr. Obama ever assume the type of leadership role Mrs. Palin did in moving against public corruption within his own party and state?
-- Brendan Miniter
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I couldn't come up with a better topic to publish this under, so point me toward one if you know of it. As that may be, seems we are always being told that reducing the speed limit will reduce accident, though this recent study shows only about 5% of accidents are speed related. As an admitted speeder, albeit one who signals lane changes, keeps to the right lane except to pass, who doesn't tailgate or or drive aggressively, etc. and who drives a lot, my experience is that the folks who are most dangerous are the ones who are distracted and ego-driven. This report confirms the distracted element, though it appears the methodology doesn't allow for ego issues to be derived. One hopes policy makers will heed the findings rather than reflexively lowering speed limits.
Article from: www.thenewspaper.com/news/26/2627.asp
12/15/2008
US DOT Report Confirms Speed Not Major Accident Cause
US Department of Transportation study finds only five percent of crashes caused by excessive speed.
As lawmakers around the country continue to consider speed limit enforcement as the primary traffic safety measure, the most comprehensive examination of accident causation in thirty years suggests this focus on speed may be misplaced.
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) investigated 5,471 injury crashes that took place across the country between July 3, 2005 and December 31, 2007. Unlike previous studies automatically generated from computerized data found in police reports, researchers in this effort were dispatched to accident scenes before they were cleared. This allowed a first-hand comparison of physical evidence with direct interviews of witnesses and others involved in the incident. NHTSA evaluated the data to determine the factors most responsible for the collision.
"The critical reason is determined by a thorough evaluation of all the potential problems related to errors attributable to the driver, the condition of the vehicle, failure of vehicle systems, adverse environmental conditions, and roadway design," the report explained. "The critical pre-crash event refers to the action or the event that puts a vehicle on the course that makes the collision unavoidable, given reasonable driving skills and vehicle handling of the driver."
Overall, vehicles "traveling too fast for conditions" accounted for only five percent of the critical pre-crash events (page 23). More significant factors included 22 percent driving off the edge of a road, or 11 percent who drifted over the center dividing line.
When driver error was the primary cause of a crash, researchers went further to identify the "critical reason" behind that error. Distraction and not paying attention to the road accounted for 41 percent of the errors. Ten percent of errors were attributed to drivers lacking proper driving skills and either freezing up or overcompensating behind the wheel. Eight percent were asleep, having a heart attack or otherwise incapacitated. A similar eight percent of errors were attributed to driving too fast for conditions and five percent driving too fast for a curve (page 25).
The NHTSA findings are mirrored in accident statistics provided by the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles. The agency's most recent report lists "speed too fast" as the driver error that caused 2.9 percent of crashes in 2007 (view chart, see page 19). More accidents -- 3.8 percent -- were caused in Virginia by drivers falling asleep or becoming ill behind the wheel. Another 14.6 percent were caused by bad weather such as fog, rain and snow. "Speed too fast" was a more significant factor -- 13.7 percent -- in fatal accidents, as compared to 18 percent of fatal accidents involving alcohol and 9.6 percent caused by sleepiness and fatigue ( view full Virginia report in 1.9mb PDF format).
In the NHTSA and Virginia reports, "too fast for conditions" does not mean exceeding the posted speed limit. A vehicle driving 10 MPH on an iced-over road with a 45 MPH limit would be traveling too fast for the conditions if it lost control, but it would not have exceeded the speed limit. The UK Department for Transport isolated cases where only the posted limit was exceeded and found that, "Exceeding speed limit was attributed to 3 percent of cars involved in accidents" (view UK report).
"Four of the six most frequently reported contributory factors involved driver or rider error or reaction," the Road Casualties Great Britain 2007 report stated. "For fatal accidents the most frequently reported contributory factor was loss of control, which was involved in 35 per cent of fatal accidents."
A full copy of the NHTSA report is available in a 400k PDF file at the source link below.
Source: National Motor Vehicle Crash Causation Survey (U.S. Department of Transportation, 7/15/2008)
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From recent Newsweek mag. I only get NsWk because I got it for free from frequent flier miles. It is left wing propaganda de jour a la MSNBC so I don't care for their incredibly biased articles.
This article about Jindal who is hard core in his right wing beliefs but also a more centrist pragmatist in reality is of note. Is this the kind of rough roadmap answer for the Cans to make a comeback some day? I don't know, but anyway here it is:
****POLITICS
Their Own Obama
Bobby Jindal is in no way running for president. Or so he told Iowa.
Published Dec 13, 2008
From the magazine issue dated Dec 22, 2008
Bobby Jindal is in a hurry. It was only an hour ago that the Louisiana governor, 37, landed near the town of Longville (population: 2,462) and descended from his helicopter, Pelican One, into an SUV bound for the local Baptist church. And it'll be only a little while before Jindal reboards the chopper and resumes a tour that will, by bedtime tomorrow, take him to Breaux Bridge, Baton Rouge, Shreveport, Arcadia and, finally, New Orleans—a typical, 1,000-mile, midweek excursion for the boyish politician who rarely bothers to eat or urinate when traveling, which is almost always.
But in the meantime, Jindal must answer The Question. Ever since arriving at the Longville church for today's event, the governor has been sprinting through his "New Louisiana" stump speech, a self-promotional recap of his 10 months in office, at the relentless pace expected of a guy who graduated from Brown at 21, completed his Rhodes scholarship at 23, ran Louisiana's Health and Hospitals department at 25, presided over the University of Louisiana system at 28 and served in Washington as an assistant secretary of health and human services and two-term U.S. congressman before becoming the country's first Indian-American governor at the advanced age of 36. Swimming in his blue blazer, the 5-foot-11, 135-pound Jindal looks more like a bashful science-fair contestant than the latest successor to flamboyant Louisiana Gov. Huey Long, and if it weren't for Jindal's lavish Southern drawl, he'd risk sounding more like one, too; this morning's remarks, like nearly everything he says, have consisted largely of the phrase "a couple of things" followed by a flurry of details, statistics and multipart plans.
Now Clyde Dennis wants to know how hurried Jindal really is. "Tell me about your national aspirations," says the burly 65-year-old justice of the peace, rising from his chair. "Keep hearing your name on TV and all that kind of stuff. We want to keep you in state here. Don't want you to go to D.C." Having fielded The Question before—after all, Jindal frequently appears on cable to explain how the GOP should "right its ship"—the governor is ready with The Answer. "I've got the job that I want," he says. "I told y'all a year ago that we've got a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to change our state. I want to be a part of that. And if you let me, I'm going to run for re-election. I'm not running for president. I think the American people are tired of politics, they're tired of elections, they're tired of campaigns. Anybody out there running for president four years from now, eight years from now, they're not helping themselves—and they're sure not helping their country."
Three days later, Jindal, a Roman Catholic convert raised in a Hindu household, will repeat these lines, unprompted, at a gathering of nearly 1,000 adoring Christian activists. Which would be unremarkable, except that the event will take place not in Louisiana but in Iowa—the site, it just so happens, of the nation's first presidential caucuses.
There are plenty of rising stars in the GOP. But in the wake of Barack Obama's victory on Nov. 4, none has attracted as much speculation, curiosity and unapologetic hype as Jindal. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich recently called him "the most transformative young governor in America." Radio host Rush Limbaugh refers to him as "the next Ronald Reagan." John McCain eyed Jindal as a running mate, and Steve Schmidt, McCain's chief strategist, told The Washington Post in November that "the question is not whether he'll be president, but when he'll be president—because he will be elected someday." For his part, Jindal says he's uninterested in 2012—and given how his plan to run for re-election in November 2011 will make it near-impossible to prepare for the following January's nominating contests, he's probably telling the truth. But a veep slot—or 2016—is possible. "First of all, he's brilliant," antitax crusader Grover Norquist tells NEWSWEEK. "Two, he's from an immigrant community, so that speaks to immigrant experience, period. Three, he's a Catholic who lives his values instead of shouting at you about them. Four, he's a principled Reagan Republican. Five, he's from the South but doesn't look like a Southern sheriff. And he's got more successes as a governor, already, one year in, than George W. Bush or Obama had when they ran for president. He's exactly what we need."
This, of course, is the same sort of swooning that propelled a certain Illinois state senator to the presidency. So it's no surprise that "many prominent members of the GOP," as the Post noted, already consider Jindal their "own version of Obama"—the charismatic, nonwhite, Ivy League change agent destined to revitalize his party. Critics carp that Jindalmaniacs are simply jumping on the Benetton bandwagon, and Norquist admits that having at least one young, brown-skinned prospect is "helpful" in the age of Obama. But Jindal is no token. As his rise reveals, the governor shares with the president-elect something deeper—and, for Democrats, more dangerous—than age or color: the ability to walk between worlds. Immigrant and native, Brown and Baton Rouge, right and center, principle and pragmatism. The question now is whether Jindal can balance the dueling demands of Louisiana and Washington while preserving his fragile image as the future of the GOP. Louisiana Democratic Party spokesman Brian Welsh, for one, isn't betting against him. "Jindal's a force of nature," Welsh tells NEWSWEEK after following the governor to Iowa. "That's why I'm here, man. He's for real."
For Jindal, navigating difficult crosscurrents is nothing new. Born Piyush Jindal on June 10, 1971, to one of the few Indian families in Baton Rouge, he suddenly announced at the age of 4 that he would answer only to "Bobby," in honor of his favorite "Brady Bunch" character. Asked by NEWSWEEK why he chose an American name, Jindal insists that "there wasn't a whole lot of great thought gone into it." But Jan Daly, Jindal's English teacher, recalls that her top student "wanted to be Westernized." As a teen, Jindal rejected his parents' loose Democratic ties to become a staunch Reagan Republican—in part, he has said, because the Gipper was "very popular" and "easy to identify with." By the time Jindal arrived at Brown in 1988, he was a regular Alex P. Keaton. Arshad Ahsanuddin, a close friend, e-mails that Jindal sported "penny loafers with actual pennies in them" on campus, claiming, when confronted, that "it was the traditional way to wear that type of shoe." Since narrowly losing his first gubernatorial bid in 2003, Jindal has rarely appeared in public without cowboy boots.
Some might see Jindal as a political opportunist. But the governor's history of self-invention, yet another echo of Obama, seems less a product of ambition than of assimilation. Early on, everyone expected Jindal to fulfill the wishes of his demanding immigrant father by entering medicine—including Jindal himself. So the idea that he spent puberty polishing his political persona is a tough sell. "I never thought Bobby would run for office," says Mary Beth Guillot, his high-school principal. "He just wasn't the backslapping, glad-handing type." Instead, he has always been the consummate Organization Kid, striving to meet or exceed institutional expectations. As a college intern, he impressed Shreveport Rep. Jim McCrery with a massive manuscript on Medicare reform; five years later, he asked McCrery to recommend him for Louisiana health secretary. "How about deputy?" McCrery inquired. "No," Jindal, 24, replied. He got the interview—and the job.****
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I couldn't come up with a better topic to publish this under, so point me toward one if you know of it. As that may be, seems we are always being told that reducing the speed limit will reduce accident, though this recent study shows only about 5% of accidents are speed related. As an admitted speeder, albeit one who signals lane changes, keeps to the right lane except to pass, who doesn't tailgate or or drive aggressively, etc. and who drives a lot, my experience is that the folks who are most dangerous are the ones who are distracted and ego-driven. This report confirms the distracted element, though it appears the methodology doesn't allow for ego issues to be derived. One hopes policy makers will heed the findings rather than reflexively lowering speed limits.
**Speed may not be the cause, but the greater the speed, the greater the damage and potential for injury/death that results from the accident. The greater the speed, the less likely you are to avoid a collision with another vehicle or person.**
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**Speed may not be the cause, but the greater the speed, the greater the damage and potential for injury/death that results from the accident. The greater the speed, the less likely you are to avoid a collision with another vehicle or person.**
Well yes and no; you gotta pay attention to conditions and adjust accordingly, but I'm a firm believer, particularly when two-wheeling, that you can avoid trouble by accelerating about as well as you can by decelerating. Leaving trouble behind you is a good thing, as is movement out of an area where a knucklehead is being a knucklehead.
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"One hopes policy makers will heed the findings rather than reflexively lowering speed limits."
I recall reading an idea I liked for setting speed limits - leave the road unposted for a short time and observe the flow of safe traffic. Set the limit at the 85th percentile of observed speeds to include the safe drivers familiar with the road but leaving out enough to account for idiots, ego cases and drivers of full term pregnant woman whose water has broken.
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http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/pdf/nrd-30/NCSA/TSF2005/SpeedingTSF05.pdf
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http://www.edmunds.com/ownership/driving/articles/43810/article.html
Driving Tips
Keep Your (Braking) Distance: More Than Just Slowing Down
By Scott Memmer and Joanne Helperin
Email
Date Posted 11-23-2000
Although we at Edmunds.com spend a lot of time writing about rpm, torque, 0-to-60-mph acceleration, etc., nothing is more important than your car's ability to stop itself. Knowing something about braking distances (how much ground a vehicle covers before it can fully stop) can make for safer and more enjoyable driving.
Let's start with the basics. A vehicle traveling at 60 mph covers 88 feet per second. But stopping that vehicle takes over 4.5 seconds and covers a distance of 271 feet. Why? Because there's more involved in braking than the actual time your brakes are applied to the wheels (called "effective braking"). In particular, "perception time" and "reaction time" add considerable distance to stopping your car.
Perception time is the three-quarters of a second it takes for you to realize that you need to brake. Reaction time is the three-quarters of a second it takes to move your foot to the brake pedal. When you combine perception and reaction time, a full 132 feet will pass before your car even begins to slow down from 60 mph. So from the time you perceive a braking situation until the time your car comes to a complete stop, a total of 4.6 seconds elapses. During that time your car travels — it bears repeating — a total of more than 270 feet. That's almost the length of a football field. Of course, the faster you go, the more time and distance it takes to stop.
There are other factors as well, such as road conditions. When weather is bad, your braking distance grows exponentially. On wet pavement, total braking time increases from 4.6 seconds to 6.1 seconds, and total braking distance shoots up from 271 feet to 333 feet. And it gets worse. In snowy conditions, even with snow tires, total stopping time jumps to 10.6 seconds and 533 feet. As a basis of comparison, this is roughly the same distance — actually, a little further — as the same vehicle coming to a complete stop from 90 mph on dry pavement, an effective doubling of the braking distance. Let us repeat that: a 100-percent increase.
So what do we do with all these numbers? There's nothing we can do about the weather or about road surfaces, but we can do something about the way we drive. Arming ourselves with knowledge can prevent the loss of property and human life.
First, if you drive a truck or SUV, be especially cognizant of your speed in bad weather. Sitting higher off the road than everyone else only means you'll have a better view of the passing countryside as you slam sideways into a snowbank.
Second, remember this law: That which makes you go won't make you stop. If you drive a four-wheeler, you're not immune to the laws of physics, in fact you're a bit more susceptible (if for no other reason than your overconfidence). Whether you drive an Escort or an Excursion, it doesn't matter. In fact, the heavier weight of a truck or SUV means it will take much longer to come to a stop, given its greater momentum. Repeat: four-wheel drive does not help you stop. We're tired of seeing you folks spun around on the side of the road facing the wrong way. Slow down before you hurt somebody.
Third, remember to keep a "space cushion" around your vehicle at all times — ahead, to the sides and behind your car. This can be difficult to accomplish, especially in heavy traffic where everyone is darting in and out. How close is too close when it comes to following the car ahead of you? There's a handy "3-second rule." When the vehicle ahead of you passes a certain point, such as a sign, count "one-thousand-one, one-thousand-two, one-thousand-three." This takes about 3 seconds. If you pass that certain point before you finish counting, you are following too closely. We suggest a 4-second (or more) cushion in inclement weather.
Fourth, the tires you choose and their condition are another important, yet often overlooked, factor. See our articles, "Tire Safety: Don't Ignore the Rubber on the Road" and "Tires: Traffic Safety Tips" for all the details on tire selection and maintenance.
There are a few other factors that affect braking distances. As stated before, the heavier your vehicle is, the longer it will take to stop. Bear that in mind when you shop for a car or when you load it up. Also, the looser the road surface (gravel, dirt, mud), the harder it is to stop.
Finally, we strongly recommend that buyers choose a car equipped with antilock brakes (ABS), which, with few exceptions, help decrease braking distances on any road surface and in any weather. Whenever a driver slams on the brakes (and it's happened to everyone), the tires have the potential to lock up, sending you skidding. In a skid, tires have little traction, you lose steering control and braking distance is greatly increased. Antilock braking systems are designed to prevent tire lockup by automatically and rapidly "pumping" the brakes, potentially decreasing braking distances in extreme situations.
Of course, in order to get the most out of ABS in emergency braking situations, you have to know how to use it. And really, it couldn't be easier; you just stomp on the pedal. Some drivers are inclined to ease up on the brake pedal when they feel the vibration (and hear the noise) of the ABS doing its work, but it's important to maintain constant, controlled pressure. Aware that people often don't supply enough braking pressure, many manufacturers now supplement their antilock systems with "brake assist," which senses panic braking situations and automatically provides full power braking to shorten the stopping distance.
Many new cars come with antilock brakes as standard equipment, but you must often purchase them as an option on low- to moderately priced cars. And on some models, you may have to step up to a higher trim level to get ABS. Regardless, antilock brakes are a worthwhile feature and we highly recommend that you spend the extra money to get them.
What about disc brakes? Do they make a difference? Today we usually find four-wheel-disc brakes as standard equipment on most midpriced coupes, sedans, wagons and SUVs. Many economy vehicles and pickup trucks, however, continue to utilize a front-disc/rear-drum brake setup, which in most cases provides adequate performance for the general consumer. Nevertheless, vehicles with four-wheel discs usually deliver shorter stopping distances and are less susceptible to fade (loss of braking performance due to heat).
Whether you're reacting to sudden slowdowns on the highway or to a child darting into the street, nothing is more important than safe, well-maintained brakes (and the tires that work with them). Have them inspected according to the maintenance schedule in the owner's manual, and don't wait to have them checked out if you notice a pedal vibration or excessive noise when braking. That squeal you hear is probably telling you something — something that would be cheaper to fix now rather than later.
Additionally, being aware of all the variables — your proximity to other vehicles, weather conditions, road surface — will help you judge proper speed and give you time to react to whatever comes your way.
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http://www.virginiasafetycouncil.com/Stopping.htm
Good data on speed vs. braking distance here.
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http://www.1adsi.com/Pics.htm
Slalom 36-42 Mph
The Slalom drill allows the student to learn and practice many skills however the most important of these lessons would be to experience the lateral forces acting on the car. By forcing the student to keep there speed stable we are isolating the steering wheel. As the speed increases more and more steering input needs to be used. When the student becomes comfortable and proficient with controlling the forces produced by a certain speed the instructor will increase the speed by just two miles an hour. This does not feel like much of an increase, but remember small increases of speed act greatly on forces applied to the vehicle. This rule is especially true when reaching the vehicle's maximum limitations. A proficient driver who understands vehicle dynamics will be able to use a higher percentage of the vehicles capabilities.
This does not imply higher speeds, since potential accidents need to be avoided at all speeds. Notice the top speed in our slalom videos only reaches 40 MPH. 42 MPH. is impossible for even the best driver in the world. Successfully completing our 60-foot slalom with a police package Crown Vic. would be an act that defies the laws of physics.
As you look at the following video pics take notice to the small speed increases and the dramatic differences in the forces acting on the car. (All speeds and reactions based on maximum limit .85G 's Police Package Crown Vic) At 36 MPH you will hear a slide tire squeal and see moderate lateral weight transfer. At 38 MPH that tire squeal will become much more apparent as the added force causes the tires to begin to lose adhesion. At 40 MPH the vehicle will actually be on the edge of control. As the vehicle starts to lose control (sliding sideways) an aggressive and fast reacting driver will be able to regain control. At 42 MPH it is not possible to for the best driver in the world to negotiate the 60' slalom in our .85 G Crown Vics.
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Fascinating stuff. As I think about it a bit, it seems to me that driving skills and related issues would be a good thread for the Martial Arts forum.
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Sweet Caroline
It wasn't his idea. He may be irritated at being pressured into it. But it appears New York Governor David Paterson is moving towards appointing Caroline Kennedy to the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Hillary Clinton.
The dynamics are complicated. Normally, Mr. Paterson would have selected someone like Andrew Cuomo, the state's attorney general. Not only would that have removed Mr. Cuomo as a possible primary challenger to Mr. Paterson when he seeks a full term in his own right in 2010. Appointing Mr. Cuomo also would have given New York a proven operator with instant clout and credibility in the Senate.
But Mr. Cuomo's supporters were blindsided by the Kennedy boomlet, which was pushed by allies of Barack Obama and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Within days it was made clear to Governor Paterson that if he appointed Ms. Kennedy, he would have no trouble raising money against any possible primary opponent and would be looked on with great favor by an Obama White House.
All of this leaves both Mr. Cuomo and allies of Hillary Clinton sputtering. They are unhappy with the blitzkrieg campaign waged on behalf of Ms. Kennedy but realize there's little they can do to thwart it.
The only thing that could gum up the works now is Ms. Kennedy's possible overexposure in coming weeks -- i.e., if she answers too many questions. The perils of having this political Greta Garbo reveal too much about her opinions showed up even in the tentative answers she gave to Politico.com about some key policy positions.
Her answers had to be carefully calibrated to navigate the turbulent waters of New York special interest politics. She indicated support for same-sex marriage, opposition to school vouchers and sympathy with Governor Paterson's refusal (so far) to seek broad-based tax increases on wealthy New Yorkers. In other words, she showed herself to be a loyal Democrat, except on one question. When asked if she would support the Democratic nominee for mayor of New York next year against her friend Mr. Bloomberg, who may run as an independent, she took a pass. While that might anger some Democrats, it's certainly smart politics for her in the short run.
-- John Fund
'That Fifth CD Thing'
The legal team of President-elect Barack Obama will release a report this week clearing incoming White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel of any involvement in a scheme to sell the U.S. Senate seat held by Mr. Obama. The report will find that Mr. Emanuel had only one phone conversation with Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich and it was mostly a "pro forma" talk in which a list of candidates acceptable to Mr. Obama was conveyed.
What that doesn't mean is that all the questions about Mr. Emanuel's role will have been answered. The federal criminal complaint against Mr. Blagojevich says that about a week after last month's election, Mr. Blagojevich expressed interest in having a top Obama adviser be told of the governor's interest in creating a non-profit group that would need "10, 15 million" dollars in funding. Mr. Blagojevich says, in reference to the Obama adviser, "When he asks for the Fifth CD thing, I want [the funding] to be in his head."
The adviser in question is likely either Mr. Emanuel or someone intimately concerned with the special election that would pick a replacement for Mr. Emanuel in the House when he resigns his seat to go to the White House. But House seats, unlike Senate seats, aren't filled by gubernatorial appointment. So what exactly might Mr. Emanuel and the governor have to talk about?
Possibly, a great deal. Mr. Blagojevich held Mr. Emanuel's seat in Congress before becoming governor and exercises a great deal of clout in the North Shore of Chicago, where the district is located. Mr. Emanuel is known to be wistful about giving up his seat in the House, where he planned to stay for decades and eventually become Speaker. The speculation among political observers in Chicago is that Mr. Emanuel was keen on Mr. Blagojevich using his influence to back a "placeholder" to run for the seat -- i.e. someone who would serve in Congress but be willing to step aside in exchange for some other job when Mr. Emanuel wanted to reclaim his House seat.
One would hope the internal Obama report discusses the curious references to the Emanuel House seat in the criminal complaint. If not, we may never learn the full story. Mr. Obama has stopped short of pledging to release emails or other information relevant to the inquiry. A gap in government disclosure laws blocks presidential transition offices from having to make their records public under the Freedom of Information Act. That exemption may prove very handy to Mr. Obama, who obviously hopes his internal report will close out discussion of the relationship between his office and Governor Blagojevich.
-- John Fund
Memo to Pelosi
President-elect Barack Obama took off for a 13-day Christmas vacation in Hawaii on the weekend, leaving supporters stewing over his selection of Pastor Rick Warren to perform at next month's inauguration. Yesterday, Rep. Barney Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat and the first openly gay Member of Congress, blasted Mr. Obama's choice, saying: "Mr. Warren compared same-sex couples to incest. I found that deeply offensive and unfair."
The media naturally have hyperventilated over the seeming breach between Mr. Obama and a powerful Congressional Democrat, though Mr. Obama is likely not losing sleep over it. Mr. Frank, who has spent 27 years in Congress and endured revelations of a relationship with a gay hooker, survives politically because he represents one of the most liberal districts in one of the nation's most liberal states. He's hardly somebody most voters in America identify with. Meanwhile, with the Warren pick, Mr. Obama is building bridges to "values voters," some of whom helped him get elected by staying home in November. He also shows he's personally comfortable around conservative Christians, even when he disagrees with them on policy.
Besides, it's not too early to demonstrate who's on top in the Democratic Party. In a piece entitled "Pelosi lays down the law with Rahm," Politico.com reported last week that, in a private communication with incoming White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi tried to "set parameters" on her expectations from the new White House, including "no surprises" and "no backdoor efforts to go around her and other Democratic leaders by cutting deals with moderate New Democrats or conservative Blue Dogs."
Mr. Warren's selection may be Mr. Obama's answer to Ms. Pelosi, whose House Democrats had even lower approval ratings on Election Day than George Bush.
-- Brendan Miniter
Quote of the Day
"Dr. Holdren, now a physicist at Harvard, was one of the experts in natural resources whom Paul Ehrlich enlisted in his famous bet against the economist Julian Simon during the 'energy crisis' of the 1980s. Dr. Simon, who disagreed with environmentalists' predictions of a new 'age of scarcity' of natural resources, offered to bet that any natural resource would be cheaper at any date in the future. . . . In 1980 Dr. Holdren helped select five metals -- chrome, copper, nickel, tin and tungsten -- and joined Dr. Ehrlich and Dr. Harte in betting $1,000 that those metals would be more expensive ten years later. They turned out to be wrong on all five metals, and had to pay up when the bet came due in 1990. Now, you could argue that anyone's entitled to a mistake, and that mistakes can be valuable if people learn to become open to ideas that conflict with their preconceptions and ideology. That could be a useful skill in an advisor who's supposed to be presenting the president with a wide range of views. . . . But I haven't seen much evidence of such open-mindedness in Dr. Holdren" -- New York Times columnist John Tierney, on the selection of John Holdren as President-elect Obama's science advisor.
Bailout Nation North
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper on Saturday announced a complementary auto bailout, following the one announced by President Bush. In fact, the troubled asset Mr. Harper is trying to rescue is his own administration.
"I will not fool you," Mr. Harper told voters in discussing the $3.29 billion lifeline. "There may be, well, more money as we go forward."
Recall that, after winning re-election in October, Mr. Harper faced a vote of "no confidence" in Parliament, with opposition parties banding together ready to form a coalition government. Recall that, rather than negotiating a solution to the impasse, the Conservative premier chose to "prorogue" the legislature -- or suspend Parliament until Jan. 26 so it couldn't pass a no-confidence resolution.
By authorizing the bailout, Mr. Harper now hopes to pressure left-leaning members of the opposition into dropping the effort dissolve his government. Both New Democratic Party Leader Jack Layton and Liberal Party Leader Michael Ignatieff hail from vote-rich Ontario, center of the Canadian auto industry. The bailout was also strongly applauded by Canadian Auto Workers union chief Ken Lewenza, who nonetheless insists the Big Three's problems are all south of the border. Canadian workers, he says, "could work for nothing and we wouldn't sell another vehicle" thanks to trouble caused in Detroit and Washington.
He's got a point, since the cheap Canadian dollar and Canada's national health system have helped keep Canada's labor costs more competitive than the UAW's. Mr. Harper's move may be a shrewd attempt to save his government, but it puts Canada in line to pour potentially unlimited sums down a mismanaged U.S auto industry.
-- Adrian Ho
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Note to Readers
PD will be busy deactivating its missile defenses in anticipation of Santa's arrival. We wish our readers a joyous and safe holiday. We'll be back on Monday.
-- The Mgmt.
A Christmas Miracle for Ted Stevens?
It's wise always to be careful of prosecutorial overreach, even if -- or perhaps especially if -- it involves a case where the evidence appears to be overwhelming.
An FBI agent assigned to the Alaska corruption investigation of GOP Senator Ted Stevens has filed a complaint of misconduct against fellow agents and at least one prosecutor involved in the pursuit of Mr. Stevens on charges he failed to report $250,000 in gifts from an oil-services company executive. Mr. Stevens was convicted on the charges in October, subsequently lost his re-election bid the next month by a few hundred votes, and is currently awaiting sentencing.
The FBI whistleblower's complaint was heavily redacted by Federal Judge Emmet Sullivan, who presided over the trial, but was nonetheless released publicly last night.
The name of the whistleblower along with the names of the agents he accused of misconduct were withheld by the court. In releasing the redacted complaint, Judge Sullivan said yesterday he would consider a request by Mr. Stevens's lawyers to release more of the document later.
"I have witnessed or learned of serious violations of policy, rules and procedures as well as possible criminal violations," the whistleblower asserted in his complaint to the Justice Department. He alleges that FBI agents became cozy with sources in the corruption probe, took gifts and favors from some of them and revealed confidential grand jury and investigation information to the media.
Even more seriously, the whistleblower says at least one prosecutor withheld "exculpatory" information from the Stevens defense team despite a legal requirement that it be turned over. He also said the government concocted a "scheme" by which it allowed Rocky Williams, a potential witness in the case, to return home just before the trial began. Mr. Williams had been subpoenaed by both sides to testify, but prosecutors decided he would make a weak witness and came up with the excuse that he was too ill to testify and should be sent thousands of miles away from Washington back to Alaska.
The charges by the FBI whistleblower will have to be vetted by Judge Sullivan, but it certainly seems Mr. Stevens has a fair chance of having his conviction overturned or winning a new trial. However, the verdict of the voters must stand. They had to vote on Mr. Stevens's fitness and effectiveness for the office of Senator only ten days after he was convicted in federal court. He wound up losing by less than one percentage point to Democrat Mark Begich. No doubt if the FBI whistleblower's charges had been known before the election, the minds of some voters would have been changed.
-- John Fund
Gift Horse
The good news for Caroline Kennedy in a new Quinnipiac University poll is that nearly half of New York State voters expect Governor David Paterson to appoint her to Hillary Clinton's vacated Senate seat, as opposed to 25% who don't think it will happen.
The bad news is that, by 41% to 40%, New York voters don't think the 51-year-old social activist and fundraiser is qualified to be senator. Nor does she get any special break from women, among whom she had only a slight one-percent edge on the matter of whether she is "qualified." Even Geraldine Ferraro, a former New York congresswoman who was the 1984 Democratic vice-presidential candidate, told me yesterday that, while she supports the idea of a woman taking Hillary Clinton's place in the Senate, she isn't sold on Caroline Kennedy. "With the problems and financial crisis we have, we need a Senator who can jump in from Day One and tackle the problem," she told me. "I think one of New York's six Democratic congresswomen are most likely to have that ability right away."
Nor is Ms. Kennedy exactly running away from the competition in the Quinnipiac Poll. Though she is a big favorite among New York City voters, who like her by 42% to 27% over state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, suburban voters are split evenly between the two candidates, while Mr. Cuomo has a four-point lead among upstate voters.
-- John Fund
Sanford v. Keynes
Not every state and local politician in America is sprinting to the federal trough for free money out of Washington. One of the few stimulus skeptics is South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford, who is saying "no thanks" to federal bailout money for states. Mr. Sanford is one Republican who hasn't forgotten his fiscal conservative principles as so many other pols in the GOP have. "Out-of-control spending in Washington is the problem with the economy. So why spend more?" he said in an interview, sounding a lot like Ronald Reagan.
Mr. Sanford spoke with Mr. Obama when the governors met in Philadelphia and both reportedly agreed that the increased national debt was a problem. That's where the consensus ended. Mr. Sanford says he's no disciple of the Keynesian economic thinking that says spend now, save later, which has become the economic operating philosophy of Obamanomics. "Everybody is like, 'The budget can go up this year, but next year it's going down.' The conclusion I've come to is the only budget you've got is this year."
Mr. Sanford has a stimulus idea that could not be more diametrically opposed to Mr. Obama's. Last week he called for a complete phase-out of South Carolina's 5% corporate income tax, while chopping the individual income tax in half. These ideas are needed "now more than ever," he says. Though his plan would be partially paid for by increasing the cigarette tax from 7 cents to 37 cents, on balance he would be instituting a giant tax cut at a time when most other governors want handouts to fatten government spending programs and avoid tough budget choices.
Mr. Sanford is widely touted as a conservative rising star among state leaders -- much in the mold of a Fife Symington of Arizona, John Engler of Michigan or William Weld of Massachusetts in the 1990s. "Mark is unquestionably one of our top-tier guys," says Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour. The Cato Institute rates Mr. Sanford as the second most fiscally conservative governor in the nation. And the National Taxpayers Union says that during his six years in Congress, he racked up one of the best anti-spending records of any of his House colleagues.
No wonder last week a new Web site was launched: "DraftSanford2012.com."
-- Stephen Moore
Quote of the Day I
"The three most prominent Democrats in national politics during the past two years -- Barack Obama, Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton -- are all ascending from the U.S. Senate to the executive branch, creating open Senate seats for Democratic governors to fill. And, oh, what a spectacle it is -- of corruption, insider dealing, treacly dynastic politics and rank nepotism. . . . We might be witnessing the most brazen bout of cronyism since Napoleon made his relatives and minions rulers of conquered Europe. Or at least since the Kennedy family arranged in 1960 to have John Kennedy's pliable Harvard roommate keep his Massachusetts Senate seat warm until Ted turned 30 and could inherit -- er, get elected to -- it" -- National Review editor Rich Lowry.
Quote of the Day II
"The only way [the late Mark Felt, Watergate's 'Deep Throat'] could have the knowledge he did was if the FBI had been systematically spying on the White House, on the Committee to Re-elect the President and on all of the other elements involved in Watergate. Felt was not simply feeding information to Woodward and Bernstein; he was using the intelligence product emanating from a section of the FBI to shape The Washington Post's coverage. . . . Nixon was as guilty as sin of more things than were ever proven. Nevertheless, there is another side to this story. The FBI was carrying out espionage against the president of the United States, not for any later prosecution of Nixon for a specific crime (the spying had to have been going on well before the break-in), but to increase the FBI's control over Nixon. . . . The Washington Post created a morality play about an out-of-control government brought to heel by two young, enterprising journalists and a courageous newspaper. That simply wasn't what happened. Instead, it was about the FBI using The Washington Post to leak information to destroy the president, and The Washington Post willingly serving as the conduit for that information while withholding an essential dimension of the story by concealing Deep Throat's identity" -- Stratfor CEO George Friedman, on the passing of Mark Felt, the former FBI No. 2 who served as a secret Watergate source for reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein.
Getting Used to Senator Franken
The endless battle over Minnesota's Senate seat reconvenes today when the state's Canvassing Board meets to decide what to do with as many as 1,500 absentee ballots that may have been mistakenly rejected as well as some 130 ballots that Republican Norm Coleman's lawyers claim were double-counted.
The decisions the Canvassing Board makes will be crucial since it has almost completed its review of challenged ballots. At this point, Democrat Al Franken has a 48-vote lead out of well over two million votes cast.
No matter who wins the Canvassing Board's final count, the race is going to court. The Coleman campaign is upset that the Board, which is supposed to supervise a recount of the votes, nonetheless included in its totals 133 ballots that were cast on Election Day but wound up missing when the time came to recount them. "If the recount is supposed to come up with a new number, adding in ballots that are missing from the original count and can't be verified doesn't make sense," Coleman spokesman Erin Rath told me.
All of these issues are likely to wind up in court. Today, the Minnesota Supreme Court is hearing arguments on whether the rejected absentee ballots should be counted.
Bob Williams, president of the Evergreen Freedom Foundation in Washington State, says the whole process reminds him of the recount in that state's 2004 governor's race, which was ultimately won by Democrat Christine Gregoire by 133 votes. Minnesota's recount has been far more orderly and transparent than Washington's, but in both states the final result was determined by a series of controversial judgment calls that consistently pointed in the direction of counting suspect ballots.
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December 29, 2008
In today's Political Diary:
- Not Ready for SNL
- Overslept at Oversight
- A Transition to Remember (Quote of the Day I)
- Obama and the Age of Miracles (Quote of the Day II)
- Health Care, Chicago-Style
Caroline's 168 'You Knows'
When Sarah Palin gave a disastrous interview to CBS's Katie Couric, the national news media quickly jumped on the Alaska governor to declare her "not ready for prime time." Her verbal tics -- unusual sentence construction and a broad accent -- were skewered week after week on "Saturday Night Live."
Caroline Kennedy has largely avoided such ridicule in her quest to be appointed to replace Hillary Clinton as New York's Senator. The 51-year-old author and fundraiser has studiously ducked the media for years. Finally, barraged by criticism that she wasn't answering questions, she surfaced over the weekend to give a series of media interviews. They didn't go well. In fact, if the Palin standard were applied, Ms. Kennedy would be roundly judged unsuited for the national political stage.
Ms. Kennedy told the cable channel New York One that much of what makes a U.S. Senator effective are skills at "communication." But she utterly failed to articulate a reasonable case for why she should be placed in the U.S. Senate with no elective experience. "It's really, you know, it's not about just the Kennedy name," she said. "It's about my own work and what I've done with those values. . . . I just hope everybody understands that. . . . I have a lifelong devotion to public service."
But what raised the eyebrows of many people were Ms. Kennedy's verbal tics. In the space of the 30-minute NY One interview, she used the words "you know" a total of 168 times. In some sentences, she would employ that "filler" phrase three times.
A speaking problem such as hers can be cured and it's nothing to be made fun of. But as speech specialist Susan Ward notes: "Using excessive fillers is the most irritating speech habit. . . . They distract your listener often to the point that he doesn't hear anything you say. Your message is entirely lost."
Nor was her NY One interview an exception. Both the New York Daily News and the New York Times, which published reports on interviews with her on Sunday, noted her excessive use of "you know" and "um." But columnist Michael Goodwin of the Daily News was one of the few media analysts to report clearly on the problems surrounding her candidacy: "Her quest is becoming a cringe-inducing experience, as painful to watch as it must be to endure. Because she is the only survivor of that dreamy time nearly 50 years ago, she remains an iconic figure. But in the last few days, her mini-campaign has proved she has little to offer New Yorkers except her name."
Although critics have largely tiptoed around her liabilities, the general public is catching on that Camelot's Empress is under-dressed for her role. The Web site InTrade, which takes bets on the likelihood of political events, had her odds of being appointed by Governor Paterson at 85% just ten days ago. Now they are listed at just over 50%.
Ms. Kennedy is lucky that her status has spared her most of the verbal abuse that was heaped on Sarah Palin, but her qualification problems are big enough that she must now realize that the level of criticism -- especially from resentful New York Democrats -- is about to ramp up dramatically.
-- John Fund
While Edolphus Slept
President-elect Barack Obama has vowed a new war on "waste, fraud and abuse" within the federal government when he takes office.
But government reformers on both the left and right aren't expecting a major player in that fight to be the new chairman of the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee. Rep. Edolphus Towns, a 74-year-old Democrat from New York, is set to take over from Rep. Henry Waxman in January, after the California Democrat moves over to take the helm of the powerful Commerce Committee.
While Mr. Waxman was viewed as an often-partisan figure, no one doubted his energy as he conducted dozens of hearings into management of the Iraq war, pay packages on Wall Street and conflicts of interest within the Bush administration. But Mr. Towns was seldom a part of those meetings. USA Today reports that he attended only 12 of the committee's 74 oversight hearings in the last two years. That included skipping four of the six sessions recently on the country's economic meltdown.
Mr. Towns, who has been in the House since 1982, blames his poor attendance on overlapping duties related to another committee assignment. But every member of Congress serves on two or three committees and usually manages to reconcile their demands.
Rep. Darrell Issa of California, the new ranking Republican on the investigative committee, told me he is revamping the GOP staff by recruiting group of new investigators to make up for what he expects will be a lack of aggressive oversight of the incoming Obama administration. "Congressional oversight hasn't been handled well under both Democratic and Republican administrations in recent years," he told me. "I hope the media and public demands a higher standard going forward."
-- John Fund
Quote of the Day I
"You can't move the ball forward if you don't have a team working together. That's a big challenge for every president. You know, you look at George W. Bush's first year in office: There was not a single leak, not a single story written in the Washington Post or the New York Times, not a single one quoting unattributed, unnamed White House sources. And that's an incredible testament to everybody pulling on the same oar at the same time that you have to have to move your agenda forward in this very complex policy environment in Washington" -- Terry Sullivan, executive director of the University of North Carolina's White House Transition Project, on what President-elect Barack Obama could learn from his predecessor, in a Q&A with National Journal magazine.
Quote of the Day II
"By July, we will come to feel that 2009 will be one of the most upbeat years in our history, as what used to be the news media begins to get behind America and report on all the mysteriously wonderful things that are suddenly taking place . . . . 'Depression' will transmogrify into 'recession' which in turn by July will be a 'downturn' and by year next an 'upswing' on its way to boom times. Indeed, almost supernaturally crises will be solved with the departure of the hated Bush. . . . Static, same-old, same-old government policy will, of course, be said to have altered radically ('hoped and changed'), but it will also be refashioned in the media as 'sober' and 'judicious', as the administration moves 'in circumspect fashion' to probe and explore 'complex' and often 'paradoxical' matters of national security that 'indeed at the end of the day have no easy answers'" -- historian Victor Davis Hanson, writing at RealClearPolitics.com on the next phase of Obama cheerleading in the media.
Blago's Health-Care Model
If Barack Obama hears footsteps, it might just be shoes dropping in Gov. Rod Blagojevich's pay-to-play scandal.
On Saturday, The Wall Street Journal dug this little nugget out of the 76-page criminal complaint filed against Mr. Blagojevich a few weeks ago: Allegedly as part of his scams, Blago exploited an "ethics reform" law that was ushered through the state legislature in 2003 by . . . Mr. Obama. Back then, Mr. Obama was a mere state senator and his reform -- cutting the number of people who serve on a government board overseeing hospital construction -- seemed innocuous at the time. Now it seems it may have allowed the governor to stack the board with individuals willing to hold up construction projects on his say-so, allegedly while he extracted campaign contributions in exchange for green lighting the projects.
No one has credibly claimed wrongdoing on Mr. Obama's part. But sensational corruption allegations are only part of the story unfolding in Illinois. Mr. Blagojevich came into office six years ago promising clean government and also made a signature issue of expanded government health care. The governor saw the two issues -- ethics and government health care -- as intertwined. He even announced his biggest health-care initiative from the pulpit of a downtown church in Chicago two years ago. His plan was to enact a massive tax increase to pay for the creation of a nearly-universal health-care program, but it floundered in the legislature in no small part because of the personal animus he had built up with legislative leaders. That was a lucky break for Illinois taxpayers in more ways than one: Imagine the pay-to-play boodle that his office might have extracted from billions of dollars in new health-care contracts his administration would have been writing these past two years.
All this circles back to Mr. Obama on the policy level. The Chicago pol will be sweeping into Washington next month with the intention of enacting a massive new universal health-care program. On both sides of the aisle in recent years, massive government expenditures from highways to defense contracts have almost invariably led to wasteful earmarks and even out-and-out corruption of the sort behind the bumper crop of recent indictments and convictions of federal lawmakers. Back in Illinois, Mr. Blagojevich reminds us that the altruistic intentions of politicians aside, pricey new government run health-care programs are likely to be no exception.
-- Brendan Miniter
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Hard to compare a Kennedy with Sarah Palin. Besides the Alaska energy commission and the nation's largest state, what had she ever run... Palin never inspired a Neil Diamond song. Kind of creepy though, in 1969 Neil Diamond was pushing 30 and Caroline was going on 12.
"Who'd believe you'd come along -
Hands, touching hands, reaching out
Touching me, touching you
Oh, sweet Caroline"
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In today's Political Diary:
- Note to Readers
- Obama Senate Seat Becomes a Test of 'Chicago Politics'
- Republicans vs. Bailout Nation
- Fannie, Freddie and Hankie (Quote of the Day I)
- Nosey Parker (Quote of the Day II)
- Advice from Voters for the GOP
Note to Readers
PD will be getting an early start on goofing off in '09. We'll be back on Monday. Happy New Year!
-- The Mgmt.
Where Obama Comes From
Barack Obama's Senate seat has been vacant for a month now and looks like it will remain vacant as long as embattled Governor Rod Blagojevich resists efforts to remove him from office or persuade him to resign. The governor has said he won't be naming anyone to fill the Obama vacancy because the U.S. Senate wouldn't likely seat such a tainted appointee.
A special election to fill the vacancy was initially proposed by leading Democrats such as U.S. Senator Dick Durbin, Lt. Governor Pat Quinn and Senate President Emil Jones. But they backed off as realization dawned that Republicans might actually have a chance of winning a special election in the person of Congressman Mark Kirk, a respected moderate from the Chicago suburbs who has $5 million in his campaign fund.
So Democrats are stuck. As long as Mr. Blagojevich remains in office, Illinois will have only one senator and the voting public will be upset at the failure to call a special election.
That's why one Democratic state legislator is proposing a stopgap solution. Chicago Democrat Will Burns is introducing a bill that would require anyone Governor Blagojevich might appoint to the Senate to undergo hearings before both houses of the state legislature, followed by a confirmation vote. "Balancing the fiscal problems the state is facing with the need for more disclosure and a better process, I thought that this hybrid proposal provides the public with more transparency," Mr. Burns told Illinois Public Radio.
But his bill doesn't envision any long-term change in the process by which vacated U.S. Senate seats are filled in Illinois. The new bill would be a "one ride only" piece of legislation applying solely to the Obama vacancy.
Illinois pols can come up with any number of Rube Goldberg solutions to avoid a straightforward special election that would put the choice in the hands of voters. But if a special election were called, it could be held in conjunction with local elections already scheduled for most of the state in February or April. The cost would be minimal and voters would have real input in who will be representing them in Washington. Of course, that would mean the pols would lose control of the process, something which can't be allowed to happen in machine-dominated Illinois.
-- John Fund
The Bush Hangover
The Republican National Committee, which consists of two representatives from every state and territory, is technically the governing body of the Republican Party. In reality, it has normally been a rubber-stamp for the incumbent president whenever the White House is in GOP hands. "I've never seen much of any debate, much less a contested vote, in the years I've been on it," one RNC member told me.
But the debacle of the last two election cycles, coupled with an increasingly erratic set of policy choices by the Bush White House, is finally prompting a mini-revolt. A group of RNC members has initiated a special meeting to hear presentations from the six candidates running for the job of chairman. Even more significantly, the RNC's vice chairman and other officials are sponsoring a resolution that will oppose the Bush White House's support of seemingly bottomless bailouts for Wall Street and the auto industry.
"We can't be a party of small government, free markets and low taxes while supporting bailouts and nationalizing industries, which lead to big government, socialism and high taxes at the expense of individual liberty and freedoms," Solomon Yue of Oregon, a cosponsor of the resolution, told the Washington Times. The resolution was written by James Bopp, a noted constitutional law attorney who is the RNC's national vice chairman.
"Articulating a political philosophy is equally important as applying it consistently," says Mr. Yue. "Failing to do so, we have today's identity crisis, which resulted in our losses in 2006 and 2008."
The resolution is scheduled to be presented during the RNC's next general meeting in Washington D.C., which will be held between January 28 and 30. While the fact that some RNC members have finally developed a policy backbone is commendable, their declaration of independence comes a bit late. The Bush administration will be safely out of town by the time the resolution comes up for a vote.
-- John Fund
Quote of the Day I
"By mid-2006 there was a new actor in this long-running drama: Hank Paulson, the former Goldman Sachs C.E.O. who had just become Treasury secretary. Unlike the advisers who surrounded Bush, Paulson did not believe that the G.S.E.'s [government-sponsored enterprises, notably Fannie and Freddie] were the bogeymen of the financial system. After all, they had been major clients of his for years, and the ties between Goldman and Fannie ran deep. Nor did Paulson want any part of what he called 'the closest thing I've witnessed to a Holy War.' Paulson quickly began to move away from what one observer calls the 'extreme rigidity' of the administration's position. . . . 'I was aghast,' says a longtime G.S.E. foe, expressing a common attitude. 'Here we were fighting trench warfare with Fannie and Freddie, and Paulson says, "Let's cut a deal and say we won." Some of us really did believe they were a house of cards''' -- Vanity Fair writer Bethany McLean, on the federal government's failure to rein in mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Quote of the Day II
"Given the holidays and the press of business in preparation for the new administration, we have not reconstructed the circumstances behind each ticket. However, Congressman Rangel is confident that the National Leadership PAC and Rangel for Congress complied with all applicable laws and regulations in connection with these expenses, which were fully reported consistent with FEC requirements" -- Emile Milne, spokesman for Rep. Charlie Rangel, on revelations that Mr. Rangel used campaign funds to pay $1,540 in parking tickets in the District of Columbia, an illegal use of donations unless the fines were incurred as part of campaign events.
The GOP's 12 Steps to Recovery
The first comprehensive poll on why voters voted the way they did in November has just been released by the communications firm Target Point Consulting. I received a full briefing from the pollster Alex Lundry on what these 1,000 voters think of Republicans. The short answer is: not much.
The GOP is "in great disfavor with the electorate right now. Republicans are blamed for fiscal mismanagement, overspending, and the bad economy," says Mr. Lundry. "Democrats are seen as a center-right party, while Republicans are seen as dominated by the right."
That's a big problem because even though 84% of voters say they are center or right on the ideological spectrum, the 48% in the middle, i.e., independents, are tilting heavily toward Democrats. The fairly narrow victory by Barack Obama in the popular vote disguises an "enthusiasm gap" among Democratic and Republican voters. Some 65% of Obama voters "strongly supported" him, whereas only 33% of John McCain voters "strongly supported" the Arizona Republican. This helps explain the river of money for Mr. Obama and the massive grassroots advantage for the Democrats.
But the biggest problem revealed by the poll for Republicans is that "voters no longer believe that the party cares about the middle class in a meaningful or credible way," Mr. Lundry explains. "Democrats cleverly frame every issue as for the middle class."
What issues have Republicans hurt themselves most on? Three that jump out are immigration, where Republicans are seen as too strident; the War in Iraq, where voters are eager for closure; and bailouts, where voters have become angry and resentful at throwing money at failing giant corporations. Furthermore, as economic anxieties have escalated, independent voters are now more favorably inclined toward protectionist trade policies. Free marketeers need to make a better case for the positive benefits of international trade or more restrictions are certainly on the way.
The good news is that voters are very fearful that Democrats will go too far with their liberal agenda. When voters are asked what they "like least about the Democrats," the most common answers volunteered were: "taxes going up," "big government," "liberal," "raise spending," and even "socialism." These broad economic and fiscal principles appear to present the GOP with its biggest opening.
The poll also reveals that Republicans can win back voters by opposing Democrats on several specific policies coming down the pike in 2009: card-check labor union elections, bailouts for banks and auto makers, welfare expansions and affirmative action.
The key for the months ahead is for Republicans to posture themselves, advises Mr. Lundry, "not as obstructionists, but as a check on the Obama agenda."
-- Stephen Moore
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Why not Sean Penn or Barbra Streisand?
Some can rightly question would W have ever been President if it wasn't for his father but he was a governor first and he did run and win an election. This is certainly not the same as being handed a seat because of your name and strings being pulled for ya.
***HEY CAROLINE - YOU’RE NOT ENTITLED
By Dick Morris And Eileen McGann 12.23.2008 Caroline Kennedy apparently thinks that she is entitled to be appointed as the next junior Senator from New York.
She shouldn’t be. Think about it.
Her qualifications? Her name is Kennedy and she can raise a lot of fat-cat money for herself and for New York democrats who support her.
Her strategy? Ignore the voters and the press and meet with the political bosses behind closed doors to convince them to pressure Governor David Patterson to appoint her to Hillary Clinton’s seat.
Is there a more cynical message in the Age of Obama?
Who’s supporting her? Among her chief backers is New York City’s billionaire Republican Mayor Michael Bloomberg who recently decided to ignore a legitimate and binding citywide referendum that prohibited him from seeking a third term. In one of the most appalling examples of an arrogant “the public be damned” attitude, Bloomberg convinced the City Council to overrule the will of the people so he could stay in City Hall. He’s a big contributor to many of the folks who supported this brazen move. Legendary Tammany Hall boss Carmine De Sapio would love both Bloomberg and Caroline for bringing back the old “power to the bosses” style of politics.
Her position on issues that will face the next Senator? She won’t tell you. She’s adamantly refused to speak about any issues. In her first foray outside Manhattan, she declined all questions from the press. She wouldn’t even say whether she had ever been to Syracuse before. Does that suggest what the answer would have been? Her handlers finally provided written answers to some of the questions posed by The New York Times. She picked out the questions she wanted to answer and ignored some of the tough issues - like whether she supports increased taxes for rich people. She’s not saying. Now, SHE WON’T DISCLOSE HER PERSONAL FINANCES OR PROVIDE A LIST OF COMPANIES THAT SHE HAS A STAKE IN!
Sound like the good old days? Is this woman kidding?
Her involvement in politics? Not much. She campaigned for Obama and worked on his committee that recommended the Vice-Presidential candidate. She’s never been active in New York politics and she hasn’t even voted in about half the contested elections in New York since 1988. Over the past fifteen years, she’s contributed to her uncle, Senator Ted Kennedy, her cousin Rep. Patrick Kennedy, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Al Gore, Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd, and Connecticut wanna-be Ned Lamont, and former Pennsylvania Senator Harris Wofford (1991) Not much interest in New York’s candidates or issues!
Her experience?
• She is a long time patron of the American Ballet Theatre
• She is active in her father’s presidential library
• She was a part-time volunteer fund raiser for the NYC schools for less than two years
• She’s co-authored two books on civil liberties
• She’s written five books. She is her most derivative in her published works. Of four New York Times bestsellers; three of them were compilations of other peoples’ work. One was The Patriot’s Handbook: Songs, Poems, Stories, and Speeches Celebrating the Land We Love. The only thing these songs, poems, stories, and speeches had in common was that she didn’t write any of them. Then followed, The Best-Loved Poems of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. In this book she not only didn’t write the poetry, she didn’t even choose it. Her third best seller was A Family of Poems: My Favorite Poetry for Children, again a compilation of works that were not her own. Then there’s A Family Christmas, another anthology of her favorite short stories, poems, etc about Christmas (all written by other people). In another book, Profiles in Courage For Our Time, she swiped only the title from her late father but wrote the copy herself.
• She hasn’t had a job since before she went to law school in the 1980’s.
So, why should Caroline be appointed Senator?
Does anyone seriously believe that her audacious grab for the New York Senate seat is based on anything more than a misplaced and somewhat grandiose sense of entitlement coupled with a cynical claim of access to big money for the next election?
If her name wasn’t Kennedy, would anyone give any consideration at all to someone without any experience to prepare her for the job or to even inform the voters about what she stands for?
ANSWER: NO
Is there a single person in the United States who doesn’t wish Caroline Kennedy well and hope that she’s spared from further tragedy?
Probably not.
But affection, sympathy, and nostalgia shouldn’t be the basis for appointing this woefully inexperienced woman to a key Senate seat in these troubles times.
Her father’s and uncle’s names are the only thing that makes her a contender.
Doesn’t anyone in New York politics use their own names anymore? Caroline Kennedy, the daughter of the former president, wants to take the Senate seat of Hillary Clinton, the wife of the former president. But some people are pushing for Andrew Cuomo, the son of the former governor. Are we stuck in political dynasties? And who will make the decision? New York’s David Patterson, the son of Basil Patterson, the former New York State Senator, Secretary of State, and Deputy Mayor of New York City.
Don’t we have any talented people who don’t feel entitled to inherit a seat? Can’t we stop the political dynasties?
At least Cuomo has his own accomplishments. He was the Secretary of HUD in the Clinton Administration, and as the elected New York State Attorney General, he’s done an outstanding job. Caroline Kennedy has done absolutely nothing to deserve elevation to the United States Senate. A review of hundreds of newspaper articles mentioning her name over the past twenty years shows rare substantive issues: her books and book tours, awarding the Profiles in Courage Award to Lowell Weicker for instituting an income tax in Connecticut, very part-time fund raising for the city schools. Even in that regard, her influence is questioned and others are given as much or more credit. The majority of the articles are about her wedding, her mother, her brother, her socialite activities, and her lucrative auction of her mother’s old blankets, picnic baskets, and other household effects.
No, Caroline has not been heard from on any of the important issues facing New Yorkers.
Patterson is a talented politician. He will probably appoint Cuomo anyway for one simple reason: To get him out of the way. Acutely aware that he was not elected governor but only got the job when Eliot Spitzer self-destructed, Governor Patterson would probably face an uphill primary fight against Cuomo in 2010 if he doesn’t shunt him off into the Senate. Other than the Attorney General, there is nobody with the stature to offer Patterson serious opposition in the Democratic Party.
Patterson should not succumb to the lobbying of the bosses and the fat cats for Caroline. She’s not entitled.***
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With the choice of Clinton retread Panetta for CIA, one wonders what other retreads are in the pipeline.
Anyone know what Monica Lewinsky is up to these days? :lol:
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If Lewinsky wants to....um...."Lewinsky" Obama, she'll have to get into the line behind Chris Matthews and the rest of the MSM.
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:-D
GOP: Bailouts R Not Us
New and Improved at the DNC
Harry Reid Climbs Down
Towards a Self-Selected Senate (Quote of the Day)
Vegetarians v. Madoff
Bush Mutiny
President Bush's handling of the economic crisis came in for sharp criticism during Monday's debate between candidates vying to become the next chairman of the Republican National Committee. Five of the six contenders said they would support a pending RNC resolution criticizing both the auto bailout and the bailout of the financial industry passed by Congress in September.
"The bailout was a bust. It should never have happened," former Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael Steele told the audience at the debate sponsored by Americans for Tax Reform. "Republicans should have had a little bit more you-know-what to withstand the pressure. They didn't and we're paying for it. I absolutely support the resolution because it reflects the frustration of our base." Mr. Steele's position was seconded by four of the five other candidates vying for the RNC chairman's post.
The lone dissenter was Mike Duncan, the current RNC chairman who has worked closely with the Bush administration. He said that "as a banker" he understood the problem better than the other candidates and it couldn't be summarized with "a simple yes or no answer." He did admit the bailouts have clearly created "a lot of problems."
Grover Norquist, head of Americans for Tax Reform, told ABC News that the anti-bailout resolution was vital to get Republicans "back into the swing of having an opinion as a party" on an issue that involved "giving $750 billion of other people's money to people whose claim to fame is that they lost their money."
The election for RNC chairman, along with a vote on the anti-bailout resolution, will be held in Washington on January 29.
-- John Fund
Kaine League
President-elect Barack Obama will tap Virginia Governor Tim Kaine to become chairman of the Democratic National Committee this week. Any Republican who was hoping for a kinder, gentler opponent than outgoing DNC Chief Howard Dean had better think again.
Mr. Kaine will tackle the role on a part-time basis until January 2010, when he'll be out of a job as Virginia's governor and can assume the party chairmanship full-time. The post is a reward for an early Obama supporter who helped deliver the Old Dominion to a Democratic presidential candidate for the first time in nearly 50 years. Mr. Kaine is viewed as an up-and-comer and emblematic of a new breed of Democratic politicians who have succeeded by appealing to suburban voters -- often by stressing more middle-of-the-road social positions.
That occasional moderation should not, however, be confused with partisan meekness. If Mr. Kaine has become known for anything, it's his relish for an old-fashioned partisan brawl. He proved himself an able attack dog for Mr. Obama during the presidential campaign, jabbing at Senator John McCain and the Bush Administration. In Virginia, if anything, he's been criticized for engaging in too many political fights, which some voters see as a reason why he's failed to enact most of his campaign promises -- such as universal preschool, or more roads.
His aggressive style, in some ways, is similar to that of the gregarious Mr. Dean -- save one important way. Whereas Mr. Dean routinely got into scraps with his own party, Mr. Kaine is personally close to Mr. Obama and can be counted on to serve as a supporter of the new administration's agenda. As the GOP mulls its own choice to head the Republican National Committee, Mr. Kaine's appointment means Republicans had better prepare themselves for a feisty opponent with a track record of winning races in a state Republicans badly need if they hope to return to power.
-- Kim Strassel
Burris in the Saddle
Senate Democrats are working to tone down the threat of a spectacle over two disputed Senate seats. Apparently, no one wants the Senate's first day to become known for bitter and acrimonious argument.
Dispute aplenty is present in the fight over whether Roland Burris, who was appointed by scandal-tarred Illinois Rod Blagojevich, and Al Franken, the former comedian who narrowly won a recount in Minnesota, should be seated. Apparently Majority Leader Harry Reid has decided to avoid having his preferred solution imposed on the Senate. He would like Mr. Burris blocked because he lacks a certificate of appointment from Illinois' Secretary of State, but wants Mr. Franken seated even though he lacks a certificate of election from Minnesota's Secretary of State. Lawyers for Republican Norm Coleman are mounting a court challenge against Mr. Franken's alleged recount victory that will block the issuance of an election certificate for weeks.
As for Mr. Burris, it has been amusing to watch Majority Leader Reid climb slowly down from his position that Mr. Burris's appointment by a politically tainted governor was illegitimate. Mr. Reid now says he is willing to "negotiate" over the matter of his eventual seating.
The reason is clear: Mr. Reid has been under intense pressure from members of the Congressional Black Caucus to seat Mr. Burris, who was not a player in Mr. Blagojevich's alleged pay-to-be-appointed scheme. Rep. Donald Payne, a New Jersey Democrat and former CBC chairman, put in blunt terms how much trouble Mr. Reid will be in if he ultimately denies Mr. Burris a seat. "I think race comes into it because the Senate lacks diversity," Mr. Payne told reporters. "It doesn't reflect America."
Mr. Reid has clearly realized that rejecting the Burris appointment outright might involve a high political price. The dispute, along with the issue of Al Franken's eligibility, will be referred to the Senate Rules Committee. That body will simply stall for time and hope events in Illinois and Minnesota play out in a way that reconciles conflicting Democratic priorities.
-- John Fund
Quote of the Day
"Like it or not, Illinois Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich has the legal authority to appoint Roland Burris to the U.S. Senate, and Burris, the state's former attorney general, should be allowed to take the seat vacated by President-elect Barack Obama. . . . Allowing the Senate to exclude Burris on any except the narrowest of grounds would create a dangerous precedent. It could open the door to the Senate or the House overturning the will of the people and excluding representatives under one or another pretext. If Burris -- whose appointment meets the legal test, no matter what you think of Blagojevich -- is not seated, other properly elected (or appointed) representatives also are at risk" -- Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the UC Irvine School of Law, writing in the Los Angeles Times.
Bernie Madoff, Tofu King
HONG KONG -- It didn't take long for Hongkongers to come up with a nickname for Bernard Madoff in their eminently punnable native Cantonese. "Mai dou fu" they call him, in a phrase that approximates the sound of his name in English. It means "sells tofu," and is even more biting since it includes an implied "instead of real meat" at the end.
Mr. Madoff's alleged scam seems to have hit Americans, and particularly Jewish investors and charities, the hardest. But it hasn't left Asia untouched. Among other victims, Nomura and Aozora, both Japanese financial institutions, have announced exposures in the hundreds of millions of dollars. And Mr. Madoff or his promoters reportedly took emergency jaunts through Asia trying to drum up fresh suckers as the fund was beginning to collapse.
Fortunately for those investors, they appear mostly to have ignored the pitch. Still, the scandal is rippling here in other ways. China's government has floated plans to crack down on domestic pyramid schemes by tightening enforcement of a 2005 law banning Ponzi-style rackets. They mean business: In November, China executed one man convicted of promising 60% returns to 10,000 investors who bought ant-breeding kits.
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Wednesday Chronicle
Vol. 09 No. 01
7 January 2009
THE FOUNDATION
"All men having power ought to be distrusted to a certain degree." --James Madison
THE DEMO-GOGUES
Hope 'n' change: "The number one goal of my plan ... is to create three million new jobs, more than 80 percent of them in the private sector." --Barack Obama on creating 600,000 new government jobs
"Potentially we've got trillion-dollar deficits for years to come, even with the economic recovery that we are working on at this point. We're going to have to stop talking about budget reform. We're going to have to totally embrace it. It's an absolute necessity." --Barack Obama on "budget reform," by which he means slashing national defense spending
The Democrats finally have the country where they want it: "The economy is in much worse shape than we thought it was in. There is no short run other than keeping the economy from absolutely tanking. That's the only short run." --Joe Biden
Life's rough: "I can't go to my own barbershop now. I've got to have my barber come to some undisclosed location to cut my hair." --Barack Obama
Everybody's innocent: "I'm here to tell you right off the bat that I am not guilty of any criminal wrongdoing, that I intend to stay on the job, and I will fight this thing every step of the way. ... As governor I am required to make this appointment." --Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich on appointing professional narcissist Roland Burris to fill Barack Obama's Senate seat
Power play: "[T]here's clearly legal authority for us to do whatever we want to. This goes back for generations. ...[There is] a cloud over anyone that comes from the state of Illinois being appointed by [Gov.] Blagojevich." --Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid
Hurt feelings: "[Rick] Warren compared same-sex couples to incest. I found that deeply offensive and unfair. If [Barack Obama] was inviting the Rev. Warren to participate in a forum and to make a speech, that would be a good thing, but being singled out to give the prayer at the inauguration is a high honor. It has traditionally given as a mark of great respect. And, yes, I think it was wrong to single him out for this mark of respect." --Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA)
UPRIGHT
"According to a just published report (from the Pew Research Center), more Americans today call themselves conservative than liberal, and the relative percentages in each category has hardly changed since George W. Bush was elected to his first term in 2000. Thirty-eight percent of Americans self-identify as conservative, 21 percent as liberal, and 36 percent as moderate." --columnist Star Parker
"From the dawn of the Progressive Era, politicians have sought to minimize the Constitution whenever it got in the way. When the Supreme Court rejected President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal programs, he threatened to expand and pack the court with more progressive minds. Suddenly, what was previously unconstitutional became constitutional. After seventy years of emasculating the Constitution, it is time for politicians to respect it rather than roll it out as a media prop." --columnist Matt Mayer
"Republicans can be successful by having better ideas than Pelosi, Reid and the Democrats in the House and Senate, not by just being opposed to what the majority is proposing." --Rich Galen
"Bernard Madoff, who stands accused of bilking sophisticated investors out of $50 billion, is reported to have told two of his executives that his business was 'a giant Ponzi scheme.' Politicians go on and on about Wall Street 'greed' and 'irresponsibility.' But Madoff's scam was small compared to Ponzi schemes the government itself runs: Social Security and Medicare. In reality, our money, rather than being invested and kept in an actual 'trust fund,' is immediately given to current retirees in Social Security benefits or to their healthcare providers in Medicare benefits. The government's promise to pay for your retirement pension and medical care is just a promise. And a lie." --John Stossel
"It's often pointed out that Hamas does not recognize Israel's right to exist. It's more than that. Hamas, with Iran's backing, is committed to Israel's violent destruction." --columnist Mona Charen
INSIGHT
"A lie would have no sense unless the truth were felt dangerous." --Austrian psychologist Alfred Adler (1870-1937)
"Most of the change we think we see in life is due to truths being in and out of favor." --American Poet Robert Frost (1874-1963)
"Life is not holding a good hand; Life is playing a poor hand well." --Danish proverb
EDITORIAL EXEGESIS
"Many of those who voted for [Barack Obama] either dismiss the terrorist threat, or believe none exists. Still worse, some think we should placate our enemies, not vanquish them. That's why a new report from Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff is more than a little disquieting. It suggests that the U.S. faces a real prospect of a serious terror attack sometime in the next five years, particularly from a biological weapon of some sort. 'The threat of terrorism and the threat of extremism has not abated,' Chertoff recently said. And that's not just rhetoric. The Homeland Security Threat Assessment for 2008-2013, leaked to the Associated Press late last week, predicts that terrorists will try some sort of biological weapon on the U.S. in the next five years -- an attack that could overwhelm our health care system, leading to devastating consequences for our economy. The report goes on to warn of outside terror groups such as al-Qaida using our porous borders and poor controls to place terrorist cells inside the United States. Sound unlikely? Recall that just two days before Christmas, five Muslim immigrants were convicted for plotting to kill U.S. soldiers at Fort Dix, N.J. It's already here. ... The worst thing that could happen, we fear, is that Obama comes in with a mandate to spend upward of $1 trillion on a stimulus package and then decides to at least partly finance it by cutting defense and anti-terror measures to the bone. There are already warning signs in Obama considering abandoning missile defense and other advanced defense systems, while our potential foes plunge full speed ahead. And his aides suggested the Pentagon's request for 30,000 more troops might be rejected. With Russia boosting its defense outlays by 40% while it builds its nuclear arsenal, China intent on having a blue-water navy to challenge the U.S., and the terrorist threat unabated, it wouldn't be wise to cut back on defense or anti-terrorist efforts right now." --Investor's Business Daily
DEZINFORMATSIA
Gag reflex kicking in: "The sun glinted off chiseled pectorals sculpted during four weightlifting sessions each week, and a body toned by regular treadmill runs and basketball games." --Washington Post reporter Eli Zaslow on Barack Obama's workout habits
Like, dude, he's so awesome: "We're actually talking about how a lot of people think that President-elect Barack Obama is the epitome of cool. Look at that guy. Everything, I mean, even in a baseball cap. Don't you think?" --CBS's "Early Show" co-host Tracy Smith
You asked for it, you got it: "Obama has spent most of his vacation secluded in his oceanfront rental home, some days emerging only to get in that daily workout, where he always draws crowds. In an interview with 60 Minutes just after his election, Obama was already lamenting the loss of the simple things." --NBC correspondent Savannah Guthrie
Wouldn't want to "distract": "Obama's coming into office with a very ambitious agenda, and if you add together what's going on with [Bill] Richardson right now with the [Rod] Blagojevich scandal, is that going to be a distraction in the key early days?" --ABC anchor Dan Harris
Sad commentary: "Quietly, as the United States presidential election and its aftermath have dominated the news, America's three broadcast network news divisions have stopped sending full-time correspondents to Iraq." --The New York Times
Newspulper Headlines:
Our New Year's Resolution: Watch More Television: "Reading Raises Property Taxes 5 Percent" --Reading (PA) Eagle
We Blame Global Warming: "Twin Cities Streets an Icy Mess; Who's to Blame?" --Star Tribune (Minneapolis)
Not to Mention Guns and Religion: "In Tough Times, Americans Cling to Christmas Trees" --Reuters
Wow, That Is Turbulent!: "Oil Rises on Quiet Trading to Cap Turbulent Year" --Associated Press, Dec. 31 ++ "Oil Falls on Quiet Trading to Cap Turbulent Year" --Associated Press, Dec. 31
News You Can Use: "Forget the Economy: Killer Asteroids Could Pose Real Danger" --McClatchy Newspapers
Bottom Stories of the Day: "Obama-Inspired Hope Goes Only So Far in Kenya" --Los Angeles Times
(Thanks to The Wall Street Journal's James Taranto)
VILLAGE IDIOTS
Days of Our Lives -- Minnesota: "After 62 days of careful and painstaking hand-inspection of nearly 3 million ballots, after hours and hours of hard work by election officials and volunteers around the state, I am proud to stand before you as the next senator from Minnesota." --wannabe comedian Al Franken
As the World Turns -- Illinois: "I am a United States senator. They can't stop me from doing my senatorial duties." --Illinois Senator-appointee Roland Burris with reference to the Senate Democrat leadership unwilling to allow him to be seated ++ "We are hoping and praying that they will not be able to deny what the Lord has ordained. I am not hesitating. I am now the junior Senator from the state of Illinois. Some people may want to question that and that is their prerogative." --Roland Burris
Young and the Restless -- New York: "I'm really coming into this as somebody who isn't, you know, part of the system, who obviously, you know, stands for the values of, you know, the Democratic Party. ... I know how important it is to, you know, to be my own person. ... It's really, you know, it's not about just the Kennedy name. It's about my own work and what I've done with those values." --Caroline Kennedy, who is almost as eloquent as Barack Obama, on seeking Hillary Clinton's Senate seat **Kennedy used the words "you know" an astounding 168 times in this interview.
Strange comparisons: "I don't think it's appropriate. It's like putting, you know, [Dick] Cheney in charge of gun control. It's wrong ... it's just wrong." --co-host of "The View" Joy Behar on Barack Obama's choice of pastor Rick Warren for the invocation at his inauguration
"The destruction of the Jews in Israel has been assured with this inhuman attack on civilians in Gaza. Exactly as its Nazi mentors did to the Jews of Warsaw, Israel now bombs innocent civilians who have been imprisoned in concentration camps in Gaza! ... The Zionists look German! The Palestinians look like the Jews of Poland!" --"comedienne" Roseanne Barr
SHORT CUTS
"Observes a perceptive author of a letter to the editor of the New York Times: 'It's amusing that Andrew M. Cuomo, who owes his whole career to his dad, may not get the Senate seat of Hillary Rodham Clinton (who owes her whole career to her husband) because David A. Paterson (who owes his whole career to his dad) may give it to Caroline Kennedy (who owes her whole career to her dad). You would think a state as large as New York could find someone who deserves something on his or her own." --Washington Times editor Wesley Pruden
"n the past few years, we have seen any number of rather obnoxious individuals called to our nation's capitol so that members of the House and Senate could grill them in front of the TV cameras. And while I would normally enjoy watching tobacco, oil and car company CEOs, along with steroid-using baseball cheats, publicly embarrassed, that's not how it's worked out. Instead, because the politicians are so disgustingly arrogant and self-righteous, it's hard not to view their victims in a sympathetic light. All I know is if I were ever guilty or even suspected of a crime, I would certainly want to be attacked by the likes of Christopher Dodd, Charles Schumer and Barney Frank." --columnist Burt Prelutsky
"A question for you in the Drive-By Media. Why do you think Israel would attack Gaza? Is it for their national treasure? Is it because they want all of the scientific discoveries that are being made by Hamas intellectuals?" --radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh
"Barack Obama's Hawaii vacation compound was ringed Monday by Palestinians who are angry about his support for Israel. You can imagine their disappointment. Not only is he the first black president, he's the first guy named Hussein to back Israel." --comedian Argus Hamilton
Jay Leno:
For the next two weeks, President-elect Barack Obama will be living full-time at a hotel right across the street from the White House. This is historic because this is the first time a Democrat has checked into a Washington hotel room under his own name.
Bernie Madoff has been charged with swindling people out of $50 billion. I don't want to say he's unpopular, but [over Christmas] as he was walking in New York, he passed a manger scene and Joseph threw a sandal at him.
Congress says they're looking into the Bernie Madoff scandal. So the guy who made $50 billion disappear, is being investigated by the people who made $750 billion disappear.
In an interview with The Washington Times, Vice President Dick Cheney said he is not a big fan of rap music. I was stunned by that. He gets driven around in a limo; he's surrounded by bodyguards; he shot a guy in the face -- he is a rap star!
*****
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Second post of the day
Dianne Speaks Her Mind
Depending on which Democrat you talk with, California Senator Dianne Feinstein is either becoming the conscience of the Senate or Majority Leader Harry Reid's biggest headache.
Ms. Feinstein is 76 years old and rumored to be considering leaving Capitol Hill to run for governor in 2010, a job she almost won two decades ago before quickly switching gears and winning a special election for Senate. Her possibly short time horizon when it comes to Washington may explain some of her recent feistiness.
This week, she bristled when Barack Obama picked fellow Californian Leon Panetta to be CIA director. She bluntly noted he lacked any intelligence experience and that she had not been consulted even though she chairs the Intelligence Committee. An irritated Senator Reid told Politico.com yesterday: "I think you need better reasons for coming out against somebody than somebody didn't call you."
Mr. Reid was also not happy that Ms. Feinstein, a key member of the Rules Committee, openly bucked the party line on whether Illinois Democrat Roland Burris should be seated despite the fact he was appointed by scandal-implicated Governor Rod Blagojevich. Ms. Feinstein challenged the position of Democratic leaders who rejected Mr. Burris, saying their move called into question the validity of "gubernatorial appointments all over the country."
Mr. Reid is clearly of another view. "It's not valid, her statement," he told Politico. "I told her that. OK?" Nonetheless, many observers expect Mr. Burris to be quietly seated in coming days.
Ms. Feinstein has proven time and time again that she exercises independent judgment on many issues. She gave a moving speech on the Senate floor in 2004 explaining why she was breaking with teacher unions to support a school voucher program in Washington D.C. In 2007, she angered liberals by backing some key Bush judicial nominations along with the appointment of Michael Mukasey to be attorney general.
"She'll take political heat to find common ground," says GOP Senator Lindsey Graham, who has often been criticized by members of his own party for apostasy. "I think she'll be one of the key players in this Congress, quite frankly."
The bottom line is that while Majority Leader Reid is tantalizingly close to having the 60 Democrats he needs to break GOP filibusters, he clearly will have to spend some time to keep the ornery Ms. Feinstein in the party corral.
-- John Fund
Holder's Baggage
The confirmation hearing on Eric Holder's nomination to be Attorney General will be a spirited affair. Arlen Specter, the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee, let colleagues know yesterday he will scrutinize very closely Mr. Holder's record during his time as the No. 2 man in the Clinton Justice Department.
In a 25-minute floor speech, Mr. Specter said he was worried that Mr. Holder's willingness to follow the lead of President Clinton rather than that of career professionals at Justice invited comparisons to past attorneys general such as Homer Cummings (who backed FDR's court-packing plan) and Alberto Gonzalez (who allowed Bush-era underlings excessive authority). Mr. Specter said both men were unfortunate examples of Justice chiefs who proved to be more loyal to the presidents who appointed them than to the rule of law. "Sometimes it is more important for the attorney general to have the stature and the courage to say 'no' instead of to say 'yes,'" the Pennsylvania Senator told his colleagues.
Mr. Specter listed three decisions during the Clinton presidency that he said demonstrated Mr. Holder's insufficient independence from his political patron: the controversial pardon of fugitive Marc Rich in 2001, the unusual 1999 granting of clemency to 16 members of a Puerto Rican terrorist group despite their lack of remorse for their crimes, and the 1997 rejection of an independent counsel to look into then-Vice President Al Gore's fundraising calls from the White House.
Mr. Holder will no doubt strenuously assert counter examples in which he clearly pursued an independent course, especially in his prosecution of former House Ways and Means Chairman Dan Rostenkowski when Mr. Holder served as U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia in 1993. But the battle lines are clearly drawn. Mr. Holder will almost certainly be confirmed by an overwhelmingly Democratic Senate, but he has been put on notice it will be a bumpy ride.
-- John Fund
Quote of the Day I
"[Leon Panetta] is an excellent choice [for CIA director] because he will be loyal to the president first, not to the CIA. Mr. Obama needs someone who can be trusted, a person who will support him when the going gets tough. A 'safe' choice, viewed as inoffensive by the CIA's top bureaucrats, would have been dangerous. . . . The superbly run Obama campaign showed that the Obama people know how to manage an effective organization. Reform of the CIA can begin simply by requiring the CIA to obey existing laws and directives: 1) The CIA must get its clandestine-service officers out of the United States and spying in and on foreign countries. The great majority of CIA employees now live and work within the U.S. 2) Its clandestine operations should move away from embassies because, unlike the old Soviet targets, terrorists and nuclear proliferators do not attend diplomatic cocktail parties. Congress has already funded this move, but the CIA has not complied. 3) Ruthlessly streamline the bloat. Terrorists have flat chains of command and no bureaucratic turfs" -- "Ishmael Jones," a former deep-cover officer with the Central Intelligence Agency and author of a book critical of agency failures, in an interview with National Review.
Quote of the Day II
"If Democrats begin this new Congress with the arbitrary and capricious attitude of 'our way or the highway,' Republicans will not only have no incentive to cooperate, but it virtually guarantees an obstinate minority and that the cycle of partisanship and dysfunctionality will continue. . . . The seating of Rep. Frank McCloskey by House Democrats after the contested election in Indiana's 8th District in 1984 was one of the major contributing factors to creating the current vicious cycle and led to the rise of former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga. Republicans who had been institutionalists became militants. With what it ultimately cost Democrats, it wasn't worth a single seat" -- political handicapper Charlie Cook, writing in Congress Daily, on why the Obama honeymoon will be short if Congressional Democrats resort to "steamrolling" Republicans to place Al Franken in the Senate.
Buckeye Bailout
It wasn't exactly a recording of "an actual Onstar conversation" call for emergency help, but it sounded like one. Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland recently left the following message on the answering machine of his former congressional colleague and incoming White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel: "Rahm, it's Ted. You've never failed me and I need $5 billion."
What's $5 billion of taxpayer money between old chums anyway? Even in the new Obama era of ending business as usual inside the beltway, it's still not what you know, it's who you know. Expect a lot more politicians and high-priced K Street influence peddlers to be cashing in on their relationships as the Obama team prepares to dole out $800 billion in free money. This is a very good time to be a friend, or a friend of a friend, of Mr. Obama.
Mr. Strickland's plea for money symbolizes all that is wrong with this "economic stimulus" jackpot scheme. The Buckeye State has a $7.4 billion budget deficit, or almost 25% of its 2010 operating budget. "We're not crying wolf," Mr. Strickland whined last week. What he didn't say is that pols in Columbus have mostly themselves to blame. During the boom years of 2003-2007, Ohio went on a hog-wild government spending binge. The latest Census Bureau data finds that total Buckeye spending rose by a fat $10 billion, even as family incomes in the state were falling. A lot of that largesse was ladled out under Republican Gov. Bob Taft, but Mr. Strickland has been no skinflint either. Ohio University economist Richard Laffer, an expert on the state's finances, moans that Ohio is a "shining model of what a state should not do to fix its economy. We have one of the worst tax systems with high tax rates and a runaway budget culture."
Mr. Strickland wants taxpayers in other states to bail out Ohio, so it won't have to tighten its belt after its wild shopping spree. The bailout of the states creates the same classic moral hazard problem that has arisen from bailing out irresponsible banks and subprime home buyers and investment houses. Those who acted the most recklessly are first in line for a federal check to reward their financial malfeasance.
In this era of bailout fever, no one is responsible for their own bad decisions, least of all governors. Even while Mr. Strickland is begging his old friends for dollars and the state is up to its eyebrows in red ink, he recently told the Cleveland Plain Dealer: "I think we've acted very reasonably and managed the people's money in a very conservative way." Of course, that all depends on "reasonable" and "conservative" meaning the opposite of what they usually do.
-- Stephen Moore and Robert Costa
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He Can Outsmart Harry Reid, But Can He Outsmart Voters?
Yesterday, Senator-in-waiting Roland Burris made clear to reporters that he hasn't cut any deal with Senate Democrats to refrain from running for election in his own right in exchange for being seated as an appointive Senator. The Illinois Democrat indicates he doesn't intend to be a placeholder and will run for a full six-year term in 2010, when he turns 73.
What kind of a candidate would Mr. Burris be? On the one hand, he has exhibited both craftiness and chutzpah this week that would serve him well in politics. Given the power of incumbency, it would be tough to lose a March 2010 Democratic primary unless a marquee name took him on one-on-one.
The general election may be a different story. Mr. Burris has a weak political team led by Fred Lebed, his partner in a lobbying firm, who managed Mr. Burris's recent failed races for governor. Don Rose, a noted Democratic political consultant, told Politico.com that Mr. Burris is often hurt by his "clownish ways" and is a weak campaigner. He would also still retain the stain of having been appointed by Governor Rod Blagojevich, who will likely be out of office and disgraced by the time of the 2010 election.
For that reason, Republicans are preparing for a rare competitive race in normally Democratic Illinois. Their leading candidate for the Senate is Mark Kirk, a five-term congressman from the northern suburbs of Chicago who has a history of winning Democratic and moderate voters in a swing seat.
Mr. Kirk, who has $5 million in campaign funds in the bank, won't be hurt by his high-profile return last week after serving with the U.S. military in Afghanistan, the first time a U.S. House Member has been deployed to a combat zone since World War II.
Although he has a strong interest in foreign affairs, Mr. Kirk says he knows the real challenge in Illinois is cleaning up the state's corruption problem. "Over the next two years, we are going to take on the State of Illinois, the most corrupt state of the union and clean up the Blagojevich excesses," he told reporters last year. It wasn't said, but he may well view one of those excesses to be Mr. Burris and his likely occupancy of a U.S. Senate seat.
-- John Fund
Harry Reid Is Losing
The good news for Majority Leader Harry Reid is that he has more Democrats than ever in the Senate. The bad news is that some of his Democratic colleagues are wondering about his political skills. Mr. Reid found himself completely outmaneuvered this week by Roland Burris, the man appointed to the Senate by scandal-tarred Governor Rod Blagojevich. Left-wing bloggers openly made fun of him, with Jane Hamsher declaring she would love nothing more than to play poker with Mr. Reid.
Other Democrats are openly acknowledging Mr. Reid was outflanked. Howard Dean, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, told MSNBC's "Hardball" that he could not help but admire the brilliance of the Blagojevich ploy.
"You gotta hand it to Blagojevich," said Mr. Dean said. "What a maneuver! What a maneuver! When his back was against the wall, he outsmarted a lot of people." Mr. Dean also acknowledged the obvious, that the governor will "probably end up in really bad trouble," but in a final burst of enthusiasm Mr. Dean added, "But he'll have something to tell his grandchildren."
Mr. Reid now finds himself preparing to defend his Senate seat in Nevada. While voters in his state trended Democratic last fall, Mr. Reid isn't popular back home and will be vulnerable to a GOP challenge. Like former Majority Leader Tom Daschle, who lost a re-election bid in 2004, Mr. Reid may be further challenged by having to push through high-visibility liberal legislation that will further erode his standing at home.
-- John Fund
Blago Is Winning
With President-elect Barack Obama and Sen. Harry Reid now climbing down from their opposition to seating Roland Burris in the U.S. Senate, one thing is becoming clear: Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich is winning.
On Dec. 9, when Mr. Blagojevich was led from his home in handcuffs and U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald unveiled a criminal complaint detailing allegations that the governor conspired to sell Mr. Obama's Senate seat, it was hard to imagine the Democrat would be able to withstand the intense pressure to resign for long. But Mr. Blagojevich has proven to be an adept political infighter.
He's done three things to turn the tide. The first was to reshape the battleground by asking the people of Illinois to give him the same presumption of innocence provided anyone else accused of wrongdoing. His quoting of Rudyard Kipling at a press conference has been roundly pilloried on late-night TV, but the governor's remarks have appealed to voters' basic sense of fairness. The second was to hire a crack legal team headed up by uberlawyer Ed Genson, who quickly demanded that the state cover the governor's legal bills. This at first seemed a shameless move, but reinforced the argument that the governor was wrongly targeted because of the office he holds (helped by whispers that Prosecutor Fitzgerald himself may have political ambitions).
The third thing the governor did was decide to fight for every inch of ground. The state legislature is moving to impeach him, but the governor is forcing the House first to conduct a mini trial. His lawyers also have criticized House leaders for bowing to Mr. Fitzgerald's wishes in not making some information and witnesses available for public inspection. "We're fighting shadows," Mr. Genson complained to reporters. Likewise, the governor's decision to appoint Mr. Burris was shocking to Washington leaders who might have hoped that Blago would simply pack his bags and disappear. But it forced a public admission at the highest levels of government that Mr. Blagojevich remains the governor of Illinois with full powers of the office.
Meanwhile, Mr. Fitzgerald has yet to indict the governor on a single charge, leading to accusations that he was too quick to unveil his evidence consisting mostly of conversational bluster. If Mr. Fitzgerald fails to bring an indictment, the governor will almost certainly survive in office. And if he fails to win a conviction, the legislature will likely be unable to remove Blago.
-- Brendan Miniter
Quote of the Day
"[F]or the various 'green' politicians who see a nationalized U.S. auto industry as the path toward ubiquitous hybrids, their stridency may well be environmentalism's Vietnam. Whatever the truth about 'global warming,' one sure way to turn voters off when it comes to the theory of climate change will be for our nationalized carmakers to produce green cars that constantly need repairs" -- economist John Tamny, on the poor record of government-owned auto makers, writing at RealClearMarkets.com.
Bair's Reward
"There are some people in the Republican Party who resent the idea of helping others," FDIC Chairwoman Sheila Bair sniffed recently to the New York Times. Ms. Bair, who has become a discordant Bush administration voice in favor of a taxpayer bailout of underwater homeowners, sounds like nothing so much as a community organizer, which may explain her appeal to President Obama, who reportedly will ask her to stay on in the new administration.
But the President-elect should keep in mind Ms. Bair actually has a serious job to do. According to the FDIC, the mission of her agency is "insuring deposits, examining and supervising financial institutions, and managing receiverships." This job description says nothing about using taxpayer money to subsidize homeowners in an attempt to prevent foreclosures, potentially at a high cost in future default losses judging from the appalling experience so far of modified mortgages.
But the FDIC now directs visitors to a study by Credit Suisse finding that default rates would likely be only 15% under modifications featuring only interest-rate reductions. Not so fast. Even Rod Dubitsky, lead author of the Credit Suisse report, says the 15% rate is "not a really good benchmark" for analyzing the Bair plan, since it applies to borrowers who were current when their loans were modified, not the already delinquent borrowers Ms. Bair would target. Mr. Dubitsky also foresees high failure rates if lenders don't do loan-by-loan analysis when modifying mortgages. Yet Ms. Bair's plan offers a "streamlined" process which skips rigorous evaluation of a borrower's assets and non-mortgage debt.
By keeping on Ms. Bair, Mr. Obama would be all but committing himself to a mortgage bailout. He'll likely find it's not just Republicans who resent having their tax dollars shoveled at a no-win attempt to "help" the mortgage market. The Bush Administration has been unstinting in throwing hundreds of billions at the financial crisis, but recognizes (as do most analysts) that a housing bailout is nearly impossible to design that wouldn't just encourage more homeowners to default.
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First, thanks for posting. The WSJ editorialists are generally spot-on. Now the criticism...
'Burris outsmarted Harry Reid' - Okay..... If I had any pets I would say my dog could do that, lol. Burris was appointed by the sitting gov. The gov is accused, not convicted. Obama and Reid were fools to think they could block anything. They could intimidate with the threat of impeachment but the impeach is already scheduled so there is no threat. Dems in March 2010 will do whatever the Chicago/Obama machine wants - maybe there will be an endorsement fight. No big deal IMO. 'He will be 73'. That makes him roughly one generation younger than their oldest member. After endorsement he (or the new guy) will have the full backing of the sitting President and the political machine unless a world war breaks out in the party and IL is a Dem state by 16 pts.
My point is that Republicans and Conservatives better start thinking about Democrats and Liberals serving in Red States and districts and recruit, train and prepare a winning battle plan starting yesterday or they will fail and fail and fail again. IL politics and Democrat scandals are a side show. They have the media on their side and will never be held to the same standard.
Blagojevich is winning(?)... [Howard Dean] "could not help but admire the brilliance of the Blagojevich ploy." - NO. Blagojevich is going to prison unless the charges are false or unprovable. Winning this fight means nothing since he can't get paid for it.
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Wednesday Chronicle — Vol. 09 No. 02
14 January 2009
THE FOUNDATION
"The same prudence which in private life would forbid our paying our own money for unexplained projects, forbids it in the dispensation of the public moneys." --Thomas Jefferson
EDITORIAL EXEGESIS
"There are more fundamental reasons to doubt whether throwing more money at a problem largely if not entirely caused by loose money and government incentives and mandates to overspend and over lend will yield the kind of recovery that President-elect Barack Obama and most Americans would dearly love to see. In his speech on the economy and his stimulus package Thursday -- a speech still notably short on details -- the president-elect declared that 'only government can provide the short-term boost necessary to lift us from a recession this deep and severe.' The unspoken assumption behind such a statement is that government has a virtually inexhaustible supply of money that can be deployed without having deleterious side effects, only beneficial ones. The problem, of course, is that government has no money of its own, only the money it takes by force from the productive sector of society or it borrows and must pay back with taxes extracted from our children and grandchildren. In the private marketplace economic transactions take place only if both (or all) parties believe they benefit. Such private, profit-making activity, as most of American history demonstrates, involves not simply the redistribution of existing wealth but creation of new wealth. Increased government spending, however financed, takes money from the private wealth-generating sector of society and allocates it to projects not on the basis of their capacity to be economically self-sustaining, but on the basis of their political attractiveness. ...[A] government 'stimulus' can only be accomplished by taking money away from genuinely economically productive activity. Pumping dollars that will eventually be worth less than they are today into various projects may provide some short-term relief or appearance of relief. But only the private sector can actually create wealth and thereby stimulate genuine economic growth. This seems pretty elementary, but most people in Washington have powerful incentives to ignore elementary truths." --Orange County Register
UPRIGHT
"[T]his is no time to throw good (borrowed) money after bad. If all this spending was going to get the economy growing, it would be working. Yet nobody expects things to improve soon. ... In times of uncertainty, it's natural that people will look to government for answers. Yet the long-term solutions to our current economic problems don't lie in more government spending, controls or regulations." --Heritage Foundation president Edwin Feulner
"I didn't expect Obama to know what to do about the economy; Obama's knee-jerk Keynesianism and allegiance to the disproved New Deal mythology ensure that he will try the Big Government solution, even when Big Government is the problem." --columnist Ben Shapiro
"In fairness to Obama, there is a huge consensus around the notion that government must do, well, something -- something big. ... It's the consensus that scares me. ... Obviously, consensus can be good. But it also can lead to dangerous groupthink. ... Everyone knows everything is right, until everything goes wrong. If that's not one of the great lessons of the financial collapse of 2008, I don't know what is." --National Review editor Jonah Goldberg
"President Elect Obama and his congressional henchmen are in the midst of swiping another $1 trillion-plus from American taxpayers. And Republicans -- who once upon a time professed concern for taxpayers -- could apparently care less. Either they believe stealing from our grandkids makes for sound policy, or they're too afraid to second-guess the second coming of Jimmy Carter." --radio talk show host Laura Ingraham
"No phrase represents more of a triumph of hope over experience than the phrase 'Middle East peace process.' A close second might be the once-fashionable notion that Israel should 'trade land for peace.' Since everybody seems to be criticizing Israel for its military response to the rockets being fired into their country from the Gaza strip, let me add my criticisms as well. The Israelis traded land for peace, but they have never gotten the peace, so they should take back the land." --Hoover Institution economist Thomas Sowell
INSIGHT
"Failure is the opportunity to begin again more intelligently." --American Industrialist Henry Ford (1863-1947)
"In the final analysis there is no solution to man's progress but the day's honest work, the day's honest decisions, the day's generous utterances and the day's good deed." --American playwright and journalist Clare Booth Luce (1903-1987)
"Not the owner of many possessions will you be right to call happy: he more rightly deserves the name of happy who knows how to use the Gods' gifts wisely and to put up with rough poverty, and who fears dishonor more than death." --Roman poet Horace (65-8 BC)
"No Man's life, liberty or property is safe while the legislature is in session." --American lawyer, editor, politician, Judge Gideon Tucker (1826-1899)
DEZINFORMATSIA
You wouldn't understand: "We also acknowledge that a tax increase on the rich, though feasible, could backfire in these tense times. Because it is hard to explain and easy to demagogue, it could foster a confusing debate that might impair confidence just when confidence needs to be revived." --New York Times editorial **"The Times editorialists find their own position 'hard to explain'? Couldn't it be that it's just wrong, or that the editorialists aren't very good at their jobs?" --James Taranto
Clueless: "Do you really believe those business tax cuts are going to work to create jobs?" --ABC's George Stephanopoulos to Barack Obama
Loving Obama: "[D]o you feel a sense of giving [Obama] the benefit of the doubt, or at least a period of a kind of honeymoon, which is a bad word, but an opportunity to show his best and see what he can do and a willingness to sort of hold your fire for a while?" --PBS's Charlie Rose to NBC's Andrea Mitchell
Hating Bush: "I think this has been a profoundly un-American administration." --Time's Joe Klein **Change it to "will be un-American" and he may have it right.
So sorry: "Many of us in the media owe a mea culpa to [President] Bush -- and to [the public] -- for failing to properly inform of the possible consequences of [his] major misdeeds." --USA Today founder Al Neuharth
Arrested development: "In the past week, I've twice been close enough to Dick Cheney to kick him in the shins. I didn't. It's probably a federal crime of some sort. But a girl can fantasize. I did, however, assume the Stay-away-from-me-you've-got-cooties stance that Jimmy Carter used when posing with Bill Clinton at the presidents' powwow in the Oval." --New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd
Newspulper Headlines:
Bad News for John McCain: "Grizzlies Maul Mavericks in Memphis" --Associated Press
'F--- This Impeachment S---': "Blagojevich to Swear in Senate, Then Members Start His Trial" --Chicago Tribune
We Blame Global Warming: "Deutsche Bahn ICE Train Brakes Freeze" --Local (Germany)
Everything Seemingly Is Spinning Out of Control: "Bat, Maggot Invasion Ruins Australian Couple's $30,000 Wedding" --FoxNews.com
News You Can Use: "Financial Crisis: Boring Jobs Are Still Jobs -- So Be Thankful" --Daily Telegraph (London)
Bottom Stories of the Day: "New Jersey UFO Likely a Hoax" --LiveScience.com
(Thanks to The Wall Street Journal's James Taranto)
THE DEMO-GOGUES
Learning all the wrong lessons: "Well, a lot of economists tell us that what [Franklin] Roosevelt failed to do was to spend as much money as was needed to get people back to work and get the economy moving again. It wasn't until World War II when we had major expenditures that the Depression was finally resolved. We're going to be looking at that experience." --incoming House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA)
And the shirt off your back: "Everybody is going to have to give. Everybody is going to have to have some skin in the game." --Barack Obama
Making Congress respectable is another story: "- ne of the things that we're trying to set a tone of is that, you know, Congress is a co-equal branch of government." --Barack Obama
National insecurity strategy: "We are going to close Guantanamo and we are going to make sure that the procedures we set up are ones that abide by our Constitution. That is not only the right thing to do but it actually has to be part of our broader national security strategy because we will send a message to the world that we are serious about our values." --Barack Obama **Or more likely, the message that we are weak.
Getting it completely wrong: "I want a repeal of the tax cuts for the highest-income people in America. I don't think we can wait until they expire. I think they need to be repealed. ...[T]hat is the biggest contributor to the national debt than any other subject..." --House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) So why has tax revenue gone UP since the tax cuts took effect?
Just keep spending: "We should not allow our disappointment at the Bush administration's poor handling of the TARP program to prevent the Obama administration from using the funds in more appropriate ways." --Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA)
VILLAGE IDIOTS
A bailout for smut: "Congress seems willing to help shore up our nation's most important businesses, we feel we deserve the same consideration. In difficult economic times, Americans turn to entertainment for relief. More and more, the kind of entertainment they turn to is adult entertainment." --Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flynt and Girls Gone Wild CEO Joe Francis in a joint letter to Congress asking for $5 billion "just to see us through the hard times" ++ "Sex toys and novelties are gathering dust on the shelves, and so I think the government has responsibility to get out there and rejuvenate the libido and let us start enjoying the one thing left that's free." --Larry Flynt
This week's "Quid Pro Homo" Award: "I think it's anti-American. In any given election in the state of California, you can put some commercials on the air and convince [the voters] of anything. But it won't last. Fear not; this is America. We are going to be OK, and we are going to do the right thing." --actor Tom Hanks on his disappointment of the passage of California's Prop 8
Obama saves the day: "The Bush nightmare is over. How well Obama succeeds, or does not succeed, in the coming term, we can rest assured that on a spiritual level, the worst is over for this country, at least for now." --delusional actor and spiritualist Alec Baldwin
World ends, blacks hardest hit: "The economic downturn has been double trouble for black Americans. They already were at the bottom of every category, such as access to capital and life expectancy. The consequences of the economy are serious for most Americans but disastrous for African Americans." --Rev. Je$$e Jack$on, founder and president of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, touting the upcoming 12th Annual Rainbow PUSH Wall Street Project Economic Summit themed "Fallout from the Bailout: A New Day in Washington"
SHORT CUTS
"We are in the midst of a crisis caused by so many financial institutions borrowing too much money. Somehow, a critical mass of policy makers now believes that the correct response is for the U.S. government to borrow too much money." --American Enterprise Institute Senior Fellow Kevin Hassett
"According to the Treasury website you, too, can qualify for TARP funds. All you have to do is convince them you are like: 'Bank holding companies, financial holding companies, insured depository institutions and savings and loan holding companies that engage solely or predominately in activities that are permissible for financial holding companies under relevant law.' Pretty much anyone with a kid in college qualifies, seems to me." --Rich Galen
"Whatever the benefits of peace for the Palestinian population, what are the terrorists going to do in peacetime? Become librarians and furniture salesmen?" --Hoover Institution economist Thomas Sowell
"Years ago, the French philosopher Rene Descartes said, 'I think, therefore I am.' Today, I'm afraid an American would be likelier to remark 'I text, there4 I be.'" --columnist Burt Prelutsky
"Barack Obama's presidential limo was reported to be an armored Cadillac hybrid made in Detroit. It's a new first. History will record that Barack Obama is the first black man to ride in an armored Cadillac limousine without his own record label." --comedian Argus Hamilton
Jay Leno:
Hey, did you all see Barack Obama's speech about the economy [Thursday]? Very sobering. He told Washington, "We've arrived at this point due to an era of profound irresponsibility." Of course, there's only one way out of it. Spend more money we don't have.
The chief of staff for embattled Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich spoke to Illinois state workers on issues of ethics in the workplace. How ironic is that? Was Bernard Madoff not available?
Lawmakers in Illinois voted 114-1 to impeach the governor. So apparently, Blagojevich was only able to bribe one person.
And, you know, I don't think he gets it. When he found out he was impeached, Blagojevich said he has a replacement governor already picked out. He's got somebody ready to move in.
I think President-elect Barack Obama is starting to get an idea of just how hard this job is going to be. [Tuesday] he said he wanted to bring a "sense of accountability to Washington." I think they realize actual accountability is never going to happen. So if you just bring a "sense" of it, that would be fantastic.
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drudgereport is reporting its Carolin Kennedy.
The country has turned into a total democrat love fest.
All the parade of characters are back.
All the liberal celebs and the BO parties.
We will see but it surely is the most depressing time for Republicans in my lifetime.
Amazing how the party was in power just 8 years ago and threw it all away.
W tried to expand the base and it worked in 2004 but it all just vanished with the wind.
I don't want huge nanny state government. But government without some regulation of the private sector is no good either.
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Kennedy Is Said to Withdraw Senate Bid
Caroline Kennedy has decided to withdraw from consideration
for Hillary Rodham Clinton's vacant Senate seat in New York,
according to a person told of her decision.
Read More:
http://www.nytimes.com/?emc=na
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http://www.nypost.com/seven/01232009...o_151502.ht m
ALBANY - Gov. Paterson, defying the liberal wing of his Democratic Party, has chosen little-known, NRA-backed, upstate Congresswoman Kirsten Gillibrand to succeed Hillary Rodham Clinton as New York's junior senator, it was learned last night.
The surprising - and, for many Democrats shocking - decision to pick the conservative Gillibrand, 42, from Hudson in Columbia County, was disclosed by the governor in calls to party officials and some members of the state's congressional delegation, many of whom said they were unhappy with the selection, sources said.
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FOR THE RECORD
"The other incontrovertible truth about this massive wealth transfer [plan to rescue the economy] is that Washington cannot stop the inevitable lard-up. The original concept of spending on 'roads and bridges' has morphed into spending on anything and everything that moves or can be moved. ... Public radio and public television -- already funded with your money to the tune of some $400 million in direct federal handouts and tax deductions for contributions made by individual viewers, not to mention untold state grants and subsidies -- are demanding a hugetastic chunk of the stimulus pie. That's right: Government-supported NPR and PBS want even more of a bailout than they've lived off of for the last 40 years. According to , which covers public TV and radio, the two entities along with the Corporation for Public Broadcasting have petitioned Obama for $550 million in funding to help create more workers suckling on the public teat. Watching TV is apparently critical to rescuing the American economy. Already stuffed into the Democrats' package is a $650 million bailout -- call it the Boob Tube boondoggle -- to pay for $650 million worth of digital TV upgrade coupons in the wake of the official, government-mandated transition to digital television next month. Not to be left out, the National Endowment for the Arts is on the Santa stimulus list for an additional $50 million cash injection. Oh, and there's another $50 million earmarked 'to make up for a lack of philanthropic support for the arts.' ... Wake up, taxpayers: This nearly $1 trillion plan is nothing but future-mortgaging ornaments and tinsel boxed in self-delusion. It is time, as President Obama lectured us, to put away childish things -- starting with this epic fail." --columnist Michelle Malkin
INSIGHT
"A wise prince will seek means by which his subjects will always and in every possible condition of things have need of his government, and then they will always be faithful to him." --Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527)
THE GIPPER
"We who live in free market societies believe that growth, prosperity and ultimately human fulfillment, are created from the bottom up, not the government down. Only when the human spirit is allowed to invent and create, only when individuals are given a personal stake in deciding economic policies and benefitting from their success -- only then can societies remain economically alive, dynamic, progressive, and free." --Ronald Reagan
GOVERNMENT
"Obama's faith in himself -- and by extension, faith in the government he leads -- is unshakeable. In his inaugural address, Obama dismissed the question of 'whether our government is too big or too small.' Instead, he suggested, we should focus on 'whether it works.' Yet there is apparently no situation in which Obama believes the government, led by Barack Obama, doesn't work. The free market requires 'a watchful eye'; 'a nation cannot prosper long when it favors only the prosperous.' The government must build us 'new roads and bridges,' 'restore science to its rightful place,' 'transform our schools and colleges and universities.' The government must bring about global equality via international redistribution: 'poor nations ... we pledge to work alongside you to make your farms flourish and let clean waters flow; to nourish starved bodies and feed hungry minds.' In Obama's mind, the government he runs solves all problems and rights all wrongs. What will happen when government fails?" --columnist Ben Shapiro
POLITICAL FUTURES
"[M]ore than any predecessor except the first, the 44th president enters office with the scope of its powers barely circumscribed by law, and even less by public opinion. Obama's unprecedented power derives from the astonishing events of the last four months that have made indistinct the line between public and private sectors. Neither the public as currently alarmed, nor Congress as currently constituted, nor the Constitution as currently construed is an impediment to hitherto unimagined executive discretion in allocating vast portions of the nation's wealth. He acquires power just as the retreat of the state has been abruptly reversed." --columnist George Will
OPINION IN BRIEF
"I was talking to Peter Robinson, who helped write the immortal 'Tear Down This Wall, Mr. Gorbachev' speech delivered in Berlin by my dad, Ronald Reagan. He told me he went back to the archives for 1981 and pulled out a couple of my dad's quotes from the 1981 inaugural address and compared them with a couple of quotes from Barack Obama's inaugural address. He noted that while my dad said it was 'morning in America,' with Obama it almost went back in tone to Jimmy Carter's infamous 'malaise' speech, which pictured an America down in the dumps. For Obama it was more like 'mourning' in America. You can hear echoes of that malaise speech in Obama's inaugural address when he said, 'These are the indicators of crisis, subject to data and statistics. Less measurable but no less profound is a sapping of confidence across our land -- a nagging fear that America's decline is inevitable, and that the next generation must lower its sights.' There were, however, striking similarities between Ronald Reagan's speeches and those of both Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, Robinson said, because the Democrats have long been big students of my dad's speeches, going back time and again to the archives to read the words of the Great Communicator and learn from his techniques in communicating. If you listen to Barack Obama you hear his programs and policies described the way Ronald Reagan would have described them had they been his agenda. The difference between the two men was that my dad believed everything he said all the way to the core of his being, while Barack Obama and his fellow Democrats use speeches to mask what they really believe." --radio talk show host Michael Reagan
RE: THE LEFT
"It will not be easy for President B. Hussein Obama. More than half the country voted for him, and yet our newspapers are brimming with snippy remarks at every little aspect of his inauguration. Here's a small sampling of the churlishness in just The New York Times: -- The American public is bemused by the tasteless show-biz extravaganza surrounding Barack Obama's inauguration today. -- There is something to be said for some showiness in an inauguration. But one felt discomfited all the same. -- This is an inauguration, not a coronation. -- Is there a parallel between Mrs. Obama's jewel-toned outfit and somebody else's glass slippers? Why limousines and not shank's mare? -- It is still unclear whether we are supposed to shout 'Whoopee!' or 'Shame!' about the new elegance the Obamas are bringing to Washington. Boy, talk about raining on somebody's parade! These were not, of course, comments about the inauguration of the angel Obama; they are (slightly edited) comments about the inauguration of another historic president, Ronald Reagan, in January 1981. Obama's inaugural address tracked much of Reagan's first inaugural address -- minus the substance.... Obama was also not as fulsome in his praise of his predecessor as Reagan was. To appreciate how remarkable this is, recall that Reagan's predecessor was Jimmy Carter. Under Carter, more than 50 Americans were held hostage by a two-bit terrorist Iranian regime for 444 days -- released the day of Reagan's inauguration. Under Bush, there has not been another terrorist attack since Sept. 11, 2001. But I gather that if Obama had uttered anything more than the briefest allusion to Bush, that would have provoked yet more booing from the Hope-and-Change crowd, which moments earlier had showered Bush with boos when he walked onto the stage. That must be the new tone we've been hearing so much about. So maybe liberals can stop acting as if the entire nation could at last come together in a 'unity of purpose' if only conservatives would stop fomenting 'conflict and discord' -- as Obama suggested in his inaugural address. We're not the ones who booed a departing president. ... Liberals always have to play the victim, acting as if they merely want to bring the nation together in hope and unity in the face of petulant, stick-in-the-mud conservatives. Meanwhile, they are the ones booing, heckling and publicly fantasizing about the assassination of those who disagree with them on policy matters. Hope and unity, apparently, can only be achieved if conservatives would just go away -- and perhaps have the decency to kill themselves. Republicans are not the ones who need to be told that 'the time has come to set aside childish things' -- as Obama said of his own assumption of the presidency. Remember? We're the ones who managed to gaze upon Carter at the conclusion of his abomination of a presidency without booing." --columnist Ann Coulter
CULTURE
"Those who doubted that a black man could be elected to the highest office in the land no longer have a leg to stand on. That can be a force for good, when young blacks can no longer be told that there is no point in their trying to get ahead in this society because 'the man' is going to stop them. In another sense, the Obama presidency may not be nearly as big a change in the country as some might think. Colin Powell could probably have been elected eight years ago. But you don't know it can happen until it happens. No doubt the race-hustling industry will continue, and no doubt their chief victims will be blacks, especially young blacks, who buy the paralyzing picture of victimhood and the counterproductive resentments which sap energies that could be better used to improve their own lives. Now that we have the first black President of the United States, maybe we can move ahead to the time when we can forget about 'the first' whatever to do what. There is too much serious work to do to spend more time on that." --Hoover Institution economist Thomas Sowell
LIBERTY
"President Obama can be forgiven for celebrating the hypocrisy of Abraham Lincoln because the victors of wars write their history and glorify the winners. The recognition that slavery is a despicable institution does not require hero worship of a president who made the largest contribution to the unraveling of our Constitution. After all when it is settled by brute force that states cannot secede, as they thought they had the right to in 1787, then the federal government can ride roughshod over states and their people's right -- in a word make meaningless the Ninth and Tenth Amendments." --George Mason University economics professor Walter E. Williams
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
(To submit reader comments visit our Letters to the Editor page.)
"My family had the privilege and blessing of being on the Mall when President Reagan's horse-drawn caisson and coffin, slowly came up Constitution Avenue to lie in state at the Capitol. What a thrilling spectacle! The large numbers of people lining Constitution Avenue were incredibly courteous and friendly. The remarkable thing about this huge crowd was how tidy it was. Every trash receptacle was overflowing, however, there was no litter. All the overflow trash was neatly stacked around the full bins. On the other hand, the litter on the mall after Obama's coronation does not surprise me. The two crowds are very different dimensions of America. One crowd was very sensitive to its personal duty of stewardship, and the other was a crowd of socialists who believe in letting someone else clean up after it. This is classic and predictable." --Sacramento, California
"Is it just me being cynical or is there nothing to the White House 'pay freeze?' These guys just started and shouldn't be expecting a raise quite yet. My guess is that the pay freeze will be rescinded six or eight months hence we won't hear a word about it." --Springfield, Virginia
"I do not think you can include Colin Powell any longer in the list of black conservatives as you did in the 09-03 Brief." --Jackson, Mississippi
Editor's Reply: We agree, but were just checking to see that readers were paying attention! We have cleansed the Colin from our list to prevent any future references.
Editor's Note: A correction for the 09-03 Digest: Kirsten Gillibrand is a U.S. Representative, not a New York state representative as we said Friday.
THE LAST WORD
"From the New York Times: 'The local food movement has been all about buying seasonal food from nearby farmers. Now, thanks to the Web, it is expanding to include far-away farmers too. A new start-up, Foodzie, is an online farmers market where small, artisan food producers and growers can sell their products. Foodies in Florida, say, can order raw, handcrafted pepperjack cheese from Traver, Calif., or organic, fair-trade coffee truffles from Boulder, Colo.' What a great idea! And why not take it one step further? Farmers could band together and form large organizations -- call them 'corporations' -- to grow and distribute mass quantities of food. Retail operations could be set up in every town; they would be sort of super farmers markets, or 'supermarkets' for short. Soon everyone everywhere would be able to buy local food from all over the world!" --The Wall Street Journal's James Taranto
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Wednesday Chronicle
Vol. 09 No. 04
28 January 2009
THE FOUNDATION
"Beware the greedy hand of government, thrusting itself into every corner and crevice of industry." --Thomas Paine
UPRIGHT
"The stimulus package being discussed is politically smart but economically stupid. It's that bedeviling, omnipresent Santa Claus and Tooth Fairy problem again. ... A far more important measure that Congress can take toward a healthy economy is to ensure that the 2003 tax cuts don't expire in 2010 as scheduled. If not, there are 15 separate taxes scheduled to rise in 2010, costing Americans $200 billion a year in increased taxes. In the face of a recession, we don't need that." --economist Walter E. Williams
"Bashing Rush Limbaugh last week, Obama urged GOP lawmakers to ignore the voices of obstructionism and sign on to his behemoth stimulus package: 'We shouldn't let partisan politics derail what are very important things that need to get done.' ... History has shown us that 'Get Things Done' is mindless liberal code for passing ineffective legislation and expanding government for government's sake." --columnist Michelle Malkin
"More government spending by Hoover and Roosevelt did not pull the United States economy out of the Great Depression in the 1930s. More government spending did not solve Japan's 'lost decade' in the 1990s. As such, it is a triumph of hope over experience to believe that more government spending will help the U.S. today." --two hundred economists in an open letter disseminated by the Cato Institute
"We all know how we got into this economic mess. We spent too much, borrowed with abandon, and acted like the bills would never come due. So what's the prescription for getting out? Spending more, borrowing more, and acting like the bills will never come due." --columnist Steve Chapman
"For those of you not shouting hosannas, it might have occurred to you that we are suffering from a rampant sickness in American life that casts government as the author of your dreams and an Illinois politician as the linchpin of your hopes." --Denver Post columnist David Harsanyi
INSIGHT
"Employment gives health, sobriety and morals. Constant employment and well-paid labor produce general prosperity, content and cheerfulness." --American statesman Daniel Webster (1782-1852)
"Too bad all the people who know how to run the country are busy driving taxis and cutting hair." --comedian George Burns (1898-1996)
EDITORIAL EXEGESIS
"Ah, the dirty little secret is out. That $700 billion TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program) bill was in part simply a variation on congressional pork -- except this time the recipients were banks with friends in high places. One of those powerful friends was Rep. Barney Frank (D-[MA]), chairman of the House Financial Services Committee. And one of the recipients of a $12 million infusion of federal cash was the troubled OneUnited Bank in Boston -- a bank that had already been accused of 'unsafe and unsound banking practices.' Its CEO, Kevin Cohee had also been criticized by regulators for 'excessive' pay that included a Porsche. Frank admits he included language in the TARP legislation specifically designed to bail out OneUnited. He also acknowledges contacting officials at the Treasury Department about the bank's bailout application. 'I believe it would have been a very big mistake to put the only black bank (in Massachusetts) out of business,' Frank said. Besides, he insists, 'It was a case of the federal government causing the problem.' Causing the bad loans OneUnited made? Or would that go back to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which Frank so staunchly defended earlier on? Frank has never failed to amaze us with his ability to defend the indefensible and to staunchly uphold the double standard. It's his special talent." --Boston Herald
DEZINFORMATSIA
Not that there's anything wrong with that!: "n a meeting [last week] with senior White House staffers, President Obama showed a lot of love. That's right. The president is a man hugger. We counted nine man-to-man hugs. ... We think the president could be setting a new trend here." --CBS's Julie Chen
Just doesn't get it: "y far the lion's share of the [federal budget] surpluses went into the tax cuts. It was the most profoundly un-conservative act of the Bush presidency. Rather than pay down the debt or save in the good times for the inevitable bad times, Bush squandered it all, so that all of us, particularly the high-income earners, could indulge in a bit more consumption." --Newsweek editor Fareed Zakaria, who must have missed the fact that federal revenue increased faster than inflation because of the tax cuts
Right analysis, wrong goal: "As he has done so often, Obama pronounced debates about the size of government as irrelevant. What matters is 'whether it works.' Quietly but purposefully, he was overturning the Reagan revolution." --Washington Post columnist E. J. Dionne
Partisan divide: "Does President Barack Obama finally have the cajones, that some Democrats haven't had in the past, in saying to other Republicans 'you don't have to listen to Rush Limbaugh'?" --MSNBC's Norah O'Donnell
Wrong label: "Now, the [Kristen] Gillibrand pick [for U.S. Senate from New York] is not without controversy itself. She is a conservative Democrat, favoring gun rights. And the pick has upset some more liberal Democrats." --ABC's "Good Morning America" reporter John Berman **Gillibrand has an American Conservative Union rating of 8, and a NARAL endorsement. That's conservative?
And proud of it: "I'm a liberal, I was born a liberal, I'll be one 'til I die, what else should a reporter be when you see so much and when we have such great privilege and access to the truth?" --White House reporter Helen Thomas
On the inauguration crowd: "From above, even the seagulls must have been awed by the blanket of humanity." --ABC's Bill Weir **Yeah, awed by the amount of garbage dropped by the Obamaniacs and the huge feast they were about to make of it.
Newspulper Headlines:
Looks as if the Honeymoon's Over: "Rotten Canned Fish Linked to the Democrats" --Bangkok Post
And You Thought College Was Expensive: "Full-Day Kindergarten Will Cost Millions" --Muskegon (MI) Chronicle
News of the Tautological: "A New Day Dawns for America, World" --St. Petersburg Times
Everything Seemingly Is Spinning Out of Control: "Former French President Chirac Hospitalised After Mauling by His Clinically Depressed Poodle" --Daily Mail (London)
We Blame Global Warming: "As Challenges Mount, Ardor for Obama Cools Abroad" --Associated Press
Except for the Northern Hemisphere, Where It's Winter: "Study: Antarctica Joins Rest of Globe in Warming" --Associated Press
Bottom Stories of the Day: "Surveyed Scientists Agree Global Warming Is Real" --CNN.com
(Thanks to The Wall Street Journal's James Taranto)
THE DEMO-GOGUES
Translation: more government: "We begin this year and this administration in the midst of an unprecedented crisis that calls for unprecedented action. ...f we do not act boldly and swiftly, a bad situation could become dramatically worse." --President Barack Obama
It's all about retaining power: "If we don't get this done we [the Democrats] could lose seats and I could lose re-election. But we can't let people like Rush Limbaugh stall this. That's how things don't get done in this town." --Barack Obama, more concerned with re-election that America
Stumbling out of the gate: "What I told [Middle East 'envoy' George Mitchell] is start by listening, because all too often the United States starts by dictating. ... My job to the Muslim world is to communicate that the Americans are not your enemy." --Barack Obama in his first official presidential TV interview -- with Saudi-owned, Dubai-based Al Arabiya news channel Al Arabiya
The earth is renewed: "There is a great exhalation of breath going on in the world as people express their appreciation for the new direction that's being set and the team that is put together by the president. We have a lot of damage to repair. It not any kind of repudiation or indictment of the past eight years so much as an excitement and an acceptance of how we are going to be doing business." --the new secretary of state, Hillary Clinton
Says the kettle to the pot: "For too long, international family planning assistance has been used as a political wedge issue, the subject of a back and forth debate that has served only to divide us. I have no desire to continue this stale and fruitless debate." --Barack Obama on reversing the ban on federal funding for international "family planning" (read: abortion)
Non Compos Mentis: "[C]ontraception will reduce costs to the states and to the federal government." --House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) saying that fewer births would save the government money
Socialism 101: "Well, whatever you want to call it…. If we are going to put money into the banks, we certainly want equity for the American people. In other words, if we are strengthening [the banks], then the American people should get some of the upside of that strengthening. Some people call that nationalization. I'm not talking about total ownership.... Now how big that investment becomes is -- would we have ever thought we would see the day when we'd be using that terminology? Nationalization of the banks." --Nancy Pelosi when asked if it's a good idea to "have nationalization or partial nationalization of the banks"
Bursting with pride: "If there was no Martin Luther King Jr. and no Roland Burris, there would be no Barack Obama in the White House today." --Sen. Roland Burris, who was appointed to take Obama's Senate seat
VILLAGE IDIOTS
Social engineering: "I am concerned, as I'm sure many of you are, that these jobs not simply go to high-skill people who are already professionals or to white male construction workers. I have nothing against white male construction workers. I'm just saying that there are a lot of other people who have needs as well..." --former Labor Secretary Robert Reich
From the peacenik files: "I have believed for some time that military power is no solution to terrorism. ... So let me suggest a truly audacious hope for [the Obama] administration: How about a five-year time-out on war -- unless, of course, there is a genuine threat to the nation?" --former presidential candidate George McGovern advising Obama on appeasement
Mindless hope: "I know just coming back from Egypt and Abu Dhabi and other places in Europe that the world is so happy that we've changed direction. They're so hopeful. They are as hopeful as we are, and they are really impressed with the American people that they have taken on this guy and that uh, he's going to be -- they hope, managing things in a different way." --actress Susan Sarandon
Thugs for Obama: "He is a man with good intentions; he has immediately eliminated Guantanamo prison, and that should be applauded. I am very happy and the world is happy that this young president has arrived ... [We] welcome the new government and we are filled with hope." --Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez on Obama
Looking for a one-way plane ticket to Gaza: "Yes, I do. I think [Hamas can be trusted]. Because of their own self-interest. Not because they're benevolent or kind or that sort of thing. But yes, I do. I think they can. And they've never betrayed any commitment that they've made to me or publicly, as a matter of fact." --chief Village Idiot Jimmy Carter
SHORT CUTS
"More than 144 hours into Barack Obama's presidency, the economy is still in recession, the country is still at war, and in many parts of the country it's still cold outside. Citizens are growing impatient: Wasn't President Obama supposed to bring change?" --Wall Street Journal columnist James Taranto
"During his upcoming administration, Obama has promised to out-do FDR by putting an additional 2.5 million people on the federal payroll. He has also threatened -- I mean, promised -- to create some sort of civilian paramilitary group that sounds suspiciously like Hitler's brown shirts, but I could very well be mistaken. For all I know, Obama may dress them in blue." --columnist Burt Prelustsky
"This week the Left arrived in Washington, excited about the wonderful things it will do to us -- I mean, for us. They always do it for us." --ABC "20/20" co-anchor John Stossel
"Let's start a new group: PETT: People for the Ethical Treatment of Taxpayers." --political analyst Rich Galen
"If Nancy Pelosi wants fewer births, I have the way to do this, and it won't require any contraception. You simply put pictures of Nancy Pelosi in every cheap motel room in America. That will keep birth rates down, because that picture will keep a lot of things down." --radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh
Jay Leno:
President Obama said when it comes to passing the stimulus package we can't afford distractions and delays. You know who took offense to this in Congress? The head of the Senate Distractions and Delays Committee.
President Obama has signed an executive order closing Guantanamo Bay. Well, the big problem, how do you get these inmates back to their home countries? They're all on the "do not fly" list.
Well, I mean, what'll they do with them? I mean, look, most politicians don't want them in their state or their district. Other countries don't want them. Although, today, New York City's Yellow Cab Company said, "Hey, we'll take them."
Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich's impeachment trial got under way [Monday]. But he was not there. He didn't go. He went on "The View" instead, which is a pretty smart move, because it will help his case when he pleads insanity.
Former French President Jacques Chirac was rushed to the hospital after being mauled by his clinically depressed poodle. See that's how you know that the French are not fighters, okay -- when their leader is attacked by a maniacal poodle.
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New & notable legislation
"All U.S. taxpayers would enjoy the same immunity from IRS penalties and interest as Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner under a bill introduced Wednesday by Republican Rep. John Carter of Texas," reports CNSNews.com. "If we don't hold our highest elected officials to the same standards as regular working folks, we owe it to our constituents to change those standards so everyone is abiding by the same law," said Carter, a former Texas judge, who realizes his bill stands no chance of passing. The bill, called the "Rangel Rule Act of 2009," would allow any taxpayer paying back taxes to write "Rangel Rule" on their return in order to be immune from penalties and interest.
Speaking of Charlie Rangel (D-NY), the Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee is supposed to be preparing to dole out hundreds of billions of dollars from the upcoming stimulus package. Instead he is under the shadow of a growing ethics inquiry that could embarrass him and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who refused his earlier offer to step down from his post. Rangel was already under investigation for failing to pay $10,000 in taxes on a rental villa he owns in the Dominican Republic. Now he's under investigation for allegedly accepting a $1 million donation from a local businessman for his eponymous Harlem public policy center in exchange for his favorable vote on a tax bill that protected the donor's offshore accounts. Culture of corruption, anyone?
The Senate voted this week to postpone the conversion to digital television, scheduled for 17 February. President Obama urged the four-month delay because of evidence by the Nielsen Co. that indicates some 6.5 million households are not prepared for the switch. However, the House failed to reach the required two-thirds vote to override the original law. House leaders plan to bring it back for a simple majority vote next week. A delay would cost broadcasters millions of dollars.
The State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) is back, and headed to Barack Obama's desk for his signature. Both the House and the Senate passed the bill this week. This time around, though, SCHIP has two items conspicuously absent from the legislation. The first is a requirement to provide a photo ID and proof of legal residency or citizenship; the second is a cap that would deny benefits to families earning more than 300 percent of the federal poverty level. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) would not give straight answers when asked about the wisdom of removing these provisions, which would greatly reduce the opportunity for abuse of the program. That was probably because they knew that the truth -- removing these provisions takes us one step closer to universal taxpayer-abusing health care -- might not fly with the public. Yet.
Barack Obama signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act on Thursday, which makes it easier to sue employers for pay discrimination. "It is a story of women across this country still earning just 78 cents for every $1 men earn, women of color even less, which means that today in the year 2009, countless women are still losing thousands of dollars in salary, income, and retirement savings over the course of a lifetime." Oddly enough, Obama's female Senate staffers earned 78 cents for every $1 his male staffers earned.
Reps. Cliff Stearns (R-FL) and Rick Boucher (D-VA) introduced HR 197, the National Right-to-Carry Reciprocity Act of 2009, which would provide national recognition for all valid state right-to-carry licenses. In other words, states would be required to recognize other states' permits as they do drivers' licenses.
This week's 'Alpha Jackass' award
"The heart and soul of this has been a struggle of me against the system. Under these rules, I'm not even getting a fair trial; they're just hanging me. And when they hang me under these rules that prevent due process, they're hanging the 12 million people of Illinois who twice have elected a governor. I took that system on. I challenged that system." --former Illinois Gov. Rod "F." Blagojevich
Blogojevich was removed from office Thursday by the Illinois senate, which voted 59-0 to oust the "devious, cynical, crass and corrupt" governor. He derided the verdict as "un-American." Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn became Illinois' 41st governor.
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And as you have probably already seen you can add another hypocrit to the list of, as long as they got their stash.... liberals:
Editorials Columns Advertise on NYTimes.comUse of Free Car Lands Tom Daschle in Tax Trouble
Mark Wilson/Getty Images
Tom Daschle, the latest Obama cabinet pick to face a snag, at a Senate confirmation hearing.
Published: January 30, 2009
WASHINGTON — President Obama’s pick for health and human services secretary, Tom Daschle, failed to pay more than $128,000 in taxes, partly for free use of a car and driver that had been provided to him by a prominent businessman and Democratic fund-raiser, administration officials said Friday.
Election Results | More Politics NewsMr. Daschle, concluding that he owed the taxes, filed amended returns and paid more than $140,000 in back taxes and interest on Jan. 2, the officials said.
The car and driver were provided by Leo Hindery Jr., a media and telecommunications executive who had been chairman of YES, the New York Yankees regional sports network. In 2005, Mr. Hindery founded a private equity firm known as InterMedia Advisors. Mr. Daschle was chairman of InterMedia’s advisory board.
In a financial disclosure statement filed this month with the Office of Government Ethics, Mr. Daschle reported that he had received large amounts of income from InterMedia, including more than $2 million in consulting fees and $182,520 in the form of “company-provided transportation.”
The belated tax payments help explain delays in the confirmation of Mr. Daschle, a former Senate Democratic leader who had been expected to win swift approval. Despite the embarrassing admission, the second for one of Mr. Obama’s cabinet choices, the White House and Democratic senators issued statements on Friday supporting Mr. Daschle.
In an e-mail message, Mr. Daschle referred questions to Jenny Backus, a spokeswoman for the Health and Human Services Department. Ms. Backus said that he had cooperated with the Senate Finance Committee, was answering its questions and expected to be confirmed.
It was not immediately clear whether Mr. Daschle’s tax problems would derail his nomination. The confirmation of Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner was held up only briefly after the disclosure that he had failed to pay more than $34,000 in taxes owed to the federal government.
On Friday, members of the Finance Committee received a report on the vetting of Mr. Daschle, done by members of the committee staff from both parties. The report says that he paid back taxes and interest totaling $32,090 for 2005, $38,507 for 2006 and $69,570 for 2007.
The Finance Committee document said Mr. Daschle had amended his tax returns to show “unreported income from the use of a car service in the amounts of $73,031, $89,129 and $93,096 in 2005, 2006 and 2007, respectively.”
An administration official said Mr. Daschle’s failure to pay the taxes was “a stupid mistake.” But, the official said, Mr. Daschle should not be penalized because he had discovered the tax liability himself, paid up and brought it to the committee’s attention.
The committee report said, “Senator Daschle filed the amended returns voluntarily after Barack Obama announced his intention to nominate the senator to be the secretary of health and human services.”
The committee report said Mr. Daschle had told the committee staff that “in June 2008, something made him think that the car service might be taxable, and he disclosed the arrangement to his accountant.”
“Under Section 132 of the Internal Revenue Code, the value of transportation services provided for personal use must be included in income,” the report said. “Senator Daschle estimated that he used the car and driver 80 percent for personal use and 20 percent for business.”
The car and driver were not Mr. Daschle’s only problems. The Finance Committee said he failed to report consulting income of $83,333 on his 2007 tax return and overstated the deductions to which he was entitled for charitable contributions from 2005 to 2007. In his amended tax returns, he reduced the deductions by $14,963.
Under his consulting arrangement with InterMedia, the report said, Mr. Daschle received $1 million a year, or $83,333 a month. The payment to Mr. Daschle for May 2007 was omitted from the annual statement of income sent to him by InterMedia. Ms. Backus said the omission resulted from “a clerical error by InterMedia.”
The White House and the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, affirmed their support for Mr. Daschle.
James P. Manley, a spokesman for Mr. Reid, said: “Senator Daschle will be confirmed as secretary of health and human services. He has a long and distinguished career in public service and is the best person to help reform health care in this country.”
The tax problem is the latest road bump for Mr. Obama’s cabinet selections. His nominee for commerce secretary, Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico, withdrew his name amid a federal investigation into state contracting, and Mr. Obama has yet to name a replacement. His designated attorney general, Eric H. Holder Jr., has also not been confirmed.
Mr. Hindery and family members have contributed money to many Democratic candidates, including at least $42,000 to Mr. Daschle from 1997 to 2004.
Mr. Daschle is still waiting for the Finance Committee to hold a hearing on his nomination. Members of the committee staff from both parties have been examining a number of other issues, including his relationship with EduCap, a student loan company.
Some members of the staff have also been asking whether Mr. Daschle should have registered as a lobbyist while working at the law firm Alston & Bird, which itself was registered as a lobbyist for EduCap and for many health care companies.
In his financial disclosure report, Mr. Daschle said he received compensation of more than $5,000 for providing “policy advice” to EduCap. The exact amount was not disclosed.
In reports to the Internal Revenue Service, EduCap says it does business as the Catherine B. Reynolds Foundation. The foundation is the principal underwriter of annual meetings held by the American Academy of Achievement, which has honored Mr. Daschle on several occasions.
In its report, the Finance Committee said its staff was still reviewing “whether travel and entertainment services provided to the Daschles by EduCap Inc., Catherine B. Reynolds Foundation” and the Academy of Achievement “should be reported as income.”
In his financial disclosure statement, Mr. Daschle said he had received $2.1 million in “wages and bonuses” from Alston & Bird and more than $390,000 for speeches to groups like America’s Health Insurance Plans. He also said he had received more than $5,000 for giving “policy advice” to the insurer UnitedHealth.
An aide to Mr. Daschle said he had been preoccupied in recent days with the need to help a brother who was being treated for a brain tumor.
Asked about the delay, Carol Guthrie, a spokeswoman for the Finance Committee, said, “There’s been a lot on the committee’s docket.”
Carl Hulse, Ron Nixon and Sheryl Gay Stolberg contributed reporting, and Kitty Bennett contributed research.
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And there is more:
Daschle's Tax Dodging: (Of Course) There's Even More Than Originally Reported
By Tom Blumer
Created 2009-01-31 10:03
Sleep a little, miss a lot.
As noted Friday evening (at NewsBusters - ; at BizzyBlog [1]), Jake Tapper at ABC's Political Punch blog revealed that former South Dakota senator Tom Daschle, Barack Obama's nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services, had failed to pay over $100,000 in federal income taxes for 2005, 2006, and 2007, because he did not originally report the "the services of (a free) car and driver" provided to him by his employer, private equity firm InterMedia Advisers.
At 11:24 last night, Tapper posted a separate update [2] (HT to NB commenter "slickwillie2001 [2]") indicating that Daschle's tax problems involve larger amounts, go well beyond the matter of a "mere" car and driver, and are not completely resolved (bolds are mine):
Mr. Daschle also didn't report $83,333 in consulting income in 2007.
The Senate Finance Committee Report also notes that during the vetting process, President Obama's Transition Team "identified certain donations that did not qualify as charitable deductions because they were not paid to qualifying organizations. Daschle adjusted his contribution deductions on his amended returns for 2005, 2006 and 2007 to remove these amounts and add additional contributions." This adjustment meant a reduction in the amount he contributed to charitable foundations of $14,963 from 2005 through 2007.
With the unreported income from the use of a car service in the amounts of $73,031 in 2005, $89,129 in 2006 and $93,096 in 2007; the unreported consulting income of $83,333 in 2007; and the adjusted reductions in charitable contributions, Daschle adds a total of $353,552 in additional income and reduced donations, meaning an additional tax payment of $128,203, in addition to $11,964 in interest.
On January 2 of this year, Daschle filed amended tax returns to pay the $140,167 in unpaid taxes.
The Finance Committee staff still is reviewing whether travel and entertainment services provided Tom and Linda Daschle by EduCap, Inc., Catherine B. Reynolds Foundation, Academy Achievement, and Loan to Learn should be reported as income. Earlier this month, the Wall Street Journal reported that Daschle made use of the jet belonging to EduCap, a non-profit student loan organization.
The timing of these revelations smacks of "clever" Obama administration news management that I believe would have brought howls of outrage from establishment media if it had occurred during the previous administration:
The car and driver item that was trotted out first, while admittedly large, can be (and was) framed as somewhat understandable (poor guy, "he thought it was a gift").
Failure to report income, which ABC apparently had to find on its own once Team Obama dangled the driver angle, is quite another matter. Daschle almost certainly received a Form 1099 relating to that income. Barring unusual circumstances, he should have reported the amount listed. It appears that he didn't.
The charitable deductions problem, while smaller, could also be more embarrassing, especially if we ever get to learn the identities of the organizations that really weren't qualifying charities.
Given that there are four separate different organizations that provided "travel and entertainment services" to the Daschles, there may be a web of relationships that, if uncovered, might reveal conflicts of interest.
The news release strategy appears to have been to get the media to focus on the car and driver, and make them dig up the rest over the weekend while no one is paying attention. I suspect the media outrage over this degree of apparent news management will be a big, fat zero.
The potentially most odious aspect of the Daschle dodge is that even a Senate turndown may not keep him out of the Obama administration. In a post last Sunday (at NewsBusters [2]; at BizzyBlog [3]), I noted a Politico.com report on the Obama adminstration's unprecedented concentration of power in non-Cabinet positions that report directly to the President. As Tapper reiterated in his original post yesterday, Daschle has one of those positions:
Should Daschle have difficulty being confirmed -- a prospect that seems unlikely given the benefit of the doubt senators frequently extend to one another, not to mention the Senate's Democratic majority -- he doesn't have to worry about finding another job in the administration, since President Obama has also appointed him to serve as director of the new White House Office on Health Reform.
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com [4].
Source URL:
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/tom-blumer/2009/01/31/daschles-dodging-course-theres-even-more-originally-reported
Links:
[1] http://www.bizzyblog.com/2009/01/30/hhs-nominee-daschle-has-100000-geithner-problem/
[2] http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/01/more-daschle-ta.html
[3] http://www.bizzyblog.com/?p=7951
[4] http://www.bizzyblog.com/2009/01/31/daschles-dodging-of-course-theres-even-more-than-originally-reported/
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I don't think who surrounds the President when he signs the bill is a great indication of the value of the bill.
However---
2 pieces of legislation with great impact to Women
President Bush signing Partial Birth Abortion Ban in 2003
(http://www.feministe.us/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/partialbirth.jpg)
President Obama signs the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act in 2009
(http://www.feministe.us/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/29ledbetter-600.jpg)
If the republican party wants to have continued relevance they will have stop being the old white guy party and they may be heading in that direction.
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I still don't get how abortion is a quasi-sacrament to you, Rachel. Maybe if he had big screens showing footage of babies in the midst of the procedure as he signed the bill? Oh yeah, infants can't vote, so no need to pander to them.
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With reference to Rachel's bill signing photos, I see your point regarding political skill. I also see a group of white conservative men more concerned about those most needing our protection than the most powerful liberal women in the country.
Obama's pay equity concern is empirically false. His campaign payroll had the exact same percentage disparity as the nation. I prefer if people clean up their own act before mandating 'change' on others.
The fitting crowd to assemble for the partial birth abortion ban photo should have been a visiting classroom of smiling black school children since abortion hits black children at THREE TIMES the rate of white children. Yet we celebrate this Auschwitz style tradition in the cloak of "Reproductive Rights".
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Hillary's Incredible Shrinking Cabinet Role
Tuesday, February 10, 2009 11:56 AM
By: Dick Morris and Eileen McGann
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is finding that her job description is dissolving under her feet, leaving her with only a vestige of the power she must have thought she acquired when she signed on to be President Obama’s chief Cabinet officer.
Since her designation:
Vice President Joe Biden has moved vigorously to stake out foreign policy as his turf. His visit to Afghanistan, right before the inauguration, could not but send a signal to Clinton that he would conduct foreign policy in the new administration, leaving her in a backup role.
Richard Holbrooke, the former Balkan negotiator and U.N. ambassador, has been named special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan. He insisted on direct access to the president, a privilege he was denied during much of the Clinton years.
Former Sen. George Mitchell, D-Maine, negotiator of the Irish Peace Accords, was appointed to be the administration’s point man on Arab-Israeli negotiations.
Samantha Powers, Obama’s former campaign aide, who once called Hillary Clinton a “monster,” has been appointed to the National Security Council as director of “multilateral affairs.”
Gen. James L. Jones, Obama’s new national security adviser, has announced an expansion of the membership and role of the security council. He pledges to eliminate “back channels” to the president and wants to grow the council’s role to accommodate the “dramatically different” challenges of the current world situation.
Susan Rice, Obama’s new United Nations ambassador, insisted upon and got Cabinet rank for her portfolio, and she presumably also will have the same kind of access to Obama that she had as his chief foreign policy adviser during the campaign.
So where does all this leave Secretary of State Clinton?
While sympathy for Mrs. Clinton is outside the normal fare of these columns, one cannot help but feel that she is surrounded by people who are, at best, strangers and, at worst, enemies. The competition that historically has occupied secretaries of State and national security advisers seems poised to ratchet up to a new level in this administration.
Hillary’s essential problem is that she is an outsider in the current mix. She was the adversary in the campaign, and Rice and Powers — at the very least — know it well, having helped to run the campaign that dethroned her. Can they — and she — be devoid of bitterness or at least of normal human trepidation? Not very likely.
The fact is that the power of the secretary of State is not statutory, nor does it flow from the prestige of the post’s occupant. Former Gen. Al Haig, once supreme commander of NATO and chief of staff to President Nixon, found that out when he was undercut as secretary by the White House troika of Mike Deaver, James Baker, and Ed Meese.
Bill Rogers, Eisenhower’s attorney general and Nixon’s California confidant, found himself on the outs from the moment he became secretary of State, with Henry Kissinger soaking up all the power through his direct access to Nixon as national security adviser.
The power of the secretary of State flows directly from the president. But Hillary does not have the inside track with Obama. Rice and Powers, close advisers in the campaign, and Gen. Jones, whose office is in the White House all may have superior access. Holbrooke and Mitchell will have more immediate information about the world’s trouble spots.
So what is Hillary’s mandate? Of what is she secretary of State? If you take the Middle East, Afghanistan, and Pakistan out of the equation, what is left? One would have to assume that the old North Korea hands in the government would monopolize that theater of action. What, precisely, is it that Hillary is to do? The question lingers.
And for this she gave up a Senate seat?
© 2009 Dick Morris and Eileen McGann
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Monday Brief
Vol. 09 No. 08
23 February 2009
THE FOUNDATION
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal..." --The Declaration of Independence
We are "a nation of cowards," says Eric Holder
RE: THE LEFT
"Hey, black folks, do you know any white folks? Good. OK, I want you to go up to them right now and, as politely as you can, start sharing your most deeply held racial views. Hey, white folks, you're not off the hook. I want you to go and do likewise with any black people you know. Don't want to do that? Really? Well, then, you're a coward. That's the short version of Attorney General Eric Holder's speech this week celebrating Black History Month. Holder says we are 'a nation of cowards' because we're unwilling to discuss race to his satisfaction. ... Usually, when I hear a liberal call for a national conversation on race, I translate it as: 'People who disagree with me need to be instructed why they are wrong.' Indeed, in a sense it's no wonder America is a nation of cowards when it comes to race, because so many of us are terrified of being called racist the moment we step out of line with liberal orthodoxy. ... [Holder] says of the debate over affirmative action ... that, 'This debate can, and should, be nuanced, principled and spirited. But the conversation we now engage in as a nation on this and other racial subjects is too often simplistic and left to those on the extremes, who are not hesitant to use these issues to advance nothing more than their own narrow self-interest.' Perhaps. Or perhaps calling views you disagree with 'extreme' and accusing those who hold them of having dishonorable motives is just a clever way of saying that you don't want an 'honest conversation' at all." --National Review editor Jonah Goldberg
CULTURE
"The problem is not that we talk too little about race but that our discussion is often irrelevant to the problems at hand. When Holder and Clinton talk about confronting racial issues, what they really want is a national therapy session in which whites admit that their prejudice and discrimination -- past and present -- is responsible for all the ills that beset blacks today. Well, sorry, it just isn't so. ... If Attorney General Holder is really interested in improving the status of blacks, he could begin by addressing the issue of personal responsibility. The decision to have a child out of wedlock has enormous consequences for single moms and the children they bring into the world. If there is one factor above others that explains the huge differences between the well-being of whites and blacks in this society, it is that so many black children grow up in homes with no fathers. Those children do more poorly in school, are more likely to get in trouble with the law, and become single parents themselves, thus perpetuating a destructive cycle of despair. So, by all means, let's have some honesty in our discussions of race during Black History Month. Let's begin by having our most prominent black elected and appointed officials show a little courage by speaking out on the real problems in the black community, not the chimera of white oppression and unacknowledged guilt." --columnist Linda Chavez
INSIGHT
"You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift. You cannot help small men by tearing down big men. You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong. You cannot lift the wage-earner by pulling down the wage-payer. You cannot help the poor man by destroying the rich. You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than your income. You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred. You cannot establish security on borrowed money. You cannot build character and courage by taking away men's initiative and independence. You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves." --Presbyterian minister William J.H. Boetcker (1873-1962)
THE GIPPER
"Government has only two ways of getting money other than raising taxes. It can go into the money market and borrow, competing with its own citizens and driving up interest rates, which it has done, or it can print money, and it's done that. Both methods are inflationary." --Ronald Reagan
POLITICAL FUTURES
"America is not great because of the size of our government, but because of the vision and values of our people. I am convinced that those who believe in big government have little faith in self-governance. Their philosophy says that government should do what a man can't -- or won't -- do for himself. Perhaps I'm jaded, but I believe that the gush of taxpayer dollars issuing forth from Washington is not driven by compassion, but from an unspoken belief that Americans are not smart enough to govern their own lives, strong enough to take some risk or compassionate enough to help neighbors in need. Conservatism has gotten a black eye over the past few years, not because our core principles are less true, but because so many of our leaders lost their way. When conservatives forget the values that got them elected and morph into big-spending, favor-trading politicians, voters will simply vote for whoever offers change, and, in 2008, they did. I don't think such an outcome dictates a redefinition of conservatism. If anything, it is a stark reminder that we need to return to our fiscally conservative roots. Not just in Washington, D.C., but in every state in the nation." --Texas Gov. Rick Perry
GOVERNMENT
"[C]reating jobs is not difficult for government. What is difficult for government is creating jobs that produce wealth. Pyramids, holes in the ground and war do not produce wealth. They destroy wealth. They take valuable resources and convert them into something less valuable. Instead of iPods, great art, cures for diseases and machines that replace back-breaking work, we get the equivalent of digging holes and filling them up. Under President Obama's 'stimulus' plan, jobs will be created to weatherize buildings, construct schools and wind turbines, and repair roads and bridges. But outside the market process, there is no way to know whether those are better uses of scarce capital than whatever would have been produced had it been left in the private economy. Since government services are paid for through the compulsion of taxes, they have no market price. But without market prices, we have no way of knowing the importance that free people would place on those services versus other things they want. So although we'll see the government putting people to work and even some new schools and bridges, we won't be able to calculate how much wealth we've lost because scarce resources were misallocated by the politicians. Nevertheless, we can be sure we will have lost. If the government's projects were truly worthwhile, they would be undertaken by private efforts, and in their quest for profits, entrepreneurs would handle them more efficiently. Remember this when President Obama begins to boast about how successful his stimulus plan is." --ABC's 20/20 co-anchor John Stossel
FOR THE RECORD
"[N]ot all jobs are created equal. Valuable jobs provide products and services the free market supports; useless jobs provide products and services the free market would not support. Valuable jobs provide products and services that enrich quality of life, making it cheaper to live better; useless jobs provide products and services that have minor impact on quality of life. Here's the magic of private sector jobs. Imagine Bill owns a fruit stand. He sells his fruit for $2 per pound. Herman sees that Bill is doing well, and decides to open a fruit stand of his own. He figures he can undercut Bill and live on less of a profit margin, so he sells his fruit at $1 per pound. Pretty soon, Herman runs Bill out of business. It's tough for Bill. But meanwhile, customers are spending $1 less for their fruit than they were. They're spending that extra money at Bob's clothing store, keeping Bob employed -- and Bob can now hire Bill. The bottom line is this: The power of free enterprise creates competition that raises production, lowers prices, and makes lives better for consumers and producers. And that's true even if employment declines in the fruit stand business." --columnist Ben Shapiro
LIBERTY
"[W]hat is the driving force that explains how millions of people manage to cooperate to get 60,000 different items to your supermarket? Most of them don't give a hoot about you and me, some of them might hate Americans, but they serve us well and they do so voluntarily. The bottom line motivation for the cooperation is people are in it for themselves; they want more profits, wages, interest and rent, or to use today's silly talk -- people are greedy. Adam Smith, the father of economics, captured the essence of this wonderful human cooperation when he said, 'He (the businessman) generally, indeed, neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it. ... He intends only his own security; and by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain.' Adam Smith continues, 'He is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention. ... By pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it.' And later he adds, 'It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.' If you have doubts about Adam Smith's prediction, ask yourself which areas of our lives are we the most satisfied and those with most complaints. Would they be profit motivated arenas such supermarkets, video or clothing stores, or be nonprofit motivated government-operated arenas such as public schools, postal delivery or motor vehicle registration? By the way, how many of you would be in favor of Congress running our supermarkets?" --George Mason University economics professor Walter E. Williams
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Moved to "The Electoral Process" thread: Marc
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As Newt has pointed out, we need some common sense conservatism to emerge among Democrats and independents as well. Looking to 2010, the entire House is up for election, but the recidivism rate is around 98-99% due to the advantages of incumbency. The senate is even tougher to turn over because only about a third are up for election each cycle and of those, there are very few vulnerable, red-state Democrats. Running the same calculations are those red-state Democrats who are up for reelection and wanting not to be vulnerable. First to triangulate away from Pelosi-Obama is Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana. Watch for North Dakota's Byron Dorgan to follow and for Harry Reid of Nevada to just continue to look confused. - Doug
Update: Russ Feingold (D-WI) also plans to vote no, not because he is centrist but because he is running for reelection in a state with mixed politics, where welfare reform began.
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http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123612545277023901.html
Deficits and Fiscal Credibility
A Democratic senator says no to a huge federal spending bill.
By EVAN BAYH
This week, the United States Senate will vote on a spending package to fund the federal government for the remainder of this fiscal year. The Omnibus Appropriations Act of 2009 is a sprawling, $410 billion compilation of nine spending measures that lacks the slightest hint of austerity from the federal government or the recipients of its largess.
The Senate should reject this bill. If we do not, President Barack Obama should veto it.
The omnibus increases discretionary spending by 8% over last fiscal year's levels, dwarfing the rate of inflation across a broad swath of issues including agriculture, financial services, foreign relations, energy and water programs, and legislative branch operations. Such increases might be appropriate for a nation flush with cash or unconcerned with fiscal prudence, but America is neither.
Drafted last year, the bill did not pass due to Congress's long-standing budgetary dysfunction and the frustrating delays it yields in our appropriations work. Since then, economic and fiscal circumstances have changed dramatically, which is why the Senate should go back to the drawing board. The economic downturn requires new policies, not more of the same.
Our nation's current fiscal imbalance is unprecedented, unsustainable and, if unaddressed, a major threat to our currency and our economic vitality. The national debt now exceeds $10 trillion. This is almost double what it was just eight years ago, and the debt is growing at a rate of about $1 million a minute.
Washington borrows from foreign creditors to fund its profligacy. The amount of U.S. debt held by countries such as China and Japan is at a historic high, with foreign investors holding half of America's publicly held debt. This dependence raises the specter that other nations will be able to influence our policies in ways antithetical to American interests. The more of our debt that foreign governments control, the more leverage they have on issues like trade, currency and national security. Massive debts owed to foreign creditors weaken our global influence, and threaten high inflation and steep tax increases for our children and grandchildren.
The solution going forward is to stop wasteful spending before it starts. Families and businesses are tightening their belts to make ends meet -- and Washington should too.
The omnibus debate is not merely a battle over last year's unfinished business, but the first indication of how we will shape our fiscal future. Spending should be held in check before taxes are raised, even on the wealthy. Most people are willing to do their duty by paying taxes, but they want to know that their money is going toward important priorities and won't be wasted.
Last week I was pleased to attend the president's White House Fiscal Responsibility Summit. It's about time we had a leader committed to addressing the deficit, and Mr. Obama deserves great credit for doing so. But what ultimately matters are not meetings or words, but actions. Those who vote for the omnibus this week -- after standing with the president and pledging to slice our deficit in half last week -- jeopardize their credibility.
As Indiana's governor, I balanced eight budgets, never raised taxes, and left the largest surplus in state history. It wasn't always easy. Cuts had to be made and some initiatives deferred. Occasionally I had to say "no."
But the bloated omnibus requires sacrifice from no one, least of all the government. It only exacerbates the problem and hastens the day of reckoning. Voters rightly demanded change in November's election, but this approach to spending represents business as usual in Washington, not the voters' mandate.
Now is the time to win back the confidence and trust of the American people. Congress should vote "no" on this omnibus and show working families across the country that we are as committed to living within our means as they are.
Mr. Bayh, a Democratic senator from Indiana, served as governor of Indiana from 1989 to 1997.
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http://hotair.com/archives/2009/03/07/great-news-obama-fumbled-brown-visit-because-hes-in-over-his-head/comment-page-1/#comments
Great news: Obama fumbled Brown visit because he’s in over his head
posted at 4:19 pm on March 7, 2009 by Ed Morrissey
After insulting Gordon Brown during the British prime minister’s visit this week by ignoring protocol and cheaping out on the traditional gift exchange, the UK media has erupted in outrage. The Obama White House has now started to recognize the firestorm the new President created with our closest ally, and wants to assure the Brits that he meant no disrespect. Instead, Obama apparently wants to assure them that he’s simply in over his head and floundering (via Radio Equalizer):
Sources close to the White House say Mr Obama and his staff have been “overwhelmed” by the economic meltdown and have voiced concerns that the new president is not getting enough rest.
British officials, meanwhile, admit that the White House and US State Department staff were utterly bemused by complaints that the Prime Minister should have been granted full-blown press conference and a formal dinner, as has been customary. They concede that Obama aides seemed unfamiliar with the expectations that surround a major visit by a British prime minister. …
Allies of Mr Obama say his weary appearance in the Oval Office with Mr Brown illustrates the strain he is now under, and the president’s surprise at the sheer volume of business that crosses his desk.
A well-connected Washington figure, who is close to members of Mr Obama’s inner circle, expressed concern that Mr Obama had failed so far to “even fake an interest in foreign policy”. …
The American source said: “Obama is overwhelmed. There is a zero sum tension between his ability to attend to the economic issues and his ability to be a proactive sculptor of the national security agenda.
“That was the gamble these guys made at the front end of this presidency and I think they’re finding it a hard thing to do everything.”
I’m not sure which is worse. At least if he meant to snub Brown, it would suggest a certain competence at this brand of diplomacy. Instead, we’re told that the Obama White House and their staff are just a bunch of incompetents who got in over their heads.
Which is, of course, the point we made continuously over the last two years.
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http://formerspook.blogspot.com/2009/03/scary-stuff-indeed.html
Sunday, March 08, 2009
"Overwhelmed"
From Jim Geraghty at NRO's Campaign Spot. Every new administration--and president--goes through an adjustment process, but this is ridiculous. Mr. Geraghty notes that President Obama is "overwhelmed" by the demands of his new office, as reported by the U.K. Telegraph:
Sources close to the White House say Mr Obama and his staff have been "overwhelmed" by the economic meltdown and have voiced concerns that the new president is not getting enough rest.
British officials, meanwhile, admit that the White House and US State Department staff were utterly bemused by complaints that the Prime Minister should have been granted full-blown press conference and a formal dinner, as has been customary. They concede that Obama aides seemed unfamiliar with the expectations that surround a major visit by a British prime minister.
But Washington figures with access to Mr Obama's inner circle explained the slight by saying that those high up in the administration have had little time to deal with international matters, let alone the diplomatic niceties of the special relationship.
Allies of Mr Obama say his weary appearance in the Oval Office with Mr Brown illustrates the strain he is now under, and the president's surprise at the sheer volume of business that crosses his desk.
Equally disconcerting, the Telegraph goes on to say that the commander-in-chief has failed to "even fake an interest in foreign policy." That assessment came from a Washington "insider" with close ties to the administration.
This account is troubling, on a couple of levels. First, in regard to Obama's meeting with Gordon Brown, there is no excuse for the diplomatic faux pas. Both the White House and the State Department have permanent, professional protocol staffs who work these events on a daily basis. If the Obama team was unsure of how to "handle" a meeting with a British Prime Minister, all they had to do was ask.
Apparently, no one did, since Mr. Brown was not afforded the press conference or formal dinner that normally accompany a U.S.-British summit. Additionally, protocol experts could have prevented the embarrassment over those cheesy DVDs given by Mr. Obama to the British leader.
More disturbing is the notion that Mr. Obama is exhausted by his new job--only two months after taking the oath of office. True, the president entered the Oval Office during trying times, but he is not the only chief executive to face such circumstances. FDR inherited the worst economy in U.S. history; Ronald Reagan faced a severe economic downturn and an expansionist Soviet Union; George W. Bush confronted the twin challenges of 9-11 and war only nine months into his administration.
While each man used different approaches in facing their respective crises, all had something in common. To our knowledge, none complained about the burdens of office so early in their tenure. Each man understood that such comments would do nothing to resolve the challenges they faced, or enhance their reputation as a leader.
To be fair, none of these complaints have come directly from President Obama. But the Telegraph's sources are well-placed, lending credence to their account. So, it's not hard to imagine a new president and administration discovering that governance is far harder than campaigning.
It also seems clear that Mr. Obama and his advisers are focused on the economy, at the expense of everything else. But we also recall a famous maxim from President George H.W. Bush, who observed that "what you don't know about domestic policy can prevent your re-election; what you don't know about foreign policy can get a lot of people killed."
As President Obama is about to discover, his sabbatical from international issues will soon come to an abrupt end, with potentially disastrous consequences. His recent decisions on Iraq and Afghanistan were comparatively easy, following courses already established by the Bush Administration.
Now comes the hard part. North Korea is about to launch a long-range ballistic missile over South Korean and/or Japanese territory. Will he order U.S. forces to shoot it down, or allow the test to proceed and (possibly) jeopardize relations with our most important regional allies?
Mr. Obama also faces tough choices on Iran. Recent assessments indicate that Iran has the material and the technical know-how to build an atomic bomb within the next two years. Does he stick with the diplomatic track--despite years of failure--consider U.S. military options, or give Israel a green light to strike Iran's nuclear facilities?
But the list of potential crises doesn't end there. Is the administration prepared for a possible energy crises, in response to the Iranian nuclear issue, or as a separate issue? With oil still trading below $50 a barrel, countries like Venezuela, Iran and Russia would welcome a run-up in prices, generating billions more for their economies. Iran in particular could "manufacture" a crisis, leading to months of higher oil prices, at a time when our economy can least afford it.
If Mr. Obama is already overwhelmed by the requirements of his office, just wait a few months. His learning curve is just beginning.
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Pelosi Made Repeated Requests for Military Aircraft, Documents Show
Representatives for Judicial Watch, which obtained e-mails and other documents showing the requests, say House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has treated the Air Force as her "personal airline."
FOXNews.com
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has repeatedly requested military aircraft to shuttle her and her colleagues and family around the country, according to a new report from a conservative watchdog group.
Representatives for Judicial Watch, which obtained e-mails and other documents from a Freedom of Information request, said the correspondence shows Pelosi has abused the system in place to accommodate congressional leaders and treated the Air Force as her "personal airline."
The e-mails showed repeated attempts by Pelosi aides to request aircraft, sometimes aggressively, and by Department of Defense officials to accommodate them.
"I think that's above and beyond what other members of Congress are doing and what is expected of our elected officials," said Jenny Small, a researcher with the group.
The group reported that Pelosi was notorious for making special demands for high-end aircraft, lodging last-minute cancellations, and racking up additional expenses for the military.
In one e-mail, aide Kay King complained to the military that they had not made available any aircraft the House speaker wanted for Memorial Day recess.
"It is my understanding there are NO G5s available for the House during the Memorial Day recess. This is totally unacceptable ... The Speaker will want to know where the planes are," King wrote.
In another, when told a certain type of aircraft would not be available, King wrote: "This is not good news, and we will have some very disappointed folks, as well as a very upset Speaker."
Pelosi's office has not yet responded to requests for comment.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/03/10/study-pelosi-repeated-requests-military-aircraft/
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I know Bo doesn't care about polls or the direction of the stock market :roll: but FWIW the recent Zogby on the "direction" of the country:
****Released: March 06, 2009
Zogby Poll: 40% Now Believe the U.S. is Headed in the Right Direction
Survey finds 56% view President Obama favorably while his positive job approval ratings hold steady at 52%
UTICA, New York - Forty percent of likely voters now have positive feelings about the direction the U.S. is headed, a slight gain over the 36% who said the same in late January and a significant increase over the 14% who said the country was on the right track at the beginning of the year, a new Zogby Interactive poll shows.
Even as slightly more believe the country is headed in the right direction, there has also been a slight increase in those who believe the county is on the wrong track - 48% this month compared to 45% in late January, though significantly fewer than the 70% who had negative feelings about the country's direction at the start of the year.
The survey shows a stark contrast along political lines, with Democrats significantly more optimistic (71%) about the country's direction under President Barack Obama's administration than are political independents (35%) or Republicans (6%). Democrats and independents are more positive about the country's direction than in late January, while Republicans are now more likely to believe the U.S. is on the wrong track - 86% of Republicans feel this way, compared to 76% who said the same in late January. Just over half of independents (52%) feel the same, compared to only 14% of Democrats. The Zogby Interactive survey of 3,365 likely voters nationwide was conducted March 2-5, 2009, and carries a margin of error of +/- 1.7 percentage points.
Congressional job performance ratings slowly climb as President Obama's job approval numbers hold steady
Obama enjoys strong personal popularity, with 56% who have a favorable opinion of the President - most notably among fellow Democrats, with 93% who view the President positively. More than half of political independents feel the same (52%), compared to only 14% of Republicans.
Obama maintains a 52% "excellent" or "good" job performance rating in this latest survey, unchanged from our polling in late January, while 46% rate his job performance as "fair" or "poor." There is a dramatic partisan split when it comes to Obama's job performance, with 90% of Democrats who give the President positive ratings, compared to just 11% of Republicans - political independents fall in the middle with 47%.
Congressional job performance ratings have climbed to 24%, up from 20% in late January and a vast improvement over the 4% of likely voters who gave Congress a job performance rating of "excellent" or "good" at the beginning of the year. Positive Congressional job performance marks from Democrats continue to climb - 46% this month compared to 39% in late January, while ratings from political independents (17%) and Republicans (2%) have changed little.
Perception of U.S. economic policy still overwhelmingly negative, but continues to show improvement
The vast majority of likely voters - 77% - give negative ratings to U.S. economic policy, a decline from the 85% who said the same in late January and an even larger drop from the 95% who viewed U.S. economic policy negatively in the weeks just before President Obama's inauguration. This latest poll shows 18% now give the nation's economic policy a positive rating, up from 8% who said the same in late January. When it comes to their personal financial situation, just 35% give it a positive rating, compared to 65% who paint their personal financial picture as "fair" or "poor" - only a slight change from polling early in the year. One in five (22%) express insecurity about their current job, which is largely unchanged from Zogby International polling at the beginning of the year.
For a detailed methodological statement on this survey, please visit:
http://www.zogby.com/methodology/readmeth.cfm?ID=1391
(3/6/2009)
ZOGBY INTERNATIONAL
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1600 K Street, Suite 600, Washington, DC 20006 USA
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NY phone 315.624.0200
Toll Free in the U.S. and Canada 1-877-GO-2-POLL | 1-877-462-7655
fax 315.624.0210
Contact sales and marketing
Contact our web manager with any comments regarding this web site.
Copyright 2009 by Zogby International.****
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Wednesday Chronicle
Vol. 09 No. 12
25 March 2009
THE FOUNDATION
"Here comes the orator! With his flood of words, and his drop of reason." --Benjamin Franklin
Switching from teleprompter to big-screen TV
THE DEMO-GOGUES
Lies and statistics: "n this budget, we have made the tough choices necessary to cut our deficit in half by the end of my first term -- even under the most pessimistic estimates." --President Barack Obama, who doubled the budget deficit before he could halve it
Says the pot to the kettle: "- ne of the things that I'm trying to break is a pattern in Washington where everybody is always looking for somebody else to blame." --Barack Obama
Mentally challenged: "I bowled a 129. ... It's like -- it was like Special Olympics or something." --Barack Obama making fun of the Special Olympics on "The Tonight Show"
Pick socialism: "[W]e need not choose between a chaotic and unforgiving capitalism and an oppressive government-run economy. That is a false choice that will not serve our people or any people." --Barack Obama
Regulatory Commissars: "I think the most important thing that we can do is make sure that we put in a bunch of financial regulatory mechanisms to prevent companies like an AIG holding the rest of us hostage. Because that's â??- that's the real problem." --Barack Obama
This week's "Quid Pro Homo" Award: "At some point, [the Defense of Marriage Act] is going to have to go to the United States Supreme Court. I wouldn't want it to go to the United States Supreme Court now because that homophobe Antonin Scalia has too many votes on this current court." --Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA), an open homosexual **Scalia has more than one vote?
Global warmism: "When we talk about drilling, the new thing we have to think about is the Arctic. There is a dangerous irony occurring. We are drilling, burning oil, sending CO2 up into the atmosphere, creating global warming -- and it's melting the Arctic making it possible for people to drill. Now there is this gold rush to start punching oil wells in a place we just desecrated because of global warming. That's one place we have to get a new moratorium where there hasn't been one before, because there has always been ice there before." --Rep. Jay Inslee (D-WA)
Vocabulary police: "This Administration prefers to avoid using the term 'Long War' or 'Global War on Terror' [GWOT]. Please use 'Overseas Contingency Operation.'" --email from Dave Riedel of the Office of Security Review
UPRIGHT
"The more the Fed takes on its balance sheet, the more the long-run independence of the central bank is damaged. Monetizing so much government debt is what Third World nations do. Draining the new money from the system will someday be a problem. It may introduce a round of 'beggar-thy-neighbor,' central bank-engineered currency depreciations." --economist Tyler Cowen
"[treasury] Secretary Geithner wants AIG and executives at other companies that receive tax dollars to be paid according to performance. That is a standard most of us would like to see applied to Congress, which enjoys annual pay increases no matter how much incompetence, malfeasance and misfeasance it demonstrates." --columnist Cal Thomas
"This whole AIG fiasco -- where the entire political class is suddenly screaming over bonuses paid to derivative traders in AIG's financial-products division -- is just a complete farce. What it really shows is how the government has completely bungled the AIG takeover. Blame the Bush administration and the Obama administration. It also shows, once again, why the government shouldn't run anything, because it cannot run anything." --economist Lawrence Kudlow
"What do we learn about Obama from the 'Special Olympics' gaffe? We learn, first and foremost, what we already knew: Obama is an elitist with a high school sense of humor." --columnist Ben Shapiro
"This country no longer has any enemy combatants to worry about. There, don't you feel better? Probably not, because you know that, although the new administration has decided to drop the legal designation Enemy Combatants, they're all too real. Only the name is gone." --columnist Paul Greenberg
"[W]hen I think of my children and my grandchild, I'm not worried that they will suffer for lack of money. I worry they'll suffer a much worse fate: lack of freedom. ... We have to fight our way -- not back, but forward -- to a country in which self-dealing politicians control less of our economy and less of our lives." --columnist Paul Jacob
"We can recall that the founders of our country intended the role of government to protect our lives and property, not violate them. And that in times when we have respected that proper use of government, our country has prospered." --columnist Star Parker
INSIGHT
"The main vice of capitalism is the uneven distribution of prosperity. The main vice of socialism is the even distribution of misery." --former British Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)
"There are 10^11 stars in the galaxy. That used to be a huge number. But it's only a hundred billion. It's less than the national deficit! We used to call them astronomical numbers. Now we should call them economical numbers." --American physicist Richard Feynman (1918-1988)
"When small men begin to cast big shadows, it means that the sun is about to set." --Chinese writer Lin Yutang (1895-1976)
EDITORIAL EXEGESIS
"There should be no hurdles to restoring freedom. But when Congress attempts to restrict it, the hurdle should be high, if not impossible to clear. It's chilling to watch as men with authority and influence prefer to instead crash their way through. The power to tax is the power to destroy, as is the power to regulate and limit choices. These powers should be wielded judiciously, and only within a system that safeguards against excess and demands accountability. The overly ambitious and unelected can't be allowed to govern by walking over the governed." --Investor's Business Daily
DEZINFORMATSIA
Wipe the drool off your chin: "Whether it's creating commissions for women and girls, ordering the investigation of President Bush's use of signing statements, or jamming a huge stimulus package through Congress, the man is working his tail off. And he seems to be loving every minute of it. It's almost as though our president was born to do exactly what he's doing. He's leading, and boy, is that refreshing." --CNN's Jack Cafferty
Bringing dignity to his office?
Obamamania: "When I heard [Obama] was going to [be on "The Tonight Show"] I thought, should a president really do that? Then I actually stayed up and watched it and he calmed me down. I've really been getting pretty upset in the last week, just like every other American I think. And he calmed me down. And he was presidential. I thought it was just a masterful performance." --NPR's Nina Totenberg
Covering the president: "Nothing goes unescaped when it comes to the president. He did talk about the Special Olympics. Some people took that as an offensive remark. However, this morning on a radio show, the director of the Special Olympics for the state of Illinois, a man by the name of Doug Snyder, talked about that, and he thinks he knows where all this came from, because he remembers a couple years back introducing the president to a little girl named Caitlyn, who showed the president how to bowl, and did a darn better job of doing it at the time than the president was able to do it. He thinks Caitlyn is actually perhaps the inspiration for the president deciding to be a bit better as a bowler." --MSNBC's Alex Witt covering for Obama's tasteless "Special Olympics" comment on the "Tonight Show"
Getting it right: "Obama is on track to accomplish exactly what he promised to change during the campaign, creating a massive burden for the next generation to fund politically popular policies in the short term." --Time magazine writer Michael Scherer
Newspulper Headlines:
Now He Tells Us!: "Obama Asks Americans Not to Expect Too Much From Him" --Associated Press
What an Insensitive Headline: "Chinks Exposed in Obama's Taliban Plan" --Asia Times
No One Knows for Sure: "Guess Profit Falls 13 Percent" --Los Angeles Business Journal
Drinking and Driving Don't Mix: "Wild Turkey Sends Maine Motorcyclist to Hospital" --Associated Press
News You Can Use: "Scientists: We're Doomed. Or Are We?" --Greenpeace UK Web site
Bottom Stories of the Day: "Animal Rights, Circus Lawyers Differ on Elephants" --Associated Press ++ "Gore to Revisit Climate Crisis in New Book" --New York Times Web site
(Thanks to The Wall Street Journal's James Taranto)
VILLAGE IDIOTS
Name that standard: "The desirable goal of reforming the international monetary system, therefore, is to create an international reserve currency that is disconnected from individual nations and is able to remain stable in the long run, thus removing the inherent deficiencies caused by using credit-based national currencies." --Zhou Xiaochuan, governor of the People's Bank of China **Didn't that used to be called "gold"?
Village Academic Curriculum: "If you make it a practice of killing other people's babies for personal gain ... eventually they're going to give you a taste of the same thing." --former University of Colorado professor Ward Churchill, who once called the victims of 9/11 "little Eichmanns" after one of the architects of the Holocaust, testifying in his lawsuit seeking to get his job back
Non Compos Mentis: "Barack Obama is the first Hispanic president the same way Bill Clinton was the first black [president]." --Geraldo Rivera discussing immigration
Say what?: "The kids love to say SheetzuCacaPoopoo. Well, that was the key. But, the book is really about Barack Obama. Okay? Let me explain. ... The dog -- Max is in trouble. They send him to obedience school, okay? When he's in obedience school is when he becomes Barack. He becomes a community organizer. And he organizes the big dogs around the little dogs. 'Cause at first, the big dogs, also known as the Republicans, don't like him. See? And so, he finds ways, pragmatically, to help the big dogs. ... They can reach itches for them. They can go underneath to get to spots. They can scare the cats away. And so, he becomes popular. And everybody loves each other. ... It's all about pragmatism and change, and trying to find a solution in your situation, which is Barack Obama." --Joy Behar of "The View" promoting her new children's book **Well, SheetzuCacaPoopoo IS the perfect name...
SHORT CUTS
"[Obama] might be 'a fairly sensitive and compassionate man.' Alternatively, he could be a mean, self-absorbed S.O.B. who regards anyone other than himself as intellectually disabled. The truth is we don't know, because in the course of the presidential campaign the press declined to do even the most elementary due diligence on him. And, like Congress with the stimulus, the electorate didn't bother to find out what's in there before they voted for it." --columnist Mark Steyn
"One of the things that concerns me about Obama's presidency is that every time he opens his yap, he sounds so darn naive. Just recently, he spoke about reaching out to moderates in the ranks of the Taliban. A moderate in that society is a cretin who wants to murder Christians, Jews and any woman who refuses to wrap herself in a bed sheet before leaving the house, but who draws the line at beheading his victims for Al-Jazeera's TV cameras." --columnist Burt Prelutsky
"I can't believe we've decided to do battle with al-Qaida by vernacular-ing them to death." --comedian Dennis Miller
"The New York Times reported Sunday that President Obama is planning to regulate salaries paid by every company in the financial services industry. Already he's insulted Britain and Special Olympians while making nice to Iran and North Korea. One more week of this and everybody's going to be searching for the birth certificate." --comedian Argus Hamilton
Jay Leno:
People made a big deal out of the fact this is the first time a sitting president has done a late-night show. We tried to have other presidents on, but President Bush went to bed every night at 9:00. And President Clinton always seemed to have other late-night plans.
More problems for AIG: It turns out that the bonus money was actually $218 million, not $165 million as originally reported. AIG says they misplaced $53 million in bonus money. Today Sen. Chris Dodd said, "You mean that wasn't a campaign contribution?"
Senator Chris Dodd -- or 'Chris Dodge,' as they're calling him now -- after first denying it, now admits he's the one who eliminated the provision in the stimulus package that outlawed excessive bonuses. And coincidentally, he just happened to receive $280,000 from AIG in campaign contributions. What are the odds of that?
Congress is now investigating the special treatment that "Senator Dodge" ... received from Countrywide Mortgage for a couple of mortgages. Senator Dodd has contended he didn't know he was getting special rates on the mortgages. And, really, to be fair, how would the Senate chairman of the banking committee have any idea what the normal lending rate would be?
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Freddie Mac chief financial officer found dead in apparent suicide
David Kellermann, 41, was found dead in his home in Vienna, Virginia before dawn
Daniel Nasaw in Washington
guardian.co.uk,
Wednesday 22 April 2009 15.37 BST
The acting chief financial officer of troubled US mortgage giant Freddie Mac was found dead in an apparent suicide this morning.
David Kellermann, 41, was found dead in his home in Vienna, Virginia on the outskirts of Washington, before dawn. Fairfax county, Virginia police said no foul play was evident and that the cause and manner of death was under investigation by the state medical examiner. CNN reported Kellermann had hung himself, citing a law enforcement source. Police spokeswoman Lucy Caldwell said police responded to the house just before 5am (10am BST). She would not say who called police but said others were in the house.
Kellermann was named acting chief financial officer in September, after Anthony Piszel resigned following a government-takeover of the firm and a dramatic internal shake-up of the management. He reported directly to Chief Executive Officer John Koskinen. Before that he was senior vice-president and led the company's accounting and finance operations.
Kellerman had been with the company 16 years in a variety of positions.
As acting chief financial officer, Kellermann was charged with certifying the truth and accuracy of the company's financial statements and certain regulatory filings.
The company remains under government conservatorship and has received billions in loans from the US treasury department to help keep it afloat.
But the company has complained that requirements from the treasury department and other US government offices conflict with its long-term business objectives, and last month warned investors that the conflict could lead to "suboptimal outcomes".
The McLean, Virginia-based company finances home mortgages by purchasing loans from mortgage lenders. It has been battered by floods of loan defaults caused by the credit crunch and plummeting home values. In 2008, the company lost $50.1bn (£34.4bn), compared to $3.1bn in 2007.
The company was chartered by the US Congress in 1970. At the end of 2008, Freddie Mac held $1.8tn in single-family home loans.
At least six other financial services executives have committed suicide under stress from the current credit crisis. Those include Germany's fifth richest man, Adolf Merckle, who in January threw himself under a train in an act his family blamed on his company's "desperate situation". In December, a French fund manager who had lost $1.4bn of clients' money to Bernard Madoff's ponzi scheme was found dead at his desk in New York.
In a statement, Koskinen praised Kellermann's "extraordinary work ethic and integrity".
"The Freddie Mac family is truly saddened by the news this morning of David Kellermann's death," he said. "We extend our deepest condolences to David's family and loved ones for this terrible personal tragedy."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2...nn-freddie-mac
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this was meant for the politics thread and inadvertently got misplaced:
He was just an "aid" who was acting on his own accord
« on: May 09, 2009, 08:25:52 AM »
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
About the White House Military Office whose director, excuse me, I mean "aid", Loius Caldera, reportedly acting without any knowledge from anyone higher up ordered the Airforce One fly over of NYC. He is taking the fall. He will probably get another cushy consulting job somewhere to go away, resign, and be quiet:
THE WHITE HOUSE MILITARY OFFICE
The White House Military Office (WHMO) provides military support for White House functions, including food service, Presidential transportation, medical support and emergency medical services, and hospitality services. The office, led by WHMO Director Louis Caldera, oversees policy related to WHMO functions and Department of Defense assets and ensures that White House requirements are met with the highest standards of quality. The WHMO Director oversees all military operations aboard Air Force One on Presidential missions worldwide. The Deputy Director of the White House Military Office focuses primarily on the day-to-day support of the WHMO.
The WHMO's operational units are the most visible part of the WHMO's support to the President. The WHMO units include the White House Communications Agency, Presidential Airlift Group, White House Medical Unit, Camp David, Marine Helicopter Squadron One, Presidential Food Service, and the White House Transportation Agency. To assure proper coordination and integration, the WHMO also includes support elements such as operations; policy, plans, and requirements; information and technology management; financial management and comptroller; WHMO counsel; and security. Together, WHMO entities provide essential service to the President and help maintain the continuity of the Presidency.
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"[R]espected economists like Donald Marron, Keith Hennessey, Bruce Bartlett and Kevin Hassett have all carefully chronicled the fact that the Obama stimulus package does not feature any real fiscal multipliers. They say the bulk of the package consists of transfer payments to individuals and states, along with tax credits that will produce no real incentive effects to spur economic growth. But the fact remains that numerous signs are now pointing to economic recovery. And the GOP needs to craft a smart political response to this. Obama and Biden will surely take credit for the better economic news, just as any White House would. It's the way the political game is played. But Republicans have to play the game, too. A tremendous summer rally is going on in stocks, and it's being driven by better corporate profits and improved leading indicators -- including a possible upturn in housing starts and sales, and a major downward spike in weekly initial jobless claims. So you have to believe the stock market is calling the tune for recovery. And while politics is not everything, I do believe that the shrinking prospects for Obamacare have been a big contributor to the stock market's recent surge. This sweeping new government insurance plan would lead to high-tax-and-spend-and-borrow-and-regulate nationalized health care, a big economic negative. Ditto for nationalizing energy through cap-and-trade-and-tax. If these initiatives fail, it is very bullish for stocks and the economy. ... But the White House is going to take credit for economic recovery anyway, and that's the newest political challenge for the GOP." --economist Lawrence Kudlow
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(Crafty: Lets continue this conversation on the Politics thread.) - Ok, but as I proof read this looks a lot like a rant. :-)
CCP:"...unless we all start sacrificing now this country is headed for a total collapse...all this spending will destroy us...We need to stop giving life ling pensions to people who retire at 50 and then get other jobs...Medicare and social security ages will have to increase to 70...some skeptics decry that THIS IS the MO of BO. Destroy the country so it has to be rebuilt from the bottom up - as a socialist state. I am short of personally subscribing to this but I don't discount it altogether."
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As GM pointed out, Obama is tanking and support for the policies tanked earlier and stronger. You don't re-acquire to Messiah status or hope and change euphoria after being exposed as a mere mortal and an ordinary liberal / Marxist. I agree that Obama doesn't know his policies will tank the country and our economy. I think liberals and anti-capitalists take our amazing past economic successes for granted. I have long challenged any supporter or Obama biographer to tell me any book the young leader has read about economics that wasn't in opposition to capitalism. He thinks investors will invest anyway, even if you threaten, berate them publicly and punish them. After empirical result after empirical result to the contrary, this Ivy League elitist still believes building up the public sector and tearing down the private sector shows good promise for the country.
Obama also has shown more adherence to his convictions than former Pres. Clinton who was happy to jump ship and sail a different direction whenever his poll analysts gave him the green light. Obama instead will cling to incrementalism toward his goals versus abandonment.
Tanking public support affects congress and Obama's ability to get things done. Democrat majorities exist because some liberals are representing conservative leaning districts. For example, R's would win at the Presidential level in South Dakota by 30 points while Tom Daschle would hold his senate seat by 30 points, bringing power and money to the state. But cross the line with the electorate and he is gone. (I wonder if Harry Reid knows that story, lol.) In North Dakota, 2 senators are liberal in a state that is typically a 30 point margin to the conservative side. They can't stay in lock-step with a tanking, exposed agenda and hold power. Small states sound trivial, but their senator's vote has the same weight as Boxer, Schumer, Kennedy, Durbin, et al. Same goes for house districts. Watch these representatives squirm at their townhall meetings and ACORN invented the show up and voice your concern tactic. I heard one new D-congressman assuring his outraged townhall that he won't vote for the healthcare bill if it contains liberal provision x or y.
The current power structure in this country took hold on election night of Nov. 2006, when Pelosi-Reid-Hillary-Barney Frank, with Obama took control, not in Jan. 2009 when Pres. Obama took office, (and this mess was not created by free markets "running wild"). The liberal machine also controlled certain aspects of Washington before that to the extent that willing Republicans sided with the liberal agenda on spending and the atrocities of Fannie Mae etc.
CCP, I agree with your point about control the spending and I think that has the crossover appeal, not tax cuts or social issues at this juncture.
To finish Cheney's famous alleged interrupted statement that deficits don't matter, a family making good money might run a deficit when a couple of the kids are off to college. Same goes for my daughter in braces, lol, but I won't be running a deficit on her forever or without limits. Reagan brought down a Soviet empire and re-built our economy, and his legacy is that this growth led to balanced budgets (Bill Clinton aligned with Newt Gingrich) within a reasonable time. The aftermath of 9/11 had similar emergency conditions, but just like Obama, R's took their eyes off the emergency and paid the price economically and politically.
So we have a spending and debt-caused crisis and were told the solution is new spending on steroids with new debt beyond anyone's comprehension. :-(
Crafty wrote recently that we have to offer more than just 'no' (to healthcare in particular). To govern with a mandate and accomplish positive things in the future that is true, but to immediately stop this train wreck I think the message, outside of the far left, we can all agree on is just - 'NO'!
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***Obama also has shown more adherence to his convictions than former Pres. Clinton who was happy to jump ship and sail a different direction whenever his poll analysts gave him the green light. Obama instead will cling to incrementalism toward his goals versus abandonment.***
"cling to incrementalism"
He appears to be doing just that.
Those of us who are opposed to big government have no choice but to not give one inch.
He is not about compromise. He is about suckering the right.
If we continue to stand up to him his fellow Dems will really start jumping ship when his numbers continue to tank.
I fear we are going to witness a gigantic counter offensive from the left with all sorts of smears, distortions, frenzy and the rest very soon.
"we need to hit back twice as hard"
This includes bribing more voting blocks.
I am surprised we have not seen more violence yet.
Just wait till we start getting double digit inflation.
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CCP, agree but... it is the middle with the moderates that he was suckering, not so much the right.
Obama had huge support but didn't get all his 53% or 57% or more to buy fully into the agenda. His coalition requires him to wink to ACORN and the far left and talk reasonably to the center, like Sotomayor did - totally different to activists than in confirmation.
Campaigns might be run on generalities but these bills cannot be written without specifics and the specifics fly in the face of the reasonable and prudent sounding salesmanship.
In other words, the radical 'war' worked from the outside but is exposed in victory. Now the pendulum swings the other way and right wingers will hopefully be exposed for trying to ram freedom, liberty and a constitutionally-based version of limited government down our throats, lol.
Here is one satirist's view, in song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9HS8n8Y4qo
"The day Obamacare Died" to American Pie on the Rush L. show.
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By KARL ROVE
August was the worst month of Barack Obama's presidency. And he seems to know it—he is now planning to deliver a speech to a joint session of Congress 232 days into his administration in a desperate attempt to save his biggest domestic priority, overhauling health care.
He has already had the budget-busting $787 billion stimulus package, a budget that doubles the national debt in five years, an earmark-laden appropriations bill that boosted domestic spending nearly 8%, and a cap-and-trade energy tax that limped through the House with dozens of Democratic defections (and which has stalled in the Senate). These achievements are unpopular, so they are boomeranging on him.
Mr. Obama's problems are legion. To start with, the president is focusing on health care when the economy and jobs are nearly everyone's top issue. Voters increasingly believe Mr. Obama took his eye off the ball.
In addition, Mr. Obama is trying to overhaul health care without being able to tap into widespread public unhappiness. Nearly nine out of 10 Americans say they have coverage—and large majorities of them are happy with it. Of the 46 million uninsured, 9.7 million are not U.S. citizens; 17.6 million have annual incomes of more than $50,000; and 14 million already qualify for Medicaid or other programs. That leaves less than five million people truly uncovered out of a population of 307 million. Americans don't believe this problem—serious but correctable—justifies the radical shift Mr. Obama offers.
View Full Image
Associated Press
.Moreover, he's tried to sell it with promises Americans aren't buying. He says ObamaCare will save money, but Americans believe it comes with a huge price tag because the Congressional Budget Office has said it will.
Workers are also rightly concerned they won't be able to keep their current coverage. Many businesses will drop their health plans and instead pay a fine equal to 8% of their payroll costs, which is less than what they pay for employee coverage.
Families believe they will be pushed into a government plan as the "public option" drives private insurers out of the market.
Health-care providers fear they'll be forced to follow one-size-fits-all guidelines drafted by bureaucrats, instead of making judgments for specific patients.
And seniors are afraid of Mr. Obama's plan to cut $500 billion from Medicare over the next decade, including $177 billion for Medicare Advantage. It's simply not possible to cut that much from Medicare without also cutting services seniors need.
Each of these concerns is energizing opposition among many previously uninvolved voters and political independents. Members of Congress, especially those in closely contested districts, saw this firsthand when they returned home in August.
The administration's problems have been compounded by tactical mistakes. Allowing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to push for a Democrat-only bill shatters any claim Mr. Obama can make to bipartisanship, a core theme of his candidacy. Leaving the legislation's drafting to Congress has tied the president's fortunes to Mrs. Pelosi, who has a 25% approval rating nationwide, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, whose approval rating is 37% in Nevada.
About Karl Rove
Karl Rove served as Senior Advisor to President George W. Bush from 2000–2007 and Deputy Chief of Staff from 2004–2007. At the White House he oversaw the Offices of Strategic Initiatives, Political Affairs, Public Liaison, and Intergovernmental Affairs and was Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy, coordinating the White House policy making process.
Before Karl became known as "The Architect" of President Bush's 2000 and 2004 campaigns, he was president of Karl Rove + Company, an Austin-based public affairs firm that worked for Republican candidates, nonpartisan causes, and nonprofit groups. His clients included over 75 Republican U.S. Senate, Congressional and gubernatorial candidates in 24 states, as well as the Moderate Party of Sweden.
Karl writes a weekly op-ed for The Wall Street Journal, is a Newsweek columnist and is now writing a book to be published by Simon Schuster. Email the author at Karl@Rove.com or visit him on the web at Rove.com.
Or, you can send him a Tweet@karlrove.
.Sen. Jim DeMint (R., S.C.) was inartful but basically correct when he said if Mr. Obama loses on health care, "it will be his Waterloo." It would destroy confidence in the ability of Democrats to govern. Mr. Obama knows this, which is why he will stop at nothing to get a bill, any bill, on which the label "health-care reform" can be stuck.
Given the Democratic congressional margins, Mr. Obama has the votes to do it, but at huge costs to him and his party. Legislation that looks anything like the bill moving through the House will contain deeply unpopular provisions—including massive deficit spending, tax hikes and Medicare cuts—and create enormous ill will on Capitol Hill. This will be especially true if Democrats rely on parliamentary tricks to pass a bill in the Senate with 51 votes. The public's reaction in August showed that the president is creating the conditions for a revolt against his party in the 2010 elections.
On the other hand, if Mr. Obama jettisons the public option, he may spark a revolt within his party. The Democratic base is already grumbling and could block a bill if it doesn't include a public option.
Presidents always encounter rough patches. What is unusual is how soon Mr. Obama has hit his. He has used up almost all his goodwill in less than nine months, with the hardest work still ahead. At the year's start, Democrats were cocky. At summer's end, concern is giving way to despair. A perfect political storm is amassing, and heading straight for Democrats.
Mr. Rove is the former senior adviser and deputy chief of staff to President George W. Bush.
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One of Pres. George W. Bush worst off-teleprompter moments, Nov. 30, 2004 just after reelection he said: "I earned capital in the campaign, political capital, and now I intend to spend it. It is my style." From that moment on he accomplished nothing domestically and then lost the house, the senate and the Presidency for his party.
Pres. Obama also needed a little humility in the job, instead adopted a larger than reality view of himself, his popularity and his agenda.
See if this chart comes through regarding the most important problem people see. Throughout the decade, the economy and the wars were intertwined as number one even when the economy was going gangbusters and the wars were going terribly. Then the Iraq situation improved and housing and financial sectors collapsed and the economy soared to 80% - by the nations most important problem. Meanwhile healthcare hovered in single digits even during the campaign and the election, before the new President told us it was our biggest problem. Then it still only soared to 20% which includes people like me thinking that defeating the current proposal is the biggest problem facing the republic.
(http://i603.photobucket.com/albums/tt114/dougmacg/mostimportantproblem.jpg)
Source: Pew Research
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As of 08/31. Awaiting to see what bounce he is getting and calling those who disagree with him the fringe, liars, deceivers, bogus and all paid off special interests:
http://www.zogby.com/features/featuredtables.cfm?ID=171
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Good article about the 9/12 protests. Great Pictures!
http://www.lookingattheleft.com/2009/09/conservative-woodstock-rocks-the-capital/ (http://www.lookingattheleft.com/2009/09/conservative-woodstock-rocks-the-capital/)
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8-) 8-) 8-)
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Of course the day after Obama's off the record calling West a "jackass" was publicized TIME CNN puts this out (No, of course they aren't on the OBama train):
What Presidents Say In Private: Bush and Obama Unplugged
Posted by Michael Scherer
September 15, 2009 at 10:48 am
ABC's Terry Moran looks kinda like a, um, donkey this morning, after reporting via Twitter that President Obama had called Kanye West a "jackass" yesterday, after West disrupted the MTV music awards in a typical fit of self-absorption. Obama's "jackass" utterance came during an off the record exchange with CNBC. ABC News has apologized for Moran's breach of protocol, announcing steps "to ensure that it will not happen again." (Will Moran lose his Twitter? Doubtful. He does it so much.)
Meanwhile, Bush aides are reportedly in white knuckle suspense over the revelations to come in an upcoming book, Speech Less, by former George W. Bush speechwriter Matt Latimer. Among the revelations, according to early leaks:
Bush says of Obama:
"He came in one day to rehearse a speech, fuming," Latimer writes. "'This is a dangerous world,'" he said for no apparent reason, "and this cat [Obama] isn't remotely qualified to handle it. This guy has no clue, I promise you."
Bush says of Biden:
"If bull---- was currency," he said, "Joe Biden would be a billionaire."
Bush says of Sarah Palin:
"I'm trying to remember if I've met her before. What is she, the governor of Guam?"
Bush says of Hillary Clinton:
"Wait till her fat keister is sitting at this desk."
Wam. Bang. Kaboom. The New York Daily News has more.
UPDATE: GQ has excerpts from the book here, including a great scene of disharmony in the White House in response to the financial crisis last fall.
Hours before the president was to speak to the country, Senator John McCain's presidential campaign informed Josh Bolten that McCain was going to phone the president and urge him to call off the address and instead hold an emergency economic summit in Washington. If the president did speak that night, the McCain campaign didn't want him to outline any specific proposal.Of course, this threw the proverbial monkey wrench into our plans—and at the eleventh hour. I overheard the president call McCain's plan “a stunt.” Dana Perino said the negotiations were nearly over, and suddenly he was going to swoop in and muck things up? The president's political adviser, Barry Jackson, was blunt, calling McCain a “stupid prick.” . . . .Bush seemed to feel considerable unease with the choice of McCain as well. I think he liked Romney best. (The rumor was that so did Karl Rove.) My guess was the president hadn't so easily forgotten the endless slights he'd suffered, but there was little he could do. To him, McCain's defeat would be a repudiation of the Bush administration, so McCain had to win. The president, who had quite a good political mind, was clearly not impressed with the McCain operation. I was once in the Oval Office when the president was told a campaign event in Phoenix he was to attend with McCain suddenly had to be closed to the press. The president didn't understand why when the whole purpose of holding the event had been to show Bush and McCain together so the press would stop asking why the two wouldn't be seen together. If the event was closed to the press, the whole thing didn't make sense.“If he doesn't want me to go, fine,” the president said. “I've got better things to do.”
Eventually, someone informed the president that the reason the event was closed was that McCain was having trouble getting a crowd. Bush was incredulous—and to the point. “He can't get 500 people to show up for an event in his hometown?” he asked. No one said anything, and we went on to another topic. But the president couldn't let the matter drop. “He couldn't get 500 people? I could get that many people to turn out in Crawford.” He shook his head. “This is a five-spiral crash, boys.”
CNN International
© 2009 Time Inc. All rights reserved.
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Reads rather plausibly to me , , ,
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"U.S. Vice President Joe Biden will travel to three Central European countries to discuss ballistic missile defense infrastructure and bilateral security ties. The purpose of Biden’s visit is twofold: to reassure Poland, the Czech Republic and Romania that the United States is still a powerful security guarantor, and remind Russia that the United States has clout in its geopolitical backyard."
Russia must bee worried to see Obama send Biden to Poland, lol.
Yes, our very highest official to reassure our wonderful allies that we will never let down or sell out (sarc). It is our very highest priority to reassure them of our commitment, after just blindsiding them with surprise missile defense site cancellations, but first Biden must attend his even higher priorities, visiting the home of MN Twins owner to raise 8k a plate for the DNC. Who pays 8k a plate to dine with Biden that isn't looking for a corporate backscratching? Pohlad owns hundreds of banks - I don't suppose their are TARP funds in the banking industry...
Joe Biden to visit Twin Cities next week
Tom Scheck, Minnesota Public Radio October 6, 2009
St. Paul, Minn. — Vice President Joe Biden will travel to the Twin Cities next Thursday for a fundraising dinner at the home of Robert Pohlad, son of the late Minnesota Twins owner Carl Pohlad. The Democratic National Committee and Organizing for America will host the $7,600 a plate fundraiser.
This will be Biden's second visit to Minnesota since the inauguration. He visited a bus manufacturing facility in St. Cloud in March.
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Whoops, no mention of the layoffs that followed at that mfr where he bragged about 'stimulus' money and its coming affects on the local economies across the heartland.
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Russia must bee worried to see Obama send Biden to Poland, lol
This made my day!
Doug I don't know who is laughing louder, you, me, or Putin? :lol:
The Chinese would be to if they weren't suckered into buying so much of our debt.
If monopoly money was worth anything we would all be rich.
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The Foundation
"The construction applied ... to those parts of the Constitution of the United States which delegate Congress a power ... ought not to be construed as themselves to give unlimited powers, nor a part to be so taken as to destroy the whole residue of that instrument." --Thomas Jefferson
Health care at the DMV? Now serving number 33,573,901Government
"The most revelatory passage in the so-called 'plain English' version of the health care bill that the Senate Finance Committee approved on Tuesday (without ever drafting the actual legislative language) says that in the future Americans will be offered the convenience of getting their health insurance at the Department of Motor Vehicles. This is no joke. If this bill becomes law, it will be the duty of the U.S. secretary of health and human services or the state governments overseeing federally mandated health-insurance exchanges to ensure that you can get your health insurance at the DMV. You will also be able to get it at Social Security offices, hospitals, schools and 'other offices' the government will name later. Page 19 of the committee's 'plain English' text says: 'The Secretary and/or states would do the following: ... Enable customers to enroll in health care plans in local hospitals, schools, Departments of Motor Vehicles, local Social Security offices, and other offices designated by the state.' This is the bill's most revelatory passage because it sublimely symbolizes the bill's true aim: a government takeover of the health care system. You do not get food at the DMV. You do not even get auto insurance at the DMV. But under what The Associated Press inaptly calls the Finance Committee's 'middle-of-the-road health care plan,' you will get health insurance at the DMV." --columnist Terence Jeffrey
Opinion in Brief
"The magic number du jour is the number of Americans without health insurance. Apparently getting more people insured is another 'good thing' -- which is to say, it is something whose costs are not to be weighed against the benefits, or whose costs are to be finessed aside with optimistic projections or a claim that these costs can be covered by eliminating 'waste, fraud and abuse.' In real life, people weigh one thing against another. But in politics one declares one thing to be imperative, so the issue then becomes how we do it. In real life, all sorts of desirable things are not done, either because of other desirable things that would have to be sacrificed to do it or because of the dangers incurred in achieving the desired objective are worse than the problem we want to solve. Almost never are the dangers of having uninsured people weighed against the dangers of having government bureaucrats over-ruling doctors and deciding whether money would be better spent saving the life of an elderly person or paying for an abortion for some teenager. The crowning irony is that the problems caused by insurance companies refusing to pay for certain medications or treatment are to be solved by giving government bureaucrats that same power, along with the power to prevent patients from using their own money to pay for those same medications or treatments. More than two centuries ago, Edmund Burke said, 'Nothing is good but in proportion' -- that is, when weighed as a trade-off. But a prudent weighing of trade-offs does not produce the political melodrama of pursuing a 'good thing' measured by some magic number." --economist Thomas Sowell
Liberty
"Under Barack Obama, the United States has not been the friend of democrats around the world. America has responded weakly to the democratic movement in Iran, ended the funding of the largest pro-Iranian human rights groups in America, pressured democratic Israel, made overtures to Hugo Chavez while denying American ally and pro-democratic Colombia a free trade agreement, abandoned Honduran anti-Chavez democrats, and has obsequiously deferred to Vladimir Putin. ... The Oslo committee's view is, tragically, true. Thanks to Barack Obama, America is for the first time is aligning its values with those of 'the majority of the world's population.' If you think the world's population has had better values than America, that it has made societies that are more open, free, and tolerant than American society, and that it has fought for others' liberty more than America has, you should be delighted." --columnist Dennis Prager
The Gipper
"You and I are told we must choose between a left or right, but I suggest there is no such thing as a left or right. There is only an up or down. Up to man's age-old dream -- the maximum of individual freedom consistent with order -- or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism. Regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would sacrifice freedom for security have embarked on this downward path. Plutarch warned, 'The real destroyer of the liberties of the people is he who spreads among them bounties, donations and benefits.' The Founding Fathers knew a government can't control the economy without controlling people. And they knew when a government sets out to do that, it must use force and coercion to achieve its purpose. So we have come to a time for choosing." --Ronald Reagan
Culture
"I am sympathetic to the story told by Joseph Rocha, who claims in a Washington Post opinion column that he was discharged from the Navy because he is gay, though he says he never told anyone. Rocha says his male colleagues concluded he was gay when he wouldn't laugh at their dirty jokes about women or visit prostitutes with them. Gay service members have a point when they claim a double standard exists for heterosexuals and homosexuals regarding sexual behavior. ... But we are beginning in the wrong place. The place to start is whether citizens of this country, through their elected representatives and the military leaders named by them, have a right to determine what type of service members best serve the interests, safety and security of the United States. I contend we do. The military should not be a test lab. Pressure is building to put female sailors on submarines, along with gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people presumably. That many heterosexuals find homosexual behavior immoral and not conducive to unit cohesion is of no concern to the social wrecking crew. What gay activists apparently don't care about is the effect reshaping the military in their image would have on our ability to fight and defend the country, which, after all, is the purpose of a military. ... The gays in the military and gay marriage issues are part of a broader attempt by liberals to restructure society. Social activists despise biblical morality (which heterosexuals could use a little more of, too), traditional values that have been proven to work when tried and numerous other cultural mores. This is not an opinion. It is also not a secret." --columnist Cal Thomas
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Political Futures
"Here's the joke. As boom- and bust-prone as high finance always has been and remains, the greatest systemic risk to our economy is not Wall Street. It's the growing federal debt (and weakening dollar) being enacted by those Washington politicians -- the ones who want to protect us from Wall Street. ... [T]he same Congress and president who want to stop the banks from taking too much risk cannot stop themselves from ever more deficits. Indeed, so intoxicated -- nay, hypnotized! -- by debt is the current government that it is not even proposing to try to cut back. Last week saw, at the same time: 1) the world shuddering about the debt-driven weakening dollar ('The biggest story in the world economy is the continuing fall of the U.S. dollar, or at least it is everywhere outside of Washington, D.C., the place most responsible for its declining value.' -- The Wall Street Journal) and 2) Washington cheering Sen. Max Baucus' health bill's spending levels ('Health Care Bill Gets Green Light in Cost Analysis' -- The New York Times). That's right. The federal government is giving the 'green light' for the country to drive to the poorhouse -- and drive there, I would argue, by way of the lunatic asylum. Are they nuts?" --columnist Tony Blankley
For the Record
"'What happened to global warming?' read the headline -- on BBC News on Oct. 9, no less. Consider it a cataclysmic event: Mainstream news organizations have begun reporting on scientific research that suggests that global warming may not be caused by man and may not be as dire and eminent as alarmists suggest. Indeed, as the BBC's climate correspondent Paul Hudson reported, the warmest year recorded globally 'was not in 2008 or 2007, but 1998.' It's true, he continued, 'For the last 11 years, we have not observed any increase in global temperatures.' ... Western Washington University geologist Don J. Easterbrook presented research last year that suggests that the Pacific decadal oscillation (PDO) caused warmer temperatures in the 1980s and 1990s. With Pacific sea surface temperatures cooling, Easterbrook expects 30 years of global cooling. EPA analyst Alan Carlin -- an MIT-trained economist with a degree in physics -- referred to 'solar variability' and Easterbrook's work in a document that warned that politics had prompted the EPA and other countries to pay 'too little attention to the science of global warming' as partisans ignored the lack of global warming over the last 10 years. At first, the EPA buried the paper, then it permitted Carlin to post it on his personal Web site. ... Over the years, global warming alarmists have sought to stifle debate by arguing that there was no debate. They bullied dissenters and ex-communicated non-believers from their panels. ... For a long time, that approach worked. But after 11 years without record temperatures that had the seas spilling over the Statue of Liberty's toes, they are going to have to change tactics. They're going to have to rely on real data, not failed models, scare stories and the Big Lie that everyone who counts agrees with them." --columnist Debra Saunders
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This is a very good look at foreign policy
"Warmongers or Peacemakers: Who Will Be Responsible for Scorching the Earth?"
http://www.pjtv.com/v/2591 (http://www.pjtv.com/v/2591)
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Political Futures
"This year's awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to President Obama can only hasten the decline in prestige of an award that has already gone to people like Yasser Arafat, UN General Secretary Kofi Annan (who presided over the Iraqi oil-for-food scam) and the fabulist Guatemalan activist Rigoberta Menchu. For this year's Nobel, the deadline was February 1, barely ten days after Mr. Obama had assumed the presidency. Though the Nobel committee of five Norwegian politicians presumably considered the evidence over the summer, it's fair to say their award represents little more than wishful thinking that Mr. Obama's diplomatic efforts will ultimately bear fruit. Other U.S. Presidents have won Nobels, but for actual accomplishments. Teddy Roosevelt helped broker a peace treaty between Russia and Japan. Woodrow Wilson worked to build a lasting peace after the end of World War I, however unsuccessful that effort later proved. Even Jimmy Carter won the Peace Prize in 2002 after more than two decades of humanitarian efforts as a former president. The Nobel Committee is said often to make its final decision at its last meeting just before the announcement. If so, President Obama has gotten a consolation prize for the failure of the U.S. to secure the 2016 Olympics. But that won't take away the sense that his award has more to do with political correctness than the realities of peace. Reading the Nobel Committee's explanation of its decision, President Obama appears to have won this year's prize because he's not his predecessor, George W. Bush." --Wall Street Journal columnist John Fund
Culture
"It is absurd and it is embarrassing. It would even be infuriating if it were not such a declaration of emptiness. The Norwegian Nobel Committee has embarrassed itself and cheapened a great award that had real meaning. It was a good thing, the Nobel Peace Prize. Every year the giving of it was a matter of note throughout the world, almost a matter of state. It was serious. It mattered that it was given to a woman like Mother Teresa in 1979. ... Her life was heroic, epic, and when she was given the Nobel Peace Prize, it was as if the world were saying, 'You are the best we have. You are living a life that should be emulated.' ... Some Peace Prizes have been more roughly political, or had a political edge, and were of course debatable. ... It was always absurd that Ronald Reagan, whose political project led to the end of the gulag and the fall of the Berlin Wall, and who gambled his personal standing in the world for a system that would protect the common man from annihilation in a nuclear missile attack, could not win it. But nobody wept over it, and for one reason: because everyone, every sentient adult who cared to know about such things, knew that the Nobel Peace Prize is, when awarded to a political figure, a great and prestigious award given by liberals to liberals. NCNA -- no conservatives need apply. This is the way of the world, and so what? Life isn't for prizes. Yet even within that context, the giving of the peace prize to President Obama is absurd. He doesn't have a body of work; he's a young man; he's been president less than nine months. He hopes to accomplish much, and so far -- nine months! -- has accomplished little. Is this a life of heroic self-denial, of the sacrifice of self for something greater, of huge and historic consequence, of sustained vision? No it's not. Is this a life marked by a vivid and calculable contribution to the peace of the world? No, it's not. This is an award for not being George W. Bush. This is an award for not making the world nervous. This is an award for sharing the basic political sentiments and assumptions of the members of the committee. It is for what Barack Obama may do, not what he has done. He hasn't done anything. In one mindless stroke, the committee has rendered the Nobel Peace Prize a laughingstock." --columnist Peggy Noonan
Opinion in Brief
"The whole business of a bunch of Scandinavian worthies doling out the profits of a long-gone dynamite maker's fortune has always smacked of the worst sort of self-satisfied plutocratic worthiness. But this takes the biscuit. President Obama remains the barely man of world politics, barely a senator now barely a president, yet in the land of the Euro-weenies (copyright PJ O'Rourke) the great and the good remain in his thrall. To reward him for a blank results sheet, to inflate him when he has no achievements to his name, makes a mockery of what, let's face it, is an already fairly discredited process (remember Rigoberta Menchu in 1992? Ha!). That's not the point. What this does is accelerate the elevation of President Obama to a comedy confection, which he does not deserve, and gives his critics yet another bat to whack him with. Shame on the Norwegians." --London's Daily Telegraph chief political commentator Benedict Brogan
Insight
"After having thus successively taken each member of the community in its powerful grasp and fashioned him at will, the supreme power then extends its arm over the whole community. It covers the surface of society with a network of small, complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate, to rise above the crowd. The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided; men seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting. Such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd." --French historian Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859)
Government
"A pattern has emerged. Liberal citizens and politicians during the Bush years were permitted to speak out against the Iraq war, root for an American defeat, and cheer with the news of each dead American, and they were labeled patriots. An American speaks out against Obama's socialist policies and he is labeled anti-American. A liberal is able to chant anti-Bush slogans and compare him to Hitler and he is exercising his right to free speech. An American questions Obama's judgment both domestically and on the international stage and he is called a racist. I have attempted to point out to liberal friends and family that if they simply took the vast majority of offensive statements, policies, or actions of Obama over the past nine months and imagined them emanating from Bush, they would see the hypocrisy in their stance -- to no avail. They are content to sit back and watch this administration gut the Constitution, usurp power wherever it can find it, ignore the intent of the founders of this country and the successes of the free market economy which helped lead us to the position of the only world's superpower. But they will wake up in a few years to find that their children are not safe from harm's way, their grandchildren will be working off the enormous debt incurred by this government and will never achieve the economic success of their grandparents, and when they need medical care, they will be waiting in line like the Europeans and Canadians who used to turn to the US in times of emergency. Yet they will have their civil rights, for as long as Bush is not the one authorizing the wiretapping of their cell phones, all is good. Another bottle of champagne anyone?" --columnist Lauri Regan
Re: The Left
"[Liberals lie that] America's lower life expectancy compared to countries with socialist health care proves that their medical systems are superior. President Obama has too much intellectual pride to make such a specious argument, so instead we have to keep hearing it from his half-wit supporters. These Democrats are all over the map on where precisely Americans place in the life-expectancy rankings. We're 24th, according to Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Barbara Boxer; 42nd, according to Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell; 35th, according to Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson; and 47th, according to Rep. Dennis Kucinich. So the U.S. may have less of a 'life expectancy' problem than a 'Democratic math competency' problem." --columnist Ann Coulter
The Gipper
"This democracy of ours which sometimes we've treated so lightly, is more than ever a comfortable cloak, so let us not tear it asunder, for no man knows once it is destroyed where or when he will find its protective warmth again." --Ronald Reagan
Liberty
"The White House insists that the president is hard at work on what to do about Afghanistan, and whether to send more troops to fuel a 'surge' like the surge that prevented a collapse of the West's attempt to rescue Iraq from barbarism and restore a fragile semblance of civilization. The brave young Americans put in harm's way in that godforsaken corner of the world often feel abandoned in a hopeless cause, so the president should feel the pressure to act, and quickly. But the problem is 'multilayered,' his spokesman says. Translated into real English, that means 'he hasn't yet figured out which layer of public opinion to appease, and which layer to disappoint.' He'll do something as soon as he figures out which disappointed layer would squeak loudest and scream longest." --Washington Times editor emeritus Wesley Pruden
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For the Record
"On March 27, flanked by his secretaries of defense and state, the president said this: 'Today I'm announcing a comprehensive new strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan.' He then outlined a civilian-military counterinsurgency campaign to defeat the Taliban in Afghanistan. ... The general in charge was then relieved and replaced with Obama's own choice, Stanley McChrystal. And it's McChrystal who submitted the request for the 40,000 troops, a request upon which the commander in chief promptly gagged. The White House began leaking an alternate strategy, apparently proposed (invented?) by Vice President Biden, for achieving immaculate victory with arm's-length use of cruise missiles, Predator drones and special ops. The irony is that no one knows more about this kind of warfare than Gen. McChrystal. He was in charge of exactly this kind of 'counterterrorism' in Iraq for nearly five years, killing thousands of bad guys in hugely successful under-the-radar operations. When the world's expert on this type of counterterrorism warfare recommends precisely the opposite strategy -- 'counterinsurgency,' meaning a heavy-footprint, population-protecting troop surge -- you have the most convincing of cases against counterterrorism by the man who most knows its potential and its limits. And McChrystal was emphatic in his recommendation: To go any other way than counterinsurgency would lose the war. Yet his commander in chief, young Hamlet, frets, demurs, agonizes. His domestic advisers, led by Rahm Emanuel, tell him if he goes for victory, he'll become LBJ, the domestic visionary destroyed by a foreign war. His vice president holds out the chimera of painless counterterrorism success. Against Emanuel and Biden stand Gen. David Petraeus, the world's foremost expert on counterinsurgency (he saved Iraq with it), and Stanley McChrystal, the world's foremost expert on counterterrorism. Whose recommendation on how to fight would you rely on?" --columnist Charles Krauthammer
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Digest · Friday, October 30, 2009
The Foundation
"Were we directed from Washington when to sow, and when to reap, we should soon want bread." --Thomas Jefferson
Government & Politics
Just When You Thought It Was Safe
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) unveiled an $894 billion health care takeover bill Thursday; the Congressional Budget Office puts the cost at $1.055 trillion. The bill, a combination of three separate committee bills, should be light reading for our nation's lawmakers, though -- it weighs in at a scant 1,990 pounds, er, pages.
The "reform" plan includes the dreaded "public option" that many thought might be dead and buried. The public option would create a government-run insurance plan to "compete" with private insurance. The obvious problem -- at least to those who understand the free market -- is that it would have several negative effects on health care and the economy. Many employers would drop their insurance coverage in favor of the small penalty paid to the federal government in exchange for putting employees on the government dole. Indeed, an estimated 120 million customers would leave private insurers. With fewer people buying private insurance, many insurance companies would increase rates, further restrict coverage, or go out of business altogether, thus creating a vicious death spiral.
Such a scenario would, of course, suit Pelosi and other Democrats just fine. They continue to condemn the "immoral" and "obscene" profits made by the insurance industry, though as it turns out, those profits are not so obscene after all, but are around 2 percent.
The public option is so unpopular that Pelosi is now trying to re-brand it, suggesting the "consumer option" or the "competitive option" as alternatives. "You'll hear everyone say, 'There's got to be a better name for this,'" Pelosi said. "When people think of the public option, public is being misrepresented, that this is being paid for with their public dollars."
Uh, Nancy, it will be. And by their great grandchildren's dollars.
The bill will "provide" insurance for up to 36 million people by broadly expanding Medicaid and by giving subsidies to moderate-income Americans so they can buy insurance from either private companies or the new government-run plan. "Can buy" in this case means "have to buy" because of a newly minted unconstitutional mandate to buy insurance. And, the subsidies would be paid for in part with a surtax on individuals earning more than $500,000 and couples earning more than $1 million.
In the Senate, Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) is working on an "opt out" provision for states that don't wish to participate in the public option, though he's not gaining much support. As currently written, the opt-out would cost states even more money because of the additional funding measures (read: strings) attached.
It would be similar to federal education guidelines, which states can opt out of -- at the expense of federal funding -- or the federally mandated drinking age states can ignore -- if they don't want federal highway money. Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) pointed out last week that the federal government used to regulate speed limits, and again, states could "opt out" at the loss of federal highway funding.
It seems that Don Corleone Reid's public option is an offer states can't refuse.
Quote of the Week
"It's not free. ... Someone's going to have to pay for it and you bet it's going to be the taxpayer." --Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) on the "public option"
The BIG Lie
Congressman Bart Stupak of Michigan is a rarity among Democrats -- one who believes the federal government shouldn't pay for abortions. When President Obama told a joint session of Congress in September that "under our plan no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions," Stupak wondered how that was possible when both the House and Senate bills allow federal funding of insurance plans that cover abortions.
In speaking with the president about this apparent contradiction, Stupak found it's only the (unwritten) health care reform plan in Obama's mind that doesn't fund abortions. Unfortunately, the bill the president would sign is one of those thousand-plus page behemoths circulating through both houses of Congress -- or a combination of both.
Stupak wanted to add a prohibition similar to the longstanding Hyde Amendment preventing funding of abortions to the House bill but was told by Speaker Nancy Pelosi, "I will not have my amendment." Instead, placed in the House plan was a "compromise" where just one provider in each state's insurance exchange is required to cover abortions. Some compromise.
From the Left: Barney Speaks Frankly
Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) got a little too comfortable on MSNBC recently and let slip what many of Americans already fear. After taking a few moments to blame Republicans for ruining big government's reputation, Frank said, "We are trying on every front to increase the role of government in the regulatory area." This from a man whose fingerprints were all over the drive to force mortgage lenders to grant home loans to fiscally risky candidates in order to increase minority home ownership. The end result of that move was, of course, the subprime mortgage meltdown and the resulting economic mess we're mired in today.
Frank, chairman of the House Banking Committee, is now one of the principal architects of sweeping regulatory changes to the financial services industry. These changes are meant to prevent the rampant speculation that caused the credit crisis; in reality they're more likely to strangle our free market system and send wealth-creating capital investment overseas. What Frank said is all too true: Democrats aim to expand government in every area, period.
New & Notable Legislation
Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd (D-CT) has introduced legislation to freeze credit card interest rates. "At a time when families are struggling to make ends meet, jacked up rates can quickly create crushing debt," Dodd said in a statement. "People need to be responsible with their money, but they shouldn't be taken to the cleaners by outrageous rates." This follows a bill passed in May -- the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility and Disclosure Act -- which bars rate increases without a 45-day notification. Since that bill is due to take effect in February, banks, not being stupid, are raising their rates now. Thanks, Chris. All we need now is a law that forbids banks from canceling cards or refusing credit for any customers. Why do Democrats think that problems created by regulation can be fixed only with more regulation?
New York Congressional Special Election
The special election to fill the upstate New York congressional seat vacated when Republican John McHugh was cleverly appointed secretary of the Army by Barack Obama has quickly become the most controversial race this year.
The Democrat candidate is businessman and lawyer Bill Owens, but the real contest here is between Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman, who is even leading in some polls, and Republican candidate Dede Scozzafava. As we have previously noted, Hoffman, a self-made millionaire, assumed the Conservative mantle after local GOP leaders picked the shamefully liberal Scozzafava as their candidate.
National Republican figures have come out in force to back either Hoffman or Scozzafava, and by doing so they have outlined the ideological battle lines that exist within the GOP. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich endorsed Scozzafava, a New York Assemblywoman. Gingrich said that it's not his place to question the wisdom of local party leaders, while he also expressed concern that if "we're going to purge the party of anybody who doesn't agree with us 100 percent [then] that guarantees Obama's re-election."
Gingrich may have a point here, but looking at Scozzafava's background, one might wonder if she's agreed with the Party even 10 percent of the time. She has been tied to ACORN and their leftist Working Families Party, she is pro-choice, pro-stimulus package and pro-card check for unions. In fact, she makes party-jumpin' Arlen Specter look like a Reaganite.
Hoffman, on the other hand, is an avowed fiscal conservative who carries a strong message of bringing economic responsibility to Washington. Sarah Palin, Tim Pawlenty, Dick Armey, Fred Thompson and Rick Santorum have all lined up behind him. They have all stressed the importance of sticking to the conservative principles that are, or at least were, the backbone of the Republican Party.
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National Security
Warfront With Jihadistan: 'Dithering' Continues
The commander in chief has taken some well-deserved lumps of late for "dithering" on this decision regarding troop numbers in Afghanistan. Indeed, it's been two months since General Stanley McChrystal made his urgent request to President Obama for more troops. During a visit to Naval Air Station Jacksonville on Monday, Obama said, "I will never rush the solemn decision of sending you into harm's way." To reiterate what we said last week in response to a similar comment from Defense Secretary Robert Gates, perhaps Obama should tell this to our troops in Afghanistan, understaffed and looking death in the eye.
No worries, though -- John F. Kerry has his back. The new Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman declared that Gen. McChrystal's plan "goes too far, too fast." Let the record show that the Massachusetts Democrat was for winning in Afghanistan before he was against it. Five years ago, he ran against George W. Bush and repeatedly droned that Bush had "taken his eye off the ball" by seeking to also win in Iraq.
As columnist Ken Blackwell writes, "Kerry made his career as an outspoken advocate for the Nuclear Freeze of the 1980s. We now know that the Freeze movement was largely financed by the Kremlin. But even back then, American advocates of the Nuclear Freeze had the satisfaction of knowing they wanted the U.S. to back down in the face of Soviet threats while Britain's Margaret Thatcher, West Germany's Helmut Kohl, and even France's Francois Mitterrand wanted us to stand firm. With a record of being wrong on virtually every issue involving American interests and national security, there is only one question left about the long-faced Massachusetts senator: How has John Kerry managed to avoid winning a Nobel Peace Prize?"
UN-Believable
Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports, "US drone strikes against suspected terrorists in Afghanistan and Pakistan could be breaking international laws against summary executions, the UN's top investigator of such crimes said." UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial Executions Philip Alston said, "The problem with the United States is that it is making an increased use of drones/Predators [which are] particularly prominently used now in relation to Pakistan and Afghanistan." He added, "My concern is that drones/Predators are being operated in a framework which may well violate international humanitarian law and international human rights law."
Obviously, our objective is not to kill innocent civilians, and the drones have been highly successful against terrorists, particularly in Pakistan. That's probably why the UN is now so "concerned." According to AFP, "Since August 2008, around 70 strikes by unmanned aircraft have killed close to 600 people in northwestern Pakistan." Admittedly, it's often difficult to tell the difference between regular "people" and terrorists, but AFP makes no attempt to distinguish the two. They're almost as UN-helpful as the UN.
Department of Military Correctness: 'Don't Ask' Discharges
As mentioned two weeks ago, Barack Obama announced that he remains committed to scrapping the Pentagon's 16-year-old "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, which was implemented in 1993 by President Bill Clinton. The policy itself weakened the military's historic ban on homosexuals serving in the military. One of the arguments used by homosexual activists trying to overturn DADT is that discharging openly homosexual soldiers threatens national security by significantly reducing troop numbers. As so often occurs with leftist arguments, once facts are checked, the argument falls apart.
In examining the latest data on military discharges, it turns out that the number of military personnel discharged for homosexuality was less than 1 percent of the total number discharged for all other reasons. For example, according to Pentagon numbers for 2008, some 634 soldiers were discharged for homosexuality, which is only 0.338 percent of the 187,331 total discharges in 2008. Got that? One-third of 1 percent of all discharges was for violating DADT, and that number has remained consistent over the years. So, while the actual affect of these discharges on the U.S. military is negligible, according to homosexual activists, this loss threatens national security.
What actually threatens our national security is the loss of military discipline, cohesion and moral standing that occurs when agenda driven pressure groups and spineless lawmakers attempt to "normalize" an abnormal behavior in the ranks -- a fact recognized by our Founders. During the Revolutionary War, General George Washington had homosexuals drummed out of the ranks and punished; Thomas Jefferson authored a bill proposing castration as a punishment for sodomy; and the Continental Congress directed that American officers "discountenance and suppress all dissolute, immoral, and disorderly practices," which included sodomy. Ah, but there's nothing like "evolving standards."
Defense Bill Signed
Barack Obama signed the $680 billion defense authorization bill Wednesday. The bill contains the unrelated provision extending so-called "hate crimes" protections to homosexuals and others with gender-disorientation pathology. The measure had failed on its own for years, so Democrats shamelessly attached it to the must-pass defense bill. That failure is largely due to the fact that it makes certain thoughts a crime. Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) summed it up: "Hate crimes legislation is antithetical to the First Amendment, unnecessary and will have a chilling effect on religious freedom."
Meanwhile, the defense bill contains provisions far more deleterious to national defense, such as terminating production of the F-22. Of gutting the nation's air superiority, Obama crowed that he was being fiscally responsible: "When Secretary Gates and I first proposed going after some of these wasteful projects, there were a lot of people who didn't think it was possible, who were certain we were going to lose, who were certain that we were going to get steamrolled. Today, we have proven them wrong." He then added, "There's still more fights that we need to win." (Like the fight against bad grammar, maybe?)
Obviously, to Democrats, "defense" means pushing aberrant sexual behavior while leaving the nation defenseless.
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Business & Economy
Regulatory Commissars: Oil Off Limits for Thriving Bears
Believing themselves to be smarter than the average bear, bureaucrats in the Obama administration continue their quest to create a, well, bear market -- at least for oil. The White House decided to designate more than 200,000 square miles of Alaskan land and coastline as "critical habitat" for polar bears -- the same bear population that has reached greater numbers than previously recorded in history. In fact, despite what Al Gore and his fellow global warmists would have us believe, the population has actually risen by 40 percent since 1974.
This new non-endangered species habitat is enormous enough to qualify as the third largest state in the union, placing it between Texas and California in terms of square miles. Former UnitedHealth general counsel and now Assistant Interior Secretary Tom Strickland claimed at a news conference that the greatest threat to the bear is Arctic ice melt and that "we will continue to work to protect the polar bear and its fragile environment."
However, the new designation as a critical habitat is the first step in requiring even more government consideration of the supposed negative effect on the escalating polar bear numbers before allowing oil and gas development. The state of Alaska responded by filing a complaint in an effort to stop the listing under the Endangered Species Act.
In the meantime, some 30 percent of the world's gas supplies and 4 percent of the estimated global oil supply will be placed off limits because of this deceitful claim that the polar bear population is endangered. Next up, the loggerhead turtle, which, if listed as endangered, would bring regulations on everything along the eastern seaboard, including what lights you can put on the ocean-facing side of your house.
Income Redistribution: Public Option Phones
Bill Clinton may have declared in 1996, "The era of big government is over," but Obama must have missed the message. Never in American history has the era of big government encroached on so many areas of our lives -- and with more on the docket. We can now add another one to the list: Safelink Wireless, a "government supported program that provides a free cell phone and airtime each month for income-eligible customers," all paid for with "Obama money" -- and you know where that comes from.
SafeLink is an extension of or adjunct to the FCC program known as "Lifeline and Link-up." In a nutshell, "poor" people, often already on the dole with other state and federal welfare programs, can apply to receive a free cell phone and 70 minutes of airtime per month from TracFone Wireless, Inc. The Lifeline program pays one-half (up to $30) of installation costs for wired telephone service at a primary residence and provides up to a $10 per month discount for basic monthly service. Oh well, at least these recipients are required to pay some of the costs from their bi-monthly "county" checks. The program uses funds from those little universal service fund (USF) charges that show up on our phone bills. Of course, Lifeline program participants are exempt from USF charges on their bills.
Once again, we're left scratching our heads and searching for the Article and Section of the Constitution under which free phones can be found.
Barack Obama's Flying Circus
If Monty Python were a financial news agency, we could imagine the headline "Dow Exceeds 10,000 to Much Rejoicing." The media devoted multiple column inches and minutes of airtime to that event last week, but few asked, "Why?" The short answer is currency devaluation. Barack Obama's strategy of talking down the U.S. economy has produced its first dividend for his administration, a surging Dow supported by foreign investment. But, like agricultural commodities in the 1970s and commercial real estate in the 1980s, these gains are due solely to the weakness of our currency rather than the strength of our economy. A dollar with lower value makes buying American assets more attractive to foreigners. Each of those previous examples saw a short term increase in values followed by profit taking and a long-term decline. Sure the Dow is over 10K, but what's the dollar worth?
Furthermore, the market bottomed out at 6,500 before beginning its recovery in March, when, as The Washington Times points out, "[T]he Obama administration stopped trying to talk down the economy." Also, "The bottom line is obvious. Part of the increase in stock prices is illusory from the falling dollar. A lot of the remaining increase is simply a recovery from the Obama administration's rhetoric talking down the market." Unfortunately, if they're not talking it down, they're trying to beat it down with regulations.
That doesn't mean that Team Obama won't take credit for any improvement in the market or the economy as a whole. When the newest estimate of 3.5 percent economic growth in the third quarter was announced this week, Obama said the country has "come a long way" since his inauguration, and the new figures are "an affirmation that this recession is abating and the steps we've taken have made a difference." The White House went further Friday, claiming that the $787 billion stimulus has "created or saved" at least 650,000 jobs, or one million if all spending is considered. Yet unemployment is 9.8 percent and rising, so most of those jobs must have been "saved" -- which is a clever way of saying we'll never know.
Culture & Policy
Around the Nation: Swine Flu Emergency!
The Obama administration has, for the second time in six months, declared the H1N1 virus, or swine flu, a national emergency. The administration first made this declaration in April, but perhaps they needed a bit more time to stir up the desired frenzy. And set up a Web site -- flu.gov. Americans are now running to the hospital by the thousands, overcrowding emergency rooms and standing in line for their shots when often the provider has already run out of vaccine. However, all this panic is driven not as much by their physical symptoms as by a government-run campaign of hysteria.
The administration has made much of the fact that approximately 1,000 Americans have died and another 20,000 have been hospitalized after falling ill with H1N1. But, according to the Centers for Disease Control, these numbers, while tragic, are actually much smaller than the number of deaths each year from more commons strains of flu. As a matter of fact, Australia and New Zealand, which did not use the H1N1 vaccine, have reported fewer flu deaths this year than in the past.
The declaration of a national emergency has also increased the powers of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. She now has the authority, for as long as this "crisis" lasts, to sidestep certain federal laws that govern the use of tax dollars for medical treatment.
While some claim this is an administrative move that will allow the government to preempt a possible pandemic, for others it brings to the forefront issues concerning the quality and reliability of government-controlled health care. Imagine, for example, that we really were in danger of dying from a disease for which the government's much bragged about supply of vaccinations had fallen so woefully short?
American journalist H.L. Mencken once said, "The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed, and hence clamorous to be led to safety, by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." Perhaps flu.gov stands for "Fear-mongering Leftists Unlimited."
Second Amendment: NJ Court Says No Right to Buy Handgun
"A New Jersey appeals court has concluded that Americans have no Second Amendment right to buy a handgun," CBS News reports. "[T]he superior court upheld a state law saying that nobody may possess 'any handgun' without obtaining law enforcement approval and permission in advance." Given that the Supreme Court ruled last year in DC v. Heller that the Second Amendment guarantees "the individual right to possess and carry weapons in case of confrontation," this ruling is a bit surprising. New Jersey Appellate Division Judge Stephen Skillman, writing for the unanimous three-judge panel, said that Heller "has no impact upon the constitutionality of" the state law.
It's true that the Supreme Court avoided some larger questions in Heller, even specifically saying that the ruling does "not address the licensing requirement." However, the Second Amendment to the Constitution reads: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." Based on our reading of that plain language, there's nothing in there about permission from a court or law enforcement for particular arms. We hope the Supreme Court addresses this question when it hears McDonald v. Chicago, challenging Chicago's handgun ban, later this year.
Climate Change This Week: China, India, Cats and Dogs
Lashing out at the growing skepticism that global warming is real, Barack Obama last week blasted as agenda-driven "[t]he naysayers" who "pretend that this is not an issue." According to Obama, "From China to India, from Japan to Germany, nations everywhere are racing to develop new ways to produce and use energy." But the issue may not be important enough, even to the president. It seems he will skip the much-touted Copenhagen climate conference and instead drop by Oslo to accept his Nobel Peace Prize.
Could this be because "racing" China and India came to a screeching halt last Thursday when they nixed mandatory carbon emissions constraints, effectively pulling out of any Copenhagen treaty? These two nations recognize what Obama denies and what Wang Jin wrote in China's Science Times journal: "The real intention is not for the global temperature increase, but for the restriction of the economic development of the developing countries."
Meanwhile, two professors from New Zealand have actually suggested ditching cats and dogs in favor of edible pets -- and, no, we're not talking animal crackers. In their book, "Time to Eat the Dog? The Real Guide to Sustainable Living," Brenda and Robert Vale contend that when you account for food production and carbon emissions, a cat is about as a bad for the environment as a Volkswagen Golf, a medium-size dog is twice as destructive as a Toyota Land Cruiser, and two hamsters are equivalent to a plasma TV. The authors write, "There is certainly some truth in the fact that if we have edible pets like chickens for their eggs and meat, and rabbits and pigs, we will be compensating for the impact of other things on our environment."
What to do with the surplus of Rovers and Fluffies? Perhaps they should be served à la carte at Copenhagen. Given such consistently outlandish arguments from the global warming crowd, we don't expect any waiting lines at Copenhagen diners.
From the 'Non Compos Mentis' File
In a no doubt fleeting act of fairness and balance, CNN's Campbell Brown actually stuck up for rival Fox News in an interview this week with White House adviser Valerie Jarrett. And it didn't take long for Jarrett's answers to turn humorous. Here's the exchange:
Brown: So do you think Fox News is biased?
Jarrett: Well, of course they're biased. Of course they are.
Brown: Okay. Then do you also think that MSNBC is biased?
Jarrett: Well, you know what? This is the thing. I don't want to -- actually, I don't want to just generalize all Fox is biased or that another station is biased. I think what we want to do is look at it on a case-by-case basis. And when we see a pattern of distortion, we're going to be honest about that pattern of distortion.
Brown: But you only see that at Fox News? That's all that -- you have spoken out about Fox News.
Jarrett: That's actually not true. I think that what the administration has said very clearly is that we're going to speak truth to power.
It's quite amusing how quickly Jarrett backpedaled when confronted with her own bias; she clearly wasn't prepared for the MSNBC question. Not that Brown acknowledged CNN's bias, mind you.
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By KARL ROVE
Republican victories in New Jersey and Virginia governors' races last week—despite eight campaign appearances in the two states by President Barack Obama—have unnerved Democrats.
Over the weekend, White House Senior Adviser David Axelrod tried to calm jittery Democrats who might go wobbly on the president's ambitious agenda by telling NBC's Chuck Todd that next year's congressional elections will be "nationalized." Because they "will be a referendum on this White House," he said, voters will turn out for Mr. Obama. Mr. Todd summed up Mr. Axelrod's plans by saying, "It's almost like a page from the Bush playbook of 2002."
I appreciate the reference. Only two presidents have picked up seats in both houses of Congress for their party in their first midterm elections. One was FDR in 1934. The other was George W. Bush in 2002, whose party gained House seats and won back control of the Senate.
But those midterm elections might not be a favorable comparison for this White House. The congressional elections were nationalized seven years ago largely because national security was an overriding issue and Democrats put themselves on the wrong side of it by, among other things, catering to Big Labor.
At the time, there was a bipartisan agreement to create the new Department of Homeland Security. Democrats insisted that every inch of the department be subject to collective bargaining. They pushed for this even though sections of every other department can be declared off-limits to unionization for national security reasons. What Democrats wanted was shortsighted and dangerous. Voters pounded them for it.
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.Mr. Bush also had a record of bipartisanship that included winning passage of the No Child Left Behind Act with the support of Democrats Sen. Ted Kennedy and Rep. George Miller. And he had a popular agenda of tax cuts, regulatory reform, and sound leadership in the wake of 9/11 that the GOP could run on. Mr. Obama lacks a comparable foundation.
Instead, the narrative Obama White House officials are writing about themselves is that they are uncompromising, ungracious, and ready to run roughshod over popular opinion. They have mastered the Chicago way of politics: reward friends, punish enemies, and jam the opposition. Voters have a tendency to quickly grow tired of pugnacious governance.
That's only the beginning of Mr. Axelrod's problems. If the 2010 midterms are nationalized, they will be a referendum on Mr. Obama's increasingly unpopular policies. For example, in the newest Gallup survey released on Monday, only 29% say they'd advise their congressman to vote for the health-care bill. This is down from 40% last month. A Rasmussen poll out this week shows that 42% of Americans strongly oppose the bill, while only 25% strongly favor it.
Mr. Obama is increasingly seen as governing from the left—the latest Gallup poll shows that 54% of Americans say the president's policies have been mostly liberal and only 34% say they are mostly moderate. That's a risky position to be in when the country leans to the right.
High unemployment and the president's low approval on jobs and the economy (which is at 46% in a CNN/Opinion Research poll released last week), won't by themselves sink Democrats. But what will hurt are the beliefs that Mr. Obama's $787 billion stimulus bill was a flop and that he doesn't know how to speed up the economic recovery.
Mr. Obama's approval on handling the deficit in the CNN/Opinion Research survey is now 39%. The president's plans to triple the deficit over the next decade is causing a level of angst among independents that we haven't seen since Ross Perot ran for president in the 1990s. This angst has given Republicans a four-point lead in Gallup's generic ballot (48% to 44%), putting the party in a better position than it was in spring 1994, just a few months before its historic takeover of Congress.
About Karl Rove
Karl Rove served as Senior Advisor to President George W. Bush from 2000–2007 and Deputy Chief of Staff from 2004–2007. At the White House he oversaw the Offices of Strategic Initiatives, Political Affairs, Public Liaison, and Intergovernmental Affairs and was Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy, coordinating the White House policy making process.
Before Karl became known as "The Architect" of President Bush's 2000 and 2004 campaigns, he was president of Karl Rove + Company, an Austin-based public affairs firm that worked for Republican candidates, nonpartisan causes, and nonprofit groups. His clients included over 75 Republican U.S. Senate, Congressional and gubernatorial candidates in 24 states, as well as the Moderate Party of Sweden.
Karl writes a weekly op-ed for The Wall Street Journal, is a Newsweek columnist and is now writing a book to be published by Simon Schuster. Email the author at Karl@Rove.com or visit him on the web at Rove.com.
Or, you can send him a Tweet@karlrove.
.Democrats increasingly recognize their vulnerability. Of the 80 House Democrats whose districts were carried by Mr. Bush or John McCain, nine voted against the stimulus, 21 against a budget resolution that called for doubling the national debt in four years, 36 against cap and trade, and 36 against health care. Defections will grow. Nothing concentrates a troubled centrist's mind like a coming election.
Maybe the Obama inner sanctum realizes that its agenda is unpopular and will cost many Democrats their seats next year but calculates that enough will survive to keep the party in control of Congress. Perhaps they have decided that Mr. Obama's goal of turning America into a European-style social democracy is worth risking a voter revolt.
Many Democrats who will be on the ballot next year may come to a different conclusion. Nationalizing the elections over an unpopular agenda isn't likely to repeat Mr. Bush's feat of picking up congressional seats. It is, however, likely to lead to more Republican congressmen than are there now.
Mr. Rove is the former senior adviser and deputy chief of staff to President George W. Bush.
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He had several interesting predictions including the iPad, a selloff before the 15% capital gains rate disappears and Lance Armstrong winning his 8th Tour. I liked this one:
Democratic Majorities Cut to 53-47 in Senate and 219-216 in the House in 2010.
This will be the worst outcome for President Obama, as he'll have to run
for re-election in 2012 with the Speaker Pelosi albatross.
Winning congress in 2010 is a goal that would accomplish very little in this angry partisan environment. Nothing passed would be signed. Nothing repealed would get signed. No vetoes would be over-ridden. Also as Karlgaard picks up is that America likes divided government. If Republicans steal the house, then the new speaker representing directionless Republicans becomes the ugly picture on the cover of the news magazines instead of Pelosi and Obama.
Better to gain back most of the ground and take it all with a clear agenda, a LEADER, and a mandate in 2012.
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http://www.swamppolitics.com/news/politics/blog/2010/01/mccain_vs_obamas_leftwing_crus.html
Where was this guy in 2008?
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Digest · Friday, January 15, 2010
The Foundation
"I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man." --Thomas Jefferson
Government & Politics
The Modern-Day Plantation
The new book "Game Change" by journalists John Heilemann and Mark Halperin has Washington buzzing. The book revealed some comments made by prominent Democrats that they probably wish had stayed in the smoke-filled room. The one receiving most attention is Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's remark that Barack Obama would succeed as a presidential candidate because he is "light-skinned" and speaks "with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one."
Reactions on the Left were all too predictable: Reid groveled before Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, and Democrats circled the wagons. It almost goes without saying that, were a Republican to have said the same thing, he would have been run out of town on a rail. But Republicans didn't have to say anything before Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA), Chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, thundered, "Senator Reid's record provides a stark contrast to actions of Republicans to block legislation that would benefit poor and minority communities -- most recently reflected in Republican opposition to the health bill now under consideration." Reid also last month called opponents of health care racists in the vein of those who resisted civil rights legislation in the 1960s (i.e., Democrats).
More interesting, though, is that conservatives disagree on how to handle the revelation. RNC Chairman Michael Steele, who is black, called for Reid to resign his leadership post because that's what Sen. Trent Lott did in a similar situation in 2002. Steele is an attack dog; it's his job to say this. But what would Republicans gain by collecting Reid's scalp? Probably not much. Given his dismal poll numbers, Wall Street Journal columnist John Fund doesn't believe Reid will even run for re-election, much less win it, so the GOP may pick up his seat anyway.
National Review's Jonah Goldberg took issue with Steele's premise as well, writing, "y demanding Reid's resignation, Steele is making an idiotic, nasty and entirely cynical game bipartisan. Yes, there's a double standard, but the point is that the standard used against conservatives is unfair, not that that unfair standard should be used against Democrats as well."
Thanks to Democrats, racism has been so broadly defined that practically anything Republicans do or say can be construed as such. As long as that doesn't change, the double standard will remain in effect.
Beyond the political chess match, however, the core of the matter is that Reid's observation isn't necessarily racist. He was partly correct, too. Besides the fact that no Republican was going to win the White House last year, Obama's race helped him.
As Martin Luther King Jr. once put it, "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character." Democrats still have that reversed: "I have a dream that my children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the content of their character but by the color of their skin." What's truly racist is that Democrats demand absolute allegiance and ideological purity from blacks, in effect keeping their prized constituency on the modern-day plantation.
News From the Swamp: Health Care Cost Shuffle
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is the latest organization to analyze the health care fiasco currently being cooked up behind closed doors in Washington, and its assessment is not good. According to the report, the legislation will force health care spending to rise by $222 billion over the next 10 years. Conveniently, revenue for the legislation is spread out over a 10-year budget period, but most of the spending provisions are in effect for only six years.
The report also attacks the idea that cuts in Medicare will help fund the health care bill, pointing out that doctors and hospitals will bear the brunt of these reductions. It's obvious to anyone willing to admit it that this will lead to a lower quality of service and doctors turning away patients insured by the government in favor of those with private coverage and "relatively attractive payment rates." This report, and several like it from numerous nonpartisan groups, have pointed out repeatedly that the health care bill in its current form will do exactly the opposite of what Democrats claim it will do, yet our "representatives" in Congress continue the proverbial march off of the cliff.
Open Query
"We're looking at 37 Democrats who are in districts that are particularly upset and vulnerable to the provisions of this health care bill. Are they going to be with the people or are they going to be with Pelosi?" --House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA), saying that "this health care bill can be defeated"
From the Left: Mass. Hysteria
While Massachusetts is one of the bluest states in the country, Republican Scott Brown has come within striking distance of beating Democrat Attorney General Martha Coakley in the special election to fill the state's empty U.S. Senate seat. The special election will be held on Tuesday, Jan. 19, and in recent days Brown has gone from also-ran to serious contender. His meteoric rise demonstrates that the public has serious issues with Democrats, and particularly the health care bill.
Brown made a strong showing in a debate against Coakley in which he fielded considerably tougher questions than she did. While Coakley was asked questions about her campaign style and strategy, Brown was grilled about global warming and health care legislation. He held his own and offered a nice zinger when moderator David Gergen asked him if he would be willing to "sit in Teddy Kennedy's seat" and vote against the health care bill. Brown responded, "Well, with all due respect, it's not the Kennedy seat, and it's not the Democrats' seat, it's the people's seat."
Absolutely true, but try telling that to Paul Kirk and the Massachusetts Democrat machine. Kirk was handpicked by Gov. Deval Patrick to hold the seat after Kennedy died, and he offers a crucial vote on health care should the vote come before the special election. Kirk has promised that he will vote for final passage, while Brown has indicated he will offer the 41st vote to prevent it. But now that it seems sure that the election will pass before the final vote, Kirk and the secretary of state's office, which oversees the special election, may be prepared to stall final certification of the results if Brown wins. They claim they will have to wait a minimum of 10 days for absentee and military ballots. This standard certainly wasn't in play when Kennedy himself was seated the day after the special election in 1962.
On Cross-Examination
"For some time now, leading Democrats have seemed to suffer from an ideological monomania vis-à-vis ObamaCare. No matter how unpopular the measure is, and thus how politically perilous for Democratic office-holders -- they are determined to push it through. But this reaches a new level of pathology. One can understand why they might want to play games with the certification of a Brown victory, but what in the world do they gain by saying so ahead of time? If Brown becomes the first Republican elected to the Senate from Massachusetts since 1972, it would be as clear a message of opposition to ObamaCare as one could hope to have.... For Democrats to announce pre-emptively that they will ignore such a message shows a stunning contempt for democracy." --Wall Street Journal columnist James Taranto
Judicial Benchmarks: Washington's Felon Vote
In its ongoing war against sanity, the Ninth Circus Court of Appeals has once again decided it knows better than the people and their elected representatives. Why wouldn't it? After all, there are upwards of 30 of our most politically connected former lawyers on the Circuit. Why shouldn't they know more about what to do about 100-year-old provisions of the Washington State constitution than the 6.5 million citizens of Washington?
The Court is offended that prison inmates in Washington are disproportionately minorities (this is a painful fact across America). Thus, two members of the Circuit concluded that the provision in the state's constitution denying felons the right to vote was racial discrimination, violating the federal Voting Rights Act. Now, we always thought that convicted felons became convicted felons because a jury found them guilty of committing a felony. We find it hard to believe that Washington juries are motivated to convict by the race of the accused. We also find it difficult to believe that the citizens of Washington would tolerate such a racist judicial system. However, we find it all too believable that two members of the most reversed court in America would rule this way. After all, judges know best. Soon, however, the case may head to the U.S. Supreme Court, where sanity is more likely to prevail.
Around the World: Freedom Declines
Since 1972, Freedom House has done the world a service by the annual publication of its Freedom in the World, which monitors trends in democracy and tracks improvements and setbacks in freedom worldwide. This year's just-released edition has bad news for freedom lovers. For the fourth consecutive year, global declines in freedom outweighed gains in 2009, representing the longest continuous period of decline for global freedom in the nearly 40-year history of the report.
The survey analyzes developments that occurred in 2009 and assigns each country a freedom status -- Free, Partly Free or Not Free -- based on a scoring on key indicators. Five countries moved into "Not Free" status, and the number of electoral democracies declined to the lowest level since 1995. However, 16 countries made notable gains, with two countries improving their overall freedom status. The most significant improvements in 2009 occurred in Asia.
Freedom House found "declines for freedom were registered in 40 countries in Africa, Latin America, the Middle East, and the former Soviet Union, representing 20 percent of the world's total polities. Authoritarian states including Iran, Russia, Venezuela, and Vietnam became more repressive. Freedom also declined in countries that had registered positive trends in previous years, including Bahrain, Jordan, Kenya, and Kyrgyzstan."
Commenting on the Freedom House report, The Wall Street Journal noted:
The recent reversals coincide, however, with America's own waning interest in democracy promotion. This didn't start with the Obama ascendancy. Chastened by the 2006 midterm election debacle and sinking public support for his Mideast policies, President Bush took rhetorical and practical emphasis off his own flagship foreign-policy agenda.
The current administration has changed the focus entirely. In its dealings with Russia and China, strategic issues trump any talk of democracy or human rights, which earlier this year in Beijing Secretary of State Hillary Clinton notably called a distraction to bilateral relations. Ditto in Iran.
Is this the change that we were promised during the presidential campaign? Has America changed from being "the shining city on the hill" to a country which disregards the inscription on the Liberty Bell to "Proclaim LIBERTY throughout all the Land unto all the Inhabitants thereof" and considers the promotion of democracy a "distraction to bilateral relations"?
National Security
Department of Military Correctness: SEAL Trial Moved to Iraq
The Courts Martial of Navy SEAL Petty Officers Matthew McCabe, Jonathan Keefe and Julio Huertas continues apace with two of the three heroes being forced to move their trial to Iraq in order to avail themselves of their constitutional right to confront their accuser in open court. This rare, if not unprecedented, move should be viewed with extreme caution and we hope defense counsel has taken appropriate measures to protect fully the rights of the accused.
For them to enter the sovereign territory of Iraq, even under the auspices of a military court, may place them in peril both physically and legally. What's to prevent the Iraqi government from bringing additional trumped up criminal charges and ordering their arrest? How will the U.S. military protect them from such arrest should such action take place?
One possible alternative would be to insist they hold the trial aboard a U.S. naval vessel in international waters off the Iraqi coast. Failing that, the U.S. Embassy is a second logical alternative.
In a related question, there is an interesting legal position we may be forced to confront in light of the criminal trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in New York City. If, as this administration insists, KSM (and others) are just "criminals," then under what legal authority has this administration justified the continued Predator attacks on these civilian "criminals"? We know this administration fully supports a double standard in tax cases and racism allegations, and we certainly don't expect anything different in this case.
This Week's 'Alpha Jackass' Award
"Most of the domestic groups that we pay attention to here are white supremacist groups. They're anti-government, in most cases anti-abortion, they are usually survivalist type in nature, identity oriented. ... Those groups are groups that claim to be extremely anti-government and Christian identity oriented." --TSA nominee Erroll Southers
Meanwhile, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the radical Muslim who actually tried to bomb a U.S. airliner, pleaded "not guilty" in federal court last Friday.
China's Successful Missile Interceptor Test
As China's economic might continues to grow, with its auto and banking industries overtaking the U.S. in world dominance, the Red Dragon's military might also is advancing ominously. This week, China's official Xinhua news agency reported that China tested "ground-based midcourse missile interception technology." Xinhua also said, "The test has achieved the expected objective. The test is defensive in nature and is not targeted at any country." The U.S. military confirmed the test did take place and apparently was successful. Pentagon spokeswoman Major Maureen Schumann said, "We detected two geographically separated missile launch events with an exo-atmospheric collision also being observed by space-based sensors."
China's successful anti-ballistic missile test comes just days after Beijing complained about U.S. weapon sales to Taiwan, including Patriot PAC-3 air defense missiles, which are themselves capable of intercepting short- and medium-range ballistic missiles and could be used against Red Chinese missiles deployed along China's coast and aimed at Taiwan. Both Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the Pentagon said they did not consider China's test to be related to these Taiwanese arms sales. While that may be technically true, since it typically takes many days or weeks to prepare such a missile test, there is little doubt that Beijing intended to send Washington a message -- that message being, "Taiwan is ours, stay away. And if you don't stay away, you will have to contend with our rapidly growing military technology." Just one more rattling saber that our waffling Dear Leader will have to deal with, or ignore at our country's peril.
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Obama's Magical Mystery Jobs Tour
Barack Obama and congressional Democrats promised the $787 billion stimulus package would spur 3.5 million new jobs over two years. Nearly one year later, the tally is approaching four million -- jobs lost, that is. December's report revealed 85,000 jobs lost and unemployment at 10 percent (though real unemployment -- including those who have simply stopped looking for a job -- is over 17 percent). The president's solution? Why, another stimulus, of course.
Philosophizing that "the road to recovery is never straight," Obama claims that the $75 billion "Jobs for Main Street Act" currently before the Senate will continue the smashing success of the first stimulus. Success? Oh yes, to manipulate the numbers in its favor, the administration has designed its own job-tracking formula that gives new meaning to the term "fuzzy math." The administration has dropped the ridiculous jobs "saved or created" mantra, opting instead for the stat of jobs "funded" by the stimulus. Under this convenient formula, Obama claims to have created two million jobs to date. Miracles never cease.
If you haven't seen these jobs in your town, though, you're not alone. For example, according to an Associated Press analysis, reviewed by independent economists from five universities, $20 billion-plus in transportation spending from the first stimulus has yielded virtually zip in local job growth. Even Thomas Smith, a pro-stimulus Emory University economist who reviewed the analysis, stated, "As a policy tool for creating jobs, this doesn't seem to have much bite."
Despite the Norman Rockwellian title of the Jobs for Main Street Act, Main Street isn't buying it. GDP growth and stock market improvements notwithstanding, small businesses, which propel real economic growth, simply aren't hiring. In the New York Post, Charles Gasparino explains why: "Having weathered the recession, they now fear the administration will choke off the nascent recovery and increase their costs through higher taxes to pay for the myriad of programs President Obama has in store for us, including the hyperexpensive health-care overhaul."
This "damn-the-torpedoes, full-speed-ahead" approach is no mistake. Regardless of recovery rhetoric, the president's aim has been clear from the start: "I think when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody," he said during the campaign. Of course, the 15.3 million Americans who are unemployed might take issue with this.
Yet, as Christina Romer, Chairwoman of the President's Council of Economic Advisers, stated, the stimulus "has done exactly what we have anticipated it would do." She was referring to the supposed job growth. But substitute the president's "redistribute the wealth" intent, and Romer's statement is disturbingly true.
Administration Announces New Bank Tax
A regional convenience store has an interesting placard at the cash register informing patrons that the store pays more in debit and credit card transaction charges than it makes in net profits. The placard further invites the customer to sign a petition to tell Congress to limit transaction fees charged by the "evil banks."
Perhaps Barack Obama has been sneaking out of the White House after hours for a slushee because he also has decided that the evil banks are a potential revenue source for the Treasury. It seems that his Treasury Department has looked at the $46 billion earned by the Federal Reserve Bank in 2009 and concluded that the banking industry could support a donation to offset the cost of the TARP spend-a-thon. The terms of the Troubled Asset Relief Program do require the beneficiary to pay interest to the Treasury, but Obama's proposed fee would be an addition to those interest charges.
The Wall Street Journal reports, "If approved by Congress, the new tax -- which the White House calls a 'financial crisis responsibility fee' -- would force about 50 banks, insurance companies and large broker-dealers to collectively pay the federal government roughly $90 billion over 10 years." Furthermore, "Banks that have repaid their TARP money wouldn't escape taxation." GM and Chrysler are exempt, however.
As a socialist, Obama has as much tolerance for profits as Superman does for Kryptonite (our apologies to Superman for the comparison) ... unless those profits are derived from a fictional autobiographical memoir of a 40-year-old man whose accomplishments couldn't fill a 3x5 index card. However, just in case he reads our humble publication, we would like to remind Mr. Obama that profits represent the return for risk. Profits beget retained earnings, beget capital formation, beget expansion -- the one sustainable source of job growth.
Don't get us wrong -- the federal government (read: taxpayers) never should have bailed out banks in the first place. But many of them have already paid back TARP money, or are working to pay it back (some never wanted it in the first place but were forced to take it), and another tax is not exactly the right remedy for a struggling economy. That $90 billion could cost the economy $1 trillion when the lost capital results in less lending. Alas, everything looks like a nail to someone with a hammer.
From the 'Non Compos Mentis' File
Our thoughts and prayers are with those in Haiti after the terrible and deadly earthquake there this week. The disaster, though, provided fodder for, of all things, the health care debate. MSNBC's Keith Olbermann asked how U.S. health care would withstand such a disaster: "[H]ow would survivors of something like this here fare in terms of getting on their own feet economically afterwards, with the health care system we have in place right now?"
In our estimation, we think our system would fare just fine. We're certainly the first to come to the aid of a nation such as Haiti, sending our own doctors and supplies, not to mention our military. Does Olbermann really think that once health care is rationed and doctors themselves are in short supply, America will be able to help itself, much less other nations? American generosity is possible because of our (mostly) capitalist system -- the system that Olbermann and other leftists want to replace with the graveyard of socialism.
Meanwhile, Pat Robertson, founder of the Christian Broadcasting Network, also made regrettable remarks about Haiti's tragedy. On his show "The 700 Club," Robertson claimed that during the 18th century when Haitian slaves sought freedom from the French they made a "pact to the devil." He concluded, "Ever since, they have been cursed by one thing after the other." Thus the earthquake. Robertson made similar comments after Hurricane Katrina. We would remind Pat that most Haitians are Catholic.
Actor Danny Glover had his own theory as to the cause of the earthquake: "All this hell because of global warming. ... When we did what we did at the climate summit in Copenhagen, this is the response, this is what happens, you know what I'm sayin'?" What Glover is sayin' is that because there wasn't an agreement at Copenhagen, climate change is causing earthquakes. Robertson says the Haitians offended God, Glover claims they angered Gaia.
Barack Obama has their back, though. Speaking to the Haitians, he said, "[A]fter suffering so much for so long, to face this new horror must cause some to look up and ask, 'Have we somehow been forsaken?' To the people of Haiti, we say clearly, and with conviction, you will not be forsaken; you will not be forgotten. In this, your hour of greatest need, America stands with you." In other words, the Chosen One hasn't forgotten them.
Faith and Family: Bicoastal Fronts on the Same-Sex Marriage War
From sea to shining sea, Americans are being divided on the moral issue of whether two people of the same gender should have the right to declare themselves married. Californians thought they had settled the question (for the second time) when the ballot issue and constitutional amendment Proposition 8 narrowly passed in 2008. But their verdict was soon called into question and eventually landed in the courtroom of Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn R. Walker, with a trial to overturn the will of the voters starting this week.
In addition, Judge Walker has promised to turn this trial into a three-ring circus by posting delayed video of the proceedings on YouTube, citing a recently approved federal pilot program which allowed telecasting certain non-jury civil trials. Supporters of Proposition 8 objected to this, citing that ongoing harassment by opponents would have a chilling effect on the willingness of witnesses defending Proposition 8 to be filmed. The filming question went before the United States Supreme Court, which has blocked filming the trial indefinitely.
Across the country, the New Jersey Senate denied the bid of activists to make the Garden State the fifth to allow same-sex marriage. While the state has allowed civil unions since 2006, the same-sex marriage bill was voted on hurriedly so outgoing Gov. Jon Corzine could sign it since incoming GOP Governor-elect Chris Christie opposes the bill.
The bill was rejected by a 20-14 vote, falling seven votes short of passage in the 40-member body and never making it to the Assembly. Same-sex marriage supporters vow to make their next move in court.
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It is hard not to agree that should Brown win tomorrow it would be in my opinion the most stunning political upset in memory.
It is also encouraging in that it shows me at least it is not too late to stop the liberal agenda before it is too late.
Morris does seem to suggest Reconciliation is to be used for "budget reasons" and appears to be more of a bluff then anything else.
« URGENT APPEAL RE: MASSACHUSETTS AND OTHER STATESMASSACHUSETTS IS THE GAME CHANGER
By Dick Morris And Eileen McGann 01.18.2010 Beyond a pleasing sight for the heart, what would Ted Kennedy’s seat going Republican really mean?
A lot.
First, there would be the psychological effect. On Democratic donors — it would discourage them from opening their checkbooks. On Republican donors — the impact would be electric in kindling their interest and generosity. On Democratic incumbents seeking re-election — it would make the beaches and golf courses that await them in their Florida retirement homes (and the lucrative lobbying jobs in Washington) infinitely more attractive. On Republicans considering running for the House and the Senate — it will help them see the truth: That their time is at hand! (It might even help our esteemed Party Chairman Michael Steele, realize that we can capture both houses this year!)
But in the Senate itself, it would really signal the end of Obama’s legislative dominance. He’ll probably be able to pass health care either by Democratic dithering in certifying Brown’s election or by ramming through the bill while he’s en route to Washington on the shuttle.
But, beyond that, the prospects of getting 60 votes on the remaining items in Obama’s legislative agenda: cap and trade, union card check, and immigration reform would slip away with the Massachusetts result.
He cannot govern through reconciliation (passing bills with 51 votes by pretending they are just budget bills). If it were that easy, why would Harry Reid have worked so hard - and so successfully - to bribe Senators Landrieu (D-La), Lincoln (D-Ark) and Nelson (D-Neb)? Why would he have caved in to the demands of Connecticut’s Joseph Lieberman and discarded the public option much to the chagrin of his House colleagues?
A victory for Scott Brown would represent the Gettysburg of the Obama Administration - its high water mark, its tipping point.
But even more corrosive for Obama and the Democrats is the knowledge that nobody is safe from Republican assault. If the GOP can win a Senate seat in the People’s Republic of Massachusetts, it can win anywhere, anytime, against anyone. Long term Democratic incumbents from largely Republican districts would have to rethink their loyalty to Reid and Pelosi. Particularly in the House, it will be ever more difficult to round up majorities for Administration bills. Politicians will start running for cover and hiding in the cloakrooms.
Democrats will try to spin their defeat by blaming their candidate, Martha Coakley, for not campaigning hard enough. They will say that they lost because their base did not turn out and that the solution is to pass ever more radical legislation in the hopes of rekindling their fervor. But losing Massachusetts, on top of Virginia and New Jersey, will convince even the most loyal Democrat that the handwriting is, indeed, on the wall.
For all of these reasons, please make an effort today to telephone or e-mail any friends, family or colleagues you know in Massachusetts to urge them to come out and vote for Scott Brown. There is so very much at stake!
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You can't be serious. Does anyone think this would happen if these were potential Republican voters? Now we are establishing a trend. What about the next time there is an earthquake in Mexico City? Does anyone in Florida have a say in this? No coincidence it is a state that Dems need to get to blue. I feel terrible looking at the cable dramas but this is my opinion is nuts but not surprising. Never let a catastrophy go to waste -
***ORLANDO, Fla. -- The American Red Cross says a plan to bring 45,000 evacuees from Haiti to Florida, and 4,000 of those to Orange County, is not set in stone. The Red Cross clarified Friday who could be involved in a plan to move people out of Haiti.
The Red Cross is preparing for two things: the repatriation of Americans living in Haiti and the possibility of a mass migration of Haitian nationals.
The American Red Cross has seen massive migration into the U.S. from areas like Kosovo and Bosnia in the past, but no determination has been made yet in the case of Haiti. But the repatriation of Americans has already begun. Eyewitness News was told that it includes people like missionaries who may have already been working in Haiti before the quake.
The U.S. citizens are being brought into South Florida through Miami and Homestead, where their identities can be verified. Thursday night, five flights arrived with 190 Americans on board.
“I think that we will continue see U.S. citizens coming in over the weekend and through the beginning of next week. And that would be our first focus and first wave and, I think, as the conditions are assessed in Haiti and some decisions are made both with our federal government and the Haitian government about what’s best for their citizens,” Director of Emergency Services Becky Sebren said.
Americans continued to arrive in South Florida Friday afternoon and, as the United States plans its strategy to help Haiti, the state closest to the island nation is taking center stage with a plan to bring tens of thousands of refugees to Florida and approximately 4,000 to Orlando.
Orange County Mayor Rich Crotty says he has some concerns with the possible plan. If Haitians are brought to Central Florida, the county, city and possibly other area communities will have to scramble to figure out where to put the earthquake victims, and it will be a tough challenge.
"It would occur to me that there is a legal process associated with that and it would probably have to come through the State Department in terms of citizenship and visas, work visas [and] that sort of thing," Mayor Crotty said.
What that influx of people brings with it is a very large service demand, particularly in the area of social services in what is already a tough economy.
"We're very stressed financially right now and this is going to add to that stress," Mayor Crotty said. "So this is a balance we're going to have to work on strengthening."
Governor Charlie Crist told Eyewitness News Friday that, while he's talked to the Secretary of Homeland Security about bringing Haitians to Florida, nothing has been decided at this point.
Governor Crist was at a jobs summit in Orlando Friday morning. Crist wouldn't confirm whether Haitian refugees would be coming to Central Florida; he did say that Florida has pledged to do everything it can to help those in need after the earthquake.
"We want to be in touch with the State Department, making sure we're doing what is necessary for these people to get the help they need and deserve," Crist said.
Governor Crist said, because of mild hurricane seasons for the past several years, there are a lot of relief supplies available in Florida. He said some of those supplies will be used to help Haitians in need.
Additionally, the State of Florida has opened a new emergency information hotline about the Haiti quake. It's meant to give Floridians a link to informational resources on the international response and recovery efforts.***
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Several sources have called it and there are reports Coakley has conceded. Gonna be fun watching the fallout.
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:lol: It's nice to wake up to this news! :-D
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Jon Stewarts take on the special election:
http://www.thefoxnation.com/entertainment/2010/01/19/jon-stewart-melts-down-over-mass-race
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http://hotair.com/archives/2010/01/20/the-world-turned-upside-down/
The emperor is an empty suit!
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I still don't know why three quarters still like a man as dishonest about who he is, his real agenda, and his counter revolution.
It is amazing to watch the Dems circle the wagons around him. No matter what the election in Mass, Virginia and NJ is about everything BUT the chosen one. That 48 % still approve of his job is still too high for a man who is set on a course and lifes journey and making our country into a socialist or facsist state. People still don't get it, or they agree with it, or they don't care as long as they get more and more government benefits.
I don't think his state of the union speech will have any surprises but be full of endless spin. He will continue to paint himself as one of "us" though he is clearly a career long counter revolutionary as Levin/Beck point out.
****Three-quarters said they liked Mr. Obama, who put his political capital on the line by campaigning for fellow Democrat Martha Coakley in Massachusetts. But just 22% said they were "optimistic and confident" about his presidency—a 10-point decline from a year ago. By comparison, 27% were "pessimistic and worried" about his presidency, compared with just 9% a year ago, when many hoped he would lead the nation into an economic recovery.
Overall, 48% said they approved of the job Mr. Obama is doing, while 43% disapproved—about the same as last month but down sharply from approval ratings in the 60% range in his early months in office.****
I could be wrong but I am less clear that there is evolving any mandate for strict conservativism as Hannity et al would like us to believe. Not that I am necessarily against it but just that I don't think that is a long term winning formula.
What exactly does the tea party stand for? There is something I think about this that is where the future may lie.
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From Huffington. The left spin. It is not that Bama is too radical left or a counter revolutionary like the "fringe right" put forth, it is simply he has been willing to compromise too much, he is not left enough, he is not shoving his agenda through enough. So goes the spin and self delusion of the left - the core crats.
You gotta love this one:
"Yet Obama has undoubtedly created a different climate in Washington -- one based on reasonable discussion and debate". (as long as you support his radical counter revolution)
One can only hope the Bama will not turn into Bill Clinton and will continue to deceive the voters like he has been doing while behind the scenes doing his real life's dream. Only then IMHO will we eventually see his popularity go to Jimmy Carter levels where it belongs.
***Obama's First Year: High Hopes, Harsh Reality
Tue Jan 19, 10:12 pm ET
President Barack Obama's victory walk down Pennsylvania Avenue after his swearing-in last January was probably the last time he's been able to breathe easy and just enjoy himself.
Since then, the 44th president of the United States has been on a roller coaster ride even more turbulent than the usual collision with reality experienced by his predecessors in their first years. Though Obama remains popular with a majority of Americans, he's been battered by obstructionist Republicans, vilified by Tea Party activists and condemned by disappointed progressives. And his biggest legislative agenda -- health care reform -- has been stripped of its essential elements on its way through Congress.
Obama's fate will largely be determined by the state of the economy, with rising unemployment and the bailout of the country's biggest banks fueling bipartisan outrage. By continuing Bush's unpopular TARP program to give trillions to financial institutions that helped cause the financial crisis and surrounding himself with economic advisers allied with Wall Street, the president has angered both conservatives and liberals. And since his stimulus and mortgage modification programs have failed to stem, respectively, the unemployment and foreclosure rates, a growing number of Americans feel that Obama's policies favor Wall Street over Main Street. The president's push for financial regulatory reform, including the creation of a consumer finance protection agency, is in danger of being substantially weakened in Congress.
The other major issue that looms over the administration -- and it's also one inherited from the previous administration -- is the increasingly unpopular war in Afghanistan and the president's decision to increase the amount of U.S. troops in that lethal conflict. As American and Afghan casualties mount, more voices in both parties are raising concerns about the necessity of the war and express the fear that the U.S. will be doomed to fighting in Afghanistan for many years to come.
In addition, in the wake of the national security system's failure to prevent the botched Christmas Day airline bombing by a Yemeni-trained jihadist, national security concerns are taking on a bigger role in the fate of the administration. Though Obama has succeeded in changing the tone on national security and outlining a new multilateral approach to foreign affairs, his administration's decision to continue many Bush-era policies -- from warrantless surveillance to refusing to release information on past detainee policies -- has raised eyebrows among those who voted for him. This Friday marks the date by which Obama promised last January to close Guantanamo, but the facility remains nowhere near being shut down.
Yet Obama has undoubtedly created a different climate in Washington -- one based on reasonable discussion and debate -- and expressed a desire to work with the international community, as he has eloquently articulated in his speeches abroad. On national security, the president has largely made decisions through thoughtful consideration of the different perspectives rather than the stubbornly instinctive decisions of his predecessor. On the environment, his administration represents a radical change from the Bush era and has resurrected important regulations that were dismantled by the previous president. Despite criticism that health care reform has been watered down by industry interests and political deal-making, the very fact that the issue is being taken seriously in the Oval Office after years of inertia and is on the cusp of insuring millions of low-income Americans is, in itself, a victory.
Will Obama fulfill the promise of his presidency, learn from his rookie mistakes and have the courage to make the tough decisions needed to move the country forward? Or will he favor compromise over leadership, squander his popularity and cave to the powerful interests gathered against him? It's all up to him -- and to Americans to push him to make the right decisions.
Related blogs: Jody Johnson: Obama One Year Later: Remembering the Images of History in the Making, Saul Friedman: Gray Matters: Grading Obama
Read More: Obama Administration, Obama Afghanistan, Obama Financial Crisis, Obama First Year, Obama Guantanamo, Obama Inauguration, Obama White House, President Obama
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Woof,
A Republican has won the Senate seat once held by Ted Kennedy, in Massachusetts. In a related story Hell froze over! :lol:
P.C.
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www.conservapedia.com/Nancy_Pelosi
www.conservapedia.com/Harry_Reid
www.conservapedia.com/Barney_Frank
www.conservapedia.com/Charles_Rangel
www.conservapedia.com/Chris_Dodd
I find it hard to believe that people keep voting these corrupt officials into office time after time. A Liberal ham sandwich could serve its constituents better.
P.C.
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http://hotair.com/archives/2010/01/23/ellie-light-obama-astroturfer/
Who is Ellie Light?
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Woof GM,
This might answer that: www.fitsnews.com/2010.01/23/ellie-light-barack-obamas-biggest-fan/
P.C.
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http://hotair.com/archives/2010/01/26/good-news-ellie-light-comes-clean-admits-shes-a-guy/comment-page-1/#comments
She's a Mannnnn, Baby!
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The Foundation
"Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm." --James Madison
Editorial Exegesis
The health care summit is an "evil" trap"A mere three days before President Obama's supposedly bipartisan health-care summit, the White House [Monday] released a new blueprint that Democrats say they will ram through Congress with or without Republican support. So after election defeats in Virginia, New Jersey and even Massachusetts, and amid overwhelming public opposition, Democrats have decided to give the voters what they don't want anyway. Ah, the glory of 'progressive' governance and democratic consent. 'The President's Proposal,' as the 11-page White House document is headlined, is in one sense a notable achievement: It manages to take the worst of both the House and Senate bills and combine them into something more destructive. It includes more taxes, more subsidies and even less cost control than the Senate bill. And it purports to fix the special-interest favors in the Senate bill not by eliminating them -- but by expanding them to everyone. ... The larger political message of this new proposal is that Mr. Obama and Democrats have no intention of compromising on an incremental reform, or of listening to Republican, or any other, ideas on health care. They want what they want, and they're going to play by Chicago Rules and try to dragoon it into law on a narrow partisan vote via Congressional rules that have never been used for such a major change in national policy. If you want to know why Democratic Washington is 'ungovernable,' this is it." --The Wall Street Journal
Insight
"The state tends to expand in proportion to its means of existence and to live beyond its means, and these are, in the last analysis, nothing but the substance of the people. Woe to the people that cannot limit the sphere of action of the state! Freedom, private enterprise, wealth, happiness, independence, personal dignity, all vanish." --French economist Frederic Bastiat (1801-1850)
"People unfit for freedom -- who cannot do much with it -- are hungry for power. The desire for freedom is an attribute of a 'have' type of self. It says: leave me alone and I shall grow, learn, and realize my capacities. The desire for power is basically an attribute of a 'have not' type of self." --writer and philosopher Eric Hoffer (1902-1983)
"The world is weary of statesmen whom democracy has degraded into politicians." --British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881)
Upright
"Offering 'comprehensive' reform usually means years of arguing and horse-trading among pressure groups to get anything done. By the time all the special interests are appeased or bought off, the resulting elephantine legislation typically looks nothing like what was intended. In short, big-government medicine usually doesn't work on big-government sickness. If President Obama wants 'comprehensive' change, it would be better simply not to spend any more money we don't have." --historian Victor Davis Hanson
"[Barack Obama failed to sell a health care reform plan to American voters] because the utter implausibility of its central promise -- expanded coverage at lower cost -- led voters to conclude that it would lead ultimately to more government, more taxes and more debt." --columnist Charles Krauthammer
"Don't ever let anyone tell you that history doesn't repeat. For 70 years, liberals have been spinning the yarn that FDR's New Deal, despite all the evidence that it exacerbated and prolonged the Great Depression, quickened our economic recovery. Indeed, I remember scratching my head when one of my college history professors in the 1970s tried to convince us of that theory and its corollary -- an even better howler -- that FDR was actually a conservative, because if he hadn't implemented his socialist programs, the republic would have died right there." --columnist David Limbaugh
"This is a perfect snapshot of the West at twilight. On the one hand, governments of developed nations microregulate every aspect of your life in the interests of 'keeping you safe.' ... On the other hand, when it comes to 'keeping you safe' from real threats, such as a millenarian theocracy that claims universal jurisdiction, America and its allies do nothing. ... It is now certain that Tehran will get its nukes, and very soon. This is the biggest abdication of responsibility by the Western powers since the 1930s." --columnist Mark Steyn
"In the early aftermath of the suicidal pilot's attack [in Austin], there was no evidence that Stack belonged to a Tea Party organization. In any case, no law-abiding Tea Party group would ever condone what he did. But it didn't stop the haters from immediately smearing advocates of limited government. And it's just the latest in a long line of calculated attempts to paint the vast majority of peaceful Tea Party activists as terrorist threats to civil society. ... The smear merchants, of course, are simply following Rahm Emanuel's advice to exploit every crisis." --columnist Michelle Malkin
"Why should we capitalists go green? To do so is simply to exchange our technological, industrial, and energy superiority for a lie. ... Capitalism is about progressing via the ingenuity and excellence of minds unfettered by government regulations and interference. But environmentalism based on the man-made global warming theory is about regressing from the advances that unfettered minds have made. It's also about pushing the government to regulate and interfere at every step along the way." --columnist AWR Hawkins
The Demo-gogues
The definition of chutzpah: "After a decade of profligacy, the American people are tired of politicians who talk the talk but don't walk the walk when it comes to fiscal responsibility. It's easy to get up in front of the cameras and rant against exploding deficits. What's hard is actually getting deficits under control. But that's what we must do. Like families across the country, we have to take responsibility for every dollar we spend." --Barack Obama
Taxes are going up: "Everything's on the table. That's how this thing is going to work." --Barack Obama after creating a deficit commission on whether he would raise taxes on families earning less than $250,000 a year
Shut up, he explained: "They should stop crying about reconciliation as if it's never been done before." --Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) (It's never been done on a bill of this magnitude before.)
"So I do believe that there is more fertile soil today than when we first took this up." --House Democrat Whip James Clyburn, of South Carolina, weighing in not on all those "shovel ready" supposed job-starting projects of the "stimulus" but on the Demo plan for the government takeover of U.S. medical care.
You don't say: "Health care has been knocking me around pretty good." --Barack Obama, who still hasn't learned his lesson
Speaking of being knocked around: "Men, when they're out of work, tend to become abusive." --Harry Reid ("Many observers have speculated that Reid is likely to lose his job at the end of the current term. ... Is something going to happen to Mrs. Reid if Nevadans don't re-elect this senator?")
Non sequitur: "We have countries like China, which don't have to go through the democratic processes that we do, that order factories to move to deal with their air pollution." --Sen. Tom Udall (D-NM), urging his fellow senators to pass cap-n-tax
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The Foundation
"There is a certain enthusiasm in liberty, that makes human nature rise above itself, in acts of bravery and heroism." --Alexander Hamilton
Opinion in Brief
"Americans cherish their independence. One interesting aspect of the spontaneous tea party movement is the constant invocation of the Founders and the prominence of the 'Don't Tread on Me' flag. ... Americans tend to see themselves as independent doers, not dependent victims. They don't like to be told, especially by those with fancy academic pedigrees, that they are helpless and in need of government aid. That's why the politically popular American big government programs -- Social Security, Medicare, veterans' benefits, student loans -- all make a connection between effort and reward. You get a benefit because you've worked for it. In contrast, Americans have loathed and rejected big government programs with no nexus between effort and reward. Welfare was begun in the 1930s to help widows with children, whose plight, as Russell Baker's memoir 'Growing Up' showed, was often dismal. But when welfare became a mass program to subsidize mothers who didn't work and to excuse fathers from responsibility for their actions, it became wildly unpopular. Bill Clinton recognized this when he signed welfare reform in 1996. ... Barack Obama, who has chosen to live his adult life in university precincts, sees ... Americans generally as victims who need his help, people who would be better off dependent on government than on their own. Most American voters don't want to see themselves that way and resent this condescension." --political analyst Michael Barone
Political Futures
"When Republicans regain a majority in the House and Senate -- either this fall, as seems increasingly likely, or in the election following -- they must learn from their previous mistakes when they last held power. In addition to focusing on overturning whatever health insurance 'reform' proposal this Congress eventually passes (by a veto override, or a lawsuit challenging the measure's constitutionality), a Republican congressional majority must help large numbers of the public unlearn the factual errors they have been taught to accept. From 'climate change,' to the notion that government is a guarantor through 'entitlement' programs of a minimal outcome in life, to the forgotten idea given to us by the Founders that Liberty is the most precious gift there is, the country needs a history lesson based on truth, experience and provable facts. ... A Republican majority should turn the nation's attention away from Washington. A Republican majority must teach us again that 'you can do it,' like so many of our fathers did when the training wheels came off and we learned we could fly down the sidewalk without assistance. America doesn't need restructuring. It needs revival; revival of the principles that made us strong and great; revival of the moral foundation that proved to be our real strength and allowed us to conquer our demons and become independent, not dependent on government. This is the message most Americans want to hear and need to hear. Will the Republicans deliver it?" --columnist Cal Thomas
The Gipper
"Perhaps you and I have lived with this miracle too long to be properly appreciative. Freedom is a fragile thing and is never more than one generation away from extinction. It is not ours by inheritance; it must be fought for and defended constantly by each generation, for it comes only once to a people. Those who have known freedom and then lost it have never known it again. Knowing this, it is hard to explain those who even today would question the people's capacity for self-rule. Will they answer this: if no one among us is capable of governing himself, then who among us has the capacity to govern someone else?" --Ronald Reagan
Re: The Left
"The reason massive Democratic majorities in Congress aren't enough to pass socialist health care is AMERICANS DON'T WANT SOCIALIZED MEDICINE! In fact, you might say that the nation is in a boiling cauldron of rage against it. Consequently, a lot of Democrats are suddenly having second thoughts about vast new government commissions regulating every aspect of Americans' medical care. Obama isn't stupid -- he's not seriously trying to get a health care bill passed. The whole purpose of this public 'summit' with the minority party is to muddy up the Republicans before the November elections. You know, the elections Democrats are going to lose because of this whole health care thing. Right now, Americans are hopping mad, swinging a stick and hoping to hit anyone who so much as thinks about nationalizing health care. If they could, Americans would cut the power to the Capitol, throw everyone out and try to deport them. ... But the Democrats think it's a good strategy to call the Republicans 'The Party of No.' When it comes to Obamacare, Americans don't want a party of 'No,' they want a party of 'Hell, No!' or, as Rahm Emanuel might say, '*&^%$#@ No!' ... Complaining that Republicans are 'obstructionists' is not a damaging charge when most Americans are dying to obstruct the Democrats with a 2-by-4. While you're at it, Democrats, why not call the GOP the 'Party of Brave Patriots'?" --columnist Ann Coulter
Government
"Filibusters are devices for registering intensity rather than mere numbers. Besides, has a filibuster ever prevented eventual enactment of anything significant that an American majority has desired, strongly and protractedly? Liberals say filibusters confuse and frustrate the public. But most ideas incubated in the political cauldron of grasping factions are deplorable. Therefore, serving the public involves -- mostly involves -- saying 'No.' The Bill of Rights effectively pronounces the lovely word 'no' regarding many possible government undertakings -- establishment of religion, unreasonable searches and seizures, etc. The fiction that government is 'paralyzed' by partisanship is regularly refuted. ... Liberals are deeply disappointed with the public, which fails to fathom the excellence of their agenda. But their real complaint is with the government's structure. And with the nature of the politics this structure presupposes in a continental nation wary of government and replete with rival factions." --columnist George Will
For the Record
"For those not versed in the arcane rules of the U.S. Senate, reconciliation is not what a divorced couple attempts when they visit Dr. Phil. It is a mechanism for avoiding filibusters on certain budgetary issues. If Democrats can find a way to apply it to health care reform, they could pass a bill with just 51 votes, negating the election of Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown and the loss of the 60-seat supermajority. Reconciliation was established in 1974 to make it easier for Congress to adjust taxes and spending in order to 'reconcile' actual revenues and expenditures with a previously approved budget resolution. Thus, at the end of the year, if Congress found that it was running a budget deficit higher than previously projected, it could quickly raise taxes or cut spending to bring the budget back into line. Debate on such measures was abbreviated to just 20 hours (an eyeblink in Senate terms), and there could be no filibuster. As Robert Byrd, (D-W.V.), one of the original authors of the reconciliation rule, explained, 'Reconciliation was intended to adjust revenue and spending levels in order to reduce deficits ... t was not designed to ... restructure the entire health care system.' He warns that using reconciliation for health care would 'violate the intent and spirit of the budget process, and do serious injury to the Constitutional role of the Senate.' In fact, in 1985, the Senate adopted the 'Byrd rule,' which prohibits the use of reconciliation for any 'extraneous issue' that does not directly change revenues or expenditures. Clearly, large portions of the health care bill, ranging from mandates to insurance regulation to establishing 'exchanges,' do not meet that requirement." --Cato Institute senior fellow Michael D. Tanner
Faith & Family
"One of the major differences between the right and the left concerns the question of authority: To whom do we owe obedience and who is the ultimate moral authority? For the right, the primary moral authority is God (or, for secular conservatives, Judeo-Christian values), followed by parents. Of course, government must also play a role, but it is ultimately accountable to God and it should do nothing to undermine parental authority. For the left, the state and its government are the supreme authorities, while parental and divine authority are seen as impediments to state authority. ... In a nutshell, the left wants to have ever-expanding authority over people's lives through ever-expanding governmental powers. It does so because it regards itself as more enlightened than others. Others are either enemies (the right) or unenlightened masses. It is elected by demonizing its enemies and doling out money and jobs to the masses." --radio talk-show host Dennis Prager
Culture
"Personal responsibility is a real problem for those who want to collectivize society and take away our power to make our own decisions, transferring that power to third parties like themselves, who imagine themselves to be so much wiser and nobler than the rest of us. Aimless apologies are just one of the incidental symptoms of an increasing loss of a sense of personal responsibility -- without which a whole society is in jeopardy. The police cannot possibly maintain law and order by themselves. Millions of people can monitor their own behavior better than any third parties can. Cops can cope with that segment of society who have no sense of personal responsibility, but not if that segment becomes a large part of the whole population. Yet increasing numbers of educators and the intelligentsia seem to have devoted themselves to undermining or destroying a sense of personal responsibility and making 'society' responsible instead." --economist Thomas Sowell
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PC or anyone:
What can you tell us about Rand Paul and his candidacy in KY?
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Woof Guro Craftydog,
Here you go: www.randpaul2010.com / http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rand_Paul / www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/03/AR2010020303643.html
P.C.
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Interesting take by DM. Gerrymandering was for incubent, not party advantage in 2000.
By Dick Morris 03.3.2010 Published on TheHill.com on March 2, 2010
In U.S. politics, all elections are not created equal. It’s OK to lose the state legislative and gubernatorial elections held on years ending in 2, 4, 6 or 8. But you can’t afford to lose those held in years that end in 0. Those are the reapportionment elections.
With the governorships evenly divided and almost all of the state legislatures, the party that loses the decadal election stands to lose control over congressional reapportionment. And, therefore, to lose control of the House of Representatives for a decade.
When Obama persists with his unpopular healthcare proposals, he is dooming his party not just to defeat in 2010, but to losses throughout the coming decade.
The reapportionment of 2000 was a kinder, gentler reapportionment. Except in Texas, where former Rep. Tom DeLay (R) took no prisoners, the two parties concluded sweetheart deals to draw lines that favored the incumbents on both sides of the aisle. In California, for example, the lines so protected Democratic and Republican opponents that there is only one vulnerable Democrat (Jerry McNerney) out of 54 congressmen from that state.
In Iowa and Arizona, reapportionment was handled, as it should be everywhere, by a nonpartisan commission that is prohibited from considering party preferences or incumbency in drawing the lines. But in the other 48, don’t count on the kinder and gentler reapportionment rules of 2000 to apply.
The partisan divide, fostered by Obama’s ruthless use of his majorities, has become so wide and embittered that Republican legislative leaders and governors will press every advantage they can to gain ascendancy. And they should!
Tip O’Neill said that all politics is local. Not anymore. In 2010, all politics is national. The merits or demerits of each individual candidate count for little. Party counts for all.
Voters have come to understand and debunk the Myth of the Moderate Democrat. The fiscal-conservative-sounding, pro-life Democrat who campaigns for office promising to balance the budget, hold down taxes and fight for our values is the same one who marches right into the halls of the House on the first day of the session and votes for Nancy Pelosi for Speaker, Charlie Rangel for chairman of Ways and Means and Henry Waxman for Energy and Commerce. It is that one vote that permits Obama’s radical agenda to pass.
Voters realize that it does not matter if their local moderate Democrat breaks ranks on this bill or that one. That first vote to let the Democrats organize the House is the crucial one. From then on, Pelosi doesn’t really need him and will let him vote no to assuage his district and get reelected.
Presidents only lose when they get stuck in scandal or in their own misguided convictions. So it was with Johnson and Vietnam, Nixon and Watergate, Ford and the pardon, Reagan and Iran-Contra, Bush and the recession, Clinton and Lewinsky and Bush-43 and Iraq. Now Obama is repeating the lamentable history of his predecessors by getting stuck in the mire of his own ideology over healthcare.
So in the elections of 2010, Republicans, independents and even some Democrats (Obama’s rating is now down to 43 percent in Rasmussen) will vote a straight Republican ticket. Gone is the chic notion that party doesn’t matter and one should vote for the individual. Obama has ended those days. Now Democrats can expect the same kind of swath of destruction that will obliterate their congressional and Senate majorities to destroy their hold on statehouses and legislatures. And on the 2011 reapportionment.
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Back in the 1980s, when the editorial page of the WSJ was a serious place (quite unlike now in the Murdoch era) one of the powerful themes powerfully pursued was the fact that the incumbent re-election rate of the House was 98% :-o :-o :-o
We see this here in CA quite vividly. Back when Gov. S______r had testicles, he tried an initiative for honest apportionment of districts, which for reasons beyond my ken, failed utterly.
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This lays out the historic arguments against states rights used to get us to this sorry health care bill. It is well worth the read. We must move back to the founding principles or the Republic is lost! P.S. Down here in Texas I see Secede bumper stickers everywhere. If the fed over steps its powers, the States must act with nullification, and or intervention, and God help us.
Freki
Doomed From the Start?
by Thomas J. DiLorenzo, LewRockwell.com
After spending a lifetime in politics John C. Calhoun (U.S. Senator, Vice President of the United States, Secretary of War) wrote his brilliant treatise, A Disquisition on Government, which was published posthumously shortly after his death in 1850. In it Calhoun warned that it is an error to believe that a written constitution alone is “sufficient, of itself, without the aid of any organism except such as is necessary to separate its several departments, and render them independent of each other to counteract the tendency of the numerical majority to oppression and abuse of power” (p. 26). The separation of powers is fine as far as it goes, in other words, but it would never be a sufficient defense against governmental tyranny, said Calhoun.
Moreover, it is a “great mistake,” Calhoun wrote, to suppose that “the mere insertion of provisions to restrict and limit the powers of the government, without investing those for whose protection they are inserted, with the means of enforcing their observance, will be sufficient to prevent the major and dominant party from abusing its powers” (emphasis added). The party “in possession of the government” will always be opposed to any and all restrictions on its powers. They “will have no need of these restrictions” and “would come, in time, to regard these limitations as unnecessary and improper restraints and endeavor to elude them . . .”
The “part in favor of the restrictions” (i.e., strict constructionists) would inevitably be overpowered. It is sheer folly, Calhoun argued, to suppose that “the party in possession of the ballot box and the physical force of the country, could be successfully resisted by an appeal to reason, truth, justice, or the obligations imposed by the constitution” (emphasis added). He predicted that “the restrictions [of government power in the Constitution] would ultimately be annulled, and the government be converted into one of unlimited powers.” He was right, of course.
This is a classic statement of the Jeffersonian states’ rights position. The people of the free, independent and sovereign states must be empowered with the rights of nullification and secession, and a concurrent majority with veto power over unconstitutional federal laws, if their constitutional liberties are to have any chance of protection, Calhoun believed. The federal government itself can never, ever be trusted to limit its own powers.
How did Calhoun come to such conclusions? One answer to this question is that he was a serious student of politics, history, and political philosophy for his entire life, and understood the nature of government as much as anyone else alive during his time. He also witnessed first hand or quickly learned about the machinations of the sworn enemies of limited constitutional government in America: men such as Alexander Hamilton, John Adams, John Marshall, Joseph Story and Daniel Webster.
The Founding Fathers of Constitutional Subversion
America’s first constitution, the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union, did a much better job of limiting the tyrannical proclivities of government than the U.S. Constitution ever did, and it did so while permitting enough governmental power to field an army that defeated the British Empire. The limits on government that the Articles contained outraged the advocates of unlimited governmental powers, such as Alexander Hamilton, which is why the “Perpetual Union” that was created by the Articles was abolished as all the states peacefully seceded from that union
The constitutional convention was Hamilton’s idea as much as anyone’s. Upon arriving at the convention Hamilton laid out the plan of his fellow nationalists: a permanent president or king, who would appoint all governors, who would have veto power over all state legislation. This monopoly government would then impose on the entire nation a British-style mercantilist empire without Great Britain, complete with massive corporate welfare subsidies, a large public debt, protectionist tariffs, and a central bank modeled after the Bank of England that would inflate the currency to finance the empire.
Hamilton did not get his way, of course, thanks to the Jeffersonians. When the Constitution was finally ratified, creating a federal instead of a national or monopolistic, monarchical government, Hamilton denounced the document as “a frail and worthless fabric.” He and his Federalist/nationalist colleagues immediately went to work destroying the limits on government contained in the Constitution. He invented the notion of “implied powers” of the Constitution, which allowed him and his political heirs to argue that the Constitution is not a set of limitations on governmental powers, as Jefferson believed it was, but rather a potential stamp of approval on anything the government ever wanted to do as long as it is “properly” interpreted by clever, statist lawyers like Alexander Hamilton or John Marshall. Hamilton “set out to remold the Constitution into an instrument of national supremacy,” wrote Clinton Rossiter in Alexander Hamilton and the Constitution.
One of the first subversive things Hamilton did was to rewrite the history of the American founding by saying in a public speech on June 29 1787, that the states were merely “artificial beings” and were never sovereign. The “nation,” not the states, was sovereign, he said. And he said this while the constitutional convention was busy crafting Article 7 of the Constitution, which holds that the Constitution would become the law of the land only when nine of the thirteen free and independent states ratified it. The states were to ratify the Constitution because, as everyone knew, they were sovereign and were delegating a few express powers to the central government for their mutual benefit.
It was Hamilton who first invented the expansive interpretations of the General Welfare and Commerce Clauses of the Constitution, which have been used for generations to grant totalitarian powers to the central state. He literally set the template for the destruction of constitutional liberty in America the moment it became apparent at the constitutional convention that he and his fellow nationalists would not get their way and create a “monarchy bottomed on corruption,” as Thomas Jefferson described the Hamiltonian system.
Hamilton’s devoted disciple, John Marshall, was appointed chief justice of the United States in 1801 and served in that post for more than three decades. His career was a crusade to rewrite the Constitution so that it would become a nationalist document that destroyed states’ rights and most other limitations on the powers of the centralized state. He essentially declared in Marbury vs. Madison that he, John Marshall, would be the arbiter of constitutionality via “judicial review.” The Jeffersonians, meanwhile, had always warned that if they day ever came when the federal government became the sole arbiter of the limits of its own powers, it would soon declare that there were, in fact, no limits on its powers. This of course is what the anti-Jeffersonians wanted – and what has happened.
In the case of Martin v. Hunter’s Lessee Marshall invented out of thin air the notion that the federal government had the “right” to veto state court decisions. Marshall also made up the theory that the so-called Supremacy Clause of the Constitution makes the federal government “supreme” in all matters. This is false: The federal government is only “supreme” with regard to those powers that were expressly delegated to it by the free and independent states, in Article 1, Section 8.
Marshall also repeated Hamilton’s bogus theory of the American founding, claiming that the “nation” somehow created the states. He amazingly argued that the federal government was somehow created by “the whole people” and not the citizens of the states through state political conventions, as was actually the case. In the name of “the people,” Marshall said, the federal government claimed the right to “legitimately control all individuals or governments within the American territory” (Edward S. Corwin, John Marshall and the Constitution, p. 131).
All of the Hamilton/Marshall nonsense about the founders having created a monopolistic, monarchical government and having abolished states rights or federalism was repeated for decades by the likes of Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story and Daniel Webster. Story was “the most Hamiltonian of judges,” wrote Clinton Rossiter. His famous book, Commentaries on the Constitution, published in 1833, could have been entitled “Commentaries on Alexander Hamilton’s Commentaries on the Constitution,” says Rossiter. He “construed the powers of Congress liberally,” i.e., meaning there were virtually no limits to such powers; and “upheld the supremacy of the nation,” i.e., of monopolistic, monarchical, and unconstitutional government. Stories Commentaries provided a political roadmap for “the legal profession’s elite or at least among the part of it educated in the North during the middle years of the nineteenth century,” wrote Rossiter.
Story’s “famous” Commentaries are filled with phony history and illogic. On the Articles of Confederation, he wrote that “It is heresy to maintain, that a party to a compact has a right to revoke that compact.” But of course the Articles were revoked!
Secession of a single state would mean “dissolution of the government,” Story wrote. Nonsense. After eleven Southern states seceded in 1860–61 the U.S. government proceeded to field the largest and best-equipped army in the history of the world up to that point. It was hardly “dissolved.”
In a classic of doubletalk, Story admitted that “The original compact of society . . . in no instance . . . has ever been formally expressed at the first institution of a state.” That is, there was never any agreement by the citizens of any state to always and forever be obedient to those who would enforce what they proclaim to be “the general will.” Nevertheless, said Story, “every part should pay obedience to the will of the whole.” And who is to define “the will of the whole”? Why, nationalist Supreme Court justices like Joseph Story and John Marshall, of course.
Story admitted that social contract theories of “voluntary” state formation were mere theoretical fantasies. He also held the rather creepy and totalitarian, if not barbarian view that “The majority must have a right to accomplish that object by the means, which they deem adequate for the end . . . . The will of the majority of the people is absolute and sovereign, limited only by its means and power to make its will effectual.”
What Story is saying here is not that there should be a national plebescite on all policy issues that can express the “will of the majority.” No, as with Hamilton he adopted the French Jacobin philosophy that such a “will” was possessed in the minds of the ruling class, and that that class (the Storys, Hamiltons, Marshalls, etc.) somehow possessed “absolute” power as long as it has the military means to “make its will effectual.” Here we have the theoretical basis for Abe Lincoln’s waging of total war on his own citizens.
Contrary to the political truths expressed by Calhoun which have all proven to be true, by the way Story expressed the elementary-schoolish view that the appropriate response to governmental oppression should be only via “the proper tribunals constituted by the government” which would supposedly “appeal to the good sense, and integrity, and justice of the majority of the people.” Trust the politicians and lifetime-appointed federal judges to enforce their view of “justice,” in other words. That hasn’t really worked out during the succeeding 170 years.
Story also repeated John Marshall’s fable that the Supremacy Clause created a monopolistic government in Washington, D.C. and effectively abolished states’ rights, along with the equally ridiculous myth that the Constitution was magically ratified by “the whole people” (presumably not counting women, who could not vote, or slaves and free blacks).
Another famous and influential subverter of the Constitution was Daniel Webster, who repeated many of these same nationalist fables during his famous U.S. Senate debate with South Carolina’s Robert Hayne in January of 1830. This is a debate that Hayne clearly won according to their congressional colleagues, and the media of the day, although nationalist historians (a.k.a., distorians) have claimed otherwise.
The first Big Lie that Webster told was that “the Constitution of the United States confers on the government itself . . . the power of deciding ultimately and conclusively upon the extent of its own authority.” No, it does not. John Marshall may have wished that it did when he invented judicial review, but the document itself says no such thing. As Senator John Taylor once said, “The Constitution never could have designed to destroy [liberty], by investing five or six men, installed for life, with a power of regulating the constitutional rights of all political departments.”
Webster then presented a totally false scenario: “One of two things is true: either the laws of the Union are beyond the discretion and beyond the control of the States; or else we have no constitution of general government . . .” Huh? All the laws? Are the people to have no say whatsoever about laws they believe are clearly constitutional? Apparently so, said Daniel Webster.
The a-historical fairy tale about the Constitution being somehow ratified by “the whole people” was repeated over and over by Webster. His strategy was apparently to convince his audience not by historical facts but by repetition and bluster. “The Constitution creates a popular government, erected by the people . . . it is not a creature of the state governments,” he bellowed. Anyone who has ever read Article 7 of the U.S. Constitution knows that this is utterly false.
In fine French Jacobin fashion, Webster asked, “Who shall interpret their [the peoples’] will? Why “the government itself,” he said. Not through popular votes, mind you, but through the orders, mandates, and dictates of “the government itself.” The people themselves were to have nothing to do with “interpreting” their own “will.”
Article 3, Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution clearly defines treason under the constitution: “Treason against the United States shall consist in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.” Thus, treason means levying war against “them,” the sovereign states. This is why Lincoln’s invasion of the Southern states was the very definition of treasonous behavior under the Constitution. Had the North lost the war, he could have been justifiably hanged.
Webster attempted to re-define treason under the Constitution by claiming that “To resist by force the execution of a [federal] law, generally, is treason.” Thus, if the federal government were to invade a sovereign state to enforce one of its laws, a clearly treasonous act under the plain language of the Constitution, resistance to the invasion is what constitutes treason according to Webster. He defined treason, in other words, to mean exactly the opposite of what it actually means in the Constitution.
Then there is the elementary-schoolish faith in democracy as the only necessary defense against governmental tyranny: “Trust in the efficacy of frequent elections,” “trust in the judicial power.” Well, we tried that for decades and decades, Daniel, and it didn’t work.
All of these false histories and logical fallacies were repeated by other nationalist politicians for decades. This includes Abraham Lincoln, who probably lifted his famous line in The Gettysburg Address from this statement by Webster during his debate with Hayne: “It is, Sir, the people’s Constitution, the people’s government, made for the people, made by the people, and answerable to the people. The people of the United States have declared that this Constitution shall be the supreme law.” Of course, they did not.
As Lord Pete Bauer once said in commenting on the rhetoric of communism, whenever one hears of “the people’s republic” the “peoples’ government,” etc., it is a sure bet that the people have nothing whatsoever to do with, or control over that government.
Hamilton, Marshall, Webster, Story, and other nationalists kept up their rhetorical fog-horning for decades, trying to convince Americans that the founding fathers did, after all, adopt Hamilton’s plan of a dictatorial executive that abolished states rights and was devoted to building a mercantilist empire in America that would rival the British empire. But their rhetoric had little or no success during their lifetimes.
New Englanders plotted to secede for a decade after Thomas Jefferson was elected president in 1800; all states, North and South, made use of the Jeffersonian, states’ rights doctrine of nullification to oppose the Fugitive Slave Act, protectionist tariffs, the antics of the Bank of the United States, and other issues up until the 1860s. There was a secession movement in the Mid-Atlantic states in the 1850s, and in 1861 the majority of Northern newspaper editorialists were in support of peaceful secession (see Northern Editorials on Secession by Howard Perkins).
The false, nationalist theory of the American founding was repeated by Abraham Lincoln in his first inaugural address (and praised decades later by Adolf Hitler in Mein Kampf, wherein Hitler mad his case for abolishing states’ rights and centralizing all political power in Germany). In the same speech Lincoln threatened “invasion” and “bloodshed” (his words) in any state that failed to collect the newly-doubled federal tariff tax. He then followed through with his threat.
The only group of Americans to ever seriously challenge this false nationalist theory, Southern secessionists, were mass murdered by the hundreds of thousands, including some 50,000 civilians according to James McPherson; their cities and towns were bombed and burned to the ground, tens of millions of dollars of private property was plundered by the U.S. Army; Southern women, white and black, were raped; and total war was waged on the civilian population. This is what finally cemented into place the false, Hamiltonian/nationalist theory of the American founding, for the victors always get to write the history in war. Government of the people, by the people, for the people, is “limited only” by the state’s “power to make its will effectual,” as Joseph Story proclaimed. The technology of mass murder in the hands of the state finally made this will “effectual” in the first half of the 1860s. Americans have been mis-educated and misinformed about their own political history ever since. It is this mis-education, this false theory of history, that serves to prop up the Hamiltonian empire that Americans now slave under.
Thomas J. DiLorenzo [send him mail] is professor of economics at Loyola College in Maryland and the author of The Real Lincoln; Lincoln Unmasked: What You’re Not Supposed To Know about Dishonest Abe and How Capitalism Saved America. His latest book is Hamilton’s Curse: How Jefferson’s Archenemy Betrayed the American Revolution – And What It Means for America Today.
Copyright © 2010 by LewRockwell.com. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit is given.
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Good stuff. I didn't realise that efforts started before the ink was dry. "articles of confederation"- where do I find those?
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All:
Interesting post Freki.
Please ask about this on our SCH forum threads "American History" and/or "Issues in the American Creed (Constitutional law etc)"
TIA,
Marc
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The Foundation
"Human beings will generally exercise power when they can get it, and they will exercise it most undoubtedly in popular governments under pretense of public safety." --Daniel Webster
Toward the Nationalization of Health Care
The Pied PiperWith Senate and House passage of Barack Hussein Obama's so-called "Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act," liberals have now sealed the deal to nationalize the American health care system -- almost 17 percent of the U.S. economy. Passage of this measure completes the "triple crown" of the Left's Socialist agenda: Social Security, Medicare and now health care. One may conclude that nationalized health care, like Social Security and Medicare before it, will soon be bankrupt. (See how your Senator and Representative voted.)
There is no provision in the United States Constitution giving the central government the authority to nationalize health care, but liberals have never let the Constitution stand in the way of their incremental efforts to socialize the U.S. economy.
Remarks by the leaders of both House Republicans and Democrats demonstrate that neither Party's leadership has sufficient regard for First Principles, for Constitutional Rule of Law.
Most Republicans give it scant lip service, while virtually all Democrats reject Rule of Law outright.
In his remarks about the legislation, Republican Leader John Boehner did mention the Constitution, but repeated the same worn refrains about what the American people want.
"Today, this body, this institution, enshrined in the first article of the Constitution by our Founding Fathers as a sign of the importance they placed on this House, should be looking with pride on this legislation and our work. But it is not so. ... When we came here, we each swore an oath to uphold and abide by the Constitution as representatives of the people. But the process here is broken. The institution is broken. And as a result, this bill is not what the American people need, nor what our constituents want. ... We have failed to listen to America. And we have failed to reflect the will of our constituents."
No, Mr. Boehner. You did not take an oath to support and defend the "will of our constituents."
In her remarks about the legislation, Democrat House Speaker Nancy Pelosi did not, of course, mention the Constitution, but she did offer this adulterated view of First Principles, an outright prevarication: "In [passing this legislation], we will honor the vows of our Founders, who in the Declaration of Independence said that we are 'endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.' This legislation will lead to healthier lives, more liberty to pursue hopes and dreams and happiness for the American people."
This assertion is an affront to everything our Founders embodied in our national documents of incorporation, and Pelosi, et al., know that.
Pelosi added, "You will be joining those who established Medicare and Social Security... This is an American proposal that honors the tradition of our country."
Nails in the coffin!
For his part, Obama remarked, "At a time when the pundits said it was no longer possible, we rose above the weight of our politics. We proved that this government, a government of the people and by the people, still works for the people. ... This isn't radical reform, but it is major reform. This is what change looks like. ... This represents another stone firmly laid at the foundation of the American Dream."
That would be a tombstone, a grave marker for American liberty.
The Gipper
"For many years now, you and I have been shushed like children and told there are no simple answers to the complex problems which are beyond our comprehension. Well, the truth is, there are simple answers, they just are not easy ones. The time has come for us to decide whether collectively we can afford everything and anything we think of simply because we think of it. The time has come to run a check to see if all the services government provides were in answer to demands or were just goodies dreamed up for our supposed betterment. The time has come to match outgo to income, instead of always doing it the other way around." --Ronald Reagan
Political Futures
"House Democrats last night passed President Obama's federal takeover of the U.S. health-care system, and the ticker tape media parade is already underway. So this hour of liberal political victory is a good time to adapt the 'Pottery Barn' rule that Colin Powell once invoked on Iraq: You break it, you own it. This week's votes don't end our health-care debates. By making medical care a subsidiary of Washington, they guarantee such debates will never end. And by ramming the vote through Congress on a narrow partisan majority, and against so much popular opposition, Democrats have taken responsibility for what comes next -- to insurance premiums, government spending, doctor shortages and the quality of care. They are now the rulers of American medicine. ... While the passage of ObamaCare marks a liberal triumph, its impact will play out over many years. We fought this bill so vigorously because we have studied government health care in other countries, and the results include much higher taxes, slower economic growth and worse medical care. As for the politics, the first verdict arrives in November." --The Wall Street Journal
For the Record
"Never before has the average American been treated to such a live-action view of the sordid politics necessary to push a deeply flawed bill to completion. It was dirty deals, open threats, broken promises and disregard for democracy that pulled ObamaCare to this point, and yesterday the same machinations pushed it across the finish line. ... By the weekend, all the pressure and threats and bribes had left the speaker three to five votes short. Her remaining roadblock was those pro-life members who'd boxed themselves in on abortion, saying they would vote against the Senate bill unless it barred public funding of abortion. Mrs. Pelosi's first instinct was to go around this bloc, getting the votes elsewhere. She couldn't. Into Saturday night, Michigan's Bart Stupak and Mrs. Pelosi wrangled over options. The stalemate? Any change that gave Mr. Stupak what he wanted in law would lose votes from pro-choice members. The solution? Remove it from Congress altogether, having the president instead sign a meaningless executive order affirming that no public money should go to pay for abortions. The order won't change the Senate legal language -- as pro-choice Democrats publicly crowed within minutes of the Stupak deal. Executive orders can be changed or eliminated on a whim. Pro-life groups condemned the order as the vote-getting ruse it was. Nevertheless, Mr. Stupak and several of his colleagues voted yes, paving the way to Mrs. Pelosi's final vote tally of 219." --columnist Kimberley Strassel
Liberty
"[Barack Obama's] primary goal has always been to gobble up the health care system. The most troubling aspect of the Obamacare debate, however, is not the measure's sweeping and radical aims -- the transformation of one-sixth of the U.S. economy, crippling tax increases, higher premiums, state-sanctioned rationing, longer waiting lines, the erosion of the quality of medical care and the creation of a huge, permanent administrative bureaucracy. Rather, the most alarming aspect is the lengths to which the Democrats are willing to go to achieve their progressive, anti-capitalist agenda. Obamacare is opposed by nearly two-thirds of the public, more than 60 percent of independents and almost all Republicans and conservatives. It has badly fractured the country, dangerously polarizing it along ideological and racial lines. Even a majority of Democrats in the House are deeply reluctant to support it. Numerous states -- from Idaho to Virginia to Texas -- have said they will sue the federal government should Obamacare become law. They will declare themselves exempt from its provisions, tying up the legislation in the courts for years to come. ... Obama is willing to devour his presidency, his party's congressional majority and - most disturbing - our democratic institutional safeguards to enact it. He is a reckless ideologue who is willing to sacrifice the country's stability in pursuit of a socialist utopia." --columnist Jeffrey Kuhner
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Re: The Left
"Democrats consider election losses a small price to pay for health care 'reform.' Predictions range from moderate fall election losses to a bloodbath resulting in a Republican takeover of the House and possibly even the Senate. To this Democrats say, 'So what?' Once health care reform becomes law, that's that. Only a Republican charge with a filibuster-proof Republican supermajority in the Senate could undo it. Besides, President Bill Clinton got re-elected when the Republicans took over the House. ... Some people refuse to see what's best. That's why God created Democrats. Democrats ultimately want a Canadian-style single-payer system. ObamaCare will result in cost overruns, caregivers driven out of business, declining quality, rationing, reduced innovation and bureaucrats determining who gets what, how and when. What then? When the complaints grow loud enough, Democrats will be ready -- with a plan to 'reform' the 'reform.'" --columnist Larry Elder
Reader Comments
"The Constitution requires that Members of Congress take an oath 'to support this Constitution.' The oath is not specified in detail, but the oath currently used says the member will 'support and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign or domestic.' The President's oath is specified in the Constitution. He must swear to 'preserve, protect and defend the Constitution.' In my view, the President's oath is more sweeping. He has the highest obligation in the land to defend the Constitution and our Liberty. Our current President seems intent on destroying, not preserving, the Constitution, and as quickly as possible." --Robert
"Health is not a right. It is a personal responsibility. Health care is not a right. It is a commodity. Health insurance is not a right. It is a financial risk management tool. Those who try to equate the Constitutional right of 'life' with health, heath care, health insurance have got it completely wrong. The Constitution does not guarantee that the federal government will provide you with life. Instead it guarantees that the federal government will not take life away from you. Unless the government has done something to your health that resulted in the loss of your life, then you have no claim against the government, or a right to its monies (which come from taxes). If you fail to take personal responsibility for your health (proper diet, exercise, life style, etc.), that ain't the government's fault. Its your fault and you should bear the burden. If, for some bizarre reason, you can find a Constitutional requirement for providing health insurance to every citizen of this nation, then haven't we been violating the Constitution for nearly the first 130+ years of it's existence?" --Mike
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The Last Word
"Liberals keep complaining that Republicans don't have a plan for reforming health care in America. I have a plan! It's a one-page bill creating a free market in health insurance. Let's all pause here for a moment so liberals can Google the term 'free market.' Nearly every problem with health care in this country -- apart from trial lawyers and out-of-date magazines in doctors' waiting rooms -- would be solved by my plan. In the first sentence, Congress will amend the McCarran-Ferguson Act to allow interstate competition in health insurance. We can't have a free market in health insurance until Congress eliminates the antitrust exemption protecting health insurance companies from competition. ... The very next sentence of my bill provides that the exclusive regulator of insurance companies will be the state where the company's home office is. Every insurance company in the country would incorporate in the state with the fewest government mandates.... The third sentence of my bill would prohibit the federal government from regulating insurance companies, except for normal laws and regulations that apply to all companies. Freed from onerous state and federal mandates turning insurance companies into public utilities, insurers would be allowed to offer a whole smorgasbord of insurance plans, finally giving consumers a choice. Instead of Harry Reid deciding whether your insurance plan covers Viagra, this decision would be made by you, the consumer. (I apologize for using the terms 'Harry Reid' and 'Viagra' in the same sentence. I promise that won't happen again.) Instead of insurance companies jumping to the tune of politicians bought by health-care lobbyists, they would jump to tune of hundreds of millions of Americans buying health insurance on the free market. Hypochondriac liberals could still buy the aromatherapy plan and normal people would be able to buy plans that only cover things such as major illness, accidents and disease. ... This would, in effect, transform medical insurance into ... a form of insurance! My bill will solve nearly every problem allegedly addressed by ObamaCare -- and mine entails zero cost to the taxpayer. Indeed, a free market in health insurance would produce major tax savings as layers of government bureaucrats, unnecessary to medical service in America, get fired. ... In addition to saving taxpayer money and providing better health insurance, my plan also saves trees by being 2,199 pages shorter than the Democrats' plan. Feel free to steal it, Republicans!" --columnist Ann Coulter
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A Tale of Two Revolutions
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqUiE-vJ-64[/youtube]
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Who’s Supreme? The Supremacy Clause Smackdown
by Brion McClanahan
When Idaho Governor C.L. “Butch” Otter signed HO391 into law on 17 March 2010, the “national” news media circled the wagons and began another assault on State sovereignty. The bill required the Idaho attorney general to sue the federal government over insurance mandates in the event national healthcare legislation passed. The lead AP reporter on the story, John Miller, quoted constitutional “scholar” David Freeman Engstrom of Stanford Law School as stating that the Idaho law would be irrelevant because of the “supremacy clause” of the United States Constitution.
In his words, “That language is clear that federal law is supreme over state law, so it really doesn’t matter what a state legislature says on this.” Now that Barack Obama has signed healthcare legislation into law, almost a dozen States have filed suit against the federal government, with Idaho in the lead. Battle lines have been drawn. Unfortunately, the question of State sovereignty and the true meaning of the “supremacy clause” may be swallowed up in the ensuing debate.
Engstrom’s opinion is held by a majority of constitutional law “scholars,” but he is far from correct, and Idaho and the thirty seven other States considering similar legislation have a strong case based on the original intent of the powers of the federal government vis-à-vis the States.
The so-called “supremacy clause” of the Constitution, found in Article 6, states, “This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding [emphasis added].”
The key, of course, is the italicized phrase. All laws made in pursuance of the Constitution, or those clearly enumerated in the document, were supreme, State laws notwithstanding. In other words, the federal government was supreme in all items clearly listed in the document.
A quick reading of the Constitution illustrates that national healthcare is not one of the enumerated powers of the federal government, so obviously Engstrom’s blanket and simplistic statement is blatantly incorrect, but his distortion of the supremacy clause goes further.
The inclusion of such a clause in the Constitution was first debated at the Constitutional Convention on 31 May 1787. In Edmund Randolph’s initial proposal, called the Virginia Plan, the “national” legislature had the ability to “legislate in all cases to which the separate states are incompetent…” and “to negative all laws passed by the several states contravening, in the opinion of the national legislature, the Articles of Union….” John Rutledge, Pierce Butler, and Charles Pinckney of South Carolina challenged the word “incompetent” and demanded that Randolph define the term. Butler thought that the delegates “were running into an extreme, in taking away the powers of the states…” through such language.
Randolph replied that he “disclaimed any intention to give indefinite powers to the national legislature, declaring that he was entirely opposed to such an inroad on the state jurisdictions, and that he did not think any considerations whatever could ever change his determination [emphasis added].” James Madison, the author of the Virginia Plan, was not as forthcoming as to his sentiment. Ultimately, Madison preferred a negative over State law and wished the national legislature to be supreme in call cases. But he was not in the majority.
The Convention again broached a federal negative on State law on 8 June 1787. Charles Pinckney, who presented a draft of a constitution shortly after Randolph offered the Virginia Plan, believed a national negative necessary to the security of the Union, and Madison, using imagery from the solar system and equating the sun to the national government, argued that without a national negative, the States “will continually fly out of their proper orbits, and destroy the order and harmony of the political system.” Such symbolism made for a beautiful picture, but it belied reality.
To most of the assembled delegates, the national government was not the center of the political universe and the States retained their sovereignty. Hugh Williamson of North Carolina emphatically stated he “was against giving a power that might restrain the states from regulating their internal police.”
Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts was against an unlimited negative, and Gunning Bedford of Delaware believed a national negative was simply intended “to strip the small states of their equal right of suffrage.” He asked, “Will not these large states crush the small ones, whenever they stand in the way of their ambitious or interested views?”
When the negative power was put to a vote, seven States voted against it and three for it, with Delaware divided (and Virginia only in the affirmative by one vote). Roger Sherman of Connecticut summarized the sentiment of the majority when he stated he “thought the cases in which the negative ought to be exercised might be defined.” Since the negative did not pass, such a definition was unnecessary.
Thus, the federal government was supreme only in its enumerated powers and it did not have a negative over State law. Supremacy had limits.
By the time the Constitution was debated in the several State ratifying conventions in 1787 and 1788, the “supremacy clause” galvanized opponents of the document. The Constitution, they said, would destroy the States and render them impotent in their internal affairs. The response from proponents of ratification illuminates the true intent of the clause. William Davie, a delegate to the Constitutional Convention from North Carolina and proponent of the Constitution, responded to attacks levied on the “supremacy clause” by stating that:
This Constitution, as to the powers therein granted, is constantly to be the supreme law of the land. Every power ceded by it must be executed without being counteracted by the laws or constitutions of the individual states. Gentlemen should distinguish that it is not the supreme law in the exercise of power not granted. It can be supreme only in cases consistent with the powers specially granted, and not in usurpations [emphasis added].
Davie wasn’t alone in this opinion. Future Supreme Court justice James Iredell of North Carolina argued that, “This clause [the supremacy clause] is supposed to give too much power, when, in fact, it only provides for the execution of those powers which are already given in the foregoing articles….If Congress, under pretence of executing one power, should, in fact, usurp another, they will violate the Constitution [emphasis added].”
Furthermore, in a foreshadowing of nullification, Iredell argued that, “It appears to me merely a general clause, the amount of which is that, when they [Congress] pass an act, if it be in the execution of a power given by the Constitution, it shall be binding on the people, otherwise not [emphasis added]. Other ratifying conventions had similar debates, and proponents of the Constitution continually reassured wavering supporters that the Constitution would only be supreme within its delegated authority.
Most bought their assurances, though to staunch opponents, the Constitution still vested too much power in the central authority. The States would lose their sovereignty, they argued, and as a result, these men demanded an amendment to the Constitution that expressly maintained the sovereignty of the States and placed limits on federal power. Even several moderate supporters of the Constitution embraced this idea.
Ultimately, the three most powerful States in the Union, New York, Massachusetts, and Virginia, demanded that a bill of rights be immediately added to the Constitution; near the top of those recommended amendments on every list, a State sovereignty resolution. These ultimately became the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution, which reads, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
Clearly the intent of this amendment was to mitigate any design the federal government had on enlarging its powers through the “supremacy clause.” If the power was not enumerated in the Constitution and the States were not prohibited by the Constitution from exercising said power, then that power was reserved to the States.
Several other constitutional “scholars” have weighed in on the debate in the last week, and each has invoked the “supremacy clause” to defend their opposition to State action against healthcare. Duke Law Professor Neil Siegel went so far as to suggest that the States are not reading the Tenth Amendment correctly. In perhaps the most outlandish statement of the debate, he also said, “Any talk of nullification bothers me because it’s talk of lawlessness.”
I guess Mr. Siegel has failed to consider that Idaho bill HO391 was passed by a legitimate legislative body elected by the people of the State. That would make it lawful.
mcclanahan-founding-fathersOf course, this debate ultimately boils down to loose interpretation verses strict construction. Thomas Jefferson had the best line on this issue. When asked to read between the lines to “find” implied powers, Jefferson responded that he had done that, and he “found only blank space.”
The original intent of both the “supremacy clause” and the Tenth Amendment indicate that Idaho and the other States challenging Obamacare are justified and correct and that the legal profession is either in the tank for the federal government or has not read either the debates of the Constitutional Convention and/or the State ratifying debates. This should make people like Engstrom and Siegel, rather than legitimate State law directed at unconstitutional authority, irrelevant.
Brion McClanahan holds a Ph.D in American history from the University of South Carolina and is the author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Founding Fathers (Regnery, 2009).
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I've also posted this in the Issues in the American Creed thread on the SCH forum.
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I thought this PJTV Video: "A Crisis Of Consent: Rep. Thaddeus McCotter On A Government Gone Wrong" was interesting and hope you do too.
http://www.pjtv.com/v/3347
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Great speech by Thaddeus McCotter, Republican from Michigan
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akiH5OD8KQg[/youtube]
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You will not be ablr to sell your house unless you meet a green standard under Cap and Trade.
homesteadingtexas.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=23464 (http://homesteadingtexas.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=23464)
There are links to other sites there to, expect to blow an hour at least, probably a couple of fuses too.
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I just took a look there. It was a quick one, but my initial impression is that several of the citiations are from sites that do not seem reliable.
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I was wondering, :? but the initial impact was nasty. I know a real estate guy who will probably know about it or some references.
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Okay I found a root document with references to the actual bill.
http://www.realtor.org/wps/wcm/connect/865087004eadb900a294fab684cb314f/government_affairs_clean_energy_myths_facts.pdf?MOD=AJPERES&CACHEID=865087004eadb900a294fab684cb314f (http://www.realtor.org/wps/wcm/connect/865087004eadb900a294fab684cb314f/government_affairs_clean_energy_myths_facts.pdf?MOD=AJPERES&CACHEID=865087004eadb900a294fab684cb314f)
Not that extreme one National Organization of Realtors stepped on it..........or are taking credit for stepping on it? Still bad, that this kind of legislation is being made tells a lot about the current House............
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Thanks for the leg work.
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Much as I hate group politics and generalities, group identity plays some role in voting patterns. Below is a short piece by Paul Mirengoff at Powerline, he says Obama carried the Jewish vote by a margin of 78-21 but that support is falling. (I posted at 'The Way Forward' that the Dem-Repub split is roughly 90-10 for Blacks, and 60-40 for Hispanic.) Gay vote split is about 75-25 Dem. Obama won 41% of white males. Whichever political side you are on in a divided electorate, making progress in any or all of the groups swings elections.
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"There's a new poll (http://www.mclaughlinonline.com/lib/sitefiles/National_Jewish_Memo_0410.pdf) according to which 42 percent of American Jewish voters say they would vote to re-elect President Obama and 46 percent say they would consider voting for someone else. But I wonder how many of those among the 46 percent would consider voting for an actual Republican. Nonetheless, the poll provides some evidence of intelligent life among my fellow American Jews. In 2008, according to exit polls, Obama carried the Jewish vote by a margin of 78-21" - Paul Mirengoff, Powerline
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Doug I don't know if you saw my post on the Israel thread on this topic a few days ago. In heavily Jewish populated Palm Beach County Florida's Congressional district where Wexler secretly and very queitly pulled out and resigned after it was made public he didn't even live there and was using a fraudulent front address the Jews were happy to re-elect by *large* margins another liberal Democrat.
So the answer to your question, "But I wonder how many of those among the 46 percent would consider voting for an actual Republican", is very few.
The liberal Jews will not change their minds to vote Republican. Only a few would. Most will NEVER vote for a Republican- ever! They will simply not vote. It won't surpirse me if they start to puch for Hillary redux.
***** Some Jews are finally wisening up
« Reply #797 on: April 14, 2010, 09:35:45 AM »
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Unfortunately, it seems more based on seniors concern about their health care benefits but not the socialist agenda or the 'one's' throwing Netenyahu under the bus (the latter which I must say is astounding to me).
When push comes to shove though most Jews will still vote the Dem party line. Look at "Toojay country" in Fla. wherein a demcorat won by huge margins in Wexler's old fraudulent seat. For God's sake Wexler didn't even live in the community he was representing. He was using a front address. And what do my fellow Jews do. Vote the next in line liberal crat right back in. Again to liberal Jews, Republicans are worse then Nazis. I had one Jewish patient complain to me the other day that Fox news was on the cable TV in the office waiting room. I didn't know it was on. I come in through the back door and never had any input to what station is on. Another patient must have put it on I guess. I share the office with another group. He used the opportunity to go after Bush, state that the health care bill was needed etc. If we didn't go into Iraq we would have plenty of cash to pay for health care etc etc.
I avoided confrontation and rarely discuss politics with patients. Occasionally pts do bring up topics I agree with and only then will say I do agree. We are surely a divided country - it seems to be getting worse not better.
****Obama struggling with Jews, but not on Israel
By Ron Kampeas · April 12, 2010
Photos 1 out of 1
Other Media
This question, in the American Jewish Committee's new survey, asked: "Do you approve or disapprove of the Obama Administration's handling of the Iran nuclear issue?" (AJC) Related LinksSenate letter urging tensions tamp-down gets 76 signatures WASHINGTON (JTA) -- A new survey shows President Obama struggling with American Jews -- but not on Israel-related matters.
The American Jewish Committee poll of U.S. Jews found that Obama's approval rating is at 57 percent, with 38 percent disapproving. That's down from the stratospheric 79 percent approval rating among Jews that Obama enjoyed about a year ago, in May 2009. The AJC poll was conducted March 2-23 and surveyed 800 self-identifying Jewish respondents selected from a consumer mail panel.
Obama's advantage among Jews versus the rest of the population appears to be eroding. The latest Gallup polling shows Obama with a national approval rating of 48, nine points below Jewish polling. Last May, general polling earned him 63 percent approval, 16 points below Jewish polling.
Despite the drop -- and weeks of tensions with the Netanyahu government -- Obama still polls solidly on foreign policy, with a steady majority backing his handling of U.S.-Israel relations, according to the AJC poll.
It is on domestic issues that the president appears to be facing more unhappiness.
Jewish voters are statistically split on how Obama has handled health care reform, with 50 percent approving and 48 disapproving. On the economy he fares slightly better. Jewish voters who favor his policies stand at 55 percent, while 42 percent disapprove.
The last AJC poll on the views of American Jews, released last September, did not address domestic issues, so there's no measure to assess any change in support on the specific issues of health and the economy. Indeed, this is the first poll in at least 10 years in which the AJC has attempted to assess views on the economy and health care. However, Jewish voters in solid majorities describe themselves as Democrats and as liberal to moderate in their views, and traditionally list the economy and health care as their two top concerns in the voting booth.
Matt Brooks, who directs the Republican Jewish Coalition, said the relatively low score on domestic issues underscored what he said was a steady decline in Democratic support among Jewish voters.
"This indicates a serious erosion of support," he said. "It's a huge drop. There's no silver lining" for Democrats.
Ira Forman, the director of the National Jewish Democratic Council, countered that the poll did not account for Jewish voters who might be disappointed with
Obama from a more liberal perspective -- for instance, over his dropping from the reform bill of the so-called public option, which would have allowed for government-run health care.
Additionally, much of the AJC polling took place before Obama's come-from-behind victory on March 21, when the U.S. House of Representatives passed health care reform, Forman said. Since then, Democrats have said they see a turnaround in the president's political fortunes. "The narrative was the president was in the tank," Forman said. "This was when it was thought his initiative was dead."
Obama fares strongly with Jews on homeland security, with 62 percent approving and 33 percent disapproving -- a sign that Republican attempts to cast Obama as weak on protecting the nation have had little impact in the Jewish community.
He also scores 55 percent approval on how he handles U.S.-Israel relations, which is virtually unchanged since last September, when his handling of the relationship scored 54 percent approval. At that juncture, the tensions between Washington and Jerusalem were kept at a low bubble and were confined to U.S. insistence on a total freeze of Israeli settlement, and the Netanyahu administration's reluctance to concede.
The latest questions, however, coincided almost exactly with the period when U.S. officials accused the Netanyahu government of "insulting" the United States by announcing a new building start in eastern Jerusalem while Vice President Joe Biden was visiting, and when the president refused to make public gestures of friendship during Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's subsequent visit to Washington.
A question on Obama's handling of Iran's nuclear capability showed a statistical dead heat on the approval side between last September -- 49 percent -- and now, at 47 percent. However, disapproval ratings rose moderately, apparently borrowing from the "uncertain" column: Back in September 35 percent disapproved; now 42 percent give a thumbs down.
The marks compared favorably, however, with Bush administration figures. Bush scored 33 percent approval ratings on Iran in 2006, the most recent year that AJC asked the question.
Support for U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran to keep it from making a nuclear bomb appeared to drop slightly. Asked about a U.S. strike, 53 percent said they would support one, and 42 percent were opposed, as opposed to 56 percent and 36 percent last September. On an Israeli strike, 62 percent supported and 33 percent opposed, as opposed to 66 and 28 percent in September.
The only other question in the most recent survey directly addressing Obama's foreign policy also showed strong support for the president: 62 percent of respondents agreed with Obama's decision to deploy an additional 30,000 troops to Afghanistan. This contrasts with the consistently negative Jewish assessments of Bush's handling of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, except in the period immediately following the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.
Approval of Obama's foreign policies contrasts with increasing uneasiness in the Jewish establishment with the administration’s approach. Several influential pro-Israel organizations have spent months, to little avail, pleading with the administration to confine its disagreements to back rooms.
A handful of prominent Jewish backers of candidate Obama also appear to have had second thoughts. Most pointedly, in a New York Daily News column Monday, Ed Koch, the former New York City mayor and a supporter of Obama during the 2008 general election, said he was "weeping" because the president had "abandoned" Israel.
And Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), perhaps the most influential member of the Senate's Jewish caucus, on Sunday pointedly avoided answering a question on ABC's "This Week" about whether he agreed with a Netanyahu confidante who said Obama was a "strategic disaster" for Israel.
Brooks predicted a tide of defections. "You'll have a number of candidates" in areas with a strong Jewish presence "asking him not to campaign for them," he said.
David Harris, AJC's executive director, cautioned that low approval ratings did not necessarily translate into electoral losses.
Brooks said that he would advise GOP candidates to hammer Democrats hard on foreign policy, particularly in tight races in Illinois, Pennsylvania and Florida, where Jewish voters trended less liberal than on the coasts. "If Republican candidates are smart, they will make Democratic candidates in these races answerable to whether they support Obama's policies of pressuring Israel," the head of the Republican Jewish Coalition said.
Jewish Democrats are already preparing a response strategy of arguing that the relationship remains close on defense cooperation and other matters, despite heightened rhetoric on settlement differences.
Harris suggested that the polling showed that the American Jewish public would prefer to imagine a closeness rather than deal with tensions. Obama and Netanyahu scored similar solid majorities -- 55 percent and 57 percent, respectively -- on how they handled the relationship.
American Jews "don't want to be forced to choose," Harris said. "They would rather say a blessing on both your houses than a pox on both your houses."
According to the survey, 64 percent of Jews think Israel should, as part of a peace deal with the Palestinians, be willing to remove at least some of the settlements in the West Bank. But 61 percent rejected the idea that Israel should be willing to "compromise on the status of Jerusalem as a united city under Israeli jurisdiction."
The poll had a margin of error of plus/minus 3 percentage points. Interviews were conducted by the firm Synovate, formerly Market Facts.****
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"the answer to your question, "But I wonder how many of those among the 46 percent would consider voting for an actual Republican", is very few."
CCP, thanks. I agree and I did read the previous. The question comes from the powerline post quoted. My point is that any noticable gain with any of these groups is a big deal. If republicans can win 25% of Jewish vote it chips away at those historic differences. Same for winning >10% of black vote or >40% of Hispanic vote. These could be decisive in a divided nation and shift the momentum for the future.
I find it strange that I am more pro-Israel than Jewish voters, more pro-life than Catholic voters and more protective of the right to keep wealth than the wealthy, more pro-family and pro-marriage as a single father than most intact Hispanic families, stronger on school choice than the majority of those who live in failed districts etc, but those who appear to me to be voting against their own interests offer the greatest opportunity for political change IMO even if it is small and slow.
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"If Republicans can win 25% of Jewish"
Agreed and I hope so. I remember one of my uncles who I thought was a die hard Democrat suprising me when he came out at a family gathering as voraciously anti-Clinton.
My uncle a WW2 vet, on the only allied ship that was sunk during D day would describe how he just couldn't get over the fact that a person like Clinton could be commander-in-chief.
I don't know what he thinks about Obama per se, but I could guess what he thought about the "Obama go around the World apologizing for America tour".
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Woof,
Hopefully this will start a trend within the party to get rid of these Liberal infiltrators, John McCain, Mitt Romney among many others.
www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37038395/ns/politics
P.C.
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Only if the Rep candidate wins in November.
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Woof,
Fine point, but even if that happens we will at least know who we're dealing with.
P.C.
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he even talks the liberal rap when he makes a statement on his rejection.......Obviously some of my votes have made the environment toxic.........Gag. A conservative probably would have said something more like, "the delegates don't like my views on key issues".
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Richard Blumenthal, U.S. Senate Candidate From Connecticut, Misstated Service Record
Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat who is running for the United
States Senate from Connecticut, never served in Vietnam,
despite statements to the contrary. The Times has found that
he obtained at least five military deferments from 1965 to
1970 and took repeated steps that enabled him to avoid going
to war.
Read More:
http://www.nytimes.com?emc=na
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Woof,
Just got back from the polls; voting for Rand Paul was very satisfying, I can only hope that he will be better than what the Party elites put up to run.
P.C.
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I gather Rand Paul has ignited a bit of a firestorm for stating he is against the anti-discrimination laws being applied to private businesses.
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Just keeping up the Paul family tradition of making the general public think Libertarians are fringe loons.
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If I am being honest, I should say that conceptually I find the point sound. The politics and emotions of it are quite horrible of course.
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Let me be sure I understand the Libertarian stance on these issues:
1. The civil war was about states right's and Lincoln was a horrible dictator and it wasn't about slavery at all, and slavery would have gone away on it's own.
2. Racially segregated businesses are ok, federal legislation forbidding such is again a violation of personal liberties/property rights.
Is this correct?
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"Just keeping up the Paul family tradition"
GM,
It is errie how the son looks, speaks, thinks EXACTLY like his father. Maybe HE is the first clone baby.
I agree with Crafty that the point is "sound" but politically he just gave the Dems the rally cry they have been looking for.
Now they will go nuts on every one of their main stream media outlets tying the Tea Party to the party that is "against Civil Rights".
Did anyone else see Paul on Rachal Madcow's show? She couldn't stop from drooling and giggling with tingle on her leg over sticking this point to him.
His response was weak and defensive even if logical.
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The law of the land should be - color blind. Unfortunately the government, the census, the supreme court and private institutions like Harvard are not there yet. James Taranto of WSJ had a pretty good take on the Rand Paul matter, below. It might be philosophically interesting to ponder issues of the last century like how to move to a post-racial society without using the heavy hand of the federal government. But if Paul and others, libertarians or conservatives, want to win this year they better get focused quickly and stay focused on maybe 10 concrete steps forward we can take today. Paul is an opthamologist. Now he is a politician running for serious office, a 6 year term, and he needs to use the discipline of his first profession to succeed in his new one. He and the others need to figure out HOW to move us gently in a libertarian direction, not to some utopia, but just a little less reliant on the government for the solutions for our every problem, and they need to bring the conservatives and the majority of independents along with them to win. When they figure out what that realistic agenda is for the next 2, 4 or 6 years, they need to stick to the agenda, the details, the mindset, the benefits, and the persuasion required to get us there, not just wander around with every gotcha journalist or political opponent.
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http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703559004575256283217096358.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_MIDDLETopOpinion
Rand Paul and Civil Rights
A rookie mistake feeds a left-wing smear.
By JAMES TARANTO
Rand Paul was 1 when Congress enacted the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Now 47, he is the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate from Kentucky, his first ever foray into politics. To his evident surprise, the hypothetical question of how he would have voted in 1964 has been drawing a lot of attention.
Politico's Ben Smith characterizes as "evasive" this response Paul gave when asked the question by National Public Radio (we've corrected Smith's transcription errors):
"What I've always said is, I'm opposed to institutional racism, and I would have--if I was alive at the time, I think--had the courage to march with Martin Luther King to overturn institutional racism, and I see no place in our society for institutional racism," he said in response to a first question about the act.
"You would have marched with Martin Luther King but voted with Barry Goldwater?" asked an interviewer.
"I think it's confusing in a lot of cases in what's actually in the Civil Rights Case (sic)," Paul replied. "A lot of things that were actually in the bill I'm actually in favor of. I'm in favor of--everything with regards to ending institutional racism. So I think there's a lot to be desired in the Civil Rights--and indeed the truth is, I haven't read all through it, because it was passed 40 years ago and hadn't been a real pressing issue on the campaign on whether I'm going to vote for the Civil Rights Act."
In an update to his post, Smith notes that it wasn't the first time Paul was asked the question:
Paul articulated his view on the Civil Rights Act in an interview with the editorial board of the Louisville Courier-Journal. . . .
Paul explained that he backed the portion of the Civil Rights Act banning discrimination in public places and institutions, but that he thinks private businesses should be permitted to discriminate by race.
"I like the Civil Rights Act in the sense that it ended discrimination in all public domains, and I'm all in favor of that," he said. "I don't like the idea of telling private business owners. . . ."
Smith is not the only commentator to accuse Paul of being "evasive" or refusing to give a "straight answer." This criticism is absurd. The politically wise answer would have been "yes"--a straight answer in form, but an evasive one in substance. Answering the way he did was a rookie mistake--or, to put it more charitably, a demonstration that Paul is not a professional politician.
Taken at face value, the question itself--How would you have voted if you had been in the Senate as an infant?--is silly. It is a reasonable question only if it is understood more broadly, as an inquiry into Paul's political philosophy. The question within the question is: How uncompromising are you in your adherence to small-government principles?
Paul gave his answer: Pretty darn uncompromising--uncompromising enough to take a position that is not only politically embarrassing but morally dubious by his own lights, as evidenced by this transcript from the Courier-Journal interview, provided by the left-wing site ThinkProgress.org:
Interviewer: But under your philosophy, it would be OK for Dr. King not to be served at the counter at Woolworths?
Paul: I would not go to that Woolworths, and I would stand up in my community and say that it is abhorrent, um, but, the hard part--and this is the hard part about believing in freedom--is, if you believe in the First Amendment, for example--you have too, for example, most good defenders of the First Amendment will believe in abhorrent groups standing up and saying awful things. . . . It's the same way with other behaviors. In a free society, we will tolerate boorish people, who have abhorrent behavior.
Again, Paul could have given a "straight" answer to the question--a flat "no"--that made clear his personal disapproval of discrimination while evading what was really a question about his political philosophy. Far from being evasive, Paul has shown himself to be both candid and principled to a fault.
We do mean to a fault. In this matter, Paul seems to us to be overly ideological and insufficiently mindful of the contingencies of history. Although we are in accord with his general view that government involvement in private business should be kept to a minimum, in our view the Civil Rights Act's restrictions on private discrimination were necessary in order to break down a culture of inequality that was only partly a matter of oppressive state laws. On the other hand, he seeks merely to be one vote of 100 in the Senate. An ideologically hardheaded libertarian in the Senate surely would do the country more good than harm.
It's possible, though, that Paul's eccentric views on civil rights will harm the Republican Party by feeding the left's claims that America is a racist country and the GOP is a racist party. Certainly that's what Salon's Joan Walsh is hoping. Here are her comments on a Rand interview with MSNBC's Rachel Maddow:
You've got to watch the whole interview. At the end, Paul seemed to understand that he's going to be explaining his benighted civil rights views for a long, long time--but he seemed to blame Maddow. "You bring up something that is really not an issue . . . a red herring, it's a political ploy . . . and that's the way it will be used," he complained at the end of the interview. Whether the Civil Rights Act should have applied to private businesses--"not really an issue," says Tea Party hero Rand Paul.
It's going to become increasingly clear that the Tea Party movement wants to revoke the Great Society, the New Deal and the laws that were the result of the civil rights movement. Paul may be right that his views are "not really an issue" with his Tea Party supporters, although I have to think some of them won't enjoy watching him look like a slippery politician as he fails, over and over, to answer Maddow's questions directly.
When Paul says this "is really not an issue," he is speaking in the present tense. It is quite clear that he means that the Civil Rights Act, which has been the law for nearly 46 years, is politically settled; there is no movement to revoke it. In this, he is correct. Walsh's assertion that this is what the tea-party movement seeks is either a fantasy or a lie.
It's a curious role reversal: Rand Paul is a politician; Joan Walsh is a journalist. He is honest, perhaps too honest for his own good. She is playing the part of the dishonest demagogue.
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Doug,
I hope the Pauls are better at medicine than they are at politics. Much like the French love for Jerry Lewis, I cannot begin to understand how the Pauls attract such a cultish following.
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http://hotair.com/archives/2010/05/21/gaffetastic-rand-paul-cancels-sunday-meet-the-press-appearance/
FAIL.
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This is VERY bad politics for us.
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On the AM talk show circuit I hear Paul being critiz=cized as radical because he questioned one small part of the Civil rights law and disabilities. I don't think I can agree with him on the Civil rights point but I do on the Disability act. Why do all of us have to pay for the minority of those with disabilities?
But this is certainly a lisoing poktical point anyway in a law that is already passed and entrenched.
What I cannot believe is the absolutely worthless defense Repblicans offer when asked about Paul's "radical agenda".
It is a no brainer to retort that it is less radical than the Obama, Pelosi radical agenda that haws expanded govevernment to the point of bankruptcy.
The cans just always fall into the defenseive mode.
Why can't they put a stop to the falicy that immigration is a civil rights issue when it is not?
Why can't they keep turning the point around to Obama and Democrats that they are the radical ones?
They always soind like a bunch of losers trying to defend themselves.
For goodness sakes I can do a better job of turningthe arguments right back around and putting the Dems on defense.
Are there any decent spokepeople out there?
Forget Sarah. She sounds like a broken record. She is a good attack dog but not inspiring beyond the angry base. Every time I hear her I think well tell me something I don't already know. I know Bamster sucks. So where do we need to go and how are we going to get there?
We need someone who can really talk of America as needing to wake up. Needing for us to believe in ourselves. Needing to accept the fact that we can't retire at 50, and expect government to take care of us our entire lives. Contrast this to the bamster who has already resigned us to a dependency state and one of second class status. He takes away our spirit, our confidence, our willingness to work hard. Isn't that obvious with the his new world order? All Americans have a stake in this. He is giving OUR country away.
Black, White, Latiino, Asian. It doesn't matter. He is giving the dream away.
For example, we should be expanding the space program. This is where we lead. Why in the world shoudl we back off our leadership in space? You wnat to stop nucs then use our lead to set up space based weapons that can defend against intercontinental missiles. If we don't the Indians and Chinese will.
Where is the damn leadership????
I am pissed and frustrated. The cans are losers.
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Amen.
One of the things I hope this forum offers is precisely that it is a place where we get our facts and conceptual act together so that we CAN turn things around.
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Also might be time to open a thread for the 2010 individual senate and congressional races going on across the country. Something big is going on.
Rasmussen: Gov. John Hoeven, R, leads his Democratic opponent for Senate in North Dakota, 72 to 23 percent.
Republicans have not won a senate seat in North Dakota since 1980.
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Woof,
The majority of people that voted for Rand Paul, wasn't voting for him as a Libertarian or his Libertarian philosophy, they voted for him, to send a message to the Republican Party that they had better stop giving lip service to conservative principles while voting for bailouts and growing the government. The Party isn't supporting Paul in this media shark fest because they want him damaged.
P.C.
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"The Party isn't supporting Paul in this media shark fest because they want him damaged."
P.C: I disagree. I think the party wants to win the Kentucky seat very badly, even with Paul, but is worried about collateral damage. Paul's remarks were not racist, but the implications of them may sound that way. They just weren't disciplined enough for the national limelight. But if he is a surgeon and a serious senate candidate he should be able to put a tight and clear message together right now for the general election.
Michele Bachmann R-MN has also stepped in it a few times and still wins in a conservative district. One of hers was also the unAmerican comment. The media is just dying to get them to say something extreme sounding in a sound byte and then paint the whole movement or party to be extreme.
Paul could turn this into a positive. He has drawn an inordinate amount of attention to himself. Now we will see how he uses it. McConnell won by only 53-47% even as leader. Paul will bring in some new voters that use to sit out but he will need the McConnell voters to win. McConnell will need the Paul voters on his next try, but he for sure needs to win this one in Kentucky to ever reach 50 or 51 R-senators. As the party in opposition, the main problems will remain on the left side with the Susan Collins and former Arlen Specter types, not on the right.
BTW, the Rand Paul proposal to require a constitutional justification for every federal authority is brilliant. You can argue the details of the authority, but how can you deny that you even have to find and justify the authority. My proposal was a little different. I think they require themselves to pass an Unintended Consequences Report prior to the budget authorization for every federal program, just like developers may be required to publish an environmental impact statement. In other words, what are the downsides of this legislation. Can you imagine Democrats arguing either one of those on ObamaCare? Take both of these proposals together and you might slow the legislation and funds authorization process by adding a little sobriety.
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Woof DMG,
Paul will win in Kentucky even if caught with a dead woman or live boy and the national Republican leadership knows this, but when he gets to Washington they still want to be able to control him, trust me they want him damaged. I think you underestimate how addcited the Republicans in office right now are to spending our money and increasing government power, they are every bit as bad as the Dem's and they love playing helpless as the Dem's roll along.
P.C.
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"I think you underestimate how addcited the Republicans in office right now are to spending our money and increasing government power, they are every bit as bad as the Dem's and they love playing helpless as the Dem's roll along."
Interesting comment. Do you think they want to increase 'government' power or simply their own personal and/or party?
Sometimes I got the impression the Republicans were simply trying to compete with the Dems for votes by buying over more voters than the Dems themselves, and not necessarily a philosophical bent on expanding government.
For example, compassionate conservatism was a means to curry favor with some traditionally Dem voters.
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"Paul will win in Kentucky even if caught with a dead woman or live boy..."
Forget the dead woman or live boy, I find your optimism and confidence encouraging. Wish I could say that about any of our candidates. It's true they won't be ale to control him but that too is a good thing. But the 'they' we are calling the the national Republican leadership is changing - I think. For example Bennett in Utah, Specter gone, several others turning over, newcomers in and the rest nervous. The status quo will change visibly or they won't be trusted by the people.
Let's assume for a second that Republicans make big gains this year. Then we head into the Presidential year with a little momentum and no obvious front runner. When Bush began, he vetoed nothing. The next leader, if he/she want to win, will not be wishy-washy, go along to get along. Even Reagan caved on domestic spending to win in two other areas. That won't work this time. If a conservative wins in 2012, the mandate will be to control spending, reform entitlements, balance the budget - at a lower level of GDP and secure the country. A Republican will not win by talking out of both sides of his mouth with no meaning. A candidate who is soft on spending will not pull together independents who are anti-deficit along with so-called tea-partiers who want the size of government scaled back and limited.
CCP wrote: "...Republicans were simply trying to compete with the Dems for votes..."
- I agree. Ribbon cutting ceremonies for new earmark projects were fun and rewarding. Beefing up gusset plates on interstate bridges, making New Orleans Cat 5 proof , better testing on blow out Protectors and entitlement reforms - not quite as glamorous. Question is whether or not we have evolved since the 2000s when people were still impressed with new programs and new spending and in fear of anything cut.
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As a large radio host used to say, nothing with the Clintons happens by accident. James Carville hapens to choose the Stephanopoulos show to rip the Obama administration for "ineptness" and for being "lackadaisical", "It just looks like he's not involved in this," an angry Carville said. "Man, you got to get down here and take control of this, put somebody in charge of this thing and get this moving. We're about to die down here." These guys were always known for floating trial balloons. This is a first. For Carville there is no downside as he is a Louisiana native, a known loose cannon and I'm sure not an Obama insider. http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Politics/bp-oil-spill-political-headache-obama-democrats-slam/story?id=10746519
If this trial balloon gains traction within his own party, more will split with him for plenty of other reasons as they face survival vs. extinction in this year's mid-terms and the next round. One problem that grew against Bush was that the right didn't like him very well either.
I stand by my prediction that Obama won't be the D-nominee in 2012.
Separately, Jonathon Alder of Newsweek in his book about the first year about the Obama administration wrote that Biden and H.R.Clinton would switch places in the second term. That assumes a relatively successful, uneventful first term, IMO, which does not appear to be the case.
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"I stand by my prediction that Obama won't be the D-nominee in 2012"
That leaves.......say it ain't so..... :cry: :-(
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["...my prediction that Obama won't be the D-nominee..." That leaves.......say it ain't so.....]
No, not her and I don't know who. But both parties need new blood, new ideas.
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IMHO there will be no serious challenge and BO will be the nominee.
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"IMHO there will be no serious challenge and BO will be the nominee."
That is the conventional wisdom. We all still have memories of the Greek columns, the tingling feeling and the tears of victory for thousands at the Grant Park speech in Chicago. There is no one perfectly positioned in either party (including BHO) with competence, experience and support to easily step forward through the electoral process and be the next President. But someone from somewhere will.
The powers of incumbency are enormous but can turn into a negative force. From a Dem. point of view last cycle, the incumbent was Hillary. She was expected and she had all the power - until it became clear that . Not to take away from candidate Obama and his quick rise, but his candidacy surged as he became the alternative who could win who was not Hillary.
Words alone will not carry him next time; he is building a record.
I don't know which of Obama's heaviest baggage will be his downfall or which other Dem can say he was not part of the fall yet involved enough to be credible as the next leader. I always think the main event or issue of our time is one we don't know of yet. For America under Bush it was 9/11 and we all knew it when we caught our breath that evening and started to measure the damage and grasp the threats we still faced that we had previously ignored or underestimated.
Maybe right now it is the oil spill reaction mixed in with the other flounderings and misdirections. The mess itself is a tragedy, Malia gets it, and the people feel powerless, a little like 9/11. What we need to know is that the leadership we chose to handle our emergencies is as trustworthy and competent as humanly possible. And the answer is no; our pretend leadership is dishonest and clueless. They think rhetoric substitutes for action and solutions. Meanwhile the continued gush is symbolic of more that is wrong and he continues to pass blame.
Maybe they are doing all that can be done behind the scenes but what we see and hear is finger pointing, lawyer sending, commission forming and a few hours on a beach, while separately on the same news broadcasts we hear (Sestack) the totally implausible, delayed and concocted lies of how the job offer to buy the 60th vote was not really a job offer to buy the 60th vote, in spite of the opposite we were told by the candidate of the same party whose honesty was previously beyond reproach.
Today 53% of the people think the Obama administration response to the oil spill is either 'poor' or 'very poor'. I wonder how that will grow when the gush is still gushing at the end of the summer, when we have had more time to look at what was not done and could have been done faster-sooner-better.
To those who rightly say how unfair it is to hold leadership accountable for things beyond their control, one might say welcome to the beehive that was spun under any number of previous events turned political - like Katrina. Forget about unfair criticism of Bush over Katrina response, they are still blaming Bush and Cheney for this one, giving the green light to political criticism and political revenge over catastrophic events and the reactions to them.
What have we learned? We can't plug the hole because it is too far down and too far off-shore. The oil companies spent hundreds of millions to drill too far out and too far down - why? Because the 97% of the energy that would be easier to get we designate as off-limits due to the same tired strain of political rhetoric winning out over common sense previously.
The power of incumbency is insurmountable within his own party only until the negatives of the incumbent reach some critical mass - like with Hillary, or LBJ.
The incompetence is exposed. The corruption is exposed. The tie to socialism is exposed. The shame of our country is expressed overseas and exposed. The fiscal irresponsibility is exposed. The failure of appeasement with our enemies is exposed. The failure of the countries whose economies we are emulating is exposed. The 'accomplishments' require quotation marks like passing 'the stimulis' and seeing 2/3 of voters favoring repeal of ObamaCare.
At the end of the oil spill and in the accumulation of trillions in total squandered, we will still be getting 0.4% of our energy from renewables. There is no energy vision, or grow the private economy vision, close the border vision, stop Iran vision, just talk, and the ideas are still stuck on the cliche that we must 'do something' even when the doing of something does nothing - like golf balls in an oil gush.
The real arbatross (IMO) is the budget. $4 trillion in spending with 2.5 expected in receipts for 2011. This is not for the emergency panic of Sept. 2008, nearly 3 fiscal years previous, with an impending collapse. This is our budget. This is our plan. I know the 2011 budget presented in February went through on a slow news day at a time when people already knew we running a trillion in debt, but this IS the plan, it will not go away, and it does not count the unexpected emergencies that keep on coming or the underestimation of costs for programs already passed and proposed. Moderate Dems (are there any?) and deficit-adverse independents are not going to go along with this course indefinitely. When it becomes clear the ship is sinking, the rats will scurry (insert Carville photo).
LBJ enjoyed a far bigger victory in 1964 than Obama in 2008. Who ran against LBJ in 1968 when the party and the public suspected he had no clothes? One disgruntled senator (Eugene McCarthy out of nowhere) challenged and narrowly lost New Hampshire, showed the President's vulnerability. A former President's brother (a senator) entered, the incumbent withdrew suddenly, there was an assassination, the VEEP (former senator) won the nomination and none of them won the election. Everyone in politics thinks they can do it better, just watching, waiting and plotting for a way to get in.
My prediction that Obama will not be the D-nominee is simply pointing out that an incumbent who won't win reelection, won't be feared by his backstabbing 'friends' either. Conventional wisdom drops easily and often in politics. We will see on this one.
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Dang, Doug, your prose and political acumen make for great reading.
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Agreed.
I see Evan Bayh setting up a primary challenge for 2012.
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BBG: "Dang, Doug..." - Thanks for the kind words. Twisted minds think alike(?)
If Evan Bayh ran maybe it would be Obama who still lacked the experience. It would be good for the Republic IMHO to have two fresher faces in the next election to fight more on competing political philosophies than on mistakes and grudges of the past.
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I lived throught the LBJ-McCarthy era. My mom was an organizer within the local Dem party for McCarthy and long with future Congresswoman Bella Abzug :-o co-chaired many meetings held at our house. In this context as a 15 or 16 year old I met:
Allard Lowenstein (McCarthy's campaign manager);Ted Sorenson; Betty Fridan; David Halberstam; then Congressman Ed Koch; and many others.
Unlike LBJ and the liberals, BO and the Progressives (nee "liberals") are one and that same. His failure will be their failure. In '68 the struggle within the Dem party was between the mainstream Dems and the liberals. The struggle was won in '72 by the lilberals with the ascencion of McGovern and the rules changes his people instituted that have lasting effect to this days. The Democratic Party is now run by Soros's money and the Progressives. To turn on BO would be suicidal.
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I lived throught the LBJ-McCarthy era. My mom was an organizer within the local Dem party for McCarthy and long with future Congresswoman Bella Abzug :-o co-chaired many meetings held at our house. In this context as a 15 or 16 year old I met:
Allard Lowenstein (McCarthy's campaign manager);Ted Sorenson; Betty Fridan; David Halberstam; then Congressman Ed Koch; and many others.
Unlike LBJ and the liberals, BO and the Progressives (nee "liberals") are one and that same. His failure will be their failure. In '68 the struggle within the Dem party was between the mainstream Dems and the liberals. The struggle was won in '72 by the lilberals with the ascencion of McGovern and the rules changes his people instituted that have lasting effect to this days. The Democratic Party is now run by Soros's money and the Progressives. To turn on BO would be suicidal.
Meeting Ted Sorenson would have been awesome. He is the author of one of my favorite political books.
On the larger point, I must confess to agree with you on this point. I think the Democrats have learned from history (as it relates to in-party fighting over the presidential nomination), and will stand united behind President Obama. This is not just the lesson learned in 1968, but also 1980 with the Carter/Kennedy divide.
As for the Evan Bayh theory... doubtful. He managed to upset a great number of Democrats in Indiana and elsewhere with the timing of his retirement from the Senate. I am not sure the party insiders would support his run, pubically or monetarily.
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An impressive lady - but such a liberal -
Crafty your mother must must be reaching for maalox at you growing up to be the wrong kind of lib - a libertarian!
***Bella Abzug
From Wikipedia
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives
from New York's 19th and 20th district
In office
January 3, 1971 – January 3, 1977
Preceded by Leonard Farbstein
Succeeded by Theodore S. Weiss
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Born July 24, 1920
New York City, New York
Died March 31, 1998 (aged 77)
New York City, New York
Political party Democratic
Religion Judaism
Bella Savitsky Abzug (July 24, 1920 – March 31, 1998) was an American lawyer, Congresswoman, social activist and a leader of the Women's Movement. In 1971 Abzug joined other leading feminists such as Gloria Steinem and Betty Friedan to found the National Women's Political Caucus. She famously declared "This woman’s place is in the House—the House of Representatives" in her successful 1970 campaign to join that body when she became the first Jewish woman in the United States Congress. She was later appointed to chair the National Commission on the Observance of International Women's Year and to plan the 1977 National Women's Conference by President Gerald Ford and led President Jimmy Carter's commission on women.
Bella Savitsky was born on July 24, 1920. Both of Bella’s parents were Russian-Jewish immigrants in the United States. Her mother, Esther was a homemaker and her father, Emanuel ran the Live and Let Live Meat Market.
When Ms. Abzug was 13, her father died and she was told she would not be allowed to say the Mourner's Kaddish for her father in synagogue where it is Jewish law for sons to say Kaddish (for 11 months after the death of a parent, although in Conservative and Reform communities both sons and daughters are permitted to say Kaddish). However, she did so as one of her first feminist actions because her father had no son. [1]
Abzug graduated from Walton High School in New York City, and went on to Hunter College of the City University of New York, later earning a law degree from Columbia University. She then went on to do further post-graduate work at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America.
Abzug with New York Mayor Ed Koch (left) and President Jimmy Carter (1978)Abzug was admitted to the New York Bar in 1947, and started practicing in New York City at the firm of Pressman, Witt & Cammer, particularly in matters of labor law. She became an attorney in the 1940s, a time when very few women did so, and took on civil rights cases in the South. She appealed the case of Willie McGee, a black man convicted in 1945 of raping a white woman in Laurel, Mississippi and sentenced to death by an all-white jury who deliberated for only two-and-a-half minutes.[2] Abzug was an outspoken advocate of liberal causes, including support for the Equal Rights Amendment, and opposition to the Vietnam War. Years before she was elected to the House of Representatives, she was active in the organization Women Strike for Peace.[3] Her political stands placed her on the master list of Nixon political opponents.
Abzug was a supporter of the Zionist movement. In 1975 she led the fight against United Nations General Assembly Resolution 3379 (revoked in 1991 by resolution 46/86) which
"determine[d] that Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination."
She supported various international peace movements, which in Israel was led by Shulamit Aloni and others.
In 1976, Abzug ran for the U.S. Senate, but was narrowly defeated in the Democratic primary by Daniel Patrick Moynihan. She was also unsuccessful in a bid to be the Mayor of New York City in 1977, and in attempts to return to the U.S. House from the East Side of Manhattan in 1978 and from Westchester County in 1986. Abzug then founded and ran several women's advocacy organizations, in 1979 Women U.S.A., and continued to lead feminist advocacy events, for example serving as grand marshall of the 1980 August 26 Women's Equality Day New York March. [4]
Abzug served the state of New York in the United States House of Representatives, representing her district in Manhattan, from 1971 to 1977. For part of her term, she also represented part of The Bronx as well. She was one of the first members of Congress to support gay rights, introducing the first federal gay rights bill, known as the Equality Act of 1974, with fellow Democratic New York City Representative, Ed Koch, a future mayor of New York City.[5]
In 1990, she co-founded the Women’s Environment & Development Organization to mobilize women’s participation in international conferences, particularly those run by the United Nations and appeared in the WLIW video A Laugh, A Tear, A Mitzvah, Woody Allen's Manhattan (as herself), a 1977 episode of Saturday Night Live, and the documentary New York: A Documentary Film.
After battling breast cancer for a number of years, she developed heart disease and died on March 31, 1998 from complications following open heart surgery. She was 77.[6]
Congresswoman Abzug was married to Martin Abzug, whom she met on a bus in Miami on the way to a concert by Yehudi Menuhin, from 1944 until his death 1986. The couple had two children: Eve and Liz.
In 2004, her daughter Liz Abzug, an adjunct Urban Studies Professor at Barnard College and a political consultant, founded the Bella Abzug Leadership Institute (BALI) to mentor and train high school and college women to become effective leaders in civic, political, corporate and community life.
To commemorate the 30-year anniversary of the first National Women’s Conference, a ground-breaking event held in Houston in 1977 and over which Bella Abzug presided, BALI hosted a National Women’s Conference on the weekend of November 10-11, 2007, at Hunter College, NYC. Over 600 people from around the world attended. In addition to celebrating the 1977 Conference, the 2007 agenda was to address significant women’s issues for the 21st century.[7]
Bella! Ms. Abzug goes to Washington, Bella S. Abzug (edited by Mel Ziegler), Saturday Review Press, 1972 (ISBN 0-8415-0154-8)
Gender gap : Bella Abzug’s guide to political power for American women, Bella S. Abzug and Mim Kelber, Houghton Mifflin, 1984 (ISBN 0-395-36181-8)
Bella Abzug: How One Tough Broad from the Bronx Fought Jim Crow and Joe McCarthy, Pissed Off Jimmy Carter, Battled for the Rights of Women and Workers, ... Planet, and Shook Up Politics Along the Way, authored by Suzanne Braun Levine and Mary Thom, published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007, (ISBN 0-374-29952-8)***
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I remember her a being loud, bright, and domineering. I remember my step-father throwing her out of the house for shouting too much and waking my brother. :lol:
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http://spectator.org/archives/2010/06/02/the-coming-resignation-of-bara/
Put a fork in him.
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http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/02/another-candidate-another-job-offer/
The Justice Department so far has rebuffed calls for an investigation and even some Republicans, including former Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey and President George W. Bush’s top ethics lawyer, have said it would be a stretch to call the White House action regarding Mr. Sestak a crime. But the focus on such tactics undercuts the image Mr. Obama has tried to cultivate as a reformer above the usual politics.
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I am second to very few in my contempt and low opinion of our current President, but my current impression is that this is on the level of President Clinton's fellonious fellatio with Monica Lewinsky.
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Slick Willy didn't get impeached for a "Monica", he was impeached for perjury, obstruction of justice, and malfeasance in office. You'll note that with the new Colorado evidence surfacing, O-barry's "Hope and change" will be more toxic than a gulf coast shrimp cocktail. Blago's trial should cause more Chicago corruption to surface in the public consciousness as well.
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http://michellemalkin.com/2010/06/02/the-long-hot-summer-of-corruption/
Mix with environmental disaster, global instability, a double dip recession and enjoy.
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http://www.salon.com/news/louisiana_oil_spill/index.html?story=/opinion/feature/2010/06/03/redneck_riviera_open2010
This is an interesting view of President Obama's "handling" of BP.
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Along with others on this forum, I too fondly remember Ronald Reagan. But I remember him as a pragmatist;
not just a "conservative". There is something to be said for the "middle" and getting things accomplished
like Governor/President Reagan did.
By George Skelton
Capitol Journal
June 6, 2010
You'd think there would be at least one Republican pragmatist running for governor — a pragmatic conservative.
Some wannabe governor willing to spend big for a worthy cause, raise taxes if needed, protect the environment from exploiters chanting "economic growth," be tolerant on social issues, even support amnesty for hard-working illegal immigrants. Too bad such a gubernatorial candidate probably couldn't be nominated by GOP voters in California.
But wait! One such candidate was: Ronald Reagan. Nominated and elected governor and president. The classic conservative icon.
True, Reagan ran for office as a conservative. "Government is not the solution. Government is the problem," he insisted.
But once in office, he usually governed as a moderate, a pragmatist. And he was easily reelected.
Today, Reagan would be branded "just another liberal politician" by the likes of Meg Whitman and Steve Poizner.
Remember?
As governor, Reagan was the biggest California spender of the last half century. Under him, state spending leaped 177%. And as president, he spent like the proverbial drunken sailor to expand the Navy and the nuclear missile arsenal while winning the Cold War. He left Washington with a then-record national debt.
His first year as governor, Reagan raised taxes equal to 30% of the state general fund, still a modern record. And as president, he increased taxes several times, although conservatives pretend to remember only the one big tax cut.
As governor, Reagan protected the spectacular John Muir Trail in the Sierra from highway builders and Central Valley business interests. He blocked dam building on the Eel and Feather rivers. He and Republican Gov. Paul Laxalt of Nevada set aside their aversion to centralized, intrusive government and created a bi-state agency to control growth at Lake Tahoe.
Reagan signed legislation creating the California Air Resources Board, leading to the nation's first tailpipe emissions standards.
Now Republicans Whitman and Poizner advocate postponing implementation of a law to control greenhouse gas emissions.
Today, Reagan would be tagged by his party as an environmental extremist.
The list goes on.
As governor, Reagan signed the nation's then most liberal abortion rights bill. (He later called it a mistake.) He opposed a ballot initiative that would have permitted the firing of teachers for being gay.
President Reagan signed a bill granting amnesty to illegal immigrants.
Poizner runs attack ads accusing Whitman of supporting amnesty. Whitman counters with ads vehemently denying it.
"When Ronald Reagan was elected president [in 1980] he was the foul pole in right field. Today he'd be in center field," says former Republican legislative leader Jim Brulte, now a consultant and chairman of Poizner's gubernatorial campaign.
"The Republican Party is much more conservative today. And the Democratic Party is more liberal."
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As a Republican I have asked this question time and time again. I have noticed other right leaning Jews asking the same questions. Whether this actually satisfactorly answers why so many Jews are such liberals I am not sure but at least someone has the courage to finally write about it. I am not sure what to make of Dick Morris who as everyone knows helped Clinton get popular in the polls till he was caught with a girl. I guess it could be said that behind every successful man is a good woman and behind the downfall of every successful man is a bad girl. In any case:
****By Dick Morris 06.5.2010 A Book Review By DICK MORRIS of Why Are Jews Liberals? By Norman Podhoretz
It is the question that sooner or later baffles every political pundit, consultant, expert, or observer. Why do American Jews persist in their adoration of the Democratic Party? Why, like an abused spouse, do they tolerate Israel-bashing, support for the Palestinians and Democratic softness on terrorism and still return for more? As the richest demographic group in our population, why do they still vote for Obama and donate money to him when he specifically proposes to raise the taxes on those making more than $200,000 per year?
Why do they let liberal politicians embrace the likes of Louis Farrakhan and Rev. Jeremiah Wright and still support them on Election Day?
I don´t have an answer and have never heard a satisfactory one from any leader of an American Jewish or pro-Israeli organization.
But Norman Podhoretz does and he explains his ideas in his brilliant book Why Are Jews Liberals?
American Jews, Podhoretz explains, grew up in liberal homes heavily influenced by the ideology they inherited from their Eastern European ancestors. There, in Russia and Germany, you either followed the Kaiser´s or the Czar´s line or were a Communist. Reacting to their exclusion and the pogroms that harassed them, these ghetto Jews readily embraced Marxism. Indeed, Marx was, himself, born a Jew and the majority of the first Bolshevik Politburo in 1917 were Jews. When Hitler railed against Jews and Communists, he often felt no need to distinguish between the two.
In the New World, communism morphed into socialism in the early years of the twentieth century when Eugene V. Debs won a million votes (almost 10%) on the Socialist Party ticket for President. Finally, under the more benign influence of FDR and the New Deal, this leftist impulse settled into the cozy niche of liberalism where it has remained ever since.
Zionism, also, closely identified itself with socialism and the Labor Party of Golda Meier and David Ben Gurion, which dominated Israel´s early years, pushed its ideological agenda. Kibbutzim were formed with communal living as a Fabian or utopian socialism took root in the holy land. So leftist were the early Israelis that Russia recognized the state of Israel even before the United States did in the hopes that it could become a socialist ally. The political majority which underscored this leftist bent was based on Jews descended from the ghettos of Europe — Ashkenazi Jews.
In the U.S. Jews stayed in the liberal camp not just out of conviction but also from fear of the Christian right. When fundamentalism reared its head in American politics, they feared that anti-Semitism would not be far behind. And, as the anti-communism of the McCarthy era targeted the Jewish intellectual establishment, their dependence on Democrats only increased.
It came as a shock to America´s Jews that first Nixon, then Reagan, and finally Bush-43 emerged as Israel´s strongest supporters. (The tepid backing Bush-41 gave the Jewish state was more in line with what they expected from the GOP). And it came as a total shock when the religious right became Israel´s strongest backer based on its biblical conviction that God had promised the Holy Land to the Jewish people.
But, by then, religion and even Israel had weakened their holds on American Jewish hearts. They attended religious services less than half as frequently as establishment Protestants and only one-third as often as Catholics or Evangelicals. Most Jews, Podhoretz notes, attended synagogue “four times a year” on the high holy days.
Meanwhile, in Israel, the socialist Ashkenazi-based Labor Party (led by Shimon Peres) fell to the campaigns of Menachem Begin and Bibi Netanyahu. Both had as their base the Sephardic Jews who came, not from Europe, but from Africa or the Middle East. They had no heritage of socialism, much less Marxism and had a healthy disrespect for their long term neighbors in the Arab world. To American Jews, they looked racist and embarrassed them in front of their liberal friends. When Obama accuses Netanyahu of “intransigence”, he echoes what liberal Jews themselves often think of the Israeli right-wing.
But Podhoretz´ book, written before Obama manifested such an anti-Israel bent, leaves unanswered the question of whether the pro-Palestinian bias of the current administration, not to mention its war on prosperity, will drive Jews away from their liberal moorings. The answer probably lies more with events than within Jewish thinking. As it becomes apparent that Israel faces a holocaust-like threat from Iranian nuclear weapons and the disastrous results of Obama´s socialist project become evident, Jews will likely gradually wean themselves away from the liberal Democratic Party. As it becomes more anti-Israel and anti-wealth, the Party will leave the Jews before the Jews realize it has left and themselves leave the party.
Norman Podhoretz, former editor of Commentary Magazine, and long a leading voice of the neo-con movement, has diagnosed the Jewish addiction to liberalism and helped us to understand why it still dominates their thinking. He has solved the mystery. Now let’s see what we conservatives and Republican Jews can do with the knowledge he has given us.
Purchase Why Are Jews Liberals? from Amazon.com — Go Here Now
Purchase Why Are Jews Liberals? from Barnes&Noble.com — Go Here Now****
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JDN, Yes he was. As an aside, Palin also governed as a pragmatist. Much more interesting and relevant is that Obama is not.
"When Ronald Reagan was elected president [in 1980] he was the foul pole in right field. Today he'd be in center field,"
No. Reagan won 40 states (and then 49 in 1984). He was already playing centerfield in 1980. The big increases to support the military in those times of Soviet threat were not exactly analogous to the 'stimulus' trillions and industry takeovers of today. Also he was not the farthest to the right of his contenders in the 1980 Republican debates.
***Update: a point I missed was that the first controls on pollutants in smokestacks were not exactly analogous to CO2 witchcraft of today either. There is nothing un-conservative in opposing filth in the environment. ***
Other asides: JFK would easily be the center of the Republican party today. Nixon governed as a Democrat. Back to 1980, the most prominent Democrat in the Senate did not wait for a second term to end to challenge the failed sitting President in his own party.
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***Back to 1980, the most prominent Democrat in the Senate did not wait for a second term to end to challenge the failed sitting President in his own party.***
Doug, You may be right. If Bamster keeps up the cluelessness some Dems may very well want to challenge him in 2012.
I guess the only good thing about Bamster's pursuit of a fantastic social life while the world (gently) weeps is that it keeps him from focusing on destroying this country further. I think Schumer could live without an endorsement from Paul McCartney.
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By TAMARA AUDI and ALEXANDRA BERZON
Conservative outsider and tea-party pick Sharron Angle handily defeated more established rivals to win the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate in Nevada—which would give incumbent Democratic Sen. Harry Reid the opponent he had hoped to face.
With nearly all precincts reporting, Ms. Angle, a former state assemblywoman, was ahead of former casino executive Sue Lowden by 40% to 26.%. Ms. Lowden had emerged as the early leader in the race and was embraced by the Republican establishment, which saw her as the party's best chance for knocking out Mr. Reid.
Ms. Angle's primary victory sets up what is likely to be one of the bitterest Senate races in the country. Although Ms. Angle began the race as an outsider candidate with a three-person campaign staff—her most recent Federal Election Commission filing said she had just $138,609 on hand—she is expected to receive a flood of Republican money now that she is taking on Mr. Reid, the Senate Majority Leader.
Already, the members of the conservative Club for Growth, which endorsed her last month, have contributed $153,000 to her campaign. The group has spent another $475,000 in an independent expenditure to back her with television ads.
Mr. Reid, who has held office since 1987, is facing a tide of unpopularity in his home state, which has been hard-hit by the foreclosure crisis. Republicans have been strategizing for months about the best way to unseat the powerful Democrat.
On Monday, Mr. Reid's camp said it was preparing for an "aggressive campaign" against any Republican challenger. He commands a war chest of $9.1 million, a large sum for a state with only 2.6 million residents. And he is expected to be able to raise more easily.
A campaign spokesman said Mr. Reid planned to spend the rest of the week in Washington working on a jobs bill.
Nevada will be one of the most important testing grounds for the tea party. The state has long favored limited government but voted for Barack Obama in 2008. And it is small enough for a grass-roots movement like the tea party to have decisive impact. However, the state also has a strong union base, centered mostly around the Las Vegas hotel and casino industry.
The Reid camp maintains that Ms. Angle holds many views that lie outside the mainstream. For example, she supports a phased-in privatization of Medicare and Social Security. While serving in the Nevada state legislature, she made numerous enemies among fellow Republicans, because she was often unwilling to toe the party line. In a recent radio interview she called Felipe Calderon, the Mexican president who has generally friendly relations with the United States, a "despot" and a "tyrant."
But in a year when many voters are outraged by the weak economy and the health-care overhaul, Ms. Angle could be a wild card. Larry Hart, a consultant to the Angle campaign, said Ms. Angle would appeal to a wide array of voters at home. "She'll build a broad coalition of support. I know that's not the conventional wisdom, but she'll do that, and she'll start doing it tonight," Mr. Hart said.
The political equation in Nevada will be complicated by the fact that Mr. Reid's son, Rory, easily won the Democratic nomination for governor, meaning that both Reids will figure prominently on the November ballot.
The younger Mr. Reid will face off against former U.S. District Court Judge Brian Sandoval, who defeated embattled incumbent Gov. Jim Gibbons.
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I was reviewing the contradictory Democrat strategies for this election as the primary results came in. a) If you elect Republicans you will be putting the same people back in power that brought us the (failures of the) last 8 years, and b) these are completely different people with completely different backgrounds, principles, commitments and values headed in a completely different direction, not the Republicans you trusted from the past like Bush, Bennett and Specter.
This is a congressional election year, not a Presidential year. People need (IMHO) to get the time frame right about when power last changed hands in Washington. It was not with the historic election of the guy with the Greek columns and teleprompt skills. It was the first week of November 2006 and the new congress sworn in Jan. 4, 2007 when unemployment was at 4.9% and consecutive months of positive job growth ended at 50.
That is the day Keith Ellison put his hand on the Koran and swore to uphold the laws of the land so help him Allah. http://thinkprogress.org/2007/01/04/ellison-koran/
(http://i603.photobucket.com/albums/tt114/dougmacg/EllisonKoran-1.jpg)
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By JAMES TARANTO
"South Carolina Republicans Buck Biases in Runoff Election," reads a Los Angeles Times headline over an Associated Press dispatch:
In a break from the state's racist legacy, South Carolina Republicans overwhelmingly chose Nikki Haley, an Indian American woman, to run for governor and convincingly nominated Tim Scott, who could become the former Confederate stronghold's first black GOP congressman in more than a century.
Six-term Republican Rep. Bob Inglis lost to prosecutor Trey Gowdy, making him the fifth House or Senate incumbent to stumble this year.
There's actually nothing in the story to justify the Times headline writer's claim that Palmetto State Republicans had "biases" to "buck" in order to nominate Haley and Scott, but unbucked biases are not exactly uncommon on major newspaper staffs.
The AP's characterization of the results as "a break from the state's racist legacy" is fair enough. As Commentary's John Steele Gordon points out, the First District, which Scott is almost certain to represent (John McCain outpolled Barack Obama there, 56% to 42%), includes Charleston, which "was the cradle of the Confederacy . . . where Confederate troops fired on Fort Sumter in April 1861."
South Carolina also gave us Strom Thurmond, the 1948 "Dixiecrat" segregationist candidate for president and later a long-serving U.S. senator--and the father of the man Tim Scott beat in yesterday's runoff. It wasn't even close: Scott won with more than 68% of the vote, to just under 32% for Paul Thurmond. (In fairness to the Thurmonds, it should be noted that by the 1980s Sen. Thurmond was supporting civil-rights legislation and that Paul was born in 1976, long after Thurmond père's segregationist heyday. Paul Thurmond is 34; his father, who died in 2003, would be 107.)
Nikki Haley (née Nimrata Nikki Kaur Randhawa) was expected to win easily, having fallen barely 1% short of a majority in the initial voting two weeks ago. The runoff gave her 65% to Rep. Gresham Barrett's 35%. She is favored in November, and victory would make her the second Indian-American governor, after Louisiana's Bobby (né Piyush) Jindal.
Perhaps significantly, both Haley and Jindal are converts to Christianity; she was raised Sikh and he Hindu. So while the South Carolina results refute the notion that Southerners or Republicans are racially or ethnically bigoted, they do not speak to the question of whether the electorate is open to candidates with unusual religious affiliations--although when one Republican state senator denounced Haley as a "raghead" (an invidious reference to the Sikh turban, which she does not wear) it does not seem to have influenced many voters.
Scott and Haley are both favorites of the tea-party movement, rendering sillier than ever liberal Democrats' insistence that the movement is racist. As Wayne Washington of the State, a newspaper based in South Carolina's capital, wrote in May:
In addition to increasing diversity among Republican officeholders, Haley's ascension would be a counterpoint to criticism of the Tea Party as fringe elements whose unacknowledged rallying point is anger that a black man, Barack Obama, serves as president.
Liberals might bash the Tea Party as home to nativists and racists. Confederate flags might fly at Tea Party rallies. But one of the Tea Party's darlings, an Asian-American female, would have become governor with the active and enthusiastic support of Tea Party activists.
"I think you have to wait and see if either one of the two [Haley and Scott] is elected," Carol Fowler, chairwoman of the S.C. Democratic Party, said of Scott and Haley. "Then, you'd have to see if a diverse group of voters voted for them."
The Palmetto State returns are also good news for Sarah Palin, who endorsed both Scott and Haley and who is turning out to be quite a GOP kingmaker. In electoral terms, the former governor of Alaska looks much more formidable today than the president of the United States--and if you don't believe us, ask Jon Corzine, Martha Coakley and Arlen Specter.
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Republicans have had the momentum since last year when they picked up governorships in New Jersey and Virginia. The Scott Brown election was huge. Yet Obama trudged on with the agenda and popularity for the policies and for the Dems continued to fall, but everyone knew the November elections were miles away and so much can happen in between. Polls like Rasmussen showed an energy difference with a major gulf between strongly disapprove over strongly approve, while the other polls watched Obama hold at about 50% approval and a little under.
Now it's the summer doldrums, the economy is sputtering, the oil is reaching the shores - still gushing, the red ink is drowning us and the big new programs haven't even started yet.
In the last 2 days Real Clear Politics average shows Obama going into the net-negative for the first time. Rasmussen polling likely voters is the most accurate at -9% but Gallup measuring the general public still has him falling to -4 (44 approve to 48 disapprove).
Meanwhile approval for congress is 21% approve, with 71% disapprove, yet Republicans holding only a point advantage on the generic ballot.
For the seats in the house if the election were held today, they (RCP) have R's at 199, D's at 200 with 36 tossup, meaning tied with less than 3+ months to go. (Tie is pretty good when you come from 77 seats down.)
Senate today shows R's would pick up 7, a big gain but far (3) short of majority. Of those 3, they would need Boxer's seat and Feingold and Murray. Possible but only in a landslide on a national scale equal to Scott Brown winning Massachusetts.
If Republicans took the house and took the senate (unlikely), they would still be unable to govern, only able to stall out some of Obama's agenda. They could not extend the tax cuts or cut corporate rates. They couldn't repeal Obamacare or pass anything new. A better scenario strategically than taking majority without power might be to fall just short in both houses, expose Democratic governance just a little longer and hope to continue the momentum into 2012 for the presidency, house and senate, but still no chance of 60 votes to get things done.
From my point of view we are screwed on the public policy front until the popularity and electoral success of pro-growth and pro-freedom candidates causes a change of thinking inside the Democrat party, away from socializing, taking state control and redistributing. Since there was no shift of policy after the Scott Brown election it is hard at this point to see Dems changing ever.
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By JOHN FUND
Democratic House members are so worried about the fall elections they're leaving Washington on July 30, a full week earlier than normal—and they won't return until mid-September. Members gulped when National Journal's Charlie Cook, the Beltway's leading political handicapper, predicted last month "the House is gone," meaning a GOP takeover. He thinks Democrats will hold the Senate, but with a significantly reduced majority.
The rush to recess gives Democrats little time to pass any major laws. That's why there have been signs in recent weeks that party leaders are planning an ambitious, lame-duck session to muscle through bills in December they don't want to defend before November. Retiring or defeated members of Congress would then be able to vote for sweeping legislation without any fear of voter retaliation.
"I've got lots of things I want to do" in a lame duck, Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D., W. Va.) told reporters in mid June. North Dakota's Kent Conrad, chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, wants a lame-duck session to act on the recommendations of President Obama's deficit commission, which is due to report on Dec. 1. "It could be a huge deal," he told Roll Call last month. "We could get the country on a sound long-term fiscal path." By which he undoubtedly means new taxes in exchange for extending some, but not all, of the Bush-era tax reductions that will expire at the end of the year.
In the House, Arizona Rep. Raul Grijalva, co-chairman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, told reporters last month that for bills like "card check"—the measure to curb secret-ballot union elections—"the lame duck would be the last chance, quite honestly, for the foreseeable future."
.Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin, chair of the Senate committee overseeing labor issues, told the Bill Press radio show in June that "to those who think [card check] is dead, I say think again." He told Mr. Press "we're still trying to maneuver" a way to pass some parts of the bill before the next Congress is sworn in.
Other lame-duck possibilities? Senate ratification of the New Start nuclear treaty, a federally mandated universal voter registration system to override state laws, and a budget resolution to lock in increased agency spending.
Then there is pork. A Senate aide told me that "some of the biggest porkers on both sides of the aisle are leaving office this year, and a lame-duck session would be their last hurrah for spending." Likely suspects include key members of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Congress's "favor factory," such as Pennsylvania Democrat Arlen Specter and Utah Republican Bob Bennett.
Conservative groups such as FreedomWorks are alarmed at the potential damage, and they are demanding that everyone in Congress pledge not to take up substantive legislation in a post-election session. "Members of Congress are supposed to represent their constituents, not override them like sore losers in a lame-duck session," Rep. Tom Price, head of the Republican Study Committee, told me.
It's been almost 30 years since anything remotely contentious was handled in a lame-duck session, but that doesn't faze Democrats who have jammed through ObamaCare and are determined to bring the financial system under greater federal control.
Mike Allen of Politico.com reports one reason President Obama failed to mention climate change legislation during his recent, Oval Office speech on the Gulf oil spill was that he wants to pass a modest energy bill this summer, then add carbon taxes or regulations in a conference committee with the House, most likely during a lame-duck session. The result would be a climate bill vastly more ambitious, and costly for American consumers and taxpayers, than moderate "Blue Dogs" in the House would support on the campaign trail. "We have a lot of wiggle room in conference," a House Democratic aide told the trade publication Environment & Energy Daily last month.
Many Democrats insist there will be no dramatic lame-duck agenda. But a few months ago they also insisted the extraordinary maneuvers used to pass health care wouldn't be used. Desperate times may be seen as calling for desperate measures, and this November the election results may well make Democrats desperate.
Mr. Fund is a columnist for WSJ.com.
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This should be under future of republican party but I cannot post a reply under that thread.
It is amazing and discouraging to see in today's Washington Post poll that fewer people have faith in the Republican party than Democrats.
The cans have not convinced people they have answers to our problems either.
People struggling to pay for food shelter, heat etc. dependent on dole checks from week to week. I am sure they fear the cans get control that they may very well be literally in the streets standing on food lines.
How does a party respond to this? I know - "trickle down". But a majority don't appear to believe in this. W tried "compassionate conservativism. Daschle was a crook. Now what? I see roudmaps coming out from Hannity to others. Yet nothing catches on. Simply speaking Reaganism is NOT the answer.
Simply bashing Bamster is only half the answer.
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Too sunny at this point in time, and certainly subject to sudden change, but I like the long view contained herein:
The Key to a Real Revolution
By Bruce Walker
Conservatives often blame elected Republicans for not producing revolutionary changes when in power. This frustration is understandable, but it is also wrongheaded. No political party can make revolutionary changes in American government unless that party not only controls the House of Representatives and the White House, but also, critically, has a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate.
Until 1919, debate in the Senate was unlimited. There was no Senate Rule which allowed for cloture, or limiting debate. A determined Senate minority could effectively stop any congressional bill, any presidential appointment (which required Senate confirmation), and any treaty.
When Democrats have had that combination of power, they have used it to radically change America. FDR had four consecutive Congresses in which Democrats could do virtually anything they wanted, because Senate Democrats could pass a cloture motion. Democrats also had filibuster-proof Senate majorities from 1963 to 1967, the years in which LBJ's Great Society program was passed.
Senate rules were changed in the 1970s. Cloture required only a three-fifths majority instead of a two-thirds majority. Under these new rules, Democrats had filibuster-proof Senate majorities, along with control of the House and White House, from 1977 to 1979. Until Scott Brown won his special election earlier this year, Obama's Democrats did not need a single Republican to pass his stimulus bill and related measures.
These four separate eras -- in which Democrats could invoke cloture without Republicans and also controlled the House and White House -- have produced those giant leaps towards big government and socialism which bedevil us today. So why have Republicans not rolled Democrat programs when they have had power? Since the cloture rule was adopted over ninety years ago, Republicans have never had a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate (much less had that supermajority in the Senate and also controlled the House and White House).
That may change in the next three election cycles. In 2010, Republicans were supposed to lose seats (at least that was the thinking a year ago). Now it seems certain that Republicans will gain seats -- North Dakota, Delaware, Indiana, and Arkansas -- and will have a good shot in other states -- Illinois, Wisconsin, Washington, Colorado, Nevada, California, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania. If Republicans hold Ohio, Florida, and a few other wavering states, then a net gain of twelve Senate seats is conceivable (or a majority of 53). The bigger story, however, is what happens in the next two election cycles.
The Senate class of 2012 will include only two Republicans who are not from red states -- Olympia Snowe of Maine and Scott Brown of Massachusetts. Both are personally popular and should have an excellent chance to win reelection. The Democrats up for election in 2012 include six from red states: McCaskill of Missouri, Tester of Montana, Nelson of Florida, Nelson of Nebraska, Conrad of North Dakota, and Webb of Virginia. If Republicans win those seats, Republican strength in the Senate is 59 seats. Democrats in 2012 will also have to defend seats in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey, Wisconsin, and New Mexico. Winning any of those five strongly contested seats would give Republicans a filibuster-proof majority.
In 2014, the odds again favor Republican gains. Begich in Alaska, Pryor in Arkansas, Udall in Colorado, Landrieu in Louisiana, Baucus in Montana, Sheehan in New Hampshire, Hagan in North Carolina, Franken in Minnesota, Johnson in South Dakota, and Warner in Virginia hold ten Democrat seats which Republicans could easily win. In other races, like West Virginia, if Rockefeller retires, and in New Jersey if Lautenberg retires, Republicans also have real chances to gain seats. What this means is that after 2012 or 2014, Republicans may well have sixty or more Senate seats -- and the House and White House.
What might that mean? Revolution! ...assuming that Republicans control the House and the White House, too. The left transformed America during just such brief periods of total control. National Right to Work, once passed, would cripple coercive union power forever. Gerrymandering at all levels of government could be outlawed. Tough federal voter registration laws and laws to insure a fair counting of votes should be used to end voter fraud.
Obamacare could be repealed and replaced. Republicans could pass a flat tax and repeal taxes on capital gains, creating a boom of prosperity. Homeschooling and the variety of other alternatives to the failed public school system could be helped and funded. English could be made the legal language of the United States. Huge chunks of federal bureaucracy could simply be abolished. Modest entitlement reforms could be passed to make systems solvent, and individual accounts in the Social Security System could be introduced. Tort reform and expedited drug approval by the FDA (for drugs long used safely in Europe) could reduce medical costs naturally.
Would federal judges stop this? Not if Republicans have the will to tame the federal bench. Congress could simply remove jurisdiction from federal courts over many issues. It could also create a number of new federal judges and justices and appoint conservatives to those seats, or it could abolishe and reorganize the whole federal judiciary (only the Supreme Court has any constitutional existence, and its powers and size are set by Congress). It could impeach and remove judges who grossly misinterpreted the Constitution -- what a novel idea!
In short, Republicans could produce a conservative revolution which achieves, in two short years, everything we have been seeking for the last fifty. All this would require great boldness and vision. But our nation needs just such a revolution. Half-measures and compromises simply prolong our slow death. We need a revolution. We have the means to that revolution within our grasp soon.
Bruce Walker is the author of two books: Sinisterism: Secular Religion of the Lie and The Swastika against the Cross: The Nazi War on Christianity.
Page Printed from: http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/07/the_key_to_a_real_revolution.html at July 15, 2010 - 01:14:21 PM CDT
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Great article BBG; looking well ahead. I haven't seen this before.
Bamster would have to be thrown out in 2012. Or else he could still have veto power from 2014 to 16. Of course if the Cans can get 66 seats....
It is nice to dream. Unleash America's potential! Bring us back the faith in ourselves and place in the world.
We just need a few good men... and women.
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Interesting overview
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zI91L9qd0ok[/youtube]
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First, Freki - the Thomas Sowell clip was excellent. You can put him in with Madison and Jefferson for timeless wisdom in my view.
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Posted previously, Dems generally win Hispanic vote by about 60-40. For Obama that was 67% to 31%. Getting back to 60-40 would be something and anything approaching 50-50 would be political landscape changing. With immigration fights heating up, things could also turn the other way unless Republicans are able to SOON make a strong, winning argument about economic growth and opportunity issues. (Abortion opposition and family issues comprise another area of potential Hispanic-GOP agreement. According to Zogby, Hispanics support a pro-life position by a 78-21 percent margin.) Business as usual for the GOP brings a fall in Hispanic Dem support, not a rise in GOP support. Note that the President of mixed color with his own personal appeal is not on the ballot, so this year the choice will fall back to issues and the quality local candidates.
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http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jaUSM3p8g6oNYSfkwAmkfx4s_4ZAD9H788N80
Poll: A few cracks in Obama's Hispanic support
By LIZ SIDOTI (AP) – 9 hours ago
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama's once solid support among Hispanics is showing a few cracks, a troubling sign for Democrats desperate to get this critical constituency excited about helping the party hold onto Congress this fall.
Hispanics still overwhelmingly favor the Democratic Party over the GOP, and a majority still think Obama is doing a good job, according to an Associated Press-Univision poll of more than 1,500 Hispanics.
But the survey, also sponsored by The Nielsen Company and Stanford University, shows Obama gets only lukewarm ratings on issues important to Hispanics — and that could bode poorly for the president and his party.
For a group that supported Obama so heavily in 2008 and in his first year in office, only 43 percent of Hispanics surveyed said Obama is adequately addressing their needs, with the economy a major concern. Another 32 percent were on the fence, while 21 percent said he'd done a poor job.
That's somewhat understandable, given that far more Hispanics have faced job losses and financial stress than the U.S. population in general.
An unfulfilled promise to overhaul the nation's patchwork immigration system, which Hispanics overwhelmingly want to see fixed, also may be to blame. That's despite the fact that Obama is challenging an Arizona law that requires police, while enforcing other laws, to question a person's immigration status if officers have a reasonable suspicion he or she is in the country illegally.
Still, 57 percent of Hispanics approve of the president's overall job performance compared with 44 percent among the general population in the latest AP national polling.
"It's been tough, but I think he's been doing a fair job," says Tony Marte, 33, a physical education teacher in Miami who is a Nicaraguan native. He voted for Obama in 2008 and, so far, likes how Obama has handled the economy.
But Marte's not satisfied with Obama's work on immigration reform. "Nothing has been done," he says, adding that between now and 2012, Obama should "be looking out for the groups that put him up there. The Latinos. The minorities." He says he'll probably back Obama again but "we'll see."
The political power of Hispanics now and in the future cannot be overstated. They are the nation's fastest-growing minority group and the government projects they will account for 30 percent of the population by 2050, doubling in size from today.
Democrats long have had an advantage among Hispanics and maintained it even as George W. Bush chipped away at that support. Obama erased the GOP inroads during his 2008 campaign, winning 67 percent of their vote to 31 percent for Republican nominee John McCain. And Hispanics consistently gave Obama exceptionally strong marks in his first year as president.
With the first midterm congressional elections of Obama's presidency in three months, the poll shows a whopping 50 percent of Hispanics citizens call themselves Democrats, while just 15 percent say they are Republicans.
Among Hispanics, 42 percent rate the economy and the recession as the country's biggest problem; unemployment and a lack of jobs come in at 23 percent.
Ascencion Menjivar, a Honduran native who is a cook in Washington, isn't sold on the administration's approach to creating jobs and is waiting for a solution to get the economy back on track. "I think it'll be a long process," says Menjivar, 30. Still, he says Obama — "a genius" — eventually will make it happen.
Patricia Hernandez Blanco of Miami, 38, is less confident that recovery is under way. "I'm not sure it's improving," she says. Even so, this Cuban who voted for McCain says she would now cast a ballot for Obama.
Re-electing Obama would be "really stupid," counters Carlos Toledo of Puerto Rico, an independent voter, clothing store manager and self-defense instructor in Washington. Toledo, 35, disagrees with Obama's economic policies and says he worries about joblessness as budgets are cut and money is spent on wars despite the country's debt.
Behind economic woes, immigration comes in second in importance.
Since the controversy over the Arizona law erupted in April, Hispanics who mostly speak English at home gave Obama higher marks on his handling of their top issues than did Hispanics who primarily speak Spanish and who tend to be more recent immigrants or non-citizens.
Analysts say it's possible that the more English-dominant Hispanics rallied around the president following the enactment of the Arizona law and his challenge to it; some 40 percent of them approved of his performance on their key issues before Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer signed the law in April, but the figure rose to 52 percent in the weeks after.
The poll also showed that two years after witnessing Hillary Rodham Clinton's White House bid, Hispanics are twice as likely to expect to see a woman than a fellow Hispanic become president.
Some 59 percent said it is likely that a woman will be elected president sometime in the next two decades, while just 29 percent thought it likely that a Hispanic will be elected president over that period. And, 34 percent of non-citizen Hispanics thought the country is likely to have a Hispanic president, compared with 27 percent of citizens.
A significant percentage of Latinos — 41 percent — said they are more likely to vote for a candidate who is Hispanic.
The AP-Univision Poll was conducted from March 11 to June 3 by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago. Using a sample of Hispanic households provided by The Nielsen Company, 1,521 Hispanics were interviewed in English and Spanish, mostly by mail but also by telephone and the Internet. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.
Stanford University's participation in the study was made possible by a grant from The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
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Cracks in support? Or carping from the Left which is left with no where to go?
"An unfulfilled promise to overhaul the nation's patchwork immigration system, which Hispanics overwhelmingly want to see fixed, also may be to blame".
This is a euphemism for amnesty.
I'm not seeing much cause for hope of Rep political competence here and fear in the middle to long term that the Reps will screw this up and, like the aftermath of Prop 187 here in CA, be lastingly screwed.
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The Foundation
"We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt." --Thomas Jefferson
Editorial Exegesis
Nancy Pelosi has it backward on deficits"A major poll just gave Congress a favorability rating of 11% -- lowest in history. Never, it seems, have our representatives in Washington been so disconnected from the people they purport to serve. The disconnect was most evident in separate comments made by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid at a conference of the far-left group Netroots Nation last weekend in Las Vegas. Both weighed in on vital topics. Both revealed why they're so out of touch with reality. Pelosi told the audience she adamantly opposes raising the retirement age for Social Security and said the Depression-era program shouldn't be cut to help reduce the deficit. 'When you talk about reducing the deficit and Social Security, you're talking about apples and oranges,' she said. She has it exactly backward. The No. 1 problem facing this nation is the massive deficit we face over the next 75 years, due almost entirely to the expansion of Social Security and Medicare. The only way to address the deficit is to address entitlements. ... Meanwhile, the speaker had the chutzpah -- or maybe it was twisted humor -- to tell the Netroot folks that Democrats are 'moving on all fronts to reduce the deficit.' ... Reid's comments, made to the same Netroot group, were equally absurd -- and no doubt offensive to voters. After his party insisted during more than a year of debate over the health care overhaul that they did not want a single-payer public option, Reid gloated to the Netroot gathering: 'We're going to have a public option. It's just a question of when.' ... Nor does Reid, like Pelosi, get that Social Security is in a deep crisis. He called it 'the most successful social program in the history of the world.' Successful? A program that socks future generations with trillions in higher taxes and lower standards of living? A program that's already running in the red and whose unsustainable finances promise to push the U.S. to the verge of bankruptcy? The arrogance of Reid's and Pelosi's remarks underscore the problems that the Democrats have with the electorate. They promised moderation and fiscal responsibility. Instead, we got a radical expansion of government power." --Investor's Business Daily
Insight
"Has anyone stopped to consider that we might come closer to balancing the budget if all of us simply tried to live up to the Ten Commandments and the Golden Rule?" --Ronald Reagan
"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful citizens can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has." --cultural anthropologist and writer Margaret Mead (1901-1978)
Upright
"In case Al Qaeda, its cohorts, and their sponsors lack for summer reading, WikiLeaks ... has just tipped out onto the web a trove of classified U.S. military documents on the war in Afghanistan. As far as there's an upside to this, some of the concerns described in the documents may help focus attention on the problem of nuclear-armed Pakistan's double-dealing in fostering Islamist terrorism, while receiving huge handouts from the U.S. in its role as an ally. ... But in the larger picture, such leaks are routinely cherry-picked by the U.S. media, and in turn by the world media, for anything damning to the U.S. ... Not only will America's enemies now enjoy a chance to cull the leaked documents for any useful intelligence, but odds are that this huge data dump will become the latest ammo in the hands of the Blame-America-First contingent." --columnist Claudia Rosett
"The next time you hear a liberal scoffing at the idea that the American left has a set of 'talking points,' or that they're 'reading from the same script,' tell him to google 'JournoList.' Frankly, it is completely unsurprising that 400, invitation-only, members of leftist media, academia, think tanks and political activist associations would be attempting to coordinate their political strategy. When your ideology is bankrupt, the only thing left is strength in numbers. And when you revere the collectivist aspirations of Marxist/socialist all-encompassing government, 'group-think' becomes as natural as breathing." --columnist Arnold Ahlert
"From Karl Marx to today, the Left has always hated people on the Right, not merely differed or been angry with them. The question is: why? Here are three possible answers. First, the left thinks the right is evil. ... Second, when you don't confront real evil, you hate those who do. ... Third, the left's utopian vision is prevented only by the right. ... Hatred of conservatives is so much part of the left that the day the left stops hating conservatives will mark the beginning of the end of the left as we know it." --columnist Dennis Prager
"The more the president appeals to his base in racial terms, the more his appointees identify themselves as members of a particular tribe, and the more political issues are framed by racial divisions, so all the more such racial obsession creates a backlash among the racially diverse American people. America has largely moved beyond race. Tragically, our president and a host of his supportive special interests have not." --historian Victor Davis Hanson
"Elites may have more brilliance, but those who make decisions for society as a whole cannot possibly have as much experience as the millions of people whose decisions they pre-empt. The education and intellects of the elites may lead them to have more sweeping presumptions, but that just makes them more dangerous to the freedom, as well as the well-being, of the people as a whole." --economist Thomas Sowell
Dezinformatsia
Slamming Fox: "What is similar about Fox News' extensive coverage of some of the stories that most in the other media didn't give much attention to? And I'll take them to you right now. I'll spell them out for you: Van Jones, the New Black Panther story, ACORN, Shirley Sherrod. What's similar about those stories?" --CNN's Rick Sanchez (Uh, they all involve racist leftists for starters.)
The BIG Lie: "You see, I think a lot of Americans think that, well gosh no, we don't want the tax cuts to expire. Ninety-eight percent of you, it doesn't even affect you." --MSNBC's Ed Schultz
Doesn't get it: "[W]hat I don't quite get is a lot of the people who are shouting about letting these tax cuts expire, they don't want it to happen, are the same people who are shouting about the deficit, and how troubling it is that the national debt is skyrocketing. And you can't have it both ways." --MSNBC's economics mastermind Contessa Brewer
Charity government: "Should George Steinbrenner's heirs pony up a voluntary contribution to the government from their estimated $500 million windfall because the federal estate tax has temporarily lapsed? 'It's an excellent question,' a smiling Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner said Thursday. At a breakfast with reporters, Geithner also was asked how he felt about The Boss' heirs cleaning up because of Steinbrenner's July 13 death -- an extremely timely demise in the tax sense. Geithner ducked, but did say he's upset Congress hasn't fixed a situation that denies the Treasury billions in unpaid taxes from wealthy Americans who die this year." --New York Daily News columnist Thomas DeFrank (The tax rate is 0 percent, meaning nobody is leaving taxes "unpaid.")
Dr. Freud, call your office: "Will the Democrats running for the House re-election, they're all running for re-election under the Constitution, and the Senate candidates, will they run away from President O'Carter? I mean, will they run away." --MSNBC's Chris Matthews, with a Freudian slip
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JDN, I took this quote (away from context)over to politics to answer:" Until Bush came along I was a life long Republican. The Republican core ideals can and do apply to all ethnic groups. I blame it on poor Republican leadership and vague or unrealistic platforms. The core (good) story of the Republican party is just not getting out."
Not just Bush, but the R. congress of that time needs to be answered. Some here are conservatives, some are libertarians. I'm sure some are neither, but among those who are like-minded we need to find areas of overlap such as founding principles and apply and promote the message.
Putting an R by your name doesn't make Bush, McCain or anyone else a Republican, a conservative, a libertarian or anything else. Looking back, I give the Nixon presidency to the Dems (of today), the JFK tax cuts to the R's of today and the Clinton and Bush Presidencies mixed reviews. What I like to do is argue out are the policies and the vision, not the people and their blemishes.
Bush created a huge new entitlement. At that moment he was a Democrat by my labeling. Likewise for No child Left Behind. Whether they got the policy details right or wrong, it was a federal expansion into a non-federal area and that was wrong. Problem with those reachout and crossover moves was that his new friends were backstabbers while he started to lose his old friends. Bush siding with Dems on 'amnesty'. It was realpolitik idea for Republicans, like you suggest, but not a conservative, enforce our laws and our borders direction. Other policies of Bush were economically expansive or national security based, in crude modern terms things I call conservative. Overall spending along with the earmark political payoff spending was obscene - and that congress were punished, politically, as was our nation.
Roughly 40% of the electorate is politically conservative and 40% liberal. When a President's approval drops below 50% approval, he is losing support from moderates. Dropping below 40% means losing the base.
The Pelosi-Obama fiasco has given the Republican-conservative-libertarian movement a teachable moment, and remember that power in Washington shifted in Nov. 2006, not Jan. 2009.
There is a set of ideals and policies that we need in this country. We will argue over what those are, but we need to settle some of the basic questions as a coalition if we want a direction changing election to have any meaning or mandate.
If we can get that roadmap, blueprint, platform right, and get that very clear message out, then I don't care so much who joins in or who opposes us.
What we had previously was muddled policies, muddled directions, muddled leaders and muddled elections. What we learn from that is nothing IMO. I agreed with the sentiment of 2006/2008 of throw the bums out. I just think what followed should have been a clear and careful turn to the right instead of a sharp blind turn to the left. That choice was never on the ballot.
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Digest · September 3, 2010
The Foundation
"A universal peace, it is to be feared, is in the catalogue of events, which will never exist but in the imaginations of visionary philosophers, or in the breasts of benevolent enthusiasts." --James Madison
Government & Politics
Warfront With Jihadistan: Obama's Speech
Tuesday evening, the Whiner-in-Chief gave yet another prime time speech, this time about ending the war in Iraq. Or was it about the war in Afghanistan? Or the "Bush" economy and joblessness? Whatever the point, Obama declared that combat operations in Iraq are "over" and that it was time to "turn the page" on the war.
Obama did give a strong tribute to U.S. troops, saying that they had "completed every mission they were given. They defeated a regime that had terrorized its people." Indeed they did, no thanks to Obama. Of course, if removing a terrorist regime is a good thing, then why did Obama oppose doing so? Perhaps Obama could ask the Kuwaitis about how the old Iraqi regime had terrorized people outside of Iraq, as well.
Ignoring the surge that turned the war around, Obama said of his predecessor, "[N]o one could doubt President Bush's support for our troops, or his love of country and commitment to our security." Too bad that can't be said of Obama himself. He continued, "As I have said, there were patriots who supported this war, and patriots who opposed it." While he's right that there are patriots who honestly opposed the war from the outset, Obama skipped over how the political talking points of congressional Leftists who opposed the war -- after initially supporting it -- undermined our mission and emboldened our enemies.
We suppose it's no wonder that he ignored the surge. After all, in 2007, he pontificated, "I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going to solve the sectarian violence there. In fact, I think it will do the reverse." Later that year, he said of the surge, "The president has simply tried to gain another six months to continue on the same course that he's been on for several years now. It is a course that will not succeed."
Now that it has succeeded, Obama naturally wouldn't be eager to remind everyone of his position then. The same can be said for his refusal to even mention Saddam Hussein in his speech. One can only wonder, therefore, whether Obama believes the world is a better place -- and the U.S. more secure -- without the brutal tyrant.
Moving on to Afghanistan, Obama seemed to hedge a bit on his July 2011 withdrawal timeline, saying, "The pace of our troop reductions will be determined by conditions on the ground." He also spoke of his own Afghan troop surge, saying, "I have ordered the deployment of additional troops who ... are fighting to break the Taliban's momentum. As with the surge in Iraq, these forces will be in place for a limited time." Limited time being the goal, of course.
"Turning the page," then, Obama dispensed with national security in his speech about national security and moved into campaign mode on his economic agenda, though he tied it together with crocodile tears about the cost of the wars. Quite rich coming from someone whose one-year "stimulus" plan cost more than seven years of war in Iraq. If he wants us to "turn the page" to his economic policy, we'll have a chance to give a scathing review of that whole book on Nov. 2.
Quote of the Week
"While the speech may have helped him with Democratic voters, it is likely to undermine confidence in American leadership not only in Iraq and the broader Middle East, but in many other areas of the world. President Obama's proclamation of his 'central responsibility' for economic matters, shoe-horned into a major speech about Iraq -- one of the world's most important international security issues -- will only encourage foreign doubts about his Administration's commitment to finishing the job in Afghanistan, winning the struggle against Islamist extremism, and protecting U.S. allies around the world." --James Phillips of the Heritage Foundation
'Restoring Honor' Rally Draws Crowds, Critics
Author and Fox News Channel personality Glenn Beck held a "Restoring Honor" rally last weekend that filled most of the National Mall between the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument. Hundreds of thousands attended from around the country, eager to share the message of restoring hope and honor to America. Beck shared the stage with former Alaska Gov. and 2008 vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, but both speakers downplayed the political aspects of the gathering. Beck's words certainly did have more of a religious tone, encouraging attendees to pray with their families, and to "recognize your place to the Creator. Realize that He is our King. He is the one who guides and directs our life and protects us."
National media outlets and liberals couldn't stomach the fact that Beck held his rally on the anniversary of Martin Luther King's historic "I have a dream" speech during the 1963 March on Washington. The media, of course, tried to make it into a race issue, searching for black people in the audience only to ask them what they were doing there. The "Rev." Al Sharpton accused Beck of co-opting King's legacy, and he held a rather pathetic little counter-gathering of his own.
The message and tone of the two gatherings were quite different. Many of the attendees of Beck's peaceful and respectful "Restoring Honor" rally were motivated to seek a change in direction in America -- one that is less reliant on government. There were many Tea Party supporters in the crowd, as well as average citizens tired of the high taxation and government intrusion in their lives.
Sharpton's "Reclaim the Dream" rally was, on the surface, an opportunity to celebrate King, but underneath was Sharpton's eternal quest to find rampant racism among American whites. Thus, one rally was about the greatness of America, while the other was a gripe-fest about how terrible she allegedly is.
Barack Obama, true to his nature, downplayed the significance of the Beck gathering. First he claimed to have ignored it, but then he told NBC's Brian Williams, "It's not surprising that someone like a Mr. Beck is able to stir up a certain portion" of the American people. This is reminiscent of his various derisive comments about "angry mobs" who are "waving their little tea bags" while they "bitterly cling" to guns and religion. It's no wonder that Obama's poll numbers are tanking when he holds the majority of the American people in such contempt.
This Week's 'Alpha Jackass' Award
"It's a free country. I wish it weren't, but it's a free country, and you got to, you got to respect that freedom." --Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, a Democrat, objecting to the Glenn Beck rally and typifying the Left's attitude toward free speech -- it's great only if they agree with it
News From the Swamp: Obama Calls for More Spending
Barack Obama once again focused blame for the ailing economy on Republicans this week, claiming that the GOP was stonewalling a "jobs" bill for political reasons. The legislation in question is a bill that would set up a $30 billion Treasury Department fund to make loans to small business owners through small, healthy community banks. Legislation has already cleared the House, but Senate Republicans are opposed because the bill does not address the expiration of the Bush tax cuts or the undue paperwork and tax burden that the new health care law will place on small businesses.
Obama claimed, "This bill is fully paid for. It will not add to the deficit, and there is no reason to block it besides pure partisan politics." We've heard that one before, most notably when the president said that ObamaCare would not add one dime to the deficit. In a sense, he was correct. It will actually add hundreds of billions of dimes to the deficit.
Republicans have privately admitted that they don't have the votes to stop this latest liberal boondoggle when Congress goes back to work on Sept. 13. But its passage will provide yet more proof that Obama's so-called fixes for the economy have only sunk America deeper in debt, and just in time for the midterm elections.
From the Left: Demo Rep. Johnson in Ethics Trouble
Another member of the Congressional Black Caucus is in ethical hot water this week. Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson, a nine-term Democrat from Dallas, violated a number of rules in the distribution of college scholarships set aside by the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation. The Foundation is a nonprofit funded by corporate and private donations, providing approximately $700,000 every year for the 42 members of the Caucus to distribute in the form of scholarships.
It's hard to run afoul of the Foundation's disbursement rules, which are liberal to say the least. Lawmakers have wide latitude in how they disburse the funds. For instance, they can give a lot of small scholarships to many students or even one large scholarship to a single student. There are no stipulations about the selection process either -- lawmakers can do it by committee or individually. Among the few requirements are that the student live or go to school in the district represented by the Caucus member awarding the money, maintain a 2.5 grade-point average and not be related to a Caucus member.
Even with all that room to maneuver, Johnson still managed to blow it. Of the 43 scholarships she awarded between 2005 and 2009, 23 are in violation of Foundation rules. These awards totaling $25,000 went to her grandsons, great-nephews and the children of aide Rod Givens. Not only did she violate the anti-nepotism clause, but also in some cases the recipients don't live or go to school in her district. Johnson predictably played dumb, claiming that she "recognized the names when I saw them," but that she was unaware that she was violating the rules. This might have been a believable excuse were it not for the fact that Johnson actually chaired the Caucus in 2002 and served on the Foundation board from 2002-2005. As with other scandals involving CBC members Charles Rangel and Maxine Waters, we're left to determine whether Johnson was incompetent then or lying now.
It's Miller Time
Incumbent Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) conceded her primary race against challenger Joe Miller Tuesday after failing to gain enough ground during the absentee ballot count. Despite having 20 times the campaign cash as her opponent, she is the third sitting senator this year to be fired before the general election. Sen. Bob Bennett (R-UT) was ousted in a state convention and Sen. Arlen Specter (D-R-D-PA) lost his Democrat primary. Murkowski trailed Miller by 1,668 votes before absentee counting began, and after 15,000 had been counted she remained behind by 1,630 votes. Miller, a West Point and Yale Law graduate who earned a Bronze Star in the first Gulf War, will face Democrat Scott McAdams in November.
There has been much speculation regarding Murkowski's next step, including that she might take the Libertarian Party nomination to keep a slot on November's ballot. It would be generous to call her a moderate, however, and we doubt she or the Libertarian Party would find that a good fit. Miller, meanwhile, won by running a conservative -- and unusual -- campaign for Alaska. The 49th state is heavily addicted to federal cash, and Murkowski and the late Ted Stevens were experts at bringing home the bacon. Miller ran against such government excess, advocating that we restore the Constitution to its rightful place. In a year that has seen growing protests of government overreach, it's encouraging that this approach resonated that far north.
National Security
A Decision Made in Cole Blood
The White House proved again that to them terrorist acts are simply domestic criminal acts committed by "foreigners" as the Obama administration just announced a halt to the prosecution of the suspected al-Qa'ida mastermind behind the attack on the USS Cole, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri. The Cole was attacked on Oct. 12, 2000, by suicide bombers who detonated more than 1,000 pounds of explosives in a small vessel that pulled alongside the ship while it was on a refueling stop in Yemen. The blast killed 17 U.S. sailors and injured 39 others.
Why the sudden change of prosecutorial heart? A military official speaking on condition of anonymity to The Washington Post explained that "the administration does not want a high-profile terrorist tried in a military tribunal before major figures held at Guantanamo Bay start having civilian trials." Let that sink in for a moment: The Chosen One, through his legal lackey, Attorney General Eric Holder, has decided not to try the terrorists who attacked the Cole on the basis that doing so would introduce even more uncertainty into the execution phase of a poorly contemplated decision. Never mind the evidence linking al-Nashiri to the bombing.
Never mind, too, the palpable link between the Cole bombing and 9/11. Notably, one of the 9/11 hijackers -- Khalid al-Mihdhar -- also helped plan the Cole bombing. Additionally, imam Anwar al-Awlaki, who was linked both to the Fort Hood shootings and the Christmas Day "Undie Bomber," is also tied to the Cole attack. No, apparently the key take-away from the administration's actions is that an attack on an American warship -- one that resulted in the deaths of 17 American Patriots -- doesn't count nearly as much as ensuring that the civil-trial-for-war-criminals agenda remains on track.
Of course, it's also very understandable why the ironically named (of late) Justice Department would want to shed cases right now, especially in light of its legal offensive against Arizona holding the federal government to task in enforcing U.S. law. But we digress. For its part, Team Chosen has apparently borrowed a line from "Monty Python and the Holy Grail": "Please! This is supposed to be a happy occasion! Let's not bicker and argue about who killed who."
As for us, our hearts are with the families of the victims of the attack on the USS Cole. We are truly heartbroken for these families that have now witnessed a full decade of justice denied, and our blood boils at the thought that this injustice will continue.
Middle East Peace Talks, Take 87
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton hosted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas this week for the latest round of peace talks, the first in nearly two years. The good news is that they had such a good time that they agreed to do it again sometime. Another round of talks will convene on Sept. 14 and 15. To quote the great diplomat Forrest Gump, "That's all we have to say about that."
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Immigration Front: ICE Enforcement
Washington's elites are once again having it their way. On Aug. 20, Immigrant and Customs Enforcement Assistant Secretary John Morton wrote a memo to the agency's head of removal operations, telling him that being in the U.S. illegally is no longer grounds for deportation. Only illegals who pose a security threat or have violent records need now be deported. The memo represents Barack Obama's announcement of open borders to a waiting world. How much damage can one president create in a single term? Jimmy Carter was a piker compared to this guy.
The agency now has also begun an "outreach" program to illegals closest to eligibility for permanent status. It's coaching illegals on how to obtain the proper credentials to vote. ICE even sent a form letter to one illegal who had admitted to voting in a previous election, a felony. But ICE's priority is to get him his U.S. citizenship, not to enforce the law.
ICE workers themselves are so angry about Obama's dereliction of his duty that their union issued a membership consensus of "no confidence" in the agency's leaders, something a federal union has never done before. But the drug cartels, whose aim is to turn Mexico into a narco-state on our southern border, are thrilled with the new policy and have already stepped up the terrorizing of residents in Northern Mexico.
The recent massacre of 72 would-be illegals in Tamaulipas, Mexico, is the tip of an iceberg. Not only do the cartels smuggle and murder people, but they also enslave many for various reasons: some are forced into sex slavery and some into the ranks of the gangs' foot soldiers. This part of the president's "fundamental transformation" of America is getting ugly.
In other news, the Justice Department has followed through on their threat to sue Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio for supposed "civil rights" violations in his efforts to round up illegal aliens. It's now the third federal suit against Arizona -- all because the state is picking up federal slack.
Business & Economy
10th Amendment Uprising Against ObamaCare
More than 20 states are suing the federal government over this year's Democrat-engineered hostile takeover of the nation's health care system. They argue (correctly) that Uncle Sam has no constitutional authority to mandate that individuals purchase health insurance. Continuing its pattern of constitutional reinventions, however, the Obama administration claims that the Commerce Clause gives Congress the authority. (It must be right next to the "federal government can do most anything" clause.) We would point to Article I, Section 8 and the 10th Amendment for evidence to the contrary.
The legal challenges notwithstanding, seven of the states involved in the lawsuit (Arizona, Idaho, Indiana, Louisiana, Michigan, Nebraska and Nevada) are accepting subsidies provided under ObamaCare to help employers cover early retirees. Jane Jankowski, press secretary for Indiana Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels, explained, "Gov. Daniels does not agree with [ObamaCare], but Indiana will seek funds that help Hoosiers when there are no complicated strings or costs attached."
Meanwhile, the Florida Supreme Court, by a 5-2 vote, nixed a ballot initiative attempting to amend the state's constitution to say that Floridians have the right not to buy mandatory health care coverage. Citing "misleading and ambiguous language" in the ballot summary, the judges said their "only recourse is to strike the proposed constitutional amendment from the ballot." In 2004, however, the court resolved a ballot question by having state officials replace the summary with the full amendment text. Strange how recourse options have changed since then.
This Week's 'Braying Jenny' Award
"Unfortunately, there still is a great deal of confusion about what is in [the health care law] and what isn't. ... So, we have a lot of re-education to do." --Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius
Great idea. Maybe they can even set up some camps to help with the "re-education" effort, à la Chairman Mao's Little Red Playbook.
Income Redistribution: Record Number Receiving Federal Aid
A new survey shows the number of Americans on the government dole has reached a record high, with one in six now receiving some form of government aid. According to a USA Today survey, more than 50 million Americans are on Medicaid (up 17 percent since December 2007), more than 40 million receive food stamps (a 50 percent jump), nearly 10 million receive unemployment benefits (almost four times the 2007 number), and more than 4.4 million are on other welfare programs (up 18 percent). As numbers have risen, so have costs. Welfare, food stamps and unemployment benefits now carry respective price tags of $22 billion, $70 billion and $160 billion, with Medicaid claiming some $273 billion in federal tax dollars, spiking 36 percent in just two years.
LaDonna Pavetti of the left-wing Center on Budget and Policy Priorities argues the government "should be there to support people when the economy can't." But the Cato Institute's Michael Tanner points out that government programs are "much harder to unwind in the long term."
Speaking of government programs, Social Security snagged the spotlight last week, thanks to former Republican senator and current co-chair of Barack Obama's deficit committee Alan Simpson, who described the entitlement program as "a milk cow with 310 million tits." An unpleasant way to speak the truth.
Finally, wrapping up the "Recovery Summer" touted by the White House, the Labor Department announced that employers cut 54,000 jobs in August (mostly temporary census workers) and unemployment rose to 9.6 percent. But not to worry. As Joe Biden says, "No doubt we're moving in the right direction."
Judicial Benchmarks: Judge Rules Against Gov't on Drilling Ban
"A federal judge on Wednesday rejected the U.S. government's request to dismiss an industry lawsuit challenging its deepwater oil and gas drilling moratorium, dealing another blow to the Obama administration," Reuters reports. After the administration issued its first drilling ban in June, Hornbeck Offshore Services, Inc., and other drilling companies sued. According to Reuters, "As a result of Louisiana-based Hornbeck's lawsuit, U.S. District Court Judge Martin Feldman in New Orleans blocked implementation of the drilling ban on June 22."
What did the administration do? Why, draw up another ban, of course. However, noting that the second moratorium made "no substantial changes" to the first one, Feldman denied the administration's efforts to dismiss the Hornbeck suit.
Meanwhile, an oil platform off the Louisiana coast caught fire Thursday, just 245 miles from BP's Deepwater Horizon. Thirteen people were aboard but no one was injured seriously, and the fire is reportedly out. It appears that little or no oil was spilled, but this will no doubt increase the resolve of those who oppose drilling and want even more regulation. After all, when regulations don't work, the answer is always more of them.
Regulatory Commissars: Report Cars
Fearing consumers aren't making the politically correct choices, the Obama administration has proposed grading new passenger vehicles with letter grades from A to D based on fuel efficiency and tailpipe emissions. Currently, the EPA rates a vehicle's city and highway mileage, along with estimating the annual fuel cost. Under the EPA's and Transportation Department's proposal, the only cars that can receive Big Brother's Official Seal of Approval with an A-plus, A or A-minus are electrics and plug-in hybrids. No word on whether all Chrysler or GM products are automatically granted an A while they're still owned by the federal government.
As can be expected, grade inflation is awarded in inverse proportion to how powerful the vehicle is, so small, weak-sister econoboxes dominate the top grades while larger family vehicles are at the other end of the spectrum. Not coincidentally, this inversion generally mirrors the sales numbers of the vehicles, with the biggest sellers typically being the would-be lower graded but larger and more powerful vehicles.
Due to the administration's unrivaled talent for creating unintended consequences, the proposed environmental rules may actually encourage more environmental pollution. Notably excluded are several important factors for evaluating a vehicle's efficiency, such as longevity and upstream energy usage, both of which are important in comprehensively evaluating Obama's A+ graded electric vehicles. When the government conveniently excludes non-tailpipe emissions, all the power plant emissions generated in charging the electric cars isn't counted even though such power plant emissions may exceed the tailpipe emissions of a gas vehicle. We wonder if a grade can be assigned when liars figure and figures are made to lie.
Culture & Policy
Second Amendment: EPA Doesn't Ban Lead Ammo
In early August, the Center for Biological Diversity and four other radical environmentalist groups filed a petition with the EPA to ban lead ammunition and fishing tackle. Claiming that lead ammunition and fishing tackle "have a devastating effect" on wildlife, they asked the EPA to enact the ban under the authority of the federal Toxic Substances Control Act. Recognizing this petition for what it really was, a back-door attempt to restrict gun rights, the hunting, outdoor recreation and shooting community quickly mobilized.
There was one major problem with the radicals' petition: Ammunition is exempt from regulation under the Toxic Substances Control Act. Undeterred, the radicals claimed that the EPA had the authority to regulate ammunition anyway. In an act unusual for the overreaching and power-hungry agency, the EPA denied the petition last Friday, admitting that it doesn't have jurisdiction to regulate ammunition under the Act. The agency is still considering the petition as it pertains to fishing tackle.
No one seriously expects this to be the end of the matter. The well funded and notoriously litigious Center for Biological Diversity and its radical cronies will almost certainly file a federal lawsuit. No doubt they will ask the courts to do to lead ammunition what they did to carbon dioxide: require the EPA to regulate something it should leave alone. Common sense has -- for a change -- prevailed at the EPA. We can only hope it also prevails in the courts.
Around the Nation: Treading on the Gadsden Flag
An Arizona homeowner is under pressure from his homeowners' association to remove the "debris" from his roof. The "debris" in question is a Gadsden flag flown from his house since earlier this year. Commonly known as the "Don't Tread on Me" flag, the yellow banner with a coiled rattlesnake originated in the Revolutionary War when it was flown above ships. It since has been adopted as a symbol of the Tea Party movement.
The homeowner, who was himself a member of the Avalon Village Community Association until July, says, "It's a patriotic gesture. It's a historic military flag. It represents the Founding Fathers. It shows this nation was born out of an idea." Shortly after resigning due to a dispute with the board's president, he received the first notice about the flag. Now, even the ACLU has come to his defense, saying that homeowners' associations don't have the right to "hijack" their members' First Amendment rights. Avalon Village, for their part, says they are following a state statute that allows residents to fly the U.S. flag, the state flag, the official flags of the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and Coast Guard, and various Indian nation flags. A similar threat was rescinded in Colorado, and some retired Marines are fighting to have the flag flown over the state Capitol in Connecticut.
And Last...
Everyone is okay at the Discovery Communications building in Silver Spring, Maryland. For nearly four hours on Wednesday afternoon, James J. Lee held three people hostage at gunpoint inside the building. He had what appeared to be explosives strapped to his body.
Lee was no right-wing lunatic with a gun, but a radical lefty environmentalist who had protested Discovery before. His rambling demands included changing programming to add more shows warning against "giving birth to more filthy human children since those new additions continue pollution and are pollution" and stopping shows that are "advertising weapons of mass-destruction." Lee also wanted Discovery Channel to "find solutions for unemployment and housing." He continued, "Saving the environment and the remaning [sic] species diversity of the planet is now your mindset. Nothing is more important than saving them. The Lions, Tigers, Giraffes, Elephants, Froggies, Turtles, Apes, Raccoons, Beetles, Ants, Sharks, Bears, and, of course, the Squirrels. The humans? The planet does not need humans." He experienced an "awakening" after watching Al Gore's environmental propaganda film, ''An Inconvenient Truth." Does that now qualify it as "hate speech"?
After negotiations failed to placate Lee, police shot and killed him, granting him his wish for fewer people on the planet. We just hope the cops didn't use lead bullets. That might be bad for the environment.
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Moving a post by BBG to here:
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Senators Seek Investigation of Obama Administration for Discussing Koch Tax Status
BY John McCormack
September 24, 2010 5:38 PM
Senator Chuck Grassley, ranking Republican of the Finance Committee, has requested a formal investigation of the Obama administration over a senior administration official's comments on the tax status of Koch Industries--a private company targeted by Democrats, including President Obama himself, for funding libertarian and conservative causes.
Grassley and six other Republican senators on the Finance Committee sent a letter today to the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, in which they asked the inspector general to investigate "a very serious allegation that Administration employees may have improperly accessed and disclosed confidential taxpayer information. As you know, section 6103 of the Internal Revenue Code protects the privacy of federal tax returns and return information. This law was enacted as a result of the use of tax information for political gain during the Watergate scandal."
At an August 27 press briefing, a senior administration official, who appears to be Austan Goolsbee, said:
in this country we have partnerships, we have S corps, we have LLCs, we have a series of entities that do not pay corporate income tax. Some of which are really giant firms, you know Koch Industries is a multibillion dollar businesses. So that creates a narrower base because we've literally got something like 50 percent of the business income in the U.S. is going to businesses that don't pay any corporate income tax.
"[T]he statement that Koch is a pass-through entity implies direct knowledge of Koch’s legal and tax status, which would appear to be a violation of section 6103," the senators wrote in their letter today. "Alternatively, if the statement was based on speculation, it raises the question of whether the Administration speculating about any specific taxpayer’s liability is appropriate."
Grassley and his colleagues don't necessarily buy the Obama administration's claim that the information about Koch came from publicly available sources.
The senators write that the senior administration official "comments on the legal structure of Koch Industries, Inc. (Koch) and its impact on the group’s tax liability. While Koch’s website indicates some of the Koch companies are limited liability companies (LLC) or limited partnerships, there is no indication that Koch itself is a Subchapter S Corporation, which is one type of flow through entity, or a Subchapter C corporation. In addition, an LLC can choose to be taxed as Subchapter C corporation."
The senators conclude their letter with these requests to the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration:
we ask that you obtain and review a transcript of the August 27, 2010, press briefing to determine the basis for the Administrations employees’ statements and review the PERAB’s work in preparing its report on corporate tax reform. In particular, we ask you to address the following questions.
1) Did Administration employees, including PERAB employees, have access to tax returns and return information in compiling the PERAB report?
2) If yes, how many companies’ tax returns did the PERAB employees review and did they follow the procedures prescribed under the regulations governing section 6103 for accessing and protecting taxpayer information?
3) Did Administration employees, including PERAB employees, violate section 6103 when they discussed the tax status of Koch Industries, Inc. and its related companies?
4) If violations of 6103 did not occur, what was the basis for the statement regarding Koch’s legal and tax status and was the statement appropriate?
Source URL: http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/senators-seek-investigation-obama-administration-discussing-koch-tax-status
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Chronicle · September 29, 2010
The Foundation
"In reality there is perhaps no one of our natural Passions so hard to subdue as Pride. Disguise it, struggle with it, beat it down, stifle it, mortify it as much as one pleases, it is still alive, and will now and then peek out and show itself." --Benjamin Franklin
The Demo-gogues
With friends like these... "People need to shake off this lethargy. People need to buck up. ... If people now want to take their ball and go home, that tells me folks weren't serious in the first place. ... It is inexcusable for any Democrat or progressive right now to stand on the sidelines in this midterm election. ... The idea that we've got a lack of enthusiasm in the Democratic base, that people are sitting on their hands complaining, is just irresponsible." --Barack Obama hammering his own base in an interview with Rolling Stone
"[I want to] remind our base constituency to stop whining and get out there and look at the alternatives. This president has done an incredible job. He's kept his promises." --Joe Biden on the same talking points
"And so those who don't get -- didn't get everything they wanted, it's time to just buck up here, understand that we can make things better, continue to move forward and -- but not yield the playing field to those folks who are against everything that we stand for in terms of the initiatives we put forward." --Joe Biden
"We have an electorate that doesn't always pay that much attention to what's going on so people are influenced by a simple slogan rather than the facts or the truth or what's happening." --Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), another snotty elitist lecturing voters
The GOP's best friend: "f we allow this to be a referendum on whether people are happy where they are now, we'll lose." --Joe Biden
But on the other hand: "I guarantee you we're going to have a majority in the House and a majority in the Senate. I absolutely believe that." --Biden
Patronizing: "There are strains in the Tea Party that are troubled by what they saw as a series of instances in which the middle-class and working-class people have been abused or hurt by special interests and Washington, but their anger is misdirected." --Barack Obama
"[Fox News has] a point of view that I disagree with. It's a point of view that I think is ultimately destructive for the long-term growth of a country that has a vibrant middle class and is competitive in the world." --Obama in the Rolling Stone interview
On fiscal responsibility: "What I'm seeing out of the Republican leadership over the last several years has been a set of policies that are just irresponsible, and we saw in their Pledge to America a similar set of irresponsible policies. ... [Although GOP leaders] say they want to balance the budget, they propose $4 trillion worth of tax cuts and $16 billion in spending cuts, and then they say we're going to somehow magically balance the budget. That's not a serious approach." --Barack Obama, who must consider Republicans amateurs when it comes to blowing money
Editorial Exegesis
"Democrats seeking to boost voter turnout this fall are beginning to sound like the late comedian Chris Farley's portrayal of a 'motivational speaker' on Saturday Night Live. Farley's character sought to inspire young people by announcing that they wouldn't amount to 'jack squat' and would someday be 'living in a van down by the river.' ... This week President Obama chimed in with another uplifting message about the American electorate. Mr. Obama told Rolling Stone that the tea party movement is financed and directed by 'powerful, special-interest lobbies.' But this doesn't mean that tea party groups are composed entirely of corporate puppets. Mr. Obama graciously implied that a small subset of the movement is simply motivated by bigotry. The President said 'there are probably some aspects of the Tea Party that are a little darker, that have to do with anti-immigrant sentiment or are troubled by what I represent as the President.' The tea party is now supported by a third of the country in some polls. Perhaps advocates for smaller government shouldn't take Mr. Obama's comments personally. In the new Democratic attacks on the voting public, not even Democrats are spared. Vice President Joe Biden recently urged the party's base to 'stop whining' and 'buck up,' a message echoed by Mr. Obama in his Rolling Stone interview. The President ... added that 'if people now want to take their ball and go home, that tells me folks weren't serious in the first place.' Making the case for left-wing voters to show up in November, Mr. Obama told Rolling Stone that he is presiding over 'the most successful administration in a generation in moving progressive agendas forward.' We'd agree, but his problem is that most Americans don't like that agenda and millions of voters in both parties wanted him to oversee an economic expansion instead. Blaming the voters is not unheard of among politicians, but usually they wait until after an election." --The Wall Street Journal
Insight
"We demand entire freedom of action and then expect the government in some miraculous way to save us from the consequences of our own acts.... Self-government means self-reliance." --President Calvin Coolidge (1873-1933)
"There is no worse tyranny than to force a man to pay for what he does not want merely because you think it would be good for him." --American writer Robert A. Heinlein (1907-1988)
Upright
"Progressives want to raise taxes on individuals who make more than $200,000 a year because they say it's wrong for the rich to be 'given' more money. Sunday's New York Times carries a cartoon showing Uncle Sam handing money to a fat cat. They just don't get it. As I've said before, a tax cut is not a handout. It simply means government steals less. What progressives want to do is take money from some -- by force -- and spend it on others. It sounds less noble when plainly stated." --columnist John Stossel
"Americans are learning once again that campaign rhetoric is no substitute for sound economics. And any American President who promises to make your life better by vilifying your fellow countryman, is a very dangerous character indeed." --columnist Austin Hill
"What optimistic Americans used to call a rising tide that lifts all boats is now once again derided as trickle-down economics. In other words, a newly peasant-minded America is willing to become collectively poorer so that some will not become wealthier." --historian Victor Davis Hanson
Point: "Obama and his cronies keep referring to 'the last decade' in their sorry attempt to blame the Republicans for the present state of the nation. The truth, however, is that the GOP only ran things for the first six of those 10 years. Once the liberals took control of Congress in 2006, it was Dodd, Frank and Obama, along with their good friends at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, who brought about the housing meltdown and the ensuing financial collapse. Since 2008, it's been the Obama administration that has sent the national deficit soaring through the stratosphere." --columnist Burt Prelutsky
Counterpoint: "In the 'Pledge to America' they unveiled last week, House Republicans promise they will 'launch a sustained effort to stem the relentless growth in government that has occurred over the past decade.' Who better for the job than the folks who ran the government for most of that time?" --columnist Jacob Sullum
"[The tea party movement] is about electing people who are going to get the Federal government to stop pressing the handle that has been flushing America's wealth, ingenuity, and capacity for hard work down the toilet bowl of history by promising more and more to people who have produced less and less until no one has anything." --political analyst Rich Galen
Dezinformatsia
The sycophant's lament: "People don't appreciate some of the amazing legislative agenda that [Barack Obama has] accomplished. Is this a failure of leadership? Has he allowed the opposition to define him?" --ABC's Christiane Amanpour
Asking the tough questions: "Former President Clinton said he doesn't think the Democrats, and you included, have been rigorous enough in pushing back against some of the Republican attacks. Over these next five weeks [before the November election], Mr. President, do you intend to change your tone or your emotion in terms of your pushing back?" --NBC's Matt Lauer to BO
Demented: "You think business can sit on those billions and trillions of dollars for two more years after they screw Obama this time? Are they going to keep sitting on their money so they don't invest and help the economy for two long years to get Mr. Excitement Mitt Romney elected president? Will they do that to the country?" --MSNBC's Chris Matthews
The "living constitution": "Joe Miller, the Palin-blessed Republican nominee for Senate in Alaska, suggests that Social Security is unconstitutional because it wasn't in the Constitution. The Constitution is a dazzling document, but do these originalists really think things haven't changed since then? If James Madison beamed down now, he would no doubt be stunned at the idea that America had evolved so far but was hemming itself in by the strictest interpretation of his handiwork. He might even tweet about it." --New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd
Newspulper Headlines:
Breaking News From March: "Democrats Decide on Political Suicide" --The New Republic website
Questions Nobody Is Asking: "Will God Save the Democrats?" --TheAtlantic.com
Answers to Questions Nobody Is Asking: "Why Democrats Are Pushing a Series of Bills Doomed to Fail" --Christian Science Monitor
The One Thing They Know About: "Congress Changes Intellectual Disability Wording" --Associated Press
Out on a Limb: "Bill Clinton: There's a 50-50 Chance for Peace Deal" --YNetNews.com (Israel)
News You Can Use: "Manhattan Is No Place to Juice Up Your Mitsubishi Clown Mobile" --Bloomberg
Breaking News From 1 Samuel 17:50-51: "Humiliating Doesn't Begin to Describe Giants' Performance" --CBS Sports website
Bottom Stories of the Day: "Obama Calls Republican Leaders 'Irresponsible'" --ABC news website (U.S.)
(Thanks to The Wall Street Journal's James Taranto)
Village Idiots
Pot and kettle: "If you love deficits, you will love the Republican plan." --White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer, who must have missed the deficit quadrupling under Democrat control
More lectures: "People have a right to be angry. They have a right to be disappointed. But they still have to be make a choice. An election is not a referendum on their anger. It's a choice between two candidates." --Bill Clinton
That's a good question: "Do you know how many political and economic decisions are made in this world by people who don't know what in the living daylights they are talking about?" --Bill Clinton
We know what's best for you: "[T]here's a little Homer Simpson in all of us. Sometimes we have self-control problems, sometimes we're impulsive and that in these circumstances, both private and public institutions, without coercing, can make our lives a lot better. Once we know that people are human and have some Homer Simpson in them, then there's a lot that can be done to manipulate them." --Obama regulatory czar Cass Sunstein, on helping us make "right choices"
We're not buying what you're selling: "I'm extremely sensitive to the feelings of the families of 9/11." --Ground Zero Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf
Short Cuts
"President Obama's old sloganeering has worn thin. It's time for a new motto for the most powerful man in the world. And he's up to the challenge. Obama's new slogan: 'It's not me, it's you.'" --columnist Ben Shapiro
"On the political gimmickry scale, the GOP's new 'Pledge to America' is worse than some, better than others. Let's say it falls somewhere between the Federalist Papers and a Harry Reid press release -- which, admittedly, pins it down as much as saying you lost a cufflink somewhere between Burkina Faso and Cleveland." --columnist Jonah Goldberg
"This week, all we've heard about is how [Christine] O'Donnell once said she went on a date with a guy in high school who claimed to be a witch. (So what? Bill Clinton married one!)" --columnist Ann Coulter
"President Obama signaled a change in U.S. policy toward the Third World Thursday in a U.N. speech. He said he intends to promote commerce and free trade with poor nations rather than just give them money. If it works there, he's going to try it here." --comedian Argus Hamilton
"I've got some problems with evolution myself. ... I look around at, say, Democrats, and I say, 'That's evolved?'" --columnist P.J. O'Rourke
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We had quite a discussion a month or 2 ago about how impossible it will be for conservatives to win over the Hispanic vote. Meanwhile, the Dems margin of winning that vote has shrunk from a 32 point margin to 13 in 2 months.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/143330/Midterms-Dems-Gain-Young-Voters-Slip-Hispanics.aspx
Barely half of Hispanics in September planned to vote Democratic
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If I read the article correctly, that is because His Glibness failed to push amnesty hard enough.
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It will be strange governance and more difficult to assess blame if/when Republicans take the House, close in on the Senate and then nothing much gets accomplished. As VDH put it, Obama doesn't mind that his agenda cost so many of his colleagues their jobs partly because of his narcissism and because:
"a sober reflection that a Republican Congress in 2011-12 can be blamed for cutting the “needy” while Obama can take credit for the upturn that will surely follow once business grasps his socialist agenda is stalled."
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Just heard Gibbs say the people want to see the two parties to work together. But people aren't moving toward Sharron Angle, Ken Buck, Marco Rubio for examples because they will work seamlessly with President Obama, they are voting against Harry Reid etc. because they did.
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In the previous discussion in this thread, polls show Hispanic support weakening for Dems. Crafty wrote "because [they] failed to push amnesty hard enough".
True. And he is setting up the same ambivalence for gays. Dems are supposedly their ally yet he continues to mostly thwart the gay agenda based on polls and the old political reality of where else are they going to go. Answer to that is that if there is no meaningful difference on one issue, they may vote on some other issue like the economy or not vote at all.
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Dems carried congress in the 2008 election by 10.2% in total votes where polling has the possibility of that margin flipping nearly that far this year the other direction. What changed? One theory: voters to change Washington, but not to change our country.
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Assuming Harry Reid loses, the new Dem leader of the senate will be Schumer who I fear but I don't think has much more national appeal than Harry Reid. (Dick Durbin, if not Schumer.) Probably Steny Hoyer becomes Dem leader of the House if R's win there assuming Nancy won't want to be minority leader and fly a smaller plane.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/29/us/politics/29schumer.html?_r=1&ref=politics
As Reid Falters, Schumer Subtly Stands in the Wings - NY Times
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Speaker of the House is a big deal because for one thing is second in line behind VP to ascend to the Presidency. Presumably Boehner keeps his leadership post for winning but I would hope R's start from scratch and pick their very best going forward. Ryan or Pence come to mind. And it can't be someone running for President.
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Republicans just took back a majority of Governorships. Interesting political point by Paul Mirengoff at Powerline regarding the Senate:
"Republicans have a natural majority in the Senate. In a "50-50" election, the presidential race goes to a recount while the House splits down the middle and ultimately goes to the party who has won the redistricting battles. But in the three cycles necessary to populate the Senate, "50-50" elections go to the Republicans due to the equal representation of small, mostly Red, states.
Yet, (red states) Arkansas and North Dakota have two Democratic Senators (until January), Montana has two, South Dakota has one, Nebraska has one, and Indiana has one (until January). Over the next two cycles, assuming Republicans can maintain something close to 50 percent status or better, the Senate should come to reflect its natural Republican majority."
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(A simple majority in the Senate however is not enough to get business done.)
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Rarick, I think you nailed this one: "That is why Reid won. The thinking independants of nevada would mostly dislike Schumer, and if there is going to be a democratic majority in the senate- better to have OUR guy there rather than someone else's."
R's were projected to fall short in the Senate so Reid would still be the powerful majority leader for Nevada. If this were to be a sweep and he would lose power anyway then they may have swung the other way to the inexperienced challenger. It is hard for me to think like centrists absent of core principles.
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Flashback, I ran across this Washington Post focus group study of the 2008 Dem field from 4 years ago. Some insights. Many have died a political death since then. Most interesting is Hillary was considered unelectable and IL state senator Barack Obama was not mentioned: http://voices.washingtonpost.com/thefix/eye-on-2008/focusing-grouping-the-2008-dem.html
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Here I was thinking Reid won because of vote fraud.
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Lets be fair here. As much as I liked Angle for unabashedly speaking Tea Party truths, IMHO we need to remember she was also a pretty awful candidate and not-ready-for-prime-time in many ways.
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Funny that the polling tended to show them in a dead heat, then Reid wins by a much larger margin.
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She polled even amongst non-union households, but was badly behind with union households. The unions bussed their people in and now their hooks are deeper into Reid than ever.
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The Kansas City mob has older and deeper hooks.
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It would not surprise me , , ,
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http://www.allbusiness.com/crime-law-enforcement-corrections/criminal-offenses/14197159-1.html
When the Mob Museum opens in mid-2011, I'll be looking for what is omitted.
Will it include the roughest period of U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's life, when mobsters dubbed him "Cleanface"?
Will it include graphic photos of Anthony Spilotro's brutal murder, when his family still lives in Las Vegas?
Will it be a paean to Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman, the longtime mob mouthpiece? Or will he be a bit player, despite taking the lead to create the museum and preserve the old courthouse/post office?
The museum's creative director, Dennis Barrie, doesn't have all the answers yet. He doesn't know whether "Cleanface" will be part of the museum or how Spilotro's murder will be portrayed, although he assured me Frank Rosenthal will be included. Of course, it would be really odd if Rosenthal (a Goodman client) wasn't featured, since he and Spilotro were our city's leading mob figures in the '70s and '80s.
**Snip**
When the final decisions on what's in and what's out are made in April, I bet the Spilotro photos are in, and Cleanface is out.
Reid has said many times that the period in the late 1970s, when he was receiving death threats and was suspected of corruption, was the worst time of his life. In 1979, wiretaps were released of an eight-hour secret meeting in a Kansas City basement where Sicilian mobster Joe Agosto told Kansas City mobsters about the skimming at Las Vegas hotels and gossiped about local notables. Nicknames were used and there were references to Cleanface and Mr. Clean. "I gotta Cleanface in my pocket," Agosto said.
Reid, the chairman of the Nevada Gaming Commission, was Cleanface. But was he corrupt? Nevada gaming officials hired outside investigators, who, after a five-month investigation, concluded Agosto was bragging. But the moniker stuck. Google Cleanface and one of the first items up references Harry Reid.
A video of a Gaming Commission meeting in which Rosenthal screams at Reid and claims Reid somehow betrayed him exists, but I doubt that ends up in the museum either.
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http://gsting.blogspot.com/
An interesting primer on Nevada politics and the "g-sting" scandal.
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Save me the search please :-) what is the URL for the material on Reid?
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I can't find a transcript where the FBI intercepted Joe Agosto bragging that Harry"Mr. Cleanface" Reid was on his payroll.
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Ethics chief counsel recommends censure for Rangel
http://www.seattlepi.com/national/1153ap_us_rangel_punishment.html?source=mypi
Followup to some discussion on Charlie Rangel on rants and thought pieces.
It is wonderful that the Dem congress acted at all on this IMO. Rangel was begging to make himself look like he is being persecuted by the new Republican House and it didn't come to that. He already lost his Chairmanship and would have lost it any way in the party sweep. Expulsion vs. censure? I don't really care. It was for mostly his constituents to remove him. He was just re-elected with 80 percent of the vote. If he really is criminally guilty, jail might keep him from voting in congress. We are going to get a liberal from Harlem no matter what. It is Democrats that should wish Rangel would go away.
I give the Dems some credit here. They said they would clean up the house and they didn't, but in this one instance I give them credit for eventually doing something here and not letting it slide forward.
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"It is Democrats that should wish Rangel would go away."
It does not appear that Democrats have any shame.
We should all be wishing he go away.
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My opinion as well as these authors. I couldn't agree more. It is a joke. Pay a fine, say your sorry, get embarassed and lets all move on. What a joke.
Congress cannot be expected to police their own anymore than anyone else. I don't want him there so Republicans can use him as poster boy. He should be thrown out. Good bye. Go to pasture you self serving narcissitic piece of garbage. Your 80 yrs old. Go away! Nothing ever changes. Only the people in charge.
****Rangel ‘trial’ spotlights flaws in House ethics process
By Rachel Rose Hartman
By Rachel Rose Hartman and Holly Bailey
Every two years around this time, a common mantra repeated by Democrats and Republicans alike makes its way through Capitol Hill: This will be the Congress that finally cleans up Washington.
"We're going to drain the swamp," Nancy Pelosi vowed in 2006, echoing congressional leaders before her. And just last week, Eric Cantor, the No. 2 GOP leader in the House, promised virtually the same thing as the Republicans prepare to take the House majority. "We will drain the swamp rather than learn to swim with the alligators," Cantor declared.
But the conclusion this week of the House Ethics Committee investigation of New York Democrat Charlie Rangel confirms what virtually everyone in Washington knows about the House's interest in cracking down on ethics: It's a joke.
After two years of investigation by the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct (the official name of the ethics committee), Rangel was sentenced to a slap on the wrist for 11 separate ethics violations. It's a humiliating blow to the vanity of a 20-term lawmaker, perhaps, but Rangel won't have to resign from Congress or face penalties beyond paying back taxes on the charges. Rangel, like those before him, will benefit from a system designed entirely by Congress to protect its own.
Democrats and Republicans alike have worked for years to undermine the House ethics process. And as a result, the ethics committee has long functioned in a state of political stalemate--in part because both parties insisted on an equal number of representatives on the committee, which ensured a deadlock.
During the ethics committee's 2004 investigation of House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas), GOP leaders threatened to defund the committee. The panel ultimately found DeLay guilty of several ethics violations -- but it was an indictment in Texas for violating campaign finance laws, rather than the committee's punishment, that drove him from Congress.
And the dynamic that played out in DeLay's case is not uncommon. The House may recommend that a member be stripped of a committee assignment when a member's activities suggest the taint of corruption, but other than that, a lawmaker who appears to be connected to corruption usually just continues business as usual. The House, in short, protects its members.
When the FBI found $90,000 in bribes hidden in Louisiana Democratic Rep. William Jefferson's freezer in 2006, the House Ethics Committee voted to open an investigation, but didn't appear to do anything. It wasn't until a year later that the House Ethics Committee announced an official investigation--a proceeding that occurred after federal prosecutors had already indicted Jefferson on 16 charges related to corruption.
In other cases, the law has acted well before the ethics committee got around to pursuing an inquiry. Florida GOP Rep. Mark Foley resigned from Congress in September 2006, when news broke that Foley had sent sexually suggestive instant messages to teenage boys. The ethics committee then opened an investigation that found Dennis Hastert and other Republican leaders negligent in the case, but not in violation of House rules. The panel did not recommend any sanctions.
An additional frustration for watchdog groups is that the committee operates in secrecy and has a policy of not commenting on any ongoing investigations.
In 2008, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi sought to change the committee's high-secrecy profile by leading the charge in creating an Office of Congressional Ethics to strengthen the House ethics process, increase transparency, and serve as a link between the ethics committee and the public. But as we've seen in Rangel's case, complaints surrounding the ethics process continue.
The committee has one more trial on its plate before the session concludes: A House proceeding opens Nov. 29 for California Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters, who faces three ethics charges connected to her advocacy for a bank with ties to her husband.
Beyond that, however, the House ethics process seems likely to revert to the earlier status quo as the majority switches to Republican control.
Incoming Speaker John Boehner has already begun talk of defunding the Office of Congressional Ethics, which he opposed from the start, arguing it's an unnecessary expense and has been an ineffective body. Boehner's opponents argue his plans could move the House backward in the ongoing fight to combat corruption in Washington.
(Photo of hearing with Rangel, far right: Getty Images/Mark Wilson)*****
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CCP, my take: These are laws he broke (allegedly). We need prosecution, fair trial, then penalty. Not committees. He lost his Chairmanship. He faced public humiliation from his peers. He (and about a dozen crooked Obama appointees) helped bring down his party and his own political cause and continues as a negative force. Sure he should be thrown out, but that should have been done by his voters who placed no importance on decency. So let Pelosi with her name and face attached to opposing the will of Americans and Rangel synonymous with corruption and tax cheating serve on for their leftist causes. I personally don't care as long as they are out of power. That means two more years before some new liberal with innocence and charisma can start a freedom-hating, race-baiting career from that leftist congressional district. Meanwhile we have thousands of great new candidates and leaders gaining experience across the country to run for the next level.
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"Sure he should be thrown out, but that should have been done by his voters who placed no importance on decency."
The same voters who like OJ Simpson. the same voters who elected a crack addict to DC mayor.
I am sorry. The joke is on them.
There is hope at the end of the tunnel. A few like Congresman West of Florida hopefully can wake up more of these people from the angry get the "white boy crowd".
I note that MSNBC angry gay Madcow is going after Congressman West now. We can't have a successful Black Republican now can we? Same as the threat of Sarah Palin. Cannot have successful conservative woman can we. Make them top priority for the liberal hit squads.
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I couldn't remember the mayor's name, but just google 'dc mayor on crack' and it comes right up. Marion Barry.
CCP, add to your list Keith Ellison the pretend Muslim who represents Minneapolis which is one of the strongest gay populations (Democrat) outside of San Fran(Muslims stone gays), he represents the strongly Jewish (Democrat) suburb where AL Franken grew up (Infidels/Zionists?) and he represents the rich white elite urban Democrats of the professional and business financial center of the Twin Cities even though he is anti-business and insurance violates Islam. Before congress Ellison made a name for himself defending a gang member who killed a cop. Ellison led protests chanting "we don't get no justice, you don't get no peace". Besides the violence threatened, you've got to love the grammar.
Quietly to the southwest of Ellison (people leaving the city), my friend our young conservative congressman may be joining the Ways and Means Committee in the MAJORITY where Rep. Rangel has left the Chairmanship, the committee and the majority.
In politics I fear the reasonable, mild mannered, center sounding leftists more than I fear Rangel, Ellison or Rev. Wright. Unfortunately, we need a face on Leftism.
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"he represents the strongly Jewish (Democrat) suburb where AL Franken grew up (Infidels/Zionists?) and he represents the rich white elite urban Democrats of the professional and business financial center of the Twin Cities even though he is anti-business and insurance violates Islam. Before congress Ellison made a name for himself defending a gang member who killed a cop. Ellison led protests chanting "we don't get no justice, you don't get no peace".
My "fellow" :x liberal Jews would rather support this guy than a Republican. Just goes to further my theory that to them - a Republican - is worse than a Nazi. Just look at Soros. A holocaust survivor who thinks the best thing is for the government to control us. Of course, he also seems to have his investments appropriately in the right place at the right time while he manipulates our political system. He/they definitely have screws loose.
Au contraire. To me these same liberal elites who in their own minds know all, think they are smarter than the rest of us, wiser than us do gooders have far more in common with Nazis than the right.
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A headline from the future with President Obama: "The Sunni-Shia Nuclear Arms Race Escalates".
I wonder how much gas will be then....
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/nov/28/us-embassy-cables-saudis-iran
America is not short of allies in its quest to thwart Iran, though some are clearly more enthusiastic than the Obama administration for a definitive solution to Iran's nuclear designs. In one cable, a US diplomat noted how Saudi foreign affairs bureaucrats were moderate in their views on Iran, "but diverge significantly from the more bellicose advice we have gotten from senior Saudi royals".
In a conversation with a US diplomat, King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa of Bahrain "argued forcefully for taking action to terminate their [Iran's] nuclear programme, by whatever means necessary. That programme must be stopped. The danger of letting it go on is greater than the danger of stopping it." Zeid Rifai, then president of the Jordanian senate, told a senior US official: "Bomb Iran, or live with an Iranian bomb. Sanctions, carrots, incentives won't matter."
In talks with US officials, Abu Dhabi crown prince Sheikh Mohammad bin Zayed favoured action against Iran, sooner rather than later. "I believe this guy is going to take us to war ... It's a matter of time. Personally, I cannot risk it with a guy like [President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad. He is young and aggressive."
In another exchange , a senior Saudi official warned that Gulf states may develop nuclear weapons of their own, or permit them to be based in their countries to deter the perceived Iranian threat.
No US ally is keener on military action than Israel, and officials there have repeatedly warned that time is running out. "If the Iranians continue to protect and harden their nuclear sites, it will be more difficult to target and damage them," the US embassy reported Israeli defence officials as saying in November 2009.
There are differing views within Israel. But the US embassy reported: "The IDF [Israeli Defence Force], however, strikes us as more inclined than ever to look toward a military strike, whether launched by Israel or by us, as the only way to destroy or even delay Iran's plans." Preparations for a strike would likely go undetected by Israel's allies or its enemies.
The Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, told US officials in May last yearthat he and the Egyptian president, Hosni Mubarak, agreed that a nuclear Iran would lead others in the region to develop nuclear weapons, resulting in "the biggest threat to non-proliferation efforts since the Cuban missile crisis".
The cables also expose frank, even rude, remarks about Iranian leaders, their trustworthiness and tactics at international meetings. Abdullah told another US diplomat: "The bottom line is that they cannot be trusted." Mubarak told a US congressman: "Iran is always stirring trouble." Others are learning from what they describe as Iranian deception. "They lie to us, and we lie to them," said Qatar's prime minister, Hamad bin Jassim Jaber al-Thani.
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Interesting update on the Hispanic vote by Jay Cost. Dems won Hispanic vote by 22% but that actually is an improvement and close enough for the overall sweep.
(http://www.weeklystandard.com/sites/all/files/images/Hispanic%20Voting%20Patterns%20In%20House%20Elections.gif)
Nobody it seems ever talks about the white vote:
(http://www.weeklystandard.com/sites/all/files/images/White%20Voting%20Patterns%20In%20House%20Elections.gif)
Black vote he says still swings 90-10 to the Dems.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/how-did-gop-hispanic-voters-2010_519739.html
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Anyone but a congresscritter would be out on his a$$ after foolishness like this:
Items Stolen John Conyers' Government-Registered Cadillac
Vehicle driven by Congressman's 20-year-old son
Updated: Tuesday, 30 Nov 2010, 3:28 PM EST
Published : Tuesday, 30 Nov 2010, 7:09 AM EST
By myFOXDetroit.com Staff
DETROIT (WJBK) - The son of Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., says items were stolen out of the government vehicle he was driving last Wednesday in downtown Detroit, FOX 2's Simon Shaykhet reports.
John Conyers III, 20, told police two Apple MacBooks, valued at $1,100 apiece, and more than $27,000 worth of concert tickets to the Fillmore were stolen out of a burgundy 2010 Cadillac Escalade registered to the 14th Congressional District.
The police report says the vehilce was parked at Brush Street and Congress around 11:30 p.m. on Nov. 24. When Conyers returned around 12:30 a.m., he noticed scratches on the side door and items scattered throughout the interior.
Click here to read the police report >>
Shaykhet says the incident brings into question why the son of a congressman was driving a registered government vehicle.
"I don't know of a single person in congress in the 16 years I was there who had to put vehicle titles in the name of the government," former U.S. Rep. Joe Knollenberg tells FOX 2.
According to the U.S. General Services Administration Web site , if an employee allows an unauthorized person to use a government vehicle, that employee could be suspended or fired.
"I would tell you that they better use this (vehicle) just for the purpose of what they had been required to do," said Knollenberg. "Not to get into the hands of a relative or a friend or whatever."
Currently, there is no word on why John Conyers III was driving the vehicle. A spokesperson for the congressman's office tells FOX 2 she will get back to us on the allegations.
FOX 2 is also working to get details on what the concert tickets were for and if the stolen laptops had any sensitive government information.
Conyers has been a member of the U.S. House since 1965.
His wife, Monica, is serving a 37-month federal prison sentence for corruption after pleading guilty last year to a bribery scheme involving her vote on the Detroit City Council in favor of a sludge-hauling contract.
http://www.myfoxdetroit.com/dpp/news/local/items-stolen-john-conyers-government-registered-cadillac-20101130-mr
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Remember how Dennis Hastert had some sort of ownership in a mall. Next to the mall was a road paid for by - guess? - Federal monies.
Remember how Harry Reid had part ownership in a land deal with a similar scam - Federal money used to pay for a road to be built next to this land.
Recall how Pelosi's family is making a fortune in the lobbyist game.
Notice Delay being convicted.
These are our "leaders". The joke is on us.
I told you the Rangel thing is a sham. Maxine Waters is going to get off. There are no ethics. No one is holding these people accountable. The game is rigged. Most are re-elected.
***A question of ethics
Voters sent Congress a clear message: End corruption now. Will Democrats listen and, more important, act?
By Jonathan Turley
In her first statement after the Democratic takeover of the House, the presumptive new speaker, Nancy Pelosi of California, pledged that her party would create “the most honest, the most open and the most ethical Congress in history.”
History, however, should give citizens pause before they celebrate the dawn of a new day. Pelosi's promise is eerily similar to the vows of her two predecessors.
Notably, in this election, Democrats took back the seats that they lost in 1994 when Newt Gingrich, who became speaker, led a Republican takeover based in part on his promise to create the most ethical Congress in history. Yet, ethics quickly gave way to earmarks, and Gingrich left the House in scandal.
We heard the same words from Dennis Hastert in 1999, when he became speaker. During Hastert's speakership, the leadership actually loosened ethics rules and prevented some bipartisan reforms from coming to the House floor. Hastert even engineered the removal of GOP members from the ethics committee who had voted to admonish former majority leader Tom DeLay for his misconduct — before DeLay resigned under indictment.
This history explains why lobbyists on K Street are not packing moving boxes in anticipation of an outbreak of good government. After all, these same Democrats remained silent for many years in the face of corrupt practices, often engaging in the very conduct that would now have to be prohibited.
Even so, there is one unexpected glimmer of hope: They might not have a choice. To the surprise of both parties, exit polls cited corruption in Congress as one of the most important issues motivating citizens to vote. President Bush had campaigned for some of the most corrupt members of Congress. His political adviser, Karl Rove, admitted after the elections that “the profile of corruption in the exit polls was bigger than I'd expected.”
Of course, “reform” can take the most curious forms in the parallel moral universe of Congress. For example, in 1997, the mislabeled House Ethics Reform Task Force moved to prevent ethics charges rather than ethics violations. Not only did the members bar citizens from bringing charges, but both parties also entered into a secret 7-year moratorium on any ethics charges by members.
While Republicans richly deserve the lion's share of blame for the grotesquely corrupt 109th Congress, it is only fair to note that ranking Democrats have long fought to preserve and benefit from many of the same loopholes and technicalities.
Democratic whip Dick Durbin of Illinois has been criticized for accepting trips for himself and his wife that were paid for by outside groups such as the not-for-profit Aspen Institute. Likewise, the presumptive Senate majority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, was recently scrutinized for alleged ethics lapses, including a controversial land deal in Las Vegas and the use of campaign funds to give Christmas bonuses to workers at his luxury condo building in Washington.
None of this means that the Democrats cannot show that they are capable of personal change with needed political reform. Yet, the last Democratic proposals for ethics reforms contain obvious gaps that would allow the continuation of corrupt practices, including some favored by their leadership.
If Pelosi is serious about “draining the swamp,” here are 10 practices that would have to end:
•Free vacations. Prohibit travel for members and their family and staff paid by outside groups, including not-for-profit organizations.
•Playing the market. Bar members from legislating in areas where they have financial interests by closing a loophole in the definition of “outside income,” which excludes investments and stocks. Better yet, require the use of blind trusts by members (already used by executive and judicial officers).
•Quid pro quo deals. End the practice of receiving windfall private deals from partners, who then receive generous government contracts. Require recusal from any matter in which a business partner has a direct financial interest.
•Self-policing. Create an independent office of ethics in which non-members investigate and rule on allegations of unethical conduct.
•Misuse of campaign funds. Prohibit the use of such funds for any purpose other than direct campaign costs for the original recipient, barring the transfer of funds to other candidates.
•Family lobbyists. Bar members from any official contact with family members who are employed as lobbyists and require recusal from any committee with jurisdiction over issues on which a spouse or a child is a lobbyist. Enact an ethics principle that expressly condemns the employment of spouses or children as lobbyists as harmful to the institution.
•Family businesses. Strengthen nepotism rules, including a ban on the hiring of spouses and family as campaign staff or contractors.
•Gifts. Change the scope of prohibited gifts to include the use of private jets by members and catered food for members or staff. Also require the valuation of gifts by an independent ethics committee.
•Club privileges. End all special access to the floor and other areas for former members that allows them free access as lobbyists.
•Earmarks. The primary currency for corrupt practices and pork barrel projects remains earmarks — special pet projects inserted into budgets outside of the usual competitive bidding and appropriations processes. Democrats have proposed changes but not the most obvious: Ban earmarks.
Believing in Pelosi's promise is the ultimate victory of hope over experience. Indeed, Democratic proposals still fall short of a true cleaning as opposed to a quick dust and polish in the “first 100 hours.” Yet, if she implements these 10 reforms, Pelosi can prove that it is possible for reformed sinners to sin no more.
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University and a member of USA TODAY's board of contributors.****
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I think we have a thread with Corruption in the title. Lets use that for replies to these posts.
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The message from the last election more so than the rejection of the healthcare takeover and growth of big government is that people just hated the way it was done - with backroom deals and political earmark payoffs. Enter the new lameduck deal for tax rate extensions, now filled with ethanol subsidies, solar, wind, unemployment and who knows what else since the deal is not yet in writing.
That aside, Paul Krugman, they only pretend economist to the left of the President hates the tax rate extensions but gets one timing point correct (for the wrong reasons):
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"This political reality makes the tax deal a bad bargain for Democrats. Think of it this way: The deal essentially sets up 2011-2012 to be a repeat of 2009-2010. " http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/10/opinion/10krugman.html?_r=1
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Under the deal, if not extended before the next election cycle, investors will again be paralyzed in uncertain about future rates, the economy will show it, the Democrats will be blamed for it, and it will be a hugely important Presidential and possible Senate changeover election year.
P.S. If the Ryan roadmap could be passed and signed, all of this would be moot, Obama's economy would surge, he could keep his nice residence with the putting green and the organic garden, keep his Spanish vacation perks and keep his unlimited aircraft privileges. He could do it for the children. I wonder if Bill Clinton told him that yesterday...
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Moving CCP's post to this thread:
I wish Charles would stop telling us how smart Obama is. He isn't. He was dragged into negotiations kicking and screaming and only because his advisors were telling him to emulate Clinton who has given him the roadmap showing him how to improve his poll numbers. That doesn't make him smart. Yet the mainstream media has taken this line of talk up and are running at full speed trying to con us all into buying into the genius of the ONE. We will see how brilliant he is next year when his super majorities in both houses are gone.
We all knew that Pelosi and Reid were going to ram through their agenda in the lame duck session. No surprise. And all Bamster has to do is sit back and take the credit like he did anything.
I do agree with Charles that if the tax cuts stimulate the economy over the next few years Bamster will have a better shot at re election. He will take all the credit speaking about his bipartisan genius, all the devotees in the MSM will claim he is a centrist "all along" and the dopey swing voters will swoon all over it. Perish the thought. But Clinton did just that!:
***By Charles Krauthammer
Friday, December 17, 2010
If Barack Obama wins reelection in 2012, as is now more likely than not, historians will mark his comeback as beginning on Dec. 6, the day of the Great Tax Cut Deal of 2010.
This Story
Season's greetings from the Obamas
The new comeback kid
When it comes to politics, Obama's ego keeps getting in the way
Obama had a bad November. Self-confessedly shellacked in the midterm election, he fled the scene to Asia and various unsuccessful meetings, only to return to a sad-sack lame-duck Congress with ghostly dozens of defeated Democrats wandering the halls.
Now, with his stunning tax deal, Obama is back. Holding no high cards, he nonetheless managed to resurface suddenly not just as a player but as orchestrator, dealmaker and central actor in a high $1 trillion drama.
Compare this with Bill Clinton, greatest of all comeback kids, who, at a news conference a full five months after his shellacking in 1994, was reduced to plaintively protesting that "the president is relevant here." He had been so humiliatingly sidelined that he did not really recover until late 1995 when he outmaneuvered Newt Gingrich in the government-shutdown showdown.
And that was Clinton responding nimbly to political opportunity. Obama fashioned out of thin air his return to relevance, an even more impressive achievement.
Remember the question after Election Day: Can Obama move to the center to win back the independents who had abandoned the party in November? And if so, how long would it take? Answer: Five weeks. An indoor record, although an asterisk should denote that he had help - Republicans clearing his path and sprinkling it with rose petals.
Obama's repositioning to the center was first symbolized by his joint appearance with Clinton, the quintessential centrist Democrat, and followed days later by the overwhelming 81 to 19 Senate majority that supported the tax deal. That bipartisan margin will go a long way toward erasing the partisan stigma of Obama's first two years, marked by Stimulus I, which passed without a single House Republican, and a health-care bill that garnered no congressional Republicans at all.
Despite this, some on the right are gloating that Obama had been maneuvered into forfeiting his liberal base. Nonsense. He will never lose his base. Where do they go? Liberals will never have a president as ideologically kindred - and they know it. For the left, Obama is as good as it gets in a country that is barely 20 percent liberal.
The conservative gloaters were simply fooled again by the flapping and squawking that liberals ritually engage in before folding at Obama's feet. House liberals did it with Obamacare; they did it with the tax deal. Their boisterous protests are reminiscent of the floor demonstrations we used to see at party conventions when the losing candidate's partisans would dance and shout in the aisles for a while before settling down to eventually nominate the other guy by acclamation.
And Obama pulled this off at his lowest political ebb. After the shambles of the election and with no bargaining power - the Republicans could have gotten everything they wanted on the Bush tax cuts retroactively in January without fear of an Obama veto - he walks away with what even Paul Ryan admits was $313 billion in superfluous spending.
Including a $6 billion subsidy for ethanol. Why, just a few weeks ago Al Gore, the Earth King, finally confessed that ethanol subsidies were a mistake. There is not a single economic or environmental rationale left for this boondoggle that has induced American farmers to dedicate an amazing 40 percent of the U.S. corn crop - for burning! And the Republicans have just revived it.
Even as they were near unanimously voting for this monstrosity, Republicans began righteously protesting $8.3 billion of earmarks in Harry Reid's omnibus spending bill. They seem not to understand how ridiculous this looks after having agreed to a Stimulus II that even by their own generous reckoning has 38 times as much spending as all these earmarks combined.
The greatest mistake Ronald Reagan's opponents ever made - and they made it over and over again - was to underestimate him. Same with Obama. The difference is that Reagan was so deeply self-assured that he invited underestimation - low expectations are a priceless political asset - whereas Obama's vanity makes him always needing to appear the smartest guy in the room. Hence that display of prickliness in his disastrous post-deal news conference last week.
But don't be fooled by defensive style or thin-skinned temperament. The president is a very smart man. How smart? His comeback is already a year ahead of Clinton's.
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I think Krauthammer is definitely on to something here, especially with this:
"he had help - Republicans clearing his path and sprinkling it with rose petals."
Ain't that the Truth!!! :x
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http://www.silive.com/news/index.ssf/2010/12/many_russians_here_aligning_wi.html
Many Russians here aligning with Republicans
Published: Sunday, December 26, 2010, 6:26 AM Updated: Sunday, December 26, 2010, 6:32 AM
Tom Wrobleski Arkadiy Fridman says that the Citizens Magazine Business Club, a confederation of more than 50 Russian-owned businesses here and in Brooklyn, has aligned itself with the Molinari Republican Club in an effort to increase the Russian community's political and economic clout.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Many Russian immigrants to the "red borough" of Staten Island are flocking to the Republican Party, saying that the national Democrats' "socialistic" policies remind them too much of the top-down oligarchy they fled in their native land.
With many of the borough's Russian arrivees already owning businesses and active in civic organizations, their muscle could help the Island GOP solidify electoral gains made this year, when the party took back congressional and Assembly seats.
Businessman Arkadiy Fridman said that the newly formed Citizens Magazine Business Club, a confederation of more than 50 Russian-owned businesses here and in Brooklyn, has aligned itself with the Molinari Republican Club (MRC) in an effort to increase the Russian community's political and economic clout.
CLOSE TO OWN VISION
"We decided we had to support this club," said Fridman, a former Soviet Army officer who came to the United States in 1992. "They are very close to our political and business vision."
In the wake of the national GOP's big wins this year, when the party took back control of the House, Republicans everywhere are more confident that their bedrock message of smaller government and lower taxes will resonate with American voters.
Fridman said that the Democrats "are going in an absolutely different direction," focusing on "income redistribution" and rich-versus-poor "class war."
"It's too socialistic," said Fridman, head of the non-profit Staten Island Community Center and president of Citizens Magazine, a public affairs publication. "It's very painful for us to see."
The Democrats' national losses were seen as a rejection of President Barack Obama's health care reform law and other initiatives that opponents say went too far in pushing government control on Americans.
BAD REMINDERS
The Big Brother approach reminds Fridman too much of what he left behind in the former Soviet Union.
"It's the same rule like it was there," said Fridman, who estimates there are around 55,000 Russian immigrants here.
Michael Petrov of the Digital Edge data management firm in Bloomfield, said that he objects to the "micro-managing of the economy" he's seen from city as well as federal officials.
"Government is affecting small business more and more," said Petrov, who came to the United States in 1994. "It's the same as what's happening in Russia."
The Citizens Club, formed earlier this month, looks to support and grow local businesses here; introduce Russian firms to the borough's existing business and political communities, and promote Russian community representatives to serve in elected office.
MRC president Robert Scamardella has actively been courting members of the Russian community this year.
"One of the main initiatives I have pursued has been to expand the base of the party by reaching out to diverse potential constituencies and securing their support and involvement," said Scamardella, an attorney.
"This decision by leaders of the local Russian community illustrates the effectiveness of this approach. We will continue to reach out to other communities and seek their association with the Republican Party."
Former Borough President Guy Molinari, the MRC's namesake, said he'd noticed over the years that Russian immigrants here tended to register Republican.
Molinari called the affiliation with MRC "a natural marriage."
"They want to be involved, be part of the community," Molinari said. "They come from a country where they weren't able to express themselves, didn't have the right to organize or vote. They appreciate it more than some of us who were born here."
Brooklyn attorney David Storovin said that the fact that the MRC is made up of business professionals "who are successful in their own right," also made the match an attractive one.
He said that he and other Russian immigrants are also drawn to the GOP's traditional veneration of flag and country.
GRATEFUL FOR FREEDOMS
Reflecting the American Dream ideal that has drawn immigrants here since the county's founding, Storovin said that many Russians are "grateful" for the religious, business and travel freedoms the United States provide, and want to show it.
"We do feel patriotic," Storovin said.
Yevgeniy Lvovskiy, of the ZHL Group development firm, said that many Russians here also are looking to break ethnic stereotypes that paint Russia as being all about "Siberia, beer and vodka."
"We are looking for an opportunity to prove ourselves," said Lvovskiy, who came to the United States in 1999. "If you work hard, and do the right thing, you get rewarded. We want to show people we are normal."
It's that self-starting stance, he said, that makes Russians here more in line with GOP orthodoxy.
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Crafty points out:
"he had help - Republicans clearing his path and sprinkling it with rose petals."
Yes and were not many of them the "establishment" 'cans who were voted out?
Agreed, good point and just as, or even more outrageous then the liberal crats.
It has all the appearances of them vengefully "sticking it" to their consituents before they had to leave. I can only assume they are doing their best to loot everything they can before they go back to their law practices, or lobbying companies to make a killing.
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"Many Russians here aligning with Republicans"
A number of physicians I work with are from Eastern Europe and generally as far as I can tell they are quite shocked at the left turn this country is taking.
They will tell me they fled Eastern Europe to get away from this and now Obama et al are doing it here. :cry:
I am so proud of my fellow Jews and their historical accomplishments but I am also so disgusted by the liberal progressive socialist types of which there are many and they absolutely ARE a loose cabal it seems in the MSM and in acadamia, and in politics behind the scenes working incessantly and relentlessly to shove their agenda down all out throats.
For goodness sakes Communism was invented by a Jew.
It was one thing as a well intentioned theory in, what the 1850's, but ain't it obvious by now it doesn't work?
We need someone who CAN convincingly make the case is that we ARE giving the country away.
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http://legalinsurrection.blogspot.com/2011/01/bloomberg-v-booker.html
Saturday, January 1, 2011
Bloomberg v Booker
New Yorkers are always a hard bunch to please, but after this week's freak blizzard (can we stop calling them freak blizzards now that they happen on the regular?) has landed New York City (and 2012 flirt) Mayor Michael Bloomberg (D/R/Ind/2012) in hot water. Almost a week after the storm, many New York City streets remain unplowed, snow clearing crews are sparse, and entire neighborhoods are still snowed-in. Bloomberg is under fire from all sides for the slushy cleanup.
Jump the Hudson River for an entirely separate story: Cory Booker (D) Mayor of Newark, and likely 2013 candidate for Governor has been personally clearing his own resident's driveways, streets and sidewalks while coordinating emergency care all from his cell phone via Twitter. He's been all over the press for his literally up-to-the-minute responses to stranded residents, and become a national Twitter sensation among social media addicts. Shovel in hand, Booker is making Bloomberg's modest cleanup look like an unorganized mess.
Whether it's 2012 for Mayor Bloomberg or 2013 in New Jersey for Mayor Booker, we'll be hearing about this snowstorm long after it melts away.
PS: Wondering just how bad a snow cleanup can get? Take a look at New York's wonderful snow-clearing property-destroying abilities:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEdZA7u545Q&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]
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Does anyone understand or know what this lady does that makes her so "effective" at shoving her will on everyone?
Other than being a world class liar I don't see any obvious great intellectual talents yet everyone seems to bend to her will and fear her behind the scenes.
What is the missing link that us regular people are not privy to?
I just don't get it.
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Well, as Speaker she campaigned for several D's in 2008, let them lambast her in 2010, controlled debate on the floor of the House, has major impact over committee assignments, and big time sway over the contributions of the DCCC.
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Woof,
Not to mention that many so called moderate and bluedog Dems are just as far left as she is.
P.C.
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And she has a 100% safe district.
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CCP, If you or I agreed with her agenda I think it would be easier to see what an effective leader she was in terms of advancing and passing legislation. I'm surprised she wanted to stay on. Bizarre to me but I think it means she really believes in what she is doing. From my point of view the election proved they are wrong. From her point of view, they aren't done. She is a historic person, first woman Speaker and largely the architect of big programs that could become permanent, including national healthcare, cap and trade carbon regulation, Don'tAskDon'tTell, internet regulation, tax hikes on the wealthy, and ultimately gay marriage. The election past was a misunderstanding. The public is a step behind them in enlightenment and with the turnout of a Presidential election, her plane could get re-fueled so they can finish their work and lock in the programs.
Her members support her for the shared accomplishments. They got big things done and they have no new members, tea party equivalents, to shake things up. The returning caucus is quite a bit to the left of those of the last 4 years because the moderates from weaker Dem districts were weeded out.
From where we sit these leaders rarely seem like the brightest light. Was Bob Dole the most influential or charismatic Republican of his time? Gerald Ford? Mitch McConnell? Denny Hastert? For the Dems, Tip O'Neill, Jim Wright, Tom Foley? I guess they all have behind-the-scenes-skills (see bigdog's post) and maybe they rise to the top as a compromise away from the more flamboyant and controversial personalities.
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PS. Going back a couple of posts, thank you GM for the NY snow removal video. I post some winter stories but I think readers in warmer places just think we're nuts for living here. I needed something today from a garage that the city blocked with a wall of snow against it higher than the garage doors, now frozen as hard as rock. I considered cutting a new doorway on the side but decided to leave it until spring. Bloomberg is a bit of a glib one himself. Good to see him squirm a little. Imagine that, a snowfall of 20 inches in a northern climate - the urban leaders look so surprised. Out in the x-urbs, people have trucks, plows, a plowing contracts or major investments in giant snowblowers. But they also have space; you have to put the snow somewhere.
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Doug, PC, BD, and Crafty,
Thanks for your input. But none of you have really answered the question.
You all point out achievements. What I don't get is, 'what is it about her or her skills or her methods that makes her so effective'.
Doug's comment,
"I guess they all have behind-the-scenes-skills"
And this goes to my question.
What are her skills. Other than being a pushy full of shit ass I simply wonder what it is she does behind the scenes that makes her so succesful.
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I guess it is leadership and persuasion skills. It took amazing organizational skills to even get these really long bills written by staffers well enough to be acceptable to her majority caucus and to the negotiators from the senate to pass health care, financial regulations, cap/trade, etc. etc. in such a short time. The ability to have skilled and motivated staffers working around the clock to get these done. The ability to know exactly what buttons to push to keep a caucus of 200+ on the same page. We keep calling it ObamaCare but it seems like it was staffers within the Pelosi camp who got all this done.
What she did not do is bring the American people with her. Last March I fully expected (and so did she) that the wishy washy public would gradually flow over to their side and accept another great big government monstrosity growing into our lives. Maybe the turn of the public without any leadership against this program was the real story of last year. If health care was the holy grail, maybe they should have gone cautious and responsible with everything else as they slid it through, rather than all-out, round-the-clock leftism.
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Pelosi: Democrats Lost House Because of ... Bush!
"We still would have lost the election because we had 9.5% unemployment. Let's take it where that came from. The policies of George W. Bush and the Republican support for his initiatives, tax cuts are for the wealth, recklessness by some," Minority Leader Pelosi told CNN.
It is stuff like this that has me scratching my head. There are a lot of Democrats who I disagree with but who do not say just utter nonsense and seem to have everyone behind the scenes terrified of her. I can't believe it is just a wonderful "bedside manner" behind the scenes.
It must be mobster style politics with a LOT of powerful financed supporters. Like play ball and we will get you the bribes to your constuents and send you money for your re election and get the money for the federal funded highway thru the district where you own real estate, or else we will reveal that you are downloading child porn, visiting prostitutes (that were set up for you by me "friends") or have a nice IRS audit of your accounts, etc.
There must be alot more than meets the eye.
Where is the journalism??? Or are they all in the tank or bought off too?
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Woof,
The elite libs are absolutely sure they have all the answers and know what's best for the world and things like facts or the truth are just minor nuisances that they talk their way around. Nancy is very good at this, at least to the point where folks that know better aren't dragging them out into the street and flogging them and the rest either believe her or don't care. As for the media they just play along because most are owned by elite libs and their journalist aspire to be elites themselves. They all masquerade as defenders of rights and freedom when actually all they want to do is dictate and impose their will on mankind.
P.C.
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PC,
"elite libs are absolutely sure they have all the answers and know what's best for the world and things like facts or the truth are just minor nuisances that they talk their way around"
Excellent point and how you expressed this. They know best for the world and are going to shove it through no matter what. They are adept at bribing just enough voters to keep them in power.
It is up to Repubs to be able to convince at least some of the Dems, particularly minorities, that crats are hurting them in the long run if buying them off in the short run.
I am convinced that if Bama cannot get some sort of DREAM act or something like it AND if he loses in 2012 he will definitely pardon the illegas during the lame duck period. He will have nothing to lose at that point and his socialist agenda can then be rammed through with hordes of predominantly new voters who are more than happy to vote for us to pay for more of their benefits. Alternatively, he will do it in a second term. I have no doubt.
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PC,
"elite libs are absolutely sure they have all the answers and know what's best for the world and things like facts or the truth are just minor nuisances that they talk their way around"
Excellent point and how you expressed this. They know best for the world and are going to shove it through no matter what. They are adept at bribing just enough voters to keep them in power.
It is up to Repubs to be able to convince at least some of the Dems, particularly minorities, that crats are hurting them in the long run if buying them off in the short run.
I am convinced that if Bama cannot get some sort of DREAM act or something like it AND if he loses in 2012 he will definitely pardon the illegas during the lame duck period. He will have nothing to lose at that point and his socialist agenda can then be rammed through with hordes of predominantly new voters who are more than happy to vote for us to pay for more of their benefits. Alternatively, he will do it in a second term. I have no doubt.
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Soros/MoveOn.org and connected pieces of that conspiracy have taken over much of the Democratic Party. IMHO Pelosi needs to be seen in that context.
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I'm convinced that if Bama cannot get some sort of DREAM act or something like it AND if he loses in 2012 he will definitely pardon the illegas during the lame duck period. He will have nothing to lose at that point and his socialist agenda can then be rammed through with hordes of predominantly new voters who are more than happy to vote for us to pay for more of their benefits. Alternatively, he will do it in a second term. I have no doubt.
How can he do that? Or should I ask, What does that accomplish? While I suppose he can grant a "pardon" for crimes committed in the past, it is my understanding that he cannot grant legal status, i.e. a Green Card to an illegal alien. Therefore they would still be "illegal aliens".
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Woof,
Lib's have infiltrated both Parties and all levels of our government that's why it no longer works for the people but instead has been turned into a puppet that can be manipulated for the benefit of politicans. That's why we have unsecured borders and 12 million illegal aliens living here without fear of being deported in the first place in other words by simply not enforcing our laws they are already living the dream act! He doesn't need to do anything it's already been done. :-P
P.C.
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Therefore they would still be "illegal aliens".
Well good question.
I am thinking about Reagan pardoning and granting amnesty to the hordes that were here in the 80s. Now there are five times more here (at least).
My undestanding is the President has the power to grant amnesty or pardon criminals (of Federal Law?).
So if bamster pardons them they may not be automatic citizens but sure enough they are no longer "illegal".
Notwithstanding some liberals are trying to twist common sense on its head and lose the term illegal and call them undocumented.
"He doesn't need to do anything it's already been done."
True point. I think though a pardon would even make the path to citizenship a moot point. I guess I don't know the legal technicalities involved.
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Woof,
Well that's where another infiltrated branch of government the Supreme Court of the U.S. will come into play; eventually they'll rule that being a citizen isn't necessary to vote and that everyone here has a Constitutional right to be represented and thus has the right to vote just like they have a right to everything else here; education, heathcare and so on. Besides, it's already happening on the local level for non citizens here legally. www.wickedlocal.com/brookline/features/x128164711/Proposal-would-allow-non-U-S-citizens-to-vote-in-Brookline-local-elections (http://www.wickedlocal.com/brookline/features/x128164711/Proposal-would-allow-non-U-S-citizens-to-vote-in-Brookline-local-elections) P.C.
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Some information on pardons:
Time Magazine's (sorry) 10 most controverisal pardons: http://www.time.com/time/2007/presidential_pardons/10.html
A political scientist discusses the Office of the Pardon Attorney (pp 13-18): http://www1.law.nyu.edu/lawcourts/pubs/newsletter/spring08.pdf
A statistics of pardons, from Presidents Truman to Obama. Pay special attention to Clinton's last day pardons of Marc Rich, Roger Clinton, and Susan McDougal, accessed from a link on the page. http://www.justice.gov/pardon/recipients.htm
Guidelines for seeking a pardon: http://www.justice.gov/pardon/pardon_instructions.htm
Limits on the president's power to pardon: approaching zero; constitutionally, only those who are impeached cannot be pardoned.
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BD, Nice post on pardons. Seems unfair but I still like the concept that there is some avenue available to right a wrong. The worst I think are the last day or lame duck pardons especially with the perception they were about selling influence rather than administering justice. Framers did not envision a Lincoln Bedroom or that the power could be transferred to the First Lady's brother. Ford pardoning Nixon made sense that he (allegedly) believed it in the best interest of the nation, he exercised a recognized power, and then the voters exercised theirs - out he went.
Note that the top 10 list did not include 'Reagan's grant' of conditional temporary resident status because the IRCA 1986 was an act of congress, signed by Reagan, not a Presidential pardon: http://www.oig.lsc.gov/legis/irca86.htm. Interesting footnote was that Sen. Kennedy voted against the 1986 law because (I would guess) that the conditions were unacceptably restrictive. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/23/washington/23amnesty.html.
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Prentice, Illegals voting is outrageous. So is having the Census count them as residents for representation. Go one step further: The safe havens that attract and protect them but don't let them vote receive disproportionate representation for themselves.
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Woof,
Not to mention the over counting done in homeless shelters where they estimate how many people stay there and they just assume your here legally and that your a citizen then the shelter down the road, counts the same people. As you know the homeless move around from shelter to shelter and then on top of that they will get counted again by census workers that hunt them down on the street. Some of them are being counted four or five times. :-P
P.C.
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Woof,
Some recent history on Congress woman Giffords (D) AZ, and update on her being shot today... it's a sad day.
www.blogs.jta.org/politics/article/2011/01/05/2742426/gabrielle-giffords-votes-against-nancy-pelosi
www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/01/08/arizona-congresswoman-reportedly-shot-public-event/
There has been some postings on yahoo and other sites calling for Tea Party members to be killed on sight. Nice! :-P
P.C.
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Woof,
More detailed update..
www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2011/01/08/20110108arizona-giffords-brk.html
P.C.
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Third post
Woof,
By the end of this article you find out that Congress woman Giffords has been threaten by both far Right loons and far Left radicals. Or shouldn't both be called racial loons period!? :x
www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40978517/ns/politics/?gt1=43001
P.C.
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Fourth Post
Woof,
They are saying this nut job did it...
www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/08/jared-lee-loughner-gabrielle-giffords-shooter_n_806243.html
P.C.
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Seriously deranged , , ,
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6 dead including a 9 year old girl, 18 injured, short range in a crowd. Should not need DNA or expert testimony, nor should his reasons matter. I would like to see him tried and hanged by sundown before others can copy. Whatever his motive or message is, this should not earn him a soapbox to tell it.
We (who survive) will live our lives in and out of metal detectors and cameras with emptied water bottles because of nutjobs like this one.
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Woof,
Some on the Left are already trying to use this to slam Conservative radio and cable talkshows, Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh and so on. The Pima County Democrat Sheriff, Clarence Dupnik wasted no time in blaming Conservative talk shows and those evil haters that want our immigration laws enforced and the border secure, for this shooting. The Left never wastes a crisis that they think they can turn into a political attack and smear campaign. Talk about vitriol :-P
http://gatewaypundit.rightnetwork.com/2011/01/pima-county-az-sheriff-clarence-dupnik-blames-az-political-culture-for-shooting-video/ (http://gatewaypundit.rightnetwork.com/2011/01/pima-county-az-sheriff-clarence-dupnik-blames-az-political-culture-for-shooting-video/)
P.C.
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The Media & The Shooter
Posted by Erick Erickson (Profile)
Sunday, January 9th at 6:00AM EST
48 Comments
“The tea party movement won in November. Winners don’t go on shooting sprees.”This morning we pray for Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, her family, and the other victims of the heinous violence in Arizona.
It should not be, but the media, under the guise of “a full exposition” of the evil in Arizona, is back to subtly and not so subtly pinning the blame for the attempted assassination of the Congresswoman and the related shootings on the tea party movement, Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, me, you, and everyone right of center.
Let’s be crystal clear: this is the supposedly objective news media doing this, not the openly, partisan left, though it is fueling the media witch hunt. And from what we now know, it is not just media malpractice, but a lie.
Ironically, by perpetuating the lie — by even treating it as a legitimate topic of consideration to revisit the accusations of violence and hate the media tried to run with prior to the November election — that the right and the tea party incited this evil act, the left and media may very well incite violence against the right.
Today, the Sunday Shows will all be from Arizona. There will, I have no doubt, be many of them wanting to know if “rhetoric” and “tea parties” and “opposition to Barack Obama” did this.
They will also bring up, as they did yesterday, Sarah Palin putting Gabrielle Giffords on her target list for defeat with a rifle scope symbol over her district.
Here is what will either not be brought up, or if brought up, will only be mentioned in passing.
Markos Moulitsas of the Daily Kos, the largest left-wing community online, put Gabrielle Giffords on a target list with a bullseye. Just as Sarah Palin removed her post, Markos has removed his. Another Daily Kos writer, just the other day, penned a post saying Congresswoman Giffords was dead to him.
But then there is the real culprit — the shooter himself. A friend of the shooter’s described the shooter as decidedly “left-wing” as recently as 2007. On YouTube, he flagged as a favorite video one of a person dressed as a terrorist burning the American flag. Only a lunatic or a leftist would do that. His favorite work was not a Glenn Beck book, but a staple of every left-wing bookshelf, the Communist Manifesto. In the Communist Manifesto, there are numerous, frequent calls for violence against the bourgeoisies.
Left-wing cartoonist Ted Rall’s most recent book calls for a violent response from the left against the right. Barack Obama himself told left-wing activists, “If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun.”
The point of all of this is not to blame Ted Rall, Mr. Obama, Media Matters, MSNBC, any other particular person or group on the left, or the left in general. It is also not to say in any way, shape, or form that the guy is of the left. If, however, we take the evidence as presented and not as the media and left would have it presented, the shooter very clearly is not of the right.
More precisely, the shooter is neither left-wing nor right-wing. He is crazy and evil — a word not used enough. The guy is very clearly not of the tea party movement, not a Dittohead, not led by Sarah Palin, me, or anyone else on the right.
But the media, at least as of this morning and its accumulated coverage so far on this matter, could not care less. The media is intent on yet again exploring right-wing rhetoric and tea party hate. Left-wingers yesterday were falling all over themselves to blame everyone on the right for the horrific shooting.
The media today, as it begins more expansive reporting, will not let the facts get in the way of making the right, yet again, responsible for violence it neither incited nor enabled. In the process, the media’s credibility will continue to shrink.
By the way, as an exit thought, the tea party movement won in November. Winners don’t go on shooting sprees.
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"We (who survive) will live our lives in and out of metal detectors and cameras with emptied water bottles because of nutjobs like this one."
And now the calls from our brave elected officials to pass more laws for their protection.
We don't need any more laws. It is reasonable for major security for the President but we have enough laws already for them IMO.
Last night on 60 minutes was the segment on the mayor of Santiago, Mexico who was kidnapped and killed because he refused to play ball with the local drug terrorists.
Now there is a hero! Can you imagine any of our brave lawmakers in this country truly risking their lives to fight drug terror? All the brave Mexicans who are trying to fight the terror they live with everyday because of the cowards and punks in this country who sell and do drugs.
Real courage is choosing between "silver and lead" as they are forced to do in Mexico.
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Westboro Baptist Church To Picket Funerals Of Arizona Shooting Victims
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/09/westboro-baptist-church-arizona_n_806319.html
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Aside from showing signs of serious mental illness, the AZ shooter was a 9/11 truther. Although, that too may well be a symptom of serious mental illness.
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Woof,
The Left is gearing up for a full scale attack on free speech via Conservative radio and cable talk shows and already has in hand a number of prefab Bills to push for more gun control laws. Laws that if in place before would not have prevented the sick acts of this individual. The Left and the media cease to amaze me in their willingness to slosh through the blood of victims so they can exploit these sick acts and the highly emotional atmosphere so they can exploit the moment to futher their Leftist agenda, smear their opponents, and get ratings and profits at the same time. Of course they fail to address the failure of our mental healthcare system and the fact that the Left and ACLU are more concerned with the rights of insane people than they are the majority normal citizens, I don't see any change coming soon. The media also ignores their role in giving a huge public stage and glorious coverage for these sick killers to playout their insane acts and actually encouraging and helping the next nutjob do the next massacre bigger and better. :-P
Go to www.senate.gov and www.house.gov to find out who your Senator or Representative is, then call 202 224 3121 and ask for their office. Tell them not to let the emotion of this sick act be exploited for the purpose of taking away our freedoms and liberty.
P.C.
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Olberman worked on his usual day off over the weekend to immediately turn this into a rant against the evil right.
The fact that the killer appears to have had more politically in common with *his* opinions will of course be ignored. I don't suppose he will get on the air and state he should tone down *his* rhetoric or of course try to pin the blame on himself.
A lot of people are angry in this country. And with good reason. Those to the right of the spectrum will not be silenced.
Like Doug posted, lets try, convict, and execute this murderer the one and only one responsible (as far as we know at this point) for murder.
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Prentice, Excellent story regarding the armed tackler. Tragic that someone prepared like him wasn't standing closer when it happened.
Bigdog: Like hollering Fire in a crowded church, that group deserves no protection for that behavior IMO. I hope intent to incite criminal violence and terror acts like this is a crime. If not I would start by revoking their tax exempt property status. Then they can spend their time, like the rest of us, having to work to pay property taxes, before they travel to celebrate brutal acts of terror and carnage. http://www.snco.us/Ap/R_prop/Listing.asp?PRCL_ID=0973503030001000
Whatever law enforcement tools we want to come down hard on extreme Islamic organizations supporting terrorism, same should apply to these religious phonies. They were an annoyance and an embarrassment when they celebrated the deaths of our heroes killed overseas. But this is direct support of criminal and terror acts IMO right here at home and Guantanamo might be a better setting for their protest.
If political view is the question (it isn't), both the fake church and the screwed up activist sound more to me like the Reverend Wright's "God Damn America" and "America's Chickens...have come home to Roost!" than it sounds like anything I heard in a tea party speech or Christian sermon: 'Peace be with you'.
GM: "showing signs of serious mental illness". I too would look mostly at the 5 inches between his ears for what went wrong, not the political movement or obsession of the moment.
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DougMacG: While I appreciate the First Amendment a great deal, I like the idea of the revocation of the tax exempt status. I have no love for Fred Phelps, but I am looking forward to the USSC's opinion on the anti-protest legislation.
(One small quibble: remember that the lack of protection by the First Amendment is FALSELY yelling fire in a crowded theater. If I am watching a movie, and there is a fire, I for damn sure want to know!)
I have spent my lunch hour discussing this situation with two anti-gunners. It did take them 2 minutes after I walked into the lunch room for the discussion to begin. The backlash is quick.
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http://michellemalkin.com/2011/01/10/the-progressive-climate-of-hate-an-illustrated-primer-2000-2010/
Dialog.
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Doug,
As much as my blood boils every time I see the Westboro douchbags, were they going to Gitmo, the left would have you, me and many others from this board on the next flight after them.
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From Michelle Malkin's piece and explanation of "tu quo quo":
Tu quoque
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
This article is about the logical fallacy. For the historical quotation "Tu quoque, Brute, fili mi", see Et tu, Brute?. For the play by John Cooke, see Greene's Tu Quoque.
A case of Tu quoque: "By Jove, what extraordinary headgear you women do wear!"—ironic reference in PunchTu quoque (pronounced /tuːˈkwoʊkweː/ [1]), or the appeal to hypocrisy, is a kind of logical fallacy. It is a Latin term for "you, too" or "you, also". A tu quoque argument attempts to discredit the opponent's position by asserting his failure to act consistently in accordance with that position; it attempts to show that a criticism or objection applies equally to the person making it. This dismisses someone's viewpoint on an issue on the argument that the person is inconsistent in that very thing.[2] It is considered an ad hominem argument, since it focuses on the party itself, rather than its positions.[3]
Contents [hide]
1 Illegitimate use
1.1 You-too version
1.1.1 Legal aspects
1.2 Inconsistency version
2 See also
3 References
[edit] Illegitimate use
In many cases tu quoque arguments are used in a logically fallacious way, to draw a conclusion which is not supported by the premises of the argument.
[edit] You-too version
This form of the argument is as follows:
A makes criticism P.
A is also guilty of P.
Therefore, P is dismissed.
Examples:
:"He cannot accuse me of libel because he was just successfully sued for libel."
Person 1: It should be illegal to make clothing out of animals.
Person 2: But, you are wearing a leather jacket.
Person 1: Never smoke cigarettes. It is a terrible addiction.
Person 2: I just saw you smoking a few minutes ago.
[edit] Legal aspects
In common law, a legal maxim exists stating a person cannot approach the courts of equity with unclean hands. If there is a nexus between the applicant's wrongful act and the rights he wishes to enforce, the court may not grant the applicant's request. To illustrate, if a landlord breaches a term in a tenancy agreement and then issues an eviction notice to the tenant for the tenant's breach of a term in the tenancy agreement, the law might permit the tenant to stay because of the landlord's own breach of the tenancy agreement.
This argument has been unsuccessfully used before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in several cases when the accused tried to justify their crimes by insisting that the opposing side had also committed such crimes. However, the argument tu quoque, from the basis of international humanitarian law is completely irrelevant, as the ICTY has stated in these cases.[4][5][6][7]
Historically, however, at the Nuremberg trial of Karl Dönitz tu quoque was accepted not as a defense to the crime itself, or to the prosecution proceedings, but as a defense only to punishment.[8] Otto Skorzeny and officers of Panzer Brigade 150 successfully used tu quoque evidence at the Dachau trials to be acquitted of violating the laws of war by using American uniforms to infiltrate Allied lines in the false flag Operation Greif in the Battle of the Bulge.
[edit] Inconsistency version
This form of the argument is as follows:
A makes claim P.
A has also made past claims which are inconsistent with P.
Therefore, P is false.
This is a logical fallacy because the conclusion that P is false does not follow from the premises; even if A has made past claims which are inconsistent with P, it does not necessarily prove that P is either true or false.
Examples:
"You say aircraft are able to fly because of the laws of physics, but this is false because twenty years ago you also said aircraft fly because of magic."
Senator Smith: It is important that we all vote for this legislation.
Senator Jones: You just said last week that voting for it was a bad idea.
[edit] See also
Pot calling the kettle black
And you are lynching Negroes
Unclean hands
[edit] References
^ Random House Dictionary
^ Bluedorn, Nathaniel (2002, 2003). The Fallacy Detective. pp. 54. ISBN 0-9745315-0-2.
^ Logical Fallacy: Tu Quoque
^ Judgment of the Trial Chamber in Case Kupreškić et al.. (January 2000), para. 765
^ Judgment of the Trial Chamber in Case Kunarac et al.. (February 2001), para. 580
^ Judgment of the Appeals Chamber in Case Kunarac et al.. (January 2002), para. 87.
^ Judgment of the Trial Chamber in Case Limaj et al. (November 2005), para. 193
^ Yee, Sienho (2004), "The Tu Quoque Argument as a defence to International Crimes, Prosecution, or Punishment", Chinese Journal of International Law, 3, p. 87-133.
[hide]v · d · eFallacies of relevance
General Absurdity · Accident · Ad nauseam · Argument from ignorance · Argument from silence · Argument to moderation · Argumentum ad populum · Base rate · Compound question · Evidence of absence · Invincible ignorance · Loaded question · Moralistic · Naturalistic · Non sequitur · Proof by assertion · Irrelevant conclusion · Special pleading · Straw man · Two wrongs make a right
Appeals to emotion Fear · Flattery · Nature · Novelty · Pity · Ridicule · Children's interests · Invented Here · Island mentality · Not Invented Here · Repugnance · Spite
Genetic fallacies Ad feminam · Ad hominem (Ad hominem tu quoque) · Appeal to accomplishment · Appeal to authority · Appeal to etymology · Appeal to motive · Appeal to novelty · Appeal to poverty · Appeals to psychology · Appeal to the stone · Appeal to tradition · Appeal to wealth · Association · Bulverism · Chronological snobbery · Ipse dixit (Ipse-dixitism) · Poisoning the well · Pro hominem · Reductio ad Hitlerum
Appeals to consequences Appeal to force · Wishful thinking
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BD, Thanks for the reminder/clarification on the theater exception. You still may get out better if the people closest to the exits would calmly whisper why they are leaving and to pass it on. :-) We just removed more than 63 congress people without shooting, so the violence message here is also false. Especially false to claim validity to murdering a young girl.
GM, I thought of that and fear an overreaction too. I will reconsider my proposals as this unfolds. I write with the confidence of knowing no one ever takes my advice and I assume there already are plenty of laws. If you aim and wrongfully kill it is murder. If you advocate killing a federal judge, from a position of authority, pretending to represent God and church, then that is a crime or could be construed that way if it in fact happens(?) But shooting into a crowd and killing any and all until you run out of ammunition is terror, and we are fighting terror on many fronts. We decided to fight it pre-emptively because there is no effective alternative. Cheering on a senseless acts of terror and openly and seriously encouraging more of it is not religion or protected free speech (from this armchair amateur untrained jurist). It is not synonymous or analogous to expressing strong views on issues or using war or death analogies in sports or political competitions or in humor or casual speech. I may not trust our government to draw the line, but there is a line. Hiding behind a church or a Mosque is what our enemies do. I have visited many churches and this is not what they teach or how they attained a protected status in this country.
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CCP:
I liked that; a shame to have it lost here in this thread , , , maybe somewhere on the S, C, & H forum too?
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CCP,
I don't think there has been the same level of venom from the right that there has been from the left. They spent from 2000 to 2009 setting the bar with "Chimpy-Bushitler" rhetoric, then scream that mainstream conservatives are preaching hatred now.
Thus far, the only voices the AZ shooter seems to have been listening to were in his head.
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GM, I agree. What amazes me is how the MSM makes it sound like the anger on the right is all being driven and stoked by talk radio and Fox, etc.
Quite the contrary. I don't think many who listen to these shows are really that influenced. I think most of the listeners are *already* the choir. They are listening because they already have come to the same conclusions and we all tend to seek those who validate our views.
For example, I have come to the conclusion that Bamster does not inherently like whites, Jews, or America. I did not come to this conclusion after listening to talk radio. I listen to talk radio because they have concluded the same and I listen to vent. The left strategy is to belittle and deligitamize this frustration every way possible. They decrie that it is "fringe", "hate", "bigots", "crazy" (birthers :x), or misguided (Obama is really a moderate :x).
Even Joe Scarborough was essentially blaming Fox talk radio, Palin, Beck this AM.
I used to like that guy. I don't know what has happened to him in his apparent quest to be seen as a moderate and fit in over there at MSNBC.
He must be having an affair with that broad. What's her name? The one who is the daughter of the ugliest national security advisor (to Carter- no less) we ever had in government.
I guess the only question remains is how is Bamster going to play this. Probably his script is already written for him ala Clintonesque, "I feel your pain" and he will show "leadership" and avoid politics (let others do that) and triangulate. The MSM will be adoring, drool and go orgasmic again, with quotes like, "this is what he ran on".
I guess I should be glad to have the President do that but frankly I am not because I know this guy is a radical dressed in sheeps clothing.
After being conned for years with Katherine's music by everyone and anyone I know a con (usually) when I see one.
Now that he doesn't have huge majorities in both houses to ram through his agenda he has ultimately been pulled kicking and mumbling towards the center by those around him who are desperately trying to keep him popular and relevant for 2012.
It is no accident the MSM made it a policy to show us how he read a biography on Reagan over his break in Hawaii. No matter how hard they try this guy is no Reagan.
Yet the swing voters as I have pointed out are easy fodder for manipulation and persuasion and they will fall for all this as they always do. You can fool some of the people all of the time.
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The shooter was a registered independent who didn't bother to vote in 2010 (and Giffords opponent was a tea partier!), hardly following the right wing in lock-step. http://voices.washingtonpost.com/thefix/house/jared-lee-loughner-was-a-regis.html His grudge with Giffords was that she blew off his question a few years ago: 'What is government if words have no meaning?'. His friend says he said back to him, 'Dude, no one's going to answer that,' http://liten.be//AE3ip
Inspiration for the shooting? Friend says: "I think the reason he did it was mainly to just promote chaos. He wanted the media to freak out about this whole thing. He wanted exactly what's happening. He wants all of that." Tierney (the friend) thinks that Loughner's mindset was like the Joker in the most recent Batman movie: "He wants to watch the world burn."
Blaming right wing radio or politicians is strange considering he didn't vote and more interested in drugs and video games that in Palin or Limbaugh or anyone else. Can't speak for the psycho-blockhead but I know my anger at government and Washington is exactly the same if I listen to Rush L or CBS News, Air America or All Things Considered. CCP nailed it, the anger inside comes from what the opposition is doing not from what the host is saying. You listen because it resonates. My radio has been off for months and my anger is the same. The most effective parts of all those shows are when they play politicians, especially opponents, in their own words, in full context. Horrible time to blame a victim, but another idea is stop encroaching on liberties and negligently running our country if you want less anger in the country. Everybody who was awake last Nov. saw that anger and revulsion reached the majority, not just psychos and 'paid entertainers'. The well meaning congresswoman knew, from her own interviews, that healthcare 'reform' was the biggest invasion of our privacy in our country's history.
The DLC had targets on their map back when Palin was still registered as a Wasilla housewife with the FEC. They should be accusing her of trademark infringement, not murder incitement. http://www.dlc.org/ndol_ci.cfm?contentid=253055&kaid=127&subid=171
Again, the CAUSE of the shooting is found inside this psycho's brain. This was obvious when he kept shooting after hitting the target of his obsession, if not sooner. He rode a cab to the event (Does one way cash fare sound familiar?) because (IMO) this was a suicide killing. He expected to be shot after a few of his shots and no one showed up with a gun until after his jammed and was wrestled away.
Excellent insight of P.C.: the calm responsible decision making of the concealed carry holder (see 'armed citizen' post) was quite impressive. An innocent man who had gotten to the murder weapon could easily have been shot in the chaos of the moment.
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Woof,
The situation with the conceal carry guy and the bystander with a gun is a teachable moment. When the police or concerned citizen with a gun runs toward the sound of gun fire, when they get there they are looking for the guy with the gun and if you are a bystander that picks up the shooters gun or if you are a conceal carry person and draw your weapon to stop the active shooter, there is no halo over your head designating you as the good guy. Plain clothes officers, undercover officers and citizens intervening in these situations have been killed by both, police officers and other citizens who mistake them for the threat.
BTW, I think President Obama gave a fine speech at the memorial last night. The Native American blessing was rather odd, it just seemed out of place; no disrespect meant on my part, my grandparents where Native American and I'm very proud of my heritage, it was just strange for this event but so was all the cheering and cat calls; Brett Hume, on Fox News said much the same.
P.C.
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"BTW, I think President Obama gave a fine speech at the memorial last night"
Did you notice he repeatedly did the lower lip thing like Clinton? I never saw Obama do that before. It was staged to portray emotion.
He tried to be more postive about America like Reagan yet show emotion like Clinton.
I suspect this means he is going to do the triangulation thing like Clinton and pretend he is more like one of us (in order to change us).
This worked quite well for Clinton whose approval ratings rose overnight and never went back down.
If I am right and Obama does this he too will win over the swingers and his numbers will likewise rise well above 50%.
Therefore unless the Republicans can come up with a winner who doesn't look like a dead fish and do promotional Brittany Spears and Viagra commercials like the respectable but very uncharismatic guy in '96 - we are looking at 4 more years of the Bama.
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Woof ccp,
I agree that his numbers will rise after this speech but his reelection hangs on jobs and if he can't improve in that area then even a dead fish will beat him in 12.
P.C
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This piece makes an and powerful observation about the shift in congress. Not just ideology, but geography of influence is changing. The more urban group's power is diminishing, Nancy Pelosi from San Fran, Charlie Rangel from Harlem, Ellison of North Minneapolis, John Conyers of Detroit, Waxman from L.A., Barney Frank - Boston. Coming into greater power are people from further out in America's heartland, like suburban Cincinnatti, Richmond, Bakersfield, Twin Cities' suburbs, Janesville, etc. A Harvard ecucated lawyer from Madison out, a businessman from Osh Kosh in.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0111/47167.html
The heartland Rises
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Doug,
I sure hope you are right.
I made the mistake of turning on MSNBC last night and I heard someone mention that Presidents giving memorial speeches goes back to Gettysburg! Only could MSLSD compare a couple of people killed by a crazy man to Gettysburg. And yeah right Bamster's reading of a script, for what, a half hour is the same as Lincoln's hand and self written few minute speech done to honor war dead, and explain the reason for a war is even remotely comparable.
The service became a political rally when Obama came in.
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I caught Karl Rove being interviewed this am on Fox being asked (by that fox - what is her pretty name again?) about Bamster's being advised and obviously going to the middle.
I think Rove is in denial about it. He said it is still a question as to whether the Bamster's heart is in it or not.
The answer is of course it isn't. But his advisors are obviously winning the argument. Evidence in support of this conclusion include the triangualtion speech at the memorial ceremony, the "centrist" (Rove's own description for) Daley for WH chief of staff, the deal with Republicans over the taxes etc.
This is exactly what I feared. Bamster will pretend he is a moderate, pretend he loves American ("be all we can be"), pretend he is standing for us. The "swingers" who always decide elections in the national races will forget or not care what he did to us the first two years and will fawn all over him as though he was like this all along. Clinton proved that is what happens. It is a joke that swingers who cannot make up their minds what they want are the ones who decide our futures but that is the case.
Time will tell for sure but I guess Krauthammer is right that Bamster having just made it *more likely he will win* re election in 12 than not. Though I completely disagree with him that it is because he is so smart. He is just the front man reading the scripts. It is the advisors around him, particularly the Clintinites who have been so adept at this. And the MSM loves it.
Why the ONE walked into the room and she opened her eyes for the first time - give me a break.
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CCP, One difference is that Clinton started by running as a centrist. In 1992 Democrats saw themselves as electoral college losers. Other than 4 failed years of Carter all they could remember for a generation was 20 years of Nixon twice,Ford, Reagan twice and Bush, and were up against a somewhat competent, hugely experienced incumbent. Clinton was the head of a group positioning to be electable centrists. Liberalism was known to fail in 40 states for Dukakis and 49 for Mondale.
For Clinton it was all about Clinton. For Obama I think it is all about moving the nation and the policies to the left. He was the no. 1 liberal in the senate and running in the context of the 2006 sweep and still running against a damaged George Bush (not on the ticket). What Obama is experimenting with now is a series of head fakes, not moves. With the first few they have no affect because people know him. He talked about growing private sector jobs but grew the public sector instead for example. He cut the big tax deal but had nearly no choice except wait and cut a worse one. Talked offshore then banned more offshore etc. Right now no one knows how far he will go with his head fakes, but his point in keeping power and popularity is to further implement what we call leftism, not to move to the middle. (MHO)
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"Right now no one knows how far he will go with his head fakes, but his point in keeping power and popularity is to further implement what we call leftism, not to move to the middle"
Doug,
The phoney one ain't fooling me or you or anyone else on this board except maybe JDN ( :-D), but it is the swing voters who I worry will fall for the coordinate effort between Bamster's new people (Daley - a banker no less) and the jornolists in the media who will try and make them beleive he is a centrist, he is a moderate and anything else is a myth made up by the looney right.
There were a lot of people cheering for him the other night. They can't all be Democrat teachers who make up most of the Dem conventions. Did you notice the lower lip being pushed up frequently? Clinton did that all the time to con us into thinking he really was feeling pain in his gut. There are obviously enough voters who are that stupid.
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Watch the oil prices, stagflation and worse unemployment to undo the centrist charm offensive.
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GM,
If that is what it will take to be rid of this guy then it is for our own long term collective good as a nation that the next two years see all of that on your list.
It is *that crucial* we get rid of this guy IMO.
The leader of the free world cannot be a con artist.
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CCP, Agreed. The R-House needs to get good bills passed that can make it through a more centrist senate and sent to a leftist President that will call him out exactly on this question, head fake or move, on as many key issues as possible. If he moves to the center, the country benefits and so do his reelection chances. If he vetoes and holds a hard left line, he is exposed for what he still is coming into reelection. And if the bills are lousy or unpopular or don't make it through the senate, he gets cover.
I didn't watch the memorial; I hear he was at his best. He has a gift of delivering scripted oratory, but he has worn out his gift of muddling issues and positions. I don't think he can regain that magic. His future success in politics will rely on a real move to the center and having weak opponents. His free pass with the media is only partly a free pass with the media. They had it partly going again with this comeback kid stuff at the lame duck.
I do business in the black inner city. He will win 95% of that vote again, but not with magical turnout or excitement levels this time. Nothing has changed or improved there whatsoever, same old, same old. They went from once a year to twice a year emergency assistance, temporarily with stimulus money - that is the ability to move around and get a free month's rent, and easier food stamp qualification, but unemployment is worse and education, behaviors and attitudes are all the same as any other recent time. Businesses and jobs are not moving in, start ups aren't starting up. Having tried this and failed (hard left governing and the excitement of a half black President) is worse for Democrats politically than not having tried it.
Large numbers of highly educated suburbanites still lean left, but again, the magical sway he had with true independents there is gone. He will have to earn every vote. States like Ohio and Florida are lost for him at this moment with a short time to recover. It has been 80 years since R's held more representative seats at the state level. That shift happened on his watch.
p.s. Oil prices today and tomorrow are the fault of this crowd and the cowardly RINOs who joined them over the last 10-20 years, unless you believe that high energy prices destroying the capitalist economy is a good thing. Many including Obama believed that in opposition but now he stands accountable for (lousy) production and employment in our economy. His Columbia and Harvard educated brain needs to get around the idea you don't get to have it both ways, a highly functioning economy with no energy production or usage. Subsidized green jobs, cash for clunkers, buying auto makers, setting mileage standards out of reach, blocking ANWR, offshore, nuclear, Presidential visits to battery plants, blocking the growth of the grid, criminalizing CO2... these do not constitute a successful economic plan.
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Doug and GM,
Reading your posts is reassuring. 8-) I hope you are right.
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I am more pessimistic.
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http://hosted2.ap.org/WTICAM/b7538a1b675b4d059de3e728edc01923/Article_2011-01-15-Presidential%20Appointments/id-22927b442e824facb162b13e5a8efff0
Presidential nominees stymied; Senate seeks change
JIM ABRAMS
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate, in its inaugural session, rejected George Washington's nominee to be a naval officer in Savannah because the two Georgia senators wanted their guy in the job. The way of naming and confirming the nation's top officials hasn't become much smarter in the years since.
It's become a lot more of a problem.
President George W. Bush had only about half his political appointees on the job at the time of the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner in early 2009 found himself dealing with the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression without his team of deputies in place. The attempted bombing of an American airliner on Christmas Day 2009 occurred when the Transportation Security Administration was without an administrator.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Republican leader Mitch McConnell, in a rare moment of agreement, opened the new Congress this month by endorsing a bipartisan effort to find ways to improve an unwieldy, unproductive system.
It's a challenge because there are so many ways to bog down a nomination.
Reid noted that the slow-moving Senate is now responsible for confirming 1,215 executive branch nominees and the number keeps rising. Brookings Institution senior fellows E.J. Dionne Jr. and William Galston wrote in a study that the number of core policy positions the president must fill has risen from 295 when Ronald Reagan took office to 422 for Barack Obama.
Then there's the onerous screening process, even for lower-level appointees. It's meant that an administration can take months to send a nomination to the Senate for confirmation. Finally, there's the increasingly partisan Senate, where a single lawmaker has the power to bottle up a nomination for months or kill it, sometimes for reasons unrelated to the person in line for the job.
Like their Georgia counterparts of old, Louisiana's two senators stood in the way of nominations last fall to protest the freeze on offshore drilling after the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. The White House said there would be a one-week delay in making public the president's budget proposal this year, partly because Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., had blocked a vote on Obama's choice to be budget director, Jack Lew, for more than a month.
"Among the democracies, the United States has created — without intending to — what is almost certainly the most ungainly process of filling a government with qualified people," Dionne and Galston wrote.
A Commission on Public Service headed by former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker recommended in 2003 turning one-third of all Senate-confirmed political positions into career jobs. The Partnership for Public Service, a nonprofit group that promotes service in the federal government, wants the Senate to commit to voting on the president's top 50 national and economic security officials immediately after inauguration and having the top 500-plus appointees in place by the summer recess.
Those studies dealt primarily with executive office nominees and not the equally vexing issue of judges. There are more than 90 judicial vacancies in U.S. district and appellate courts today. Chief Justice John Roberts complained in a year-end report that "each political party has found it easy to turn on a dime from decrying to defending the blocking of judicial nominations, depending on their changing political fortunes."
Reid, D-Nev., and McConnell, R-Ky., suggested that the chairman and the top Republican on the Senate Rules Committee — Sens. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn. — lead a working group to study ways to streamline the confirmation process. But progress probably depends on Democratic-led efforts to change Senate rules to make it harder for single senators to hold up legislation and nominees and to reduce the number of filibusters.
At the end of the last session of Congress, 43 nominees, including judges, awaited a vote by the full Senate. That compared with seven at the end of Bush's first two years in office, Reid's office said. Seven have been on the waiting list since 2009.
One result is that many competent people are dissuaded from accepting positions in government, said Max Stier, president of Partnership for Public Service.
"It's the rare individual who is both qualified and willing to run the obstacle course that is required," he said. Stier said there are examples of people, even those without background problems, who had paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees to get through the screening process.
Presidents sometimes turn to recess appointments — putting people in the jobs temporarily when the Senate is not in session. Obama warned Republicans last February that he would resort to this strategy because of holds on nominations he said were "motivated by a desire to leverage projects for a senator's state or simply to frustrate progress. It is precisely these kinds of tactics that enrage the American people."
Among his recess appointees: Donald Berwick, a Harvard professor now heading the agency that runs Medicare and Medicaid; James Cole, the No. 2 official at the Justice Department; Craig Becker, as a member of the National Labor Relations Board.
Obama also avoided a drawn-out fight with Senate Republicans on Elizabeth Warren, his choice to head the new Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection, by naming her to oversee creation of the fledgling agency. That post doesn't require confirmation.
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"Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner in early 2009 found himself dealing with the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression without his team of deputies in place. The attempted bombing of an American airliner on Christmas Day 2009 occurred when the Transportation Security Administration was without an administrator."
Correct me if I am wrong but wasn't that in great part because BO (Geithner) did not nominate anyone?
NOT DENYING THE LARGER ISSUE, but
a) the Dems strated it with their outrageious borking of Reagan's Judge Bork nomination (contrast the Reps subsequent treatment of Ruth Bader Ginsberg;
b) BO has nominated some seriously radical people.
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MARY ANASTASIA O'GRADY
Coral Gables, Fla.
If Republicans were to run a classified ad for their 2012 presidential candidate, it might read something like this: GOP seeks popular former two-term governor of a large state for executive post. Qualified applicants will have a demonstrated understanding of the relationship between taxes and growth, a proven record on choice in education, and an ability to draw Hispanic voters. A commitment to states' rights and the U.S. constitution is a must.
Their candidate is out there. But Jeb Bush, Florida's governor from 1999 to 2007, insists that he's not applying for the job. Still, his ideas and style have gained national attention, so I braved the TSA gropers at New York's LaGuardia airport and hopped a flight to South Florida to talk to him.
As we sit down in his office, the tall Texas transplant raises the still-unratified Colombia free trade agreement, which has been in the news recently. Sitting on the FTA has created uncertainty that is emblematic of President Obama's broader economic policy, he says. Plus, Colombia is a U.S. ally. "We get all the benefits [that come] with a friend and this is how we treat them. It's just amazing," he says, shaking his head.
Mr. Bush's wife was born in Mexico, he is fluent in Spanish, and he lives in a heavily Hispanic state, so he has great interest in our hemisphere. He's also had unusual success earning the political support of Spanish-speaking Americans, so I ask him what tips he has for his immigrant-challenged party.
View Full Image
Terry Shoffner
.His answer comes effortlessly. Hispanics aren't monolithic, he says, but all immigrants—"the newly arrived and the second generation"—share one trait: "They're aspirational." Conservative candidates, therefore, should promote "policies that reward people who are aspirational." That's what he did, and 60% of Democratic Hispanic voters supported his re-election in 2002, he says. Hispanic voters are growing in number, Mr. Bush points out, and "they are increasingly the swing voters in the swing states."
One problem for Republicans, he says, is that "the tone of our message is one of 'them and us' sometimes." At least that's what gets "magnified in the press," with immigration policy being the flash point. It's "a shame," he says, because Republicans and immigrants have a lot in common. "But if you send a signal that we really don't want you as part of our team, they're not going to join."
Yet might today's recent immigrants be natural Democrats, as they were in the 20th century after arriving from Europe? Democrats promise more entitlements, and immigrants tend to be on the lower economic rungs. Mr. Bush couldn't disagree more. "There are people who believe in expanding the welfare state across the spectrum of races and ethnicities and creeds," he says, but that's not a common value among Hispanics. "If you had to pick the values that would be held dear to a broad number of Hispanic voters, access to opportunity would be a higher value than guarantee of security, particularly amongst the newly arrived, meaning the last 20 years."
His insistence on engagement is not a call for multiculturalism. Quite the opposite: "The beauty of America—one of the things that so separates us [from the rest of the world]—is this ability to take people from disparate backgrounds that buy into the American ideal."
With regard to assimilation, he says, Hispanics have much to be proud of. "Second-generation Hispanics marry non-Hispanics at a higher rate than second-generation Irish or Italians. Second-generation Hispanics' English language capability rates are higher than previous immigrant groups'."
The former governor says immigration is fundamentally an economic matter. "I would argue that if we can't figure out how to control our border and move to a much more provocative and 21st-century immigration policy, the problems we face will become incredibly difficult to solve because we are not going to grow." Coming from the mild-mannered Mr. Bush, I take this to mean that government needs to grow bolder—not necessarily more confrontational—in its search for immigration solutions.
The country needs "younger people with energy and aspirations," he says. Without them, we could end up looking like Old Europe: What should be annual GDP growth of 3.5% could instead be 1.5%. After 10 years, that would amount to a difference of $3.8 trillion in economic activity. "So to me the immigration issue is an economic competitiveness issue, and we're missing it because we are incompetent in the government."
Mr. Bush would like to see "a very aggressive guest worker program that ebbs and flows with demand." He also wants to expand the H-1B visa program aggressively, allowing high-tech companies and others to recruit "highly educated, highly motivated people" from around the world.
To deal with the problem of illegals already in the country, meanwhile, Mr. Bush likes proposals that acknowledge the rule of law but also "give them a chance to change their status. If they learn English, pay a fine, accept a waiting time and have a clean record, some system like that makes sense to get people to come out of the shadows." Going forward, he thinks employer sanctions are justified because the E-verify system—an online government system that allows employers to check the legal status of job applicants—seems to work.
The nut of the problem is competency at Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). "If you have to deal with our friends at ICE, it's like a Kafka novel. Files just disappear," he says, speaking from personal experience with constituents and relatives.
Mr. Bush's fiscal record is also worth exploring, so I ask him about the importance of Florida having no income tax. It has been "hugely important" in attracting people with economic aspirations, he says. Part of the trick is controlling the growth of government. When he was governor, he says, he "did a whole series of things that institutionalized limited government," including building up a constitutionally mandated countercyclical reserve fund, putting checks on spending, creating debt-service limits, and prohibiting gimmicks that underfunded pensions.
Mr. Bush says that during his tenure Florida was "the only state to go from a double-A to a triple-A rating," in part because state pensions were among the best funded in the country. "So when states come hat-in-hand to Washington" looking for money, he says, "I would hate to see the really bad drunks getting more bourbon while the states that have done the right thing are penalized."
So new Republican governors should adopt rules for countercyclical budgeting and fully funded pensions? Too timid, Mr. Bush says. "I would argue for the elimination of the defined-benefit pension system. Might as well just get right to the end of the conversation, that's where this is all going." Then, "figure out a creative way to deal with the unfunded liabilities." That "means you have to take on the unions." He notes that New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has so far "shown that you can take on these entrenched interests and be popular and sustain the efforts to change the state."
Mr. Bush points out that although Florida spends slightly less than the national average per student in education, it has had "the greatest gains in learning as measured by the [National Assessment for Educational Progress] scores." Florida Hispanics are leading the way in closing the achievement gap, he says, as his state's "low-income Hispanics now do better than the California average in the fourth-grade rating."
How did Florida do it? "Harder edge accountability, the most ambitious school choice programs in the country, and the elimination of social promotion from the third grade," he says. One program promised that if a school got a failing grade from evaluators two years out of five, parents could take the value of their children's education and use it at a private school. The program lasted more than five years before it was ruled unconstitutional (on the grounds that Florida's constitution guarantees students free public schools). But it "had a dramatic impact on improving lower-performing schools because the threat drove a lot of change."
I ask Mr. Bush if, having made so much bipartisan progress in Florida, he has any advice for the new Republican Congress. He starts with this: "There is a balance between standing on principle and finding common ground, and we need both. Common ground doesn't have to be compromise of principle."
Members of Congress can find common ground on issues like trade, he says. For example, "if the president is for the Korea [free trade agreement] but not for the Colombia FTA, it seems to me that Speaker Boehner would be absolutely correct in saying 'We're for you, Mr. President, but the merits also suggest that Colombia and Panama ought to be part of this.'"
Mr. Bush says it is wrong to oppose Mr. Obama at every turn. "On the bigger stuff where there are clear lines in the sand related to the size and scope of government, tax policy, spending, the environment and the regulatory agenda, there is probably not going to be common ground found. But there are other places like education where there could be common ground. And, I would hope, border security."
Constant political one-upping is particularly dangerous, Mr. Bush warns, because there could be a shock to the system in the near future. One possibility is "one of the states not being able to deal with its pension obligations and its structural budget problems." That could, in turn, "change the international financial community's regard for sovereign risk in the United States."
Still, Republicans need to fight for their ideals—against "the general idea that you solve problems by mandating, regulating and taxing," and for "trusting the interaction of free people to pursue their dreams." When I ask him for specifics, he says that the Republican House should pass a budget "that's real, that rolls back discretionary spending at a minimum to the 2008 level, and that begins the process of challenging the general size and scope of the government."
Then he points to Congressional oversight of the regulatory process. Congress has abdicated its constitutional duty to oversee "the executive branch's execution of law," he says. Instead, it has gone about "just reauthorizing laws without looking at the costs and benefits," especially with regard to environmental regulation. "I think we should sunset every law and do a review of the rules."
The field of Republican candidates looks so grim to me that I can't help but ask whether this isn't Mr. Bush's "moment." "This is my moment," he says to my less-than precise question. "I feel totally blessed with the wife I have and the life I have. On the important stuff, it is my time."
But I was referring to the presidential race. "I know you were. And I am not running," he says, smiling. But he wants to "play a role" and thinks that he's especially equipped to do so because he's not running. "I can really speak about things that are controversial, that a candidate might avoid—like immigration. And my view may not be in the mainstream of my party, but that doesn't bother me a bit."
Ms. O'Grady writes the Journal's Americas column.
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"Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner in early 2009 found himself dealing with the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression without his team of deputies in place. The attempted bombing of an American airliner on Christmas Day 2009 occurred when the Transportation Security Administration was without an administrator."
Correct me if I am wrong but wasn't that in great part because BO (Geithner) did not nominate anyone?
NOT DENYING THE LARGER ISSUE, but
a) the Dems strated it with their outrageious borking of Reagan's Judge Bork nomination (contrast the Reps subsequent treatment of Ruth Bader Ginsberg;
b) BO has nominated some seriously radical people.
I don't think that a "he started it" is all that helpful. That may be the case, and I do feel that Bork deserved a seat on the Bench, but there is more than that. (Here's an opening) As the size of the government increases, which it has consistently across adminisitrations regardless of party, that then increases the number of political appointments that the president, with the Senate, is responsible for filling.
And, whether you like it or not, the Senate has been responsible for preventing people from taking a place on the Supreme Court under necessary circumstances, as well (Fortas and the early Nixon defeats come to mind as examples). I recognize that the Senate should not abdicate its advice and consent role, but I do think that a reform of the process could help the president, regardless of party.
Small tangent: I think that reform should focus primarilt on the executive branch positions. I think the president should have more latitude as on appointments for those who will work for him than for those in a co-equal branch of government with lifetime appointments.
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"I don't think that a "he started it" is all that helpful. That may be the case, and I do feel that Bork deserved a seat on the Bench, but there is more than that." I get that, but part of my point is that the Reps did NOT respond in kind over RBG (as you know, she was my Consitutional Law prof) who was and is a mega-liberal-- compare the treatment of Thomas's lynching. After a while, this starts to feel like Charlie Brown, Lucy, and the football. cf the silence over extreme comments from the left and outrage over straight up criiticism from the right e.g. Glen Beck.
"(Here's an opening) As the size of the government increases, which it has consistently across adminisitrations regardless of party, that then increases the number of political appointments that the president, with the Senate, is responsible for filling." Agreed.
"And, whether you like it or not, the Senate has been responsible for preventing people from taking a place on the Supreme Court under necessary circumstances, as well (Fortas and the early Nixon defeats come to mind as examples)" As does that ridiculous hack woman that Bush43 tried appointing.
"I recognize that the Senate should not abdicate its advice and consent role, but I do think that a reform of the process could help the president, regardless of party. Small tangent: I think that reform should focus primarilt on the executive branch positions. I think the president should have more latitude as on appointments for those who will work for him than for those in a co-equal branch of government with lifetime appointments."
A fair distinction. I agree.
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Our congressional thread disappeared with the election.. Just a political moment ago Dems had the House and 60 seats in the senate. For 2012 no matter how Obama does, it will be hard for Dems to either swing the House back or to not to lose more ground if not the majority in the Senate because too many Dem incumbents have to defend their seats in red states.
North Dakota recently had 2 Dem senators in a state Bush carried by 28 points. Byron Dorgan withdrew last year and Chairman of the Senate Budget Committee Kent Conrad opted out for 2012 today. A Republican former governor won Dorgan's seat in Nov. with a 55 point margin.
Kay Bailey Hutchison R-Texas is also stepping out but that just gives a large red state R party more time to find their best conservative candidate, likely to be to the right of Hutchison and likely to win.
Just like the lame duck, Obama's best chance to cut any favorable deal with congress on anything including a healthcare re-write or tax or entitlement reform going forward is now, before his reelection contest.
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Doug:
At the moment I am gettng charged $30 an hour at a business center at a Las Vegas hotel :x. Let me think over whether to start a separate thread for Congressional matters. I fear overfragmentation and blurred lines. How would you define the subject matter for such a thread?
Marc
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Crafty, Too early I suppose but the House and Senate races in 2012 will be very interesting and just as important as the Presidential race. How it goes into threads is your call.
The House did a total flip twice in the last 3 cycles when the reelection rate was historically 98%. In the Senate I count 13 vulnerable Dems and 2 vulnerable Rs. A net change of 3 would make a 50-50 tie with the deciding vote possibly going to Vice President Rubio.
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Breaking News Alert
The New York Times
Sat, January 22, 2011 -- 3:44 PM ET
-----
Tea Party Supporter Chosen to Lead New Hampshire Republicans
Jack Kimball, a Tea Party activist who ran for governor of
New Hampshire last year, was selected on Saturday to be the
new chairman of the Republican party in the state. He
defeated Juliana Bergeron, who had the backing of John H.
Sununu, the former governor and departing party chairman.
With the state's first-in-the-nation primary just over a year
away, Mr. Kimball's victory could further strengthen the role
of Tea Party members and possibly influence how presidential
candidates approach the state in the coming months.
Traditionally, party chairmen in New Hampshire remain neutral
in presidential primaries. But Mr. Kimball said recently that
the new party chairman should let presidential candidates
know that New Hampshire Republicans want their party to "get
back to its conservative values and stay there."
Read More:
http://www.nytimes.com?emc=na
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Although this is a legal opinion, I place here because of the subject matter.
http://www.state.il.us/court/Opinions/AppellateCourt/2011/1stDistrict/January/1110033.pdf
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Bwahahahahaha!
Bad day for the world's toughest ballerina.
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http://www.suntimes.com/3483600-417/emanuel-court-illinois-appellate-ballot.html
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The one year residency requirement doesn't seem to be in any dispute and everyone knows he moved to Washington DC to work for the President. How does Rahm have a leg to stand on? He leased a place to live in DC and he leased out his Illinois home to someone else for the same period. A lease transfers possession. It means his drivers license was wrong. He didn't have a legal right to live in the address where he said he lived. He transferred that right away - sold it - because he made plans to live somewhere else, not in Illinois. He can't move back into what he alleged was his residence, even now. He had to rent somewhere else, which is fine except he hasn't been at the new place a year as of election day, or anywhere else in IL, like the law requires. I'm missing something? It's strange to me that there is a controversy.
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I understand your point, but he kept roots in Chicago and moved to D.C. to serve is country (his politics are irrelevant) for a short time. His intention at all times was to return to Chicago.
An elected official is exempt. But because the law does not directly address the issue of a candidate they are not; I'm not sure this is fair.
One should not be penalized for serving their country.
To that end, the candidate argues that, regardless of whether
he meets the candidate eligibility requirements of subsection 3.1-
10-5(a) of the Municipal Code, he nonetheless may be qualified as
a candidate by virtue of section 3-2 of the Election Code, which
provides as follows:
"(a) A permanent abode is necessary to constitute a
residence within the meaning of Section 3-1. No elector or
spouse shall be deemed to have lost his or her residence in
any precinct or election district in this State by reason of
his or her absence on business of the United States, or of
this State." 10 ILCS 5/3-2 (West 2008).
According to the candidate, he falls within this exception
because his absence from Chicago was attributable to his service as
the Chief of Staff to the President of the United States. We agree
with the candidate that his service constituted "business of the
United States" and thus that this exception applies to him. We
disagree, however, with his position that the exception saves his
candidacy. In our view, the exception embodied by section 3-2 of
the Election Code applies only to voter residency requirements, not
No. 1-11-003322 to candidate residency requirements.
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I would not call his position as chief of staff to the WH as "service of the United States".
He was in service to the Obama Adminsitration.
He was not drafted into service, it was not an elected position, it was a purely political appointment to a government job. It was totally voluntary on his part and it required he relocate to Wash. DC. :?
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Hmmm forgetting about his politics for a moment, this applies to either party, I don't think anyone truly doesn't think the position of "chief of staff" isn't serving one's country. Even the Court did not
question this matter. Just like the Secretary of Defense is serving our country. Or the Secretary of State. (I am acquainted with Warren Christopher; I assure you he took a huge pay cut to become Secretary of State; he called it a "duty to serve his country") Or individuals in our military, they too serve our country, yet they weren't drafted, they volunteered to serve in Iraq or elsewhere; but I do think if they came from Chicago, and intended to return to Chicago, and then returned to Chicago, they should have the right to run for office in Chicago in the next election upon their honorable discharge.
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Emanuel is a man I hold in low regard, but JDN's point about service seems fair to me.
That said, I am not sure we are tracking well this point about statutory interpretation:
"We agree with the candidate that his service constituted "business of the
United States" and thus that this exception applies to him. We
disagree, however, with his position that the exception saves his
candidacy. In our view, the exception embodied by section 3-2 of
the Election Code applies only to voter residency requirements, not
No. 1-11-003322 to candidate residency requirements."
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My download of the appellate decision was partial, so I meant that literally, 'what am I missing'. The exceptions were what I was missing, thank you, but he doesn't seem to fall exactly in them. We will see. The long term lease-out of his Chicago home was IMO the deal killer. Otherwise he is arguably a Chicago resident away on business for the country, maintaining residency, even if he was seldom if ever able to come home. It makes his DL and his residency a fraud. We all know Chief of Staff is of high importance, I sure he argued strongly for the Chicago Olympic bid for example, but it is not elected office or military service. Typist for the Chief of Staff is important work too; let's not judge the value of his work, just note that he chose to take work and residence in Washington when he needed to be in Chicago if he wanted this job with a one year candidate residency requirement. I wouldn't want to be the political adviser who told him this would be no problem.
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Whether Emanuel is held in low regard or high regard, he was absent from Chicago serving his country. And clearly he is not a carpetbagger having lived and represented Chicago.
Frankly, I was surprised that there was even an issue. No longer.
The Illinois Supreme Court ruled Thursday that former White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel met residency requirements and that his name will stay on the mayoral ballot in Chicago.
http://www.cnn.com/2011/POLITICS/01/27/emanuel.ballot/index.html?hpt=T2
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Is a typist at 40k for a backroom federal office also serving their country or are they working a job. If you leave to work in the private sector or a private charity are you serving our country? Depends on who owns our language. :-(
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Judge Napolitano last night stated the law is clear that he was not a resident for the time period involved. Based on a literal interprestation of the law it is an open and shut case.
He added two other comments:
Illionios is Democrat and they tend to interpret law based on the politics (although we know this happens everywhere frequently)
and
it is best for the voters to decide who they want for mayor [so he would not make a "federal case out of the matter].
Doug writes,
"Is a typist at 40k for a backroom federal office also serving their country or are they working a job."
I would add the question was Emmanuel serving his country or himself? Serving as WH chief of staff has to be one of the ultimate career moves. I find calling it "serving one's country" as the partisan protector of the number one politician not in the same league as someone who "serves" in the military. Particularly one who volunteers though I gues one could even argue that volunteering for the military service is a form of career move (though I would not).
From Dick Morris who I quote often here:
***Dear Friend,
Have we learned our lesson? Do we now know to nip aspiring, radical, charismatic Chicago politicians in the bud? We missed our chance once. Now a second chance is coming around again.
Rahm Emanuel – the most ruthless, aggressive, ambitious, radical, take-no-prisoners politician in America – is running for Mayor of Chicago. The bottom rung of his ladder. From there, it’s the Senate and then the White House. This time as the boss.
Let’s knock him off the bottom rung before he rises further. Stop him before his political career metastases.
His style? Do anything, attack anybody, adopt any pose to get elected. Sound like his mentor in the White House?
So now we have a chance to intervene and stop Rahm.
I know you probably don’t live in Chicago. But we all live in the United States and, make no mistake, the presidency is Rahm’s goal.
There is an alternative. Gery Chico, former Chief of Staff to Mayor Richard Daley, is Rahm’s chief competitor. (Not counting former Senator Carol Mosley-Brown who conveniently forgot to pay her taxes last year). Chico is not ideal. He’s no tea party activist. But he is honest. And he’s to the right of Rahm. And he’s running second.
Our goal? Force Rahm into a runoff against Chico. And Chico can win. And we will all be saved from Obama II in the form of Rahm Emanuel.
Please give to our PAC to stop Rahm. Go to www.Rahmstoppers.com and donate! You will find it a whole lot cheaper and easier to stop him now that you will in the future.
We let Obama climb the ladder. We learned our lesson. Now let’s stop Rahm.
To help stop Rahm – Click Here!
Thanks,
Dick Morris****
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How could they have contemplated appointed officials when they last reviewed their ordinance that clearly specifies elected officials and military. There was probably an R. administration back then.
Personally I like to see liberals have to go back to a real jurisdiction and balance a budget.
Isn't our nation's formerly second largest city by definition a lobbyist of the federal government. Wasn't there an administration rule (written by Emmanuel) banning administration officials from leaving to take a position lobbying back to the same government for money, subsidies and favorable legislation?
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Many implications here, first is that right now Republican have a minority in the Senate, but they should have 15 reasonable sympathetic Dems up for reelection in red states to work with either to govern now or to isolate Obama to the left of the nation coming into his potential reelection. Obama is another Dem who needs to carry a good number of 'red states' to win.
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"the contrast between the audience at Obama's first State of the Union last year and the audience this year is remarkable. Then there were 316 Democrats and 218 Republicans in Congress. This year there are 289 Republicans and 246 Democrats. No president has seen such a large change in the partisan composition of his State of the Union audience since Harry Truman."
January 31, 2011
Politics by the Numbers: Good Omens for the GOP in 2012
By Michael Barone
Numbers can tell a story. Looking back on Barack Obama's second State of the Union message, and looking forward to the congressional session and the 2012 elections, they tell a story that should leave Democrats uneasy.
Start off with the audience in the House chamber. Not all members of Congress attended; Obama briefly and Paul Ryan at greater length in his otherwise brief rebuttal both appropriately noted the absence of Gabrielle Giffords.
But the contrast between the audience at Obama's first State of the Union last year and the audience this year is remarkable. Then there were 316 Democrats and 218 Republicans in Congress. This year there are 289 Republicans and 246 Democrats. No president has seen such a large change in the partisan composition of his State of the Union audience since Harry Truman.
That obviously will have legislative consequences. Obama told Republicans to give up on all but the most minor changes to Obamacare. They're not going to follow this advice.
As for spending, Obama reiterated his call for a limited freeze on domestic discretionary spending and cuts in defense. Again, as Ryan made clear, this Congress has different ideas.
The political incentive for Obama is to sound consensual, not confrontational. The current uptick in his job approval, putting him just over 50 percent, began when he agreed with Republicans to continue current income tax rates rather than raise taxes on high earners.
But on Tuesday night, he continued to call for higher taxes on the greedy rich in a time of sluggish economic recovery. Not as consensual as one might expect.
House Democrats, almost all elected from safe districts, won't mind that. But they're not going to have much to say about legislative outcomes. House Republicans will take it as a poke in the eye and perhaps as an attempt to renege on a deal. Not helpful in reaching other agreements.
In the Senate, where Democrats have a 53-47 majority, but not iron control, the situation is different. In the 2012 cycle, 23 Democrats come up for re-election and only 10 Republicans. You can get a good idea of their political incentives by looking at the 2010 popular vote for the House in their states. Since the mid-1990s, when partisan percentages in presidential and House elections converged, the popular vote for the House has been a pretty good gauge of partisan balance.
Of the 10 Republican senators up for re-election, only two represent states where Democrats won the House vote -- Olympia Snowe of Maine and Scott Brown of Massachusetts. They're both well ahead in local polls.
For the 23 Democrats up for re-election, the picture is different. Eight represent states where the House vote was 53 percent to 65 percent Democratic and where Barack Obama got more than 60 percent in 2008. Count them all as safe.
But 12 represent states where Republicans got a majority of the House vote in 2010. These include big states like Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan and Virginia, and states like Montana and Nebraska, where Republican House candidates topped 60 percent. Missouri, New Jersey, North Dakota, West Virginia and Wisconsin round out the list.
In another three states -- New Mexico, Washington, Minnesota -- Republicans won between 46 percent and 48 percent of the House popular vote. These were solid Obama states in 2008. They don't look like solid Democratic states now.
The point is that Democratic senators from all or most of these 15 states have a political incentive to reach agreements with Republicans that go a lot further than Obama did at the State of the Union.
Finally, what about the portents for the 2012 presidential race? Well, start off with the fact that Democrats won the House popular vote in only two of the 17 states that do not have Senate elections next cycle. The other 15 went Republican.
Overall, Democrats carried the popular vote for the House in 15 states with 182 electoral votes in 2012; add three more for the District of Columbia. Democrats were within 5 percent of Republicans in House elections in five more states with 52 electoral votes.
That gets Democrats up to 237 electoral votes, 33 votes shy of the 270-vote majority and 128 short of the 365 electoral votes Obama won in 2008.
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A headline from the future with President Obama: "The Sunni-Shia Nuclear Arms Race Escalates".
I wonder how much gas will be then....
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/nov/28/us-embassy-cables-saudis-iran
America is not short of allies in its quest to thwart Iran, though some are clearly more enthusiastic than the Obama administration for a definitive solution to Iran's nuclear designs. In one cable, a US diplomat noted how Saudi foreign affairs bureaucrats were moderate in their views on Iran, "but diverge significantly from the more bellicose advice we have gotten from senior Saudi royals".
In a conversation with a US diplomat, King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa of Bahrain "argued forcefully for taking action to terminate their [Iran's] nuclear programme, by whatever means necessary. That programme must be stopped. The danger of letting it go on is greater than the danger of stopping it." Zeid Rifai, then president of the Jordanian senate, told a senior US official: "Bomb Iran, or live with an Iranian bomb. Sanctions, carrots, incentives won't matter."
In talks with US officials, Abu Dhabi crown prince Sheikh Mohammad bin Zayed favoured action against Iran, sooner rather than later. "I believe this guy is going to take us to war ... It's a matter of time. Personally, I cannot risk it with a guy like [President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad. He is young and aggressive."
In another exchange , a senior Saudi official warned that Gulf states may develop nuclear weapons of their own, or permit them to be based in their countries to deter the perceived Iranian threat.
No US ally is keener on military action than Israel, and officials there have repeatedly warned that time is running out. "If the Iranians continue to protect and harden their nuclear sites, it will be more difficult to target and damage them," the US embassy reported Israeli defence officials as saying in November 2009.
There are differing views within Israel. But the US embassy reported: "The IDF [Israeli Defence Force], however, strikes us as more inclined than ever to look toward a military strike, whether launched by Israel or by us, as the only way to destroy or even delay Iran's plans." Preparations for a strike would likely go undetected by Israel's allies or its enemies.
The Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, told US officials in May last yearthat he and the Egyptian president, Hosni Mubarak, agreed that a nuclear Iran would lead others in the region to develop nuclear weapons, resulting in "the biggest threat to non-proliferation efforts since the Cuban missile crisis".
The cables also expose frank, even rude, remarks about Iranian leaders, their trustworthiness and tactics at international meetings. Abdullah told another US diplomat: "The bottom line is that they cannot be trusted." Mubarak told a US congressman: "Iran is always stirring trouble." Others are learning from what they describe as Iranian deception. "They lie to us, and we lie to them," said Qatar's prime minister, Hamad bin Jassim Jaber al-Thani.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/wikileaks/8298427/WikiLeaks-tension-in-the-Middle-East-and-Asia-has-direct-potential-to-lead-to-nuclear-war.html
WikiLeaks: tension in the Middle East and Asia has 'direct potential' to lead to nuclear war
Tension in the Middle East and Asia has given rise to an escalating atomic arms and missiles race which has “the direct potential to lead to nuclear war,” leaked diplomatic documents disclose.
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/02/AR2011020204773.html
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Interesting story BD. I was struck by a few things, he spoke to a nearly empty chamber - I guess they aren't required to hear each other ramble on. Milbank had a pretty funny line that Henry Clay was already eulogized - in 1852, and of course the date of this story - Feb. 2 - perhaps a bit early to know what kind of compromiser Rand Paul will be. In an example of lousy reporting, the inference is made that Rand's obsession is lower taxes, but there isn't any proposal for that on the table or any word uttered yet that I know of. Far as I know he is committed to cutting spending first and isn't afraid to cut everything.
Rand Paul was the '1 in a 96-1 vote to ban aiming pointing devices at airplanes (Different story: http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2011/02/rand-paul-lone-dissenter-in-la.html). 'Paul told reporters after Thursday's vote that he believed the laser-pointer issue was one best handled by the states, not the federal government.'
Like Michele Bachmann and others, Rand Paul will be a mixed blessing for conservatives. I like that he will be questioning whether things are appropriately a federal issue rather than just vote on what sounds good.
Cutting aid to Israel didn't need to be the first order of business with the turmoil in Egypt, but off he goes on that. He probably never will vote to raise the debt limit, but they don't need 100 votes to do business. I wonder if Milbank has done any stories on the compromises of Dick Durbin or Barbara Mikulsky... Sen. Obama, another non-compromiser, voted against raising the debt limit, against the surge, and against all Presidential picks to the Supreme Court, even against Roberts who won 78 votes in the Senate. It didn't seem to hurt his career.
I watched a full debate in that KY Senate race. Rand faced a very moderate, reasonable, articulate opponent. All Conway had to do to win IMO was say he would organize with the other side, not with Pelosi-Reid-Obama who are not exactly political mainstream in KY. Conway could have passed for a moderate Republican, but I assume he was beholden to the people who got him there.
The political center of the Senate I think is where the action will be, if there is any, including the list of Dem Senators facing reelection in not very blue states.
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"Sen. Obama, another non-compromiser, voted against raising the debt limit, against the surge, and against all Presidential picks to the Supreme Court, even against Roberts who won 78 votes in the Senate. It didn't seem to hurt his career."
On the other hand, I don't recall Senator Obama, or Durbin, for that matter, calling out Lincoln (my best guess as to who would be Illinois' most influential statesman like Kentucky's Henry Clay).
"Rand Paul was the '1 in a 96-1 vote to ban aiming pointing devices at airplanes (Different story: http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2011/02/rand-paul-lone-dissenter-in-la.html). 'Paul told reporters after Thursday's vote that he believed the laser-pointer issue was one best handled by the states, not the federal government.'"
This stance is just plain silly. Interstate commerce clause? Airline traffic certainly pertains. FAA? I have no problem with him, or anyone for that matter, questioning national government involvement in regulation. But he should pick his fights with more care.
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"This stance is just plain silly. Interstate commerce clause? Airline traffic certainly pertains. FAA? I have no problem with him, or anyone for that matter, questioning national government involvement in regulation. But he should pick his fights with more care. "
Yup. If there is anything today that is clearly interstate commerce, aircraft would fall into that definition.
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"This stance is just plain silly. Interstate commerce clause? Airline traffic certainly pertains. FAA? I have no problem with him, or anyone for that matter, questioning national government involvement in regulation. But he should pick his fights with more care. "
Yup. If there is anything today that is clearly interstate commerce, aircraft would fall into that definition.
Holy $hi+! Did we just agree on something GM???!!! 8-) 8-) 8-) :-D
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Very funny! I also agree, those planes often cross state lines - with commerce!
Not to rain on this lovefest, but there is a difference between being uncompromising on principles and just being wrong. Compromise with an over-regulated economy would have been for the proponents of the new regulation to repeal one or more bad laws with it, then see what - Rand Paul - would do.
Of the new Senators, I am more interested in what Marco Rubio will do. On this issue he turned into quite a centrist compromiser. :-)
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Indeed, BD.
Doug,
It's important to focus like a laser beam on the really stupid overreaches by the federal gov't. Things that the average person would look at and agree with.
Like this: http://hotair.com/archives/2011/02/05/epa-to-regulate-dairy-milk-spills-as-per-oil-spills/
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GM, I did see that story (milk spill legislation) in the WSJ. Much as I would like to avoid sarcasm in political commentary, how else can a sane person react and keep going. Who knew that milk spills were crossing state lines like jet powered aircrafts and can you imagine the chaos and confusion we would have in this country if we had 50 different sets of milk spill standards. What if those poorly educated southern (red) states had NO standards at all on milk spills?? (Do you think Glen Beck could be behind these spills?)
Tell me how that will cut 5 points off the unemployment rate or bring a better democracy to Bangladesh and I will be all over it.
I will regret writing this but while I floundered with no success to bring an awareness on the board to my perceived unfairness of killing off 40+ million or so partially developed human unborns in this civilized country over the years, 98% for convenience reasons, one articulate denier/opposer of that unfairness posted elsewhere about the unfairness and discomfort of chickens cooped up in undersized chicken coops (true, no doubt). I do not claim an understanding of other people's priorities.
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[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6HyXCHndmk[/youtube]
I thought that both President Obama and Bill O'Reilly did a great job.
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That was probably Obama's best interview I've seen, mostly honest and mostly persuasive (exceptions noted). Without taking cable I don't see O'Reilly much. Measured by ratings he is probably the best in the business. Jim Lehrer was the best in my estimation but also haven't watched him in a long time. O'Reilly is actually very similar except Lehrer never lets you know his own view. The mostly positive interview makes the 2 year boycott of Fox look rather childish. Also the questions about hatred of the President, which he handled very well, makes one question the way Obama harnessed, exploited and exacerbated hatred of Bush to get where he is.
A few dishonest moments:
(Q: Do you deny that you are a man who wants to redistribute wealth?) "Absolutely." "Bill, I didn't raise taxes once. I lowered taxes over the last 2 years"
What a crock of an answer to the question muddled with a deceptive, true statement. Because he was backed into a tax rate continuation agreement, he is "absolutely" not a man who wants to redistribute wealth?? In the State of the Union (that was what - 2 weeks ago??), he had fighting words about continuing his quest to get the people who now pay by far the most to pay far more. "The top 2%". Did he think no viewer on this Sunday saw his State of the Union, or in the campaign, or will see him next time when he calls for that again? And he will! Or that we can't put 2 and 2 together?? Very telling about anyone's ability to look you in the eye and lie to your face about a crucial point in governing philosophy that is easily proven false by looking backward or forward in time - at his own words.
...
"What we said was, if you've got healthcare that you like, you keep it."
My God, has he been under a rock the last year while plans that people like, like mine, have been disappearing? Yes, that is what they've been saying - and it is patently false.
...
President Obama knows his football and he knows the WSJ Editorial Page but if he knew Paul Gigot (the editor) was from Green Bay maybe would have taken sides on the game.
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A narcissistic, overrated bag of hot air. Obama was there as well.
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http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2011/02/fact-checking.html
Fact-Checking President Obama's Claim: 'I Didn't Raise Taxes Once'
From Bill O'Reilly's interview with President Obama:
O'REILLY: Do you deny that you are a man who wants to redistribute wealth.
OBAMA: Absolutely.
O'REILLY: You deny that?
OBAMA: Absolutely. I didn't raise taxes once. I lowered taxes over the last two years.I lowered taxes for the last two years.”
**Read it all.
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A few of us have been pointing this out here, but it bears repeating in the face of our President's economic ignorance.
From Nov. 2006 on, the economy faced the promise of increased tax rates on new investment. Returns follow investment years later so the tax rate facing investment decisions (build a plant, hire people etc) is the future rate, not the present one. As the Obama Presidency became a reality to join the Pelosi-Reid majorities in congress and pass the tax rate hikes they promised, that impending increase played a big role in the asset and investment selloff of 2008 that tanked this economy. In order to sell for value, sellers had to get ahead of those increases and ahead of the other sellers and acceleration (if not panic) set in. The selloff, collapse in value and doubling of unemployment delayed the tax hikes for 2 years and the shift back of congress created even more uncertainty with no settlement reached until the final hour temporary deal was struck with the outgoing congress. That temporary deal means two more years of uncertainty continuing to put the brakes on new investment. Obama's point is that the rates never went up, but his continuing promise to raise them does the same economic damage or worse adding in the uncertainty.
The fact check articles list 2 dozen tax hikes under Obama from the healthcare bill, but the real ws damage done by this mismanaged sequence of events, and was largely unreported.
Government revenues got the worst of both worlds: income lowered by the (impending) increases, but taxed only at the old, lower rate, leaving us trillions short, compounding the uncertainty of the policies going forward.
Uncertainty and unpredictability is what makes third world countries poor. We gave it a try, suffered badly and learned nothing from it.
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FWIW I've always regarded O'Reilly as a bit of a mediocrity. I grant the intimidating nature of interviewing an American President and I respected the way Bill opened the interview with praise for the State Dept's action on behalf of FOX's attacked reporters in Egypt.
Where Bill came up profoundly short though was in failing to directly question/disupte Obama on taxes and redistribution.
I agree with BD that BO came across well (partially enabled by O'Reilly's failure to challenge him on two whopping lies). It appears that BO has gotten something out of his reads about President Reagan-- at least the parts about his personality. Indeed IMHO the ultimate reason that BO beat McCain was that BO spoke in positives. He is going to be a much more formidable opponent in 2012 for it. If the Reps are not both shrewd and careful while being aggressive, they are going to get outplayed.
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If the Reps are not both shrewd and careful while being aggressive, they are going to get outplayed.
Yep. And the Republicans also need to hope that in the primary season they don't do the political equivilant of eating their young. The winner of the nomination might have too much dirt associated with him (or her) to beat President Obama.
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http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2011/02/obama-deficit-approval-way-down-.html
Just as things looked brighter for Obama, Americans' approval of his deficit handling craters
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This is just political drivel by POTB. Can't trust anything coming from this source. :-D
That comment out the way, my statement above is true, but not necessarily due to politics. It has to do with the author's inability (or lack of willingness?) to read the Gallup Poll. As with any good poll, the Gallup provides information with the results it publishes. In this case, if one is willing to read the "fine print" one learns that "For results based on the total sample of national adults, one can say with 95% confidence that the maximum margin of sampling error is ±4 percentage points." In other words, according to the poll, statistically speaking there has been no change (68-4= 64, the results of the previous polls).
This information is something that college students are aware by the end of introductory course on political science and/or statistics. Shame on the author.
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Are you saying that the MSM might have an agenda, BD? :wink:
Is a "dead cat bounce" a better descriptor rather than "crater"?
http://www.gallup.com/poll/146021/Obama-Approval-Rating-Deficit-Sinks-New-Low.aspx?utm_source=alert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=syndication&utm_content=morelink&utm_term=Politics%20-%20Presidential%20Job%20Approval
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Are you saying that the MSM might have an agenda, BD? :wink:
I've never said otherwise,
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Washington and Lincoln—those birthday boys—ought to be smiling.
The 112th House of Representatives spent the week debating how to fund the rest of fiscal 2011. In sharp contrast to his recent predecessors, Speaker John Boehner is sticking to his vow to make the chamber more open and accountable. His committee chairmen having presented a base spending bill, Mr. Boehner threw open the floor for full discussion. Some 600 amendments came pouring in.
"Chaos," "a headache," "turmoil," "craziness," "confused," "wild," "uncontrolled" are just a few of the words the Washington press corps has used to describe the ensuing late-night debates. There's a far better word for what happened: democracy. It has been eons since the nation's elected representatives have had to study harder, debate with such earnestness, or commit themselves so publicly. Yes, it is messy. Yes, it is unpredictable. But as this Presidents Day approaches, it's a fabulous thing to behold.
And about time. The Democrats' style of management—on ObamaCare, cap and trade, financial regulation, stimulus—was to secretly craft bills and ram through a vote, denying members a chance to read, to debate, to amend. They learned this from former Majority Leader Tom DeLay, who infamously micro- managed his GOP majority from 2003-2005. The House had become a place where the leadership called all the shots and the majority saluted.
But this week the country witnessed the House coming together to argue over and exercise its foremost responsibility: power over the purse. And from the look of the amendments, both sides were eager to use that funding authority to put the Obama policy machine on notice.
There were amendments to prohibit funds for the mortgage-modification program (Darrell Issa, R., Calif.), for wasteful broadband grants (Jim Matheson, D., Utah), for further TSA full-body scanning machines (Rush Holt, D., N.J.), for the salaries of State Department envoys tasked with shutting Guantanamo Bay (Tim Huelskamp, R., Kan.). And amendments designed to cut off funding for IRS agents enforcing ObamaCare.
View Full Image
Martin Kozlowski
.Americans got to see what happens when members of Congress exercise their collective knowledge of the federal government. Mr. Issa put forward amendments to prohibit the National Institutes of Health from spending money studying the impact of yoga on hot flashes in menopausal women. Minnesota Democrat Betty McCollum offered to strike funding for the Department of Defense to sponsor Nascar race cars. Indiana Republican Todd Rokita proposed getting rid of money provided for dissertation research under a 1970 Housing Act.
Neglected questions were once again asked. Should we get rid of federal funding for the arts? Should the government be designating federal monuments? What's the role of NASA? And Congress finally got to air some dirty secrets.
One of this week's more symbolically rich cuts came from Arizona's Republican Jeff Flake, who won an amendment erasing $34 million for the National Drug Intelligence Center in Johnstown, Pa. The center, despite serving no real purpose, had been protected for decades, via earmarks, by the late Defense appropriations chair John Murtha.
The nation witnessed Democrats—the members not in the majority—offer their own amendments, a courtesy Speaker Nancy Pelosi never extended. In the main, that meant seeing that nothing much has changed on that side of the aisle. Most Democratic amendments were to restore funds for even the most minor GOP cuts. Texas's Sheila Jackson Lee even went to the mat to continue funding for those road signs bragging about the stimulus.
Remarkably, voters saw Republicans disagree vehemently with each other. Just as remarkably, the world did not stop spinning. To the contrary, these arguments helped flesh out differences and proved it is possible for gentlemen to have honest disagreements. Nowhere was this more clear than in this week's vote to defund a second (duplicative) engine for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. The engine is being developed in a town near Mr. Boehner's Ohio district, and the speaker is a supporter. Yet 100 Republicans joined 123 Democrats (and Defense Secretary Robert Gates) to oppose the second engine and save taxpayers $450 million this year and $3 billion in the long-run.
Mr. Boehner didn't have to allow that vote. Mrs. Pelosi wouldn't have. But in opening the House, Mr. Boehner has done far more than put reform above his own priorities. This week's exercise forced members to read the underlying spending bill; to understand the implications of hundreds of amendments; to remain on the floor for debate; and to go on record with votes for which voters will hold them accountable.
Some of these amendments are duplicates. Some weren't heard. Some failed. Even those that pass now must survive the Senate. But what isn't in doubt is that Congress, this week, earned its pay. Long may that last.
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A headline from the future with President Obama: "The Sunni-Shia Nuclear Arms Race Escalates".
I wonder how much gas will be then....
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/nov/28/us-embassy-cables-saudis-iran
America is not short of allies in its quest to thwart Iran, though some are clearly more enthusiastic than the Obama administration for a definitive solution to Iran's nuclear designs. In one cable, a US diplomat noted how Saudi foreign affairs bureaucrats were moderate in their views on Iran, "but diverge significantly from the more bellicose advice we have gotten from senior Saudi royals".
In a conversation with a US diplomat, King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa of Bahrain "argued forcefully for taking action to terminate their [Iran's] nuclear programme, by whatever means necessary. That programme must be stopped. The danger of letting it go on is greater than the danger of stopping it." Zeid Rifai, then president of the Jordanian senate, told a senior US official: "Bomb Iran, or live with an Iranian bomb. Sanctions, carrots, incentives won't matter."
In talks with US officials, Abu Dhabi crown prince Sheikh Mohammad bin Zayed favoured action against Iran, sooner rather than later. "I believe this guy is going to take us to war ... It's a matter of time. Personally, I cannot risk it with a guy like [President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad. He is young and aggressive."
In another exchange , a senior Saudi official warned that Gulf states may develop nuclear weapons of their own, or permit them to be based in their countries to deter the perceived Iranian threat.
No US ally is keener on military action than Israel, and officials there have repeatedly warned that time is running out. "If the Iranians continue to protect and harden their nuclear sites, it will be more difficult to target and damage them," the US embassy reported Israeli defence officials as saying in November 2009.
There are differing views within Israel. But the US embassy reported: "The IDF [Israeli Defence Force], however, strikes us as more inclined than ever to look toward a military strike, whether launched by Israel or by us, as the only way to destroy or even delay Iran's plans." Preparations for a strike would likely go undetected by Israel's allies or its enemies.
The Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, told US officials in May last yearthat he and the Egyptian president, Hosni Mubarak, agreed that a nuclear Iran would lead others in the region to develop nuclear weapons, resulting in "the biggest threat to non-proliferation efforts since the Cuban missile crisis".
The cables also expose frank, even rude, remarks about Iranian leaders, their trustworthiness and tactics at international meetings. Abdullah told another US diplomat: "The bottom line is that they cannot be trusted." Mubarak told a US congressman: "Iran is always stirring trouble." Others are learning from what they describe as Iranian deception. "They lie to us, and we lie to them," said Qatar's prime minister, Hamad bin Jassim Jaber al-Thani.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/wikileaks/8298427/WikiLeaks-tension-in-the-Middle-East-and-Asia-has-direct-potential-to-lead-to-nuclear-war.html
WikiLeaks: tension in the Middle East and Asia has 'direct potential' to lead to nuclear war
Tension in the Middle East and Asia has given rise to an escalating atomic arms and missiles race which has “the direct potential to lead to nuclear war,” leaked diplomatic documents disclose.
http://blogs.knoxnews.com/munger/2011/02/if-iran-become-nuclear-weapons.html
If Iran becomes a nuclear weapons state, would U.S. offer deterrence for Middle East allies?
If Iran is successful in developing a nuclear weapons capability, would the United States be willing to extend its umbrella of nuclear deterrence to protect allies in the Middle East?
That is a question the United States needs to start evaluating, according to Franklin C. Miller, a principal with the Scowcroft Group and a former member of President George W. Bush's National Security Council and special assistant to the president.
"I certainly believe people need to be thinking about that," Miller said today during a speech on the second day of the Nuclear Deterrence Summit being held just outside Washington in Crystal City, Va. The summit is hosted by Nuclear Weapons & Materials Monitor, part of ExchangeMonitor Publications.
Even though official government policy at this time is to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear weapons state, Miller said it's important to start looking at whether the U.S. would want to offer a nuclear shield to that region and, if so, what steps would be needed to accomplish it.
There is a long history of U.S. providing nuclear deterrence in Europe, where weapons are deployed in multiple countries, and Asia, where the United States considered the use of nuclear weapons during the Korean War. There is no history, however, of providing a nuclear umbrella in the Middle East.
Would Congress and the American people be willing to put the homeland at risk to protect a Middle Eastern state? And, if Iran does develop nuclear weaponry, would its neighbors in the region be sufficiently assured by the U.S. offer of deterrence that they would give up their own nuclear option?
Miller's presentation created a buzz at the summit, which has attracted some of the leading voices in the nuclear weapons community.
One audience member quizzed Miller about why he thought it was necessary to raise the specter of using nuclear weapons in the Middle East.
"If you're comfortable having four or five new nuclear states in the Middle East, then that's fine. I'm not comfortable with that," Miller said.
Another audience member asked whether he thought Israel, which has a well known but undeclared nuclear capability, would accept an offer of protection under the U.S. nuclear umbrella.
"No," Miller responded bluntly.
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The Nuclear War or the Mid-East War, Peace, and SNAFU threads would be a better place for this.
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The original post from June 6, 2008 was in this thread.
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Ah.
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Quote from: G M on June 06, 2008, 01:59:30 PM
A headline from the future with President Obama: "The Sunni-Shia Nuclear Arms Race Escalates".
I wonder how much gas will be then....
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completely OT, but
I cannot but be amazed with what ardent vigor and persistent consistency you guys are contemplating the US political continuum. Simply put, incredible.
On a sidenote it gives me peace of mind, that the politics of the big guys are just as panic driven and burdened by yellow press as they are in our little, dwarven country amidst the Alps.
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http://www.gocomics.com/nonsequitur/
March 10, 2011, although the "storyline" goes back a few days.
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Does anyone recall which thread Kostas posted on?
I wanted to ask if he would please clarify his mention of Greeks not liking Bill Clinton.
I think he said they preferred him to Bush and Clinton both of whom they saw as more aggressive.
I was just thinking again about his comments about Clinton.
Never have I heard any group not be happy with Clinton for bombing of Serbia.
Listening to the US MSM Clinton is made out to be the equivalent of a Greek adonis (at least with regards to politics) whose bombing of Serbia was a stupendous success.
There are always two sides to every story and I wanted to hear more of the other side from Kostas if possible.
I'm not much one for discussing politics, but I'll try to give my impressions as best I can, on this issue.
Bill Clinton's bombing of Serbia : It is not that Greeks liked Milosevic - everyone realized he was out of control. But bombing was just too much for them...Firstly, the risk of civilian casualties. Second, the worry by many Greeks that incidents of cancer would rise in Northern Greece because of the bombing.
Bill Clinton's support for Kosovo - Greeks believed this had everything to do with the US furthering its influence, and little to do with genuinely caring about Kosovo
Bill Clinton's support of Skopje, and its calling itself Macedonia.
Greece had been a US ally for years, providing military bases for America. Greeks felt that Clinton did't give a sh** about them and their country.
Hope that helps a bit...I think I'm not giving enough detail but its late and I'm off to bed.
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God Bless John McCain and all the things he has done right in his career, but... He has been cover for many many policies, many of them wrong headed. Two things come to mind right now. He was the spearhead of the Libya mission. Besides the advocates in his own administration, having a senior statesman out front in the opposition party inoculated Obama against partisanship and certainly moved the decision forward. So tied to that now is our unavailability to do anything in Syria.
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The Foundation
"Born in other countries, yet believing you could be happy in this, our laws acknowledge, as they should do, your right to join us in society, conforming, as I doubt not you will do, to our established rules." --Thomas Jefferson
Political Futures
Obama thinks immigration policy is a laughing matter"- bama's most recent invitation to civil discourse -- on immigration -- came just 11 minutes after he accused opponents of moving the goal posts on border enforcement. 'Maybe they'll need a moat,' he said sarcastically. 'Maybe they want alligators in the moat.' Nice touch. Looks like the Tucson truce -- no demonization, no cross-hairs metaphors -- is officially over. After all, the Republicans want to kill off the elderly, throw the disabled in the snow and watch alligators lunch on illegal immigrants. The El Paso speech is notable not for breaking any new ground on immigration, but for perfectly illustrating Obama's political style: the professorial, almost therapeutic, invitation to civil discourse, wrapped around the basest of rhetorical devices -- charges of malice compounded with accusations of bad faith. 'They'll never be satisfied,' said Obama about border control. 'And I understand that. That's politics.' ... There is zero chance of any immigration legislation passing Congress in the next two years. El Paso was simply an attempt to gin up the Hispanic vote as part of an openly political two-city, three-event campaign swing in preparation for 2012. ... [F]or Obama, immigration reform is not about legislation, it's about re-election. If I may quote the president: I understand that. That's politics." --columnist Charles Krauthammer
Government
"[T]he federal government expects to collect $2.2 trillion in revenue this year. The problem is that it wants to spend $3.8 trillion. You can do a lot with $2.2 trillion. You can fund Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, SCHIP, debt service, unemployment, welfare, and national defense at their 2008 levels. My recollection of 2008 is that it was not exactly a time of Spartan fiscal discipline. Funding the majority of the federal government at 2008 levels is not 'default.' It's not anything like default. It's not in the same category of things, events, or concepts as default. ... We like to think that the American people are on our side when it comes to the size and scope of government, but they aren't. Reforming entitlements is still going to be hard. Even reforming stupid spending is going to be hard: We all had a good laugh at Harry Reid's federally subsidized cowboy poetry festival, but there are a million morsels of pork just like it, not to mention big non-pork spending that has to be addressed, too. And now, with a weak economy and a gloomy near-term outlook, conservatives are stuck doing the job we really should have done back in 1994-2000. But it's not going to get any easier. But on the debt ceiling? Let them sweat." --columnist Kevin D. Williamson
Liberty
"One of the shameful hallmarks of a dictatorship is the restriction of movement -- telling citizens or groups they cannot travel or relocate freely. We are now witnessing a shocking example of that dictatorial practice at the hands of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), which is insisting that a major U.S. employer may not move some of its operations from one state to another because to do so might somehow violate workers' rights. The case in point involves famed aircraft manufacturer, Boeing, which is building a second assembly line for its new 787 jetliners in South Carolina. That's a no-no, says the NLRB. ... The NLRB has filed a complaint against Boeing, a firm headquartered in Chicago, for daring to choose where they may locate one of their plants. In this case, Boeing is being told it cannot make the move on the specious grounds that the move constitutes an unfair labor practice. The unfair labor practice? South Carolina has a state right-to-work law, which ensures employees the right to either join a union or not to join a union as they see fit. Imagine that, a law that allows a worker to choose whether or not to join a union! ... When a federal agency takes it into its grubby hands to dictate where a firm may locate some of its facilities America stands at the dividing line between freedom and tyranny." --columnist Michael Reagan
Opinion in Brief
"[T]he Obama administration is gutsily punishing right-to-work states -- even states that merely require secret ballots in order to obviate coercion by union thugs. What are Americans supposed to do to earn money? Obama doesn't care: Ordinary Americans are irrelevant to the Democrats' electoral ambitions -- they exist only to justify the hiring of more government workers. The Democrats have now officially abandoned working-class Americans. Obama is doing what's in his and his party's self-interest, rather than concerning himself with the mass of American citizens. He is using his executive authority to reward gays, illegal aliens, do-nothing government employees, far-left union bosses, abortion industry executives and global warming kooks. Are you on that list of Obama's friends? Democrats blithely act as if big labor, pro-illegal-immigration, pro-government union policies combined with massive government red tape and huge socialist programs will have no effect on jobs. They incessantly repeat 'gutsy call' for 'you'd have to have been brain-dead not to make the call to kill bin Laden,' hoping the Democratic Party will suddenly seem macho. Then, after a few weeks of robotically chanting 'gutsy call,' they can get back to their true passion -- destroying jobs -- at which point they will robotically chant Bush's name to explain why millions of Americans have lost their jobs under Obama. How gutsy." --columnist Ann Coulter
The Gipper
"Without timely expression and emphatic endorsement, our own belief in the principles of human freedom and representative government must eventually atrophy and wither." --Ronald Reagan
Re: The Left
"For a week people have been asking, 'Why won't the president release Osama bin Laden's photo?' That's the wrong question. We should be asking, 'Why was Barack Obama in such a hurry to tell us bin Laden was dead?' The White House says the information in bin Laden's compound is the equivalent of a 'small college library,' potentially containing incalculably valuable and unique data on al-Qaeda operations, personnel and methods. ... I'm no expert on such matters -- though I've talked to several about this -- but even a casual World War II buff can understand that the shelf life of actionable intelligence would be extended if we hadn't told the whole world, and al-Qaeda in particular, that we had it. It's a bit like racing to the microphones to announce you've stolen the other team's playbook even before you've had a chance to use the information in the big game. But that's exactly what President Obama did. ... t seems that the White House planned to crow as soon as possible. Why? Nobody I've talked to can think of a reason that doesn't have to do with politics or hubris." --columnist Jonah Goldberg
For the Record
"When you look at other countries and the history of the world in general, we are all just amazingly, unbelievably wealthy in this country. We have technology and opportunities that are insane; we can't even comprehend how well off we are compared to people who used to have to live in huts and fight for every meal. When you look at it objectively, every one of us in this country is a billionaire. And what did we do to earn all this incredible wealth? For most of us, the answer is: absolutely nothing. We were just born with it. So we take it for granted. And we demand even more. There is another type of rich person, though -- the working rich. The people who create. These are the people who made all the benefits we enjoy in society today. Thanks to their creativity and initiative, we have all the technological marvels we enjoy today. Because of their hard work, we have all these companies that give us cushy 9-to-5 jobs where we earn sums of money most of the world couldn't even imagine possessing. And are we thankful? Do we say, 'Thank you, rich people, for making all these things so we can benefit from them. I can't even believe how simple and easy my life is because of you'? No, we demand more from them, because we're the idle rich, and we think the working rich owe us everything." --columnist Frank J. Fleming
Faith & Family
"Robert Woodson would probably wince if you called him a 'community organizer.' That's because for the last 30 years as president of the Center for Neighborhood Enterprise, he has not spent time organizing the poor around ineffective government programs and other addictions; he has been helping them become self-sufficient. 'You can't learn anything by studying failure,' he says. 'If you want to learn anything, you must study the successful.' ... Woodson, who is African-American, as were all of those I met, tells me 'Every black community going back to 1784 had welfare based on morals.' The last 40 years, he says, have transformed the way we look at poverty: 'Until 1965, 80 percent of black families had two parents in the home. The '60s destroyed all that.' ... He is emphatic about what he says and he produces success when so many other programs fail: 'Faith in God transforms the inside and that faith transforms the outside.' ... Republicans could win over the votes of many of the poor who think their future lies with Democrats. It doesn't, not if Democrats continue to spend money on failed programs that have no power to change lives. This will require Republicans getting out of their comfort zones and hanging out with people who not only have found hope, but who can communicate hope to others." --columnist Cal Thomas
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They were open secrets. Everyone knew. And maybe the lesson this week is that people should pay more attention to what they know.
Everyone knew Newt Gingrich was combustible, that he tended to blow things up, including, periodically, himself. He was impulsive, living proof that people confuse "a good brain" with "good judgment." He had bad judgment, which is why he famously had a hundred ideas a day and only 10 were good. He didn't know the difference and needed first-rate people around to tell him. But the best didn't work with him anymore, because he was unsteady, unreliable, more likely to be taken with insight-seizures than insights.
He was the smartest guy in the room, who didn't notice the rooms had gotten smaller. So he was running his own show. Boom.
In his famous "Meet the Press" interview, he was trying to differentiate himself from the field. He was likely thinking he'd go for the Mike Huckabee vote now that Mr. Huckabee is gone. That vote is populist-tinged, socially conservative but generally supportive of big-government programs. Newt's party and competitors support Paul Ryan's budget-cutting plan. Newt didn't think all aspects of that plan would go over with the American public.
Kay Hymowitz of the Manhattan Institute on pols behaving badly: Dominique Strauss-Kahn and Arnold Schwarzenegger. (Photo: AFP/Getty Images)
.If he'd said that, he would have been fine, and there were lots of ways to say it. Such as: "The Ryan plan is serious and courageous. But I oppose changes in the delivery system of Medicare and think we should go another route, so I do not support that aspect of it."
Instead he used slashing, dramatic language and seemed to damn the entire enterprise. The Ryan plan isn't flawed, it's "right-wing social engineering." It's "imposing radical change."
After the firestorm he went on a political perp walk, more or less denying he'd said what he said, and then blaming it on others. This was followed by reports he had been in hock to Tiffany's—Tiffany's!—for up to half a million dollars. This is decidedly unpopulist behavior, and to Republicans sounded too weird, too frivolous, flaky and grand.
I said last week I had yet to meet a Gingrich 2012 voter. Now I won't have a chance to.
People in journalism are surprised. But they wouldn't have been surprised if they'd been paying attention to what they know: that Newt blows things up, including himself.
***
The allegations against Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who stepped down as chief of the International Monetary Fund after being charged with seven counts including attempted rape and unlawful imprisonment, are just that, allegations. He's been indicted, not convicted. But half the French establishment knew about what they called his woman problem, and at least one previous accusation of harassment. It was an open secret. "Everyone knows that Dominique Strauss-Kahn is a libertine," said Gilles Savary, a member of the European Parliament Socialist party. He "doesn't try to hide it."
DSK, as he's known, is almost a classic villain—elegant, august, satyrlike in his multithousand-dollar suits and his multithousand-dollar suite. He is the perfect "champagne socialist," as they're now calling him, who preys on the weak—for who is less defended and more at the mercy of the world than a 32-year-old hotel maid, a widow, a West African immigrant working to support herself and her daughter?
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Chad Crowe
.But what is most startling about the story is not the charge that a powerful man did a dreadful thing. It is the utter and profound difference between the U.S. response to the story and the French response.
America was immediately sympathetic to the underdog. The impulse of every media organization, from tabloid to broadsheet to cable to network, was to side with the powerless one in the equation. The cops, the hotel's managers, the District Attorney's office—everyone in authority gave equal weight and respect to the word of the maid. Only in America (and not always in America) would they have taken the testimony of the immigrant woman from Africa and dragged the powerful man out of his first-class seat in the jet at JFK.
In France, the exact opposite. There, from the moment the story broke, DSK was the victim, not the villain. It was a setup, a trap, a conspiracy. He has a weakness for women. No, he loves them too much. Hairy-chested poseur and Sarkozy foreign-policy adviser Bernard-Henri Levy sneeringly referred to "the chambermaid," brayed about DSK's high standing, and called him "a friend to women." Jean Daniel, editor of Le Nouvel Observateur, sniffily asked why "the supposed victim was treated as worthy and beyond suspicion."
Why wouldn't she be treated as worthy, buddy? One is tempted to ask if it's the black part, the woman part or the immigrant part.
As David Rieff wrote in The New Republic, to French intellectuals, DSK deserves special treatment because he is a valuable person. "The French elites' consensus seems to be that it is somehow Strauss-Kahn himself and not the 32-year-old maid who is the true victim of this drama."
Americans totally went for the little guy. The French went for the power.
Lafayette would weep.
Someone once sniffed, "In America they call waiters 'Sir.' " Bien sur, my little bonbon. It's part of our unlost greatness.
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.The French are a very great people. They have filled the world with so much beauty, you have to wonder if God didn't send them down here just for that. As David McCullough observes in his tender new book, "The Greater Journey," generations of Americans, starting in 1820 or so, journeyed to Paris to learn the best in art, medicine, science and literature. They came back and filled our nation with the innovation and expertise they'd acquired there. The French didn't just enrich us, they helped America become itself.
Today they are great talkers, but for all their talk of emotions, and they do talk about emotions, they need, on this story at least, an attitude adjustment. They need to grow a heart. If the charges are true, this isn't a story about sex, romance and the war between men and women, it is about violence, and toward a person who is almost a definition of powerlessness.
Their mindless snobbery is unworthy of them.
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We finish with Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has finished himself. The scandal surrounding him this week is not precisely a public concern. He is not now holding office, and if he had plans or further ambitions in that area they are over. The story is not shocking—he has admitted bad behavior in the past, there have been longtime rumors, "Everyone knows." But still it took you aback. Why? The level of creepiness and the nature of the breach. The mother of the former governor's child worked for him, for them, for 20 years—another unequal power arrangement—meaning 20 years of fiction had to be maintained. "In my home!" as Michael Corleone said in "Godfather II." "Where my wife sleeps . . . and my children play with their toys." The rotten taste of this story will not fade soon.
Human sin is a constant, none are free, and anyone who is shocked by it is a fool or lying. Even so, what a week, full of human surprises. But we wouldn't be so surprised if we paid more attention to what we know, and built our expectations from there.
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It's not like he was in the running for saint, but disappointing on several levels.
1. Don't cheat on your wife. If you don't want to be married, then don't be married. If Tiger Woods was banging tons of women as a single guy, would anyone have cared? I doubt it.
2. If you are rich and famous, swing for the stars. C'mon Tiger, a waitress at Perkins? WTF, Ah-nold, you are Ah-nold f'ing Schwarzenegger. All the hot women in California and you are banging a woman who most closely resembles the Grimace from McDonald's in a blonde wig? Are you kidding me? I though Bill Clinton was an abberation with Lewinsky. I mean she probably would be the hottest woman in Arkansas, and she was a great deal better looking than co-president Cankles, but still.
At least JFK had a sense of presidential greatness when he hooked up with Marilyn Monroe. I guess it's been a sad decline since Camelot.
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By JAMES TARANTO
The judicial filibuster is back, and it's better than ever! Yesterday the U.S. Senate effectively killed the nomination of hard-left University of California law professor Goodwin Liu to serve on the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals by rejecting a "cloture" motion that would have cleared the way for an actual confirmation vote. The cloture vote was 52-43 in favor, eight short of the requisite three-fifths majority. It was a near-party-line vote, with Alaska's Lisa Murkowski the only Republican voting "yes" and Nebraska's Ben Nelson the only Democrat voting "no."
The use of the filibuster to kill judicial nominations that a majority of senators support is a fairly new tactic. After Democrats lost the Senate majority in 2002, they used cloture votes to prevent the appointment of several Bush nominees, most notably Miguel Estrada. In 2005, Republicans, who then held a 55-45 majority, threatened to use what was dubbed the "nuclear option," which would change the Senate rules to preclude the filibustering of judicial appointments.
Instead, a bipartisan "gang" of 14 senators, seven from each party, reached an agreement in which the Republicans promised to abjure the nuclear option and the Democrats pledged to forgo filibusters except in "extraordinary circumstances." Assuming all the gangsters kept their word, there would be no more than 48 votes for the nuclear option and (in "ordinary" circumstances) at least 62 votes to break a filibuster.
The judicial filibuster faded into irrelevance after the 2006 election. In 2007-08, the Democrats had a majority and didn't need to filibuster to block Bush nominees. In 2009-10, the Republicans' numbers were so diminished that the Dems could overcome any filibuster of an Obama pick. But with the Republicans' gains in last year's election, the Senate looks much like it did in 2005, when the president's party had a majority but the minority was big enough to use the filibuster.
There's a certain rough justice in Liu's being kept off the bench by a judicial filibuster, since he earlier made a name for himself by slandering Judge (now Justice) Samuel Alito. As the Associated Press reports:
Liu had said Alito's vision was an America "where police may shoot and kill an unarmed boy . . . where federal agents may point guns at ordinary citizens during a raid, even after no sign of resistance ... where the FBI may install a camera where you sleep . . . where a black man may be sentenced to death by an all-white jury for killing a white man, absent . . . analysis showing discrimination."
Liu told his confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee that this "was not an appropriate way to describe Justice Alito." He described his own language as "unduly harsh," and added, "If I had it to do over again, I would have deleted it."
Yeah, we bet he would have! Roll Call reports that Republicans cited "extraordinary circumstances" to justify the blocking of Liu's nomination, The Hill reports that "Democrats on Thursday said the standard for filibustering judicial nominees has been lowered significantly as a result of Liu's defeat":
"It's a bad, bad precedent," said Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (Ill.), a member of the Judiciary Committee. "If this is not an extraordinarily well-qualified person, I don't know who will be. I'm afraid the phrase 'extraordinary circumstances' will suffer great damage by this action if a filibuster is sustained."
In truth, whatever meaning the rather vague phrase "extraordinary circumstances" might have had, it lost in January 2007, for the gangsters' agreement applied only in the 109th Congress. Thus the nine remaining gangsters were free to vote in favor of the filibuster, as five of them, including Democrat Nelson, did.
Left-wing extremists are predictably accusing GOP senators of hypocrisy. The outfit that styles itself People for the American Way "sent out a list of quotes from Republicans from 2005 declaring that it was unconstitutional not to allow up-or-down votes on judicial nominees," Roll Call notes.
Of course, Democrats back then were championing the filibuster as a vital check on majority power. One may reasonably conclude that both sides are more concerned with substance than with process, although the Republicans have the better of the argument inasmuch as it is hardly reasonable to expect them to disarm unilaterally.
Murkowski stood almost alone in attributing her vote entirely to her view of the procedural question: "I stated during the Bush administration that judicial nominations deserved an up-or-down vote, except in 'extraordinary circumstances,' and my position has not changed simply because there is a different president making the nominations," she said in a statement.
Associated Press
Hatch: "Present" means "no."
.Utah's Orrin Hatch also tried to make a statement against the filibuster, but in a silly way: He voted "present." He did the same thing two weeks ago on a cloture vote for another nominee, John McConnell of Rhode Island (that one made it to the floor on a 63-33 vote). "I just felt that was the only honorable thing I could do under the circumstances," Hatch told the Legal Times after the McConnell vote. "I opposed the nominee, but I didn't want to vote against cloture."
The reason this is silly is that unlike a confirmation vote, which is approved so long as "yes" votes outnumber "noes," a cloture vote requires a three-fifths majority of all seated senators. Assuming no Senate seats are vacant, a cloture motion could theoretically be stopped by a 59-1 vote in favor. That means that a "present" vote, or an absence, is identical in effect to a "no" vote.
Hatch insists there is a symbolic difference. "It's not the same," he told Legal Times. "If it were the same, I'd have voted 'no.' It's the only way I could preserve my integrity on this matter."
But "asked whether he could ever support a filibuster of a judicial nominee, Hatch did not rule out the possibility":
"I have every right to vote 'no' on cloture, because the Democrats have set the standard," Hatch said, alluding to the judge wars of the Bush administration. Still, he said he wouldn't feel good about it, "because I still feel I was right about the filibustering of judges."
Again, the effect of a "no" vote is identical to that of a "present" vote. So Hatch is unwilling to rule out a purely symbolic vote that would violate his stated principles. It's hard to imagine a protest with less of a point.
Baghdad Newt
"Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said Thursday he'll use 'cheerful persistence' to overcome the bumps that marked the first formal week of his campaign," the Associated Press reports.
Gingrich said he isn't surprised by the rough start to his campaign. . . . "My reaction is if you're the candidate of very dramatic change, it you're the candidate of really new ideas, you have to assume there's a certain amount of clutter and confusion and it takes a while to sort it all out, because you are doing something different," Gingrich told reporters after he opened an intense three-day campaign swing in Iowa. . . .
"This campaign is very alive and very well with lots of grass-roots support," Gingrich told the crowd.
It gets better:
He said reporters covering his campaign must adjust their thinking.
"It's going to take a while for the news media to realize that you're covering something that happens once or twice in a century, a genuine grass-roots campaign of very big ideas," said Gingrich. "I expect it to take a while for it to sink in."
How bad is Gingrich as a candidate? He doesn't even have John Kerry's comic timing. The stuff he says is so crazy and outrageous that one quickly becomes desensitized to it.
The stuff he's saying now is objectively hilarious, but that's a perilous oxymoron, because it's not nearly as funny as yesterday's material about sheep and the liar's paradox. Even someone who is as much of a genius as Newt can't possibly outdo that.
By contrast, Kerry, the haughty, French-looking Massachusetts Democrat who by the way served in Vietnam, never stops being funny. He has the hat to this day! Kerry's secret is that he has just enough self-restraint to maintain an illusion of dignity among those who sympathize with him politically. That they take him seriously only adds to the humor.
Gingrich would be funnier if he could find other people to say with a straight face things like, "This is something that happens once or twice a century." But good luck with that.
Riding High in April, Shot Down in May
A day after he announced it, Willie Nelson has withdrawn his presidential endorsement of the monotonous libertarian extremist Gary Johnson, RawStory.com reports (apparently quoting Nelson's email verbatim):
"Yesterday, both the Teapot Party and Gary Johnson 2012 sent out press releases announcing the endorsement," wrote Teapot Party member Steve Bloom Thursday. . . .
"My position is it too early for me to endorse anyone," he wrote in an email to Bloom. "And I think every one should vote their own conscience."
Willie went on: "I think I will wait and see where he stands on other things. My bad. Sorry. I still think he is a good guy but so Is Dennis [Kucinich] and if he decided to run I would personally vote for him. If it came down to either him or Gary I'm already committed to Dennis. They both have said they support legal pot."
We're glad he cleared that up. But wait. What if it's Newt Gingrich vs. Russ Feingold--how does Willie vote then? An anxious world holds its breath. An anxious world exhales. An anxious world suddenly feels more mellow. A mellow world scarfs down an entire bag of Doritos. Dude, what was this item about again?
Survival Is Not an Option
After getting off to a "great start," Katie Couric yesterday signed off as anchorman of the "CBS Evening News," reports the network's New York website. If Harold Camping is right, she just missed the story of her lifetime. New York magazine has an interview with Camping, leader of "the Christian movement that believes Judgment Day will occur on May 21":
How certain are you that world is going to end on May 21--do you have any doubts?
God has given sooo much information in the Bible about this, and so many proofs, and so many signs, that we know it is absolutely going to happen without any question at all. There's nothing in the Bible that God has ever prophesied--there's many things that he prophesied would happen and they always have happened--but there's nothing in the Bible that holds a candle to the amount of information to this tremendous truth of the end of the world. I would be absolutely in rebellion against God if I thought anything other than it is absolutely going to happen without any question.
Wow, he's like a Christian Eric Holder. Then again, why should he worry? If he's wrong, it's not the end of the world.
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I hope the dems like that dose of their own medicine.
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Tea Party lost the race for Republicans? Interesting the spoiler in this race is Jack Davis the Tea Party candidate that got several % of the vote while Repub candidate lost ~ 48- 44. This guy Davis was (is?) a Democrat. On the other hand if Americans really cannot accept some adjustments to Medicare while it is going broke as we speak then this country really is screwed.
****Ap Special Correspondent – Tue May 24, 10:56 pm ET
WASHINGTON – Little more than a month after they backed sweeping changes to Medicare, Republicans are on the political defensive, losing a House seat long in their possession and exhibiting significant internal strains for the first time since last fall's election gains.
"We've got to get beyond this," Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., said recently after several days of back and forth over the proposal he authored and included in the budget that cleared on a party line vote. "And we've got to get onto a serious conversation about what it takes to fix the fiscal problems in this country."
Under Ryan's proposal, Medicare would remain unchanged for those 55 or older, including the millions who now receive health care under the program. Anyone younger would be required to obtain coverage from a private insurer, with the government providing a subsidy to cover part of the cost of premiums.
In the weeks since the budget cleared, President Barack Obama led a Democratic attack and GOP presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich sharply criticized Ryan's proposal before apologizing a day or two later.
On Tuesday night, Republicans suffered a reversal at the ballot box, losing a House seat long in their possession in upstate New York. The Democratic winner in the multi-candidate race, Kathy Hochul, attacked her Republican rival over Medicare.
Her party and its allies did the same and promised much more of the same strategy in 2012, as Republicans insisted they were not worried.
"To predict the future based on the results of this unusual race is naive and risky," Rep. Pete Sessions of Texas, chairman of the House Republican campaign committee, said in a statement that made no mention of Medicare.
While defending his plan in Wisconsin and nationally, Ryan said he is open to changes, and a Senate vote tentatively set for this week on rival budgets has produced two Republican defections so far. Additionally, Republicans say they know of no plans to seek passage of legislation to implement the proposal.
With Congress just back from a week's vacation, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., indicated Monday that Republicans want to change the subject. Without mentioning Medicare, he said the House majority has been focusing recently on "how to address the deficit (by) cutting back on the expenditures."
Now, he said, the GOP will present a "growth agenda."
Several strategists in both parties said in recent interviews the Republican proposals for Medicare are viewed more favorably when they are presented as part of a larger effort to fix the economy and create jobs.
For their part, Obama and other Democrats criticize the GOP proposal in narrow terms, an attack on a program that provides health care to millions.
Obama called the approach radical — the same term Gingrich used. Republicans want "to end Medicare as we know it," the president told an audience of invited guests, Ryan and other GOP lawmakers among them.
Privately, Republicans cite polling suggesting the Democratic charges are finding a receptive audience.
In one private poll circulated among Republicans in the past few weeks, 46 percent of those surveyed said they believed the GOP blueprint would reduce benefits for those over 55, including current beneficiaries. Another 41 percent said they believed it would not.
Beyond the polling and the rhetoric, Democrats seized on the special House election in a conservative New York district between Rochester and Buffalo to test-market their attacks.
The Democratic candidate, Kathy Hochul, aired ads that said she wants to reduce government spending, but Republican rival Jane Corwin favors Medicare cuts "to pay for more tax cuts for multimillionaires." The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and an outside group, the House Majority PAC, aired ads making a similar charge.
Corwin counterattacked, accusing Hochul of wanting to cut Social Security as well as Medicare.
Fearing defeat, the National Republican Congressional Committee has spent more than $400,000 on campaign activities. It aired an ad reminiscent of commercials that aired in 2010, and linked Hochul to House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi.
In addition, American Crossroads, a GOP-aligned group, has spent nearly $700,000, much of it attacking Jack Davis, the third candidate in the race. A one-time Democrat, he ran as a tea party advocate.
"Jack Davis' presence is the only reason this is a competitive race," Paul Lindsay, a spokesman for the National Republican Campaign Committee, said before the polls closed.
He said Medicare had not had an impact except that "Jane Corwin has shown that Republicans need to fight back on Medicare and call Democrats out for their scare tactics."
Democrats disputed that.
"I'm not saying we're going to win this but the fact that this is a competitive race in one of the most Republican districts in the country shows how Medicare is shaping" the campaign, Rep. Steve Israel, D-N.Y., head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said before the results were known.
The issue "was a game changer," he said.
Win or lose, Democrats say they intend to take the issue into the 2012 campaign.
"This is a vote tabulation that you will see over and over again," Pelosi, D-Calif., said recently, referring to the 235-193 roll call that passed the budget. Only four Republicans opposed the measure, and no Democrats voted in its favor.
Ryan said last weekend he would "of course" be amenable to changing his proposal, and added, "This is the legislative process. But let's be clear: We are the only ones who have put out a plan to fix this problem" of soaring federal debt.
While Democrats have been relentless in attacking the proposal, Gingrich stirred controversy when he contrasted Ryan's approach to the new health care law Obama won from Congress.
"I don't think imposing radical change from the right or the left is a good way for a free society to operate," he said.
Criticized by fellow conservatives, Gingrich called Ryan to apologize. But a week later, he said he still opposes the Wisconsin lawmaker's call for denying those under 55 access to the current Medicare system.****
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ccp,
Well, the dems running a bogus tea party candidate to draw votes from the republican is nothing new, and keep in mind this is New York state. They've been detatched from financial reality for generations.
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http://blogs.pitch.com/plog/2011/05/eric_cantor_joplin_tornado.php :x :x :x
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http://blogs.pitch.com/plog/2011/05/eric_cantor_joplin_tornado.php :x :x :x
I know, the magical money tree never runs out and anyone who suggests otherwise is a horrible, horrible person.
FWIW, I'd be quite happy to take every penny from the US Dept. of Education and PBS to use for the storm victims and recovery in the midwest.
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Ummm , , , just what are the standards for determining the line between state and federal responsibility in this sort of thing?
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Ummm , , , just what are the standards for determining the line between state and federal responsibility in this sort of thing?
Without researching, my pragmatic orientation says the state has primary responsibility, but the feds should jump in when you have such severe destruction that overwhelms state resources, such as what it appears to be in places like Joplin, Mo. As far as first responders, it's a local/county/state thing. FEMA has most always been a check writing entity more than anything.
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I know, the magical money tree never runs out and anyone who suggests otherwise is a horrible, horrible person.
Yes, that is exactly what I said. And what I've always said. I named my kid "Magic Money Tree."
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Well, if the magic money tree should ever fail, just whip out the China Express Card (Slogan: My grandkids will get the tab).
No, of course you didn't say that, you did link to a blog that condemned Cantor's pragmatic stance on gov't spending. Now I have no objection to using federal funds for responding to disasters, but I think we are well past the point where we need to make hard choices about all of the spending.
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I linked an article that condemned Cantor's stance on using federal funds for direct aid to American people who have been subjected to a natural disaster. If you have no problem with using federal funds for responding to that disaster, why the hell did you react like you did?
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Perhaps I'm misreading it, but it sure seems like Cantor is getting bashed for suggesting that there are financial constraints on the federal budget.(With my commentary added)
The death toll of the Joplin tornado has risen to 122. It was the deadliest tornado that the country has endured in 60 years, and thousands of people are homeless. It's a complete mess, and it will no doubt cost tens of millions of dollars to get the town of 50,000 back to normal.
President Obama, who was out of the country at the time of the disaster, told victims, "The American people are by your side." And, "We're going to stay there until every home is repaired, until every neighborhood is rebuilt, until every business is back on its feet." (What a great guy!)But House Majority Leader Eric Cantor says it's time for penny-pinching! (Boo! Hiss!)
Before Uncle Sam starts handing out recovery cash, Cantor (R-VA) wants everybody to know that the emergency money will have to be offset by other federal spending. (What? Cut into vital PBS funds ? How will America survive without "Prarie Home Companion?) Wait, are we really concerned about saving a little money as crews are searching rubble for survivors and bodies? (Well, yes, we should always be. Not doing so has got us into this fiscal crisis, more of the same is a real bad idea.)
Politico reports Cantor said, "If there is support for a supplemental, it would be accompanied by support for having pay-fors to that supplemental." Apparently going into debt to save a city isn't worth it. (We are long past the going into debt point. We have the "warp core breach" alarm going off at this point.)
U.S. Sen. Roy Blunt, who represented Joplin during his time in the U.S. House, had a pretty simple message for Cantor Tuesday afternoon. Politico writes that he released a statement saying, "We need to prioritize spending, and this needs to be a priority." Well, duh! (Which is why the honorable Senator should agree that some financial triage is in order, just as real world medical triage is taking place in MO. as we speak.)
U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill was less reserved in her statement on Cantor's plan. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports she said,"With all due respect to Congressman Cantor, I have a hard time believing that if this were in his congressional district, he would be talking about how additional disaster relief would not be available unless we found some other programs to take it from. It must be available. This must not be a political football. We must provide the assistance. That's what federal tax dollars are for, is to provide assistance when there is no assistance available to communities and states because of the wrath of Mother Nature." (My turn for the pork! Don't ask how much!)
Again, duh!
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I am glad to know that you are supportive of protecting American lives in all situations. You'll forgive me if I don't see federal aid to storm ravaged areas as "pork."
"Wait, are we really concerned about saving a little money as crews are searching rubble for survivors and bodies? (Well, yes, we should always be. Not doing so has got us into this fiscal crisis, more of the same is a real bad idea.)" So, looking for the bodies and survivors of 9/11, or Katrina, or the floods of 1993, or any other disaster is the reason we are in a financial crisis. It must be those activities.
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Priorities. Just as reacting to disasters takes priority, the funds for it take priority over less essential things we spend a godawful amount on. If we need to gut next year's budget for the National Endowment of the Arts to rebuild Joplin, that's what we should do. If my transmission goes out, the funds come out of my beer and Vegas trip fund. Choices, priorities.
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Crafty wrote: "... just what are the standards for determining the line between state and federal responsibility in this sort of thing?"
I would add that charity and neighborly assistance used to be the norm.
During Katrina, the US Coast Guard helicopters flew from rooftop to rooftop until there was no one left to rescue. I do not know of any purse tightening, scary conservative who opposes that type of use of federal resources.
Monday morning after our tornado I bought a chain saw with my 'self-insurance settlement' and began cutting a path to get a ladder to a roof to start rebuilding. Nowhere else within sight or earshot had work begun within 24 hours of the twister. The work that began was to see office dressed people wandering through with clipboards and cameras preparing their cases for third party pay.
I was impressed to see our postal carrier climb through the debris between homes right on schedule. He told me the mayor and councilman were on the block (safely above the damage). Mark me down as a cynic and a skeptic, but they weren't looking for survivors or helping people dig out of their homes; it was a photo opp to begin the case for federal emergency assistance. http://kstp.com/news/stories/S2127500.shtml?cat=1
When is it federal, when is it state, when is it local, when is it private, when is it charity, when do neighbors pull together and lend a hand ... there is no easy answer or criteria but when we are talking about money and checks after the fact, rather than equipment emergency and manpower to save lives, there will be pork, waste and fraud within those funds. Discussing that should not be off-limits. The 'quote' under Cantor's picture is not what he said. The "Duh" that the writers put to "priority" apparently don't know the meaning of that word. You put a priority AHEAD of something else, not just with everything else. The further away the money comes from the more abuse I would expect to find. I couldn't help but ponder from my roof with helicopters for gawkers circling, where is my bailout? So I took the free bottle of water that the Salvation Army tossed up. (It was the electricity, not the water, that was off.)
North Minneapolis may be near blight now, but when these neighborhoods were built 90 years ago, homes were built solid - with basements well below frostline. No comparison to Joplin with a type 5, but only 4% of tornadoes are stronger than what cut right through this major metro, yet no one who was able to take cover in their homes and basements was killed.
Like the argument of smaller efficient cars taking the brunt in a crash, the feds will pay you to build homes with energy star ideas like in floor heat instead of basements with no consideration for where to take caver when the storm hits.
I can't tell the shame I feel when the Minnesota politicians petition the federal government for cold weather assistance. Who knew about cold weather? But in winter it is our turn to dip into the sugar jar if we are going to pay the rest of the year for hurricane damages to people who build in hurricane zones, earthquake funds to people who live on fault lines, tornado assistance to people who build to in 'tornado alley', flood payments to people who build in the flood plain, etc etc.
Horrific in Joplin are the deaths IMO, not the property damage no matter how devastating. Money after the fact does not bring the deaths back to life and Cantor did not say no federal money. I'm sure no one yet knows what part of this loss is insured. $3 billion to Washington is a rounding error and who says the feds should pay all of it and why is not okay to question in Washington whether that will be a priority, putting it ahead of something else, or a debt or mini-QE that we will never repay.
Mpls damage estimated at a couple hundred million dollars means that 0.000001 of total assets in MN were wiped out, most of it insured. That is not something that that a local community could not absorb or rebuild - at least if not for the $44 billion/yr MN already sends to the federal government alone. JMHO.
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Good post Doug.
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Crafty wrote: "... just what are the standards for determining the line between state and federal responsibility in this sort of thing?"
"I would add that charity and neighborly assistance used to be the norm."
Doug & Crafty, great point about this. I am not certain when it became a political necessity for the Prez to fly arond showing how he feels everyone's pain but it must have become a high art form aka Clinton.
Now we also have the liberal media disaster squad led by Anderson Cooper flying to every disaster in seconds demanding for the Feds to role in the military rescue crews at once replete with housing, TV dinners(a comment you made some years back on the DMG board during Katrina), unemployment forms etc.
Bigdog's point about the horror of it all is well stated. But I kind of tend to agree with Doug that I am not convinced this need be a Federal responsibility.
Of course any President who denies Fed assistance is demogagued, unless you are the Democratic Prez who is denying poltical adversaries who the MSM dislikes (Texas).
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Good point about Texas, ccp.
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http://www.fema.gov/about/history.shtm
Some high points:
The Federal Emergency Management Agency coordinates the federal government's role in preparing for, preventing, mitigating the effects of, responding to, and recovering from all domestic disasters, whether natural or man-made, including acts of terror. FEMA can trace its beginnings to the Congressional Act of 1803.
The 1960s and early 1970s brought massive disasters requiring major federal response and recovery operations by the Federal Disaster Assistance Administration, established within the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Hurricane Carla struck in 1962, Hurricane Betsy in 1965, Hurricane Camille in 1969 and Hurricane Agnes in 1972. The Alaskan Earthquake hit in 1964 and the San Fernando Earthquake rocked Southern California in 1971. These events served to focus attention on the issue of natural disasters and brought about increased legislation. In 1968, the National Flood Insurance Act offered new flood protection to homeowners, and in 1974 the Disaster Relief Act firmly established the process of Presidential disaster declarations.
And, http://161.203.16.4/t2pbat8/143524.pdf
But, see http://www.lexisnexis.com/hottopics/lnacademic/? which is somewhat supportive of you guys, though it does note that federal support began pretty early. "Federal involvement in emergency relief began soon after the country's founding.... In 1793, Congress approved a special appropriations bill to send financial aid to east coast cities burdened by an influx of thousands of refugees from Santo Domingo."
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Interesting historical points, BD.
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Born and bred on the Democrat party. Pelosi gone. Now another woman who plays the sex card every chance she opens her mouth.
The female version of Chuck Schumer:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debbie_Wasserman-Schultz
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Born and bred on the Democrat party. Pelosi gone. Now another woman who plays the sex card every chance she opens her mouth.
The female version of Chuck Schumer:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debbie_Wasserman-Schultz
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2011/05/debbie-wasserman-schultz-nissan-.html
The new chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee was criticizing Republicans who opposed President Obama's bailout of the American automakers union, oh, no, make that American automakers.
"If it were up to the candidates for president on the Republican side," said Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida, "we would be driving foreign cars. They would have let the auto industry in America go down the tubes."
So Michael O'Brien of The Hill newspaper went and checked what kind of automobile loyal-American-car-supporter Debbie Wasserman Schultz owns.
Yup, you guessed it -- Japanese.
Drive as she says, not as she does.
-- Andrew Malcolm
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IMHO more to the point than her hypocrisy is the fact that having followed the bankruptcy laws would not have vaporized the companies in question; they would have been re-organized-- a far different matter.
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A friend's take on the selecetion processes of state courts.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/why-we-should-keep-judicial-elections/2011/05/26/AGt08HCH_print.html
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Would you also post that in the Legal Issues thread as well please?
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"No country upon earth ever had it more in its power to attain these blessings than United America. Wondrously strange, then, and much to be regretted indeed would it be, were we to neglect the means and to depart from the road which Providence has pointed us to so plainly." --George Washington
Liberty
This is what bread and circuses get you"The president and his supporters call for tax increases as a means to cover the deficit, but higher tax revenues cannot eliminate the deficit. Controlling for inflation, federal tax revenue today is 23 times greater than it was in 1960, but congressional spending is 42 times greater. During the last half-century, except for five years, the nation has faced a federal budget deficit. It's just simple math. If tax revenues soar, but congressional spending soars more, budget deficits cannot be avoided. People ask what can be done to save our nation from decline. To ask that represents a misunderstanding of history and possibly a bit of arrogance. After all, how different are Americans from the Romans, Spaniards, French and the English? These were once mighty nations standing at the top of civilization. At the height of these nation's prosperity, no one would have predicted that they'd become third-rate nations, especially England. ... One chief causal factor for the decline of these former great nations is what has been described as 'bread and circuses,' where government spends money for the shallow and immediate wants of the population, and civic virtue all but disappears. For the past half-century, our nation has been doing precisely what brought down other great nations. We might have now reached the point of no return. If so, do we deserve it?" --economist Walter E. Williams
The Gipper
"With an emphasis on enterprise, investment, and work, on jobs and opportunity, we turned around economic decline and national malaise and set in motion one of the longest periods of peacetime economic growth and job creation in postwar history. The pundits ... told us that we couldn't expect to get anything accomplished, even before we got to Washington. Now, they're trying to bring the curtain down before the show is over. ... The notion that government controls, central planning, and bureaucracy can provide cost-free prosperity has now come and gone the way of the hula-hoop, the Nehru jackets, and the all-asparagus diet. Throughout the world the failure of socialism is evident." --Ronald Reagan
For the Record
"Can America's defense budget be cut? Yes. Unfortunately, President Obama is going about it exactly backwards. He has asked the Pentagon to identify $400 billion in savings. But coming up with an arbitrary figure and telling our military to find some way to hit it isn't the smart -- or safe -- way to make the necessary cuts. ... Never mind that cutting-edge weaponry is a key component to ensuring that our military is the best in the world. It's not simply next-generation programs that fall by the wayside. The military also tries to cuts costs by forgoing upgrades and by extending the life of equipment that might otherwise be replaced. ... Readiness aside, we're setting ourselves up for big expenses down the road when, eventually, we have to rebuild. It's happened before: in the 1980s, after the procurement holiday of the Carter years, and again after the post-Cold War cuts of the Clinton era. In the long run, we spend more than if we'd never made the cuts to begin with. And in the meantime, we grapple with an over-stretched military and needless vulnerabilities. ... Like any area of government, defense has waste that could be eliminated. But we need to start by taking a hard look at our defense programs... Mission first. Then cuts. That's the only way to ensure that we both spend wisely and keep ourselves safe." --Heritage Foundation president Ed Feulner
Click Here
U.S. Marine Corps bandana
Semper Fi! Give your Marine a little something to tuck into a pocket or use as a headcover! Made from 100% cotton, bandana measures approximately 22" square.
Government
"More than two months ago, President Obama abruptly took the nation to war against Libya, a country that had not attacked us or threatened us. ... [P]residents of both parties have often trampled over their original limits, and Congress has usually let them. This has not gone over well with all lawmakers -- like the senator who said in 2007 that the president has no right to go to war on his own, barring an actual or potential attack. His name was Barack Obama. But President Obama has thoroughly repudiated the naive and simplistic notions voiced by Sen. Obama. ... A rare attempt by Congress to reassert its authority came in 1973, when it passed a law called the War Powers Resolution. It places mild restrictions on the president, requiring him to report to Congress when he puts American forces 'into hostilities.' If Congress doesn't give approval of the operation within 60 days, the law says, he has to bring it to a swift conclusion. But the 60th day came and went last month.... Can someone direct me to the provision of the Constitution that blesses 'limited military engagements' authorized by the White House in conjunction with NATO? Or the section in the War Powers Resolution that says, 'Invalid in cases when the president claims a national interest'? The Constitution says the president 'shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed.' But when Obama executed this law, he did it with a firing squad." --columnist Steve Chapman
Opinion in Brief
"For tens of millions of Americans, Memorial Day is a time for remembrance of the huge sacrifices made by servicemen and women on the battlefield. The president did pay his respects in the morning, laying a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery, but later in the day traveled to Fort Belvoir to play golf. ... Does it matter if the president chooses to play golf on Memorial Day, and for the second time in his presidency (he did so as well in 2009)? I think it does, and it displays extraordinarily bad judgment, not only by Obama himself but also by his advisers. ... President Obama is not just any American but Commander in Chief of the US Armed Forces. The United States is currently engaged in a major war in Afghanistan with over 100,000 troops on the ground, and more than 1,500 have already laid down their lives for their country. The least the president can do on Memorial Day is spend the whole day with veterans and servicemen's families while acknowledging their sacrifice. ... The president's actions smack of poor taste, as well a lack of empathy and support for the US military, hardly the kind of leadership the White House should be projecting at a time of war." --columnist Nile Gardiner
Faith & Family
"For the first time in history, less than half of Americans now live in married-couple households. The new finding by the Census Bureau reflects the most profound change in the nature of American society ever to have occurred, yet practically no one talks about it. Only 48 percent of American households are made up of married couples. ... What all this means is that increasing numbers of children are growing up without two parents, and few policymakers seem to care, even though the societal consequences bode ill for the future. Myriad studies have documented that children who grow up without two parents are more likely to do worse in school, drop out, commit crimes, and earn less during their lifetimes than those who are raised with both parents, even adjusting for economic status and race. They are also far less likely to have stable relationships and marriages as adults, thus fueling the cycle of marriage breakdown. Perhaps the most alarming result of this family breakdown comes from a new analysis of longitudinal data from a large cohort of young children -- primarily bright, white children born to middle-class and affluent parents -- who were followed throughout their lives. The study found that even relatively privileged children suffered when their parents divorced. ... In the end, it's the children who pay for the devastating effects of divorce. It's time we start putting our kids first." --columnist Linda Chavez
Culture
"Take the 'tea parties,' which have been accused of racism by the NAACP, the Congressional Black Caucus, mainstream media outlets and entertainer-activists such as Janeane Garofalo, who proclaimed they are 'about hating a black man in the White House. This is racism straight up.' So, after nearly two years of 'experts' telling us that the typical tea party member is two holes in a white sheet shy of being a Klansman, guess who is arguably the most popular tea party candidate for president? Herman Cain, a black businessman. Perhaps the most telling sign of the changing racial landscape comes with voting patterns, though not at the ballot box. Blacks -- particularly among the young and educated -- are voting with their feet by leaving cities like New York, Chicago and Detroit in huge numbers and moving to places like Atlanta, Charlotte and Dallas. Clement Price, a Rutgers history professor, told the New York Times, 'The black urban experience has essentially lost its appeal with blacks in America.' ... For years, liberals have glibly smeared the GOP as racist because it is disproportionately Southern. Obviously there are historical reasons behind the charge, but in 2011? If the region is so racist, why are blacks so eager to flee to the less 'progressive' South?" --columnist Jonah Goldberg
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A headline from the future with President Obama: "The Sunni-Shia Nuclear Arms Race Escalates".
I wonder how much gas will be then....
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/nov/28/us-embassy-cables-saudis-iran
America is not short of allies in its quest to thwart Iran, though some are clearly more enthusiastic than the Obama administration for a definitive solution to Iran's nuclear designs. In one cable, a US diplomat noted how Saudi foreign affairs bureaucrats were moderate in their views on Iran, "but diverge significantly from the more bellicose advice we have gotten from senior Saudi royals".
In a conversation with a US diplomat, King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa of Bahrain "argued forcefully for taking action to terminate their [Iran's] nuclear programme, by whatever means necessary. That programme must be stopped. The danger of letting it go on is greater than the danger of stopping it." Zeid Rifai, then president of the Jordanian senate, told a senior US official: "Bomb Iran, or live with an Iranian bomb. Sanctions, carrots, incentives won't matter."
In talks with US officials, Abu Dhabi crown prince Sheikh Mohammad bin Zayed favoured action against Iran, sooner rather than later. "I believe this guy is going to take us to war ... It's a matter of time. Personally, I cannot risk it with a guy like [President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad. He is young and aggressive."
In another exchange , a senior Saudi official warned that Gulf states may develop nuclear weapons of their own, or permit them to be based in their countries to deter the perceived Iranian threat.
No US ally is keener on military action than Israel, and officials there have repeatedly warned that time is running out. "If the Iranians continue to protect and harden their nuclear sites, it will be more difficult to target and damage them," the US embassy reported Israeli defence officials as saying in November 2009.
There are differing views within Israel. But the US embassy reported: "The IDF [Israeli Defence Force], however, strikes us as more inclined than ever to look toward a military strike, whether launched by Israel or by us, as the only way to destroy or even delay Iran's plans." Preparations for a strike would likely go undetected by Israel's allies or its enemies.
The Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, told US officials in May last yearthat he and the Egyptian president, Hosni Mubarak, agreed that a nuclear Iran would lead others in the region to develop nuclear weapons, resulting in "the biggest threat to non-proliferation efforts since the Cuban missile crisis".
The cables also expose frank, even rude, remarks about Iranian leaders, their trustworthiness and tactics at international meetings. Abdullah told another US diplomat: "The bottom line is that they cannot be trusted." Mubarak told a US congressman: "Iran is always stirring trouble." Others are learning from what they describe as Iranian deception. "They lie to us, and we lie to them," said Qatar's prime minister, Hamad bin Jassim Jaber al-Thani.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/wikileaks/8298427/WikiLeaks-tension-in-the-Middle-East-and-Asia-has-direct-potential-to-lead-to-nuclear-war.html
WikiLeaks: tension in the Middle East and Asia has 'direct potential' to lead to nuclear war
Tension in the Middle East and Asia has given rise to an escalating atomic arms and missiles race which has “the direct potential to lead to nuclear war,” leaked diplomatic documents disclose.
http://blogs.knoxnews.com/munger/2011/02/if-iran-become-nuclear-weapons.html
If Iran becomes a nuclear weapons state, would U.S. offer deterrence for Middle East allies?
If Iran is successful in developing a nuclear weapons capability, would the United States be willing to extend its umbrella of nuclear deterrence to protect allies in the Middle East?
That is a question the United States needs to start evaluating, according to Franklin C. Miller, a principal with the Scowcroft Group and a former member of President George W. Bush's National Security Council and special assistant to the president.
"I certainly believe people need to be thinking about that," Miller said today during a speech on the second day of the Nuclear Deterrence Summit being held just outside Washington in Crystal City, Va. The summit is hosted by Nuclear Weapons & Materials Monitor, part of ExchangeMonitor Publications.
Even though official government policy at this time is to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear weapons state, Miller said it's important to start looking at whether the U.S. would want to offer a nuclear shield to that region and, if so, what steps would be needed to accomplish it.
There is a long history of U.S. providing nuclear deterrence in Europe, where weapons are deployed in multiple countries, and Asia, where the United States considered the use of nuclear weapons during the Korean War. There is no history, however, of providing a nuclear umbrella in the Middle East.
Would Congress and the American people be willing to put the homeland at risk to protect a Middle Eastern state? And, if Iran does develop nuclear weaponry, would its neighbors in the region be sufficiently assured by the U.S. offer of deterrence that they would give up their own nuclear option?
Miller's presentation created a buzz at the summit, which has attracted some of the leading voices in the nuclear weapons community.
One audience member quizzed Miller about why he thought it was necessary to raise the specter of using nuclear weapons in the Middle East.
"If you're comfortable having four or five new nuclear states in the Middle East, then that's fine. I'm not comfortable with that," Miller said.
Another audience member asked whether he thought Israel, which has a well known but undeclared nuclear capability, would accept an offer of protection under the U.S. nuclear umbrella.
"No," Miller responded bluntly.
Riyadh will build nuclear weapons if Iran gets them, Saudi prince warns
Prospect of a nuclear conflict in the Middle East is raised by senior diplomat and member of the Saudi ruling family
Jason Burke in Riyadh
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 29 June 2011 17.19 BST
Prince Turki al-Faisal: he said that if Iran came close to developing nuclear weapons Riyadh would not stand idly by. Photograph: Hassan Ammar/AFP/Getty Images
A senior Saudi Arabian diplomat and member of the ruling royal family has raised the spectre of nuclear conflict in the Middle East if Iran comes close to developing a nuclear weapon.
Prince Turki al-Faisal, a former Saudi intelligence chief and ambassador to Washington, warned senior Nato military officials that the existence of such a device "would compel Saudi Arabia … to pursue policies which could lead to untold and possibly dramatic consequences".
He did not state explicitly what these policies would be, but a senior official in Riyadh who is close to the prince said yesterday his message was clear.
"We cannot live in a situation where Iran has nuclear weapons and we don't. It's as simple as that," the official said. "If Iran develops a nuclear weapon, that will be unacceptable to us and we will have to follow suit."
Officials in Riyadh said that Saudi Arabia would reluctantly push ahead with its own civilian nuclear programme. Peaceful use of nuclear power, Turki said, was the right of all nations.
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Umm , , , very interesting of course, but why is this in this thread instead of Nuclear War or Iran?
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The Nuclear War or the Mid-East War, Peace, and SNAFU threads would be a better place for this.
Re: Politics
« Reply #547 on: February 19, 2011, 02:07:48 PM »
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The original post from June 6, 2008 was in this thread.
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=================================
The Patriot Post
Chronicle -- Wednesday, July 13, 2011
=================================
On the Web: http://patriotpost.us/edition/2011/07/13/chronicle/
Printer Friendly: http://patriotpost.us/edition/2011/07/13/chronicle/print
PDF Version: http://pdf.patriotpost.us.s3.amazonaws.com/2011-07-13-chronicle.pdf
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The Foundation
"[W]hen all government, domestic and foreign, in little as in great things, shall be
drawn to Washington as the center of all power, it will render powerless the checks
provided of one government on another." --Thomas Jefferson
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Editorial Exegesis
"Republicans seemed warily confident that they might get a [debt-ceiling] deal over
the weekend on cutting future spending without raising taxes -- a deal that would
likely lead to smaller future deficits, the possibility of badly needed tax reforms
and the resumption of economic and jobs growth. No such luck. Not only did Obama not
really put any specific major cuts on the table, he reportedly surprised negotiators
by asking them to agree to a 'balanced approach' to deficit-cutting by including a
job-killing $1.7 trillion in potential new tax hikes. ... As a new Heritage
Foundation study shows, the government's tax take under Obama's current budget plans
will 'increase rapidly' from its long-term average of about 18% of GDP to a ruinous
26% of GDP in coming decades. That's why he seemed desperate, saying we need to
'tear the Band-Aid' off and 'eat our peas' to get a deal done by Aug. 2, the phony
deadline established by Democrats for fiscal Armageddon. ... During the press
conference Monday in which he made his case for 'revenue increases' -- that is, tax
hikes -- in deficit talks, Obama suggested why: He wants to spend even more in the
future. He's not shy about airing his many ideas for this, among them what he calls
'investments' in Head Start and student loan programs, more government funding of
medical research, and even an 'infrastructure bank.' Such programs aren't possible,
Obama said, 'if we haven't gotten our fiscal house in order.' This almost defies
belief. This is how we got into the problem in the first place. Too much government,
too much spending, too many regulations, too many taxes. Is Obama really that out of
touch with Americans? It seems so." --Investor's Business Daily
(http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article/577932/201107111858/Compromise-Not-On-Taxes.htm
)
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Essential Liberty
"The ignorance about our country is staggering. According to one survey, only 28% of
students could identify the Constitution as the supreme law of the land. Only 26% of
students knew that the first 10 amendments to the Constitution are called the Bill
of Rights. Fewer than one-quarter of students knew that George Washington was the
first president of the United States. ... Ignorance and possibly contempt for
American values, civics and history might help explain how someone like Barack Obama
could become president of the United States. At no other time in our history could a
person with longtime associations with people who hate our country become president.
... The fact that Obama became president and brought openly Marxist people into his
administration doesn't say so much about him as it says about the effects of decades
of brainwashing of the American people by the education establishment, media and the
intellectual elite." --economist Walter E. Williams
(http://patriotpost.us/opinion/walter-e-williams/2011/07/13/failing-liberty-101/ )
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Upright
"It's a common refrain among those who lust to increase government's size and power:
Every failed measure justifies more of the same. Poverty programs make it harder to
escape poverty? We need more poverty programs! Racial preferences heighten racial
division? We need more racial preferences! And a diversity manual for every janitor
in the country! When ObamaCare ends up driving the costs of medicine up and the
quality and availability down, you can bet the people who created that monstrosity
will claim it failed only because it didn't go far enough. Let's generalize this
into the First Rule of Liberalism: Government failure always justifies more
government." --Wall Street Journal columnist James Taranto
"Speaking for himself on July 11, the president offered that he had 'hundreds of
thousands of dollars that I don't need.' The president is of course welcome to
donate as much of his extra money as he likes to the federal treasury. He knows
Timothy Geithner personally and can probably get a guarantee that his check will be
cashed without delay. And since the president is so ready to impute unpleasant
motives (like greed) to those who oppose tax increases, perhaps we should impute
some sort of moral failing to him for not having thus far contributed his spare
change to the government." --columnist Mona Charen
"[T]he sheer incompetence and, in some cases, mendacity, of the current crop of
statist politicians in both the legislative and executive branches seem likely to
bring on an economic crisis that will actually force Americans to decide between a
constitutional restoration and a full embrace of statism. ... This pantomime
deficit-reduction process is evidence that those in charge have lost their mental
grip on the true dimensions of the fiscal crisis. Once they have lost their mental
grip, their economic grip -- and then their political grip -- also will soon slip
away, followed, perhaps, by a restoration of liberty." --columnist Tony Blankley
"Welfare mostly subsidizes people in poverty, helping few escape from it. In their
hearts, most people who are poor would like to be rich, or at least self-sustaining,
but this president never talks about how they might achieve that goal. Instead, he
criticizes those who made the right choices and now enjoy the fruits of their labor.
Rather than use successful people as examples for the poor to follow, the president
seeks to punish the rich with higher taxes and more regulations on their
businesses." --columnist Cal Thomas
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Patriot News Review
We value your time. As a service to you, our editorial team evaluates hundreds of
reputable news sources each day for headlines that are relevant to our mission --
the advancement of Liberty. We post links to the most notable news by 0800 ET,
weekdays, and throughout the day. This page is also updated over the weekend. Don't
waste time surfing news sites. Visit the Patriot News Review
(http://patriotpost.us/headlines/ ).
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The Demo-gogues
Deal now, spend more later: "Let's get this [debt ceiling] problem off the table ...
[and] with a solid fiscal situation, we will then be in a position to make the kind
of investments that I think are going to be necessary to win the future." --Barack
Obama
A great GOP campaign ad: "So, when you hear folks saying 'Well, the president
shouldn't want massive job killing tax increases when the economy is this weak.'
Nobody's looking to raise taxes right now. We're talking about potentially 2013 and
the out years." --Barack Obama
Hypocrisy: "You go talk to your constituents and ask them, 'Are you willing to
compromise your kids' safety so some corporate-jet owner can get a tax break?'"
--Barack Obama (Obama and his jet-setting entourage are the biggest spenders in the
world. How about we reverse the question?)
Constituents don't know anything: "Let me distinguish between professional
politicians and the public at large. You know, the public is not paying close
attention to the ins and outs of how a Treasury auction goes. They shouldn't.
They're worrying about their family, they're worrying about their jobs. They're
worrying about their neighborhood. They have got a lot of other things on their
plate. We're paid to worry about it." --Barack Obama, scoffing at the fact that more
than two-thirds of the electorate oppose increasing the debt ceiling
It's okay to mix religion and politics when Democrats do it: "What would Jesus do
this weekend? Or Moses? Or Allah? Or anyone else? I don't want this [debt
negotiations] book closed without the clergy having an opportunity to forcefully
express themselves as well as I know they can do." --Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY)
Belly laugh of the week: "Now, without re-litigating the past, I'm absolutely
convinced, and the vast majority of economists are convinced, that the steps we took
in the Recovery Act saved millions of people their jobs or created a whole bunch of
jobs. And part of the evidence of that is as you see what happens with the Recovery
Act phasing out." --Barack Obama arguing that current job losses are proof that the
stimulus worked
Throwing granny off a cliff: "I cannot guarantee that those [Social Security] checks
go out on August 3rd if we haven't resolved this [debt debate issue]. Because there
may simply not be the money in the coffers to do it. This is not just a matter of
Social Security checks. These are veterans checks, these are folks on disability and
their checks. There are about 70 million checks that go out." --Barack Obama
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Dezinformatsia
And it's right-wingers employing extremist rhetoric: "Is the Republican Party
willing to risk economic Armageddon in the name of religion, that is the religion of
no taxes? Well, the GOP has become the Wahhabis of American government, willing to
risk bringing down the whole country in the service of their anti-tax ideology. ...
The Party's being driven by fanatics and they're determined to bounce America's
savings bonds and have the United States begin to become like Greece." --MSNBC's
Chris Matthews
The BIG Lie: "Every fresh report of 'progress' on the debt-ceiling talks produces
new reasons to feel profoundly uneasy. The talks were misbegotten from the
beginning, made necessary only by the irresponsible refusal of Republicans to pay
the nation's bills unless they got everything their way on government spending and
taxes. ... It is already clear that the Republicans have succeeded spectacularly in
their insistence that the agreement be mostly about spending cuts rather than
building back the money lost from the Bush tax cuts that was the principal cause of
the deficit." --The New York Times
Blame game: "Wall Street wants to make it look like Fannie [Mae] and Freddie [Mac]
were the drivers behind the mortgage collapse, when in fact Wall Street led the way
and Fannie and Freddie basically caught up. I think, you know, Fannie and Freddie
were the product of government policy, both parties, and President Bush championed
the ownership society, and pushing low-cost mortgages were part of the Republican
inroad into the Hispanic community. So this wreaks of politics, but you cannot say
that Fannie and Freddie led the way with all those financial instruments."
--Newsweek's Eleanor Clift
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Newspulper Headlines:
Out on a Limb: "Obama Really Might Have Made It Worse" --Reuters
Coming This Fall on the Discovery Channel: 'Dreary Jobs': "Obama Asks Congress for
Help on Dreary Jobs Front" --NationalJournal.com
That's Racist: "Mello Yello Returns to Japan" --JapanToday.com
He Was Just Trying to Put a Little Spark Back Into the Marriage: "Jilted Husband
Built Electric Chair in Garage in Attempt to Kill Wife" --Daily Telegraph (London)
Questions Nobody Is Asking: "Why Does Dominique Strauss-Kahn Have White Hair and
Black Eyebrows?" --Slate.com
Answers to Questions Nobody Is Asking: "What Obama Wants" --The New York Times
(Thanks to The Wall Street Journal's James Taranto
(http://online.wsj.com/article/best_of_the_web_today.html ))
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Village Idiots
Recovery is a long time coming: "I think it will take a long time still. This is a
very tough economy. And I think for a lot of people, it's going to feel very hard,
harder than the experience in a lifetime for some time to come. And that is because
that is the tragic effects of a crisis this deep and this bad caused by a long
period of lost opportunities to do things that made the country stronger."
--Secretary of Treasury Timothy Geithner
Spread the wealth: "This is about bringing fiscal soundness so the world and
Americans can know that we can solve our problems ourselves, and do it in a way that
there is shared pain, and there is shared responsibility. And that is what the
president is fighting for." --White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley
Race bait: "There has never been in my lifetime, since we got rid of the poll tax
and all the voter Jim Crow burdens on voting, the determined effort to limit a
franchise that we see today. ... Why should we disenfranchise people forever once
they've paid their price? Because most of them in Florida were African Americans and
Hispanics and would tend to vote for Democrats, that's why." --Bill Clinton on voter
ID laws
Gun Grabbers: "For years, Americans and Mexicans have watched in horror as Mexican
drug cartels have used assault rifles trafficked from America to kill thousands of
people and export drugs to our country. Now, after some in Congress unsuccessfully
tried to block this new reporting tool, the Department of Justice has finally
announced they are implementing it to help investigators take down illegal gun
traffickers. It's an encouraging sign that the administration is taking the
bloodshed at the border seriously -- and taking action to address it." --Boston
Mayor Thomas Menino of "Mayors Against Illegal Guns"
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Short Cuts
"As the late Joseph Sobran quipped, 'The Constitution poses no threat to our form of
government.' That is, unless We the People begin to apply it to hold the Obama
administration and its toadies accountable for unleashing legal and fiscal anarchy
on our country." --columnist Robert Knight
"[F]or those of you who want [to] spread the blame equally between the parties,
understand this: Republicans have proposed a budget for this year and the next.
Democrats have proposed nothing. Republicans have proposed fixes for entitlements.
Democrats have proposed nothing. Republicans have proposed reforming the tax system.
Democrats have proposed nothing. Why? Because something, with a healthy dollop of
media assistance, can be demagogued to death, detail after media-skewed detail.
Nothing? Nothing is nothing." --columnist Arnold Ahlert
"The U.S. is now in serious danger of defaulting on our foreign loans, which
explains why today, China showed up and broke the Statue of Liberty's kneecaps."
--Jimmy Fallon
"You know what the scary part is? Not that the government will cease to function,
[but] that they think this is actually the government functioning. They think it is
working well." --comedian Jay Leno
Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus et Fidelis!
The Patriot Post Editorial Team
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http://news.yahoo.com/51st-state-small-step-forward-long-shot-south-233234624.html
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For 51st state I was thinking Puerto Rico and hoping maybe Alberta. South California is interesting. Wouldn't it be great if we could mostly govern closer to home among people who have a more common interest, and have a strong central government limited to functions that require that, at the state as well as the national levels.
Over here in flyover country I can't get anyone to even consider the idea of splitting into a separate county. The outlying part of our county with the largest city removed (Minneapolis) is just half of one county of a medium sized state, but has a population and economy larger than 6 states. If split it would still be the state's two largest counties out of 88. We live further from the central city where the big expenses are than all of the next county over (St. Paul) and parts of 3 other counties. We cannot split because the failed inner city is financially dependent on the productive outlying areas. That isn't local government. That kind of financial support is a role for state government or federal disaster relief, not other localities, or they could fix their own problems.
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http://news.yahoo.com/51st-state-small-step-forward-long-shot-south-233234624.html
I think this belongs in the humor section. The odds of it happening are zero and none. Proposed by a disgruntled Riverside County Supervisor,
a county that frankly is worthless; I wouldn't live there if I was paid and given a free home.
:-D
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I don't suppose anyone, anywhere is following this, but there is a campaign going on right now that is the preview to the 2012 House, Senate and Presidential campaign and election. It is very, very ugly. The money being spent is unbelievable and the message on both sides is 100% negative: Moore means More Taxes and Harsdorf is backing [Gov.]Scott Walker's agenda every step of the way.
In the case of one western Wisconsin legislative district, they have to pay for the entire 3 million person Twin Cities (MN - wrong state) media market in order to reach their own district with television and radio ads, and they are nearly continuous on every channel - in August. New records for spending, they are spending more in one state senate district than was spent statewide in a real election a short time ago, and (believe it or not) the money is not all local: http://www.workdayminnesota.org/index.php?news_6_4951
The Minnesota AFL-CIO will run buses of union volunteers into the district Aug. 8 and 9, assisting get-out-the-vote efforts on Moore’s behalf. And the Minnesota State Council of the Service Employees International Union already is operating phone banks out of its St. Paul headquarters.
Who knows what the outcome will mean for having a special election at such a strange time.
For unbiased coverage :wink: there is a blog at Huffington Post covering the campaign. For current liberal governing views, just read the comments.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/14/wisconsin-recall-elections-2011_n_898144.html
Also Hudson WI newspaper: http://hudson-wi.patch.com/articles/wisconsin-senate-recall-harsdorf-vs-moore-links-for-aug-3
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Brief · August 8, 2011
The Foundation
"No country upon earth ever had it more in its power to attain these blessings than United America. Wondrously strange, then, and much to be regretted indeed would it be, were we to neglect the means and to depart from the road which Providence has pointed us to so plainly; I cannot believe it will ever come to pass." --George Washington
For the Record
"The Obama administration and congressional Democrats are betting their political futures on the hope that the American electorate is ignorant and forgetful, and hence the memo has gone out to functionaries hither and yon, from David Axelrod to John Kerry: This is to be called the 'tea-party downgrade.' That this is said with straight faces bespeaks either an unshakable contempt for the mind of the American voter or an as-yet unplumbed capacity for Democratic self-delusion. Let us revisit the facts. The original debt-ceiling deal put forward by the Democrats totaled $0.00 in debt reduction. This would have fallen approximately $4 trillion short of the $4 trillion in debt reduction the credit-rating agencies suggested would constitute a 'credible' step toward maintaining our AAA rating and avoiding a downgrade. ... The Democrats have suggested that Republicans' refusal to accede to tax hikes is the main reason Standard & Poor's felt it necessary to issue a downgrade, the first in American history, last Friday evening. In their assessment of Standard & Poor's reasoning, the Democrats are acutely at odds with Standard & Poor's. The credit-rating agency did not call for tax hikes in its assessment. ... But S&P, along with the other credit-rating agencies, has long taken a position on one aspect of our fiscal troubles: entitlement reform. ... As anybody who has looked at our long-term deficit projections knows, entitlement spending is the major driver of our future deficits. ... Tea-party leaders, far from being a barrier to entitlement reform, have demanded it. ... The deal that finally did pass would have contained significantly more in deficit-reduction, except for the fact that Democrats categorically refused to consider -- is this sounding familiar? -- entitlement reform, the most important issue. ... Democrats believe that they have discovered a cartoon villain in the Tea Party, and they are hoping that American voters are gullible enough to be distracted by the political theatrics. Come November 2012, Americans should keep in mind both the insult and the injury -- to the nation and its credit." --National Review
What does the downgrade mean?
Opinion in Brief
"It seems to me that, on any reasonable assessment, the gulf between the parties on fiscal policy is becoming more difficult to bridge, not less. Pessimism on that score seems entirely justified, so it's hard to argue with S&P['s credit rating downgrade] on at least that specific point. I do think the outlook for fundamental fiscal agreement before the 2012 election is bleak. After that, things could change dramatically for the better, or not. In any case, whether S&P is being fair or unfair to move at this juncture, the political standoff we're in is, sadly, necessary right now, despite its costs. Americans are in the midst of a great debate on the future of our society. Everyone seems to agree that the outcome of the next election will have a decisive impact on what kind of country we are -- or become. Will we retain our distinctively American characteristics, or move irrevocably toward the European model? ... Whether or not Barack Obama is reelected will be the single most important factor determining the direction we take. Nothing much will happen until that question is resolved, S&P notwithstanding. And for all the problems it causes, that is the way it has to be." --Ethics and Public Policy Center senior fellow Stanley Kurtz
Political Futures
"[On Friday] it was announced that the unemployment rate is 9.1 percent. The unemployment rate has now been above 9 percent in 25 of the last 27 months. [On Thursday] stocks fell 512 points. Consumer confidence has fallen again as has consumer spending. Manufacturing has slowed to the slowest pace in more than two years. GDP growth is a sickly 1.3 percent. Meanwhile, the national debt has risen to $14.8 trillion. Federal spending has risen to $3.6 trillion -- $700 billion more than just three years ago -- and continues to rise, despite the fact tax receipts have fallen to $2.2 trillion -- $300 billion less than three years ago. [Obama] promised that if Congress passed the $812 billion stimulus bill in 2009, the unemployment rate would be approximately 5.5 percent by November 2012. That would require that between 800,000 and 1,000,000 jobs per month (depending on the labor participation rate) be created between now and election day. Given that over the last quarter we've been running between 750,000 to 950,000 jobs per month short of that goal, what are [his] plans to boost the employment rate? [Obama has] announced [he's] going on a Midwest bus tour beginning the week of August 15 to focus on job creation. How many jobs [will his bus tour] create? Isn't it reasonable for Americans to conclude that [his] jobs-creation program consists primarily of borrowing money, deficit spending, and giving speeches?" --National Review's Peter Kirsanow
Essential Liberty
"Greater freedom for tax payers would be seized from tax consumers, in an act of terrorism against the sacred machinery of redistribution. This mindset flows from the fundamental leftist misunderstanding of freedom. They view the essence of freedom as action. ... In reality, freedom is property. Every form of collectivism, from fascism to socialism, is an offense against property rights. The early philosophers of socialism railed bitterly against the private ownership of property. They hated the notion of a middle class with independence secured through ownership. The perilous financial situation of the United States government illustrates how closely private property rights are connected to all other forms of liberty. The less absolute your rights of ownership over your land, labor, and fortune become, the more easily the other rights can be dismissed at the convenience of the State. ... Now we are told that we have no choice but to allow the State to become larger, spending and borrowing more as it extends its control over our lives. Those who disagree are denounced as 'terrorists.' ... In a nation where the government fully respected private ownership, the notion of citizens becoming 'hostages' to federal budget cuts would be laughable, rather than insulting. Freedom is not something to be granted, rationed, allocated, or redistributed. It is not won or lost in an election. Freedom is something you own." --columnist John Hayward
The Gipper
"Now it doesn't require expropriation or confiscation of private property or business to impose socialism on a people. What does it mean whether you hold the deed or the title to your business or property if the government holds the power of life and death over that business or property? And such machinery already exists. The government can find some charge to bring against any concern it chooses to prosecute. Every businessman has his own tale of harassment. Somewhere a perversion has taken place. Our natural, unalienable rights are now considered to be a dispensation of government, and freedom has never been so fragile, so close to slipping from our grasp as it is at this moment." --Ronald Reagan
Government
"[T]he most fundamental reality is that the average wealth of the elderly is some multiple of the average wealth owned by people in the other age brackets. Why should the average taxpayer be subsidizing people who have much more wealth than they do? If we are concerned about those particular elderly people who are in fact poor -- as we are about other people who are genuinely poor, whatever their age might be -- then we can simply confine our help to those who are poor by some reasonable means test. It would cost a fraction of what it costs to subsidize everybody who reaches a certain age. But the political left hates means tests. If government programs were confined to people who were genuinely poor in some meaningful sense, that would shrink the welfare state to a fraction of its current size. ... - ld age is not some unforeseeable misfortune. It is not only foreseeable but inevitable for those who do not die young. It is one thing to keep people from suffering from unforeseeable things beyond their control. But it is something else to simply subsidize their necessities so that they can spend their money on other things and leave a larger estate to be passed on to their heirs. People who say they want a government program because 'I don't want to be a burden to my children' apparently think it is all right to be a burden to other people's children." --economist Thomas Sowell
Insight
"The power to determine the quantity of money ... is too important, too pervasive, to be exercised by a few people, however public-spirited, if there is any feasible alternative. There is no need for such arbitrary power. ... Any system which gives so much power and so much discretion to a few men, [so] that mistakes -- excusable or not -- can have such far reaching effects, is a bad system. It is a bad system to believers in freedom just because it gives a few men such power without any effective check by the body politic -- this is the key political argument against an independent central bank.'' --economist Milton Friedman (1912-2006)
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There is a myth circulating (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/us-politics/8692054/Democrats-doubt-Barack-Obamas-reelection-chances.html) that America just picked the wrong leftist to lead - that's what's wrong. Hillary, one might recall, had identical policies but was personally not liked. For Obama, it is the policies that failed, he is still personally well-liked.
What went wrong in 2006-2008 was that some people with certain failed poicies damaged the Republican brand almost beyond repair. Because no prominent conservative Republican really stood up successfully against Bush and said enough is enough, no one had the stature or experience to do that later upon his retirement.
Same goes now for Democrats.
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If a Republican beats Obama in 2012, Pawlenty is young enough (50) to wait 8 years to run again. Defeating Sen. Al Franken, the once 60th vote, in a most liberal state would move forward his prominence and experience (and readiness). This is just me speculating.
I also predict Michele Bachmann will run for her own congressional seat in 2012.
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The Foundation
"Of those men who have overturned the liberties of republics, the greatest number have begun their career by paying an obsequious court to the people, commencing demagogues and ending tyrants." --Alexander Hamilton
Editorial Exegesis
Obama implements DREAM Act by executive fiat"Following a pattern of making law by regulation and executive order, the Obama administration [last week] announced it will impose a version of the Dream (development, relief and education for alien minors) Act on America through administrative fiat. This is blatant political pandering in an election cycle at the expense of American citizens. On Thursday, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano told Congress she has authority to halt deportation of illegal aliens not perceived to be a criminal threat as long as they meet certain criteria, such as attending school or having family in the military. The new rules would cover up to 300,000 illegal aliens. In 2010, the government deported 200,000 with no criminal records. Under the new rules, most would now likely be allowed to stay and apply for permits. Opposed by a majority of Americans and twice defeated in Congress, the federal Dream Act essentially grants amnesty to any illegal alien in America if they agree to enlist in the military or attend a U.S. college. It's called a 'path to citizenship,' a path that leads right past the U.S. Border Patrol. Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, a sponsor of the federal Dream Act, praised the DHS announcement. 'These students are the future doctors, lawyers, teachers and maybe senators who will make America stronger,' he said in a statement. So are the children of America's jobless. ... 'If you look at immigrants from Mexico, they register 3-to-1 Democrat, so the Democratic Party is for easy citizenship and allowing them to vote,' says Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky. This is about making the Democratic Party, not America, strong." --Investor's Business Daily
Essential Liberty
"Our Founders warned us that all republics have eventually fallen into tyranny -- the only difference being the relative timeline of each republic's descent. ... From the summer of 1787 when our Framers deliberated over their magnificent Constitution, we have recognized that the clear statement and equal application of the Law is among the most critical duties of any government. If we allow ourselves to lose this, we may as well be back in ancient Rome, subject to the whim of every petty tyrant in the taxing bureau or the zoning board. For it doesn't matter whether the regulator's foot is shod in a jack boot or a Roman sandal; if he can hold you down with that boot upon your neck, then we are no longer in the America that our Founding Fathers intended for us." --columnist John F. Di Leo
Upright
"President Obama is chilling out at the beach while the country's economic engine is headed for a deep freeze. ... The fact is this guy is simply detached from normal Americans. Even when he wants to give the appearance of being with the common man in the hard-hit Midwest, the bus he took was a $1.1 million ultra-luxury model custom-built at taxpayer expense. Now he's jetting off to take advantage of the kind of glamorous lifestyle otherwise only open to A-list celebrities and billionaires. Mr. Obama is holding off giving a big jobs speech until after his return. If he were serious about his own job, he'd return to the White House and give his TV address instead of sipping Prosecco in the sand with his pampered buddies." --columnist Emily Miller
"Let us take these whiny excuses at face value and accept for the sake of argument that Obama's Recovery Summer would now be going gangbusters had not the Libyan rebels seized Benghazi and sent the economy into a tailspin. Did no one in the smartest administration in history think this might be the time for the president to share in some of the 'bad luck' and forgo an ostentatious vacation in the exclusive playground of the rich? When you're the presiding genius of the Brokest Nation in History, enjoying the lifestyle of the super-rich while allegedly in 'public service' sends a strikingly Latin American message." --columnist Mark Steyn
"I seem to recall a presidential candidate who told his followers back in 2008 'we are five days away from completely transforming the United States of America.' That, we were told, was the essence of 'hope and change.' More than a few Americans have figured out it was nothing more than nihilism with some media PR attached to it. ... But I am sure of one thing: you can't run a country when you're attached to the idea that it is fundamentally flawed. That is the essence of nihilism. That nihilism is virtually indistinguishable from progressivism. --columnist Arnold Ahlert
"A man who misleads must choose his words carefully lest his real agenda be exposed. Obama's public persona has to disguise his true feelings. Thus, his private persona is in constant conflict with the words he utters. That is why he hesitates. He is watching every word lest he slip and expose yet another dictatorial predilection. That is not stupidity; instead it indicates his conflicted emotions running headlong into themselves. He hopes to continue to fool the people. He lies and prevaricates and it is only when he is angry that you see the real Obama emerge. Then when he realizes that he may have gone too far, he removes himself from the fray. He blames others hoping that no one will actually catch on." --columnist Eileen F. Toplansky
Insight
"A society that puts equality ... ahead of freedom will end up with neither equality nor freedom." --economist Milton Friedman (1912-2006)
"Private capitalism makes a steam engine; State capitalism makes pyramids." --American author Frank Chodorov (1887-1966)
The Demo-gogues
We couldn't have said it better: "What was remarkable was to see outside of Washington the enthusiasm, the energy, the hopefulness, the decency of the American people. And what I said to them is you deserve better. You deserve better than you've been getting out of Washington over the last two-and-a-half months -- for that matter, for the last two-and-a-half years." --Barack Obama at a New York fundraiser
Belly Laugh of the Week: "I make no apologies for being reasonable." --Barack Obama in Iowa
Nice sentiment: "I'm not afraid of anybody. This is a tough game. You can't be intimidated. You can't be frightened. And as far as I'm concerned, the Tea Party can go straight to hell." --Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA)
"Let us all remember who the real enemy is. The real enemy is the Tea Party. ... The Tea Party holds the Congress hostage." --Rep. Frederica Wilson (D-FL)
"We appreciate and welcome your concluding that the United States is such a safe haven because we appreciate your investment in U.S. treasuries. And very sincerely, I want to make clear that you have nothing to worry about in terms of their -- their viability." --Joe Biden to Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao
Utilitarian reasoning: "Your policy has been one which I fully understand -- I'm not second-guessing -- of one child per family. The result [is] that you're in a position where one wage earner will be taking care of four retired people. Not sustainable." --Joe Biden, whose only argument against forced abortion is that there won't be enough taxpayers
Dezinformatsia
The BIG Lie: "Nothing is unconstitutional until courts declare it to be so." --an Associated Press "fact check" on Michele Bachmann's charge that ObamaCare's individual mandate is unconstitutional
Wrong diagnosis: "The grandees of the [Republican] party are once again trying to find some new candidates to get into the race. Paul Ryan, Chris Christie, anybody. And that tells me that the party, in basic terms of philosophy, doesn't believe in science, doesn't believe in government, at any level. Or is just a bunch of patriotic anarchists that in terms of orientation is in disarray." --Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson
Dumb and dumber: "If the president thinks more should be done, if he thinks there should be more stimulus, why doesn't he just go for broke? Why doesn't he go out there and ask for it, make a case for it?" --NBC's Samantha Guthrie (Um, he HAS gone for broke.)
Sometimes they get it right: "Cruising white Midwestern hamlets in his black bus, Obama tried to justify not calling lawmakers back to D.C. by saying they'd just continue to bicker. But what does he think they'll do in September? The truth is, he doesn't want them back in the capital any more than they want to be back. It would have screwed up his vacation and upset Michelle, who already feels trapped in the Washington bubble." --New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd
Reading am hard: "Tonight is the measure of whether the country begins, in the state of Wisconsin, a national drive to push back or whether we have more to go to build a movement of resistance. But resist we much. We must and we will much ... about ... that ... be committed." --MSNBC's newest host Al Sharpton having difficulty reading the teleprompter about Wisconsin's recall elections
Newspulper Headlines:
Breaking News From 2008: "Narcissists Rise to the Top Because People Mistake Their Confidence and Authority for Leadership Qualities" --Daily Mail (London)
Out on a Limb: "Obama Bus Tour Has Campaign Overtones" --USA Today website
Amazing Advances in Nanotechnology: "Keith Olbermann's Current TV Ratings Drop to New Low" --TheWrap.com
Because Sinatra Didn't Have a French Accent: "Why Frogs Don't Sing Like Sinatra" --The Wall Street Journal
Bottom Story of the Day: "President Obama: I Will Introduce Specific Plan in September to Boost Economy -- and If Congress Doesn't Act, We'll Run Against Them" --ABCNews.com
(Thanks to The Wall Street Journal's James Taranto)
Village Idiots
Incomprehensible metaphors: "Black voters gave the first votes and the most votes [to Obama] and now have the most pain. The highest infant mortality rate, the shortest life expectancy, least access to jobs and capital, so obviously it must be targeted for more than just for votes. If I can use the analogy of the great Titanic: There are those in the Tea Party that want to destroy the captain and preserve those on the deck and preserve those in the cabins but the water is gushing up the bottom and more and more people are falling in the sink." --professional race hustler Jesse Jackson, who must be reading off Al Sharpton's teleprompter
Non Compos Mentis: "Why did Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan, a Muslim psychiatrist at Ft. Hood, go on a shooting spree after being assigned to debrief soldiers who came back from the theatre of war and they're telling him of the things that they did that were against their conscience now, and a Muslim psychiatrist is hearing them talking about the rape of Muslim women, the killing and sodomizing of families. He couldn't take it anymore so he just shot up the soldiers. They want you to think that he's a terrorist but he was debriefing terrorists and unfortunately it took his balance." --Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan, who must have been reading John Kerry's 1971 Senate testimony accusing his fellow soldiers of war crimes
"[Obama's foreign policy has] been really good as commander in chief and that's not what the election is going to be fought on. It's going to be fought on the economy. But, he's getting our troops out of Iraq. They'll be almost all gone by the end of this year, if not all of them. The Afghan war is being drawn down. Osama bin Laden is dead and Moammar Gadhafi is on his way out. Nobody's had a foreign policy record like that since -- I don't know how far back you'd have to go. Not Ronald Reagan, not George W. Bush. Nobody. I don't know, you'd have to go back to Harry Truman before -- or Franklin Roosevelt before you get a record like that." --former DNC chair Howard Dean
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The Foundation
"Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm." --James Madison
Government & Politics
The Obama Plan to -- Hold On -- Fore!
It's August, which means much of Washington is shut down for recess, but even then, there's always something going on. While members of Congress are at home avoiding town hall meetings and the president is out on the golf course at Martha's Vineyard skipping holes to avoid photographers, the capital is recovering from the earthquake Monday (they're calling it "Bush's Fault") and preparing (along with the entire East Coast) for a weekend hurricane. You might say that what goes around comes around.
Out here in flyover country, the economy is still stagnant and jobs are hard to come by. Not that we're looking to Washington to create jobs, but to truly get out of the way so entrepreneurs can do so. No such luck. Out on the eighth fairway, Barack Obama came up with a plan to create jobs. He will make a big announcement about it, too ... in September. As usual, though, some details were leaked. It turns out that his grand plan is -- drum roll please -- to repeat the stimulus. Yes, that stimulus, which cost nearly $1 trillion and delivered, well, nothing.
Speaking in Iowa on Aug. 15, the president plugged his "new" plan (same as the old plan) to "invest in infrastructure." That same day, The Wall Street Journal reported that Obama hopes "to create a new 'infrastructure bank' to finance highway and rail construction, create jobs and jump-start the stalled economy." Sound familiar? It should, because it's the same rhetoric the president used to tout Stimulus 1.0 back in 2009.
Even Obama strategist David Axelrod said, "These are not all new ideas." Not new, but definitely failed. As National Review's Jim Geraghty notes, "Somehow Obama made 'the largest new investment in America's infrastructure since the Interstate Highway System' and yet nearly three years later the roads and bridges of his rhetoric are still falling to pieces." When Thomas Edison repeatedly came up short in his quest to create a working light bulb, he contended he hadn't failed but rather found 10,000 ways that didn't work. In his quest to fix the economy, Obama has found one way that doesn't work but seems determined to try it 10,000 times.
As for federal spending, the Congressional Budget Office released a new report that spending will reach a new high of $3.6 trillion this year, and the deficit will near $1.3 trillion, despite Democrat claims in 2009 that stimulus spending would be temporary. CBO predicts that, as taxes are increased massively when the Bush tax rates expire, federal revenue will skyrocket from 15.3 percent of GDP today to 20.2 percent in 2014. This assumes no behavioral changes for the tens of millions who will be paying those higher taxes. Stunningly, CBO also predicts economic growth between 4.4 percent and 5 percent in 2014 and 2015 -- after those massive tax increases. Oh, and they also have some oceanfront property in Arizona to sell.
For all this spending, the CBO sees unemployment remaining above 8 percent until 2014 (Democrats promised that it wouldn't top 8 percent with the first stimulus). If taxes go up, however, it could remain over 9 percent well into the future. If you don't believe us, ask the people of Illinois, who are hemorrhaging jobs after that state's major tax increases. Meanwhile, according to a new Associated Press survey, economists are also painting a none-too-rosy picture. While they "foresee economic growth, job creation, consumer spending, and home prices all rising over the next year ... the gains they expect are so slight that many Americans won't notice." Quarter 2 GDP growth was just revised downward from 1.3 percent to 1.0 percent. In fact, economists have pessimistically put the likelihood of another recession within the next 12 months at 26 percent, up from 15 percent in June. This begs the question: Who exactly thinks the last recession ever ended?
Finally, it's interesting that several federal buildings in DC, as well as the Washington Monument, suffered some damage in Monday's earthquake. In fact, we think it's quite symbolic that the cracks in the monument to our first and greatest president occurred just after our nation's credit rating was downgraded because of the reckless policies of his utterly unworthy successor.
Really, though, what's all this compared to the trouble Obama's having finding his ball in the rough? Indeed, one might say he's showing courageous leadership by refusing to cut his vacation short, even as Hurricane Irene heads his way. Way to stand your ground, sir. Now would you like the 9-iron, or the pitching wedge?
How is the economy?
Quote of the Week
"The problem is that the way [President] Bush has done it over the last eight years is to take out a credit card from the Bank of China in the name of our children, driving up our national debt from $5 trillion dollars for the first 42 presidents -- number 43 added $4 trillion dollars by his lonesome -- so that we now have over $9 trillion dollars of debt that we are going to have to pay back. [That's] $30,000 for every man, woman and child. That's irresponsible. It's unpatriotic." --Barack Obama on July 3, 2008
Apparently, Bush was unpatriotic because adding $4 trillion to the debt took him eight years. Obama needed just two.
Don't Miss Mark Alexander's Essay
Ballots or Bullets? Ballot Box Barriers to Restoring Constitutional Integrity
Hope 'n' Change: Another Court Defeat for ObamaCare
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit recently ruled as unconstitutional ObamaCare's mandate for all Americans to carry health insurance. This is the biggest defeat for the law so far, and it affirms a January ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Roger Vinson of Florida in a case brought by 26 state attorneys general. The Obama administration's appeal of Vinson's ruling maintained that the government can compel everyone to purchase health insurance because of its power to regulate interstate commerce. This view was soundly rejected by 11th Circuit Court Judges Joel Dubina and Frank Hall, appointed by George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, respectively. Dubina and Hall wrote in their 207-page opinion that such reasoning suggests the government has the power to regulate every part of a person's life because all persons influence interstate commerce by virtue of their existence.
The decision conflicts with the Sixth Circuit's complete affirmation of ObamaCare in June, further assuring that the Supreme Court will make the final call. It won't be a matter of just ruling ObamaCare constitutional or striking it down in total. The 11th Circuit decision introduced the concept of "severability." While they agreed with Vinson on the mandate, Dubina and Hall decided that the mandate could be removed from the law while leaving the rest of its provisions intact. Vinson ruled the entire ObamaCare law as unconstitutional, believing that the mandate is too integral to the law to be removed and still leave the remaining provisions functional. Insurance companies would be compelled to accept all potential new customers, but people would have no incentive to buy insurance until they're sick. The market would be turned upside down, and costs would necessarily skyrocket.
Despite this latest legal setback, ObamaCare continues to chug along with the Department of Health and Human Services granting another 106 waivers in July. Many of the 1,472 waivers will now last until 2014, whereas they were originally set to expire a year from their issuance. The latest batch will last three years. There is still no explanation forthcoming of the process of accepting or rejecting applicants, although the disproportionate number of unions and public sector groups already in the pool does suggest one important criterion.
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We Still Hold These Truths Leader's Guide pack
The leaders' guide is a companion to We Still Hold These Truths. It provides everything you need to take your group on a journey through history to discover what defines us as a nation, asking thought-provoking questions to get our country back on track. We Still Hold These Truths Leader's Guide pack, published by The Heritage Foundation, includes We Still Hold These Truths softcover, a spiral bound 141 page Leader's Guide plus a free inspirational DVD.
On the Campaign Trail: Perry Up, Pawlenty Out
The Republican presidential field experienced some major changes in the aftermath of the Aug. 13 Iowa Straw Poll. Michele Bachmann came out the winner, with Ron Paul trailing her by less than 200 votes. Tim Pawlenty needed a big showing to revive his moribund campaign, and he pushed all his resources into the contest, but he came in a distant third with less than half the votes received by Bachmann and Paul; he accordingly dropped out the next day. Frontrunner Mitt Romney received just 567 votes, though he didn't actively participate in the Straw Poll. Texas Governor Rick Perry received 718 votes as a write-in candidate.
The day of the Iowa Straw Poll, Perry was in South Carolina, where he officially announced his candidacy. Perry has been suffering steady attacks in the press ever since, particularly for his Christian views. Other GOP candidates, including Romney, are aiming for him too -- a sure sign that he has everyone worried. The other sure sign is that he has double-digit leads on even Romney in a couple of recent polls.
From the Left: Muddying the Waters
Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) doesn't appear too worried about keeping a low profile while the House Ethics Committee investigation of her lumbers on. At a recent gathering of unemployed people in Los Angeles, Waters accused House Republicans of deliberately stalling jobs bills that she claims would help reduce California's 12 percent unemployment rate. "As far as I'm concerned," Waters raged, "the Tea Party can go straight to hell." So much for civility!
The event was attended by more than 1,000 jobless people who were allowed to vent and share their struggles. It's unknown whether any information was shared that would have actually led to jobs. More troubling is that taxpayers will have to pay $500,000 for the aforementioned House Ethics Committee to hire an outside law firm to rule on Waters' abuse-of-power case. The internal committee inquiry stalled in November 2010 when Waters accused the panel of fixing the investigation against her. Billy Martin, a prominent defense lawyer, will first examine Waters' accusation. If he finds she's right, then the whole thing gets thrown out. If Martin finds that the case can go forward, then his firm will handle the investigation. In the meantime, Waters remains at large.
National Security
Looking to Libya's Future
Obama and GadhafiCol. Moammar Gadhafi's days as dictator of Libya appear to be over, even though he promises to keep fighting in the wake of Tripoli's fall to rebel forces Monday. Earlier this year, Libyan rebels began a sixth-month campaign to topple Gadhafi after 42 years of his brutal rule. For various reasons, the Obama administration deemed this North African civil war worthy of our time, energy and nearly $1 billion that we don't have. Rather than take the issue to Congress, however, Barack Obama cited a non-unanimous 10-vote nod from the United Nations Security Council as all the justification he needed for what White House officials called a "kinetic military action."
In March, we wrote, "To be sure, a long list of reasons support America's desire to oust Gadhafi and his regime, especially his role in state-sponsored terrorism. It was Gadhafi that ordered the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, which killed 270, most of whom were Americans. That said, a number of countervailing arguments counsel against intervening in Libya's civil war," including no congressional approval, a glaring lack of vital national interest or imminent threat, Gadhafi's more recent cooperation with the West and an unclear picture of who will lead Libya post-Gadhafi. The latter will be of utmost importance going forward.
Given that the U.S. "led from behind" in the effort, and that using ground troops is extremely unlikely, it will be difficult to exert great influence over the rebels who will now control Libya. Rebel efforts turned out to be fairly unified and impressively persistent after NATO saved them from annihilation in their stronghold of Benghazi. However, questions remain about the size and influence of Islamists among the rebel forces. There are rumors of Sharia law as being foundational in a new constitution, news that bodes ill for the nation's future and for U.S. national security. Even without Sharia, Libya will almost certainly not become a beacon of liberty. Instead, it could descend into anarchy and perpetual tribal infighting, thus creating an excellent opportunity for al-Qa'ida to establish a haven. Based on previous Middle East history, anything bad is possible.
Furthermore, NATO and U.S. reputations suffered for their waffling, and for their disorganized and half-hearted effort, particularly in the early going. That likewise isn't good for our national security. NATO's task now is to secure Libya's weapons stores, including chemical weapons and heat-seeking missiles -- pretty handy for shooting down civilian airliners -- and to try to ensure that Islamists don't take control of the country. Extraditing Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, the Pan Am bomber the British released to Libya in 2009, would be a good thing to add to the list as well. The verdict is undoubtedly mixed, but we suppose as the old adage goes: Time will tell.
Post your thoughts on Libya
Warfront With Jihadistan: Staying in Iraq, Calling for Change in Syria
Nothing to see here; move along. In one of the classic moves for dealing with such news, the Obama administration chose a Friday afternoon during a slow Washington news week to let slip an inconvenient truth: U.S. troops will almost certainly stay in Iraq in significant numbers past the end of 2011. Despite Obama's campaign pledges and numerous other pronouncements promising to remove U.S. troops, the Iraqi government will likely agree to the presence of U.S. forces in Iraq well into 2012 and possibly beyond -- a position that, ironically, was John McCain's in 2008. It won't be just advisers and trainers, either, but combat formations and support troops. Cynical observers would say that Obama has decided it's less damaging for his re-election chances to have troops in Iraq in November 2012 than it is for the voting public to see nine years of blood, sweat and tears thrown away for the sake of an arbitrary withdrawal date. We would agree.
In other news, U.S. and European leaders screwed up their courage and finally called for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to surrender his power, but just as surely as the sun rises in the east, the Russians tried to throw a wrench into the works. "We do not support such calls and believe it is necessary now to give President Assad's regime time to realize all the reform processes that have been announced," said the Russian Foreign Ministry. It's impossible to caricature a statement so absurd, so we won't bother. Suffice it to say that old habits die hard, and Moscow seems perfectly willing to support a pariah in the face of pressure from the free world.
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Red, White and Blue Remembrance brooch
Red and blue enamel goldplate with Swarovski crystals unify in this lovely Remembrance pin. Whether you want to show your support for our troops or just celebrate being American, you'll love wearing this brooch which measures approximately 2.25" in length and 1.25" in width. Each pin comes in a red drawstring pouch.
Immigration Front: How 'Our' System Works
What a difference a month makes. Way back in July -- that's right, a whole month ago -- Barack Obama had this to say about Rule of Law in America: "I swore an oath to uphold the laws on the books. ... I know some people want me to bypass Congress and change the laws on my own -- that's not how our system works."
However, in a shameless ploy to secure the Hispanic vote by hook or crook, and unfazed by congressional rebuffs, Obama has resorted to fiat execution of the wildly unpopular Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors, or DREAM Act -- a.k.a. the "Amnesty Bill." Specifically, the Department of Homeland Security just announced that it will halt all deportation proceedings against illegal immigrants who attend school, who have family in the military or who are primarily responsible for the care of other family members, allowing them to apply for work permits. This means that only illegal aliens who have committed serious criminal offenses in the United States -- setting aside of course the first serious criminal offense of entering the U.S. illegally -- will now be candidates for detention and deportation.
The same president who swore an oath on his inauguration to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States" is thus continuing to trample it by refusing to enforce existing immigration laws and by making up his own. Apparently, that's how "our system" works.
The Founders made every effort to protect that most precious commodity of individual liberty. Article II, Section 3 directs the president to "take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed." That is, it directs the Executive Branch to ensure that laws Congress enacts are carried out. It does not direct the president either to write his own laws or to carry out laws Congress itself has refused to pass. To do so is a blatant violation of the "Separation of Powers" doctrine that the Founders integrally wove throughout the fabric of the Constitution.
This doctrine is not merely a "nice-to-have" element; it is fundamental to individual liberty. As Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia noted in the landmark Morrison v. Olson case, "The Framers of the Federal Constitution viewed the principle of separation of powers as the absolutely central guarantee of a just Government. ... Without a secure structure of separated powers, our Bill of Rights would be worthless, as are the bills of rights of many nations of the world that have adopted, or even improved upon, the mere words of ours." When the doctrine of separation of powers is usurped -- as here, by a president who reserves for himself a unilateral power to enact and enforce immigration laws -- America's freedoms are in grave jeopardy.
Profiles of Valor: Marine Corps Cpt. Jeremy Henwood
While America's troops continue to take the fight to jihadis in Afghanistan and elsewhere to protect our country, other Americans, walking that thin line between barbarism and civilization, also try to protect Americans at home from our own criminal element. Occasionally, some individuals will serve nobly in both capacities and, sadly, where the jihadis fail, our own homegrown vermin may not.
This past May, Marine Corps Captain and Iraq War veteran Jeremy Henwood returned home from a one-year deployment in Afghanistan, where he survived without a scratch in a hostile region full of roadside bombs and snipers. Picking up where he left off, he rejoined the San Diego Police Department, patrolling the City Heights area, a blue-collar neighborhood that has seen a sharp decrease in crime recently. But his life of serving soon came to a tragic and violent end. Just minutes after buying lunch for a 13-year old boy, Officer Henwood was shot in cold blood, dying a day later. San Diego police said that after Henwood left the restaurant, he was at a stop sign in his patrol car. The driver of a nearby Audi flashed his lights, drawing the officer's attention. The Audi's driver then pulled alongside Henwood's cruiser, lowered his front window, leveled a shotgun at Henwood and fired, striking his head. The shooter, later identified as Dejon Marquee White, 23, turned out to be the suspect in another shooting minutes earlier. White was later shot dead in a confrontation with police.
Given that both Hanna and Henwood were white and the killer was black, race may have been the motivation, but don't look for any mention of that in the Leftmedia, as they continue to ignore the issue of race in black-on-white crime, and even black-on-black crime. This tragic story is especially noteworthy because after a career of service to his nation and community, the officer's last act on this earth, buying a meal for a needy black boy, was one of compassion and racial harmony. Rest in peace.
Business & Economy
Downgrade at Their Peril
In a development that once would have been surprising but now barely turns heads, it was revealed in recent days that the Obama Justice Department has set its investigative sights on Standard & Poor's rating agency, turning over stones to find misdeeds in their rating of mortgage-backed securities. The timing is certainly suspicious, given the recent S&P downgrade of government debt from the platinum standard of AAA to AA+.
The probe was under way a few weeks before the debt downgrade, but certainly the federal government was warned that a shift was imminent well before the actual change in status unless significant spending cuts to the tune of $4 trillion were made. While economists agree that spending cuts are needed, Obama and Congress failed to deliver, so our rating was lowered. Given that S&P is the only rating service under scrutiny, the "sour grapes" aspect can't be overlooked.
We really should be asking, though, just why securities backed by mortgages, many given to borrowers with poor or no credit or job histories and then bundled into grab bags of toxic assets, were given such a high rating in the first place. With housing values fueled by a bubble that burst back in 2006, analysts should have sounded warning bells much earlier -- in fact, many experts did but were ignored. Downgrading these securities would have made them less lucrative for the sellers. It's an investigation that needed to take place much sooner, but the thought of "better late than never" still doesn't come to mind.
In the meantime, the message is clear: If you do something this administration doesn't like, watch your back.
What do you think?
Income Redistribution: TARP Recap
The Treasury Department reported this week that the actual level of lending by the Federal Reserve to banks under 2008's Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) was much higher than previously reported. It seems the true number is $1.2 trillion, not $700 billion. Then again, the Fed received $13 billion in interest payments, and most of the money was paid back.
So who got the money? For one thing, almost half of the top 30 borrowers were foreign-based entities, including a real-estate holding company (i.e., not a bank). It seems to us that this is an exception to the Fed's authority, and there should be some accountability. Domestically, the big three recipients were Bank of America ($91 billion), Citigroup ($99.5 billion) and Morgan Stanley ($107 billion). All three either lost billions in market capitalization or required more than their shareholder equity to keep the lights on, or both. Indeed, all three of these firms have seen their market value halved over the past year as revelations of bad mortgages continue to surface. The continued economic weakness, combined with impediments to the liquidation of bad loans, will continue to undermine the efforts of management to correct and collect the sins of the past. It appears that being members of the "too big to fail club" also means being too big to manage.
Addressing the crisis of confidence resulted in the Federal Reserve Bank providing liquidity as the lender of last resort to the banking system. What we find especially troubling, though, is the secrecy that surrounds all Fed operations, as well as the dubious list of recipients. It's extremely difficult to sell the American public on the idea of an economic recovery when information like this continues to drip into the public consciousness.
Regulatory Commissars: Obama Strikes Back at Big Oil (Again)
Four years ago, Exxon Mobil made a thrilling find: an oil field under the watery depths of the Gulf of Mexico that may hold a billion barrels of black gold. Yet when gold is in them thar hills, so are those out to plunder it; in this case the bandits are the Obama administration. Regulators at the Department of the Interior have set up roadblocks that will prevent Exxon Mobil from creating jobs and energy, claiming that because the oil giant asked for a brief suspension of drilling operations in 2008 it had essentially abandoned three of its five permits. Ironically, the interregnum was safety-related and made voluntarily by Exxon Mobil. Never mind that they sank $300 million into these "abandoned" wells.
So instead of Exxon Mobil perhaps just now bringing this new domestic oil to market and sending gas prices down to more reasonable levels, they're forced to head off to court to fight what they call the government's "arbitrary and capricious" action to secure what is rightfully theirs through hard work and risk-taking. Unfortunately, this is the result of electing a socialist president. Turns out he's not much of a friend to job creation of any sort, despite 9.1 percent reported unemployment and the prospect of thousands of potential jobs securing and refining those billion barrels of oil.
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Tax Evader stamp
Add a little bit of fun to our country's current financial cesspool. While we would not advocate defacing currency, we know you will think of many amusing and satisfying uses for our RED self-inking stamper, Tax Evader, especially with Tim Geithner as our present Secretary of the Treasury.
Say Goodbye to the Fairness Doctrine
In 1987, the Federal Communications Commission under President Ronald Reagan voted to revoke the Fairness Doctrine, setting the stage for a massive growth in conservative talk radio and other alternative media. No longer did stations need to be careful to present "equal time" to all sides of an issue, an edict that generally led stations to shy away from presenting editorial opinion at all, effectively stifling free speech. Yet the rules never actually came off the books until last week. In a rare trimming back of government regulation, the Fairness Doctrine was one of 83 obsolete rules erased from the federal register by the FCC.
Of course, leftists are apoplectic over the demise of the Fairness Doctrine because conservatives have benefited, using talk radio as a means of bypassing the once-dominant mainstream media. Yet they could never muster the votes to restore it, even when they controlled Congress, because voters never saw it as a priority. Conservative media has succeeded because the market is there for it, not because of government favor. Of course, axing the Fairness Doctrine and the other FCC rules means there are 83 regulations down but countless thousands to go.
Culture & Policy
Second Amendment: Fast and Furious Promotions
We have noted on numerous occasions the scandal that is Operation Fast and Furious. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives began the operation, part of which was Project Gunrunner, ostensibly to track firearms headed from the U.S. to Mexico. At least 2,000 guns have been lost, however, and many have turned up at crime scenes, including numerous instances in the U.S. Such guns were also used to kill two American officials, ICE Agent Jaime Zapata and Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry.
Despite this egregious incompetence, none of the ATF's players involved has been held accountable. In fact, three of the agents responsible for this disastrous operation were just promoted. According to Pajamas Media's Bob Owens, "The three supervisors have been given new management positions at the agency's headquarters in Washington. They are William G. McMahon, who was the ATF's deputy director of operations in the West, where the illegal trafficking program was focused, and William D. Newell and David Voth, both field supervisors who oversaw the program out of the agency's Phoenix office." The whistleblower, Vince Cefalu, was fired. Somehow, the Obama administration, the Justice Department and the ATF must be held accountable for this continuing outrage.
What should happen at the ATF?
From the 'Non Compos Mentis' File
Just when they thought it was safe to take off the muzzle, Joe Biden has done it again. This time he has exposed yet another leftist myth: that being "pro-choice" is about ... well, choice. The Obama administration has always gone out of its way to let female voters know that it supports their "right to choose" abortion. Yet on Biden's recent visit to China, he made it perfectly clear that he was "not second-guessing" that nation's one-child policy, whereby women are subjected to forcible sterilizations and abortions as the government dictates to its citizens how many children they can have.
His comments have once again sent the administration rushing into the spin zone. The White House defended Biden, pointing out that he also called the policy "unsustainable" and that he has since said he "believes such practices are repugnant," but Biden's initial assessment was clearly based on utilitarianism and finances, not individual freedom. The White House's defense is that he meant the opposite of what he said.
Meanwhile, an Associated Press dispatch entitled "One Child Policy a Surprising Boon for China Girls" highlights the many ways in which females have "benefited" from this policy. In particular, it noted that girls are being educated at a rate never before seen in China. This result is indeed surprising, but, essentially, it means that if a family's only permitted child happens to be a girl, that girl will be showered with the support and guidance that would have been reserved for a son. As problematic as that notion is in and of itself, it also ignores the fact that due to this policy, countless female babies have been murdered so that the parents could go on to try for a boy. Perhaps this is the Left's way of kowtowing to our largest foreign creditor. Yet if we ignore China's long list of human rights violations because we owe them money, then we as a nation have truly sold our soul.
Faith and Family: Full Cultural Assault
Three disturbing stories surfaced this week that we believe illustrate a trend in the sexualization of our society (CONTENT WARNING). First up, the Department of Health and Human Services has offered "Questions and Answers About Sex," a link on their "Quick Guide to Healthy Living." If you think the questions are scary, the answers are worse. The premise is, "Children are human beings and therefore sexual beings. ... [E]ven infants have curiosity about their own bodies, which is healthy and normal." HHS therefore tells parents not to worry about teen experimentation with sex, homosexuality or masturbation, as these are healthy steps for children to take. On the contrary, Peter Sprigg, senior fellow for policy studies at the conservative Family Research Council, puts it bluntly: "The idea that 'children are human beings and therefore sexual beings' is one of the most destructive myths of the sexual revolution."
Meanwhile, B4U-Act, a 501(c)(3) organization in Maryland that was established "to publicly promote services and resources for self-identified individuals (adults and adolescents) who are sexually attracted to children," held a "scientific" symposium last week. The topic was a proposed new definition of pedophilia in the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). Some actually pushed the idea that pedophilia should be decriminalized, a position HHS, for one, might have a hard time arguing against given the aforementioned story.
Finally, a Florida Teacher of the Year was suspended for posting comments on Facebook objecting to New York's legalization of same-sex marriage earlier this year. He cited "biblical principles" -- specifically, "Romans chapter one" -- for his opposition. It is not known whether any students are his "friends" on Facebook, but, apparently, the "sexual beings" in his classroom mustn't be given the information necessary to decide right from wrong for themselves. As a side note, in 2008, 62 percent of Florida voters approved a constitutional amendment defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman.
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Bonnie Blue
For 200 years, the Bonnie Blue flag, with the single white star in a blue field, has signified states' rights. Our Patriot Post and Patriot Post Shop seal was developed from this theme and design. We are regularly adding to this selection of high-quality items, a great way to show where you stand! All purchases at The Patriot Post Shop support our Mission of Service to America's Armed Forces.
And Last...
A recent paper authored by a NASA-affiliated scientist and two professors from Penn University explores the possibilities of first contact with an alien race. Among the scenarios the trio imagines is that aliens might launch a pre-emptive strike to stop us from committing the galactic sin of global warming, "which therefore changes the spectral signature of Earth" (i.e., affects other planets). Not only that, but the likely reason we haven't yet been contacted by these aliens is that we're not sufficiently "progressive," and they want us to reach a "societal benchmark such as sustainable development or international unity" before contact. Aside from the pre-emptive strike over global warming, they write that "an advanced society capable of interstellar travel may be less likely to turn to humans as a source of food or labor because they should have already solved these problems through some combination of machine labor, artificial synthesis, and conservation." Well that's a relief.
On the other hand, New York Times economist Paul Krugman theorizes that a looming alien attack would stimulate the economy. "If we discovered that, you know, space aliens were planning to attack and we needed a massive buildup to counter the space alien threat and really inflation and budget deficits took secondary place to that, this slump would be over in 18 months," he said. That would be useful, he added, "in order to get some fiscal stimulus." Krugman once won a Nobel Prize for economics. We suspect, however, that he was abducted by aliens soon thereafter, and that the "Paul Krugman" now writing loony columns and making bizarre TV appearances is actually an alien mole.
Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus et Fidelis!
The Patriot Post Editorial Team
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Brief · September 5, 2011
The Foundation
"To cherish and stimulate the activity of the human mind, by multiplying the objects of enterprise, is not among the least considerable of the expedients, by which the wealth of a nation may be promoted." --Alexander Hamilton
Government
Labor Day? Hardly."President Obama enter[ed] this Labor Day weekend with a serious problem on his hands. For all intents and purposes, the economy appears to be stuck in neutral, with news out [Friday] that the U.S. economy created a grand total of zero jobs in August. This followed two months of near zero growth. Not surprisingly then, the unemployment rate in August remained at 9.1 percent, virtually unchanged since April. In fact, it was completely unchanged, and for the first time since 1945, no new jobs were created -- Zero. America now has the weakest labor market in a generation, and the American people know it. ... [W]hile the U.S. economy is creating no net new jobs, President Obama is offering no new ideas to fix the problem. In a speech to a joint session of Congress [on] Thursday, the President is expected to rehash the same expensive, ineffective policies he has tried since his presidency began. And it's an economic philosophy that America has come to know all too well. The President hopes that through the sheer force of spending taxpayer dollars, he can turn the economy around. It isn't working -- and neither are nearly 14 million Americans. ... The two-and-a-half-year Keynesian experiment of flooding the economy with taxpayer dollars has failed, yet the President and his union allies continue to peddle the myth that the only way to save the economy is to spend more." --Heritage Foundation's Mike Brownfield
Where are the jobs?
For the Record
"Will Barack Obama become the first president in the post-World War II era during whose term real gross domestic product never grew in any quarter at an annual rate greater than 4 percent? With less than optimistic recent forecasts from the Federal Reserve System's Federal Open Market Committee and the Congressional Budget Office, it now seems like a very real possibility. Having been inaugurated in January 2009, Obama has served as president in 10 quarters. ... In three of the quarters of 2008, according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, real GDP grew at a negative annualized rate, dropping as low as -8.9 percent in the fourth quarter of that year. At the beginning of Obama's term, real GDP remained negative in the first two quarters, hitting -6.7 percent in the first quarter of 2009 and -0.7 percent in the second quarter. But two full years have passed since then. During that time, real GDP peaked in the first quarter of 2010, hitting an annualized rate of 3.9 percent. Since that modest peak a year and a half ago, the economy has been on a generally downward trend, with growth of real GDP hitting a dismal 0.4 percent in the first quarter of this year and a nearly as dismal 1 percent in the second quarter. Now both the FOMC and the CBO are indicating they do not expect vigorous economic growth to resume any time soon." --columnist Terence Jeffrey
Opinion in Brief
"The biggest star in the Obama firmament of green-jobs companies has just imploded. Solyndra, a California-based firm that produced solar panels, declared bankruptcy [last] week, putting more than a thousand additional workers on the unemployment line. The Solyndra story tells you all you need to know about President Obama's ability to 'create' jobs -- green or otherwise. ... The company received over half a billion dollars in federal loan guarantees for the project. But U.S. taxpayers will likely never see a dime repaid now that the company has gone into Chapter 11 bankruptcy. ... Solyndra is one of three major solar companies to declare bankruptcy this summer alone. No matter how many speeches the president gives, he can't turn an economically unsustainable enterprise into a profitable one, even if he siphons from the U.S. treasury to do so. ... If Solyndra's technology, which rested on a new design for solar panels, was as promising as the Obama administration seemed to think, investors willing to risk their own money should have been plentiful. Where were Warren Buffet and the president's other billionaire supporters? ... What doesn't work is commandeering other people's money in a crapshoot where there are more losers than winners." --columnist Linda Chavez
Insight
"I want the people of America to be able to work less for the government and more for themselves. I want them to have the rewards of their own industry. This is the chief meaning of freedom. Until we can reestablish a condition under which the earnings of the people can be kept by the people, we are bound to suffer a very severe and distinct curtailment of our liberty." --President Calvin Coolidge (1872-1933)
Essential Liberty
"America seems to be facing a pivotal moment: Do we move ahead by advancing or by receding -- by reaffirming the values that made us exceptional or by letting go of those values, so that a creeping mediocrity begins to spare us the burdens of greatness? As a president, Barack Obama has been a force for mediocrity. He has banked more on the hopeless interventions of government than on the exceptionalism of the people. His greatest weakness as a president is a limp confidence in his countrymen. He is afraid to ask difficult things of them. Like me, he is black, and it was the government that in part saved us from the ignorances of the people. So the concept of the exceptionalism -- the genius for freedom -- of the American people may still be a stretch for him. But in fact he was elected to make that stretch. It should be held against him that he has failed to do so." --Hoover Institution's Shelby Steele
The Gipper
"Only when the human spirit is allowed to invent and create, only when individuals are given a personal stake in deciding economic policies and benefiting from their success -- only then can societies remain economically alive, dynamic, prosperous, progressive and free." --Ronald Reagan
Re: The Left
"On Tuesday, the Justice Department announced it was shuffling Kenneth Melson, acting director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, out of his job. The disclosure comes amid continued GOP investigations into the administration's fatally botched straw gun purchase racket at the border and spreading outrage over legal obstructionism and whistleblower retaliation by DOJ brass. ... Internal documents earlier showed that Melson was intimately involved in overseeing the program and screened undercover videos of thousands of straw purchases of AK-47s and other high-powered rifles -- many of which ended up in the hands of Mexican drug cartel thugs, including those who murdered Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry last December. Fast and Furious weapons have been tied to at least a dozen violent crimes in America and untold bloody havoc in Mexico. ... Melson has been kicked back to DOJ's main office in a flabbergasting new slot as 'senior adviser on forensic science in the department's Office of Legal Policy.' ... DOJ is run by Eric Holder, the Beltway swamp creature who won bipartisan approval for his nomination -- even after putting political interests ahead of security interests at the Clinton Justice Department in both the Marc Rich pardon scandal and the Puerto Rican FALN terrorist debacle. Remember: Holder won over the Senate by arguing that his poor judgment made him more qualified for the job. Screw up, move up, cover up: It's the Holder way, the Obama way, the Washington way. And innocent Americans pay." --columnist Michelle Malkin
Political Futures
"Regardless of the public image they may convey, Barack Obama and his wife never fail to take full advantage of a lifestyle that would be the envy of any modern-day monarch while the bulk of the American populace struggles to afford life's necessities. He is but another in a long line of those who promote socialism and proclaim to be 'of the people' with only the interests of the citizens at heart -- as they duplicitously pursue a personal agenda. ... [Obama's] sense of entitlement stems not only from a deep-seated belief in socialist theory and an overweening sense of superiority, but also as a man obsessed with his skin color and payback for his perception of Western colonialism (as detailed in his autobiography Dreams from My Father). ... He is much too busy enjoying the trappings of royalty, despite his oft-declared disdain for that class, to be bothered about the dismal future of the United States." --columnist Steve McCann
Faith & Family
"The New York Times' executive editor, Bill Keller, in a piece in The New York Times Magazine, argues that presidential candidates should be asked tough questions about their faith. Keller wants to know whether a candidate will place 'fealty to the Bible, the Book of Mormon ... or some other authority higher than the Constitution and laws of this country' and 'whether a president respects serious science and verifiable history.' He wants to make sure 'religious doctrine' does not become 'an excuse to exclude my fellow citizens from the rights and protections our country promises.' ... [K]eller's concern isn't with the religious beliefs of all candidates, only Christians, and not all Christians, just those who take the Bible seriously. ... The reality is that throughout our history, the halls of American government have teemed with Bible-believing Christians, and they've never pushed for theocracy. Ironically, it is leftists who are far likelier to use the power of government to selectively suppress political and religious liberties." --columnist David Limbaugh
Culture
"[T]he Left considers itself the undisputed champion of 'science,' but there are scads of issues where they take un-scientific points of view. Sure they can cite dissident scientists -- just as conservatives can -- on this or that issue. But everyone knows that when the science directly threatens the Left's pieties, it's the science that must bend -- or break. During the Larry Summers fiasco at Harvard, comments delivered in the classic spirit of open inquiry and debate cost Summers his job. Actual scientists got the vapors because he violated the principles not of science but of liberalism. During the Gulf oil spill, the Obama administration dishonestly claimed that its independent experts supported a drilling moratorium. They emphatically did not. The president who campaigned on basing his policies on 'sound science' ignored his own hand picked experts. ... His support for wind and solar energy ... isn't based on science but on faith. And that faith has failed him dramatically. The idea that conservatives are anti-science is self-evident and self-pleasing liberal hogwash. I see no reason why conservatives should even argue the issue on their terms when it's so clearly offered in bad faith in the first place." --columnist Jonah Goldberg
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The Foundation
"The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground." --Thomas Jefferson
Government & Politics
Obama's Speech Job
In case you were busy washing your hair, rewinding your CDs or getting a root canal last night, Barack Obama gave a speech. Yes, another one, and with warmed-over recycled ideas, to boot. He made sure we all knew his speech was about jobs because he used the word "jobs" 44 times. (Given his narcissism, we wonder if that number was intentional.) Indeed, he centered the speech on his "American Jobs Act," which, by the way, aims to create jobs. He hasn't yet sent an actual bill to Congress, though he called for Congress to "pass this bill right away" (or some variant) 17 times, but ... jobs.
In the spirit of bipartisan comity, we'll start by lauding something with which we agreed: "Those of us here tonight can't solve all of our nation's woes," the president said. "Ultimately, our recovery will be driven not by Washington, but by our businesses and our workers." We couldn't have said it better. Government doesn't create jobs; it can only create conditions under which the economy can flourish. Unfortunately, it was downhill from there, because Obama's very next sentence began, "But..."
Obama repeatedly framed his proposals as "nothing controversial" because "everything in here" has already been proposed by "both Democrats and Republicans." We hate to disagree, but nearly everything in the speech was controversial. From tax hikes on job creators in exchange for gimmicky tax credits, to more money dumped into the bottomless pit of education and infrastructure, to the very premise that government must grow in order for the economy to grow -- the ideas presented last night were the wrong ones.
Taxes were a major theme, but instead of proposing permanently lower rates and a broader base -- something that would actually work -- the president called for more temporary complications and supposed sweeteners. Obama said that Congress must extend the temporary payroll tax cut they passed last year, because, he warned, "If we allow that tax cut to expire -- if we refuse to act -- middle-class families will get hit with a tax increase at the worst possible time." That's interesting: A tax cut expiration is a tax increase. Funny how that didn't apply to the Bush tax cuts, which were good for 10 years, not just one. And funny how it doesn't apply to increasing the taxes of job creators "at the worst possible time." Indeed, that was his next proposal.
"[T]here are many Republicans who don't believe we should raise taxes on those who are most fortunate and can best afford it," he said, but, "We need a tax code where everyone gets a fair shake, and everybody pays their fair share. And I believe the vast majority of wealthy Americans and CEOs are willing to do just that, if it helps the economy grow and gets our fiscal house in order." Of course, "everybody" means the top 2 percent. He then declared with a straight face, "This isn't class warfare." Republicans in the chamber gave him the only appropriate response: laughter.
Estimates are that this stimulus package as proposed would cost about $447 billion. That's about half of the first stimulus, and we saw how well that worked. (Little wonder that Democrats have stricken the word "stimulus" from the lexicon.) How on earth will another few hundred billion dollars suddenly fix anything? "Everything in this bill will be paid for. Everything," Obama insisted, but how?
First of all, through the aforementioned tax increases on a select and punishable few. Primarily, however, Obama wants the debt reduction committee, created in the debt ceiling deal to find $1.5 trillion in savings over 10 years, to come up with even more savings, again over 10 years. In other words, let's spend another $450 billion now and have future presidents and Congresses pay for it later. Also, "a week from Monday," Obama will release "a more ambitious deficit plan." If this all wasn't so preposterous, it would've been another laugh line.
Obama also mocked those who think that government is too big. He trotted out his predictable straw-man arguments about Republicans wanting to cut "most government spending" or eliminating "most government regulations." He certainly intends to fight hard for the new floor of government spending and regulation he has established. He may offer a concession here or there, but by and large the damage has already been done. Even rolling back to the bloated and costly -- but still far smaller and cheaper -- government of 2008 will be impossible while he occupies the White House. Finally, there's a big difference between limited government and no government. It is the former that we must seek.
Just how half-baked was this speech?
On Cross-Examination
The Heritage Foundation's policy experts offered their responses to Obama's proposals, from refinancing mortgages to infrastructure spending and tax gimmicks.
The Cato Institute explains in an outstanding video why Keynesian government spending won't actually help.
Open Query
"What here hasn't already been tried and failed before?" --GOP presidential candidate Michele Bachmann
On the Campaign Trail: The GOP Debate
Eight of the Republican presidential candidates gathered at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library Wednesday night for the first of five fall debates. All eyes were on newly entered candidate Rick Perry. The Texas governor, who spent the week in his state managing wildfire response, is not the slickest debater in the field. That honor would likely go to Mitt Romney or Newt Gingrich. Yet Perry did well enough to solidify his status as the new frontrunner. Michele Bachmann, on the other hand, performed well but continued to fade after Perry's entrance took a huge bite out of her support. Of course, with the media placing Perry and Romney front and center and focusing most of their attention on the two pack-leaders, everyone else on the stage took a backseat. That's what they get for allowing MSNBC to carry the debate.
Some observations about the other candidates: Jon Huntsman continued his disappointing run to the left, apparently under the mistaken impression that independents and Democrats will decide the Republican primary. He will not win the nomination on this course.
Newt Gingrich won't win the nomination, but he won some points in the debate by attacking the moderators for their inane questions. He correctly pointed out that any candidate on the stage would be better than Barack Obama, and that they are in a sense a team working toward winning the White House.
Herman Cain is still struggling to get noticed, and he missed a golden opportunity immediately after Gingrich's answer to attack Obama, instead choosing to attack Romney. He wasn't wrong, but he seemed to have completely missed what Gingrich said and failed to play off of it.
Rick Santorum also won't win the nomination, but wins the award for stupidest question asked of him by the moderators: Where do the poor fit among Republicans? The implication is that Republicans don't care about the poor. Unfortunately, Santorum's answer -- talking in the third person about how much he has done for the poor -- wasn't the best answer.
Ron Paul's contribution is that he leaves no stone unturned, no orthodoxy unchallenged and no candidate unassailed. His questions and points are important for conservatives to consider in fine-tuning positions and policies. All the same, he won't be the nominee. (Yeah, we know -- we might as well be Soviets for saying so.)
In fact, unless something changes drastically, this race is between Rick Perry and Mitt Romney.
Quote of the Week
"If 10 percent is good enough for God, 9 percent should be good enough for government." --Herman Cain at the GOP presidential debate Wednesday night
What did you think of the debate?
This Week's 'Alpha Jackass' Award
Whatever happened to civility? Democrats were certainly quick to call for it when Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) was shot, along with several others, in Tucson in January. In spite of the facts, the Left blamed the Right for heated political rhetoric. Yet when a union leader spews hatred and calls for "war," Democrats suddenly don't mind so much.
"We gotta keep an eye on the battle that we face: A war on workers. And you see it everywhere, it is the Tea Party," thundered Teamster president Jimmy Hoffa Jr. at a Labor Day rally. "They got a war, they got a war with us and there's only going to be one winner. It's going to be the workers of Michigan, and America. We're gonna win that war." Then he promised, "President Obama, this is your army. We are ready to march. Let's take these son of a b-----s [sic] out and give America back to an America where we belong."
Not only was he vulgar, but he also botched the grammar.
Barack Obama took the stage later, saying he was "proud" of Hoffa and other labor leaders. The White House and other Democrat leaders have pointedly refused on multiple occasions to repudiate or even question Hoffa's words. Hoffa himself doubled down, later insisting that he would say it again "because I believe it. They've declared war on us. We didn't declare war on them, they declared war on us. We're fighting back. The question is, who started the war?" Maybe that's why 500 union members in Seattle stormed the Port of Longview with baseball bats and crowbars taking six security guards hostage over hiring objections.
Speaking of a war on "them," the newest rage on Internet is a video game called "Tea Party Zombies Must Die," in which the player kills zombie versions of the Left's favorite conservative bogeymen. "DON'T GET TEA-BAGGED!" reads the description. "The Tea Party zombies are walking the streets of America. Grab your weapons and bash their rotten brains to bits! Destroy zombie Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, Glenn Beck, the Koch Brothers, and many more!" (National Review's Daniel Foster has screenshots.) We're just glad to see the juveniles on the Left channeling their angst in such productive ways.
Hope 'n' Change: ObamaCare Wins With Stacked Deck
The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld ObamaCare Thursday, overturning a lower court's decision in favor of the state of Virginia. The Fourth Circuit ruled that Virginia lacked standing in the case, though at least two judges would have upheld it on the "merits." The Sixth Circuit Court likewise upheld the law earlier this year, though the 11th Circuit Court struck down the individual mandate last month as unconstitutional. Although the Fourth Circuit is roughly evenly divided between Republican and Democrat appointees, this particular three-judge panel consisted of one Clinton appointee and two appointed by Obama. Certainly not a fair hearing. Again, the bottom line is that ObamaCare is headed to the Supreme Court.
New & Notable Legislation
House Republicans are working on legislation that will block a recent proposed ruling by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) regarding unionization. The ruling speeds up the process of union elections, offering little time for employers and workers to debate union organization. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other business groups have blasted the ruling as an infringement on workers' rights. Another bill has been drafted to keep the NLRB in check by preventing the board from ordering a company to relocate its employees. Senate Republicans have vowed to block any nominations to the NLRB until these issues are resolved.
From the Left: Politicizing Hurricanes
Congressional Democrats manufactured a scandal out of thin air this week, blaming House Majority Leader Eric Cantor for blocking disaster funding in the wake of Hurricane Irene. There haven't been many stories about people being denied aid, however, because it's simply not the case. Yet Democrats are charging that Cantor is doing exactly that. On the contrary, the GOP added $1 billion to FEMA's Disaster Relief Fund in June, and offset the increase by cutting spending on the Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing Program, a liberal pet project to create luxury electric cars. Cantor has noted on separate occasions that the federal government plays too large a role in disaster relief, but, despite Democrats' claims, his efforts to fund FEMA have been more generous than even the White House proposed. The only thing he's guilty of is hobbling Joe Biden's dream project to create electric cars that nobody will buy anyway.
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National Security
Warfront With Jihadistan: Iraq Withdrawal on Steroids
Seeking to shore up plummeting poll numbers and pander to its anti-military base, the Obama regime is reportedly set to drastically reduce U.S. troop strength in Iraq to just 3,000 by year's end, a major reduction in strength in the still highly volatile country. When asked about this report, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta tried to sidestep, saying "no decision has been made" on the number of troops to stay in Iraq, but multiple sources confirm that Obama has already made the decision.
There are currently about 45,000 U.S. troops in Iraq. American commanders recommended a somewhat lower number to remain there by year's end, but the Obama regime, ever thinking of 2012, whined about "the cost and the political optics" of that many troops remaining in Iraq. U.S. commanders then further reduced their recommendation to 10,000, saying that number could work "in extremis," meaning in reality our troops would be hard pressed to continue training Iraqi forces while also maintaining security in large sections of Iraq. Still, even that low troop level was too much for Obama.
U.S. commanders are rightly angry. "We can't secure everybody with only 3,000 on the ground, nor can we do what we need to with the Iraqis," argued one. Another senior military official said that by reducing the number of troops to 3,000, the Obama regime has effectively reduced the U.S. mission in Iraq to training only, at best, while leaving a still-insufficient Iraqi security force to fend for themselves, all of which will endanger the remaining 3,000 U.S. troops -- for nothing more than supposed political gain.
Thankfully, there was some good news for our troops, as August marked the first month since March 2003 that not one U.S. military member died in either combat or non-hostile circumstances while supporting Iraqi operations. Sadly, Obama's latest move seems destined to ensure that August will be the last month we lose no troops in Iraq, at least until he completely surrenders Iraq and brings the handful of remaining troops home.
What will withdrawal from Iraq mean?
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Nice coverage by Prentice on this:
http://dogbrothers.com/phpBB2/index.php?topic=1864.msg54279#msg54279
This is a big deal. 8 point R victory, 19 point swing in the district since Obama won it by 11 in 2008. In a Dem year, Weiner ran unopposed in 2006 and won 100% of the vote.
This means that Obama is a net loss if he campaigns for a senate and congressional candidate in districts and states as conservative as NYC! We already saw him have to drive around Wisconsin where he won by 14% just 3 years ago.
The Duck is not Lame, he is radioactive.
(If someone else on the Dem side would like to enter the Presidential nomination race, today would be a good day to jump in.)
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Chronicle · September 14, 2011
The Foundation
"An unlimited power to tax involves, necessarily, a power to destroy; because there is a limit beyond which no institution and no property can bear taxation." --John Marshall
Editorial Exegesis
"President Obama unveiled part two of his American Jobs Act on Monday, and it turns out to be another permanent increase in taxes to pay for more spending and another temporary tax cut. No surprise there. What might surprise Americans, however, is how the President is setting up the U.S. economy for one of the biggest tax increases in history in 2013. Mr. Obama said last week that he wants $240 billion in new tax incentives for workers and small business, but the catch is that all of these tax breaks would expire at the end of next year. To pay for all this, White House budget director Jack Lew also proposed $467 billion in new taxes that would begin a mere 16 months from now. The tax list includes limiting deductions for those earning more than $200,000 ($250,000 for couples), limiting tax breaks for oil and gas companies, and a tax increase on carried interest earned by private equity firms. These tax increases would not be temporary. What this means is that millions of small-business owners had better enjoy the next 16 months, because come January 2013 they are going to get hit with a giant tax bill. ... For the White House, the policy calendar is dictated above all by the political necessities of the 2012 election. Mr. Obama will take his chances on 2013 if he can cajole the private economy to create enough new jobs over the next year to win re-election, even if those jobs and growth are temporary. Business owners and workers who would prefer to prosper beyond Election Day aren't likely to share Mr. Obama's enthusiasm once they see the great tax cliff approaching. Look out below." --The Wall Street Journal
What do you think of Obama's proposed tax hikes?
Upright
"When President Obama outlined his $450 billion jobs plan in a speech before Congress last week, he promised it would all be 'paid for,' and assured us he would present another plan outlining how he planned to do so. ... So much for the 'balanced approach' Obama was so fond of during the debt ceiling debate. The administration will cover the cost of the spending in its new jobs proposal solely by increasing taxes. ... Sound familiar? Recall this line from Obama's speech last week: 'This isn't political grandstanding. This isn't class warfare. This is simple math.' Republicans chuckled when he said that. And now the administration has shown why their laughter was warranted." --National Review's Andrew Stiles
"President Obama's jobs program calls for cuts in both sides of the payroll tax. That tax finances Social Security and Medicare. Social Security and Medicare are already taking in less money than they need to pay retirees. So they will have to cash in more of the Treasury IOUs left behind when previous surpluses were used to finance general expenditures. But the Treasury is also already running a deficit, a trillion dollars-plus. So it will have to borrow more in the capital markets in order to pay back the Social Security and Medicare funds. Unless Obama makes up the lost revenue by changing the tax code. But then money will be withdrawn from the economy in the form of higher taxes so it can be put back into the economy through the payroll-tax cut. Somehow that's supposed to stimulate the economy." --Freeman editor Sheldon Richman
"The White House's proposed means of paying for the 'jobs bill' the president called on Congress to adopt last week really sheds light on the cynicism and confusion at the heart of the president's new campaign theme. In order to be able to insist that he is proposing ideas but Republicans are unwilling to act, the president will apparently propose exactly the same set of massive tax increases that even Democrats in a Democratically-controlled Congress were unwilling to consider in the midst of the Obamacare debate in 2009. ... If telling voters you're unable to do your job were a wise re-election strategy, this might be a clever way to do it. But it isn't." --Yuval Levin of the Ethics and Public Policy Center
"The fact that a mere seven years after being attacked by Muslims, we elected a guy who spent his early years in Islamic schools in Indonesia; his most formative years being raised in Hawaii by white socialists and tutored by a black communist; and his adulthood, attending a black racist church in Chicago, while hanging around with unrepentant radical terrorists, strongly suggests that America should have had its head examined." --columnist Burt Prelutsky
Essential Liberty
Point: "Many people think that when the government takes payroll tax from their paychecks, it goes to something like a savings account. Seniors who collect Social Security think they're just getting back money that they put into their 'account.' Or they think it's like an insurance policy -- you win if you live long enough to get more than you paid in. Neither is true. Nothing is invested. The money taken from you was spent by government that year. Right away. There's no trust fund. The plan is unsustainable." --columnist John Stossel
Counterpoint: "Americans might listen to someone who calls Social Security a 'Ponzi scheme,' if he goes on to explain that what he means is that it cannot deliver the benefits it promises without significant reforms. But someone who seems eager to get the federal government out of the business of ensuring retirement security altogether will find a less receptive audience." --National Review's Ramesh Ponnuru
"Regardless of whether you believe the Social Security system, as now structured, satisfies the precise elements of a Ponzi scheme, you have to admit that if it had been correctly designed and administered, it would not be approaching insolvency and threatening our liberty and prosperity." --columnist David Limbaugh
Insight
"Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." --British Prime Minister William Pitt (1759-1806)
"Everyone wants to live at the expense of the state. They forget that the state lives at the expense of everyone." --French economist, statesman and author, Frederic Bastiat (1801-1850)
The Demo-gogues
Broken record: "This is the bill that Congress needs to pass. ... No games. No politics. No delays." --Barack Obama, gamer and hardball politico
From the campaigner in chief: "[M]y job as president of the United States is not to worry about my job." --Barack Obama, who plans to spend $1 billion campaigning to keep his job
Hope: "Now, my hope is that when we are on the other side of it, folks will look back and say, 'You know, he wasn't a bad captain of the ship.'" --Barack Obama, U.S.S. Titanic
False choices: "I urge reasonable Republicans to resist the voices of the Tea Party and others who would oppose this legislation and [instead] root for our economy. We must not continue to bow to the Tea Party Republicans willing to do anything to hurt the president. [We] cannot allow their radical agenda to crowd out America's jobs agenda." --Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) urging Congress to resist the Tea Party and pass Obama's jobs plan
Civility: "What I saw [Monday night] in that debate, Andrea, was Republican candidates for president worshiping at the altar of the Tea Party." --DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz
Dezinformatsia
Blind partisanship: "What happened after 9/11 -- and I think even people on the right know this, whether they admit it or not -- was deeply shameful. The atrocity should have been a unifying event, but instead it became a wedge issue. Fake heroes like Bernie Kerik, Rudy Giuliani, and, yes, George W. Bush raced to cash in on the horror. ... The memory of 9/11 has been irrevocably poisoned; it has become an occasion for shame. And in its heart, the nation knows it." --New York Times columnist Paul Krugman
Misunderstanding sacrifice: "But this is a war -- if you use the Bush terminology, the war against terrorism -- that has been very costly to this country and continues to be costly. ... And when the president goes before the Congress and has to beg for money to modernize schools and build science labs, that's just one small example of the cost we've paid with the obsessive focus on terrorism this last decade." --Newsweek's Eleanor Clift
Sycophants: "Occurs to me we are sitting 30 feet from Harry Truman's official White House portrait. Members of your base are asking: 'When are you going to get your Harry Truman on?'" --NBC's Brian Williams to Obama
Conservatives are dangerous: "This is what [the Tea Party] wanted to hear from these candidates [in Monday night's GOP debate]. There are a lot of people around the country who are just like the folks in this room. And yet there are a huge number of people, an equal number of people, who I think were horrified by what they heard in this room. I was getting notes about they ought to keep these people locked up and not let them out. Don't let them do anything to the country." --CNN political analyst David Gergen
Newspulper Headlines:
Out on a Limb: "FACT CHECK: Obama's Jobs Plan Paid For? Seems Not" --Associated Press
We Blame Global Warming: "Obama Gets Cool Response From Republicans, Even Some Dems" --TheHill.com
Questions Nobody Is Asking: "Can Obama's Rhetoric Lift the Economy?" --Christian Science Monitor
Math Is Hard: "Hillary Clinton Says Chances She Will Run Against Barack Obama 'Below Zero'" --Mediaite.com
News You Can Use: "Waving Robotic Crab Arm Attracts Females" --BBC website
Bottom Story of the Day: "Al Gore in 24-Hour Broadcast to Convert Climate Skeptics" --Reuters
(Thanks to The Wall Street Journal's James Taranto)
Village Idiots
Twisted "logic": "I have to say that I think the president's team has been rather brilliant putting this [jobs bill] together. If the American Jobs Act -- that's a terrific name for it -- and he's paying for it by doing something that 70 percent of Americans believe would be the right thing to do, which is to raise taxes on the people who got us into this mess in the first place. So now the Republicans are going to have to vote to, if they want to kill this bill, they're gonna have to vote to give all the people that Americas can't stand more money. And in doing so they'll keep ordinary Americans from getting jobs." --former DNC head Howard Dean
All or nothing: "We want [Congress] to act now on this [Obama jobs] package. We're not in a negotiation to break up the package. And it's not an a la carte menu. It is a strategy to get this country moving." --former Obama senior adviser David Axelrod
Gun grabbers: "[T]he underlying activity of possessing or transporting an accessible and loaded weapon is itself dangerous and undesirable, regardless of the intent of the bearer since it may lead to the endangerment of public safety. Access to a loaded weapon on a public street creates a volatile situation vulnerable to spontaneous lethal aggression in the event of road rage or any other disagreement or dispute.... hold that the state has an important government interest in promoting public safety and preventing crime. ... As crafted, the statute seeks to limit the use of handguns to self-defensive purposes -- a use which, although in this context existing outside the home, is nonetheless a hallmark of Heller -- rather than for some other use that has not been recognized as falling within the protections of the Second Amendment." --Southern District Judge Cathy Seibel of New York claiming that gun carry permits are not a constitutional right
Short Cuts
"Has Obama ever grown even a potted plant, much less a business, a bank, a hospital or any of the numerous other institutions whose decisions he wants to control and override?" --economist Thomas Sowell
"Obama is like the guy in the bar who says, 'I'll stand drinks for everyone in the house,' and then adds, 'Those guys over there are going to pay for them.'" --political analyst Michael Barone
"L.A. is considering a ban on both plastic AND paper grocery bags. Fine. If I ever go shopping in L.A., my bags will be made from the fur of animals I killed myself." --former Senator Fred Thompson
"President Obama's speechwriter Jon Lovett resigned to pursue what he called a more fulfilling life in Los Angeles writing comedy. He helped write the stimulus bill, the health care law and the president's jobs plan. His work as a comedy writer in Washington is done." --comedian Argus Hamilton
"Government statistics show the U.S. economy created zero jobs in August. President Obama now says he's confident this month he can double that." --comedian Jay Leno
Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus et Fidelis!
Nate Jackson for The Patriot Post Editorial Team
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19 point gain in NY-9, surpassed only by a 20 point gain for the GOP in Nevada district-2 post-Obama. McCain and Obama tied at 49-49 in 2008, Mark Amodei R-NV2 just won it 57-37. Nevada districts 1 & 3 are in the south population centers, NV-2 is all the rest of the state.
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Digest · September 16, 2011
Essential Liberty
Join thousands of Patriots who have already signed on to the Oath Accountability Civil Action for Constitutional Integrity.
To enforce our Constitution's limits on the central government, we believe a formal legal action is necessary. This action, if successful, would require that all members of the Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches, first and foremost, abide by their oaths "to support and defend" our Constitution, under penalty of law, and comport with its enumerated limitations on the federal government. The current scope of federal activities provides abundant evidence that many members of those three co-equal branches have long since abandoned their oaths, and, at present, there is no recourse for prosecution to enforce compliance.
To that end, please sign on to this action, and join Patriots across the nation in this effort to establish legal standing as citizens, particularly those in our Armed Services who defend their oaths with blood and life. If we are unsuccessful in our effort to seek remedy for the lack of any proscription against, and penalty for breach of oath, it is because the judiciary refuses any such accountability regarding the wanton violation of our Constitution. Such rejection would in effect render Americans once again condemned to the abuse previously characterized in American history as "Taxation Without Representation."
(Problems with page loading due to the site traffic yesterday, have been corrected.)
The Foundation
"If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the General Welfare, the Government is no longer a limited one, possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one, subject to particular exceptions." --James Madison
Government & Politics
The Social Security Debate
The GOP presidential race this week boiled down to two words: Social Security. Specifically, which candidates have said what about the public retirement program set up by socialist Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt during the Great Depression. The kindling has long been there for a fiery debate about the government's massive obligations to an aging population, but Texas Gov. Rick Perry's previous comments about Social Security being a "monstrous lie" and a "Ponzi scheme" lit the spark in Monday's Republican debate when several other candidates took issue with his position. So, is Social Security a Ponzi scheme?
Mitt Romney says no, and he seized the opportunity to cast the rhetoric of his main Republican rival as "over the top" and "frightful to many people." Romney warned, "If we nominate someone who the Democrats can correctly characterize as being opposed to Social Security, we would be obliterated as a party."
Frankly, both men have a point, though Romney used similar language in his own book to describe the program. Numerous figures on the Left have also over the years, dating back at least to a 1967 Newsweek column by liberal economist and Nobel laureate Paul Samuelson.
Strictly speaking, Social Security is not a Ponzi scheme, in part because it's not against the law. Indeed, it is the law. (Try not paying payroll taxes -- i.e., "investing" in the system.) But it is structured exactly like a Ponzi scheme, and it will eventually fail for the same reasons. Today's workers are paying for the checks of today's retirees, and it has always been that way. From the start, politicians have raided the Social Security "trust fund" and spent the money on other general fund projects. What was left were worthless IOUs. Now that benefits paid exceed taxes collected, that problem has become acute. According to the Social Security board of trustees, in 1945, there were 42 workers for every retiree; the current ratio of three workers to every retiree is unsustainable.
Perry later wrote a USA Today op-ed to clarify his position. He thinks Social Security must be reformed so that it can both be saved for those in and nearing retirement, as well as for younger workers. Still, Perry's problem is exactly as Romney indicated: Democrats (and apparently other Republicans) will demonize him for wanting to "destroy" Social Security. The program is still popular, and if voters think that a politician is going to take away their money, they will object vehemently. (Of course, their money has already been taken away, but that seems to escape the notice of far too many people.) Republicans have to walk the tightrope of calling for reform without being successfully demagogued.
The GOP candidates are shying away from any mention of Medicare, however, which is in far worse fiscal condition than Social Security. Annual spending on Medicare and Medicaid is now 5.5 percent of GDP, and by 2030, the Congressional Budget Office predicts that it will reach nearly 10 percent. Medicare by itself is already the biggest spender on medical services in the U.S., and that $525 billion in 2010 is influencing the market for everyone else.
Perhaps Herman Cain said it best: "I don't care what you call it, it's broken." He's right. And no matter what we call these programs, the important thing is to recognize that they will cause the nation to go broke if we don't fix them. But they can't be fixed unless conservatives win elections, and winning elections might require a more tactful approach.
Is Social Security a Ponzi scheme? Share your thoughts
Open Query
"A healthy 30-year-old young man" without health insurance ends up in the hospital. "Who's going to ... pay for that? ... Are you saying that society should just let him die?" --CNN's Wolf Blitzer with a "gotcha" question for Rep. Ron Paul in Monday's GOP debate
Paul's answer is here and it's excellent.
News From the Swamp: Stimulus Jr.
Barack Obama gave details of his "jobs" proposal Monday, and then quickly hit the road, urging everyone at every appearance he made to support its quick and complete passage. "If you love me," he crooned, "you've got to help me pass this bill." Obama maintains that his $447 billion plan will fix America's unemployment problem, which has grown increasingly worse under his watch. The bill will create 1.9 million jobs, he says, and reduce unemployment by a full percentage point. Yet Stimulus Jr. merely repeats many of the proposals that didn't work when they were passed in 2009.
For instance, the employee payroll tax would be expanded. There is also a $49 billion extension of unemployment benefits. The current maximum for the unemployed to draw benefits is 99 weeks (just three weeks short of two whole years), and when that line in the sand was drawn in 2009, Democrats said they would never have to cross it. They now support the extension, however, because they claim the added money will flow back into the economy through consumer spending -- despite all evidence to the contrary. Also, $60 billion will be dedicated to infrastructure spending and the creation of an infrastructure bank to finance projects when and if they become shovel-ready.
Obama maintains that this plan "is fully paid for." How, you ask? Well, the president has rolled out the same solutions for that, too. Tax increases to the tune of $467 billion -- over 10 years. Remember, the spending would occur this year. Tax rates would go up for families making over $250,000 per year, and some deductions such as charitable donations would be limited. (We can all watch charitable giving plummet if that happens.) Obama would also end tax breaks for oil companies and corporate jet owners, and raise the tax paid by hedge funds and investment partnerships. Republicans and some Democrats have previously rejected these proposals because they would hit precisely the small business job creators that are needed to jumpstart the economy. Besides, if wealthy leftists feel guilty about their prosperity and want to give more to the government, they're perfectly free to do so.
House Speaker John Boehner and Majority Leader Eric Cantor have both stated publicly that they won't support any elements of the program that call for more stimulus spending -- and rightly so. Diana Furchtgott-Roth of the Manhattan Institute said in her House testimony on the subject this week, "Those who believe that the 2009 stimulus simply was not enough ... should admit that if $1 trillion did not work in 2009, then $447 billion is unlikely to solve an even larger problem in 2011." Furthermore, conservatives and far-left Democrats reject the idea of an extended payroll tax cut because it will reduce the amount of money paid into an already fragile Social Security system.
It's hard to imagine that Obama has much of a chance of passing his jobs plan intact with such an array of Republicans and Democrats aligned against him. In fact, that's exactly what he wants, because he can then run against the "do-nothing Congress" in 2012. Indeed, it's a rerun of Harry Truman's 1948 campaign. Obama says, "This Congress, they are accustomed to doing nothing, and they're comfortable with doing nothing, and they keep on doing nothing."
A final note: Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) snagged the name Obama had chosen for his boondoggle -- The American Jobs Act -- for his own piece of legislation, H.R. 2911, which proposes a tax cut to stimulate the economy. Tellingly, no Democrat had yet submitted the president's latest emergency, pass-it-right-away bill. In the Senate, Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has said that other bills will receive attention first -- such as one on bike trails.
This Week's 'Braying Jenny' Award
"I'll put it this way, you don't deserve to keep all of [your money]. It's not a question of deserving, because what government is, is those things that we decide to do together." --Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) pontificating about the money you earn
On Cross-Examination
Obama has a little work to do to gain support for Stimulus Jr. -- from his own party.
"I have serious questions about the level of spending that President Obama proposed." --Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV)
"I am not supporting a repeal of tax cuts for the oil industry unless there are other industries that contribute. ... That offset is not going to fly, and he should know that. Maybe it's just for his election." --Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA)
"When you start singling out certain industries [oil and gas], there's an unfairness to it. On the pay-fors, I have a problem." --Sen. Mark Begich (D-AK)
"Every dollar that is spent on the jobs bill ... is not going to be available to Congress to deal with the debt. And to me, the top priority of ours should be long-term major debt reduction." --Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-CT)
Constitution Day 2011
Tomorrow, Sept. 17, 2011, marks the 224th anniversary of the signing of our Constitution at the Philadelphia (Constitution) Convention in 1787. Of course, these days, Memorial Day may be a more apt description.
Share your thoughts
Hope 'n' Change: ObamaCare in Court
U.S. District Judge Christopher Conner ruled this week that the individual mandate in ObamaCare is unconstitutional. Conner, appointed by George W. Bush, wrote that the mandate extends Congress's power under the Constitution too far. At this point, the law has several rulings in its favor and several against it. Why, again, did the Supreme Court insist that, before they take it up, the law must run its course through the lower courts?
New & Notable Legislation
The House passed H.R. 2587 by a 238-186 vote Thursday. The legislation prohibits the National Labor Relations Board from dictating where corporations may establish factories. The law is a response to the NLRB's decision earlier this summer to sue Boeing for opening a manufacturing plant for the 787 Dreamliner in right-to-work South Carolina instead of union-shop Washington state. Unions, predictably, didn't like the move, regardless of how many jobs it might create. The bill is unlikely to pass the Democrat-controlled Senate.
Special Election Win for GOP in Blue Territory
Republican Bob Turner shook the political world this week by winning a special House election in deep-blue New York District 9. Turner, a retired businessman, defeated New York State Assemblyman David Weprin 54-46. Weprin, a machine Democrat whose family has been a mainstay in New York politics for years, was initially expected to handily win the seat recently vacated by scandal-plagued Anthony Weiner. The district, which straddles the New York City boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens, is predominantly Jewish, and Democrats enjoy a 3-to-1 voter registration advantage there. Voters in the district have not sent a Republican to Washington since 1923, and Weprin and members of his family have served several terms in local and statewide office in the area. These advantages ended up meaning nothing, as Weprin's fortunes diminished rapidly in the closing weeks of the campaign. Democrats even pulled out the big guns in an attempt to save him, but to no avail.
The upset spoke volumes about the current state of affairs for Democrats, but they are unlikely to learn any lessons judging by their response to the outcome. DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz provided the most laughable excuse when she claimed, "It's a very difficult district for Democrats." The White House, of course, rejected the idea that it was a referendum on the administration, though they used the opposite spin on the special election victory House Democrats won in upstate New York earlier this year.
The fact is that the race was precisely a referendum on the Obama presidency, and particularly his ghastly economic record. Obama's poor treatment of Israel on the international stage also angered many Jewish voters in the district, and they expressed their sentiment at the ballot box. Turner may not serve long, however, since District 9 is targeted for elimination when redistricting takes place next year, but his victory has sent a clear message as the crucial 2012 campaign season approaches.
National Security
Warfront With Jihadistan: 9/11 Remembrance Omits Key Element
The victims of 9/11 were appropriately remembered and honored in ceremonies across the country last Sunday, the 10th anniversary of the jihadi attacks on America. Yet if you were listening for information about their murders and what motivated them, there was only silence. Even though we're still at war with Jihadistan, political correctness invaded most ceremonies, and any mention of the dreaded "I" word, Islam, was strictly verboten. Indeed, about the only mention of Islam came from the Left, where some did their best to make it seem as if Muslims were actually the main victims of 9/11. Other leftists reported on how benign Sharia law really is, and argued that "jihad" is actually just a nonviolent struggle. It's doubtful that the Americans on Flight 93, or the New York City police and firemen of the World Trade Center, would agree with that definition.
One had to leave the U.S. to find sources that would dare speak the truth. In London, Tony Blair pointed to all of the Middle Eastern countries that harbor terrorist ideologies, saying, "It's completely wrong to think the struggle to defeat extremist ideology is won." Israeli sources were even more blunt, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying, "Therefore, the struggle against radical Islamic terrorism, which is, in effect, a description of the past decade, is at its peak; it is not yet over. We must all unite, countries that aspire to life, certainly the democracies that cherish life, and act in concert against this blight."
Al-Qa'ida certainly noted the anniversary. Its new leader, Ayman al-Zawahri, claimed credit for this year's Arab uprisings, saying the 9/11 attacks on the U.S. paved the way for the "Arab volcano" that is sweeping through the Middle East. A stretch, to be sure, but also an indication that the radical Islamists of al-Qa'ida are still in the game, even if American politicians and the press are afraid to say so.
Testimony Under Pressure
U.S. Air Force Gen. William Shelton dropped a bomb this week when he alleged that the White House had pressured him to modify testimony before Congress to make it more favorable toward a company that made donations to Democrats. The four-star Air Force general oversees U.S. Space Command, and he was scheduled to testify before a House committee on Aug. 3 regarding a new wireless project of a satellite broadband company in Virginia called LightSquared. Shelton's testimony was leaked in advance, revealing that he was prepared to tell the committee that LightSquared's project would interfere with the military's sensitive Global Positioning Satellite capabilities.
The majority owner of LightSquared, however, is an investment fund run by Democrat donor Philip Falcone. The company saw that the testimony could damage their business, and the White House intervened. Shelton says the White House requested that he alter his testimony to voice support for the administration's policy of adding more broadband for commercial use and to say that the Pentagon would work to resolve questions regarding LightSquared with testing in only 90 days. It seems that this administration will stop at nothing to politicize any issue in favor of their donors. Congress has a duty to investigate and find out just who pressured Shelton, and from whom those orders came.
U.S. Air Force Birthday
Relentlessly committed to the defense of liberty, the United States Air Force celebrates its 64th birthday Sunday, Sept. 18. The Air Force began life as the Army Air Corps but became a separate Armed Services Branch when the National Security Act of 1947 created the Department of the Air Force. As the U.S. Air Force continues its critical mission "to fly, fight and win ... in air, space and cyberspace," we ask that you pray for these brave Patriots prosecuting the Long War against Jihadistan, and for their families awaiting their safe return.
Profiles of Valor: U.S. Marine Corps Cpl. Dakota Meyer
Former U.S. Marine Corps Cpl. Dakota Meyer Thursday became the first living Marine to receive the Medal of Honor for heroism in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. However, Meyer struggled for words, saying, "It's hard, it's ... you know ... getting recognized for the worst day of your life, so it's ... it's a really tough thing." It was his worst day because of the friends he lost.
On Sept. 8, 2009, Meyer and his platoon were on patrol in Kunar Province, Afghanistan, when they were ambushed. When several team members were cut off from the main group, Meyer sought to rescue them. According to the official citation, "With a fellow Marine driving, Corporal Meyer took the exposed gunner's position in a gun-truck as they drove down the steeply terraced terrain in a daring attempt to disrupt the enemy attack and locate the trapped U.S. team. Disregarding intense enemy fire now concentrated on their lone vehicle, Corporal Meyer killed a number of enemy fighters with the mounted machine guns and his rifle, some at near point blank range, as he and his driver made three solo trips into the ambush area." Despite a shrapnel wound in his arm, Meyer led a total of five trips into the kill zone to "recover more wounded Afghan soldiers and search for the missing U.S. team members."
Meyer's final trip was on foot, and he recovered the bodies of four of his friends -- Marine 1st Lt. Michael Johnson, Marine Staff Sgt. Aaron Kenefick, Marine Gunnery Sgt. Edwin Johnson, and Navy Hospital Corpsman 3rd Class James Layton. Two of Meyer's fellow Marines, Capt. Ademola Fabayo and Staff Sgt. Juan Rodriguez-Chavez, the driver, were awarded the Navy Cross.
Voice your support for Cpl. Meyer
Business & Economy
Income Redistribution: Some Energy Bleeds Green
Solyndra is becoming a household name, but not for the intended reasons. Despite being given a 2009 "stimulus" loan of $535 million, the solar panel maker filed for bankruptcy last week -- and it's not the only one, either. Joe Biden spoke at the groundbreaking of the company's new factory and said "renewable energy" is "exactly what the Recovery Act is all about." Barack Obama also praised the company last May at an on-site visit, saying, "companies like Solyndra are leading the way toward a brighter and more prosperous future." Solyndra CEO and founder, Dr. Chris Gronet, called Barack Obama "instrumental" in securing the loan.
With that high-profile backing, the fallout from the firm's collapse isn't pretty. Congress and the Treasury Department are both investigating what the White House knew and why so much money was invested in a failing operation. There were warnings months before the loan and Obama's photo-op at Solyndra headquarters, including from accountants at PricewaterhouseCoopers, who indicated "substantial doubt about its ability to continue as a going concern." Internal administration emails reveal that some people worried about default -- primarily over how it would affect Obama's re-election campaign. Yet Energy Department officials sat in on the company's meetings and concluded that the loan was worth it.
No doubt more will be revealed in the coming days and weeks, but what is perhaps even more galling is that, despite the malfeasance in the Solyndra case, the Department of Energy is set to issue another $1.2 billion loan to Mojave Solar for a 250-megawatt solar generation project in San Bernardino County, California. Aside from Solyndra, this new move comes after a Washington Post report saying, "A $38.6 billion loan guarantee program that the Obama administration promised would create or save 65,000 jobs has created just a few thousand jobs two years after it began..." While only $17.2 billion has been spent to date, just 3,545 new jobs have been created, at a cost of nearly $5 million per job. Even if all 65,000 jobs had materialized, though, the cost per job is obscene. Perhaps that's still better than $19 billion in erroneous unemployment payments. Some lessons, it seems, are never learned.
What should happen as a result of Solyndra?
Regulatory Commissars: Turn on the Jobs Spigot, Please
Over the last few months Chevron, BP and ExxonMobil have each announced the finding of vast oil reserves in the Gulf of Mexico. It's an opportunity to create thousands of real jobs and perhaps begin to dent the persistently high fuel prices and unemployment plaguing the nation. All told, the new discoveries in deep water areas of over 4,000 feet in depth have the potential of producing billions of barrels of oil, and helping our nation achieve a degree of energy independence while at the same time adding to the 9.2 million domestic jobs already provided by the oil and natural gas industry. If only these companies were free to determine areas in which to drill and build up the infrastructure for safe extraction and transport.
Yet an unsustainable pace of regulatory approvals since the April 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill may force U.S. oil rigs out of the Gulf. As many as 20 rigs could be relocated to other oil hotspots around the globe such as Brazil or Nigeria. We realize that some jobs in the energy industry may not be the "green" jobs Barack Obama desires, but in an era where solar power companies go belly-up and take millions of taxpayer dollars with them, why not speed up the regulatory process and let the oil industry use its own private funding to create lasting employment for thousands of Americans? Seems like a no-brainer to us.
Bank of America to Cut 30,000 Jobs
If you limit the amount of income a service provider can receive, it follows that they will have less money to invest in retaining staff. Over the next three years, 30,000 Bank of America employees will learn this truism the hard way as they're downsized out of the company. An amendment to the 2009 Dodd-Frank financial reform bill will cost the financial giant $475 million in just one quarter this year once the rule takes effect in October, so as part of a makeover to slash an overall $5 billion in corporate expenses, these workers must go.
The Dodd-Frank rule cuts the amount banks can charge retailers in transaction fees by roughly half. While populists from both parties chortled about "exorbitant" debit card transaction fees, they didn't realize this income stream was what kept other fees, such as fees for checking accounts or interest rates on credit cards, lower.
A look at recent history shows this is nothing new for a beleaguered banking industry. Once the boom times of the Bush years went bust and consumers slipped into unsustainable debt, along came federal regulators to stick companies (and responsible credit card holders) with the bill. Beginning with the 2009 Credit CARD Act, which led to general interest rate increases for most creditworthy consumers, the trend of recent federal regulations has served to make the credit card business less lucrative for banks. While average Americans fall prey to the class envy aspect of regulating bank fees, it may be their neighbor who loses his job thanks to the new rules.
Around the Nation: Poverty Increases
Everywhere we turn, we hear grim news about the economic health of this country. In 2010, income in the U.S. was at a 10-year low and poverty was at a 17-year high. The Census Bureau now reports that one in six Americans is now considered poor. In the midst of this economic turmoil, Obama is asking us to spend another $447 billion, in part to help the "disadvantaged youth" by giving their low-income parents "ladders out of poverty." This poverty, however, is the hallmark of Obamanomics.
On the other hand, when most of us hear the word "poverty," we think of hunger and homelessness, a life starved of even basic needs. Yet according to a recent Heritage Foundation report, "Understanding Poverty in the United States," that is not as prevalent as we are often led to believe. The report's authors, Robert Rector and Rachel Sheffield, found the following: According to the Department of Agriculture's 2009 statistics, 96 percent of low-income parents reported that their children were never hungry due to lack of money, and 83 percent of poor families have enough to eat. Also, while 4 percent of the poor were temporarily homeless, 42 percent own their own homes. Car, computer and TV ownership is even higher.
The report also speaks to the causes of poverty, and a lack of government aid is not among them. In fact, the government only makes things worse. As blogger Ed Morrissey quipped, "It seems that Obama loves the poor so much that he's going out of his way to create more of them."
Culture & Policy
Second Amendment: The Right to Carry
U.S. District Judge Cathy Seibel ruled this week that issuance of concealed carry permits is a matter of discretion for state authorities and isn't an individual right. Furthermore, guns are scary. "The underlying activity of possessing or transporting an accessible and loaded weapon is itself dangerous and undesirable, regardless of the intent of the bearer since it may lead to the endangerment of public safety," Seibel wrote, quoting a previous decision on the case. Carrying a loaded weapon on a public street, she said, "creates a volatile situation vulnerable to spontaneous lethal aggression in the event of road rage or any other disagreement or dispute. For all these reasons, I hold that the state has an important government interest in promoting public safety and preventing crime." Declaring that people intent on committing a crime don't have legal access to a gun is not going to stop them -- it will only disarm their victims.
In related news, Reps. Cliff Stearns (R-FL) and Heath Shuler (D-NC) have introduced H.R. 822, the National Right-to-Carry Reciprocity Act of 2011. The bill would ensure that all state-issued concealed carry permits are recognized by all other states. Illinois is the only state that still maintains that the Second Amendment doesn't exist.
Are guns themselves an endangerment to public safety?
Climate Change This Week: Gore's 24
Continuing his quest to rid the world of global-warming skeptics, Al "It's Not Easy Being Green" Gore has announced that he will air 24 straight hours of global warming television this week. "24 Hours of Reality" will play on Current TV, which Gore co-founded (after all, what other channel would give Gore 24 hours of airtime?). According to Trewin Restorick, chief executive of Global Action Plan, the broadcast's UK partner, "There will be a full-on assault on climate skeptics, exploring where they get their funding from." This approach is hardly surprising, as "assault" is the only option available to the crusade that is steadily losing in the court of public opinion. A recent opinion poll, for example, showed that concern over climate change has dropped in the U.S. from 62 percent in 2007 to 48 percent this year.
All that aside, let's assume for a minute that man-made climate change is real. Does Gore really think his leftist partisan approach is going to turn the masses in his favor? If he hasn't been able to convince the world through three decades of scare tactics and selective science, 24 hours of hot air isn't going to do the job. Just in case you're thinking of tuning into Gore's production, though, you should probably know that the broadcast has been rated "U" for "Unsubstantiated."
And Last...
In an effort to help supporters "get the facts" and "fight the smears," the Obama campaign has launched a new website called AttackWatch. Arrayed in warning colors of red and white, with a black background for added eeriness, the goal is for people to rat out their neighbors for saying naughty things about the Obama administration. For example, saying, "The stimulus was supposed to keep unemployment below 8 percent; it's now over 9 percent," could get you reported. "ObamaCare is a regulatory nightmare that is already costing jobs," is another reportable smear. Various charges are countered with the same old platitudes regurgitated at every teleprompter recitation.
We're not alone, however, in getting a good laugh out of the Obama campaign's paranoia. Even The Washington Post called the site a "laughingstock." Meanwhile, Misfitpolitics came up with a hilarious parody, and others are lining up to mock the effort. For our part, we're just hoping that we'll get reported.
Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus et Fidelis!
Nate Jackson for The Patriot Post Editorial Team
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September 19, 2011
Essential Liberty
Join thousands of Patriots who have already signed on to the Oath Accountability Civil Action for Constitutional Integrity.
To enforce our Constitution's limits on the central government, we believe a formal legal action is necessary. This action, if successful, would require that all members of the Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches, first and foremost, abide by their oaths "to support and defend" our Constitution, under penalty of law, and comport with its enumerated limitations on the federal government. The current scope of federal activities provides abundant evidence that many members of those three co-equal branches have long since abandoned their oaths, and, at present, there is no recourse for prosecution to enforce compliance.
To that end, please sign on to this action, and join Patriots across the nation in this effort to establish legal standing as citizens, particularly those in our Armed Services who defend their oaths with blood and life. If we are unsuccessful in our effort to seek remedy for the lack of any proscription against, and penalty for breach of oath, it is because the judiciary refuses any such accountability regarding the wanton violation of our Constitution. Such rejection would in effect render Americans once again condemned to the abuse previously characterized in American history as "Taxation Without Representation."
Our goal is 500,000 signatures, which is minimally necessary because if the federal judiciary refuses to hear this action, then we will take it to the national legislature for codification into federal law. A large support base will be necessary if we are forced to exercise that alternative.
The Foundation
"[T]here is a degree of depravity in mankind which requires a certain degree of circumspection and distrust." --James Madison
Government
Obama stimulus recipient Solyndra has gone under"Solyndra was the first company to receive a loan guarantee from the Department of Energy as part of the 2009 stimulus package. This wasn't small potatoes. The loan guarantee was for $535 million. ... As my Washington Examiner colleague David Freddoso reported, an audit of the company performed by PriceWaterhouseCoopers two months before Obama's visit noted that the firm had accumulated losses of $558 million in its five years of existence. The auditor noted that Solyndra 'has suffered recurring losses from operations, negative cash flows since inception and has a net stockholders' deficit that, among other factors, raises substantial doubt about its ability to continue as a going concern.' One of the original investors in Solyndra was Oklahoma billionaire George Kaiser, who was also a major contributor to Obama's 2008 campaign. In early 2011, Kaiser and other investors provided an additional $75 million in financing to Solyndra. They did so on condition, approved by the Energy Department, that they receive priority over previous creditors, including the government. ... But let's assume for the time being that there was no criminal conduct here, no violation of government procedures, no fraud. Let's assume everyone in the administration acted with good faith. There's still a scandal -- the scandal of the government handing out hundreds of millions of dollars to unproven and speculative businesses. ... The real scandal is the 'green jobs' loan guarantee program itself. And the ones getting scammed are American taxpayers." --political analyst Michael Barone
How can we stop crony capitalism?
Essential Liberty
"[W]hile interest in the Constitution is growing, few Americans actually know much about what it says. And that has serious downsides. It means that many Americans don't really understand the rights the Constitution protects or the powers it grants. For example, in 2009, Oklahoma tested its high school students on their knowledge of civics -- including basic ideas about the U.S. Constitution. They failed miserably. Only 28% knew that the Constitution is the supreme law of the land and just 26% identified the Bill of Rights correctly. ... American adults -- including those serving in politics -- fare no better when it comes to their knowledge of the Constitution. In early 2011, the Intercollegiate Studies Institute surveyed adults and college students to assess their civic knowledge. They discovered that ordinary Americans actually scored higher on their knowledge of the Constitution than the elected officials surveyed. ... Citizens who do not understand their rights -- or the limitations of government -- can neither defend those rights nor participate meaningfully in the political process." --columnist Rebecca Hagelin
Insight
"[Tyrannical] power is absolute, minute, regular, provident and mild. It would be like the authority of a parent if, like that authority, its object was to prepare men for manhood; but it seeks, on the contrary, to keep them in perpetual childhood: it is well content that the people should rejoice, provided they think of nothing but rejoicing. For their happiness such a government willingly labors, but it chooses to be the sole agent and the only arbiter of that happiness; it provides for their security, foresees and supplies their necessities, facilitates their pleasures, manages their principal concerns, directs their industry, regulates the descent of property, and subdivides their inheritances: what remains, but to spare them all the care of thinking and all the trouble of living?" --French historian Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859)
Re: The Left
"New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg, in a radio interview on Friday, warned that high unemployment could lead to widespread rioting. That's right. He actually said that. At a time when European cities have suffered massively from hooliganism, and at a time when U.S. towns like Philadelphia and Kansas City have suffered huge human and commercial tolls from so-called flash riots. For Bloomberg to come out with this statement is irresponsible and incendiary. But you know what? He's got a personal agenda. This is a desperate talking point to sell President Obama's jobs plan, which Bloomberg favors as a solution to high unemployment and zero growth. There's a whole history here of liberals threatening riots if they don't get their way. ... Riots are not the answer to our economic problems. Promoting private-sector investment is." --columnist Lawrence Kudlow
Political Futures
"Suddenly, liberal op-ed writers are trashing ... Barack Obama as a one-term president ('one and done'). Centrist Democrats up for re-election in 2012 openly worry about inviting a kindred president into their districts, lest the supposed new pariah lose them votes. ... [W]hat Obama's supporters are mad about is that the public is boiling over chronic 9 percent unemployment, a comatose housing market, escalating food and fuel prices, near nonexistent economic growth, a gyrating stock market, record deficits, $16 trillion in aggregate debt, and a historic credit downgrading. And voters are not just mad, but blaming these hard times on the liberal Obama agenda of more regulations, more federal spending, more borrowing, more talk of taxes, and more 'stimulus' programs. ... Voters may or may not like Obama, but they surely do not like what he is still trying to do." --historian Victor Davis Hanson
Opinion in Brief
"President Obama's official re-election campaign has set up a website ostensibly to defend him against false attacks, but its obvious purpose is to smear Republicans and propagandize. What could be more shameless? ... [It's] called 'AttackWatch.com,' but it should be called 'AttackDog.com.' It has already proved that in its first few days of existence. When I opened the website for the first time, I saw revolving pictures of Obama's currently front-running GOP rivals, Rick Perry and Mitt Romney, with the accompanying captions 'Rick Perry's massive jobs lie' and 'Romney's job chart shows flawed understanding of the facts.' ... The recent New York and Nevada elections and Obama's ever-cratering approval ratings show how desperately he is hemorrhaging support. He has no choice but to divert our attention from the record and onto red herrings he can generate through false characterizations of his opponents. That's what AttackWatch.com is about. That's what the entire re-election effort is about." --columnist David Limbaugh
What are you doing to get reported to AttackWatch?
For the Record
"Even a mandatory Ponzi scheme like Social Security can fail if it cannot rustle up enough new entrants. You can force young people into Social Security, but if there just aren't enough young people in existence to support current beneficiaries, the system will collapse anyway. When Social Security began making monthly distributions in 1940, there were 160 workers for every senior receiving benefits. In 1950, there were 16.5; today, three; in 20 years, there will be but two. Now, the average senior receives in Social Security about a third of what the average worker makes. Applying that ratio retroactively, this means that in 1940, the average worker had to pay only 0.2 percent of his salary to sustain the older folks of his time; in 1950, 2 percent; today, 11 percent; in 20 years, 17 percent. This is a staggering sum, considering that it is apart from all the other taxes he pays to sustain other functions of government, such as Medicare whose costs are exploding. The Treasury already steps in and borrows the money required to cover the gap between what workers pay into Social Security and what seniors take out. When young people were plentiful, Social Security produced a surplus. Starting now and for decades to come, it will add to the deficit, increasingly so as the population ages. Demography is destiny." --columnist Charles Krauthammer
Culture
"A group known as Brookline Political Action for Peace, or Brookline PAX as members like to be called, claims, among other things, that the recitation of the pledge smacks of anti-Americanism or even McCarthyism, and more compellingly, may even promote bullying. Therefore, they argue, the pledge should be banned. The organization, led by peacenik and noted anti-pledge activist Marty Rosenthal, seeks to petition town meeting voters in November to urge the school committee to end the requirement that principals in Brookline allow a weekly recitation of the pledge. ... According to reports, Mr. Rosenthal claims the pledge has no educational value and is 'literally and psychologically a loyalty oath, reminiscent of McCarthyism or some horrific totalitarian regimes.' He also said, 'The pledge is at odds with America's most important traditions.' ... State Rep. Frank I. Smizik, a Democrat and co-signer of the resolution, claims banning the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of our nation is an anti-bullying measure, saying it would protect students who do not want to participate and also would promote their First Amendment rights. ... The day it becomes possible to argue that the recitation of the pledge to our flag is an anti-American act of indoctrination, there is nothing these folks won't do to undermine the sense of American unity or character that reciting the pledge fosters and promotes." --columnist Marybeth Hicks
Reader Comments
"I just tweeted the link to the article and the link to affirm support of the class action lawsuit. I also sent it to friends and family. This is outstanding! This is where the rubber meets the road. Either the judicial branch scorns us or it supports us based on the Constitution. At least we'll know where things stand at that point." --Joel
"Have you established a legal fund so those who are interested can contribute for this noble and necessary cause? I for one would like to see a separate fund for this fight other than the general fund The Patriot Post operates with. If there is anything other than spread the word, let me know. I will do all in my power to help facilitate this endeavor that must succeed." --Anton
Editor's Reply: At present this effort is being funded by the Essential Liberty Project Fund.
"Of course Social Security is a Ponzi scheme. Almost every large federal program, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid (the list goes on) makes promises to current recipients based on revenues expected in the future. Social Security promises a steady paycheck in retirement, not based on what was paid in and earnings invested by the individual, but an amount unrelated to investments and earnings. Health care programs promise medical care regardless of what the premiums are and regardless of the true costs. Of course they are Ponzi schemes." --Bruce
"As the father of a Marine, I salute Medal of Honor recipient Cpl. Dakota Meyer for his selfless devotion to his fellow Marines and to his duty as a warrior. I mourn with him for the loss of his brothers in arms. May he find peace, secure in the knowledge that he did his very best. Well done, good and faithful servant. Semper Fidelis." --Mark
The Last Word
"To tell you the truth, when I first heard tell of the awards that allegedly awaited Islamic martyrs, even I began to see the attraction. I mean, on the face of it, moving from Jenin or Tehran, say, to Paradise sounds like an awfully good deal. Toss in six dozen beautiful virgins, and what healthy, red-blooded nincompoop wouldn't gladly blow himself to Kingdom Come? The problem, of course, is that, like most youngsters, they never bother thinking things through. For instance, in the natural course of events, what the impetuous young idiot will inevitably have on his hands are six dozen ex-virgins. And if he thinks he has it bad now, just wait until he winds up spending eternity with 72 women who while away each and every day complaining that he's always leaving his burnoose on the floor, doesn't help out with the kids, and never takes them dancing." --columnist Burt Prelutsky
Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus et Fidelis!
Nate Jackson for The Patriot Post Editorial Team
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The Oath Accountability Civil Action
Join the tens of thousands of Patriots who have already signed on to the Oath Accountability Civil Action for Constitutional Integrity.
To enforce our Constitution's limits on the central government, we believe a formal legal action is necessary. This action, if successful, would require that all members of the Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches, first and foremost, abide by their oaths "to support and defend" our Constitution, under penalty of law, and comport with its enumerated limitations on the federal government. The current scope of federal activities provides abundant evidence that many members of those three co-equal branches have long since abandoned their oaths, and, at present, there is no recourse for prosecution to enforce compliance.
To that end, we urge you to join this action with Patriots across the nation in this effort to establish legal standing as citizens, particularly those in our Armed Services who defend their oaths with blood and life. If we are unsuccessful in our effort to seek remedy for the lack of any proscription against, and penalty for breach of oath, it will be because the judiciary refuses any such accountability regarding the wanton violation of our Constitution. Such rejection would in effect condemn Americans once again to the abuse previously characterized in American history as "Taxation Without Representation."
Our goal is 500,000 signatures. Please join us, and encourage other like-minded Patriots to do so. A large support base will be necessary if the federal judiciary refuses to hear this action and we are forced to take it to the national legislature for codification into federal law.
The Foundation
"The natural cure for an ill-administration, in a popular or representative constitution, is a change of men." --Alexander Hamilton
Government & Politics
Chicago-Style Government
The Era of Obama was supposed to be a time of Hope and Change, transparent and accountable government, and bipartisan song-singing -- indeed, as Obama himself put it, "the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal." Reality has been wholly different. A recession that, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research, ended in June 2009 but has given way to crippling economic stagnation, with no end in sight. Promised transparency quickly gave way to unaccountable czars and closed-door dealings, and bipartisanship was cast aside for the Democrat partisan ramrodding of hard-left legislation through the chambers of Congress. We don't pretend to speak for the planet, but nothing much seems healed.
Amid that bleak picture, there are (at least) three administration scandals that continue to simmer, despite the fact that the Leftmedia and Obama Re-Election Outlets (but we repeat ourselves) have given them scant attention. First is the story of Solyndra's bankruptcy following a $535 million federal loan guarantee from the Obama Department of Energy (part of the 2009 "stimulus"). The hastily issued loan to the California-based solar cell producer was greater than the amount given to 35 states to complete their respective lists of "shovel-ready" infrastructure jobs. When even that wasn't enough, Solyndra sought another $469 million. "Green energy" sure does seem to require an awful lot of green.
Solyndra went bankrupt when its unworkable business model collapsed. Yet, consistent with leftist cronyism, certain creditors who happened to be Democrat donors were placed in front of the taxpayers in the line of recovery -- much as unions were placed in the front of the line for the GM and Chrysler bailouts. Lost in the cover-up are the 1,100 workers abruptly laid off in August who will have a tough time finding jobs, as California is already reeling from high unemployment and is hardly a climate conducive to economic recovery.
Former employees are beginning to tell all, too. "After we got the loan guarantee, they were just spending money left and right," said former Solyndra engineer Lindsey Eastburn. "Because we were doing well, nobody cared. Because of that infusion of money, it made people sloppy." No wonder Solyndra CEO Brian Harrison and CFO W.G. Stover Jr. have announced that they will invoke their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination when they testify before Congress today.
Second is the administration's widening venture socialism scandal involving wireless network company LightSquared, which is financed by billionaire Democrat donor Philip Falcone. Military, civilian and government experts are objecting to LightSquared's potential to interfere with the military's GPS network. Air Force Commander Gen. William Shelton blew the whistle last week, claiming that the White House pressured him to modify testimony before Congress to make it more favorable toward LightSquared. He didn't.
LightSquared executives insist that their proposed system's wavelength won't interfere with the adjacent wavelengths used by the military's GPS on the available broadcast spectrum. Despite industry-wide protests, however, LightSquared received fast-track approval for an FCC waiver granting them the right to construct a 4G wireless network for far less capital than the billions the government would extract from its competitors. To address the industry's concerns about GPS interference, LightSquared proposed that everyone else pay to retrofit their GPS devices instead of revising its network to avoid broadband spillover.
Prior to its current incarnation, LightSquared was known as Skyterra, and its ownership included major Obama backers going back to 2004. Obama sold his Skyterra stock in 2005. Along with so much in the president's background, the Leftmedia seem content to characterize such connections as coincidental.
Finally, and most serious, is the continuing cover-up of Project Gunrunner and Operation Fast and Furious. As our readers well know, this project of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has resulted in more than 2,000 American weapons illegally crossing into Mexico, not only under the nose of the ATF, but with its consent, fueling the raging drug war south of the border. Reports this week indicate that a third gun linked to Fast and Furious was recovered at the scene of Border Patrol agent Brian Terry's murder in December. Furthermore, according to Darrell Issa, Chairman of the House Oversight Committee investigating this scandal, Fast and Furious guns were used in at least 200 murders in Mexico -- and that's a conservative estimate. The administration is in full rear-covering mode, and the Leftmedia have, predictably, remained virtually silent.
Is it too much to ask that the media start doing their jobs? It's high time the Chicago thugs in the White House are held accountable for their actions.
What can be done about the thugs in Washington?
Obama's Novel Debt Plan: Raise Taxes
On Monday, Barack Obama put forward his plan for the congressional debt-reduction super committee to consider. Not surprisingly, it's heavy on tax increases and light on actual debt reduction. To read the full story, don't miss Mark Alexander's essay, Taking Down Socialist 'Tax Fairness' Rhetoric.
News From the Swamp: Spending and Jobs
Late Thursday night, the House barely passed a short-term continuing resolution to authorize spending for FY2012. The vote was 219-203. Earlier in the week, Republican leaders were dealt a defeat by conservative members of their own caucus when a similar CR failed with 48 Tea Party conservatives opposed. Those 48 wanted to stick with the House's April spending deal, while the leadership was putting forward the August bipartisan agreement. Some two dozen Republicans were brought back into the fold with an amendment that included $100 million in cuts to the Innovative Technology Loan Guarantee Program, the Department of Energy program responsible for the Solyndra debacle.
In the Senate, Barack Obama's much touted jobs bill is lacking the support it needs to pass -- among Democrats. Reports are that Democrats Mark Begich (AK), Jim Webb (VA), Mary Landrieu (LA) and Barbara Mikulski (MD) outright oppose the bill, with some others not entirely decided yet. Administration officials met with several Democrats on the Hill this week to try to persuade them, but even if all Democrats are on board, the president's bill is in trouble.
Quote of the Week
"We're home alone. There's no adult in charge." --Larry Summers, former director of Obama's White House National Economic Council, as quoted in Confidence Men, Ron Suskind's newly released book about the Obama economic team
From the 'Non Compos Mentis' File
A number of federal agencies and departments are proudly making an effort to cut costs in these trying economic times by taking stock of their stationery and office equipment and buying in bulk. The plan adopted by the Departments of Commerce, Defense, Homeland Security, Justice and Treasury is expected to save $600 million over four years. Wow. We hate to criticize cost savings, but this amount won't even register on the chart compared to the government's multi-trillion-dollar debt. Sure, buying in bulk makes sense, but the trouble with government is that it took them so long to figure out basic business economics. Perhaps the whole thing is merely an offset for the new Washington Post report that, "In the past five years, the Office of Personnel Management has made more than $601 million in benefits payments to deceased federal annuitants."
New & Notable Legislation
The Senate Appropriations Committee has added a measure to the 2012 appropriations package that would provide for taxpayer-funded abortions in the District of Columbia. The House version maintains the abortion ban that has been in place since April, so now all eyes are on what deal may be hammered out. The National Right to Life Committee estimates that removing the Dornan Amendment, which prevents congressionally appropriated funds for abortion, would mean an additional 1,000 abortions a year in DC alone paid by taxpayers. The ban was originally in place from 1996-2009, but Barack Obama lifted it when he took office. Republicans reinstated it earlier this year after winning the House, but once again it's up for debate.
Hope 'n' Change: Finding Out What's in It
Add CLASS (Community Living Assistance Services and Support) to the growing list of Obama administration scandals. CLASS was ostensibly designed to be the long-term care component of ObamaCare. Its real purpose was to allow the administration to claim that the health care reform package was "deficit neutral." CLASS would collect premiums upwards of $75 billion during a 10-year period beginning in 2012, but those premiums would not go back to the citizens who paid them. Instead, they would be funneled into other parts of ObamaCare that are short on cash. When the bill for CLASS comes due in 2021, taxpayers will take a big hit to keep the "deficit neutral" ObamaCare afloat -- unless, of course, 2012 provides opportunity for repeal.
CLASS recently folded up shop, but a public airing of several internal emails regarding the program reveals that the White House knew all along that it was unsustainable, and that they had no way to fix it. A congressional investigation led by Sen. John Thune (R-SD) notes that, within the Department of Health and Human Services, "the program was repeatedly referred to as 'a recipe for disaster' with 'terminal problems.'" The only viable solution to fix CLASS would be for Congress to repeal it immediately. It doesn't work, it never worked, and it never will work.
From the Left: Staying in Touch With the Little Guy
Remember the flap about Nancy Reagan's red dress? Well, in hard-times America, the current First Lady showed up at a DNC fundraiser (the one for millionaires at $35,000 a plate) wearing jewelry including a Lotus cuff priced at $15,000 with 2.9 carats of diamonds, her Gothic cuff at $15,350 with 2.17 carats in diamonds, and the Quatrefoil bracelet at $11,800 with 1.73 carats in diamonds. Total value -- $42,150.
Let them eat cake. No coverage in the Leftmedia for our modern-day Marie Antoinette.
National Security
Palestinian Statehood Takes Center Stage
The muddled mess that is the Middle East continued to churn this week, threatening to splatter the rest of the world, via the United Nations, with its toxic ooze. Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas is pushing the UN Security Council to grant Palestinian statehood during the current General Assembly meeting. On Wednesday, however, Barack Obama tried to head off Abbas by giving yet another of his platitudinous speeches and declaring the painfully obvious: "Peace will not come through statements and resolutions at the United Nations. If it were that easy, it would have been accomplished by now." Interestingly, it was this same Obama who, at last year's UN meeting, breezily said that he wanted a sovereign Palestinian state established by this year's UN meeting. So in the span of one year, a completely inept Obama managed to stab both the Israelis and the Palestinians in the back.
The Palestinians won't get their state just yet, as the U.S., even under Obama, cannot allow it. (That doesn't mean he doesn't support the idea.) However, reports are that the Security Council needs only two more votes for statehood from countries such as Bosnia (the Muslim country we created in the Clinton years), Gabon and Nigeria, which would force the U.S. to veto it. Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) has introduced legislation to defund the UN if it votes to recognize a Palestinian state.
Ultimately, what the Palestinians want out of a UN vote isn't so much a state as much as another weapon in their arsenal to ultimately destroy Israel. "We are going to complain that as Palestinians we have been under occupation for 63 years," Abbas said this week. In other words, that "occupation," began with the creation of Israel in 1948, and it won't end until Israel is destroyed. So goes the Middle East "peace process."
What do you make of the Palestinians' efforts?
It Would Be a Comedy of Errors If It Weren't So Serious
This week, the Obama administration proved yet again that Hope 'n' Change is no substitute for wisdom and experience. After dragging out discussions for almost two full years on whether to provide new F-16 fighter-bombers to Taiwan, the White House decided instead to upgrade Taiwan's existing F-16s without providing new aircraft. In typical fashion, Obama managed to anger both Taiwan and China. Our largest foreign creditor is angry over any U.S. upgrades to Taiwan's military, while Taiwan is rightly angry that the United States caved in to communist pressure and stiffed a democratic ally. China was going to complain no matter what -- why not get our money's worth and provide new F-16s to a friendly democracy?
Meanwhile, in another transparently cynical move to placate the president's leftist base, Attorney General Eric Holder announced that the administration remains committed to closing the Guantanamo Bay detention facility. The January 2010 deadline for doing so flew by without fanfare, so now they promise to close it by Election Day 2012. Holder at least had the courtesy to provide the obvious motivation -- the election. Obama's base has been increasingly disenchanted with his performance lately, and he obviously wants some highly visible leftist dream to come true just in time for the election. Congress will have a great deal to say about Guantanamo's final disposition, but for the White House even to float this idea -- and so explicitly tie it to the next election -- is dangerously amateurish.
Department of Military Correctness: Orientation Genie Out of the Closet
At the stroke of midnight Tuesday, the Pentagon laid out the welcome mat for homosexual members of the military and for those in civilian life to join. After an 18-year "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" interregnum during which homosexuals were allowed in the military as long as they stayed "in the closet," the long-standing ban on their serving openly in the United States military formally came to a close. Obviously this came as a relief to service members such as "J.D. Smith," who in real life is Air Force First Lieutenant Josh Seefried. He adopted the pseudonym last year when he founded OutServe, a heretofore underground network of homosexual service members that has grown to 4,300 members. It's estimated that there are around 65,000 such members of the military, a presumption likely drilled into the 2.3 million active-duty and reserve members around the world who sat through an hour-long sensitivity course on accepting homosexuals within their ranks earlier this year.
Critics saw the change as an attempt to "reshape social attitudes" and warned that the number of military personnel may drop further than the 14,346 members discharged over the years by running afoul of the old DADT rules. Those who had been so discharged will be eligible to rejoin but won't have any specific preference over others who want to re-enter the service, the Pentagon announced.
It isn't clear whether benefits given to the spouses and families of married service members will eventually be extended to same-sex partners. A proposal to allow Navy chaplains to conduct "marriage" ceremonies in states where civil unions are allowed was scrapped after lawmakers objected.
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Business & Economy
Income Redistribution: Bonuses for GM Workers, the Shaft for Taxpayers
Last week General Motors and its UAW workforce reached a tentative four-year labor agreement, which is likely to be ratified overwhelmingly by the rank and file. As usual, the devil is in the details. Despite the fact that the automaker is still on the hook for billions of dollars to the federal government, which remains the owner of about one-quarter of GM's stock, the agreement includes a provision that UAW workers will receive a $5,000 "signing bonus" in lieu of a cost-of-living increase this year and maintain their health care and pensions. Newly hired workers will get a significant raise from their current $14 per hour to perhaps $17 per hour over the life of the contract. All workers will have "improved" profit sharing. In addition, the automaker will reopen the former Saturn assembly line in Spring Hill, Tennessee, which was idled in 2009.
Undoubtedly union leaders are thrilled about these concessions from the company, but they also knew whom to thank. As UAW Bob King noted, "None of this would have been possible without the efforts of President Obama, who invested federal funds to help turn the company around, protect the auto supplier base, and keep good-paying jobs in America." Unfortunately, those efforts have cost taxpayers roughly $15 billion that is yet to be repaid.
Have you driven a Ford lately?
Regulatory Commissars: Don't Create Jobs
With all the talk of saving and creating jobs, we find it disturbing that someone has been punished for doing just that. Peter Schiff, president and CEO of EuroPacific Capital, committed the unpardonable offense of hiring more brokers than regulations allow. "In my own business, securities regulations have prohibited me from hiring brokers for more than three years," Schiff testified before Congress. "I was even fined $15,000 expressly for hiring too many brokers in 2008. In the process I incurred more than $500,000 in legal bills to mitigate a more severe regulatory outcome as a result of hiring too many workers. I have also been prohibited from opening up additional offices. I had a major expansion plan that would have resulted in my creating hundreds of additional jobs. Regulations have forced me to put those jobs on hold."
Furthermore, says Schiff, "[T]he added cost of security regulations [has] forced me to create an offshore brokerage firm to handle foreign accounts that are now too expensive to handle from the United States. Revenue and jobs that would have been created in the U.S. are now being created abroad instead." As National Review's Andrew McCarthy quipped, "He's in finance. I guess he should have tried solar panels."
In related news, the EPA's overzealous regulators will soon cost another 500 workers their jobs. Texas energy company Luminant will be forced to stop generating energy at two of its power plants and shutter three lignite mines, thanks to requirements within the EPA's recently mandated Cross-State Air Pollution Rule in 2012. In a statement, the company said that while it is "launching a significant investment program to reduce emissions across our facilities" it couldn't otherwise comply with the "unrealistic deadline" without eliminating the 500 jobs. Also, it has taken the step of suing the EPA to overturn the edicts.
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Reagan Centennial T-Shirt
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Culture & Policy
Around the Nation: Ground Zero Mosque 'Opens'
In August 2010, we noted the controversy over the building of an Islamic cultural center (a.k.a. mosque) two blocks from Ground Zero. It was sometimes called The Cordoba Initiative, which was a thinly veiled religious reference to the long-ago Muslim conquest of the Christian city of Cordoba, Spain. Most commonly, however, the project is known by the more palatable -- and secular -- Park51.
On Wednesday, the project launched its first public exhibit featuring the work of New York City photographer Danny Goldfield. For the past seven years, Goldfield has been working on a collection of photographs of children from every country in the world who are living in New York City. The exhibit is a sorry attempt to soften the blow of the timing of the mosque's opening. Who could be opposed to children? Not only is it less than two weeks since the 10-year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, but it also comes during a week of tense meetings between Barack Obama and Israeli and Palestinian leaders.
Last year, in the midst of the heated debate, Obama felt it was his duty to impart his wisdom on the subject. What he said, of course, completely missed the point. Everyone knows that Park51 is legally viable, but that knowledge does little to assuage the hurt and rage of the thousands of people directly affected by 9/11, let alone the millions of Americans who were forever changed by that day. Against their protests, construction continued, but apparently the message didn't go completely ignored, considering the whitewash that is taking place now. "Looking forward to welcoming you to the NY Children's opening," Park51 tweeted, "We have a surprise guest to cut the ribbon. Make sure you're there!"
On Sept. 27, PBS will air the documentary "The Man Behind the Mosque" profiling developer Sharif El-Gamel. Last January, Park51 booted Feisal Abdul Rauf, the imam best known for his statements that America brought the terrorists attacks upon itself. Despite the feel-good PR, this mosque is nothing more than a thumb in the eye from the very extremists who want to punish the "Great Satan."
Village Academic Curriculum: No Such Thing as a Free Lunch
Reading, writing, 'rithmetic and recipes? Since the launch of the federal school lunch program in 1946, the government has required schools to provide low-cost or free lunches to qualifying students. Now, under the new child nutrition law signed by Barack Obama late last year, the feds are mandating that schools make these meals more nutritious. In other words, not only are Washington bureaucrats subsidizing school lunches, they're also packing them. And that's not all. For the first time, the government is now inserting itself into the pricing process, and, as happens when Washington steps in, costs are going up. As The New York Times notes, under the law "school districts are required to start bringing their prices in line with what it costs to prepare the meals, eventually charging an average of $2.46 for the lunches they serve." Although the law says that price increases should be capped at 10 cents per year, some school districts have raised prices by as much as a quarter.
Districts across the country are preparing for backlash against the price hikes, but it's Washington bureaucrats who really should be taken to task for assuming "food service" is found anywhere in the Constitution. They say it's bad having two cooks in the kitchen. It's downright scary, though, when one of them is Barack Obama.
In related news, the administration will soon detail plans to revamp No Child Left Behind through waivers, not through Congress. Specifically, the White House wants to waive the requirement that students be proficient in math and reading by 2014 or risk sanctions.
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Faith and Family: City Orders Halt to Home Bible Study
The city of San Juan Capistrano, California, was founded as a mission in the late 1700s. Now, more than 200 years later, a couple in that city is facing fines for holding weekly Bible studies in their home. CBS Los Angeles reports, "Homeowners Chuck and Stephanie Fromm ... were fined $300 earlier this month for holding what city officials called 'a regular gathering of more than three people.'" They could face another $500 fine for every additional gathering. According to Section 9-3.301 of the city code, "religious, fraternal, or service organizations (non-profit)" cannot meet in residential areas without obtaining a conditional use permit. We question, however, whether the city would have enforced this ordinance against a similarly sized "fraternal" gathering.
The Fromms appealed the fine to the city but were denied, and now the Pacific Justice Institute (PJI) is taking the ruling to the California Superior Court. PJI President Brad Dacus noted, "An informal gathering in a home cannot be treated with suspicion by the government, or worse than any other gathering of friends, just because it is religious. We cannot allow this to happen in America, and we will fight as long and as hard as it takes to restore this group's religious freedom." If the court has any understanding of our nation's foundation of religious liberty, it will agree.
Share your thoughts on this banned Bible study
Catholic Archbishop Writes in Support of Marriage
Catholic Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York sent a letter to Barack Obama this week to seek an end to the administration's campaign against traditional marriage and religious liberty. Dolan specifically sited the Obama Justice Department, which claims that supporters of the Defense of Marriage Act, signed by Bill Clinton, are motivated by "prejudice and bias." Such language presents a threat to religious liberty. "The institution of marriage is built on this truth," Dolan wrote, "no other relationships provide for the common good what marriage between husband and wife provides. The law should reflect this reality." Dolan further warned, "The Administration's failure to change course on this matter will ... precipitate a national conflict between Church and State of enormous proportions and to the detriment of both institutions." When has "conflict ... to the detriment" of anything stopped Obama before?
And Last...
Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY) was censured by the House (333-79) just nine months ago for several ethics violations, including tax evasion. Yet Thursday, Rangel hosted a ceremony to unveil his official portrait in the Longworth House Office Building. The list of speakers at the ceremony included Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-MD), as well as New York Democrat senators Kirsten Gillibrand and Chuck Schumer. After getting an "OK" from the FEC, Rangel paid for the $65,000 portrait using campaign cash.
Truly, this is beyond words. These people really do live in a parallel universe -- one in which, as Pelosi once put it, they "drain the swamp" apparently by hanging portraits of swamp creatures. What next? Obama wins the Nobel Peace Prize? Oh, wait...
Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus et Fidelis!
Nate Jackson for The Patriot Post Editorial Team
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One scenario:
"If Republicans were to sweep the tossups, they would have a 55-45 majority, tying them for their largest advantage since 1928. With a large number of Democrats up for re-election in 2014, many of whom occupy seats in red states, that would probably give Republicans working control of the chamber."
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2011/09/28/odds_favor_gop_gaining_senate_control_in_2012_111492.html
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The Foundation
"The natural cure for an ill-administration, in a popular or representative constitution, is a change of men." --Alexander Hamilton
Government & Politics
Chicago-Style Government
The Era of Obama was supposed to be a time of Hope and Change, transparent and accountable government, and bipartisan song-singing -- indeed, as Obama himself put it, "the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal." Reality has been wholly different. A recession that, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research, ended in June 2009 but has given way to crippling economic stagnation, with no end in sight. Promised transparency quickly gave way to unaccountable czars and closed-door dealings, and bipartisanship was cast aside for the Democrat partisan ramrodding of hard-left legislation through the chambers of Congress. We don't pretend to speak for the planet, but nothing much seems healed.
Amid that bleak picture, there are (at least) three administration scandals that continue to simmer, despite the fact that the Leftmedia and Obama Re-Election Outlets (but we repeat ourselves) have given them scant attention. First is the story of Solyndra's bankruptcy following a $535 million federal loan guarantee from the Obama Department of Energy (part of the 2009 "stimulus"). The hastily issued loan to the California-based solar cell producer was greater than the amount given to 35 states to complete their respective lists of "shovel-ready" infrastructure jobs. When even that wasn't enough, Solyndra sought another $469 million. "Green energy" sure does seem to require an awful lot of green.
Solyndra went bankrupt when its unworkable business model collapsed. Yet, consistent with leftist cronyism, certain creditors who happened to be Democrat donors were placed in front of the taxpayers in the line of recovery -- much as unions were placed in the front of the line for the GM and Chrysler bailouts. Lost in the cover-up are the 1,100 workers abruptly laid off in August who will have a tough time finding jobs, as California is already reeling from high unemployment and is hardly a climate conducive to economic recovery.
Former employees are beginning to tell all, too. "After we got the loan guarantee, they were just spending money left and right," said former Solyndra engineer Lindsey Eastburn. "Because we were doing well, nobody cared. Because of that infusion of money, it made people sloppy." No wonder Solyndra CEO Brian Harrison and CFO W.G. Stover Jr. have announced that they will invoke their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination when they testify before Congress today.
Second is the administration's widening venture socialism scandal involving wireless network company LightSquared, which is financed by billionaire Democrat donor Philip Falcone. Military, civilian and government experts are objecting to LightSquared's potential to interfere with the military's GPS network. Air Force Commander Gen. William Shelton blew the whistle last week, claiming that the White House pressured him to modify testimony before Congress to make it more favorable toward LightSquared. He didn't.
LightSquared executives insist that their proposed system's wavelength won't interfere with the adjacent wavelengths used by the military's GPS on the available broadcast spectrum. Despite industry-wide protests, however, LightSquared received fast-track approval for an FCC waiver granting them the right to construct a 4G wireless network for far less capital than the billions the government would extract from its competitors. To address the industry's concerns about GPS interference, LightSquared proposed that everyone else pay to retrofit their GPS devices instead of revising its network to avoid broadband spillover.
Prior to its current incarnation, LightSquared was known as Skyterra, and its ownership included major Obama backers going back to 2004. Obama sold his Skyterra stock in 2005. Along with so much in the president's background, the Leftmedia seem content to characterize such connections as coincidental.
Finally, and most serious, is the continuing cover-up of Project Gunrunner and Operation Fast and Furious. As our readers well know, this project of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has resulted in more than 2,000 American weapons illegally crossing into Mexico, not only under the nose of the ATF, but with its consent, fueling the raging drug war south of the border. Reports this week indicate that a third gun linked to Fast and Furious was recovered at the scene of Border Patrol agent Brian Terry's murder in December. Furthermore, according to Darrell Issa, Chairman of the House Oversight Committee investigating this scandal, Fast and Furious guns were used in at least 200 murders in Mexico -- and that's a conservative estimate. The administration is in full rear-covering mode, and the Leftmedia have, predictably, remained virtually silent.
Is it too much to ask that the media start doing their jobs? It's high time the Chicago thugs in the White House are held accountable for their actions.
What can be done about the thugs in Washington?
Obama's Novel Debt Plan: Raise Taxes
On Monday, Barack Obama put forward his plan for the congressional debt-reduction super committee to consider. Not surprisingly, it's heavy on tax increases and light on actual debt reduction. To read the full story, don't miss Mark Alexander's essay, Taking Down Socialist 'Tax Fairness' Rhetoric.
News From the Swamp: Spending and Jobs
Late Thursday night, the House barely passed a short-term continuing resolution to authorize spending for FY2012. The vote was 219-203. Earlier in the week, Republican leaders were dealt a defeat by conservative members of their own caucus when a similar CR failed with 48 Tea Party conservatives opposed. Those 48 wanted to stick with the House's April spending deal, while the leadership was putting forward the August bipartisan agreement. Some two dozen Republicans were brought back into the fold with an amendment that included $100 million in cuts to the Innovative Technology Loan Guarantee Program, the Department of Energy program responsible for the Solyndra debacle.
In the Senate, Barack Obama's much touted jobs bill is lacking the support it needs to pass -- among Democrats. Reports are that Democrats Mark Begich (AK), Jim Webb (VA), Mary Landrieu (LA) and Barbara Mikulski (MD) outright oppose the bill, with some others not entirely decided yet. Administration officials met with several Democrats on the Hill this week to try to persuade them, but even if all Democrats are on board, the president's bill is in trouble.
Quote of the Week
"We're home alone. There's no adult in charge." --Larry Summers, former director of Obama's White House National Economic Council, as quoted in Confidence Men, Ron Suskind's newly released book about the Obama economic team
From the 'Non Compos Mentis' File
A number of federal agencies and departments are proudly making an effort to cut costs in these trying economic times by taking stock of their stationery and office equipment and buying in bulk. The plan adopted by the Departments of Commerce, Defense, Homeland Security, Justice and Treasury is expected to save $600 million over four years. Wow. We hate to criticize cost savings, but this amount won't even register on the chart compared to the government's multi-trillion-dollar debt. Sure, buying in bulk makes sense, but the trouble with government is that it took them so long to figure out basic business economics. Perhaps the whole thing is merely an offset for the new Washington Post report that, "In the past five years, the Office of Personnel Management has made more than $601 million in benefits payments to deceased federal annuitants."
New & Notable Legislation
The Senate Appropriations Committee has added a measure to the 2012 appropriations package that would provide for taxpayer-funded abortions in the District of Columbia. The House version maintains the abortion ban that has been in place since April, so now all eyes are on what deal may be hammered out. The National Right to Life Committee estimates that removing the Dornan Amendment, which prevents congressionally appropriated funds for abortion, would mean an additional 1,000 abortions a year in DC alone paid by taxpayers. The ban was originally in place from 1996-2009, but Barack Obama lifted it when he took office. Republicans reinstated it earlier this year after winning the House, but once again it's up for debate.
Hope 'n' Change: Finding Out What's in It
Add CLASS (Community Living Assistance Services and Support) to the growing list of Obama administration scandals. CLASS was ostensibly designed to be the long-term care component of ObamaCare. Its real purpose was to allow the administration to claim that the health care reform package was "deficit neutral." CLASS would collect premiums upwards of $75 billion during a 10-year period beginning in 2012, but those premiums would not go back to the citizens who paid them. Instead, they would be funneled into other parts of ObamaCare that are short on cash. When the bill for CLASS comes due in 2021, taxpayers will take a big hit to keep the "deficit neutral" ObamaCare afloat -- unless, of course, 2012 provides opportunity for repeal.
CLASS recently folded up shop, but a public airing of several internal emails regarding the program reveals that the White House knew all along that it was unsustainable, and that they had no way to fix it. A congressional investigation led by Sen. John Thune (R-SD) notes that, within the Department of Health and Human Services, "the program was repeatedly referred to as 'a recipe for disaster' with 'terminal problems.'" The only viable solution to fix CLASS would be for Congress to repeal it immediately. It doesn't work, it never worked, and it never will work.
From the Left: Staying in Touch With the Little Guy
Remember the flap about Nancy Reagan's red dress? Well, in hard-times America, the current First Lady showed up at a DNC fundraiser (the one for millionaires at $35,000 a plate) wearing jewelry including a Lotus cuff priced at $15,000 with 2.9 carats of diamonds, her Gothic cuff at $15,350 with 2.17 carats in diamonds, and the Quatrefoil bracelet at $11,800 with 1.73 carats in diamonds. Total value -- $42,150.
Let them eat cake. No coverage in the Leftmedia for our modern-day Marie Antoinette.
National Security
Palestinian Statehood Takes Center Stage
The muddled mess that is the Middle East continued to churn this week, threatening to splatter the rest of the world, via the United Nations, with its toxic ooze. Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas is pushing the UN Security Council to grant Palestinian statehood during the current General Assembly meeting. On Wednesday, however, Barack Obama tried to head off Abbas by giving yet another of his platitudinous speeches and declaring the painfully obvious: "Peace will not come through statements and resolutions at the United Nations. If it were that easy, it would have been accomplished by now." Interestingly, it was this same Obama who, at last year's UN meeting, breezily said that he wanted a sovereign Palestinian state established by this year's UN meeting. So in the span of one year, a completely inept Obama managed to stab both the Israelis and the Palestinians in the back.
The Palestinians won't get their state just yet, as the U.S., even under Obama, cannot allow it. (That doesn't mean he doesn't support the idea.) However, reports are that the Security Council needs only two more votes for statehood from countries such as Bosnia (the Muslim country we created in the Clinton years), Gabon and Nigeria, which would force the U.S. to veto it. Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) has introduced legislation to defund the UN if it votes to recognize a Palestinian state.
Ultimately, what the Palestinians want out of a UN vote isn't so much a state as much as another weapon in their arsenal to ultimately destroy Israel. "We are going to complain that as Palestinians we have been under occupation for 63 years," Abbas said this week. In other words, that "occupation," began with the creation of Israel in 1948, and it won't end until Israel is destroyed. So goes the Middle East "peace process."
What do you make of the Palestinians' efforts?
It Would Be a Comedy of Errors If It Weren't So Serious
This week, the Obama administration proved yet again that Hope 'n' Change is no substitute for wisdom and experience. After dragging out discussions for almost two full years on whether to provide new F-16 fighter-bombers to Taiwan, the White House decided instead to upgrade Taiwan's existing F-16s without providing new aircraft. In typical fashion, Obama managed to anger both Taiwan and China. Our largest foreign creditor is angry over any U.S. upgrades to Taiwan's military, while Taiwan is rightly angry that the United States caved in to communist pressure and stiffed a democratic ally. China was going to complain no matter what -- why not get our money's worth and provide new F-16s to a friendly democracy?
Meanwhile, in another transparently cynical move to placate the president's leftist base, Attorney General Eric Holder announced that the administration remains committed to closing the Guantanamo Bay detention facility. The January 2010 deadline for doing so flew by without fanfare, so now they promise to close it by Election Day 2012. Holder at least had the courtesy to provide the obvious motivation -- the election. Obama's base has been increasingly disenchanted with his performance lately, and he obviously wants some highly visible leftist dream to come true just in time for the election. Congress will have a great deal to say about Guantanamo's final disposition, but for the White House even to float this idea -- and so explicitly tie it to the next election -- is dangerously amateurish.
Department of Military Correctness: Orientation Genie Out of the Closet
At the stroke of midnight Tuesday, the Pentagon laid out the welcome mat for homosexual members of the military and for those in civilian life to join. After an 18-year "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" interregnum during which homosexuals were allowed in the military as long as they stayed "in the closet," the long-standing ban on their serving openly in the United States military formally came to a close. Obviously this came as a relief to service members such as "J.D. Smith," who in real life is Air Force First Lieutenant Josh Seefried. He adopted the pseudonym last year when he founded OutServe, a heretofore underground network of homosexual service members that has grown to 4,300 members. It's estimated that there are around 65,000 such members of the military, a presumption likely drilled into the 2.3 million active-duty and reserve members around the world who sat through an hour-long sensitivity course on accepting homosexuals within their ranks earlier this year.
Critics saw the change as an attempt to "reshape social attitudes" and warned that the number of military personnel may drop further than the 14,346 members discharged over the years by running afoul of the old DADT rules. Those who had been so discharged will be eligible to rejoin but won't have any specific preference over others who want to re-enter the service, the Pentagon announced.
It isn't clear whether benefits given to the spouses and families of married service members will eventually be extended to same-sex partners. A proposal to allow Navy chaplains to conduct "marriage" ceremonies in states where civil unions are allowed was scrapped after lawmakers objected.
Business & Economy
Income Redistribution: Bonuses for GM Workers, the Shaft for Taxpayers
Last week General Motors and its UAW workforce reached a tentative four-year labor agreement, which is likely to be ratified overwhelmingly by the rank and file. As usual, the devil is in the details. Despite the fact that the automaker is still on the hook for billions of dollars to the federal government, which remains the owner of about one-quarter of GM's stock, the agreement includes a provision that UAW workers will receive a $5,000 "signing bonus" in lieu of a cost-of-living increase this year and maintain their health care and pensions. Newly hired workers will get a significant raise from their current $14 per hour to perhaps $17 per hour over the life of the contract. All workers will have "improved" profit sharing. In addition, the automaker will reopen the former Saturn assembly line in Spring Hill, Tennessee, which was idled in 2009.
Undoubtedly union leaders are thrilled about these concessions from the company, but they also knew whom to thank. As UAW Bob King noted, "None of this would have been possible without the efforts of President Obama, who invested federal funds to help turn the company around, protect the auto supplier base, and keep good-paying jobs in America." Unfortunately, those efforts have cost taxpayers roughly $15 billion that is yet to be repaid.
Regulatory Commissars: Don't Create Jobs
With all the talk of saving and creating jobs, we find it disturbing that someone has been punished for doing just that. Peter Schiff, president and CEO of EuroPacific Capital, committed the unpardonable offense of hiring more brokers than regulations allow. "In my own business, securities regulations have prohibited me from hiring brokers for more than three years," Schiff testified before Congress. "I was even fined $15,000 expressly for hiring too many brokers in 2008. In the process I incurred more than $500,000 in legal bills to mitigate a more severe regulatory outcome as a result of hiring too many workers. I have also been prohibited from opening up additional offices. I had a major expansion plan that would have resulted in my creating hundreds of additional jobs. Regulations have forced me to put those jobs on hold."
Furthermore, says Schiff, "[T]he added cost of security regulations [has] forced me to create an offshore brokerage firm to handle foreign accounts that are now too expensive to handle from the United States. Revenue and jobs that would have been created in the U.S. are now being created abroad instead." As National Review's Andrew McCarthy quipped, "He's in finance. I guess he should have tried solar panels."
In related news, the EPA's overzealous regulators will soon cost another 500 workers their jobs. Texas energy company Luminant will be forced to stop generating energy at two of its power plants and shutter three lignite mines, thanks to requirements within the EPA's recently mandated Cross-State Air Pollution Rule in 2012. In a statement, the company said that while it is "launching a significant investment program to reduce emissions across our facilities" it couldn't otherwise comply with the "unrealistic deadline" without eliminating the 500 jobs. Also, it has taken the step of suing the EPA to overturn the edicts.
Culture & Policy
Around the Nation: Ground Zero Mosque 'Opens'
In August 2010, we noted the controversy over the building of an Islamic cultural center (a.k.a. mosque) two blocks from Ground Zero. It was sometimes called The Cordoba Initiative, which was a thinly veiled religious reference to the long-ago Muslim conquest of the Christian city of Cordoba, Spain. Most commonly, however, the project is known by the more palatable -- and secular -- Park51.
On Wednesday, the project launched its first public exhibit featuring the work of New York City photographer Danny Goldfield. For the past seven years, Goldfield has been working on a collection of photographs of children from every country in the world who are living in New York City. The exhibit is a sorry attempt to soften the blow of the timing of the mosque's opening. Who could be opposed to children? Not only is it less than two weeks since the 10-year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, but it also comes during a week of tense meetings between Barack Obama and Israeli and Palestinian leaders.
Last year, in the midst of the heated debate, Obama felt it was his duty to impart his wisdom on the subject. What he said, of course, completely missed the point. Everyone knows that Park51 is legally viable, but that knowledge does little to assuage the hurt and rage of the thousands of people directly affected by 9/11, let alone the millions of Americans who were forever changed by that day. Against their protests, construction continued, but apparently the message didn't go completely ignored, considering the whitewash that is taking place now. "Looking forward to welcoming you to the NY Children's opening," Park51 tweeted, "We have a surprise guest to cut the ribbon. Make sure you're there!"
On Sept. 27, PBS will air the documentary "The Man Behind the Mosque" profiling developer Sharif El-Gamel. Last January, Park51 booted Feisal Abdul Rauf, the imam best known for his statements that America brought the terrorists attacks upon itself. Despite the feel-good PR, this mosque is nothing more than a thumb in the eye from the very extremists who want to punish the "Great Satan."
Village Academic Curriculum: No Such Thing as a Free Lunch
Reading, writing, 'rithmetic and recipes? Since the launch of the federal school lunch program in 1946, the government has required schools to provide low-cost or free lunches to qualifying students. Now, under the new child nutrition law signed by Barack Obama late last year, the feds are mandating that schools make these meals more nutritious. In other words, not only are Washington bureaucrats subsidizing school lunches, they're also packing them. And that's not all. For the first time, the government is now inserting itself into the pricing process, and, as happens when Washington steps in, costs are going up. As The New York Times notes, under the law "school districts are required to start bringing their prices in line with what it costs to prepare the meals, eventually charging an average of $2.46 for the lunches they serve." Although the law says that price increases should be capped at 10 cents per year, some school districts have raised prices by as much as a quarter.
Districts across the country are preparing for backlash against the price hikes, but it's Washington bureaucrats who really should be taken to task for assuming "food service" is found anywhere in the Constitution. They say it's bad having two cooks in the kitchen. It's downright scary, though, when one of them is Barack Obama.
In related news, the administration will soon detail plans to revamp No Child Left Behind through waivers, not through Congress. Specifically, the White House wants to waive the requirement that students be proficient in math and reading by 2014 or risk sanctions.
Faith and Family: City Orders Halt to Home Bible Study
The city of San Juan Capistrano, California, was founded as a mission in the late 1700s. Now, more than 200 years later, a couple in that city is facing fines for holding weekly Bible studies in their home. CBS Los Angeles reports, "Homeowners Chuck and Stephanie Fromm ... were fined $300 earlier this month for holding what city officials called 'a regular gathering of more than three people.'" They could face another $500 fine for every additional gathering. According to Section 9-3.301 of the city code, "religious, fraternal, or service organizations (non-profit)" cannot meet in residential areas without obtaining a conditional use permit. We question, however, whether the city would have enforced this ordinance against a similarly sized "fraternal" gathering.
The Fromms appealed the fine to the city but were denied, and now the Pacific Justice Institute (PJI) is taking the ruling to the California Superior Court. PJI President Brad Dacus noted, "An informal gathering in a home cannot be treated with suspicion by the government, or worse than any other gathering of friends, just because it is religious. We cannot allow this to happen in America, and we will fight as long and as hard as it takes to restore this group's religious freedom." If the court has any understanding of our nation's foundation of religious liberty, it will agree.
Share your thoughts on this banned Bible study
Catholic Archbishop Writes in Support of Marriage
Catholic Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York sent a letter to Barack Obama this week to seek an end to the administration's campaign against traditional marriage and religious liberty. Dolan specifically sited the Obama Justice Department, which claims that supporters of the Defense of Marriage Act, signed by Bill Clinton, are motivated by "prejudice and bias." Such language presents a threat to religious liberty. "The institution of marriage is built on this truth," Dolan wrote, "no other relationships provide for the common good what marriage between husband and wife provides. The law should reflect this reality." Dolan further warned, "The Administration's failure to change course on this matter will ... precipitate a national conflict between Church and State of enormous proportions and to the detriment of both institutions." When has "conflict ... to the detriment" of anything stopped Obama before?
And Last...
Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY) was censured by the House (333-79) just nine months ago for several ethics violations, including tax evasion. Yet Thursday, Rangel hosted a ceremony to unveil his official portrait in the Longworth House Office Building. The list of speakers at the ceremony included Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-MD), as well as New York Democrat senators Kirsten Gillibrand and Chuck Schumer. After getting an "OK" from the FEC, Rangel paid for the $65,000 portrait using campaign cash.
Truly, this is beyond words. These people really do live in a parallel universe -- one in which, as Pelosi once put it, they "drain the swamp" apparently by hanging portraits of swamp creatures. What next? Obama wins the Nobel Peace Prize? Oh, wait...
Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus et Fidelis!
Nate Jackson for The Patriot Post Editorial Team
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The title of this should be Dems seeking revenge and to deflect attention away from Brock's corruption issues with Solar and Fast and Furious by making a mountain out of a non issue over a conservative judge:
****Democrats mobilize over Clarence Thomas ethics investigation
Clarence and Ginni Thomas (Charles Dharapak/AP)
Forty-six House Democrats have joined forces this week to ask the chamber's Judiciary Committee to investigate Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas for ethics violations. The Democratic lawmakers' complaint argues that reports of Thomas' actions--including those related to the high-profile political activism of his wife, Virginia "Ginni" Thomas--have raised concerns about potential conflicts of interest.
"Public records clearly demonstrate that Justice Thomas has failed to accurately disclose information concerning the income and employment status of his wife, as required by law," Democrats led by Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) and Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.) wrote in a letter (pdf) Wednesday to leaders of the Judiciary Committee. The Democrats also question whether Thomas accurately reported gifts and inappropriately solicited donations.
Blumenauer's office confirmed to The Ticket Thursday afternoon that 46 lawmakers have signed on.
Liberal watchdog group Common Cause recently reported that Thomas' wife earned around $1.6 million between 1997 and 2011--and that Justice Thomas did not report her income over the same time span. Thomas said he "inadvertently" failed to file information on wife's employment "due to a misunderstanding of the filing instructions."
A Supreme Court spokeswoman Kathy Arberg told the Huffington Post this week that justices are not required to disclose the amount earned by spouses--only the source of their spouses' income.
But Democrats argue that Thomas may have been intentionally withholding the information.
"There is now more than enough evidence to merit a formal inquiry as to whether Justice Thomas willfully failed to make legally required disclosures, perhaps for as long as 13 years," Common Cause president Bob Edgar said in a statement Wednesday. "Given that we now know he correctly completed the reports in prior years, it's hardly plausible--indeed, it's close to unbelievable--that Justice Thomas did not understand the instructions."
Democrats contend that the Supreme Court's protocols for such disclosures should be more transparent. "Because the Court continues to operate without a binding code of ethics or a transparent recusal process, it is time for Congress to exercise its Constitutional role and become involved in this process," Blumenauer said in a statement.
Ginni Thomas has become embroiled in several scandals over the past year.
In Oct. 2010, Thomas made headlines for calling the office of Anita Hill-- the woman who gained national exposure 20 years ago when she testified during Clarence Thomas' confirmation hearing that the nominee sexually harassed her. In last year's call, Ginni Thomas left a voicemail message seeking an apology from Hill.
Soon after, Ginni Thomas stepped down from conservative group Liberty Central, which she founded, citing "distractions" caused by her celebrity.
Her role at Liberty Central and her work with other conservative advocacy groups had raised questions about possible conflicts-of-interest for her spouse. The New York Times' Jackie Calmes last year said Thomas had "the most partisan role ever for a spouse of a justice on the nation's highest court."
Common Cause reports that most of the undisclosed funds earned by Ginni Thomas came from the conservative Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank based in Washington.***
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The Patriot Post
Brief -- Monday, October 10, 2011
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On the Web: http://patriotpost.us/edition/2011/10/10/brief/
Printer Friendly: http://patriotpost.us/edition/2011/10/10/brief/print
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The Foundation
"To cherish and stimulate the activity of the human mind, by multiplying the objects
of enterprise, is not among the least considerable of the expedients, by which the
wealth of a nation may be promoted." --Alexander Hamilton
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Government
"One of my favorite economics essays from which I've drawn bottomless inspiration is
Leonard Read's 'I, Pencil.' ... Read traces the family tree of the pencil from the
Oregon loggers who harvest its cedar wood, to the California millworkers who cut the
wood into thin slats, to Mississippi refinery workers, to the Dutch East Indies
farmers who produce an oil used to make erasers. ... Read illuminates: 'There is a
fact still more astounding: The absence of a master mind, of anyone dictating or
forcibly directing these countless actions which bring me into being. No trace of
such a person can be found. Instead, we find the Invisible Hand at work.' ...
Appreciating this voluntary configuration of human energies, Read argued, is key to
possessing 'an absolutely essential ingredient for freedom: a faith in free people.
Freedom is impossible without this faith.' Indeed. Without that faith, we are
susceptible to the force of class-warfare mobs and the arrogance of
command-and-control bureaucrats in Washington who believe the role of private
American entrepreneurs, producers and wealth generators is to 'grow the economy' and
who 'think at some point you have made enough money.' The progressives who want to
bring down 'Wall Street' will snipe that [Apple co-founder Steve] Jobs was one of
'theirs,' not 'ours.' He belonged to no one. He was transcendently committed to
excellence and beauty and innovation. And yes, he made gobs of money pursuing it all
while benefiting hundreds of millions of people around the world whom he never met,
but who shed a deep river of tears upon learning of his death [last] week. From 'I,
Pencil' to iPhone, such is the profound, everlasting miracle of iCapitalism -- a
triumph of individualism over collectivism, freedom over force and markets over
master planning. To borrow an old Apple slogan: It just works." --columnist Michelle
Malkin
(http://patriotpost.us/opinion/michelle-malkin/2011/10/07/the-miracle-of-icapitalism/
)
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For the Record
"From [his Thursday news] conference we are reminded that Obama believes that: Only
'big and bold' intervention by the government can get an economy moving.... Anyone
who disagrees with or opposes him is engaging in partisan politics rather than
acting in good faith, on principle and in the best interests of the country. ... It
doesn't matter that he famously breached his promise that unemployment would not
exceed 8 percent if Congress passed his stimulus bill or that studies show that only
7 percent of the stimulus money went toward infrastructure despite his commitments
to the contrary. ... His good intentions also exempt him from accountability on the
Solyndra scandal, because his ideology inclines him toward a blind faith in the
existence of cataclysmic man-made global warming, which in turn requires him to
mandate government subsidization of 'green technologies.' ... He has complete
confidence in Eric Holder, so he doesn't need to worry about the facts on 'Fast and
Furious,' either.... Thursday, he told us yet again that our economic mess was
created by George W. Bush, the Japanese tsunami, the two wars, the Republicans'
gamesmanship over the debt ceiling, and Europe's financial instability. ... Our
chief executive either is a mastermind at Machiavellian manipulation or has deep
psychological and emotional problems. I've never seen an adult in an important
leadership position -- especially not the president of the United States -- show
such frightening immaturity and self-absorption." --columnist David Limbaugh
(http://patriotpost.us/opinion/david-limbaugh/2011/10/07/obamas-behavior-is-getting-worse/
)
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Essential Liberty
"Freedom frightens some people. They say if no one is in charge there would be
chaos. That is intuitive, but think about a skating rink. Before rinks were
invented, if you proposed an amusement in which people strap blades to their feet
and skate around on ice at whatever speeds they wish, you'd have been called crazy.
There's got to be speed limits, stoplights, turn signals. But we know that people
navigate rinks safely on their own. They create their own order, with only minimal
rules. Society would work the same way -- and does to a large extent even today.
'Great part of that order which reigns among mankind is not the effect of
government,' Thomas Paine, the soul of the American Revolution, wrote. 'It has its
origin in the principles of society and the natural constitution of man. ... Common
interest (has) a greater influence than the laws of government.'" --columnist John
Stossel
(http://patriotpost.us/opinion/john-stossel/2011/10/05/government-makes-us-poor/ )
-------------
Opinion in Brief
"Dan Rather opened a CBS Evening News broadcast in 1991 declaring, 'one in eight
American children is going hungry tonight.' Newsweek, the Associated Press and the
Boston Globe repeated this statistic, and many others joined the media chorus, with
or without that unsubstantiated statistic. When the Centers for Disease Control and
the Department of Agriculture examined people from a variety of income levels,
however, they found no evidence of malnutrition among those in the lowest income
brackets. Nor was there any significant difference in the intake of vitamins,
minerals and other nutrients from one income level to another. That should have been
the end of that hysteria. But the same 'hunger in America' theme reappeared years
later, when Senator John Edwards was running for Vice President. And others have
resurrected that same claim, right up to the present day. ... We have now reached
the point where the great majority of the people living below the official poverty
level have such things as air-conditioning, microwave ovens, either videocassette
recorders or DVD players, and own either a car or a truck. Why are such people
called 'poor'? Because they meet the arbitrary criteria established by Washington
bureaucrats. ... Those who believe in an expansive, nanny state government need a
large number of people in 'poverty' to justify their programs. They also need a
large number of people dependent on government to provide the votes needed to keep
the big nanny state going." --economist Thomas Sowell
(http://patriotpost.us/opinion/thomas-sowell/2011/10/05/the-hunger-hoax/ )
-------------
The Gipper
"The economic welfare of all our people must ultimately stem not from government
programs, but from the wealth created by a vigorous private sector." --Ronald Reagan
(http://reagan2020.us/ )
-------------
Re: The Left
"I agree with the Obama administration's decision to kill the American-born al-Qaeda
recruiter Anwar al-Awlaki. What I can't fathom is why the administration agrees with
me. ... The Constitution empowers the president to put down insurrection, and what
was Awlaki if not an insurrectionist? ... But here's where I am confused. According
to Attorney General Eric Holder, the administration is committed to treating
captured terrorists as criminals, entitled to all of the rights and privileges of a
civilian criminal trial. It seems the Defense Department disagrees, given that some
lesser-known prisoners are allegedly kept on ships -- call them floating Gitmos --
without trials. Meanwhile, President Obama keeps ordering that the more famous
terrorists be killed on sight. That's fine with me. But as far as I can tell, he's
never disagreed with Holder's view about the need for civilian trials for terrorists
we don't kill, like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. ... If captured alive, terrorists pose
political problems for Obama. Where do we put them? How do we interrogate them? And,
most pressingly, how do we try them? I don't think those are tough questions. But
Obama does. So he prefers to kill these people outright, avoiding the questions
altogether." --columnist Jonah Goldberg
(http://patriotpost.us/opinion/jonah-goldberg/2011/10/05/obamas-terrorist-dilemma/ )
-------------
Political Futures
"In this election cycle, the battle isn't between the old media and the new media
anymore. It is between the Tea Party and the GOP establishment. ... But the
establishment GOP sees the Tea Party as a threat, for two reasons. First, they think
that the Tea Party is more interested in principle than victory. ... Second, the
establishment GOP is not aligned with the philosophy of the Tea Party. They like the
philosophy of a Democrat-lite: more efficient, effective government, but not
necessarily a smaller one. ... When conservatism is politically inconvenient, it
sometimes wins (see Reagan) and it sometimes loses (see Goldwater). But when
conservatism embraces the politics of convenience, it always loses." --columnist Ben
Shapiro
(http://patriotpost.us/opinion/ben-shapiro/2011/10/05/the-tea-party-vs-the-establishment/
)
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Faith & Family
"Why is it so hard to become a better person? I have -- unfortunately -- come up
with 13 reasons. 1. Most people don't particularly want to be good. ... 2. Confusion
exists about what goodness is. ... 3. Goodness is not about intentions. ... 4. We
don't learn how to be good. ... 5. We think too highly of ourselves. ... 6. We think
we will be taken advantage of. ... 7. There are few personal models. ... 8. We don't
believe that there are rewards for being good. ... 9. We have to battle our nature.
... 10. 'I'm a victim.' ... 11. Few people were raised to be good people. ... 12. In
our formative years, the least impressive are rewarded. ... 13. We have
psychological blocks. ... The sad irony is that while goodness is the thing that
everyone wants most from everyone else, few people want it most for themselves."
--radio talk-show host Dennis Prager
(http://patriotpost.us/opinion/dennis-prager/2011/10/04/thirteen-obstacles-to-becoming-a-better-person/
)
-------------
Culture
"All the numbers that are supposed to document the rise of the modern university may
only disguise its decline. And obscure the deterioration of liberal education under
the care of those who are supposed to be its stewards. Increasingly, college
students are expected to know more and more about less and less -- everything about
their specialty, not that much about the arts and sciences that compose the core of
education, and of civilization. In his preface to 'Culture and Anarchy,' Matthew
Arnold said the purpose of education was to pass on 'the best which has been thought
and said.' That choice -- between culture and anarchy -- is still before us. Look
about at an educational system in which pop culture steadily replaces the real
thing, and various new capital-S Studies (Black, Gender, Women's, Ethnic, Gay,
Trans-Gender, pick your favorite) supplant traditional disciplines. When the best of
what has been thought and said is demoted to just another elective, you have to
wonder if anarchy isn't getting the upper hand." --columnist Paul Greenberg
(http://patriotpost.us/opinion/paul-greenberg/2011/10/05/letter-to-a-businessman/ )
-------------
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Went to my first 99% rally today. They had a meeting early on about how to do fliers, what to advertise. I'm pretty curious to see where they are going to take it.
Right now it is just about 20-25 people at any one time, 15 in the early morning. I just went out for an hour or two.
There is a lot of immaturity. I hope some real leadership pops up for them.
Evidently a large church and a couple of unions are planning on joining in. Courthouse square isn't that big. If they can get 300 people it will look awesome.
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Went to my first 99% rally today. They had a meeting early on about how to do fliers, what to advertise. I'm pretty curious to see where they are going to take it.
Right now it is just about 20-25 people at any one time, 15 in the early morning. I just went out for an hour or two.
There is a lot of immaturity. I hope some real leadership pops up for them.
Evidently a large church and a couple of unions are planning on joining in. Courthouse square isn't that big. If they can get 300 people it will look awesome.
Be sure to get your "Soros stash" money!
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(http://blogs-images.forbes.com/susannahbreslin/files/2011/10/Occupy-Chicago-111.jpg)
I bet her resume is awesome!
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When you focus on a small portion of the entire crowd to make a (snarky) point, you do the same thing that liberals do with the Tea Party when they only take pictures of the signs with misssspelinggs. I think that both the Tea Party and the OWS have beefs, that if others managed to actually listen to what they are saying, there might (shock!) be a lesson in it.
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When you focus on a small portion of the entire crowd to make a (snarky) point, you do the same thing that liberals do with the Tea Party when they only take pictures of the signs with misssspelinggs. I think that both the Tea Party and the OWS have beefs, that if others managed to actually listen to what they are saying, there might (shock!) be a lesson in it.
The Tea party has a point, meaning Taxed Enough Already. What is the point of the OWS?
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eb_RJ361uNA[/youtube]
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A liberal organizer told the Daily Caller on Thursday afternoon that he paid some Hispanics to attend “Occupy DC” protests happening in the nation’s capital.
TheDC attended the protest event, an expansion of the “Occupy Wall Street” movement that began in New York City. Some aspects of the protest, it turned out, are more Astroturf than grassroots.
One group of about ten Hispanic protesters marched behind a Caucasian individual from the DC Tenants Advocacy Coalition, a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting rent control in Washington, D.C.
Asked why they were there, some Hispanic protesters holding up English protest signs could not articulate what their signs said.
Interviewed in Spanish, the protesters told conflicting stories about how their group was organized. Some said it was organized at their church, and that they were there as volunteers. Others, however, referred to the man from the DC Tenants Advocacy Coalition — the only Caucasian in the group — as their “boss.”
TheDC asked that organizer whether he was paying the group to attend the protest, and he conceded that some protesters “aren’t” volunteers.
“Some of them are volunteers. Some of them aren’t,” he explained. “I can’t identify them. I’m not going to get into an identification game.”
Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2011/10/06/organizer-admits-to-paying-occupy-dc-protesters-video/
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Went to my first 99% rally today. They had a meeting early on about how to do fliers, what to advertise. I'm pretty curious to see where they are going to take it.
Right now it is just about 20-25 people at any one time, 15 in the early morning. I just went out for an hour or two.
There is a lot of immaturity. I hope some real leadership pops up for them.
Evidently a large church and a couple of unions are planning on joining in. Courthouse square isn't that big. If they can get 300 people it will look awesome.
Be sure to get your "Soros stash" money!
I'm looking for it, believe me (;
Seriously, they have tents and a pile of signs. A couple of the organizers don't have jobs. One main person is a social work professor, but I don't think she was bringing the tents. Someone rented that crap. I wonder who.
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So far 'Occupy' looks to me like a continuation of the anti-capitalism demonstrations that go back to anti-WTO in Seattle and others. From a bias-right point of view, I wish for them full exposure to cameras and microphones. Real corporate welfare is one area where far right and far left should be able to come to agreement and get real reform done.
Tea party rallies grew out of tax cut rallies of the past. After the overspending deficits of Bush, a Republican, into the escalation on steroids of TARP, Obama stimulus, QE and healthcare, the emphasis changed to opposing the massive size and scope of what was supposed to be a limited government. Taxes have become a minor part of the damage now being done.
Bigdog wrote: "When you focus on a small portion of the entire crowd to make a (snarky) point, you do the same thing that liberals do with the Tea Party when they only take pictures of the signs with misssspelinggs. I think that both the Tea Party and the OWS have beefs, that if others managed to actually listen to what they are saying, there might (shock!) be a lesson in it."
That seems like a fair point to me. We will see if the kooks are a small portion or the main portion, and what valid points they make.
Cameras at tea party rallies didn't really find what they were looking for - bigots and racists, mostly just hard working people who came out to express frustration and work toward positive change. Some cameras found too many white people in view but never did I see any racism as reported, and the main leader to come out of it for the moment seems to be Herman Cain. Allen West is another, and Marco Rubio. The movement became a political force when they began organizing to take down big spending, unprincipled incumbents inside their own party. Some tea party candidates won, some, lost, but people in these cases were offered a clearer choice.
If the 'Occupy' crowd is a serious movement, where are their candidates? We will see. Where is their opposition to Obama Corporatism? He certainly is a corporatist, perhaps the biggest one, by their own standards. Same with Dodd and Frank. What were the Fannie and Freddie top salaries of their cronies at the time that they succeeded in destroying the market they took over.
Regarding valid points, my own beef with the obscene profits on Wall Street come from two things: a) when they take in a boatload of money for failure, and b) when the big comes from the cozy relationships of crony governmentalism. Besides government direct investment, we have created a regulatory system so overly complex in so many industries that only entrenched players with their huge political contributions can survive and new entrants with smaller resources are functionally locked out. That is the objection of the occupy crowd. Their philosophy would take us to a system where Derek Jeter and his batboy should make a similar wage, if I am reading them correctly.
You will never build a better economic system by ignoring concepts like value added and work done.
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Cranewings: "Went to my first 99% rally today"
I am curious, CW, as to what the 99% rally main political points are to you or at least what points you wish they were effectively making?
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IMHO many of us of the American Creed are missing a real opportunity to take leadership on a vast inchoate and correct sense that many on Wall Street and in banking acted very badly (e.g. packaging bad mortgages and shovelling them out the door, knowing that the FMs would be there as a back-up.). Our system is intended for a virtuous people and many have acted very unvirtuously in all of this.
The point we need to make to these people is that in a large sense they are right, there WERE bailouts, and bonuses for the nefarious. The next point we need to make is that this happened PRECISELY because the government was involved (artificial interest rates, guaranteed mortgages, etc) and that this involvement is the essence of liberal fascism.
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IMHO many of us of the American Creed are missing a real opportunity to take leadership on a vast inchoate and correct sense that many on Wall Street and in banking acted very badly (e.g. packaging bad mortgages and shovelling them out the door, knowing that the FMs would be there as a back-up.). Our system is intended for a virtuous people and many have acted very unvirtuously in all of this.
The point we need to make to these people is that in a large sense they are right, there WERE bailouts, and bonuses for the nefarious. The next point we need to make is that this happened PRECISELY because the government was involved (artificial interest rates, guaranteed mortgages, etc) and that this involvement is the essence of liberal fascism.
(http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/PRESIDENTGOLDMANSACHS.jpg)
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There is no mystery where the Occupy Wall Street movement came from: It is an offspring of the same false narrative about the causes of the financial crisis that exculpated the government and brought us the Dodd-Frank Act. According to this story, the financial crisis and ensuing deep recession was caused by a reckless private sector driven by greed and insufficiently regulated. It is no wonder that people who hear this tale repeated endlessly in the media turn on Wall Street to express their frustration with the current conditions in the economy.
Their anger should be directed at those who developed and supported the federal government's housing policies that were responsible for the financial crisis.
Beginning in 1992, the government required Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to direct a substantial portion of their mortgage financing to borrowers who were at or below the median income in their communities. The original legislative quota was 30%. But the Department of Housing and Urban Development was given authority to adjust it, and through the Bill Clinton and George W. Bush administrations HUD raised the quota to 50% by 2000 and 55% by 2007.
It is certainly possible to find prime borrowers among people with incomes below the median. But when more than half of the mortgages Fannie and Freddie were required to buy were required to have that characteristic, these two government-sponsored enterprises had to significantly reduce their underwriting standards.
Fannie and Freddie were not the only government-backed or government-controlled organizations that were enlisted in this process. The Federal Housing Administration was competing with Fannie and Freddie for the same mortgages. And thanks to rules adopted in 1995 under the Community Reinvestment Act, regulated banks as well as savings and loan associations had to make a certain number of loans to borrowers who were at or below 80% of the median income in the areas they served.
Research by Edward Pinto, a former chief credit officer of Fannie Mae (now a colleague of mine at the American Enterprise Institute) has shown that 27 million loans—half of all mortgages in the U.S.—were subprime or otherwise weak by 2008. That is, the loans were made to borrowers with blemished credit, or were loans with no or low down payments, no documentation, or required only interest payments.
Of these, over 70% were held or guaranteed by Fannie and Freddie or some other government agency or government-regulated institution. Thus it is clear where the demand for these deficient mortgages came from.
The huge government investment in subprime mortgages achieved its purpose. Home ownership in the U.S. increased to 69% from 65% (where it had been for 30 years). But it also led to the biggest housing bubble in American history. This bubble, which lasted from 1997 to 2007, also created a huge private market for mortgage-backed securities (MBS) based on pools of subprime loans.
As housing bubbles grow, rising prices suppress delinquencies and defaults. People who could not meet their mortgage obligations could refinance or sell, because their houses were now worth more.
Enlarge Image
CloseAssociated Press
Millionaire rap mogul Russell Simmons (center) joins the anti-Wall Street protests.
.Accordingly, by the mid-2000s, investors had begun to notice that securities based on subprime mortgages were producing the high yields, but not showing the large number of defaults, that are usually associated with subprime loans. This triggered strong investor demand for these securities, causing the growth of the first significant private market for MBS based on subprime and other risky mortgages.
By 2008, Mr. Pinto has shown, this market consisted of about 7.8 million subprime loans, somewhat less than one-third of the 27 million that were then outstanding. The private financial sector must certainly share some blame for the financial crisis, but it cannot fairly be accused of causing that crisis when only a small minority of subprime and other risky mortgages outstanding in 2008 were the result of that private activity.
When the bubble deflated in 2007, an unprecedented number of weak mortgages went into default, driving down housing prices throughout the U.S. and throwing Fannie and Freddie into insolvency. Seeing these sudden losses, investors fled from the market for privately issued MBS, and mark-to-market accounting required banks and others to write down the value of their mortgage-backed assets to the distress levels in a market that now had few buyers. This raised questions about the solvency and liquidity of the largest financial institutions and began a period of great investor anxiety.
The government's rescue of Bear Stearns in March 2008 temporarily calmed the market. But it created significant moral hazard: Market participants were led to believe that the government would rescue all large financial institutions. When Lehman Brothers was allowed to fail in September, investors panicked. They withdrew their funds from the institutions that held large amounts of privately issued MBS, causing banks and others—such as investment banks, finance companies and insurers—to hoard cash against the risk of further withdrawals. Their refusal to lend to one another in these conditions froze credit markets, bringing on what we now call the financial crisis.
The narrative that came out of these events—largely propagated by government officials and accepted by a credulous media—was that the private sector's greed and risk-taking caused the financial crisis and the government's policies were not responsible. This narrative stimulated the punitive Dodd-Frank Act—fittingly named after Congress's two key supporters of the government's destructive housing policies. It also gave us the occupiers of Wall Street.
Mr. Wallison is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. He was a member Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission and dissented from the majority's report.
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Cranewings: "Went to my first 99% rally today"
I am curious, CW, as to what the 99% rally main political points are to you or at least what points you wish they were effectively making?
I'm mostly interested in aggravating politicians that are in bed with large corporations. I'd also like to see something more tangible to prevent things like the 2008 crash. It was just used as an excuse to rob the treasury. Hell, Obama is still doing it.
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Thank you CW.
"I'm mostly interested in aggravating politicians that are in bed with large corporations. I'd also like to see something more tangible to prevent things like the 2008 crash. It was just used as an excuse to rob the treasury. Hell, Obama is still doing it."
I agree on these points.
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Be careful CW, you may have the makings of a Tea Partier! :-o :lol:
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I'm torn looking back at the 2008 bailouts. On a visceral level, I want to say there is no "too big to fail". It's about creative destruction. Capitalism means bad choices mean going out of business. Then again, credible people have said that if the bailouts hadn't happed, we'd have a global meltdown. Then again, we may have just delayed that and made it worse when it comes.
Overall, the less gov't involvement in business, the better.
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Be careful CW, you may have the makings of a Tea Partier! :-o :lol:
The main points I don't agree with the tea party on are really just the EPA, social issues, and deregulating the monopolies. If all they were about was government spending, taxes and corruption, I'd be on board.
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Be careful CW, you may have the makings of a Tea Partier! :-o :lol:
The main points I don't agree with the tea party on are really just the EPA, social issues, and deregulating the monopolies. If all they were about was government spending, taxes and corruption, I'd be on board.
http://www.pacificlegal.org/page.aspx?pid=1652
Bloomberg Businessweek reports on PLF’s Sackett v. EPA case at Supreme Court
Sacramento, CA; August 18, 2011: The current issue of Bloomberg Businessweek magazine reports on Sackett v. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Pacific Legal Foundation’s high-profile property rights case that the U.S. Supreme Court has accepted for review in the coming term.
The article, by Bloomberg News Supreme Court reporter Greg Stohr, is titled, “Mike and Chantell Sackett vs. the EPA.” It notes that the Sacketts’ case has the potential “to bolster the rights of landowners facing costly demands from the federal government.”
The litigation raises a fundamental question: When EPA declares private property to be “wetlands,” does the owner have the right to meaningful judicial review of the agency’s determination, or may EPA put a freeze on private property without effective court oversight?
Donor-supported PLF is the leading watchdog organization that litigates for limited government, property rights, and a balanced approach to environmental regulations, in courts nationwide. PLF attorneys represent the Sacketts free of charge, thanks to the generosity of PLF donors.
The Sacketts’ story — and their fight for their right to their day in court
The Sacketts have to live in a rented home, because EPA has blocked them from building a house on their own property in Priest Lake, Idaho.
Their parcel is in a residential area, with sewer and water hookups, and they got the needed permits to build. But then EPA swooped in, without notice, and announced that the property is “wetlands.” The Sacketts were ordered to return their land to EPA’s liking on pain of ruinous fines.
The Sacketts were stunned, and they dispute EPA’s claim. They hired a soil expert and a biologist, and got a certification that their parcel is not a wetland.
But EPA – and the Ninth Circuit – say they can’t challenge the agency in court! Instead, they would first have to seek a “permit” costing hundreds of thousands of dollars (more than the value of the land!), and bring a legal case when the permit was denied. Or they could violate EPA’s orders and be crushed with penalties of $37,500-plus per day — and then seek court review.
Either way, the courtroom doors are slammed in their faces — unless they pay massive fees or fines!
So this is the crucial issue as PLF attorneys take the Sacketts’ case to the Supreme Court: Can EPA regulators take control of people’s property, simply by issuing a “compliance order” declaring it “wetlands,” without having to justify their actions? Or do Americans still have the right to defend their property rights, in court?
Damien M. Schiff
Senior Staff Attorney
“This case is garnering a lot of attention because it’s a case that could happen to you,” said PLF Senior Staff Attorney Damien M. Schiff, who will argue the Sacketts’ case at the High Court. “The Sacketts are not big developers. They just wanted a family home.”
In Bloomberg Businessweek, Catholic University law professor Amanda Cohen Leiter is quoted saying something similar. Even though she is reported to side with EPA in the case, she admits that the Sacketts “feel like the mom and pop who are getting the heavy hand of government brought down on them.”
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The 99% to me infers a class war war against the top 1% of earners. I don't feel any of that. I wish every family could have at least one million-plus dollar earner. That reminds me to talk to my daughter about careers.
Wall street as an issue to me is only: what should the laws be and are we investigating and prosecuting all the violations.
Other than that, get rid of all the preferences so that businesses can concentrate on business instead of lobbying. Start with getting it preferences of the tax code. Then out with all the preferential spending. Then comb through all regulations to make sure only what is necessary and can't be achieved a better way is regulated. Obscene profits indicates a lack of competition for those services. It is over-regulation and overly-complex regulations that pull our best and brightest into things like SEC compliance and employee benefit law instead of inventing, building and innovating.
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Chronicle • October 19, 2011
The Foundation
"[A] wise and frugal government ... shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government." --Thomas Jefferson
Editorial Exegesis
"A majority of Americans disapprove of what President Obama has done in office. He promised hope and change but delivered disappointment and stagnation. The unemployment rate is stuck at 9.1 percent. The poverty rate is at 15.1 percent, tied for the worst performance since the Census started tracking numbers in 1959. White House policies of class warfare and redistribution are impoverishing America, and the public is starting to feel worked over. ... During the recession, the average duration of unemployment increased from 16.6 weeks in December 2007 to a shade over 24 weeks by June 2009. That figure is now 40.5 weeks, the longest it has been in more than six decades. The longer a person is unemployed, the harder it is for him to find a job, as job skills erode and potential employers question whether it might be more prudent to hire someone else without big gaps in their work history. Mr. Obama's solution involves having the federal government declare the long-term unemployed a legally protected class. His American Jobs Act would subject businesses to frivolous lawsuits if they decide against hiring someone who has been jobless for an extended time. Doing so would serve as one more disincentive for companies to hire or hold interviews for open positions, making it even harder for the jobless to find work. ... Ultimately, Americans will not find their pocketbooks thickening so long as Uncle Sam strangles entrepreneurs with regulatory red tape. Companies need to have certainty that they will be able to keep the proceeds of their investments in the future before they will start hiring again and pay their employees more." --The Washington Times
Will the job market improve any time soon?
Upright
"Whenever the substance of the Occupy Wall Street movement troubles Democratic politicians their response is to hide behind platitudes about free speech. 'It's about their right to express themselves!' Well, no it's not. Free speech is important, but it's really not the issue. It certainly wasn't even much of a concern when it was the Tea Party expressing itself -- which it managed to do without inviting mass arrests. Back then, leading Democrats considered dissent racist or un-American. Now they celebrate free speech so they can hide from dealing with the issues at hand honestly. Democratic politicians think that this gives them cover. It doesn't. It just shows that they're afraid to disagree with the protesters either because they agree with them or because they know the protests are popular among their own supporters. Either way, it's proof that the much ballyhooed wall between mainstream radicalism and mainstream liberalism is more like a speed bump." --columnist Jonah Goldberg
"The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee announced in a fundraising letter that it is seeking 100,000 signatures on a petition declaring 'I stand with the Occupy Wall Street protests.' And David Plouffe, the president's senior campaign advisor, sounded upbeat for the first time in a while. 'We intend to make it one of the central elements of the campaign next year,' he told the Washington Post. 'One of the main elements of the contrast will be that the president passed Wall Street reform and our opponent and the other party want to repeal it.' ... OWS is America's version of the Greek throngs in the streets -- screaming for more bailouts and subsidies when the well has run dry. It's a depressing image of self-delusion and national suicide. But far from the '99 percent,' OWS represents only a sliver of the electorate -- and the president's embrace of them only confirms his marginality in American politics." --columnist Mona Charen
"Obama entered office unorganized and unstructured. Nothing in his background suggested that he knew anything about management, organization, or leadership. Nor did anyone see the need for bringing in talent with these skills. As a result, the Hollywood mannequin was almost immediately exposed as nothing but flair, hype, and hot air. The public had bought a product that did not perform. Marketing can do many things, but it cannot sell a product that people have tried and rejected. ... Obama's reelection problem can be expressed in one simple sentence: 'Now, too many people know him.'" --columnist Monty Pelerin
Insight
"Beware of those who would use violence, too often it is violence they want and neither truth nor freedom." --American author Louis Lamour (1908-1988)
"People demand freedom of speech to make up for the freedom of thought which they avoid." --Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855)
The Demo-gogues
They are not the same: "In some ways, [Occupy Wall Street protests are] not that different from some of the protests that we saw coming from the Tea Party. Both on the left and the right, I think people feel separated from their government. They feel that their institutions aren't looking out for them." --Barack Obama
Echo chamber ... from a Republican: "I think that if you look at the Occupy Wall Street folks and the Tea Party folks, they come from the same perspective. They just have different solutions. What they're saying is, 'government is not working for me anymore.'" --New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie
Dumb Republicans: "Maybe [Republicans] just couldn't understand the whole [American Jobs Act] thing all at once. So we're going to break it up into bite-size pieces so they can take a thoughtful approach to this legislation." --Barack Obama
Shameless and crass: "The other thing I've hear from my friends who oppose this -- this whole jobs bill -- [is] that this is just temporary. Well let me tell you, it's not temporary when that 911 call comes in and a woman's being raped, if a cop shows up in time to prevent the rape. It's not temporary to that woman. It's not temporary to the guy whose store is being held up and there's a gun pointed at his head, if a cop shows up and he's not killed. ... I wish these guys who thought it was temporary, I wish they had some notion of what it was like to be on the other side of a gun, or [to have] a 200-pound man standing over you, telling you to submit." --Joe Biden
Bailouts galore: "On several occasions now, we've seen, quite frankly, the Congress is in rebellion, determined, as Abraham Lincoln said, to wreck or ruin at all costs. I believe, quite frankly, in the direct hiring of 15 million unemployed Americans at $40,000 a head, some more than $40,000, some less than $40,000 -- that's a $600 billion stimulus. It could be a five-year program. For another $104 billion, we bailout all of the states. ... For another $100 billion, we bailout all of the cities." --Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-IL)
Questioning patriotism: "[Republicans] are not patriots, people who love this country want to see jobs created. ... They're not concerned about the economic well being of the country as a whole." --Rep. Linda Sanchez (D-CA)
Questioning every other motive: "Republicans think if the economy improves it might help President Obama. So they root for the economy to fail, and oppose every effort to improve it." --Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV)
Are you rooting for Obama to fail, or the economy to fail?
Dezinformatsia
Non Compos Mentis: "The other thing [the Occupy Wall Street movement] needs, and I don't want this to come out the wrong way -- not needs, but what will happen -- if we think back to the late 60s, what is the most stirring image of all the rebellion that happened? What do we remember? Kent State. Now, I'm not saying someone has to get killed. ... I'm not saying a death. I'm just saying we are a visual society." --MSNBC's Donny Deutsch
An albatross for Obama: "Well, [the Occupy Wall Street protest] certainly is going to dovetail nicely into a big message that the president's selling, which is that the wealthy should pay more. He's also sort of picked up that banner of going after Wall Street and the banks, talking about unfairness that a lot of protesters that are complaining about. Unfairness in the economy and the tax code, in the ways of Wall Street with bank fees. ... I think the president's in a mode right now where he'd like to get out in front of this parade and really harness some of this energy." --NBC's David Gregory
Good question: "I want to ask you about the thinking within the White House. Yesterday at a press conference one of my colleagues asked the president to respond to something Mitt Romney said. The president said, 'I didn't realize you were a spokesman for Mitt Romney.' Is the president feeling under siege from events right now?" --CNBC's John Harwood to Obama's Chief of Staff Bill Daley
Bizarre: "Herman Cain is pandering to white Republicans out there who don't like black folks." --MSNBC's Ed Schultz
Newspulper Headlines:
Two Presidents in One!: "Obama Won't Negotiate With Republicans on Jobs" --USA Today website ++ "Obama Says He Is Prepared to Work With Republicans on Jobs" --Bloomberg
Questions Nobody Is Asking: "Would You Get a Tattoo for a Discounted Sandwich?" --Globe and Mail website (Toronto)
He's Lost Middle America: "Obama Loses Hulk Hogan's Support" --Politico.com
Too Bad Ted Kennedy Drove an Oldsmobile: "Chinese Keep Saab Afloat" --Deutsche-Welle website
We Blame George W. Bush: "Anita Perry Blames Obama for Son Quitting His Job" --Yahoo! News
Bottom Story of the Day: "Al Gore Backs Occupy Wall Street Protests" --TheHill.com
(Thanks to The Wall Street Journal's James Taranto)
Village Idiots
Class warfare: "Here's the Republicans' problem. Everybody knows they're not for the middle class. They're mad at the president because the economy is in bad shape even though they don't blame him, they're still mad because they have to be mad at somebody. The president positioned himself now as a champion in the middle class, a champion of ordinary working Americans. That really is 99 percent." --former DNC chairman Howard Dean
Wrong analysis: "Whereas much of the Tea Party's programmatic ire seems directed at the very idea of government -- and instead trumpets the virtue of self-reliance and the inexorable righteousness of the free market -- Occupy Wall Street more sharply decries the collusion of corporate and political elites in Washington. ... To the outside observer, that may seem foolishly utopian -- and impracticable on a larger scale -- but it's a sign of the deep political commitment of many of the protesters gathering under Occupy Wall Street's banner. They want to fix government, not escape from it." --TIME magazine's Ishaan Tharoor
Resumé embellishment: "He said he was going to end the war in Iraq. In a few months, we will have all our troops home from Iraq. He said he was going to up the ante and go after al-Qa'ida in a serious way in Afghanistan. Osama bin laden is gone. The leadership of al-Qa'ida is on the run. So when you say he wasn't prepared, maybe you should go ask Osama bin Laden if he thought he was prepared." --Obama's senior adviser David Axelrod
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Short Cuts
"After years of being exposed to the American media in all its forms, I've concluded that conservatives resent being lied to nearly as much as liberals hate being told the truth." --columnist Burt Prelutsky
"Maybe the smartest thing the protesters, and perhaps of lot of other Americans, could do would be to pressure businesses to stop making a college degree the ultimate criterion for getting a job. If one considers where the so-called 'best and brightest' among us have taken this country in the last few years, one could make a compelling argument that a college degree is the most over-rated product on the planet." --columnist Arnold Ahlert
"Occupy Wall Street protesters entered their third week of New York park sit-ins this week following a march down Broadway. Interviews with the protesters make two things very crystal-clear. They don't know what they want and they want it now." --comedian Argus Hamilton
"Warren Buffett's company reportedly owes the IRS a billion dollars in back taxes. When he said he wasn't paying enough taxes, he wasn't kidding." --comedian Jay Leno
Publisher's Note: For anyone attending Game 1 of the World Series tonight in St. Louis -- given that Michelle Obama and Jill Biden will be there -- here's an idea for a sign: "Forget the first pitch, throw out Obama!"
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(http://www.daybydaycartoon.com/102011.jpg)
http://www.daybydaycartoon.com/102011.jpg
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Ditching the 2 term presidency?
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/10/11/first_times_a_charm
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Ditching the 2 term presidency?
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/10/11/first_times_a_charm
I think we will, next year. :wink:
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http://www.verumserum.com/?p=31000
Report: Occupy Oakland Devolves into “Lord of the Flies”
John on October 20, 2011 at 12:01 am
From the Oakland Tribune:
The next thing Hughes knew he was in a headlock, then he was being punched, and then he was on the ground as a large man began to choke him.
This happened as Hughes, a substitute teacher and Occupy Oakland resident, tried to keep a larger man who also lived in the camp from threatening a woman there. Finally, after another threatening incident involving the same individual, the occupiers had had enough:
About 3:30 Tuesday afternoon, a group of roughly 50 people gathered by the man’s tent and told him he had to leave. Some were speaking calmly. Others weren’t. It was then that the man pulled out a large kitchen knife and threatened the whole group…It was only when someone picked up a piece of wood and cracked him across the head that the ordeal ended.
Self-realization dawns on at least one of the occupiers:
“At some point, we have to recognize that we can’t control everything,” said Boomer Frank, a 24-year-old tent resident and ad hoc camp organizer. “I’m anti-authoritarian, but we need to acknowledge that some things are out of our control.”
If only they could apply that lesson a little more broadly, e.g. to the police, to the economy as a whole even. Appropriately, it’s the cops who patrol the camp that get it. One officer compared the scene to “Lord of the Flies.” His supervisor was even more insightful:
One Oakland police supervisor said that the participants first appeared to him as “freethinking activists” but have since devolved into something more sinister. He said it was “interesting for a group that claims to be against current civilization and rules to set up a far more oppressive society than our own.”
Very interesting indeed.
Update: One of the wags at American Glob created this Photoshop to illustrate this story:
(http://www.verumserum.com/media/2011/10/OccupyOakland-500x321.jpg)
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http://hotair.com/archives/2011/10/20/occupy-baltimore-to-sex-assault-victims-we-dont-encourage-the-involvement-of-police-in-our-communities/
Occupy Baltimore to sex assault victims: We support you in reporting the abuse, but we don’t encourage the involvement of police in our community
posted at 9:33 pm on October 20, 2011 by Allahpundit
Via JWF, who makes the obligatory Joe Biden shout-out so that I don’t have to. The news here isn’t really that they’d rather have a “Security Committee” deal with alleged rapists than the local P.D. The whole point of starting a utopian commune is that it’s as insular as possible.
No, the news here is that there’s apparently enough of a problem that they felt obliged to publish a pamphlet dealing with the subject at all. I confess, I haven’t been to any tea-party rallies so you’ll have to tell me: Are there a lot of “here’s what to do if you’re raped today” fliers circulating at those too?
Efforts by the Occupy Baltimore protest group to evolve into a self-contained, self-governing community have erupted into controversy with the distribution of a pamphlet that victim advocates and health workers fear discourages victims of sexual assaults from contacting police.
The pamphlet says that members of the protest group who believe they are victims or who suspect sexual abuse “are encouraged to immediately report the incident to the Security Committee,” which will investigate and “supply the abuser with counseling resources.”
The directive also says, in part, “Though we do not encourage the involvement of the police in our community, the survivor has every right, and the support of Occupy Baltimore, to report the abuse to the appropriate authorities.”…
Lewis said there have been no reports of sexual assaults or rapes at the Baltimore protest site. But she said that members of the “security committee” have mediated several disputes involving allegations of sexual harassment.
That’s what Biden wants that new jobs-bill funding for, if I’m not mistaken — “mediating” between sex-crimes victims and their alleged attackers.
Now that you’re done here, go back over to JWF’s site and read about the residents near Zuccotti Park who have about had it with the heroes of the revolution literally crapping on their doorsteps. One of the challenges of blogging the “Occupy” movement is that there’s so much funny/creepy video being churned out every day — see, for example, Charles Cooke’s new stuff or a half dozen examples at Breitbart TV — that it’s hard to decide on just one to post for our readers. The following, though, from the MRC seems pretty well in line with the theme of this post, so let’s go with that. Ace is giving it “up twinkles” so it must be good.
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(http://www.daybydaycartoon.com/102111.jpg)
http://www.daybydaycartoon.com/102111.jpg
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A post-Katrina Republican, does anyone remember Kathleen Blanco or when Louisiana was a swing state? Jindal cut taxes, outsourced government services to private companies, supports drilling. Louisiana’s jobless rate of 7.2 percent ranks below the national average of 9.1 percent. Democrats outnumber Republicans in Louisiana 44 percent to 41 percent. A poll conducted by WWL-TV on Oct. 5 gave Jindal an approval rating of 63 percent. Jindal is 40 heading into his second term.
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-10-23/louisiana-s-jindal-wins-second-term-as-governor-in-open-primary.html
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Brief • October 24, 2011
The Foundation
"I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it." --Benjamin Franklin
For the Record
Gaga, Woods and Oprah -- not exactly living in the poor house
"According to Forbes' Celebrity 100 list for 2010, Oprah Winfrey earned $290 million. Even if her makeup person or cameraman earned $100,000, she earned thousands of times more than that. Is that fair? Among other celebrities earning hundreds or thousands of times more than the people who work with them are Tyler Perry ($130 million), Jerry Bruckheimer ($113 million), Lady Gaga ($90 million) and Howard Stern ($76 million). According to Forbes, the top 10 celebrities, excluding athletes, earned an average salary of a little more than $100 million in 2010. According to The Wall Street Journal Survey of CEO Compensation (November 2010), Gregory Maffei, CEO of Liberty Media, earned $87 million, Oracle's Lawrence Ellison ($68 million) and rounding out the top 10 CEOs was McKesson's John Hammergren, earning $24 million. It turns out that the top 10 CEOs have an average salary of $43 million, which pales in comparison with America's top 10 celebrities, who earn an average salary of $100 million. When you recognize that celebrities earn salaries that are some multiples of CEO salaries, you have to ask: Why is it that rich CEOs are demonized and not celebrities? ... It's not about the amount of money people earn. If it were, politicians and leftists would be promoting jealousy, fear and hate toward multimillionaire Hollywood and celebrities and sports stars, such as LeBron James ($48 million), Tiger Woods ($75 million) and Peyton Manning ($38 million). But there is no way that politicians could take over the roles of Oprah Winfrey, Lady Gaga and LeBron James. That means celebrities can make any amount of money they want and it matters not one iota politically. The Occupy Wall Street crowd shouldn't focus its anger at wealthy CEOs. A far more appropriate target would be the U.S. Congress." --economist Walter E. Williams
Essential Liberty
"Non-leftists who cherish the American value of liberty over the left-wing value of socioeconomic equality, as well as those who adhere to Judeo-Christian values, do not regard the existence of economic classes as inherently morally problematic. If the poor are treated equally before the law, are given the chance and the liberty to raise their socioeconomic status and have their basic material needs met, the gap between rich and poor is not a major moral problem. Of course, if the rich got rich through deceitful or violent means, they must be prosecuted. But America is a place where the way in which 'poor' is defined renders most poor Americans materially equivalent to much of Europe's middle class. America is also a place where the rich by and large legally acquired their wealth through hard work and entrepreneurial enterprise. So here, the existence of rich and poor is not a problem that demands governmental action." --radio talk-show host Dennis Prager
What do you make of income disparity?
Culture
"Call it an occupational hazard, but I can't look at the Occupy Wall Street protesters without thinking, 'Who parented these people?' As a culture columnist, I've commented on the social and political ramifications of the 'movement' -- now known as 'OWS' -- whose fairyland agenda can be summarized by one of their placards: 'Everything for everybody.' Thanks to their pipe-dream platform, it's clear there are people with serious designs on 'transformational' change in America who are using the protesters like bedsprings in a brothel. Yet it's not my role as a commentator that prompts my parenting question, but rather the fact that I'm the mother of four teens and young adults. There are some crucial life lessons that the protesters' moms clearly have not passed along. Here, then, are five things the OWS protesters' mothers should have taught their children but obviously didn't, so I will: Life isn't fair. ... Nothing is 'free.' ... Your word is your bond. When you demonstrate to eliminate student loan debt, you are advocating precisely the lack of integrity you decry in others. ... A protest is not a party. ... There are reasons you haven't found jobs. The truth? Your tattooed necks, gauged ears, facial piercings and dirty dreadlocks are off-putting. Nonconformity for the sake of nonconformity isn't a virtue. Occupy reality: Only 4 percent of college graduates are out of work. If you are among that 4 percent, find a mirror and face the problem. It's not them. It's you." --columnist Marybeth Hicks
Re: The Left
"Another day, another jobs bill/economic stimulus. And another presidential tour to promote it. This time our president and partisan-in-chief chose North Carolina for the setting, and who can blame him? Who wouldn't want to drive through its mountains and vistas these beautiful fall days -- instead of actually working out a compromise with those tiresome types in Congress? The kind who are always raising irritating questions, like whether the president's programs will actually work. Unlike those that have succeeded mainly in raising the country's unemployment rate to 9 percent or more. No matter how many times his presidential prescriptions have failed to do much for the economy, Dr. Obama assures us that the same old approach (spend still more) will work this time -- if we'll just increase the dosage and suspend disbelief. ... It strikes some of us as passing strange that Mr. Obama should now be campaigning in a part of the country and culture whose people he used to describe/deride as hopelessly bitter types. Their only response to hard times, he claimed at one point, is to 'cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.' ... t's not what a president says that matters so much in this always practical-minded country, but what he does. And this president is not doing well." --columnist Paul Greenberg
Government
"Following a series of failed votes on a number of President Obama's jobs proposals, Senate Democrats plan to keep pushing. The Senate is on recess [this] week, but when they return, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) plans to hold another vote on the 'infrastructure' portion of the president's plan. The legislation would allocate $50 billion for 'investment' in transportation and infrastructure projects -- e.g., highway restoration, airport development, Amtrack, high speed rail, etc. -- and establish a federal infrastructure bank as a 'wholly owned government corporation' that would hand out federally-backed loans for infrastructure projects. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood predicted that the legislation would create about 800,000 jobs at a cost of $75,000 per job. Which is perplexing, given that a recent Bloomberg survey of 34 leading economists yielded a median estimate of 288,000 jobs 'kept or added' over the next two years. And that's based on the entirety of the president's $450 billion proposal, which works out to a rate of about $1.6 million per job. Democrats plan to cover the cost the infrastructure 'investment' with a 0.7 percent surtax on household earning more than $1 million a year. The measure isn't any more likely to succeed that the others before it, but the bill's inevitable failure will provide Democrats with at least another week's worth of class-warfare talking points. And that's leadership you can believe in." --National Review's Andrew Stiles
Insight
"I am in favor of cutting taxes under any circumstances and for any excuse, for any reason, whenever it's possible. The reason I am is because I believe the big problem is not taxes, the big problem is spending. The question is, 'How do you hold down government spending?' Government spending now amounts to close to 40% of national income not counting indirect spending through regulation and the like. If you include that, you get up to roughly half. The real danger we face is that number will creep up and up and up. The only effective way I think to hold it down, is to hold down the amount of income the government has. The way to do that is to cut taxes." --economist Milton Friedman (1912-2006)
The Gipper
"We are a nation that has a government -- not the other way around. And this makes us special among the nations of the Earth. Our government has no power except that granted it by the people. It is time to check and reverse the growth of government which shows signs of having grown beyond the consent of the governed. ... Government can and must provide opportunity, not smother it; foster productivity, not stifle it." --Ronald Reagan
Political Futures
"Moammar Gaddafi got what was coming to him. Of course, the concern now is the jihadist and al-Qaeda elements that are positioned to replace him. Years ago, Ronald Reagan called Gaddafi the 'mad dog of the Middle East' and said that his goal was a worldwide 'Muslim fundamentalist revolution.' Many others besides Gaddafi shared that goal, including those who opposed him, and with Gaddafi's death, that goal is closer than ever to being realized. Here we are, thirty years after Reagan made these remarks, in the throes of a worldwide Muslim fundamentalist revolution. Reagan said that those who wanted this 'Muslim fundamentalist revolution' were enemies of the United States -- for them it was 'like climbing Mount Everest, because we are here.' And in a sense, that is exactly the reason why ... Reagan's warning of a worldwide 'Muslim fundamentalist revolution' was prescient. Can you imagine the Muslim Brotherhood stooge in the White House ever uttering those words? ... Reagan spoke before there was a significant Muslim presence in Europe. Now the threat and intimidation by Muslims throughout the countries of the European Union is growing at every level. And now Gaddafi is gone, but the threat of a worldwide 'Muslim fundamentalist revolution' remains, and is stronger than ever, thanks to Barack Obama." --author and columnist Pamela Geller
Faith & Family
"Egyptian violence against Christians is intolerable. When peaceful demonstrators demanding only protection of the law are attacked, we see a complete breakdown of civil order. More than that, the fact that Egypt's Christians are being killed with impunity means there is no Arab Spring. ... Obama is building an unenviable record in foreign policy. He is the most anti-Israel president in our history and also, de facto, the most anti-Christian. He is washing his hands of the fate of millions of minority Christians in the Mideast. This cannot be beneficial to the United States or to the countries involved. ... Is this what we are fighting for? ... Has the U.S. Department of State forgotten who we Americans are? Millions of Americans disbelieve and abhor what is being taught in Afghan schools, what is being done on the streets of Cairo, and what is likely to be done in Syria when Assad is toppled. Isn't it time for a total reassessment of U.S. foreign policy and aid?" --columnists Ken Blackwell & Bob Morrison
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When you focus on a small portion of the entire crowd to make a (snarky) point, you do the same thing that liberals do with the Tea Party when they only take pictures of the signs with misssspelinggs. I think that both the Tea Party and the OWS have beefs, that if others managed to actually listen to what they are saying, there might (shock!) be a lesson in it.
So BD,
What was the point of OWS? Rapes? Public sh*tting? Anti-semitism? Riots?
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Although I am not BD, I'll take a stab at that:
The starting impetus is a sense that folks who had quite a bit to do with the excrement storm in which we find ourselves got bailed out by the government.
In point of fact there is considerable truth in this-- as we have been pointing out on these pages for years now. What the decent folks amongst the OWS are missing is that what the are protesting the the natural and inevitable result of "public-private partnerships", "encouraging home ownership" via govt. guarantees of mortgages, and other forms of liberal and corporate fascism. What WE are missing is a golden opportunity to reach out to these people. Instead many/most of us are focused on snarky comments painting the whole thing as a progressive commie monolith instead of looking to peel off the goodly percentage of folks who are rightly mad and need our help in understanding WHY they are mad and WHAT TO DO about it.
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I see 60's retreads, various other leftist loons and the generation that grew up with soccer games where score wasn't kept and everyone got a trophy.
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You ARE right. They ARE there. AND we are pushing a lot of folks in search of answers towards them.
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[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySnYbitzrg4&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySnYbitzrg4&feature=player_embedded
Below is the quote from the poster of the youtube video:
This is one of the best uses for a U.S. flag I've seen to date. I missed recording the best part where the dog and owner were really playing a fierce game of tug o' war!
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http://pjmedia.com/zombie/2011/10/24/is-occupy-oakland-as-bad-as-they-say/
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(http://multimedia.heraldinteractive.com/images/20111026/134cad_occsty102711.jpg)
http://bostonherald.com/news/regional/view.bg?articleid=1376084
Health conditions ripe for disaster, officials fear
Occupational hazards
By Laurel J. Sweet, Dave Wedge and John Zaremba
Wednesday, October 26, 2011 - Updated 10 minutes ago
Food-borne illnesses, a flu outbreak, hypothermia, sexually transmitted diseases and vermin are just some of the hazards experts say make Occupy Boston a public health disaster waiting to happen — as City Hall turns a blind eye.
“The longer you’ve got a big group of people in an unsanitary location, the more at risk they’re going to be for infectious diseases. Time is only beginning to tell where this is going to go,” said Janelle Vaesa, a public health researcher who has studied similar deteriorating conditions at Occupy Wall Street in New York.
San Francisco health officials report they’ve subjected that city’s two Occupy sites to twice-daily inspections, and have found a rash of food, garbage and other sanitation issues.
Yet, even as a strong stench has begun rising from Occupy Boston’s site in the heart of the city and a weekend snowfall looms, the Boston Public Health Commission told the Herald yesterday it has no plans to inspect the month-old encampment, where dozens of activists are sleeping in abutting tents, without on-site toilets, and food donations are sitting in crates on wet ground, though hand sanitizer appears to be readily available.
BPHC spokeswoman Ann Scales said Boston will offer Occupiers a free on-site flu clinic Friday and is mindful of the potential for “pest infestation.” There are no plans to conduct health inspections, she said, though she noted, “From our standpoint, any time people are living in close quarters, the odds of transmittable diseases is there.”
After a Herald inquiry yesterday, the Inspectional Services Department will pay Occupy Boston a visit today to check out its makeshift food preparation area, spokeswoman Lisa Timberlake said. City officials said no permits have been issued to the tent city established by anti-corporate protesters who say they are modeling a new society.
**The filth, crime and chaos is what their "society" would look like.
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Looking past the people with bad behavior, I too am interested in BD's view of the legitimacy of the views of the movement.
I like Crafty's points made while I was writing. Yes we need to capture the legitimacy of the anger at special treatment by government. We need to do it carefully though because the main thrust is BS IMO - that those who worked hard, took big risks and accomplished large things should not make more than those who attempted or achieved very little.
One valid point is that special interests with all their money get special powers and favors out of Washington and state capitols; those marches should be on Washington and the state capitols. Of those most powerful interests, number one I think is the public employee union special interest. Start there, shut them down and move down the list. Goldman Sachs type companies get special treatment. OWS'ers should demand that candidates like Obama refuse big interest money to isolate and defeat Republicans as the party of big money influence. But in fact the rich are politically divided. It is the 99% who control our elected government. Most of the already rich lean left while the R's are more the party of entrepreneurial spirit of the want to be rich, people wanting to risk it all but want some real hope of a return from it someday. Of the 99%, half are helping to pull the wagon and half are riding on it - a sad fact of our society.
The biggest force that big government uses to sustain and protect the biggest businesses ironically is over-regulation. Due to the heavy heavy burden of all encompassing regulations, there is little or no chance for entrepreneurs to move in and disrupt the market share of the largest businesses in this country, whether it is auto makers, investment banks, hospitals or oil companies. Regulatory compliance comes before revenues and profits in a new business so it is almost impossible for a startup from within our borders to have a chance. Companies like Microsoft, Cisco, Google all had to invent a new industry in order to start.
The main point IMO is that the hate the rich campaign is intentional divisiveness pursuing an anti-economic freedom political agenda. We saw it in Seattle and a large part of this is organized from outside our borders. Economic freedom and growth enables wealth and it happens to different people at different times at different rates. All facts that expose disparity become evidence to them supporting the need for more policies that pursue economic decline. Extending legitimacy to that argument is a big mistake.
There is a piece in the NY Post (http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/why_we_must_lose_the_darn_percent_cfz8wKQQgEymfuZ58OImVO) that had some right wing sites up in arms this morning. It calls for the elimination of the top 1%. The nonsense was so similar to the demands of OWS that people were not noticing it was satire. If you could eliminate the top 1%, wouldn't there still be a top 1%, and if you eliminate them isn't there still a top 1%. As long as making money is allowed, won't there always still be people who make more money than you - unless or until you are one of them.
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to their advantage if they hit the airwaves in a unified manner akin to the Jornolist.
Some like Huckabee and my sister asked why does not the OWS crowd protest at the White House where they belong. Why protest the banks for getting Fed money? The SHOULD be protesting the government that gave it to them and allowed them to cause the crises to begin with in regards to not enforcing the laws that already existed. They should be picketting and smoking their dope at the White House not at WS.
Well the answer is very simple. The OWS is not a populist or fundamental movement. It is at its core a *Democrat party* movement. They will not protest at the WH precisely because of the liberal minority President who occupies it. Does anyone think for one second the dole crowd at WS would not be all over the WH lawn if Bush were still there. That said the Republicans would be wiser to hyjack the OWS about big corporations (Like the fat repugnant Michale Moore and other hypocritical Hollywooders) as being the problem and turning the argument to go along with conservatives that it is BIG government being corrupted with big money that is a big (though far from only ) problem. The right would do better turning the argument and shaping the argument rather than simply making fun of it.
These are not conservatives, not Republicans and probably few truly self described independents. These people down there are almost ALL core dependency types who as Herman Cain points out would gladly love to have the big shots cut them all free checks. They run around as though they are entitled, this would be fair, etc.:
****EXCLUSIVE: ACORN Playing Behind Scenes Role in 'Occupy' Movement
By Jana Winter
Published October 26, 2011
Oct. 17, 2011: Members of New York Communities for Change, in orange t-shirts with orange banner, attend a press conference in New York with union leaders, including United Federation of Teachers president Michael Mulgrew.
The former New York office for ACORN, the disbanded community activist group, is playing a key role in the self-proclaimed “leaderless” Occupy Wall Street movement, organizing “guerrilla” protest events and hiring door-to-door canvassers to collect money under the banner of various causes while spending it on protest-related activities, sources tell FoxNews.com.
The former director of New York ACORN, Jon Kest, and his top aides are now busy working at protest events for New York Communities for Change (NYCC). That organization was created in late 2009 when some ACORN offices disbanded and reorganized under new names after undercover video exposes prompted Congress to cut off federal funds.
NYCC’s connection to ACORN isn’t a tenuous one: It works from the former ACORN offices in Brooklyn, uses old ACORN office stationery, employs much of the old ACORN staff and, according to several sources, engages in some of the old organization’s controversial techniques to raise money, interest and awareness for the protests.
Sources said NYCC has hired about 100 former ACORN-affiliated staff members from other cities – paying some of them $100 a day - to attend and support Occupy Wall Street. Dozens of New York homeless people recruited from shelters are also being paid to support the protests, at the rate of $10 an hour, the sources said.
At least some of those hired are being used as door-to-door canvassers to collect money that’s used to support the protests.
Sources said cash donations collected by NYCC on behalf of some unions and various causes are being pooled and spent on Occupy Wall Street. The money is used to buy supplies, pay staff and cover travel expenses for the ex-ACORN members brought to New York for the protests.
In one such case, sources said, NYCC staff members collected cash donations for what they were told was a United Federation of Teachers fundraising drive, but the money was diverted to the protests.
Sources who participated in the teachers union campaign said NYCC supervisors gave them the addresses of union members and told them to go knock on their doors and ask for contributions—and did not mention that the money would go toward Occupy Wall Street expenses. One source said the campaign raked in about $5,000.
Current staff members at NYCC told FoxNews.com the union fundraising drive was called off abruptly last week, and they were told NYCC should not have been raising money for the union at all.
Sources said staff members also collected door-to-door for NYCC’s PCB campaign — which aims to test schools for deadly toxins —but then pooled that money together with cash raised for the teachers union and other campaigns to fund Occupy Wall Street.
“We go to Freeport, Central Islip, Park Slope, everywhere, and we say we’re collecting money for PCBs testing in schools. But the money isn’t going to the campaign," one source said.
"It’s going to Occupy Wall Street, and we’re not using that money to get schools tested for deadly chemicals or to make their kids safer. It’s just going to the protests, and that’s just so terrible.”
A spokesman for the United Federation of Teachers told FoxNews.com, "The UFT is not involved in any NYCC fundraising on the PCB issue.”
Multiple sources said NYCC is also using cash donations through canvassing efforts in New York’s Harlem and Washington Heights neighborhoods for union-backed campaigns to fund the Wall Street protests.
“All the money collected from canvasses is pooled together back at the office, and everything we’ve been working on for the last year is going to the protests, against big banks and to pay people’s salaries—and those people on salary are, of course, being paid to go to the protests every day,” one NYCC staff member told FoxNews.com.
Those who contribute don't know the money is going to fund the protests, the source said.
“They give contributions because we say if they do we can fix things - whatever specific problem they’re having in their area, housing, schools, whatever ... then we spend the contributions paying staff to be at the protests all day, every day. That’s where these contributions - the community’s money – is going,” the source said.
“They’re doing the same stuff now that got ACORN in trouble to begin with. And yes, we’re still ACORN, there is a still a national ACORN.”
Another source, who said she was hired from a homeless shelter, said she was first sent to the protests before being deployed to Central Islip, Long Island, to canvass for a campaign against home foreclosures.
“I went to the protests every day for two weeks and made $10 an hour. They made me carry NYCC signs and big orange banners that say NYCC in white letters. About 50 others were hired around my time to go to the protests. We went to protests in and around Zuccotti Park, then to the big Times Square protest,” she said.
“But now they have me canvassing on Long Island for money, so I get the money and then the money is being used for Occupy Wall Street—to pay for all of it, for supplies, food, transportation, salaries, for everything ... all that money is going to pay for the protests downtown and that’s just messed up. It’s just wrong.”
Neither Kest, NYCC executive director, nor his communications director returned repeated email and telephone requests for comment, nor did his communications director. A Fox News producer who visited the Brooklyn office on Tuesday was told, "The best people to speak to who are involved with Occupy Wall Street aren't available."
In a phone interview on Tuesday, Harrison Schultz, an Occupy Wall Street spokesman, said he knew nothing about NYCC’s involvement in the Occupy movement.
“Haven’t seen them, couldn’t tell you,” he said.
He said he couldn’t comment on the Occupy the Boardroom website’s relationship to the movement and to NYCC.
“It’s a horizontal organization, a leaderless organization, it’s difficult to explain it,” Schultz said, “difficult to explain it to people who haven’t worked in this, who haven’t been part of it.”
Kest publicly threw his organization’s support behind the movement in a Sept. 30 opinion piece on HuffingtonPost.com. But top ex-ACORN staff members and current NYCC officials have been planning events like the Occupy Wall Street protests since February, a source within the group told FoxNews.com.
That’s when planning began for May 12 protests against Chase bank foreclosures, which were followed by the formation of the Beyond May 12 campaign, targeting Wall Street and big banks. That campaign was rolled out by a coalition of community groups and unions and led by the revamped former ACORN group.
“What people don’t understand is that ACORN is behind this — and that this, what’s happening now, is all part of the May 12 and Beyond May 12 plans to go after the banks, Chase in particular,” a source said.
Sources said NYCC was a key player behind a series of recent Occupy Wall Street events, including the Oct. 11 Millionaires March, which brought protests and union and community groups on walking tours of Upper East Side homes of wealthy New Yorkers; and the launch of the “Occupy the Boardroom” website, registered to Kest, which encouraged protesters to contact high-profile bankers, among others.
Fox News’ Shira Bush contributed reporting.***
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If anyone is stupid enough to doubt the OWS thing is nothing then a Dem party Brobrock scheme than just consider the timing of the whole thing. The Brockster is short on poll support as we all know. Very few polling issues does he garner much support.
One issue easy for him is the populist rant about the rich don't pay enough taxes. Well it is certainly easy to get over 50% on board with that kind of message. So he is campaigning around the country on our dime screaming and yelling about a jobs bill that is more like a birbe you constuency base bill pointing the blame on the fat catters and the big monied "rich".
Well low and behold all of a sudden there is this sudden "out of nowhere" groundswell from the masses that just happens and coincidentally forms on - you got it - right at the offices and homes of the big bad rich WS people.
The MSM which of course is in the tank for Brobrockster takes the bain gleefully and romotes the whole thing. In their own blow back to the Fox network support of the Tea Pary movement which of course they tried their best to bellitle.
Republicans need to be more coordinated like the Jornolist/DNC/WH message machine.
They could spin this to their advantage as the OWS whether they realize it or not or preaching some of the same values the Tea Party is preaching.
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(http://www.daybydaycartoon.com/102511.jpg)
http://www.daybydaycartoon.com/102511.jpg
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The Occupy Wall Street protests have drawn huge numbers of confused and directionless young people, but maybe that's not all bad. Some of them at least seem to be getting a remedial course in economics.
Nan Terrie learned an expensive lesson last week about the importance of property rights. "Stealing is our biggest problem at the moment," the 18-year-old protester told the New York Post. "I had my Mac stolen—that was like $5,500." Why? Because she left it in a public place, amid a crowd demanding the redistribution of wealth. Imagine that.
Perverse incentives were at work at Occupy Boston, where 36-year-old Andrew Warner told the Boston Herald: "It's turning into us against them." By "them" he didn't mean rich bankers but street vagrants: "They come in here and they're looking at it as a way of getting a free meal and a place to crash, which is totally fine, but they don't bring anything to the table at all." The same is true in New York, where "sanitation committee" member Lauren Digioia told the Daily News: "There's a lot of takers here and they feel entitled."
The makeshift government at Manhattan's Zuccotti Park is also dealing with the problem of externalities, in the form of percussionists who irritate neighbors and fellow protesters alike by drumming at all hours. That has inspired both regulations (drumming is permitted only at certain hours) and taxes. New York magazine reports that the "finance working group" had levied a "percussion tax" of 50% on tips.
Drummer Shane Engelerdt sounds like a tea party member complaining about taxation without representation: "They didn't even give the drummers a say. . . . They're like the banks we're protesting." Actually, they're like the government the protesters are trying to expand—but perhaps that will become clear in the next lesson.
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http://althouse.blogspot.com/2011/10/occupy-wall-street-food-servers-get.html
October 27, 2011
Occupy Wall Street food servers get sick of the "professional homeless people."
"They know what they’re doing."
For three days beginning tomorrow, the cooks will serve only brown rice and other spartan grub instead of the usual menu of organic chicken and vegetables, spaghetti bolognese, and roasted beet and sheep’s-milk-cheese salad.
They will also provide directions to local soup kitchens for the vagrants, criminals and other freeloaders who have been descending on Zuccotti Park in increasing numbers every day.
What if everyone suddenly got sick of freeloaders?
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The Foundation
"Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government." --James Madison
Government & Politics
Bypassing Congress to 'Fix' the Economy
Barack Obama wants everyone to know that he's the president, and by golly he's getting impatient. "We can't wait for an increasingly dysfunctional Congress to do its job," he told a Las Vegas crowd Monday. "Where they won't act, I will." What does that mean? "I've told my administration," he explained, "to keep looking every single day for actions we can take without Congress, steps that can save consumers money, make government more efficient and responsive, and help heal the economy. And we're going to be announcing these executive actions on a regular basis."
Obama, formerly a "senior lecturer" in constitutional law, apparently thinks it's fine to thumb his nose at the separation of powers and simply enact legislation by executive fiat, on the grounds that "we can't wait." No more "yes, we can," which is so 2008. Yet this is the same old arrested development that is endemic on the Left.
There are three overarching areas in which Obama promises to take action: Jobs, mortgages and student loans. We've seen this movie before. Obama has been demanding a "jobs" bill since early September, by which he means another half-trillion dollars of so-called "stimulus" spending on various Democrat constituent groups, not least of which is public unions. House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) agreed that indeed we can't wait -- and that the Democrat-controlled Senate should therefore act on the 17 House measures passed already this year (including part of Obama's proposed bill) that would, in various ways, enable entrepreneurs to create jobs.
The president proposes an overhaul to an existing government program to help people refinance their government-guaranteed mortgages. The Federal Housing Finance Agency simultaneously released detailed changes to the Home Affordable Refinance Program, known as HARP. Helping people who are "underwater" on their mortgages -- they owe more than their homes are worth -- sounds like a noble goal. In reality, however, the program won't help that many people and it won't mean much for the economy at large. Enrollment requirements include that one's mortgage must have been owned or guaranteed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac since at least May 2009, the current loan-to-value ratio must be greater than 80 percent, and the homeowner must be current on payments. In other words, this will hardly help those facing foreclosure or lift falling home prices.
Besides, foreclosures aren't caused by underwater mortgages; they're caused by homeowners not making payments, often because they're out of work. In other words, they are the symptom, not the disease. Deregulate, lower and stabilize taxes, grow the economy and the number of jobs, and housing problems will be alleviated as a result. (The economy did grow at 2.5 percent in the third quarter, but that's not even a maintenance level, much less a signal of real recovery.)
Obama's other proposal is to help students with their education loans, which indeed are astronomical (more on that below). He believes that by adjusting the cap on payments each month and lowering interest rates slightly, graduates will have more money at their disposal, so they will spend more and boost the economy. It's the same old demand-side theory, and we can expect the same old result. What's more, the impact would be negligible.
The Atlantic crunched the numbers: "How much would an interest rate reduction of up to 0.5% affect payments? For the average borrower, the impact would be small. In 2011, Bachelor's degree recipients graduating with debt had an average balance of $27,204, according to an analysis done by finaid.org, based on Department of Education data. That average has ballooned from just $17,646 over the past decade. Using these values as the high and low bounds of average student debt over the last ten years, the monthly savings for the average student loan borrower would be between $4.50 and $7.75 per month. Clearly, this isn't going to save the economy."
That last sentence pretty well sums up the entire Obama presidency.
What do you think of Obama's plan to circumvent Congress?
Nanny State
"The one thing that we absolutely know for sure is that if we don't work even harder than we did in 2008, then we're going to have a government that tells the American people, 'you are on your own.' If you get sick, you're on your own. If you can't afford college, you're on your own. If you don't like that some corporation is polluting your air or the air that your child breathes, then you're on your own. That's not the America I believe in. It's not the America you believe in." --Barack Obama, shameless promoter of the nanny state
The Wall Street Journal's James Taranto responded, "[D]o you know what they call people who rely on themselves? Adults."
The Oath Accountability Act for Constitutional Integrity
To restore the Constitution's strict enumeration of the central government's "few and defined powers," we must, first and foremost, require that all members of the Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches abide by their oaths "to support and defend" our Constitution -- under penalty of law. At present, there is no legal penalty for Breach of Oath or legal obligation to abide by the plain language of our Constitution.
Please help us enact, through judicial or legislative action, strong penalties obligating all elected and appointed federal officials to abide by their oaths. If the federal judiciary refuses to hear this action, then we will take it to the national legislature for codification into federal law. In the words of Thomas Jefferson, "Bind [them] down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution."
News From the Swamp: Debt Committee Update
The congressional "super committee" tasked with identifying $1.2 trillion in budget savings over the next 10 years as part of the most recent debt-ceiling deal has been meeting for weeks behind closed doors. The committee's Democrats threw back the curtain this week, though, when they issued a proposal to cut $3 trillion from the deficit. Of course, to the average headline reader, it appears that Democrats actually want to cut $3 trillion. Great news, right? Not really. For one thing, roughly half of the savings would come from tax hikes -- above and beyond those already hidden in ObamaCare. Furthermore, entitlements are "off the table" and all the savings are spread out over 10 years, as if this Congress can bind a future one to a spending plan.
On the one hand, we're glad to see Democrats working with multi-trillion-dollar figures. On the other hand, enough with the tax increases already. That's nothing more than a political ploy to portray Republicans as obstructionist when they don't go along. Class warfare won't fix anything, and tax hikes certainly aren't budget cuts.
This Week's 'Alpha Jackass' Awards
"[L]ast week, we had a separate vote on a part of the jobs bill that would put 400,000 teachers, firefighters and police officers back on the job, paid for by asking people who make more than $1 million to pay one-half of 1 percent in additional taxes. For somebody making $1.1 million a year, that's an extra $500. Five hundred bucks. And with that, we could have saved 400,000 jobs. Most people making more than $1 million, if you talk to them, they'll say, I'm willing to pay $500 extra to help the country. They're patriots. They believe we're all in this thing together. But all the Republicans in the Senate said no." --Class-Warrior-in-Chief Barack Obama
"We have lost our ambition, our imagination, and our willingness to do the things that built the Golden Gate Bridge." --Obama, blaming the American people at a fundraiser in San Francisco
New & Notable Legislation
The Senate this week completed work on an appropriations bill to fund the departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Justice, Science, Transportation, and Housing and Urban Development. The package, called the 3-in-1 minibus, combines three separate spending bills and will be voted on when the Senate returns from recess in November. The debate process reportedly went smoothly and stayed on schedule, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) waxed nostalgic for the good old days: "This is the way we did things in the past. It is difficult, but it moves legislation."
The minibus concept seems palatable to both Republicans and Democrats. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell likes it because it breaks spending bills into manageable pieces that can be debated and amended. Steve Ellis of Taxpayers for Common Sense notes that the minibus appeals to Reid because it makes the Senate relevant on spending. However, the unusually smooth legislative process that led to the 3-in-1 minibus is unlikely to last. The Senate still has to debate the most controversial spending bills -- those funding health and human services, financial regulation and the environment. There will be more than enough floor fights as Republicans attempt to defund all the obstacles to an economic recovery -- ObamaCare, Dodd-Frank, and the EPA juggernaut.
The next government shutdown is scheduled for Nov. 18, leaving little time to hammer out the rest of the budget with minibuses. Reid remains undeterred by the ticking clock, insisting on using valuable floor time to put up piecemeal bills related to Obama's jobs plan. To paraphrase the Majority Leader: This is the way we do things now. (And this from the man who hasn't passed a budget in more than 900 days.)
RNC vs. Florida
RNC Chairman Reince Priebus is happy with the Republicans' new primary schedule. Up until this week, several states were battling for early placement in the schedule, instigated by Florida officials moving their primary from early March to Jan. 31. This led to an absurdly front-loaded schedule in which New Hampshire, obsessive about its first-in-the-nation status, threatened to move its primary to this December. Priebus lobbied to get the states back in line, but insists that Florida, along with New Hampshire and South Carolina, will lose half their delegates at the convention as a penalty for moving up their dates. Priebus promises that the punishment will stick, but the convention is taking place in Tampa. It's hard to believe that the RNC would embarrass Florida on its home turf, particularly when the state will figure prominently in the national contest.
Jindal Sweeps to Re-Election
Louisiana Republican Governor Bobby Jindal effectively won a second term last week when he claimed 65.8 percent of the vote in the Louisiana open primary. Under the state's election laws, his strong majority showing against nine other candidates negated the need for a general election in November. Jindal maintains a strong popular appeal in Louisiana for his continued work to clean up corruption, reduce taxes and move government jobs into the private sector. Additionally, unemployment under Jindal is down to about 7 percent, much better than the federal government's numbers. Perhaps that's why the national media has all but ignored his impressive victory. Jindal certainly thinks so. He says his record "runs contrary to the political thinking in Washington, which is about more spending and bigger government."
Gov. Jindal's success has inevitably led to speculation about whether he might appear next year as a vice presidential candidate, or in 2016 or 2020 as a presidential candidate. He's only 40, which leaves him plenty of time to decide what his next political move might be.
National Security
Warfront With Jihadistan: Iraq Withdrawal Is Official
Barack Obama has now made official the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq by the end of the year. While the Obama administration portrays this as the fulfillment of a campaign promise, the reality is quite different: A U.S. foreign policy dramatically weakened by a committed socialist. As U.S. and Iraqi negotiators struggled to reach an agreement on a continued U.S. presence in Iraq, Obama ignored the process. In fact, according to logs released by the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, he never even tried to contact top Iraqi officials to help reach a deal. Given the high priority the U.S. had given to reaching an agreement, and given that even Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and other senior Pentagon officials spoke about the need for a continued presence in the volatile country, this dereliction of duty is inexcusable. Obama didn't even have the guts to vote "present."
Naturally, he's now claiming the withdrawal actually helped locate Osama bin Laden by allowing the military to refocus its assets on the al-Qa'ida leader. Yet according to a report in the May 3 New York Times, the crucial intelligence that allowed the U.S. to locate and kill bin Laden actually came from an al-Qa'ida operative who was captured in 2004 by U.S. forces in Iraq. If Obama had had his way, the U.S. would not have even been in Iraq in 2004 to gather this intelligence. To claim that abandoning Iraq is what led to finding bin Laden is preposterous.
Sitting back and watching this debacle is Iran. With many close ties within the Iraqi government, Iran watches and plots for Iraq to fall under its influence. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned Iran not to view the U.S. withdrawal as an opportunity to exploit. "No one, most particularly Iran, should miscalculate about our continuing commitment to and with the Iraqis going forward," Clinton said with a straight face. No word yet on whether the Iranians have stopped laughing. This administration certainly hasn't given them reason to.
The French -- er, Arab -- Spring
The so-called "Arab Spring" was supposed to have ushered in a new wave of democracy and "freedom for all." In reality, the results resemble the French Revolution that literally left heads rolling in the street. A brief survey of fallen Arab regimes includes those of Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, with Syria, Yemen, Jordan and perhaps Bahrain teetering. A number of others continue enduring constant protests as well as pressure from the rest of the Arab Spring movement. With Moammar Gadhafi dead, Libyans rightfully rejoice. Unfortunately, what makes anyone think the "new" Libyan regime will be different from the old one? What within these new regimes gives anyone under their charge hope that "things will be different this time"?
Without Rule of Law -- the concept that laws apply equally across the board to everyone, from the nation's leader to the lowliest citizen -- freedom is a dead letter. The American Founders understood this. They instituted a representative republic -- not a democracy -- wherein political power is vested in the people, and secured there by diffusing power throughout the government by applying the separation of powers doctrine: separating legislative, executive and judicial governmental functions. The Rule of Law issue returns us to the original question: What evidence exists that despotism is really dead in these new "Arab Spring" regimes? Has anyone evidenced any intent to implement time-tested Rule of Law principles among the ashes of any of these failed systems? Pardon our pessimism, but we have seen nothing to indicate progress toward civil government.
Perhaps a better question is, to what degree, if any, should the U.S. intervene in these restless cauldrons? While it's true we don't want to sit idly by while potential terrorist threats stake out turf from which to attack U.S. interests, we must also be careful in being the "world's policeman." Obama's intervention in a growing list of African nations hardly meets our nation's fundamental criterion of "vital interest."
From a Patriot's perspective the answer to most of these issues is straightforward. First, protect vital U.S. national interests. Second, do not intervene in civil wars unless those interests are genuinely at stake. Third, encourage development of Rule of Law representative governments. Fourth, keep the military out of the nation-building business. The military's job is to kill people and break things, so send them in only when State Department efforts fail. No one fully understands yet what "Arab Spring" means, but other than those populating much of our Executive and Legislative branches, most Americans understand "vital national interest."
What will the "Arab Spring" yield?
Business & Economy
Around the Nation: States Could Be in $4 Trillion Hole
Almost every state in the nation is required by law to balance its budget every year, Vermont being the lone exception. Yet according to figures compiled by the group State Budget Solutions, all 50 states are in debt, with California leading the way. The Golden State might be in the red by over $600 billion long-term if the most pessimistic pension liability calculations used by SBS are true. Interestingly, Vermont has the least debt, with only $6 billion in accrued liabilities.
In the case of many states, part of the problem stems from using Uncle Sam as a financial crutch during this last recession. Borrowers from a federal fund to ease the burden of spiraling unemployment benefits are again liable for both interest and repayment to the federal government, with California again leading the way by owing $8.6 billion. This payback most affects their short-term bottom lines.
Meanwhile, bean counters in some states are trying to limit the damage by trimming services, with Medicaid a prime target. Next April, Hawaii will limit Medicaid recipients to 10 hospital days a year in an effort to reduce costs. Other states have similar, but somewhat more generous, yearly limits on hospital stays, as health care funding gobbles up an increasing percentage of their budgets and competes with other outstanding obligations, such as those unfunded pension mandates for state retirees. Unfortunately, many states are considering the same old job-killing "solution" of raising taxes; the only question being which groups will be targeted.
Student Loan Debt Reaches $1 Trillion
We know the story well, thanks to Occupy Wall Street: A young person goes deeply into debt to attend a college, only to find upon graduation that the anticipated jobs aren't there. Many grads expected to walk from college right into a specific position, never considering the state of the economy. Many will accept nothing less than a dream job -- but their loans still need to be repaid. Multiply that story by millions of graduates and that's why, collectively, they owe about $1 trillion in loans, a sum that is now greater than the aggregate total of credit card debt. Moreover, federal law says student loans can't be discharged in bankruptcy proceedings.
The consequences are much more than monetary, although that albatross of debt around a graduate's neck is a hefty burden. New graduates are forced to wait longer to buy a car or a home, and they often must delay even such life choices as getting married or having children. That's one reason these adult children are staying in the parental nest for a much longer period of time -- at least when they're not sleeping in a park in a major city.
Yet the blame can't be placed solely on the colleges, the lenders, or even the government, which now controls the student-loan industry. In some respects, those who told our youth a college degree is the price of admission into the middle class -- regardless of how useful the degree is in the real world -- may have sold everyone a bill of goods. Obviously those in the ivory tower of academia weren't going to kill the golden goose of "free" money that's built a series of educational empires from coast to coast.
Furthermore, lost in all the hype about jobless graduates occupying Wall Street is a simple fact: The world still needs tradesman such as plumbers, electricians and other people who know how to make stuff and make it work. Those who made the choice for a less glamorous livelihood don't have the fancy trappings -- but they aren't saddled with the debt either. Call them the proud graduates of the school of hard knocks, where the tuition is paid with sweat equity but the experience they gain is priceless.
Are you still paying off your student loans?
Dealing With USAJobs.gov: A Job in Itself?
In 2003, the website USAjobs.gov was created as a means to allow those who wanted to explore working for the government to search for jobs in various fields and post their resumés. Shrewdly, those in charge back then allowed a private contractor to set up the site, using a contractor that was already in the field of matching job seekers and employers. Overall, the site worked relatively well.
However, in 2010, the Obama administration decided to put the government back in charge. Imagine that. Eighteen months and $6 million later, the "new" USAjobs.gov debuted -- and promptly went down thanks to overwhelmed servers. That inauspicious debut only began a tide of complaints mainly revolving around the user-unfriendliness of the site and poor response from those government workers who deal with the customers. "Over one week now and I still haven't received my password reset email!" cried a user on the website's Facebook page. Presumably that user isn't finding any shovel-ready jobs in the meantime.
The old system worked fine, but someone, inspired by "change he could believe in," had the bright idea of wresting the website from the private sector and having the government run it, spending millions of borrowed dollars in the process. What could possibly go wrong with that?
Europe Dealing With Debt Crisis
"European leaders said they secured a deal to reduce Greece's debt after they labored overnight and into Thursday morning to find agreement on what they had billed as a blockbuster package to stem the Continent's debt crisis," reports The Wall Street Journal. "French President Nicolas Sarkozy said after the marathon negotiating session that the leaders had reached agreement with private banks on a 'voluntary' 50% reduction of Greece's debt in the hands of private investors." The nations further agreed to expand the European Financial Stability Facility, a bailout vehicle for the European Union, to roughly one trillion euros.
Greece, of course, is the lightning rod of Europe's overarching debt crisis -- a situation brought on by the same policies Barack Obama and his Democrat lemmings are enacting here in the U.S. European Union nations are now trying to rescue Greece in a desperate attempt to prevent the fall of more dominos. Obviously, the solution to Europe's -- or our own -- debt crisis is not to merely tax the rich or throw out debt, it's for nations to live within their means and expand economic freedom. Perhaps it will take collapse for some to learn that lesson. Sadly, though, any suggestion that we allow the free market free rein, such as not intervening in foreclosures as Mitt Romney suggested this week, results in a firestorm of protest from all the usual suspects.
The Vatican's Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace certainly hasn't learned. Long a source of Marxist teaching in the Catholic Church, the Council issued a statement, "Towards Reforming the International Financial and Monetary Systems In The Context Of Global Public," calling for, in essence, the end of economic freedom in the world. According to Richard Viguerie of ConservativeHQ, "The plan, while couched in terms of a voluntary change for greater world good, would actually require that nations surrender their sovereignty to a new world body endowed with the authority to tax and manage all movement of capital between counties." It is tragic to watch as one of the very institutions that helped to bring down Soviet communism is now pushing globalist Marxism a scant 20 years later.
Culture & Policy
Second Amendment: A Win for Gun Rights in Canada
Canada has finally learned a lesson in liberty. This week, conservative Members of Parliament (MPs) introduced a bill to end Canada's long-gun registry and to destroy all the records that have amassed during the registry's history. National Post reports, "Since the long-gun registry came into force, lawful gun owners have faced increasing scrutiny from police authorities. The surveillance has increased particularly since the Firearms Registry database went online. In the second quarter of 2003, the database was searched 95,503 times by police. By the first quarter of 2011, the number of searches had reached nearly 1.3 million." The results have been harassment, arrest and even imprisonment.
One Toronto man recalls that police came to his home one night, led him into the street in his underwear, seized his properly licensed guns, and leveled 14 criminal offenses against him. It seems a prospective buyer touring the man's apartment had seen the guns and reported them to police. Also, a New Brunswick man brought his legally owned unloaded gun to a neighbor's house when drunken teenagers created a disturbance. The gun owner made a citizen's arrest of the teens, but soon after, he himself was arrested and jailed.
Tony Bernardo, executive director of the Canadian Sports Shooting Association, notes that the 144-page legislation at the root of the registry focuses on law-abiding citizens while not even mentioning criminal firearms use. According to MP Candice Hoeppner, who has championed the repeal, the registry has cost almost $2 billion -- money that should have gone toward targeting criminals. Should the repeal pass, law-abiding gun owners will be able to rest a bit easier north of the border, and Canadian police will be free to turn their attention to the real criminals.
What do you think of gun registries?
Faith and Family: Planned Parenthood and the Shredded Documents
It seems there's no end to the underhanded activities of Planned Parenthood. Not too long ago, its staffers were caught advising people they believed to be pimps and sex traffickers on how to circumvent the law. Now, Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri is on trial for 23 felonious counts of "false writing." Specifically, the abortion provider is accused of falsifying the records of patients who have had late-term abortions. Prosecutors have revealed that the Kansas Department of Health and Environment shredded documents critical to the case. Coincidentally, at the time these crimes were committed, the governor of Kansas was none other than Barack Obama's Health and Human Services Secretary, Kathleen Sebelius.
The case began in 2003, when at the behest of pro-life groups the state investigated Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers for not reporting child rape. These providers are bound by state law to follow certain protocols: In addition to reporting child rape, they must keep detailed patient records and determine the viability of late-term fetuses to be aborted. They must also give these files to the health department. But when the state requested documents critical to their failure-to-report case, both the health department and Planned Parenthood dragged their heels. The health department caved in 2004, as did Planned Parenthood in 2006. However, this opened up an entirely different can of worms, for the files didn't match.
The state later learned that the original health department records had been shredded years earlier. The Kansas Department of Health and Environment neglected to mention this fact when it was refusing to comply with the state's demand. The agency claims it was a "routine shredding," but its long history of subterfuge says otherwise. The state now has until Nov. 9 to show that -- as the judge so eloquently put it -- Planned Parenthood "committed felonies to cover up misdemeanors." We think they have a good case.
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And Last...
Democrats are finally coming to realize that the Obama "brand" is badly damaged. As Roll Call reports, "In the latest battle in the Congressional franking wars, Democrats have been vetoing use of the word 'Obamacare' in taxpayer-financed mass mailings, saying it violates rules against using the franking privilege for 'personal, partisan or political reasons.'" The truth is, Democrats are concerned that Republicans' use of the word as a pejorative to refer to the "Affordable Care Act" is harmful to their 2012 election prospects. At least congressional Democrats are concerned; Obama himself embraced the term on the campaign trail in August, saying, "I have no problem with folks saying, 'Obama cares.'" Funny, but that's not what they're saying at all. Not using the shorthand presents another problem, as well: How in the world are they going to fit "The Affordable You-Have-To-Pass-It-To-Know-What's-In-It-And-If-You-Don't-Like-It-Here's-a-Waiver-Because-We-Care Act" on the stationery?
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[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_ZjWFHjO4Y&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_ZjWFHjO4Y&feature=player_embedded
How exactly would you win over these confused young people? :-D
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Well, I would use them as Exhibit A as to why one would not want to be part of OWS :lol:
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http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/10/self-reliance_for_dunces.html
October 30, 2011
Self-Reliance for Dunces
By Clarice Feldman
America is divided between those who think her citizens are helpless and stupid, and those who don't. People who need the direction and control of such bright lights as Nancy Pelosi and the folks who okayed the Solyndra and Fast and Furious fiascos, the apparatchniki of TSA , those who destroyed the housing market by jiggering the rules at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac stand on one side of the gap. On the other side are those of us who believe we are smarter than the political and media elites and, in any event, think the daily decisions of millions of free people acting in what they believe is their own self interest yields more satisfying outcomes than we get from top down fiats by blinkered cubicle rats, credentialed morons and politicians responding to the wants of connected crony capitalists.
The contrast was in bold relief this week.
(a) Democrats Embrace Freedom From Want of Free Diapers Movement
In Connecticut, worried that those whose financial situation has become so perilous (ironically as a result of failed government programs and actions), Democrats are trying to add to the list of ever expanding but invisible to constitutionalists rights, the right to free diapers. Dan Malloy, governor of the Nutmeg State has decreed Diaper Need Awareness Day with no sign that he recognizes how ludicrous a decree this is. Connecticut Congresswoman DeLauro (who like Michelle Obama is a very fashion forward dresser) has introduced a Diaper Act, stating she thinks a program to provide free diapers to the poor will stimulate the economy. I think this all takes the notion of Change We Can Believe In and free loads a bit too far. I listened to the great Congressman Paul Ryan this week, and I don't think he'll go along with the Connecticut scheme. Just in case in case I'm right and the Act doesn't get enough votes from those tight fisted Republicans in Congress, here's some very neat ideas on how to launder diapers. Consider this my first big self-reliance tip of the week.
To be sure, DeLauro's nonsensical view of how to stimulate the economy has a long history in her party. Seems like just yesterday we were promised that the passage of the huge spending bill ObamaCare would do what we are told diaper handouts would. It didn't work, and -- perhaps this is something we might keep from the opposition -- even their own base no longer believes that law will improve their situation:
Support for President Obama's health care reform law has reached an all time low, in part because of Democrats' diminished faith that the law will improve their lives, a new poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation finds.
Only 34 percent of Americans now support Obamacare, a 16-point drop from an all-time high of 50 percent in July 2010. A small majority of Americans, 51 percent, now say they oppose the law.
According to the survey, just 27 percent of Democrats say they will be better off under the law and 55 percent believe it will not impact them. Just last month those numbers were 43 percent and 38 percent, respectively.
I don't know if anyone has polled Americans on the diaper need awareness thingy but I 'm sure that if more of them learn about it the stampede to the exits from the Democratic party will only gain momentum.
(b) The Right To Get You to Further Subsidize Pampered Indebted Students
In Colorado, President Obama, ever the community organizer divisively sowing class resentment, fear and envy, announced that by executive order he is easing the student loan terms for those who entered into their indebtedness since 2008. And in announcing this taxpayer funded new giveaway -- which ends on 2012 -- with his term, he made clear that he sees the federal government as the only way to assure equal opportunity. He urged the beneficiaries of his largesse with our money, that if he is not re-elected we will face a "new era of painful self-reliance." It might be better translated as," This giveaway will end with my time in office so get out there and work for my re-election or the gravy train goes off the rails."
In the hope that this new era of self reliance is just around the corner, let's consider why this new era would be a good thing and how you can get prepared to do those hard things like sewing on your own buttons and buying your own diapers, selecting your own diets, paying for your own housing and feeding your own children, and managing your own assets.
The great American political philosopher P.J. O'Rourke has a lot to say on the subject of self-reliance versus dependence on government and here's a sample:
Under collectivism, powers of determination rest with the entire citizenry instead of with the specific citizens. Individual decision-making is replaced by the political process. Suddenly, the system that elected the prom queen at your high school is in charge of your whole life. Besides, individuals are smarter than groups, as anybody who is a member of a committee or of a large Irish family after six in the evening can tell you. The difference between individual intelligence and group intelligence is the difference between Harvard University and the Harvard University football team. [snip]
Collectivism makes for a very large and, hence, very powerful group. This power is centralized in the government. Any power is open to abuse.
Government power is not necessarily abused more often than personal power, but when the abuse does come, it's a lulu. At work, power over the whole supply cabinet is concentrated in the person of the office manager. In government, power over the entire military is concentrated in the person of the commander-in-chief. You steal felt tip pens. Hitler invades Poland.
Most government abuse of power is practiced openly, and much of it is heartily approved by The Washington Post editorial board and other such proponents of the good and the fair. But any time the government treats one person differently than another because of the group to which that person belongs -- whether it's a group of rich, special-interest tax dodgers or a group of impoverished, minority job-seekers -- individual equality is lessened and freedom is diminished. Any time the government gives away goods and services -- even if it gives them away to all people equally -- individual dependence is increased and freedom is diminished. Any time the government makes rules about people's behavior when that behavior does not occasion real and provable harm to others -- telling you to buckle your seat belt or forbidding you to publish pornography on the Internet -- respect for the individual is reduced and freedom is diminished.
Should you find yourself in an elevator, airplane, subway, prison, or at the dinner table with someone prattling on about income inequality and how important it is for the government to do something about it, it would be well to have fortified yourself beforehand with this brilliant interview with New York University law professor Richard Epstein. Thanksgiving and the in gathering of all your friends and relatives -- including the not so smart ones -- is just around the corner, and you have the opportunity to watch this and be vaccinated from the mental pestilence headed your way.
Of course, as Monty Python's "Life of Brian" reminds us in a clip eerily reminiscent of the occupiers' human microphone shtick, some people just cannot make the leap to independent thinking:
Brian: Look, you've got it all wrong! You don't NEED to follow ME, You don't NEED to follow ANYBODY! You've got to think for your selves! You're ALL individuals!
The Crowd: Yes! We're all individuals!
Brian: You're all different!
The Crowd: Yes, we ARE all different!
Brian: You've all got to work it out for yourselves.
The Crowd: Yes, we all have to work it out for ourselves.
The light breaks through in even the darkest cave sometimes even without any effort on our part as it has to the Occupy Wall Street crowd. Labor donated by chefs, themselves out of work, and food -- mostly organic and all first rate, donated by sympathetic growers -- was the standard fare for those voguing, grubbing it on the streets. In no time at all , as you can imagine, homeless grifters got wind of the sumptuous repasts and lined up for them, too. The chefs grew furious and have cut back to (brown) rice and beans until this outrage stops:
We need to limit the amount of food we're putting out" to curb the influx of derelicts, said Rafael Moreno, a kitchen volunteer.
A security volunteer added that the cooks felt "overworked and underappreciated."
Many of those being fed "are professional homeless people. They know what they're doing," said the guard at the food-storage area.
A good, and absolutely free, learning opportunity , indeed. As Michelle Obama's Mirror notes:
Anyway, here's the education that the chefs got for free: if you give stuff away, there will be freeloaders: more and more each day. That's why collectivism breaks down, and with this group apparently quite quickly. So, if the mostly unemployed chefs take advantage of their free education, they'll all go back and open restaurants of their own where they can charge for their food. Now that they've learned they can't just give the food away for free, they've discovered how capitalism works! Because if you give stuff away, all you'll get are a bunch of free loaders and you'll never be able to pay your bills. Wow, that's awesome insight just for the taking.
I think it's a good day when anyone learns something about human nature -- no matter how late in the game.
(1) Hand out free stuff and ever increasing number of moochers will come.
(2) There are "professional homeless people."
(3) Those sanctimoniously protesting the greed of others fight as hard as anyone to keep their own special privileges even if those are just organic beet salad with goat cheese.
Three more good tips to put in your growing How to Be Self Reliant folder.
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Brief • October 31, 2011
The Foundation
"Liberty must at all hazards be supported. We have a right to it, derived from our Maker. But if we had not, our fathers have earned and bought it for us, at the expense of their ease, their estates, their pleasure, and their blood." --John Adams
Opinion in Brief
Michelle's message is not an American one
"[Michelle Obama is] back on the campaign trail, and for some reason is returning to the same hardball politics. The other day, she thundered, 'Will we be a country that tells folks who've done everything right but are struggling to get by, "Tough luck, you're on your own"? Is that who we are?' Given that the federal budget has increased by $2 trillion in just a decade, entitlements are at record levels, and this administration is now running $1.5 trillion annual deficits, it is hard to imagine that any government has told anyone 'tough luck.' And it is even harder to suggest that nine months of a Republican-controlled House -- voted in as part of the largest midterm correction since 1938 -- has had much effect on the Obama employment agenda of nearly three years, the majority of which time Obama controlled both houses of Congress and borrowed nearly $5 trillion in sending unemployment over 9 percent. And when Ms. Obama charges, 'Will we be a country where opportunity is limited to just the few at the top? Who are we?' one wonders, why, then, in the past three years of hard times, did she insist on vacationing, in iconic fashion, at Vail, Martha's Vineyard, and Costa del Sol, the tony haunts of 'the few at the top'? In these rough times, surely a smaller staff, less travel, and budgetary economies would have enhanced her populist message of some at the top enjoying perks at the expense of others. In short, even if she does not revert to 2008 style and restart her lamentations about life in her country being unfair, I think it a mistake for any president to put the First Lady out, in highly partisan fashion, on the campaign trail to attack her husband's political rivals. And, I think, the public unease with it will soon prove the point." --historian Victor Davis Hanson
Government
"Free market capitalism is unforgiving. Producers please customers, in a cost-minimizing fashion, and make a profit, or they face losses or go bankrupt. It's this market discipline that some businesses seek to avoid. That's why they descend upon Washington calling for crony capitalism -- government bailouts, subsidies and special privileges. They wish to reduce the power of consumers and stockholders, who hold little sympathy for blunders and will give them the ax on a moment's notice. Having Congress on their side means business can be less attentive to the will of consumers. Congress can keep them afloat with bailouts, as it did in the cases of General Motors and Chrysler, with the justification that such companies are 'too big to fail.' Nonsense! If General Motors and Chrysler had been allowed to go bankrupt, it wouldn't have meant that their productive assets, such as assembly lines and tools, would have gone poof and disappeared into thin air. Bankruptcy would have led to a change in ownership of those assets by someone who might have managed them better. The bailout enabled them to avoid the full consequences of their blunders. ... The Occupy Wall Street protesters are following the path predicted by the great philosopher-economist Frederic Bastiat, who said in 'The Law' that 'instead of rooting out the injustices found in society, they make these injustices general.' In other words, the protesters don't want to end crony capitalism, with its handouts and government favoritism; they want to participate in it." --economist Walter E. Williams
Insight
"This country wasn't built by men who sought handouts. In its brilliant youth, this country showed the rest of the world what greatness was possible to Man and what happiness is possible on Earth. Then it began apologizing for its greatness and began giving away its wealth, feeling guilty for having produced more than its neighbors. ... Examine your values and understand that you must choose one side or the other. Any compromise between good and evil only hurts the good and helps the evil." --novelist and philosopher Ayn Rand (1905-1982)
Culture
"The trouble with the [Occupy Wall Street] movement is that it's centered around two concepts, both of which are abject lies. First and foremost, it doesn't represent ninety-nine percent of anything, no mater how many time the protesters themselves, their enablers, or a corrupt mainstream media repeats the slogan. Second, there is nothing inherently virtuous about being poor or middle class, any more than there is anything inherently evil about being wealthy. ... And make no mistake: it is a virus that infects every ethnic group, both genders and, as you may have guessed, every income class. Until some kind of national integrity is restored, everything else comes down to dealing with the symptoms of the problem instead of the problem itself. How do you restore integrity? One self-aware person at a time coming to the realization that without it, you're nothing but the member of a mob, whether that mob resides in Zuccotti Park, a bank boardroom, or the Beltway in Washington, D.C. You want to camp out all winter and rail against the inequities of the world? Knock yourself out." --columnist Arnold Ahlert
Essential Liberty
"Conventional wisdom is that government must run the schools. But government monopolies don't do anything well. They fail because they have no real competition. Yet competition is what gives us better phones, movies, cars -- everything that's good. ... In 1955, [economist Milton Friedman] proposed school vouchers. His plan didn't call for separating school and state -- unfortunately -- but instead sought a second-best fix: Give a voucher to the family, and let it choose which school -- government-run or private -- their child will attend. Schools would compete for that voucher money. Today, it would be worth $13,000 per child. (That's what America spends per student today.) Competition would then improve all schools. ... Vouchers aren't a perfect solution, but they are better than leaving every student a prisoner of a government monopoly." --columnist John Stossel
The Gipper
"Those nations and states which have secured man's highest aspirations for freedom, opportunity, and justice have always been those willing to trust their people, confident that their skills and their talents are equal to any challenge." --Ronald Reagan
Re: The Left
"According to the Taranto Principle, first identified by distinguished Wall Street Journal writer James Taranto, the mainstream media concocts false truths that actually encourage liberal Democrats to extravagance; thus, Al Gore hyperventilates over Global Warming, Jean-Francois Kerry presents himself as a Vietnam War hero, and Barack Obama sits awash in red ink and promises more. Operating in accord with the principle, the liberal Democrats abandon themselves to a riot of fantasies far removed from the American consensus, and the result is catastrophe for them and much amusement for the rest of us. ... It doesn't sound like the Occupiers are making much headway with the average American. But they are making headway with liberal Democrats. White House adviser David Plouffe says, 'The protests you're seeing are the same conversations people are having in living rooms and kitchens across America. ... People are frustrated by an economy that does not reward hard work and responsibility, where Wall Street and Main Street don't seem to play by the same set of rules.' And the brightest president in American history has said, 'I think people are frustrated. And the protesters are giving voice to a more broad-based frustration about how our financial system works.' Once again, the Taranto Principle is vindicated." --columnist R. Emmett Tyrrell
For the Record
"If I were a liberal, I would have spent the last week in shock that a Democratic audience in Flint, Mich., cheered Vice President Joe Biden's description of a policeman being killed. ... Biden's audience whooped and applauded ... when he said that without Obama's jobs bill, police will be 'outgunned and outmanned.' ... What is liberals' evidence that there will be more rapes and murders if Obama's jobs bill doesn't pass? Biden claims that, without it, there won't be enough cops to interrupt a woman being raped in her own home -- which would be an amazing bit of police work/psychic talent, if it had ever happened. (That's why Americans like guns, liberals.) Obama's jobs bill tackles the problem of rape and murder by giving the states $30 billion ... for public school teachers. Only $5 billion is even allotted to the police.... [D]id Flint [Michigan] use any money from Obama's last trillion-dollar stimulus bill to hire more police in order to prevent rape and murder? No, Flint spent its $2.2 million from the first stimulus bill on buying two electric buses. Even if what Flint really needed was buses and not cops, for $2.2 million, the city could have bought seven brand-new diesel buses and had $100,000 left over for streetlights. ... The 'green' buses were never delivered because the company went out of business -- despite a $1.6 million loan from the American taxpayer." --columnist Ann Coulter
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Again, I repeat my point that we of the American Creed are missing opportunities here to woo and win a goodly percentage of these people.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/owss-beef-wall-street-isnt-winning-its-cheating-20111025
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Crafty I agree wholeheartedly with your point.
Remember when banks would give US 5% on our savings account? Now we get nothing but fees.
I think there is an opportunity for Repubs to acknowledge the special and unfair (in my view) advantages the extreme wealthy have. I am not sure what to do about it. I have nothing against people getting rich and only wished I was one of them.
I do have problems with a system that gives them advantages no one else has.
The OWS is a crowd of different stripes and probably all Democrat party types. Yet not all of their rants are meritless.
The republicans can only win so many people over with their usual arguments.
I don't how to win over any of the 47% who pay no income tax without expressing at least some concern about maintaining a fair playing field.
Yes we all want freedom but we also want some government to do its job and make the playing field fair by going after crime (not being a part of it), getting rid of special favors, tax breaks for some, revolving door fascism etc.
I just don't hear many Republicans saying any of this. Or am I missing something?
Do you have any idea how to woo some of the OWS types? (Other then sending in a Panama red care package :wink:)
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I would begin by emphasizing how much of what they say agrees with us!!! The first step of communication is to establish what is held in common. Then let them see how serious, indeed how radical to the ruling fascist structures (both corporate and liberal) much of what we propose is. Share with them the understanding of how the Constitution is a bulwark against the ruling fascist structures-- and put the cold hard evidence of liberal fascism's collusion with, indeed creation of what that which they protest-- and how they are disserved by association with the Left in its various manifestations.
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I recall you thought him an old crank (I think I am getting that way - or am) but the only talking head I hear discussing this is Michael Savage who seems banned from Fox. Not so much the reaching out to OWS people but at least the right AND left fascism that polutes our nation.
Other conservatives including Levin, Rush, Hannity seem to as far as I know totally miss this point in their partisanship rants.
As for people like Huntsman, Scarborough and the other conciliatory, middle road, supposed self proclaimed adults and arch canons of being "reasonable" they not only miss the point they are actually part of the DC problem. The "mainstream" if you will.
Perhaps? Bob Grant would agree with our sentiments here. He is an all time great still on 77 AM radio on Sundays noon to I think 2PM. I don't know if you get him on the leftist coast.
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Crafty: "Again, I repeat my point that we of the American Creed are missing opportunities here to woo and win a goodly percentage of these people."
I have mixed feelings about it. Yes, get rid of favoritism and present these benefits of conservatism with greater emphasis and fewer diversions into trivial matters while the future of the Republic really is at stake. I have long believed that the far left and far right should be able to find many areas of agreement, especially with the so-called corporate welfare. On local issues it is stadium subsidies that having the poorest people in the community help out multi-millionaires and multi-billionaires that just can't make a go of it on their own - because they don't have to. And it happens in so many industries and so many levels of government. Perry was just saying no federal money preferences to energy. OWS'ers, that is a big step, lock it in! I'm sure Ron Paul has said that with every preference. It was mostly people from the right that opposed TARP and the bailouts and phony stimuli. Yes we could be out trumpeting areas of agreement, but in many ways we are, and they aren't listening. Tea party activists in GOP primaries were the ones knocking out their own in Washington that were operating without core principles. Both the Perry and Cain plans literally remove favoritism from the tax code which is a huge first step in ending the favors for sale industry. I have argued this before, but it is the extreme regulations that make it so that only a few elite firms can handle the compliance issues of large business transactions. It was mostly liberal justices in Kelo v. New London that supported taking people's family homes against their will and giving them to big business.
OTOH, this is a non-specific, incoherent cause with a bunch of poorly behaved people, leftists gone mad, much like what they hoped the tea party would turn out to be on the right. Their view of community and anti-capitalism is not what centrists are seeking nor the answer to our economic woes. The main belief is that wealth is rigged and their main hatred IMO is aimed at the fact of achievement and success rather than at the special treatment. Lending credibility to class warfare is not the way forward IMO. We have too few people that are driven to achieve or that even understand our economic system.
The other strategy is to sit quietly and let these people be themselves, illustrating what it means to be anti-market and leftist. These are almost all Democrat-run cities that are slow to decide how to deal with this human mess without inciting greater disturbances.
We may think him Marxist, but Obama is a corporatist worse than Ralph Nader predicted and worse than any Republican. Just look at where he goes for fund raisers and who he chooses to invite for special events. Wall street's and Hollywood's biggest contributions went to Obama and not without expecting rewards.
Meanwhile the President is rich from ghost written books that play on his public celebrity and Mrs. O. gets 8 weeks a year of exotic vacations, including beaches overseas even without the husband and flying separate government jets out of Martha's Vineyard for a 4 hour difference in schedules. She wore $600 shoes to serve at a soup line photo opp. The kids are in the best private schools as was young Barack growing up, while the policy position remains anti-school-voucher. Flying Air Force One to NYC for date night. Now they want to appeal to the 99%? This group is total elitist 1%'ers and never had to invent or build a product or risk their own capital on any of it.
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So, what do you make of the Rolling Stone piece I posted?
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The Rolling Stone piece is now blacked out so I can't re-read it.
Could it be posted?
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"So, what do you make of the Rolling Stone piece I posted?"
CCP says it disappeared so I'll try to post the text and come back and try to answer.
Wall Street Isn't Winning – It's Cheating
POSTED: October 25, 9:26 AM ET
Comment 381
occupy wall street london sign
A protestor's sign expresses the sentiment of the Occupy Wall Street movement at a Occupy Wall Street protest in London.
BEN STANSALL/AFP/Getty Images
I was at an event on the Upper East Side last Friday night when I got to talking with a salesman in the media business. The subject turned to Zucotti Park and Occupy Wall Street, and he was chuckling about something he'd heard on the news.
"I hear [Occupy Wall Street] has a CFO," he said. "I think that's funny."
"Okay, I'll bite," I said. "Why is that funny?"
"Well, I heard they're trying to decide what bank to put their money in," he said, munching on hors d'oeuvres. "It's just kind of ironic."
Oh, Christ, I thought. He’s saying the protesters are hypocrites because they’re using banks. I sighed.
"Listen," I said, "where else are you going to put three hundred thousand dollars? A shopping bag?"
"Well," he said, "it's just, their protests are all about... You know..."
"Dude," I said. "These people aren't protesting money. They're not protesting banking. They're protesting corruption on Wall Street."
"Whatever," he said, shrugging.
These nutty criticisms of the protests are spreading like cancer. Earlier that same day, I'd taped a TV segment on CNN with Will Cain from the National Review, and we got into an argument on the air. Cain and I agreed about a lot of the problems on Wall Street, but when it came to the protesters, we disagreed on one big thing.
Cain said he believed that the protesters are driven by envy of the rich.
"I find the one thing [the protesters] have in common revolves around the human emotions of envy and entitlement," he said. "What you have is more than what I have, and I'm not happy with my situation."
Cain seems like a nice enough guy, but I nearly blew my stack when I heard this. When you take into consideration all the theft and fraud and market manipulation and other evil shit Wall Street bankers have been guilty of in the last ten-fifteen years, you have to have balls like church bells to trot out a propaganda line that says the protesters are just jealous of their hard-earned money.
Think about it: there have always been rich and poor people in America, so if this is about jealousy, why the protests now? The idea that masses of people suddenly discovered a deep-seated animus/envy toward the rich – after keeping it strategically hidden for decades – is crazy.
Where was all that class hatred in the Reagan years, when openly dumping on the poor became fashionable? Where was it in the last two decades, when unions disappeared and CEO pay relative to median incomes started to triple and quadruple?
The answer is, it was never there. If anything, just the opposite has been true. Americans for the most part love the rich, even the obnoxious rich. And in recent years, the harder things got, the more we've obsessed over the wealth dream. As unemployment skyrocketed, people tuned in in droves to gawk at Evrémonde-heiresses like Paris Hilton, or watch bullies like Donald Trump fire people on TV.
Moreover, the worse the economy got, the more being a millionaire or a billionaire somehow became a qualification for high office, as people flocked to voting booths to support politicians with names like Bloomberg and Rockefeller and Corzine, names that to voters symbolized success and expertise at a time when few people seemed to have answers. At last count, there were 245 millionaires in congress, including 66 in the Senate.
And we hate the rich? Come on. Success is the national religion, and almost everyone is a believer. Americans love winners. But that's just the problem. These guys on Wall Street are not winning – they're cheating. And as much as we love the self-made success story, we hate the cheater that much more.
In this country, we cheer for people who hit their own home runs – not shortcut-chasing juicers like Bonds and McGwire, Blankfein and Dimon.
That's why it's so obnoxious when people say the protesters are just sore losers who are jealous of these smart guys in suits who beat them at the game of life. This isn't disappointment at having lost. It's anger because those other guys didn't really win. And people now want the score overturned.
All weekend I was thinking about this “jealousy” question, and I just kept coming back to all the different ways the game is rigged. People aren't jealous and they don’t want privileges. They just want a level playing field, and they want Wall Street to give up its cheat codes, things like:
FREE MONEY. Ordinary people have to borrow their money at market rates. Lloyd Blankfein and Jamie Dimon get billions of dollars for free, from the Federal Reserve. They borrow at zero and lend the same money back to the government at two or three percent, a valuable public service otherwise known as "standing in the middle and taking a gigantic cut when the government decides to lend money to itself."
Or the banks borrow billions at zero and lend mortgages to us at four percent, or credit cards at twenty or twenty-five percent. This is essentially an official government license to be rich, handed out at the expense of prudent ordinary citizens, who now no longer receive much interest on their CDs or other saved income. It is virtually impossible to not make money in banking when you have unlimited access to free money, especially when the government keeps buying its own cash back from you at market rates.
Your average chimpanzee couldn't fuck up that business plan, which makes it all the more incredible that most of the too-big-to-fail banks are nonetheless still functionally insolvent, and dependent upon bailouts and phony accounting to stay above water. Where do the protesters go to sign up for their interest-free billion-dollar loans?
CREDIT AMNESTY. If you or I miss a $7 payment on a Gap card or, heaven forbid, a mortgage payment, you can forget about the great computer in the sky ever overlooking your mistake. But serial financial fuckups like Citigroup and Bank of America overextended themselves by the hundreds of billions and pumped trillions of dollars of deadly leverage into the system -- and got rewarded with things like the Temporary Liquidity Guarantee Program, an FDIC plan that allowed irresponsible banks to borrow against the government's credit rating.
This is equivalent to a trust fund teenager who trashes six consecutive off-campus apartments and gets rewarded by having Daddy co-sign his next lease. The banks needed programs like TLGP because without them, the market rightly would have started charging more to lend to these idiots. Apparently, though, we can’t trust the free market when it comes to Bank of America, Goldman, Sachs, Citigroup, etc.
In a larger sense, the TBTF banks all have the implicit guarantee of the federal government, so investors know it's relatively safe to lend to them -- which means it's now cheaper for them to borrow money than it is for, say, a responsible regional bank that didn't jack its debt-to-equity levels above 35-1 before the crash and didn't dabble in toxic mortgages. In other words, the TBTF banks got better credit for being less responsible. Click on freecreditscore.com to see if you got the same deal.
STUPIDITY INSURANCE. Defenders of the banks like to talk a lot about how we shouldn't feel sorry for people who've been foreclosed upon, because it's their own fault for borrowing more than they can pay back, buying more house than they can afford, etc. And critics of OWS have assailed protesters for complaining about things like foreclosure by claiming these folks want “something for nothing.”
This is ironic because, as one of the Rolling Stone editors put it last week, “something for nothing is Wall Street’s official policy." In fact, getting bailed out for bad investment decisions has been de rigeur on Wall Street not just since 2008, but for decades.
Time after time, when big banks screw up and make irresponsible bets that blow up in their faces, they've scored bailouts. It doesn't matter whether it was the Mexican currency bailout of 1994 (when the state bailed out speculators who gambled on the peso) or the IMF/World Bank bailout of Russia in 1998 (a bailout of speculators in the "emerging markets") or the Long-Term Capital Management Bailout of the same year (in which the rescue of investors in a harebrained hedge-fund trading scheme was deemed a matter of international urgency by the Federal Reserve), Wall Street has long grown accustomed to getting bailed out for its mistakes.
The 2008 crash, of course, birthed a whole generation of new bailout schemes. Banks placed billions in bets with AIG and should have lost their shirts when the firm went under -- AIG went under, after all, in large part because of all the huge mortgage bets the banks laid with the firm -- but instead got the state to pony up $180 billion or so to rescue the banks from their own bad decisions.
This sort of thing seems to happen every time the banks do something dumb with their money. Just recently, the French and Belgian authorities cooked up a massive bailout of the French bank Dexia, whose biggest trading partners included, surprise, surprise, Goldman, Sachs and Morgan Stanley. Here's how the New York Times explained the bailout:
To limit damage from Dexia’s collapse, the bailout fashioned by the French and Belgian governments may make these banks and other creditors whole — that is, paid in full for potentially tens of billions of euros they are owed. This would enable Dexia’s creditors and trading partners to avoid losses they might otherwise suffer...
When was the last time the government stepped into help you "avoid losses you might otherwise suffer?" But that's the reality we live in. When Joe Homeowner bought too much house, essentially betting that home prices would go up, and losing his bet when they dropped, he was an irresponsible putz who shouldn’t whine about being put on the street.
But when banks bet billions on a firm like AIG that was heavily invested in mortgages, they were making the same bet that Joe Homeowner made, leaving themselves hugely exposed to a sudden drop in home prices. But instead of being asked to "suck it in and cope" when that bet failed, the banks instead went straight to Washington for a bailout -- and got it.
UNGRADUATED TAXES. I've already gone off on this more than once, but it bears repeating. Bankers on Wall Street pay lower tax rates than most car mechanics. When Warren Buffet released his tax information, we learned that with taxable income of $39 million, he paid $6.9 million in taxes last year, a tax rate of about 17.4%.
Most of Buffet’s income, it seems, was taxed as either "carried interest" (i.e. hedge-fund income) or long-term capital gains, both of which carry 15% tax rates, half of what many of the Zucotti park protesters will pay.
As for the banks, as companies, we've all heard the stories. Goldman, Sachs in 2008 – this was the same year the bank reported $2.9 billion in profits, and paid out over $10 billion in compensation -- paid just $14 million in taxes, a 1% tax rate.
Bank of America last year paid not a single dollar in taxes -- in fact, it received a "tax credit" of $1 billion. There are a slew of troubled companies that will not be paying taxes for years, including Citigroup and CIT.
When GM bought the finance company AmeriCredit, it was able to marry its long-term losses to AmeriCredit's revenue stream, creating a tax windfall worth as much as $5 billion. So even though AmeriCredit is expected to post earnings of $8-$12 billion in the next decade or so, it likely won't pay any taxes during that time, because its revenue will be offset by GM's losses.
Thank God our government decided to pledge $50 billion of your tax dollars to a rescue of General Motors! You just paid for one of the world's biggest tax breaks.
And last but not least, there is:
GET OUT OF JAIL FREE. One thing we can still be proud of is that America hasn't yet managed to achieve the highest incarceration rate in history -- that honor still goes to the Soviets in the Stalin/Gulag era. But we do still have about 2.3 million people in jail in America.
Virtually all 2.3 million of those prisoners come from "the 99%." Here is the number of bankers who have gone to jail for crimes related to the financial crisis: 0.
Millions of people have been foreclosed upon in the last three years. In most all of those foreclosures, a regional law enforcement office -- typically a sheriff's office -- was awarded fees by the court as part of the foreclosure settlement, settlements which of course were often rubber-stamped by a judge despite mountains of perjurious robosigned evidence.
That means that every single time a bank kicked someone out of his home, a local police department got a cut. Local sheriff's offices also get cuts of almost all credit card judgments, and other bank settlements. If you're wondering how it is that so many regional police departments have the money for fancy new vehicles and SWAT teams and other accoutrements, this is one of your answers.
What this amounts to is the banks having, as allies, a massive armed police force who are always on call, ready to help them evict homeowners and safeguard the repossession of property. But just see what happens when you try to call the police to prevent an improper foreclosure. Then, suddenly, the police will not get involved. It will be a "civil matter" and they won't intervene.
The point being: if you miss a few home payments, you have a very high likelihood of colliding with a police officer in the near future. But if you defraud a pair of European banks out of a billion dollars -- that's a billion, with a b -- you will never be arrested, never see a policeman, never see the inside of a jail cell.
Your settlement will be worked out not with armed police, but with regulators in suits who used to work for your company or one like it. And you'll have, defending you, a former head of that regulator's agency. In the end, a fine will be paid to the government, but it won't come out of your pocket personally; it will be paid by your company's shareholders. And there will be no admission of criminal wrongdoing.
The Abacus case, in which Goldman helped a hedge fund guy named John Paulson beat a pair of European banks for a billion dollars, tells you everything you need to know about the difference between our two criminal justice systems. The settlement was $550 million -- just over half of the damage.
Can anyone imagine a common thief being caught by police and sentenced to pay back half of what he took? Just one low-ranking individual in that case was charged (case pending), and no individual had to reach into his pocket to help cover the fine. The settlement Goldman paid to to the government was about 1/24th of what Goldman received from the government just in the AIG bailout. And that was the toughest "punishment" the government dished out to a bank in the wake of 2008.
The point being: we have a massive police force in America that outside of lower Manhattan prosecutes crime and imprisons citizens with record-setting, factory-level efficiency, eclipsing the incarceration rates of most of history's more notorious police states and communist countries.
But the bankers on Wall Street don't live in that heavily-policed country. There are maybe 1000 SEC agents policing that sector of the economy, plus a handful of FBI agents. There are nearly that many police officers stationed around the polite crowd at Zucotti park.
These inequities are what drive the OWS protests. People don't want handouts. It's not a class uprising and they don't want civil war -- they want just the opposite. They want everyone to live in the same country, and live by the same rules. It's amazing that some people think that that's asking a lot.
Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/owss-beef-wall-street-isnt-winning-its-cheating-20111025#ixzz1cOzWIDfZ
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***"The point being: we have a massive police force in America that outside of lower Manhattan prosecutes crime and imprisons citizens with record-setting, factory-level efficiency, eclipsing the incarceration rates of most of history's more notorious police states and communist countries.
But the bankers on Wall Street don't live in that heavily-policed country. There are maybe 1000 SEC agents policing that sector of the economy, plus a handful of FBI agents. There are nearly that many police officers stationed around the polite crowd at Zucotti park."***
Well that is one reason I suggested we pay police officers more to start with and get rid of the early retirements. If they are too old or decrepid to walk the beat then retrain them to go after the 100s of billions in white collar crime that is never touched because it is too hard or not a priority. Just a thought.
****These inequities are what drive the OWS protests. People don't want handouts. It's not a class uprising and they don't want civil war -- they want just the opposite. They want everyone to live in the same country, and live by the same rules. It's amazing that some people think that that's asking a lot.****
On this point I cannot totally agree. Many of the OWS protesters certainaly do want handouts. They think they are entitled.
Furthermore before I sound like I am cozying up to them it is obvious this is coordinated by Democrats providing cover for for Obama. If that was not the case they certainly would be protesting at his doorstep just the same as WS.
Otherwise I do agree with the RS author about the disparity of justice he notes. Republicans might capatilize on these points if they choose. Doug and Crafty both point out ways that they can do so and still be consistent with the principles of the right.
Yet so far they have not connected.
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CCP, If the author's conclusion were correct, they would be jumping to our side. Not so IMO.
I found the beginning to be unpersuasive, contains falsehoods, and a view different than mine. He makes a good point later about two justice systems. For sure, white collar crime is harder to track and no one seems to be trying.
My own experience in the housing debacle: a couple of houses next door to rental houses of mine sold for far more than everyone knew they were worth at the peak and later I bought both of those houses for 1/8th of those prices (pre-tornado). One in particular was an obvious fraud. They never fixed up the house before or after an over-priced sale and no one moved in after closing. Total fraud in my estimation. Nobody wanted that house that badly, it was play money to somebody. Seemed obvious to me was that if you tracked the appraiser, the originator, the closer, the realtor and the pigeon or whatever you call they guy that takes title just to default, you would find a prosecutable pattern. Instead no one cared and no one investigated. This happened IMO because of government pressure on lenders to lend in the wrong areas for the wrong reasons. To crash from there isn't that surprising. Every home but mine on that block went into foreclosure.
On Wall Street though, people that I know at that level play VERY carefully by the rules. The gripe is or should be with the rules, and that comes out of Washington, not Wall Street.
Back to the Rolling Stone story, quoting: "Dude," I said. "These people aren't protesting money. They're not protesting banking. They're protesting corruption on Wall Street."
I don't think the majority of 'protesters' are that precise, especially in Occupy Madison, Occupy Richmond and Occupy Denver, etc.
[Cain said he believed that the protesters are driven by envy of the rich.] "Cain seems like a nice enough guy, but I nearly blew my stack when I heard this. When you take into consideration all the theft and fraud and market manipulation and other evil shit Wall Street bankers have been guilty of in the last ten-fifteen years, you have to have balls like church bells to trot out a propaganda line that says the protesters are just jealous of their hard-earned money."
From what I have heard, Cain has it right - they are largely driven by envy of the rich. Saying guilty of evil shit is cool but does not establish guilt beyond reasonable doubt. It is sold as evil in our politics just to have success. Unless you are a supply sider, you mostly believe they took a share of your slice.
"there have always been rich and poor people in America, so if this is about jealousy, why the protests now?" ... "Where was all that class hatred in the Reagan years, when openly dumping on the poor became fashionable?"
What an unserious observation. The anger was there in the 1980's, and how did we dump on the poor? Pure BS. Domestic spending roughly doubled and Dems held the House the entire decade.
"At last count, there were 245 millionaires in congress, including 66 in the Senate."
He should have counted Billionaires. A million in assets or net worth is not filthy rich - your kids still might qualify for free school lunch in America.
"That's why it's so obnoxious when people say the protesters are just sore losers who are jealous of these smart guys in suits who beat them at the game of life."
The non-achievers in America aren't losing they are NOT PARTICIPATING in our economic system. They aren't the CEO of your second place competitor or running a small family owned investment banking house. Half the people are not contributing. But let's say you are a skilled tradesman instead of a banker and you married to a teacher, secretary or nurse. If you aren't rich and comfortable on that combined income, it is because of the combined tax burden, not because you were cheated by Wall Street bankers. Do the math. It is a ridiculous premise.
"They just want a level playing field, and they want Wall Street to give up its cheat codes"
No. Our side wants the level playing field. Take away the excess regulation that keeps competition away from entrenched players. Take the preferences out of the tax code, and gut the spending down to real safety net and legitimate government functions. Did you see Cain 9-9-9 sign or Perry 20-20 at the OWS rallies? I haven't.
He says: [Bankers have] "things like: FREE MONEY."
Yes banks pay close to zero. So do borrowers. I pay 2.75%. Meanwhile banks make zero off of savings which used to be the main source of funds for lending because, as he points out, they can get money cheaper at the Fed. Is that the bank's fault or Fed policy which we know comes out of congress - the people's representatives. If banks are making such outrageous money right now, why are they broke? The policy of micro-managing commercial banks comes out of federal deposit insurance. Does he favor that or oppose it? He doesn't say.
"Your average chimpanzee couldn't fuck up that business plan, which makes it all the more incredible that most of the too-big-to-fail banks are nonetheless still functionally insolvent, and dependent upon bailouts and phony accounting to stay above water."
Inflammatory BS statement. The bank business plan is f*cked up, as I said because they are micro managed by government, insured by government and considered too big to fail.
"Stupidity Insurance" ... "When was the last time the government stepped into help you "avoid losses you might otherwise suffer?"
Again he fails to acknowledge that they get propped up because if they fail further we are on the hook for the losses. That is the law of the land out of Washington, not from the management of the bank. We stepped in as taxpayers and Bush, McCain, Paulsen, Obama, Volcker, Bernancke and ever other reputable person favored it because they believed the cost to the taxpayer and to the economy would be greater if they didn't. The alternative system is a free market, and neither side is calling for that, nor does he. Just bitching and moaning.
"UNGRADUATED TAXES. I've already gone off on this more than once, but it bears repeating. Bankers on Wall Street pay lower tax rates than most car mechanics."
Again, BS, right out of Buffet and Obama. If that really were true, why all the uproar of the so-called populists against a flat tax and all the studies that that would even tax rates help the rich not the poor. Which is it?? Capital gains that come to bank execs already were taxed (forget to mention that?) and social security insurance isn't a supposed to be tax, it is insurance against growing old beyond your money and the required contribution is capped so the benefits are capped. I would be the first to end that system. Use your own money; choose your own policy.
"Bank of America last year paid not a single dollar in taxes"
Oh really? Not a single dime, such a bone headed statement! For one thing I will estimate that they pay a billion in property tax which happens to be a federal tax deduction. By my rough estimate, they pay another $100 million just in the employer contribution of their 300,000 employees social security. They pay the rest of the employees' employment tax that never gets to the worker. Who does he think pays those taxes. They pay sales tax on nearly every product they buy in 50 states unless they are reselling those products in some retail business. So he must mean federal corporate income tax. Okay, then say it and call for reform. All the Republicans are calling to fix it and all the Occupiers are ignoring it, as far as I can see. One problem with the income tax is that these banks are using up all their revenues on ... expenses, including regulation compliance and things mentioned above like employment taxes and property taxes.
In conclusion he writes: "These inequities are what drive the OWS protests. People don't want handouts. It's not a class uprising and they don't want civil war -- they want just the opposite. They want everyone to live in the same country, and live by the same rules. It's amazing that some people think that that's asking a lot."
No, if that's what they want, we already have a movement - that is what the tea party is calling for. Public urination, public masturbation, public drug use and attracting the homeless for hire doesn't get you there IMO.
I'm not an expert on OWS. I assumed from the beginning it was a continuation of the anarchists from Seattle along with the ACORN type liberals from our city that tried to get me to vote again and the groups in Milwaukee who gave free cigarettes to people to get on the vote bus. My view was summed up yesterday in the Unified Theory post. Find something wrong and then call for another big government program to solve it. I would love to find out I am wrong.
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I'm missing out the connections from what the article states and the rapes, riots and public sh*tting seen at the various OWS events.
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You are right, you are :lol:
There ARE plenty of people who make the points that the article does. You simply focus on the admittedly numerous others.
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Funny how one writer from Rolling Stoned magazine can articulate an idea otherwise lost in translation from the mass of zombies at OWS protests.
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And, yet, it is political speech and therefore due higher protection than it has been given:
http://www.cnn.com/2011/10/31/us/tennessee-occupy-protests/index.html?hpt=hp_t1
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And, yet, it is LEFTIST political speech and therefore due higher protection than it has been given:
Some animals are more equal than others.....
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http://www.therepublic.com/view/story/850c772fd9004fc5ac0585aef836fefb/VA--Tea-Party-Occupy-Protests/
Richmond, Va. — The Richmond tea party is demanding a refund of about $10,000 from the city, claiming it unfairly charged them for rallies while allowing the Occupy protesters to use the same space for several weeks for free.
The political organization is sending the city an invoice for the charges incurred for three rallies held in Kanawha Plaza over the past three years. The Occupy protesters have been camped in the plaza since Oct. 15.
Richmond Tea Party spokeswoman Colleen Owens says it's not fair that her group had to pay fees for permits, portable toilets, police presence and emergency personnel. The group also had to purchase a $1 million insurance policy.
Tea party groups across the nation have raised similar concerns since the protests spread from New York earlier this month.
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And, yet, it is LEFTIST political speech and therefore due higher protection than it has been given:
Some animals are more equal than others.....
I hope you realize that I do not make this distinction.
Your article on the cost to the Tea Party is very interesting. Thanks.
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"I hope you realize that I do not make this distinction."
Just pointing out that many judges and elected officials sure seem to. Did CNN include this in their coverage of the OWS protests? If not, why not?
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"I hope you realize that I do not make this distinction."
Just pointing out that many judges and elected officials sure seem to. Did CNN include this in their coverage of the OWS protests? If not, why not?
I know what you were doing. The thanks was sincere.
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Doug and GM,
Thanks for your thoughts. I agree with both of you on most issues.
Yet I still see, and perhaps Crafty would agree you both seem to argue "around" or ignore (the term Crafty used) some truly legitimate points made in the RS article.
I am not sophisticated enough to know what the best (if any exists) solution is but clearly there are problems with both regulating and unregulating the banks and the fact that the regulators AND the politlicians and the bankers are al like a country club of people merry go rounding in a whilrpool (or better - cesspool) of gigantic money.
With due respect to both GM and Doug, I love both of you as a frequent poster on the board your posts somehow seem to display the lack of ability for Republicans to make real inroads with independents.
Maybe it is mostly the fascist nature of the WS and the government that IS the main problem - it is very complex - probably more than my average brain can work through yet every time I try to think through this this aspect of it keeps coiming in my stepwise logic as a core problem. I don't see how we can not have some regulation. Lest WS will drive the economy into a ditch. I cannot see how we can thrive with too much regulation either though. And then the problems that always complicate the situation is that the regulators fail to do their jobs in enforcement because of many reasons, too hard, not enough manpower or enforcement legislative power, bribes, embezzelment, nepotism (the Fed people going into the private sector and vice a versa), money to politicians. Too much regulation which is counterproductive ( I certailly live this everyday in the medical field). I can go on.
Yet with all due respect (sincerely) I think GM and Doug somehow make the point by not responding or not seeing a legitimate beef on this.
OK I am off my soapbox - go ahead and tear me apart - if you want.
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May I suggest reframing from the rather crude metric of "how much regulation" to one that analyzes the basis for the regulation?
For example, regulation that is based upon prevention of fraud (e.g. the box should have in it what it says it has in it in the amount claimed) and the proper allocation of the costs of externalities (costs should be born by the buyer and seller to the transaction-- thus pollution is a proper reason for regulation) is one thing.
Regulation that seeks to redistribute wealth or give bureaucrats nanny powers are another thing.
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(http://image.patriotpost.us/2011-11-01-humor-1.jpg)
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ccp,
I'm still torn on the bailouts of 2008. My core belief is that there is no such thing as "Too big to fail", but credible people made convincing arguments that it was crucial to do so to avoid a global economic meltdown. Having said that, I'm not sure we didn't just delay that day to a little further down the road.
Are the protesters advocating for anything but the same things marxists of various stripes have been since those toxic ideas were first formulated? I don't see the Union bailouts getting protested, or Solyndra or the other lefty boondoggles looming. Why not?
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CCP, Likewise, I respect your views very much. I read your posts very carefully for your insights especially because we don't come at these things from the exact same point of view. I know I am hardened in some of my views but I am always open to the political side of how to draw more people into what I call a conservative course of action, smaller government, freer enterprises and restored personal liberties.
I did acknowledge one valid point in the piece - the two systems of justice, but I don't see where the author in Rolling Stone showed that crimes were committed. He did give one example but it was after he had lost all credibility with me, so I would have to study it further to know. It was your idea CCP that I like very much that law enforcement personnel too old (like me) to walk the beat should be trained in white collar areas instead of just given pay and pensions for youthful retirements if that is what is happening now. If you can learn homicide and arson detective work, I can train you on bank accounting. No doubt that isn't workable because of public union contracts, but the idea is correct, and (credit to Crafty) resources committed to finding and prosecuting of fraud and therefore deterring it is a worthwhile public purpose.
On the question of banking, it is certainly the most egregious of the so-called public-private relationships that we tend to hate in in every other industry, auto manufacturing, health care etc. But we wanted it that way, didn't we? What I don't get is that if the bankers are doing exactly what they are allowed to do by government, why is the anger aimed at this pretend private sector instead of at the controlling government? If this is a Republican problem, why was it not fixed during the 2 years that leftists had all the votes? If this is anger that goes back to the panic bailouts of fall 2008, why did it start in fall 2011?
The special treatment of the rich who make far more than their 1% of political contributions is the fault of the politicians who give special treatment and the voters who tolerate it. Among the very worst offenders were Dodd and Frank, so we made them the authors of the latest reform. Where was OWS while reform was being written and why the delay to come out after? How many of these street occupiers wrote their own congressman before finding out so many shared their view. Mark me down as skeptical. The only group I know that recently stood up and took out their own incumbent representatives for abandoning principles is the tea party. They did it with some success and they did it willing to lose general elections over it.
I will listen to any serious idea to privatize banks and I will listen to any serious idea to nationalize banks - they are already under complete federal control except for the choices of coffee in the lobby.
What I don't like economically and politically is the ad hominem attacks on the successful. I say that from the lowest quintile of income; I pay roughly 100% of take home income in property taxes state and local before the federal government can take a swipe at it. The 99% argument is not aimed only at rigged industries or all of them would be conservative tea party members IMO.
I know that it is only the people with money who can invest and that employment will never come back without investment, and we need more people with money in this country to invest and grow jobs. We need more serious startups and we need existing companies that want to be here to be economically welcome to stay here. I know that businesses and manufacturing left this country not because of high wages, but because of high costs and there is a difference. I know a few ways we could out from under this but I don't know how to persuade other people to get on board. I am all ears.
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The CNN story says OWS is about 'corporate greed'. While gas prices were spiking under Bush and Katrina, a good friend said to me that the prices jumped up because of greed and something to the effect that it is because the oil companies have their buddies in the White House. Trying so hard not to use the words 'economic illiteracy' I said back to him that the only thing that remained constant during the whole price volatility thing was corporate greed. These companies have been maximizing profits since they first struck oil. What changes is supply and demand. Supply was affected then by a hurricane and supply is always affected by regulations. Some regulations are worthy (see Crafty's post) but all of them drive up prices.
The collapse of 2008 spilling over into 2011 was not a surge in banker or corporate greed. That is ridiculous. Bankers have been maximizing their profits since before the Federal Reserve Act of 1913.
What happened in the current crash is that we created an extreme bubble in a market that affects all of us with runaway government policies and it was finally burst when the policy arrow shifted sharply to the anti-growth direction and investors saw with certainty that asset price collapses were coming. At this time now when we so desperately need economic growth to get jobs, income and our revenues up, our policies on every level are still anti-growth.
Meanwhile, greed has remained constant.
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"...you can become the greediest person on earth and that will not increase your pay in the slightest. It is what other people pay you that increases your income."
I could save myself a lot of time at the keyboard if I would just let Thomas Sowell express my view for me.
November 1, 2011
Democracy Versus Mob Rule
By Thomas Sowell
In various cities across the country, mobs of mostly young, mostly incoherent, often noisy and sometimes violent demonstrators are making themselves a major nuisance.
Meanwhile, many in the media are practically gushing over these "protesters," and giving them the free publicity they crave for themselves and their cause -- whatever that is, beyond venting their emotions on television.
Members of the mobs apparently believe that other people, who are working while they are out trashing the streets, should be forced to subsidize their college education -- and apparently the President of the United States thinks so too.
But if these loud mouths' inability to put together a coherent line of thought is any indication of their education, the taxpayers should demand their money back for having that money wasted on them for years in the public schools.
Sloppy words and sloppy thinking often go together, both in the mobs and in the media that are covering them. It is common, for example, to hear in the media how some "protesters" were arrested. But anyone who reads this column regularly knows that I protest against all sorts of things -- and don't get arrested.
The difference is that I don't block traffic, join mobs sleeping overnight in parks or urinate in the street. If the media cannot distinguish between protesting and disturbing the peace, then their education may also have wasted a lot of taxpayers' money.
Among the favorite sloppy words used by the shrill mobs in the streets is "Wall Street greed." But even if you think people in Wall Street, or anywhere else, are making more money than they deserve, "greed" is no explanation whatever.
"Greed" says how much you want. But you can become the greediest person on earth and that will not increase your pay in the slightest. It is what other people pay you that increases your income.
If the government has been sending too much of the taxpayers' money to people in Wall Street -- or anywhere else -- then the irresponsibility or corruption of politicians is the problem. "Occupy Wall Street" hooligans should be occupying Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington.
Maybe some of the bankers or financiers should have turned down the millions and billions that politicians were offering them. But sainthood is no more common in Wall Street than on Pennsylvania Avenue -- or in the media or academia, for that matter.
Actually, some banks did try to refuse the government bailout money, to avoid the interference with their business that they knew would come with it. But the feds insisted -- and federal regulators' power to create big financial problems for banks made it hard to say no. The feds made them an offer they couldn't refuse.
People who cannot distinguish between democracy and mob rule may fall for the idea that the hooligans in the street represent the 99 percent who are protesting about the "greed" of the one percent. But these hooligans are less than one percent and they are grossly violating the rights of vastly larger numbers of people who have to put up with their trashing of the streets by day and their noise that keeps working people awake at night.
As for the "top one percent" in income that attract so much attention, angst and denunciation, there is always going to be a top one percent, unless everybody has the same income. That top one percent has no more monopoly on sainthood or villainy than people in any other bracket.
Moreover, that top one percent does not consist of the "millionaires and billionaires" that Barack Obama talks about. You don't even have to make half a million dollars to be in the top one percent.
Moreover, this is not an enduring class of people. Nor are people in other income brackets. Most of the people in the top one percent at any given time are there for only one year. Anyone who sells an average home in San Francisco can get into the top one percent in income -- for that year. Other one-time spikes in income account for most of the people in that top one percent.
But such plain facts carry little weight amid the heady rhetoric and mindless emotions of the mob and the media.
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http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/401092/october-31-2011/colbert-super-pac---occupy-wall-street-co-optportunity---stephen-on-location
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http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1955750_1955749,00.html
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The Foundation
"Newspapers ... serve as chimnies to carry off noxious vapors and smoke." --Thomas Jefferson
Government & Politics
Leftmedia Welcomes Cain to Prime Time
Leftmedia outfit Politico dropped a bomb on Herman Cain's presidential campaign Sunday night with a story about two women accusing him of sexual harassment in the 1990s. Politico's story was anonymously sourced, though they claimed to have spoken to both women, and reporters later hedged when pressed on the specifics of their information. Regardless, in a culture that gets so much of its news in 140-character Twitter soundbites, the damage was done.
"During Herman Cain's tenure as the head of the National Restaurant Association in the 1990s, at least two female employees complained to colleagues and senior association officials about inappropriate behavior by Cain, ultimately leaving their jobs at the trade group," Politico reported. "The women complained of sexually suggestive behavior by Cain that made them angry and uncomfortable, the sources said, and they signed agreements with the restaurant group that gave them financial payouts to leave the association. The agreements also included language that bars the women from talking about their departures." Fifteen years later, that has come in handy.
Cain's initial response was not a good one. Politico claimed that it had contacted his campaign before publishing the story, and yet he seemed woefully unprepared to offer a counterpoint. When first asked directly if he had ever been accused of sexual harassment, he threw the question right back at the reporter. He denied any wrongdoing and said he didn't even remember a settlement, but later said that he did remember though it was a small one (there were two, of $35,000 and $45,000, respectively) and it didn't go through him. The fact that the settlements were small and it was the women, not Cain, who left the NRA lends credence to Cain's innocence (he certainly deserves that presumption), but it would help if he got his story straight.
As for the details, he described one incident, saying, "She was in my office one day, and I made a gesture saying -- and I was standing close to her -- and I made a gesture saying you are the same height as my wife. And I brought my hand up to my chin saying, 'My wife comes up to my chin.'"
It wasn't long before the blame game started. Cain's campaign accused Curt Anderson, a former aide who now works for Rick Perry, of being the source of the story. To add confusion, the campaign later retracted that accusation before Cain himself reiterated it. The Perry camp denied any involvement, instead blaming the Romney campaign, thus completing the circular firing squad.
If this benefits anyone, it could be Newt Gingrich, who may well be the only candidate who understands Ronald Reagan's 11th Commandment. We think he could be the next candidate to spike in the polls. Yet Cain's poll numbers are higher now than they were last week, particularly in the all-important early states of Iowa and South Carolina, and his fundraising is up as well. Perhaps that's indicative of conservatives rallying around one of their own who's under assault by the media juggernaut.
As for the Republican candidates, they need to cut the crap, quit attacking each other, and focus on beating Barack Obama in the general election. Besides, "the real story here is the media -- and Politico in particular," as National Review's Andrew McCarthy writes. "Politico's initial story was woven out of insufficient evidence, anonymous sources, and vague allegations that -- even if you construed every possible inference against Cain -- would amount to an impropriety that outfits like Politico would find too trivial to cover like this if the culprit were a left-leaning Democrat."
As if on cue, Bloomberg columnist Jonathan Alter wrote a column last Friday titled, The Obama Miracle, a White House Free of Scandal. No, Mr. Alter. Just because the media don't report Obama's scandals doesn't mean there aren't any, or that they aren't far worse than a hand gesture that made a woman uncomfortable.
What do you think of the allegations against Cain?
Open Query
"If you are running for president of the United States and have a sexual-harassment complaint or two in your background -- no matter how specious -- what possible excuse can you have for not knowing how those complaints were resolved, well before you announce that you are running for president? Especially if the resolution reflected well on you? How can you possibly justify your not being in command of basic facts about your own career -- the career that is the centerpiece of your campaign?" --National Review's Kevin Williamson
We Can't Wait: Suddenly, a Slew of Co-sponsors!
House Democrats rallied around Obama's "jobs" bill this week, with 90 members signing on as co-sponsors. The bill sat with only one sponsor, Rep. John Larson (D-CT), for three weeks after he introduced it in September. The sudden surge of support came at the direction of the House Democrat leadership, attempting to combat Republican criticism of the bill. The plan calls for tax hikes and promises to public unions, but it will only end up adding to the deficit with no net gain in jobs. If an $862 billion stimulus couldn't trim unemployment, a $447 billion stimulus won't do any better. In truth, this bill proposes nothing more than a pre-election payoff to Obama's Democrat constituencies.
Other Democrats seem to understand this. The Blue Dog Coalition has kept its distance, as have other Democrats facing tough races next year. The recent rush of support by other Democrats is most likely the result of good old-fashioned arm-twisting by Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (such as threats to withhold campaign funds). There can't be many other believable explanations for 90 co-sponsors suddenly signing onto the bill after it languished without support for so long.
The Democrat Senate failed again Thursday on two separate votes to pass anything related to Obama's bill, but the Republican House has passed some 17 bills related to job creation. Here are some of them: March 31 they passed H.R. 872, The Reducing Regulatory Burdens Act, joined by 57 Democrats; May 5 they passed H.R. 1230, the Restating American Offshore Leasing Now Act, with 33 Democrats; May 11 they passed H.R. 1229, the Putting the Gulf of Mexico Back to Work Act, supported by 28 Democrats; May 12 they passed H.R. 1231, the Reversing President Obama's Offshore Moratorium Act, along with 21 Democrats; June 22 they passed H.R. 2021, The Jobs and Energy Permitting Act, and 23 Democrats voted for it; July 26 they passed H.R. 1938, The North American Made Energy Security Act, with 47 Democrat votes; October 6 they passed H.R. 2681, The Cement Sector Regulatory Relief Act, joined by 25 Democrats; October 13 they passed H.R. 2250, The EPA Regulatory Relief Act, H.R. 2250, with 41 Democrats; and finally, October 14 they passed H.R. 2273, The Coal Residuals Reuse and Management Act, H.R. 2273, along with 37 Democrats. In other words, Senate Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) is full of it when he blames Republicans.
This Week's 'Alpha Jackass' Award
Saint Barack
"God wants to see us help ourselves by putting people back to work." --Barack Obama
Note: This is not satire from The Onion. Apparently, Barry has actually conferred with the Almighty and determined that He approves of the so-called jobs bill. And here we thought that Leftists were the great defenders of that mythical "Wall of Separation."
Regarding Obama's assertion, White House spokesman Jay Carney later claimed, "Well, I believe the phrase from the Bible is, 'The Lord helps those who help themselves.'"
Hilariously, an official notation at the bottom of the White House's own transcript notes: "This common phrase does not appear in the Bible." Not only did Carney flub the defense, he ended up making an argument for the opposition. In other words, the supposed biblical principle isn't, "God helps those who get help from government first." Way to go, Jay.
Sound off on Obama's claim
The BIG Lie
"I'll tell you this: If President Obama and the House congressional Democrats had not acted [with the 2009 stimulus], we would be at 15 percent unemployment." --House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), repeating her unprovable claim
Meanwhile, the economy added 80,000 jobs in October and headline unemployment fell from 9.1 percent to 9.0 percent. That, of course, doesn't take into account those who have simply quit looking for work, meaning the real unemployment rate may be twice the reported number -- and that's with the stimulus.
New & Notable Legislation
The minibus spending bill the Senate passed this week to fund agriculture, the FDA, and other agencies is apparently not all it's cracked up to be, according to Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), the ranking member of the Budget Committee. Democrats claim that the bill cuts $1 billion compared to Fiscal 2011, which is a pitiful amount on its own, but Sessions argues that it will actually increase spending by $9 billion thanks to an accounting gimmick that doesn't factor in mandatory appropriations. No wonder the government has budget problems.
Several Senate Democrats proposed a constitutional amendment to give Congress power to regulate political campaign spending, specifically to prevent corporate donations. In a public statement announcing the proposal, Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island credited the Occupy Wall Street movement with the background research: "The extent to which money and corporations have taken over the process is something that is reflected across our cities in the Occupy movement." So not only do Democrats propose to regulate how campaigns are funded, but they took courage from a bunch of 20-something street-dwelling socialist malcontents.
News From the Swamp: Social Security's Future
The inevitable Social Security default is coming at a quickening pace, according to analysts who have been studying the program. Even The Washington Post took notice. In 2010, America's favorite government program went cash negative, meaning that it paid out more in benefits than it took in through payroll taxes. This unfortunate milestone came years earlier than originally anticipated because of the hit that government revenues took due to the recession and the ensuing payroll tax cut gimmick of the first "stimulus." If Obama's plan to extend that cut becomes reality, Social Security will face a $267 billion shortfall next year.
Politicians on both left and right for years have feared taking on the coming Social Security funding crisis. Yet the figures don't lie. The number of people receiving Social Security checks will nearly double by 2035, at which point there will be only two workers paying into the program for every retiree drawing benefits. The steady rise in life expectancy bodes even more trouble, since people will draw from the system for increasingly longer periods of time. Yet leftists, employing their powerful mouthpiece, the AARP, to frighten seniors, reject the idea of raising the retirement age to save the program. A dangerous combination of arrogance and ignorance is standing in the way of reforming Social Security to reflect new demographic and economic realities. Its survival is not guaranteed just because it's popular; it also has to function.
From the Left: Government Gifts
The State Department recently spent $70,000 on some unusual Christmas gifts for U.S. embassies to hand out: Copies of Barack Obama's three books, "Dreams from My Father," "The Audacity of Hope" and his children's book, "Of Thee I Sing." The White House claims it had no knowledge of the State Department's purchase, which puts money directly into Obama's pocket. Granted, $70,000 isn't much money in federal budget terms, and Obama's royalties represent but a fraction of the total, but such activities do not reflect the upright principles and ethics that Obama was supposed to bring to Washington.
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http://biggovernment.com/jpollak/2011/11/04/racism-occupy-activists-clash-after-internal-survey-shows-occupywallstreet-81-2-white-1-6-black/
‘RACISM!’ – #Occupy Activists Clash After Internal Survey Reveals #OccupyWallStreet 81.2% White, 1.6% Black
by Joel B. Pollak
Big Government has learned that a major internal fight has erupted among Occupy Wall Street organizers after activists began circulating an infographic published by FastCompany, the “progressive business” magazine.
The infographic in question depicts the results of an internal online survey conducted by Occupy Wall Street supporters at occupywallst.org.
The data, compiled by advertising analyst Harrison Schultz and Ford Foundation sociologist Dr. Héctor R. Cordero-Guzmán, were intended to promote the idea, as Dr. Cordero-Guzmán put it, that “the 99% movement comes from and looks like the 99%.”
Some activists were outraged, however, that the survey results and the infographic show Occupy Wall Street to be 81.2 percent white, and only 1.6 percent black.
By comparison, the U.S. population is 77.1 percent white and 12.9 percent black, according to the U.S. Census Bureau–making the Occupy Wall Street movement disproportionately white.
The infographic, depicted below, caused instant controversy when it was shared among Occupy Wall Street organizers. One activist reacted: “81% white protestors–and you actually made a flyer proudly advertising this lie, in a multicultural city like NYC? You must be crazy and blind.”
She later accused Schultz of “insidious racism” and “white supremacy,” and demanded “serious mediation” from organizers on the Safer Spaces working group, the internal security apparatus of Occupy Wall Street.
(http://biggovernment.com/files/2011/11/occupy-wall-street-infographic-960-1575.jpg)
The argument then escalated, according to Big Government sources, with threats of intervention from the “people of color working group” and the sarcastic suggestion that the analysts “join the Tea Party.”
Other activists defended the survey and confronted the original complainant, saying that she was “on thin ground” because “as an Arab, you’re also considered white in the country, by census returns.”
Schultz himself returned the accusation of racism: “I’d rather not spend what little time I have to enjoy sitting on my ass to deal with your silly bullsh**, which happens to be far more racist than any information I’ve produced for OWS.”
For his trouble, he was encouraged by another organizer to attend “anti-oppression workshops.”
The conflict apparently remains unresolved.
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GM, I have seen that 2% of OWSers consider themselves Republican. Crafty and others consider this movement to be an opportunity for better messaging from our side. I hope to learn how. It seems to me that Republican candidates are shouting from the roof tops to end ALL tax code preferences to all special interests and want to make similar strides on the spending side. I will not however share any part of the views I hear expressed that oppose expanding economic liberty and oppose the creation and accumulation of wealth.
Big tent conservative strategy: You describe your positions and policies that favor a better opportunity society for ALL Americans featuring equal protection under the law, lower tax rates, streamlined and focused regulations, and limited federal government based on constitutional principles - then ask all Americans to come join us. Cain and Perry and others are doing that, while the other side features piecemeal politics carefully constructed with special programs and policies designed to hold in each of their targeted constituent groups.
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Doug,
I think the list of OWS supporters is very telling:
http://pjmedia.com/zombie/2011/10/31/the-99-official-list-of-ows/
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The list from GM's link. It would seem to me that this is the other team. Some groups I'm not seeing represented: tea party, Club for Growth, Center for the American Experiment, Cato, Heritage, Reagan Library...
Communist Party USA
Sources: Communist Party USA, OWS speech, The Daily Caller
American Nazi Party
Sources: Media Matters, American Nazi Party, White Honor, Sunshine State News
Ayatollah Khamenei, Supreme Leader of Iran
Sources: The Guardian, Tehran Times, CBS News
Barack Obama
Sources: ABC News, CBS News, ForexTV, NBC New York
The government of North Korea
Sources: Korean Central News Agency (North Korean state-controlled news outlet), The Marxist-Leninist, Wall Street Journal, Times of India
Louis Farrakhan, Nation of Islam
Sources: video statement (starting at 8:28), Black in America, Weasel Zippers, Philadelphia Weekly
Revolutionary Communist Party
Sources: Revolutionary Communist Party, Revolution newspaper, in-person appearance
David Duke
Sources: Talking Points Memo, video statement, davidduke.com
Joe Biden
Sources: Talking Points Memo, video statement, Mother Jones
Hugo Chavez
Sources: Mother Jones, Reuters, Examiner.com
Revolutionary Guards of Iran
Sources: Associated Press, FARS News Agency, UPI
Black Panthers (original)
Sources: in-person appearance, Occupy Oakland, Oakland Tribune
Socialist Party USA
Sources: Socialist Party USA, IndyMedia, The Daily Caller
US Border Guard
Sources: White Reference, www.usborderguard.com, Gateway Pundit, Just Another Day blog
Industrial Workers of the World
Sources: IWW web site, iww.org, in-person appearances
CAIR
Sources: in-person appearance, Washington Post, CAIR, CAIR New York
Nancy Pelosi
Sources: Talking Points Memo, video statement, ABC News, The Weekly Standard
Communist Party of China
Sources: People’s Daily (Communist Party organ), Reuters, chinataiwan.org, The Telegraph
Hezbollah
Sources: almoqawama.org, almoqawama.org (2), almoqawama.org (3), wikipedia
9/11Truth.org
Sources: 911truth.org (1), 911truth.org (2), 911truth.org (3)
International Bolshevik Tendency
Sources: bolshevik.org, Wire Magazine
Anonymous
Sources: Adbusters, The Guardian, video statement
White Revolution
Source: whiterevolution.com
International Socialist Organization
Sources: Socialist Worker, socialistworker.org, in-person appearance
PressTV (Iranian government outlet)
Sources: PressTV, wikipedia
Marxist Student Union
Sources: Marxist Student Union, Big Government, marxiststudentunion.blogspot.com
Freedom Road Socialist Organization
Sources: FightBack News, fightbacknews.org
ANSWER
Sources: ANSWER press release, ANSWER web site, Xinhua
Party for Socialism and Liberation
Sources: Liberation News (1), pslweb.org, The Daily Free Press, Liberation News (2)
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Apparently at this point OWS has become completely dominated by the organized elements of the hard left, especially in certain locations.
My original point was that the ORIGINAL crowd contained many people who were fertile ground for us. At this point, that would seem to be quite a bit less so. Nonetheless, IMHO MANY of those watching (especially the coverage by the Pravdas) share the Tea Party sentiment about liberal fascism/crony capitalism. I think it important that we continue to make clear that they share OUR sentiment and to offer them OUR solutions.
If we offer only snide comments, we create unnecessary resistance and unnecessarily inflame those whose operant modality is emotion.
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Crafty, Thank you. I was not criticizing but trying to draw your view out further. Except for walking through the scene of the alleged public masturbation problem with daughter on a college visit in Madison - we just saw bums and signs - I really haven't known anything firsthand at all about this, just stuck with my suspicions of who comes to these.
"I think it important that we continue to make clear that they share OUR sentiment and to offer them OUR solutions."
Agree and the challenge of articulating 'our view' more clearly is daunting. These candidates, even Huntsman and Pawlenty, have had revolutionary economic plans that are being received by everyone beyond the hard core base with a collective yawn. Perry, whose plan I have made clear that I like, was told by a mainstream interviewer that the rich with pay less in taxes (in static analysis) if the rate is lower and he said 'I don't care about that'... and went on to try to attempt a larger point that I'm sure didn't come through. I know what he meant or should have said but it is very hard to explain with clarity in quick bites and quick answers. The very few with the magic of being able to do that aren't running.
Rush L. has a way with words but admitted he can't let himself be judged by the minds he changes, if any. You work to present, express, explain to the best of your ability but you don't control the receiving end of the message. People have to allow themselves to be persuaded.
It is quite hard if not impossible to go up to a viewpoint that hates wealth and capitalism and have the simplest point of incentive-based economics make a landing.
Your point that the rest of the electorate is watching with interest is excellent. Ronald Reagan wasn't given much credit for being right until well into his Presidency and many still don't get it, yet he was espousing his views with clarity at least back to 1964 to those who would listen. Enjoy THIS: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yt1fYSAChxs
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yt1fYSAChxs[/youtube]
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November 4, 2011
Joe Biden conspicuously silent on Occupier sex-crime spree
Remember when all Joe Biden could talk about was rape? He kept saying the Republicans aren’t backing the American Jobs Act because they want everybody to get raped? Then he clammed up about it for some reason. But we’ll always have the memories. Good times.
As the media tries to feed the embers of a sex scandal despite a distinct lack of A) sex or B) scandal, let’s take a look at our good friends in the Occupy movement who are giving ol’ Sheriff Joe something to cry about. In less than two months, they’ve already racked up an impressive list of rapes, sexual assaults, and other assorted sex crimes across the country.
Denver Post, 10/15/11:
An Occupy Denver demonstrator was arrested late Saturday for “sexual misconduct” after allegedly groping a male television photographer.
Corey Donahue, a 28-year-old medical marijuana activist, was arrested at 10:20 p.m. in Civic Center park, according to three photographers who witnessed the event. Two of the photographers work for The Post.
This is Donahue’s third arrest in six weeks.
All of which go toward his Occupier Merit Badge. This one’s a tough call, though. If you think it’s wrong for a man to be attracted to another man, you’re a homophobe. But if you think it’s okay to sexually assault people, you’re a pervert. So it evens out.
Incidentally, Donahue showed up in another Denver Post story a couple of weeks later:
Infighting, backbiting and people she viewed as violent opportunists led one of Occupy Denver’s most visible participants to quit the local movement after the peaceful protest turned violent Saturday.
Rebecca “Becca” Chavez, 29, announced on Twitter on Sunday afternoon, “I support Occupy Wall Street whole-heartedly but I cannot, at present, support, endorse, or be a part of Occupy Denver…”
True to keeping the movement faceless, Chavez intentionally never called herself a leader, but no one at Occupy Denver would disagree that she was influential.
“Becca was a part of a contingency that thinks if we completely let them (the police) bash our skulls in, then we’ll win,” said Corey Donahue, 28, a self-identified anarchist who helps in the Occupy Denver kitchen. “That kind of ‘militant nonviolence’ won’t work.”
That’s right, people of Occupy Denver: This guy is touching your food.
CBS Cleveland, 10/18/11:
An “Occupy Cleveland” protester tells police she was raped in her tent over the weekend.
Cleveland police are investigating an alleged sexual assault incident Saturday at the “Occupy Cleveland” rally involving a 19-year-old female student from Parma.
According to police reports, the 19-year-old student was instructed by “Occupy Cleveland” personnel to “share a tent with the suspect due to a shortage of tents.” The suspect identified himself as “Leland” to the woman. The woman told police that after she had thought the suspect went to sleep in his own bed, she slept in a sleeping bag provided to her by the rally.
Emails from CBS Cleveland to the “Occupy Cleveland” movement were not immediately returned.
Well, they’ve got better things to do than worry about women being raped in the public place they’ve turned into a squalid Obamaville.
KOMO News in Seattle, 10/18/11:
A man accused of exposing himself to children at least five times across Seattle was arrested early Tuesday morning.
Seattle police say he was taken into custody at his Kenmore residence around 1 a.m.
Officers had been given a composite sketch of the suspect and detectives learned he had been at Westlake Park taking part in the Occupy Seattle protests.
This is what degeneracy looks like.
Apparently, sexual assault is such a problem at Occupy Baltimore that they drew up guidelines on how to report it. Baltimore Sun, 10/19/11:
Efforts by the Occupy Baltimore protest group to evolve into a self-contained, self-governing community have erupted into controversy with the distribution of a pamphlet that victim advocates and health workers fear discourages victims of sexual assaults from contacting police.
The pamphlet says that members of the protest group who believe they are victims or who suspect sexual abuse “are encouraged to immediately report the incident to the Security Committee,” which will investigate and “supply the abuser with counseling resources.”
The directive also says, in part, “Though we do not encourage the involvement of the police in our community, the survivor has every right, and the support of Occupy Baltimore, to report the abuse to the appropriate authorities.”
Despite this caveat, the heads of three rape crisis centers and a nurse who runs the forensic division at Mercy Medical Center called the message about not involving police dangerous. They said it contains erroneous information that could undermine efforts to convince victims to properly report crimes and get the counseling they need.
The memo was later revised to take out the “Don’t talk to the pigs” part. Hey, you know who has never put out any guidelines on reporting sexual assault? The Tea Party. What are they hiding???
NY Post, 10/30/11:
Wall Street protesters in Zuccotti Park battened down the hatches yesterday as the early October snow turned their tents into igloos, but the close quarters also made easy pickings for one predator.
A sex fiend barged into a woman’s tent and sexually assaulted her at around 6 a.m., said protesters, who chased him from the park.
“Pervert! Pervert! Get the f–k out!” said vigilante Occupiers, who never bothered to call the cops.
“They were shining flashlights in his face and yelling at him to leave,” said a woman who called herself Leslie, but refused to give her real name.
She said that weeks earlier another woman was raped.
“We don’t tell anyone,” she said. “We handle it internally. I said too much already.”
“Handling it internally” seems to be working out just fine so far.
NYDN, 10/30/11:
A 23-year-old woman is accused of attempting to pimp out a teenage girl she met at an Occupy New Hampshire protest earlier this week.
After Justina Jensen, of Manchester, became friendly with the girl, she went on the Internet and arranged a tryst between her and a man — who was actually an undercover cop, according to Union Leader…
Jensen, who went by the alias Remy, made a deal on behalf of the teen to have sex with the man, who called himself Mad Mike, for $150.
When the man asked for a location for the duo to meet, Jensen gave her address and was arrested — after a brief struggle — in her home…
According to police, Jensen was going to start training the teen to become a prostitute.
Somebody call Julia Roberts. We’ve finally got a plot for Pretty Woman 2.
Pegasus News, 11/1/01:
Dallas Police confirmed that they have arrested a man named Richard Wayne Armstrong who they believe had sex with a 14-year-old female runaway in a tent at an Occupy Dallas protest. Armstrong is a non-compliant registered sex offender.
The girl told police during questioning that she told the man she was 19 years old. The girl is from Garland.
Armstrong was arrested on October 27, 2011 for Failure to Register as a Sex Offender and Sexual Assault of a Child, the Dallas Police Department reports.
What’s the big deal? It’s not like he put a crosshairs symbol on a map, or said, “Don’t retreat, reload.”
And then there’s Occupy Madison, which was denied a permit because a protester was caught publicly masturbating. Guess he couldn’t find anybody to rape.
This is by no means an exhaustive list, and I’m sure there’ll be more and more incidents like this by the day. Just a little something to remember the next time Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, or anybody else tries to tell you how great the Occupy movement is.
(Thanks to the MacIver Institute’s #OccupyCrimeWave map.)
P.S. Speaking of sexual harassment and the Occupy movement, TheDC’s Michelle Fields just experienced it at an Occupy DC protest:
So for about three hours, I had someone following me around, harassing me, screaming things out to me. And I actually did not feel comfortable, because at one point there were a whole group of men surrounding me saying, ‘F—Michelle Fields.’ And I went to a police officer and I told him that I felt these people were harassing me. And the police officer said he’d take care of it, but it never ended. These people were harassing me for the entire evening.
The Occupiers think everything should be free… except speech. And they’re all about respect for women… who know their place.
Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2011/11/04/joe-biden-conspicuously-silent-on-occupier-sex-crime-spree/
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Occupiers terrorize us: eatery
By AMBER SUTHERLAND and BOB FREDERICKS
Last Updated: 9:17 AM, November 8, 2011
Posted: 1:51 AM, November 8, 2011
A business owner near the Occupy Wall Street encampment claims she has been repeatedly harassed and threatened with bodily harm by protesters after she and her employees refused to give in to their outlandish demands.
“I’ve been told, ‘Watch your back!’ 10 times,” Stacey Tzortzatos, owner of Panini & Co. Breads, located across from Zuccotti Park, told The Post yesterday.
She and her employees are terrified by the constant threats, which she said began after she demanded the protesters stop using her shop’s restroom as a place to bathe every day.
The final straw came about two weeks ago, when the demonstrators broke a bathroom sink, flooding the shop, and clogged the toilet -- setting her back $3,000 in damages.
She put up a sign that said the bathroom was out of order, but they tore it down shortly afterward, she said.
PHOTOS: WALL STREET PROTESTS
“I have the police in here 10 times a day, [and] I’m the bouncer. I’ve been called the spawn of the devil. “It’s unbelievable what goes on in here every day, ” Tzortzatos said.
And on Friday, she said, a crazed squatter burst into the shop and demanded that workers fill a 10-gallon container of water.
When they refused, “he banged it on the ground and started yelling” and threatened the staff, she said.
“He said he was entitled to have it for free.”
Tzortzatos said the unsafe conditions begin at around 5 p.m. every day, when “they come from the park drunk, under the influence of something.
“They use one of our doorways as a bathroom, and we have to scrub it down every morning.
“I’ve had people come in here and yell, ‘Boycott! Boycott!’
“They unplugged my ATM machine and plugged in their computers,” Tzortzatos said.
Another businessman, who complained to The Post about the squatters’ behavior last week, said yesterday that the situation has since deteriorated, adding, “You don’t know the half of it.”
But the protesters appear to be digging in, erecting three of what will eventually be more than two dozen, 16-by-16-foot military-style tents that will help them stave off hypothermia in the coming winter.
And they’ll have some entertainment today.
Music legends David Crosby and Graham Nash are slated to perform an acoustic set of protest songs this afternoon at Zuccotti Park.
Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/occupiers_terrorize_us_eatery_o4dKzxi3n03WyJWAJu4AhO
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(http://image.patriotpost.us/2011-11-08-humor-3.jpg)
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SoCal Street Cart Vendors Hurting After ‘Occupy’ Group Splatters Blood, Urine
November 7, 2011 2:14 PM
SAN DIEGO (CBS) — A pair of Southland street cart vendors who were forced to shut down their businesses after “Occupy” protesters vandalized their carts are hoping to get some help from local residents.
KNX 1070′s Tom Reopelle reports a fundraiser in the Gas Lamp district in San Diego on Monday night is aimed at helping two vendors get back on their feet.
The coffee and hot dog carts were located in Civic Center Plaza, the same location as the Occupy San Diego protesters.
That group first settled in to the plaza Oct. 7 and set up a tent city which has since twice been taken down by police.
Coffee cart owner Linda Jenson and hot dog cart operators Letty and Pete Soto said they initially provided free food and drink to demonstrators, but when they stopped, the protesters became violent.
And according to one city councilman, bodily fluids were used in the attacks.
“Both carts have had items stolen, have had their covers vandalized with markings and graffiti, as well as one of the carts had urine and blood splattered on it,” said Councilman Carl DeMaio.
The damages will likely require at least a complete cleaning if not a replacement of the cart covers, DeMaio said.
In addition to the attacks, the vendors also said they recently received death threats.
Proceeds from the fundraiser will go directly to help the two business owners.
After a relatively peaceful start, the “Occupy” movement has sparked violent clashes with police in Oakland and recently saw protesters push an elderly woman down a flight of stairs in D.C.
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[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEcXvy2I1yw&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEcXvy2I1yw&feature=player_embedded
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Chronicle • November 9, 2011
The Foundation
"In the first place, it is to be remembered, that the general government is not to be charged with the whole power of making and administering laws: its jurisdiction is limited to certain enumerated objects, which concern all the members of the republic, but which are not to be attained by the separate provisions of any." --James Madison
Editorial Exegesis
Corporate welfare from the community chest
"The Occupy Wall Street protesters aren't good at articulating what they want, but one of their demands is 'end corporate welfare.' Well, welcome aboard. Some of us have been fighting crony capitalism for decades, and it's good to have new allies if liberals have awakened to the dangers of the corporate welfare state. Corporate welfare is the offer of special favors -- cash grants, loans, guarantees, bailouts and special tax breaks -- to specific industries or firms. The government doesn't track the overall cost of these programs, but in 2008 the Cato Institute made an attempt and came up with $92 billion for fiscal 2006, which is more than the U.S. government spends on homeland security. That annual cost may have doubled to $200 billion in this new era of industry bailouts and subsidies. ... This industrial policy model of government as a financial partner with business can sound appealing, but the government's record in picking winners and losers has been dreadful. Some of the most expensive flops include the Supersonic Transport plane of the mid-1970s, Jimmy Carter's $2 billion Synthetic Fuels Corporation (the precursor to clean energy), Amtrak, which hasn't turned a profit in four decades, and the most expensive public-private partnership debacle of all time, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which have lost $142 billion of taxpayer money. ... Americans understand that powerful government invariably favors the powerful, who have the means and access to massage Congress and the bureaucracy that average citizens do not. This really is aid to the 1% paid by the other 99%. Yet the parade of subsidies gets longer each year, perhaps, as the old joke goes, because in Washington Republicans love corporations and Democrats love welfare. As House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan puts it: 'How can we save billions of dollars from unjustified subsidy and entitlement programs, if we can't get corporate America off the dole?'" --The Wall Street Journal
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Upright
"With nine days to go before the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) faces default, a Senate committee on Wednesday is expected to vote on a new plan to address the crisis. ... The legislation would ... provide USPS billions in cash from taxpayers. Specifically, it would hand over some $7 billion in supposedly 'surplus' contributions the government has made to the Federal Employees Retirement System. Such temporary surpluses, however, are common and are typically erased by normal financial swings or amortization over time. Transfer of the entire pot to USPS leaves taxpayers vulnerable if USPS later falls behind (which, given its condition, is not unlikely) while allowing needed structural reforms to be delayed. ... USPS, and mail delivery itself, faces an uncertain future. Comprehensive change is needed to prevent massive losses and virtual bankruptcy. The reforms being considered by the Senate, however, fall short -- while putting taxpayers even more at risk for the consequences of failure." --The Heritage Foundation's James Gattuso
"The Internal Revenue Service can follow individual people over the years because they can identify individuals from their Social Security numbers. During recent years, when 'the top one percent' as an income category has been getting a growing share of the nation's income, IRS data show that actual flesh and blood people who were in the top one percent in 1996 had their incomes go down -- repeat, DOWN -- by a whopping 26 percent by 2005. ... [M]ost people who are in the top one percent in a given year do not stay in that bracket over the years. If we are being serious ... then our concern should be with what is happening to actual flesh and blood human beings, not what is happening to abstract income brackets." --economist Thomas Sowell
"[T]he White House revealed that it would fight a GOP House subpoena for internal documents related to the half-trillion-dollar, stimulus-funded, now-bankrupt Solyndra solar energy loan bust. White House counsel Kathryn Ruemmler fumed that the information request placed an 'unreasonable burden on the president's ability to meet his constitutional duties.' ... Ruemmler further complained that the subpoena represents 'a significant intrusion on executive branch interests.' ... While she paints the request as a last-minute surprise, the White House has been stonewalling on Solyndra all year long. And as Reason magazine's Tim Cavanaugh points out: Compliance would be 'the work of a few hours, at a time when the executive branch has 2.8 million employees. The whole thing could be done by staffers, leaving the president to focus on golf and fundraising and long, boring speeches.'" --columnist Michelle Malkin
Insight
"The state is the great fiction by which everybody seeks to live at the expense of everybody else." --French economist, statesman and author Frederic Bastiat (1801-1850)
"Back in the thirties we were told we must collectivize the nation because the people were so poor. Now we are told we must collectivize the nation because the people are so rich." --William F. Buckley Jr. (1925-2008)
The Demo-gogues
A good pat on the back: "Well, I think we are better off now than we would have been if I hadn't taken all the steps that I took." --Barack Obama
"We were able to prevent America from going into a Great Depression. We were able to, after a series of quarterly GDP reports that were the worst that we've seen since the Great Depression, reverse it and get the economy to grow again. We've seen 20 straight months of consecutive job growth." --Barack Obama
Sure thing: "I have to tell you, the least of my concerns at the moment is the politics of a year from now. I'm worried about putting people back to work right now because those folks are hurting and the U.S. economy is underperforming." --Barack Obama
The BIG Lie: "From a policy standpoint I think it's really important to know that President Obama was a job creator from day one. Now, was the ditch that we were in so deep that when you're talking to people and they still don't have a job, that's any consolation to them? No. But I'll tell you this: If President Obama and the House congressional Democrats had not acted, we would be at 15 percent unemployment." --House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)
Blame Republicans: "We've taken every important piece of the jobs bill and demanded that we have a separate vote. But our Republican colleagues in the Senate have voted unanimously to vote down each and every part so far: to restore 400,000 jobs for teachers, police officers, firefighters, putting them back in classrooms, on the streets and in the fire houses. ... So, look, we can't wait. If the Republican Congress won't join us, we're going to continue to act on our own to make the changes that we can to bring relief to middle-class families and those aspiring to get in the middle class." --Joe Biden
Dezinformatsia
Non Compos Mentis: "Well, I'm going to be pilloried for this. I think get rid of the Second Amendment, the right to bear arms. I just think in the grand scheme of the rights that we have; the right of assembly, free speech, I mean, owning a gun does not, it does not tally on the same level as those other constitutional rights. And being more discreet about who gets to have a firearm and right to kill with a firearm, I think is something that would be in our national interest to revisit that." --Huffington Post's Alex Wagner when asked by HBO's Bill Maher what she would change about the Constitution -- she would take away the right that guarantees all the others
Pushing from the Left: "Do you not feel that by opposing [a tax hike on millionaires to pay for Obama's jobs bill] you're basically out of step with the American people on this issue? ... Do you agree at all that there should be any kind of tax increases?" --ABC's Christiane Amanpour to Speaker John Boehner
Another BIG Lie: "The American Dream is all about social mobility in a sense -- the idea that anyone can make it. ... The American dream seems to be thriving in Europe not at home." --CNN's Fareed Zalaria
Conspiracy theories: "[Herman Cain] is just the latest purchase by the Koch brothers. They purchased Michele Bachmann, they purchased Sarah Palin, for this purpose: it's to go out and talk crazy talk. It's to talk about taking more things away from the middle class and giving more to the rich. It's about deregulating virtually everything to where the Koch brothers can go ahead and kill more people with their toxins." --radio talk-show host Mike Papantonio
Newspulper Headlines:
'We Are the 99%': "Hollywood Street Brawl Involving 100 People in Costumes Leaves 1 Man Critical" --KCBS-TV website
Longest Books Ever Written: "What Occupy Wall Street Gets Wrong" --Reason.com
Somebody Alert Michelle Obama: "Fat Yields From Overseas ETFs" --SmartMoney.com
When Life Gives You Lemons: "Santorum Makes Stand in Iowa" --The Wall Street Journal
Bottom Story of the Day: "Barack Obama's Jobs Drive Not Moving Polls" --Politico.com
(Thanks to The Wall Street Journal's James Taranto)
Village Idiots
Random thoughts: "I've always thought that [allowing presidents a third term] should be the rule. I think as a practical matter, you couldn't apply this to anyone who has already served, but going forward, I personally believe that should be the rule." --Bill Clinton
Bad idea: "We need democracy in this country and not a democracy that is run by politicians that are bought by corporations. We need a democracy in this country where the people have the right to print money and not a nebulous Federal Reserve." --Occupy San Francisco protester
Good grief: "I wanted to say something about, if they're trying to find out who instigated this, much of, we owe a lot to the Arab Spring and the Democracy movement that were and are taking place across the Arab world. And we owe a lot to that young man in Tunisia who couldn't take it anymore and set himself on fire to make this statement that really ignited this movement. But, but even before that, what got him upset? What got him politically charged was that he read the truth about the corruption of his own government that was supplied to him by Wikileaks. And where did Wikileaks get that information allegedly? From a young private, a gay soldier by the name of Bradley Manning. And, let's give it up to Bradley Manning." --leftist filmmaker Michael Moore to the Occupy Wall Street movement
Two weeks ago we published a humorous exchange during an interview between CNN's Piers Morgan and Michael Moore. When asked to admit that he was "in the 1 percent," Moore objected, "How can I be in the percent?" Morgan cut to the chase: "Because you're worth millions." This time around, Moore grew even more agitated when a CBS reporter again questioned him on his wealth. Here's the exchange:
Reporter: How are you helping these [Occupy protesters]?
Moore: Because I do well, I want taxes raised on people who do well, including mine.
Reporter: How are you helping these people with your $50 million?
Moore: I don't have $50 million.
Reporter: That's what it's rumored you are worth.
Moore: Well, really. Is that what you do is sell rumors?
Reporter: We're asking you for the truth.
Moore: You're just punk media is all you are. You lie. You lie to people. Stop lying to people. Stop lying.
Reporter: Are you not part of the 1 percent?
Moore: Just don't lie, okay?
Marine Corps Birthday
On Nov. 10, 1775, the Second Continental Congress resolved to create two battalions of Continental Marines for the War of Independence from Britain. In 1798, President John Adams signed the Act establishing the United States Marine Corps. The 13th Commandant of the Marine Corps, General John A. Lejeune, issued Marine Corps Order No. 47, Series 1921, directing that on Nov. 10 every year, in honor of the Corps' birthday, the Order's summary of the history, mission and tradition of the Corps be read to every command.
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http://directorblue.blogspot.com/2011/11/helpful-chart-tea-party-vs-occupy-wall.html
Helpful Chart: Tea Party vs. Occupy Wall Street #OWS
(http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-P8mt0DPQlTI/Tra-gIGOibI/AAAAAAAAoZI/aGlehzya5AU/s1600/111106-tea-party-vs-ows-chart.gif)
Update: Looks like the chart needs to include Missing Persons. Penny posts the Occupy movement's first Amber Alert:
(http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-uttYrrQATSY/Tra_6jiahSI/AAAAAAAAoZU/o_GHC3J9ATM/s1600/111106-occupy-wall-street.gif)
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November 11, 2011 5:15 P.M.
Occupy Wall Street Starts to Crumble
Inevitable divisions arise in Zuccotti Park.
Whether or not the Occupy Wall Street movement has a legitimate or coherent purpose and to what extent its ongoing “occupation” of lower Manhattan’s Zuccotti Park represents a violation of the law have been discussed and debated since the first tent was pitched on September 17. But we might put these questions aside for a moment and hope to agree on one thing: that, regardless of one’s views about its message, the camp itself has become a disgrace. If this is utopia, then deliver us from it, for imperfection has a fresh and heady appeal.
For an organization whose rhetoric casually claims “unity,” and which absurdly considers itself to be a mouthpiece for 99 percent of America, it is devastating that division and infighting increasingly mar OWS’s New York City franchise. The kibbutz has fractured. Walking around the site yesterday, it was clear that “one world” has become many. There are now palpable borders within the commune, and battle lines have been drawn.
The “original” protesters resent the “hangers-on” and the latecomers, as early fans of a rock band might hate those who discover their heroes only after they have become popular. As always, the hard-liners despise the reformers and those who would “compromise with capitalism,” and the anarchists predictably reject all such labels entirely. Meanwhile, an unfathomably asinine dispute rages over whether the movement should seek to represent the “100 percent” or the “99 percent,” with few taking the time to consider whether it actually does either. The homeless, much praised on placards and flyers, have clearly proven themselves useful only in the abstract, and have become a rather less attractive proposition now that they have joined the fray, bringing with them something of a crime wave.
Where unity does still exist, it is in the universal hatred felt toward the belt of “crazies” that surrounds the camp, even if the definition of “crazy” remains elusive to the vexed, and is largely reserved for anyone who “makes us look bad.” Fans of British comedy Yes, Minister will remember that “crazy” is an irregular verb: “I have an independent mind; you are an eccentric; he is round the twist.” Thus, in hushed tones, each faction complained to me about the others.
Moreover, OWS is discovering that it is by no means inured against the sort of political and economic problems that face all polities, utopian or not. A fistfight broke out yesterday on the testy northeastern side of the camp, when one protester fashioned and displayed a cardboard sign that read, “Food is for OWS only!” This, said some of those camped nearby, was “fascism.” “No, no,” came the rejoinder, “it’s only fair! We paid for it; it’s for us! You can’t just walk in and take our stuff!” And thus, in microcosm, the debate over welfare raised its head — as it always will.
Likewise, there is growing consternation over the group’s finances. The more than $500,000 that OWS has raised from supporters is in the hands of a shady eight-person finance committee, which is made up of “non-occupiers” who have a right of veto on proposals before they get to the General Assembly and are, thus, “becoming like the banks we are protesting.” Most of the money, the gripe goes, is “just sitting there doing nothing,” and “our ideas are not being listened to.” Worse still, some of this outrageous fortune has found its way into Amalgamated Bank, which has the temerity to deal with billionaires. To spend or not to spend, that is the question! It seems clear now that, however noble the protesters might consider themselves, and however unorthodox the community they have established, there will always be slings and arrows to suffer.
Then there is crime. Even as Zuccotti Park has become a sea of troubles, it has been regarded as unsporting to bring up its obnoxious elements, as if to report on the dark side is to tar all associates unfairly with the same brush. But the unpleasant are demonstrably in attendance, and are no longer necessarily in the minority. I asked a “press representative,” named Justin, how many of those in the park he considered to be genuinely part of his movement, and was surprised to hear him say “less than 50 percent.” Such a confession makes the “we are the 99 percent” chant seem somewhat comical. But then, it always has been. The idea that the camp represented something new by bringing a diverse group of people together was always solipsistic. Surely, I would ask, that is what America does? What is this country if not a grouping of different people who disagree, and who work out their differences through common institutions?
Every citizen has at least one gripe. There is something that abrades each and every one of us. But most of us do not join communes that earnestly and loudly pretend to be above the noisy and boisterous process we call democracy, even as our replacement society crumbles ignominiously around us.
— Charles C. W. Cooke is an editorial associate for National Review.
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Chronicle • November 16, 2011
The Foundation
"If it be asked, What is the most sacred duty and the greatest source of our security in a Republic? The answer would be, An inviolable respect for the Constitution and Laws -- the first growing out of the last." --Alexander Hamilton
Editorial Exegesis
"The 'constitutionality' of the Obama health care law, Harvard Law School's Laurence Tribe wrote in the New York Times earlier this year, 'is open and shut,' adding that the challenge against it is 'a political objection in legal garb.' In announcing [Monday] that it will consider the law's constitutionality, the Supreme Court said it would give an historic five-and-a-half hours to oral arguments. Perhaps by his Cambridge standard, Mr. Tribe thinks the nine Justices are a little slow. We prefer to think this shows the Court recognizes the seriousness of the constitutional issues involved. It makes those who cavalierly dismissed the very idea of a challenge two years ago look, well, constitutionally challenged. ... It's true that without the mandate the law is unlikely to work, but the law is such a Rube Goldberg contraption that it won't work with the mandate. We'd like to see the entire law overturned, but the mandate deserves its own constitutional judgment. It shouldn't be found constitutional merely because Justice's lawyers say its excision would ruin the entire law. Congress can't drop unconstitutional provisions into laws hoping that the Court will bless them simply because not doing so would invalidate the larger law. ... The Court itself deserves credit for deciding to take this case this year, even though it probably means issuing a decision in an election year. The law is already speeding the ruin of U.S. health care, increasing costs and reducing competition. It is easily the most unpopular major reform in decades and the most unpopular entitlement expansion ever. ... These are issues involving the nation's core understanding of the citizenry's relationship to its government. Voters should have the chance to include the Court's verdict on the law when they go to the polls in 2012." --The Wall Street Journal
Essential Liberty
"The justices reportedly expect to make a decision by June. Whenever it comes, they'd better get it right. The case's main focus is the law's individual mandate, a provision that requires every American adult who doesn't have health care insurance to buy coverage. If a majority of justices decide that such a demand is constitutional, this nation will suffer through a fundamental transformation that rises to the level of the 'change' candidate Barack Obama promised -- or threatened -- if he were elected president. An America in which Washington can require the citizenry to do its bidding in all things is no longer a free republic -- though some might argue that freedom and our republican style of government have been crumbling for decades. If Washington can force Americans to buy health care insurance, then Washington can do whatever it wants. Old limits will be gone. A soft tyranny will replace the liberties guaranteed by the Constitution. It's impossible to overstate the magnitude of this case." --Investor's Business Daily
How do you think the Court will rule?
Upright
"The individual mandate is the poster child of this Administration and the liberals in Congress overstepping their authority to inject the government into the lives of its citizens. ... If the Supreme Court strikes down the individual mandate, as it should, it should also strike down the rest of the law in its entirety. But the second step (the 'severability' issue) is a closer question. The Court might get the first part right (striking down the individual mandate) but get the severability question wrong and not strike down the rest of the law. So, until the day the law is fully repealed, the job is not done." --Heritage Foundation's Nina Owcharenko
"A couple of months ago, Deputy Assistant Attorney General Beth Brinkmann was standing before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, defending the federal law requiring Americans to buy government-approved health insurance, when Judge Laurence Silberman asked her about broccoli. Specifically, he wanted to know whether a law requiring Americans to buy broccoli would exceed the federal government's authority to regulate interstate commerce. 'No,' Brinkmann said. 'It depends,' she added. ... Imagine the fun that Congress could have coming up with mandates aimed at coercing healthier lifestyles once it has a constitutional blessing as well as a fiscal justification. ... If you value your freedom to spend your money as you choose, you should hope the Supreme Court rejects the Obama administration's open-ended view of the Commerce Clause -- no matter how you feel about broccoli." --columnist Jacob Sullum
"President Franklin D. Roosevelt was re-elected for an unprecedented third term after two terms in which unemployment was in double digits for eight consecutive years. We may lament the number of people who are unemployed or who are on food stamps today. But those who give the Obama administration credit for coming to their rescue when they didn't have a job are likely to greatly outnumber those who blame the administration for their not having a job in the first place. ... There has probably never been a time in the history of this country when we more urgently needed to get a president out of the White House, before he ruined the country. But will the conservative Republican candidates let that guide them?" --economist Thomas Sowell
"President Obama was wrong to say at the Asia-Pacific economic summit that America has gotten 'lazy' in the past few decades at attracting foreign investment. What he should have said, in the light of his administration's handling of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, is that America has become quite adept at blocking foreign investment. ... TransCanada wants to invest $7 billion in building a pipeline across the United States to carry oil from Alberta to the Gulf Coast. If we were merely lazy, we'd have accepted the project and the thousands of associated construction jobs long ago. That would be the path of least resistance, not to mention common sense." --National Review editor Rich Lowry
Insight
"We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission; which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force." --novelist and philosopher Ayn Rand (1905-1982)
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http://hotair.com/archives/2011/11/17/excellent-daily-show-on-class-divisions-at-occupy-wall-street/
Orwell's family should get paid by OWS for their obvious copy of "Animal Farm".
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I saw this the other night and was rolling on the floor.
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A headline from the future with President Obama: "The Sunni-Shia Nuclear Arms Race Escalates".
I wonder how much gas will be then....
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4157460,00.html
'Saudi Arabia may join nuclear arms race'
Ex-spy chief says Saudi Arabia to consider acquiring atom weapons to match region rivals Israel, Iran
AFP Published: 12.05.11, 19:15 / Israel News
Saudi Arabia may consider acquiring nuclear weapons to match regional rivals Israel and Iran, its former intelligence chief Prince Turki al-Faisal said on Monday.
"Our efforts and those of the world have failed to convince Israel to abandon its weapons of mass destruction, as well as Iran... therefore it is our duty towards our nation and people to consider all possible options, including the possession of these weapons," Faisal told a security forum in Riyadh.
Related stories:
'Iran's missile program suffered serious setback'
Iran sanctions pose legal conundrum for expats
'We'll give up nukes if Iran does same'
"A (nuclear) disaster befalling one of us would affect us all," said Faisal.
Israel is widely held to possess hundreds of nuclear missiles, which it neither confirms nor denies, while the West accuses Iran of seeking an atomic bomb, a charge the Islamic Republic rejects.
Riyadh, which has repeatedly voiced fears about the nuclear threat posed by Shiite-dominated Iran and denounced Israel's atomic capacity, has stepped up efforts to develop its own nuclear power for "peaceful use."
Abdul Ghani Malibari, coordinator at the Saudi civil nuclear agency, said in June that Riyadh plans to build 16 civilian nuclear reactors in the next two decades at a cost of 300 billion riyals ($80 billion).
He said the Sunni kingdom would launch an international invitation to tender for the reactors to be used in power generation and desalination in the desert kingdom.
The United Nations has imposed successive packages of sanctions against Tehran over its refusal to suspend uranium enrichment. Those measures have been backed up by unilateral Western sanctions.
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Good thing "the lightbringer" from Crook County has stabilized the middle east because he's sooooooo smart!
:roll:
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GM: Would you please post that on the Nuclear War thread? TIA.
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http://www.ftportfolios.com/Commentary/EconomicResearch/2011/12/14/the-republicans-big-mistake
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I have been one of Wesbury's biggest defenders (until now) and there is some validity in what he says, but this video overall is perhaps a last straw for me.
One point of validity: Republicans should not base their campaign now on the assumption that all economic news will be all doom and gloom 10 1/2 months from now. The economic news at election time could be slow growth. If Wesbury's forecasts are about right the growth rate will be 3.5%, just over breakeven growth, in the period coming into the election.
Totally missed in his one-sided, wrong sided simplification are these points IMO:
a. Power in Washington on domestic policies changed hands and changed direction in Jan 2007, not Jan 2009 and Senator Obama's fingerprints are all over that disastrous shift two years before his presidency. Unemployment was 4.7% before the new power in Washington announced to investors and employers that conditions favorable to growth would be ending soon and that if you hold capital assets, you should sell them off soon before the new policies coming are fully in place.
b. Growth I believe would be 7% or more (not 2 - 3 1/2%) IF we combined this much idle capacity and investment capital sitting on the sidelines with aggressive, pro-growth policies.
c. Unemployment if measured against the number of jobs we used to have in the economy would be >11%, not 8.6%.
d. Even using his timeframe and his numbers, the idea that we will have went from 7.9% unemployment at the start all the way back to 7.9% on election day 2012, after 4 long years under Obama, is hardly a persuasive, Democratic talking point.
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Good points, well-reasoned.
I continue to post Wesbury because we always need to be challenge and question our assumptions. We need to remember that when the DOW was at 6500, GM and I were predicting 6,000 and now we sit nearly 100% above that. I would be a less poor man than I am now if I had not gotten this wrong.
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By FRED BARNES
When Steven Law was deputy secretary of labor in the George W. Bush administration, he routinely scrutinized the disclosure forms of labor unions. Unions had recently been required to report new details about how they spent their members' dues money. Mr. Law discovered that organized labor was contributing millions to a variety of liberal groups—environmentalists, gay-rights advocates and left-wing blogs, among others.
For Mr. Law, it was a revelation and a lesson. He concluded that the labor movement had enlarged and strengthened the coalition that helped produce Democratic landslides in 2006 and 2008.
Now, as president and CEO of the independent pro-Republican group American Crossroads (AC), Mr. Law is preparing to fund seven or eight conservative organizations and create a broad front of support for Republican candidates in 2012. As a trial run, AC gave $3.7 million to the National Federation of Independent Business, $4 million to Americans for Tax Reform, and $1.5 million to the Republican State Leadership Committee in last year's midterm election campaign. Republicans won a massive victory, and Mr. Law decided it was money well spent.
"Funding the right," as AC calls it, isn't the only political tactic Republicans are swiping from Democrats for use next year. Another is focusing on early voting in the weeks before Election Day, a tactic that helped Democrats capture both houses of Congress in 2006 and the White House in 2008. AC tested an early-voting operation in a special House election in Nevada in September. Republican Mark Amodei won a majority of early voters and was elected handily.
The organization has also embraced two other tactics that have been applied more effectively by Democrats in recent elections than by Republicans. One is "stretching the battlefield," as a Republican consultant describes it, to make the Republican presidential candidate competitive in normally Democratic states—Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, for example. The other would expand the issue environment by raising subjects, such as the Solyndra solar-subsidy scandal, that voters may have heard of but failed to understand.
American Crossroads is an "independent expenditure" group or "super PAC" which operates as a tax-exempt organization under section 527 of the Internal Revenue Code. It is committed to boosting Republican candidates, mostly with TV ads, but it is legally barred from coordinating directly with their campaigns. It has an all-star team of unpaid advisers including former George W. Bush aides Karl Rove and Ed Gillespie, and Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour.
Its goal in 2012—and the goal of Republicans in general—is parity with Democrats in campaign spending. That would be no small feat, as Democrats have gained a significant edge in recent elections, and overall Democrats and pro-Democratic groups remain in the lead. Yet parity appears achievable.
Mr. Obama raised $751 million in the 2007-2008 cycle. For 2011-2012, the president and the Democratic National Committee have a goal of $1 billion. More likely his campaign will have to settle for roughly $700 million to $750 million. This is due in part to a decline in wealthy donors.
Meanwhile, a pro-Obama group, Priorities USA, is off to a slow start in reaching its goal of $100 million. Run by Bill Burton, formerly a White House spokesman for Mr. Obama, it was designed as a Democratic version of American Crossroads. But it lacks the fund-raising prowess supplied by AC's big guns like Messrs. Rove and Barbour.
In contrast, AC, which spent $71 million in the 2010 campaign, is well on its way to collecting $300 million in cash and pledges. And because it has overhead of roughly 1%, nearly all the money will be spent on campaigns.
One of its biggest tasks in 2012 will be to protect the eventual Republican presidential candidate from being demonized by the Obama campaign. The fear is that the GOP nominee, having exhausted his own funds during the primary season, would be helpless against a wave of attack ads by the Obama campaign in the months before the GOP convention in August. Absent a full-blown counterattack, the candidate could fall behind by an insurmountable margin.
Enlarge Image
CloseDavid Gothard
.American Crossroads is prepared to fill the gap and spend millions of dollars on a TV blitz defending the Republican candidate and criticizing Mr. Obama to ensure that "the candidate remains viable," as a Republican operative told me. Then, in the final weeks of the campaign, AC aims to help nullify the usual Democratic advantage. That's when Democrats spend the most. Creating a balance in late spending is included in AC's playbook.
AC won't be alone in all this. The group is part of the Weaver Terrace Group, named for the location of Mr. Rove's residence (although he's since moved) where two dozen groups gathered last year to share their plans for the midterm election. Now they convene monthly in Mr. Law's office in downtown Washington.
AC will concentrate on the presidential race and a few tight House and Senate contests. The American Action Network, which was active in the 2010 campaign, is targeting House races. The new Young Guns political action committee plans to support Republican House candidates. Americans for Prosperity, funded by the Koch brothers, stirs grass-roots activism.
A participant in the Weaver Terrace sessions describes them as "a meeting of equals." AC is not in charge, but its leaders have the highest profile. First as a Washington operative, then as head of the Republican Governors Association, Mr. Barbour was renowned for his fund-raising ability.
Federal election law prohibits the Republican National Committee (or, for that matter, the GOP nominee's campaign) from having any involvement with independent expenditure groups such as American Crossroads or the American Action Network. The RNC, rather, has the traditional role of providing the indispensable "ground game." It funds state Republican parties, conducts voter-registration drives, works closely with the presidential nominee's campaign, and organizes the 72-hour plan to get voters to polls on Election Day.
American Crossroads and its allies are the critical new players in the Republican campaign. Their coalition didn't exist during the 2008 presidential race. In 2012, they'll have a huge impact and not only on individual races. Labor unions, by bonding with liberal groups, have moved the country to the left. Pro-Republican groups like AC hope to move America to the right.
Mr. Barnes is executive editor of the Weekly Standard and a commentator on Fox News Channel.
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The Cornhusker kickback has kicked back.
Pres. Obama lost Nebraska by 15 points in 2008 and isn't nearly as popular now. Every prominent Republican in NE is vying for the Senate seat or considering the opportunity. Against these headwinds, Ben Nelson age 70, perhaps the most moderate of the remaining Dem Senators has decided that more time with family sounds better than defending his votes in Washington for Obamacare and the rest of the agenda back in the heartland.
Wash Post says Dems are left scrambling. The Dem reaction in Nebraska to this is irrelevant; they have lost this seat. The party in Washington would need to change if they wanted to be competitive in states like this. I wonder how often Reid and Schumer ask each other, how will their government-centric agenda play in Nebraska?
This was considered one of the 6 tossups that will determine the majority in the Senate.
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http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1209/30815.html
Payoffs for states get Harry Reid to 60 votes
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2009/12/23/81171/gop-may-sue-over-health-care-bills.html
top prosecutors in a half-dozen other states plan to challenge the constitutionality of a health care compromise that exempts Nebraska from paying billions in Medicaid expansion costs, forcing other states to shoulder a bigger burden for the low-income insurance program.
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It makes sense to me.
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Political Predictions for 2012
By KARL ROVE DECEMBER 29, 2011
As New Year's approaches, here are a baker's dozen predictions for 2012.
• Republicans will keep the U.S. House, albeit with their 25-seat majority slightly reduced. In the 10 presidential re-elections since 1936, the party in control of the White House has added House seats in seven contests and lost them in three. The average gain has been 12 seats. The largest pickup was 24 seats in 1944—but President Barack Obama is no FDR, despite what he said in his recent "60 Minutes" interview.
• Republicans will take the U.S. Senate. Of the 23 Democratic seats up in 2012, there are at least five vulnerable incumbents (Florida, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, Pennsylvania): The GOP takes two or three of these. With the announcement on Tuesday that Nebraska's Ben Nelson will retire, there are now seven open Democratic seats (Connecticut, Hawaii, North Dakota, New Mexico, Virginia, Wisconsin): The GOP takes three or four. Even if Republicans lose one of the 10 seats they have up, they will have a net pickup of four to six seats, for a majority of 51 to 53.
• Rep. Nancy Pelosi, Sen. Harry Reid or both will leave the Democratic leadership by the end of 2012. Speaker John Boehner and Senator Mitch McConnell will continue directing the GOP in their respective chambers.
• This will be the fourth presidential election in a row in which turnout increases. This has happened just once since 1828, from 1928 through 1940.
• In 2008, voters told the Pew Poll that they got more election information from the Internet than from daily newspapers. Next year, that advantage will grow as the Internet closes in on television as America's principal source of campaign news.
• After failing to win the GOP presidential nomination, Ron Paul will not run as a third-party candidate because that would put his son, Rand Paul, in an untenable position: Does the Republican senator from Kentucky support his father and effectively re-elect Mr. Obama, or back his party and defeat him?
More: Election 2012
• Mr. Obama's signature health-care overhaul, already deeply unpopular, will become even more so by Election Day. Women voters are particularly opposed to ObamaCare, feeling it threatens their family's health.
• Mr. Obama may propose tax reform, attempting to use it to appeal both to his liberal base (a question of fairness) and independents (a reform to spur economic growth). This will fail, but not before boosting Mr. Obama's poll numbers.
• The Obama campaign won't corral high-profile Republican endorsements—as it did in 2008 with former Secretary of State Colin Powell—with the unimportant possible exception of former Nebraska Sen. Chuck Hagel. It will also make a special effort to diminish the GOP's advantage among military families, veterans and evangelicals, with the last a special target if Republicans nominate Mitt Romney.
• Despite an extraordinary amount of presidential time and involvement, Team Obama will fall as much as $200 million short of its $1 billion combined fund-raising target for the campaign and Democratic National Committee. Even so, Mr. Obama and Democrats will outspend the GOP nominee and Republicans. This won't necessarily translate into victory: John Kerry and Democrats outspent President George W. Bush and Republicans in 2004 by $124 million. Groups like American Crossroads (which I helped found) will narrow the Democratic money advantage.
• Scandals surrounding the now-bankrupt Solyndra, Fannie and Freddie, MF Global and administration insider deals still to emerge will metastasize, demolishing the president's image as a political outsider. By the election, the impression will harden that Mr. Obama is a modern Chicago-style patronage politician, using taxpayer dollars to reward political allies (like unions) and contributors (like Obama fund-raiser and Solyndra investor George Kaiser).
• To intimidate critics and provoke higher black turnout, Democrats will play the race card more than in any election since 1948. Witness Attorney General Eric Holder's recent charge that criticism of him and the president was "both due to the nature of our relationship and . . . the fact that we're both African-Americans."
• The economic recovery will continue to be anemic, leaving both unemployment and concerns about whether the president is up to the job high on Election Day. Because of this, Mr. Obama will lose as his margins drop among five groups essential to his 2008 victory—independents, women, Latinos, young people and Jews. While he will win a majority from at least three of these groups, he won't win them by as much as he did last time.
Predicting the future is always dangerous but conservatives believe in accountability, so let's see how well I do a year from now.
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http://thehill.com/blogs/on-the-money/banking-financial-institutions/202285-report-obama-will-recess-appoint-consumer-bureau-nominee
President Obama plans to circumvent Senate GOP opposition and recess-appoint his nominee to head a new consumer bureau, two senior administration officials told The Hill.
White House spokesman Dan Pfeiffer confirmed the recess appointment of Richard Cordray on Wednesday on Twitter after the move was first reported by The Associated Press.
"We Can't Wait: Today in Ohio, President Obama will announce the recess appointment of Consumer Watchdog Richard Cordray," Pfeiffer tweeted.
Obama will recess-appoint Cordray to be director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). Senate Republicans en masse voted to block the nomination in December and have sought to prevent congressional recesses by holding pro forma sessions every few days during longer breaks.
The White House believes the pro forma sessions are a "gimmick" and that the president has the power to make a recess appointment despite them, according to the AP report.
Republican leaders in the House and Senate were quick to blast the White House move.
Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Obama "arrogantly circumvented the American people" and said the decision "fundamentally endangers" Congress's ability to check the "excesses of the executive branch."
House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) called the effort an "extraordinary and entirely unprecedented power grab ... [that] would have a devastating effect on the checks and balances that are enshrined in our constitution."
He also hinted that a legal challenge could be in the works, adding he expects "the courts will find the appointment to be illegitimate."
A House GOP aide told The Hill that lawmakers might not have standing to file a lawsuit over the appointment, but a business affected by the agency would. So if a financial institution "gets clobbered by the agency," it could sue to challenge the nomination, the aide said.
The CFPB was created as part of the Dodd-Frank financial reform law, and is charged with enforcing a variety of financial consumer protection laws. However, it cannot fully realize its power until a director is in place.
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Reports of Obama's CIA past now being made public!!! :-D :-D :evil: :roll:
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/01/obama-mars/
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http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/203147-daley-to-step-down-as-white-house-chief-of-staff
White House Chief of Staff William Daley will step down from his post at the end of the month, according to a senior administration official.
Daley will be replaced by Jack Lew, head of the Office of Management and Budget.
Daley submitted a letter of resignation to Obama last week.
“I have been honored to be a small part of your administration,” Daley wrote to the president in a letter obtained by the Chicago Tribune. “It’s time for me to go back to the city I love.”
Daley’s departure comes two months after the White House announced that Pete Rouse, the president’s senior adviser, would be taking over the daily operational duties.
Daley has had a turbulent tenure at the White House, where he has reportedly clashed with other officials.
Some say there was a level of unhappiness with Daley in recent months and the grumbling had intensified since then.
One former Obama aide who has dealt with Daley called him "unapproachable" and "standoffish."
"He's a little too structured," the aide said, adding that the chief of staff had some difficulty adjusting to a string of moving targets that is commonplace around the West Wing.
The aide said that while Rahm Emanuel, Obama's first chief of staff, would openly call on staffers in meetings, Daley would come in with a list of staffers who would speak in meetings.
"He has definitely ruffled a few feathers," the aide said.
Daley only had been President Obama's chief of staff for a little more than a year. He replaced Emanuel, who left the White House and eventually was elected Chicago.
Most recently, Daley began having "listening sessions" with former Obama aides and strategists to get their ideas on what the White House could be doing better.
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I wonder if the praise heaped on Bill Daley for his 15 minutes of service will buy his silence for the turmoil he witnessed. Also interesting to note that the Kennedy's would be a more famous example of those 'white Irish Catholic' families of power that Mrs. Obama resents.
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http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/presidential-campaign/203361-obamas-real-reelection-problem
Obama’s real reelection problem (excerpted, more a the link)
By John Feehery - 01/10/12 The Hill
The Chicago Sun-Times’s Lynn Sweet picked out an interesting morsel in Jodi Kantor’s book about the Obama family:
“When Michelle Obama worked in Mayor Daley’s City Hall in the early 1990s, she was 'distressed' by how a small group of 'white Irish Catholic' families — the Daleys, the Hynes and the Madigans — 'locked up' power in Illinois.
"She particularly resented the way power in Illinois was locked up generation after generation by a small group of families, all white Irish Catholic — the Daleys in Chicago, the Hynes and Madigans statewide.”
Obama White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley, one of those hated white Irish Catholics, resigned the same weekend the book’s juiciest tidbits leaked out.
It is probably all just a coincidence, but sometimes coincidences reveal bigger truths.
And the bigger truth is that Bill Daley left the White House because he lost to Valerie Jarrett and to the president’s wife in the battle for the philosophical direction of the Obama White House.
I don’t know if Michelle Obama’s antipathy toward white Irish Catholics finally became too much of a barrier to Daley or not. But I do know that Daley was only ineffective because his boss would not let him be effective.
Bill Daley is a political pragmatist. He cuts deals. Like his father and his brother, he is not a left-wing ideologue; nor is he a Republican in Democratic clothing.
He is a pro-business Democrat, an increasingly rare breed these days in Washington.
Obama is not a pro-business Democrat. His wife is not a pro-business Democrat. They don’t like the business community. They don’t trust the free market. They want to spread wealth around (other people’s wealth, I might add).
It has become increasingly clear over the last several months that Obama has little interest in tacking to the political middle to improve his standing with the broad center of the country.
He has decided that he wants his presidency to mean something different, and he has made the fateful decision that he will govern as a left-wing political populist. That is why he has embraced the Occupy Wall Street movement, why he keeps using class-warfare rhetoric, why he has given up on deal-cutting, why he has decided to run against Congress rather than on his accomplishments.
...
Ignoring and marginalizing Bill Daley might have pleased the wife and Valerie Jarrett, but Daley’s departure is very bad news for Obama’s hopes for reelection.
Those white Irish Catholics whom Michelle Obama so despises are the key to her husband's campaign success. And getting rid of Bill Daley is one more example of President Obama’s real problem this coming election year.
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No matter who is the nominee or wins the Presidency, the House and Senate are also both up for grabs this year and the agenda coming out of there is crucial. The Republican hold on the House is only one off-year election old and the Dem sweep of 2006 (6 Years since 2006) is all back on the table in the Senate for 2012.
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A 2012 Republican Strategy for Congress
A series of votes can clarify the differences between the two parties on energy, taxes, spending and regulation.
By RON JOHNSON (Republican Senator/Businessman from Wisconsin who defeated Russ Feingold in 2010) WSJ JANUARY 11, 2012
Americans are frustrated over Washington's inability to address our nation's economic and fiscal problems. That's why I have been working with a growing group of senators and House members to develop a plan that can build public support for solutions. It's called "America's Choice."
America's Choice seeks to highlight the differences between the Republican Party and the Democratic Party led by President Obama. It could do so over the coming months by presenting to the country, through a series of votes in the House of Representatives, the battle between those who believe in broadest terms in limited government and freedom and those who promote government control and dependency.
What are the choices these votes could present? Growing government spending and debt or growing the private sector and reducing government. Limiting energy development or using America's energy resources. Punishing success or pro-growth tax reform. A government takeover of health care or repealing ObamaCare and replacing it with patient-centered, free-market reforms.
The alternatives are stark. President Obama's faith in government is so strong that he has increased its size to 24% of gross domestic product from 21%, and increased our nation's debt by over $4 trillion. Republicans, on the other hand, believe long-term self-sustaining jobs are created in the private sector—that government cannot tax, spend and borrow our nation to prosperity.
Will green energy power America's future? The administration has squandered billions of dollars on politically connected, green-energy boondoggle projects, while at the same time maintaining a de facto moratorium on off-shore drilling, and dragging its feet on granting permits for other energy utilization projects such as the Keystone XL Pipeline and restricting and limiting leases for offshore energy production. Republicans could propose a plan to utilize crucial domestic resources, including oil, natural gas and coal, to produce energy and create jobs.
Regulatory overreach in this administration has been breathtaking. Executive agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Labor have been in hyper-drive, adding to the already job-crushing $1.75 trillion annual cost, according to the Small Business Administration, of federal regulatory compliance. Republicans could propose a regulatory moratorium to give businesses a chance to recover, and then enact real reform to achieve common-sense regulatory balance.
President Obama has launched a divisive campaign pitting one group of Americans against another. Yet 10% of Americans already pay 70% of all income taxes. Increasing the tax burden on that group is counterproductive. Sowing class division is an act of political cynicism producing terrible economic consequences. Significant pro-growth tax reform is the better path to build our economy and create jobs.
Government takeover of our health-care system has been a liberal-progressive dream for decades. President Obama and Democrats in Congress passed the partisan Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. It neither protects patients, nor does it make health care more affordable. But it will lead to a government takeover of one-sixth of our economy, and it will blow a hole in an already horribly broken budget.
Republicans are united in our commitment to repeal ObamaCare and replace it with patient-centered reforms. Malpractice tort reform, health savings account expansion, insurance purchase across state lines, reduction of government mandates, and equalized tax treatment of insurance premiums are some of the key changes we will propose to the country.
America's Choice would clearly present two different visions of the country's future—one represented by the Republican Party and the other represented by the Democratic Party and its leader, President Obama. Once Congress returns from recess later this month, the Republican majority in the House could focus on one major area of domestic policy at a time. For example, February could be used to debate, craft and pass an energy utilization policy.
When the House debates and passes an agenda item, Republican senators, candidates and conservative groups could concentrate on the same issue, using the same powerful facts and figures to inform and persuade the American public. Coordinating our focused efforts improves our ability to compete with the presidential bully pulpit and counteract media outlets that often work to marginalize us.
In 2011, President Obama stopped running the country and started running his re-election campaign. In his cynical attempt to divert attention away from his record by dividing us, Republicans have been put on defense. The America's Choice agenda would put us on offense.
If done well, we just might put enough pressure on Senate Democrats and the president to actually pass legislation that will begin to solve our problems. If not, Republicans will have provided Americans with a clear choice in November.
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http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/203737-hollywood-or-silicon-obama-must-choose
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This is an interesting story about the impact of a senatorial hold on DC. The Senate, unlike the House, gives much power to the individual. Although the filibuster is the most famous use of this (Thanks Mr. Smith!!!), holds are also noteworthy.
http://www.rollcall.com/news/anonymous_senate_hold_plays_into_extra_cost_for_dc_election-211429-1.html?ET=rollcall:e11855:80133681a:&st=email&pos=epol
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http://themonkeycage.org/blog/2010/02/12/does_it_matter_if_everyone_hat/
This is apropos of Josh’s post below. The New York Times story he cites says:
The poll suggests that both parties face a toxic environment as they prepare for the elections in November. Public disapproval of Congress is at a historic high, and huge numbers of Americans think Congress is beholden to special interests. Fewer than 1 in 10 Americans say members of Congress deserve re-election.
Here is some relevant analysis from Alan Abramowitz. He makes several important points. First, approval of Congress is strongly correlated with presidential approval, even under divided government:
The data show that when the president is more popular, Congress tends to be more popular and when the president is less popular, Congress tends to be less popular. Moreover, this is true even when Congress and the presidency are controlled by different parties.
Why? He posits that opinions of both are related to underlying structural features, such as the economy:
This may indicate that evaluations of Congress are influenced by evaluations of the president or that both are influenced by feelings about the condition of the country and the overall performance of the federal government.
And of course there is this truism, which somewhat undercuts the notion that incumbents are threatened by low congressional approval:
As the noted congressional scholar Richard Fenno has observed, Americans generally love their own congressperson even though they dislike Congress. They tend to see their own Senators and Representatives as the rare good apples in an otherwise rotten barrel.
To speak to Josh’s question about bipartisan anti-incumbent voting, Abramowitz writes:
Discontent with Congress does not lead to a general tendency to kick out incumbents. Occasionally voters do get upset and give the boot to a large number of incumbents—but they almost always take out their dissatisfaction on the members of only one party—the president’s party.
Finally, and most importantly, and please please shout this from the rooftops:
This brings up the most important point about evaluations of Congress. They have very little influence on how Americans vote in congressional elections. When it comes to choosing candidates for Congress, it is opinions of the president’s performance that matter.
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Americans for Tax Reform have a bingo game set up for tonight.
http://www.atr.org/atr-presents-obama-state-union-bingo-a6695
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Or, if you'd rather drink to forget: http://blog.zap2it.com/pop2it/2012/01/state-of-the-union-drinking-game-have-multiple-colors-of-drinks-on-hand.html
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Very funny bigdog. I 'watched' the speech and the response on the radio and tried to keep my moderate consumption rate consistent through all the ups and downs. The hangover from this without alcohol is bad enough.
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"Here comes the orator! With his flood of words, and his drop of reason." --Benjamin Franklin
The Demo-gogues
Obama thinks the only problem with America is that we don't realize how awesome he is.
To sum up the SOTU: "I went ... I know ... My ... My ... I took office ... I'm president ... I will work ... I intend ... I will oppose ... I want to speak ... I took office ... I refused ... told me ... My message ... Send me ... I'll sign ... I set ... I signed ... I will go ... I will not stand ... It's not fair ... I'm announcing ... I promise you ... I also hear ... I want ... Join me ... My administration ... I want to cut ... I call on ... I spoke ... let me put ... I believe ... my administration ... I took office ... I will sign ... I'm directing ... my administration ... I'm requiring ... I will not walk away ... I will not walk away ... I will not cede ... I will ... I'm directing ... I'm proud ... Send me ... I will sign ... I'm sending ... I've approved ... my presidency ... I've ordered ... I guess ... I'm confident ... I will not back down ... I will not back down ... I will not go back ... I will not go back ... I'm asking ... fair play ... So do I ... I told ... I'm prepared ... fair share ... my fair share ... I get tax breaks I don't need ... I recognize ... I bet ... I've talked ... Send me a bill ... I will sign ... I ask the Senate ... I've asked ... I'm a Democrat ... I believe ... my education reform ... I will keep taking ... I can do ... I have no doubt ... I will take ... I'm president ... I intend ... I have proposed ... I have already ... I'm proposing ... brings me ... my proudest ... I sat ... I look at ... I'm reminded." --BO
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Here is a discussion of some of the more influential congressional aides. Interesting look at the people how get work done on the Hill.
http://www.rollcall.com/features/30hillaidestoknow.html
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Dick Morris: How Mitt Romney suckered Gingrich in Florida
By Dick Morris - 01/31/12 06:32 PM ET
For students of American politics, following the way the Romney campaign played Newt Gingrich in Florida is a lesson to learn and to keep. Romney’s people must have realized that Newt does best when he is positive. His bold ideas, clear vision, revolutionary insights and extraordinary perspectives resonate with voters and win him millions of supporters.
Romney, less compelling but more consistent, doesn’t need stellar debate performances or bold vision to win. The case for the former Massachusetts governor is more circumstantial: He can reach out to independents by virtue of his past apostasies on healthcare and abortion. He looks, talks and acts like a president. His record of job creation is exemplary.
But Newt needs the bold sally, the breathtaking moment of rhetorical clarity, to prevail.
So Romney’s people set out to mire Newt in negatives so he couldn’t and wouldn’t get out the positive message he needed to project to prevail. They tormented him with negative ads in Iowa. While the ads were generally accurate — the allegation about backing China’s forced-abortion policy aside — they presented only one side of the story and were stinging in their impact. Without funds, Gingrich couldn’t answer the negative ads. He fumed but watched, in impotence, as his vote share fell away.
In Spanish bullfights, the picadors torment the bull by sticking darts into his shoulders. Enraged, bleeding, frustrated and in pain, he lowers his head, snorts, paws the ground and charges straight at the matador, oblivious to the sword awaiting him behind the red cape. That’s about what Romney did to Gingrich in the January primaries.
Enter Sheldon Adelson, a Vegas billionaire who loves Newt. His affection runs so deep that he gave Gingrich the funds to destroy himself. With Adelson’s reported contribution of $5 million-plus, Newt had the weapons to fight back with his own negative ads. In a rage, he put them on TV and devoted his time in the debates to throwing accusations. RomneyCare. Abortion. Gay rights. The taxes Romney paid and the ones he advocated. Massachusetts moderate. No, make that Massachusetts liberal. They tripped off his tongue and his super-PAC put them on the air. Sheldon paid the bill. But Newt paid the price.
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http://www.rollcall.com/issues/57_88/Earmark-Fight-up-Again-in-Senate-212007-1.html?ET=rollcall:e12047:80133681a:&st=email&pos=eam
Earmark opponents may have scored some successes in recent years, but several Senators said they remain wary of permanently giving up the right to direct spending and would rather focus on other business.
"I think we need to talk about that," National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman John Cornyn (R-Texas) said. "I am not sure we need it, but I am open to it."
He continued, "I wish we would focus on what the American people are most concerned about rather than some of these other issues that have their importance but are tangential to the main issues we ought to be focused on."
"I think we ought to [instead] be looking at other ways to ... address people's concerns about jobs and the debt," Cornyn said.
The Senate could vote this week on a proposal by Sens. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) and Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) to make the current moratorium on earmarks permanent. They've offered the measure as an amendment to legislation banning insider trading by lawmakers and their staff.
"Earmarks exist precisely to circumvent ... [Congressional] scrutiny," Toomey said Tuesday on the Senate floor.
He said that while many earmarks are worthy of being funded, "There is an opportunity for corruption. A process like that is badly flawed and should be remedied."
The amendment would also create a point of order to strike earmarks from bills, and it would take two-thirds majority to override that point of order.
On the floor Tuesday, McCaskill said she wants to "stop the process in its entirety" rather than going after individual earmarks.
"I am proud of the fact that we have a moratorium," she said. "But there are a lot of Members of this body that want to go back to the old ways."
Still, earmark supporters said that the issue is purely political.
"It's just stupid, it's childish, it's demagoguery," Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) said. "There is not a lot of courage in our conference [on the issue.] They all know better. They all know by banning earmarks ... they are just giving the authority to the president. But they are afraid of it because people don't understand the issue out there."
Sens. Mark Begich (D-Alaska), Dick Lugar (R-Ind.) and Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) said they would stand up to support their right to earmark if the amendment was brought to the Senate floor.
But it's unclear whether the amendment will get a vote.
"I hope we get a vote, but I am not optimistic," McCaskill said.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on Tuesday would not say whether he would permit a vote on the proposal and gave a firm defense of earmarking.
"We'll see in a day or two how many are really interested in improving this bill, having amendments that are germane or relevant, and we'll take a look at it in a day or two," Reid said.
He added that he opposes an earmark ban. "We have an obligation as Members of Congress to fulfill our Constitutional duty. One of those duties is to make sure that we do Congressionally directed spending. I object and do not believe that all these decisions should be made at the White House," Reid said.
"I've done earmarks all my career, and I'm happy I've done earmarks my entire career," Reid continued. "They've helped my state and they helped different projects around the country. And I repeat, I will not stand by and be driven down this path that is one that I think is taking us away from what the Founding Fathers wanted: three separate but equal branches of government."
Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), who backs a ban, said he doubts that it will pass even if it does come up for a vote.
"I am a co-sponsor of it," Burr said. "It's probably not going to pass. I think there is a lot of opposition to cutting off the gravy train on both sides of the aisle."
Earmarks make up less than 1 percent of overall federal spending.
Still, opponents of earmarks scored a victory after House Republicans won the majority in 2010 and voted soon after to adhere to a two-year moratorium, which expires at the end of this year.
The House's move forced Senate Democratic and Republican leaders' hands. Reid and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) had been reluctant to curtail earmarks on Constitutional grounds. But Republicans agreed to a moratorium in November 2010, followed by Democrats in February 2011.
Some supporters of the moratorium, such as Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), even noted at the time that it was only supposed to be a temporary hiatus from the practice.
Earmarks also were tainted by relatively recent scandals. Last September, lobbyist Paul Magliocchetti, who headed the now-defunct lobby shop PMA Group, pleaded guilty in federal court to illegally funneling more than $386,000 in corporate campaign contributions to lawmakers, including appropriators, during a nearly six-year period.
Despite earmark opponents' successes in forcing leaders to accept a moratorium, the issue has had less success on the Senate floor.
In November 2010, the Senate voted 56-39 against an earmark ban McCaskill and Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) sought to attach to a food safety bill.
HumbertoSanchez@cqrollcall.com | @hsanchez128
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Good discussion. As I just posted in the Entitlements thread, IMHO this is the sort of issue that ultimately enables Washington to avoid the real issue-- entitlements.
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"Voting rights and voting fraud have become increasingly contentious subjects.
Since Republicans won control of many statehouses in the November 2010 elections, more than a dozen states have passed laws requiring voters to show photo identification at polls, cutting back early voting periods or imposing new restrictions on voter registration drives.
Republican legislators say the new rules offer a practical way to weed out fraudulent votes and preserve the integrity of the ballot box. Democrats say the changes have little to do with fraud prevention and more to do with placing obstacles in the way of possible Democratic voters, including young people and minorities.
In December 2011, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. laid out a plan for the Justice Department to take an aggressive stance in reviewing those new laws.
Mr. Holder’s remarks came against the backdrop of a huge turnout of young and minority voters in the 2008 election that helped propel President Obama to victory. In the 2010 election, voting by such groups dropped off and enthusiasm among Republican-leaning voters surged.
Soon after Mr. Holder delivered his remarks, the Justice Department blocked a South Carolina law that would require voters to present photo identification, saying the law would disproportionately suppress turnout among eligible minority voters. In a letter to the South Carolina government, Thomas E. Perez, the assistant attorney for civil rights, said that allowing the new requirement to go into effect would have “significant racial disparities.”
South Carolina faces the choice of dropping the proposed change or asking a federal court in the District of Columbia to approve the law.
The Justice Department is reviewing a similar law in Texas requiring voters to present photo identification cards. As with the South Carolina law, it has sought information about the racial breakdown of the group of eligible voters who do not currently have such identification to see whether the rule would disproportionately deter minorities from voting.
In addition, the Justice Department was engaged in litigation with Florida over a new state law restricting the availability of early voting — including barring it on the Sunday before Election Day, when black churches had traditionally followed services with get-out-the-vote efforts. It also imposed new rules on groups that conduct voter registration drives, including fining them each time a volunteer does not turn in a voter registration form within 48 hours. That section has prompted the League of Women Voters to stop registering new voters in Florida.
Some of the new laws have been introduced by Republicans for years, but passed only this year after the party made so many gains at the state level. Others have been promoted vigorously by conservative groups. But there is little doubt that they will alter the voting landscape.
In October 2011, a study released by the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law analyzed 19 laws that passed and 2 executive orders that were issued in 14 states this year, and concluded that they “could make it significantly harder for more than five million eligible voters to cast ballots in 2012.”
The biggest impact, the Brennan Center said, will be from laws requiring people to show government-issued photo identification to vote. The Brennan Center estimated that 11 percent of potential voters do not have state-issued photo identification. By that measure, it finds that the new laws would affect 3.2 million voters in the states where the change is scheduled to take effect before the 2012 elections.
The Supreme Court upheld Indiana’s voter identification law in 2008, saying that while it found no evidence of the fraud the law was intended to combat, it also found no evidence that the new requirements were a burden on voters.
Five states also passed laws in 2011 restricting early voting.
Ohio passed a law eliminating early voting on Sundays, and Florida eliminated it on the Sunday before Election Day — days when some African-American churches organized “souls to the polls” drives for members of their congregations. Maine voted to stop allowing people to register to vote on Election Day — a practice that had been credited with enrolling some 60,000 new voters in 2008.
When voters in predominantly black neighborhoods in Florida saw their votes challenged in the contested Bush-Gore election of 2000, Democrats made charges of disenfranchisement. In 2008 Acorn, a group organizing minority and low-income communities, became a particular target, with Republicans asserting that Acorn was trying to steal the election with large voter-registration drives, some of which were found to be seriously flawed.
Democrats, who point to scant evidence of voter-impersonation fraud, say the unified Republican push for photo identification cards carries echoes of the Jim Crow laws — with their poll taxes and literacy tests — that inhibited black voters in the South from Reconstruction through the 1960s. Election experts say minorities, poor people and students — who tend to skew Democratic — are among those least likely to have valid driver’s licenses, the most prevalent form of identification. Older people, another group less likely to have licenses, are swing voters.
Republicans argue that the requirements are commonplace.
Changes to voter law tend to flow and ebb with election cycles as both Democrats and Republicans scramble to gain the upper hand when they hold power. The 2010 midterm election was a boon to Republicans, who now control 59 chambers of state legislatures and 29 governorships. In some states, like Florida and Texas, Republicans hold overwhelming majorities. This has allowed the bills to move forward.
Republicans have tried for years to get photo identification requirements and other changes through legislatures. Similar bills were introduced over the past decade, but were largely derailed in the aftermath of a political battle over the Bush administration’s firing of several United States attorneys whom Republicans had criticized for failing to aggressively investigate voter fraud.
Most of the measures would require people to show a form of official, valid identification to vote. While driver’s licenses are the most common form, voters can also request free photo IDs from the Department of Motor Vehicles or use a passport or military identification, among other things.
But Democrats say thousands of people in each state do not have these. The extra step, they add, will discourage some voters who will have to pay to retrieve documents, like birth certificates, for proof to obtain a free card. If voters do not have the proper identification on Election Day, they can cast provisional ballots in most states but must return several days later to a local board of elections office with an ID.
Democrats point to state figures showing that there are few proven cases of voter impersonation and question why budget-conscious Republicans would want to spend taxpayer dollars on a problem that is isolated.
But Republicans counter that detecting and proving voter fraud is tricky under current law precisely because few states require photo identification. Plus, they add, there is no evidence that the requirement reduces minority participation. In Georgia, where photo IDs became a requirement in 2007, minorities voted in record numbers in 2008 and 2010."
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http://www.nbc-2.com/story/16662854/2012/02/02/nbc2-investigates-voter-fraud
Two elections supervisors are taking action after an NBC2 investigation uncovers flawed record keeping and human error allowing people who are not citizens of the United States to vote.
No one knows how widespread this problem is, because county election supervisors have no way to track non-citizens who live here.
So NBC2 did something election officials never thought to do, and found them on our own.
"I vote every year," Hinako Dennett told NBC2.
The Cape Coral resident is not a US citizen, yet she's registered to vote.
NBC2 found Dennett after reviewing her jury excusal form. She told the Clerk of Court she couldn't serve as a juror because she wasn't a U.S. citizen.
We found her name, and nearly a hundred others like her, in the database of Florida registered voters.
Naples resident Yvonne Wigglesworth is also a not a citizen, but is registered to vote. She claims she doesn't know how she got registered.
"I have no idea. I mean, how am I supposed to know."
Records show Wigglesworth voted six times in elections dating back eleven years.
"I know you cannot vote before you become a citizen, so I never tried to do anything like that," Samuel Lincoln said.
He isn't a U.S. citizen either, but the Jamaican national says he doesn't know how he ended up registered to vote.
"It's their mistake, not mine," said Lincoln.
We obtained a copy of his 2007 voter registration application. It's clearly shows he marked U.S. citizen.
"This is under oath, that document, they are attesting that it is true and by falsifying, it's a third degree felony," said Tim Durham, Collier County's chief elections supervisor.
County supervisors of elections tell me they have no way to verify citizenship. Under the 1992 Motor Voter Law, they're not required to ask for proof.
"We have no policing authority. We don't have any way of bouncing that information off any other database that would give us that information," said Lee County Supervisor of Elections Sharon Harrington.
NBC2: Does that need to change??
Harrington: "I think it needs to be looked at."
Until that happens, the only way supervisors of elections can investigate voter fraud is if they get a tip.
So that's what our list became. After showing them the nearly 100 names we compiled, both county election offices sent letters to each voter, asking them verify citizenship.
"It could be very serious. It could change the whole complexion of an election," said Harrington.
It's important we don't know we know if these folks are here illegal or not, just they are potentially not U.S. citizens who registered to vote.
Voters who received letters have 30 days to show proof of citizenship, or they'll be taken off the registration rolls.
Based on our investigation, both election offices say they'll now request a copy of every jury excusal form where residents say they can't serve because they're not a citizen.
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I think it obvious this is rampant.
Why don't they take another step and ask which party they vote for?
Maybe Romney will get tough with this. He suposedly has the most strict immigration stance of the field.
Yet I don't hold my breath. It is really remarkable how this country will sit back and allow ourselves to be walked all over.
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Prediction:
Coumo will be the Democratic Presidential pick in 2016 (if not Hillary).
From the Economist. Even radio host Bob Grant is "pleasantly surprised" how Cuomo is doing:
***Next, walk on water
A New York governor is actually governing
Jan 28th 2012 | NEW YORK | from the print edition
Among the illustrious
FOR four years New York was adrift. When Eliot Spitzer, a crusading lawyer, became governor in 2007, his uncompromising ways caused political gridlock in Albany, the state capital. Just over a year later, he was caught frolicking with a prostitute and resigned. His successor, David Paterson, was affable enough, but too weak to push the state legislature to balance the books. When Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat like his predecessors, handily won the 2010 governor’s race on a promise to “rebuild the government, restore competence, restore trust, [and] get the people of this state believing once again”, New Yorkers gave a cynical snort.
But Mr Cuomo has had an extraordinary year. In the first six months of his term he could point to three historic achievements. First, he balanced the budget: not only bringing spending under control—filling a $10 billion hole and nudging the public-sector unions to make concessions worth $450m—but putting mechanisms in place to control spending in future. He even got the cantankerous legislature to agree. In June Mr Cuomo brought in a cap on property taxes, in a state which the Tax Foundation ranks as the sixth-most-taxed in the country. Robert Ward of the Rockefeller Institute called it “the biggest change in New York’s fiscal policy since the creation of Medicaid”, almost 50 years ago.
Then, also in June, Mr Cuomo signed a bill legalising same-sex marriage, having worked hard to drive the bill through the Republican-controlled state Senate. In December he got bipartisan backing to change the income-tax code, which he says will generate $1.9 billion in additional revenue for the state. It sets in place the lowest tax rate for the middle class in 58 years, while—according to Mr Cuomo’s opponents and the Manhattan Institute—leaving the tax burden on the richest at its highest level since 1986.
Still, most New Yorkers are not upset with him. Indeed, they rate him very highly. He learnt much about Albany politics at the knee of his father, Mario, a former governor. He is clever and determined. His most noticeable flaw is his arrogance, which he has tried to keep in check, but which slipped out in November when he remarked: “I am the government.”
In that case, his cockiness was accurate. There is not much transparency in how he is getting the results, notes Gerald Benjamin of the State University of New York at New Paltz. Disappointingly, it is still three men (Mr Cuomo, the assembly Speaker and the Senate president) in a room making all the decisions.
And there are some big ones ahead. Mr Cuomo is promising to veto any redistricting plan from the legislature which does not come from an independent commission. He wants to expand gambling in the state, infuriating the Indian nations who run its casinos at the moment. Rather bizarrely, he wants to build America’s biggest convention centre in Queens. And he plans to make a start on pension reform.
The thorniest issue he faces is fracking, a controversial drilling technique in which high-pressure water and chemicals are pumped into a bore-hole to ease the extraction of natural gas. New York has a moratorium on the practice, but new rules from the state environment department may allow it. Gas exploration could bring in badly needed jobs and money, but opponents worry that fracking may contaminate the drinking water. If Mr Cuomo can sort that tangle out, says Doug Muzzio, a political scientist at Baruch College, “the next thing he’s going to do is walk on water.”***
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"Coumo will be the Democratic Presidential pick in 2016 (
if not Hillary)."
You may be right. If not Hickenlooper. ) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hickenlooper
I was thinking the Democrat bench was rather thin, but they will have a nominee. If any one of them had any cojones, they would run now.
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Glenn Beck reports the Dems are offended by this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxw4uZAezaI&feature=player_embedded
but apparently forget this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJichBWnUbU&feature=player_embedded
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Will's take on Obama v. Romney re: Middle East, in particular Iraq and Taliban.
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/opinion/s_780643.html
Through 11 presidential elections, beginning with the Democrats' nomination of George McGovern in 1972, Republicans have enjoyed a presumption of superiority regarding national security. This year, however, events and their rhetoric are dissipating their advantage.
Hours after the last U.S. troops left Iraq, political factionalism and sectarian violence intensified. Many Republicans say Barack Obama's withdrawal jeopardized what was achieved there. But if it cannot survive a sunrise without fraying, how much of an achievement was it?
With America in the second decade of its longest war, the probable Republican nominee is promising to extend it indefinitely. Mitt Romney opposes negotiations with the Taliban while they "are killing our soldiers." Which means: No negotiations until the war ends, when there will be nothing about which to negotiate. "We don't," he says, "negotiate from a position of weakness as we are pulling our troops out." That would mean stopping the drawdown of U.S. forces -- except Romney would not negotiate even from a position of strength: "We should not negotiate with the Taliban. We should defeat the Taliban." How could that be achieved in a second decade of war? What would establish "defeat"? Details to come, perhaps.
The U.S. defense budget is about 43 percent of the world's total military spending -- more than the combined defense spending of the next 17 nations, many of which are U.S. allies. Are Republicans going to warn voters that America will be imperiled if the defense budget is cut 8 percent from projections over the next decade?
Do Republicans think it is premature to withdraw up to 7,000 troops from Europe two decades after the Soviet Union's death? About 73,000 will remain, most of them in prosperous, pacific Germany. Why?
Since 2001, the U.S. has waged war in three nations, and some Republicans appear ready to add Iran and Syria. GOP critics say Obama's proposed defense cuts will limit America's ability to engage in troop-intensive nation-building. Most Americans probably say: Good.
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta says the Army should contract from 570,000 soldiers to 490,000 in a decade. Romney says the military should have 100,000 more troops. Romney may be right, but he should connect that judgment to specific assessments of threats and ambitions.
Romney says that if he is elected Iran will not get a nuclear weapon and if Obama is re-elected it will. He also says Obama "has made it very clear that he's not willing to do those things necessary to get Iran to be dissuaded from" its nuclear ambitions. Romney may, however, be premature in assuming the futility of new sanctions the Obama administration is orchestrating, and Panetta says Iran acquiring nuclear weapons is "a redline for us" and if "we get intelligence that they are proceeding with developing a nuclear weapon, then we will take whatever steps necessary to stop it." What, then, is the difference between Romney and Obama regarding Iran?
Osama bin Laden and many other "high-value targets" are dead, the drone war is being waged more vigorously than ever and Guantanamo is still open, so Republicans can hardly say Obama has implemented dangerous discontinuities regarding counterterrorism. Obama says that even with his proposed cuts, the defense budget would increase at about the rate of inflation through the next decade. Republicans who think America is being endangered by "appeasement" and military parsimony have worked that pedal on their organ quite enough.
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Hours after the last U.S. troops left Iraq, political factionalism and sectarian violence intensified. Many Republicans say Barack Obama's withdrawal jeopardized what was achieved there. But if it cannot survive a sunrise without fraying, how much of an achievement was it?
**We'll never know. If the British had defeated the US in the war of 1812 and placed it back under the crown, how would we know what the alternative history would be?
With America in the second decade of its longest war, the probable Republican nominee is promising to extend it indefinitely. Mitt Romney opposes negotiations with the Taliban while they "are killing our soldiers." Which means: No negotiations until the war ends, when there will be nothing about which to negotiate. "We don't," he says, "negotiate from a position of weakness as we are pulling our troops out." That would mean stopping the drawdown of U.S. forces -- except Romney would not negotiate even from a position of strength: "We should not negotiate with the Taliban. We should defeat the Taliban." How could that be achieved in a second decade of war? What would establish "defeat"? Details to come, perhaps.
**Well, good thing leaving Afghanistan has no potential downsides. We have a pinky-promise that the global jihad will forget all about us, right?
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Looks like George Will may have been reading some of my musings and warnings here on the subject of Rep incoherence on foreign affairs.
I think the correct analysis to be that Baraq's signalling of hightailing for the exits, consequences be damned has taken a worthy outcome and thrown it away, but GW's point is the domestic politics of it and there he has merit.
In the Afpakia thread I posted on Romney's tin ear and GW is quite correct hear on the feebleness of how Romney's knee jerk appeal to traditional Rep attitudes will play out politically.
The Ron Paul vote is a substantial part of the Rep Party too. Throw in independents and Dems, and the Romney has locked on to a losing strategy for domestic politics.
GM is quite correct that leaving presents profound problems to fester and become MUCH worse, but as has been noted here many, many times ((led by YA) the American people are not being offered a coherent way of getting the roots of what is going on. Would you want to be the candidate who runs on a platform that what we need to do now is go to war w Pakistan/dismember Pakistan?
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A headline from the future with President Obama: "The Sunni-Shia Nuclear Arms Race Escalates".
I wonder how much gas will be then....
http://worldnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/02/10/10369793-report-saudi-arabia-to-buy-nukes-if-iran-tests-a-bomb
Report: Saudi Arabia to buy nukes if Iran tests A-bomb
Mustafa Ozer / AFP - Getty Images, file
Saudi special forces take part in a military parade in the holy city of Mecca on November 10, 2010.
By msnbc.com staff, NBC News and news services
Saudia Arabia would move quickly to acquire nuclear weapons if Iran successfully tests an atomic bomb, according to a report.
Citing an unidentified Saudi Arabian source, the Times newspaper in the U.K. (which operates behind a paywall) said that the kingdom would seek to buy ready-made warheads and also begin its own program to enrich weapons-grade uranium.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The paper suggested that Pakistan was the country most likely to supply Saudi Arabia with weapons, saying Western officials were convinced there was an understanding between the countries to do so if the security situation in the Persian Gulf gets worse. Pakistan and Saudi Arabia have denied such an arrangement exists.
Iran, which follows the Shiite branch of Islam, and Sunni Saudi Arabia are major regional rivals.
The Times described its source for the story as a "senior Saudi," but gave no other details.
Israel uses MEK terror group to kill Iran's nuclear scientists, US officials say
Mohammad Javad Larijani, a senior aide to Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, describes what Iranian leaders believe is a close relationship between Israel's secret service, the Mossad, and the People's Mujahedin of Iran, or MEK, which is considered a terrorist organization by the United States.
"There is no intention currently to pursue a unilateral military nuclear program, but the dynamics will change immediately if the Iranians develop their own nuclear capability," the source told the newspaper. "Politically, it would be completely unacceptable to have Iran with a nuclear capability and not the kingdom."
It also cited an unnamed Western official as saying that Saudi Arabia would ask Pakistan to honor the alleged agreement "the next day" after any Iranian nuclear bomb test.
The U.S. and other nations suspect that Iran is using its civilian nuclear work as a cover for a weapons program, but Iran insists that its nuclear ambitions are strictly peaceful. The U.S. has used sanctions and diplomacy to pressure Iran on the issue, but has long refused to rule out military action saying that all options are on the table. Israel is also believed to be contemplating a military strike on Iran's nuclear facilities.
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta now believes there's a strong possibility that Israel will attack Iran in an attempt to thwart Tehran's nuclear ambitions, according to U.S. officials. NBC's Richard Engel reports.
In a statement issued Friday by the Pakistan Embassy in Saudi Arabia, Ambassador Mohammed Naeem Khan was quoted as saying that "each Pakistani considers (the) security of Saudi Arabia as his personal matter." Naeem also said that the Saudi leadership considered Pakistan and Saudi Arabia to be one country.
In January this year, Saudi Arabia's former ambassador to the U.S., Prince Turki al-Faisal, said in an interview with The Associated Press that unless a zone free of weapons of mass destruction was created in the Mideast there would "inevitably" be a nuclear arms race, and "that's not going to be in the favor of anybody."
He stressed that the Gulf states were committed not to acquire WMD.
"But we're not the only players in town. You have Turkey. You have Iraq which has a track record of wanting to go nuclear. You have Egypt. They had a very vibrant nuclear energy program from the 1960s. You have Syria. You have other players in the area that could open Pandora's box," the Saudi prince told The AP.
Iran envoy: We could hit US forces anywhere in world if attacked
Asked whether Saudi Arabia would maintain its commitment against acquiring WMD, Turki said: "What I suggest for Saudi Arabia and for the other Gulf states ... is that we must study carefully all the options, including the option of acquiring weapons of mass destruction. We can't simply leave it for somebody else to decide for us."
Turki is also a former Saudi intelligence chief and remains an influential member of the Saudi royal family.
Turki said the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council should guarantee a nuclear security umbrella for Mideast countries that join a nuclear-free zone — and impose "military sanctions" against countries seen to be developing nuclear weapons.
"I think that's a better way of going at this issue of nuclear enrichment of uranium, or preventing Iran from acquiring weapons of mass destruction," he said in the AP interview.
In October, the U.S. claimed that agents linked to Iran's Qud's Force, an elite wing of the Revolutionary Guard, were involved in a plot to kill Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the U.S., Adel Al-Jubeir. Iran said the claims were "baseless."
'Meddling'
Turki said in November that there was "ample and heinous" evidence that Iran was behind the alleged plot. He added that the evidence "indicates the depths of depravity and unreason to which the (Mahmoud) Ahmadinejad regime has sunk."
Turki called the plot "the tip of the iceberg," saying Iran was "meddling" in the affairs of many other countries, including Lebanon, Turkey, Pakistan and especially Iraq.
The Saudi government has also accused a terror cell linked to Iran of plotting to blow up its embassy in Bahrain, as well as the causeway linking the island kingdom to Saudi Arabia.
In a secret diplomatic cable made public by WikiLeaks, Saudi King Abdullah allegedly urged Washington to strike at Iran and "cut off the head of the snake."
Turki dismissed the cable in November, telling reporters that Saudi Arabia supported sanctions and diplomatic pressure against Iran but not a military strike.
He said military action would only stiffen Iran's resolve, rally support for the regime and at best delay, but not halt, the nuclear program. "Such an act I think would be foolish, and to undertake it I think would be tragic," he said.
The Associated Press, NBC News and msnbc.com staff contributed to this report.
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Would you want to be the candidate who runs on a platform that what we need to do now is go to war w Pakistan/dismember Pakistan?
Of course not. As we've seen in the past, we will kick the problem down the road until the next crisis blows up in our collective face. It's not like WMD could be used by jihadists on our shores, as it's never happened before.....
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Timely piece on Saud nukes GM. Would you please post it in the Nuclear War thread?
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http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/forum/story/2012-02-15/presidents-day-washington-lincoln-obama/53107742/1
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"Promise less and shut up"? Now there's a change we can believe in! :lol:
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"Promise less and shut up"? Now there's a change we can believe in! :lol:
On this, we agree completely.
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Brief • February 20, 2012
The Foundation
"Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness." --George Washington
Political Futures
Rick Santorum
"There are reports the Obama campaign, long focused on Mitt Romney, is beginning to prepare for a face-off with [Rick] Santorum, just in case the former Pennsylvania senator captures the Republican nomination. The conventional wisdom among both Democrats and Republicans is that Obama would seek to tear Santorum limb-from-limb with attacks on his positions on abortion, contraception, and, now, prenatal testing. ... In his first surge, in the last days of Iowa caucus campaigning, Santorum shot into the lead on the strength of a platform that featured appealing positions on jobs, on taxes, on national defense, as well as the social positions for which he is well known. Alone among Republicans, Santorum spoke at length about the decline of U.S. manufacturing and the problems of American workers who don't have college degrees. ... Those positions, along with his dogged determination on the stump, caused many Republicans to give him a serious look. Now, leading in the polls both nationally and in Michigan, which holds a key primary February 28, Santorum knows that his opponents, both in the Republican race and Democrats, will seek to provoke him into controversial statements on social issues. And yet in the last few days, he has been unable to steer the political conversation back to the topics that work best with voters. If he can't re-take control of that conversation, he could find himself in serious trouble." --columnist Byron York
Washington's Birthday
In some circles, today is observed as "Presidents' Day," jointly recognizing Presidents George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, but it is still officially recognized as the anniversary of "Washington's Birthday" -- and that is how we mark the date in our shop. Washington's actual birthday is Feb. 22.
For the Record
"The [birth control mandate] 'accommodation' ... is a farce. If you're paying for health insurance -- or if you self-insure, as many institutions do -- shifting responsibilities to the insurance companies doesn't shift the costs, just the paperwork. A Catholic hospital would still pay for the services; there just wouldn't be a line item for it in the monthly insurance bill. That's not accommodation; that's laundering. ... Of course, if religious institutions don't want to violate their consciences, they can simply stop offering health insurance altogether (providing yet another example of how Obama misled voters when he promised that the Affordable Care Act wouldn't cause anyone to lose their current coverage). That would at least allow religious organizations to uphold their principles. The result, however, would be to force taxpayers to subsidize practices many find morally abhorrent. In other words, Obama's solution is to make paying taxes a moral dilemma for many pro-lifers. ... When we empower bureaucrats and politicians to make such huge personal decisions for us, it becomes impossible to avoid trampling on liberty. The Roman Catholic Church was simply the first in the leviathan's path." --columnist Jonah Goldberg
Re: The Left
"To be blunt, the president has it exactly backwards. It is not religious institutions that wish to be held to a different set of rules, but those who would kick the First Amendment to the curb -- the one that establishes the exact same religious standard for everyone -- in order to accommodate the abortion-on-demand constituency. Thus, when Democrats and the president speak about finding an 'accommodation' to address religious peoples' concerns, they are being both arrogant and disingenuous: no member of the government has the option of deciding whether or not accommodate clauses contained in the Constitution. They are bound by it --all of it. Despite all their high-minded pronouncements to the contrary, Democratic agenda has long been defined by different people playing by different sets of rules. ... Even more ironically, for Democrats, anything less than an equal outcome is de facto evidence that someone is playing by a different set of rules, and must be brought to heel by any means necessary -- even if it means bending the rules in the process." --columnist Arnold Alert
Culture
"Never mind that a vast government apparatus exists to provide poor women access to contraceptives, from Medicaid and community health centers to Title X. There are roughly 4,500 Title X-funded clinics around the country. They are required to provide free birth control to the poor and subsidized birth control to people with incomes between 100 percent and 250 percent of poverty. They serve about 5 million people a year. By any reasonable standard, we are one of the most lavishly contracepted societies in the history of the planet. ... A Centers for Disease Control report this year found that among teen mothers who had unintended pregnancies, only 13 percent said they had trouble getting access to birth control. ... Of all the causes of the explosion in illegitimate births, limited access to contraception can't be high on the list. At the same time that we have seen a profusion of contraceptives that are dazzling in their variety, impressive in their efficacy, and democratic in their widespread accessibility, out-of-wedlock births have gone from 10 percent in 1970 to 42 percent today (largely among poor women with access to government-provided contraceptives)." --National Review editor Rich Lowry
Government
"President Obama said in his State of the Union speech, 'We've already agreed to more than $2 trillion in cuts and savings.' ... Cato Institute economist Dan Mitchell cut through the fog to get at the truth of the $2 trillion 'cut.' 'We have a budget of, what, almost $4 trillion? So if we're doing $2 trillion of cuts,' Mitchell said, 'we're cutting government in half. That sounds wonderful.' ... Calling that a 'cut' is nonsense. Mitchell gave an analogy: 'What if I came to you and said, "I've been on a diet for the last month, and I've gained 10 pounds. Isn't that great?" You would say: "Wait, what are you talking about? That's insane." And I said: "I was going to gain 15 pounds. I've only gained 10 pounds, therefore my diet is successful."' Democrats use this deceit when they want more social spending. ... Mitchell points out that the politicians don't even have to make actual cuts to save the future. If they just slowed the growth of government to about 2 percent per year, the U.S. economy could grow out of this mess. But the politicians won't do even that. ... Bottom line: Don't trust the politicians' numbers." --columnist John Stossel
Essential Liberty
"Americans pride themselves on being a self-reliant people. ... But with each passing year, that portrait flies more and more in the face of reality. The numbers plainly show that we are becoming a people dependent not on ourselves, but on government. We are evolving into a nation of takers, not givers. The numbers in question come in the form of a new Heritage Foundation report titled 'The 2012 Index of Dependence on Government.' You don't have to read far before you realize that the days of Horatio Alger stories are behind us. Start with the most basic facts: Today, more than 67.3 million Americans rely on assistance from Washington for everything from food, shelter and clothing to college tuition and health care. These benefits cost federal taxpayers roughly $2.5 trillion annually. Oh, about those taxpayers: Even as the number of Americans receiving federal aid rises, the number of federal taxpayers continues to drop: Nearly half of all Americans -- 49.5 percent -- don't pay any federal income taxes." --Heritage Foundation president Ed Feulner
The Gipper
"The federal government has taken too much tax money from the people, too much authority from the states, and too much liberty with the Constitution." --Ronald Reagan
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Feeling the pressure of a million men... :evil: :evil: :-D
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/million-mustache-march-planned-april-encourage-growth-facial-134239007.html
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" is beginning to prepare for a face-off with [Rick] Santorum, just in case the former Pennsylvania senator captures the Republican nomination. The conventional wisdom among both Democrats and Republicans is that Obama would seek to tear Santorum limb-from-limb with attacks on his positions on abortion, contraception, and, now, prenatal testing."
Absolutely. CNN and MSNBC are immediately all over this. I don't recall whether it soloDAD or Kyra Phillips this AM with a sarcastic tone and detectable smug look asked someone about Santorum with, " I hear he is questioning Obama's theology"?
Never do any of these people ever question a peeping thing about Obama or use sarcastic tones and facial expressions.
Could anyone imagine her asking, "I heard Obama said they cling to their religion and guns" with any tone of disrespect?
I have to say though Santorum did not *sound* great defending himself this AM.
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Pay no attention to the economic collapse, the republicans are going to steal your ladyparts!!!! :roll:
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Chronicle • February 22, 2012
The Foundation
"We should be unfaithful to ourselves if we should ever lose sight of the danger to our liberties if anything partial or extraneous should infect the purity of our free, fair, virtuous, and independent elections." --John Adams
Editorial Exegesis
Leftmedia-run debates are problematic
"The semiotic search for the racism beneath Newt's food-stamp line. The dismissal of 'the Constitution' in haughty air quotes. The wasting of primetime minutes pondering which wife would make the best first lady. The obsessive deposing of Romney on the legality of condoms. The condescending identity politics of carting out a token Latino to ask an immigration question. The dings. The bells. The buzzers. The Google Chat notification tones. ... These are just some of the lowlights of the umpteen Republican debates thus far. And ... they were all brought to us by the mainstream media. That's the same media that daily carry water for the Obama administration, approach the tea parties as anthropological curiosities, and persistently skew the public discourse leftward in ways large and small, conscious and unconscious. ... While dismantling the presuppositions of the political media is surely a skill a conservative president would do well to acquire, it does not rank with the ability to clearly and persuasively articulate a conservative policy vision for solving America's most pressing problems, or with the ability to display fiscal sobriety, strategic acumen, and strong instincts toward liberty when presented with new challenges, foreign and domestic. These abilities -- and not the ability to cleverly parry liberal inanities -- are what the primary debates are meant to test. ... [W]e favor the plan recently floated by Hugh Hewitt. Come the 2016 election season, the RNC should set the number, dates, and locations of debates. They should be fewer in number than the 20-odd we will see before this year is out, so that they are not so unduly agenda-setting. And the party should partner with local party officials, conservative think tanks, alternative media, tea-party groups, and grassroots organizations to determine formatting and questions. ... The alternative is to hope MSNBC and CNN come into the flock between now and 2016. Don't hold your breath." --National Review
Are you tired of the Leftmedia administering the GOP debates?
Upright
"The politicians are spending us into oblivion. But I can't blame only them. The American people are complacent. We like the goodies. We think we're getting something for nothing. We are like alcoholics who know we have a problem but just can't resist one last fix. One more infrastructure bill or jobs plan will jumpstart the economy. Then we'll kick our spending addiction once and for all. But we don't stop spending. Almost all budget categories grow, even when adjusted for inflation. ... So what do we do? We must cut. But I fear Americans aren't up for that. People on the street told me that the budget is out of control. But when I then asked them, 'What would you cut?' most just stared ahead. ... We're on the way to becoming Greece -- while our 'leaders' stand and watch." --columnist John Stossel
"High tax rates in the upper income brackets allow politicians to win votes with class warfare rhetoric, painting their opponents as defenders of the rich. Meanwhile, the same politicians can win donations from the rich by creating tax loopholes that can keep the rich from actually paying those higher tax rates -- or perhaps any taxes at all. What is worse than class warfare is phony class warfare. Slippery talk about 'fairness' is at the heart of this fraud by politicians seeking to squander more of the nation's resources." --economist Thomas Sowell
"n Britain, Prime Minister David Cameron has introduced a bill seeking to partially privatize the National Health Service (NHS). Why? Because the British government is 'hoping to avoid a Greek-style financial meltdown.' ... UK healthcare costs are currently $194 billion per year and consume 18 percent of the UK's budget. The projected 'cuts' in spending for 2013 that have people up in arms? As of now, a $6 billion increase in spending to $200 billion. Much of the animus likely stems from the fact that Britain has grown used to massive amounts of healthcare spending that can no longer be sustained: between 2000 and 2010, the NHS budget doubled in real terms. Furthermore, British debt as a percentage of GDP was almost 80 percent in 2010. Which brings us across the pond, so to speak, where America's debt level reached 102 percent of GDP last year, long before the full effects -- and true costs -- of our own stab at government-run healthcare have yet to be realized." --columnist Arnold Ahlert
Insight
"We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle." --British prime minister Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)
"To be controlled in our economic pursuits means to be controlled in everything." --Nobel laureate economist Friedrich August von Hayek (1899-1992)
The Demo-gogues
Stunning hypocrisy: "Now, whenever Congress refuses to act, Joe and I, we're going to act. In the months to come, wherever we have an opportunity, we're going to take steps on our own to keep this economy moving. ... I do hope Congress joins me. Instead of spending the coming months in a lot of phony political debates focusing on the next election, I hope that we spend some time focusing on middle-class Americans and those who are struggling to get into the middle class." --Barack Obama
Reducing the American Dream: "If you're willing to put in the work, the idea is that you should be able to raise a family and own a home, not go bankrupt because you got sick, 'cause you've got some health insurance that helps you deal with those difficult times; that you can send your kids to college; that you can put some money away for retirement. That's all most people want. Folks don't have unrealistic ambitions. They do believe that if they work hard, they should be able to achieve that small measure of an American dream." --Barack Obama
Scary: "Let me let you in on a secret. I am the senior-most person serving on the Financial Services Committee. Barney Frank is about to retire and guess who's shaking in their boots? The too-big-to-fail banks and financial institutions and all of Wall Street, because Maxine Waters is going to be the next chair of the Financial Services Committee!" --Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA)
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The Foundation
"Excessive taxation ... will carry reason and reflection to every man's door, and particularly in the hour of election." --Thomas Jefferson
Obama and Romney lay out tax plans
The tax proposals of Barack Obama and Mitt Romney serve as alternative visions for the nation. Obama's stifles growth through higher rates on the productive and pays lip service to "fairness" and "fiscal responsibility." Romney's enables growth and builds upon the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003. While Romney should have gone further, his plan is far preferable to Obama's.
The devil, as they say, is in the details. The Leftmedia trumpet Obama's plan to cut the corporate rate from 35 percent to 28 percent -- still above the world's average rate of 25. Yet his plan would merely move the U.S. from the second highest corporate rate in the world to the fourth highest -- with fewer deductions and new penalties to boot. For example, Obama would require for the first time that U.S. companies pay a minimum tax rate on any foreign earnings. His plan also distorts the playing field by favoring some industries over others he doesn't like. Overall, the administration says that American businesses would pay $250 billion more in taxes. It's important to note, however, that corporations don't pay corporate taxes; consumers and employees do through higher prices and lower wages.
By comparison, The Wall Street Journal reports, "All the Republican presidential candidates have called for lower corporate tax rates. Mitt Romney proposes reducing the top rate to 25%. Rick Santorum proposes a 17.5% general corporate tax rate and zero rate on manufacturers. Ron Paul proposes 15% and Newt Gingrich 12.5%."
The real economy crusher, however, could be Obama's proposal to raise the tax on dividends from 15 percent to a staggering 44.8 percent. This money is first taxed as profit at the corporate rate before it can be paid in dividends, making the effective tax rate on this money more than 64 percent. Also, by tripling the dividend rate, many corporations will simply stop paying dividends as they did in the 1990s when the rate was roughly twice that on capital gains. Republicans cut both rates to 15 percent in 2003, and by 2006 dividend income had more than tripled. Obama's plan wouldn't just hurt the "rich," as the White House would lead us to believe. More than 100 million people are shareholders in the market, and three-quarters of dividend payments go to retirees or near-retirees. These tax increases would make everyone poorer.
Romney's tax plan is quite different. It has five points: reduce marginal individual income tax rates across-the-board by 20 percent; reduce the corporate rate to 25 percent; maintain the 15 percent rate on capital gains, interest and dividends for those earning more than $200,000 per year, while eliminating it for everyone else; abolish the death tax and the Alternative Minimum Tax; make the changes permanent, thus bringing much-needed stability to the tax code.
There is good and bad to his proposal. The bad is that Romney is still somewhat bound to the classism of the Democrats. For example, why play by their rules with capital gains or five individual rates? It's good that lower rates apply to everyone, though. The current top individual rate of 35 percent, which is set to skyrocket in 2013 to 41 percent (including the Democrats' surtax on the wealthy), would fall to 28 percent, the 33 percent rate to 26.4 percent, the 28 percent rate to 22.4 percent, the 25 percent rate to 20 percent, the 15 percent rate to 12 percent, and the 10 percent rate to 8 percent. Marginal rate cuts are by far the most economically effective tax cuts, but we would like to see fewer and even lower rates. The corporate rate should go lower, too. Flat or Fair tax, anyone?
Permanently eliminating the estate, or "death," tax -- often at least the third time that money is taxed -- is a great idea, as is casting the Alternative Minimum Tax on the ash heap of history. Also, making these changes permanent could do as much good for the economy as the rates themselves. As an aside, the proposal is good for Romney's candidacy because it gives him something to campaign for instead of merely citing his biography or attacking his opponents.
For the electorate, the competing tax visions provide a clear choice. As Ronald Reagan once put it, "You and I are told we must choose between a left or right, but I suggest there is no such thing as a left or right. There is only an up or down." Obama, with his wealth redistribution and class envy, advocates the way down. Romney's proposal, while far from perfect, provides a way up to greater prosperity for all.
What do you think of these tax proposals?
New & Notable Legislation
By comfortable margins, both chambers of Congress passed an extension of the payroll tax cut. The package extends the 2 percentage-point cut on Social Security taxes (reduced from 6.2 percent to 4.2 percent) through the end of 2012 and continues to wave off previously agreed-upon cuts in doctors' Medicare compensation payments. It also tinkers with the federal unemployment insurance program to provide job-training opportunities and supplement some workers hit by drastic cuts in hours. The extension, which is not offset, will be a drain on the Social Security "trust fund" even though previous payroll tax cuts have provided no net gain for the economy. Republicans dropped their initial opposition to the extension because they didn't want to be accused of supporting a tax hike on workers. Barack Obama signed the bill with little fanfare, though he did take time to invite a few citizen-props to the White House -- those who went public with how the extra $40 in their paycheck has changed their lives.
Across the Pond: Britain to Partially Privatize Health Care
Little noticed by U.S. media beholden to Barack Obama and his takeover of our health care system is the recent decision by the British to begin partially privatizing their own government system. Prime Minister David Cameron introduced a bill to do just that because the British government is "hoping to avoid a Greek-style financial meltdown." The British media, unlike their American counterparts, aren't sitting on the sidelines. In fact, The Times of London quoted a Downing Street source saying that Health Secretary Andrew Lansley "should be taken out and shot" for supporting the effort. Whatever happened to advocating gun control over there?
The British system is legendary for its lengthy wait times and rationing of treatments, and it's still going broke. Leftists are up in arms (literally, if they take the aforementioned Downing Street advice) over supposed "cuts," too. Yet health care accounts for 18 percent of the UK's budget at $194 billion, and it will be about the same percentage at $200 billion in 2013. That's the same kind of "cut" Obama touts in his budget.
News From the Swamp: Reid Tempts Obama With Recess Appointments
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) encouraged Barack Obama to make some 90 recess appointments for nominees to various posts that have yet to be approved. Reid claims that the nominees could be approved at any point if Senate Republicans would "cooperate," meaning just shut up and do things his way. Several Republicans have refused flatly to support any nomination until the president rescinds his four non-recess appointments from December and puts them up for full advice and consent. Reid's response is simply more of the same cynical support for Obama's unconstitutional actions. Is it any wonder that he and his fellow do-nothing Senate Democrats haven't passed a budget in more than 1,000 days?
On the Campaign Trail: Santorum and Obama
Speaking on the campaign trail in Columbus, Ohio, Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum argued that Barack Obama's actions aren't motivated by a concern for citizens' quality of life, but by his distorted worldview. "It's not about your job," Santorum said. "It's about some phony ideal, some phony theology. Oh, not a theology based on the Bible, a different theology. But no less a theology." The media and the White House immediately accused Santorum of saying that Obama was not Christian, which is ridiculous because Santorum has stated the opposite publicly more than once.
That's not to say there aren't legitimate questions about the president's religion. His past statements about people "clinging" to religion, his sitting for 20 years in the pews of Jeremiah Wright, who shouted obscenities from the pulpit, and Obama's current attacks on the Catholic Church prove that he has, at best, no real respect for religion. But Santorum can't utter that truth on the campaign trail because it would surely do him more harm than good.
The bottom line is that Obama is a textbook narcissist, and he worships himself. Sure, he touts his so-called Christian faith, but only when it suits him to argue for wealth redistribution, ObamaCare or various other leftist "social justice" adventures. The president's real theological underpinnings come from the Church of Obama -- his own word is gospel and he is above reproach for his views and actions -- and it has many devoted followers in the media who have rushed to his defense, as Santorum has discovered.
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Another Vacation for Michelle and the Kids
While the rest of us spent the long Washington's Birthday weekend working or plotting survival in a moribund economy, most of the First Family enjoyed the sun and slopes of Aspen. Along with a couple of family friends and the usual host of Secret Service agents, Michelle Obama and their two girls spent the weekend at the home of Aspen Skiing owners Jim and Paula Crown. The Crowns are old Chicago friends of the Obamas and -- naturally -- huge Democrat donors. With instructors in tow, the Obamas hit the slopes.
There's no question that public perception of the First Family as members of the out-of-touch "1 percent" increases with each lavish vacation; this is the sixteenth such trip Michelle has taken in the last three years. While most families are happy to take a week's summer vacation and, if they're lucky, maybe a couple of weekend getaways a year, the Obama family averages a ritzy outing about once every 10 weeks. Nice lack of work if you can get it.
How many vacations are too many?
Economy
Hope 'n' Change: High Gas Prices 'Aren't Obama's Fault'
Remember back in 2005 when the media reported soaring gas prices as unequivocally "Bush's fault"? No such blame for the president this time. Barack Obama denies responsibility, too, saying through his mouthpiece Jay Carney, "If you're suggesting that there is responsibility for a rise in the price of oil, it's certainly not because of anything [Obama] hasn't done to expand oil production." In fact, the president slammed Republicans Thursday for "licking their chops" over high gas prices and greeting this "bad news so enthusiastically."
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), who as Speaker of the House was one of the first to blame President Bush for high gas prices, blames everyone but this president. "Wall Street profiteering, not oil shortages, is the cause of the price spike," Pelosi said. "Unfortunately, Republicans have chosen to protect the interests of Wall Street speculators and oil companies instead of the interests of working Americans by obstructing the agencies with the responsibility of enforcing consumer protection laws."
The energy industry sees things a bit differently. "These have been the most difficult three years from a policy standpoint that I've ever seen in my career," said Bruce Vincent, president of Houston-based oil and natural gas producer Swift Energy. He says the Obama administration has "done nothing but restrict access and delay permitting" and "has threatened this industry at every turn." Meanwhile, DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz complains that Republicans and their oil buddies don't have a solution, because "all they would do is more and more drilling." Um, yeah. Increasing supply usually does lower the cost, but we wouldn't expect a Democrat to understand that.
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http://www.rollcall.com/issues/57_102/No-Room-for-GOP-Moderates-212765-1.html?ET=rollcall:e12343:80133681a:&st=email&pos=eam
With Sen. Olympia Snowe’s startling Tuesday announcement that she would retire, the GOP now must grapple with a key question: Did the centrist Republican lose interest in her Conference or did her Conference lose interest in centrist Republicans?
In the shadow of 2010’s conservative wave election, Snowe had become a “lone wolf” who was “adrift” in her own party, Republicans sources said. Snowe herself conceded Wednesday that she had been so focused on her re-election — and staving off a primary challenge since even before 2010 — that she had lost sight of why she was running in the first place.
Those close to Republican leadership insist that the Conference has not become inhospitable to moderates, but Snowe’s statements paint the picture of an establishment Republican frustrated with the direction of her party and unsure it will change anytime soon.
“It’s about the country and solving problems, and that was my final conclusion. ... If we cannot solve problems in this difficult time in our nation’s history, at what point would we? And whether or not that would change, that dynamic. And that’s the problem,” Snowe said Wednesday when asked whether a GOP takeover of the chamber in November would lead to more legislative productivity.
.... Continued on link
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Recently at a gathering the daughter of on of the doctors present called herself a "fiscal conservative" and a "social liberal". Some years ago a member of my family donned the same self description of his political persuasion.
I think I know whence they come and how this (a bit narcisstic concept comes) yet upon reflection I find both somewhat mutually exclusive. So does this author:
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Hot Topics:Morning Briefing• Horserace• Primary Targets• Tech at NightRecent PostsLog InSign Up“I’m a fiscal conservative, but a social liberal.” The Epitaph for America’s Future?
Posted by Ausonius (Diary)
Saturday, February 27th at 9:47PM EST
47 CommentsRecommenders: tcgeol (Diary), BlueStateSaint, penguin2 (Diary), redneck_hippie (Diary), Achance (Diary), nessa (Diary), Vegas_Rick (Diary), aesthete (Diary), TheSophist (Diary)
Many have read a version of the following statement from “moderates,” defined here as people who want to seem high-minded and objective by staying “above the fray.”
“I’m a fiscal conservative, but a social liberal.”
The goal in this essay is to demonstrate the illogicality of such an oxymoron. For ultimately fiscal conservatism will be impossible, if you support social liberalism.
How does one define “social liberalism” anyway? Since I do not want to be accused of setting up strawmen to knock down, in good faith I offer the following examples of social liberalism: antagonism toward racial profiling, protecting children, and (contradictorily) killing unborn children.
Liberal political scientist Benjamin Barber, an emeritus professor at Rutgers, offers an explanation for one aspect of political correctness:
“On the belief that while classes of people and categories of action may be statistically correlated with certain kinds of behavior, those correlations do not warrant encroaching on the liberty and rights of individuals. No one is to be prejudged in their behavior or motives simply because they belong to a certain class or category.”
See:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/benjamin-r-barber/forgiving-political-corre_b_369419.html
On the surface, no Conservative will argue with this. But consider the “failed attack” by the infamous Shoe Bomber (Richard Reid). One of the most expensive aspects of Barber’s purist attitude has been occurring for years in our airports: because of political correctness, profiling for possible suspects has not been allowed. The result is that 9-year old little girls from Cincinnati, as well as 90-year old grandmothers from Pittsburgh, are stopped, scanned, sniffed, debriefed, de-shoed, and delayed because social liberalism says not to use stereotypes…ever, even though Richard Reid and his ilk do not fit the profile of a 9-year old girl from Ohio.
Americans have been led to think, therefore, that such high-mindedness is the price one pays for safety. And what exactly is that price? It is not just an annoying, exasperated feeling while standing in line. Roughly 50 million people per month pass through American airports per month. If we place the very modest price of $10.00 on the head of every passenger for their lost time (obviously the time of many travelers is worth much more!), it means that half a billion dollars are lost every month to the American economy, $6 Billion per year, $60 billion since Mr. Shoe Bomber’s antics.
And we say and believe that his attack failed! This estimate obviously does not take into account the tax dollars spent for all the increased surveillance and the equipment: and I will openly admit, the waddling and possibly illiterate T.S.A. guards I have seen do not make me feel safer. They make me feel less wealthy, knowing that as government employees they have better benefits and pensions than I ever will!
Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby offered this opinion in an essay from August 23, 2006:
“No sensible person imagines that ethnic or religious profiling alone can stop every terrorist plot. But it is illogical and potentially suicidal not to take account of the fact that so far every suicide-terrorist plotting to take down an American plane has been a radical Muslim man. It is not racism or bigotry to argue that the prevention of Islamist terrorism necessitates a special focus on Muslim travelers, just as it is not racism or bigotry when police trying to prevent a Mafia killing pay closer attention to Italians.”
Profiling will not eliminate airport security, but one wonders, if political correctness were tossed aside, could not the loss in time and efficiency be greatly reduced?
Social liberalism has led to an attitude of allowing government intervention to protect us from ourselves, from cars, from saturated fat, from incorrect sneezing, from almost any situation which can generate a bureaucracy. OHSA in the Department of Labor is now approaching $2 Billion for its budget. And of course, we must protect the children: much spending is done in the name of helping children.
But where are the limits? One small personal example: when my wife was a principal of a grade school, the board wanted to install new playground equipment. She was given a 27-page booklet from the FedGov on playground safety. It seems that the FedGov’s bureaucrats had mandated that a playground slide had to have “9 inches of mulch at the bottom,” otherwise…lawsuits were possible for not following Federal guidelines. Now who decided that “9 inches of mulch” had to be used, and how? Bureaucrats! You can imagine them in lab coats and holding clipboards, while they put crash-dummies on the slide to discover the proper depth of mulch to protect the delicate derrieres of American 9-year old children.
“Your tax dollars at work!” “Where are the limits?” Obviously none exist.
Probably most Americans do not realize that their government is involved in such minutiae: child safety taken to manic extremes is one of the unintended consequences of social liberalism.
Although not all welfare goes to children, they are the main reason often given by politicians for supporting the welfare state. And of course over the last c. 80 years, governments have taken over from the churches, private charities, families, and private individuals the care for the poor or the temporarily indigent: which tradition would be more efficient in dealing with poverty, more caring, and more likely to prevent it from increasing?
The Heritage Foundation offers the following horrifying information for the “social liberal-fiscal conservative” to contemplate:
“Since the beginning of the War on Poverty, government has spent $15.9 trillion (in inflation-adjusted 2008 dollars) on means-tested welfare. In comparison, the cost of all other wars in U.S. history was $6.4 trillion (in inflation-adjusted 2008 dollars).”
“According to President Obama’s budget projections, federal and state welfare spending will total $10.3 trillion over the next 10 years (FY 2009 to FY 2018). This spending will equal $250,000 for each person currently living in poverty in the U.S., or $1 million for a poor family of four.”
(My emphasis above)
See: http://www.heritage.org/Research/Welfare/sr0067.cfm
In theory of course, that wipes out poverty! But we know it will not! Social liberalism does not stop poverty: if welfare-state bureaucracies actually lessened poverty, they would put themselves out of work. It is to the bureaucrats’ advantage to fertilize poverty!
However, human fertilization is something of which social liberals are usually skeptical. And here we touch upon abortion: I am aware that purely moral arguments are enough to argue against killing unborn children. The point here, however, is our “social liberal-fiscal conservative” will claim that abortion should be allowed, that it actually saves money for society, and that anyway, should not a true conservative keep government away from telling people what they can do with their bodies?
In a study called Abortion and Crime: Unwanted Children and Out-of-Wedlock Births by Lott and Whitley, the authors examine the costs to society of Roe vs. Wade over time. One finds the following conclusion on p.18:
“The higher estimated increases in murder imply that legalizing abortion raised the number of murders in 1998 by 1,230 and raised total annual victimization costs from all crime by at least $4.5 billion.”
See: http://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1018&context=lepp_papers
Note that $4.5 Billion is for one year only. Probably a good number of RedState readers are already acquainted with demographic researcher Dennis Howard’s estimate that since Roe vs. Wade the U.S. economy has lost $37 Trillion dollars due to the loss of population. While you can debate how productive the aborted babies would have been, how many might have become criminals, welfare mothers, etc., one must ultimately assume that most people, even from the lower classes, are honest and want to succeed. So even if Howard is wildly off by 90%, that would still mean nearly a loss of $4 Trillion, which would come in handy right now to save the U.S. partially from bankruptcy! The cost to enforce anti-abortion laws would hardly affect such a sum.
Legal abortion, of course, was only part of the wider so-called Sexual Revolution 40 years ago, spawning the additional expenses of higher divorce rates (“no-fault divorce” also being part of a “socially liberal” agenda), higher illegitimacy rates, rises in STD’s and AIDS, etc. (I recall leftist columnist Ellen Goodman in the early 1980’s insisting that a crash program to cure AIDS was absolutely essential, not just for curing the afflicted, but to preserve the Sexual Revolution, i.e. to let people have casual sex with no consequences.)
I could continue into vaguer territory: what are the economic consequences of a society where mediocrity is extolled in a quest for fairness, where schools cancel awards ceremonies for fear of offending somebody, or, worse, where everyone is given an award, thus making the achievements of true winners meaningless? In the cartoon-movie The Incredibles, which shows a society where superheroes have been shut down by lawyers for the destruction and extra-constitutionality involved when the “supers” battle villains, one of the characters opines: “If everyone is super, then no one is.”
What is the cost of that kind of social liberalism/political correctness? How many future Bach’s, Curie’s, Edison’s, Einstein’s, Galileo’s, Michelangelo’s, Mother Teresa’s, Schoenberg’s, or Wright’s (Orville, Wilbur, as well as Frank Lloyd) are being stifled and stunted in our increasingly hostile-to-excellence society, or worse, are now part of hospital waste?
“I’m a fiscal conservative, but a social liberal.”
Let that not be the epitaph for America’s future.
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For Aesthete and Others: The Pro-Abortion Social Liberal Cannot Be A Fiscal Conservative
Ausonius (Diary) Sunday, February 28th at 7:47AM EST (link)
There was a discussion on Monday under a different topic about whether abortions save society money: this diary contains my expanded thoughts on the subject.
Again, let me emphasize that the topic here is very narrow: one would never want to defend a pro-life position with only an economic argument.
My point here is to show that for someone who claims to be “fiscally conservative” but “socially liberal” his support for abortion will be a contradiction: abortions are a drain on an economy and prevent fiscal conservatism.
Still, I want to emphasize again for clarity: even if abortions saved us billions per year, one would still want to prevent them!
Ausonius: 310-395 A.D. Teacher, Poet, Consul, General, Farmer.
Personal Tutor to the future St. Paulinus of Nola and to young Gratian, heir to the throne during the turbulent final years of the Western Roman Empire. When his former student Gratian was assassinated, Ausonius threw up his hands and retired to his farm in Gaul. Rome was captured by barbarians 14 years after his death.
Cato@rock.com
I'll get back to you on that
aesthete (Diary) Sunday, February 28th at 11:31AM EST (link)
Suffice it to say, I think that you’re right in your support of life, but that your analysis concerning the economics of the situation are rosy, at best. I’ll get back to you when I have the time, and thanks for following through on your promise to put up a diary on the subject.
The act of defending any of the cardinal virtues has today all the exhilaration of a vice – G.K. Chesterton
And I'm back
aesthete (Diary) Sunday, February 28th at 5:49PM EST (link)
First, let me say that I mostly agree with your assertion that social liberalism, as a general philosophy, is incompatible with fiscal conservatism. I would say, however, that most people who label themselves as socially liberal/fiscally conservative do so out of ignorance, and actually mean to say that they are socially libertarian.
Social libertarianism ≠ social liberalism, and the broadness of the term, “social liberal”, as well as its presumed pushback against social conservatives, leads many to use the term “social liberal” for their own beliefs, even though those beliefs are more libertarian than anything else. I would broadly state that most people who call themselves fiscally conservative and socially liberal are not supportive of true social liberalism, which for the purposes of discussion, can be defined as an attempt to use government to promote behaviors beneficial to establishing a “classless” society. (Likewise, libertarianism could be defined as being opposed to government involvement in social engineering, and seeking equal access to government services for all citizens without discrimination.)
Small government proponents typically believe that government should undertake the fewest actions possible, and that most domestic policies are 1) ineffective and 2) that they shouldn’t be undertaken by government, given its status as the arbiter of coercive force. Given that, it could be claimed that social conservatism is incompatible with small government, considering that social conservatism calls for an expansion of government with the dubious aim of restoring a “moral” society. Regulation and outright bans of pornography and online gambling in the federal government, the War on Drugs (which, as far as I can tell, can’t be even peripherally related to any of the federal government’s express powers, and as such violates the 10th), and several other examples abound of social conservatives attempting to regulate, ban, and imprison their way to their preferred endgame. This cannot in any way be tied to fiscal conservatism, and in many ways, violates its principles, and those of federalism. Certainly, not all of social conservatism’s efforts violate the principles of small government: I applaud their attempts to move discussion of religion into the public sphere, and along with libertarians, they are oftentimes the strongest supporters of non-public education solutions.
With the exception of the drug war, I would say the agenda of social conservatives in the 80s was mostly one of repealing harmful government legislation. Later iterations of social conservatism, however, abandoned their zeal for repeal (hey, that rhymes!) and instead, have taken after their European Christian Democratic brethren in actively proposing legislation that increases government.
Perhaps a telling quote of social or “traditional” conservatives can be found in Russell Kirk’s screed attacking libertarians which, while haphazard and scattered, offers the following gem: “Conservatives have no intention of compromising with socialists; but even such an alliance, ridiculous though it would be, is more nearly conceivable than the coalition of conservatives and libertarians. The socialists at least declare the existence of some sort of moral order; the libertarians are quite bottomless.” Regardless of the statement’s veracity (which is quite low, but I digress), there is no reasonable way in which subscribing to some moral order or other makes the conservative movement more akin to socialism than libertarianism (in which case, I suppose the fascists are also closer to conservatism than strawman-libertarianism). Sad to say, that’s where some social conservatives would like to take our party, and it is this that most fiscal conservatives rebel against when they call themselves “socially liberal”.
The act of defending any of the cardinal virtues has today all the exhilaration of a vice – G.K. Chesterton
excellent summary aesthete of what many of us
Doc Holliday (Diary) Sunday, February 28th at 7:03PM EST (link)
believe. The last paragraph is amazing, I could have used it in my socon vs libertarian con battles of the past. I said pretty much the same thing but did not have the proof lol.
BTw, I have one minor quibble. As you know, there is nothing moderate about libertarian-conservatives. libertarianism is a radical view, just like the radical views of the Founders.
I am not so sure there are many who call themselves “socially liberal” who are actually libertarian. I hope you are right but I have my doubts. One some big government socons do to weaken libertarian-cons is to lump them in with “social liberals” and “fiscons”. In fact they inflate the numbers of fiscons and deflate the numbers of libertarians in our movement. That is a rhetorical tactic, and one that serves none of us well.
Molon Labe!
The founders were radicals?
Scope (Diary) Sunday, February 28th at 7:32PM EST (link)
First time I heard that. What made them radicals?
That they were far outside the mainstream
aesthete (Diary) Sunday, February 28th at 7:45PM EST (link)
In this case, radical is not a pejorative.
Here’s a biased but mostly accurate article briefly discussing the Radical Whigs and their popularity in the Americas.
The act of defending any of the cardinal virtues has today all the exhilaration of a vice – G.K. Chesterton
Probably an apt description Scope, if not very flattering
nessa (Diary) Sunday, February 28th at 7:51PM EST (link)
Radicals, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.
Even aside from rebelling against the British gov’t, surely enough to make them radicals in the eyes of the British and the Tory’s here, many were adherents of “Enlightenment” which had a bad reputation, at least among the Kings and the Aristocracy that it sought to replace with individual liberty and reason.
Its not like they knew what would happen when they started the American Experiment, and there were times we could easily have gone the way of the French Revolution.
“If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace. We ask not your counsel nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.”—Samuel Adams
Contributor to Unified Patriots
teh twitter
55 nessa
Doc Holliday (Diary) Sunday, February 28th at 8:44PM EST (link)
I know I was using the term in a positive way. They risked their own necks when they already were leading pretty dang good lives compared to everyone else in the world. They must have had a very great motivation to do that.
You know, it has been argued that the most free person on earth in 1760 was colonial american. The key point is this included the average British Citizen.
Some may say this diminishes the ideas of the Revolution, I say it amplifies them.
Molon Labe!
Thanks Doc, I was right there with you.
nessa (Diary) Sunday, February 28th at 9:00PM EST (link)
I discovered an interesting fact last week. There is a High School down the street from me named 71st School. I, and most citizens here have always thought it was named after a street. Not Hardly! It is named after the 71st Regiment of Foot, a Tory Regiment raised here to fight with the British.
And we think our political atmosphere is charged? I think the Colonial Americans would find it tame and boring. I mean when was the last time we had a good old fashioned tar and feathering?
“If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace. We ask not your counsel nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.”—Samuel Adams
Contributor to Unified Patriots
teh twitter
very true Nessa
Doc Holliday (Diary) Sunday, February 28th at 9:13PM EST (link)
the worst abuses in the revolution were colonial on colonial. If you really hated a guy, you charged him with being a Rebel or Tory, depending where you lived. I am not saying this about everyone of course, but it happened all the time. And as you say, tar and feathering was not fun. It was not some humorous thing it is often portrayed as, unless you like third degree burns and possible death.
Hmm, you had a Tory regiment? I will make a wild guess and say New York? Or maybe South Carolina? those are just guesses.
Molon Labe!
Fayetteville, NC Doc. I wasn't so much surprised
nessa (Diary) Sunday, February 28th at 11:15PM EST (link)
that it was here, the revolution wasn’t all that popular, but for the school to be named after it now was much more so. But then the race baiters hadn’t been invented yet and now that they have they use their ire for the Founding Fathers. The Daughters of the Confederacy still quietly place the Stars and Bars on the veterans graves for Memorial Day but I’ve never heard of a school named after a Confederate Regiment.
Many of the Scots who emigrated here were loyalists, to include Flora MacDonald who, in 1745 had smuggled Bonnie Prince Charlie out of England hidden under her skirts. The Colonial Governor had encouraged Scottish immigrants by granting them a 10 year tax exemption and land grants.
The history here is fascinating, from that, to the “hornet’s nest of rebellion,” in Charlotte and Colonel Sevier bringing the “Overmountain Men” across the Appalachians from Tennessee and western Virginia to fight a Tory Regiment at Kings Mountain, one of the pivotal battles of the Revolution. The Whigs (our side, lol) took over 800 prisoners at that battle. Every last one of them escaped (home to his farm) within a couple days, along with a fair portion of the Whigs who captured them.
“If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace. We ask not your counsel nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.”—Samuel Adams
Contributor to Unified Patriots
teh twitter
very interesting Nessa
Doc Holliday (Diary) Monday, March 1st at 5:10AM EST (link)
Well I did guess A Carolina lol. It is true there were many Tories down there. BTW, I found the school’s website and they do not mention the Tory Regiment. They claim it was named after the Highlander Regiment of which many of them served.
Don’t worry, I believe you over them, but I did find the whitewashing interesting. As you say, there is no huge deal that their were Tory Regiments, we all know that. I even would not be that offended if say so many in the town served because it is history. But if they are covering it up, hmmm
Molon Labe!
I'll check their website, thanks Doc
nessa (Diary) Monday, March 1st at 11:18AM EST (link)
I got the information from another website, I’ll have to do a little more investigation. History is always interesting.
“If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace. We ask not your counsel nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.”—Samuel Adams
Contributor to Unified Patriots
teh twitter
Doc, whitewashed, mayby not exactly...
nessa (Diary) Monday, March 1st at 12:51PM EST (link)
The schools website says they were named for the famed Highland Scots who fought for Bonnie Prince Charley and the Jacobite cause in the 1740s.
What they didn’t mention, intentionally or due to a technicality, was that they were indeed Loyalists, though not retaining the 71st Highlanders name. From the website of The North Carolina Highland Regiment- 71st Highlanders, a group of Revolutinary War Re-enactors…
Unit began in 1776 when North Carolina’s governor Joeseph Martin, convinced King George III that, he, Martin could raise 10,000 Loyalists who could march to Wilmington, join forces
with English troops, and quell the growing rebellion in the south.
An army of 1600 loyalists, mainly Highland Scots, gathered in
Cross Creek ( now Fayetteville ) and began the 90-mile march to Wilmington, the men designated only as North Carolina Highanders were on their way to becoming part of the
Royal Highland Emigrants (later know, 84th Regiment of Foot)
then forming in Halifax.
Less than 20 miles from Wilmington, Rebels defeated the
Loyalists at Moore’s Creek Bridge. Most of the North Carolina
Highlanders were paroled, but the already-commisioned group
never can to fruition…. until Cornwallis.
When Martin learned in 1780 that Crown Forces under
Cornwallis would again appear in force in the province, Martin
re-ssued the commisions, the group was reformed again as The North Carolina Highland Regiment, an independant royal
light infantry unit consisting of over 600 men. Many of them
were the soldiers from the ill-fated Cross Creek muster four
years earlier. The regiment had blue jackets made locally,
borrowed kilts and hose of the 71st Regiment of Foot who
were now wearing military overalls.
I’m going to have to check out the Highland Regiment, it will be interesting and a couple of those gentlemen, dressed in their kilts and blue coats, hung about with powder horns and Brown Bess would be able to deliver a stunning classroom instruction on the Founding of America and the Constitution in any of the local schools.
“If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace. We ask not your counsel nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.”—Samuel Adams
Contributor to Unified Patriots
teh twitter
I think we have it Nessa
Doc Holliday (Diary) Monday, March 1st at 2:05PM EST (link)
so technically the school is not named after the Loyalist regiment but the Highland regiment. Men from the area did join a loyalist regiment but it was not called the 71st Regiment of Foot. That is what I have been able to glean, are we agreed or is more snooping required
Molon Labe!
Thats got it Doc! nt
nessa (Diary) Monday, March 1st at 2:14PM EST (link)
“If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace. We ask not your counsel nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.”—Samuel Adams
Contributor to Unified Patriots
teh twitter
check out this book Scope, it won the Pulitzer
Doc Holliday (Diary) Sunday, February 28th at 8:32PM EST (link)
http://www.amazon.com/Radicalism-American-Revolution-Gordon-Wood/dp/0679736883#reader_0679736883
Wood is one of our greatest Revolutionary historians. I am not going to go into detail on the argument but we can certainly agree we made a “radical” change from the Monarchical, class societies of that era, and those of our forbears.
Molon Labe!
"Radical" vs. "Conservative" Revolutionaries
Ausonius (Diary) Monday, March 1st at 10:51AM EST (link)
In History one often sees revolutionaries couching their position as a return to an original, higher, uncorrupted state.
A great example of this is Martin Luther, who believed that his reforms took Christianity back to a first-century A.D. purity lacking in the Church of his day. He viewed this as a conservative position, but knew of course that it would be seen otherwise. “Radical” goes back to the Latin for “root” (as in “radish” and implies a complete “uprooting” of society and starting from scratch.
One can debate how radical Luther really was.
However, his true conservatism – I am not using the term in our American sense here – is seen when he wants nothing to do with the politicization of his Reformation. He is immediately on the side of the political status quo, and wants nothing to do with peasants demanding an expansion of rights! He sees them as rabble who, if they dare to revolt, deserve only to be beaten down by the nobles.
Another example is the musical revolutionary Arnold Schoenberg, who believed that his (radical) “atonal” music was a logical development from Brahms and Wagner. Schoenberg rejected the term for himself, even though people called him constantly “revolutionary.” Musicologist Willi Reich wrote an analysis of him called: “Schoenberg, The Conservative Revolutionary.”
Schoenberg himself, to show he was following logical musical trends, wrote an essay called “Brahms, The Progressive” which Brahms probably would not have appreciated!
Ausonius: 310-395 A.D. Teacher, Poet, Consul, General, Farmer.
Personal Tutor to the future St. Paulinus of Nola and to young Gratian, heir to the throne during the turbulent final years of the Western Roman Empire. When his former student Gratian was assassinated, Ausonius threw up his hands and retired to his farm in Gaul. Rome was captured by barbarians 14 years after his death.
Cato@rock.com
That's a good quibble you have there
aesthete (Diary) Sunday, February 28th at 7:37PM EST (link)
At the upper levels, actual libertarian decision-makers tend to be few and far in between, and social liberals/fiscal conservatives abound (which is probably a function of the libertarian philosophy’s even greater aversion to government than conservatism, as well as the predilection for East Coast conservatives to be more authoritarian). In that sense, social conservatives can largely substantiate the claim that they are better practitioners of fiscal conservatism than the mythologized social liberal/fiscal conservatives. Among us voting hoi polloi, however, I’d say that there’s a fair amount of people, particularly those “South Park conservatives” who grew up in the Clinton and Bush Administrations, who broadly see social conservatives as the guys who tried to impeach Clinton on trumped-up charges and expanded government under Bush, however unfair such a narrative might be, and who have adopted the label to, essentially, run as far away from that behavior as they could. I would also include those who hold largely libertarian views, but who as a result of the Civil Rights movement, don’t hold federalist views, as those who define themselves thus: many times, they see the federal government as being the appropriate authority in social disputes, and have no problems with Eisenhower-esque intervention in that regard. Both of these groups are classical liberals, but have a negative aversion towards being associated with the stereotype of social conservatives, and some have an aversion to associating themselves with libertarians and their conspiracy theories, as well. Of course, some social liberals know well what they advocate, but the overwhelming majority of those classify themselves as “moderate” or progressive, due to the large amounts of federal funding needed to carry out the socially liberal vision.
The act of defending any of the cardinal virtues has today all the exhilaration of a vice – G.K. Chesterton
Defining "Socially Liberal" Aesthete
Ausonius (Diary) Sunday, February 28th at 8:17PM EST (link)
was one of the problems I had in my opening essay, as mentioned.
Your analysis would seem to work for many of them at least: many thanks!
And you usually cannot go wrong by quoting Russell Kirk!
Ausonius: 310-395 A.D. Teacher, Poet, Consul, General, Farmer.
Personal Tutor to the future St. Paulinus of Nola and to young Gratian, heir to the throne during the turbulent final years of the Western Roman Empire. When his former student Gratian was assassinated, Ausonius threw up his hands and retired to his farm in Gaul. Rome was captured by barbarians 14 years after his death.
Cato@rock.com
Concerning abortion
aesthete (Diary) Sunday, February 28th at 6:17PM EST (link)
Concerning abortion, a good argument could possibly be made in favoring restrictions because of the potential economic output of those who were killed prematurely as a result of a lack of regulation. However, fiscal conservatism has not traditionally concerned itself with the general economy of the nation (one reason why it typically opposes Keynesianism). Instead, it tends to focus on government finances.
Since abortions are committed disproportionately by low-income blacks and hispanics, we should view a prohibition of abortion (assuming that the policy is effective) as an increase in the low-income black and hispanic population. The facts are these: 1) low-income citizens in the US typically pay no taxes, and receive money from the government in the form of tax credits. 2) low-income hispanics and blacks are disproportionately more likely to commit crime, especially violent and property crime. 3) Low-income citizens are eligible for a gamut of federal government programs, such as Medicaid and welfare, as well as other state programs. 4) Low-income blacks and hispanics have a greater proclivity towards being involved in the drug trade, and other illegal activities. Given this information, it is unlikely that pro-life policies would lead swelling government coffers. To play devil’s advocate, there are two main effects that I can think of that would mitigate these costs: the fact is that, when one grows older, one’s income tends to go up. Though this, unfortunately, holds much less true statistically for low-income blacks and hispanics (particularly for those raised in single-parent households), it does, indeed, happen, and the tax revenues from this elevated status later in life would likely be positive. Second, the multiplier effect, wherein these additional consumers spend on other things, might indirectly raise tax revenues through additional wages, hirings, and so on of individuals who are net payers in the system. (This will probably not be very large, however, as most money will initially go towards local businesses, whose owners may be on the same (non-payer) boat as themselves.) Considering all of the above, it seems to me that, short-term, at least, government at all levels would on net have to pay for this increase in low-income population. Besides all of this, if one is only considering fiscal conservatism, it is unlikely that the economically efficient number of abortions is zero. Though it is probably not the number Roe v. Wade allows, this would effectively make the utilitarian pro-choice.
Fortunately, there’s a more compelling argument to be made to libertarians (who, by and large, comprise the group of “social liberals/fiscal conservatives” that you reference) concerning life issues: government is meant to protect peoples’ rights and maximize their freedom; as murder is a massive and direct curtailment of said rights and freedoms, the libertarian believes that the government has a legitimate role in preventing murder from occurring, and in using its coercive force to correct for such happenings. Since a fetus is biologically alive, has unique DNA, and is responsive to external stimuli, it cannot objectively be stated to not be a live human (at least, not in any way significantly distinguishable from an infant up to 6 months). As killing an infant would lead to repercussions, so too should the termination of a fetus’s life be subject to repercussions as a curtailment of that pre-born child’s right to living unmolested.
The act of defending any of the cardinal virtues has today all the exhilaration of a vice – G.K. Chesterton
Ausonius, I had a similar observation for other reasons....
penguin2 (Diary) Sunday, February 28th at 9:30AM EST (link)
in that diary. I was commenting with dpaitsel who became DRayRaven during the thread, and I made the simple observation that fiscal conservative and socially liberal was an oxymoron. My remarks to him had to do with the Great Society programs, etc. See my comment here. He came back and said he was not socially liberal, a social libertarian. Never did come back and define that one for me. The other question I would ask and no one who describes themselves as “fiscal conservative/socially liberal” has answered, is where is the fiscal restraint to be found? Only by gutting the military? And as you pointed out that certainly would not be enough.
I wonder if this disceptive phrase is really coming from the Left and perhaps relates to something Beagle wrote about with his diary, Partisan Tolerance.
Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God. – Benjamin Franklin
When Good stands up to Evil, Evil blinks. – Vassar Bushmills
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Many Thanks for Your Comments! The Distortion of Language
Ausonius (Diary) Sunday, February 28th at 9:57AM EST (link)
is the hallmark of Leftists/Communists as Orwell pointed out in “1984″ over 60 years ago.
I will be “tolerant” enough to admit that people exist who really do not see the oxymoronic aspect of their beliefs, that they really think you can be socially liberal and a fiscal conservative simultaneously.
But in other aspects, no, they know what they are doing: trying to play the game both ways, distorting the issues, claiming to be on the other side at least partially in order to show how “moderate” and willing to compromise they are.
Another term for them is RINO!
Ausonius: 310-395 A.D. Teacher, Poet, Consul, General, Farmer.
Personal Tutor to the future St. Paulinus of Nola and to young Gratian, heir to the throne during the turbulent final years of the Western Roman Empire. When his former student Gratian was assassinated, Ausonius threw up his hands and retired to his farm in Gaul. Rome was captured by barbarians 14 years after his death.
Cato@rock.com
Libertarians or Libertines
Beaglescout (Diary) Sunday, February 28th at 1:43PM EST (link)
IMHO, the problem is in the second word above. Legal abortions, legal prostitution, legal drugs, no more wars, are all “libertarian” positions that are nothing less than libertine ideas of convenience for these mostly young, mostly male, progressive and ronulan agitators.
“A nation which can prefer disgrace to danger is prepared for a master, and deserves one.”
–Alexander Hamilton
Study at Redstate University
Laissez-faire Libertarians Might Sound Good At First
Ausonius (Diary) Sunday, February 28th at 5:38PM EST (link)
as you point out, BeagleScout (Is that a reference to Snoopy?),
until one sees the consequences, and suddenly you are in a “do your own thing-Peace-Love-Dope” ’60′s fantasyland of irresponsibility.
Some of my “smarter” former students who stayed in contact with me became libertarians in their 20′s, so your comment is not without some foundation.
And speaking of former McGovern and Carter voters, Mrs. Ausonius, before she fell under my power, had also voted for them. After experiencing a gentle yet forceful Vulcan mind-meld, she has never lost her distaste for Dems!
Aesthete is correct: “If you only knew the power of the Reagan right!” (Booming bass voice with fist clenched).
Many thanks to all for the comments and recommendations!
Ausonius: 310-395 A.D. Teacher, Poet, Consul, General, Farmer.
Personal Tutor to the future St. Paulinus of Nola and to young Gratian, heir to the throne during the turbulent final years of the Western Roman Empire. When his former student Gratian was assassinated, Ausonius threw up his hands and retired to his farm in Gaul. Rome was captured by barbarians 14 years after his death.
Cato@rock.com
My Position
TeddyMalone (Diary) Sunday, February 28th at 2:42PM EST (link)
My position is that the federal government has no authority to fund the social programs that it funds — including social security, medicare, medicaid, etc. I realize that battle was lost in the 1930′s, but that is my position and I believe that my position is what the Founders intended.
I also believe that many of the programs that masquerade as economic programs are really social programs that were not intended to be regulated under the commerce clause. For example, federal pollution standards are viewed as being supported by the commerce clause. I disagree. I think they are public health issues and thus should be handled under the health, welfare, moral, and police power of the states.
I think the federal government should only fund national defense, fix weights and measures, establish a patent office, regulate trade with foreign nations, create a uniform currency etc. All the programs enumerated in the Constitution under Article I, Section 8 “Powers of Congress” . And that is it. Nothing more.
I consider myself Socially Libertarian and My Definition is Very different but I think Constitutionally Correct
TeddyMalone (Diary) Sunday, February 28th at 2:32PM EST (link)
As a “social libertarian”, (and adamant fiscal conservative) I don’t think you have really defined my beliefs.
The issue is not that I support abortion (or other “socially liberal” views), it is that I do not believe that many of the issues raised by social conservatives should be addressed at the federal level.
I believe that the constitution very strictly enumerates the power of the federal government. Congress is not supposed to exceed that authority. Many (though I recognize not all) of the social conservative principles call on the federal government to act — and I think social regulation is beyond the authority of what the Founders intended the Federal government to regulate.
For example, I don’t think the federal government should ban abortion. That is not because I am pro-abortion. My understanding of what the Founders intended was that police powers (such as the authority to prevent and prosecute murder) was intended to be handled by the states.
I think we crossed the line during Roosevelt’s New Deal and have continuously expanded federal authority since. I do not support continuing that approach since I believe it is unconstitutional.
So, it isn’t that I support liberal social policies. I just don’t think the federal government should be involved in most of those issues. Those were intended (in my view) to be handled at the state level.
P.S. Just Because I consider myself Libertarian Doesnt Mean I support RonPaul
TeddyMalone (Diary) Sunday, February 28th at 2:34PM EST (link)
At first I admit I kinda liked Ron Paul, but after a few months I realized he was a fraud and a wacko.
On social issues, you are a federalist
redneck_hippie (Diary) Sunday, February 28th at 2:39PM EST (link)
not necessarily the same thing as a social liberal.
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I don't consider myself liberal in any way
TeddyMalone (Diary) Sunday, February 28th at 2:46PM EST (link)
Maybe it is a matter of a bad choice of language though.
I thought social libertarian fit because I define libertarian as implying limited involvement by the federal government.
Maybe it would be clearer to argue I was a federalist.
In a way, maybe instead of fiscal conservative/social libertarian, just stating I am a fiscally conservative federalist may be more accurate.
Thanks for the comment and the idea.
You're welcome. As you learn more
redneck_hippie (Diary) Sunday, February 28th at 3:05PM EST (link)
about conservatism, and what it means to be a conservative, things will clear up as far as naming your principles. The problem for a lot of people is that they know only what media and politicians and pundits say about conservatism. Don’t fall into the trap of believing those who claim they are the only True Conservatives, and who want the federal government to decide on social issues. Not true, and not even close to true. True Conservative is a label that followers of people like Mike Huckabee choose for themsevles, their most distinguishing characteristic being they demand constitutional amendments to outlaw social practices with which they disagree.
Many of our members here started out as democrats and even liberal democrats. I myself voted for Dukakis and Carter. Now I am a traditionalist conservative.
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Dude, I voted for
mbecker908 (Diary) Sunday, February 28th at 3:14PM EST (link)
George McGovern.
LOL. McGovern was who I was
redneck_hippie (Diary) Sunday, February 28th at 3:22PM EST (link)
trying to remember his name. I was only about 21 years old and that was a looooooooong time ago.
Now my idea of a flaming liberal is Huckabee. How life experience changes one’s outlook.
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LOL becker, did you have to chisel the "X" onto the ballot?
nessa (Diary) Sunday, February 28th at 3:36PM EST (link)
I tried to resist but it was hopeless.
“If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace. We ask not your counsel nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.”—Samuel Adams
Contributor to Unified Patriots
teh twitter
Yes but then you saw the light....
SteveLA (Diary) Sunday, February 28th at 3:39PM EST (link)
mbecker
Or was it one of those deals where you went into a voting booth and the ballot went “Out Demon…out”…. and you started voting on the right side? LOL
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Competency over ideological purity and litmus tests
Yep, it was pretty terrible
aesthete (Diary) Sunday, February 28th at 3:45PM EST (link)
but ultimately, the power of Reagan compelled him
The act of defending any of the cardinal virtues has today all the exhilaration of a vice – G.K. Chesterton
My first Presidential vote was for Ford
SteveLA (Diary) Sunday, February 28th at 4:00PM EST (link)
Of course I grew up in the Dixecrat South and was just about disowned for voting for a ***gasp*** Republican. By ’76 the Democrats had just about imploded after the turn way Left after Chicago ’68 and McGovern ’72.
The Republican party was way different in ’76 than today, with the effects of Lee Atwater’s Southern Strategy having not been felt.
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Competency over ideological purity and litmus tests
So, you're the one...
rbdwiggins (Diary) Sunday, February 28th at 3:50PM EST (link)
that canceled-out my vote for Nixon…
“Well, the trouble with our liberal friends is not that they are ignorant, but that they know so much that isn’t so.” – Ronald Reagan
Sheepishly he admits ... me too. nt
Achance (Diary) Sunday, February 28th at 3:58PM EST (link)
In Vino Veritas
Well, in my case, I voted for McGovern
redneck_hippie (Diary) Sunday, February 28th at 4:12PM EST (link)
when I was carrying my first child (I was 23, not 21 as I said before). The day she was born, I woke up with labor pains, and the radio was playing, “The Day The Music Died.”
But it didn’t.
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call yourself what you want Teddy, heck maybe
Doc Holliday (Diary) Monday, March 1st at 5:28AM EST (link)
you will coin a new term! I have found that “libertarian-conservative” seems to go over well. Many called Milton Friedman a part of the “libertarian-right”. Uncle Milt is one of my ideological kinsmen. His views were very close to mine. Of course Reagan was a real hero and Goldwater was Mr. Conservative (libertarian).
For me it is simple. If you read the Constitution and you believe in it and the Founders, you will end up a conservative. If you then listen to the pulpit, or are affected by your local culture, you might alter your stance on government or societal intervention.
I think all conservatives of all stripes should be welcome, we simply don’t want or need those that pretend to be conservative but are really statists. I think that group is on the wane, maybe they have finally seen what to much power in one place can do.
In our nation it is the people that were given the power. Ever since they have been giving it back.
Molon Labe!
One problem
Menlo (Diary) Sunday, February 28th at 3:08PM EST (link)
Your point makes sense regarding government spending on entitlement programs.
But what exactly do you do under a Constitution that empowers the federal government to ensure states offer equal protection?
Few people today would want to entirely follow the intent of the founders, largely because of their defense of practices that people today consider wrong.
I’d guess close to 80 or 90 percent of the population sees all levels of government the same in most cases. They don’t care which it is; they just want it to “do more” or “do less” at any and every level.
“The ultimate touchstone of constitutionality is the Constitution itself and not what we have said about it.” -Felix Frankfurter
Very good post
constitutionalconservative (Diary) Tuesday, March 2nd at 12:36AM EST (link)
Don’t agree entirely with everything here, but you are right on target in saying that fiscal conservatism implies certain choices which effectively preclude social liberalism
Simple test: homocons
TheSophist (Diary) Tuesday, March 2nd at 1:30AM EST (link)
What a great essay in many ways. Well written, researched, and great points.
However, I rather think that the straw man you knocked down with such elegance is not the real representative of the “fiscal conservative, social liberal” mindset.
The simple test, to me, is what happened at CPAC this year. Those who shouted down Ryan Sorba are more properly folks I think have the mindset of “fiscally conservative, socially liberal”. (http://www.opposingviews.com/i/ryan-sorba-booed-for-condemning-cpac-s-gay-group-invite)
One could, I suppose, make the argument that fiscal conservatism requires that we oppose gay marriage: such unions do not result in children, and therefore, the economic health of the nation is threatened by the lack of future workforce.
Whether that argument is or is not compelling to you, I think, determines whether you are “fiscally conservative, socially liberal” or not in the _usual_ sense of the term in modern politics.
-TS
“Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same.” – Ronald Reagan
But one could also argue
aesthete (Diary) Tuesday, March 2nd at 2:14AM EST (link)
That, because of the proclivity for homosexuals to have higher incomes, and because of the net deficit of couples who want to adopt to children in need of adoptions, gay marriage plus adoptive rights would, on the whole, increase the economic health of the nation by allowing for wealth to not disappear/go to the government upon death (in addition to the human capital imparted by these couples to their artificial progenitors). I suppose one would have to say, in order for your argument to hold, that the capital formed by additional gay unions < income lost because of less marriages. Since I don’t believe that marriage rates would be affected by a potential extension of government marriage to homosexual couples, I see that scenario as somewhat unlikely. (And, if we are only looking at the economics of the situation, I imagine that an analysis of different social arrangements, such as polygamy, would have to be looked at, to ensure that the maximally efficient solution would be chosen.) I, personally, prefer the creation of civil unions for all couples without regard as to their sexual identity or lack thereof, and the returning of marriage to social institutions (churches, synagogues, and the like) which would be better guardians of such a sacred contract.
Different viewpoints, different arguments, but whatever the case, it once again shows the error in making long-term economic projections based on social programs, and lays bare the intellectual folly of programs justified solely because of their social engineering value. The moral argument is often the best one, and although “Because God says so” might not be a particularly compelling argument for the intellectual or the debonair socialite, I have found that it is often a better reason for support of a given action or philosophy than convoluted arguments about utility, economic efficiency, and other secular concerns. Good night, brother!
The act of defending any of the cardinal virtues has today all the exhilaration of a vice – G.K. Chesterton
Staistical Correlations on "Socially Liberal - Fiscally Conservative" Politicians
Ausonius (Diary) Tuesday, March 2nd at 8:18AM EST (link)
Many thanks for all the comments above!
Thinking that a “pro-life Dem” might show some fiscal conservatism,
I went to the politicians’ ratings of the National Taxpayers Union and compared them to ratings from the National Right-To-Life Foundation.
One might assume that a “pro-life Dem,” e,g, Bart Stupak of Michigan, might be rated decently by the NTU.
But no, he earns a very low “F” from them.
See:
http://www.ntu.org/on-capitol-hill/ntu-rates-congress/
Stupak is only a 50% pro-lifer, by the way. Another 50% pro-life Michigander, Dale Kildee, gets an incredibly low “F” of 3% for fiscal conservatism.
Ike Skelton of Missouri, a 75% pro-life Dem from Missouri, has an “F” of 12%from the NTU.
See:
http://capwiz.com/nrlc/scorecard.xc?chamber=H&state=US&session=111&x=12&y=8
I have not had time to correlate every member of Congress: but you can check yours through the above websites.
Ausonius: 310-395 A.D. Teacher, Poet, Consul, General, Farmer.
Personal Tutor to the future St. Paulinus of Nola and to young Gratian, heir to the throne during the turbulent final years of the Western Roman Empire. When his former student Gratian was assassinated, Ausonius threw up his hands and retired to his farm in Gaul. Rome was captured by barbarians 14 years after his death.
Cato@rock.com
And For The Senate...?
Ausonius (Diary) Tuesday, March 2nd at 9:49AM EST (link)
Here is the website from the National Right-To-Life statistics for the Senate:
http://capwiz.com/nrlc/scorecard.xc?chamber=S&state=US&session=111&x=13&y=12
Skimming through quickly, between these scores and those of the National Taxpayers Union you see libberal are liberals.
Lieberman, for example, has miserable single digit ratings from both.
The Mainiac Sisters are at 50% for pro-life, and 33% for fiscal conservatism.
Ausonius: 310-395 A.D. Teacher, Poet, Consul, General, Farmer.
Personal Tutor to the future St. Paulinus of Nola and to young Gratian, heir to the throne during the turbulent final years of the Western Roman Empire. When his former student Gratian was assassinated, Ausonius threw up his hands and retired to his farm in Gaul. Rome was captured by barbarians 14 years after his death.
Cato@rock.com
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COMMENTS Nice try, but not accurate by justvisiting
Yeah...here's the thing, hero... by APA Guy (Diary)
Duplicate post? by RDCook (Diary)
Controlling the message by RDCook (Diary)
Boy, do I need to watchc my punctuation. (^:^) nt by Flagstaff (Diary)
You know? by aesthete (Diary)
correction by Scope (Diary)
Newt Gingrich told Cavuto today that he is against ending tax credit/subsidies energy by Scope (Diary)
Coulter's positions have entirely unravelled in her attempts to support Romney by JSobieski (Diary)
exactly right. Although some social conservatives took issue with some of his statements by JSobieski (Diary)
Calling a man who leaves a young woman to drown by aesthete (Diary)
UUNNN-KAY, now I remember. by funwithknives
"Party Unity" led us to McCain and Romney in the first place by redcal
Patrish, you really don't want to go down this path by lineholder (Diary)
You need to do some research by irishgirl
He also expanded it by lapert
It's been said of the MSM by aesthete (Diary)
Tbone...ROFL! [nt] by lineholder (Diary)
excellent, toby by Jeff Emanuel (Diary)
Again T-bone by Patrish
Uh, if breathing wasn't controlled by the brain stem by Tbone (Diary)
Coulter's a jerk, not a lawyer. by Viet71 (Diary)
Compliment of Human Events by lineholder (Diary)
Who, Vladimir? He's a Red State regular. by acat (Diary)
Calling Steve Maley, aka Vladimir by lineholder (Diary)
So, Pat, have you ever heard of the "Electoral College? by Tbone (Diary)
thanks by independentconservative
HIPPA comes to mind, lapert. by acat (Diary)
OK, you got me stumped, by funwithknives
We have little other choice than to fight with what we have by lineholder (Diary)
The Supreme Court has more power than the president or congress. by Viet71 (Diary)
Logically Consistent In Fact...For a Leftist by Ausonius (Diary)
"Here's a good spot for ColdWarrior in 3...2...1... " by ColdWarrior (Diary)
We covered that by lapert
Heh. The one you should really be calling is Vladimir. by acat (Diary)
rsklaroff, I really do think if Jindal got in soon he could build it in time, and I think it would be a smart move on the part of the party to support him if he did by center77 (Diary)
Aw C'mon, 'cat by funwithknives
I don't think so by lapert
Oh my by citizenkh (Diary)
Thank your favorite diety for Citizens United by Viet71 (Diary)
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Moe Lane: MoeLane: #rsrh The major thing to take away from the Michigan result
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Sorry for all the extra verbiage above. I should have filtered the post.
I guess when I say "narcissist" I don't mean in a derrogatory way. What may be a better descript would be "idealistic" that is seen in youth.
There seems to me a bit of naivity to it but age hasn't given me much in the way of answers OTOH.
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Please feel free to go back and edit it :-)
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The idea that a 30 yo woman is "testifying" before congress because she want her BCP paid for by her school helath insurance is astounding enough. Then to have a sitting United States President call her up to defend her from some names is unbearable. It is unbearable the left has sunk us this low that that is an "issue" that is shoved into the forefront with as always the complicit MSM.
If this is something that hurts Republicans than all I can say is this country is beyond help.
WE are dead broke, health costs by far are the biggest threat to our nation and we can't even agree on not paying for BCP?
As an aside I don't know why insurance plans are paying for viagra drugs either. People can/should pay out of pocket.
My health costs are enough. I don't need to pay more for these either.
Remember when it was determined by one health group the mammograms between 40 and 50 do more harm than good.
Then we get barraged with woman's "rights" group, all leftist liberals (almost all Deomcrat party types).
I didn't see the same outrage when med orgs are saying we should stop doing routine PSA tests.
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First time I ever recall Rush apoligizing. I agree calling her names didn't help but the MSM has succeeded in deflecting the whole idea that this grown woman expects subsidized Birth control. Now 'this' too is suddenly a 'right' and suddenly this is being used to turn women against the Repub party.
Why does a Catholic school 'have' to pay for her BCP? And I agree that this woman had no problem getting in front of Congress with millions of viewers on international TV to discuss her sex life.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0312/73619.html
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CCP: "First time I ever recall Rush apologizing."
He lost some advertisers over this and key R's were distancing themselves from his comment. He didn't take back the meaning of it. He apologized for the 'insulting word choices'.
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"and key RA's were distancing themselves from his comment"
On one hand I don't like the candidates responses allowing his name calling to become the focus of attention.
Newt on Stefanopolis who of course went bonkers asking him about Rush tying it to Newt to the Repub party to women's right.
Same old MSM mugging of any Repub they can assualt.
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CCP: "First time I ever recall Rush apologizing."
He lost some advertisers over this and key R's were distancing themselves from his comment. He didn't take back the meaning of it. He apologized for the 'insulting word choices'.
Rush Limbaugh
"What does it say about the college co-ed [Sandra] Fluke, who goes before a congressional committee and essentially says she must be paid to have sex?" Limbaugh asked. "What does that make her? It makes her a slut, right? It makes her a prostitute. She wants to be paid to have sex. She's having so much sex she can't afford the contraception. She wants you and me and the taxpayers to pay her to have sex."
---
One company, Carbonite, a data backup service, said feedback from customers led to the decision to remove advertising from Limbaugh's show. The company's CEO said Limbaugh's apology Saturday wasn't enough to put his company's ads back on the air.
"No one with daughters the age of Sandra Fluke, and I have two, could possibly abide the insult and abuse heaped upon this courageous and well-intentioned young lady," Carbonite CEO David Friend said. "Mr. Limbaugh, with his highly personal attacks on Miss Fluke, overstepped any reasonable bounds of decency. Even though Mr. Limbaugh has now issued an apology, we have nonetheless decided to withdraw our advertising from his show. We hope that our action, along with the other advertisers who have already withdrawn their ads, will ultimately contribute to a more civilized public discourse."
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"heaped upon this courageous and well-intentioned young lady"
She is 30 years old. She was there with an agenda. I don't know for the life of me what is corageous about demanding others pay for one's birth control or that a health plan be forced to pay for this.
This was all about politics. One can ciritcize Rush for the words but lets not make her into some hero.
This is totally preposterous.
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Drudge now posting several advertisers are pulling ads.
This is now a well orchestrated liberal campaign to try to take down Limbaugh.
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"heaped upon this courageous and well-intentioned young lady"
She is 30 years old. She was there with an agenda. I don't know for the life of me what is corageous about demanding others pay for one's birth control or that a health plan be forced to pay for this.
This was all about politics. One can ciritcize Rush for the words but lets not make her into some hero.
This is totally preposterous.
Should we buy her swim goggles to protect her eyes from dangerous ejaculate as well?
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Well, if that's what she needs, it would save a lot of money on BCP and abortions.
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Well, if that's what she needs, it would save a lot of money on BCP and abortions.
What if Ms. Fluke is entertaining more than one gentleman caller at a time? As a taxpayer, I think it's important that our money meet every possible need that Ms. Fluke might encounter......
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Fluke's name can be added to the "pantheon" of women leaders who have advancied their rights across the globe.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women's_suffrage
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CCP: "First time I ever recall Rush apologizing."
He lost some advertisers over this and key R's were distancing themselves from his comment. He didn't take back the meaning of it. He apologized for the 'insulting word choices'.
Rush Limbaugh
"What does it say about the college co-ed [Sandra] Fluke, who goes before a congressional committee and essentially says she must be paid to have sex?" Limbaugh asked. "What does that make her? It makes her a slut, right? It makes her a prostitute. She wants to be paid to have sex. She's having so much sex she can't afford the contraception. She wants you and me and the taxpayers to pay her to have sex."
---
One company, Carbonite, a data backup service, said feedback from customers led to the decision to remove advertising from Limbaugh's show. The company's CEO said Limbaugh's apology Saturday wasn't enough to put his company's ads back on the air.
"No one with daughters the age of Sandra Fluke, and I have two, could possibly abide the insult and abuse heaped upon this courageous and well-intentioned young lady," Carbonite CEO David Friend said. "Mr. Limbaugh, with his highly personal attacks on Miss Fluke, overstepped any reasonable bounds of decency. Even though Mr. Limbaugh has now issued an apology, we have nonetheless decided to withdraw our advertising from his show. We hope that our action, along with the other advertisers who have already withdrawn their ads, will ultimately contribute to a more civilized public discourse."
(http://pjmedia.com/instapundit/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Maherpalin.png)
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Swim goggles? While I was writing this discussion moved forward.
Why is this women's rights? Isn't there a man involved if contraception is needed? Make him pay to have sex. Oops, that would be pr..........!
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"...several advertisers are pulling ads"
An acquaintance runs one of those companies who 'suspended' their advertising. He is/was liberal (from my perspective) before this episode just as Rush was conservative and controversial before this. They advertise to both sides and the middle because that is exactly who uses their product. They buy enough time to get celebs of all leanings to personally endorse them. Having to pull the advertising is a setback for the investment they made over a couple of decades building a business position in that market. It will appease others but those few with loud voices will not double their purchases nor would that make up the difference if they could.
Interesting would be to know the actual number of complaints that came from actual Rush listeners, rather than detractors. Roughly zero. With the apology in place and the scandal fading, the Rush show will still be numero uno on the radio. They will have to either jump back in to the outrage of these protestors or watch a competitor take that spot. We will see and I will try to follow up.
Rush's words were vulgar and degrading and the big companies had to respond once the crisis was manufactured, but this is not the Tiger Woods scandal, no one got hit with a golf club, nor is it the biggest threat his show has faced. It is more a sign of how an energized, small group can make something happen quickly.
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Rush was trying to make a point of humor that money for sex has some analogy to prostitution. The slut comment was a misstep. We don't know that but could guess she does not have long term, meaningful relationships with men. Whoops scratch that - there go our advertisers.
Sandra Fluke in her own words: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCPU0Qsv9wM&feature=player_embedded
Past President of Georgetown Students for Reproductive Justice, she sounds so sweet until she gets going with her demands for justice. Then she is more like the welfare lady of a video that went by a couple of months ago.
Is this a right, an entitlement, something congress cannot deny and that must be provided by someone else for free?! Not just free, but EASY to come by?! This is a law school. Which constitution are they studying?
She says she should not have to pay a whole summer's salary for her sexual freedom, you should, when the rest of her year is consumed by her studying at taxpayer expense to derail our form of government.
Rush wasn't far off.
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(http://www.daybydaycartoon.com/030512.jpg)
Star Wars
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I recall that Georgetown medical scholl was the MOST expensive in the country at one time.
I don't know about law school but both GW and Georgetown were at least in the past the two most expensive medical schools in the US. I think it had something to do with not being technically in a state but in the District of Columiba.
Yet this liberal/radical activist who is going to probably one of the most expensive law schools in the country refuses to pay a 100 or two for her BCPs.
Surely this ain't about money.
I am waiting to hear Gloria Allred respond to Hoyer's call for a slander lawsuit against Rush.
In her case it probably is more about the money than political though both are factors (obviously) for her.
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I doubt they'll actually sue. One, she has made herself a public figure and two, she would then be subject to discovery.
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"I doubt they'll actually sue"
Surely Gloria (or someone like her) will be calling and this "business/political" opportunity will be explored.
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Yes, a little reverse protest if Rush listeners all canceled contracts with Carbonite and sent back their sleep number beds.
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Yes, a little reverse protest if Rush listeners all canceled contracts with Carbonite and sent back their sleep number beds.
Carbonite's stock price seems to be falling faster than Sandra Fluke's undergarments.
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I'd put a vertical forend on it though.
(http://www.daybydaycartoon.com/030612.jpg)
Costs.
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"Carbonite's stock price seems to be falling faster than Sandra Fluke's undergarments."
I wonder if they will be forced to apologize - and whether the apology will be sincere enough?
Very funny and telling that a right to bear arms never included an obligation for someone else to pay for it - if you even have a right to bear arms at Georgetown University.
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There is something about the concept of insurance the activists don't understand. You insure against expenses uncertain or unforeseen, the regular bills you simply pay. She is saying the fact women need this is a certainty, not a risk. For expenses that directly come with life's activities that you choose, like skis for skiers and boxing gloves for boxers, don't you just pay those bills, or do you expect someone else to coercively pay them for you?
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For balance on the forum, Jon Stewart having his liberal fun attacking Rush:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/06/jon-stewart-rush-limbaugh-video_n_1323455.html?ref=mostpopular
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With the apology in hand, some advertisers left, some are allegedly asking to come back while the show is announcing new advertisers. Mostly the ad agencies buy contracts with the local affiliates and then due to an organized campaign from social media have to say don't run our ads during your highest rated show. That leaves a gap for new purchases.
There seems to be quite a question emerging now after all the silence about the similar and worse comments that have come out of the left. Most embarrassing is Bill Maher calling Sarah Palin a "c*nt" and giving $1 million to the Obama PAC to advance the political cause of Obama and his wife and daughters.
Here is what for female Dem lawmakers had to say about the liberal misogynists (nothing):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ikW7ljSm3Fs
I assume he will have to cancel but David Axelrod followed up his criticism of Rush Limbaugh with a reported announcement that he will be appearing on the Bill Maher show:
"David Axelrod, President Obama's senior campaign strategist, is scheduled to appear on Bill Maher's late-night talk show within the next few weeks, according to Kelley Carville, an HBO spokesman."
http://www.thedaily.com/page/2012/03/07/030712-news-web-limbaugh-fluke/
Sarah Palin wrote Tuesday on her Facebook page: "Pres. Obama says he called Sandra Fluke because of his daughters. For the sake of everyone's daughter, why doesn't his super PAC return the $1 million he got from a rabid misogynist?"
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I have decided to take as a personal insult directed to me anything said about Sandra Fluke. I also think birth control should be covered by insurance carriers. I think it is a health issue and would reduce insurance and government spending. I suppose there are thoughtful arguments against that position but this it what I feel I have been reading.
"What does it say about Rachel ... essentially says she must be paid to have sex?" Limbaugh asked. "What does that make her? It makes her a slut, right? It makes her a prostitute. She wants to be paid to have sex. She's having so much sex she can't afford the contraception. She wants you and me and the taxpayers to pay her to have sex." "
"Should we buy Rachel swim goggles to protect her eyes from dangerous ejaculate as well? "
"What if Rachel is entertaining more than one gentleman caller at a time? As a taxpayer, I think it's important that our money meet every possible need that Rachel might encounter......"
"Carbonite's stock price seems to be falling faster than Rachel's undergarments."
http://www.jessicascott.net/blog/2012/03/i-am-not-a-slut/
I Am Not A Slut
by Jessica Scott
I took a brief hiatus from twitter/facebook over the last weekend because the rhetoric was getting my blood pressure up and well, to spare the people around me endless rants about the stupidity in our national dialogue, I had to turn it off.
The rhetoric has gotten out of control. The extreme rhetoric that says a woman should just put an aspirin between her knees to keep from getting pregnant, or that proposes a bill in the Senate allowing employers to decide not to cover medical issues they deem immoral or the fact that a group of middle aged men have returned to an era where they get to tell me what to do with my body: I’m a little pissed.
I am a 35 year old married mother of 2, an Army officer who has deployed and I use birth control to be a good soldier and a responsible parent.
I use birth control to stop having my period so that I can go to the field and not worry about it.
I use birth control while deployed with my husband to keep from getting pregnant and getting sent home and letting down all the men AND women on my team.
I use birth control to keep from having more children than we can afford.
I use birth control to enable me to be a good soldier and balance my career and my family.
Continue reading here.
http://www.jessicascott.net/blog/2012/03/i-am-not-a-slut/
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I have decided to take as a personal insult directed to me anything said about Sandra Fluke.
Ok, then get your hand out of my wallet, slut.
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Oh, and where is your concern for when Bill Maher called Sarah Palin a c*nt? Ed Shultz called Lara Ingraham a slut. I missed your outrage then.
It's almost like there is a double standard.......
Your phony moral posturing is duly noted. Yawn.
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[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikW7ljSm3Fs&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikW7ljSm3Fs&feature=player_embedded
Remember, it's wrong to call a woman a slut or a c*nt, unless she is a republican or conservative.
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I'm not quite sure I follow the logic of why Bill Maher's money should be returned, but the silence on his "cunt" and "dumb twat" commentaries on Sarah Palin is deafening.
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I happen to sell health insurance among other insurances so I make money when the insurance companies make money. Truthfully it is a small part of business but I appreciate that part of my paycheck. Birth Control not being covered is a religious issues it would be cheaper for all of us if it was required to be covered. Paying for birth control is cheaper than paying for a birth. I'm missing the part where you personally insulted Sarah Palin and Laura Ingram. I have never posted anything by Bill Mahr or Ed Schultz and I think their actions were wrong. Speaking of double standard. I have never heard you complaining about Viagra being covered. It is certainly your choice to believe me or not but I really felt personally insulted by your words. Please feel free to have the last word.
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I'm not quite sure I follow the logic of why Bill Maher's money should be returned, but the silence on his "cunt" and "dumb twat" commentaries on Sarah Palin is deafening.
To recap, at a White House press conference Tuesday, Obama said that Limbaugh’s verbal attacks on Fluke disturbed him as a father. He added that the reason he telephoned the Georgetown University law student to see if she was doing OK was because the incident brought his own young daughters, Sasha and Malia, to mind.
“One of the things I want them to do as they get older is to engage in issues they care about, even ones I may not agree with them on. I want them to be able to speak their mind in a civil and thoughtful way,” said Obama.
Like calling Sarah Palin a c*nt, it appears.
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Rachel,
"I have never heard you complaining about Viagra being covered"
Actually I , at least (if no one else), posted on this board that I don't think viagra, cialis or levitra should be covered.
As for BCP I would leave it to the insurance plan to decide if they want to include it.
If the Catholic Church is paying for the health insurance and they choose not to cover it under their sponsored plan then that person can always apply for a plan that does.
I do't get the logic than it is cheaper to pay for BCP than birth. As for the cost issue it was this grown woman Fluke who brought that up when she stated it would cost her 3 thousand a year. If we are THAT far from any personal responsibilty in this country than we are all screwed - No pun intended. So the logic is we may have well pay for BCP because if not the woman (30yo) will have unprotected sex and thus may get pregnant and it will cost "society" more. Folks were screwed if this is now the majority's thinking.
In any case the real issue is as OReilly says, *freedom*. The freedom for the Church to offer a plan of their choosing.
If this is where we are that woman are going to cast presidential votes on whether these meds are covered or not by LAW then it is too late. They state Obama's poll ratings among women are growing.
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Power User
Posts: 2666
Re: Politics
« Reply #749 on: March 03, 2012, 07:09:36 AM »
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The idea that a 30 yo woman is "testifying" before congress because she want her BCP paid for by her school helath insurance is astounding enough. Then to have a sitting United States President call her up to defend her from some names is unbearable. It is unbearable the left has sunk us this low that that is an "issue" that is shoved into the forefront with as always the complicit MSM.
If this is something that hurts Republicans than all I can say is this country is beyond help.
WE are dead broke, health costs by far are the biggest threat to our nation and we can't even agree on not paying for BCP?
As an aside I don't know why insurance plans are paying for viagra drugs either. People can/should pay out of pocket.
My health costs are enough. I don't need to pay more for these either.
Remember when it was determined by one health group the mammograms between 40 and 50 do more harm than good.
Then we get barraged with woman's "rights" group, all leftist liberals (almost all Deomcrat party types).
I didn't see the same outrage when med orgs are saying we should stop doing routine PSA tests.
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I don't accept the name calling. Repeating what was already apologized for didn't exactly move the civility forward judging the first response.
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This is NOT a question about what the insured and your insurance company agree to include in a private contract. Why would we care about that? Fluke was in front of Congress on the issue of what the government will force everyone to pay for. It isn't "birth control should be covered by insurance carriers", but what government will mandate. If it reduces healthcare costs, why does it need to be an act of Congress?
Besides Catholics, abstainers, masterbaters and oral sex enthusiasts, gays should be another demographic wondering why they must pay the expenses of women who selectively engage in non-reproductive, heterosexual copulation - without condoms. All must pay for the activities of some. I missed the part where this stuff quit being PRIVATE!
Fluke describes this as a necessity. What other living expenses must be paid by other than the procurer? Which expenses are our own; where is that line? There isn't one anymore. At least it is admitted that: "I suppose there are thoughtful arguments against that position". Thank you for that.
Why don't you see the disrespect for other people's religions and principles that we are attempting to codify? Do you see it but figure it is not against your own religion? An attack against one faith is not an attack against all?
I think you know the man apologized. That was in the thread while you still quote him and voice the outrage. Over at one of the other big religions (a different C-word), unbeknownst to the President and Dem opportunists, they preach forgiveness.
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Back to Fluke, once again liberals have to lie to make a point?
"...Fluke’s claim that $3,000 would be the cost over her three-year stay at Georgetown Law.
Fluke’s figure seems to have been plucked from thin air. Planned Parenthood estimates the monthly cost at between $15 and $50, which translates to $160 to $600 per year" http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/292882/not-so-bitter-pill-charles-c-w-cooke
At the low end that is $480 for 3 years of continuous coverage. At Fluke's exaggerated figure with a government 15.5 trillion in debt, maybe we need to look at lower cost alternatives, now that private activity and its consequences are everyone's business. The point about viagra is equally valid, and sex changes and a lot of other things.
We hand all this power to government over religion and privacy without fully contemplating what the next elected government will do with it. That is my opinion.
There is no line of separation between Maher and Pres. Obama, tied together by a million dollars given and accepted and other mutual cooperations. If they draw a line now it is only from being caught up publicly in this hypocrisy.
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Birth Control not being covered is a religious issues it would be cheaper for all of us if it was required to be covered.
It's not the role of government to take my money at gunpoint to subsidize someone else's sexual behavior. If Sandra Fluke wants to gangbang the Georgetown football team, good for her, don't confiscate my money to facilitate that. If she were to contract a STD/STI, again, it's her problem, not mine. Just as you are free to keep kosher and I'm free to eat bacon cheeseburgers, I don't want or need you to pay for my local pork farm. Freedom of choice includes personal responsibility. "A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle" leaves out the part how the bicycling fish needs a huge paternalistic govenment to confiscate money from men to create the aquarium the fish cannot survive without.
Paying for birth control is cheaper than paying for a birth.
So? Again, that's not the role of government. Mass sterilization is even cheaper, as advocated by feminist/eugenicist Margaret Sanger.
I have never posted anything by Bill Mahr or Ed Schultz and I think their actions were wrong.
Ah, were you as outraged by Maher and Schultz as you are about Limbaugh or my comments about Fluke? Why the selective outrage? Are you going to write angry letters to HBO and MSNBC? Are you going to demand Obama's SuperPAC return Maher's 1 million dollar donation?
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Remember, when the left claims a grave moral position, it's just empty political B.S.
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Birth Control not being covered is a religious issues it would be cheaper for all of us if it was required to be covered.
It's not the role of government to take my money at gunpoint to subsidize someone else's sexual behavior. If Sandra Fluke wants to gangbang the Georgetown football team, good for her, don't confiscate my money to facilitate that. If she were to contract a STD/STI, again, it's her problem, not mine. Just as you are free to keep kosher and I'm free to eat bacon cheeseburgers, I don't want or need you to pay for my local pork farm. Freedom of choice includes personal responsibility.
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I'm confused here. No one is taking your money at gunpoint; actually no one is even taking your money. If you do the actuarial numbers, it is cost effective to offer birth control; it's just good plan design like lots of preventative benefits. Pregnancy is expensive and if there are complications, the cost goes up astronomically. A lot of benefits are legally mandated. However, you don't have to take birth control; it's still your choice, so what's with the privacy issue? As to personal choice and lifestyle, following your logic, if you don't want to pay for her STD, why should she pay for your heart attack from your bacon cheeseburgers?
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Birth Control not being covered is a religious issues it would be cheaper for all of us if it was required to be covered.
It's not the role of government to take my money at gunpoint to subsidize someone else's sexual behavior. If Sandra Fluke wants to gangbang the Georgetown football team, good for her, don't confiscate my money to facilitate that. If she were to contract a STD/STI, again, it's her problem, not mine. Just as you are free to keep kosher and I'm free to eat bacon cheeseburgers, I don't want or need you to pay for my local pork farm. Freedom of choice includes personal responsibility.
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I'm confused here. No one is taking your money at gunpoint; actually no one is even taking your money. If you do the actuarial numbers, it is cost effective to offer birth control; it's just good plan design like lots of preventative benefits. Pregnancy is expensive and if there are complications, the cost goes up astronomically. A lot of benefits are legally mandated. However, you don't have to take birth control; it's still your choice, so what's with the privacy issue? As to personal choice and lifestyle, following your logic, if you don't want to pay for her STD, why should she pay for your heart attack from your bacon cheeseburgers?
In a free market, the insurance companies consult their actuarial tables to decide what to charge me and I'm free to choose among them. Much like my auto insurance, health insurance should be for catastrophic incidents. My auto insurance doesn't cover regular maintanance, why should health insurance?
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For more than two decades, state legislators have regularly debated and enacted "mandates" or required health coverage for specific treatments, benefits, including pregnancy, providers and categories of dependents.
It's a mandated part of plan design that you cannot get around unless you are self insured. Even then there are problems.
As for your auto insurance not covering "regular maintenance", you better read it again; it doesn't cover ANY maintenance. You are talking apples and oranges. An interesting analogy might be warranties. They used to cover very little, now BMW and others offer a 5 year warranty covering almost everything including windshield wipers. Better and better warranties are becoming the norm.
Plus, the plan the offered birth control would probably be cheaper than the plan than didn't; again pregnancy costs a lot more. So with your freedom of choice, using your logic, would you buy the more expensive plan? Or go for the cheaper plan, but just ignore the birth control benefit? Of course you go for the cheaper plan if it offers the same benefits that are important to you.
Really here, we are talking group plans. YOU don't get to choose plan design; your employer/union does. Your employer is trying to save money, but still offer their employees a nice benefit. So how would you feel if your employee said that they would not cover STD's and anyone who ate bacon cheeseburgers and/or was overweight? Frankly, the cheeseburger/fat guy is worse since he knows it bad for you and still eats it, plus heart attacks are expensive. As for STD, unless your partner tells you, you don't know.
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As for your auto insurance not covering "regular maintenance", you better read it again; it doesn't cover ANY maintenance. You are talking apples and oranges. An interesting analogy might be warranties. They used to cover very little, now BMW and others offer a 5 year warranty covering almost everything including windshield wipers. Better and better warranties are becoming the norm.
Is that the result of government mandates or the free market?
YOU don't get to choose plan design; your employer/union does.
Depends on the employer. In my experience, you usually have different plans to choose from with different levels of coverage.
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Warranties; it's the result of free market AND government mandates. But again, medical is different; it's not a luxury; a car is a luxury. You can always walk or take the bus if you can't afford one, but what are you
going to do if you have a heart attack, cancer, etc.
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Actually, no. The employer ONLY get's to choose the plan or plans. He may offer 2 plans, i.e. a PPO and and HMO. Or if it is a large employer, he may offer more plans. Each plan was designed by the employer to offer benefits commensurate with the cost.
For example, a plan that does not cover STD's OR people overweight would cost a lot less than a plan that did. An HMO plan might cover everything including the kitchen sink, but you don't get to choose your doctor or hospital. A PPO plan that covers almost everything and you choose to whom and where to go would cost a LOT of money. So yes, the employer could offer you the choice of these three, but the employer so to speak is the dealer - he calls the game. You just get to play the cards dealt to you.
I'm not sure why people focus on birth control. It's a minor cost item, frankly it saves money for the employer, i.e. in theory less get pregnant. Also, there are a lot of mandated benefits that cost a lot more.
So who cares.... If you don't want to use the benefit, don't. Make babies. Have fun. But if you don't want babies now, then take birth control. You will be happy and so will your employer.
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"I'm not sure why people focus on birth control. It's a minor cost item, frankly it saves money for the employer, i.e. in theory less get pregnant. Also, there are a lot of mandated benefits that cost a lot more.
So who cares.... If you don't want to use the benefit, don't. Make babies. Have fun. But if you don't want babies now, then take birth control. You will be happy and so will your employer."
JDN,
I think you get this but....
The left is focusing on BC because some of them or most of them,or apparently most women (?) feel it should be a MANDATED RIGHT for insurance companies to have to pay for this.
The left is doing under the banner of womens "health".
For the Church it is not a cost issue. It is a to the Church a moral issue.
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Mandated coverage of abortions is also in play here.
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Michelle Malkin Lead StoryThe war on conservative women
By Michelle Malkin • March 7, 2012 09:13 AM The war on conservative women
by Michelle Malkin
Creators Syndicate
Copyright 2012
I’m sorry Rush Limbaugh called 30-year-old Georgetown law student Sandra Fluke a “slut.” She’s really just another professional femme-a-gogue helping to manufacture a false narrative about the GOP “war on women.” I’m sorry the civility police now have an opening to demonize the entire right based on one radio comment — because it’s the progressive left in this country that has viciously and systematically slimed female conservatives for their beliefs.
We have the well-worn battle scars to prove it. And no, we don’t need coddling phone calls from the pandering president of the United States to convince us to stand up and fight.
At his first press conference of the year on Tuesday, the Nation’s Concern Troll explained that he phoned Fluke to send a message to his daughters and all women that they shouldn’t be “attacked or called horrible names because they are being good citizens.” After inserting himself into the fray and dragging Sasha and Malia into the debate, Obama then told a reporter he “didn’t want to get into the business of arbitrating” language and civility. Too late, pal.
The fact is, “slut” is one of the nicer things I’ve been called over 20 years of public life. In college during the late 1980s, it was “race traitor,” “coconut” (brown on the outside white on the inside) and “white man’s puppet.” After my first book, “Invasion,” came out in 2001, it was “immigrant-hater,” the “Radical Right’s Asian Pitbull,” “Tokyo Rose” and “Aunt Tomasina.” In my third book, 2005′s “Unhinged,” I published entire chapters of hate mail rife with degrading, unprintable sexual epithets and mockery of my Filipino heritage.
If I had a dollar for every time libs have called me a “Manila whore” and “Subic Bay bar girl,” I’d be able to pay for a ticket to a Hollywood-for-Obama fundraiser. To the HuffPo left, whore is my middle name.
Self-serving opponents argue that such attacks do not represent “respectable,” “mainstream” liberal opinion about their conservative female counterparts. But it was feminist godmother Gloria Steinem who called Texas Republican Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison a “female impersonator.” It was NOW leader Patricia Ireland who commanded her flock to only vote for “authentic” female political candidates. It was Al Gore consultant Naomi Wolf who accused the late Jeane Kirkpatrick of being “uninflected by the experiences of the female body.”
It was Matt Taibbi, now of Rolling Stone magazine, who mocked my early championing of the tea party movement by jibing: “Now when I read her stuff, I imagine her narrating her text, book-on-tape style, with a big, hairy set of (redacted) in her mouth. It vastly improves her prose.”
It was Keith Olbermann, then at MSNBC and now at Al Gore’s Current TV, who wrote on Twitter that columnist S.E. Cupp was “a perfect demonstration of the necessity of the work Planned Parenthood does” and who called me a “mashed up bag of meat with lipstick on it.” He stands by those remarks. Olbermann has been a special guest at the White House.
Some of us have not forgotten when liberal Wisconsin radio host John “Sly” Sylvester outrageously accused GOP Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch of performing “fellatio on all the talk-show hosts in Milwaukee” and sneered that she had “pulled a train” (a crude phrase for gang sex). (Earlier, he called former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice a “black trophy” and “Aunt Jemima.”)
Or when MSNBC misogynist Ed Schultz called talk show host Laura Ingraham a “talk slut” for criticizing Obama’s petty beer summit. Or when Playboy published a list of the top 10 conservative women who deserved to be “hate-f**ked.” The article, which was promoted by Anne Schroeder Mullins at Politico.com, included Ingraham, “The View’s” Elisabeth Hasselbeck, former Bush spokeswoman Dana Perino, GOP Rep. Michele Bachmann and others. Yours truly topped the list with the following description: a “highly f**kable Filipina” and “a regular on Fox News, where her tight body and get-off-my-lawn stare just scream, ‘Do me!’”
And then there’s the left’s war on Sarah Palin, which would require an entire national forest of trees to publish.
A reporter asked Obama to comment on examples of liberal hate speech at Tuesday’s press conference. He whiffed, of course. This is, after all, the brave leader who sat on his hands while his street thugs attacked tea party mothers and grandmothers as “Koch whores” during the fight over union reform in Wisconsin. (As I reported last week, his re-election campaign is now targeting the Koch brothers’ private foundation donors in a parallel effort to chill conservative speech and activism.) He’s leading by example.
So no, we won’t get any phone calls from Mr. Civility. Acknowledging the war on conservative women would obliterate The Narrative. Enjoy the silence.
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So no, we won’t get any phone calls from Mr. Civility. Acknowledging the war on conservative women would obliterate The Narrative. Enjoy the silence.
Right Rachel?
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"his re-election campaign is now targeting the Koch brothers’ private foundation donors in a parallel effort to chill conservative speech and activism"
Not to mention the hysteria of some libs on MSM outlets recently about the *unfairness* of a system where Sheldon Adleson can give millions to the Newt campaign (making HIM a target) yet narry a peep when it is big entertainment stars/Soros and wall street libs supporting Obama.
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"Mandated coverage of abortions is also in play here."
Yes. The elephant in the room. I hope there aren't any religious-Americans still hung up on that old 'Thou Shalt Not Kill' commandment.
The writing from Michelle Malkin is powerful. How did all that happen without the notice of the feminists? Or did I miss the outrage? Then we had the Obama million dollar contributor calling Palin a "cunt" and Obama's phony 'Pastor' calling our country "God Damn America". Then we get the lecture when one conservative pundit calls one liberal activist a slut when he meant prostitute as a bad joke and quickly apologized.
Yes I have quoted Rush L a few times on his political insights and I disapprove of that message and a few others of his. I also disapprove that liberals made a book calling him a big, fat liar into a best seller with their exuberance and put the author of that trash in the Senate. I do however get the joke that he fumbled, that she was publicly demanding money to have sex and there is a bad word that should have never been spoken for people who do that. I think the proper word or analogy for the activity was extortion, not prostitution. Once she got going in the video I posted, the message was clear: Pay me, pay us, or we will make your life a living hell. We will publicly call all of you out as women haters, with your obnoxious religions and worn-out principles and see that you never hold political power of any kind ever again if you won't pay us for whatever we decide that we need.
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[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ISKQD7ytSk&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ISKQD7ytSk&feature=player_embedded
"Civility for thee, but not for me". Feminists defend women, just so long as they stay within the allowed political circles.
Remember, when the left claims a grave moral position, it's just empty political B.S.
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Well as per Rachel's post it is very clear many women identify with Fluke exactly. I do not mean this with tregards to the names (slut etc.). I mean in terms of her position that women ARE entitled to BCP from insureres, and that denying them this is a war on women, a war on women's health, and it is some sexist issue.
The war really is on religion, freedom, separation of religion and state. It the left using this avenue along with every conceivable avenue possible to push bigger controlling government upon us, make more of us dependent, class warfare, redistribution of wealth, slowly devolving the United States soveriegnty, (we need permission from the international community to do anything in Syria -which I admit the first Bush guy started), making us into some sort of socialist gov controlled 1984 state.
I don't know if Rachel is looking at this bigger picture or not or just wants the BCP paid for (based on a "health", "cost", "sexist" issue).
Bottom line it IS that easy to bribe segments of the population. Here I will champion your BCP so vote for me. Someone else - not you SHOULD pay for it.
I will champion gay marriage gay adoption so vote for me.
I will champion illegals can stay here and be pardoned (it is coming folks - in the second term) so vote for me.
I will tax the rich so vote for me. 50% already pay no Fed income tax.
Folks this country is broke, we done.
Rachel you don't have to answer. Your business is yours. This is NOT directed to you personally only that your post is reflective of an attitude in this country that in my opinion is part of the problem.
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"I'm not sure why people focus on birth control. It's a minor cost item, frankly it saves money for the employer, i.e. in theory less get pregnant. Also, there are a lot of mandated benefits that cost a lot more.
So who cares.... If you don't want to use the benefit, don't. Make babies. Have fun. But if you don't want babies now, then take birth control. You will be happy and so will your employer."
JDN,
I think you get this but....
The left is focusing on BC because some of them or most of them,or apparently most women (?) feel it should be a MANDATED RIGHT for insurance companies to have to pay for this.
The left is doing under the banner of womens "health".
For the Church it is not a cost issue. It is a to the Church a moral issue.
CCP; I get this but....
There are a LOT of mandated benefits. Mandated health benefits have social, financial and medical implications for patients, providers and health benefits plans. Most if not all states
have mandated benefits. Frankly, even after being an employee benefit consultant for many years I couldn't figure out why some of them were included. But if a large group (women in this example)
seem to want a benefit to be included, it will be. Pregnancy for example was once excluded; it's now a mandated benefit. What's the big deal about BC? Further, BC IS cost effective.
Everyone wins. And it is under the banner of women's health because well, it benefits women health.
As for the Church, I find that a bogus argument. Adventists don't believe in blood transfusions, but I assure you if I am taken to an Adventist Hospital (there are quite a few in Southern California
including a Medical School) I will be given blood. A mandated benefit means it has to be offered. If you are a devote Catholic, don't take the pill if you are opposed. But if I am working on staff
(I am not Catholic) and my wife wants to take the pill, well why not? Nobody is forcing anyone to take the pill. It's just being offered to the employees and dependents; only if YOU want to take the pill do you
need to. So what's the fuss? No is forcing anyone at the Catholic Hospital/School to participate.
As for Maher, while I am not defending his comments, there is a difference between swearing as a stand up comic (He was on his comedy show) (If we criticized all comics who swear we wouldn't have very
many comics) and on a political talk radio show that supposedly is representing the truth... You all quote Rush on this Forum. Or is Rush just suppose to be funny and I can ignore what he is saying? :-)
Also, there is a difference between attacking a politician, someone clearly in the public eye, and attacking a innocent law school student. No one had heard of her until Rush.
Further, Rush kept going and going. It wasn't just one word.
That said, Maher blurs the line between his comedy and political commentary. And I don't think it's appropriate outside of perhaps pure comedy to say things like that about another, especially a women,
in public.
I do not think Rush helped the Republicans gain the Women's vote..... :-)
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JDN brings up a relevant subject, which is the matter of mandates in general and describes the generic dynamics accurately. IMHO we need to put and keep this on the radar screen and not be limited to the religious freedom argument.
"Also, there is a difference between attacking a politician, someone clearly in the public eye, and attacking a innocent law school student. No one had heard of her until Rush. Further, Rush kept going and going. It wasn't just one word."
Sorry, not buying this. Fluke is quite the progressive activist. She was testifying in front of Congress!!! How is this not in the public eye?!? Furthermore she's milking this for all she can.
JDN: The left and the pravdas are showing tremendous hypocrisy on this issue. Agree or disagree? AND they are trying to use it to silence the opposition. Agree or disagree?
==============================
The Foundation
"There is but one straight course, and that is to seek truth and pursue it steadily." --George Washington
Government & Politics
Contraception Deception Is No Fluke
Democrats should be on the defensive over the ObamaCare contraception mandate but have instead made the entire issue a circus. They're employing their best smoke and mirrors to distract from the fundamental issue at stake -- whether Barack Obama has the constitutional authority to override religious liberty to achieve his desired insurance coverage -- but they won't get away with it.
As we noted last week, one Sandra Fluke testified before Congress on the need to have free birth control provided for all women at Georgetown University. Fluke is no typical college student, however. She's a 30-year-old self-professed "reproductive rights activist" who is pursuing her law degree, though she chose the Jesuit school for the express purpose of changing its policy on insuring contraception. Birth control is contrary to the religious doctrine of the Catholic Church, of which Jesuits are a part.
Simply put, Fluke wants them to abandon their principles in order to accommodate her and her fellow female students' recreational choices. The Left then cloaks this in the language of "rights" when no one on the Right is talking about taking rights away from anyone.
So how did Fluke gain a hearing before Congress? Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), head of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, called a hearing on the constitutionality of the Obama mandate. Democrats first wanted Americans United for Separation of Church and State executive director Barry Lynn to testify. Lynn is a typical anti-religious leftist, but at least he has some measure of "expertise" on the matter of Obama's interference with the church.
However, in a last-minute effort to misdirect the issue to "women's health," Democrats asked that Fluke appear. The committee had not vetted her, and Issa denied the request. Undeterred, Democrats held a subcommittee hearing, called their media accomplices for ample coverage, and allowed Fluke to testify about the plight of young women at Georgetown who supposedly can't afford their own birth control (despite its availability at the local pharmacy for $9 a month) and demand that the university buy it for them. She has no expertise on the subject of Obama's mandate, and her testimony was completely irrelevant hearsay.
Then, while discussing the topic last week, radio talk-show host Rush Limbaugh called Fluke a "slut" and a "prostitute" and elaborated on what that meant in terms not fit for a family show. Clearly, he crossed the line with his language, and he issued two apologies -- apologies that also happened to serve to rehash his (quite valid) argument. Fluke dismissed those apologies, and we won't belabor the point; enough has been said on the subject and Limbaugh is perfectly capable of defending himself. (See, for example, here and here.)
Naturally, the Left went into overdrive to misdirect the issue again, this time to Limbaugh's comments instead of Obama's tyranny. They even hung Limbaugh's comments around the necks of Republicans -- as if they are responsible for him when no such similar standard ever exists for leftist talkingheads -- big mouths like Bill Maher, Chris Matthews, Ed Schultz and Keith Olbermann, whose own vulgar comments about women have heretofore been given a free pass. Predictably, Obama piled on with a politically opportunistic call to Fluke to "see if she was all right," and to further denounce Limbaugh and his fellow defenders of liberty.
It's critical to remember that the real issue is Obama's determination to deny religious liberty in the name of "women's health." Democrats realize that if the issue is framed properly, they lose. Their only hope is to distract and deceive by making the issue about women's access to birth control, or whether Rush is a misogynist or whatever other sideshow they can contrive.
Democrats claim that they want reproductive choices left between a woman and her doctor, but it is they who demand government control over health care in general, and, more specifically, authority to force employers and others to pay for certain "health" benefits regardless of the cost. Democrats claim that they love individual rights and liberties, but it is they who deny them for the sake of their pet causes. ObamaCare is designed to destroy liberty, and we mustn't let the Left's Big Top Circus distract from the mission to repeal it.
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I also don't buy the Rush is not the same as Maher argument therefore it is OK for the comedian but not the radio host who is representing the truth.
If that is not BS.
Maher acts as though he represents the truth all day long. Additionally Rush never hides the fact that he is a partisan.
Hypocracy continues from the left.
"But if I am working on staff
(I am not Catholic) and my wife wants to take the pill, well why not? Nobody is forcing anyone to take the pill."
No body is forcing anyone NOT to take the pill. Your wife wants to take it - take it. Just the Catholic Church does not feel right about encouraging this by paying for it.
The left just wants more mandates. As long as someone else pays it is good.
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There is a difference between an amateur student activist and a public official. As for her testifying in front of Congress, it is my understanding that she testified before a small Democratic Steering Committee and even then it was only because Issa has not allowed Fluke to testify before his larger committee. She is a student nobody from no where (I mean no disrespect) that no one knew, hardly a public figure until Rush got everyone heated. But of course she is milking it for all she can; Rush opened the door for her.
I understand your comment about hypocrisy. Then again, others who said what Rush said, or even less, on public radio or TV were suspended. Things inappropriate have been said on both sides of the aisle although Rush was/is the worst example I've heard so far given that she was a student and how long he kept it up. I do not agree they are trying to silence the opposition; just show a little civility. We can agree to disagree on BC (I still can't figure out why it's a big deal to the right), but we can do it with courtesy. Why not simply argue your points without calling someone repeatedly a slut on public radio?
CCP - Comedians have a license to swear; somehow it's ok. Go to a comedy club; you will see. Maher was doing a standup comedy act. He wasn't wearing his political commentator hat. That said, as I said,
he blurs the distinction.
The Catholic Church is not encouraging it. They are just making it available. Just like the Adventists are not encouraging blood transfusions, but they make it available.
Also, BC is cost effective. And there are LOTS of mandated benefits. We can argue if that's appropriate, but legislators (who we elected) in their wisdom have included them. And it is a medical issue.
We should pay for it. Just like a heart attack is a medical issue for a fat person who likes cheeseburgers with bacon. But we still pay for the fat slob's heart attack.
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Just like a heart attack is a medical issue for a fat person who likes cheeseburgers with bacon. But we still pay for the fat slob's heart attack.
And there is the problem. Individual freedoms and individual responsibility. "We" shouldn't be paying for anything.
If Ms. Fluke needs 30 condoms a day (according to the 3000 bucks a year number she put out there) that's her problem, not anyone else's.
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GM:
The $3K number is for three years, not per year-- so she's only needing 10 condoms a day.
JDN:
Please just acknowledge she was and is seeking to be a public figure and now that she has gotten what she was asking for, she becomes damsel in distress up on her pedastal. Barf.
Also see http://www.theblaze.com/stories/connecting-the-dots-oreilly-traces-sandra-fluke-to-former-white-house-adviser/
As for Maher and RL, as far as I'm concerned you make distinctions without a difference i.e. irrelevant to the point at hand-- the outrage is highly selective and disingenuous.
"others who said what Rush said, or even less, on public radio or TV were suspended." Examples please.
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The Iranians storming the embassy were only students, if that is funny. She is an activist of national exposure. If you deny that, read on and view the video. She was a leader of an anti-Catholic organization trying to take down Catholic principles in a Catholic university. She chose her public role. And she was discovered and pushed forward by others. That does not mean deserves bad words, it means she is a public figure, not acting as a student, but as a national policy advocate. She was being put forward to testify on a panel; of experts. When denied that she went public. Rush L. did not go to Georgetown interviewing students. She came to him via the airwaves as a leading advocate on her side's lead issue. Why do we always have to argue the obvious?
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Ed Shultz called Laura Ingraham a slut, on air. Yeah, same word, no provocation. Rachel hasn't quoted Ed Shultz on the forum, but none other than... Sandra Fluke ... had no problem going on his show a week before the Rush Limbaugh incident. http://video.msnbc.msn.com/the-ed-show/46421856#46421856 And she wasn't there to say 'Ed, you misogynist'! She was there to bitch and whine about the plight of women who go to places like Georgetown of their own free choosing.
Was the 'Ed Show', originator of free on air slut calling okay with Fluke because liberals give better apologies? No. This is all a highly orchestrated political act and the Rush mistake was just too good to pass up.
Did Obama ever reach across the aisle and call the 'talk slut' Laura Ingraham and commissurate? Uh, no. Did it remind him of his daughters? What a bunch of bullsh*t.
Now Fluke is on the travel and making the rounds to all the shows and all the networks. She is booked by her PR agent, none other than ... Anita Dunn.
$9 a month for contraception is outrageous for a busy, taxpayer funded college student. Coast to coast travel for political speaking engagements? No problem.
Either the White House or the DNC planted the issue and put forward this 'student'. It started with the George Stephanopolous question off the wall in a debate where Gov. Romney had to say What?? This isn't an issue in any state! And Stephanopolous agreed on his own show ABC's 'This Week' the next day that he embarrassed himself badly there, set up by ... he didn't say whom.
This woman Fluke chose the nation's oldest Catholic University to set out on a firestorm against Catholic principles. Yes, Crafty, there are issues beyond religious freedom at stake, but religious freedom IS at stake.
I don't care for Bill O'Reilly much but he seems to have this one figured out: http://www.mediaite.com/tv/bill-oreilly-asks-who-is-running-sandra-fluke-it-all-goes-back-to-white-house/ "But now we see, alright, that Anita Dunn and her firm have embraced her. Now, she appeared on NBC 1, 2, 3, 4 times, CBS once, CNN once — no, five for NBC — and The View also. And each of these times, alright, there was a shadowy booking process. Because I spoke to some of these people. [...] She appears, she shows up. Somebody pays for all of that."
Fluke claims that only 2% of Catholic women follow the rules and principles of the faith anyway. Who really cares about such a small religious minority?? ?? ??
Rachel I believer is looking for the big picture, not for herself, on the issue but I would like to ask her in 20 or 30 years how having government enlarged and empowered to screw over and stomp out one faith and its principles has worked out for her religion. War against religion has not historically been good for ANY religion except the worship for a government controlled life.
You are 2 or 3 more bizarre twists or turns in the road from having a Rick Santorum administration choose the next Secretary of Health and Human Services and you want the federal government in the meantime to accumulate more power over these personal decisions? Good luck.
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"she's only needing 10 condoms a day"
In the old days he would have to at least buy her 10 dinners a day for her to not be considered ... (the bad word meaning 'loose in morals or promiscuous').
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JDN:
You were asked "Why do we always have to argue the obvious?" I confess there are moments when I share this sentiment.
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Yep here we go. All about going after the "1%er", keeping this in the headlines, the female vote, cash, Limbaugh.
The same pattern. Allred cashing in monetarily and poltically on the babe factor again:
http://www.thespoof.com/news/spoof.cfm?headline=s4i105111
I don't know how this country is going to survive. This whole country is become just a circus.
Has any President participated in making such a mockery of our country?
He could put a stop to this but he won't. It is all about him.
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"she's only needing 10 condoms a day"
In the old days he would have to at least buy her 10 dinners a day for her to not be considered ... (the bad word meaning 'loose in morals or promiscuous').
I bet they are cheaper if bought in bulk, which it appears that Ms. Fluke needs to. I'm curious if the legally licensed "working girls" in Nevada's brothels average 10 condoms a day. I'm guessing not, which makes one wonder, especially given that unlike Ms. Fluke, the working women in NV tend to be attractive.
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She doesn't have to contracept cost effectively if it isn't supposed to be with her money. She may have had no actual activity at all but a girl needs to be ready.
Why (again) did she choose to go public with what ought to be private?
Please provide receipts to the committee. It is an issue now. Roger Clemons was indicted, charged with lying to Congress and tried in federal court.
The operation that went on a mission to destroy Joe the Plumber is shocked and disappointed at a personal attack - from a radio show. Did you know Joe the Plumber was DIVORCED and his plumbing license was good in only one municipality? He'll never make a quarter million! He failed his apprenticeship. Obama knew his earning potential for the next 4 years was limited and proclaimed that fact nationally and publicly. It wasn't a radio show that went after him personally. It was the VP candidate first on a national show and then Obama himself, loud and often, without apology.
What a jackass.
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I suppose boys will be boys on this forum, but what happened to the search for the truth? This seems to have gotten to new lows. Despite everyone here's attempt to malign and degrade Ms. Fluke, Ms. Fluke herself never said the plan should pay for 10 condoms, 30 condoms or 3000 condoms in one month. As a matter of fact, she never even suggested that the plan pay for condoms. She suggested that the plan cover Birth Control Pills. Something similar to the cheeseburger with bacon eating fat slob's high blood pressure pills. Both are cost effective. Both are necessary to avoid an unwanted condition. Both have tertiary benefits. Both have the support of the general population.
"To some degree, the tax-funded contraceptive horse is already out of the barn. A study conducted in 2007 and 2008 by the Kaiser Family Foundation and George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services found that at least 39 states and the District of Columbia covered oral contraceptives under Medicaid, the health care program for the poor whose costs are split between state and federal governments. That was back during the George W. Bush administration."
It's no different than many other mandated benefits. And this one actually SAVES money. So why the bizarre, lewd crude, disgusting, personal attack on Ms. Flukes, a college law school student? If you disagree, if you don't think specific benefits should be mandated by government, fine, express your viewpoint in a logical methodical manner rather than personally maligning Ms. Flukes. This conversation might be fine for a football locker room, or a drunken bachelor party, but it has no semblance to public forum that is searching for the truth.
So let's move on. Do you really think this helps the Republicans obtain the women's vote?
Marc, I would think THAT would be obvious to you.
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Two to three alcoholic drinks per day has positive health effects. Where is my free beer?
It's not like there is a debt crisis, right?
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(http://www.abcnews.go.com/images/Politics/gty_sandra_fluke_jt_120223_wblog.jpg)
http://www.abcnews.go.com/images/Politics/gty_sandra_fluke_jt_120223_wblog.jpg
Are there stylists for feminists that work to make women as unattractive as possible? Becaust Fluke's must have worked overtime.
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"This seems to have gotten to new lows."
Oh, did you forget how the left conducted it's self when W. was president?
The left set the standard of conduct, so enjoy.
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**I'm sure JDN and Rachel are very upset about these attacks on Sarah Palin.
http://gretawire.foxnewsinsider.com/2012/03/08/i-refuse-to-go-to-the-radio-and-television-correspondents-association-dinner/
I refuse to go to the Radio and Television Correspondents Association Dinner – no one should go
by Greta Van Susteren
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mar 8 2012 - 6:50 PM ET
Another pig….and a media association has hired the pig, Louis C.K., to be their headliner for the big media dinner? Really? I am not going. I refuse to go. Everyone in the media should join me in this boycott.
The headliner of this year’s Radio and Television Correspondents Dinner is “comedian” Louis C.K. Comedian? I don’t think so. Pig? yes.
He uses filthy language about women…..yes, the C word…and yes, even to describe a woman candidate for Vice President of the United States. It isn’t just Governor Palin he denigrates. He denigrates all women and looks to the crowd to laugh.
I refuse to show any support for this guy or for the Radio and Television Correspondents Association Dinner Committee who hired him. I think the organization that hired him is just as bad as he is. It is no secret that he denigrates women.
Here is a sample of what he said about Governor Sarah Palin and you tell me whether any member of the media should sit in the crowd while he speaks to them:
Louis C.K. says of Palin: “her f*** retard making c***” and “the baby that just came out of her f**** disgusting c***.”
To Palin: just “stick your t** in its mouth and shut up.”
And here is more: ”…her f***** retard making c****”
Need more to convince you? Here is what he says on twitter:
“I want to rub my father’s c*** all over Sarah Palin’s fat t***”
By the way, there is more, lots more.
I hope all the other women and men in the media join me in not going.
I also hope everyone has the courage to stand up to this.
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Let me guess, JDN.
Louis C. K. is a comic and that's like totally different from a radio show, or something.....
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The argument still is that we already do it and Bush did it so too bad to those with different ideas and those who care about principles or cost effectiveness with the public dollar even though we are trillions and trillions overspent. The constituency is large, therefore we should pander.
That we disagree strongly is reason why we should NOT have one size fits all healthcare. You really don't see that! You say move on but if you don't care then do that and leave this to people who do. We should concede arguments with people we disagree with to get their vote? For what?
The woman says she needs $3000 for contraception and she needs it paid for by someone else and the clause in the constitution that authorizes is called focus group polling. SHE BROUGHT IT UP, she went public, she reached into GM's wallet even though he had it tucked in a very private place. She offended a few people, like those who believe in limited government, constitutional government, efficient government or freedom of religion. And you don't care. So WHAT?
Repetitive, unresponsive, apathetic and insulting. Why is this hetero-centric law fair to gays who have no risk of accidental procreation subsidizing sexually active heterosexual women like they are an exploited minority? Have you answered ANY of the concerns expressed? No. If this were dinner conversation in person, would you insult everyone when you don't care about the topic, or politely make an excuse, thank your host and leave.
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JDN:
Lets be candid, she's dishonest in her numbers and so now she's being hoisted on her own petard. Time for little miss feminist to man up.
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http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2012/mar/06/context-sandra-fluke-contraceptives-and-womens-hea/
When I look around my campus, I see the faces of the women affected by this lack of contraceptive coverage. And especially in the last week, I have heard more and more of their stories. On a daily basis, I hear from yet another woman from Georgetown or from another school or who works for a religiously affiliated employer, and they tell me that they have suffered financially, emotionally and medically, because of this lack of coverage. And so I'm here today to share their voices, and I want to thank you for allowing them -- them, not me -- to be heard.
Without insurance coverage, contraception, as you know, can cost a woman over $3,000 during law school. For a lot of students who, like me, are on public interest scholarships, that's practically an entire summer's salary. Forty percent of the female students at Georgetown Law reported to us that they've struggled financially as a result of this policy.
It's my understanding that generic BC pills are a whopping 9 bucks a month at Walmart. So that's a lot of Jimmie Hats.
http://www.walmart.com/ip/LifeStyles-Ultra-Sensitive-Condoms-40ct/17324884
10.94 for 40 condoms.
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"So why the bizarre, lewd crude, disgusting, personal attack on Ms. Flukes, a college law school student? If you disagree, if you don't think specific benefits should be mandated by government, fine, express your viewpoint in a logical methodical manner rather than personally maligning Ms. Flukes. This conversation might be fine for a football locker room, or a drunken bachelor party, but it has no semblance to public forum that is searching for the truth."
At the same time JDN claims we are bashing Fluke he does the same to us, ignores our valid points that have nothing to do with Fluke'sex life which she volunteered to in a round about way go pulbic with, turns it into a sexist issue, ignores the poltical activism involved, (which, JDN IS the truth), continues to ask, what is the big deal? (so if not a big deal than let the Catholic Church refuse to pay for it).
JDNs remarks remind me of MSNBC this morning on the Chris Hays show. the feminist activist democrat party advocate Katrina Vanden Heuvel complains how there are not enough women in government and the cast of guests of course talk of the parade of white men in the Republican party. No mention whatsoever of Sarah Palin being chosen and running as a VP for the POTUS. And they show a clip of Bachman volunteer to serving water to a group of white men at the start of a talk show meeting denigrating her to an example of white boys forcing women into some submissive role/posture etc.
JDN continies to ignore our points and then denigrate those of us on the right the exact same way while he professes the "truth".
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On yahoo is a video of governor Chris Christie losing his temper with a Rutgers law student. I was not aware of the propose change to Rutger's name as a result of a merger with Rowan University. I don't know the specifics of this law student but this whole thing somehow smells of teachers unions vs the governor. The UMDNJ system has multiple corruption scandals. As a state prosecutor before he was governor he was active in that area.
****Kevin Riordan: Rutgers-Camden, Rowan may marry, but they should keep their names
January 31, 2012|By Kevin Riordan, Inquirer Columnist
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Gov. Christie's proposal to "merge" Rutgers-Camden and Rowan University under the Rowan name looks less like a collegial partnership and more like a hostile takeover. Or perhaps a shotgun wedding.
Whatever you call it, the plan - part of an effort to reorganize, if not revolutionize, higher education statewide - feels like a foregone conclusion.
It arrived last week, floating on promises of more money, more jobs, more . . . more. And like so many decisions with enormous consequences for Camden, it appears to have been made with little input from people who live or work there.
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Is it possible Camden and South Jersey would be better served by linking Rutgers and Rowan in a way that retains their identities? Could the schools gain academic and economic clout in a merger that more resembled a collaboration?
A "consortium," such as that proposed by the Rutgers-Camden faculty, could combine some programs at the universities, leveraging strengths but maintaining separate operations.
"There's nothing to stop a cooperative arrangement from happening," says Howard Gillette, history professor emeritus at Rutgers-Camden.
Others suggest creating an umbrella institution with a name such as University of Southern New Jersey. It would maintain key elements of Rutgers and Rowan, which would retain their names. The parent institution would have the scale and grant-attracting cachet of a large research university.
Some alternative seems preferable to Christie's bold proposal, which has not been well received at Rutgers-Camden.
"I don't trust [Christie]," third-year Rutgers law student Jessica Starkman said Monday, as applause rose in the Camden campus' Walter Gordon Theatre.
Starkman, 25, of Cherry Hill, was one of nearly 200 law students who attended an afternoon question-and-answer session. No one who spoke, including Dean Rayman Solomon, applauded the merger.
Several antitakeover events are scheduled on campus this week, and more than 3,000 people have signed an online petition against the merger.
"I've never seen Rutgers-Camden so united," Janet Golden, a professor of history and a leader of the union that represents the teaching staff, told me Monday.
Christie's proposal is largely driven by his desire to dismantle the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey and distribute its components to higher-education institutions, mostly in Newark and New Brunswick. New Jersey would end up with a large research university in each of its three major regions.****
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This leaves out the first part of the exchange, I don't know if that is deliberate because it just shows the part where Christie loses his temper and not what led up to that point:
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/governor-chris-christie-idiot-student-damn-man-m-221915452.html;_ylt=AlcrjlK2vTBvj2sUtM5ePl.s0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTNqdHMxNDk3BGNjb2RlA2N0LmMEcGtnA2VkY2JkZTdiLTRhNWUtMzVlOC1hZjQ1LTRhOWU4ZmQ4NTdjNwRwb3MDMwRzZWMDbW9zdF9wb3B1bGFyBHZlcgM3ZWNiOTFhMy02YTRhLTExZTEtYmJmZi1lNzBlNzFkNDVmNmM-;_ylg=X3oDMTFrM25vcXFyBGludGwDdXMEbGFuZwNlbi11cwRwc3RhaWQDBHBzdGNhdAMEcHQDc2VjdGlvbnMEdGVzdAM-;_ylv=3
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http://legalinsurrection.com/2012/03/people-who-live-in-anti-conservative-misogynistic-houses-should-not-throw-indignation/
People who live in anti-conservative misogynistic houses should not throw indignation
Posted by William A. Jacobson Saturday, March 10, 2012 at 8:18am
Rush Limbaugh used an analogy including the words slut and prostitute, and the liberal media and political sphere went wild.
It was just what Media Matters, Think Progress, and others needed to organize attacks on advertisers in an attempt to force Limbaugh off the air.
The self-righteous indignation that a woman had been insulted was laughable coming from a crowd which worships people who engage in sexualized attacks on conservative women, with Sarah Palin being a primary target. As Kirsten Powers pointed out, there is a long history of sexualized attacks on conservative women from prominent liberals on television, but no one ever boycotts them or attacks their advertisers.
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Social-justice, racial-justice, gender-justice, in this case her cause is "Reproductive-Justice".
"Justice" does not need a hyphen or a qualifier, FYI, in the USA in 2012 - other than when used in the context of 'liberty and justice for all'.
A right or a liberty is not defined as requiring someone else to do something for you.
223 years of a right to bear arms and no one has demanded or received a free gun.
If I walk into a synagogue knowing the rules and demand that pork chops and Holy Communion be offered and they refuse, maybe someone watching the spectacle calls me a name, which of us is being boorish?
Unbelievable that people make a hit and run on this without acknowledging the underlying issues.
Border agents dead, troops in Afghanistan killed, a shooting in Cleveland, 6 million jobs gone perhaps forever, and the President calls and sympathizes with an intentionally divisive, anti-religious rights, anti-limited-government activist/provocateur.
Let the lines be drawn.
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At least we finally know why Crafty went to law school..... :evil:
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http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/293094/fluke-charade-mark-steyn
March 10, 2012 4:00 A.M.
The Fluke Charade
Why should we have to fund a middle-aged schoolgirl’s sex life?
By Mark Steyn
I’m writing this from Australia, so, if I’m not quite up to speed on recent events in the United States, bear with me — the telegraph updates are a bit slow here in the bush. As I understand it, Sandra Fluke is a young coed who attends Georgetown Law, and recently testified before Congress.
Oh, wait, no. Update: It wasn’t a congressional hearing; the Democrats just got it up to look like one, like summer stock, with Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid doing the show right here in the barn, and providing a cardboard set for the world premiere of Miss Fluke Goes to Washington, with full supporting cast led by Chuck Schumer strolling in through the French windows in tennis whites and drawling, “Anyone for bull****?”
Oh, and the “young coed” turns out to be 30, which is what less evolved cultures refer to as early middle age. She’s a couple of years younger than Mozart was at the time he croaked, but, if the Dems are to be believed, the plucky little Grade 24 schoolgirl has already made an even greater contribution to humanity. She’s had the courage to stand up in public and demand that someone else (and this is where one is obliged to tiptoe cautiously, lest offense is given to gallant defenders of the good name of American maidenhood such as the many prestigious soon-to-be-former sponsors of this column who’ve booked Bill Maher for their corporate retreat with his amusing “Sarah Palin is a c***” routine . . . )
Where was I? Oh, yes. The brave middle-aged schoolgirl had the courage to stand up in public and demand that someone else pay for her sex life.
Well, as noted above, she’s attending Georgetown, a nominally Catholic seat of learning, so how expensive can that be? Alas, Georgetown is so nominally Catholic that the cost of her sex life runs to three grand — and, according to the star witness, 40 percent of female students “struggle financially” because of the heavy burden of maintaining a respectable level of premarital sex at a Jesuit institution.
As I said, I’m on the other side of the planet, so maybe I’m not getting this. But I’d say the core issue here is not religious liberty — which in these Godless times the careless swing voter now understands as a code phrase meaning that uptight Republicans who can’t get any action want to stop you getting any, too.
Nor is the core issue liberty in its more basic sense — although it would certainly surprise America’s founders that their republic of limited government is now the first nation in the developed world to compel private employers to fully fund the sex lives of their employees.
Nor is it even the distinctively American wrinkle the Republic of Paperwork has given to governmentalized health care, under which the “right to privacy” the Supreme Court claimed to have discovered in Griswold v. Connecticut and Roe v. Wade will now lead to thousands and thousands of self-insuring employers keeping computer records of the morning-after pills and herpes medication racked up by Miss Jones on reception.
Nor is the issue that America has 30-year-old schoolkids — or even 30-year-old schoolkids who expect someone else to pick up the tab for their extracurricular activities, rather than doing a paper route and a bit of yard work to save up for their first IUD, as we did back in my day. After all, the human right to government-mandated free contraception is as American as apple pie and far healthier for you. In my most recent book, I quote one of Sandra Fluke’s fellow geriatrics gamboling in the groves of academe and complaining to the Washington Post about the quality of free condoms therein:
“If people get what they don’t want, they are just going to trash them,” said T Squalls, 30, who attends the University of the District of Columbia. “So why not spend a few extra dollars and get what people want?”
All of us are born with the unalienable right to life, liberty, and a lifetime supply of premium ribbed silky-smooth ultrasensitive spermicidal lubricant condoms. No taxation without rubberization, as the Minutemen said. The shot heard round the world, and all that.
Read it all.
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http://www.cnn.com/2012/03/12/opinion/christoph-terrel-bill-maher/index.html
Democrats should reject Bill Maher's money
By Teri Christoph and Suzanne Haik Terrell, Special to CNN
updated 11:15 AM EDT, Mon March 12, 2012
The authors say Bill Maher is more than just a comedian, and his comments on women are offensive.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Authors reply to a CNN Opinion article by Jane Fonda, Robin Morgan, Gloria Steinem
They say the three should have condemned remarks by Maher as they did Limbaugh
Maher contributed $1 million to a super PAC supporting President Obama
Authors: Democrats should reject the money and Maher's offensive language
Editor's note: Teri Christoph and Suzanne Haik Terrell are co-chairwomen of ShePAC, a "movement to support, honor and elect conservative women." Christoph is the co-founder of Smart Girl Politics, a nonprofit organization founded in 2008 to encourage conservative women to get involved in the political process. Terrell, an attorney, is a former Louisiana state elections commissioner and was a 2002 Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate.
(CNN) -- As women, feminists, mothers to daughters and activists, we read the recent opinion piece on conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh by Jane Fonda, Gloria Steinem and Robin Morgan with great anticipation. Once we had finished reading, we were left with feelings of amusement, amazement and, yes, agreement.
As women, we agree with them that hate speech and sexism against women is wrong in all forms, on all playing fields. Women who enter the public arena and stand up for their beliefs should be celebrated, whether we agree with them or not. Arguing with their beliefs is one matter; using derogatory terms or hate speech is another. Men who practice this regularly should apologize and change their ways and face the consequences.
As feminists, we read the piece with amazement. Recently, an entertainer, political activist and major donor has referred to women in the political arena with vile obscenities as well as words such as "bimbos," "boobs" and "MILFs."
Teri Christoph
Suzanne Haik Terrell
Bill Maher has advocated, in one case, that someone should "choke this b***h" and argued that voters would prefer to see a female candidate "splayed out on the hood of a car" rather than making decisions in the Oval Office. A recent video produced by ShePAC highlights some of Maher's "greatest hits" against women and special needs children. In 48 hours, more than 250,000 viewed it.
After reading and further researching, we were amazed that Fonda, Steinem and Morgan failed to condemn Maher for his hate speech against conservative and liberal women alike. In their piece, they write that their call to action "isn't political." Giving them the benefit of doubt, we thought, they were perhaps unaware of Maher's history of misogyny. But we were wrong.
Not only have these women not condemned Maher's vile and violent language, they've legitimized it. Both Fonda and Steinem have been guests on Maher's show, both failing to call him to task for his actions. Sadly, they are not alone.
Left slams Limbaugh, right slams Maher
Neither have two former guests on Maher's Hollywood set: Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi and DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz. They haven't had the courage or conviction to condemn his words against conservative women but have both found time to join Fonda and Steinem in the media the past week to do so against Limbaugh.
Maher on his super PAC donation
But mostly, as conservatives, we read their opinion piece in amusement. To us, it's silly to think female voters are going to be swayed by the tired politics these women preach. They don't speak for us, and their politics of the past is being rejected.
Bill Maher: Santorum 'an insane person'
Traditional "women's issues" from Fonda and Steinem's era are gone. Women flocked to conservative candidates in 2010 after they saw their children's share of the debt skyrocket. They joined with conservatives as unemployment rose and their hope for the future sank. Women have seen our freedom (including speech) under attack, and we have taken to the ballot box and the campaign trail to put a stop to it.
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Oh barf! :-P
I am so tired of this "I wanna be an infantryman but I'll fall in the toilet if you leave the seat up" routine.
Politics ain't bean bag. Man up and get off the pedastal ladies-- and while you are at it you and your paramours should have the tolerance and respect for others who disbelieve in your ways to pay for your own birth control.
And yeah, unlike Hillary, Palin and Bachman are MILFs. Nyah nyah nyah.
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1. Convert to islam.
2. Throw acid in women's faces.
3. Bask in the silence from so-called "feminists".
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWrk-brFCrY[/youtube]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWrk-brFCrY
Good thing it's such a peaceful religion!
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The media and Dems successfully shifted the conversation back to social issues with the help of candidate Rick Santorum and the vulgarity of Rush L.
Manipulated unemployment figures are down a bit to 8.3%. Bin Laden captured, troops home from Iraq. Afghanistan war ending as far as we know. Auto industry up? It doesn't get much better than this...
CBS/NY Times poll shows Pres. Obama tanking http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/13/us/politics/obama-approval-rating-down-in-new-york-times-cbs-poll.html though they have upgraded the title of the story from “Obama Approval Rating Shows Big Slip in Poll” to “Obama’s Rating Falls as Poll Reflects Volatility.”
Rasmussen has Romney leading Obama by 5 points and the generic congressional ballot with R's ahead of Dems by 7-8 points.
One big problem is that lower income people notice gas and grocery prices while Ivory Tower liberals see only the positive side of that.
CBS reports that most Americans believe there should be an exception to the mandate requiring employers who may have a moral or religious objection to cover birth control for their employees — by a margin of 57-36! http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-57395832-503544/poll-most-say-employers-should-be-allowed-not-to-cover-contraception/
One more CBS/New York Times poll. A majority of Americans say they would favor using U.S. military action against Iran to prevent the country from acquiring nuclear weapons — by a margin of 51-36. http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-57395830-503544/poll-most-support-u.s-military-action-to-stop-iran-from-getting-nuclear-weapons/
That doesn't even get to the key questions of the day: How do you like the idea of leaving your children and grandchildren to live in a third world country, and are you better off now than you were SEVEN trillion dollars ago, when Pelosi-Reid-Obama took over Washington with unemployment at 4.6%, partner in crime Rep. Keith Ellison of Mpls. swore on Thomas Jefferson Quran to destroy this country as we once knew it?
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Doug,
Thanks for the post. The more and more we here MSM saying that no repub can beat Obama and is the favorite (if not a shoe in) , the more I think it is clear to "short" O's stock.
I think he is done and as long as Mitt can carefully follow a good script he will win.
Obama's tactics are pure desperation. The left MSM cheerleaders are running with whatever story the WH puts out thru the jurnolist and whatever connections they have. It's OBVIOUS.
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http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journalism/2012/03/13/Al%20Sharpton%20Slut-Gate
Slut-Gate Hypocrisy: Explosive Audio of NBC's Al Sharpton Trashing 'Homos,' 'Chinamen,' and 'Crackers'
(http://cdn.breitbart.com/mediaserver/drut.png)
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:-D
"Feminists are declaring a sex strike for Obamacare-subsidized birth control. The group Liberal Ladies Who Lunch is organizing 'Access Denied,' a week-long exercise in self-denial starting April 28. The strike is supposed to motivate men to stand up for government-funded birth control 'because when we lose our reproductive choices, so do they.' This is akin to protesting welfare cuts by getting a job. ... In this case, activists are abandoning the activity that causes their supposed need for the birth-control handout. ... Conservatives should applaud the strike. Abstention is well-regarded on the right, and not simply because it is 100 percent effective in preventing unwanted pregnancies. Taking a week off from promiscuity may give young women an opportunity to think about their life choices. Perhaps there is more to being a woman than ensuring the government supplies the means to engage in limitless hookups. Nursing chastity for a week puts necessary perspective on the type of subsidized sexuality that's at the center of the debate." --The Washington Times
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:-D
"Feminists are declaring a sex strike for Obamacare-subsidized birth control. The group Liberal Ladies Who Lunch is organizing 'Access Denied,' a week-long exercise in self-denial starting April 28. The strike is supposed to motivate men to stand up for government-funded birth control 'because when we lose our reproductive choices, so do they.' This is akin to protesting welfare cuts by getting a job. ... In this case, activists are abandoning the activity that causes their supposed need for the birth-control handout. ... Conservatives should applaud the strike. Abstention is well-regarded on the right, and not simply because it is 100 percent effective in preventing unwanted pregnancies. Taking a week off from promiscuity may give young women an opportunity to think about their life choices. Perhaps there is more to being a woman than ensuring the government supplies the means to engage in limitless hookups. Nursing chastity for a week puts necessary perspective on the type of subsidized sexuality that's at the center of the debate." --The Washington Times
So, basically feminists are turning the "asprin between the knees" joke into reality. Nice!
I guess it's only for a week, as any longer and they risk having their leg hair tangle and fuse.
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**The democrats finally found a way to love the red, white and blue.
(http://media.trb.com/media/photo/2012-03/68785178.jpg)
**They are waiting to see if he gets the second term before working in the obvious hammer and sickle imagery.
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**The democrats finally found a way to love the red, white and blue.
(http://media.trb.com/media/photo/2012-03/68785178.jpg)
**They are waiting to see if he gets the second term before working in the obvious hammer and sickle imagery.
(http://www.snopes.com/politics/graphics/anthem.jpg)
**Maybe he can salute this one!
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Prof. Thomas Sowell was writing and speaking about the Derrick Bell controversy long before the nation heard of the student who championed him, Barack Obama.
http://www.therightscoop.com/1990-thomas-sowell-explains-derrick-bell/
If Sowell is correct, the storyline implied in the Frontline piece is incomplete. Was this about a racial divide or about race AND ideology. IMHO, that is a HUGE difference! No time to explore that in a two hour documentary(?), just a clip leaving the impression he championed a black professor with an affirmative action cause and brought the two sides together. Radical whites and radical blacks are now all working together.
Sowell: "...[Bell] also said that by black, he does not mean skin color, he means those who are really black, not those who think white and look black. And so what he is really saying is he wants ideological conformity in the people that are hired to fill this position.
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Would you please post this on the Race thread on SCH forum as well? TIA
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An interesting find, DMG.
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http://hotair.com/archives/2012/03/15/video-scrutinizing-sharpton/
Video: Scrutinizing Sharpton
posted at 3:40 pm on March 15, 2012 by Tina Korbe
Remember earlier this month when Al Sharpton appeared on NBC’s Today Show to jump on the Rush-bashing bandwagon? Here’s what he had to say on the subject:
Sharpton mounted his high horse as he proclaimed: “They’re going to have to deal with it, one, because they have really made Rush Limbaugh such a great part of the conservative movement. … You can’t have him as a major spokesman in your movement and then he says something as offensive and misogynist as this and you act like he’s just an entertainer.”
Conservatives immediately pointed out Al Sharpton’s total lack of moral authority on the matter: He has an impressive history of racially offensive and other charged comments. Now, Breitbart.tv has helpfully assembled a montage of Al Sharpton’s worst hits, “The Al Sharpton Hate Files.” Ugly.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tux-TDH_-VU
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tux-TDH_-VU[/youtube]
Big Hollywood’s John Nolte asks the pertinent question: “Using MSNBC’s own standards, should the man who once said [these things] be allowed to hold a primetime MSNBC slot?”
Nolte continues:
“White interloper.” I don’t even know what that means, but “cr-cker” is a slur against white Southerners — end of story.
We’re all grown-ups here, and I think we all know that “h-mo,” “n-gger,” and “cr-cker” trump “sl-t” any day of the week.
True, Sharpton said these things long before he was on MSNBC. But his history was well known, and the lack of outrage from the left when he was elevated to primetime highlights the hypocrisy of their anti-Rush censorship crusade. MSNBC President Phil Griffin knew that Sharpton said this sort of stuff regularly–that, in fact, such bigotry and radical rhetoric was an integral part of the Sharpton persona. He hired him nonetheless. One has to wonder if Brian Williams, Matt Lauer, and Tom Brokaw are proud.
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Unreverend Al has also been a regular guest on FOX, e.g. the Hannity show.
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Unreverend Al has also been a regular guest on FOX, e.g. the Hannity show.
Sure, it's important to expose the true face of the left. He wasn't there for adulation from Hannity.
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Call me a cynic, but I'm thinking he was there for the ratings boost that comes from outraging the audience.
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Call me a cynic, but I'm thinking he was there for the ratings boost that comes from outraging the audience.
Any TV program ultimately exists to sell advertising. No eyeballs, no revenue.
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No excrement? :lol:
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Hey, no Fox, we'd have the MSM treating Sharpton and Jackson like they were the next incarnations of MLK.
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The Foundation
"It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself." --Thomas Jefferson
Government & Politics
ObamaCare Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics
ObamaCare was built upon so many lies and deceptions it's hard to keep track, but this week revealed three in particular. What was it that Nancy Pelosi said about having to "pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it"?
Lie Number 1: "Now, add it all up, and the plan I'm proposing will cost around $900 billion over 10 years." --Barack Obama in a September 2009 speech to a joint session of Congress
The Congressional Budget Office at the time did confirm Obama's numbers, but the CBO scores legislation only as written, without any assumptions or reality checks, and therefore accounted for just six years of spending because most provisions of the law don't kick in until 2014. There were other revenue and cost games, too, since it was paramount that the cost be less than the Iraq War so Democrats could sell it as saving money. We weren't fooled then and neither were millions of Americans, but Democrats rammed it through anyway.
This week, the CBO released an updated report that includes three more years of ObamaCare inside that 10-year window. The estimated cost over a decade is now an eye-popping $1.76 trillion, or nearly twice what Democrats told us in 2009. Not only that, but it won't be until next year that we get a truer 10-year cost estimate, assuming the law isn't repealed or overturned by the Supreme Court. That estimate will surpass $2 trillion. Let's hope Justice Anthony Kennedy wakes up on the right side of the bed the day he makes his decision.
Lie Number 2: "If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan." --Barack Obama in August 2009, but repeated often
Obama and his fellow Democrats insisted that ObamaCare was not a government takeover of health care, and that, while all the uninsured would be cared for, none of the currently insured would lose coverage. However, The Hill reports, "Four million Americans can expect to lose their employer-provided healthcare by 2016, according to the revised figures, far more than the 1 million people estimated last year." You can check our math, but that's approximately four million more people than Obama promised in his 2009 speech. By 2022, the CBO says that number could reach 20 million. More employers dropping coverage in favor of paying the penalty means a revenue increase, too, improving ObamaCare's bottom line.
As if to make good news out of broken promises, CBS headlined, "CBO lowers health reform cost estimate." This bit of deception referenced the provision meant to cover the uninsured when the real news was about the overall cost increase. It's true that the coverage cost was revised lower, but that's only because some two million fewer people will be insured than originally estimated, not because of any great savings.
Lie Number 3: "Under our plan, no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions, and federal conscience laws will remain in place." --Barack Obama in the aforementioned September 2009 address
The Department of Health and Human Services finalized a rule this week establishing state health care exchanges, and those plans will collect from each premium payer a $1 surcharge to fund abortions. Obama's HHS will use accounting gimmicks to circumvent the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits direct taxpayer funding of abortion. Former Democrat Rep. Bart Stupak of Michigan and other Democrats made a grand show over this issue in 2010, refusing to vote for the health care takeover until Obama included a ban on funding abortion. They got their wish, but Obama hasn't upheld his end of the bargain.
It's becoming more and more important that this unconstitutional atrocity be either struck down by the Supreme Court or repealed by our alleged representatives. The White House has already mapped out a desperate strategy to boost public support. Perhaps it's no wonder that the law's supporters are organizing a prayer vigil as the Court hears arguments March 26. To whom they will be offering prayer is another matter.
What are some other ObamaCare lies? And will the Court overturn it?
Obama Is Losing the Contraception Battle
The media narrative that women are leaving the Republican Party in droves over the free contraception debate doesn't hold up in the very polls that these same news outlets have executed. The Washington Post and The New York Times have frequently reported and editorialized (pretending they know the difference) about how the GOP is losing women because of its stance against the free contraception mandated under ObamaCare. But just as there is no GOP "war on women," there is also no mass exodus of women from the Republican Party.
A recent Washington Post/ABC News poll showed Obama's approval rating actually dropped four points after the Sandra Fluke controversy erupted. Similarly, Obama lost ground to Mitt Romney in head-to-head matchups before and after the Fluke episode. The New York Times poll also discovered a post-Fluke drop in female support for Obama. Humorously, the bird-cage liner explained it away by reminding readers about margins of error and other statistical anomalies that can affect poll findings -- all valid points that the paper neglected to make during the Bush years.
This Week's 'Alpha Jackass' Award
"When we start using religion as a bludgeon in politics, we start questioning other people's faith, we start using religion to divide, instead of bring the country together, then I think we've got a problem." --Barack Obama, bludgeoning defenders of religious liberty who oppose his new contraception mandate
Campaign Trail: Spinning the Winning
By all appearances, Rick Santorum had an outstanding week. It began with Saturday's convincing win in Kansas and continued through Tuesday with narrow wins in Alabama and Mississippi -- states Newt Gingrich sorely needed to win to justify his continued presence in the race. Perhaps the bigger story is Mitt Romney's third place finish in the latter two states. Apparently his friendship with NASCAR team owners didn't translate into votes from NASCAR fans.
On the other hand, the media narrative isn't all there is to the story. Thanks to superior organization, Romney's very close third place finishes translated into a fair number of delegates. Adding wins in Hawaii, Guam, U.S. Virgin Islands and American Samoa, he actually padded his delegate lead this week. The Associated Press has his delegate count at 495 to Santorum's 252, with 1,144 needed to secure the nomination.
After his wins, Santorum took some justifiable shots at the supposedly "inevitable" Romney, who had to spend a lot of money for his showing. Supporters of the former Pennsylvania senator also increased their calls for Gingrich to drop out, arguing that it's already a two-man race. Indeed, the former speaker staked much of his campaign on winning in Georgia and much of the South, and he has thus far failed to do so outside of his home state and neighboring South Carolina. However, the delegate math makes it highly unlikely that either Gingrich or Santorum will win the nomination outright, though they can certainly continue to make it difficult for Romney.
Ron Paul, still with no wins and just 48 delegates under his belt, isn't going anywhere either. On the contrary, as blogger Ed Morrissey points out, "Ron Paul's campaign has worked hard to get its own people into the county and state conventions in order to swing the actual delegate allocations to Paul, and they have significant organizations in these states to push that strategy. Paul needs that not to win the nomination at a brokered convention -- no one thinks Paul can get the nod after having won no states -- but to push for his platform and to get a significant speaking slot, either for himself or his son, or both."
This Week's 'Braying Jackass' Award
"These [Republican] guys don't have a sense of the average folks out there. They don't know what it means to be middle class." --Joe Biden to 87 wealthy Democrats who paid a minimum of $10,000 per couple to attend that particular fundraiser
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New & Notable Legislation
Senators Mark Begich (D-AK) and Joe Manchin (D-WV) introduced S. 2188, the "National Right-to-Carry Reciprocity Act of 2012." The bill is the Senate version of H.R. 822, which passed the House last November by a vote of 272-154. It would permit any concealed-carry permit holder to carry a concealed handgun in any other state that also issues such permits. Illinois is the only state that has yet to acknowledge that the Second Amendment exists -- all 49 other states permit, to varying degrees, carrying a firearm.
From the Left: Voter ID Challenged
The Department of Justice unilaterally blocked a voter identification law in Texas, claiming it unjustly restricts minority voting rights as outlined in Section 5 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. This follows a similar action in December against South Carolina's voter ID law, which that state is currently fighting in federal court. The DOJ used statistical gymnastics to claim that the Lone Star State's law discriminates against Hispanics, claiming that Hispanics were 46.5 percent more likely than non-Hispanics to lack proper voter ID. This may seem to be a big difference, but the disparity is derived by comparing the 6.3 percent of Hispanic voters who don't have a driver's license to the 4.3 percent of non-Hispanics voters without them. Additionally, election ID cards in Texas may be obtained free of charge with the same amount of effort as it takes to obtain a library card or board an airplane, as Texas Governor Rick Perry pointed out.
While the Civil Rights Act gives the DOJ the power to review voter laws in the South post-Jim Crow, it has been almost 20 years since the DOJ has challenged one. Georgia passed a voter ID law in 2005 that the DOJ cleared, and Hispanic voter turnout in the state has increased 140 percent. However, the landscape has changed since the 2010 election. Widespread Republican victories on state and local levels produced a series of voter ID laws meant to curb the increasing level of voter fraud taking place among immigrant populations and in urban areas.
Meanwhile, a similar Wisconsin law was blocked because, in the words of Dane County Circuit Judge Richard Niess, it would "impermissibly eliminate the right of suffrage altogether for certain constitutionally qualified electors."
Recent actions by the Supreme Court have upheld Indiana's voter ID law and also expressed a strong dislike for Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act because it essentially places the burden on states to prove their innocence rather than on the DOJ in proving their guilt. This suggests that if the South Carolina, Texas and Wisconsin cases rise to that level of judicial review, the High Court might be sympathetic. That will take time, though, and it will certainly drag on past the 2012 elections, giving the DOJ all the time it needs.
Of course, the United Nations Human Rights Council is also looking into U.S. voter ID laws, so the whole matter will no doubt be resolved satisfactorily once the likes of China, Cuba, Libya and Saudi Arabia weigh in.
IRS Goes After the Tea Party
Dozens of Tea Party groups around the country that applied for nonprofit tax exempt status have received letters from the Internal Revenue Service demanding detailed information about the workings of their organizations. According to IRS rules, certain nonprofit organizations are allowed to have political expenses as long as active electioneering is not their primary activity. It is within the agency's right to question how the money collected by these organizations is spent, but the questionnaires received by the Tea Party groups are outrageously intrusive and probe into areas the IRS has no business investigating. Some of the questions include not just how many members a particular Tea Party group may have, but what the members' backgrounds are, who they associate with, and what is discussed at group meetings.
These questionnaires traditionally precede full-blown audits by the IRS that can cripple an organization's ability to function -- probably just what the government has in mind. The agency claims it's merely doing its job in a nonpartisan fashion, but no leftist nonprofits have reported receiving the same high level of attention. Jay Sekulow, an attorney with the American Center for Law and Justice, represents 20 Tea Party groups in a harassment case against the IRS. Sekulow reports that some of the applications for tax-exempt status have remained dormant at the agency for close to two years. The timing of the IRS follow-up, just months before a major election, is curious at best.
Economy
Gas Prices: Chu, Task Forces and Taxes
Energy Secretary Steven Chu has been spending his time lately walking back comments he made about gas prices in 2008. He said then, "Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe," which is roughly $10 per gallon today. In congressional testimony this week, however, Chu said, "I no longer share that view." It is an election year, after all, but even still, Chu wouldn't say he regretted his 2008 comments. "Let me not comment on that," he deflected. We think it remains clear that the administration wants high gas prices to serve their agenda to increase the use of alternative fuels. The trick is keeping that part of the plan hidden.
To that end, the president says that while "we don't have a silver bullet" to fix gas prices, he does have a solution: "[W]e've set up a task force to look into speculation to make sure that folks aren't taking advantage of the situation on the global oil markets." Behold the brilliance.
Don't tell Obama that we need more supply, either. "[D]o not tell me that we're not drilling. We're drilling all over this country," he jeered. "There are a few spots we're not drilling. We're not drilling in the national mall. We're not drilling at your house." However, most drilling is taking place on private land, and, according to the Institute for Energy Research, fossil fuel production on federal lands is at a nine-year low. Even Obama tacitly acknowledges the supply problem when he floats the idea of tapping the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. That's a cynical political move and an improper use of the reserve, but a tacit admission nonetheless.
It's also possible that taxes have something to do with high prices. We know that doesn't fit with his re-election narrative, but as it turns out, oil companies pay more than their "fair share." In fact, the Tax Foundation estimates that between 1981 and 2008, oil and gas companies paid more in taxes than they earned in profits. Just remember, though, the oil companies are the greedy ones.
What can be done to lower gas prices?
Income Redistribution: Picking (More) Winners and Losers
On the surface, Barack Obama's idea of spending $1 billion for a National Network for Manufacturing Innovation (NNMI) sounds plausible, but the details tell the real story. To kick things off, the president will bypass Congress and immediately spend $45 million -- originally intended for the departments of Defense and Commerce and others -- on a "pilot institute" on innovation with the exact location yet to be determined. We suspect the location could depend on the need to pick up a swing state's electoral votes.
Of course, the push will be for manufacturing that focuses on "green" technology, so industries that don't create politically correct widgets need not apply. After being burned by continuing scandals such as the Department of Energy's subsidies to Solyndra and at least 19 other politically correct companies, as well as the fallout from a $10 million award to Philips Corporation for making an "affordable" $50 LED light bulb to replace the 79-cent incandescent variety, it appears the government will use the NNMI as a handy scapegoat for more failures certain to come.
Critics point out that it's another case of government interference in the market, but as Pam Villarreal, a senior fellow with the National Center for Policy Analysis, noted, "I'm a little bit confused that he hasn't renewed the research and development tax credit [in the FY2013 budget]. ... Why have a new initiative when you haven't extended the existing ones you have?" The answer is quite simple: The administration can't control who qualifies for the tax credit, but they get to pick the sites where NNMI will locate and who qualifies. Call it another innovation in command and control economics.
'Buffett Rule' Doesn't Apply to Buffett Subsidiary
Billionaire Warren Buffett gladly lent his name to Barack Obama's "soak the rich" tax proposal. Known as the "Buffett Rule," it says that millionaires ought to pay no less than 30 percent in taxes. When it comes to Buffett's own corporate empire, however, he sure likes to hang on to his money. Last November, NetJets Inc., owned by Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway holding company, contended it was due a rebate of $642.7 million in imposed taxes, interest and penalties. It argued that a federal rule assessing a ticket tax to NetJets clients didn't apply. Last week the IRS struck back, countersuing the company for $366 million.
While it's quite possible NetJets isn't, as the IRS sees things, guilty until proven innocent, this seems like hypocrisy on Buffet's part. He advocates that people of his station pay their "fair share," but the business owner in him is fighting tooth and nail -- and paying lobbyists quite handsomely -- to avoid what he sees as "unnecessary" taxes. Then again, he's getting a taste of what the rest of us have to put up with on a smaller scale when we run afoul of the tax man.
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Teach your children (and yourself) about the Presidential Election process with this board game!
What a great way to help younger Patriots understand the process our nation follows to elect a president! First you'll campaign for delegate votes, then go for electoral votes. Along the way, you'll answer questions on the presidency, the Constitution, U.S. history, and geography. Four play levels means kids and adults can "run for office" together. Two to four players, ages 10 and up. Made in the U.S.A.
Security
Warfront With Jihadistan: U.S. Soldier Kills 16 Afghans
The situation in Afghanistan is deteriorating rapidly. Just weeks after U.S. troops accidentally burned terrorist-defaced Korans, setting off the usual outrage, rioting and killing among adherents of the Religion of Peace™, a U.S. soldier threw napalm on the fire allegedly by methodically murdering 16 Afghan civilians last Sunday. Nine of the dead were children and three were women. Eleven of the victims were from the same family. The shooter, reportedly a staff sergeant with two children of his own at home, was assigned to a Special Operations Forces detachment that, ironically and sadly, was training local self-defense forces to protect Afghan villagers from the Taliban. The soldier, whose identity hasn't been disclosed, surrendered and is now in U.S. custody. Investigators say that alcohol played a role in the shootings and that the soldier had seen a close friend grievously wounded by an IED the day before.
Naturally, the Taliban vowed revenge for the murders, and unfortunately the incident lent credence to their claim that foreign troops are callous killers of Muslims. The Taliban failed to note their own frequent mass murders of Muslims. Barack Obama, in the first of his many -- and, in this case, actually appropriate -- apologies, called Afghan President Hamid Karzai to express his "shock and sadness" and to make clear that the U.S. will "hold fully accountable anyone responsible." He added, "We're heartbroken over the loss of innocent life."
Needless to say, this event hasn't helped relations between the U.S. and Afghanistan, nor will it help to stop the erosion of support at home for the Afghan war. Karzai is calling for U.S. troops to pull back to U.S. bases, and the Taliban is suspending negotiations (not that those were going anywhere). Here at home, even Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich joined others in Washington who claim it's time for the U.S. to quit, saying that the U.S. mission is "not doable" and it's time "to back off that region." However, the U.S. ambassador warned against leaving Afghanistan earlier than planned, and both Obama and visiting British Prime Minister David Cameron ruled out any dramatic changes to the late 2014 withdrawal date.
The diminished support here at home and the erosion of trust, such as it is, between U.S. and Afghan forces will only increase the risks our troops face. This matter could incite further incidents of Afghan soldiers turning on and killing U.S. troops, as well as emboldening Taliban fighters. The now-muddled Afghan mission and the approaching withdrawal date will also affect troop morale, which can only further raise the risks. The U.S. outlook for Afghanistan is very grim, indeed.
Department of Military Correctness: Enterprise's Final Deployment
The aircraft carrier USS Enterprise (CVN-65) departed on its 22nd and final deployment this week. When the world's first nuclear aircraft carrier returns later this year, it will be deactivated and eventually decommissioned, marking the end of more than 50 years in service. We certainly hope CVN-65 doesn't share the same fate as the previous Enterprise -- the World War II carrier CV-6 was dismantled for scrap. There are possible plans to preserve the island of the carrier, but nothing is finalized.
With the decommissioning, the Navy will no longer have a ship named "Enterprise," unless that name is bestowed upon CVN-80. The unfortunate tradition now is to name carriers after undeserving politicians -- the USS Ronald Reagan being an exception. Jimmy Carter and John Murtha happen to serve as the most offensive examples. Indeed, ship names have become little more than political cookies. We mean no disrespect, but naming a ship the USS Gabrielle Giffords after the former Arizona Democrat representative is not terribly appropriate. She has bravely persevered in her recovery after being shot in the head last year, but how about a ship named after a Founding Father first?
What are appropriate names for naval ships?
Culture
'Non Compos Mentis': The Obama Flag
The Democrat headquarters in Lake County, Florida, flew an American flag that was a disrespectful insult to our nation and to the veterans who have given life and limb defending it. The flag bore a picture of Obama in the blue field instead of the 50 stars. The counterfeit flag flew just below Old Glory until local veterans complained. A small group of veterans took pictures and gave a copy of the federal flag code to Nancy Hurlbert, chairman of the Lake County Democratic Party.
She says the flag flew without complaint since she received it as a gift two months ago, and she not only didn't understand the complaint, but also implied that is was based on racism. "It leads me to believe that it's not about the flag," she said. "Certain elements cannot accept Barack Obama as president." Though Hurlbert took the flag down, she wouldn't promise to not fly it again. First, she said, "We want to find out what our legal rights are." Pardon us, but we believe the veterans already supplied that information to her.
To add insult to injury, the flag, which is available online for $12.95, is made in China. We wonder if leftists would be upset at its burning, or if that would be considered free speech.
Share some words of wisdom with Florida Democrats.
Village Academic Curriculum: Heating Up the Classroom
Once upon a time, science class meant studying things such as biology, gravity and the speed of light. Now, if some groups have their way, science classes across the country will become labs for developing global warming alarmists. Next month, several national organizations -- including the National Research Council, part of the congressionally chartered National Academies -- will unveil science education standards that teach as fact manmade global warming. As The Wall Street Journal reports, the groups "are working from a document they drew up last year that says climate change is caused in part by manmade events, such as the burning of fossil fuels" and that "rising temperatures could have 'large consequences' for the planet." In other words, no debating theory, no questioning the source, no examining all of the evidence, just calling a political position "settled science."
That's because the "proof" of man-induced global warming is hardly settled science. In fact, the global warming camp can't even meet its own standards for what constitutes reliable evidence that the earth is heating up -- namely that "n order to separate human-caused global warming from the 'noise' of purely natural climate fluctuations, temperature records must be at least 17 years long." Not only have temperatures not "warmed" over the last 17 years but they've actually been dropping since 2005. Naturally, climate alarmists have no answer for this; hence, their need to propagate their indoctrination of our school-age children. Get ready -- the debate over global warming guidelines in the classroom is about to get hot, even if the climate isn't.
Administration to Defend Mt. Soledad
In a rare move to defend religious liberty, the Obama administration decided to defend the Mt. Soledad War Memorial, which includes a 29-foot cross. The Justice Department filed briefs Wednesday asking the Supreme Court to overturn the Ninth Circuit Court's 2011 ruling that the memorial is an unconstitutional "establishment" of religion. Frankly, we're rather shocked to find ourselves in total agreement with something written by the Obama DOJ: "The decision below, if permitted to stand, calls for the government to tear down a memorial cross that has stood for 58 years as a tribute to fallen service members. Nothing in the Establishment Clause compels that result, because the Establishment Clause does not require eradication of all religious symbols in the public realm." Thirty-four members of Congress filed a separate legal brief in support of the memorial. We have followed this case for several years, and we hope the Supreme Court takes it up and acknowledges the First Amendment.
Faith and Family: 'Wrongful Birth'
An Oregon couple won a wrongful birth lawsuit last Friday and was awarded nearly $3 million. What is "wrongful birth," you may ask? The couple convinced a jury that their daughter should not have been born because she has Down syndrome, which the woman's doctor assured her was not the case while the girl was in utero. The couple contends that they would have aborted their daughter and now face the financial burden of raising her. It is appalling that a jury voted 12-0 and awarded this couple $3 million for the admission that they would have killed their child if they had only known. Granted, raising special needs children can be expensive, but we mourn the fact that the culture of death is so pervasive -- at least in Oregon -- that a human being can be legally declared to have been wrongfully born.
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http://hotair.com/archives/2012/03/19/bristol-palin-to-obama-when-should-i-expect-your-call/
Bristol Palin to Obama: When should I expect your call?
posted at 1:20 pm on March 19, 2012 by Tina Korbe
Like her mother, Bristol Palin has been on the receiving end of incredibly cruel criticisms. The negativity has run the gamut from passing remarks about a lack of intelligence to hateful indictments of the mistakes she’s made (and earnestly attempted to rectify). But perhaps no one has been more unkind to the Palins than Barack Obama’s million-dollar man, Bill Maher. Maher’s mean-spirited, unrepeatable remarks about Sarah Palin have been well-documented, but he also once said Bristol Palin was “f—-d so hard a baby fell out.” Who says that sort of thing about an unwed teenage mother? Who says that sort of thing about anyone?
Bristol, though, truly not “afraid of life,” has now echoed her mother’s call to the president to reject the money Bill Maher donated to Obama’s Super PAC. Obama might not technically have control over when and where and how “his” Super PAC spends its money, but he could publicly disavow Maher — or reach out to the conservative women who’ve been insulted by him.
In a post on her new blog and in clear, sincere language, Bristol appeals to the president’s highest, noblest instincts — most especially his instinct to protect his daughters, the instinct he cited as the reason he felt compelled to call Sandra Fluke to apologize for Rush’s insults. She writes:
If Maher talked about Malia and Sasha that way, you’d return his dirty money and the Secret Service would probably have to restrain you. After all, I’ve always felt you understood my plight more than most because your mom was a teenager. That’s why you stood up for me when you were campaigning against Sen. McCain and my mom — you said vicious attacks on me should be off limits.
Yet I wonder if the Presidency has changed you. Now that you’re in office, it seems you’re only willing to defend certain women. You’re only willing to take a moral stand when you know your liberal supporters will stand behind you.
But…
What if you did something radical and wildly unpopular with your base and took a stand against the denigration of all women… even if they’re just single moms? Even if they’re Republicans?
What if?
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http://pjmedia.com/blog/the-lefts-long-time-war-on-women/?singlepage=true
The Left’s Long-Time War on Women
Misogyny and male chauvinism run deep in the roots of the modern Left.
by
Rand Simberg
Bio
March 18, 2012 - 11:30 am
An evergreen guide to what the Left is doing or plans to do is to listen to what they accuse their political opponents of. Along those lines, incandescent in its projection, cynicism, and hypocrisy is the latest mantra emanating from the Democrats of the “Republican War On Women,” based on nothing more than some crude comments (since apologized for) by a talk-show host aimed at a Democrat feminist activist who thinks that the world owes her free (and expensive) contraception and, moreover, that it should be done in violation of the religious conscience of Catholics. Of course, they don’t want their demagoguery to be distracted by the annoying reality that their own misogyny and assault on women is much more virulent, and has been going on for much longer.
It should be shocking, by the conventional narrative, that the White House of a “liberal” president would be a hostile work environment for women, but it is not at all a surprise to anyone familiar with the history of the Democrats and the Left, going back at least to the 1960s, when a prominent Democrat politician got a pass from the media for abandoning a young woman (possibly pregnant by him) to drown in his car. The same man went on to later fame as the top slice of bread in a “waitress sandwich,” and yet was so lionized by the Left that not that long ago, at the time of his death, a woman(!) wrote that Mary Jo Kopechne might have been happy to undergo the terror as her lungs filled with the brackish water of Martha’s Vineyard had she only known what a great legislator he would turn out to be.
To see similar hypocritical Leftist misogyny, we need only go back to the last time a Democrat was in the White House. Whenever a woman came forward with allegations of inappropriate sexual conduct by Bill Clinton, the response of the Clinton defenders, both in and out of the media, was to attack her credibility, character, and virtue. Advisor James Carville famously said of Paula Jones (the young Arkansas state employee whom Clinton as governor had his state police guard procure to his hotel room for the purpose of orally pleasuring him), “Drag $100 bills through trailer parks, there’s no telling what you’ll find.” Evan Thomas of Newsweek dutifully complemented the slander by declaring her on national television “just some sleazy woman with big hair coming out of the trailer parks,” though he later was compelled to apologize in print. (One wonders how residents of trailer parks felt about that, but I guess empathy for them is for the little people.) When Kathleen Willey accused the president of groping her in the White House, and was physically threatened for her trouble, feminist icon and (former) scourge of sexual harassers Gloria Steinem said that it was no problem — he was entitled to a freebie, after which Cathy Young of Reason magazine reported on “the death of sexual harassment.”
It got worse. As the Paula Jones lawsuit progressed, and the president committed acts of obstruction of justice (federal felonies) by perjury and subornation of perjury through threats and bribes, the White House was prepared to go after Monica Lewinsky, the woman about whom he engaged in such obstruction. She was bribed with jobs, and urged to in turn suborn perjury from her confidante Linda Tripp, by implying threats against her family. If the incriminating blue dress hadn’t turned up, their plan was to continue to cover up and lie, and accuse Lewinsky of being a crazy stalker. The White House orchestrated the leak of the personnel files of Pentagon employee Linda Tripp, the only person in the entire fiasco who told the truth, in an attempt (sadly quite successful) to discredit her. This included a mistaken felony arrest record that had been sealed since she was a teenager. She was vilified and maligned in the media, with late-night comedians mocking her physical appearance. It’s unlikely that many of these people were either conservatives or Republicans.
Again, no one familiar with the history of the Left should be surprised by any of this (other than perhaps the blatant hypocrisy, aided and abetted by the ever-compliant press). Misogyny and male chauvinism run deep in the roots of the modern Left. Many think that the gender feminist movement of the seventies, started by Gloria Steinem and others, was a reaction against the conventional culture of the fifties and early sixties, with its casual assertions of male superiority and paternalism (on literally dramatic display in the AMC television series Mad Men, which also shows how the attitudes evolved through the decade). But it was at least as much, if not more, a reaction against the male chauvinist pigs of the so-called New Left on campus in the mid-to-late sixties, in which the men would write up the manifestos and plan the demonstrations, expecting nothing more of the women than to satisfy their appetites by cooking for and copulating with them. Basically, it was barefoot (or naked) in the kitchen, hopefully without the pregnancy, but for which abortions were required in the event of accidents.
The attitudes of Leftist sexist men were well documented by the women’s movement:
Women’s developing networks ran into conflict with the alternative media almost from the outset. In 1969, Spazm, the Laura Murra paper mentioned earlier, had focused attention on sexism practiced by the alternative press. Reporting the Radical Media Conference in Ann Arbor in July of 1969, Spazm published the Conference’s resolution on “Women and the Underground Press.” It expressed the rejection of the sexism in underground papers by the women who worked on them and by other women who were irritated by their overt disrespect for women. Although the best known of these underground papers was The Village Voice, begun in New York in 1955, the number of others had increased dramatically by 1970 to over 450 such papers. While most of them purported to believe in female liberation, they nonetheless included sexist advertisements, photographs, cartoons, and articles. San Francisco’s Open City printed photographs of a woman carrying a sign stating “Every Woman Secretly Wants to be Raped.”
It resulted in a takeover of some of the publications by the women:
The February 7, 1970 issue of Rat included the Rat‘s most classic piece, Robin Morgan’s “Goodbye to All That.” Goodbye, she said, to the pornographic cover of Rat, to the personal ads, the little jokes. “No more, brothers. No more well-meaning ignorance, no more co-option, no more assuming that this thing we are fighting for is the same: one revolution under man, with liberty and justice for all.”
The politics of radicalizing academia was similarly sexist:
The issue of the role of women in the [American Studies] Association was more controversial than that of electing radicals and students to the Council. In 1969 Betty Chmaj was the only woman on a council of twenty-seven. This reflected not only the attitude of the national office in Philadelphia and the status of women in universities, but also the practice of the regional chapters in every part of the country, for in 1969 most of the council members were elected by the chapters. Chmaj almost singlehandedly forced ASA to face the “woman question.” It was not easy. Many of the men who called themselves radical did not think the issue of discrimination against women in the Association was a concern of high priority, and the ASA, like all professional associations of this period, had its share of male chauvinists and womanizers. One could say of Radical American Studies what Rayna Rapp said of her male colleagues at the University of Michigan: “They had all this empathy for the Vietnamese, and for black Americans, but they didn’t have much empathy for the women in their lives; not the women they slept with, not the women they shared office space with, not the women they fought at demonstrations with.”
[Emphasis mine]
Of course, the misogynist tradition of Leftist protest remains alive and well, as we’ve seen over the past few months. There has been no recorded incident of rape at any Tea Party rally, but no Occupy protest seems complete without at least one.
So when you see a White House staffed with people nurtured in such a radical environment, as Barack Obama himself was, it shouldn’t be surprising at all to see the old Leftist misogyny and sexism (and lies and projection) continue. It’s in the movement’s DNA. So when they talk about a war on women, it should be pretty tough for anyone knowledgeable to take them seriously. Unfortunately, that category probably doesn’t yet include the mainstream media.
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http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/forum/story/2012-03-18/ron-paul-libertarians-science/53617108/1
What is it about Ron Paul that so many people find intellectually appealing? Perhaps it is his frankness and candor, a rare trait in politicians. But I think it goes far beyond that. Paul — and libertarian philosophy in general — tackles government policy the same way a researcher tackles an experiment.
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http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/john-edwards-soccer-mom-madam-anna-gristina-hook-prostitute-2007-report-article-1.1048795
Former Sen. John Edwards allegedly used the services of a call girl employed by accused Soccer Mom Madam Anna Gristina while he was running for President, according to a report.
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/john-edwards-soccer-mom-madam-anna-gristina-hook-prostitute-2007-report-article-1.1048795
Someone who could actually use 3,000 dollars a year for condoms!
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http://cnsnews.com/news/article/sandra-fluke-says-she-didnt-know-target-sells-birth-control-pills-9
(CNSNews.com) – Thirty-year-old Georgetown Law student Sandra Fluke, who told a House Steering and Policy Committee hearing convened by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi last month that contraception can cost a student $3,000 during law school, told CNSNews.com on Tuesday that she did not know that the Target store 3 miles from the Georgetown Law campus sells a month's supply of birth control pills for just $9.
Target advertises the $9-per-month birth control pills on its website, and CNSNews.com confirmed and reconfirmed that the $9 pills were in fact available at the Target near Georgetown Law.
Is there any guy out there that doesn't throw up in his mouth a little when looking at her? Does she go to a feminist hairstylist that specializes in unattractive looks?
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Let the callous, insensitive, liberal jokes begin about Dick Cheney receiving a heart.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/24/dick-cheney-heart-transplant_n_1377487.html
Tomorrow we can find out what Leno, Letterman, Jon Stewart and the rest think about it.
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Let the callous, insensitive, liberal jokes begin about Dick Cheney receiving a heart.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/24/dick-cheney-heart-transplant_n_1377487.html
Tomorrow we can find out what Leno, Letterman, Jon Stewart and the rest think about it.
I'm sure it'll be kind and civil, as the left always is.
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"I'm sure it'll be kind and civil, as the left always is."
Yes, Bill Maher asking for our prayers for a speedy and successful recovery. No one would joke about heart trouble and life-risking surgery, would they?
To be fair I have to ponder what my comment would be if Joe Biden had just undergone a brain transplant.
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Yes, Bill Maher asking for our prayers for a speedy and successful recovery. No one would joke about heart trouble and life-risking surgery, would they?
No, they are too busy blaming Limbaugh, Palin and Santorum for the Treyvon Martin shooting.
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http://dailycaller.com/2012/03/25/new-civility-twitter-explodes-with-cheney-hate-following-heart-transplant/
Unexpected! I note that no one called Cheney a slut, so Rachel is fine with that.
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http://www.rollcall.com/issues/57_115/Administration-Staffers-Head-Out-the-Revolving-Door-213388-1.html?ET=rollcall:e12587:80133681a:&st=email&pos=eam
"Just as President Barack Obama has intensified his anti-K Street rhetoric with the November elections in view, several of his administration’s senior aides have decamped for jobs along the influence corridor.
And many more are eyeing such a career move, sources say, despite Obama’s effort to curb the revolving door between government and advocacy."
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"Just as President Barack Obama has intensified his anti-K Street rhetoric with the November elections in view, several of his administration’s senior aides have decamped for jobs along the influence corridor."
Yes, like a former Speaker of the House taking millions from Freddie Mac. If we capable of giving a resounding NO to the requests of the advocacy groups, it wouldn't matter who they hired.
My own stone age view of equal protection under that law is that whether you are Solyndra, Chrysler, Tiger Stadium or Goldman Sachs, you get the same treatment under the law as everyone else. Imagine that.
Another law is not the answer. Just ask Gingrich. He wasn't a lobbyist, he was a historian.
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'Jim' 'Treacher'@jtLOL
If you think demanding free birth control entitles you to speak, but actually having the kids and raising them doesn't, #YouMightBeALiberal.
Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2012/04/12/hilary-rosen-provides-a-valuable-lesson-in-how-not-to-apologize/
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May be of some interest - http://www.dailypaul.com/225552/obama-sold-vote-count-to-company-in-spain-linked-to-soros
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May be of some interest - http://www.dailypaul.com/225552/obama-sold-vote-count-to-company-in-spain-linked-to-soros
No offense, but the article lacks facts. It's a rumor mill.
There is no evidence that that Soros owns SCTYL
Further, there is no evidence that the CEO of SCTYL was ever a "A MAJOR MULTIMILLION CONTRIBUTOR TO OBAMA'S CAMPAIGN IN 2008".
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Just getting back in country. I'll respond later. Thanks. Saw it and wanted to see what others had heard if anything.
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Calif could learn something from the other 49. It used to be the other way around.
"the typical homeowner's bill would be some $700 higher without Mr. Walker's collective-bargaining overhaul and budget cuts"
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304432704577348080124322186.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_AboveLEFTTop
A Wisconsin Vindication Excerpt, more at the link...
Property tax bills fall as Scott Walker's reforms start to kick in.
The public employee unions and other liberals are confident that Wisconsin voters will turn out Governor Scott Walker in a recall election later this year, but not so fast. That may turn out to be as wrong as some of their other predictions as Badger State taxpayers start to see tangible benefits from Mr. Walker's reforms—such as the first decline in statewide property taxes in a dozen years.
On Monday Mr. Walker's office released new data that show the property tax bill for the median home fell by 0.4% in 2011, as reported by Wisconsin's municipalities. Property taxes, which are the state's largest revenue source and mainly fund K-12 schools, have risen every year since 1998—by 43% overall. The state budget office estimates that the typical homeowner's bill would be some $700 higher without Mr. Walker's collective-bargaining overhaul and budget cuts.
...
The real gains will grow as local school districts continue repairing and rationalizing their budgets using the tools Mr. Walker gave them. Those include the ability to renegotiate perk-filled teacher contracts and requiring government workers to contribute more than 0% to their pensions. A year ago amid their sit-ins and other protests, the unions said such policies would lead to the decline and fall of civilization, but the only things that are falling are tax collections.
The political lesson is that attempts to modernize government are always controversial, but support usually builds over time as the public comes to appreciate the benefits of structural change that tames the drivers of a status quo that includes ever-higher spending and taxes. The Wisconsin recall donnybrook in June will test whether voters value their own bottom lines more than the political power of unions.
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Karl Rove was writing about Romney's upcoming decision with the ususal advice, but this part is historically notable:
"This was brought home to me in 2000, when then-Gov. George W. Bush was strongly leaning toward picking Dick Cheney as his VP. He knew I was opposed and invited me to make the case against his idea. I came to our meeting armed with eight political objections. Mr. Bush heard me out but with a twist: I explained my objections with Mr. Cheney sitting, mute and expressionless, next to the governor.
The next day, Mr. Bush called to say I was right. There would be real political problems if he chose Mr. Cheney. So solve them."
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304811304577365870484193362.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop
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http://www.theblaze.com/stories/one-of-the-most-despicable-things-you-can-do-what-made-arianna-huffington-take-romneys-side-over-obama/
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Wouldn't we all be better off?
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-oe-schwarzenegger-gop-needs-to-be-more-inclusiv-20120506,0,178448.story
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The piece would have a chance at substance if he were to actually mention what the areas of disagreement were , , , and were he a man of respect as Governor.
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Inclusiveness for a political party is to include people who mostly share your principles and values. The former Gov has it backwards. Republicans and conservatives generously included him as electable in the 'big tent' theme. He got elected and he spit on them. What governing principles does Arnold Schwarzenegger share with American conservatives? He has a record now.
What a sick and perverted political joke it is to imply that anything to the right of his unprincipled, big government failure is ideological purity. His record makes the case for the empty book I call: The core, uncompromising principles of moderates.
The party included Bob Dole the tax hiker, the compassionate conservative guy who created a new entitlement while failing to reform any old ones. Republicans went along with a Ted Kennedy Education bill in a reachout, with CRAp out of fairness and with TARP in a manmade crisis. Now we picked Romney, and liberals like AS want us to turn further leftward. People like Arlen Specter made that same argument. How's he doing?
Arnold, there already is a party to our left. Join them. And tell them to turn further rightward, to be inclusive and to stop being such ideologues.
Republicans should have a trademark and take back the 'R' when people like Nixon and Schwarzenegger govern like they did.
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http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/may/15/dream-act-students-sue-stop-senate-filibuster/
Nonsense... Constitution explicitly gives the chambers in Congress the power to make their own rules.
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1) Only in America could politicians talk about the greed of the rich at a $40,000 a plate campaign fundraising event.
2) Only in America could people claim that the government still discriminates against black Americans when the US elected a black President, we have a black Attorney General, and about 18% of the federal workforce is black, while only 12% of the population is black.
3) Only in America could we have had the two people most responsible for our tax code, Timothy Geithner, the head of the Treasury Department, and Charles Rangel who once ran the Ways and Means Committee, BOTH turn out to be tax cheats who are in favor of higher taxes.
4) Only in America can we have Islamic terrorists deliberately kill innocent people in the name of Allah, and a media react by fretting that Muslims may be harmed by the backlash.
5) Only in America would we make people who want to become legal American citizens wait for years in their home countries and pay tens of thousands of dollars for the privilege, while our politicians openly discuss letting anyone who snuck in illegally just become American citizens.
6) Only in America could the people who believe in balancing the budget and sticking by the country's Constitution be labeled "extremists."
7) Only in America could you be legally required to present your driver's license to buy alcohol, but not to vote.
8) Only in America could people demand the government investigate whether oil companies are gouging the public because the price of gasoline went up, when the return on equity invested in a major US oil company (Marathon Oil) is less than half that of a company making tennis shoes (Nike.)
9) Only in America could the government collect more tax dollars from the people than any nation in recorded history, yet manage to run over $1 TRILLION in debt last year by spending $7 million PER MINUTE, then complain that it doesn't have nearly enough money.
10) Only in America could the rich people who pay 86% of all income taxes be accused of not paying "their fair share" by people who don't pay any income taxes at all.
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One would think we were in a country whose media was controlled like say a communist/nazi nation.
Yet we have a "free" press.
What does one make of this paradox?
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I doubt forums like this one exist in such countries , , ,
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Clinton is from the Democrat tribe. Gingrich is from the Republican tribe. Brock is from the radical liberal tribe. Santorum is from the strict conservative tribe.
Well,
I am not sure "tribal" is the explanation. I think it goes more to the individual peculiarities of individual human beings and that tribalism is just a means for us to get what we all seem to covet in varying degrees and in some ways.
Nor do I subscribe to the last conclusion in the last paragraph of this essay even though it includes a quote from John Stuart Mill who if I am not mistaken he had one of the highest estimated IQ's in history.
In any case:
****Evolution Explains Why Politics Is So Tribal
Evolution helps to explain why parties are so tribal and politics so divisive
By Michael Shermer | June 13, 2012 |
Read More »
Which of these two narratives most closely matches your political perspective?
Once upon a time people lived in societies that were unequal and oppressive, where the rich got richer and the poor got exploited. Chattel slavery, child labor, economic inequality, racism, sexism and discriminations of all types abounded until the liberal tradition of fairness, justice, care and equality brought about a free and fair society. And now conservatives want to turn back the clock in the name of greed and God.
Once upon a time people lived in societies that embraced values and tradition, where people took personal responsibility, worked hard, enjoyed the fruits of their labor and through charity helped those in need. Marriage, family, faith, honor, loyalty, sanctity, and respect for authority and the rule of law brought about a free and fair society. But then liberals came along and destroyed everything in the name of “progress” and utopian social engineering.
Although we may quibble over the details, political science research shows that the great majority of people fall on a left-right spectrum with these two grand narratives as bookends. And the story we tell about ourselves reflects the ancient tradition of “once upon a time things were bad, and now they’re good thanks to our party” or “once upon a time things were good, but now they’re bad thanks to the other party.” So consistent are we in our beliefs that if you hew to the first narrative, I predict you read the New York Times, listen to progressive talk radio, watch CNN, are pro-choice and anti-gun, adhere to separation of church and state, are in favor of universal health care, and vote for measures to redistribute wealth and tax the rich. If you lean toward the second narrative, I predict you read the Wall Street Journal, listen to conservative talk radio, watch Fox News, are pro-life and anti–gun control, believe America is a Christian nation that should not ban religious expressions in the public sphere, are against universal health care, and vote against measures to redistribute wealth and tax the rich.
Why are we so predictable and tribal in our politics? In his remarkably enlightening book, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion (Pantheon, 2012), University of Virginia psychologist Jonathan Haidt argues that to both liberals and conservatives, members of the other party are not just wrong; they are righteously wrong—morally suspect and even dangerous. “Our righteous minds made it possible for human beings,” Haidt argues, “to produce large cooperative groups, tribes, and nations without the glue of kinship. But at the same time, our righteous minds guarantee that our cooperative groups will always be cursed by moralistic strife.” Thus, he shows, morality binds us together into cohesive groups but blinds us to the ideas and motives of those in other groups.
The evolutionary Rubicon that our species crossed hundreds of thousands of years ago that led to the moral hive mind was a result of “shared intentionality,” which is “the ability to share mental representations of tasks that two or more of [our ancestors] were pursuing together. For example, while foraging, one person pulls down a branch while the other plucks the fruit, and they both share the meal.” Chimps tend not to display this behavior, Haidt says, but “when early humans began to share intentions, their ability to hunt, gather, raise children, and raid their neighbors increased exponentially. Everyone on the team now had a mental representation of the task, knew that his or her partners shared the same representation, knew when a partner had acted in a way that impeded success or that hogged the spoils, and reacted negatively to such violations.” Examples of modern political violations include Democrat John Kerry being accused of being a “flip-flopper” for changing his mind and Republican Mitt Romney declaring himself “severely conservative” when it was suggested he was wishy-washy in his party affiliation.
Our dual moral nature leads Haidt to conclude that we need both liberals and conservatives in competition to reach a livable middle ground. As philosopher John Stuart Mill noted a century and a half ago: “A party of order or stability, and a party of progress or reform, are both necessary elements of a healthy state of political life.”****
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No not Ed. The other idiot:
http://obamaattackdog.com/
Yes I know some will start with calls that this is sexist, anti-woman (or the "war on women), or anti-semitic etc, etc.
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Woof All:
I would like to mention a pet peeve of mine. It concerns the use of the terms "Red" and "Blue".
Throughout the world, Red is the color of the Left, communism, socialism, progressivism, deficits, and income losses. Blue is the color of the Right and conservatism. This used to include the USA. For example I clearly remember that when Reagan was elected, the color for the Rep states on the map was BLUE.
Yet somewhere along the way (I forget exactly when) my notion is that some progressive slicksters high up in the pravda food change decided to change who was Red and who was Blue in order to evade the connotations of the color Red for the Dems/Progressives.
The Reps, being as stupid as they so often are, didn't even realize.
So, I would like to conclude with the humble request that here on this forum we do not use the term Red to mean Republican/Conservative and Blue to mean Democrat/Liberal.
Thank you,
Marc
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A fair amount written on Wikipedia on the issue. The assignment of the red vs blue state to Rep and Crat parties respectively seems to have become a permanent label in 2000. Crafty I would agree there is a huge suspicion about left wing media seemingly assigning red to the right when in fact certainly there is the left wing socialist/marxist/communist ties to the color red, Red from the Soviet Russian flag, "Red" communist China etc. While each party is affiliated with these respective colors as being done now is mentioned in Wikipedia as "criticism", the perception given is that this was more or less incidental or a random event.
Yellow and purple colors have also been used.
But I agree with you - it is HARD to believe this was somehow an accident or random choice - and now the media seems to have taken up the mantra in unison branding the parties with these colors as though it fits, or have always been that way:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_states_and_blue_states#Origins_of_the_color_scheme
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I'm not a big fan of recalls either......
___________________
latimes.com
Op-Ed
Goldberg: The folly of recall elections
Recalls are a lousy way to punish failure -- or, in Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's case, success -- in implementing political agendas.
Jonah Goldberg
June 5, 2012
It should surprise no one that I'm opposed to the recall of Scott Walker, the Wisconsin governor whose fate will be decided Tuesday. But that's only in part because I support what he's been trying to do in the Badger State. I'm also against recalls as a matter of principle.
In 2003, I was one of the few conservatives opposed to the recall of Gray Davis, arguably the worst California governor in modern memory.
Davis didn't deserve to stay in office, but the voters of California deserved to keep him. Democracy depends on accountability, not just for individual politicians but for their parties and programs.
As I noted in 2003, former New York Mayor Ed Koch summed up the principle nicely. During the disastrous tenure of his successor, David Dinkins, Koch was asked whether he would run again. Koch replied: "No! The people threw me out, and now the people must be punished."
That logic applies even more for recalls. If California had had its fiscal reckoning in 2004 or 2005, the state — and the country — would be much better prepared to deal with its economic problems than it is now. The Democratic Party in general, and the public sector unions in particular, would have been held accountable for their manifest failures, and instead of replacing Davis with a nominal Republican, voters would have been given a clearer choice.
This isn't to say that both parties deserve equal shares of blame. Davis' successor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, at least tried to break the union stranglehold on state government with his 2005 referendums. But he failed, thanks in no small part to the determination of government unions doing whatever it took to retain power. The California Teachers Assn., for example, spent $57 million defeating Schwarzenegger's reforms, even mortgaging its headquarters in Sacramento for the effort.
There's constant caterwauling these days about the need for Republicans to become more moderate, more socially liberal, more focused on pragmatic solutions to our country's problems.
That's what California had in Schwarzenegger, a proud Republican of the Nixon-Rockefeller persuasion, married to a Kennedy no less. And California voters chewed him up and spit him out, preferring to stay on the destructive course set by public sector unions and their interest group allies.
Wisconsin's governor is no Schwarzenegger. Walker ran as a full-spectrum conservative promising to take on the political machine. "I was the original'tea party'in Wisconsin," he declared in 2010. The effort to remove Walker from office is not an attempt to hold him accountable for his failures — as it was with Gray Davis — but to punish him for his successes.
Walker has turned a deficit into a projected surplus while cutting property taxes. The state economy seems to have turned a corner, posting modest job gains. His union reforms have proved sufficiently popular that his opponent in the recall, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, isn't even talking about them anymore (perhaps because Barrett used the new laws to save his city millions).
Perhaps most telling, now that government workers aren't forced to pay union dues, membership has dropped precipitously. The ranks of the Wisconsin chapter of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employeeswere cut nearly in half in less than a year, according to the Wall Street Journal. What does it say when rank-and-file members don't even think it's worth paying the dues to belong?
Polls have Walker the narrow favorite Tuesday, but his opponents have made it clear they will do everything they can to win the ground game by getting voters to the polls. I am cautiously optimistic that voters of Wisconsin will see the folly of demanding a do-over at precisely the moment the state needs to stay the course.
I'm much less optimistic about California, whose problems today dwarf those of Wisconsin when Walker took office. Jerry Brown, who signed collective bargaining for government workers into law in 1978, could be the perfect Nixon-to-China politician to fix the state's problems. But he's proving unable or unwilling to rise to the challenge.
Still, if he fails, he shouldn't be recalled. The people of California should be punished for their mistake. Perhaps they'll learn from it and find their own Scott Walker the next time around.
jgoldberg@latimescolumnists.com
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On the previous point I agree with JDN. :-D Madison Wisc is on a pace to hit 119% turnout. http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2012/06/05/495607/madison-city-clerk-turnout-is-on-pace-to-reach-119/?mobile=nc
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http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/06/03/2830795/sen-marco-rubio-earning-respect.html
Sen. Marco Rubio earning respect in Senate for foreign-policy work
Political pundits focus on Sen. Marco Rubio as a vice-presidential shortlister, but Senate colleagues from both parties say the freshman Republican is becoming a key foreign-policy player.
By Marc Caputo
Marco Rubio had just stepped off the plane from his first visit to Cuba, the homeland of his forebears, a land at the heart of his political identity.
Did he at least bring back a souvenir?
“No,” he said Tuesday evening.
No sand? No water? No rocks?
“No,” he smiled.
For Rubio, who traveled to Guantanamo Bay Naval Base as a member of the Senate’s Select Committee on Intelligence, the trip was all business. And that’s pretty typical for the Republican freshmen senator, according to colleagues like Senate Committee on Foreign Relations Chairman John Kerry and Rubio’s fellow foreign-policy hawk Sen. Joe Lieberman.
“Marco’s not a show horse,” Lieberman said. “He’s a workhorse.”
One day he’ll be giving a speech at the Brookings Institution in Washington or the Council on Foreign Relations in New York on Thursday. Next, he’ll be lugging Henry Kissinger’s “Diplomacy” tome to a Munich conference, stopping along the way in Madrid to chat with Spain’s prime minister in Spanish as his unilingual Anglo colleagues twiddle their thumbs. He also has travelled to Afghanistan, Pakistan, Malta, Libya, Haiti and Colombia.
The nation’s political chattering class focuses most heavily on Rubio as a vice-presidential shortlister, but his Senate colleagues can’t help but talk about him becoming a key foreign-policy player as a member of the intelligence and foreign-relations committees.
Lieberman and Kerry are Senate experts both in foreign policy and running in a presidential election. Kerry was the Democrats’ presidential nominee in 2004; Lieberman the Democrats’ vice-presidential candidate in 2000 before becoming an independent.
Both say Rubio is able to handle the rigors of the national campaign trail and the Senate at the same time.
“I’ve been impressed by his thinking — doing the homework necessary to earn the credibility with respect to your approach to things. I think that’s constructive,” Kerry said.
“A lot of the colleagues around here, obviously, are interested in substance and interested in people who do the work and are not impressed by people who are prone to play the political end of something and hold a press conference and not do the work,” Kerry said. “They want to see someone buckle down and learn the ropes. And I think he’s clearly been doing that in a very positive way.”
(excerpt only, more at the link)
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Both nice and unexpected that Kerry would say that , , ,
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http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_WISCONSIN_RECALL?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2012-06-05-21-51-27
Up 9 points with 83% reporting at the moment.
Quite a defeat for thepublic union lobbies. Quite a defeat for the Pres. who mailed his support in the night before via tweat:
@BarackObama
"It's Election Day in Wisconsin tomorrow, and I'm standing by Tom Barrett. He'd make an outstanding governor. -bo"
In fact, the Pres. was not standing by Tom Barrett and isn't 'bo' the White House dog? Woof!
12% of sconis considered restoring public sector union rules their main concern. Maybe some other states can balance their budgets too.
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Semi-plausible Dem lines of defense:
a) Outspent by out of state money (10 to 1 was claimed?!?)
b) many Dem voters didn't think a recall was called for
c) 17% of Walker voters will vote for BO (quoting something I didn't see from the Bret Baier Report)
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All (partially) true. Except that it was Dems who first nationalized the issue and the race and are you really a real Dem voter if you voted for Walker? Maybe you are a former Dem voter.
"many Dem voters didn't think a recall was called for"
Yes. He turned a $3B deficit into a surplus without a tax increase.
True that Obama polls better in Wisc than Barret. Also possibly true that Obama polls better than his own future vote count.
Coming into 2010, the Gov races in Virginia, New Jersey and the Scott Brown senate race were all unique, not a certain indicator of times to come. All you can say is that it's a start - and a lot better than losing.
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"17% of Walker voters will vote for BO"
Dem operatives are all over the cable airwaves touting this.
However, one must realize this is from "exit poll" data.
The SAME exit polls that Wolf the Blitzer was emphasizing over and over again during the late stages of the elecion yesterday that he claims showed the race was a nearly 50/50 tie. We now know that these exit polls for whatever reasons were way off - several percentage points.
The election results were not close. So why shoudl be believe these same polls that suggest Brockman still has an edge in popularity in Wisconsin? More likely the Presidential race is either even or giving Romney the edge and at least the momentum in Wisconsin.
As far as the money advantages quoted in the MSM that Repubs supposedly had, one has to question the accuracy of this.
As for me not for one second do I believe that there were not thousands of votes for Barrett that of a questionable nature which seems common place at least in Midwestern elections.
Obama is in real trouble.
Time to buy into stocks?
Intersting the market is uop big today.
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David Gordon and Scott Grannis (see the latter's comments in my posts on the Economics thread on SCH) are sounding rather bullish.
If Baraq is going down that certainly is hugely bullish!
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Money matters; Walker spent almost ten times more. Other issues matter too...
http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/06/10/paul-begala-offers-fighting-lessons-for-liberals-after-wisconsin.print.html
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"Money matters; Walker spent almost ten times more."
If this was a bad time financially for Dems to have an election, why did they call one?
"Go Ugly Early." (Begala's advice to Obama.)
Done. Doesn't cover a bad record.
I have much simpler advice for Obama. Govern like Walker and run on your record.
Too late.
My advice to Begala. This isn't a fight. It is a choice of governing philosophies.
Another important truth out of Wisconsin. The angry public unions lost this race in the primary. That is IMO why Obama did not visit Barrett. I am still truly amazed that he flew over hundreds of miles of Wisconsin, the battle of the year, from Minneapolis to Chicago on June 1, from fund raiser to fund raiser and did not lift a finger or land a plane to offer a morsel of help to his party going down in embarrassment. Next (I already wrote this) it will be Pres. Obama in Badger stadium in Oct saying, "I need your help Wisconsin, I can't do this without you!"
Yet he left them to do it without him, hoping to save his own fragile reputation.
More free advice to the President. Drop out now, admit you weren't ready, save your reputation, and you will still be eligible when you are ready.
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My new favorite Democrat and 2008 Obama voter Walter Russel Meade points out that Walker won the under 25 vote in the President's absence. US News: http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/peter-roff/2012/06/08/scott-walkers-recall-victory-shows-barack-obama-may-be-bleeding-youth-vote_print.html
Could someone please post the LA Times report of this, lol.
http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2012/06/09/under-25s-in-wisconsin-vote-walker/
http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2012/05/10/the-war-on-the-young-young-adult-joblessness-at-13-6/
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Morris agrees with Doug and myself, the Wisconsin exit poll data is skewed. The Dems are in total denial. Wait until Romney wins in November by a *good margin* (barring something unforeseen or a melt down on his part). Everyone will be saying they knew Obama's loss was inevitable. It won't be close. It won't come down to a few states. Jimmy Carter II:
http://www.dickmorris.com/misleading-wisconsin-poll-has-obama-ahead/
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Interesting is that the recall / public union movement lost in the Dem primary. Telling are the polls big left money saw when they decided to sit out and the polls Obama saw when he decided to fly over and tweet it in.
Jim Messina is saying this (the Presidential race and cpngressional races) s a big series of local contests. Looks like one big national referendum to me.
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"when they decided to sit out and the polls Obama saw when he decided to fly over and tweet it in."
Agreed. It is still quite remarkable how the left spinners with their journolist accomplices can still come up with some sort of BS that paints a better picture for themselves.
I guess when it is ok to have a sitting president say things like it depends what one means by "is" and have his media thugs saying things like she had sex with him but not vice a versa or an attorney general claiming he was referring to something other than "fast and furious" in an email....
I remember Stephanopoulus when he was Clinton's first press BS artist on TV every day just astonishingly spin everything around twisting the language the logic the rationalizations to such an absurd extent. I thought this guy has to go.
This kind of stuff is routine now.
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There is nothing political about the Colorado shooting that I know of, nonetheless there was a rush to try to tie him to tea party or right wing causes as if supporting defense with a gun is similar to shooting up a crowded theater. If he were Muslim / Jihad we would draw conclusions quickly too.
But now it is reported that on his match.com profile he is self described "middle of the road" politically. Those people scare me.
What's actually scary is that before Friday someone could meet this person with a click and a message.
http://tmz.vo.llnwd.net/o28/newsdesk/tmz_documents/0721_james_holmes_classic_jim_tmz.pdf
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Theres always a rush to inject the need to control others decisions. The facts are irrelivent that less people are killed by guns than by cars, or prescription drugs. Its about control masked under the premise of good. Like it or not it has and will become more political.
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Yes. I am relieved to find out he is an alleged moderate just to slow the flood of irrationality. Pointing out the completely obvious, if he were a conservative or tea party member he would be a fraud anyway because shooting innocent life is not to hold other people's life, liberty and pursuit of happiness up as unalienable rights.
I care about the victims and I care about his capital punishment. I don't care about his politics.
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Brief • July 30, 2012
The Foundation
"To take from one, because it is thought his own industry and that of his fathers has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers, have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, the guarantee to everyone the free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it." --Thomas Jefferson
Government
Democrats aim to hike taxes on the little guy
"Senate Democrats passed a so-called middle class tax cut [last] week on a mostly partisan vote, but the move was more political theater than tax legislation. For months, the Democrats, with President Obama leading the charge, have hammered home that they want to preserve lower tax rates for those Americans earning less than $250,000 a year and help pay for lost federal revenues by making wealthier individuals pay higher taxes. ... But who are those 'wealthiest Americans' the Dems keep citing? Illinois businessman Wilson F. Hunt Jr. recently passed on to me the details of how his small business, which he owns with his wife, will be ensnared in this scheme to soak the rich. Last year, his company reported $1.5 million in 2010 income. But because his company elects to pay taxes as a Sub-chapter S Corporation, all the company's profits are reported on the couple's individual income tax returns as the sole shareholders in the company. They paid almost $1.1 million in taxes in 2010, yet the couple paid themselves only a combined salary of $189,000. The rest of the income was put into retained earnings, which the company could then use to expand its business the following year. Hunt explains it this way: 'In order to earn a salary of $189,000 and continue growing our business last year, we had to pledge our house and most of our personal assets to a bank as collateral on a business loan. If the business were to fail, we could lose our home and life savings.' Yet the Democrats vilify people like him as the rich out to cheat the middle class. ... We shouldn't envy people like Hunt; we should thank them for helping build an economy that makes us all better off. But don't try to convince Democratic politicians -- they're too busy stoking class resentment to appreciate that some of those 'millionaires' are the ones out there actually creating jobs." --columnist Linda Chavez
Post your opinion on the Democrats' plan.
Re: The Left
"Economically speaking, no solution to the problem could be simpler than the most obvious one: spend less than one takes in, and start paying down the debt. Politically speaking however, the entire Democrat party and half of the Republican one are dedicated to the idea that dependency on the state is directly correlated with their ability to maintain power. A substantial number of clueless and/or self-entitled Americans are on board, and nothing assuages their sense of clueless self-entitlement more than the notion that someone else is not paying their 'fair' share. Understand how remarkable that kind of thinking is. Not only have such Americans been alleviated of the guilt and shame of living off someone else's effort, they have been told they have every reason to be self-righteous about it. Barring a sea change -- or a watershed election -- thoughtful Americans must face a sobering reality: the ideological bankruptcy of progressivism leads directly to the economic bankruptcy of the nation. Progressives will continue to lie and tell the nation it isn't so. Unfortunately for all of us, the math never lies." --columnist Arnold Ahlert
The Gipper
"I've come to believe there is little, if any, honesty in the media, and ethic is a word they are totally unfamiliar with." --Ronald Reagan
Political Futures
"Does the 2012 campaign look a lot like the 2004 campaign? Many Democrats think so. ... But, as William Galston of the Brookings Institution, an alumnus of the Clinton White House, writes in The New Republic, 'the evidence in favor of all these propositions is remarkably thin.' Galston points out that in 2004 no single issue was as prominent as the economy is this year and that on most significant issues George W. Bush had a clear edge by the end of the campaign. ... But there are at least two other salient differences between 2004 and 2012. One is that the 2004 election occurred during a period of unusual stability in American voting behavior. ... In other words, almost all voters in 2004 were firmly committed to one party or the other. ... But in recent years, lots of American voters, at least by historical standards, have flipped from one party to the other, and in both directions. The conventional wisdom is that we know with certainty the identity of the dozen or so battleground states. But the list has changed since 2008. ... There's another difference between 2004 and 2012 that is salient. In 2004, George W. Bush's Republican base was pretty much united on issues. Foreign policy realists and neocons were all on board. ... Every campaign cycle is different, and 2012 is more different from 2004 than many Democrats think." --political analyst Michael Barone
Opinion in Brief
"New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg didn't even wait for the bodies in Aurora, Colorado to cool before he began his usual braying for gun control. Well, if guns are the problem, perhaps Mayor Bloomberg could lead by example and disband the armed NYPD security detail that protects him 24-7. Perhaps someone should remind him what armed NYPD men did to Amadou Diallo and Abner Louima. Or remind him about the Happy Land Social Club fire, in which 87 people were killed not by a gun, but by $5 worth of gasoline, or the Oklahoma City Bombing, in which 168 people were killed by diesel fuel and fertilizer, or the 3,000 people killed on 9/11 by box-cutters and airplanes. The numerous journalists who think that we need to enact 'sensible gun laws' like 'other countries' should be reminded that mass shootings have occurred in Germany, Norway, Australia, Canada, and Great Britain, even after gun control laws far stricter than those in the U.S. were enacted. ... The lesson of the 'Batman' shooting is this: where there is a large sheep herd, the wolves will always thrive. Do we want to be sheep, or not?" --columnist Michael Filozof
Faith and Family
"By now the script should be familiar. A bombing or a mass shooting occurs and the media immediately look for a simple cause. Invariably, they turn to talk radio or some other conservative pit of 'intolerance.' ... What is always left out of this familiar scenario is an in-depth discussion of evil. Politicians and commentators almost never speak of evil as something that resides deep inside the human heart. All humans possess the capacity for evil. While it rarely rises to the level of mass murder, the capacity for doing great harm to other human beings lurks within each of us. This is what theologians mean when they speak of a 'fallen' humanity. Violent movies like 'The Dark Knight Rises' do not make all people emulate the Colorado shooter, anymore than a movie about love causes people to love one another. ... Sometimes there are no 'solutions' that can forestall an evil act. ... Calling on [a] Higher Authority is the proper and perhaps only counterforce to this and other expressions of true evil." --columnist Cal Thomas
Culture
"[T]he unstable are not entertained by darkness. They let it in. They are inspired by it. Sometimes they start to live in the movie in their heads. 'I am the Joker,' the shooter is reported to have told the Aurora police. ... Some of the sadness and frustration following Aurora has to do with the fact that no one thinks anyone can, or will, do anything to make our culture better. The film industry isn't going to change, the genie is long out of the bottle. ... A particularly devilish injustice is that many of the wealthy men and women of the filmmaking industry go to great lengths to protect their own children from the products they make. ... One thing about good parents these days is they always look tired. A lot have hard lives -- two jobs, different shifts, helping with homework, cleaning the house. But they also have the exhausted look of hyper vigilance. Once parents could take a break at night, park the kids in front of the TV and let the culture baby-sit. Not anymore. Our culture, they know, is their foe." --columnist Peggy Noonan
Essential Liberty
"Never before has an administration taken such a bold step to strip Americans of the freedom of conscience -- a right for which, over the centuries, many Christian martyrs have laid down their lives, and which our Founding Fathers took great care to protect in a First Amendment that expressly guarantees the free exercise of religion. As the Founders understood, no government has legitimate authority to take this right away, because it does not come from government. It comes from God. The very purpose of government is to protect this right. A government that seeks to strip it away from the people is by that very process stripping away its own legitimacy. What we are seeing from the Obama administration today -- in its attack on religious liberty -- is simply evil. When government seeks to compel individuals to act against their consciences and to engage in activities that, if willfully done, would imperil their immortal souls, there is no other word for it." --columnist Terence Jeffrey
For the Record
"[President Obama] is not charging Nidal Hasan, the accused Fort Hood killer, with violation of the Unborn Victims of Violence Act (UVVA). This law was passed and signed in 2004. After the highly publicized conviction of Scott Peterson in California for the murder of his wife and her unborn child, the law was named the Laci and Conner Peterson Unborn Victims of Violence Act. There would seem to be no possibility of controversy in charging Hasan with violating UVVA. After all, it is indisputable that one of those killed was pregnant at the time of her death. Nor did the mother, Army Private Francheska Velez, contemplate an abortion. There would be no question of her exercising 'choice' in this matter. In fact, her last words, most poignantly reported, were: 'My baby! my baby!' It was for just such heinous crimes that the UVVA was passed. It covers only those instances where a crime of violence is committed on federal property, or where other crimes covered by the federal code are being committed. ... Hasan was assigned to Fort Hood. So were all those who died. There could be no question of UVVA not applying in this case. ... The failure to charge Nidal Hasan with violation of the Unborn Victims of Violence Act is another instance of this president's failure to 'take care that the laws be faithfully executed.'" --columnist Ken Blackwell
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The GOP's Female Trouble Team Obama is offering a straight-up 1970s feminist agenda but still winning among women. Why?
By KIMBERLEY A. STRASSEL
To say that the Republican Party remains dominated by fossilized male dinosaurs who don't know how to talk to modern women—well, that would be mean. It would also be close to the truth.
The GOP's female problem may help lose the presidential election. Women—in particular women who are independent voters—are going to decide this race. They are the demographic most up for grabs. The campaigns know it, which explains the obsessive focus by both sides on the female electorate. And yet for all the Republican attention to the women's vote, the party is blowing a huge opportunity to bring women to its side.
It isn't as if Democrats are in tune with today's woman. The Obama campaign is serving a straight-up 1970s feminist agenda: contraception, abortion, equal pay. In this world view, women can't and don't think much beyond their reproductive apparatus. Obama deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter this week went so far as to explain that women "aren't really concerned about what's happened over the past four years." Unemployment, gas prices, ObamaCare—these are not the concerns of women.
That outlook is offensive to every woman who spends 18-hour days wrestling the job, the house, the kids, the bills. Yet Democrats get away with it for one reason: Women appreciate that they are being spoken to directly. Decades of an aversion to "gender politics" has, by contrast, left the GOP with the antiquated view that it shouldn't address women directly on issues that matter specifically to them. The Romney campaign's idea of engaging female voters is to deputize women to repeat its broad campaign themes.
The Republican Party could take some hints from the success of the Independent Women's Forum, an outfit started in the 1990s by free-marketers who wanted a voice distinct from both the feminist left and the cultural right. The IWF's advocacy organization, Independent Women's Voice, has joined in some of today's electoral battles, using direct messaging to speak specifically to women and independents.
It does so by making clear, fact-based arguments on issues that matter to these groups—like health care. Women make 85% of health-care decisions. The GOP tends to bang on about parts of ObamaCare, such as the individual mandate, that are unpopular with its male base. The Independent Women's Voice, by contrast, is directly taking on elements of the law that are popular with women, explaining that seemingly attractive provisions—say, letting 26-year-olds stay on parental insurance—will in fact raise costs and worsen care. In controlled tests of the households where the IWV message had been received, the group found a significant uptick in women and independents who want the law repealed and who support Mr. Romney.
"A lot of political advertising is about sledgehammers and chain saws and beats you over the head," says IWV President and CEO Heather Higgins. "We assume our audience is smart, and want to be able to make up their own minds, and so we present them with facts."
IWV also isn't shy about cutting ads directly aimed at a female audience. That includes its witty "Boyfriend" Web ad, which shows a woman confiding to a friend about a guy who "seemed so perfect" but who just can't "get his act together." The camera subtly pulls back to show a poster of Mr. Obama. The ad was a Web sensation, so much so that the Republican National Committee copied it (with a lower-quality, less thoughtful version).
Republicans are correct in saying that their policies will help everyone, including women. What they fail to note is that their policies will help in specific and important ways. Women are subject to government programs and laws that never envisioned their economic presence and so ignore or penalize their work. Many of the reforms that Mr. Romney is advocating would provide a fix.
While Democrats brag about their Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, Mr. Romney might note that the greatest pay injustice for women is the steep marginal tax-rate system that Mr. Obama loves. Since most women are second earners, their income is added to their husband's and taxed at his top rate. A married woman who does the same job as a single man keeps fewer of her dollars. Mr. Romney's tax reforms will benefit all taxpayers, but they will particularly benefit women. It's that simple.
Mr. Romney could note that his health-care reforms—which would finally empower families to buy affordable insurance outside the workplace—would especially help the millions of women who work part time and so don't qualify for corporate health plans. He could note that his plans for strengthening Medicare and eliminating the death tax will matter most to women, who tend to outlive their husbands. He could point out that the labor-force flexibility he promotes would allow women to craft more flexible work arrangements with their bosses—a top working-mother priority.
This isn't gender politics, and it isn't pandering. It's explaining. And it is an acknowledgment that women are a distinct economic constituency—with challenges markedly different from the men who are the dominant force in the GOP. That's the path to the women's vote.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/22/us/politics/george-mcgovern-a-democratic-presidential-nominee-and-liberal-stalwart-dies-at-90.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&ref=obituaries&&pagewanted=all
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Pew admitted they are getting a 9% response rate on polling. 91% are like me and don't take the call or don't tell strangers their views on the phone. Hard to say what this means for accuracy but not a good sign.
Still I find myself watching the movement in the polls almost every day. (
http://www.people-press.org/2012/05/15/assessing-the-representativeness-of-public-opinion-surveys/
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http://themonkeycage.org/blog/2012/11/06/why-it-can-be-rational-to-vote/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+themonkeycagefeed+%28The+Monkey+Cage%29
"I’d like to add one more thing. You’ve all heard about low voter turnout in America, but, among well-educated, older white people, turnout is around 90% in presidential elections. Some economists treat this as a source of amusement—and, sure, I’d be the first to admit that well-educated, older white people have done a lot of damage to this country—but it’s a funny thing . . . Usually economists tend not to question the actions of this particular demographic. I’m not saying that the high turnout of these people (e.g., me) is evidence that voting is rational. But I would hope that it would cause some economists to think twice before characterizing voting as irrational or laughable."
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A functional website :-o :-o :-o:
http://www.dolekemp96.org/main.htm
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A functional website :-o :-o :-o:
http://www.dolekemp96.org/main.htm
Bob Dole don't quit.
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Isn't he dead?
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Isn't he dead?
Kemp died in 2009, Dole is 88.
Bob Dole wrote in August 2012 that Republicans need to move to the middle, away from rigid conservatism. http://www.businessinsider.com/bob-dole-urges-mitt-romney-to-confront-the-republican-partys-right-wing-2012-8
In '96 Dole won 19 states. Jack Kemp had no idea how to defend Dole's centrist record - a little like Paul Ryan in 2012.
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I knew Kemp (who mentored Ryan) was dead, and for some reason thought Dole was too. Didn't he do a Viagra ad some years ago?
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:-D :-D :-D
What was the success rate of Obama supported green energy companies? I know you guys like to take him to task for his low percentage.
"Rove’s American Crossroads super PAC spent $105 million to elect Republicans, but his success rate was calculated to be just 1.29 percent..."
http://bostonglobe.com/news/politics/2012/11/16/super-pacs-may-play-greater-role-midterm-elections-despite-mixed-showing-this-year/m4wR6bIHvcoRPHnBybbJeN/story.html
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Perhaps, but the money he spent was voluntarily given to him, not taken at the point of the IRS's guns.
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Perhaps, but the money he spent was voluntarily given to him, not taken at the point of the IRS's guns.
Important point. The right tends to be generous with it's money, the left, generous with other's money, including generations yet unborn these days.
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http://themonkeycage.org/blog/2012/11/20/will-merkley-warrens-talking-filibuster-proposal-work/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+themonkeycagefeed+%28The+Monkey+Cage%29
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http://themonkeycage.org/blog/2012/11/26/dinner-wont-do-it/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+themonkeycagefeed+%28The+Monkey+Cage%29
From the article:
Since the election President Obama has received a wide range of unsolicited advice regarding his legislative relations as they pertain to his second term agenda and, most immediately, avoiding a plunge over the fiscal cliff. A fair number of the comments, in an echo of the pre-election punditry that ultimately led to Nate Silver selling three billion new books, suggest that the key to legislative success is not really policy, but personality. If only Obama were a warmer person, a better schmoozer or for that matter a better golfer, Congress would follow his lead and come to a deal. Much of this should involve hospitality, and better yet, food.
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BD:
I'd love to hear your thoughts on filibuster reform-- perhaps in the Congress thread.
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Funny he doesn't mention the 18 million he made from an initial 100,000 investment in global crossing when he got preferred shares, pennies on the multiple dollars the rest of paid. He is a genius. Just like Hillary's cattle futures investment talent. (Of course H Bush made a bundle as did Colin Powell in global crossing - before it turned into "global double crossing" - as GG would later call it - and went bust and the CEO went to jail). It pays to have connections. It pays to go into politics:
www.terrymcauliffe.com/a-career-in-business
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A letter to the editor published after the election in Barrons:
A Warm Thank You
To the Editor:
This 50-something, white, conservative Republican wishes to thank America’s youth for sacrificing their financial futures and standard of living so that boomers, such as my wife and I, can look forward to a long and comfy retirement, which we could easily have afforded on our own. Now we have the youth as our guarantors and providers of a little something extra.
As reported by the national exit poll conducted by Edison Research, Americans aged 18 to 29 voted 60% to 36% for Barack Obama. Prior to Obama’s re-election, I believed that it was morally wrong for my generation to pass a crushing national debt on to the next one.
The debt will top $20 trillion before Obama moves out of the White House, and it will include spiraling retirement-related costs that the administration has shown zero interest in bringing under control, largely driven by baby boomers piling into the Social Security and Medicare systems.
With the president’s electoral crushing of Mitt Romney, my overriding sense of morality and guilt have vanished. Thank you, kids!
Edwin D. Schindler
Woodbury, N.Y.
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http://www.theblaze.com/stories/boehner-to-reid-go-fk-yourself/
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Although the background is the fiscal cliff dscussion/debate, this is a (long) story about the trail of politics in making a deal in DC.
http://www.nationaljournal.com/congress-legacy/the-gop-s-failed-plan-o-inside-the-fiscal-cliff-saga-20130102
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http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/house/275419-boehner-re-elected-speaker-with-some-gop-defections
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http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/house/275419-boehner-re-elected-speaker-with-some-gop-defections
2 votes for for outgoing member Allen West. I did not know that the Speaker of the House does not have to be a member of the House. We have been foolishly limiting our choices!
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I like Allen West a lot; even though he is occasionally uncautious with how he phrases things he has fighting spirit in spades! I gave money to his campaign a couple of times.
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I reposted this with a better description in: 'The Way Forward'. As a political matter, I would just say it is a great description of the difference between the way liberals and conservatives look at things.
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/336481/risk-relativism-and-resources-kevin-d-williamson
Risk, Relativism, and Resources
Three things conservatives must know about progressivism in order to defeat it
By Kevin D. Williamson, National Review
(5 internet pages long at the link.)
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I agree that this would do well in "The Way Forward" thread. May I be a thread nazi and ask you to put it there? :-)
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WSJ:
Chuck Hagel, the former Republican senator from Nebraska and Barack Obama's choice to be secretary of defense, served with honor as an infantryman in Vietnam and was wounded twice. This fact, a tribute to Mr. Hagel's personal courage, will now be trotted out repeatedly as proof of his fitness to serve in high office.
If the standard by which our prospective secretaries of defense should be judged is prior military service, neither Edwin Stanton (Lincoln's secretary of war) nor Henry Stimson (FDR's) would have passed the test. Robert McNamara and Don Rumsfeld would have. But I digress.
Perhaps the better test for Mr. Hagel is political courage, something he's supposed to possess in spades. "He had the courage to buck his own party on the Iraq War," says White House spokesman Tommy Vietor. Tweets David Axelrod: "He's tough, courageous, sensible & able to withstand political pressure to do what's right for USA. What we need!"
OK, let's see about that.
In 1998, when it was politically opportune for Mr. Hagel to do so, he bashed Clinton nominee James Hormel for being "openly, aggressively gay," a fact he said was disqualifying for becoming ambassador to Luxembourg. Late last year, when it was again politically opportune, Mr. Hagel apologized for his gay-bashing. Mr. Hormel accepted the apology, while noting that "the timing appears to be self-serving." Yes it did.
In 1999, when the military's "Don't Ask Don't Tell" policy was broadly popular, Mr. Hagel scoffed at the idea of repealing it: "The U.S. Armed Forces aren't some social experiment." Since then, Mr. Hagel has offered his opinions on many subjects in scores of published articles. In not one of them did he recant or amend his views on gay issues. His public about-face only occurred when his name made Mr. Obama's shortlist for secretary of defense.
In 2002, also when it was overwhelmingly popular, Mr. Hagel voted for the resolution authorizing the use of force against Iraq. The lack of political courage is especially noteworthy here, because Mr. Hagel was, in fact, prescient in warning his Senate colleagues that "imposing democracy through force in Iraq is a roll of the dice."
Yet as the inimitable David Corn notes, "Bottom line: Hagel feared the resolution would lead to a war that would go badly but didn't have the guts to say no to the leader of his party."
In 2006, when the war in Iraq had become overwhelmingly unpopular, Mr. Hagel was on the right side of conventional wisdom. "The United States must begin planning for a phased troop withdrawal from Iraq," he wrote in the Washington Post that November. Still swimming with the tide the following year, he called the surge "the most dangerous foreign policy blunder in this country since Vietnam."
The surge turned out to be George W. Bush's finest hour—a genuine instance of political courage as opposed to Mr. Hagel's phony ones. It rescued the U.S. from humiliating defeat. It gave Iraq a decent opportunity to stand on its feet. It allowed the U.S. to conduct an orderly withdrawal of its forces. And it might have led to a long-term security relationship with Baghdad had the Obama administration not fumbled the endgame. Again there is no public record of Mr. Hagel acknowledging any of this.
Moving forward, in 2008 Mr. Hagel endorsed engagement with Syria's Bashar Assad and North Korea's Kim Jong Il, and he was especially keen on engagement with Iran, enthusing at one point that "Iran had rights for women long before many countries in the world. Women could vote, I actually think before they could vote in America." (He's wrong: Iranian women were enfranchised only in 1963, thanks to the Shah.)
In each case, Mr. Hagel was articulating a view that was exactly in keeping with received Beltway wisdom. In each case, he was subsequently disproved by events. In no case was Mr. Hagel ever held to any kind of account for being wrong. In no case did he hold himself to account for being wrong.
Oh, by the way, in 1995 Mr. Hagel told the Omaha World Herald that his opposition to abortion was total and made no exception for cases of rape or incest—a view that helped get him elected to the Senate the following year. He later voted repeatedly against allowing servicewomen to pay for abortions out of their own pocket, according to the left-wing magazine Mother Jones. Now that Congress has authorized the Defense Department to pay for abortions in cases of rape, it would be worth asking Mr. Hagel if he has evolved on this one, too.
But give Mr. Hagel this: When it comes to expressing himself about Israel, its enemies, and the influence of the so-called Jewish lobby, he has been nothing if not consistent and outspoken. Maybe that's political courage. Or maybe it's a mental twitch, the kind you can't quite help. The confirmation process should be illuminating.
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There is also the matter of his opposition to sanctions on Iran!!!
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more WSJ:
President Obama on Monday chose Chuck Hagel to lead the Pentagon, inviting a confirmation brawl over a troubling nominee. The Senate should oblige. The Hagel hearings are an opportunity to have the debate over Mr. Obama's policies and a growing world disorder that we didn't have in the election campaign.
Mr. Obama also said he'll nominate White House counterterror chief John Brennan to run the CIA, joining last month's choice of Senator John Kerry as Secretary of State. Like CIA deputy Michael Morrell, Mr. Brennan is a capable intelligence analyst, but Langley will once again lack senior management without substantial experience in the spy game.
This may further turn the agency away from its traditional and primary duty of collecting and analyzing human intelligence—a weakness that showed up in its failure to know about the threat to U.S. diplomats in Benghazi, for example.
More troubling is the chorus-line worldview of the new Obama security team. In his first four years, Mr. Obama ran foreign policy from the White House more than any President since Nixon. But at least his security team—Bob Gates and Leon Panetta at Defense, Hillary Clinton at State, and Mr. Panetta and David Petraeus at the CIA—had independent political stature and experience. The second-term group is shaping up as a White House echo chamber, less a team of rivals than of dovish loyalists.
That's all the more reason to carefully question Mr. Hagel, who is a nominal Republican but whose views echo the post-Vietnam Democratic Party. In his Monday remarks, Mr. Obama pointed to the former Senator's admirable service in Vietnam as an enlisted man and repeatedly called him "a patriot."
But no one questions Mr. Hagel's patriotism and military service. What matters at the top of the Pentagon, at this moment in history, is how he would deal with today's growing security threats amid Mr. Obama's desire to withdraw the U.S. from its traditional role of world leadership.
Related video.
Editorial page editor Paul Gigot on President Obama's nominations of Chuck Hagel and John Brennan as Defense Secretary and CIA director. Photo credit: Getty Images.
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By largely continuing George W. Bush's antiterror policies and expanding drone missile strikes, Mr. Obama has punished al Qaeda. But this headline-making progress has obscured the more general decline in U.S. influence in the world's hotspots that are likely to become hotter in the second term.
Among the first tasks will be the drawdown from Afghanistan. The Administration has significantly pared back the military's suggestions for a follow-on NATO force after the 2014 handover to Kabul, and little suggests that Mr. Hagel would push back against the White House. Scarred by Vietnam, Mr. Hagel has taken a dim view of America's influence and ability to shape events overseas. He supported the Iraq war before he opposed it and then opposed the successful 2007 surge. He has long urged engagement with Syria's dictator and the terror group Hamas.
Iran will be another test. The President has declared that Tehran won't be allowed to get nuclear weapons and accepted tougher sanctions against Iran. Mr. Hagel opposed sanctions and called for the U.S. to recognize and bargain with Tehran's clerics. So which is it?
According to Mr. Hagel, the U.S. also can't afford and doesn't need the military it has today. Messrs. Gates and Panetta tried to limit the White House demand for defense cuts, but with the election over liberals are again gunning for the Pentagon in order to protect entitlements and diminish the U.S. ability to intervene abroad.
Mr. Hagel has opposed the deployment of missile defenses, since it annoys the Russians. He should be asked if he still believes that, as well as if any new arms deal with the Kremlin must be submitted to the Senate for ratification. He should also be asked to explain Mr. Obama's record and policies in the Middle East, the failed Russian "reset," the proposed pivot to Asia that lacks adequate naval resources, and the inadequate response to China's expanding naval power.
The results of U.S. security policies tend to have a long fuse, good or bad, building for years until some event makes them clear. The Berlin Wall fell after Reagan's successes rebuilding U.S. strength and credibility, while al Qaeda burst into bloody view in 2001 after a decade of treating terror like a law enforcement problem.
On current trends, President Obama's second term is likely to see more global troubles and disarray, and the Senate's job should be to highlight the dangers and instruct the public about the potential consequences of the Hagel-Obama vision of U.S. retrenchment. Whether or not Mr. Hagel eventually wins confirmation, a lengthy fight ought to be a useful education.
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Is Chuck Schumer A Friend Of Israel?
By DICK MORRIS
Published on DickMorris.com on January 10, 2013
Printer-Friendly Version
Now that President Obama has nominated Senator Chuck Hagel for Defense Secretary, we will see who the real friends of Israel are. Jews in New York State, in particular, are very interested in whether their Senator -- Chuck Schumer -- has the moxie to stand up against the Hagel nomination.
The litany of Hagel's sympathy for the Palestinians and his willingness to equate Israel's moral position with those of the Hezbollah/Hams terrorists is there for all to see.
Hagel won the praise of Hezbollah in 2006 which said "except for Sen. Chuck Hagel, no one in Congress is willing to stand up to the Israeli Lobby."
Invited to be the keynote speaker at the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), Hagel said Washington should cultivate "a deeper level of understanding of what's at stake and of what the people -- especially the Palestinian people -- have endured over the last 50 or 100 years."
After an outbreak of suicide/homicide bombings in Israel, Hagel made clear that he believes Israel was, in part, to blame. Saying that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has "essentially stopped the [peace] process," Hagel said "The Israeli government essentially continues to play games...What I fear more today is that desperate men do desperate things when you take hope away. And that's where the Palestinians are today."
Saying "I'm not an Israeli Senator, I'm an American Senator," Hagel complained in a recent interview that "the Jewish lobby intimidates a lot of people up here [in Washington]."
Hagel has opposed tough sanctions on Iran.
And, in October of 2000, he was one of only four Senators who refused to co-sign a letter to President Clinton expression solidarity with Israel as it was subjected to the repeated terrorist attacks of a new Palestinian intifada. Indeed, Hagel also refused to sign a letter initiated by Senator Joe Biden calling for a re-evaluation of relations with the Palestinian Authority in light of the attacks.
Schumer holds the key to the Hagel nomination. Republicans will oppose his confirmation. If Schumer leads the way, other Democratic Senators from states with large Jewish populations - Nelson and Lautenberg (NJ), Gillibrand (NY), Nelson (FL), and Boxer and Feinstein (Cal) will feel pressure to follow suit.
So what will it be Chuck? Stand up for Israel or cave in?
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Funny how protecting Buraq trumps protecting Israel, even for AIPAC.
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See the Israel thread today wherein Danny Ayalon speaks well of Hagel.
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Hagel, Obama Forged Bond Over Iraq .
By JULIAN E. BARNES, ADAM ENTOUS, SARA MURRAY and CAROL E. LEE
Chuck Hagel was the one Senate Republican willing to help Barack Obama when he needed it most—in July 2008, as Mr. Obama, then an Illinois senator, prepared to fight Sen. John McCain in the presidential election.
Mr. Hagel, at the time a GOP senator who had already fallen out of favor with Mr. McCain and other Republican Party leaders, agreed to join Mr. Obama on a tour of Iraq and Afghanistan, just weeks before the national conventions. Running against a war hero with long experience in foreign policy, Mr. Obama had never visited Afghanistan and been just once to Iraq.
In an interview with WSJ Washington Bureau Chief, Jerry Seib, Sen. Jack Reed (D., R.I.) defends the nomination of Chuck Hagel to lead the Pentagon, saying the former Nebrasksa Senator has integrity and impeccable credentials.
The overseas trip was intended to bolster Mr. Obama's foreign policy credentials and claims to bipartisanship. But through the long plane rides, cramped quarters and endless meetings, Mr. Obama came to see Mr. Hagel as a kindred spirit, as much for his beliefs as his pragmatism, said people who were there. As they relaxed in a Kuwait hotel room trading jokes and talking shop, a senior administration official said, it was obvious the two men "just kind of clicked."
Mr. Hagel's unlikely road from Republican stalwart to apostate to nominee for Secretary of Defense begins in Vietnam and takes a sharp turn at Iraq. The son of a lumberyard worker, he grew up in Ainsworth, Neb., joined the Army's Ninth Infantry Division and in 1968 served as an infantry sergeant in Vietnam. He returned a decorated combat veteran and over the years developed a measured skepticism toward war.
Mr. Obama now seeks Senate approval for Mr. Hagel, 66 years old, who went on to make a fortune early in the cellphone industry before serving two six-year terms in Washington and then stepping down.
The White House faces opposition from Republicans who see Mr. Hagel as a turncoat, a former conservative who by 2006 had become an outspoken opponent of the Iraq war.
Conservatives and some Jewish groups have accused Mr. Hagel of weak support for Israel, based, in part, on past comments calling for negotiations leading to recognition of a Palestinian state. Mr. Hagel's past comments have also called for engagement with Hamas, which the U.S. considers a terrorist group. While in the Senate, Mr. Hagel refused to sign a letter urging the European Union to also label Hamas a terrorist organization.
Pro-Israel groups also have voiced concerns over Mr. Hagel's skepticism over sanctions against Iran. Mr. Hagel has said his record has been distorted. Supporters point to his voting record on behalf of Israel and his co-sponsorship of legislation opposing Hamas. They also have argued that he hasn't opposed military action against Iran but has said the consequences of such a strike must be carefully considered.
Mr. Hagel remains a Ronald Reagan conservative, said his allies, a believer in private enterprise, small government and a powerful military. But they said he also believes the U.S. alone can't remake the world.
"He is quite willing to use power, but there is a sense, an awareness that power has its own limitations, and I think that is right," said John Hamre, the president of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, who serves with Mr. Hagel on the Defense Policy Board, a nonpartisan panel that advises the Pentagon.
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.What is unclear is how Mr. Hagel's views will play out in the coming confirmation battle. Outside groups this week readied campaigns for and against Mr. Hagel, as Republicans ramped up their opposition following Monday's nomination.
"On national security issues, I would say he has changed rather significantly," Mr. McCain said in an interview, adding that he had concerns about Mr. Hagel's nomination. "I still consider him a friend and always will. I believe his service in Vietnam was very honorable. It doesn't have anything to do with the personal aspect of our relationship, it has a lot to do with our divergence on national security and the future of this country."
Looking ahead to Senate confirmation hearings, Ross Baker, a Rutgers University professor who, at one point, advised Mr. Hagel in the Senate, said that after battlefield heroics that earned Mr. Hagel two Purple Heart medals, "there's not much a United States senator can do to intimidate you."
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Library of Congress / Associated Press
Tom and Chuck Hagel in Vietnam in 1968.
.Family members said they believed that Mr. Hagel would find a career in politics ever since he was elected high school class president. He returned home from Vietnam to first work as a reporter for a radio station and then a news-talk anchor, according to the 2006 biography, "Chuck Hagel: Moving Forward."
"I was very Republican, very conservative," said Mr. Hagel in the book.
In 1971, he began working for a Nebraska congressman and six years later moved to the Firestone Co., where he was a lobbyist helping the firm grapple with reported radial tire failures.
In 1980, Mr. Hagel joined Ronald Reagan's presidential campaign and after Mr. Reagan's victory was appointed deputy administrator of the Veterans Administration. He left the following year to pursue business interests with friends, according to his biography.
Mr. Hagel sold his 1979 Buick and cashed life insurance policies to help form Vanguard Cellular Systems.
In those pioneering days, Mr. Hagel was consumed by cellphone technology. "We were talking about Dick Tracy stuff," he said in the 2006 biography. "It will be no wires. It will be video. It will be everything."
Mr. Hagel in demonstrations entertained skeptical onlookers by putting a shoe to his ear and talking, said those who knew him at the time.
Vanguard received Federal Communications Commission licenses to operate cellphone systems in Maine, New York, South Carolina, Florida and elsewhere. In 1998, the company agreed to be acquired by AT&T T -0.29%for an estimated $1.5 billion.
.Mr. Hagel's share of the proceeds made him a millionaire and afforded a pursuit of elected office. He defeated then-Nebraska Gov. Ben Nelson in a 1996 Senate race, arriving in Washington as a pro-business, Midwestern Republican.
Mr. Hagel's early record was solidly conservative. He voted to authorize NATO military operations against Serbia in 1999 and, in 2001, backed President George W. Bush's tax cuts.
But rifts between Mr. Hagel and his party emerged after he endorsed Mr. McCain over Mr. Bush in 2000, against the wishes of party elders. Mr. Hagel returned to the fold in 2002 with a vote to authorize war in Iraq, which he came to regret.
"It all comes down to the fact that we were asked to vote on a resolution based on half truths, untruths, and wishful thinking," Mr. Hagel wrote in his 2008 book, "America: Our Next Chapter." He said his vote was intended to authorize military force as a last resort, but Mr. Bush had failed to "exhaust all diplomatic efforts."
As years passed Mr. Hagel came to see the conflict as unwinnable—not unlike the Vietnam War—and he began openly criticizing the Bush administration. In a 2006 newspaper opinion piece, he called for a troop withdrawal in Iraq, a major break with the GOP's leadership.
His views on Iraq had roots in his Vietnam experience, said Bob Kerrey, also a former Nebraska senator and Vietnam veteran.
Mr. Hagel has described the war as "ill-conceived, poorly prosecuted, and unsuccessful." He had served side-by-side in the Mekong Delta with his brother Tom, at different points, saving each other's lives. In March 1968, recalled Tom Hagel, a Claymore mine that had been hanging from a tree detonated above their patrol and "everything was chaos."
"My brother was behind me, I turned around and looked at him," Tom Hagel said. "He was on his back with blood spurting out of his chest." He applied bandages to stop the bleeding.
After returning to combat, the brothers were both wounded a month later when their armored personnel carrier, under attack, hit a mine. Riding in the turret of the vehicle, Tom Hagel was knocked unconscious. Chuck Hagel, badly burned, threw his brother off the damaged vehicle and dragged him to safety.
"From that day on, I was a changed person," Chuck Hagel wrote in his book. "I made myself a promise that if I ever got out of that place and was ever in a position to do something about war, so horrible, so filled with suffering, I would do whatever I could to stop it. I have never forgotten that promise."
Tom Hagel, but not his brother, returned home convinced that U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War was ill-advised. They would fight about it during Christmas and Thanksgiving gatherings, until their mother forbade the discussion.
"Almost always it would start off as an argument, and then, maybe after a couple beers, fists started flying," said Tom Hagel.
Years later, after listening to tapes of former President Lyndon B. Johnson saying in private conversations that while he didn't think the war could be won, he wouldn't end it, Tom Hagel said his brother changed his mind on Vietnam.
Chuck Hagel declined to be interviewed for this article.
"He would make certain, if we go to war, it will be our last option," said Tom Hagel. "But on the other hand anyone who thinks he is a pacifist is a fool. If he was directed to conduct a war, he would go full throttle, no doubt about it."
Mr. Hagel's outspoken stance on the Iraq war caused a split with Mr. McCain. The Arizona senator had been one of Mr. Hagel's few remaining Republican allies until the debate in January 2007 over sending more troops to Iraq. Mr. McCain was the surge's loudest Senate supporter. Mr. Hagel called it "the most dangerous foreign policy blunder in this country since Vietnam."
Mr. McCain said Mr. Hagel was profoundly wrong to oppose the Iraq surge and has never acknowledged that error.
"Sen. Hagel became more and more strident and outspoken about his opposition to the surge, but it wasn't just the surge, it was sanctions on Iran, it was many of the public statements he made that were harshly critical of President Bush," Mr. McCain said.
Richard Burt, a former ambassador to Germany under Ronald Reagan, said GOP criticism of Mr. Hagel reflects divisions within the Republican foreign policy establishment. Mr. Hagel was a throwback to a conservative foreign policy advocated by former President Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger, he said, "where you aren't trying to remake the world as the liberal interventionists and the neo-cons want to do. Chuck Hagel is a realist."
As Mr. Hagel pulled away from the GOP, he drew closer to Senate Democrats, including Mr. Obama, then-Sen. Joe Biden and Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island.
Mr. Obama met Mr. Hagel in 2004, shortly after Mr. Obama joined the Senate. Mr. Hagel's aides asked whether Mr. Obama would be interested in co-sponsoring an immigration bill. Mr. Obama declined, preferring that his first ambitious legislation focus on Illinois.
Mr. Obama served with Mr. Hagel on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, alongside Mr. Biden and Mr. Kerry, now the president's nominee for Secretary of State. As a junior senator, Mr. Obama mostly listened.
"Hagel's questions in these hearings were sharp, they were insightful," said a senior administration official. "That is what drew Sen. Obama."
The connection led Mr. Obama to invite Mr. Hagel on the 2008 trip to Iraq and Afghanistan. Mr. Obama, who had been criticized during the presidential campaign for not making more visits to U.S. war zones, sought both the perspective of a military veteran, said people close to the president, as well as the political benefit of a Republican on the trip.
While Sen. Hagel took no sides in the 2008 race, the trip for many Republicans was a de facto endorsement that gave Mr. Obama the appearance of bipartisan support.
Mr. Obama's overseas trip was unusually small, made up of a few staff members accompanying Mr. Obama, Mr. Hagel and Mr. Reed. The three senators met with President Hamid Karzai in Afghanistan and toured Iraq. They shuttled on military aircraft from Basra, the heart of the Shiite south, to Baghdad and the Anbar province. Gen. David Petraeus, then the top U.S. commander in Iraq, gave a private helicopter tour of the war zone.
Messrs. Hagel and Obama found they shared similar analytical approaches over the course of the trip, said current and former officials, particularly in assessing war-zone strategy. A State Department cable summarizing the meeting with Mr. Karzai described Mr. Hagel and Mr. Obama as pressing the Afghan leader on corruption, drugs and the influence of Iran. During the meetings, Mr. Reed said, Mr. Hagel and Mr. Obama "had a natural rapport."
At a stop in Kuwait, Messrs. Obama and Hagel ran into each other in a hotel suite used for secure communication. Mr. Hagel was still in his travel clothes; Mr. Obama in his workout gear. They talked more than an hour, seated face to face in hotel chairs. "It was a very personal conversation, just between the two of them," recalled one observer. "It was two men at ease."
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http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/01/20/is-chuck-hagel-a-george-soros-plant-we-look-at-the-evidence/
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Brief • January 21, 2013
The Foundation
"All see, and most admire, the glare which hovers round the external trappings of elevated office. To me there is nothing in it, beyond the lustre which may be reflected from its connection with a power of promoting human felicity." --George Washington
Insight
"Limited as are the powers which have been granted, still enough have been granted to constitute a despotism if concentrated in ... the Executive branch. ... The tendency of power to increase itself, particularly when exercised by a single individual ... would terminate in virtual monarchy. ... The tendencies of ... governments in their decline is to monarchy. ... The spirit of faction ... in times of great excitement imposes itself upon the people as the genuine spirit of freedom, and, like the false christs whose coming was foretold by the Savior ... impose upon the true and most faithful disciples of liberty. It is in periods like this that it behooves the people to be most watchful of those to whom they have entrusted power." --William Henry Harrison, March 4, 1841 inaugural address
"Do not blame Caesar, blame the people of Rome who have so enthusiastically acclaimed and adored him and rejoiced in their loss of freedom and danced in his path and given him triumphal processions. Blame the people who hail him when he speaks in the Forum of the new wonderful good society which shall now be Rome's, interpreted to mean more money, more ease, more security, and more living fatly at the expense of the industrious." --Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BC)
Opinion in Brief
"For foreigners, the only thing nuttier than watching the way we elect our Presidents is watching the way we inaugurate them. For a nation that wears its egalitarianism not just as a badge of honor, but (as we saw this past November) almost as a requirement for office, the pomp and circumstance involved in a modern U.S. Presidential inauguration would have moved Louis XIV to modesty. ... Too many balls, tickets are too expensive, only the rich and connected can get into the really good stuff ... and so on." --columnist
Rich Galen
Faith & Family
"The Rev. Louie Giglio, designated to give the benediction at this year's presidential inauguration, has withdrawn, under apparent pressure, after the surfacing of remarks he made, some 25 years ago, about the sinfulness of homosexuality. ... One wonders if Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., whose birthday coincides with this second inauguration of America's first black president, would not himself wind up today pushed off the stage because of his Christian convictions. A hint of how to think about this may be gleaned by visiting the new memorial in Washington, D.C., honoring King. Visiting the memorial, what immediately struck this black Christian was the complete absence of any hint that King was a Christian pastor, who founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and who led a movement animated and inspired by biblical conviction and imagery. ... In King's famous letter written in 1963, while locked in a jail in Birmingham, Ala., beginning with the salutation 'My fellow clergyman,' he asks the question, 'How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust?' The answer given by King was this: 'A just law is a manmade code that squares with the moral law or the law of God.' Would a law such as the one forcing the evangelical Christian owners of Hobby Lobby to pay for contraception and abortion inducing pills of employees, and exposing them to fines of $1.3 million per day for noncompliance -- qualify as 'just' under Dr. King's definition? Would the Rev. Dr. King be ejected from the stage of this president's inaugural if he called this law, produced by this administration, unjust?" --columnist Star Parker
Martin Luther King Jr.
"Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity." --Martin Luther King Jr.
Today the once-noble Democrat Party has turned the wisdom of MLK, one of their most revered iconic figureheads, on its head. Perhaps King's most remembered words are these: "I have a dream that my children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character." However, Democrat Leftists now interpret this as, "I have a dream that my children will one day be judged by the color of their skin, not the content of their character."
Read more on what Martin Luther King has come to symbolize for the Left.
Re: The Left
"Severe restrictions on building housing in San Francisco have driven rents and home prices so high that blacks and other people with low or moderate incomes have been driven out of the city. ... Liberals try to show their concern for the poor by raising the level of minimum wage laws. Yet they show no interest in hard evidence that minimum wage laws create disastrous levels of unemployment among young blacks in this country, as such laws created high unemployment rates among young people in general in European countries. The black family survived centuries of slavery and generations of Jim Crow, but it has disintegrated in the wake of the liberals' expansion of the welfare state. Most black children grew up in homes with two parents during all that time but most grow up with only one parent today. Liberals have pushed affirmative action, supposedly for the benefit of blacks and other minorities. ... But who cares about facts, when you are on a liberal crusade that makes you feel morally superior?" --economist Thomas Sowell
Inspiration
"In the debate over abortion in the United States, two women's names appear more frequently than any others: Jane Roe and Mary Doe, the plaintiffs in the companion 1973 Supreme Court cases that legalized abortion in the country. ... [A] woman named Sandro Cano has quietly issued a media release on a Christian newswire service calling for the two Supreme Court cases to be overturned. This in itself might seem unremarkable, until you learn Cano's other name: Mary Doe. Yes, that Mary Doe. ... While the better known Roe v. Wade struck down all state restrictions on abortion pre-viability, Doe v. Bolton extended the right to abort through all nine months of pregnancy. But Cano has since claimed that the whole foundation of Doe v. Bolton was a lie: that she never actually wanted nor requested an abortion and that she was tricked into signing an affidavit about abortion in the process of filing for divorce from her husband and seeking to regain custody of her other children. ... In 2003, Cano launched legal proceedings to try to overturn the case that bears her name. ... But while her attempt to have the case reheard failed, this hasn't stopped her from working to overturn the case in other ways. ... Meanwhile, another women, Norma McCorvey, briefly captured headlines during last year's election cycle when she released a pro-life ad featuring graphic pictures of aborted children and accusing President Obama of 'killing babies' by his support for abortion. Most won't recognize McCorvey's real name, but will instantly recognize her pseudonym: Jane Roe. Yes, that Jane Roe. Though McCorvey worked as an abortion activist for years after Roe v. Wade was handed down, she announced a conversion to the pro-life cause in the mid 1990s. ... In 2003, Norma filed to re-open Roe v. Wade, a petition that was dismissed. Much like Sandra, however, Norma continues to speak out about her involvement in the case. 'I'm 100 percent sold out to Jesus and 100 percent pro-life,' Norma writes in a testimony published on her website. ... To many it will come as a shock that neither of the two women whose names are practically synonymous with legal abortion in America actually had an abortion, and that both are now passionately pro-life and have dedicated their lives to trying to overturn the cases that bear their names." --LifeSiteNews' John Jalsevac
Culture
"For decades, ultrasound has had the power to convey the beauty and reality of human life before birth. Conveying that power, the London Daily Mail newspaper ... reports on the story of a mother who rejected abortion and chose life for her baby after seeing him smile in an ultrasound. Katyia Rowe was told her baby would never be able to walk or talk, but a real-time ultrasound scan showed him blowing bubbles and waving his arms, so she decided to go through with the birth. He died just 9 hours later, but she is very glad she chose life instead of abortion. ... 'Katyia, 26, a training administrator, said: "We were devastated to be told our son's brain abnormalities were so severe they were life limiting we should consider a termination. Further scans were arranged to asses the extent of his disabilities but when I saw him smiling and playing inside me I knew I couldn't end his life. ... I had never considered myself particularly maternal but now I wanted nothing more than to care for my son and give him the best quality of life possible. ... As he grew bigger I could see his little feet and hands prodding through my bump when he wriggled. He may not have been born but he was already our son and I took each movement as a sign we had done the right thing."'" --LifeNews' Steven Ertelt
Essential Liberty
"President Obama put Vice President Joe Biden in charge of [a gun control] task force. Biden calls his gun control effort a 'moral issue.' Does Biden suffer from selective morality? For him, same-sex marriage and abortion don't appear to be moral issues, as they are for his Catholic church, but gun control is. The loss of liberty always begins at the extremes, but it won't stop there. Radicals won't be satisfied with outlawing one type of gun. ... The Second Amendment was written to protect citizens from tyrannical government and to preserve our liberties. It's not primarily for the protection of hunters and target shooters, though they are included. Those politicians who wish to ignore the Constitution are the ones who need to be controlled, not law-abiding gun owners." --columnist Cal Thomas
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Ron Paul tweets about SEAL sniper’s death: ‘He who lives by the sword dies by the sword’
12:41 PM 02/04/2013
Vince Coglianese Senior Online Editor
Republican presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, gestures while speaking at a town hall meeting in Keene, N.H., Monday, Nov. 21, 2011. (AP Photo/Cheryl Senter)
Former congressman and libertarian icon Ron Paul tweeted a startling reaction to the death of SEAL sniper Chris Kyle on Monday:
Kyle and a friend were both killed by a veteran struggling with PTSD while working with him at a gun range on Saturday.
The former Marine, Eddie Ray Routh, turned his weapon on the other two men and shot them at close range, according to news accounts.
Kyle was the author of the best-selling “American Sniper,” which detailed his time as a record-holding SEAL sniper.
Paul has a long history of being opposed to American military intervention abroad.
Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2013/02/04/ron-paul-tweets-about-seal-snipers-death-he-who-lives-by-the-sword-dies-by-the-sword/
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Obama's State of the Union
February 13, 2013
The Foundation
"For it is a truth which the experience of all ages has attested, that the people are always most in danger, when the means of injuring their rights are in the possession of those of whom they entertain the least suspicion." --Alexander Hamilton
NeoCom SOTU Address
Last night, Barack Obama delivered his latest NeoCom State of the Union Address. Below are the lowlights from his speech:
"Over the last few years, both parties have worked together to reduce the deficit by more than $2.5 trillion -- mostly through spending cuts, but also by raising tax rates on the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans. As a result, we are more than halfway towards the goal of $4 trillion in deficit reduction that economists say we need to stabilize our finances. ... Already, the Affordable Care Act is helping to slow the growth of health care costs. ... Let me repeat -- nothing I'm proposing tonight should increase our deficit by a single dime. ... [F]or the sake of our children and our future, we must do more to combat climate change. Yes, it's true that no single event makes a trend. But the fact is, the 12 hottest years on record have all come in the last 15. Heat waves, droughts, wildfires, and floods -- all are now more frequent and intense. We can choose to believe that Superstorm Sandy, and the most severe drought in decades, and the worst wildfires some states have ever seen were all just a freak coincidence. Or we can choose to believe in the overwhelming judgment of science -- and act before it's too late. ... But if Congress won't act soon to protect future generations, I will. I will direct my Cabinet to come up with executive actions we can take, now and in the future, to reduce pollution, prepare our communities for the consequences of climate change, and speed the transition to more sustainable sources of energy. ... Tonight, let's declare that in the wealthiest nation on Earth, no one who works full-time should have to live in poverty, and raise the federal minimum wage to $9.00 an hour. ... Today, the organization [al-Qa'ida] that attacked us on 9/11 is a shadow of its former self. ... As long as I'm commander in chief, we will do whatever we must to protect those who serve their country abroad, and we will maintain the best military in the world. We will invest in new capabilities, even as we reduce waste and wartime spending. We will ensure equal treatment for all service members, and equal benefits for their families -- gay and straight. We will draw upon the courage and skills of our sisters and daughters, because women have proven under fire that they are ready for combat. ... [T]onight, I'm announcing a non-partisan commission to improve the voting experience in America. ... Police chiefs are asking our help to get weapons of war and massive ammunition magazines off our streets, because they are tired of being outgunned. Each of these proposals deserves a vote in Congress. If you want to vote no, that's your choice. But these proposals deserve a vote. Because in the two months since Newtown, more than a thousand birthdays, graduations, and anniversaries have been stolen from our lives by a bullet from a gun." --Barack Obama
Post Your Opinion
Editorial Exegesis
"[Obama's] speech gave every indication that he remains a hostage to the superstition that we can spend our way to national prosperity -- or that we can pass laws that will force employers, pharmaceutical manufacturers, and other businesses to spend our way to prosperity for us. ... In reality, the state of our union is this: The United States is today $6 trillion deeper in debt than it was before Barack Obama was first sworn in as president. That represents an increase of 57 percent in just four years. Put another way: Out of every dollar the country owes in government debt, 36 cents was acquired under the Obama administration. The state of our union is this: Today there are more than 4 million fewer Americans working than there were when Barack Obama was first sworn in as president -- not including those who have retired. ... The state of our union is this: Economic growth is weaker than it has been during any recovery in recent memory; in fact, the economy shrank in the last quarter. ... The state of our union is this: Incomes are lower today than they were when Barack Obama was first sworn in as president. ... The president boasted that a decade of war is coming to an end. It is, and a new decade of war is beginning. He boasted that al-Qaeda is decimated, but that news has not reached Benghazi or most of North Africa. So the state of our union also is this: North Korea sets off nuclear weapons with impunity. Iran seeks them without fear. Islamists slaughter our diplomatic personnel while the president's national-defense team keeps bankers' hours. ... The president's confrontational, hectoring, and highly ideological speech ought to be a wake-up call to the country. The Republican majority in the House is the only real check on his power. Supplementing that check with a Republican majority in the Senate is imperative. Even through all of President Obama's obfuscations, that much is clear." --National Review
Upright
"I think the mindset of this administration was revealed in one particular line that, I must confess, almost escaped my attention. Quote: 'I'm also issuing a new goal for America.' The particular goal in question was to reduce energy-waste in homes and businesses. Think, however, about the quoted statement. Leaving aside the fact that it sounded like a decree issued from on high, the president's words are emblematic of the top-down approach to the economy and society that's characteristic of all instinctual dirigistes. In political terms, it also reflects a failure to grasp that America was never supposed to be about the government decreeing goals that we're all obliged to get behind." --Action Institute research director Samuel Gregg
"In sum, we must 'protect our children' and therefore have left them another $5 trillion in new debt. After five years of these soaring hope-and-change speeches, there are the same three themes I think will keep reverberating: Obama's soaring rhetoric bears not much resemblance to the reality of the present tough times here and abroad; no one in the administration or the media will go back to see whether last year's similar utopian ideas ever worked or even saw implementation; and the majority of listeners to the speech either probably believed every word -- or were angry at anybody who did not." --historian Victor Davis Hanson
"As supporters of individual liberty, personal responsibility, and free markets, too often our candidates and elected leaders rail against the corrosive influence of expansive government without thoroughly explaining why our 'sensible' limited-government approach will actually make people's lives tangibly better -- lifting them from poverty, providing them better education options, and preserving the programs they rely on.... When the president says he wants to 'invest' and we say we want to 'cut,' he is wrong on the substance but right on the politics. We need to take back the terminology, and in doing so, the perception of who's on the high ground." --Pete Hegseth, former Executive Director of Vets For Freedom
"The central unacknowledged problem the Republican party faces ... is the failure of its economic message to connect with voters' economic suffering. President Obama gave what I think was a politically effective speech. Voters would come away remembering several new ideas that connect -- like the idea of getting a community-college degree alongside a high-school diploma for free, a federal effort to reduce tuition costs, and of course raising the minimum wage.... The GOP's job is to make President Obama own the economy he created by explaining in a persuasive way why we have no real recovery after four years of Obamanomics -- and then offer a choice, not an echo." --commentator Maggie Gallagher
Demo-gogues
"Non Compos Mentis" Award: "We avow the First Amendment. We stand with that and say that people have a right to have a gun to protect themselves in their homes and their jobs, where ever, and ... for recreation for hunting and the rest." --House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) (Memo to Nan: That would be the Second Amendment and the protection in question would be against a government which no longer comports to constitutional restraints.)
Calling all sycophants: "The president and I are going to continue to travel the country, so that [the gun control] we're proposing can't be misrepresented. To be very blunt with you, we're counting on you -- the legitimate news media -- to cover these discussions because the truth is that times have changed." --Joe Biden
The BIG Lie: "There's some information that suggests that some of these [gun] manufacturers build their sales models on an assumption that at least 20 percent of the weapons will get sold illegally." --Rep. John Sarbanes (D-MD)
Gun grabbers: "It's clear that we need to look at handguns also." --Rep. Luis Gutiérrez (D-IL) on further gun control -- because it's worked so well in Chicago
Denying the problem: "The fact is, we've had plenty of spending cuts. ... t is almost a false argument to say that we have a spending problem. We have a budget deficit problem." --Nancy Pelosi (We're on pace to increase the national debt by $7 trillion over 10 years.)
Chutzpah: "On behalf of Americans everywhere, Michelle and I wish to extend our appreciation and prayers to His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI. Michelle and I warmly remember our meeting with the Holy Father in 2009, and I have appreciated our work together over these last four years." --Barack Obama (Someone should tell him that being sued by the Catholic Church doesn't constitute "working together.")
The Democrat Motto: "Don't confuse me with any facts." --Rep. Corrine Brown (D-FL) at a townhall meeting
Dezinformatsia
Speaking truth to power: "I think that the president really feels that the state of the union is stronger for several reasons. One is that he's been winning ever since the election. And he seems to have a working majority now, even in the House. But, also, I think that despite the last quarter of GDP non-growth, that things are looking pretty good for the economy." --Time Magazine's Joe Klein
Sympathy for the devil: "Are there people in your newsroom, editors who are saying, 'We have to be careful here. It's not simple. This man may have a complaint.'" --MSNBC's Chris Matthews to Los Angeles Times journalist Andrew Blankstein during a live feed as police closed in on rogue ex-cop Christopher Dorner
Peacenik: "What, people ask, is the alternative to small war, if not big war? And the answer no one ever seems to consider is no war. ... We could be a nation that declares its war over, that declares itself at peace, and goes about rigorously and energetically intelligence and diplomacy and well-resourced police work to protect us from future attacks." --MSNBC's Chris Hayes
Hot air: "Talk about something else that's falling from the sky and that is an asteroid. What's coming our way? Is this an effect of, perhaps, of global warming or is this just some meteoric occasion?" --CNN anchor Deb Feyerick
Newspulper Headlines:
That's When He Isn't Busy Doing Skeet Shooting: "Obama: 'I Often Search Scripture to Figure Out How I Can Be a Better Man as Well as Better President'" --CNSNews.com
Taxes Aren't the Only Thing That's High: "Police Say People Smoking Pot, Doing Taxes at Clay H&R Block" --Daily Mail (Charleston, WV)
News You Can Use: "Don't Take Medical Advice From the New York Times Magazine" --Slate.com
That's Why He Married a Ketchup Heiress: "Mayo Too Strong for Kerry" --Setanta.com
Bottom Story of the Day: "Michelle Obama's Posterior Again the Subject of a Public Rant" --The Washington Post
(Thanks to The Wall Street Journal's James Taranto)
Village Idiots
Unhinged: "Whether by [Obama] executive order or thru a bi-partisan congress an assault weapons ban needs to be re-instituted. Period!!! Mr. Vice President, do your due diligence when formulating a concise and permanent national AWB plan. ... Gun control is no longer debatable, it's not a conversation, its a moral mandate. Sen. Feinstein, you are doing the right thing in leading the re-institution of a national AWB. The time is now to reinstitute a ban. ... I want you to know that I agree with you 100% on enacting stricter firearm laws." --from rogue ex-LA cop Christopher Dorner's manifesto (Dorner was apparently killed yesterday in a standoff with police.)
Snake oil: "The Affordable Healthcare Act is going to be implemented in stages and these things, just like Social Security when it started, Medicare when it started, Medicaid when it started, they all have some difficulty when they started." --Fox News' Juan Williams attempting to explain recent revelations about ObamaCare -- most notably 1. Obama sold it at costing less than $900 billion and the most recent CBO estimate is now $2.8 trillion 2. The cheapest family plan will cost almost $20,000 by 2016 3. Compliance will take 127 million man hours. So, when Juan compares ObamaCare to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, he may, inadvertently, be on to something!
Nothing to see here: "One of the things that I would like to again try to clear up, and I ask you to please stop adopting the rhetoric of the gun advocates. Chicago does not have strict gun laws." --Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy
We support, but... "We support the Second Amendment. We aren't trying to take anyone's guns away necessarily. We're just trying to get something that's common sense, a logical reaction to the tragedies that have happened in the past few years." --actor Adam Scott
Submission: "[The] president of the United States is our boss, but he is also -- you know, the president and the first lady are kinda like the mom and the dad of the country. And when your dad says something you listen, and when you don't it will usually bite you on the a$$ later on." --comedian Chris Rock
Short Cuts
"I can't get excited by the question of whether Senator Robert Menendez had sex with a prostitute in Central America. It is her word against his -- and when it comes to a prostitute's word against a politician's word, that is too close to call." --economist Thomas Sowell
"The financially struggling US Postal Service announced it will stop delivering mail on Saturdays. Can't wait to find out how many days per week you'll be able to get treatment under Obamacare." --Fred Thompson
"Reportedly, President Obama's speech will focus on jobs. Hopefully he'll explain to us why anybody in Congress still has one." --comedian Jay Leno
"President Obama allowed his Jobs Council to expire without renewing its charter despite high unemployment and a contracting economy. The members never met anyway. The Jobs Council was only intended to save one job, and now its work is done." --comedian Argus Hamilton
Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus et Fidelis!
Nate Jackson for The Patriot Post Editorial Team
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The Foundation
"The value of liberty was thus enhanced in our estimation by the difficulty of its attainment, and the worth of characters appreciated by the trial of adversity." --George Washington
Inspiration
13-year-old Anna with daughter Josey Ann
"I received an amazing email from Anna, who gave me permission to post her story and her name. ... 'When I was little I was molested for eight years by my stepfather. ... I got pregnant the first time when I was 12. I was scared and told him. He hit me and then loaded me up on drugs, telling my mom that I had been injured while out playing with some other kids. He killed my baby. ... When I was 13, I became pregnant again. This time I did not say anything to him. My mom noticed that my body was changing, even though I was only about two months along at the time, and asked me about it. ... I finally got the courage and told her everything. She immediately packed up my brother, sister, and I and took us to our Aunt's house. From there she called the police. ... In the end, he was sentenced to 10 years in prison for molesting not only me but my sister. ... I was told by therapists, friends, teachers, family, and even strangers, that it would probably be best if I had an abortion; but I couldn't. ... It was harder than I have words to describe. But there are some things in life that are worth fighting for, and she was one of them. ... I decided to name her Josey Ann, after a character in a book I had read. On Friday, July 28, 1995, roughly six weeks before my due date, I went into labor. ... Words cannot express the joy I felt when we got to bring her home the day before I started the 7th grade. ... My mom was amazing, she watched my daughter so that I could finish school. I did graduate and was my class historian. I met a wonderful man who loves both me and my daughter, and we now have four children. ... It wasn't until I was 26 that I truly found a relationship with Jesus Christ. A wonderful neighbor of ours showed me how much Jesus loves me. Because He loves us, He gave us free will. My stepfather abused that gift when he abused me. But like Romans 8:28 says, God used something horrible to bring me one of the greatest blessings in my life. ... To anyone who is where I was, please hold on. You can make it, and your child will bring you more joy than you can imagine. It will be hard, but it is worth it.'" --LifeNews' Jill Stanek
Essential Liberty
"I was in surgery when the first Columbine victims arrived in our emergency room. As I was working to improve one child's life, my friends were downstairs trying to save others -- one cracking a chest and another tending a girl whose breast had been partially blown off by a shotgun. Trust me; I get it. ... Trashing our individual constitutional rights is not the answer to mass shootings. ... A society so denied becomes one obsessed not with doing the right thing, but with figuring out how to break the law. The inevitable result of violent misconduct is howling for the state to immediately pass more laws that restrain individual freedom to act, the diffusion of power away from the individual and to the state, and the increased risk that the state will become tyrannical and precipitate violence. When we ask our elected representatives to restrict our rights and our freedom of conduct, we are asking them to diminish our chances of becoming good and happy citizens. There once was a king who had only two laws -- 'Do as you please, and harm no one.' This is the simplest expression of liberty and of good governance. It is also the only regime under which citizens can fully learn the difference between right and wrong." --Patriot Post Grassroots contributor Cameron S. Schaeffer
Opinion in Brief
"Let's take one more step with the cry for stricter gun control laws. What would happen if our lawmakers were able to push through a bill ordering the confiscation of all firearms? Who would they immediately go after? You can bet your life it would be the law-abiding citizen. Why? Because they obeyed the law requiring registration of their firearms, government officials know where they reside and the good citizen will, in all likelihood, offer the path of least resistance. The criminals? Well, the criminals would get a free pass because they did not obey the law. So, it would be gun crime as usual on the streets of Chicago, Baltimore, New York, Washington, D.C., Houston and Los Angeles, while a mentally unstable person loads his guns and plans a mass shooting at a mall, church or school in your neighborhood. Welcome to the real world of Obama, Feinstein, Bloomberg and O'Malley gun control." --Patriot Post Grassroots contributor James H. Lilley
Government
"I think most people are missing the liberal thought pattern which is the biggest threat to our Liberty. The liberal argument to ban ... weapons is based on two and only two arguments. First argument is that 'no one really needs a rifle like the AR-15.' The second is that 'for the safety and common good, it is necessary to remove the right to own a weapon with military type features or a magazine that holds more than 10 rounds.' So let me make something perfectly clear: At no time are we required to justify our 'need' of anything to the federal government. As big of a threat to individual liberty that a ban on some particular weapons is and as bad a president that it sets for further gun grabbing by the federal government, it pales in comparison to the concept that the government can begin to base policy on the government deciding what the American citizen 'needs.' ... Really, when you come to think about it, removing a citizen's rights based on government defined needs is about as good a description of socialism as you can find and in reality, is the best explanation why citizens need the ability to defend themselves." --Patriot Post Grassroots contributor Scott Treichler
Insight
"Governments do not make ideals, but ideals make governments. This is both historically and logically true. Of course the government can help to sustain ideals and can create institutions through which they can be the better observed, but their source by their very nature is in the people. ... It is not the enactment, but the observance of laws, that creates the character of a nation." --President Calvin Coolidge (1872-1933) (MARC: I really like this one!)
Political Futures
"[T]he emotional heart of the State of the Union comprised three issues: immigration reform, climate change and gun control. ... How can it be springtime for liberalism when liberalism's top priorities aren't the public's top priorities? The remainder of Obama's agenda was fairly pathetic boilerplate. Hike the minimum wage! Redesign America's schools! Manufacturing hubs! Make-work programs! This is supposed to be liberalism reborn? Lame ideas cribbed from a playbook with 60 years of dust on it? Slogans hatched by pols who needed a few more nouns to round out Obama's sentences? Legislative initiatives that will cost Democrats seats in 2014 and beyond? Obama's State of the Union had the lowest ratings in 13 years for a reason -- and it's not that America is excited for a new golden age of liberalism. The momentum Obama feels is the pull of gravity, as he starts his fall." --columnist Jonah Goldberg
For the Record
"The president gives a performance [in his SOTU address], extremely animatedly, head swiveling from left-side prompter to right-side prompter, continually urging action now: 'Let's start right away. We can get this done. ... We can fix this. ... Now is the time to do it. Now is the time to get it done.' And at the end of the speech, nothing gets done, and nothing gets fixed, and, after a few days' shadowboxing between admirers and detractors willing to pretend it's some sort of serious legislative agenda, every single word of it is forgotten until the next one. In that sense, like Beyoncé lip-synching the National Anthem at the Inauguration, the State of the Union embodies the decay of America's political institutions into a simulacrum of responsible government rather than the real thing, and a simulacrum ever more divorced from the real issues facing the country." --columnist Mark Steyn
The Gipper
"The most dangerous myth is the demagoguery that business can be made to pay a larger share, thus relieving the individual. ... Business doesn't pay taxes, and who better than business to make this message known? Only people pay taxes, and people pay as consumers every tax that is assessed against a business." --Ronald Reagan
Faith and Family
"A healthy marriage culture helps the gold standard prevail, wherever possible, that children are raised by the parents who brought them into this world. ... The Supreme Court itself has repeatedly noted that marriage and the family are necessary foundations of a free and properly functioning democratic republic. This is why the state, although it did not create marriage, has consistently supported and encouraged its flourishing. In contrast, until very recently, no government in human history has ever officially recognized same-sex relationships as marriages, precisely because they do not further society's important interest in the natural procreation of the next generation of citizens. ... The erosion of marriage and the breakdown of the family in America have unleashed social problems that are all too real and must be remedied. But the remedy will not come by accepting same-sex 'marriage' as valid, necessary, or constitutionally required. Marriage does not need redefinition, but rededication to its core meaning, the union of one man and one woman, and to its core purpose, uniting children to their own mother and father." --columnist Ken Connelly
Culture
"The difference between Barack Obama and [Dr.] Ben Carson couldn't be more stark. Obama feeds class warfare and rails about growing up in America in a single parent home, without ever bothering to thank an America that bestowed him a life of privilege. Carson was goaded on to success by a mother whose motto is: 'Do your best and God will do the rest'. In his poverty-challenged youth, with a mother who steadfastly refused victim status, Carson was reading books, not writing them. Even with all odds stacked against him, Ben Carson went on to turn poverty into celebrated success. Meanwhile, there's a pall cast over [last week's] State of the Union address. It's the Hope & Change Americans see in Mrs. Sonya Carson's little boy, Benjamin Carson." --columnist Judi McLeod
Reader Comments
"Mark, thank you for easing my conscience in your column Obama's Progressive State of Disunion with your admission that you had better things to do than watch the SOTU last Tuesday. I wasn't going to; then I thought I should; then as I watched the Cabinet members file in my husband and I looked at each other and silently agreed that we would rather do something -- ANYTHING -- else. I couldn't allow myself to get worked up (again) over all the blatant lies and deception while the ignorant and sycophantic applaud their Emperor." --Christi in Georgia
"The SOTU address given by the impostor in chief was at best a punch line best delivered by a real comedian. The president has told most of these lies before and he still thinks we are going to believe him. The Democrats make me ill when they attempt to use the bodies of children to promote their anti-gun agenda. And I would remind them that the last time attempts were made to disarm the citizens of this country it didn't go as they planned. I would refer them to the history at Concord, known as 'The Shot Heard 'Round the World.' Oh but I forgot they don't teach History anymore do they?" --Kelly in Blue Springs, Missouri
"This disgraceful president uses semantics to convince himself he's not a liar. When he says his proposals won't add one dime to the deficit he isn't lying because it's not one dime, but far more than one. And when he took his oath he figures doing everything he can to undermine the Constitution is the best of his ability since he thinks the Constitution is bad for America." --Reed in Flint, Michigan
"We don't have a spending problem? HA! How can Obama, Pelosi, and the other NeoComs actually maintain a straight face while babbling such astoundingly stupid statements? Their insatiable appetite to tax and spend is driving our nation to destruction! Of course that's how they buy their votes. They promise everybody everything, and unfortunately, far too many voters are either freeloaders or completely out of touch with reality. But nothing is free." --Travis in Texas
"Let the sequester happen! Something has to wake the Democrats to the fact that the spending has to stop!" --Del Ray in Clearbrook, Minnesota
The Last Word
"Right now, politicians have the power to suddenly decide to tax us all at 100% and then spend the money replacing all of our roads with a high-speed rail system. What keeps them from doing that? Common sense? Cme on, look at the morons we have in government -- Congress is filled with idiots who couldn't run a lemonade stand and who have grand visions to transform the nation. No, the only thing stopping them is that they're divided into two parties who viscerally hate each other. If they ever got along, a big new government overreach like the Patriot Act or a giant boondoggle like Obamacare would be passed every couple weeks. ... We American citizens have nothing protecting us -- except the two-party system. Playing half the government against the other half is the only thing keeping its power in check. ... If we ever see the parties start to get along, we have to come up with some completely made-up issue to keep them fighting, like climate change. ... So right now we should hope for headlines about a bipartisan agreement that was broken up when the senators started to bite each other. Then we'll know our country is safe." --columnist Frank J. Fleming
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http://www.dickmorris.com/how-boehner-ate-obamas-lunch-dick-morris-tv-lunch-alert/?utm_source=dmreports&utm_medium=dmreports&utm_campaign=dmreports
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WEDNESDAY CHRONICLE
Beware 'Comprehensive' Immigration Reform
April 3, 2013
The Foundation
"It will be of little avail to the people, that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood." --James Madison, Federalist No. 62
Editorial Exegesis
"Regardless of their respective positions on immigration reform, legislators on both the dovish and hawkish sides of the debate should agree on one fundamental principle: The Nancy Pelosi approach to lawmaking -- pass the bill to find out what's in it -- is no way to go about repairing our defective immigration system. Supporters of so-called comprehensive immigration reform are positioned to rush through legislation in the Senate ... and have been critical of Alabama Republican Jeff Sessions and others who have called for a more thorough (and necessarily more time-consuming) examination of the issues in question. ... 'But we've been debating these issues for decades,' the argument goes. True enough. But we have not been debating the specific legislation under consideration for decades, years, weeks, days, hours, minutes, or milliseconds: As of this writing, the text of the bill has not even been finalized, much less made public, and still less been subject to rigorous debate. The distinction is important. Senator Sessions and others are not calling for delay for the sake of delay. They are asking for time to examine thoroughly the specifics of the legislation. ... A right-here-right-now legislative process is an invitation for Republicans to set themselves up for getting rolled by the Obama administration and its congressional enablers. ... Further, there is no reason to conclude that every aspect of immigration reform must be lumped into a single bill: Border security, to take the most obvious example, is worth doing on its own, regardless of independent issues such as the ongoing status of illegal immigrants. The mania for legislative gigantism leads to bad law. ... Congressional Republicans, and Americans at large, should be highly skeptical of the Democrats' attempt to rush through this legislation -- legislation that remains, at the moment, literally a sight unseen." --National Review
Post Your Opinion
Upright
"Last Friday, the so-called 'comprehensive immigration reform' effort received a boost when U.S. Chamber of Commerce head Tom Donohue and AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka reportedly came to an agreement regarding a guest-worker program. ... The deal creates a new 'W' visa category aimed at low-skill workers. It would allow immigrants to earn the same wages paid to Americans, or an industry's prevailing wages, whichever is higher. Since such wages can vary from city to city, the Labor Department would determine the prevailing wage. The proposal also includes the additional promises of border security, a crackdown on employers who hire illegals, and a 13-year pathway to citizenship for the millions of illegal aliens currently in the country. It's the oh-so-familiar promises that ought to infuriate Americans well aware that the exact same promises about border control and a crackdown on businesses were made when the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act was passed into law." --columnist Arnold Ahlert
"On Tuesday, the Associated Press announced that it is banishing the phrase 'illegal immigrant' from its famous stylebook. ... AP explains that it wants to stop labeling people. Hah. This is the same organization that employs journalists who have repeatedly shown naked bias against tea party members, gun owners and pro-life activists. ... I propose that we banish the term 'journalist' when referring to members of mainstream news organizations who pose as neutral news-gathers while carrying out a blatantly ideological agenda." --columnist Michelle Malkin
"Soft-minded and sloppy-thinking academics, lawyers and judges harbor the silly notion that but for the fact of discrimination, we'd be proportionately distributed by race across incomes, education, occupations and other outcomes. There is absolutely no evidence anywhere, at any time, that proportionality is the norm anywhere on earth; however, much of our thinking, many of our laws and much of our public policy are based upon proportionality's being the norm. Maybe this vision is held because people believe that equality in fact is necessary for equality before the law. But the only requirement for equality before the law is that one is a human being." --economist Walter E. Williams
"Most of the social liberalism comes with quite a price tag. The most reliable constituency for Big Government is single women, for whom the state is a girl's best friend, the sugar daddy whose checks never bounce. A society in which a majority of births are out of wedlock cannot be other than a Big Government welfare society. Ruining a nation's finances is one thing; debauching its human capital is far harder to fix." --columnist Mark Steyn
Essential Liberty
"I know that as a Patriot, you will do all within your power to ensure that our society will take back the reins from Big Government. I know that you believe in the enduring truth of our ideas of limited government, free enterprise, and individual freedom, and that they will eventually win the day. Freedom is man's natural state; whenever he's enslaved, all he thinks about is how to become free once again." --Ed Feulner, in a final note as president of Heritage Foundation
Insight
"It is the mark of an educated man to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it." --Greek philosopher Aristotle (384-322 BC)
"Everyone wants to live at the expense of the state. They forget that the state wants to live at the expense of everyone." --French economist Frederic Bastiat (1801-1850)
Demo-gogues
No, shame on Obama for standing on the caskets of children: "The notion that two months or three months after something as horrific as what happened in Newtown happens and we've moved on to other things, that's not who we are. ... Less than 100 days ago that happened, and the entire country was shocked. And the entire country pledged we would do something about it and that this time would be different. Shame on us if we've forgotten. I haven't forgotten those kids. Shame on us if we've forgotten." --Barack Obama
"Tears aren't enough. Expressions of sympathy aren't enough. Speeches aren't enough. We've cried enough. We've known enough heartbreak. What we're proposing is not radical. It's not taking away anybody's gun rights. It's something that, if we are serious, we will do." --Barack Obama
Just the beginning: "[T]he Assault Weapons ban and the limitation on the size of magazines, let me say this as clearly as I can: This is just the beginning. We believe that weapons of war have no place on our streets. That's the message that the retired admirals and generals have spoken to us about. The comment one of them used was: 'If you want to learn how to use a semi-automatic weapon, join the United States military, but these are weapons of war.' And we believe there's no rational reason why someone would need a clip that can hold 15, 20, 30, 100 bullets, 100 rounds. We have to do more and we will do more." --Joe Biden
April Fools? "I call upon all Americans to observe this month with programs and activities to improve their understanding of financial principles and practices. My Administration is dedicated to helping people make sound decisions in the marketplace. My Administration continues to encourage responsibility at all levels of our financial system." --Barack Obama, in a declaration designating April "National Financial Capability Month" (Since taking office in 2009, Obama has increased the national debt by 60 percent, or $53,377 per household.)
The BIG Lie: "You have a responsibility to honor the Constitution. In fact, we take an oath to do just that, and that is the oath that President Obama is upholding. We weigh equities. Congress passes a bill. It's questionable in terms of constitutionality. There's no question about your oath to the Constitution of the United States.... I think we would all say we're honoring, as the president does, the Constitution." --House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)
Dezinformatsia
Left-theology: "Now, I'm not suggesting that John and Jesus were getting it on, but it wouldn't surprise me at all if John was gay and not acting sexual [towards Jesus] but just being affectionate, and Jesus was fine with that. Jesus did not say, 'John, get off my chest. Get your head away from me. I'm not gonna sit here with a guy with his head on my chest through an entire meal. I'm a homophobe, I'm scared, I'm...' No, Jesus didn't say that. Jesus just continued to hang out with John." --radio talk-show host Thom Hartmann
Ignorance: "Easter is the celebration of the resurrection into heaven of Jesus, three days after he was crucified, the premise for the Christian belief in an everlasting life." --New York Times reporter Elisabetta Povoledo (Following the embarrassing gaffe, the Times issued the following correction: "An earlier version of this article mischaracterized the Christian holiday of Easter. It is the celebration of Jesus's resurrection from the dead, not his resurrection into heaven.")
Support the troops: "Bear in mind that most veterans did nothing heroic. They served, and that's laudable, but it hardly seems necessary to provide them all with military honors after they have died. In fact, it seems generous enough to provide veterans and their spouses with free space and headstones at a national cemetery." --St. Louis Post-Dispatch's Bill McClellan
Denial: "I think [if] people watch [CNN] more critically and not just listen to what other people say about it -- I won't mention names -- they'll see that it [isn't a liberal news network], and I think one of the things we fix is make sure we have the right balance of voices on CNN. That we have good conservatives, good liberals, experts in all areas. It's a serious news network." --Turner Broadcasting CEO Phil Kent
Newspulper Headlines:
So Much for the Assault Weapons Ban: "Senators Beat Devils in Shootout" --The New York Times
Out on a Limb: "However Court Rules, Gay Marriage Debate Won't End" --Associated Press
Longest Books Ever Written: "Why Liberals Are Way, Way Too Obsessed With Income Inequality" --AEI-Ideas.org
Shortest Books Ever Written: "What Michelle Obama Can Teach Us About Modern Womanhood" --Globe and Mail (Toronto)
We Blame Global Warming: "Melt May Explain Antarctica's Sea Ice Expansion" --BBC website
We Blame George W. Bush: "Don't Blame Climate Change for Heavy Rain" --The-American-Interest.com
Bottom Story of the Day: "Dem Budget Targets Rich" --New York Post
(Thanks to The Wall Street Journal's James Taranto)
Village Idiots
Another BIG Lie: "As an absolute matter of fact in my view, and I think many other constitutional experts, there's not a single measure in this package of proposals the president has put forward that in anyway violates the Constitution. In fact, they reflect the president's commitment to our Second Amendment rights." --White House Press Secretary Jay Carney
Made up stats: "There are still thousands of Americans that are being murdered every single day." --Newark Mayor Cory Booker (Booker then followed up on Twitter with multiple corrections: "Just caught myself miss-speaking on ABC. It's hundreds being killed everyday not thousands. Sorry about that." Moments later: "Sorry again, officially it is approximately 30 people murdered every day due to gun violence." You know, whatever.)
Blame game: "I come from the city of Chicago. We know we have had a violence problem there. A lot of it has to do with straw buyers arming street gangs. There is no doubt and every law enforcement person will tell you that stronger trafficking laws combined with universal background checks would make a real difference. People are afraid of the NRA and they're trading their jobs for young lives in places like Chicago. And it's a terrible blight." --David Axelrod
Hollywood hypocrite: "For those who say I'm a hypocrite because I have an armed bodyguard, lets make one thing clear: No one in my employ is allowed to carry a large magazine and NO ONE IS ASKING ANYONE TO GIVE UP THEIR RIGHT TO BEAR ARMS.... And to the bullies who will try to marginalize and discredit me by saying, 'Shut up, you're just an actor,' while they brag about what a great president the ACTOR Ronald Reagan was, who threaten me with the demise of my acting career and much worse, I say SO BE IT!" --actor Jim Carrey
Irreverent "worship": "It drives me crazy when the captains of the religious right are always calling people back, never forward, forgetting that we are called to be a pilgrim's people. ... The captains of the religious right are always calling us back, back, back. For blacks to be back in the back of the bus, for women to be back in the kitchen, for gays to be in the closet and for immigrants to be on their side of the border." --Rev. Luis Leon's Easter "sermon" for the Obama klan at St. John's Episcopal Church (Somebody get ahold of the IRS and revoke St. John's non-profit status!)
Revisionist history: "If Jesus were alive today, he would be more inclined to say, 'you know, I didn't know it all.'" --Rev. Oliver White on why Jesus was wrong about same-sex "marriage"
Short Cuts
"So the president of the United States chose a preacher this Easter whose sermon was devoted to claiming that Republicans want to force blacks to ride at the back of the bus again. The Obamas were probably flashing back to the old Reverend Wright days and thinking, 'Man, it's good to be home.'" --radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh
"A new report shows that PETA killed 90% of the dogs & cats placed in its animal shelter. President Obama, though, was quick to praise the organization because at least they didn't waterboard." --Fred Thompson
"The Weekly Standard cited the Obamas for taking a vacation a month since the year started. They went to Hawaii in January, then he went to Florida while Michelle went to Aspen in February, now she's back in Aspen and the daughters are in the Bahamas. It turns out they cancelled the White House tours so that no one would see that the house is empty." --comedian Argus Hamilton
"In a groundbreaking move, the Associated Press, the largest news gathering outlet in the world, will no longer use the term 'illegal immigrant.' That is out. No longer 'illegal immigrant.' They will now use the phrase 'undocumented Democrat.'" --comedian Jay Leno
Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus et Fidelis!
Nate Jackson for The Patriot Post Editorial Team
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http://www.newrepublic.com/article/112906/where-obama-staff-veterans-are-working-2013
From the article:
Of course, this being the Obama tribe—a group of people who promised the most ethical, transparent administration in history; who gave themselves migraines by refusing to hire lobbyists (except when they did); who, during the 2008 primaries, held up the influence-peddling ex-Clintonite Lanny Davis as a shorthand for everything wrong with Washington—there is more than a little anguish over all the newfound riches. “Axe [David Axelrod] thinks all of us are lobbyists,” says one Obama campaign adviser. In conversations with other Obamans, several were willing to damn former colleagues as ethically suspect. (Naturally, they downplayed their own transgressions.)
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Clark Barrow's Daily Briefing
DAILY BRIEFING SUMMARY
FLOP - Fisker Automotive Inc., the troubled electric-car maker, missed its first payment on a $529 million U.S. Energy Department loan.
CONGRESS – According to a recent Politico article, the immigration proposal pending in Congress would transform the nation’s political landscape for a generation or more — pumping as many as 11 million new Hispanic voters into the electorate a decade from now in ways that, if current trends hold, would produce an electoral bonanza for Democrats and cripple Republican prospects in many states they now win easily.
BENGHAZI - U.S. House Republicans on Tuesday unveiled a report on last year's Benghazi attack that blames former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for approving lax security measures and accuses her of seeking to cover up her department's failures.
WHITE HOUSE – U.S. Senate Democrats and Republicans on Tuesday challenged the Obama administration to explicitly spell out its justification for using drones for targeted killings amid growing concerns about unchecked powers of the presidency and Americans' civil liberties.
• Meanwhile, the 19-year-old suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings has told interrogators that the American wars in Iraq and Afghanistan motivated him and his brother to carry out the attack, according to U.S. officials familiar with the interviews.
• In the years before the Boston Marathon bombings, the older brother fell under the influence of a Muslim convert who steered the religiously apathetic young man toward a strict strain of Islam, family members said.
GREEN LIGHT - A U.S. federal appeals court ruled on Tuesday that the Environmental Protection Agency has the legal authority to retroactively revoke a water pollution permit for one of West Virginia’s largest mountaintop removal coal mines.
TREND - From Louisiana to Ohio, Massachusetts and Nebraska, bold proposals to upend state tax laws are losing momentum in the face of political squabbles and special interest opposition.
DOMESTIC POLICY
ECONOMIC NEWS
FLOP - Fisker Automotive Inc., the troubled electric-car maker, missed its first payment on a $529 million U.S. Energy Department loan.
• Fisker, based in Anaheim, California, was supposed to make the payment on Monday. Fisker had received $192 million in federal loans before a series of problems led U.S. officials to freeze the loan in 2011.
• Fisker Automotive Inc. spent more than six times as much U.S. taxpayer and investor money to produce each luxury plug-in car it sold than the company received from customers, according to a research report.
• Fisker has spent $1.3 billion in taxpayer and venture capital money, or $660,000 for each car it sold, which cost around $100,000.
IN THE DISTRICT
CONGRESS - U.S. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus of Montana announced plans Tuesday to retire at the end of his term after a career of enormous power and notable independence, producing both collaboration and conflict with fellow Democrats on major tax and health care legislation.
• Baucus will join Democratic Senators Tom Harkin of Iowa, Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, Carl Levin of Michigan, Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey and Tim Johnson of South Dakota in retirement. Republican Senators Mike Johanns of Nebraska and Saxby Chambliss of Georgia also have announced their intention not to seek re-election.
CONGRESS - U.S. Representative Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) told a gathering outside the Capitol, “There is a big pool of money that really should be paid to help make sure that the United States of America maintains its competiveness, maintains its essential promise to all Americans of liberty and justice for all.”
CONGRESS – According to a recent Politico article, the immigration proposal pending in Congress would transform the nation’s political landscape for a generation or more — pumping as many as 11 million new Hispanic voters into the electorate a decade from now in ways that, if current trends hold, would produce an electoral bonanza for Democrats and cripple Republican prospects in many states they now win easily.
• Meanwhile, U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) is pushing back on a report in Politico. Rubio took issue with the analysis for several reasons, pointing to comments made by Republican strategist Karl Rove on Fox News. Rove said that not all 11 million illegal immigrants here today will qualify to become citizens, and not all of the 11 million illegal immigrants are Hispanic. Further, Rove said many green card holders choose not to become citizens and in addition, not all eligible voters – regardless of their backgrounds – turn out to vote.”
CONGRESS - Pro-business legislation aimed at helping companies fend off sophisticated foreign hackers sailed through the U.S. House on Thursday despite a White House veto threat and an outcry from privacy advocates and civil liberties groups that say it leaves Americans vulnerable to spying by the military.
• Under the legislation, businesses and the federal government would be able to share technical data without worrying about anti-trust or classification laws. The bill also would grant businesses legal immunity if hacked so long as they acted in good faith to protect their networks. The bill is sponsored by Rogers and Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger, D-Md., the panel's top Democrat.
• But privacy advocates and civil liberties groups say the bill would open up Americans' most private online records to the federal government. The bill doesn't include a requirement that companies scrub data of sensitive information like health or credit records before sharing it with the government.
BENGHAZI - U.S. House Republicans on Tuesday unveiled a report on last year's Benghazi attack that blames former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for approving lax security measures and accuses her of seeking to cover up her department's failures.
• Key highlights of the report include:
o Reductions of security levels prior to the attacks in Benghazi were approved at the highest levels of the State Department, up to and including Secretary Clinton. This fact contradicts her testimony before the House Foreign Affairs Committee on January 23, 2013;
o In the days following the attacks, White House and senior State Department officials altered accurate talking points drafted by the Intelligence Community in order to protect the State Department; and
o Contrary to Administration rhetoric, the talking points were not edited to protect classified information. Concern for classified information is never mentioned in email traffic among senior Administration officials.
WHITE HOUSE – U.S. Senate Democrats and Republicans on Tuesday challenged the Obama administration to explicitly spell out its justification for using drones for targeted killings amid growing concerns about unchecked powers of the presidency and Americans' civil liberties.
• The 19-year-old suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings has told interrogators that the American wars in Iraq and Afghanistan motivated him and his brother to carry out the attack, according to U.S. officials familiar with the interviews.
• From his hospital bed, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has acknowledged his role in planting the explosives near the marathon finish line on April 15, the officials said.
• The brothers suspected of planting deadly bombs at the Boston Marathon may have gotten their ideas -- and even instructions on how to make explosives from household items -- from an English-language online magazine that Al Qaeda uses to radicalize and recruit Westerners.
• A U.S. official told Fox News that Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, and his brother, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, built the bombs with instructions from Inspire magazine -- an English-language online magazine published by Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
• Investigators say a radical brand of Islam appears to have motivated the two brothers suspected of bombing the Boston Marathon, but say they have found no indication the brothers were associated with any terrorist groups.
• In the years before the Boston Marathon bombings, Tamerlan Tsarnaev fell under the influence of a Muslim convert who steered the religiously apathetic young man toward a strict strain of Islam, family members said.
• Under the instruction of the Muslim convert, known to the Tsarnaev family only as Misha, Tamerlan gave up boxing and stopped studying music, his family said. He began opposing the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. He turned to websites and literature claiming that the CIA was behind the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and Jews controlled the world.
• Senator Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) said on Tuesday that law enforcement may have known in advance about the Boston Marathon suspects’ bombing plans.
• U.S. Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said Tuesday that he would have supported police using drones in last week's hunt for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, one of the brothers suspected in the Boston Marathon bombing. Last month, Paul conducted a nearly 13-hour filibuster on the Senate floor after the Obama Administration said in a letter that it was theoretically possible for President Obama to authorize a lethal drone strike on an American citizen under "extraordinary circumstances."
• Fox News liberal Bob Beckel had some policy ideas about Muslims on Tuesday's edition of "The Five." Beckel said the U.S. should cut off Muslim students from coming to the U.S. for some period of time so that the U.S. can at least determine who is here and decide whether some of the people here should be sent back home or sent to prison.
• The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation's largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, Tuesday decried the wave of inflammatory anti-Muslim rhetoric following the Boston Marathon bombings and the revelation that the suspects in the case are Muslim.
• This comes as a United Nations official known for blaming the U.S. for unrest in the Middle East has angered critics again by blaming the Boston Marathon bombings on “American global domination.”
• In the wake of the Boston Marathon bombings, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Monday the country’s interpretation of the Constitution will “have to change” to allow for greater security to stave off future attacks.
• MSNBC's Chris Matthews is not that interested in finding out a motive for last week's bombing of the Boston Marathon, but instead focused on prosecuting Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, a 19-year-old ethnic Chechen who was apprehended by authorities on Saturday.
WHITE HOUSE - Amid new concerns about the brutality of illegal forms of abortions, President Obama plans to deliver the keynote address at Planned Parenthood Federation of America’s annual fundraising dinner Thursday.
DROPPED - The United States Attorney has dismissed "without prejudice" all charges against Paul Kevin Curtis, the man initially identified as a suspect after letters that tested positive for ricin were mailed to President Obama and other officials.
WHITE HOUSE - Lawmakers from both parties urged the Obama administration Tuesday to postpone or cancel the furlough of air traffic controllers, with some accusing the Federal Aviation Administration of playing politics as the cuts contributed to airport delays across the country.
• A popular annual event at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory is the latest program to fall victim to federal budget cuts. The open house event at the facility in California draws nearly 30,000 guests per year and has been a source of inspiration for younger people considering a career in the field of planetary science.
• Meanwhile, the U.S. Supreme Court won’t stop some federal judges from getting cost-of-living increases promised to them by Congress but never paid, a move that could end up increasing the salaries of all federal judges.
WHITE HOUSE – According to a 2013 White House report on the costs and benefits of federal regulations, U.S. regulations created in 2012 generated between $14.8 billion and $19.5 billion in annual costs.
• But the Regulatory Studies Center at George Washington University reported, by the Obama administration’s own estimates, the rules it issued in FY2012 alone imposed more costs on the economy than all the rules issued during the entire first terms of Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton combined.
• Complying with federal regulations currently cost the U.S. economy more than $1.75 trillion annually.
GEORGE W. BUSH - Former President George W. Bush has gained a significant increase in popularity. This increase comes as Mr. Bush is about to open his presidential library for public viewing.
• Now, 47 percent of ABC News/Washington Post survey participants say they approve of Mr. Bush’s job performance during his entire eight years in the White House. Fifty percent still say they disapprove — but that’s still an improvement. When he left office, his approval rating was only 33 percent, ABC reported.
• The George W. Bush Presidential Center is set to open May 1, 2013.
FEDERAL GOVERNMENT
HELP FOR TRANSGENDERS - The federal government is spending $152,000 to study “voice therapy” for transgenders, saying it is incumbent to being “accepted as one's preferred gender.”
• Meanwhile, First lady Michelle Obama praised federal employees, casting them as overlooked and juggling more duties with fewer resources in a speech Tuesday at the U.S. Interior Department.
GREEN LIGHT - A U.S. federal appeals court ruled on Tuesday that the Environmental Protection Agency has the legal authority to retroactively revoke a water pollution permit for one of West Virginia’s largest mountaintop removal coal mines.
EDUCATION
BAD TEXTBOOK - The Jewish Federal of Nashville and a group of outraged parents are calling for a school district to pull a high school textbook they believe promotes bias against Israel.
• Meanwhile, Bob and Sarah Fisher were checking their daughter’s homework last week when a social studies assignment caught their attention – it criticized the United States for dropping the atomic bomb during World War Two.
GARDEN VARIETY TOOLS - Attorneys for The Rutherford Institute have filed a civil rights lawsuit against a Chicago public school district on behalf of a second-grade teacher who was suspended after he displayed garden-variety tools such as wrenches, pliers and screwdrivers in his classroom as part of a "tool discussion" in his class.
LOCAL ISSUES
ARIZONA - The Associated Press struck the phrase “illegal immigrant” from its vocabulary, but don’t expect Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer to do the same.
TREND - From Louisiana to Ohio, Massachusetts and Nebraska, bold proposals to upend state tax laws are losing momentum in the face of political squabbles and special interest opposition.
WORDS MATTER - Ending a six-year move toward gender neutrality in Washington state law, Gov. Jay Inslee signed the effort’s final piece of legislation Monday, according to news reports.
FOREIGN POLICY
MIDDLE EAST
SYRIA - U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, currently touring the Middle East for the first time in his new role, was confronted with Israeli evidence that Syria may have deployed chemical weapons against rebel troops.
ASIA
CHINA - China will build a second, larger aircraft carrier capable of carrying more fighter jets, the official Xinhua news service reported late Tuesday, quoting a senior officer with the People's Liberation Army (PLA) Navy.
SOUTH KOREA - Bill Gates has been accused of disrespecting Park Geun-hye, the South Korean president, after being pictured shaking hands with her, with one hand in his pocket.
EUROPE
FRANCE - France's Parliament legalized same-sex marriage and adoption on Tuesday following a divisive debate that had escalated into antigay attacks and street protests.
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Flying the Government Skies
The 4% FAA spending cut that somehow delays 40% of flights..
As travellers nationwide are learning, the White House has decided to express its dislike of the sequester—otherwise known as modestly smaller government—by choosing to cut basic air traffic control services. We wrote about this human- rights violation on Tuesday in "Flight Delays as Political Strategy," but the story gets worse the closer we look.
Start with the Federal Aviation Administration, better known as the Postal Service without the modern technology. Flyers directly fund two-thirds of the FAA's budget through 17 airline taxes and fees—about 20% of the cost of a $300 domestic ticket, up from 7% in the 1970s. Yet now the White House wants to make this agency that can't deliver what passengers are supposedly paying for even more dysfunctional.
Ponder this logic, if that's the right word: The sequester cuts about $637 million from the FAA, which is less than 4% of its $15.9 billion 2012 budget, and it limits the agency to what it spent in 2010. The White House decided to translate this 4% cut that it has the legal discretion to avoid into a 10% cut for air traffic controllers. Though controllers will be furloughed for one of every 10 working days, four of every 10 flights won't arrive on time.
The FAA projects the delays will rob one out of every three travellers of up to four hours of their lives waiting at the major hubs. Congress passed a law in 2009 that makes such delays illegal, at least if they are the responsibility of an airline. Under President Obama's "passenger bill of rights," the carriers are fined millions of dollars per plane that sits on the tarmac for more than three hours. But sauce for the goose is apparently an open bar for the FAA gander.
The White House claims the sequester applies to the budget category known as "projects, programs and activities" and thus it lacks flexibility. Not so: This is a political pose to make the sequester more disruptive. Legally speaking, the sequester applies at a more general level known as "accounts." The air traffic account includes 15,000 controllers out of 31,000 employees. The White House could keep the controllers on duty simply by allocating more furlough days to these other non-essential workers.
Instead, the FAA is even imposing the controller furlough on every airport equally, not prioritizing among the largest and busiest airports. San Francisco's Napa Valley airport with no commercial service will absorb the same proportion of the cuts as the central New York radar terminal, which covers La Guardia, JFK and Newark International, as well as MacArthur, Teterboro, New Haven, Republic and other regional fields.
Anyone who has flown in or out of those terminals knows that they are hardly models of efficiency, and one reason is the pre-modern U.S. traffic control system. The FAA still uses ground radar and voice-based communications that were the best technology the 1950s had to offer. Many planes are now equipped with advanced avionics that enable more direct and precise flight paths, but they aren't allowed to fly these faster, safer routes because the FAA can't track their navigation methods.
For more than a decade the FAA has promised to modernize and make the civil aviation system more efficient and reliable, but the only things it has reliably generated are delays or cost overruns or usually both. The project, known as NextGen, is four years off schedule with no end in sight.
The FAA's troubles are the result of bad management and a lack of oversight, according to multiple Department of Transportation Inspector General audits. A 2011 investigation found that one part of NextGen ran $330 million over budget—or half of the FAA sequester—and then the FAA paid the contractor responsible $150 million in bonuses that were supposed to be an incentive for making the budget targets. The overruns are now approaching $500 million, and that's merely one item.
Meanwhile, ever since Al Gore launched a training initiative to increase the productivity of air traffic controllers in 1998, productivity has continued to fall. A larger workforce is now in charge of a smaller workload as the number of flights has dropped by 23%. As the Inspector General reports, "FAA data suggest that its overall staffing may not be optimal."
A rational government would use the sequester to improve on this sorry record. But instead this White House is responding to the FAA's failures by making the flying experience for millions of Americans even more unfriendly. It is actively creating even more delays, cancellations and missed connections in order to incite a public outcry on behalf of bigger government.
All of this deserves to backfire, and it will if Republicans break from their circular immigration firing squads and explain what Mr. Obama is doing. For all of its rough edges, the sequester is proving to be educational. It is showing Americans how broken so much of government is, and it is revealing how our politicians refuse to distinguish between essential services and needless waste.
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Flying the Government Skies
The 4% FAA spending cut that somehow delays 40% of flights..
Just thinking aloud, I wonder if the outcome would have been different if an Executive Order such as this had been issued:
All federal government department heads and middle managers who cannot find a 4% efficiency gain in their area of responsibility in this, the fifth year of trillion dollar deficits, will be put under review, reassigned or terminated, and if terminated will receive no pension.
Instead the message from the administration was make this as painful as possible.
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"Nice country you got here, be a shame if something should happen to it...." Reminds me of some sort of Chicago thuggery, lucky the public isn't dumb enough to elect people to national office from that cesspool of corruption.
Flying the Government Skies
The 4% FAA spending cut that somehow delays 40% of flights..
Just thinking aloud, I wonder if the outcome would have been different if an Executive Order such as this had been issued:
All federal government department heads and middle managers who cannot find a 4% efficiency gain in their area of responsibility in this, the fifth year of trillion dollar deficits, will be put under review, reassigned or terminated, and if terminated will receive no pension.
Instead the message from the administration was make this as painful as possible.
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Some interesting political points here.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323628004578461302387618518.html
Michael Barone contends that both parties have a problem or two. For the Democrats, it is clustering. Their loss in the house was not only because of re-districting in certain states, but because their support and turnout came from a smaller number of large urban centers.
"Democrats carried the popular vote in black-dominated districts 80%-17% in 2012. They made significant gains in Hispanic-dominated districts, which George W. Bush lost by 11% but Mitt Romney lost by 32%." Republicans had a 52%-46% in the remainder. Only two House Republicans represent Hispanic-dominated districts.
Republicans need to improve their standing with black and Hispanic Americans. Democrats need to improve their standing out-state. "Both parties have reason to feel insecure."
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A Bad Joke Becomes Reality
May 15, 2013
The Foundation
"All men having power ought to be distrusted to a certain degree." --James Madison
Editorial Exegesis
"President Obama famously joked in a college commencement address in 2009 that he could use the IRS to target political enemies but of course he never would. It appears that people at the Internal Revenue Service didn't think he was joking. That's become clear since IRS Director of Exempt Organizations Lois Lerner admitted on Friday that the agency targeted conservatives for special tax-exempt scrutiny during the 2012 election season. ... We've also learned that IRS officials knew about this earlier than they have let on. News reports suggest that Ms. Lerner knew about the targeting of conservatives in June 2011, and perhaps as early as 2010. That's a long time before IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman flatly denied any political targeting when he testified at a House Ways and Means subcommittee hearing in March 2012. ... Some Democrats took to the airwaves on the weekend to suggest that while the IRS shouldn't have been targeting conservatives, no one was harmed. ... The harm is in fact real, if hard to measure precisely, because any missive from the IRS is enough to chill political spending and speech. ... Oppose the Obama Administration or liberal priorities, and you too can become an IRS target. We're glad to see Congress mobilizing in response, including hearing plans by Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus and the House Ways and Means Committee that asked the IRS about this in 2012 and received denials. The subpoenas need to fly as thick as those IRS questionnaires." --The Wall Street Journal
Post Your Opinion
Upright
"Jay Carney, whose unenviable job is not to explain but to explain away what his employers say, calls the IRS' behavior 'inappropriate.' No, using the salad fork for the entree is inappropriate. Using the IRS for political purposes is a criminal offense. ... Liberals, whose unvarying agenda is enlargement of government, suggest, with no sense of cognitive dissonance, that this IRS scandal is nothing more sinister than typical government incompetence. Five days before the IRS story broke, Obama ... warned Ohio State graduates about 'creeping cynicism' and 'voices' that 'warn that tyranny is ... around the corner.' Well." --columnist George Will
"Can we not at least agree that the Obama administration has established a culture conducive to the type of stereotypical thinking that could lead to this? Didn't the Department of Homeland Security under this administration list right-wing groups as extremists and potential terrorists? Hasn't President Obama himself referred to tea partyers as 'tea baggers'? Haven't other Democrats deliberately depicted tea party groups as violent extremists who are a hair trigger away from armed revolution? Liberals have been trying to vilify conservative talk radio for years now, suggesting that its strong political opinions lead to violence. That is preposterous, but if we were to apply the same type of standard to Obama, we could say that he has personally fomented a climate of hate against conservative groups, such that the IRS targeting was completely foreseeable. Surely, it's fair to hold the president to his own standard." --columnist David Limbaugh
"With lies, as with potato chips, it is hard to stop with just one. ... The problem with telling a lie, or even a succession of lies, is that a very small dose of the truth can sometimes make the whole thing collapse like a house of cards. The State Department's own foreign service officer Gregory Hicks was in Libya during the [Benghazi] attack, so he knew the truth. When threats were not enough to silence him, it was then necessary to try to discredit him. After years of getting glowing job evaluations, and awards of honors from the State Department for his work in various parts of the world, Mr. Hicks suddenly began to get bad job evaluations and was demoted to a desk job in Washington after he spoke with a Congressman about what he knew. The truth is dangerous to liars." --economist Thomas Sowell
"We may be disgusted and horrified by Kermit Gosnell, but we should not be shocked by his crimes. Thanks to the misguided social entrepreneurship of the Supreme Court, abortion is protected as a constitutional absolute, and late-term abortions, grisly as they are, enjoy substantial protection as well. What that looks like in practice is Gosnell's slaughterhouse. We should not pretend that this evil does not extend past the Philadelphia city limits. If you would have an unlimited abortion franchise, then you will have all that goes with it, including the pitiless knife of Kermit Gosnell." --National Review
Essential Liberty
"[L]ook at Obama in this statement in Denver: 'I am constrained ... by the system that our Founders put in place.' That is an unwitting statement of truth. He is constrained. What does constrained mean? It means things I can't do. Why is he even thinking about things he can't do? There are things he wants to do. There are all kinds of executive orders and waiving of the presidential wand to make it happen he would love to do. But the Constitution's in his way, and he wishes it weren't. Be wary, folks, of any politician who talks about the Constitution and uses [phrases] like 'I am constrained.'" --radio talk-show host Rush Limbaugh
Insight
"The right of resisting oppression is a natural right." --President Andrew Jackson (1767-1845)
"Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws." --Greek philosopher Plato (c. 428-348 BC)
Demo-gogues
The White (Wash) House: "[T]he day after [Benghazi] happened, I acknowledged that this was an act of terrorism. ... The whole issue of talking points, frankly, throughout this process, has been a sideshow. ... There is no 'there' there. ... We dishonor [the four Americans killed at Benghazi] when we turn things like this into a political circus." --Barack Obama feigning outrage while perpetuating the myth about Cairo
Blame game: "It takes funding to protect a consulate. ... Who cut the funds from embassy security? The Republicans in the House, that's who. ... And if it wasn't for the Democrats, it would have been cut more. ... So, I think the Benghazi scandal, in quotes, starts with the Republicans looking in the mirror." --Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA)
"I genuinely believe that there are actually Republicans out there who would like to work with us but they're fearful of their base and they're concerned about what Rush Limbaugh might say about them. And, as a consequence, we get the kind of gridlock that makes people cynical about government and inhibits our progress." --Obama
Gun control stories: "To use the vernacular, there's suddenly a lot of senators out there who have seen the Lord. You find out that the senator from New Hampshire [Republican Kelly Ayotte] is in trouble; she voted no. I can name you four senators who called me and said, 'Jesus, I guess you were right -- maybe we can find some other way of doing this. Can we bring this back up?'" --Joe Biden trying to convince us that gun control is the only obvious answer
Delusional: "The Affordable Care Act is bringing the cost of health care in our country down in both the public and private sector. And that is what is largely responsible for the deficit coming down." --House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)
Say what? "I had a friend who got married to the wrong person, just so she could have health insurance. So, we'll also have a lot of less bad marriages as a result of [ObamaCare]." --Rep. Janice Hahn (D-CA)
Unbalanced: "[W]e [Democrats] worked very, very hard together in order to be able to put together a balanced budget that reflects the values of the American people, that's fair, that's balanced in values and approach as well as in numbers, and we did that." --Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) on the Senate's budget that never reaches balance
Dezinformatsia
Media cover: "I.R.S. Focus on Conservatives Gives G.O.P. an Issue to Seize On" --New York Times headline, obfuscating the issue
"Look, if you play by the rules and if you do what you're supposed to do, an audit doesn't take very long. IRS agents are there for a reason. Am I defending the IRS? Yeah I am! ... So let's all get on board with the president who wants to simplify the tax code! ... I don't think the IRS ought to apologize for anything!" --MSNBC's Ed Schultz
"Even when they have real evidence of misdeeds and malfeasance, conservatives still want to change the subject to the fake, ginned up scandal they've been pushing month after month." --MSNBC's Chris Hayes
"Well, what difference will that make if the White House has already put out the talking points and said that they were written by the CIA with the input of other agencies?" --ABC's George Stephanopoulos echoing Hillary Clinton
Alternate universe: "What's so sad about it is the president has been very rightfully proud of the lack of scandal in his administration so far." --Time magazine assistant managing editor Rana Foroohar
A stopped clock is right twice a day: "These have been a bad few months for journalism. We're getting the big stories wrong, over and over again." --CBS's Scott Pelley
Newspulper Headlines:
We Blame George W. Bush: "Carney: I.R.S. Run by Bush Political Appointee" --TheWeeklyStandard.com
Longest Books Ever Written: "Why We Should Mistrust the Government" --RealClearPolitics.com
Leave Her Alone, You Creeps!: "Benghazi Investigation Creeps Closer To Hillary Clinton" --BuzzFeed.com
Answers to Questions Nobody Is Asking: "Need a Mustache Transplant? Visit Turkey" --The Wall Street Journal
News You Can Use: "How to Lose a War" --Hoover Institution website
(Thanks to The Wall Street Journal's James Taranto)
Village Idiots
Non sequitur: "What [the] IRS did [was] dumb and wrong. [Important] to note [that] GOP groups flourished [the] last 2 elections, overwhelming Ds. And they will use this to raise more $." --tweet from former Obama campaign chief and adviser David Plouffe on the IRS targeting Tea Party and Patriot groups
Downplay the scandal: "Mistakes were made, but they were in no way due to any political or partisan motivation. ... There was a shortcut taken in our processes to determine which groups needed additional review. ... These are factually complex and sensitive cases, and it's challenging to separate out political issues from those involving education or social welfare. ... We want to stress that our employees -- all career civil servants -- will continue to be guided by tax law and not by partisan issues." --IRS acting commissioner Steven T. Miller
Nothing to see here: "Those from the IRS that have spoken about this obviously have much greater insight into what took place than we do. ... One person's view of what actions were taken or what that individual did is not enough for us to say something concretely happened that was inappropriate." --White House Press Secretary Jay Carney
Sick blame-shifting: "Anti-choice politicians, and their unrelenting efforts to deny women access to safe and legal abortion care, will only drive more women to back-alley butchers like Kermit Gosnell." --NARAL president Ilyse Hogue
"This [Gosnell] case has made clear that we must have and enforce laws that protect access to safe and legal abortion, and we must reject misguided laws that would limit women's options and force them to seek treatment from criminals like Kermit Gosnell." --Planned Parenthood spokesman Eric Ferrero (The reality is that, for Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers, the key distinction is whether the atrocity occurred inside or outside the womb.)
Short Cuts
"I was going to start off tonight with an Obama joke but I don't want to get audited by the IRS." --comedian Jay Leno
"The best spin they have at their disposal is to argue that the President of the United States has to turn on the nightly news to find out what's happening [in] the government he runs." --columnist Guy Benson
"At a press conference, Nancy Pelosi blamed the sequester for keeping her from visiting the troops on Mother's Day. Ironically, the troops credit the sequester for the same reason." --Fred Thompson
"The White House was blasted for inaction during the Benghazi attack in House hearings. The terrorists overran the consulate then they overran the annex. So it does support Barack Obama's claim during the campaign that he's got al-Qaeda on the run." --comedian Argus Hamilton
"Obama recently warned some college graduates against being all worried about government tyranny, and Obama has good reason to warn you against that because worrying about government tyranny is the exact sort of thing that will get you audited. Or, when Obamacare is in full force, it will be the attitude that gets you denied life saving health care. So have faith in government. Or it will get you." --humorist Frank J. Fleming
Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus et Fidelis!
Nate Jackson for The Patriot Post Editorial Team
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http://clashdaily.com/2013/05/stewart-destroys-obama-over-irs-scandal-youve-vindicated-conspiracy-theorists/
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http://thehill.com/video/administration/302171-obama-jersey-shore-as-special-as-ever
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IiaGUA_0-rE&feature=player_embedded
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Insight
"When a government becomes powerful it is destructive, extravagant and violent; it is an usurer which takes bread from innocent mouths and deprives honorable men of their substance, for votes with which to perpetuate itself." --Roman philosopher and statesman Cicero (106-43 B.C.)
The Gipper
"For decades, we have piled deficit upon deficit, mortgaging our future and our children's future for the temporary convenience of the present. To continue this long trend is to guarantee tremendous social, cultural, political, and economic upheavals. You and I, as individuals, can, by borrowing, live beyond our means, but for only a limited period of time. Why, then, should we think that collectively, as a nation, we are not bound by that same limitation?" --Ronald Reagan
Re: The Left
"[T]he best formula for failing to meet the standard of tolerance that leftists demand is to behave precisely as they do, not as they say. If, on the other hand, you truly want to live and let live -- as these sanctimonious scolds insist we do -- you must studiously observe their conduct and behave in exactly the opposite way. But from a leftist perspective, it's not enough for conservatives to peacefully coexist with liberals and let them do as they please. They are satisfied only if they browbeat dissenters into silence or social banishment. ... So it is that pro-abortion groups could not let stand an arrangement between the SFLA and the associate branch director of the Town Lake branch of the YMCA of Austin for the SFLA's use of the Y's showers for the week of the 'Students #Stand4Life Bus Tour.' ... Note that it wasn't that the pro-lifers were carrying placards into the showers or proselytizing recalcitrant pro-aborts while toweling off. It was the mere presence of pro-lifers, even if they were minding their own business, that the pro-abort bullies found intolerable. ... [A]ccording to the default liberal mindset ... you're not being unduly political if you support the correct causes. You're political only if you have the wrong views." --columnist David Limbaugh
Political Futures
"In announcing his effort to make government smarter -- an idea with a very old pedigree -- Obama invoked two organizations he'd like government to emulate. The first was Google. ... [T]he second exemplar Obama offered for the sorts of best practices the government should adopt was his own presidential campaign. It was 'one of the most inclusive and most successful campaigns in American history,' he assured an audience largely comprised of his own White House staff. ... Google is a wonderful company, but Google is as relevant to the tasks of government as a garden rake is to the tasks of a surgeon. Similarly, a presidential campaign is a vital tool for electing a president. It is utterly useless for enforcing contracts or repelling foreign invaders. ... One of the advantages both a presidential campaign and a company like Google have is that they can fire incompetent employees quite easily. The federal government has no such luxury. According to a study by USA Today, death is the greatest threat to job security at the EPA, HUD and dozens of other agencies. ... The only people in the world who don't want the government to get much smarter are the ones working for it." --columnist Jonah Goldberg
Culture
"Have you noticed that the only area where our benevolent government does not seek to regulate ad infinitum is entertainment? There, the fewer rules and restrictions, the better. Indecency laws? Violation of the 1st Amendment. Violent lyrics and video games? Parents' discretion. Exposure of children to graphic sexual behavior at various Gay Pride events around the country each year? Necessary in order to produce tolerant citizens. But let that child try to sip from a Big Gulp while playing 'Grand Murder Spree 8' on their video game console and our loving leaders are forced to restrict consumption for the good of the child. Why? Because entertainment is the teat by which they control us. ... This would be inadvisable, if the goal was rearing a generation of stalwart men and women to lead this country. But that never has been the goal of our Dear Leaders ... Instead they seek to mire our youth in Never Never Land until their self-sufficiency has been degraded to the point of complete vacuity." --columnist Luke Hamilton
The Last Word
"The civil rights movement in 20th century America attracted many people who put everything on the line for the sake of fighting against racial oppression. But the eventual success of that movement attracted opportunists, and even turned some idealists into opportunists. Over the generations, black leaders have ranged from noble souls to shameless charlatans. After the success of the civil rights insurgency, the latter have come into their own, gaining money, power and fame by promoting racial attitudes and actions that are counterproductive to the interests of those they lead. None of this is unique to blacks or to the United States. In various countries and times, leaders of groups that lagged behind, economically and educationally, have taught their followers to blame all their problems on other people -- and to hate those other people. ... Groups that rose from poverty to prosperity seldom did so by having racial or ethnic leaders. While most Americans can easily name a number of black leaders, current or past, how many can name Asian American ethnic leaders or Jewish ethnic leaders? The time is long overdue to stop looking for progress through racial or ethnic leaders. Such leaders have too many incentives to promote polarizing attitudes and actions that are counterproductive for minorities and disastrous for the country." --economist Thomas Sowell
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http://nation.time.com/2013/07/24/why-obama-keeps-going-back-to-one-small-illinois-college/
From the article:
In early June of 2005, less than six months after he was sworn in as a U.S. Senator, Barack Obama spoke at a graduation ceremony at Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois. In his address, Obama defended the government’s role in creating and sustaining the middle class, themes he would later carry into two successful presidential campaigns. “Our economic dominance depended on individual initiative. It depended on a belief in the free market,” he said. “But it also depended on our sense of mutual regard for each other, the idea that everybody has a stake in the country, that we’re all in it together, and that everybody’s got a shot at opportunity.”
Obama returns today to the tiny liberal arts college for what the White House has billed as a major economic address. Knox has a special place in the President’s heart and in American history. “It’s the place where I gave my first big speech after I had been elected to the U.S. Senate,” Obama said at a recent event in Washington. Wednesday marks his third visit–once as a Senate candidate, once as a Senator and now as commander-in-chief–adding to a long history of presidents and political figures who have left a mark on the college.
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http://www.politico.com/story/2013/07/george-hw-bush-shaves-head-94700.html 8-) 8-) :cry:
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Ah there it is again. The lip biting pose.
I notice more and more Democratic pols using the *lip bite" façade when they are trying to emote. This was made popular when Clinton was pretending he was going through some sort of religious transformation during Lewinsky and his other sex scandals. I recently notice Bamster using this during his I could have been Travon speech.
I guess they fool some of the people all of the time with this stage manipulation of facial expressions.
http://news.yahoo.com/weiner-admits-to-sexting-more-women-as-poll-shows-his-popularity-has-plummeted-171119678.html
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How Obama Poisoned Race Relations in America
Posted By Arnold Ahlert On July 26, 2013 @ frontpagemag.com
A new poll by NBC News and the Wall Street Journal reveals that public perceptions about race relations in America have taken a devastating hit since the election of Barack Obama. At the beginning of the president’s first term, 79 percent of whites and 63 percent of blacks had a positive view of American race relations. Those numbers have plummeted to 52 percent and 38 percent, respectively. Meanwhile, 45 percent of whites now consider race relations fairly or very bad, compared with 20 percent in 2009, and the negative views held by black Americans has jumped from 30 percent to 58 percent. Thus, the idea that the election of Barack Obama would usher in a golden age of so-called post-racial relations has exploded. And the president and his administration bear the lion’s share of the responsibility for lighting the fuse.
The poll, conducted in mid-July by Hart Research Associations and Public Opinion Strategies, has tracked Americans’ attitudes about race since 1994. And despite only a single poll question regarding the Zimmerman trial, which asked whether the outcome increased, decreased, or didn’t affect one’s confidence in the legal system, the steepest decline in positive views, and greatest increase in negative views, occurred in the last two years. That the timeframe largely coincides with the Trayvon Martin shooting controversy is likely no coincidence.
The Trayvon Martin case is one of the most visible examples of the Obama administration’s deliberate poisoning of race relations; all in coordination with the NAACP, the racial grievance industry and the corrupt leftist media. We now know that the administration had direct involvement in fanning the flames of racial discord that brought the case to the national stage. The Eric Holder-led Justice Department’s Community Relations Service (CRA) was sent to Sanford, FL to help set up meetings and organize protests. Among other services, the administration arranged an escort for college students participating in a 40-mile march to “demand justice” for Trayvon. When the situation erupted, Obama then famously took the racial motif national, saying, ”If I had a son, he would look like Trayvon.”
Even after the jury rendered its not guilty verdict in the Zimmerman trial, Obama, once again, injected himself into the case, this time noting that “Trayvon Martin could have been me 35 years ago,” and launching into a lecture on race — despite the fact that a Martin family lawyer, Trayvon’s stepmother, the Sanford police, and an investigation conducted by the FBI all concluded the case had nothing to do with race.
However, well before the Trayvon Martin shooting, Obama made clear he would use the presidency to provide a platform for the race agitation industry. Prior to his election in 2008, the president sought to belittle small town “bitter clingers” who demonstrate “antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment[.]“ In July 2009, when black Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. was arrested in front of his Cambridge home after antagonizing police, Obama, despite admitting that he had not seen “all the facts,” still came to the conclusion that “the Cambridge police acted stupidly.” In a radio interview that aired on Univision in 2010, the president urged his Latino supporters to “punish our enemies and reward our friends,” in the upcoming election. That was the same year he made an unsubtle reference to Rosa Parks and segregation in order to belittle Republicans. “We don’t mind the Republicans joining us,” the president told supporters in Rhode Island. “They can come for the ride, but they gotta sit in back.”
At a January 2012 Washington fundraiser, the president made subtle references to the idea that if he weren’t reelected, minorities would be denied opportunities to pursue the American dream, while he implied Republicans would be the ones do the denying. “The notion that we’re all in this together, that we look out for one another–that’s at stake in this election,” he warned. “Don’t take my word for it. Watch some of these [Republican] debates that have been going on up in New Hampshire.” The following August in Colorado, Obama kept that meme alive, insisting that Republicans, “want to take us back to the policies more suited to the 1950s than the 21st century.”
If such a divisive attitude were limited to the president himself, maybe race relations might not have soured as much as they have. Unfortunately, many members of his administration have also been more than willing to fan the flames of racial discord. Former Green Jobs Czar Van Jones, who referred to Republicans as “assholes,” insisted that “white polluters and the white environmentalists are essentially steering poison into the people-of-color communities.” Addressing the annual NAACP convention in Orlando, FL on July 17, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius likened those who oppose ObamaCare to those who opposed civil rights legislation in the 1960s, comparing the fight against them to “the fight against lynching and the fight for desegregation.” On August 14, 2012, Vice President Joe Biden told a largely black audience in Danville, Virginia, that Republicans wanted to “put y’all back in chains.” Former Assistant Attorney General and current Labor Secretary Thomas Perez viewed virtually every aspect of his former job through a racialist lens, from prosecuting banks for lending discrimination based on dubious “disparate impact” studies, to promoting the expansion of hate crimes prosecution, which he insisted was a largely white-on-black problem.
And then there is Eric Holder. Holder, who runs the most racially polarized Justice Department in modern history, wasted no time burnishing his racialist credentials, telling Americans soon after he was confirmed in 2009 that “in things racial we have always been and continue to be, in too many ways, essentially a nation of cowards.” In 2010, after being stonewalled by his own department, Christopher Coates, former voting chief for the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, testified that Holder’s decision to drop an already-won voter intimidation case against the New Black Panther Party was due to “pressure” from the NAACP. Furthermore, he corroborated earlier testimony by J. Christian Adams, a former DOJ attorney, revealing that the DOJ cultivates a “hostile atmosphere” against “race-neutral enforcement” of the Voting Rights Act.
Holder also turned a blind eye when the Panthers offered a $10,000 bounty to capture George Zimmerman “dead or alive.” As for race-neutral enforcement of the the Voting Rights Act, as recently as yesterday Holder vowed to continue insisting that states “pre-clear” with the DOJ any changes to their voting laws. This represents nothing less than a determination to defy a recent Supreme Court ruling that effectively nullified his ability to do so. Texas is his current focus, but in a speech in Philadelphia, he promised that the decision to target the Lone Star State “will not be our last.” The motivation of this effort is clear: to portray red states and whites in general as abusive toward minority voters — as seeking to reinstitute “Jim Crow” through commonsense voter ID laws, as the Democratic Party propaganda goes.
This follows Holder’s decision to continue pursuing the possibility of civil rights charges against George Zimmerman, without a shred of evidence for doing so, making good on a promise he first made during an appearance at racial arsonist Al Sharpton’s National Action Network on April 11, 2012. After praising Sharpton “for your partnership, your friendship, and your tireless efforts to speak out for the voiceless, to stand up for the powerless, and to shine a light on the problems we must solve, and the promises we must fulfill,” Holder made his intentions clear. “If we find evidence of a potential federal criminal civil rights crime, we will take appropriate action,” he warned. To that end, Holder has set up ”tip lines” trolling for information he can use to prosecute Zimmerman. The “investigation” has now been ongoing for over a year.
The reason for fomenting this sort of racial animosity is transparently political. Just like in 2010, and 2012, Obama is determined to agitate and mobilize voters for the 2014 election and beyond and to weaken the Republicans with racial innuendo and accusations. He has tainted Democrats by presiding over the weakest recovery on record, one which is currently losing even more steam, with growth rates being revised downward, and one of the worst corporate revenue performances on record. The same is true of ObamaCare, which will be so damaging to Democrats that the administration unilaterally decided to postpone the employer mandate until 2015, usurping congressional authority in the process. This is to say nothing of Democrat-led foreign policy, with Egypt and Syria in free fall, Iraq and Afghanistan on the verge of reverting back to the failed states they were, Iran pursuing nuclear weapons absent any fear whatsoever, and both China and Russia signaling their intentions to fill the leadership vacuum the president’s “leading from behind” approach has produced.
Meanwhile, minority populations continue to suffer and grow disaffected under the reign of liberal policies. Majority-black Detroit is bankrupt. Chicago seethes with black-on-black gun crime, including 62 people wounded and 12 killed during the Fourth of July holiday weekend alone. Black unemployment is 13.7 percent, compared to 6.7 percent for the nation as a whole. The black American illegitimacy rate, one of the surest predictors of poverty, is approaching 75 percent.
Yet in his most recent speech on economics, Obama addresses none of these realities, preferring to blame the lot on Republicans (who have only ever controlled the House since 2008) and warning that if America fails to embrace his policies, “ocial tensions will rise as various groups fight to hold on to what they have, or start blaming somebody else for why their position isn’t improving.” In the Obama era, this should be interpreted as an ultimatum.
It’s going to be a long, divisive slog to the 2014 elections, and racial division continually promoted by the Obama administration is guaranteed to be an integral part of the mix. The fact that Americans view race relations as far worse than they’ve been in years should surely be an embarrassment for the first elected president of African descent. Odds are, however, he views it as an electoral boon for his party.
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Moving CCP's post to here:
Feminists no longer supporting Weiner or Huma. Of course as long as they have another Democrat feminist alternative and they have made their political calculations that it is better for the Democrat party and to protect Hillary who may be harmed by association to Huma that Weiner is a liability. It is not about "women" bottom line:
*****Women's groups go on attack against Weiner
Hadley Malcolm reveals the woman who has come forward as one of Anthony Weiner's sexting partners.
Paul Singer, USA TODAY 12:28 p.m. EDT July 26, 2013
EMILY's List and National Organization for Women step up efforts on behalf of Christine Quinn
Quinn would be first woman mayor of New York City
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National women's groups are stepping up their efforts in the New York City mayors race to support City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and denounce former Congressman Anthony Weiner for his lewd online behavior.
The women's poliitcal group EMILY's List is sending out an e-mail to supporters Friday saying "New Yorkers deserve better than the circus their mayoral race has turned into." The e-mail, written by communications director Jess McIntosh, was sent under the subject line "I don't want to talk about Carlos Danger" - a reference to the pseudonym Weiner allegedly used for some of his on-line trysts.
EMILY's List, which specializes in raising money for female candidates, extolled Quinn's qualifications and encouraged supporters to contribute to Quinn's campaign.
Thursday the National Organization for Women hosted a rally with Quinn in New York and NOW President Terry O'Neill said "Mr. Weiner does have a problem and his behavior is sexist. Let's be clear: It is not respectful of women," according to the New York Daily News.
EMILY's list and the New York chapter of NOW had previously endorsed Quinn for the race, saying she is the most qualified candidate and hailing the historic possibility of election the first woman mayor of New York City.
Sonia Ossorio, president of NOW of New York City said Friday that Weiner has clearly demonstrated that he does not have the judgement or maturity to be mayor.
She added that the saga brings to mind Susan B. Anthony who spent decades crusading for women's right to vote. "She fought for our vote," Ossorio said, "and to think that a woman would squander their vote on someone like Anthony Weiner who doesn't take public office seriously, who is unfit and who has made a mockery of elected office, and who has done it by disrespecting woman . . . I feel embarrassed for our culture."
STORY: Weiner adds more detail to sexting story
Weiner resigned his seat in Congress in 2011 after it was revealed that he had sent lewd text messages and images to women on-line. This week he acknowledged that he had continued to engage in graphic on-line exchanges even after he left Congress. Thursday he said he may have exchanged texts with as many as ten women overall.
Weiner has rejected calls to quit the mayor's race, saying he believes New Yorkers are more interested in what he can do for the city than his boorish behavior, which he says is now behind him.****
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Setting a Budget Trap for Republicans
Obama is baiting the GOP to shut down the government in the fall.
By KARL ROVE
Sometimes politicians, like magicians, use distraction. Take President Obama's latest pivot to the economy, which began with last week's speech in Illinois and concluded on Tuesday at an Amazon facility in Tennessee.
The pivot isn't about the economy. It's a setup for two budget battles with Congress this fall.
The first will be about funding the federal government for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1. Mr. Obama proposed the sequester, signed the July 2011 budget agreement with its hard caps on discretionary spending, and threatened to veto any attempt to repeal or mitigate it. Nevertheless, last week he attacked the sequester as "a meat clever" that "cost jobs" and later told the New York Times Sunday that he's worried about "the drop-off in government spending."
Mr. Obama and Senate Democrats want to spend $1.058 trillion in discretionary outlays next fiscal year—$91 billion more than allowed under the 2011 agreement. Republicans want to hold Mr. Obama to the $967 billion ceiling on discretionary spending in the coming fiscal year, a ceiling to which he agreed.
Spending disputes almost always work to the advantage of Republicans, since Americans believe there's plenty of waste in Washington. For example, a Feb. 18 Pew Research Center/USA Today poll found 54% felt that to reduce the deficit, the president and Congress should focus "mostly on spending cuts." Only 16% said the emphasis should be "mostly on tax increases." This was shortly after the Obama administration's dire (and false) warnings about the effects of the sequester on the economy.
The second battle will be over the debt ceiling—government's ability to borrow—that the Treasury Department says must be raised this fall, probably by November. Mr. Obama cautioned in his weekly address on Saturday against "threatening to default on the bills this country has already racked up."
Burnishing his credentials as a deficit hawk, Mr. Obama also claimed in his July 24 speech at Knox College in Galesburg, Ill., that he's "cut the deficit by nearly half as a share of the economy." According to the Office of Management and Budget, the annual deficit has indeed fallen to 6% of GDP this fiscal year from 10.1% during Mr. Obama's first fiscal year.
But the deficit is still a larger share of the economy than in 62 of the last 68 years since World War II. And the Congressional Budget Office says deficits will bottom out in fiscal year 2015 and begin climbing again. All this means Republicans will insist on further spending restraint, especially on entitlements, as part of any debt-ceiling measure.
Treasury Secretary Jack Lew said this weekend the White House wouldn't negotiate with Congress on the debt ceiling but did not demand that Congress pass a "clean" debt ceiling without spending restrictions. This suggests Mr. Obama understands he may be stuck taking further spending restraint in return for an increase in the limit on federal borrowing.
He'll try finessing this with tantalizing offers that ultimately give him more money to spend. But the "grand bargain" he offered Tuesday won't win any Republican huzzahs. Simplifying the corporate tax code to generate more revenue for what Mr. Obama called "a significant investment" (read: large increases in government spending) is a nonstarter.
This is especially the case since federal outlays this fiscal year are equal to 22.7% of GDP, higher than in all but six of the last 68 years (with four of those six on Mr. Obama's watch). The president can forget the $1 trillion in new revenue Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid demanded last week to pay for new spending.
Both sides face challenges in these looming budget fights. For Mr. Obama, it's that his latest pivot to the economy won't work.
In a June 13 CNN/ORC poll, his approval numbers on handling the economy were anemic (42% approve, 57% disapprove) and even worse on handling the deficit (34% approve, 64% disapprove). Pushing for more spending won't win support among independents who will decide the 2014 midterms.
For congressional Republicans, the challenge is to keep the upper hand provided by their strategy of passing continuing resolutions at current levels to fund the government. They must not overreach. For it's an iron law that Republicans get blamed for any government shutdown, no matter who controls the White House or Congress.
So Mr. Obama is baiting Republicans to overplay their hand by forcing a government shutdown or failing to offer a constructive conservative agenda. He must change the dynamic, or face Republican control of the House and Senate his last two years in office. No distraction can hide the president's concern about that.
Mr. Rove, a former deputy chief of staff to President George W. Bush, helped organize the political action committee American Crossroads.
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I lost all respect for Karl Rove during the last election cycle. He is an inside-the-beltway establishment Republican who just wants to get along with the Democrats and play an idiotic "strategic" game instead of taking a hard stand. Back in 1976 the Republican Party found itself in the same predicament, and Ronald Reagan made his famous "Bold Colors, not Pale Pastels" speech, in which he argued - as Ted Cruz and Mike Lee are now - that Republicans MUST take bold stands as the party of liberty, limited government, and personal responsibility. I can't believe this is even a discussion within the Republican Party at this point. Any Republican who refuses to sign on to Mike Lee's pledge and/or defund Obamacare at this juncture is a coward. HOW can anyone describe the Republican Party as an opposition party over the last few years? They failed to learn anything from their victory in the 2010 election. I will have ZERO use for any Republican who doesn't vote to defund this monstrosity, and will work as hard as I can to unseat them.
With our republic hanging by a thread, this is NOT the time for capitulation. I and millions of other conservatives are sick and tired of this behavior on the part of the vast majority of the Republicans in Congress. If they won't take a hard stand on this, they are utterly worthless and must be replaced with tea party-minded conservatives. Now is the time for every freedom-loving American to hound their Congressional reps mercilessly to sign on to the Mike Lee pledge. One phone call a day ought to be the minimum they get from each of us now that they are returning home to their districts. I can tell you that mine and most others in GA are hopping mad over this.
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A conservative we know, but a Democrat? :?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Davis_Hanson
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A conservative we know, but a Democrat? :?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Davis_Hanson
The Democrats should try to hang onto these members who put common sense above mindless ideology. I will hazard a guess that it has been a long time since Dr. Hanson called himself a California Democrat.
I have called Walter Russell Mead my favorite Democrat; I will have to move VDH onto that list.
Many prominent conservatives come to their views by way of the Democrat party. Jeanne Kirkpatrick never renounced that side, just joined up with Reagan, Kemp, Bennett and others on certain issues. Rick Perry was a Dem (in Texas). Reagan was a Democrat - and a union leader. Crafty Dog admits coming from liberalism, somewhere in his formative youth...(??) I also remember when Dr. CCP was a middle of the road moderate!
In my family, people choose either side. The last time they thought Democrats were better, my grandfather voted for Woodrow Wilson. He soon regretted it and learned from the mistake.
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I was actually a registered dem for a while, trying to get a sleazy sheriff out of office. Unfortunately, the guy I helped didn't turn out too much better when he got into office.
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I tried to post this under future of republican party but instead of reply all I see is "notify"
Someone said it best on radio the other day. I can't remember but I think it was Hannity. The Bush wing of the Republican party is all about "managing" the decline of conservative as opposed to the real right which is about standing for something. If we don't stand now we will ultimately watch the liberal agenda win.
*****And they're on their way to losing the next presidential election, too
A new Gallup poll finds the summer has once again not been kind to President Obama, with his approval rate dipping yet again. In fact, August has historically been the worst month for his approval rating throughout his presidency.
But there's a big difference this year: Republicans have had a worse summer.
Halfway through the August recess, congressional Republicans are still fighting with each other over the direction of their party. While they're united in hating ObamaCare, they have no coherent strategy for confronting Democrats and the president. Some want to shut down the government in an attempt to defund ObamaCare, some want to use the debt ceiling as leverage, and some think both ideas are nuts.
Newt Gingrich even slammed Republicans for having "zero answer" when it comes to an alternative health care plan.
The battle highlights a huge divide in the Republican Party, which impacts nearly every issue before Congress. Ten months after a brutal loss in the 2012 election, the battle for the heart and soul of the party rages.
GOP strategist Mike Murphy elegantly summed up the problem: "The party is acting as if the entire world is a GOP primary. That is a very dangerous way to operate. We have massive image problems with the greater electorate, and the silly antics of the purist wing are making our dire problems even worse."*****
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Interesting discussion of the politics and history of White House pets. To be read in tandem:
http://home.gwu.edu/~esaunder/UnleashingPresidentialPower.pdf
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/08/20/sunny-obama-the-new-white-house-puppy-in-charts/?wprss=rss_national&clsrd
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http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/04/business/economy/business-losing-clout-in-a-gop-moving-right.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20130904
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bama's Bluff
President Obama has adopted the unsustainable position that he will not negotiate with Congress over spending and the debt ceiling. He is betting he can get Republicans to fold without having to give up anything he wants.
That’s why we’re hearing ridiculous claims from him like the one he made speaking to the Business Roundtable this week: "You have never seen in the history of the United States the debt ceiling or the threat of not raising the debt being used to extort a president or a governing party and trying to force issues that have nothing to do with the budget and nothing to do with the debt."
This is nonsense, of course. As Speaker of the House John Boehner pointed out recently, “every major effort to deal with the deficit over the past 30 years has been tied to the debt limit."
Moreover, the implication that Obamacare has “nothing to do with the budget and nothing to do with the debt” is simply dishonest. The law accounts for a large part of the budget and we now know that it will cost twice as much in the next ten years as President Obama promised before it was passed.
Despite the massive increase in cost and with evidence of the law’s harmful effects piling up, most Democrats and a substantial number of Republicans seem content to maintain the present course, following the president who says he will not negotiate with Congress.
The truth is the President may soon be forced to negotiate. The Republican House today boldly passed a spending bill without funding to implement Obamacare, which many commentators are predicting could lead to a government shutdown.
This is a big step. It is very hard to change the status quo in Washington because most people in Washington do not want to change the status quo. If you really want to change things, you need to turn up the heat enough to force the old order to act. That’s how you bring negotiating partners to the table.
In 1995 and 1996, the government closed twice when the Republican Congress and President Clinton could not reach an agreement on spending. It is conventional wisdom in Washington and in the news media that this was a major mistake for Republicans. But that view is completely wrong. Before we took over the House in 1994, we had promised the voters we would fight for balanced budgets. We proved to the country we were serious about it, and more importantly, we proved to President Clinton that we were serious. The balanced budgets of the next four years were a direct result of those shutdowns. The heat convinced President Clinton that he had to negotiate.
President Obama may be in for a similar surprise after today’s vote, a first step that could eventually force him to abandon his counterproductive pledge not to negotiate with Congress. If he continues to refuse, the government he runs will close--and the American people will begin to wonder why he refuses to make a deal. They may not be as firmly on his side as he expects. A Rasmussen poll this week found that 51 percent of Americans favor a partial government shutdown until Congress and the President agree on cuts to spending on the health care law.
When we see this level of conflict in Washington, it’s not because either side is stupid, and it’s not because they’re playing games. It’s because one group wants to keep everything the same and the other group wants change. Eventually the situation will heat up enough and each side will have to negotiate.
Your Friend,
Newt
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Newt has this quite right. Why would you fund what you were elected to oppose, and how else will you stop it - if not now?!
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Quite infuriating is the misportrayal of the Reps efforts as "shutting down the government"".
NO! NO! NO!
The Reps are funding EVERYTHING EXCEPT Obamacare!!!
If there is a govt. shutdown it will be because of the Dems!!!
If the Reps lack the mind, heart, and balls to make this point loudly and clearly, this can turn out as disastrously as Karl Rove predicts.
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From an informal e-missive he sends out:
The Goldberg File
By Jonah Goldberg
Sept. 27, 2013
Deer Readers (Really people, there are easier things to get your
news from than ruminant mammals. They're covered in ticks, and
they won't stand still. Get an iPad),
Okay, so I wrote the bulk of this "news"letter yesterday and I
was in a pretty foul mood. After a good night's sleep, I'm a
little less whiny, but I don't really have much time to write a
new one. So this will be one of the rare instances where my
normal column is more G-Filey than the G-File. An excerpt
:
For instance, here's Senate majority leader Harry Reid, who
walked out of the painting American Gothic to deliver this
homespun wisdom: "We're not going to bow to tea-party
anarchists who deny the mere fact that Obamacare is the law.
We will not bow to tea-party anarchists who refuse to accept
that the Supreme Court ruled that Obamacare is
constitutional."
Where to begin? For starters, I know a great many
self-described members of the Tea Party, and I've yet to meet
one who would not acknowledge — admittedly with dismay — that
Obamacare is the law. Nor have I met one unwilling to concede
that the Supreme Court ruled that Obamacare is constitutional.
Though from my informal polling, I can report that most think
the Court's reasoning left much to be desired (logic,
persuasiveness,
consistency, etc.).
Lurking beneath such lazy rhetoric is a nasty psychological
insinuation that there's something deranged not just about
opposing Obamacare, but about being a conservative. This is an
ancient smear, used to discredit conservatives in order to
avoid debating them.
Reid is a dim and sallow man whose tin ear long ago started to
rust. But it's worth pointing out that "anarchy" is not
defined in any textbook or dictionary I can find as "the
absence of Obamacare." While, yes, it's true that Mad Max,
most zombie movies, and other post-apocalyptic films are set
in worlds without Obamacare, that's really not the most
salient factor.
Okay, now onto yesterday's G-File today.
Dear Readers and the other kind,
Personally, this week has been like watching Michael Moore doing
a nude yoga routine, unendurably ugly from beginning to end, yet
with a few moments of dark comedy in between. And it's only
Thursday (Yes, I'm trying to write this a day early because
family issues will take priority in the morning).
I'm only referring in part to the political spectacle, but let's
focus on that right now. We've seen these kinds of arguments
quite a few times over the last decade. I could recount the
episodes, but at least in my memory their intensity has never
been this bad or widespread. While I think every individual
person has his own reasons, as a generalization I think there
are two factors driving pretty much everyone's crankiness.
The Weariness of Defeat
First, we're exhausted. Some may be exhausted with the fighting,
as Ted Cruz and others contend, but I think more are exhausted
by the losing -- or at least the feeling that we're losing.
People have diverse reactions when they feel like they're
losing. Some quit, sure. But I don't think there's a lot of
quitting on the right these days.
There are at least two other kinds of responses to the sense of
defeat. Some decide to go all out in one last frontal assault.
Others opt to grow more selective in their battles. Sonny
Corleone wanted to brawl, right now. Michael Corleone wanted to
play it cool until the right moment came along. Some boxers,
sensing the bout is getting away from them, go for the knockout
as quickly as possible. Others decide to lay back until their
opponent
tires himself out. In the Battle of Pharsalus, Pompey reluctantly went for the quick
coup de grâce and lost it all. Caesar, left with the option to fight or die, chose
to fight and won. Whatever, pick your own damn metaphor.
The point that I think is really, really, important is that
neither option is right or wrong in the abstract. It all depends
on the situation. More on that in a moment.
The Clarity of Fear
The second factor, I think, is that we're all afraid. And I
don't mean that in the way the people shouting at me from their
electronic perches mean it. I mean we're all patriots. We all
believe that Obamacare is a disaster and could fundamentally
transform America in ways that will hurt it.
(As an aside, it's worth noting again that there is something
fundamentally unpatriotic in the yearning to fundamentally
transform your country. I love my wife. Inherent to loving her
is loving her for who she is. Gentlemen, turn to your wife and
say, "Honey, I love you completely. It's just that I want to
fundamentally transform you into someone else." See how that
plays out. If you want to fundamentally transform the object of
your
affection so that it conforms to your fantasies, that is not love, it is lust.)
I've never liked the glib way people denigrate fear as if it's a
character flaw. There is nothing wrong or cowardly about being
afraid. A good father is afraid when his child is in harm's way.
A good commanding officer is afraid when his men are under fire.
Fear is like pain -- it tells you something you need to know. I
don't believe any man is fearless, but if such a person exists
he is a fool. Courage is not the absence of fear, it is the
triumph over it. In other words, what you do with your fear is the true test of
character.
To love is to fear, because love demands that you invest your
faith and happiness in something or someone outside of yourself
and that is a kind of surrender. It is a surrendering of your
narrow self-interest to something that ultimately you cannot
fully control, and that is inherently frightening. Patriotism,
stripped of complication and theory is, simply love of country.
And most conservatives who love their country have that hollow
queasy
feeling in the pits of their stomachs -- like that angst you get when you can't find
your child at the Mall -- that something they love is in danger.
This is what unites the factions in the argument currently
splitting the Right. We are members of the same family arguing
about what to do about something we love when we fear she is
about to be harmed.
The Airing of My Grievances
I'm done arguing the tactics for now. Everyone knows that stuff
at this point, or at least they should. I've had long talks with
people on the other side of the argument this week, including
some quite close to Ted Cruz. I'll confess to the mistake of not
listening more closely to them sooner. I'm more sympathetic to
Cruz's gambit at the end of this week than I was at the
beginning. But I still think his plan wouldn't work even if all
of his
critics agreed to participate in a strategy they sincerely believed would fail. Lack
of Republican unity behind a flawed idea is not the reason the idea is flawed. But I
can tell you this: I sincerely and with all my heart hope I am wrong.
The Cruz Side & the Dark Side
And while my sympathy for Cruz's effort has grown, and my
admiration for his performance on the Senate floor is sincere
and deep, I also find his criticism of people who disagree with
him utterly indefensible on its face. He says:
If we look to a ragtag bunch of colonists in the 18th century,
the idea that we would stand up to Great Britain, the British
army -- the most mighty military force on the face of the
planet -- was impossible. It can't be done. I guarantee that
all of the pundits we see going on TV and intoning in deep
baritone voices: This cannot be done -- if we were back in the
18th century, they would be writing messages in dark ink and
sending it by
carrier pigeon, saying: This cannot be done. You can't stand up to the British army.
It can't be done. It is impossible. Accept your subjugation. Accept your taxation
without representation. Accept that this is impossible.
And:
You know, if you fast-forward to the Civil War, a time of
enormous pain, anguish, bloodshed in the United States, there
were a lot of voices then who said the Union cannot be saved.
Can't be done. Accept defeat. I suspect those same pundits,
had they been around in the mid 19th century, they would have
written those same columns . . . this cannot be done.
And:
I suspect those same pundits who say it can't be done, if it
had been in the 1940s we would have been listening to them. .
. . They would have been on TV [sic] and they would have been
saying, you cannot defeat the Germans.
I'll admit it: I take this personally. The mere suggestion that
because I disagree with Ted Cruz's legislative strategy I would
acquiesce to the Nazis conquering Europe and finishing the Final
Solution is repugnant. The idea that I would surrender not only
to the dissolution of the Union but the perpetuation of slavery,
simply because I don't think you can force Barack Obama to sign
into law the elimination of Obamacare, is a slander. The claim
that if you disagree with him you are no different than Royalists denying the
righteousness of the American Revolution is ridiculous.
Now I know Ted Cruz a little, and I've always liked him when I
talked to him. Some of my closest friends and colleagues are
good friends of his. But the most charitable I can be on this
score is that I am entirely open to the idea that Cruz doesn't
actually believe this and he's just letting the rhetoric get
away from him. Perhaps he hasn't thought it through -- something
that's hard to believe given how smart and intellectually
meticulous he
is. Or maybe he does realize what he is saying, but thinks the stakes warrant giving
dissenters no honorable room to disagree with him. Neither, by my lights, is an
excuse.
By the way, the more apt analogy to World War II would be that
we are in the midst of the Sitzkrieg, or maybe the early days
after Pearl Harbor or some other time when war had already been
declared but the necessary assets for victory weren't in place
yet. We must invade Europe now, say the Cruzers, or Hitler will
win. No, we've got to wait until we can
actually win the inevitable fight.
It's not a great analogy, but it captures the fact that the
people Cruz is accusing of cowardice have actually spent years
doing what they can to stop Obamacare. That Eisenhower waited
until June of 1944 to land at Normandy did not mean he wanted
Hitler to win in June of 1943.
Taking It Personally
But my anger isn't really aimed at Ted Cruz anymore, in part
because I still want him to succeed and prove me wrong. It's at
you, Dear Reader. Well, maybe not you or you, but definitely
you.
When writing a letter to many thousands of people, it's hard to
narrowcast to a relatively few individuals. But those
individuals know who they are. In the last week, in e-mails,
comments sections, and on Twitter, I've heard from lots of
people who think that because I am not swept up in Cruz-mania
that I am therefore a sell-out, a fake conservative, a coward
(or even a pro-Confederacy, Nazi-stooge Royalist).
Look, I'm a big boy ("literally and figuratively" -- the Couch),
and I've been through this more times than I can count. But that
doesn't mean it becomes any less insulting or dispiriting. I'm
not trying to play the martyr, and I fully recognize that the
issues here are mountains and my personal feelings are a grain
of sand in comparison. But when people who've been reading and
corresponding with me for years glibly accuse me of abandoning
my principles out of a desire to get more invitations to "cocktail parties" it pisses
me off.
I have no problem with people disagreeing with me. I admit I've
gotten things wrong plenty of times (more than that if you
listen to my wife or my couch). But I forwent invitations to
liberal cocktail parties long before I got dragged into the
Lewinsky scandal. And any remaining microscopic chance at
liberal love went out the window with a book called Liberal
Fascism. Before and after those personal landmarks is a road
paved with literally millions of words in defense of conservative principles and causes, as I
see them. The only thing that might get me invited to Andrea Mitchell's house for a
martini is if I pulled a full David Brock, which is about as enticing a prospect as
being Roseanne Barr's personal proctologist. Besides, I grew up on the Upper West
Side of Manhattan. I've been to liberal cocktail parties. They're not that great.
Again, this isn't about me -- but this "news"letter pretty much
is! And the only way it works is if I vent what's on my mind.
And the only way I know how to be a pundit is to say what I
think. Obviously, there is a tension between being part of a
movement and maintaining independence. But I think the Dick
Morris approach of saying what your fans want to hear regardless
of the truth is not merely dishonest, but dishonorable.
In fact, anyone in my line of work who tells his audience only
what it wants to hear isn't really in my line of work. He's an
entertainer or cheerleader. There's a need for such people in
any movement, and while I don't think you have to be all one or
the other (I'll cheerlead from time to time), the second you
start saying things you don't think are true, you've declared
yourself a hack or an entertainer or politician, none of which
are what I signed up for. And, since we're on this honesty kick, when well-compensated
commentators whose whole business model is to tell their audiences exactly what they
want to hear say that I or National Review are "selling out" by disagreeing with our
readers, it stews my bowels. In purely financial terms, there's only downside for me
to disagree with the people who buy my books or read my columns. For National
Review, taking unpopular positions on the right doesn't add to the
subscription rolls.
Anyway, I know, I know this G-File is lacking in the requisite
jocularity. But frankly that's because some of you pissed me
off. Not because you disagreed with me, but because you didn't
give me the benefit of the doubt -- which I think I've earned
from you, and you, and maybe not you, because you're new around
here.
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http://www.newrepublic.com/article/114945/two-russians-walk-parliamentary-crisis
HISTORY LESSON
OCTOBER 1, 2013
Two Russians Walk Into a Parliamentary Crisis...
BY JULIA IOFFE @juliaioffe
What is a president in a presidential constitutional republic to do when faced with an intransigent, bull-headed faction among his people's representatives?
Well, Boris Yeltsin, Russia's first democratically elected president, was once faced with a similar situation exactly 20 years ago, in October 1993. The parliament, then called the Supreme Soviet, was increasingly against Yeltsin's neoliberal economic reforms (suggested to him by young Western advisors like Jeffrey Sachs). On one hand, these reforms freed up the old Soviet command economy. On the other, they drove the country into chaos and violence, and left tens of millions impoverished, their savings nullified by skyrocketing inflation. The parliament, dominated by old Soviet conservatives, was increasingly against these reforms and refused to confirm Yeltsin's key economic advisor. Yeltsin held a national referendum, a sort of national vote of confidence, which he won, and used it as a justification for what he did next.
Almost exactly 20 years ago, he dissolved parliament. The vice president and the speaker of the parliament dissolved Yeltsin's presidency, and holed up with their supporters in the parliament's headquarters, now known as "the White House."
Then Yeltsin did this to it.
(http://www.newrepublic.com/sites/default/files/u180378/1993-russia-inline.jpg)
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Jd-iaYLO1A&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D0Jd-iaYLO1A&app=desktop
http://thehill.com/homenews/house/328413-dems-decry-midnight-rule-change
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BD: Let's put those in the Congress thread as well please.
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I started listening to this a few weeks ago. An interesting, (pretty) insider look at DC politics. Currently, of course, the shutdown/budget issues are the topic of discussion, but that need not be the case. Longtime US REP. John Dingell was on the show yesterday.
I forgot the link: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/backroompolitics/2013/10/15/live-from-washington-dc
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CNN has revived "Crossfire" with Cutter and XX Ship (or something like that) most days with two guests and on some days with Newt and Van Jones as well. About two days ago there was a scintillating discussion with Newt, Cutter (who is in serious need of some bitch slapping) not-stupid Obama econ flunky Goolsbie, and Carly Fiorina (former CEO of Hewlett Packard and former Rep candidate for US Senate from CA.
Fiorina, whom I did not care for while she was at HP nor while she was a candidate for Senate, actually impressed me greatly. Apparently, in the way of many Reps, as a candidate she felt she could not be candid, but here she revealed herself to be quite well informed, quite thoughtful, quite articulate, and quite classy.
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http://www.lawfareblog.com/2013/10/shane-harris-on-heritage-and-lawfare/
From the article:
Recently, Heritage refused to publish two papers about the National Security Agency’s surveillance programs written by a prominent conservative attorney. Why? Because he concluded that the programs were legal and constitutional, according to sources familiar with the matter. It was a surprising move for a think tank that has supported extension of the Patriot Act — which authorizes some of NSA’s activities — and has long been associated with right-of-center positions on national security and foreign policy.
. . .
But the think tank’s decision not to publish Bradbury’s opinions did not bury them.
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http://www.lawfareblog.com/2013/10/shane-harris-on-heritage-and-lawfare/
From the article:
Recently, Heritage refused to publish two papers about the National Security Agency’s surveillance programs written by a prominent conservative attorney. Why? Because he concluded that the programs were legal and constitutional, according to sources familiar with the matter. It was a surprising move for a think tank that has supported extension of the Patriot Act — which authorizes some of NSA’s activities — and has long been associated with right-of-center positions on national security and foreign policy.
. . .
But the think tank’s decision not to publish Bradbury’s opinions did not bury them.
I don't know about the wisdom of refusing to publish, but their publishing is seen as their endorsement of a view. NSA and the Patriot Act powers are certainly issues that divide the right.
Heritage also just opposed the Medical Device Tax Repeal in the budget deal. ??? http://heritageaction.com/press-releases/heritage-action-statement-on-houses-obamacare-delay/ Because it leaves everything else in place.
Conservatives are very busy questioning each others tactics - while accomplishing nothing.
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The Goldberg File
By Jonah Goldberg
October 18, 2013
Dear Reader (and those poor Hawaiians who bizarrely got this "news"letter as an error warning while trying to log on to Healthcare.gov),
Maybe it's my sleep deprivation. Maybe it's the fact I spent yesterday afternoon like Martin Sheen in his Saigon hotel room in Apocalypse Now doing tai chi amidst empty whisky bottles. Maybe, just maybe, it's the fact that I can't get the song "The Mighty Quinn" out of my head, but I feel pretty good about the state of things.
Don't get me wrong, I still think things are messier than my aforementioned hotel room and I'm not jumping for joy the way I will when Quinn the Eskimo gets here. I also stand by all of the comments that have elicited more bile from my colleagues on the right than a bulimia party on the set of America's Next Top Model after the Ben and Jerry's product-placement episode.
One fellow on Twitter proclaimed that Jonah Goldberg is "Saul Alinskying the Tea Party and he doesn't even know it. #MediaBubble" because I said on Fox yesterday that the Tea Party comes out of this more internally galvanized but externally more radioactive among Americans outside its sphere. This guy has an elephantine epidermis compared to the other thin-skinned responses I've gotten to my utterly banal observation. Some have skin thinner than the slightly congealed cream on the surface of an old cup of coffee. Others don't even seem to have a skin at all, and are simply walking around like flayed souls flinching at even the sight of a bottle of lemon juice.
The complaint seems to be that it is wrong to suggest that the Tea Parties came out of this fight with their brand or reputation diminished among non-tea-partiers, even if it is objectively true (or if that's too tendentious, even if it's what I truly believe). It's difficult for me to catalogue all the ways I think this is silly. For starters, there's nothing ad hominem about the statement.
For instance, if I were to say that Barry Goldwater became more "radioactive" when he said, "I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue!" it would be a true observation. That wouldn't mean, however, that I disagreed with what Goldwater said.
Moreover, radioactivity is the whole point! That's what the Tea Party does. It reminds me of Charlie Cooke's response to a C-SPAN caller's asking, "Why can't guns be safer?" He answered: "Because they're guns."
If the Tea Party isn't pissing someone off, it's doing it wrong.
Like the skinny guy everyone in prison is afraid of, much of the Tea Party's political power is drawn from the perception that it's just a little crazy. Boehner's hand has been strengthened over the last few years by his ability to tell Obama, "Hey, look, I'd love to cut a deal with you but you see those guys over my right shoulder? -- DON'T LOOK THEM IN THE EYE! They are crazy and if I walk back there with what you're offering they will rip off my legs and beat me to death with them. And then they will get mean."
So why did I get crosswise with them this time? Because I didn't think their strategy would work. But going over all that again feels like airing dirty laundry during Thanksgiving dinner just so you can get grandma riled up about grandpa's escapades during the war. "You weren't fighting Communists! You were fighting syphilis! We're going home!"
Still, like most of my colleagues, I didn't think the strategy would work. And that was a risk for the Tea Parties themselves. Sometimes to use power means to lose power. Good hostage-takers are always careful to ask for a ransom the victim's families can afford to pay, otherwise what's the point?
Indiana Jones and the Tea Party of the Lost Ark
In a recent episode of The Big Bang Theory, Sheldon introduces his girlfriend, Amy, to the Raiders of the Lost Ark, which she'd never seen before. She liked the movie, she explains, despite the big "story problem." Sheldon is aghast at the suggestion there could be any story problems with the "love child" of Steven Spielberg and George Lucas. "What story problem?" he demands to know. She explains that Indiana Jones is absolutely irrelevant to the story. If he'd never gotten involved, the Nazis would have still found the ark of the covenant, they would have still brought it to that island, and they would have still had their faces melted.
I'd never thought of it that way before, but it's actually a very close parallel complaint to the one I've written about many times. My dad -- who loved the movie -- always laughed at the idea that the Nazis would be able to use the ark for their dastardly purposes. The idea that God would be like, "Darn, it's out of my hands. I guess I have no choice but to lend you my awesome powers for your evil deeds," is pretty ridiculous. They even returned to this idea in the third movie, when the Nazis tried to get their hands on the Holy Grail -- because, you know, Jesus would totally say, "Nazis!? Rats. There's nothing I can do. It's life everlasting for the SS!"
I'm no theologian, but I just have a hard time believing that's how God rolls.
Anyway, I bring this up because I think you can say something similar about the last few weeks. There was a whole lot of action, but at the end of the day, things worked out the way they were going to all along. I'm sure there's a really good extended metaphor in here somewhere. Default was the face-melting ark, but we looked away at the last minute. Or defunding Obamacare was the Holy Grail, or something like that. But I want to get back to why I feel pretty good about how things worked out.
Obamacare: The Horror
While I think the notion that we wouldn't be talking about Obamacare were it not for Ted Cruz's filibuster is simply untrue, the fact that he laid down that marker, and forced everyone in the party to do likewise, will almost certainly work to the Right's advantage down the road. We can all argue about how unpopular the shutdown really was and how damaged the party brand is, but my guess is that the worst of it has to be behind us. The shutdown will fade from memory while the Obamanation of Obamacare will grow. If you read the Wall Street Journal story today alongside Yuval's post in the Corner, it's becoming ever more clear that this is kind of an M. C. Escher drawing of failure. The error pages literally have errors in them. Jonathan Cohn -- a passionate Obamacare booster -- has a relatively balanced piece about the rollout problems, but he goes back to boosterism when it comes to the issue of premiums. He simply asserts that competition is working and delivering lower premiums. I am at a loss as to how he can know that given that all the reporting I've seen suggests that if you're healthy and middle class, your premiums will likely go up. It even happened to a Daily Kos blogger whose tears are delicious!
Imagine going to Target the day after Thanksgiving for the "Black Friday" sale. You wait for hours or days for the doors to open. You rush in like O. J. Simpson in the old Hertz ads, leaping over pyramids of GI Joes with the Kung Fu Grip, sidestepping the giant Justin Bieber cardboard displays. It's complete chaos. Some woman who wants the same George Foreman Grill you do punches you in the uvula. You kill a guy with a trident when he tries to get the last Bluetooth beer helmet. Finally, because you kept your head on a swivel, you get your cart to the check-out line and the cashier tells you everything in your cart isn't on sale, but it's actually twice as expensive as it would be on a normal day. Why? Because in order to buy the things you want, you have to buy a bunch of stuff you don't want; a DVD of Bridges of Madison County, a cornucopia of indecipherable feminine products, a top-of-the-line salad spinner, and a twelve-pack of Ensure.
That's Obamacare for you.
And the fact that the GOP caused a huge fuss that briefly annoyed some people to protest this mess is really not such a bad thing.
It's Obamacare All the Way Down
Look, it's always possible that eventually they'll get all the kinks out and make this thing work well enough to avoid a total disaster. But every day it looks more and more like this thing is a Big Government onion. Liberals think the outer layer is bad but that if they just peel that away it'll be great. But the thing about onions is they're onions all the way down. You can peel all you want, you'll never find a prize in the center, but you just might find yourself crying in the middle of a big mess.
Consider this from the Sunlight Foundation:
All but one of the 47 contractors who won contracts to carry out work on the Affordable Care Act worked for the government prior to its passage. Many -- like the Rand Corporation and the MITRE Corporation -- have done so for decades. And some, like Northrop Grumman and General Dynamics, are among the biggest wielders of influence in Washington. Some 17 ACA contract winners reported spending more than $128 million on lobbying in 2011 and 2012, while 29 had employees or political action committees or both that contributed $32 million to federal candidates and parties in the same period. Of that amount, President Barack Obama collected $3.9 million.
Arnold Kling responds:
I don't hold it against the contractors that they had prior government experience. I don't hold it against them that they lobby or contribute to campaigns.
To me, the scandal is that there are 47 different organizations involved in building the site. I cannot imagine that any sane project executive would want it that way. I am just guessing, but it seems more likely to me that this many contractors were imposed on the project executive because there was a requirement to "spread the work out" to keep all these companies in the politicians' pockets.
The Limits of the Moral Equivalent of War
Don't worry, I'm not going to wear my sandwich board and ring my bell about William James again. But I do feel like making one point. Whenever I make the argument that government is very bad at doing things like Obamacare, the liberal response is invariably to offer counter-examples. "The military is awesome! Are you saying SEAL Team 6 is bad at what it does?" or "We sent a man to the moon!" Other counter-examples are pretty rare, but there are some. The NIH does some great things. The Coast Guard, the Peace Corps, etc.
What liberals never appreciate is that in all of these counter-examples there's something else going on. The institutional cultures that won World War II or put a man on the moon or that discover some new protein are not strictly speaking government cultures. While none of them are immune from bureaucratic stupidity and inefficiency, ultimately higher motivations win out.
How the Marines' esprit de corps differs from the post office's esprit de corps should be pretty obvious. But even in the other examples, the cultural core of excellent government institutions is driven by something greater than a mere paycheck and significantly different from simple "public service." The NASA that sent men to the moon was imbued with a culture not just of excellence and patriotism but the kind of awe and wonder that cannot be replicated by the Department of Health and Human Services. Moreover, for scientists passionate about space and the race to get there, there was simply no place else to be. That meant the very best people were attracted to NASA. Even if, for some strange reason, you're passionate about writing billions of lines of code for a website and managing health-insurance data, there are still better things to do with your time than work on Obamacare.
I want to be fair to government workers. Many individuals who work for government are dedicated to doing excellent work for the public good. But I'm talking about culture here. President Obama talks as if, absent a war or other national crisis, the entire government can still be imbued with the spirit of sacrifice and excellence that won World War II or put a man on the moon. And that's just crazy talk.
Obama, the permanent campaigner, believes that governing should be more like campaigning. Everyone unified towards a single -- Obamacentric -- purpose. Everyone loyal to his needs. Everyone in agreement with his agenda. In 2008, when asked what management experience he had, he said that running his campaign proved he was ready for the presidency. That should have been the moment when we all heard the record-scratch sound effect and said "What's that now!?" Even if Obama deserved all of the credit for his campaign's successes, campaigning and governing are fundamentally different things. Campaign culture allows for people to be fired. It also rewards excellence, which is why some very young people rise very quickly in the campaign world, while it's far more rare in civil service. Campaigns have a deadline-driven, crisis-junky energy and sense of team loyalty that is at least somewhat analogous to a war or some other crisis. That's why the Obama campaign website was great. It's also why the Obamacare website's error page has an error page.
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He may be a bit overblown in claiming that delaying the penalty is a big deal, but the instinct is right.
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Dear Friends,
This nation has gone through 18 government shutdowns in the last 37 years. Fifteen of those 18 shutdowns occurred when Democrats controlled the House. In those 15 shutdowns, the Democrats demanded increased abortion services and labor and environmental policy concessions.
Perhaps the reason we don’t remember those shutdowns as vividly is because in those days, presidents negotiated around the clock to resolve the disputes that caused them and did everything they could to minimize the public’s inconvenience and suffering.
This time was different. This time, the President refused to negotiate and took unprecedented steps to amplify the pain and suffering that the public endured.
Why would the administration do this? They told us why – because they were winning politically.
What was the outrageous Republican demand that Democrats refused even to discuss during the 16-day shutdown while they ordered our public servants to make life as difficult as possible for people?
On September 30th, with the deadline just hours away, House Republicans had dropped all conditions to fund the entire government with one substantive exception: delay the individual mandate that forces people to buy policies against their will. Democrats summarily rejected this proposal and for 16 days refused to negotiate on this single point, while literally accusing Republicans of sedition.
Then this past Monday, the President’s Press Secretary made this stunning admission: the Obama administration may itself seek to delay the individual mandate by dropping the penalty for non-compliance.
They’ve got to be kidding.
For the 16 days of the shutdown, the only substantive dispute was the Republican plea to delay the individual mandate for the millions of Americans who couldn’t find or afford Obamacare policies.
Doing so could have ended the impasse instantly. During those 16 days, it was clear to everyone that the exchanges weren’t working. Yet the President and Congressional Democrats refused even to discuss the matter, while they turned their formidable propaganda machine to the task of winning politically.
These facts speak for themselves and need no embellishment from me. John Adams once observed that “Facts are stubborn things.” As passions cool and reason resumes its rightful place in the nation’s discourse, these facts will speak eloquently and stubbornly of what happens when politics trumps policy and propaganda trumps reality.
Sincerely,
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McClintock makes a valid point.
Just a sidenote here, the whole 'shutdown' question is another case of liberals owning our language and the rest of us allowing them to do that. The Affordable Care Act isn't about affordable care and the shutdown wasn't a shutdown.
We had a partial shutdown, a 17% shutdown, a non-essential pause, a 16 day, partial, 17% non-essential paid vacation, but we didn't have a shutdown.
Imagine if we did have a shutdown. Shut down the airports, close the military bases, lock up the Courts and the White House, end food inspection, turn off the missile defense, etc etc. Disaster, disease, famine, that isn't what happened. The effect I saw was that rush hour traffic moved a little bit better.
Let the pollsters ask, who do you blame for the 16 day paid pause of 17% non-essential federal functions. 51% or more should say who cares.
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This is a 3 part video of 30 minutes, especially good for me to see because I don't watch cable tv where these characters hang out.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2013/10/24/krauthammer_jon_stewart_clash_over_conservatism_politics_on_daily_show.html
At times CK is brilliant, but also he validates some of the points liberals are making and misses some opportunities. Stewart gets called out in part but is quite persuasive with many of his points. Important questions perhaps for 'the way forward', how to answer the liberal take on all of this more effectively and how do you get conservatives to be more on the same page in order to do that.
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I agree that I disagree with CK on some important points, but that was an excellent conversation.
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An interesting and well articulated point made by Sean Trende on Real Clear Politics that also relates to our discussion on 'the way forward':
"Cuccinelli’s problem in a nutshell is this: The Old Dominion would probably vote for a candidate who had sued a professor at the University of Virginia over his climate science research. It would probably vote for a candidate who referred to homosexuality as unnatural. It would probably vote for a candidate who tried to limit no-fault divorce. It would probably vote for a candidate who covered up an exposed breast on the state seal. It would probably vote for a candidate who wasn’t sure if the president was born in the United States. It would probably vote for a candidate who told colleges and universities to strip protections for gays and lesbians.
What it won’t typically do is vote for a candidate who holds all of these positions, and is unapologetic in them. Truth be told, Virginia hasn’t been particularly fond of strident social conservatives for quite some time; Oliver North, Michael Farris, Mark Earley, and a host of other similar Republicans have met similar fates. The mold of a successful statewide Republican here has been John Warner, Jim Gilmore, and Bob McDonnell, all of whom would check most of the boxes on a conservative scorecard, but who also knew how to communicate those stances to your average suburban voter in a non-threatening way."
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2013/10/31/factors_that_will_determine_the_va_governors_race_120521.html#ixzz2jJd0vA5J
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http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/11/01/tennessee-state-senator-presents-kathleen-sebelius-with-really-embarrassing-gift-and-she-doesnt-look-very-happy-about-it/
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Republican former governor Charlie Crist is now a Dem running for his old seat. Gov. Scott has approval number challenges. Crist has his own baggage:
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303936904579177722792888680?mod=WSJ_Opinion_MIDDLESecond
Mr. Scott can run on the state's robust economic recovery. He can point to the 500,000 jobs that Florida has added during his tenure compared to the 632,000 lost over Mr. Crist's four years in office. Meanwhile, the jobless rate has fallen to 7.0% from 10.9% since Scott entered office.
The Republican governor will also be able to exploit Democrats' former criticisms of Mr. Crist. A new ad cut for the governor features Democrat Alex Sink, the state's former CFO and Democratic gubernatorial candidate, slamming Mr. Crist for failing "to lay out a business plan to get Florida out of its worst recession" and Democratic chair Karen Thurman noting that "his only core belief is personal ambition."
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FOUNDER'S QUOTE DAILY
"Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others?" --Thomas Jefferson, First Inaugural Address, 1801
TODAY'S 'TOP TEN' FROM RIGHT HOOK
BO's Pulitzer for Fiction!
Our friend, Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC), offered a few words on Obama's presidential achievements: "You know, the president already has a Nobel Prize for peace; I think he's shooting for one in fiction." Indeed, if he wins a Pulitzer for fiction, it will have been earned, unlike his meaningless Nobel.
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October Saw Near-Record Debt
Despite the government being "shut down" for half the month of October, the federal debt increased by $409 billion -- the second biggest one-month leap in history. The biggest leap was October 2008, which featured the bank bailout. According to CNS News, "At the close of business on Sept. 30, 2013, the last day of fiscal 2013, the federal debt subject to limit stood at $16,699,396,000,000. At the close of business on Oct. 31, 2013, the first month of fiscal 2014, the debt subject to limit stood at approximately $17,108,378,000,000." Those GOP "anarchists" weren't as successful as Democrats would have us believe.
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O'Care Not a Federal Program?
According to HHS Sec. Kathleen Sebelius, ObamaCare isn't considered a federal health care program, therefore it doesn't have to play by the same rules as other entitlement programs. The New York Times reports, "the Obama administration has ruled that neither the federal insurance exchange nor the federal subsidies paid to insurance companies on behalf of low-income people are 'federal health care programs.'" As a result, the decree "exempts subsidized health insurance from a law that bans rebates, kickbacks, bribes and certain other financial arrangements in federal health programs, stripping law enforcement of a powerful tool used to fight fraud in other health care programs, like Medicare." Unsurprisingly, Sebelius offered no legal reasoning, just simply an opinion of the law. Then again, this entire administration adheres to the rule of men.
Demos Duck and Dodge Disaster
Yet another key ObamaCare supporter in the Senate is looking for a place to hide. Dianne Feinstein is now insisting, "I said this directly to the president's chief of staff -- they ought to take down the website until it's right." That's not what she said to House Republicans when they tried to delay the ACA!
ABC 'Recreates' LAX Shooter
How intent is the media into scaremongering folks on the dangers of "assault" weapons? Following the LAX shooting, ABC's Good Morning America chalked up an animation of the shooter with several, eh, inaccuracies. The alleged perpetrator, Paul Ciancia, used a Smith & Wesson M&P15 semi-automatic rifle. But ABC's graphic depicts Paul Ciancia holding a M16 selective-fire rifle -- which does meet the qualifications for an assault weapon -- along with a m-203 40mm grenade launcher. Yes, a grenade launcher. The weapon Ciancia used is legal for civilians to own. The weapon ABC depicted is not. Learn the truth about assault weapons.
Inquiring Minds Want to Know...
Burt Prelutsky asks, "How is it that in civilian life, people are always being arrested and charged as accessories to various crimes, but when every senior officer at Fort Hood turned a blind eye to the fact that Major Nidal Hassan openly proclaimed his allegiance to Osama bin Laden and jihadism, not one of them has been indicted as an accessory to mass murder?"
New Lies About Old Lies!
Obama's oft-repeated lie -- "If you like your health care plan, you will be able to keep your health care plan. Period." -- got a new twist this week. Obama now claims what he really said was: "Now, if you have or had one of these plans before the Affordable Care Act came into law and you really liked that plan, what we said was you could keep it if it hasn't changed since the law passed." And he's now repeating that lie across the nation. Except he did not ever qualify his initial promise, which was the key to getting ObamaCare passed. He is wrapping the new lies in this assertion: "If we had allowed these old plans [to continue] then we would have broken an even more important promise -- making sure that Americans gain access to health care that doesn't leave them one illness away from financial ruin." Right -- have you seen the deductibles for the O'Care plans? Memo to BO: Two lies don't make it right.
Next Crisis? Doctor Shortage
The ObamaCare enrollment debacle is just a small glimpse at the frustration millions of Americans will experience by receiving subpar health care. America already has a shortage of around 20,000 primary care physicians, but a new report from CBS reveals that by 2025, that number will jump to about 52,000 -- likely a conservative estimate. BO promised that if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor, but O'Care is helping push older physicians toward retirement -- a startling dilemma considering almost 50% of doctors are older than 50. Demand and compliance with mandates will simply become too burdensome for private practice, meaning it will become difficult to retain or obtain a private physician. This train wreck's just getting started.
Mass Cancellations Aren't New?
On top of explaining that he didn't really mean you could keep insurance you liked if your insurance company changed it (due to ObamaCare regulations), he said that people receiving cancellation letters is nothing new. "We did this to put to end the days when the individual market had no standards, when every year, thousands of Americans would be dropped from their coverage. People are acting like this is some new phenomenon." Millions of Americans losing their insurance due to ObamaCare absolutely is new. What chutzpah.
Obama's Country Blues
Country music star Larry Gatlin offered up this tribute to Obama:
They're goin' to mind your own business
They're goin' to mind your own health
Goin' to recreate everybody equal
Goin' to redistribute all the wealth
They're goin' to put a tax on everything standing still
And everything that moves
And the beatings will continue
Until morale improves
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2013/11/11/why-so-many-americans-believe-kennedy-assassination-conspiracy-theories/?wpisrc=nl_cage
From the article:
Conspiracy theories are conquering the country, leading us into a dark age of cynicism. Americans are bombarded by a growing barrage of outlandish tales, aided and abetted by a polarizing media, and amplified by the echo chamber of the Internet. While all sides indulge in conspiracy theories, Republicans and conservatives are particularly prone to them. Such inflamed rhetoric divides nations and destroys deliberative democracy.
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In the case of the Kennedy assassination there are plenty of reasons to question the official version.
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In the case of the Kennedy assassination there are plenty of reasons to question the official version.
How do you think it happened?
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I don't know, all the theories seem to have problems with them , , ,
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http://news.yahoo.com/the-splitting-of-the-senate--now-in-convenient-gif-form-213908185.html
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Please post in the Congress thread as well. TIA.
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Meanwhile, outside of Seattle...
Americans are more conservative than they have been in decades
James Stimson knows as much about public opinion as anyone in America. He has been tracking the nation’s policy preferences for more than 20 years using a “policy mood” index derived from responses to a wide variety of opinion surveys involving hundreds of specific policy questions on topics ranging from taxes and spending to environmental regulation to gun control.
The latest update of Stimson’s policy mood series suggests that the American public in 2012 was more conservative than at any point since 1952. (Actually, since mood in each year is estimated with some error, it seems safer to say that the current level of conservatism roughly equals the previous highs recorded in 1980 and 1952.)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2013/09/30/americans-are-more-conservative-than-they-have-been-in-decades/
http://www.unc.edu/~jstimson/Welcome.html
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Includes a few from our side:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/wp/2013/12/16/the-biggest-pinocchios-of-2013/
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Good post. It goes to show us how very difficult it is to know what is true and what is not true. OTOH I don't even know if the conclusions in this fact checker are true.
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Includes a few from our side:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/wp/2013/12/16/the-biggest-pinocchios-of-2013/
Pretty amazing that even the WashPost confirms Pres Obama is the Liar of the Year. Mis-speaks by a few lowly Republicans hardly compare. Michele Bachmann, leaving office, with her facts wrong is hardly news and there was no accompanying bill to slash food stamps by 70%. We are closing the Vatican embassy, but the out of office Jeb Bush implied false blame. Lamar Alexander connected two 'unrelated' spending items. That one could go under 'opinion' check. NRA said armed guards at Obama's children's school. If wrong, they are protected by armed guards every other minute of the day. Hardly a big deal or the basis of a public policy decision. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) charged that then- Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton in April of 2012 “signed” a cable directing a drawdown for security assets for the U.S. Embassy in Libya. In fact the cable had her signature but the Post says they all do...
Kerry's statement that “I opposed the invasion of Iraq” would be as meaningless as a Michele Bachmann statement - even we had not chosen people like Biden and Kerry for the highest positions in the administration!
The 'keep your policy' doozy was an obvious one, but good for the Post to publish this one by the President:
“The day after Benghazi happened, I acknowledged that this was an act of terrorism.”
Hard to believe a journalist wasn't fired over that one.
The day after Benghazi the President gave a speech in Las Vegas ripping Republicans. He was on-time and looked well-rested!
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Winston Churchill's famous distinction between the Left and Right —
"The left favors the line of dependency while the right favors the ladder of opportunity."
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2013/06/27/the_end_of_the_american_dream_119003.html
http://www.americanexperiment.org/publications/newsletters/thinking-minnesota-fall-2013
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Yet as Levin aptly points out. He was only the chosen front man of a huge political/business/criminal enterprise called the progressive movement. There are many more where he comes from. I think the only way to temporarily sweep their propaganda/philosophy under the rug for a generation is to hope that it will fail while offering the superior alternative.
http://dailycaller.com/2013/12/28/dnc-sends-email-defending-obama-from-impeachment-possibility/
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/george-will-the-price-of-political-ignorance/2014/01/01/7dbe2936-7311-11e3-9389-09ef9944065e_story.html
By George F. Will, Published: January 1, 2014
It was naughty of Winston Churchill to say, if he really did, that “the best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.” Nevertheless, many voters’ paucity of information about politics and government, although arguably rational, raises awkward questions about concepts central to democratic theory, including consent, representation, public opinion, electoral mandates and officials’ accountability.
In “Democracy and Political Ignorance: Why Smaller Government is Smarter” (Stanford University Press), Ilya Somin of George Mason University law school argues that an individual’s ignorance of public affairs is rational because the likelihood of his or her vote being decisive in an election is vanishingly small. The small incentives to become informed include reducing one’s susceptibility to deceptions, misinformation and propaganda. And if remaining ignorant is rational individual behavior, it has likely destructive collective outcomes.
Somin says that during the Cold War in 1964, two years after the Cuban missile crisis, only 38 percent of Americans knew the Soviet Union was not a member of NATO. In 2003, about 70 percent was unaware of enactment of the prescription drug entitlement, then the largest welfare-state expansion since Medicare (1965). In a 2006 Zogby poll, only 42 percent could name the three branches of the federal government.
Voters cannot hold officials responsible if they do not know what government is doing, or which parts of government are doing what. Given that 20 percent thinks the sun revolves around the Earth, it is unsurprising that a majority is unable to locate major states such as New York on a map. Usually only 30 percent of Americans can name their two senators. The average American expends more time becoming informed about choosing a car than choosing a candidate. But, then, the consequences of the former choice are immediate and discernible.
Many people, says Somin, acquire political knowledge for the reason people acquire sports knowledge — because it interests them, not because it will alter the outcome of any contest. And with “confirmation bias,” many people use political information to reinforce their preexisting views. Committed partisans are generally the most knowledgeable voters, independents the least. And the more political knowledge people have, the more apt they are to discuss politics with people who agree with, and reinforce, them.
The problem of ignorance is unlikely to be ameliorated by increasing voter knowledge because demand for information, not the supply of it, is the major constraint on political knowledge. Despite dramatic expansions of education and information sources, abundant evidence shows the scope of political ignorance is remarkably persistent over time. New information technologies have served primarily to increase the knowledge of the already well-informed, which increases the ability of some to engage in “rent-seeking” from the regulatory state, manipulating its power in order to transfer wealth to themselves. And if political knowledge is measured relative to government’s expanding scope, ignorance is increasing rapidly: There is so much more to be uninformed about.
A better ameliorative measure would be to reduce the risks of ignorance by reducing government’s consequences — its complexity, centralization and intrusiveness. In the 19th century, voters’ information burdens were much lighter because important federal issues — the expansion of slavery, the disposition of public lands, tariffs, banking, infrastructure spending — were much fewer.
Political ignorance helps explain Americans’ perpetual disappointment with politicians generally, and presidents especially, to whom voters unrealistically attribute abilities to control events. The elections of 1932 and 1980 dramatically illustrated how voters primarily control politicians — by “retrospective voting,” refusing to reelect them.
Some people vote because it gives them pleasure — the satisfaction of expressive behavior — and because they feel duty-bound to cast a ballot that, by itself, makes virtually no difference, but affirms a process that does. And although many people deplore the fact that U.S. parties have become more ideologically homogenous, they now confer more informative “brands” on their candidates.
Political ignorance, Somin argues, strengthens the case for judicial review by weakening the supposed “countermajoritarian difficulty” with it. If much of the electorate is unaware of the substance or even existence of policies adopted by the sprawling regulatory state, the policies’ democratic pedigrees are weak. Hence Somin’s suggestion that the extension of government’s reach “undercuts democracy more than it furthers it.”
An engaged judiciary that enforced the Framers’ idea of government’s “few and defined” enumerated powers (Madison, Federalist 45), leaving decisions to markets and civil society, would, Somin thinks, make the “will of the people” more meaningful by reducing voters’ knowledge burdens. Somin’s evidence and arguments usefully dilute the unwholesome democratic sentimentality and romanticism that encourage government’s pretensions, ambitions and failures.
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This is a fairly long and very good, scholarly article that contends no one since Reagan correctly understood how to position and communicate conservatism to the people. I find he is very, very close to nailing the real problem of the struggling conservative movement and is not right on but very close to nailing the solution or 'the way forward'. However I find that he cherry picks his facts and examples in the attempt to prove his point.
Link: http://www.nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/conservatism-for-the-people (Read it all.)
Olsen contends that conservatives lately have advanced liberalism by constantly being against something instead of for something, and thus losing elections or winning by surrendering to their view.
Reagan OTOH had " profound respect for the aspirations of the common person".
"conservatives will not be given an opportunity to implement their vision until they show they understand and respect the average person's life."
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Excerpt: Reagan's heirs have misunderstood his legacy because they have taken it to be largely a political legacy rather than an intellectual one. The political legacy was supposedly simple: Run against the liberals. As a result, for 30 years conservative campaigns have been run against the liberals, with liberals defined as people who opposed tax cuts and supported welfare expansion. In doing so, modern conservatives have fallen into the pre-Reagan trap of emphasizing what they are against rather than what they are for. This allowed them to avoid touching the core, expensive programs of the entitlement-welfare state, which have remained widely popular. Unfortunately, however, it also left conservatives powerless to change the course of those programs, leaving them powerless to change the course of our government more broadly.
This simple fact explains why we keep getting bigger government when we elect people who are running against liberals. This has happened time and again throughout the post-Reagan era. A revealing moment in the first presidential debate in 2012 helps us see why. In that debate, President Obama tried to pin Governor Romney down on how he would pay for his tax cuts by alleging that Romney would cut education spending. Romney responded, "No, I'm not going to cut education spending," thereby taking $91 billion in federal spending off the table.
Why would he do that? If you haven't thought about what government's role in education is — if your campaign is based on what you are not instead of on what you are — you get trapped in trying to explain what you're going to cut and what you're not going to cut. Because you're not offering any coherent, compelling vision for how the federal government can help improve education, the cut-or-fund question stands in for the question of whether you care about the issue. When this happens, by the time the campaign is over you have nothing left to cut or reform — and government grows. The post-Reagan era has thus resulted in an anti-liberal public consensus, but not a pro-conservative one.
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The sense that the average person has a moral life that is worth leading and pursuing — and that he sometimes needs government to help him on his way — is central to American political identity but is disconnected from much of today's conservative thought. The Obama campaign created its majority by exposing this disconnection relentlessly.
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I picture this thread as being for more transient matters and the piece you post belonging better in "The Way Forward" thread. May I ask you to post it there please?
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Compromise GOP Can Accept
By DICK MORRIS
Published on TheHill.com on January 7, 2014
President Obama's mission as 2014 starts is simple: He has to distract attention from the healthcare debacle. Healthcare reform isn't working and won't work. So he needs to create a diversion.
With his poll numbers lagging around 40 percent, the president naturally wants to stop the erosion of his base, so he is resorting to hot-button class warfare issues to build his support back up. None has more of a potential political edge than the extension of unemployment benefits.
The Republican Party should not let Obama depict this issue as a heartless caricature of capitalism by giving him a free ride. Yes, the GOP advocates an extension as long as it's paid for in the budget. Yes, the Democrats are resisting a deal to pay for the extension just to make a political issue. In any case, Republicans cannot afford to be the party of no when it comes to aiding those out of work.
One can only sympathize with GOP concerns that extending benefits in the face of a dropping jobless rate is tantamount to creating a new entitlement, a federal welfare system, to subsidize unemployment.
But the answer is to compromise.
Republicans should look for the answer by treating states differently, depending on their levels of unemployment. While national joblessness averages 7.1 percent, the range among states is enormous. At the low end, North Dakota is blessed with a paltry 2.6 percent unemployment rate, while Rhode Island and Nevada suffer with a rate of 9 percent.
There are 28 states, housing one-third of the nation's population, with jobless rates of 6.5 percent or below. With unemployment this low, they cannot make a compelling case for extended benefits. But that should not stop the Republicans from extending benefits to states with higher unemployment rates.
The state with rates below the 6.5 percent threshold are the following: North Dakota (2.6); South Dakota (3.6); Nebraska (3.7); Utah (4.3); Hawaii (4.4); Iowa (4.4); Vermont (4.4); Wyoming (4.4); Minnesota (4.6); Kansas (5.1); New Hampshire (5.1); Montana (5.2); Oklahoma (5.4); Virginia (5.4); Idaho (6.1); Missouri (6.1); Texas (6.1); West Virginia (6.1); Alabama (6.2); Louisiana (6.3); Wisconsin (6.3); Florida (6.4); Maine (6.4); Maryland (6.4); New Mexico (6.4); Alaska (6.5); Colorado (6.5); and Delaware (6.5).
The legislation extending the benefits should include a trigger terminating the extension for any state whose jobless rate drops below 6.5 percent, so as the nation recovers from the recession, the 99-week or 52-week unemployment benefit will fade into history.
Most of the politically potent Democratic states are above the 6.5 percent level, however. These include New York, Massachusetts, California, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Washington, Oregon, New Jersey and, of course, Nevada.
If Republicans offer benefit extensions to these states, the Senate Democrats could hardly refuse and kill the bill because it won't extend benefits in Texas or Florida or other red states. The Democrats will huff and puff, but they will have to bow to the will of the House. Their own constituents will demand it. Let the red states fend for themselves, they will insist. Get us the extension we need.
Republicans will then have legislatively reinforced the principle that jobless benefits are primarily for high unemployment periods, where one arguably cannot find work. Once work becomes available, jobless benefits deter employment and drive up wage rates to unaffordable levels. The positive national trend in jobless data will give the Congressional Budget Office a basis for a favorable scoring of the future cost of the compromise.
After all, unemployment insurance is basically a state, not a federal, program. So why should Washington, D.C., set its terms on a one-size-fits-all basis? Economic conditions vary, and so should jobless benefit time periods.
Give the Democrats half a loaf -- their half. It will be an offer they can't refuse.
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The Goldberg File
By Jonah Goldberg
January 10, 2014
Dear Reader (Including those of you reading this while ensnared in a traffic study),
I don't know how long this G-File will be as I am on a plane from Tampa with a low battery. Every percentage point it drops rings in my ears like the countdown from 24. The pressure is making me sweat like Chris Christie reading the Bergen County Record.
The Christie scandal is an odd thing. Outside the peculiar context of Christie's presidential ambitions, the idea that this should be front-page news across the country is somewhat baffling. Quick: Show of hands. Who is surprised that New Jersey politicians play hardball with other New Jersey politicians at the expense of voters and taxpayers?
Oh, sorry. I didn't realize it would be that many of you. Okay, just out of curiosity, for those of you who are legitimately shocked, I'd like to ask some control questions. Are you also shocked that bears use our national forests for toilets? Are you shocked that dogs lick their nether regions without much concern about who might be watching? Does it blow your mind that the Pope is Catholic? When you smash your thumb with a ball peen hammer are you taken off guard by the throbbing pain?
I see.
Now I am not condoning or even trying to minimize the significance of "Bridgegate" — an idiotic term by the way. What these bozos did was bozo-rific. But come on. Do you think Rahm Emanuel hasn't played games with which streets get plowed first after a snow storm? Do you think that the Cuomos have issued every business permit and license on a first-come, first-serve basis? Wait you do? Oh man, that is adorable. Bless your heart.
Like pretty much everyone else, I think that if Christie is lying about being out of the loop, he's done for. Fair or not, he set the standard by which he wants people to judge him. I grew tired of his constant boasting of his straight-talking a long time ago. But he's the self-declared exemplar of straight-talking. (I like the straight talk, mind you. I just don't like all the allegedly straight talk about his straight talking. It's a bit like Christie's odd way of being arrogant about how humble he is. Just give me the straight talk; don't give me a lot of hot air about how straight the straight talk is, ya get me? I love it when my waiter brings a great steak. But when he hangs around selling me on each morsel as it goes into my mouth, it really creeps me out. "Great steak, huh!? Man, you are lucky to be eating that. Take another bite. I bet it's even better.")
Also, I'm not a huge fan of career politicians talking about how they're not really politicians. It's like a salesman insisting he's not like any other salesman. Maybe that's true in some ways (maybe he has three nipples and a neon orange unibrow; what do I know?) but at the end of the day he's still trying to make a sale which means — tah dah! — he's a salesman. Christie's claim to be above politics-as-usual always struck me as incredibly hackneyed and forced. He's the governor of frick'n New Jersey. Being above politics there is about as possible as cleaning out a stable by hand without getting your white gloves dirty. The fact that voters want to hear that stuff doesn't make it true. It makes it pandering.
Anyway, Christie set the standard for his straight talking. He set the standard of being better than petty politics. And, yesterday, he laid down a marker for what he knew and didn't know. If that marker is proven phony, it will profoundly undermine the criteria by which he asks voters to judge him. And that wound will be entirely self-inflicted.
Upside Down and Backwards
But come on! You have to wonder how some of the folks in the media can look at themselves in the mirror. The three network news shows have devoted orders of magnitude more coverage to a story about closed lanes on the George Washington Bridge than they have to the IRS scandal. I know this is not a new insight, but WHAT THE HELL!?
The sheer passion the New York Times-MSNBC mob is bringing to a partial road closure is a wonder to behold. What about the children! The chiiiiillllldrennnn!!!!!
But using the IRS to harass political opponents — one of the charges in the articles of impeachment for Richard Nixon — well, that's complicated. The president didn't know. The government is so vast. I had a flat tire! A flood! Locusts! It wasn't his fault! Besides Chris Christie joked about putting down the cones himself! The cones, man! The cones!
But forget about the IRS scandal. Obama's whole shtick is to pretend that he's above politics while being rankly political about everything, including his stated desire to "punish our enemies." By comparison, Chris Christie looks like Diogenes and Cincinnatus rolled into one. From inauguration day forward, this whole crew has behaved like Chicago goons dressed in Olympian garb, and the press has fallen for it.
We don't need to recycle the whole sordid history of the sequester and the shutdown to remember that this White House sincerely, deliberately, and with malice aforethought sought to make things as painful as possible for millions of Americans. Traffic cones on the George Washington Bridge are a stain on the honor of New Jersey. (Stop laughing!) But deliberately pulling air-traffic controllers to screw with millions of people is just fine? Shafting World War II vets and vacationing families at National Parks is something only crazy right-wingers on Twitter would have a problem with? And keep in mind, it is at least plausible Christie didn't know what his staff was doing. It is entirely implausible that the president didn't know about the WWII memorial closure, after the news appeared in the president's daily briefing (a.k.a. the New York Times).
I'd say I just don't get it, but I do get it. For the mainstream media, skepticism comes naturally when a Republican is in the crosshairs. It comes reluctantly, slowly, and painfully — if at all — when it's a Democrat.
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http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303819704579318424278865180?mod=WSJ_hps_MIDDLENexttoWhatsNewsTop
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http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2014/01/21/millennials_unhappy_with_obamas_war_on_the_young___121297.html
What do young Americans want? Something different from what they've been getting from the president they voted for by such large margins. Evidence comes in from various polls. Voters under 30, the millennial generation, produced numbers for Barack Obama 13 percentage points above the national average in 2008 and 9 points above in 2012.
But in recent polls, Obama approval among those under 30 has been higher than the national average by only 1 percentage point (Quinnipiac), 2 points (ABC/Washington Post) and 3 points (YouGov/Economist). Those differences are statistically significant. And that's politically significant, since a higher percentage of millennials than of the general population are Hispanic or black.
The reasons for Millennials' decreased approval of Obama become clear from a Harvard Institute of Politics poll of 18- to 29-year-olds conducted in November. That poll shows Obama's job approval dipping to 41 percent, down from 52 percent in April 2013 and the lowest rating in any HIOP survey.
One reason for the decline is Obamacare. Only 38 percent approved of Obamacare (39 percent approved of "the Affordable Care Act"). Only 29 percent of those who were uninsured said they would definitely or probably enroll in the health insurance exchanges. Those results were registered five to nine weeks after the Oct. 1 healthcare.gov rollout. Tech-savvy millennials must have been astonished that government produced a website that didn't work. They also perceived, accurately, that Obamacare health insurance would cost them a lot. The law passed by Democrats elected in large part with millennial votes was designed to have people under 30 subsidize the insurance premiums of those older, less healthy people over 50.
The old tend to have significant net worth, and the young -- with credit card and student loan debt -- tend to owe more than they own. Evidently, the Obama Democrats think it's progressive for the young to subsidize the working-age old. That, after all, is the essence of Social Security, whose benefits some left-wing Democrats want to increase.
But millennials, whose penchant for volunteering is admirably high, are not being simply selfish. The Harvard survey also finds that they tend to believe, by a 44- to 17-percent margin, that the quality of their health care will get worse under Obamacare. That's speculation, of course. But it suggests a healthy skepticism about the ability of a government, a government that lied about whether you could keep your insurance and your doctor, and couldn't construct a workable website, to produce a system that will improve service delivery.
That skepticism may owe something to young Americans' experience with student loans. Some 57 percent of the Harvard study millennials say that student loan debt is a major problem for young people. The responses don't vary much by political party identification.
Once again, the millennials have a point. The Obama administration did not initiate government student loans, but it continues to speak of them approvingly. Yet it's obvious that the vast sums government-subsidized student loans have pumped into higher education over the last three decades have been largely captured by colleges and universities and transformed into administrative bloat.
Economics blogger Timothy Taylor notes that if you count prices in 1982-84 as 100, the average cost of all items in the consumer price index increased to 231 in September 2012. Energy, housing and transportation all increased about that much.
But college and tuition fees increased to 706 -- seven times the level when the government started pumping money into higher ed. Medical care increased to more than 400.
Some things that young people buy increased much less -- apparel (127), toys (53) and televisions (5, thanks to quality improvement).
But suddenly, in their early adult years, millennials find themselves socked with the inflated costs of higher education and, thanks to Obamacare, those of older people's health care.
In the meantime, in the Obama new normal economy, they aren't finding jobs -- and may be giving up on looking for them. Labor force participation among those 55 and over has held steady since 2009. But labor force participation among those younger has been declining, as have earnings of college graduates. The combination of higher education and health care costs and the new normal economy amount to what analyst Walter Russell Mead calls "the war on the young."
No wonder they're unhappy with the president who promised hope and change. Maybe they're in the market for an alternative.
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Enjoy the results of your stupidity, millenials.
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Sowell points out a fact I often remind leftists/liberals of when they accuse conservatives of being "haters."
Leftists: For the ‘People’?
Posted By Thomas Sowell On January 22, 2014
One of the things that attracted me to the political left, as a young man, was a belief that leftists were for “the people.” Fortunately, I was also very interested in the history of ideas — and years of research in that field repeatedly brought out the inescapable fact that many leading thinkers on the left had only contempt for “the people.”
That has been true from the 18th century to the present moment. Even more surprising, I discovered over the years that leading thinkers on the opposite side of the ideological spectrum had more respect for ordinary people than people on the left who spoke in their name.
Leftists like Rousseau, Condorcet or William Godwin in the 18th century, Karl Marx in the 19th century or Fabian socialists like George Bernard Shaw in England and American Progressives in the 20th century saw the people in a role much like that of sheep, and saw themselves as their shepherds.
Another disturbing pattern turned up that is also with us to the present moment. From the 18th century to today, many leading thinkers on the left have regarded those who disagree with them as being not merely factually wrong but morally repugnant. And again, this pattern is far less often found among those on the opposite side of the ideological spectrum.
The visceral hostility toward Sarah Palin by present day liberals, and the gutter level to which some descend in expressing it, is just one sign of a mindset on the left that goes back more than two centuries.
T.R. Malthus was the target of such hostility in the 18th and early 19th centuries. When replying to his critics, Malthus said, “I cannot doubt the talents of such men as Godwin and Condorcet. I am unwilling to doubt their candor.”
But William Godwin’s vision of Malthus was very different. He called Malthus “malignant,” questioned “the humanity of the man,” and said “I profess myself at a loss to conceive of what earth the man was made.”
This asymmetry in responses to people with different opinions has been too persistent, for too many years, to be just a matter of individual personality differences.
Although Charles Murray has been a major critic of the welfare state and of the assumptions behind it, he recalled that before writing his landmark book, “Losing Ground,” he had been “working for years with people who ran social programs at street level, and knew the overwhelming majority of them to be good people trying hard to help.”
Can you think of anyone on the left who has described Charles Murray as “a good person trying hard to help”? He has been repeatedly denounced as virtually the devil incarnate — far more often than anyone has tried seriously to refute his facts.
Such treatment is not reserved solely for Murray.
Liberal writer Andrew Hacker spoke more sweepingly when he said, “conservatives don’t really care whether black Americans are happy or unhappy.”
Even in the midst of an election campaign against the British Labour Party, when Winston Churchill said that there would be dire consequences if his opponents won, he said that this was because “they do not see where their theories are leading them.”
But, in an earlier campaign, Churchill’s opponent said that he looked upon Churchill “as such a personal force for evil that I would take up the fight against him with a whole heart.”
Examples of this asymmetry between those on opposite sides of the ideological divide could be multiplied almost without limit. It is not solely a matter of individual personality differences.
The vision of the left is not just a vision of the world. For many, it is also a vision of themselves — a very flattering vision of people trying to save the planet, rescue the exploited, create “social justice” and otherwise be on the side of the angels. This is an exalting vision that few are ready to give up, or to risk on a roll of the dice, which is what submitting it to the test of factual evidence amounts to. Maybe that is why there are so many fact-free arguments on the left, whether on gun control, minimum wages, or innumerable other issues — and why they react so viscerally to those who challenge their vision.
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Good post. This is precisely why the left, including Democrat Blacks will go after any Blacks like Sowell, like Carson, or recently like that NAACP guy went after Senator Scott with a vengeance and with putrid virulence. They fear they are right. In their hearts they cannot bear the truth. Unfortunately the left controls most of the education system AND the media. And of course it is easy to buy off voters with the "Christmas gifts".
Why cannot the right come up with their Barack Obama? Let them call him or her an Uncle or Aunt Tom. The message needs to get out and wake some people up.
As for history it truly is remarkable how fast people forget. Within a single generation lessons are lost into the sunset of time.
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"Why can't the Right come up with their Barack Obama?"
There have been plenty of these candidates, but they are targeted for destruction by both the Democrat establishment and the media, and even establishment Republicans - because these groups cannot tolerate their message. Think Allen West, Herman Cain, Ben Carson, Clarence Thomas, Condoleeza Rice - need I go on?
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"they are targeted for destruction by both the Democrat establishment and the media, and even establishment Republicans"
Yup.
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I love Allen West, but he is not of the depth to go further than Congressman.
Herman Cain had a moment in the sun, but has done little WORK since then and appears to have been a johhny-one-note
Ben Carson has our attention, but has ZERO political experience, and essentially no executive experience, and is a cipher on foreign affairs.
Clarence Thomas is a Justice, not a political figure.
Condaleeza Rice was not a Secretary of State of note. Other than that she is pure academic; she lacks political experience, executive experience, etc.
Of course I agree that all have been treated quite unfairly, but IMHO we need to keep looking.
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I love Allen West, but he is not of the depth to go further than Congressman.
Herman Cain had a moment in the sun, but has done little WORK since then and appears to have been a johhny-one-note
Ben Carson has our attention, but has ZERO political experience, and essentially no executive experience, and is a cipher on foreign affairs.
Clarence Thomas is a Justice, not a political figure.
Condaleeza Rice was not a Secretary of State of note. Other than that she is pure academic; she lacks political experience, executive experience, etc.
Of course I agree that all have been treated quite unfairly, but IMHO we need to keep looking.
I agree with the shortcomings presented but predict Ben Carson will be a contender if he runs. He can make a valuable contribution to the debates.
I prefer someone who served at least two terms as governor, a solid congressional record and an extensive foreign policy background. And speaks English, Spanish, Chinese, Arabic and Russian. ) Mostly the job entails communication and decision making and I hope we pick the very best.
My first choice is still Marco Rubio. Given Carson's limited political and foreign policy experience, he may be better suited to start as VP on the ticket, serving ambassador and spokesman for freedom seeking policies and breaking ties in the Senate.
"we need to keep looking" - If the list provided offers no hope, we may be looking at a very narrow list. The candidates with solid Governor-level executive experience mostly have no foreign policy experience. The ones with foreign policy experience have mostly never run anything like state or nation. Yet we will pick one candidate, and that one person will be the last person left to stand up to the Democrats and Candy Crowleys of the final stretch, and to stand up to congress, the federal bureacracy, the tax code, welfare system, Chi-comms, Putins, terror networks and other challenges of leading and governing the USA.
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I love Allen West, but he is not of the depth to go further than Congressman.
Herman Cain had a moment in the sun, but has done little WORK since then and appears to have been a johhny-one-note
Ben Carson has our attention, but has ZERO political experience, and essentially no executive experience, and is a cipher on foreign affairs.
Clarence Thomas is a Justice, not a political figure.
Condaleeza Rice was not a Secretary of State of note. Other than that she is pure academic; she lacks political experience, executive experience, etc.
Of course I agree that all have been treated quite unfairly, but IMHO we need to keep looking.
Ummm - if you're looking for the perfect candidate with all the right qualifications, you're never going to find him. Abraham Lincoln, for God's sake, had no foreign policy or executive experience. And using the last several Democrat U.S. Presidents as a sample, MANY of them fall far short of the merits/qualifications of each of those on this list. Barack Obama is an obscene joke as a President. Surely any of those mentioned would do a better job than he has.
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True enough, but we need hold ourselves to a higher standard than that!
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"Why can't the Right come up with their Barack Obama?"
A glib douche with no credible experience and a hatred of America? That's a lefty thing....
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My thoughts exactly, G M ! :lol:
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Obama’s Toughest Critics
When I said on CNN last night that President Obama had given a pretty good speech, and when Congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rogers gave a very positive Republican response, I doubt any of us realized what the Democrats would go on to say about the President’s address.
After seeing some of their comments, however, I thought some of the best surrogates for Republicans last night were the Senate Democrats running for reelection.
Congresswoman McMorris Rodgers, who leads the House Republican Conference, did an excellent job describing a conservative approach to governing. Her speech was warm, hopeful, and looked toward the future. She is a real leader in the party.
In contrast to the broadly positive assessment to the President’s speech among Republicans--notwithstanding our many policy disagreements--many members of Obama’s own party were amazingly critical.
Here’s what Senator Mark Pryor, the Arkansas Democrat, had to say about the President’s speech:
Overall, I'm disappointed with the President's State of the Union address because he was heavy on rhetoric, but light on specifics about how we can move our country forward.
I've always said that I'll work with the President when I think he's right, but oppose him when I think he's wrong. That's why I've opposed his policies on gun control, the Keystone Pipeline, military action in Syria, regulatory overreach on our farms — to name a few — and why I'll continue to oppose his agenda when it's bad for Arkansas and our country.
I had hoped he would strike a more bipartisan tone because, if recent history shows anything, red vs. blue is dead end politics.
Senator Mark Begich, a Democrat from Alaska, was even more blunt in his language. Asked if he would welcome the President to campaign with him in Alaska, the Senator responded:
First I’ll tell you when I ran and won was the same year he ran for his first election for the presidency. He lost Alaska by 22 points and I still won my election. If he wants to come up, I’m not really interested in campaigning.
What I’d like him to do is see why his policies are wrong--on ANWR for example. He opposes oil and gas development...I’d like to be able to show him some of the issues we’ve battled with the federal government on and try to get his policies changed that directly affect us.
He continued:
You have got to be very careful of how far you extend those executive powers...I think that's going to upset the balance and also create a lot of controversy not just from Republicans, but some of us that are much more moderate and view this careful balance that we have a role here...If they go too far you'll clearly hear push back from me. There's no question about it.
Senator Joe Manchin, a West Virginia Democrat, echoed Begich’s criticism of the President’s promise to act on his own, without Congress. Manchin (who isn’t even up for reelection this year) said the idea “rubs a lot of people wrong. It rubs, I gotta be honest, me too...I think a couple of times the remarks were made like, ‘I will do, even exceed if I need to, to do what I think is right.’ And I’m praying to God that’s not what he meant and not what he tries to do.”
Also last night, Democratic Senator Mark Udall refused three times on CNN to say whether he would join the President for campaign events in his home state of Colorado, where he is on the ballot this fall. Senator Kay Hagan, another Democrat running for reelection, similarly declined to appear with the President at his recent event in North Carolina.
You know a president is really in trouble when his own party produces his harshest critics, and does so more than nine months before an election. Probably not since the Carter years have incumbents so conspicuously abandoned a president of their own party. And there is certainly more to come.
Perhaps a few of these senators now taking pains to distance themselves from the President should have considered the wishes of the people they represent when voting for Obamacare, for historically irresponsible budgets, and for consolidating Harry Reid’s power.
In November, the voters will decide whether they believe their senators are really independent voices in Washington, or whether these Democrats are just telling them what they want to hear.
Your Friend,
Newt
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Newt, like recently Barbara Bush heap praise on Bill Clinton. With Republicans like this we have NO chance.
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D’Souza’s Indictment and Double Standards
Posted By Matthew Vadum On January 31, 2014
The Obama administration’s indictment of critic Dinesh D’Souza on campaign finance law violations is a reminder that it’s dangerous to be in the opposition when the president is a lawless strongman who knows the media will protect him no matter what.
Democratic malefactors remained at large on Friday as D’Souza pleaded not guilty to charges that he directed two individuals to each make $10,000 donations to the campaign of Wendy Long, an unsuccessful Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate, on the understanding he would reimburse them, which he did not long after.
The court in New York reportedly imposed unusually tough release conditions on the bestselling conservative author, ordering him to post a $500,000 bond and not to leave the country.
D’Souza’s attorney told U.S. District Judge Richard M. Berman that the facts were more or less not in dispute. “I think there’s a dispute over how it happened and whether what happened violated federal law,” Benjamin Brafman said.
As The Blaze reports,
Outside court, Brafman said there was no corrupt intent, a necessary component of the law, in his client’s actions, and he said the $20,000 in donations fell short of the $25,000 required to bring a criminal case. He said it was a situation that was normally resolved with a fine rather than criminal charges. He said there was no request by D’Souza that Long do anything, and the Senate candidate had no knowledge that campaign finance rules had been violated. Brafman said D’Souza and Long had been friends since college and “at worst, this was an act of misguided friendship by D’Souza.”
So why was D’Souza subjected to serial killer treatment, arrested, incarcerated, maybe perp-walked, for something that’s roughly the campaign finance law equivalent of a traffic ticket?
Could it be because D’Souza went too far in criticizing the notoriously thin-skinned Obama with his compelling, scathingly critical documentary, 2016: Obama’s America? The movie brought in an astounding $33 million in revenue, making it the second most popular political documentary in U.S. history behind Michael Moore’s lie-filled, anti-George W. Bush temper tantrum from 2004, Fahrenheit 9/11.
D’Souza is now arguably in trouble because Obama’s people promised retribution during the president’s second term. “After we win this election, it’s our turn. Payback time,” Valerie Jarrett, Obama’s close, trusted adviser, has been quoted saying in reference to the 2012 election. She warned:
“Everyone not with us is against us, and they better be ready because we don’t forget. The ones who helped us will be rewarded, the ones who opposed us will get what they deserve. There is going to be hell to pay.”
Some Obama apologists, incidentally, suggest the Jarrett quotation is apocryphal. They may be right. Even if it is made up, it doesn’t matter. Chicagoan Jarrett is every bit as devious and vindictive an Alinskyite as Obama is. Whether Jarrett used those exact words or not, the quotation exquisitely encapsulates the beliefs of Obama’s inner circle, whether it’s Rahm Emanuel or Hillary Clinton bragging about the opportunities for change that a crisis presents, or Anita Dunn praising Mao Zedong, or Justice Department nominee Debo Adegbile proclaiming the innocence of cop-killer Mumia Abu-Jamal. Jarrett and Obama’s other advisers clearly think these Machiavellian thoughts every day.
Obama himself does not forgive and he does not forget. Obama threatened Congressman Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) during a meeting of the House Democratic Caucus soon after his first inauguration. “Don’t think we’re not keeping score, brother,” Obama said in an effort to keep DeFazio, himself a radical leftist, in line.
An old associate of Obama and Bill Ayers from Chicago, Mike Klonsky, wrote a blog post on Jan. 24 suggesting he has special inside knowledge about why D’Souza was indicted.
“Note to Dinesh D’Souza — You probably shouldn’t have Tweeted that racist remark about Obama and Trayvon Martin. Shit like that sometimes comes back to haunt you.”
What was this “racist” remark exactly? Two days before Thanksgiving, D’Souza wrote on Twitter, “I am thankful this week when I remember that America is big enough and great enough to survive Grown-Up Trayvon in the White House!”
Given that Obama famously likened himself to Trayvon Martin, it’s difficult for rational people to understand what the fuss is all about. D’Souza merely threw Obama’s own words back at him. The tweet may be biting or mordant but there is nothing even remotely racist about it.
Whiny Jonathan Capehart of the Washington Post was typical of the leftist lynch mob as he condemned the tweet as “vile” and having “racist implications” but didn’t bother explaining what exactly those racist implications were. Among today’s radical left-wingers, racism is in the eye of the beholder, and if you can’t see it for yourself, then presumably you’re part of the problem.
Republican D’Souza may be feeling the fury of an angry Democratic president, but there are plenty of Democrats who have escaped investigation/prosecution for the wrongdoings attributed to them.
Here are just a few of such individuals:
1) Eric Holder.
Purveyor of unequal justice for all.
Obama’s attorney general is so contemptuous of the rule of law and the constitutionally-prescribed oversight authority of Congress that the House of Representatives –including almost two dozen Democratic lawmakers– voted to find him in contempt of Congress on June 28, 2012. A hateful man who rhetorically spits on conservatives, Holder is a law enforcement chief who has made it clear he considers it his job only to protect the rights of minorities and left-wingers. If you’re not on his side or your skin is the wrong color, don’t even think about getting justice from his Justice Department.
As New York Times bestselling author of Injustice, J. Christian Adams, writes
“The havoc Holder has created goes far beyond corruption on any single issue. The damage he has done crosses all components of the Department of Justice, and has trickled down to infect the systems of law and legal jurisprudence throughout the country. He has tried to transform the federal agency intended to be above politics into an institution advocating radical change and extreme remedies.”
The litany of prosecutorial abuses and selective prosecutions under Holder grows. There is the DoJ’s refusal to take up cases involving alleged civil rights victims when the victim is white. There is also: the crackdown on Gibson Guitars; the overzealous, possibly malicious, prosecution of investigative journalist James O’Keefe III; using federal resources to agitate for a state-level prosecution of George Zimmerman based on trumped up charges; using federal resources to help anarchists and activists from the violent Occupy Wall Street movement agitate at the Republican National Convention in 2012; the DoJ vendetta against Fox News and reporter James Rosen; and the DoJ’s flagrant manipulation of the 2012 election.
Holder also spearheaded an attack on the Second Amendment and lied to Congress about it. He flooded the U.S. border with Mexico with illicit firearms, leading to the deaths of a U.S. border patrol officer and many Mexican nationals.
2) Maxine Waters.
Race hustler and corrupt-o-crat.
Few politicians combine ignorance, obstinate self-righteousness, racial demagoguery, and extremism quite as perfectly as the congresswoman from South Central who has become a major force shaping federal banking policy. Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), a longtime cheerleader for Fidel Castro, was only too happy to use the 1992 Los Angeles riots as a political advertisement. She viewed the 53 deaths, thousands of injuries, and $1 billion in property damage as a shining example of participatory democracy. The word riot never escaped her lips. She called the unrest a “rebellion” and “a spontaneous reaction to a lot of injustice and a lot of alienation and frustration.”
“She is one of the most self-serving, hate-filled, race-obsessed politicians in America,” says columnist Michelle Malkin. “The Democratic Party doesn’t just embrace her. It kneels at her feet.”
A few years ago Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics (CREW) named Waters as one of the 13 “most corrupt” members of the U.S. Congress. CREW cited a Los Angeles Times investigation disclosing how a number of Waters’s relatives had made more than $1 million during the preceding eight years by doing business with companies, candidates, and causes that Waters had assisted. The lawmaker has had frequent run-ins with House ethics authorities.
3) Harry Reid.
Senate Majority Leader and rich guy.
For someone with a relatively clean reputation among the press, Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) certainly has been involved in a lot of shady deals. Reid has allegedly illegally accepted gifts, commingled personal and campaign funds, and made a handsome profit a decade ago on a questionable land deal. He misreported the transaction on congressional disclosure forms and stonewalled when pressed for details.
Between 2001 and 2004, Reid, in apparent violation of Senate ethics provisions, wrote at least four letters pressing the Bush administration to take action on issues important to Indian tribes that were clients of the notoriously corrupt lobbyist Jack Abramoff. CBS News reports that “starting in the mid-1990s, he [Abramoff] became a master at showering gifts on lawmakers in return for their votes on legislation and tax breaks favorable to his clients.” Eventually Abramoff was convicted in federal court of corrupting public officials, tax evasion, and fraud, and he served three-and-a-half years in prison.
During the 2001-04 period, Abramoff’s staff was in regular contact with Reid’s office. Whenever Reid wrote a letter on behalf of the Indian tribes, he reportedly collected donations from Abramoff’s lobbying partners and clients around the same time period. These donations totaled nearly $68,000, yet the Abramoff affair has been labeled a “Republican” scandal.
In August 2012, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported that Reid was strong-arming NV Energy, Nevada’s primary electricity provider, to purchase more “green energy” from a Chinese solar company named ENN Mojave Energy LLC. This happened even though NV Energy had already exceeded its state-mandated quota for green energy (which generated higher electric bills for customers). “There’s another factor, however,” noted the newspaper, “one more personal to Reid: His son, Rory Reid, is one of the attorneys for the ENN Mojave Energy project…. Success for ENN in finding customers helps Rory Reid, and its failure could cost him a client.”
4) Lois Lerner.
Tax bureaucrat from Hell.
Former Obama IRS Exempt Organizations Division Director Lois Lerner remains at large after (improperly) taking the Fifth Amendment at congressional hearings. Lerner earned her place in infamy when she presided over her IRS division’s targeting of conservative and Tea Party groups. Right-of-center nonprofit groups were subjected to extra scrutiny under Lerner and their applications for tax-exempt status were routinely delayed. Lerner engaged in similar shenanigans when she ran the Enforcement Division of the Federal Election Commission (FEC).
5) Wade Rathke.
Shakedown artist and coverup expert.
Eric Holder’s Justice Department has not investigated the man who founded the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) in 1970 and ran it into the ground until its board fired him in 2008. Wade Rathke orchestrated a massive internal coverup after his brother Dale Rathke embezzled close to $1 million from ACORN around 2000. Some of the money was taken from ACORN employees’ pension funds.
Before it filed for bankruptcy on Election Day 2010, ACORN was an essential part of the Democratic Party’s voter fraud apparatus for decades so it’s not surprising that Rathke got off scot-free. Rathke has even been rewarded by the Obama administration. United Labor Unions (ULU) Local 100 in New Orleans, which Rathke heads, has received federal funding to enroll people in Obamacare exchanges.
6) David Brock.
Character assassin, gun-toting hypocrite, and Obama publicist.
Media Matters for America (MMfA) founder and George Soros lieutenant David Brock is an admitted liar who claims that Hillary Clinton’s enemies invented the Benghazi scandal to undermine her presidential run. But it’s not illegal to be a pathologically mendacious sleaze or to slither around on the same moral plane as a 9/11 truther conspiracy theorist.
Although MMfA constantly advocates for tougher gun laws, like many wealthy left-wingers, Brock doesn’t believe that gun laws apply to him. The Daily Caller reported that he told friends and co-workers that right-wing assassins were trying to kill him. Brock’s personal assistant reportedly carried a concealed Glock handgun around the District of Columbia, where it is illegal to do so, in order to protect Brock.
Because Brock is a friend of the Obama administration, no action has been taken against him. (Presumably if charges were to be pursued against Brock it would be done by the local government for the District of Columbia but it’s not as if the Obama administration has no pull with that Democrat-controlled local government.)
It is also not illegal to operate political propaganda machinery while suffering from serious mental illness though one has to question why donors would keep funding an organization run by such an unstable individual.
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Will any of these shady Democrats be investigated or prosecuted during the balance of President Obama’s term in office?
Don’t count on it.
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Thanks for that, Obj. This administration makes Nixon with his enemy list look restrained. D'Souza made a mistake and should pay whatever penalty anyone and everyone else pays for a same or similar mistake. But the mistake was the campaign law violation, not that he dared to exercise unflattering political speech about this President and this administration.
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That info would fit well on the Rule of Law thread.
This comes close:
http://theulstermanreport.com/2014/01/31/valerie-jarrett-job-hiring-threat-confirmed-by-barack-obama-himself-to-cnn/
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http://www.gop.com/general/rnc-launches-para-bellum-labs/
From the article:
Para Bellum will allow the RNC to continue building a new tech-centered mindset, while increasing visibility and credibility in the tech community to attract top talent who want to solve big tech problems. Para Bellum will participate in the technical and open source community, starting with a 5-campus tour at top engineering schools and hosting a political hackathon in the future.
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http://www.gop.com/general/rnc-launches-para-bellum-labs/
From the article:
Para Bellum will allow the RNC to continue building a new tech-centered mindset, while increasing visibility and credibility in the tech community to attract top talent who want to solve big tech problems. Para Bellum will participate in the technical and open source community, starting with a 5-campus tour at top engineering schools and hosting a political hackathon in the future.
Given that this is a RNC operation, I expect that the computers will be windows 3.1 with floppy disks.
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:-D :-D
http://www.gop.com/general/rnc-launches-para-bellum-labs/
From the article:
Para Bellum will allow the RNC to continue building a new tech-centered mindset, while increasing visibility and credibility in the tech community to attract top talent who want to solve big tech problems. Para Bellum will participate in the technical and open source community, starting with a 5-campus tour at top engineering schools and hosting a political hackathon in the future.
Given that this is a RNC operation, I expect that the computers will be windows 3.1 with floppy disks.
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http://mischiefsoffaction.blogspot.com/2014/02/the-chainging-picture-of-washington.html
From the article:
In recent years, at least since 2011, there has been a decline in the amount of money spent on lobbying, although the trend is not as monotonic as the Opensecrets’ presentation suggests.
What explains these trends?
One possibility is that lobbying firms have just gotten more efficient. They can deliver the same amount of “punch” (i.e., influence) with fewer lobbyists and less expenditures on direct lobbying. This may be possible; however since the percent change over time is not constant, even for the last few years, it doesn’t seem to be the case that K-street is just more efficient. It seems more likely that they are supplementing their (reported) lobbying elsewhere.
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Obama's Secret Strategy
By DICK MORRIS
Published on TheHill.com on February 25, 2014
President Obama and his newest counsel, John Podesta, are using the same executive action strategy we saw during the 1995-96 Clinton campaign to gain traction in public opinion even with a hostile Congress. But Republicans and conservatives do not understand exactly what his moves are all about and are at a loss to counter them.
The Gallup poll amply demonstrates the effectiveness of the president's new strategy, showing his ratings rising from a low of 39 percent to a recent range of 43 percent to 46 percent in the latest three-day rolling average. This steady advance in poll numbers duplicates exactly what was found during the Clinton years when his executive action strategy was applied.
Republicans and conservatives are outraged that the president is usurping congressional prerogatives with his executive orders and new federal regulations. They see Obama's actions primarily in terms of their public policy implications and the impact on the balance of power between the legislative and executive branches of government.
But there is far more at work than meets the eye.
Obama has two objectives in his current approach: to do everything he can to distract public attention from his disastrous healthcare program; and to highlight popular positions on issues including the minimum wage, environmental protection, fuel efficiency standards, sexual harassment in the military, gun control, employment of the long-term jobless and immigration.
But he knows presidential speeches and proposals are often not covered by the media or are consigned to the back pages of newspapers. So, where possible, he accompanies his rhetoric with an executive order, to force prominent coverage, because it then becomes hard news. The media has to cover executive orders. The orders have a reality, even if their actual scope can be limited, that mere speeches do not.
As a result, Obama is out there day after day speaking out on well-polled topics on which he knows he will get a favorable reception, emphasizing how his program is much more varied and appetizing than his healthcare program is turning out to be. It's like when, a few years ago, a paint company wanted to position itself as an alternative to Home Depot and sell a range of home improvement products, so it adopted the slogan "It ain't just paint." Obama's would be "It ain't just healthcare."
How can Republicans answer? Neither Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) nor Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) can hope to equal the president's outsized megaphone or to compete with the range of policies he can pursue. Indeed, the media has become so used to one-house bills that aren't going anywhere that they no longer afford them prominent coverage.
But legislative hearings are quite another matter. Their drama, force and impact can be huge, and they make great copy for media and print outlets.
Republicans must not sit passively by and watch Obama pile up good poll numbers. They have to hit back with hearings of their own, using their control of the gavel in House committees, to emphasize their issues.
The GOP should hold hearings on the damage being done by ObamaCare to doctors, hospitals, employers and covered Americans.
We need to revisit Benghazi to come to understand how the fictitious talking points about an Internet video came to the fore in discussions about the attack.
IRS leaders have some explaining to do concerning their scores of White House visits and meetings with the president, especially one by former Commissioner Douglas Shulman the day before he issued new regulations on how to treat conservative groups applying for tax exemptions.
We need to learn the genesis of the decision to confiscate Associated Press phone records.
And we must get to the bottom of Health Secretary Kathleen Sebelius's solicitation of donations from interested parties to publicize ObamaCare enrollment.
And the list goes on.
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May he recover fully , , , after he resigns http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/feb/27/eric-holder-hospitalized-chest-pains/
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http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/fixgov/posts/2014/03/06-cpac-2014-minority-outreach-panel-hudak
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Point well taken. In my view, the speeches by Ben Carson, Mia Love, Herman Cain, Alan West, TJ Shannon, Tim Scott, (as well as speeches by Paul Ryan, Ted Cruz, Newt Gingrich, Marco Rubio and others) are also outreaches to minorities, in fact if not in title.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5P6PgS1X6g
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uiyAW5ZMdcM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dz6g5t_ZSBQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yxvvk2FAITA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4BM_B0PTvM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZDkacOveF0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cv3C3HvJ5L8
(http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2012/8/29/1346200057093/Mia-Love-RNC-010.jpg)
Mia Love at RNC
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And your point is taken, too. Thanks for the links. I'll try to get to a few (at least) this week.
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From the article:
Sixty-one percent of Republican-leaning adults ages 18-29 say they favor allowing gays and lesbians to marry legally, according to a Pew Research Center study released Monday. That number sharply contrasts the views of the party’s older members, for whom gay marriage support drops off sharply at each age increment.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2014/03/young-republicans-gay-marriage-poll-104517.html#ixzz2vfW3kUAn
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Which is a good reason why those in favor of gay marriage should leave this to the democratic process and time, instead of the culture wars fomented by judicial front of liberal fascism.
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THE FOUNDATION
"When occasions present themselves, in which the interests of the people are at variance with their inclinations, it is the duty of the persons whom they have appointed to be the guardians of those interests, to withstand the temporary delusion, in order to give them time and opportunity for more cool and sedate reflection." --Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 71, 1788
TOP 5 RIGHT HOOKS
Prison for Climate Deniers
You may have never heard of Lawrence Torcello, but he wants to put you in prison. Torcello is an assistant philosophy professor at Rochester Institute of Technology, and he wrote recently that the "well documented funding of global warming denialism" is not only wrong but "ought to be considered criminally negligent." He complains that "climate denial remains a serious deterrent against meaningful political action in the very countries most responsible for the crisis." And his solution is, "The charge of criminal and moral negligence ought to extend to all activities of the climate deniers who receive funding as part of a sustained campaign to undermine the public's understanding of scientific consensus." And here we thought science was forming and testing hypotheses, not burning heretics at the stake.
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Biden Saves the Day
The situation in Ukraine must be worse than we thought because the White House dispatched Joe Biden to "reassure our allies" in Eastern Europe that everything will be all right. In fact, he told Polish President Bronislaw Komorowsk, "You have an ally whose [defense] budget is larger than the next 10 nations in the world combined, so don't worry about where we are." Of course, Barack Obama is doing his best to cut that budget down to size, not to mention that he pulled the rug out from under Poland on missile defense. Forgive us, but sending Joe Biden to deter Vladimir Putin isn't the most reassuring thing we can think of. But maybe as long as he took his double barrel shotgun and can fire off a couple of rounds, our allies will feel safe.
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ObamaCare Horror Story
Larry Basich of Las Vegas is discovering just how convoluted and unaffordable the "Affordable" Care Act is. The Las Vegas Review-Journal reports, "Basich, 62, bought a plan through the state's Nevada Health Link insurance exchange in the fall. He's been paying monthly premiums since November. Yet the Las Vegan is stranded in a no-man's-land where no carrier claims him, and his tab is mounting: Basich owes $407,000 for care received in January and February, when his policy was supposed to be in effect. Instead, he's covered only for March and beyond." Interestingly, the Review-Journal adds this little tidbit: "Even [Harry] Reid, who took flak for his Feb. 26 statement that 'all' Obamacare 'horror stories' are 'untrue,' is trying to help." Perhaps he'd be of most help by publicly admitting he lied, and that ObamaCare is not the health solution everyone's looking for. We can dream at least.
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Winning in Regulation
According to a new report from the Competitive Enterprise Institute, Barack Obama has expanded the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) by some 17,522 pages, an 11% increase. That's an average of 3,504 pages every year. And he's still got three years in office. (The CFR is the "codification of the general and permanent rules published in the Federal Register.") The problem is that Obama operates with a pen and a phone to act wherever Congress doesn't or won't do his bidding. When socialists can't legislate the centralization of free enterprise, they regulate it.
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All the Phone Calls
In the latest revelations about the National Security Agency, The Washington Post reports that the agency "has built a surveillance system capable of recording '100 percent' of a foreign country's telephone calls, enabling the agency to rewind and review conversations as long as a month after they take place." The Post won't say which nation, but it's almost irrelevant -- the NSA is able to do this, began it in 2009, and may soon expand the program, called MYSTIC, into other countries. "Analysts listen to only a fraction of 1 percent of the calls, but the absolute numbers are high," notes the Post. "Each month, they send millions of voice clippings, or 'cuts,' for processing and long-term storage."
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For more, visit Right Hooks.
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RIGHT ANALYSIS
The Arrogance of ObamaCare
ObamaCare hit a milestone Monday, as the Obama administration announced that five million people have now enrolled for health insurance under the law. That's approaching the six million that the Congressional Budget Office projected would enroll by March 31. But there's more than meets the eye here.
The White House still won't say how many people have paid their premiums (i.e., actually enrolled). It also won't tell us how many enrollees were previously insured. Millions of Americans saw their health plans cancelled because of the law's regulations. The law says plans must cover all kinds of "comprehensive" things, so when a plan changed slightly after the law went into effect, it then had to comply with all of ObamaCare's regulations -- hence the cancellations. If new enrollments are substantially made up of previously covered but subsequently cancelled people, that's hardly a success. In fact, it's often replacing a decent plan with a worse one that costs more.
According to one recent survey, one in three uninsured Americans plans to remain that way. That's in large part thanks to skyrocketing premiums that will double in some parts of the country. The sticker shock is deterring many and causing those who do sign up to choose the bottom-rung "bronze" plans. Folks would rather pay the fine (ahem, the "tax") of 1% of adjusted gross income and only sign up when they get sick. Who can blame them when the administration keeps delaying any penalties?
The White House has taken to entertaining, nagging and cajoling the young people ObamaCare must enroll in large numbers in order for it to "work." To subsidize the old and sick, the law depends on 40% of enrollees being young and healthy. But only about 25% of enrollees are young and it's a safe bet they're not as healthy on average as their age suggests, which means they won't balance the additional costs of the old and sick.
One of the core problems with ObamaCare is the designers' arrogance. Congressional Democrats thought that in a nation of more than 300 million people only they were smart and benevolent enough to design a health care law to fit everyone. But it will only work if participation is mandated. It's hard to think of something more antithetical to the principles upon which the nation was founded. And it's no wonder it isn't working.
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The History Lesson in Ukraine
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." As the world sits and watches Russia gobble up the Crimea, George Santayana's words ring just as true today as when he wrote them over a hundred years ago. With Vladimir Putin citing the "self-determination" of ethnic Russians as justification for annexing the Crimea, it's all the more startling that so many in the West seem unable to remember another man who claimed he merely wanted to protect ethnic Germans in Czechoslovakia.
Read the rest of the story here.
24 Medals of Honor Awarded
In 2002, the National Defense Authorization Act prompted a review of Jewish American and Hispanic American veteran war records from World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War to determine if actions worthy of the Medal of Honor had been overlooked because of discrimination.
On Tuesday, 24 veterans of those wars received the Medal of Honor. Each had previously received the Distinguished Service Cross, the nation's second highest award. Vietnam veterans Sgt. 1st Class Melvin Morris, Master Sgt. Jose Rodela and Spc. Santiago Erevia all attended and received their medals, while the others were given posthumously. Ten of the 24 men never came home, and one is still missing.
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I was looking for a quote or slogan about liberty in his reelection. Came across this song from his first election:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQqO2x39FLs
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Zang!
http://www.daybydaycartoon.com/2014/04/06/
http://www.daybydaycartoon.com/2014/04/08/
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http://www.nationalreview.com/article/376401/harry-reid-mccarthy-our-time-victor-davis-hanson
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Until we can handle formidable progressives like this we will lose.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/24/jon-stewart-sean-hannity-feud_n_5203667.html
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Good article by DVH on Harry Reid.
I recently read somewhere about the fortunes of past Presidents. Many in the 19th century died with nothing or very little. Unlike politicians of today who get wealthy either while in office or by selling their connections later. Their families all seem to cash in too.
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http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2014/05/05/where-urban-and-rural-voters-agree-system-is-rigged/
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This is an interesting tandem of articles related to Obama's executive actions.
http://thehill.com/regulation/205660-obama-flexing-executive-muscle-on-immigration
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obama-concedes-executive-actions-have-limited-success/2014/05/08/2b7ad718-d708-11e3-95d3-3bcd77cd4e11_story.html?wpisrc=nl_politics
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http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-05-12/closing-wealth-gap-may-not-help-democrats-win-back-house.html
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http://hotair.com/archives/2014/05/13/mccain-lets-send-u-s-special-forces-into-nigeria-to-rescue-the-kidnapped-girls/
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http://hotair.com/archives/2014/05/13/mccain-lets-send-u-s-special-forces-into-nigeria-to-rescue-the-kidnapped-girls/
I'd be for the use of force to rescue those girls, if possible. However, not without the consent of the Nigerian gov't.
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The party of angry white men making inroads in another demographic, angry, young, black men.
http://www.dignitasnews.com/democratic-party-fears-realized-as-young-black-males-defect-to-gop/
Democratic Party Fears Realized as Young Black Males Defect to GOP
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http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/05/20/1300623/-Stephen-Colbert-on-Wall-Street-s-hatred-of-Elizabeth-Warren?detail=facebook#
Warren makes a lot of points that we do, but IMHO is a wolf in sheep's clothing-- how do we respond to what she says in this interview?
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http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/05/20/1300623/-Stephen-Colbert-on-Wall-Street-s-hatred-of-Elizabeth-Warren?detail=facebook#
Warren makes a lot of points that we do, but IMHO is a wolf in sheep's clothing-- how do we respond to what she says in this interview?
Everything dealing with Fauxcohauntus should start with a request that she have a quick buccal swab of her mouth so a DNA analysis can be done.
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While it can be good fun here making cracks about "Forke Tonge" Warren, out in the real world of getting votes that is going to fall real flat. The question remains-- how to respond to what she is saying, AND WITH WHICH SHE SCORING WITH LOTS OF VOTERS?
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You think the looters and moochers she appeals to are going to be swayed by a soundbite?
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Have you actually watched the clip?
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The first one? Yes. Typical Colbert bs for the legion of underemployed baristas with 40,000 in student loans living in their parents basements that makes up his core audience.
http://bostonherald.com/news_opinion/columnists/adriana_cohen/2014/04/cohen_one_percenter_liz_warren_milks_system_then_slams
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No argument from me on any of that but still you have not answered my question. Is she not right about quite a bit in her criticisms? Aren't many of them the same ones we level here? What do you say to those underemployed baristas so they want to vote FOR free minds and free markets and the US Constitution?
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Should we bail out too big to fail? Obviously not. Nor should taxpayers subsidize academics that serve only to propagandize rather than educate.
As for the millenials who voted themselves into serfdom? Howabout we give them something that says "I voted away my chance at a middle class lifestyle and all I got was this lousy Obama-Biden bumper sticker".
Stupid should hurt, and it will for a very long time.
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The clips failed for me part way in. All I heard was a bunch of BS. When she was growing we invested in public universities, minimum wage etc.
I don't know where she went from there but do we really not make enough public investments now? Government-set minimum wage made us great? Good grief.
If she led from there to Wall Street, it is our BUNGLED regulations that are making people disproportionately rich on Wall street. It is not a case of free markets running wild.
Crafty, what are the points she makes that you find compelling? The area where far left and right should find agreement is to stop giving special favors to the powerful. Don't crush investment banks, just stop giving special interests special favors. The best way to accomplish that would be with smaller government. I doubt if that was her conclusion.
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Doug writes,
" The area where far left and right should find agreement is to stop giving special favors to the powerful"
Agreed. But I never hear this from the Right. Nothing wrong with getting rich honestly. But to enhance the advantages they already have just makes it worse.
You even begin to level the playing field with petty minimum wage regulations. I don't understand why the NAACP is marching into McDonald's headquarters screaming for an increase in chump change. Who in their right mind goes to work for McDs serving burgers as a career? You either try to move up to better management positions or go to school or some other endeavor with a real future.
The NAACP should be marching into the "f" White House demanding the ONE to stop allowing people to flood into our country driving down wages for those already here.
Of course wages are a few bucks an hour. Every single fast food place around here has people with accents. So yea, big companies love this.
But the NAACP?
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"Doug writes,
"The area where far left and right should find agreement is to stop giving special favors to the powerful"
"Agreed. But I never hear this from the Right. "
EXACTLY SO. In making this point I think we should avoid the term "crony capitalism" because it contains the word "capitalism". Perhaps "cronyism"? or "crony progressivism"? or?
Regardless, we need to seriously hammer home that it is the progressives/Dem/walls street patrician Reps who are the Washington Party that the Tea Party rejects in favor of real people in the real world living real lives.
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Kimberley Strassel of the Wall Street Journal, among others, has identified the administration's predictable five-step response to a scandal:
Step One: Say "We had no idea."
Step Two: Express great outrage.
Step Three: Fire some low-level employee.
Step Four: Announce a review, a study, or an investigation; deny any further comment or action until the end of the investigation. This step can stretch on for weeks, months, or years, and let the outraged public forget about it.
Step Five: This is old news, the Republicans are playing politics with it, "Dude, this was like, two years ago."
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Anything that Obama hasn't learned by hearing it from the media first?
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http://online.wsj.com/articles/the-impeachment-delusion-1404947221?mod=trending_now_4
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http://online.wsj.com/articles/the-impeachment-delusion-1404947221?mod=trending_now_4
As thing progress, it won't be so unviable.
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I think this is a rare truth coming from an analyst from the left. If you divide the voters in half, those with incomes above 50k, roughly the median income and those below, Republicans win the upper group, but by not that large a margin and by a fairly predictable amount. According to this analysis, Democrats win nationally when they carry those making less than 50k/yr by closer to 20 points and lose nationally when they carry that group by closer to 10 points.
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/07/the-one-number-that-will-decide-this-years-election/374979/
"Republicans consistently win voters making $50,000 or more, approximately the U.S. median income. The margin doesn't vary too much: In 2012, Mitt Romney got 53 percent of this group's vote; in 2010, Republican House candidates got 55 percent. And Democrats consistently win voters making less than the median—but the margin varies widely."
(http://cdn.theatlantic.com/newsroom/img/posts/2014/07/Molly_working_class_1/eb9bd05d4.png)
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Republicans for What?
The GOP won't get the victory it seeks without a positive agenda.
WSJ
Sept. 3, 2014 7:47 p.m. ET
The post-Labor Day election campaign is underway, and the early conventional wisdom is that Republican hopes of a 2010-style wave are fading. GOP gains in the House could only be a few seats and the six pickups to take the Senate are still uncertain. This is coming from the usual liberal suspects, but it is also whispered by GOP strategists. Maybe Republicans should try to improve their odds by telling voters what they would do if they win.
By any typical political measure, this ought to be a great Republican year. President Obama is widely unpopular, the Senate playing field is largely in conservative states, the tide of war is rising around the world, and gains in stocks and other asset prices haven't translated into higher wages for most Americans. Many Republicans look at this and think they can win merely by running to be a check on Mr. Obama.
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The trouble is that the House GOP already provides that check, and voters are even more unhappy with Congress than they are with Mr. Obama. The kamikaze government shutdown, among other fits of temper, has so tarnished the GOP reputation that even many voters who dislike Mr. Obama might stay home in November.
It's true that individual candidates are running on their own issues. Repeal ObamaCare is popular in GOP precincts, even if can't happen with Mr. Obama in office. And everyone favors the Keystone XL pipeline.
But the lack of any common GOP agenda is leading to the perception of a policy vacuum that plays into Mr. Obama's critique that Republicans are opposed to everything. The President's proposal to raise the minimum wage may be irrelevant to most Americans, but at least it's something. And something usually beats nothing.
The current GOP campaign also plays into the Democratic strategy to make every Senate race an ugly brawl between two equally tarnished candidates. Harry Reid's SuperPac is spending millions of dollars to define GOP challengers as creatures from the black lagoon. Since they're mostly defending incumbents who are better known, Democrats figure they have the better chance to win a character fight. This is one reason races in Arkansas, North Carolina, Louisiana and Alaska continue to be close.
Especially as Election Day nears and disengaged voters pay attention, Republicans need to show voters what they're for. This doesn't have to be another Contract with America, a la Newt Gingrich in 1994. Given intra-GOP differences, the better model might be the Pelosi Democrats in 2006. Despite being dominated by war horses from the Great Society, those Democrats focused on six smallish ideas that united their ranks and didn't scare moderates unhappy with George W. Bush.
The political point is to focus on a few proposals that address voter concerns and that Republicans could pass and put on Mr. Obama's desk if they win both houses of Congress. This would give the GOP something positive to talk about, beginning the long process of repairing their public image.
It would also educate their own voters about what is achievable if they do take Congress. The worst outcome would be for Republicans to take the Senate by one or two seats and then fail to deliver anything because their yahoos demand the impossible. That would set up Hillary Clinton to run against the failures of a GOP Congress in 2016, and perhaps deny them a governing majority if a Republican does win back the White House.
We don't know what the GOP House and Senate campaign committees might agree on, but here are a couple of ideas that would combine GOP principles with populist notes that fit the public mood:
• Pick up former Senator Phil Gramm's proposal to offer the freedom option in health insurance, letting individuals opt out of ObamaCare's regulations to buy the policies they want. This would address the concerns of voters who lost the insurance they liked or are paying more. The White House and left would howl, but many Democrats would find it hard to oppose.
• Promise to repeal "too big to fail." Even Mr. Obama's regulators recently admitted this policy remains in place when they rejected the "living wills" that banks must propose under Dodd-Frank. This is a populist way to reopen the issue of financial regulation.
• Go beyond Keystone XL by promising to quickly and greatly increase domestic energy production and exports. This would appeal to union voters as a jobs measure, to consumers in potentially lower energy costs, and to Americans concerned about growing turmoil in Europe and the Middle East. U.S. natural gas exports could make our allies less dependent on Gazprom. GAZP.RS -12.44%
This is far from a complete list, but the point is to run a campaign that is about more than attacking Mr. Obama. Most Americans already regret re-electing him. But they are more likely to give Republicans the big majorities they seek if they also sense their lives might be better with a GOP Congress.
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Americans are demanding economic growth from a President whose entire economic focus throughout his political career prior to being President was on anti-growth policies and rhetoric.
Americans are demanding military action in the Middle East from a President whose rise to power was based on promising to ignore these risks an just remove us from all military involvement in the Middle East.
Wouldn't it have been better to have chosen a President who had prior interest, experience, and/or expertise in these areas?
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Americans are demanding economic growth from a President whose entire economic focus throughout his political career prior to being President was on anti-growth policies and rhetoric.
Americans are demanding military action in the Middle East from a President whose rise to power was based on promising to ignore these risks an just remove us from all military involvement in the Middle East.
Wouldn't it have been better to have chosen a President who had prior interest, experience, and/or expertise in these areas?
Most voted for Obama because they thought they were gonna get free sh*t.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/05/us/politics/democrats-lean-heavily-on-pacs.html?emc=edit_th_20141005&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=49641193&_r=0
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Working the inner city today on a Sunday afternoon I once again witnessed the Democrat political machine working up close and personal. They asked me if I was Eugene. I wouldn't confirm. They asked me if I was going to vote Democrat, and I said, that's personal, isn't it? Then she accused me of being the landlord because I was (white and) working on the front step. I said, a friend of the family. Then she started asking little kids who lives in this house, does your mama live her? The kid said no but my grandma does. I told the kid her Grandma (on kidney dialysis) is sleeping. They dragged her out anyway, and started asking, who else lives in this house and started working on getting absentee ballots out so people wouldn't wait to learn something before voting the party line now.
My point unfortunately is that, as chair of a Republican town elsewhere, I know the Republicans have nothing at all like this operation n place - a paid, assertive, don't take no for an answe,r block worker on every block.
By the way, Eugene passed away. I wonder if he got a ballolt anyway.
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Now I understand why you have Al Franken.
The bullies are Democrats.
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Now I understand why you have Al Franken.
The bullies are Democrats.
Yes. And we have Obama. This lady identified herself as working for the [Keith] Ellison campaign and was most certainly working the entire ticket including Sen Franken and Gov Mark Dayton.
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Republicans Should Frame National Security as Issue #1.
David Horowitz @ RedState.com - 10-06-2014
Since 1945 Republicans have not won the popular vote unless national security was the primary issue. But security issues were virtually absent from the 2008 and 2012 elections. This gave victories to Barack Obama, the most anti-military president in American history. Fortunately, the prospects for 2016 are looking marginally better because Republicans are now actually focusing on the fact that an anti-military presidency has ominous consequences for the 300 million Americans whose safety is the primary responsibility of the commander-in-chief.
That said, there is much to be desired in the Republican message, which is tepid, diffuse and easily missed. When Politico wrote a story about the recent change in Republican strategy it was all about the shift away from the tax-cutting emphasis of recent years, rather than towards the national security issue.
So let me describe the reality we are actually facing, which is a necessary preface to the way the Republican Party should be framing its strategy and should be emphasizing the dangers of having a Democratic president like Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton – or for that matter a Democratic Congress – leading us in wartime.
I will leave out of this wartime equation the threats from Russia and China, which Obama and the Democrats have done so much to foster. I will focus only on the threat posed by Islamic jihadists, who at this moment can easily penetrate the borders that Obama and the Democrats have done so much to wreck. And carry with them chemical and biological weapons, and – if Iran builds the bombs which Obama the Democrats have made almost inevitable – nuclear weapons as well.
This is easily the greatest terrorist threat in our history, far greater than what transpired before and after 9/11. ISIS, al Qaeda, Hezbollah, Hamas and other Islamic terrorist armies now control territory (and attendant resources) from Afghanistan through Iraq Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Mali, Somalia and other regions of Africa, Asia and the Middle East.
Why has this happened? Because Obama and the Democrats have waged a ten-year war against the war on terror, against American military strength, against an American presence in Afghanistan and Iraq, and against the very idea that Islamic forces have declared war on us. For ten years Democrats have been determined to treat terrorists as individual criminals, arrest them and try them in American courts where they will have all the protections of the American legal system that they are seeking to destroy. So hostile has Obama been to the very notion of a “War on Terror” that he has purged the very term from the official government vocabulary and replaced it with “overseas contingency operations” which describes exactly nothing.
To create the power vacuum which Islamic jihadists have filled, Obama had to defy the advice of his Secretary of Defense and his intelligence advisers. He did this in part by absenting himself from nearly half his daily intelligence briefings, and in part by saying no to absolutely crucial measures that his military staff proposed for countering the threat from ISIS and other terrorist groups. Obama saw to it that America would relinquish its military base in Iraq (a country that strategically borders on Afghanistan, Syria and Iran) or to keep the 20,000 American troops stationed there as his Secretary of Defense and Joint Chiefs of Staff urged him to do.
Obama hated the Iraq War so much that he was willing to betray all the American soldiers who gave their lives to keep Iraq out of the clutches of Iran and safe from the terrorist threat. If Obama had just listened to the advice of his military staff, there would be no ISIS today. Obama’s deliberate, calculated surrender of Iraq (and soon Afghanistan) and failure to stop Syria’s Assad when he crossed Obama’s red line is the greatest and gravest dereliction of duty in the history of the American presidency.
And make no mistake, Obama was not alone. For ten years the Democrats have been sabotaging the war on terror, beginning with their disgraceful scorched earth campaign against President Bush and the War in Iraq and continuing with their full-throated cry for the abandonment of Iraq after Bush had won the peace and contained the terrorist threat. Their support for Obama’s appeasement of Iran and Hamas, his support for the Muslim Brotherhood, and his diplomatic assault on Israel, America’s only true ally in the Middle East, is not only a national disgrace but the heart of the crisis that is looming on the international horizon.
If Republicans fail to articulate the sources of this crisis, and specifically to indict Obama, Hillary and the Democrats for their betrayal of America’s interests and their failure to protect the American people then Republicans electoral prospects will be dim, and with them, their country’s future.
David Horowitz is the author of Take No Prisoners: The Battle Plan For Defeating The Left (Regnery 2014).
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A strong analysis there.
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GOP Senate Majority? Then What?
It's Time for New Leadership
By Mark Alexander • October 8, 2014
"If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the General Welfare, the Government is no longer a limited one, possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one, subject to particular exceptions." --James Madison (1792)
If you've been holed up in some alternate universe for the last six weeks, you may have missed the collective consensus of political pundits and prognosticators that, in the upcoming November 4th midterm election, Republicans will pick up at least the six U.S. Senate seats needed for majority control.
If the current polling trends are borne out by the only poll that really matters -- Election Day -- then Republicans will win enough Senate seats to claim majority status. Still, an old farmer would no doubt caution, "Don't count your chickens 'till they hatch."
Indeed, nobody should assume Republicans will control the Senate come January, and one need look no further than all the reputable polling ahead of the 2012 presidential election for the reason. Remember how the major polling firms, along with Karl Rove, Dick Morris, Michael Barone and others, were predicting a Mitt Romney win?
How did that turn out?
Over in the House, the GOP is striving to achieve its "Drive to 245," which would mean increasing the party's 233-seat majority to a level not seen since 1946. But Republicans will be fortunate to hold on to the number of House seats they have now.
While I certainly hope Republicans win a Senate majority next month, they must resolve to do more than merely slow the "rule of lawlessness" that now defines Obama's presidential modus operandi. They must use a majority to pass popular conservative legislation -- from tax reform to energy deregulation to border security -- through both chambers and place it on Obama's desk, daring him to veto it.
Of course, Obama has already committed to bypass Consitutional Rule of Law, saying, "Where Congress isn't acting, I'll act on my own. ... I've got a pen ... and I can use that pen to sign executive orders and take executive actions and administrative actions that move the ball forward."
And indeed, he has demonstrated he will do so, with executive orders constricting Second Amendment rights, and supporting his so-called "climate change" agenda, enacting regulations for his "war on coal" and continuing to stiff-arm the proposed Keystone XL pipeline. The most egregious examples of Obama's executive order abuses include his repeated rewrites of the so-called "Affordable Care Act," in an effort to assist the re-election campaigns of congressional Democrats.
The fact is, if Senate Republicans do attain majority status, and the House GOP maintains its current majority, those achievements will not have been earned through "Republican Leadership" so much as handed to them by way of Barack Obama's colossal failures in both domestic and foreign policy.
As Peggy Noonan, former speechwriter for Ronald Reagan, observed this week in her Wall Street Journal analysis, "In a year when Republicans are operating in such an enviable political environment, why aren’t their U.S. Senate candidates holding big and impressive leads? Why does it look close? Why are party professionals getting worried?"
What does she mean by "enviable political environment"?
Lets review the short list of failures:
Obama's administration is now defined by his litany of lies and legacy of scandals, most notably the failure of his so-called "economic recovery" plan; his unparalleled foreign policy malfeasance; his "Fast and Furious" gun control play; his long list of ObamaCare lies; his IRS Enemies List; the dramatic resurgence of al-Qa'ida; the Benghazi security failure and subsequent cover-up to protect his 2012 re-election bid; his hollow "Red Line" threat to Syria; the "Russian Spring" in Crimea; the Middle East meltdown in Egypt, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Jordan and Gaza; the disintegration of Iraq; the rise of the Islamic State; the VA death panels cover-up; the immigration crisis on our southern border; the malfeasance and long-overdue resignation of Eric Holder, the most lawless attorney general in our nation's history; and now, his downplaying of the Ebola threat, his utter unwillingness to address both Enterovirus D68, which is killing children nationwide, and the pandemic threat of jihadist Bio-Bombers.
Despite the significant advantage this should give Republicans in the upcoming election, Noonan writes, "Republicans aren’t achieving lift-off. The metaphor used most often is the wave. If Republicans can’t make, catch and ride a wave in an environment like this, they’ve gone from being the stupid party to the stupid loser party."
Charles Krauthammer notes, "[Obama’s] agenda died on Nov. 2, 2010, when he lost the House. It won’t be any deader on Nov. 4, 2014, if he loses the Senate."
So what happened in 2010 that stalled Obama's agenda?
Clearly, the 2008 election of an ideological Socialist to the Office of President came with some unintended consequences for Obama and his Leftist cadres across the nation. Chief among those was the emergence of the grassroots Tea Party Movement ahead of the 2010 midterm election.
While the GOP rolled out its "new and improved" platform modeled after Newt Gingrich's successful 1994 Contract with America, it was the Tea Party that singlehandedly repopulated the House with a substantial number of genuine conservatives, thereby restoring Republican control.
Regrettably, the "establishment Republicans" in the House virtually excluded the new conservatives from significant House leadership positions. The resulting fratricidal infighting thwarted additional gains in 2012 and enabled Obama to buy a second term as president.
Has the GOP learned any lessons?
Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus, on schedule, rolled out the latest version of the party's Key Principles last week. To his credit, first among those is this: "Our Constitution should be preserved, valued and honored." Priebus is genuinely committed to conservative principles. Recall that he had The Patriot Post's Essential Liberty Pocket Guide distributed to all RNC convention members in 2012, and he held one up for display during that event.
However, the first of the GOP key principles should state, "Our Constitution should be upheld as the supreme law of the land, and our leaders should abide by their oaths 'to Support and Defend' it."
To that end, the current Republican congressional leadership receives mixed reviews. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is committed to conservative principles, scoring better than 80% in the American Conservative Union ratings. Notably, however, Speaker of the House John Boehner did not make the 80% ACU cut.
Despite McConnell's rating, if the GOP does luck into a Senate majority, I believe it's time for new leadership in both chambers.
Why?
Krauthammer notes, "[R]egaining the Senate would finally give the GOP the opportunity, going into 2016, to demonstrate its capacity to govern. ... [C]ontrolling both houses would allow the GOP to produce a compelling legislative agenda. ... If the president signs any of it, good. If he vetoes, it will be clarifying. Who then will be the party of no? The vetoed legislation would become the framework for a 2016 GOP platform."
He is correct, but producing a compelling legislative agenda would require outstanding leadership -- which neither McConnell nor Boehner have demonstrated.
As Noonan writes, "It’s good to win, but winning without a declared governing purpose is a ticket to nowhere. ... Republicans need to say what they’re for."
The fact is, both McConnell and Boehner have failed to clearly articulate a unified governing purpose. Thus, gaining a Senate majority and retaining the House majority may be for naught if not under spirited and principled new leadership.
Winston Churchill wrote, "If you have an important point to make, don't try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver."
However, there appears to be no important point to make under the current GOP leadership, and neither McConnell nor Boehner seem to have any idea what a pile driver is.
"A leader," said Ronald Reagan, "once convinced a particular course of action is the right one, must have the determination to stick with it and be undaunted when the going gets rough." Clearly, he was just such a leader.
Under the current GOP leadership, there has been neither a clear course of action nor the necessary determination to stick with such action.
Let me restate: Any Republican gains in November will not be earned through "Republican Leadership" so much as handed to them through Barack Obama's colossal failures.
It is long past time for young and fresh Republican leadership in both the House and Senate -- and there are rising leaders who are more than capable of making their case.
Pro Deo et Constitutione -- Libertas aut Mors
Semper Fortis Vigilate Paratus et Fidelis
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If they win I wonder who would or could be a majority leader.
New polling show Roberts drawing even in Kansas. I don't care for him much as apparently Kansans don't either but he is better than a guy who is almost certainly a liberal disguised as an independent.
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This article sparks a number of interesting points. While it seems that Republicans have a limited number of good potential candidates with great executive experience, Democrats now hold 18 governorships?! The crowned prize of California was just held again by Jerry Brown, 76, so it will be 2026 at the earliest before some new, up and coming Dem can win and govern two successful terms of experience in the country's largest state as preparation for future leader of the free world.
"Meanwhile, Republicans control governorships in Florida, Texas, Illinois, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Georgia and Massachusetts. Democrats were hoping to knock off Republicans Scott Walker in Wisconsin, Rick Scott in Florida and Rick Snyder in Michigan. All survived. In Ohio, John Kasich won by the second-largest margin in state history"
Mentioned previously, Governors Hickenlooper (D-Colo) and Walker (R-Wisc) are ascendant if they win and they won.
Andrew Cuomo (Gov. NY) who I don't know much about is, they say is too tied to the Clintons.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/two-midterm-elections-have-hollowed-out-the-democratic-party/2014/11/08/0366c60a-66c9-11e4-9fdc-d43b053ecb4d_story.html
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Despite holding a pretty hard line views on immigration, Texas Republicans won about 45% of Hispanic votes.
(This is partly due to low turnout due to the turn-off of Hispanics to Democrats.)
http://dallasmorningviewsblog.dallasnews.com/2014/11/my-biggest-election-surprise-patrick-over-van-de-putte-abbott-among-hispanic-men.html/
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The Vanishing White Democrat
Posted By Daniel Greenfield On November 19, 2014 @ frontpagemag.com
It wasn’t all that long ago that the Democrats were predicting the end of the Republican Party.
With the rise of Obama, James Carville began peddling a new book “40 More Years” promising that the Dems would rule for generations.
Just this year Carville predicted that the Republican Party would become extinct if it lost to Hillary Clinton. But it was the Democratic Party that was going extinct in Carville’s own backyard.
Republicans began winning Senate seats in Louisiana for the first time in a century in just the last ten years. If Landrieu loses, then both of the Louisiana’s Senate seats will be unprecedentedly held by Republicans.
And Louisiana isn’t an outlier. Bill Clinton couldn’t stop Arkansas from going full Republican with two Republican senators and a full suite of Republican representatives for the first time in history. That’s all the more amazing in a state that only had two Republican senators before that for over a century.
The Democratic Party is going extinct in places like Louisiana, Arkansas and West Virginia. It’s vanishing because the working class White Democrat is becoming extinct.
Even Carville hedged his bets while predicting the end of the Republican Party by joining FOX News.
A generation ago, white Democrats outnumbered white Republicans. Today it’s the other way around. Under Obama, barely a quarter of white people still identify as Democrats.
Republicans didn’t just win a few elections. They swept across entire legislatures in western and southern states. They took state senates and governorships in places like New York and Illinois. It’s not that Republicans had a particularly compelling message, some did and some didn’t, but that Democrats had assumed that enough white voters would continue showing up to prop up their rainbow coalition.
They were wrong.
The latest Pew poll shows that 74 percent of Democrats support ObamaCare, but only 29 percent of white respondents do. The Democratic Party is becoming a party without white people. Under Obama, the Democratic disadvantage among white voters doubled without any corresponding gains among minority voters.
Meanwhile Republicans increased their share of white voters. And that’s only telling part of the story.
The nation’s largest party is “none of the above”. Independents began to decisively outnumber both parties under Obama. Hispanic voters are increasingly identifying as independents. So are white men.
And though the independents come from both parties, they increasingly swing Republican in key races.
The Democratic model depended on the combination of an overwhelming minority vote combined with a second place showing in the white vote. That model may no longer be feasible, especially in states with a shortage of unemployed white hipsters with PhDs and protest signs who know all the latest social warrior mumbo jumbo but can’t change a flat tire.
The Democrats had to bet on turnout and changing demographics to salvage the situation. They played up racial tensions to increase turnout and championed open borders to shift demographics and those tactics only deepened their problems with white voters.
Tribalism helped Obama win a second term, but it didn’t fix the underlying flaw in the Democratic model. And it actually worsened the situation. The more the Democrats sounded racially divisive notes, the more they alienated white voters, not just by abusing them, but by ignoring their concerns.
ObamaCare became emblematic of a party that tuned out what used to be its base. And so its base left forcing the Democrats to discover that they couldn’t actually win without white voters.
Republican congressional candidates won 64 percent of white working class voters. Landrieu won just 18 percent of the white vote; 22 percent among white women and 15 percent among white men. That’s less than the amount taken by a second Republican candidate in the race, Rob Maness.
Those numbers alone indicate why the Democrats won’t put any real money behind her. If Landrieu can’t even compete for the white vote, then there’s no reason to waste good money on her.
Mark Pryor won only 31 percent of white voters. Nunn won 23 percent of white voters. The Dems didn’t do this badly everywhere, but where they lost it was usually because the white vote sharply tilted away from them enough to offset their overwhelming minority percentages.
The Democrats have a white voter problem. The party is betting that it won’t outlast Obama because it confused its own propaganda with reality and decided that white voters hate Obama because he’s black.
It was never Obama’s race that was the problem. It was the Democratic Party’s embrace of leftist radicalism at the national level while waging identity politics wars along the lines of race and gender.
Republicans don’t have a problem with black people. Democrats do have a problem with white people.
The party is now under the sway of an elitist class of white leftists for whom “white people” is an insult, not a group of voters. And by “white people” they mean the sort of voters who conclusively tossed them out in West Virginia, Nevada and Arkansas.
The elitists of the new Democratic Party envision themselves as the white protectors and organizers of a minority country whose property and rights they will redistribute as they see fit in a new Socialist order. There is absolutely nothing in this creepy little vision that appeals to anyone except the grubby Grubers frustrated at having to work so hard to dupe the insufficiently stupid American voters who won’t just let them play with their health care toys without insisting on tediously voting against higher taxes.
It’s this elite that steadily began alienating white voters with its policies. The situation became critical under Obama not because of his race, but because he fully endorsed their insane power grab.
Now the Democrats are hoping that Hillary Clinton can save their party, but first she has to decide who she is. Hillary has tried to play up racial appeals to white voters before overcorrecting and going the other way. At times she sounds like she wants to appeal to working class voters and at other times she returns to her native element pushing the policy toys of the technocracy.
Instead of the Democratic Party’s Great White Hope, Hillary more closely resembles Mary Landrieu veering between accusations of racism and support for the Keystone pipeline. The left’s attacks on Landrieu for supporting the pipeline only highlight the impossible dilemma of any Democrat trying to run to the right of Obama and Nancy Pelosi. They have to either abandon their voters or their party.
Unlike European parties, American politicians were supposed to put loyalty to their constituents ahead of loyalty to their party. The Democratic Party put its own politicians in the impossible position of being defined by a centralized party seeking to eliminate anything reeking of conservatism while expecting them to win in conservative parts of the country. The Dems didn’t lose. They committed suicide.
The Democratic Party has moved so far to the left that it has alienated all white voters who aren’t on the left and its botched programs like ObamaCare are even beginning to alienate minority voters. Minority support for ObamaCare has hit a new low. Finding white support for ObamaCare requires a microscope.
But the Democratic Party can’t change. It has become dependent on a small donor class of men like Bloomberg, Soros and Steyer whose ad buys and think tanks dictate their agenda. To win, Hillary, Biden and any other candidate must first win over billionaires whose priorities of gun control, no pipeline and lots of big government are exactly the things that have pushed the Democratic Party to the edge.
James Carville was half-right about the 2016 election. If Hillary doesn’t win it, one of the big two parties may go extinct. But it won’t be the Republicans.
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Whites are a shrinking majority, but still a pretty big group to offend and lose with all the division politics. If you listen or study the Obama speech that rose him to prominence, it was all about unifying not dividing, where getting elected was all about dividing into groups.
The racial gap and the gender gap both cut both ways. As pointed out, the difference is that the Republicans desperately want the votes of the groups they have been losing, and the Dems don't seem to give a damn groups outside their targets.
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On Obama and the Nature of Failed Presidencies
Geopolitical Weekly
Tuesday, November 18, 2014 - 03:01 Print Text Size
Stratfor
By George Friedman
We do not normally comment on domestic political affairs unless they affect international affairs. However, it is necessary to consider American political affairs because they are likely to have a particular effect on international relations. We have now entered the final phase of Barack Obama's presidency, and like those of several other presidents since World War II, it is ending in what we call a state of failure. This is not a judgment on his presidency so much as on the political configuration within it and surrounding it.
The midterm elections are over, and Congress and the president are in gridlock. This in itself is not significant; presidents as popular as Dwight Eisenhower found themselves in this condition. The problem occurs when there is not only an institutional split but also a shift in underlying public opinion against the president. There are many more sophisticated analyses of public opinion on politics, but I have found it useful to use this predictive model.
Analyzing a President's Strength
I assume that underneath all of the churning, about 40 percent of the electorate is committed to each party. Twenty percent is uncommitted, with half of those being indifferent to the outcome of politics and the other half being genuinely interested and undecided. In most normal conditions, the real battle between the parties — and by presidents — is to hold their own bases and take as much of the center as possible.
So long as a president is fighting for the center, his ability to govern remains intact. Thus, it is normal for a president to have a popularity rating that is less than 60 percent but more than 40 percent. When a president's popularity rating falls substantially below 40 percent and remains there for an extended period of time, the dynamics of politics shift. The president is no longer battling for the center but is fighting to hold on to his own supporters — and he is failing to do so.
When the president's support has fragmented to the point that he is fighting to recover his base, I considered that a failed presidency — particularly when Congress is in the hands of the opposition. His energy cannot be directed toward new initiatives. It is directed toward recovering his base. And presidents who have fallen into this condition near the end of their presidencies have not been likely to recover and regain the center.
Historically, when the president's popularity rating has dipped to about 37 percent, his position has been unrecoverable. This is what happened to George W. Bush in 2006. It happened to Richard Nixon in 1974 when the Watergate crisis resulted in his resignation, and to Lyndon Johnson in 1967 during the Vietnam War. It also happened to Harry Truman in 1951, primarily because of the Korean War, and to Herbert Hoover before World War II because of the Great Depression.
However, this is not the final historical note on a presidency. Truman, enormously unpopular and unable to run for another term, is now widely regarded as one of the finest presidents the United States has had. Nixon, on the other hand, has never recovered. This is not therefore a judgment on Obama's place in history, but simply on his current political condition. Nor does it take failure to lose the presidency; Jimmy Carter was defeated even though his popularity remained well in the 40s.
Obama's Presidency
Of the five failed presidencies I've cited, one failed over scandal, one over the economy and three over wars — Korea, Vietnam and Iraq. Obama's case is less clear than any. The 40 percent who gravitated to the opposition opposed him for a host of reasons. He lost the center for complex reasons as well. However, looking at the timing of his decline, the only intruding event that might have had that impact was the rise of the Islamic State and a sense, even in his own party, that he did not have an effective response to it. Historically, extended wars that the president did not appear to have a strategy for fighting have been devastating to the presidency. Woodrow Wilson's war (World War I) was short and successful. Franklin Roosevelt's war (World War II) was longer, and although it began in failure it became clear that a successful end was conceivable. The Korean, Vietnam and two Iraq wars suffered not from the length, but from the sense that the presidency did not have a war-ending strategy. Obama appears to me to have fallen into the political abyss because after six years he owned the war and appeared to have no grip on it.
Failure extends to domestic policy as well. The Republican-controlled legislature can pass whatever legislation it likes, but the president retains veto power, and two-thirds of both houses must vote to override. The problem is that given the president's lack of popularity — and the fact that the presidency, all of the House of Representatives and one-third of the Senate will be up for re-election in two years — the president's allies in Congress are not as willing to be held responsible for upholding his vetoes. Just as few Democrats wanted Obama campaigning for them, so too do few want to join the president in vetoing majority legislation. What broke Truman, Johnson and Nixon was the moment it became clear that their party's leaders in Congress wanted them gone.
Acting Within Constraints
This does not mean that the president can't act. It simply means that it is enormously more difficult to act than before. Gerald Ford, replacing Nixon but weakened by the pardoning of his predecessor, could not stop Congress from cutting off aid to South Vietnam during the final Communist assault. George W. Bush was able to launch the surge, but the surge was limited in size, not only because of strategic conditions but also because he had lost the ability to force Congress to fund alternative expansions of the war. In each of the failed presidencies, the president retained the ability to act but was constrained by the twin threats of an opposition-controlled Congress and his own party's unwillingness to align with him.
At the same time, certain foreign diplomatic initiatives can continue. Nixon initiated negotiations between Egypt and Israel that culminated, under Carter's administration, in the Camp David Accords. Truman tried to open negotiations with China, and the initiative's failure had little to do with opposition to a negotiated settlement in Korea.
The president has few domestic options. Whatever Obama does with his power domestically, Congress can vote to cut funding, and if the act is vetoed, the president puts Congressional Democrats in mortal danger. The place where he can act — and this is likely the place Obama is least comfortable acting — is in foreign policy. There, the limited deployment of troops and diplomatic initiatives are possible.
Obama's general strategy is to withdraw from existing conflicts in the Middle East and contain and limit Russian actions in Ukraine. The president has the ability to bring military and other pressure to bear. But the United States' opponent is aware that the sitting president is no longer in control of Washington, that he has a specific date of termination and that the more unpopular things he does, the more likely his successor is to repudiate them. Therefore, in the China-North Korea model, the assumption is that that continuing the conflict and negotiating with the successor president is rational. In the same sense, Iran chose to wait for the election of Ronald Reagan rather than deal with Jimmy Carter (who was not a failed president).
This model depends on the opponent's having the resources and the political will to continue the conflict in order to bargain with the president's successor, and assumes that the successor will be more malleable. This is frequently the result, since the successor can make concessions more readily than his predecessor. In fact, he can make those concessions and gain points by blaming the need to concede on his predecessor. Ironically, Obama used this strategy after replacing George W. Bush. The failed president frequently tries to entice negotiation by increasing the military pressure on the enemy. Truman, Johnson and George W. Bush all took this path while seeking to end their wars. In no case did it work, but they had little to lose politically by trying.
Therefore, if we follow historical patterns, Obama will now proceed slowly and ineffectively to increase military operations in Syria and Iraq, while raising non-military pressure on Russia, or potentially initiating some low-level military activities in Ukraine. The actions will be designed to achieve a rapid negotiating process that will not happen. The presidency will shift to the other party, as it did with Truman, Johnson and George W. Bush. Thus, if patterns hold true, the Republicans will retake the presidency. This is not a pattern unknown to Congress, which means that the Democrats in the legislature will focus on running their own campaigns as far away from Obama and the next Democratic presidential candidate as possible.
The period of a failed presidency is therefore not a quiet time. The president is actively trying to save his legacy in the face of enormous domestic weakness. Other countries, particularly adversaries, see little reason to make concessions to failed presidents, preferring to deal with the next president instead. These adversaries then use military and political oppositions abroad to help shape the next U.S. presidential campaign in directions that are in their interests.
It is against this backdrop that all domestic activities take place. The president retains the veto, and if the president is careful he will be able to sustain it. Obama will engage in limited domestic politics, under heavy pressure from Congressional Democrats, confining himself to one or two things. His major activity will be coping with Syria, Iraq and Russia, both because of crises and the desire for a legacy. The last two years of a failed presidency are mostly about foreign policy and are not very pleasant to watch.
Read more: On Obama and the Nature of Failed Presidencies | Stratfor
Follow us: @stratfor on Twitter | Stratfor on Facebook
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Ferguson in Flames
Posted By Matthew Vadum On November 25, 2014
Grand jurors in Ferguson, Mo., refused to indict local police officer Darren Wilson yesterday, heroically resisting pressure from President Obama on down to lynch an innocent police officer who fought off a violent attacker.
The decision is infuriating left-wingers across America because it rebuts the underlying assumption they embrace which is that white police racism caused the death of Michael Brown, a young black thug who tried to seize Wilson’s gun in an attempt to do the officer harm.
As fresh rioting was already underway in the St. Louis area, the decision also angered President Obama who could barely contain his hostility in a disgraceful, unprecedented television appearance following the release of the announcement about the non-indictments. Obama urged activists to refrain from using violence. The president himself bears direct responsibility for fomenting the combustible situation, however.
The county’s elected prosecuting attorney, Robert McCulloch, calmly explained the process in detail last night that the grand jury employed in choosing not to return indictments in five potential charges from first-degree murder to lesser offenses.
McCulloch is a white Democrat who has come under heavy fire from race-baiting members of his own political party. His partisans hate him because he does not share their antipathy for police officers, and presumably, because he is the wrong color. McCulloch easily secured the Democratic nomination for his office in a primary election four days before Brown was killed. In that contest, he handily beat former state public defender Leslie T. Broadnax, a black woman, by a margin of 71.4 percent to 28.6 percent.
McCulloch said many witnesses gave testimony that was not believable. Witnesses fabricated events, admitted they were in error, clung to discredited factual accounts, or gave evidence inconsistent with the physical evidence.
McCulloch said grand jurors were “the only people who heard every witness … and every piece of evidence.”
“These grand jurors poured their hearts and soul into this process,” he said. The grand jury consisted of nine whites and three blacks and was meeting every week since Aug. 20 to hear evidence in the fatal shooting of Michael Brown. The panel convened for 70 hours and heard from 60 witnesses.
Perhaps in a conciliatory gesture to those who wanted Wilson strung up, McCulloch referred to the death of Brown and the events surrounding it as tragic. Obama too used the word tragic.
But that is the wrong word.
Recall that Brown, an 18-year-old black male, was killed in Ferguson, Mo., on Aug. 9 by white police officer Darren Wilson after he attacked Wilson and tried to grab his handgun. Brown’s defenders characterize him as a gentle giant even though a few minutes earlier he was captured on video committing a strong-arm robbery at a convenience store, roughing up a much smaller clerk in the process. At autopsy Brown’s height was 6′ 5″ and his weight was 289 lbs. As previously reported, autopsy results were consistent with witness accounts that Brown reached for Wilson’s gun during their fateful altercation.
Brown’s death was not tragic. He was a villain. The evidence shows that he initiated potentially deadly force against an officer of the law and suffered the consequences of his actions. Grand jurors only needed a little bit of evidence to indict Officer Wilson. The evidence needed only to establish that probable cause existed to charge Wilson with a crime. The prosecution couldn’t even satisfy that low legal bar. The Wilson case may never have made it to a grand jury at all were it not for the antics of left-wing racial grievance groups working with and taking directions from the Obama administration.
The decision not to indict Wilson is not a tragedy. Far from it. The decision is just, proof that the grand jury system that was created to prevent governments from railroading unpopular defendants still works.
The tragedy is that Wilson had to be subjected to a three-month-long circus in which he was wrongfully accused of being a racist, murdering cop. He was demonized in the media day in and day out, a process that continues in the nation’s newsrooms even after last night’s announcement.
Petulant, as America’s childish Commander-in-Chief is wont to be when he fails to get his way, Obama sounded angry that grand jurors failed to indict Officer Wilson. The plot by Obama, Attorney General Eric Holder, and Obama operative Al Sharpton to lynch Wilson in the courts failed.
Coming across like a Latin American caudillo, Obama sounded disgusted with Ferguson police and police forces across the nation in a press briefing last night.
Instead of accepting the grand jury’s wise decision, Obama set about stoking the flames. After spending months stirring up racial antagonism, Obama pontificated as if an innocent bystander of the events.
The decision “was going to be subject of intense disagreement not only in Ferguson, but across America, so I want to just say a few words suggesting how we might move forward,” he said, without noting that Wilson’s use of justifiable force against Brown became a national issue at his instigation.
Ignoring the fact that the death of Michael Brown had everything to do with his threatening, abusive behavior and absolutely nothing to do with his race, Obama implied cops hate minorities.
“We need to recognize that the situation in Ferguson speaks to broader challenges that we still face as a nation,” Obama said, even though no broader challenges that we face as a nation played a role in Brown’s death.
“The fact is, in too many parts of this country, a deep distrust exists between law enforcement and communities of color,” he said, without noting that he and his comrades-in-arms in the world of community organizing have created distrust and disharmony where none previously existed.
Obama then blamed white people for Michael Brown attacking Darren Wilson.
“Some of this is the result of the legacy of racial discrimination in this country,” Obama said even though there is no evidence that the residue of racial discrimination played any role in Brown’s death.
“And this is tragic, because nobody needs good policing more than poor communities with higher crime rates,” Obama said. “The good news is we know there are things we can do to help, and I’ve instructed Attorney General Holder to work with cities across the country to help build better relations between communities and law enforcement.” Obama said this even though the case at hand provided no evidence that there is a problem between communities and law enforcement.
The president then pivoted to make a pitch for affirmative action in police departments:
That means working with law enforcement officials to make sure their ranks are representative of the communities they serve. We know that makes a difference. It means working to train officials so that law enforcement conducts itself in a way that is fair to everybody. It means enlisting the community actively on what should be everybody’s goal, and that is to prevent crime.
These are mere policing platitudes Obama is lip-syncing as he advances the notion that only black police officers are suited to work in black communities. We do not know that it makes a difference. In fact, enforced diversity can be deadly.
We know that in the rush to furnish communities with cops of the correct skin color corners are likely to get cut and people will die as a result. Economist John Lott found in a 2000 study that the apartheid approach to police staffing led to increases in violent crime, especially in black neighborhoods. This is because the forced lowering of standards put less-qualified officers of all skin colors on the streets.
Even though the justice system ultimately worked in Ferguson, Obama pretends there is still a problem because there aren’t enough blacks in the local constabulary, in his view. He urged communities “interested in working with this administration and local and state officials to start tackling much-needed criminal justice reform,” even though the Brown-Wilson saga does not prove any reform of the criminal justice system is needed.
Obama continued ignoring the facts, insisting there is a problem.
“We have made enormous progress in race relations over the course of the past several decades … but what is also true is that there are still problems and communities of color aren’t just making these problems up,” Obama said, again ignoring that there is no evidence of a problem.
“Those who are only interested in focusing on the violence and just want the problem to go away need to recognize that we do have work to do here, and we shouldn’t try to paper it over,” he said without proving there is any work to be done. “Whenever we do that, the anger may momentarily subside, but over time, it builds up and America isn’t everything that it could be.”
It is as if the psychosis our troubled president suffers from regarding Ebola, the virus Obama is lovingly importing from West Africa, has spread to other issues as well. Only Obama and his fellow travelers say there is a problem in Ferguson.
The mass hysteria over Michael Brown’s death that Obama and his allies generated continues.
It is yet another success for America’s first Alinskyite president.
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Agree completely with above post. Most of us agree with Mark Levin's comments from last night's radio broadcast. What he takes away from this is youth should not be robbing stores, strong arming store owners, punching police officers and reaching for their guns.
Yet we have the left desperately turning this around to suit their agenda.
Time for center and right of center political leaders to start calling out this charade. We know the left won't do it.
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St. Louis County Police Sgt. Brian Schellman said this morning that at least 61 people were arrested. Charges ranged from burglary to trespassing to receiving stolen property.
As of 8:30 a.m., area hospitals reported a total of 23 injuries including three admissions and two gunshot victims.
http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/in-ferguson-businesses-burn-police-cars-torched-as-violence-much/article_a3b95e2f-2087-520d-a25a-88e12f2c1dd9.html
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The chaos started when the first account of the incident said he was shot in the back, from a distance, for no reason. Gradually we found out that isn't what happened. Because of the rules of the system, the officer's account of it didn't come out until now.
I wonder how many innocent people the police in that area have been shooting that people would widely believe the first story? How often when the innocent people are shot in the back for no reason by the police does the justice system fail to hold the officer accountable and people have to take to the streets for justice? Relative to the ongoing level of crime against each other, the answer to those questions is pretty close to zero.
Recently I heard an ad on liberal-radio looking for protesters and donations to fight against the police state. Maybe we will find out from the arrest who these people really are and where they are from.
Another question comes to mind, if all these people in this community are really so anti-big-government and dissatisfied with the status quo, why did they just vote 94% Democrat? (See Ferguson State Senate district 14 http://enr.sos.mo.gov/EnrNet/)
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https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=10153066350620579&set=vb.21472760578&type=2&theater
I'd say the Joint Committee that will be investigating Benghazi is in good hands :-D
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Maybe I am missing something but it would appear the Stupid Party is at it again, letting Forked Tongue Warren stand alone against the economic fascism of the taxpayers guaranteeing Wall Street's gambling with derivatives again. This should be our issue as well!!! :x
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I've long suspected that this is exactly how Sharpton and Jesse Jackson make their money. Here are some specifics:
http://nypost.com/2015/01/04/how-sharpton-gets-paid-to-not-cry-racism-at-corporations/
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Please post on the Race thread on SCH too. Thank you.
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https://secure.freedomworks.org/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=1627&s_subsrc=URL
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https://secure.freedomworks.org/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=1627&s_subsrc=URL
I did.
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I sent that suggestion today to my RINO friend and congressman. The vote for Speaker is tomorrow - Tuesday.
Given his seat on the House Ways and Means Committee, there isn't a snowball's chance in hell he is interested in rocking the boat.
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I'm represented by a progressive Dem.
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Here's Levin's excellent 5-minute rant from his radio show tonight about why John Boehner needs to be fired as Speaker of the House:
http://therightscoop.com/mark-levin-on-why-johnny-boehner-shouldnt-be-speaker-he-acts-like-nancy-pelosi/
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John Boehner: The Indefensible Man
By: Daniel Horowitz
January 6th, 2015
___________________________________
As the dramatic House vote for Speaker draws near, there is one salient observation overlooked by the Washington political class. Nobody – not one member is willing to publicly defend or vouch for Boehner as a bold and effective leader of the Republican opposition or as a spokesman for the party’s conservative platform.
It’s no enigma why we are not seeing a cheerleading squad for Boehner; his actions are indefensible. If he privately told Obama to go ahead with executive amnesty, what else has he told him?
It’s no enigma why we are not seeing a cheerleading squad for Boehner; his actions are indefensible. If he privately told Obama to go ahead with executive amnesty, what else has he told him?
But still, isn’t there anyone who is willing to go to bat for him?
While watching the drama unfold on Monday, we witnessed debates over tactics, questions about “alternative” candidates, and predictions whether the coup would succeed or whether it was a good idea. But one thing we didn’t see was anyone defending John Boehner. Even his supporters refuse to defend him.
Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-VA), a down-the-line establishment foot soldier, was the first member to publicly and formally put out a statement announcing his intention to vote for Boehner. His rationale? There is no alternative. Let’s put aside the fact that this is a straw man argument. We have a loyal Boehner member who can’t muster anything positive to say about the Speaker, and in fact, he explicitly says that we need stronger leadership.
What about Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-OH), a member who represents a district next door to John Boehner in Ohio? He launches into a long dissertation on the importance of showing unity and being in support of something!
Wow – these are ringing endorsements of John Boehner. As if to say, “Hey, look, we have to be for something and show unity, and we don’t really have an alternative, but if we did I’d be on board the effort to fire Boehner.”
Even Rep. Tom Cole (R-OK), one of Boehner’s fiercest lieutenants, couldn’t conjure up anything positive about Boehner other than assailing conservatives as “unprofessional.” I guess the unprecedented number of constituents melting down the congressional switchboard were also unprofessional?
Consider this for a moment: none of the major conservative organizations even put out massive email blasts and campaigns encouraging people to call their members. This is solely the voice of the people. Moreover, this was a sleepy Monday, coming off the longest Holiday season of the year. Yet, members were receiving hundreds of calls demanding they oppose the sitting party leader. These were Republican voters. One member said he couldn’t even get ahold of his own office because the lines were jammed.
Ironically, the stenographers for the establishment in the Republican-leaning media relentlessly mocked a poll showing that 60% of GOP voters want a new Speaker. It will be interesting to see if these people can recognize reality when it slaps them in the face.
But there is one other important nugget in that poll, as observed by pollster Pat Caddell:
“The alienation among Republican voters is so high,” says Caddell, that conservatively “a quarter to one-third of the Republican party are hanging by a thread from bolting.” Caddell argues that GOP voters’ attitudes are “so anti-establishment,” and they give Republican leadership poor ratings. [Breitbart]
Boehner might win the vote tomorrow. But he has forever lost the people of his own party.
Boehner might win the vote tomorrow. But he has forever lost the people of his own party. His policies and actions as Speaker are indefensible, as clearly demonstrated by the lack of public defenders of his record. You can only go so long being perpetually at war with the base of a party before the thousand cuts become mortal wounds.
The elites in the GOP establishment and the gutless conservatives who are enabling them should be careful what they wish for.
Daniel Horowitz is Senior Editor of Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @RMConservative.
- See more at: https://www.conservativereview.com/commentary/2015/01/john-boehner-the-indefensible-man#sthash.jVBAqzIg.dpuf
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Boehner Survives
Posted By Arnold Ahlert On January 7, 2015
The ideological differences between the establishment GOP and the party’s conservative wing became more evident yesterday during the latest election for Speaker of the House. Hours before the vote, a “dump Boehner” movement aimed at denying the Ohio Republican a third term appeared to be gaining momentum. “A fresh start often requires change, and I believe that change should start with the election of a new Speaker,” wrote Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-SC) on his Facebook page.
Change didn’t happen. Boehner was reelected by a margin of 216 votes out of 408 votes cast.
The revolt against the status quo yielded at least three representatives willing to challenge Boehner for the job. Taking up the effort were two Florida Republicans, Rep. Ted Yoho and Rep. Daniel Webster, and conservative stalwart Rep. Louie Gohmert of Texas. Gohmert frequently appears at events hosted by the David Horowitz Freedom Center and was a featured speaker at the Freedom Center’s Restoration Weekend in 2014.
And while the odds of them winning were low, their efforts were not in vain, as the number of Republicans willing to challenge Boehner got larger. Early Tuesday it was reported that 10 Republicans were against Boehner’s reappointment, but by the time Yoho spoke with Fox News the number had grown to 13. By afternoon two more defectors had joined the ranks, including Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-KS), who had originally indicated he would vote for Boehner. Another defector was Texas Rep. Randy Weber. He voted for Boehner in 2013, but indicated that Gohmert was now his first choice. “Let’s all get behind Judge Louie Gohmert for Speaker!” Weber wrote on Twitter. “He has my vote! He’s not afraid to take the fight to the president & his veto pen!”
Rep. Dave Brat (R-VA), who shocked the GOP Establishment when he defeated former Majority Leader Eric Cantor in that state’s primary, expressed the sentiment of his rebellious colleagues, contending Republican leadership has “strayed from its own principles of free market, limited government, (and) constitutional conservatism.”
Rep. Jim Bridenstine (R-OK), who was also a featured speaker at the David Horowitz Freedom Center’s Restoration Weekend in 2014, illuminated one of the primary examples of GOP straying. He released a statement explaining that Boehner and President Obama
crafted the CR/Omnibus, a $1.1 trillion spending bill which funded the government for 10 months and blocked our newest elected Republicans from advancing conservative policy and delivering on campaign promises. With this vote, Republicans gave away the best tool available to rein in our liberal activist President: the power of the purse.
A majority of rank-and-file Republicans also expressed disdain for Boehner’s leadership. A national telephone survey conducted Dec. 26-30 revealed that 60 percent of voters who voted for Republicans in 2014 either “definitely” or “probably” wanted their congressional representative to vote for someone other than Boehner. Those who definitely wanted Boehner deposed comprised 34 percent of the vote, while 26 percent probably wanted someone else. On the other side of the equation, only 11 percent definitely wanted to keep Boehner, and 15 percent probably wanted him to remain.
The Speaker didn’t fare much better with regard to specific questions. By a margin of 52-37 percent, the respondents indicated they didn’t trust Boehner to fight for the issues most important to Republicans. He got hammered even harder when asked about his effectiveness in opposing Obama’s agenda with a whopping 64 percent agreeing that he was not effective, compared to only 24 percent who thought he was. Boehner couldn’t even get a majority of Republicans to agree strongly or somewhat that he “has the best interests of the American public at heart, rather than special interests,” with only 44 percent saying he would watch out for the public, barely edging the 43 percent who thought he would cater to the well-connected.
Boehner needed a simple majority to get reelected, but for much of the day it was impossible to determine what the actual number would be due to outside factors. They included Rep. Michael Grimm’s (R-NY) resignation following a guilty plea for tax evasion, a dozen Democrats attending former New York Governor Mario Cuomo’s funeral in Manhattan, and several lawmakers unable to reach Washington, D.C. due to bad weather. At the very least the rebels were hoping to force a second round of voting for the first time since 1923, when Frederick H. Gillett (R-MA) needed nine ballots to win reelection as speaker, according to the Congressional Research Service. Gillett ultimately prevailed.
In the end, so did Boehner. Shortly before 3p.m. EST he secured his reelection, topping Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) who got 164 votes. And while conservatives fell well short of securing enough votes to force a second round, the number of dissenting Republicans had grown to 25, the largest number of naysayers since the aforementioned 1923 vote.
“This is the day the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad,” Boehner said, taking the gavel from Pelosi. Before handing it over, Pelosi made one more push for the Democratic agenda, promising to introduce legislation that would raise taxes on wealthy Americans and businesses, boost spending on infrastructure, and focus on voting rights. “We invite our Republican colleagues to join us,” she said to the scattered applause that is perhaps the best indicator of her chances for success.
By contrast, Boehner promised to make the economy his party’s top priority. Toward that end he will reintroduce measures that passed in the House with bipartisan support during the previous Congress, but ultimately died in the then-Democratically-controlled Senate, when former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) amply fulfilled his role as obstructionist-in-chief.
And while Republican rebels made their voices heard, there was no real opposition to Boehner’s reelection in terms of alternative choices. Webster earned 12 votes, falling well short of threatening Boehner despite being the largest single challenge in years, and Gohmert received three votes of support. Several other GOPers received votes as well.
In a statement, Rep. Lou Barletta (R-PA) expressed one of the establishment GOP viewpoints for supporting Boehner, explaining that he was willing to give the thrice-elected Speaker a chance to “negotiate with a Senate which, for once, is not an automatic adversary.” Rep. John Fleming (R-LA) offered a different take. “He led us through a period where we’ve increased our majority, substantially,” he said.
Despite Boehner’s victory, Rep. Pat Tiberi (R-OH) was frustrated. “The American people are going to give us two years to try to get things done, and we have to be serious about it. We have to be focused on it, and things like this are a distraction,” he contended. “The debate about this is important, but we had this in November. To have a handful of folks gin this up with talk radio is really, really unfortunate.”
When a survey showing 60 percent of the electorate who voted Republican want someone other than Boehner running the House, the notion that a “handful of folks” are “ginning” up animosity rings exceedingly hollow. Moreover the real “gin-meister” might be Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), who dismissed conservative concerns as “scary” right around the time the survey was conducted. “I don’t want the American people to think that if they add a Republican president to a Republican Congress, that’s going to be a scary outcome,” he said during an interview with the Washington Post just before Christmas. “I want the American people to be comfortable with the fact that the Republican House and Senate is a responsible, right-of-center, governing majority.”
McConnell pushed the envelope even further. “There would be nothing frightening about adding a Republican president to that governing majority,” he added. “I think that’s the single best thing we can do, is to not mess up the playing field, if you will, for whoever the nominee ultimately is.”
Not messing up the playing field is the essence of establishment GOP thinking. And it is that thinking that more than likely led to Obama being reelected, despite getting 7.6 million fewer votes in 2012 than 2008, when Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan managed to garner 1.3 million fewer votes than John McCain and Sarah Palin. That would be the same John McCain and Sarah Palin facing a “hope and change” Obama in all his euphoric glory, not the Obama saddled with a dismal economy, skyrocketing debt, and numerous scandals. Romney lost nonetheless, in large part because the GOP base stayed home, not willing to invest the time and energy to vote for yet another “unfrightening” candidate.
Furthermore, it was Obama himself who framed the 2014 election as a referendum on his agenda, and the electorate “rewarded” the president and his party with the loss of 9 Senate seats and the largest Republican majority in the House since WWll. That voters wanted to bottle up that agenda is inarguable. So is the idea that millions of Americans yearn for genuine leadership.
Unfortunately, the reelection of John Boehner indicates establishment Republicans are content with the status quo, and Americans will undoubtedly hear a familiar GOP refrain about being only “one more election (of a GOP president) away” from making real changes. As for the GOP base, many of whom jammed the phones urging their representative not to vote for Boehner, and who believe as Bill Gheen, founder of Americans for Legal Immigration PAC, put it, that his reelection is “a vote for amnesty,” will yet again be seen as people with no other place to go in 2016.
The GOP has two years to convince that base, along with other Americans, they are worthy of the electorate’s ongoing support. The reelection of John Boehner as Speaker of the House is not an encouraging first step.
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Boehner Moves To Punish Dissenters, Despite Past Statements
Posted By Alex Pappas @ The Daily Caller.
Speaker of the House John Boehner is apparently punishing Republicans who voted against his re-election Tuesday, despite previously saying he would not do so.
Reps. Daniel Webster and Richard Nugent are both losing their seats on the House Rules Committee, Politico reported Tuesday evening. Both Florida Republicans voted for Webster instead of Boehner earlier in the day.
Such moves seem to contradict recent statements made by Boehner and his office.
Asked last week if any Republicans who voted against Boehner would be punished, spokesman Michael Steel told The Daily Caller by email: “Boehner has said publicly that there will be no retribution for ‘no’ votes.”
In September, USA Today reported that Boehner “shot down fresh rumors that he will face a revolt from conservatives when he seeks a third term as speaker in January, and he dismissed suggestions that his leadership team would strip committee assignments from any GOP lawmaker who voted against him.”
“I just don’t think it’s necessary,” Boehner said of punishing dissenters.
Texas Rep. Louie Gohmert, who voted for himself for speaker on Tuesday, called Boehner a “sore winner,” citing the reported punishment.
“After being told that we should now all come together and work together, we have been told late today that two of our Congressmen are being taken off of the committee they were on, simply for voting like their voters wanted,” Gohmert said in a Tuesday statement. “So, it appears before we can work together, we are now going to have another fight. It would be a shame if the Speaker of the House who has so much power is a sore winner.”
This isn’t the first time Boehner has been accused of taking away committee assignments from disloyal Republicans. In 2012, Michigan Rep. Justin Amash and Kansas Rep. Tim Huelskamp lost seats on the House Budget Committee. Arizona Rep. David Schweikert and North Carolina Rep. Walter Jones were also booted from the Financial Services Committee.
Webster — who is being kicked off the speaker’s powerful Rules Committee — won a surprising 12 votes to replace Boehner on Tuesday.
Here are those that voted against Boehner:
1. Rep. Justin Amash voted for Jim Jordan
2. Rep. Brian Babin voted for present
3. Rep. Rod Blum voted for Daniel Webster
4. Rep. Dave Brat voted for Jeff Duncan
5. Rep. Jim Bridenstine voted for Louie Gohmert
6. Rep. Curt Clawson voted for Rand Paul
7. Rep. Scott DesJarlais voted for Jim Jordan
8. Rep. Jeff Duncan voted for Trey Gowdy
9. Rep. Scott Garrett voted for Daniel Webster
10. Rep. Chris Gibson voted for Kevin McCarthy
11. Rep. Louie Gohmert voted for Louie Gohmert
12. Rep. Paul Gosar voted for Daniel Webster
13. Rep. Tim Huelskamp voted for Daniel Webster
14. Rep. Walter Jones voted for Daniel Webster
15. Rep. Steve King voted for Daniel Webster
16. Rep. Thomas Massie voted for Ted Yoho
17. Rep. Mark Meadows voted for Daniel Webster
18. Rep. Rich Nugent voted for Daniel Webster
19. Rep. Gary Palmer voted for Jeff Sessions
20. Rep. Bill Posey voted for Daniel Webster
21. Rep. Scott Rigell voted for Daniel Webster
22. Rep. Marlin Stutzman voted for Daniel Webster
23. Rep. Randy Weber voted for Gohmert
24. Rep. Daniel Webster voted for Daniel Webster
25. Rep. Ted Yoho voted for Ted Yoho
Politico reported that “more punishment is likely to come for others that crossed Boehner.”
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Not sure if I fully believe this but there is some truth to it. R's have lost the last 2 Presidential elections, but also have taken back the House, Senate, Governorships, and State Legislatures. Dems own certain demographic groups but are losing ground in others.
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The idea of an enduring Democratic majority was a mirage. How the GOP gained an edge in American politics—and why it’s likely to last.
http://www.nationaljournal.com/magazine/the-emerging-republican-advantage-20150130
Excerpt: Democrats today...are being severely undermined by two trends that have emerged in the past few elections—one surprising, the other less so. The less surprising trend is that Democrats have continued to hemorrhage support among white working-class voters—a group that generally works in blue-collar and lower-income service jobs and that is roughly identifiable in exit polls as those whites who have not graduated from a four-year college. These voters, and particularly those well above the poverty line, began to shift toward the GOP decades ago, but in recent years that shift has become progressively more pronounced.
The more surprising trend is that Republicans are gaining dramatically among a group that had tilted toward Democrats in 2006 and 2008: Call them middle-class Americans. These are voters who generally work in what economist Stephen Rose has called "the office economy." In exit polling, they can roughly be identified as those who have college—but not postgraduate—degrees and those whose household incomes are between $50,000 and $100,000. (Obviously, the overlap here is imperfect, but there is a broad congruence between these polling categories.)
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Michael Barone notes that the author of the article I posted yesterday, The Emerging Republican Advantage, was previously the co-author of the book "The Emerging Democratic Majority". Funny how political things that seem unchangeable change.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2015/02/10/the_democratic_majority_that_emerged_--_and_disappeared_125552.html
[Democrats who won iun 2006 and 2008] had a chance to extend those by coming up with policies generally deemed successful and which held their disparate coalition together. They failed on both counts. Big government policies -- the stimulus package, Obamacare -- proved generally unpopular. And other Democratic policies began splitting the party's coalition.
...
Republicans looking to 2016 should be aiming not at creating a permanent partisan majority but at developing public policies that could, unlike Obama's, be successful and enduring.
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Reps should be in full-throated "Charge!" mode right now, dumping bill after bill on Obama's desk.
:cry: :cry: :cry:
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Reps should be in full-throated "Charge!" mode right now, dumping bill after bill on Obama's desk.
:cry: :cry: :cry:
Back to the default grovel mode.
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Reps should be in full-throated "Charge!" mode right now, dumping bill after bill on Obama's desk.
:cry: :cry: :cry:
A (DEMOCRAT) filibuster is stopping the amnesty reversal funding bill in the Senate. R's control the House and have a majority in the Senate and that makes a total of zero branches of government under Rep control. Get ready for gridlock. We need to win the White House before anything good can happen, and even then we need to be someone able to reach the people and pressure moderate Dems (a vanishing species) to break in the right direction.
http://jamiedupree.blog.wsbradio.com/2015/02/08/immigration-impasse-rolls-on-in-congress/
"Three days in a row last week, Democrats sustained a filibuster in the Senate against that DHS spending bill, refusing to allow the House-passed GOP plan to even be brought up on the floor for debate and amendments".
I agree 'dumping bill after bill onto Obama's desk' would be the right politics to play right now, but they can't really do that and it would not shame this President into signing any bill that weakens his power or agenda anyway.
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Of course Obama won't sign these bills-- but that is not the point. The point is to put Obama and the Dems on the record and to show how Reps would govern -- so as to win the presidency.
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Of course Obama won't sign these bills-- but that is not the point. The point is to put Obama and the Dems on the record and to show how Reps would govern -- so as to win the presidency.
Agree. But are you saying the R's should change Senate rules and end the filibuster over legislation certain to die at the next step? Keep in mind they have roughly a 50-50 shot at holding the Senate in 2016.
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Difficult question.
Are all of the bills the Reps should be passing devoid of sufficient Dem votes to override the filibuster?
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http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/02/21/report-wasserman-schultz-threatened-to-accuse-obama-of-anti-semitism-sexism-if-ousted-as-dnc-chair/
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I'm not noticing any solution to the illegal amnesty/wrok permits issue being offered here, but politically it raises questions that must be addressed.
Squandering a GOP Majority
House Republicans walk into Obama’s immigration trap.
March 1, 2015 5:49 p.m. ET
WSJ
A majority in Congress is a terrible thing to waste, but only two months into their largest majority since the 1920s Republicans are well on the way. Their latest mental breakdown is over their attempt to overturn President Obama ’s order ending deportations for some five million illegal immigrants.
Once again the fight comes down to recognizing political reality, or marching off a cliff to almost certain failure. The Cliff Marchers refuse to vote to fund the Department of Homeland Security without a provision barring the enforcement of Mr. Obama’s immigration orders going back to 2012. But the House bill has failed to get the 60 votes needed to pass the Senate. That puts DHS on the cusp of a partial shutdown.
On Friday the House and Senate voted to fund DHS, but only for a week and only with the help of Democrats. Speaker John Boehner ’s plan to fund the department for three weeks came crashing down when 52 Republicans revolted. The revolters effectively put Nancy Pelosi in charge of the House. So the GOP will now consume itself in more recriminations as it squanders more of its first 100 days.
The sad if predictable irony is that this is exactly what Mr. Obama hoped to incite with his November immigration order. He wanted to goad an overreaction that made the GOP look both anti-immigrant and intemperate enough to shut down the government.
The double irony is that, in shutting down part of DHS, the Republicans would also give Mr. Obama an opening to claim the political high ground on national security. He’d blame the GOP for putting at risk the defenses against a terrorist threat that his own policies have allowed to proliferate.
The smart play now would be for Republicans to fund DHS and move on to more promising policy ground including the budget. Texas and other states that oppose the order have already won a legal victory when a federal court issued a preliminary injunction against implementing it. The Administration has appealed, but even if it wins in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, the issue is likely to go the Supreme Court.
The Cliff Marchers dismiss this as surrender and are insisting on a long fight over the immigration order even if it means a partial DHS shutdown. (We say partial because some 85% of DHS’s 240,000 workers are deemed essential and would still report for duty even if the government deferred their pay. The core security functions of DHS would continue.) The GOP dissenters say they’d prevail over time as the public came to see Mr. Obama’s fealty to his immigration diktat as the real cause of the shutdown.
Miracles do happen, but in every previous shutdown the voters blamed Republicans more than Mr. Obama. And if there is a terror attack, good luck explaining that Congress isn’t to blame because those DHS workers were supposed to be on the job even if they weren’t being paid.
Some of the Cliff Marchers are also demanding that Republicans break Senate rules and cashier the filibuster to pass the House bill. House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy picked up that theme Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” He pointed out that 57 Senators, including four Democrats, had voted to oppose Mr. Obama’s November order.
But busting the filibuster on policy would have ramifications far beyond this fight. Republicans would have to violate Senate rules, which require a two-thirds vote to change a rule midsession. They would also exceed what even Democrat Harry Reid did in breaking the filibusters for executive nominations.
Most important, this would remove what has long been a procedural barrier to narrow liberal majorities rewriting labor and election laws to hurt conservatives. If Republicans are going to throw out the filibuster, it should be done based on more than the desperation of a rump group in the House.
The immigration fiasco raises the larger question of whether House Republicans can even function as a majority. Some backbenchers are whispering that they’ll work with Democrats to oust Mr. Boehner as Speaker if he doesn’t follow their shutdown strategy. Some are also plotting to take down a procedural rule, which would mean handing control to Democrats.
Mr. Boehner has made mistakes, one of which is bending too much to the shutdown caucus. But let’s say the no-compromise crowd did succeed in humiliating the Speaker, and he resigned. What then? Whom do coup plotters want to put in charge?
Ways and Means Chairman Paul Ryan has support across the House GOP, but why would he want to run a majority that is hostage to the whim of 50 Members who care more about appeasing talk radio than achieving conservative victories?
Republicans need to do some soul searching about the purpose of a Congressional majority, including whether they even want it. If they really think Mr. Boehner is the problem, then find someone else to do his thankless job. If not, then start to impose some order and discipline and advance the conservative cause rather than self-defeating rebellion.
Popular on WSJ
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Also see http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/house-gop-faces-familiar-dilemma-on-homeland-security-funding/2015/03/01/f5f41e5e-c038-11e4-9ec2-b418f57a4a99_story.html
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http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2015/04/13/former-gov-deval-patrick-join-bain-capital/QEgS648qXMm2KIq1AUySRO/story.html
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http://allenbwest.com/2015/06/why-the-supreme-court-ruling-on-gay-marriage-could-lead-to-civil-war/
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http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/193235/meet-the-iran-lobby?utm_source=tabletmagazinelist&utm_campaign=05aa0f4004-Tuesday_September_1_20159_1_2015&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c308bf8edb-05aa0f4004-207194629
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Here is a link to youtube with Ronald Reagan's greatest lines, one liners. etc. As each video ends, another begins.
https://youtu.be/Rd_KaF3-Bcw?t=45s (https://youtu.be/Rd_KaF3-Bcw?t=45s)
In 76 when Reagan ran for the Presidency, he was ignored in many ways. Beginning in 79 to 82, I was stationed in England at RAF Bentwaters. I missed out on the 1980 election, so may of these one liners I missed, as well as other things.
Watching this, I realized that it has been 27 years since Ronald held office. How I miss the man, his compassion, his humility, and his patriotism. Watching these videos, I once again realize what a National Treasure he really was. And, how someone like Reagan comes along once a generation.
From my perspective, what made Ronald so special, he did not apologize for America. He saw the greatness of America and the potential for the future. A future that has been squandered for three decades since.
When I look at the politicians today, none come up anywhere to near his standard. They are afraid to exhibit to Americans what makes America special. They must deny those same values.
I will ask a question for pondering............is a part of the appeal of Donald Trump similar to the appeal of Reagan in the 1980 election? (That was an election he had to fight for until the final month and weeks when in the debates, he took control.) Frankly, in my own case, the answer is YES. Donald trump presents a view of America that was great, lost its greatness as did the US in the 1970s, and now wants to bring back that greatness.
Sure the differences exist from then to now, both societal and political. But though the differences exist, in many ways the causes are the same.
I apologize for any appearance of maudlin feelings. It is just that this brings back to memory a period of time when the country was going through a really tough time, and then comes this 'simple man" with "simple beliefs" came to the world stage. With Ronald, Margaret Thatcher and Pope John Paul II, the world was in a much better place after they left the stage.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuQ-3wxPCtM&feature=player_embedded&app=desktop
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXBswFfh6AY
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BIG Dog,
Still watching more videos of the Great Communicator. Some actually give me an "allergy attack". :oops:
Will we ever see another like Reagan? Probably not in my life time.
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Liberal writer on a liberal site goes into excruciating detail about the trouble Dems are in. Kind of sad, really. :wink:
The NY state senate is R controlled?! The largest non-Calif state with unified Dem control is Oregon with 1% of the US population. Republicans have unified control of 25 states. Thank you President Obama.
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http://www.vox.com/2015/10/19/9565119/democrats-in-deep-trouble
Democrats are in denial. Their party is actually in deep trouble.
Updated by Matthew Yglesias on October 19, 2015, 7:00 a.m. ET @mattyglesias matt@vox.com
The Democratic Party is in much greater peril than its leaders or supporters recognize, and it has no plan to save itself.
Yes, Barack Obama is taking a victory lap in his seventh year in office. Yes, Republicans can't find a credible candidate to so much as run for speaker of the House. Yes, the GOP presidential field is led by a megalomaniacal reality TV star. All this is true — but rather than lay the foundation for enduring Democratic success, all it's done is breed a wrongheaded atmosphere of complacence.
The Republican Party doesn’t want to believe its voters agree with Trump. But they do.
The presidency is extremely important, of course. But there are also thousands of critically important offices all the way down the ballot. And the vast majority — 70 percent of state legislatures, more than 60 percent of governors, 55 percent of attorneys general and secretaries of state — are in Republicans hands. And, of course, Republicans control both chambers of Congress. Indeed, even the House infighting reflects, in some ways, the health of the GOP coalition. Republicans are confident they won't lose power in the House and are hungry for a vigorous argument about how best to use the power they have.
Not only have Republicans won most elections, but they have a perfectly reasonable plan for trying to recapture the White House. But Democrats have nothing at all in the works to redress their crippling weakness down the ballot. Democrats aren't even talking about how to improve on their weak points, because by and large they don't even admit that they exist.
Instead, the party is focused on a competition between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton over whether they should go a little bit to Obama's left or a lot to his left, options that are unlikely to help Democrats down-ballot in the face of an unfriendly House map and a more conservative midterm electorate. The GOP might be in chaos, but Democrats are in a torpor.
Democrats have been obliterated at the state level
The worst part of the problem for the Democratic Party is in races that are, collectively, the most important: state government.
Elections for state legislature rarely make the national news, but they are the fundamental building blocks of American politics. Since they run the redistricting process for the US House of Representatives and for themselves, they are where the greatest level of electoral entrenchment is possible.
And in the wake of the 2014 midterms, Republicans have overwhelming dominance of America's state legislatures.
In what Democrats should take as a further bleak sign, four of the 11 states where they control both houses of the state legislature — Maryland, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Illinois — have a Republican governor. This leaves just seven states under unified Democratic Party control.
Republicans have unified control of 25 states. Along with the usual set of tax cuts for high-income individuals and business-friendly regulations, the result has been:
An unprecedented wave of restrictions on abortion rights
The spread of union-hostile "right to work" laws into the Great Lakes states
New curbs on voting rights, to further tilt the electorate in a richer, whiter, older direction
Large-scale layoffs of teachers and other public sector workers who are likely to support Democrats
Admittedly, one of the Democrats' seven states is California, which contains more than 10 percent of the nation's total population. But Texas and Florida combine for more people than the Golden State, and the GOP also dominates Ohio, Georgia, and North Carolina — all of which are among the 10 largest states by population. Democrats' largest non-California bastion of unified control is Oregon, home to only about one percent of the American people.*
As of 2012 or so, Democrats thought they had a solution to this. Hard-right GOP governors in places like Wisconsin and Florida had become unpopular and were clearly overreaching — reading a wave driven by the poor economy in 2010 as an ideological mandate for sweeping conservative policy change. And that worked in Pennsylvania's 2014 gubernatorial election — Tom Wolf rode a backlash against then-Gov. Tom Corbett's hard-right policies to victory. But Scott Walker, Rick Scott, Rick Snyder, and even Maine's Paul LePage were all reelected. And while the old plan didn't pan out, no new one has risen to take its place.
The GOP is flexible
Liberals accustomed to chuckling over the ideological rigor of the House GOP caucus won't want to hear this, but one of the foundations of the GOP's broad national success is a reasonable degree of ideological flexibility.
Essentially every state on the map contains overlapping circles of rich people who don't want to pay taxes and business owners who don't want to comply with labor, public health, and environmental regulations. In states like Texas or South Carolina, where this agenda nicely complements a robust social conservatism, the GOP offers that up and wins with it. But in a Maryland or a New Jersey, the party of business manages to throw up candidates who either lack hard-edged socially conservative views or else successfully downplay them as irrelevant in the context of blue-state governance.
Democrats, of course, are conceptually aware of the possibility of nominating unusually conservative candidates to run in unusually conservative states. But there is a fundamental mismatch. No US state is so left-wing as to have created an environment in which business interests are economically or politically irrelevant. Vermont is not North Korea, in other words.
But there are many states in which labor unions are neither large nor powerful and non-labor national progressive donor networks are inherently populated by relatively affluent people who tend to be emotionally driven by progressive commitments on social or environmental issues. This is why an impassioned defense of the legality of late-term abortions could make Wendy Davis a viral sensation, a national media star, and someone capable of activating the kind of donor and volunteer networks needed to mount a statewide campaign. Unfortunately for Democrats, however, this is precisely the wrong issue profile to try to win statewide elections in conservative states.
Republicans have a plan
Any serious article about the prospects for Democratic Party policymaking in 2017 starts with the premise that Republicans will continue to hold a majority in the US House of Representatives. This presumption is built on four premises:
The natural distribution of population in the United States tends to lead the average House district to be more GOP-friendly than the overall population.
GOP control of most state legislatures lets Republicans draw boundaries in a way that is even more GOP-friendly than the natural population distribution would suggest.
Incumbents have large advantages in House elections, and most incumbents are Republicans.
So-called "wave" elections in which tons of incumbents lose are typically driven by a backlash against the incumbent president. Since the incumbent president is a Democrat, Democrats have no way to set up a wave.
One striking fact about this is that the presumption of continued GOP control is so solid that you don't even get pushback from House Democratic leaders when you write it down. Privately, some backbench Democrats express frustration that the leadership has no plan to try to recapture the majority. In their defense, it's not like anyone outside the leadership has a great plan either.
But this isn't just a parochial issue for the House Democratic caucus. It means that the party's legislative agenda is entirely dead on arrival at the federal level. And it's particularly striking that this stronghold of conservatism comes from the exact institution that so frequently generates embarrassing headlines for the GOP. House Republicans act extreme in part because they know they can get away with it.
The GOP, by contrast, has basically two perfectly plausible plans for moving its agenda forward. One is to basically change nothing and just hope for slightly better luck from the economic fundamentals or in terms of Democratic Party scandals. The other is to shift left on immigration and gain some Latino votes while retaining the core of the party's commitments. Neither of these plans is exactly brilliant, innovative, or foolproof. But neither one is crazy. Even if you believe that Democrats have obtained a structural advantage in presidential elections, it's clearly not an enormous one. The 51 percent of the vote obtained by Barack Obama in 2012 was hardly a landslide, early head-to-head polling of 2016 indicates a close race, and there's always a chance that unexpected bad news will hit the US economy or impair our national security.
Winning a presidential election would give Republicans the overwhelming preponderance of political power in the United States — a level of dominance not achieved since the Democrats during the Great Depression, but with a much more ideologically coherent coalition. Nothing lasts forever in American politics, but a hyper-empowered conservative movement would have a significant ability to entrench its position by passing a national right-to-work law and further altering campaign finance rules beyond the Citizens United status quo.
The first step for Democrats is admitting they have a problem
In some ways, the Democrats' biggest disadvantage is simply their current smugness. A party that controls such a small share of elected offices around the country is a party that should be engaged in vigorous debate about how to improve its fortunes. Much of the current Republican infighting — embarrassing and counterproductive though it may be at times — reflects the healthy impulse to recognize that the party lacks the full measure of power that it desires, and needs to argue about optimal strategies for obtaining it.
On the Democratic side, the personal political success of Barack Obama has created an atmosphere of complacency and overconfidence. If a black guy with the middle name Hussein can win the White House, the thinking seems to be, then anything is possible. Consequently, the party is marching steadily to the left on its issue positions — embracing same-sex marriage, rediscovering enthusiasm for gun control, rejecting the January 2013 income tax rate settlement as inadequate, raising its minimum wage aspirations to the $12-to-$15 range, abandoning the quest for a grand bargain on balancing the budget while proposing new entitlements for child care and parental leave — even though existing issue positions seem incompatible with a House majority or any meaningful degree of success in state politics.
Whatever you make of this agenda substantively, there's no way to actually enact it without first achieving a considerably higher level of down-ballot electoral success than Democrats currently enjoy.
But instead of a dialogue about how to obtain that success, Democrats are currently engaged in a slightly bizarre bidding war between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders to see whether Congress in 2017 will reject a legislative agenda that is somewhat to the left of Obama's or drastically to its left. The differences between them are real, of course, and at least somewhat important.
But the much more significant question facing the party isn't about the White House — it's about all the other offices in the land. The problem is that control of the presidency seems to have blinded progressive activists to the possibility of even having an argument about what to do about all of them. That will change if and when the GOP seizes the White House, too, and Democrats bottom out. But the truly striking thing is how close to bottom the party is already and how blind it seems to be to that fact.
* Correction: Earlier versions of this article said that Minnesota or Washington was the biggest non-California Democratic-controlled state, but in fact the Republicans control one legislative house in both of those states
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Good article making an important point. May I ask you to post it as well in The Way Forward thread? Thank you.
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http://bakersfieldnow.com/news/nation-world/sri-srinivasan-who-is-he-scalias-possible-replacement
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https://www.facebook.com/Grabien/videos/996024467138547/?pnref=story
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/how-biden-killed-john-robertss-nomination-in-92/2016/02/25/c17841be-dbdf-11e5-81ae-7491b9b9e7df_story.html?postshare=3631456434039221&tid=ss_fb
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This is the journal that published a finding much beloved of liberals a few years back that purported to find scientific evidence that conservatives are more likely to exhibit traits associated with psychoticism, such as authoritarianism and tough-mindedness, and that the supposed “authoritarian” personality of conservatives might even have a genetic basis (and therefore be treatable someday?).
The authors regret that there is an error in the published version of “Correlation not Causation: The Relationship between Personality Traits and Political Ideologies” American Journal of Political Science 56 (1), 34–51. The interpretation of the coding of the political attitude items in the descriptive and preliminary analyses portion of the manuscript was exactly reversed.
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2016/06/epic-correction-of-the-decade.php
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http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/08/opinion/sunday/a-confession-of-liberal-intolerance.html?_r=0
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https://www.facebook.com/ObamaTheWorstPresident/videos/1101438939899206/?pnref=story
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http://www.nationalreview.com/article/438322/debbie-wasserman-schultz-democratic-national-committee-disaster
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http://www.nationalreview.com/article/438322/debbie-wasserman-schultz-democratic-national-committee-disaster
I consider it 100% her fault that I take pleasure in her political demise.
Instead of serious arguments and contests over issues, for them it is always, lie, cheat, deceive, dodge and spin, never allowing us to just defeat them straight up.
These leaks expose what was already obvious to everyone.
Her fall is to cover her real leader, Bill and Hillary. It was the Hillary campaign that rigged the system. Vasserman Schultz (as in Sargent Schultz, "I know nothing") was the puppet.
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Hillary has already made her honorary chairwoman of her campaign!
As , usual with the libs. When finally caught , some slight embarrassment, maybe an apology but never real consequences.
By the way, ironically, the actor who played Sgnt Schultz in 'Hogan's Heroes' was a Jew who fled Nazi Germany:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Banner
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ccp: Hillary has already made her honorary chairwoman of her campaign! As usual with the libs. When finally caught , some slight embarrassment, maybe an apology but never real consequences.
Debbie knows where some of the bodies are buried.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkgA2rUAY-o
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Great find. I'm having some fun posting it elsewhere. Similarly, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4vmkagMS8Q
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https://patriotpost.us/humor/44911
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By James Taranto
Sept. 29, 2016 2:01 p.m. ET
464 COMMENTS
“Congress Disses Obama One Last Time” reads a Politico headline. “Diss” (or “dis”) is a slang term for “disrespect,” so the implication is that lawmakers have personally slighted the president, when in fact all they have done is exercise their authority under the Constitution.
And what they did is more aptly characterized as a first than a last. The House and Senate both easily mustered the two-thirds majorities required to approve the only veto override in Obama’s more than 7½ years in office. In this column’s view Obama is right on the substance—the new law is a bad one—but the story of how it came to pass is one in which everyone in Washington, including the president, looks terrible.
More James Taranto
Follow James on Twitter
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The new law, styled the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act or Jasta, “would allow victims of terrorism on U.S. soil to sue foreign governments found responsible for those attacks,” as Politico explains. Its main target is the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and it is supposed to benefit one of the most sympathetic groups in America, survivors of the victims of the 9/11 attacks.
Unsurprisingly—and necessarily for a successful veto override—the act had wide bipartisan support. The vote to override was 97-1 in the Senate; Minority Leader Harry Reid was the sole dissenter, and it is probably no coincidence he is retiring at the end of the year. (Virginia’s Tim Kaine and Vermont’s Bernie Sanders, off campaigning for Hillary Clinton, missed the vote.) The House vote was 348-77, with only 18 Republicans and 59 Democrats voting against.
So what’s not to like about a bill that helps terror victims at the expense of our friends the Saudis? The Wall Street Journal made the case for the president’s position in an editorial last week: “If Jasta becomes law, crucial decisions affecting U.S. foreign policy will be influenced by judges and tort lawyers, instead of the U.S. President and diplomats.” The editorial further noted that “the anti-Saudi posturing is building at the moment the Saudis are showing a greater commitment to domestic reform and the antiterror effort.”
The president did not make his case so strongly. In fact, the text of that Politico story suggests that it was he who “dissed” Congress more than the other way around:
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) said he and other senators repeatedly requested meetings with White House officials to hash out a potential deal that could accommodate some of the administration’s concerns.
But he heard nothing back, Corker said. It’s just been “dial tone,” the senator added.
“There’s been zero involvement from the White House. Zero,” Corker said, forming a “zero” with his fingers to underscore his point. “When you have a veto like this, it takes involvement, constructive involvement. I mean, there’s nothing.”
But Corker and his colleagues look equally feckless. Twenty-eight of them, from both parties, signed a letter yesterday to Sens. John Cornyn (R., Texas) and Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.), the legislation’s lead sponsors, promising to “work with you in a constructive manner to appropriately mitigate” the bill’s “unintended consequences.” Why not do that before passing the law?
The president made that point Wednesday night, in a CNN “town hall”: “We found out some of the people who voted for it said, frankly, we didn’t know what was in it. And there was no debate of it. And it was, you know, basically a political vote.”
It’s more than a little rich for the man who gave us ObamaCare to be complaining now about lawmakers’ failure to read legislation without knowing what was in it. But the president is right on this point, notwithstanding his lack of credibility. Though it’s a bit silly for him to complain that it was “a political vote.” When is a vote not political?
Obama also said: “It’s an example of why sometimes you have to do what’s hard. And, frankly, I wish Congress here had done what’s hard.” Fair enough, but perhaps they would have if he had done the hard work of private persuasion that he seems to think beneath him.
“This is the single most embarrassing thing the United States Senate has done possibly since 1983,” White House press secretary Josh Earnest said yesterday, according to the Hill (the House hadn’t yet voted):
Earnest was responding to a reporter who told him Wednesday’s vote was the most overwhelming since a 95-0 veto override vote in 1983. In that year, the Senate overrode President Ronald Reagan’s veto of a land bill to give a few acres to six retired couples who paid for it, but later learned that it was still government property because of a surveying error.
The Washington Post contemporaneously reported on that veto, which “came under attack . . . from Republicans and Democrats as an act of insensitivity to the elderly.” Reagan’s veto message said the bill “ ‘would create a clearly undesirable precedent’ by encouraging other landowners to claim federal land at no charge.” We’re at a loss to understand why Earnest is siding with Reagan on that question 33 years later.
So here we have a law passed by congressmen who acknowledge it is likely to have deleterious unintended consequences and self-righteously denounced by a president who couldn’t be bothered to make the case to lawmakers ahead of the vote. And some in the press—we’re looking at you, Politico—portray it as just a big personal spat.
Is it any wonder many voters are fed up enough with Washington that they are willing to consider sending a man to the White House who lacks the basic experience and knowledge that one would think would be a prerequisite for the presidency?
For that matter, is it any wonder other voters, having done exactly that eight years ago, worry about repeating the same mistake?
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https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/oct/31/the-podesta-emails-show-who-runs-america-and-how-they-do-it
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Interesting article with a peek into the world of the "elites".
I watch how CNN fired Donna Brazille but we all know her disease is short lived. She will simply mover around the revolving door to another lucrative opportunity somewhere else among the elites and not miss a heartbeat.
The Clinton Podesta machine will find some other way to reward her for being a "soldier" among them.
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Interesting article with a peek into the world of the "elites".
I watch how CNN fired Donna Brazille but we all know her disease is short lived. She will simply mover around the revolving door to another lucrative opportunity somewhere else among the elites and not miss a heartbeat.
The Clinton Podesta machine will find some other way to reward her for being a "soldier" among them.
I hate it when all our conspiracy theories are proven right.
She still is the head of the DNC, serving in place of someone who was caught doing the same thing, using her power wrongly to advantage one side, the Clintons.
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"serving in place of someone who was caught doing the same thing"
and who I would add is now serving in the Clinton campaign getting rewarded for being such a good soldier in the Democrat elite mafia machine.
It is a merry go round of power, influence, and money.
That is why I believe (small) Colin Powell had the need to announce to the World that he is voting Clinton. He wants to stay in the loop of the connected, influential, financial power brokers. (Go with the expected winner and make sure the winning team knows).
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I don't think our "elites" grasp that outside the D.C./coastal bubbles things are getting volatile. America is already in a cold civil war and it could get hot quicker than most imagine.
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Colin Powell's Presidential choices of Obama, Obama and Hillary just tell us where he sits politically. We thought he picked Obama because he is black but he picked him because he is liberal. Powell never was a conservative or a Republican beyond name only. He was a great military strategist and is a person quite successful in advancing his own power, influence and money. As Elizabeth Warren would say, good for him. But a constitutionalist he is not. Nowhere in the constitution does it say we can right racial wrongs with reverse discriminatory schemes or that a woman has the right to slaughter her young. These are merely liberal political views.
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If you listen to Democrats, Donald Trump is the worst thing ever to happen to our nation. But that evidently doesn't mean they're above working with him to get some of their agenda going. The Democrat National Committee New York Times reports, "Congressional Democrats, divided and struggling for a path from the electoral wilderness, are constructing an agenda to align with many proposals of President-elect Donald J. Trump that put him at odds with his own party. On infrastructure spending, child tax credits, paid maternity leave and dismantling trade agreements, Democrats are looking for ways they can work with Mr. Trump and force Republican leaders to choose between their new president and their small-government, free-market principles." Divide and conquer — it's the Democrat way.
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"If you listen to Democrats, Donald Trump is the worst thing ever to happen to our nation. But that evidently doesn't mean they're above working with him to get some of their agenda going."
IMO the Republican strategy should , yes, be to seek common ground especially for public consumption. But make no mistake about it:
*common ground* is not the same as compromise. Zero compromise , nadda.
We have already compromised too far.
There is never enough for the liberals.
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http://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/democrats-donald-trump-232491
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Should be ready to steam roll the libs. And be ready to follow through on delivering a better economy and better future for ALL Americans . And that is the only way to turn the lib tide back. IMHO of course:
Gimme Shelter
The Rolling Stones
Come on
Oh, a storm is threat'ning
My very life today
If I don't get some shelter
Oh yeah, I'm gonna fade away
War, children, it's just a shot away
It's just a shot away
War, children, it's just a shot away
It's just a shot away
Ooh, see the fire is sweepin'
Our very street today
Burns like a red coal carpet
Mad bull lost its way
War, children, it's just a shot away
It's just a shot away
War, children, it's just a shot away
It's just a shot away
Rape, murder!
It's just a shot away
It's just a shot away
Rape, murder yeah!
It's just a shot away
It's just a shot away
Rape, murder!
It's just a shot away
It's just a shot away yeah
The floods is threat'ning
My very life today
Gimme, gimme shelter
Or I'm gonna fade away
War, children, it's just a shot away
It's just…
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http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/315393-franken-emerges-as-liberal-force-in-hearings
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second post
http://dailycaller.com/2017/01/22/over-200-inauguration-day-protesters-face-felony-rioting-charges/?utm_campaign=conservativereview&utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=Social
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http://nytlive.nytimes.com/womenintheworld/2017/01/20/billionaire-george-soros-has-ties-to-more-than-50-partners-of-the-womens-march-on-washington/
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http://nytlive.nytimes.com/womenintheworld/2017/01/20/billionaire-george-soros-has-ties-to-more-than-50-partners-of-the-womens-march-on-washington/
https://westernrifleshooters.files.wordpress.com/2017/01/c20hmisvqaalpka-1.jpg
(https://westernrifleshooters.files.wordpress.com/2017/01/c20hmisvqaalpka-1.jpg)
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http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/315393-franken-emerges-as-liberal-force-in-hearings
Franken emerging as all other potential leaders have been burned through and as the liberals prepare to sit on the sidelines and criticize.
Please correct me, anyone, if I am missing something about Al Franken. His only 'humor' is sarcasm. He has zero charisma. He never was a lightweight on liberal policy and conservative bashing. He kept a low profile in his first term for good reasons, what were they? a) they stole the election for him and b) he is not a very likable guy.
I missed the questioning on the nominees, but wouldn't it be great to hear the nominees question the Dem Senators: Let's see, you've been overseeing federal education for how many years, 6 years and your President for 8 years and which direction is it going under your watch? Downward spiral. What would you say to the following chart that clearly shows a negative correlation between federal involvement in our schools and outcomes, and federal money and outcomes? You all oppose school choice, why? And you call yourselves pro-choice? Did they teach words and their meanings in your public school? Would you say the brand of liberalism you practice is more about clarity or deception?
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http://nytlive.nytimes.com/womenintheworld/2017/01/20/billionaire-george-soros-has-ties-to-more-than-50-partners-of-the-womens-march-on-washington/
https://westernrifleshooters.files.wordpress.com/2017/01/c20hmisvqaalpka-1.jpg
(https://westernrifleshooters.files.wordpress.com/2017/01/c20hmisvqaalpka-1.jpg)
http://twitchy.com/samj-3930/2017/01/22/ha-here-are-some-of-the-best-aka-ridiculous-signs-captured-at-the-womens-march/
Must see!
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Soros was on some station the other day stating how Trump will fail and has no chance.
Then continues his behind the scenes work doing everything in his power to see to it that he fails.
All the while investing on his failure.
The holocaust screwed up this guys brain.
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I'm going to score this one for the pravdas.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2017/01/22/spicer-earns-four-pinocchios-for-a-series-of-false-claims-on-inauguration-crowd-size/?utm_term=.fd30796b717e&wpisrc=nl_most&wpmm=1
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I'm going to score this one for the pravdas.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2017/01/22/spicer-earns-four-pinocchios-for-a-series-of-false-claims-on-inauguration-crowd-size/?utm_term=.fd30796b717e&wpisrc=nl_most&wpmm=1
Unlike Obama's cultists, Trump's supporters have jobs.
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I'd have fired him!
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WSJ:
Regrets, they’ll have a few. That’s our prediction for the Trump Administration on news that the White House has asked James Comey to stay on as FBI director.
“Extraordinarily competent” is how Chief of Staff Reince Priebus described Mr. Comey in a TV interview earlier this month. The director even got something approaching a hug from President Trump at a weekend event to honor law enforcement officials and first responders.
If experience is a guide, Mr. Comey is the sort of man to be embraced with extreme political caution. Democrats cheered last summer when he invented a legal distinction between extreme carelessness and gross negligence to give Hillary Clinton a legal pass for mishandling classified information. Now they blame him for throwing the election to Mr. Trump for informing Congress, 11 days before the election, that he was reopening the investigation.
Republicans have also been burned by Mr. Comey, not just over his Clinton gymnastics but also his efforts to undermine the Bush Administration’s antiterror efforts during a prior stint as Deputy Attorney General. Now he will be responsible for current investigations into suspected links between the Russian government and some of Mr. Trump’s close associates.
We believe as much as anyone that FBI directors should be willing to go after criminality irrespective of politics. The trouble with Mr. Comey is that he is nothing if not political, especially when it comes to opportunities to burnish his personal reputation by going after the objects of liberal wrath.
Ask Frank Quattrone, the investment banker wrongly targeted by Mr. Comey in the post-Enron prosecution frenzy; or Scooter Libby, victim of the Javert-like exertions of Mr. Comey’s close friend Patrick Fitzgerald during the Plamegate hysteria.
It’s possible the Administration decided to keep Mr. Comey to spite Democrats who want him fired, or perhaps to avoid another nomination battle, though former New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly would probably sail to confirmation. Maybe the Administration is also betting Mr. Comey will be a more pliable director if he feels a debt to the President for not firing him.
If so, that’s a bad bet. Mr. Comey has repeatedly demonstrated that he is willing to abuse his authorities in order to court Beltway favor. Whether or not that someday comes to haunt the Trump Administration, it makes him unfit to lead the FBI.
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Though humorously written, this article actually makes a very interesting legal argument-- that the emoluments issue is a "political question" the consitutional case law properly regards as outside the jurisdiction of the courts:
The Emoluments Clause for Dummies
Everyone’s an expert, but the truth here is that majority rules.
By Brian C. Kalt
Jan. 24, 2017 7:11 p.m. ET
60 COMMENTS
In the age of Trump, everyone’s an expert. Case in point: On Monday a group of attorneys and scholars asked a federal court to declare that President Trump is violating the Constitution’s Emoluments Clause. Suddenly, thousands of people on Facebook and Twitter—accountants, photographers, kindergarten teachers—developed strong opinions about this facet of constitutional law, though few had even heard of it before this week.
When law and politics intersect like this, people typically care less about the legal niceties than whether their side wins. As someone who studies arcane constitutional law for a living, I find this vexing—but also entirely appropriate.
Those who hate Mr. Trump can cite the redoubtable Laurence Tribe for the notion that the president is committing impeachable offenses as we speak. The Constitution bars anyone with an “office of profit or trust under the United States” from accepting “emoluments” from foreign states, and Mr. Tribe says that Mr. Trump’s business income from foreign governments may qualify.
Those who love Mr. Trump can cite the conclusion of Seth Barrett Tillman, steeped in years of historical research, that the Framers did not consider the presidency an “office under the United States,” so the Emoluments Clause does not apply to Mr. Trump.
Neither side on social media, though, engages the legal arguments with any depth. I have not seen anyone on Facebook say that Mr. Tribe’s textual analysis uses the wrong interpretive techniques, or that Mr. Tillman’s reading of some historical episode is inapt. Most people’s “legal” opinions are translated directly from their politics.
Photo: iStock
But this might actually be healthy. The Framers purposely assigned many legal questions in the American system not to judges but to politicians. If this is one such question—and I think it is—then President Trump will be subject to the Emoluments Clause only if Congress impeaches him. Judges must stay out of it when the Constitution puts the ultimate decision in the hands of Congress.
The implications of this design are clear. Congress is naturally mindful of politics, even when weighing technical constitutional questions. But lawmakers answer to the voters—and only the voters—for whatever constitutional interpretations they adopt. In some sense, the majority rules.
The Framers anticipated this. Sure, Congress is supposed to take the law seriously. But when there are no strong precedents—as with the Emoluments Clause—plausible legal arguments almost always run in both directions. The winning side will be the one with the stronger political position, not necessarily the one with the best scholarship.
So even if you haven’t studied the legal intricacies or history of the Emoluments Clause, feel free to spout off online. If enough people holding enough power want the same result you do, you will win the “legal” argument.
If, like me, you find this frustrating, and if (bless your heart) you care about the correct technical answers, go ahead and seek them out. You can then share an informed opinion on Facebook, secure in the knowledge that no one will care. That may seem depressing, but remember: There is a roughly 50-50 chance that the side you think is right on the merits will win. Good luck.
Mr. Kalt is a law professor at Michigan State University.
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Fired and investigated. A serious mistake, IMHO.
I'd have fired him!
===================
WSJ:
Regrets, they’ll have a few. That’s our prediction for the Trump Administration on news that the White House has asked James Comey to stay on as FBI director.
“Extraordinarily competent” is how Chief of Staff Reince Priebus described Mr. Comey in a TV interview earlier this month. The director even got something approaching a hug from President Trump at a weekend event to honor law enforcement officials and first responders.
If experience is a guide, Mr. Comey is the sort of man to be embraced with extreme political caution. Democrats cheered last summer when he invented a legal distinction between extreme carelessness and gross negligence to give Hillary Clinton a legal pass for mishandling classified information. Now they blame him for throwing the election to Mr. Trump for informing Congress, 11 days before the election, that he was reopening the investigation.
Republicans have also been burned by Mr. Comey, not just over his Clinton gymnastics but also his efforts to undermine the Bush Administration’s antiterror efforts during a prior stint as Deputy Attorney General. Now he will be responsible for current investigations into suspected links between the Russian government and some of Mr. Trump’s close associates.
We believe as much as anyone that FBI directors should be willing to go after criminality irrespective of politics. The trouble with Mr. Comey is that he is nothing if not political, especially when it comes to opportunities to burnish his personal reputation by going after the objects of liberal wrath.
Ask Frank Quattrone, the investment banker wrongly targeted by Mr. Comey in the post-Enron prosecution frenzy; or Scooter Libby, victim of the Javert-like exertions of Mr. Comey’s close friend Patrick Fitzgerald during the Plamegate hysteria.
It’s possible the Administration decided to keep Mr. Comey to spite Democrats who want him fired, or perhaps to avoid another nomination battle, though former New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly would probably sail to confirmation. Maybe the Administration is also betting Mr. Comey will be a more pliable director if he feels a debt to the President for not firing him.
If so, that’s a bad bet. Mr. Comey has repeatedly demonstrated that he is willing to abuse his authorities in order to court Beltway favor. Whether or not that someday comes to haunt the Trump Administration, it makes him unfit to lead the FBI.
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By William McGurn
Updated Feb. 6, 2017 7:21 p.m. ET
746 COMMENTS
Quick: What do “Tonight Show” host Jimmy Fallon, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, NBC’s “Saturday Night Live,” US Weekly and former President Barack Obama have in common?
All have been accused of the high crime of “normalizing” Donald Trump. The idea is that anyone not relentlessly emoting against the 45th president is helping him build the new Reich. As with so much of the Sturm und Drang surrounding Mr. Trump, the point here is not to advance an anti-Trump argument but to preclude argument altogether.
After all, does one argue with Hitler?
The crazy is not entirely mad. In 2009, activists note, Republicans found themselves in a similar fix, with Mr. Obama ensconced in the Oval Office and lopsided Democratic majorities running Congress. By crashing Mr. Trump’s administration, the activists hope to excite their base and revive their party the way Republicans did.
Perhaps. But there’s a good argument that the Democrats are getting played. This was, in fact, the headline over a recent New York Daily News piece by Mike Gecan, co-director of the Industrial Areas Foundation—the same IAF that was co-founded by Saul Alinsky and helped inspire a young community organizer named Barack Obama.
Mr. Gecan argues that the parallel for what’s happening in Washington right now is Wisconsin in 2011. Back then, Gov. Scott Walker backed a bill stripping public-employee unions of collective-bargaining rights. The left erupted in protest, with demonstrators occupying the State Capitol and a movement pushing a recall of the governor in what became a national drama.
Just one problem: It didn’t work. The bill was passed and ruled constitutional. Gov. Walker won the 2012 recall election in June even as Mr. Obama carried Wisconsin in the presidential in November. And Republicans increased their majorities in the Wisconsin state House and Senate.
Mr. Gecan says protest is no substitute for hard, grass-roots persuasion. “Many Dems either don’t know how to relate to people with moderate or mixed views or they don’t want to,” he writes. “They prefer rock stars and celebrities to bus drivers and food service workers. They like cute sayings and clever picket signs, not long and patient listening sessions with people who have complicated interests, people who might not pass the liberal litmus test.”
Certainly it’s possible Mr. Trump will end up alienating people who would otherwise work with him but are weary of cracks such as the one implying a moral equivalence between America and Vladimir Putin’s Russia. Yet the American people are not hearing Mr. Trump in a vacuum. They are hearing him in the context of what is coming from the mouths of his critics, the extravagance of which risks overwhelming anything preposterous Mr. Trump might say himself.
One example: Have any of those outraged by Mr. Trump’s tweet disparaging a “so-called judge” paid the least attention to the glaring emptiness of legal reasoning behind the judge’s stay? Ditto for Sally Yates: Anyone else spot the irony in praising a Justice Department appointee for standing up to fascism with an unconstitutional challenge to executive authority?
These are only the mildest forms. At the Women’s March on Washington, Americans heard Madonna fantasize about bombing the White House. On Twitter, they read a then-Politico journalist use a four-letter obscenity to suggest an incestuous relationship between the president and his daughter. Last week American TV screens were filled with images of the champions of tolerance setting fires and smashing windows at Berkeley to stop a gay conservative from addressing College Republicans. On, Wisconsin!
Now Mr. Trump’s progressive opponents seem determined to eat their own. Recently they protested outside Mr. Schumer’s Brooklyn home, under the banner of that same four-letter obscenity, which is highly popular among those who regard Mr. Trump as the triumph of the vulgar.
In New York, where Hillary Clinton won nearly 80% of the citywide vote, this kind of protest may be a crowd pleaser. So is a strategy that calls for boycotting presidential inaugurations, not showing up for Senate committee votes or voting “no” on every Trump cabinet pick. But in, say, North Dakota—a state Mr. Trump carried by 36 points and where Sen. Heidi Heitkamp is up for re-election in 2018—folks might see things differently.
Again, it’s entirely possible President Trump has unleashed furies that will do him in or at least prevent him from doing his job. But the Wisconsin outcome remains equally possible. Which two years from now would leave Mr. Schumer leading an even more shrunken Democratic Party, especially if President Trump manages to get the economy growing again.
If the Wisconsin outcome happens, it won’t be the pro-Trumpers who normalized him. It will be the enemies who shunned democratic politics in favor of celebrity preening, F-bombs and protests designed to intimidate.
Write to McGurn@wsj.com.
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http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/318621-trump-white-house-besieged-by-leaks
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/02/13/republicans-railed-against-clintons-extremely-careless-behavior-now-theyve-got-a-trump-dilemma/?utm_term=.94d24897c8ce
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http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/319343-trump-aide-says-leaked-stories-bear-almost-no-resemblance-to-reality
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http://thehill.com/homenews/news/320229-poll-americans-want-democrats-to-work-with-trump
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http://www.politico.com/story/2017/02/trump-impeachment-democrats-235184
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http://www.dailywire.com/news/13993/democrats-complained-about-trump-using-navy-seal-aaron-bandler?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_content=062316-news&utm_campaign=benshapiro
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second post
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2017/02/study_60_of_online_obamacare_defenders_are_paid.html
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This will be the thread for discussion of this and related matters.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4271412/Obama-confidante-Valerie-Jarrett-moves-Kaloroma-home.html
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https://patriotpost.us/posts/47752
BTW apparently the day after he met with the Russki ambassador, he met with the Ukrainian ambassador.
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http://www.youngcons.com/trey-gowdy-begins-interview-calmly-but-immediately-starts-chucking-lightning-bolts-when-hes-asked-about-jeff-sessions/
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Well, that was predictable. Senate Democrats hounded Attorney General Jeff Sessions to recuse himself last week from any investigation into Russia and the Donald Trump presidential campaign, and no wonder. Now Democrats are threatening to hold up President Trump’s nominee to be deputy AG unless he promises to appoint the special prosecutor they want.
On Tuesday the Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a confirmation hearing for Rod Rosenstein, who for many years served as U.S. Attorney for the District of Maryland and is now up for the number two job at the Justice Department. With Mr. Sessions recused, the final decisions on any probe would fall to Mr. Rosenstein if he is confirmed by the Senate.
Suddenly, Democrats see a political extortion opportunity. “I’ll use every possible tool to block DOJ Deputy AG nominee,” Senator Richard Blumenthal (D., Conn.) tweeted Sunday, “unless he commits to appoint independent special prosecutor.” Minority Leader Chuck Schumer took to the Senate floor Monday to declare that whether Mr. Rosenstein would appoint a special prosecutor “will be front and center tomorrow, and far and away the most important question he needs to answer.”
A special prosecutor is the worst possible way to inform Americans about the Russia episode. He’d operate in secret with a goal of criminal indictments when what the U.S. political system needs is information about what happened. Democrats have made many allegations but fear there may be nothing to find. A special prosecutor would let them continue to claim for months or years that the 2016 election was stolen even if no indictments were ever handed up.
The irony is that Mr. Rosenstein is the independent operator that Democrats say the country needs. He started as U.S. Attorney in 2005 under President George W. Bush and was confirmed by voice vote. In 2007 Mr. Bush tried to put Mr. Rosenstein on the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, but Maryland’s Democratic Senators scuttled his nomination.
President Obama kept Mr. Rosenstein on the job, and in 2012 then-AG Eric Holder appointed him and another prosecutor to look into national-security leaks. Mr. Holder called Mr. Rosenstein “highly-respected and experienced,” adding that he had “every confidence” that Mr. Rosenstein and his colleague Ronald Machen would “doggedly follow the facts and the evidence in the pursuit of justice wherever it leads.”
Vermont Democrat Patrick Leahy, then Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, called the two “strong, capable and independent.”
In other words, Mr. Rosenstein is the kind of person Democrats should want as deputy attorney general. And if they believed their own previous advertising, they’d trust Mr. Rosenstein to make fair and honest legal judgments about any Russian investigation without appointing a special counsel.
Mr. Rosenstein should refuse to bend to this extortion in any case as a matter of political principle. He’d be bowing to undue pressure and suggesting that he and the Justice Department can’t be trusted to do the job. He also hasn’t reviewed the facts that have been collected so far by the FBI, if there are any.
Still, this episode is instructive: Democrats have for weeks demanded total and immediate information about the Trump Administration’s connections with Russia. Now they’re threatening to delay the confirmation of someone who could help determine what really happened.
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http://blog.dilbert.com/post/158812654486/trump-and-healthcare
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http://blog.dilbert.com/post/158812654486/trump-and-healthcare
The left always pushes both the Hitler and the incompetent themes for any republican president.
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http://thehill.com/policy/transportation/326801-freedom-caucus-poised-for-pivotal-role-in-infrastructure-fight
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https://www.wsj.com/articles/trumps-renewed-focus-on-health-bill-vexes-gop-tax-overhaul-strategy-1492356644
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https://www.wsj.com/articles/trumps-renewed-focus-on-health-bill-vexes-gop-tax-overhaul-strategy-1492356644
Healthcare with two dozen taxes in it is part of tax reform.
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http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/the-administration/331038-why-the-polls-are-wrong-about-trump-again
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The congressional hearings are such a waste of time anyway. She is just going to lie her way through them even if she showed up so what is the point?
Have we ever seen any consequences that means anything from any of these things? I can't recall any:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/former-obama-security-adviser-declines-invite-testify-220908322--politics.html
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30 minute video
http://dailycaller.com/2017/05/13/scholar-unravels-the-big-lie-surrounding-the-tump-campaign-and-russian-collusion-video/
Scholar Victor Davis Hanson says there’s a “big lie” surrounding the “boogeyman of Russian collusion” that Democrats and the media rally around, according to an exclusive interview with The Daily Caller News Foundation.
Hanson’s analysis begins by reminding us of the recent massive Democratic losses, which he places at the feet of President Barack Obama’s policies and identity politics gone awry. “The blue wall crumbled,” he says, turning working people against the Democrats in droves. The party then scrambled for any alternative to explain the electoral defeats.
He mentions the financial entanglements with President Vladimir Putin’s Russia by Former President Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton that betray the sudden growing Russiaphobia of most Democrats.
When “the big lie” of Russian collusion is repeated by influential Democrats, doubt is cast and suspicions are raised against President Donald Trump, even without actual evidence. Then, Trump’s approval ratings are expected to fall, ensuring greater erosion of Republican support for the president’s agenda — an agenda that threatens the progressive project that was designed to ensure continued Democratic dominance.
Hanson predicts there will be new surprising evidence of Obama malfeasance against Trump over the next six months.
The scholar then discusses the causes and ramifications of the “Trump Derangement Syndrome” unfolding politically and culturally. He gives Trump high marks for using his unpredictability to restore vital deterrence on the world stage.
Yet, for many Republican elites, he says, they focus on Trump’s appearance — his Queen’s accent, and his gaudiness. A class-driven hostility to this president is revealed, Hanson says, when he hears such charges as, “he hangs out with wrestling people; he likes Mike Tyson; he’s just uncouth.”
In a “weird way” the polarization Obama’s identity politics brought to America will largely evaporate if Trump is able to bring about economic growth, which will unify us again, Hanson says.
As for Democratic leaders, he calls them simply “geriatric.” He sees the younger ones as “unhinged and in search of an identity.” Rather than find policies to bring working class voters back to the Democratic Party, Hanson predicts they will rally around race, class, and gender, as well as climate change and other fads thought up by Hollywood and radical elites.
This compelling video features Hanson discussing the intolerance and infantilization on display on American campuses, as well as tips for ordinary Americans living with growing intolerance and incivility.
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https://townhall.com/columnists/kurtschlichter/2017/05/15/liberals-are-an-inferno-of-flaming-crazy-and-we-should-pour-gasoline-on-the-fire-n2326754
Liberals Are An Inferno Of Flaming Crazy And We Should Pour Gasoline On The Fire
Kurt Schlichter |Posted: May 15, 2017 12:01 AM
Pity the Democrats, to the extent you can without bursting into hysterical laughter at their agony. America has thoroughly rejected them in every branch of the federal government plus out in the states, and on top of that they were utterly humiliated by the guy they all claimed was a complete moron. Which begs the question – what does that make the sanctimonious harpy he crushed in the Electoral College?
They still haven’t realized what’s going on. Their ego-driven drive to dominate normal people and shape us into New Socialist Nongendered Beings has blinded them to the bitter reality.
We think they, along with their minions in the media, in Hollywood, and on campus, suck.
They are baffled at our refusal to acknowledge their moral, intellectual, and political superiority. It doesn’t just compute.
Yeah, well compute this, geebos.
You look nuts. I mean wacko, zonked out, “Hey, that goldfish is firing a mind control laser at my brain and making me break dance” nuts.
But don’t stop. No, pump it up. You’re at “11,” and I say take it to “12.”
This is great!
All this insanity is going to help us normals retain power, from your gyno-hat marches to the fake hate crimes to your insistence that the Russians are responsible for everything from Hillary losing the election to the rarely-discussed but well-known liberal epidemic of ED.
Here’s a little test. It’s been about six months since Trump treated The Smartest Most Accomplished Woman In The World like a NordicTrack treats Harry Reid, and does anyone know even one person who has said, “You know, I voted for Trump, but now after Neil Gorsuch, General Mattis and H.R. McMaster, I really wish I had checked the box for Felonia von Pantsuit?”
I’m not talking about alt-right weirdos – they don’t count. I mean literally, unless they remove their off-brand Nike knock-offs. I mean normal people. Who voted for Trump and now says something remotely like this?
“Yeah, I really regret not letting Hillary pick a SCOTUS judge who thinks the Constitution bans guns but mandates taxpayer-subsidized transsexual abortions!”
“Wow, that 70% drop in illegal alien entries into America and all those deportations of MS-13 guys are depriving the country of valuable, productive future Democrat voters!”
“Gosh, I hate so much how Trump has paid attention to that sliver of our country lying between I-5 and I-95!”
“It was Ashley Judd’s v-cap slam poetry, combined with Bill Nye’s sex confusion clip, that convinced me what America needs is liberals back in power!”
No one.
No one who voted for Trump has ever said any of those things. Oh, they might have voted for him reluctantly, but no statistically significant slice of them wish they hadn’t.
But the Democrats work under the assumption that such folk exist and are receptive to their tantrums. Good! These liberals are crazy, and they’re stupid, and we totally need to encourage them to keep doing crazy, stupid things.
We conservatives are supposed to be terrified by polls that say that the House could flip to the Dems in 2018. Just ask President Clinton about how the liberal wishcasting multiplier effect on the polls worked for her, but the fact is that we have 18 months to go. On the Democrat side, it looks to be 18 months of kookiness that will leave us normals scratching our heads and snickering.
“Yes, I know that just this morning I was saying Comey should have been fired but then Trump actually did it and his doing what I suggested is the worst constitutional crisis ever!”
“Bombing Putin’s ally was a cunning ploy to throw us off the trail!”
“Why, even though failed FBI Director Jim Comey, James “MC Leakmaster J” Clapper, Diane “Crypt-keeping It Real” Feinstein, and even noted particle physicist Maxine Waters concede that there’s no evidence that Trump and Putin are breeding a collusive love child, I’m still convinced of the existence of this sweeping, enormous, and invisible conspiracy that occurred for some reason somehow, and about which absolutely zero evidence of Trump collusion has leaked out during ten months of colonoscopy-esque investigation despite everything else leaking out.”
Sounds legit.
Sure, Congress polls right around the popularity of “Outhouse scuba diving” and “Borrowing Charlie Sheen’s toothbrush,” but then who wants to live in a country where we like our politicians? It’s not like in 2016 we were high-fiving these guys. We get that a GOP Congress is a necessary evil. But we also get that a Democrat Congress is an unnecessary evil.
And while these liberal spazzes and their fussy Fredocon gimps are shrieking about the coming Armageddon in their high-pitched, girlish voices, Trump is just rolling along. Special prosecutor, schmecial prosecutor – he’s not falling for it. And did you see the ten judges he just nominated? You usually have to come up with roses and champagne to score like that.
Here’s how this goes. The Democrats, along with the media and Team Tinfoil, keep whining about Russians Russians Russians, and normal people keep tuning them out. While they’re babbling about nonsense that means nothing outside of the coastal looney bins, normal people are tuning into how the stock market and the job market just keep getting better, how we’re not taking guff from foreign creeps anymore, and we’re not talking about how much taxes will go up but about how much they’ll go down.
Tax reform is going to pass. Obamacare is getting repealed – it’s as dead in the Senate as it was in the House, which is not at all. Our military is getting rebuilt. We’re going to stop leading with our chin on trade. Things are going to keep getting better, and people will see it.
The only way the President can still screw this up is by choosing to screw this up. He won’t do it by messing with liberals. Keep tweeting those twerps into a sputtering rage! It pays dividends every time he provokes them to new heights of lunacy.
No, the President only fails by forgetting his conservative friends, and that is becoming a problem. Where are the hardcore cons at State and Defense? He needs to get solid business leader Anthony Scaramucci into the White House, like we conservatives were promised (A guy who can raise $20 million might come in handy). And as for judges, well, the motto for conservatives is “No Justice Willett, No Peace.”
The Democrats are being crazy and it’s a bad look. So let’s keep helping them do it. We can pity them even as we laugh at them.
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http://www.dickmorris.com/polls-showing-trump-inaccurate-lunch-alert/?utm_source=dmreports&utm_medium=dmreports&utm_campaign=dmreports
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Thursday, May 18, 2017 NYTimes.com »
Welcome to the Interpreter newsletter, by Max Fisher and Amanda Taub, who write a column by the same name.
On our minds: The Trump administration has had a rough week, and a few legislators have started dropping the I word — impeachment — in public statements. But political science can help us understand what might be going on behind the scenes.
What President Trump Can Learn from Venezuela
We’ve been writing about Venezuela lately, where the embattled president, Nicolás Maduro, is struggling to contain huge public protests against his regime. That means we’ve been thinking a lot about “elite fracture” — a political science theory that says that while protests matter, the real trigger for regime change is usually when an authoritarian leader loses the support of important elites. That may be happening in Venezuela right now, but it also could apply to our country.
In a blog post that was the talk of political science Twitter this week, Tom Pepinsky, a political science professor at Cornell University, suggested that elite fracture is a good way to understand the dilemmas that Democrats and Republicans in Congress are facing over the latest round of scandals relating to the Russia investigation and President Donald J. Trump’s firing of the F.B.I director, James B. Comey.
Loyalty, it turns out, is basically a collective-action game played by self-interested politicians. While it’s always nice to hope that politicians will put their country’s interests over their own, research suggests it would not be smart to count on that. Rather, elites will most likely abandon a leader if they think that it will leave them better off, and will stay loyal, even in the face of public unrest, if they think that is the best option for them personally.
So in many ways Republican members of the House and Senate are facing a decision similar to the one that Mr. Maduro’s allies in Venezuela are most likely debating right now. Is it wiser to stay loyal to the president, who is broadly unpopular but still commands the loyalty of the Republican base? Or is it time to cut their losses and start separating from him?
Research on elite fractures is usually used to explain seismic events like coups or impeachments, but it’s also relevant to the smaller steps that lead to those outcomes. The same collective-action game is how, say, Republicans decide whether to defend Mr. Trump publicly each time news breaks of some development in the Russia situation, or how the congressional committees they lead decide on how actively to investigate his campaign’s alleged contacts with Russia.
But, Pepinsky points out, elite fracture research suggests that there’s another big issue here that the public debate has largely overlooked: whether Democrats will be willing to compromise with Republicans to encourage them to abandon Trump.
In other countries where elite fractures have led to regime change, there’s usually some kind of bargain between the opposition and the faction of elites who split from the regime. The specifics vary — maybe the rebel faction gets immunity from prosecution, or promises of cabinet posts, or valuable contracts — but the big takeaway is that there’s pretty much always some kind of tit-for-tat.
Right now, Pepinsky writes, Democrats are so deep in the partisan trenches that they would probably reject any compromise with moderate Republicans. And partisan polarization is so strong that Democrats have a strong incentive to go on the attack against all Republicans; it’s what the voters demand and reward. But if Democrats don’t compromise with moderate Republicans, the Republicans will be more likely to stick together -- making elite fracture less likely, at least for now.
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http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/334649-is-a-wave-election-forming-for-democrats
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The "elites" are really clueless to the anger in the places they only pretend to care about. What comes after Trump will make the coastal "elites" much less happy, or safe and secure.
Thursday, May 18, 2017 NYTimes.com »
Welcome to the Interpreter newsletter, by Max Fisher and Amanda Taub, who write a column by the same name.
On our minds: The Trump administration has had a rough week, and a few legislators have started dropping the I word — impeachment — in public statements. But political science can help us understand what might be going on behind the scenes.
What President Trump Can Learn from Venezuela
We’ve been writing about Venezuela lately, where the embattled president, Nicolás Maduro, is struggling to contain huge public protests against his regime. That means we’ve been thinking a lot about “elite fracture” — a political science theory that says that while protests matter, the real trigger for regime change is usually when an authoritarian leader loses the support of important elites. That may be happening in Venezuela right now, but it also could apply to our country.
In a blog post that was the talk of political science Twitter this week, Tom Pepinsky, a political science professor at Cornell University, suggested that elite fracture is a good way to understand the dilemmas that Democrats and Republicans in Congress are facing over the latest round of scandals relating to the Russia investigation and President Donald J. Trump’s firing of the F.B.I director, James B. Comey.
Loyalty, it turns out, is basically a collective-action game played by self-interested politicians. While it’s always nice to hope that politicians will put their country’s interests over their own, research suggests it would not be smart to count on that. Rather, elites will most likely abandon a leader if they think that it will leave them better off, and will stay loyal, even in the face of public unrest, if they think that is the best option for them personally.
So in many ways Republican members of the House and Senate are facing a decision similar to the one that Mr. Maduro’s allies in Venezuela are most likely debating right now. Is it wiser to stay loyal to the president, who is broadly unpopular but still commands the loyalty of the Republican base? Or is it time to cut their losses and start separating from him?
Research on elite fractures is usually used to explain seismic events like coups or impeachments, but it’s also relevant to the smaller steps that lead to those outcomes. The same collective-action game is how, say, Republicans decide whether to defend Mr. Trump publicly each time news breaks of some development in the Russia situation, or how the congressional committees they lead decide on how actively to investigate his campaign’s alleged contacts with Russia.
But, Pepinsky points out, elite fracture research suggests that there’s another big issue here that the public debate has largely overlooked: whether Democrats will be willing to compromise with Republicans to encourage them to abandon Trump.
In other countries where elite fractures have led to regime change, there’s usually some kind of bargain between the opposition and the faction of elites who split from the regime. The specifics vary — maybe the rebel faction gets immunity from prosecution, or promises of cabinet posts, or valuable contracts — but the big takeaway is that there’s pretty much always some kind of tit-for-tat.
Right now, Pepinsky writes, Democrats are so deep in the partisan trenches that they would probably reject any compromise with moderate Republicans. And partisan polarization is so strong that Democrats have a strong incentive to go on the attack against all Republicans; it’s what the voters demand and reward. But if Democrats don’t compromise with moderate Republicans, the Republicans will be more likely to stick together -- making elite fracture less likely, at least for now.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2017/05/26/heres-what-the-pins-that-sheriff-clarke-wears-actually-mean/?hpid=hp_rhp-top-table-main_pins-830pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&tid=sm_tw&utm_term=.2eb79b2aeea6
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http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-06-01/debbie-wasserman-schultz-uses-voice-changer-call-law-firm-suing-dnc-forgets-disable-
:lol: :lol: :lol:
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fXbGASzim0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BeNNyP-O29o
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uq7b8Td0Mng
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By Daniel Henninger
June 28, 2017 6:22 p.m. ET
875 COMMENTS
In 2016, Donald Trump stood on debate stages and ran against a half-dozen Republicans in the party’s presidential primaries. He won. With his presidential victory came Republican control of the House and Senate, in part because of his coattails.
After Senate Republicans this week failed to move a bill to repeal and replace Obama Care, Mr. Trump must be asking himself: Why do I need these people?
Just now, that’s a good question.
If the congressional Republicans can’t do ObamaCare reform after years of chanting they would, what chance is there they’ll pull off the heavier lift of tax reform?
Mr. Trump has to be wondering whether he would be better off with his version of the Obama presidential model: govern by pen-and-phone executive order through the agencies he controls.
Barack Obama rendered Congress moribund with little outcry from voters. The Obama error was his predictable left-wing overreach with extralegal decrees like the Clean Power Plan, which failed a court challenge before the D.C. Circuit.
To succeed as president, Mr. Trump has to show he can govern, and it looks like that may require separating himself from a Republican Party disabled by a permanent blocking minority with no interest in governing.
At the level of domestic politics, successful presidential governing means not much more than enabling and attaching oneself to an improving economy, as the impeached but popular Bill Clinton proved possible.
The economy is already strengthening, and Mr. Trump can direct Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and White House economics chief Gary Cohn to accelerate their deregulation of financial and energy markets.
Before the Republicans lose seats and maybe control of the House in 2018, Mr. Trump can still extract a few things helpful to himself. Desperate incumbents, such as Nevada’s ObamaCare reform opponent Sen. Dean Heller, will be looking for a legislative life raft. Mr. Trump no doubt could get a modest tax-cut bill passed this year. That will support slow but steady upward growth unless he retards even that with a regime of steel tariffs and myriad trade uncertainties.
Real tax reform would liberate the U.S.’s ocean of pent-up capital and produce an economic boom, assuring continued GOP control of Congress. But Republicans like West Virginia’s Sen. Shelley Moore Capito see their reason for being as protecting the Medicaid status quo.
Some may say Mr. Trump and the Republicans will now take political ownership of the steady collapse of the ObamaCare exchanges. But he didn’t create these things; Congress did, and when voters elected a Congress to reform ObamaCare, it failed.
The press will dump full responsibility for this political nonfeasance on congressional Republicans, and voters will take it out on them in 2018. Health and Human Services can tinker with the failing ObamaCare exchanges, as it would have under Hillary Clinton anyway, and Mr. Trump can blame Congress for the residual mess.
As to Mr. Trump’s low approval rating, the danger there was always that it would scare away Republicans from his agenda. That looks moot now. The Republicans’ approval rating is no doubt already plummeting. Mr. Trump’s approval will rise as the economy improves and if he modulates himself by about half, as he’s done recently.
Most intriguing of all is the longer term future of Mr. Trump’s formal relationship with the Republican Party. After voters in 2018 reorder Congress, Mr. Trump can consolidate his base with a big infrastructure bill co-designed by Democrats and likely approved by independent voters. By then, the Republican opposition that tanked ObamaCare reform will be irrelevant.
And please, hold the faux shock when Mr. Trump, a nonideological pragmatist, entertains Chuck Schumer’s Medicare-for-all as the final health-care fix. In Mr. Trump’s world, subcontractors come and go. The GOP shouldn’t bother trying to collect for work done.
This disorder could surface the possibility that dare not speak its name until now: a more centrist Trumpian political party of the sort favored by Ivanka Trump. No one thought Emmanuel Macron’s party bolt in France could go so far.
Look who’s out front undermining Mr. Trump’s health-care reform: Ted Cruz, Rob Portman, Rand Paul, Mike Lee and Ohio Gov. John Kasich. The nominal reasons each has given for opposing the reform don’t add up. What makes sense is compulsively ambitious Republican politicians positioning themselves to emerge from the rubble and run in 2020 against what they think will be a wounded president. They may end up with nothing but the rubble.
Reasons abound for the GOP’s rump opposition to spend the July 4 holiday rethinking what it is doing. But the biggest of all is this: After eight years of rule by progressive presidential decree, they are putting in motion four more years of centralizing power by a Republican president. The opposition may alter American government forever, but this couldn’t be further from what they intended.
Write henninger@wsj.com.
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Rumor has it Shapiro does really well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIAyudtNicY
http://www.dailywire.com/news/19181/watch-shapiro-destroys-cenk-politicon-debate-hank-berrien
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http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/345261-senate-blocks-trump-from-making-recess-appointments-over-break?rnd=1501804525
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http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/345261-senate-blocks-trump-from-making-recess-appointments-over-break?rnd=1501804525
How would they have the power to do that? Does saying otherwise make recess not so? Court challenge likely if Trump makes a "recess" AG appointment. MHO.
"Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) warned last month that Democrats had "tools in our toolbox" to block a recess appointment."
How about just stay in session until their work is done?
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http://www.dailywire.com/news/20507/controversial-milwaukee-county-sheriff-david-emily-zanotti?utm_source=dwemail&utm_medium=email&utm_content=090117news&utm_campaign=position1
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http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/349854-dems-ready-to-deal-with-trump-but-its-complicated?rnd=1504994892
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http://www.nationalreview.com/article/452564/divisive-american-politics-today-recall-1968?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=171012_Jolt&utm_term=Jolt
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rujeOqadOVQ
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prior to McCain who suddenly is one the list. Wonder if he supported Trump if he would be on the list for his service?
notice Hill also won it for the most miles travelled.
Colin Powell for what?
William Gates for what?
Spielberg for his movies?
some seem bona fide but others seem dubious
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philadelphia_Liberty_Medal
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http://www.nationalreview.com/article/453385/democrats-republicans-both-parties-dysfunctional-unhealthy
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https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/nov/7/donna-brazile-changes-tone-hillary-clintons-contro/?mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiWWpObVpUSmxaV0V4WW1KaSIsInQiOiJ6TjFrM2o1Y0VSM2hKdXR1aGRMSkdyYWM1Umk1Vjkwd0U3d2h1TTBRQktVc2d4QnphcXNMV1VLdVZlUll3WlpxU0psbkh4b2lLdUxkNWl3cnFVVU1Dc21hNFwvRFZOUTVaTVJYWXBqSFZJOXVscWRjR1JmSHVFcGFaUHNGaXdVUXoifQ%3D%3D
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http://www.nationalreview.com/article/453385/democrats-republicans-both-parties-dysfunctional-unhealthy
Both parties circling the drain favors Democrats, see yesterday's elections where Democrats kicked ass on Republicans in Virginia and New Jersey.
Both parties may be dysfunctional, fighting within their party, unfocused, unhealthy, behaving badly, etc. but there is a difference. Dems have the media, all of academia and all the other institutions on their side with tiny exceptions like Hillsdale College and the NRA. First level thinking favors Dems on all issues. With all that, Dems still lost the House, Senate, White House, Governorships and state legislatures by acting and governing stupidly.
Without all that advantage, the R's think they can circle the drain instead of uniting, messaging and governing. They are wrong.
The Republican brand starts at a HUGE disadvantage. They can't just show up and win. Trump knows that; he ran against both parties. But he can't govern by tearing down both parties. State and federal issues are different but the only chance R's had in Virginia would have been to have a successful message to sell.
Chris Christie had a 14% approval rate, which really means zero. 14% are the ones who won't reveal their frustration to the pollster. Why? He was a rising star. He made mistakes but people (sometimes) overcome mistakes. He ran for President too. What message did he bring forward? Establishmentarianism? The only mark he made was the prosecutorial teardown of Marco Rubio. Divide and go personal. Good for him, but it wasn't. His numbers went down as fast as Rubio's and he dropped out immediately after. The takedown set him up for the VP slot? Not so much. They took the guy with the much better approval rating instead. What are the tax rates as CC leaves NJ? Where were his coattails in the legislature during his terms? What was his message? What minds did he change? Leadership involves followers... Follow what, another man's ego?
Contrast that with Scott Walker in Wisconsin. More messaging, more governing, less ego. Until a year ago, Wisconsin was part of the blue wall. Did Trump change Wisconsin? No, Cruz beat Trump there.
Walker changed Wisconsin. When did you hear Walker attack his own side?
As President, Trump is doing some things right and then steps in it. That isn't good enough! As President, the stupid stuff is amplified, hurts the agenda, hurts the party, not just the person. The Corker fight should have been in private, for example. Flake? Good riddance, oops, we still need his vote. The fight against NK isn't just against their dictator. It is a fight against the American and eastern and western opinion that we should do nothing.
Trump is better than having a Dem President. Gorsuch, repealed executive orders, tough on Iran, etc. Unless what? Unless it leads to another Dem President - before any change is enacted. Then all is lost!
Ditto for the Republican congress. More infighting than action. Better than having a Democrat majority congress? Not if what we are doing right now brings us to that.
Bannon bringing war against all establishment office holders and same with Levin, Hannity, others selling hatred against fellow republicans. Tear down that brand and who wins the war? Democrats.
Boehner, McConnell, Corker... these are underperforming leaders. Quietly and diplomatically take them out of leadership or out of office when you have someone better to take their place - who can win.
Democrats hate Republicans more than they hate terrorists, so they lose the war with terrorists. Republicans who put their energy into hating other Republicans lose their wars too.
Gillespie was an uninspiring candidate who tried to bridge too wide of a divide, without a message.
I hope someone answers this wake up call.
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https://www.conservativereview.com/articles/memo-to-republicans-its-the-lies-stupid
For me i will be shocked if I only pay up another 100 bucks under the new business only tax cut.
In NJ a fiercely Democrat controlled state it has been almost inevitable that the teachers and other unions and their bosses and the free shit croud would come back with a vegeance
Couple that with Christie's bridge problems and lying about it while throwing his own colleagues under the bus and running for cover by running for President and the sad self serving sucking up to Trump for job and the next Republican had virtually no chance.
as for Virginia I have no idea.
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http://www.nationalreview.com/morning-jolt/453525/virginia-election-results-are-about-bad-they-get-va-republicans?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=171108_Jolt&utm_term=Jolt
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"as for Virginia I have no idea."
I don't want to write off a great big swing state, but the swamp resides there, Republican and Democrat. The red areas of Virginia are very red. Separate that off and ask what is the largest industry?
From conservative review:
"the inevitable result of a Republican party that has spent a year accomplishing nothing."
Gillespie could not get excitement from either side of the R divide (and needed both). With the way things are going since Nov 2016 and the whole campaign coming into that other than stop Hillary, why would anyone get excited about being Republican?
From national review:
"exit polls indicated that 95 percent of self-identified Republicans voted for Gillespie, compared to 88 percent for Trump."
Measuring the view of those who showed up misses the point. The off-year turnout surge was not from "self identified Republicans".
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FWIW - In a confusing field of all leftists, more than 80% of Minneapolis ranked choice voters voted their first choice for someone other than incumbent Betsy Hodges. Failing to cancel her fundraiser in Beverly Hills to be at work after the Somalian Minneapolis cop shot the innocent, unarmed, white Australian woman in a bathrobe probably didn't help.
http://www.startribune.com/as-year-s-end-violent-crime-up-in-minneapolis-for-fifth-straight-year/363508991/
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Republicans broke a major promise and now own Obamacare. All the uncertainty that surrounds people's healthcare is ours now. One party holds the Presidency, Senate and House and doesn't even have a proposal on the table for a solution.
We all said this would happen and now we're surprised.
Can't prove our ideas work better when we never pass them. Like CRAp, we keep proving their ideas don't work by leaving them in place and taking the blame for their failure.
https://www.nbcnews.com/card/early-exit-polls-health-care-most-important-issue-virginia-voters-n818691
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Trump's victory would not have happened had not the black vote stayed home (one million less than for Obama). Unfortunately he has done diddly to follow up on his appeals for the black vote, and has greatly irritated the black vote and many good white people with his handling the the Confederacy statue issue. I suspect this had something to do with the Dem turnout in Virginia.
==============================================
Patriot Post
One year after Donald Trump's surprising election victory, Democrat anxiety has been given a brief reprieve as they gained gubernatorial victories in the states of New Jersey and Virginia. While much of the mainstream media and Democrats have begun to spin the election wins as a repudiation of Trump, in reality it's more of a mixed bag. Both New Jersey and Virginia were states won by Hillary Clinton, for starters.
The fact is New Jersey was never really in play for Republicans. Outgoing Gov. Chris Christie, more moderate than conservative, had fallen out of favor in the state ever since Bridgegate and he has thrown in the political towel. His lieutenant governor had little chance of escaping the perception of Christie's scandal-plagued shadow.
Virginia is the state over which Democrats were most anxious, as a loss there would have meant further repudiation of the party's brand. However, it's now Republicans who will be struggling to establish their brand. Republicans were not only unable to win the governorship after the term of Clinton bagman Terry McAuliffe, but they suffered losing control of the state's House of Delegates, where they entered the night with a 17-seat margin. Democrats were able to wrestle control away from Republicans as they picked up 14 seats last night. So was this the repudiation of Trump that Democrats and the Left have been looking for ever since his election? Not so much.
The truth is much of this leftist turn within Virginia can be blamed on the DC swamp spreading into northern Virginia. The commonwealth's three most populated counties of Fairfax, Prince William and Loudoun, in which some of Washington's largest suburbs are located, voted nearly two to one in favor of Democrats. This has been a growing pattern, and Virginia is only going to become more blue.
It also appears that the Democrats' campaign to label all Republicans as racist, white supremacists ever since the events in Charlottesville seems to have reaped dividends. Recall that McAuliffe quickly took the opportunity to politicized Charlottesville by labeling conservatives as supporters of racism, while blasting Trump for failing to show "real leadership."
This may be a warning to the GOP of constituent disillusionment with congressional Republicans who have failed to do what they promised they would. Democrats insist this is a harbinger for the 2018 election cycle. If so, and the Senate flips, the change of rules regarding SCOTUS nominees — if there is not another opening ahead of that election — is a severe threat to Liberty.
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In Virginia, Democrats Learn the Shape of an Anti-Trump Coalition
Northam won by nearly double Clinton’s margin, riding wave of energy that carried down ballot
By Gerald F. Seib
Nov. 8, 2017 10:05 a.m. ET
637 COMMENTS
In their rousing election victories in Virginia on Tuesday, Democrats learned two important things: They found out what an anti-Trump coalition looks like, and they discovered it can be a winning one.
That coalition combines upper-scale white voters, millennials, minorities, suburban women and single women. Exit polling indicates that those groups not only went heavily for Democratic victor Ralph Northam in the governor’s race, but performed better for him than they did for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election.
That tide produced a stunning nine-point victory for Mr. Northam—almost twice as large as the margin by which Mrs. Clinton carried the state—and it’s hard to interpret it as anything other than a reaction to President Donald Trump. He is the biggest actor on every political stage right now; almost everything happens in the Trump context.
In fact, the best news for Democrats may have been the signs that their wave of energy carried beyond the top race and down the ballot to elections for the state House of Delegates. Many thought Mr. Northam could win at the top of the ballot (though most concluded only barely), but nobody thought Democrats would be on the verge of turning the state legislature blue.
Still, there also are multiple, less-obvious cautionary notes for Democrats in Virginia, starting with the tendency to over-interpret such an off-off-year election.
Deeper Divide
How Virginia's vote shifted by party from 2013 gubernatorial election to gubernatorial election Tuesday, in margin of victory by percentage point.
Arlington
Alexandria
More
Democratic
More
Republican
Charlottesville
+10
+5
+5
Same
+10
Richmond
Lynchburg
Roanoke
Newport
News
Blacksburg
Norfolk
Va. Beach
Shift in Virginia vote by party from 2016 presidential election to Tuesday's gubernatorial election
Arlington
Alexandria
Charlottesville
Richmond
Lynchburg
Roanoke
Newport
News
Blacksburg
Norfolk
Va. Beach
Source: Virginia Department of Elections
Beyond that, this winning coalition brought decisive margins in blue parts of the state—the Washington suburbs, college towns and upper-scale coastal areas—but it wasn’t enough to break into the swath of red territory in central and southern Virginia. That part of the state continues to look and act a lot like Trump country in the interior of America.
Mrs. Clinton learned what happens in a presidential race when you run up victories, even big ones, in areas Democrats are strong but don’t crack through in areas where the party is weaker.
Moreover, Democratic success in Virginia probably will do more to paper over than resolve the Democrats’ split between establishment groups and the party’s progressive wing. Liberals had backed former Rep. Tom Perriello in the primary, were under-enthused by Mr. Northam, and thought he should have stressed economic issues more. They were particularly unhappy when he hedged his position supporting sanctuary cities that provide a haven for undocumented aliens. In short, the residual problem for Democrats is that progressives wanted a different kind of candidate and a different kind of campaign.
Related
Democrat Ralph Northam Elected Governor of Virginia
Murphy Beats Christie’s Lieutenant in New Jersey
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio Easily Wins Re-Election
The good news for them, of course, is that all signs suggest that liberal activists largely swallowed those misgivings and went to work, and to the polls, anyway. We’ll see which side of the coin—tensions at the beginning or unity at the end—proves to be the most important dynamic elsewhere.
The underlying proposition of the campaign of losing Republican Ed Gillespie, meanwhile, was that he could win by having, in the words of populist political crusader Stephen Bannon, “Trumpism without Trump.” That is, that Mr. Gillespie could embrace Trump-like themes—the dangers from violent immigrants, the virtues of Confederate monuments—without embracing Mr. Trump himself personally.
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It didn’t work as hoped, obviously. Why? For an answer, look at how two particularly energized Democratic groups performed Tuesday in Virginia.
Single women, inspired by Hillary Clinton and the chance to elect the nation’s first female president, were a big part of the Clinton coalition in 2016. But, one year after Mr. Trump became president, they turned out to be an even more-potent part of the Ralph Northam coalition.
Exit polling by Edison Media Research for the Washington Post and other news organizations shows that unmarried women went for the Democrat by a stunning 77% to 22% margin. That is to say, they went Democratic by more than three to one. The Democratic vote among single women this time was 16 percentage points higher than the vote they produced for Mrs. Clinton in 2016.
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The latest WSJ-NBC News poll looks at how President Trump is currently fairing in counties that voted for him in the 2016 presidential election. WSJ's Gerald F. Seib analyzes other findings from the survey. Photo: AP
There is little except the arrival of a President Trump to explain the difference. In short, single women look an awful lot like a constituency that is newly energized.
Second, consider the performance of millennials, a core Democratic constituency, on Tuesday. NextGen America, a liberal activist group, chose nine precincts across Virginia where millennials make up a majority and monitored them to determine enthusiasm among young voters.
In each precinct—most around college campuses—residents aged 18 to 40 made up at least 60% of voters. In all of them, voter turnout was up over the totals seen in the governor’s election four years ago. In the area around Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, turnout more than doubled.
Energy matters in politics. And on Tuesday in Virginia, at least, Democrats seemed to capture it.
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WSJ
The Anti-Trump Wave
Democrats come out in droves and the GOP is caught in the undertow.
Governor-elect Ralph Northam, and his wife Pam, cast their ballots at the East Ocean View Community Center in Norfolk, Va., Nov. 7.
Governor-elect Ralph Northam, and his wife Pam, cast their ballots at the East Ocean View Community Center in Norfolk, Va., Nov. 7. Photo: julia rendleman/Reuters
By The Editorial Board
Nov. 8, 2017 1:34 p.m. ET
52 COMMENTS
Republicans took a thorough beating in Tuesday’s elections, and no one should sugar coat the results because the voting was confined to a few states. Democrats came out in droves to send a message of opposition to Donald Trump, and GOP candidates were swamped in the undertow. While the cliché is not to read too much into an off-year election, this defeat was broad and deep enough to signal that Republicans will struggle to hold Congress next year.
The Democratic sweep in New Jersey and especially Virginia is in that sense a mirror image of what Republicans did in 2009 in opposition to Barack Obama. Chris Christie won in the Garden State that year and after two mostly failed terms Democrats are taking Trenton back under public-union control. Governor-elect Phil Murphy, a former Goldman Sachs millionaire, is a 360-degree progressive who wants to raise taxes, increase spending and in the process will drive even more taxpayers from the state.
The more consequential message came from Virginia, where Democrats swept the major statewide offices and may have picked up the 17 seats they needed to take over the House of Delegates. Ralph Northam, the lieutenant governor who beat a Bernie Sanders acolyte in the primary, spent most of his time and money wrapping Donald Trump around Republican candidate Ed Gillespie.
Republicans can take little comfort that Hillary Clinton defeated Mr. Trump by five points in 2016. Mr. Gillespie lost by nine and he badly underperformed in Northern Virginia, home to federal employees and white, college-educated suburbanites who dislike Mr. Trump’s polarizing politics by insult. In his 2014 near-miss Senate race, Mr. Gillespie won pivotal Loudoun County by 456 votes. On Tuesday he lost it by 23,432.
Mr. Trump tried to distance himself from the defeat by tweeting from Asia that “Ed Gillespie worked hard but did not embrace me or what I stand for. Don’t forget, Republicans won 4 out of 4 House seats, and with the economy doing record numbers, we will continue to win, even bigger than before!” Sometimes Mr. Trump’s comments are so transparently false you wonder if he’s laughing as he writes.
Earlier on Election Day he tweeted support for Mr. Gillespie, whom he endorsed. The House victories in GOP-leaning districts Mr. Trump cites were also far closer than they should have been. Mr. Trump is motivating Democrats to vote while his divisive style and rhetoric are dividing Republicans. A Trumpian candidate nearly beat Mr. Gillespie in the primary and refused to endorse him until the end of the campaign as Mr. Gillespie appeared to be gaining in the polls.
Mr. Trump’s media allies are blaming Mr. Gillespie for not being Trumpian enough, but days before the election former White House aide Steve Bannon was saying Mr. Gillespie might win because he had endorsed Trumpian themes of crime and immigration.
The truth is that Mr. Gillespie tried to span the GOP coalition by campaigning on traditional themes of tax cuts and education reform while running against illegal immigration and sanctuary cities. The media portrayed the latter as divisive and racist, but note that Mr. Northam came out against sanctuary cities late in the campaign. Mr. Gillespie did the best he could to bridge the GOP divide in a Democrat-leaning state, but he couldn’t overcome the anti-Trump wave.
The message for Republicans going into 2018 is that they are in trouble in the swing suburban districts where the House will be won or lost. Republicans hold seats in 23 districts where Mrs. Clinton also won. One is the 10th Congressional District in North Virginia held by the estimable Barbara Comstock that includes much of Loudoun County. Democrats will run as a check on Mr. Trump, and Republicans need a response beyond a Nancy Pelosi fright mask.
Another message is that the GOP success down-ballot during the Obama years can go rapidly in reverse. That’s clear from the GOP rout in the Virginia House of Delegates. But there’s also evidence from Rob Astorino’s defeat as executive of Westchester County in New York, a state Senate seat in Washington that gives Democrats a majority, and a GOP incumbent mayoral loss in Manchester, N.H. American politics is more national than ever, and if Mr. Trump’s approval rating stays at 38% next year, the GOP’s state gains could wash away.
***
Mr. Trump won’t change, so the only GOP antidote to a Democratic wave is legislative accomplishment. Democrats will be motivated to vote no matter what Congress does. But Republicans will stay home unless the House and Senate fulfill their campaign promises. This means passing a pro-growth tax reform that will accelerate the expansion. Republicans should also realize how much damage they have done to themselves by failing to repeal even a part of ObamaCare.
More broadly, the election shows that the American system of democratic checks and balances is working. All the media and academic panic about looming fascism has been nonsense. The tides of politics ebb and flow, and Tuesday’s results show that the Trump years are likely to be good for Democrats.
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Fourth post
http://www.dailywire.com/news/23303/10-things-you-need-know-about-democrats-ben-shapiro?utm_source=shapironewsletter-ae&utm_medium=email&utm_content=110817-news&utm_campaign=position1
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Crats had every and one reason to vote - screw Trump
Cans had no real reason to vote - what are they voting for. They got the WH Capital HIll and the Chamber and are still cowards and cannot agree to get anything much done for the front page.
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"[Republicans] had no real reason to vote - what are they voting for." - Right. Just confusion at best.
How far we have or have not fallen in Virginia in 9 years:
2008 Obama McCain
Popular vote 1,959,532 1,725,005
Percentage 52.63% 46.33%
Skipping Gillespie and his establishment background that didn't help in northern Virginia, look at Lt Gov race for generic votes cast:
2017 Lt. Gov. Democrat Republican
1,362,080 1,222,434
52.7% 47.3%
Besides the similarity, look at the numbers. Republicans could easily have won by turning out everyone in an off-year election. But as ccp says, why should they turnout? Was limited government or individual freedom on the ballot? What we needed to fix in 2008, we still need to fix in 2017-2018.
You change this kind of margin by changing a few hearts and minds. Instead, in 2008 and 2017, Republican is a poisoned brand. Likewise for Democrats, but when parties are badly damaged, Democrats generally win.
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Here is my thought:
All of us, most certainly including President Trump, need to remember that he should have beat Hillary by 20 points and that he most likely would have lost had not Kelly Ann Conway gotten him to stay relatively on point (e.g. the Gettysburg speech) for the last 4-6 weeks of the campaign.
He won by drawing an inside straight. He won because the black vote decreased by one million from the vote for Obama. Mostly likely this in part was because of his appeals for the black vote, but what follow through since then? Absolutely zero! He won because large portions of the American people were revolted by Hillary's corrupt criminality and simply did not vote.
A lot of these variables will not be there or will be quite different next time.
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CCP nails it:
"This all about getting Trump"
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By
Peggy Noonan
Jan. 4, 2018 7:08 p.m. ET
1205 COMMENTS
From the Oval Office address by President John F. Kennedy informing Americans of the presence of Soviet missiles in Cuba, Oct. 22, 1962: “Our policy has been one of patience and restraint, as befits a peaceful and powerful nation which leads a world-wide alliance. We have been determined not to be diverted from our central concerns by mere irritants and fanatics. But now further action is required, and it is under way; and these actions may only be the beginning. We will not prematurely or unnecessarily risk the costs of world-wide nuclear war in which even the fruits of victory would be ashes in our mouth; but neither will we shrink from that risk at any time it must be faced.”
From his commencement address at American University, June 10, 1963: “What kind of peace do we seek? Not a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war. Not the peace of the grave or the security of the slave. I am talking about genuine peace, the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living, the kind that enables men and nations to grow and to hope and to build a better life for their children. Not merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and women; not merely peace in our time but peace for all time.
“I speak of peace because of the new face of war. Total war makes no sense in an age when great powers can maintain large and relatively invulnerable nuclear forces and refuse to surrender without resort to those forces. It makes no sense in an age when a single nuclear weapon contains almost 10 times the explosive force delivered by all of the allied air forces in the Second World War. It makes no sense in an age when the deadly poisons produced by a nuclear exchange would be carried by wind and water and soil and seed to the far corners of the globe and to generations yet unborn.”
From the address by President Ronald Reagan after the summit in Reykjavik, Iceland, with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, Oct. 13, 1986: “I told him I had pledged to the American people that I would not trade away SDI”—the Strategic Defense Initiative. “There was no way I could tell our people that their government would not protect them against nuclear destruction. I went to Reykjavik determined that everything was negotiable except two things: our freedom and our future. I am still optimistic that a way will be found. The door is open, and the opportunity to begin eliminating the nuclear threat is within reach.”
From Reagan’s remarks at the signing, with Mr. Gorbachev, of the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, at the White House, Dec. 8, 1987: “The numbers alone demonstrate the value of this agreement. On the Soviet side, over 1,500 deployed warheads will be removed, and all ground-launched intermediate-range missiles, including the SS-20s, will be destroyed. On our side, our entire complement of Pershing II and ground-launched cruise missiles, with some 400 deployed warheads, will all be destroyed. Additional backup missiles on both sides will also be destroyed. But the importance of this treaty transcends numbers. We have listened to the wisdom in an old Russian maxim. And I’m sure you’re familiar with it, Mr. General Secretary, though my pronunciation may give you difficulty. The maxim is: Dovorey no provorey—trust, but verify.”
Mr. Gorbachev: “You repeat that at every meeting. [Laughter]”
Reagan: “I like it. [Laughter]”
This is how American presidents have always talked about nuclear weapons and the nuclear age—blunt, direct, factual and clear: We never want these weapons used again.
Until now. President Donald Trump’s tweet, 7:49 p.m., Jan. 2, 2018: “North Korean leader Kim Jong Un just stated that the ‘Nuclear Button is on his desk at all times,’ Will someone from his depleted and food starved regime please inform him that I too have a Nuclear Button, but it is a much bigger & more powerful one than his, and my Button works!”
We’re not going in the right direction, are we?
Here are the reasons Mr. Trump’s tweet is destructive and dangerous.
Because it is cavalier about a subject that could not be graver. Because the language and venue reflect an immature mind, the grammar and usage a cluttered and undisciplined one. By raising the possibility of nuclear exchange on social media, the president diminishes the taboo against nuclear use. Anything you can joke about on Twitter has lost its negative mystique. Destigmatizing the idea of nuclear use makes it more acceptable, more possible—more likely. Bragging about your arsenal makes it sound as if nuclear weapons are like other weapons, when they’re not.
Using a taunting public tone toward an adversary such as Mr. Kim, who may be mad, heightens the chance of nuclear miscalculation. The president’s tweet is an attempt to get under the skin of a sociopath. Is it a good idea to get under the skin of a sociopath who enjoys shooting missiles?
Blithe carelessness on an issue with such high stakes lowers world respect for American leadership. It undermines our standing as a serious and moral player, which is the only kind of player you would trust, and follow, in a crisis.
The sober and respected Sam Nunn represented Georgia as a Democrat in the U.S. Senate from 1972 to 1997, and is co-chairman of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a nonprofit trying to prevent the use of weapons of mass destruction. “The danger of nuclear use is greater now than during the Cold War,” he said. The impact of Mr. Trump’s rhetoric? “It increases the risk of blunder.”
There are more nuclear nations, more independent actors, including terrorist groups. “Nuclear material is not fully secured, scientific knowledge of how to make a bomb is increased.” And there is the cyber threat—hacking into weapons systems, supplying false data. “Want a war between India and Pakistan?” Mr. Nunn says. “Simulate a missile attack.” Make it appear missiles are incoming when they’re not.
The risky world becomes riskier. “Add to that the heated rhetoric and name calling, and that increases risk and lays the foundation for a catastrophic blunder.”
You always fear miscalculation and misinterpretations, he says. But the chance of a blundering into disaster is probably greater than the chance of deliberate use.
Mr. Nunn notes we have been lucky that 73 years into the nuclear age there have been no accidental launches, no catastrophic decisions. The nuclear nations have been careful, professional, restrained. But yes, we’ve been lucky.
And should do nothing to press that luck.
Bragging about nuclear arms increases the likelihood of proliferation. “If we’re trying to get countries around the world not to go nuke, then we shouldn’t talk in a way that enhances their importance,” Mr. Nunn says. “There’s a lot of countries out there looking to take their small button and make it into a big button.”
By the way, Reagan’s INF Treaty, that turning point in the history of arms control, remains in force but could unravel due to charges of violations and bad faith. Keeping it up and operating will require work but be heartening for the world.
Focus there. And don’t tweet about it.
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https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/08/opinion/anti-trump-opposition.html?_r=0&mtrref=undefined&assetType=opinion
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/21/AR2005062101654.html
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http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2018/01/trump-and-graham-the-end-of-an-ugly-friendship.php
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https://www.dailywire.com/news/26075/watch-cnn-stunned-what-democratic-ohio-voters-ryan-saavedra?utm_source=cnemail&utm_medium=email&utm_content=011918-news&utm_campaign=position1
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By The Editorial Board
Updated Jan. 20, 2018 1:12 p.m. ET
Donald Trump spent 90 minutes talking to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer at the White House on Friday trying to avoid a government shutdown, and after he left Mr. Schumer vouchsafed that “we made some progress.” But not enough to stop him and his fellow Democrats from filibustering a government funding bill and shutting down the government on Saturday. This is what Mr. Trump’s life will be like, times about 10, if Democrats retake the House and Senate in November. They’re going to torture him like a dancing bear.
The most important political fact of this latest shutdown melodrama is that Democrats feel they can get away with it. Democrats are essentially doing what GOP Senators Ted Cruz and Mike Lee tried in 2013 over repealing ObamaCare: Refuse to fund the government over an unrelated policy issue.
Democrats pilloried Republicans for that one, and Nancy Pelosi called them “legislative arsonists.” But now Mr. Schumer has rallied Democrats, or perhaps they’ve rallied him, to shut down the government over an immigration deadline that is still six weeks away and has nothing to do with funding the government. The audacity is impressive.
The House has passed its funding bill for 30 days along with some policy priorities Democrats profess to want, such as a six-year extension of the CHIP program for children’s health care. Mr. Trump says he’s waiting to sign it. But Mr. Schumer still wants to hold Mr. Trump and the government hostage to the minority’s political priority on immigration.
Democrats are insisting on their timetable for a deal to legalize the so-called Dreamers even though the two sides have only begun to negotiate in earnest and even though Mr. Trump has said he wants to work something out. Mr. Schumer is showing Mr. Trump who’s really in charge.
Democrats are pulling this shutdown stunt because they think they will pay no political price. They see Mr. Trump’s low approval rating. They saw the GOP rout in November in Virginia. They saw Democrats pick up the state Senate seat in Wisconsin this week that Republicans have held for 17 years. They have the press in their pocket. Above all, they figure that Mr. Trump is incapable of making a consistent, credible argument to the American people about the shutdown that might explain what Democrats are really doing.
And why not? Mr. Trump can give a speech saying one thing one day and issue a tweet contradicting himself the next. He nearly scuttled the House funding bill this week with a tweet that said CHIP funding shouldn't be part of any short-term spending bill. The other day he almost scuttled the renewal of Section 702 intelligence-gathering authority with another impulsive, ignorant tweet. Republicans on Capitol Hill could only roll their eyes and try to repair the damage.
Our guess is that this shutdown, if it happens over the weekend, will be short-lived as the sides work out some deal. But with another fight looming over a two-year budget, and another over raising the debt ceiling, the Schumer Democrats will be back at the same stand soon enough if they think it will play to their advantage. They want chaos in Washington because they think it will contribute to their emerging campaign theme that Mr. Trump is a dangerous man who can’t govern and must be checked by the opposing party.
This is the price Mr. Trump is paying for his reckless habit of tweeting before he thinks and squandering his credibility with false or uninformed statements. Even the 10 Democratic incumbents running in states Mr. Trump won in 2016 aren’t afraid of voting for a shutdown. Imagine how Democrats will treat him if the polls are right and Democrats run all of Congress next year. After a few months Mr. Trump may want to be impeached.
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second post
By
Daniel Henninger
Jan. 17, 2018 7:09 p.m. ET
865 COMMENTS
What’s the difference between Mark Zuckerberg and Donald Trump ?
Mr. Zuckerberg saw that the destructive political forces set loose by social media were threatening the core of Facebook and made adjustments last week to protect his crown jewel.
A Twitter account and the tides of media are undermining Mr. Trump’s presidency, but he’ll never adjust.
Which leads us to the Trump Paradox: Donald Trump may be the most disliked president in the postwar era, even as he presides over one of the most solid first-year policy performances of that era, most notably a strengthening economy.
(A colleague asked if by “postwar,” I meant World War II or the American Revolution.)
For most of the first year, the Trump paradox didn’t matter much beyond the altered psychological state of his audience. Reacting to “Trump” became, like uncontrollable weather, a daily routine.
But in Year Two, the story line is about to change. Everything in 2018 will be defined in terms of its effect on the November midterm election. Including any meeting with Dick Durbin.
The phrase “political animal” was invented for people like Sen. Durbin. Lost down the Trump-Durbin you-know-what hole is a question: Why did Dick Durbin do it?
The answer is inescapable: Sen. Durbin poisoned the well of the immigration negotiations. He instantly recognized that Democrats would gain more politically from public exposure of Mr. Trump’s private words than they would from any DACA deal.
For Democrats, every waking moment has telescoped down to one thing: gaining control of the House in November. They have concluded, not without reason, that success at the polls will correlate directly to public dislike of Mr. Trump personally. For Sen. Durbin, the Trump expletive was a gift from the gods. As to the 800,000 dreamers who had a deal in sight at last Tuesday’s White House meeting, well, they can wait.
If the Trump economic record was pouring out of a different, more agreeable vessel, the Democrats would be floating out to sea. Instead, Democrats and the nonsectarian Trump opposition are billing him as the apotheosis of evil, arguing that his personality and words discredit all his policy accomplishments—whether the historically low black unemployment rate of 6.8% that eluded Barack Obama or the defeat of an Islamic State that beheaded journalists on camera and sold Yazidi girls into sexual bondage.
Teeing up Donald Trump as a cartoon villain is preposterous—but rational. Normally, politicians strive to enlarge the circles of empathy between themselves and the public. The empathy may be fake, but it’s necessary. Mr. Trump is uniquely content to limit his personal appeal.
The Democratic “resistance,” which looked pathetic and irresponsible in Year One, suddenly makes sense in Year Two. The generic-ballot numbers, which show the public preferring a Democratic Congress by an astounding 11-point average, are suddenly relevant. Suddenly it matters that Mr. Trump’s approval in Georgia, which he carried in 2016 with 51.3%, is now 38%.
This one-man meltdown is occurring almost entirely among women, driven by a relentlessly smirking, I-could-care-less demeanor. The beer-and-shot base loves it. Women? They just don’t. Women came out of the woodwork to vote against Mr. Trump in the Virginia gubernatorial election that Ed Gillespie lost.
The bedrock Trump base, always around 35%, carried him through the presidential competition. But the 2016 victory was made possible by adding the topsoil of wealthier suburban voters. The Trump topsoil is eroding. Men who voted for Mr. Trump in these suburban towns won’t bother trying to talk their wives out of turning their 2018 vote into an anti-Trump statement. Donald Trump never had a bad day in his life. His supporters have one every week.
It will be a remarkable accomplishment if the Democrats pull this off—a victory not linked to an opposition’s major policy failure, an unpopular war or economic downturn. Beyond the Trump persona, the policy substance of the Democratic case is approximately zero. But running every candidate on the ballot against Donald Trump relieves them of having to think much.
Post-2018, the Pelosi-resurrected House would use the threat of impeachment, however baseless, to make Mr. Trump do deals with them on issues like infrastructure, while poking him just enough to keep him in a snarling rage until a professional empathizer like Joe Biden arrives in 2020. Tempting and taunting Donald Trump will be the capstone to Nancy Pelosi’s career.
The Democrats, now dominated by street-theater progressives, could blow it by making their return to public view more annoying than Mr. Trump’s tweets. They are planning to attend the president’s State of the Union address Tuesday dressed in black, like Hollywood stars, and carrying #HandsOff signs. That would be the people whose eight years of hands on the American economy put Donald Trump in the White House
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http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/369971-trump-calls-for-republicans-to-go-nuclear-if-stalemate-continues
What say we?
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http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/369971-trump-calls-for-republicans-to-go-nuclear-if-stalemate-continues
What say we?
Go nuclear to fund the military. Let the non-essential federal employees stay on unpaid furlough. Make it clear that if the Dems don't bend to what Trump wants, no back pay for non-essential employees. Let's just wait and see how long they hold out.
I
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"Go nuclear to fund the military. Let the non-essential federal employees stay on unpaid furlough. Make it clear that if the Dems don't bend to what Trump wants, no back pay for non-essential employees. Let's just wait and see how long they hold out. "
Sounds good to me. Lets so how most Fed employees the majority of whom are crats will like having their pay held up for illegals that according to CNN 90 % of Americans favor a pardon :roll:
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Someday we will not be in power; going nuclear carries near certainty of blow back some day.
I'm open to the idea of carving out the military budget as an exception.
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http://usanewscentral.com/update-charles-schumer-received-500k-donation-pro-illegal-alien-group-just-vote/
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Someday we will not be in power; going nuclear carries near certainty of blow back some day.
I'm open to the idea of carving out the military budget as an exception.
https://legalinsurrection.com/2016/10/harry-reid-nuclear-option-proliferator/
The dems already called the tune.
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"The dems already called the tune."
Only half way.
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"The dems already called the tune."
Only half way.
Do the Dems ever show restraint when they are in power? I mean aside from ramming through Obamacare and weaponizing the IRS, the FBI and the intelligence community to use illegal means to maintain power...
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http://www.nationalreview.com/article/455629/government-shutdown-democrats-daca-immigration-policy-could-harm-them?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=180122_Jolt&utm_term=Jolt
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"Someday we will not be in power; going nuclear carries near certainty of blow back some day.
I'm open to the idea of carving out the military budget as an exception."
- I agree on both counts.
"Do the Dems ever show restraint when they are in power? I mean aside from ramming through Obamacare and weaponizing the IRS, the FBI and the intelligence community to use illegal means to maintain power..."
- All true, but Dems get away with treason while Republicans get called out for hypocrisy. The rules of the Senate slowing down the process should generally be in the favor of the smaller government side. Even in this case, the 60 vote rule is forcing Dems to side with Trump in order to govern.
Note the false words used by Dems and media that the Republicans "control" all three "branches" and can't govern. Besides that the House and Senate comprise just one branch, fewer than 60 votes is not control of the Senate, unless we do change the rules..
Do we want it to be easier than 60 Senators to takeover industries and create new monstrosities like Obamacare?
The fact that former Pres. Obama used Executive Orders and bureaucratic rulings instead of constitutional process and legislative rules to make things happen, like labeling CO2 a pollutant, is what made it easy for his successor to undo. That he made the Obamacare mandate a "tax" made it possible to undo it with 51 votes in a tax bill.
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http://thehill.com/latino/370119-left-says-dems-caved-on-shutdown
https://amgreatness.com/2018/01/22/the-shutdown-victory/
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http://thehill.com/latino/370119-left-says-dems-caved-on-shutdown
https://amgreatness.com/2018/01/22/the-shutdown-victory/
The Amgreatness article captures it perfectly.
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"We will vote today to reopen the government," said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.
- Confirmation that it was Schumer et all who shut down the government.
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Tom Cotton: "When Lindsey Graham and Dick Durbin agree on immigration, that’s not a bipartisan agreement. Lindsey Graham and Dick Durbin are not adversaries in negotiating. They are allies strategizing.”
https://ijr.com/the-declaration/2018/01/1052987-lindsey-graham-picked-a-fight-with-tom-cotton-it-went-exactly-as-well-as-youd-think/?_hsenc=p2ANqtz-_S8ghuHvz63kxDupIEQCzzeGY-EbkTRIhMJ6C5q9_77ZZqWGgP6P0Pu_y9BXHSG4UmSE9PajQfDnTCEHxFaTz2SwQaJLkXGqEdrQpnZX5_NThe
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Tom Cotton: "When Lindsey Graham and Dick Durbin agree on immigration, that’s not a bipartisan agreement. Lindsey Graham and Dick Durbin are not adversaries in negotiating. They are allies strategizing.”
https://ijr.com/the-declaration/2018/01/1052987-lindsey-graham-picked-a-fight-with-tom-cotton-it-went-exactly-as-well-as-youd-think/?_hsenc=p2ANqtz-_S8ghuHvz63kxDupIEQCzzeGY-EbkTRIhMJ6C5q9_77ZZqWGgP6P0Pu_y9BXHSG4UmSE9PajQfDnTCEHxFaTz2SwQaJLkXGqEdrQpnZX5_NThe
They both belong to the DC uniparty.
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http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/370411-dems-sour-on-shutdown-tactics
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Here we go again with the Trump name calling, "Cryin' Chuck Schumer".
@realDonaldTrump
Cryin’ Chuck Schumer fully understands, especially after his humiliating defeat, that if there is no Wall, there is no DACA. We must have safety and security, together with a strong Military, for our great people!
8:07 PM - 23 Jan 2018
Okay, he cried about limiting people of Muslim origin gaining entry into the country:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-UzxqpPLc8 (9:30 mark)
But doesn't the negotiating point above stand on its own, without the name call?
I guess he has his way of winning. Schumer deserves a putdown and Trump understands he has defeat his opponents, not just 'compromise' with them. But this cheapens himself too, holds down his approval, doesn't sound Presidential, limits his own effectiveness. MHO.
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http://www.nationalreview.com/article/455680/republican-midterm-elections-2018-unknowns-predictions-hard?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=180124_Jolt&utm_term=Jolt
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One good point (among many) made by VDH:
"We have no idea whether the unprecedented hatred for a president, evident in mainstreamed assassination chic and 90 percent negative press coverage, will reach a saturation point and turn off voters."
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About 90 million people (estimate) will vote in the midterm. 0.8 million watch CNN in a day. 2-3 million might watch Stephen Colbert endlessly rip Trump and ore than 230 million eligible voters don't. Of those, many are turned off by the onslaught. People eventually notice when coverage is 93% against him while the policies are more than 50% in their favor. (Case in point, new poll has a large majority favoring big new limits on immigration; they didn't get that from NYT or CBS!) The Grammies, the Oscars, the Olympics, the NFL, NBA, plus academics and media are all on one side. Even some liberals are embarrassed by the onesidedness of it all. People are sick of it. You can't turn on your TV and not see it. At some point all the bias runs a big risk of backfiring.
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https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/22/trumps-weak-poll-numbers-dont-tell-real-story-commentary.html
http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pollster/chuck-schumer-favorable-rating
Barack Obama's presidential approval rating suffered a rare and steep decline of 18 percentage points from his inauguration to the one-year mark of his first term, from 67 percent to 49 percent.
http://news.gallup.com/poll/116479/barack-obama-presidential-job-approval.aspx
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Great reported prank that someone snuck into the SOTU room Tuesday and glued the Democrats seats before they entered. Seriously, doesn't the non-reaction of the Democrats to such an impressive list of successes, lowest black unemployment rate ever, and even acts of heroism by people other than Trump prove the point about the Left's fear of Trump. They aren't afraid that he will fail as President of the United States; they are afraid he will succeed!
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Great reported prank that someone snuck into the SOTU room Tuesday and glued the Democrats seats before they entered. Seriously, doesn't the non-reaction of the Democrats to such an impressive list of successes, lowest black unemployment rate ever, and even acts of heroism by people other than Trump prove the point about the Left's fear of Trump. They aren't afraid that he will fail as President of the United States; they are afraid he will succeed!
Terrified. And with good reason.
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http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/372101-gop-growing-optimistic-about-midterm-chances?userid=188403
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http://www.nationalreview.com/morning-jolt/456405/president-trumps-surprisingly-great-poll-numbers?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=180214_Jolt&utm_term=Jolt
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https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/feb/14/bill-clinton-white-house-had-security-clearance-ba/
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This comes well recommended from someone whom I respect:
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/02/23/2018-election-analysis-politics-217073
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Out of White House Tumult: A Trade Plan
Mixed signals on the administration’s tariff policy come at a tough time for the West Wing
Thursday’s mixed signals on trade were the latest developments in a week that reminded some top aides of the first tumultuous months of the administration last year.
Thursday’s mixed signals on trade were the latest developments in a week that reminded some top aides of the first tumultuous months of the administration last year. Photo: mandel ngan/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
By Michael C. Bender and
Peter Nicholas
March 1, 2018 7:35 p.m. ET
49 COMMENTS
WASHINGTON—U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross told confidants on Wednesday night that President Donald Trump would unveil new steel and aluminum tariffs the next day.
By Thursday morning, the would-be announcement was downgraded to a listening session. Then, the plan changed again.
After the media were hustled into the Cabinet Room, where Mr. Trump was meeting with business executives, the president said, “We’re going to be instituting tariffs next week.” When the session was breaking up, in response to a shouted question from a reporter, Mr. Trump provided the specific rates: 25% on steel, 10% on aluminum.
The news sent the stock market tumbling by more than 400 points and drew swift opposition from lawmakers on Capitol Hill who said they were blindsided.
“I didn’t know he’d announced anything,” said Sen. Rob Portman (R., Ohio), as he left a closed-door Senate GOP lunch Thursday.
Related
Trump to Impose Steep Aluminum and Steel Tariffs
China Envoy Holds Trade Talks With U.S. Officials
Tariffs Could Ripple Through U.S. Economy
Heard on the Street: Market’s Message: U.S. Allies and Consumers Will Pay Steel-Tariff Bill
Mr. Portman said he supported tariffs for certain products from certain countries, but not a broad imposition of them. “We want to protect our steelworkers. But we want to be sure it’s not going to also hurt the auto makers.”
The mixed signals on trade were the latest developments in a week that reminded some top aides of the first tumultuous months of the administration last year.
In the past few days, the GOP president has attacked his own attorney general, Jeff Sessions, by calling his actions “disgraceful”; seen the resignation of one of his closest advisers, communications director Hope Hicks; and stunned Republican lawmakers and the National Rifle Association, a onetime ally, with a call for broad action on gun control. Then came Thursday’s unscripted trade announcement.
Those actions are raising tensions on Capitol Hill and could make it more difficult for the president to achieve the top goals he laid out for the year: changes to immigration laws and infrastructure projects.
“Getting big things done to help the American people requires close, careful coordination between the White House and Congress,” said Michael Steel, who served as a senior aide to former House Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio).
“It’s a painstaking, collaborative process—and it’s simply impossible to do when the administration is lurching from one distraction to the next, and the president himself seems to prefer chaotic improvisation to effective governance,” he said.
After gaining some momentum from the passage of tax cuts late last year, many Republicans were convinced that chief of staff John Kelly was winning in his effort to bring discipline to the West Wing.
Mr. Kelly was upset about how the tariff announcement was handled, specifically that it was leaked in advance, a White House aide said.
Before Mr. Trump’s meeting at the White House on Thursday, Mr. Kelly was at an event marking the 15th anniversary of the Department of Homeland Security where he rolled his eyes while talking about his job. Mr. Kelly was secretary of the agency before taking over as Mr. Trump’s staff chief.
“The last thing I wanted to do was walk away from one of the great honors of my life—being the secretary of homeland security—but I did something wrong, and God punished me, I guess,” Mr. Kelly said, drawing laughter from the crowd.
The most lasting distraction in the first months of this year has been the resignation of White House staff secretary Rob Porter, who quit amid public allegations of domestic abuse that had prevented him getting full security clearance.
Mr. Porter’s departure opened the door for economic nationalists inside Mr. Trump’s administration to push for the tariffs announced on Thursday.
His resignation led to unusual tension between the president and Ms. Hicks and put Mr. Kelly on a collision course with senior adviser Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and top adviser who had also been operating with an interim security clearance.
Mr. Kelly, it was learned this week, had decided to downgrade clearances for administration officials, including Mr. Kushner’s, who have had security clearances pending for more than six months. That prompted Mr. Kushner to complain to other aides this week that Mr. Kelly is unfairly targeting him.
Mr. Porter played the role of gatekeeper in the White House, and one of his chief tasks was scheduling trade meetings. He had helped isolate Peter Navarro, an adviser known for his hawkish views on trade policy.
With Mr. Porter gone, Mr. Navarro made a direct pitch for tariffs to Mr. Trump, who elevated him to become an assistant to the president, a person familiar with the matter said. The president then told Mr. Kelly that he wanted Mr. Navarro restored to a central role in the administration’s trade policy, the person said.
Mr. Navarro excitedly described the aluminum and steel tariff proposal to select White House officials on Wednesday, another official said. By that night, Mr. Ross—who supports the tariffs—was describing the plan as a done deal, the official said.
That caught several senior officials off-guard, including Messrs. Kelly and National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn, the president’s top economic adviser who doesn’t support the tariffs, an aide said.
“Total chaos,” said Rep. Bill Pascrell, the top Democrat on a House panel that oversees trade. “Either there’s disagreement in the administration, or there’s disorganization.”
The tariff announcement came one day after Mr. Trump hosted a bipartisan meeting on gun violence, where he endorsed an expansion of background checks and made supportive comments about several other proposals backed by Democrats.
“You saw it, right? It was wild,” Sen. John Thune (R., S.D.) said of the guns meeting. “The president’s going to have to narrow his list of issues he would like to see addressed and figure out what’s realistic.”
Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R., Texas), who sat next to the president at the meeting, said: “I would call that a brainstorming session. It wasn’t legislating 101.”
While many lawmakers said the passage of guns legislation would depend on the president keeping the pressure on Congress, Mr. Cornyn said it was up to lawmakers to decide what they want to send to Mr. Trump for his signature.
“That’s our job. The president’s job under the Constitution is to sign or veto legislation,” he said.
NRA spokeswoman Jennifer Coxe-Baker said the meeting “made for great TV” while the “gun control proposals discussed would make for bad policy.”
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http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/donald-trump-north-korea-steel-tax-gun-control-not-that-bad-a8247821.html
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Candice Owens, Kanye West, Denzel Washington, a number of black athletes who like Trump and a whole host of black conservative writers and commentators who favor liberty and free markets, when will this hit critical mass? As a group black women are liberal and black men are mostly non-political. You are off the plantation if you defy the group. Welfare rights and starving Granny, old Democratic lines keep people in line. But isn't getting off the plantation the goal? Law abiding blacks and family loving blacks and entrepreneurial and successful blacks have the needs and interests in individual liberties, national defense, safe neighborhoods, keeping what they earn and so on as white people.
In politics, it only takes a small move to make a large difference. If Republicans make inroads with successful blacks and more and more are getting successful, Democrats will have to compete on that basis too and compete for the so called white working people they are losing. Does anyone remember Bill Clinton reforming welfare and talking about the economic harm done by illegal immigration?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZ2kEJ4HFeM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZXbG5gvoC0
What force destroyed the family in inner city neighborhoods? Welfare, more than any other factor. Who does illegal immigration hurt most? Billionaires or working class blacks?
We see Dems making progress in off year elections in Trump districts, but they aren't doing that with Sanders, Ellison, Pelosi candidates or messages. Watch for more political shifting.
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https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/06/bet-founder-trump-economy-brings-black-workers-back-into-labor-force.html?__source=Facebook%7Cmain
BET founder: Trump's economy is bringing black workers back into the labor force
[Black Entertainment Television]
The growing U.S. economy and improving business environment is bringing black workers back into the labor force, BET founder Robert Johnson tells CNBC.
"When you look at that, you have to say something is going right," Johnson says.
BET founder: Trump's economy is bringing black workers back into the labor force BET founder: Trump's economy is bringing black workers back into the labor force
10:11 AM ET Fri, 6 April 2018 | 01:23
The growing U.S. economy and improving business environment is bringing black workers back into the labor force, BET founder Robert Johnson told CNBC on Friday.
Johnson is the nation's first black billionaire.
Who knew?
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http://www.dickmorris.com/sessions-slams-door-6-billion-slush-fund-ultra-left-groups-lunch-alert/?utm_source=dmreports&utm_medium=dmreports&utm_campaign=dmreports
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good point by Dick about the corruption of Obama Holder Lynn and Sessions shutting it down
I don't know about his pitch for slowing down our "death clock " though~ :lol:
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https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/may/05/trump-team-hired-spy-firm-dirty-ops-iran-nuclear-deal
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https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/05/21/trump-vs-the-deep-state?mbid=nl_Daily%20051418&CNDID=50142053&spMailingID=13505934&spUserID=MjAxODUyNTc2OTUwS0&spJobID=1401261124&spReportId=MTQwMTI2MTEyNAS2
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http://www.breitbart.com/big-journalism/2018/05/28/democrats-blame-trump-for-photo-children-separated-border-illegal-aliens/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=daily&utm_content=links&utm_campaign=20180528
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Steve Bannon was looking relatively healthy and IMHO was certainly on top of his game this morning on ABC. First rate performance.
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https://outline.com/cKxSk5
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http://www.dickmorris.com/huge-gains-for-trump-among-millennials-latinos-lunch-alert/?utm_source=dmreports&utm_medium=dmreports&utm_campaign=dmreports
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https://www.westernjournal.com/dick-morris-trumps-job-approval-rise-base/?utm_source=email&utm_medium=deepsix&utm_content=2018-07-25&utm_campaign=can
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https://www.dailywire.com/news/34569/new-poll-reveals-shocking-results-what-black-ryan-saavedra
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https://www.nationalreview.com/the-morning-jolt/another-alleged-witness-denies-seeing-or-hearing-what-kavanaughs-accuser-claimed/
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Well even if an NR writer for ONCE (Andrew McCarthy) can really call out the crats calling this whole thing fabricated "BS" then for God's sake cannot the Repubs over her to testify and if refused just vote him in?
I believe McConnell will get it done.
The rest better not cave but I am not confident.
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https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/oct/11/mike-pompeo-blasts-democrats-over-delay-and-obstru/?utm_source=Boomtrain&utm_medium=manual&utm_campaign=20171227&utm_term=newsletter&utm_content=morning&bt_ee=XNTYiEOjc%2B5RnidFkn1bAfP%2FlzHYN4JIO9WoklW6FVw%2F6HwDwYTuPTLltei3nqy8&bt_ts=1539340782955
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Jim Geraghty of NRO on Kanye West:
Kanye West wasn’t my cup of tea back in his “George Bush doesn’t care about black people” days, nor his “comparing himself to Jesus” days, nor his “Imma let you finish, but” Taylor Swift–interrupting days. I don’t really see why I should suddenly change my opinion on the guy just because he’s found a Republican president he likes. I have no doubt that the budding friendship between Donald Trump and Kanye West is genuine, though: They’re both egomaniacal narcissists with model wives who play the media like a fiddle, and as the saying goes, “game respects game.”
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Jim Geraghty of NRO on Kanye West:
Kanye West wasn’t my cup of tea back in his “George Bush doesn’t care about black people” days, nor his “comparing himself to Jesus” days, nor his “Imma let you finish, but” Taylor Swift–interrupting days. I don’t really see why I should suddenly change my opinion on the guy just because he’s found a Republican president he likes. I have no doubt that the budding friendship between Donald Trump and Kanye West is genuine, though: They’re both egomaniacal narcissists with model wives who play the media like a fiddle, and as the saying goes, “game respects game.”
Very well put.
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Flight attendants tell parents to put on their own air mask first before assisting their children.
Why?
Is it because the parents if is more valuable or important than the child? No. Of course not.
The reason, and everyone knows it, is that the parents need oxygen, strength, and full alertness to be able to effectively help the children.
This applies to "nationalism". America needs to be strong and healthy first in order to help others. A broken US is of no use to Honduras, Guatemala or anyone else.
For the individual or for a nation, if you don't take care of yourself first, you can't be of any help to your family, neighbors or anyone else.
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I'm thinking we need to develop two lists:
1) Dem/progressive/left/media incivility
2) Dem/progressive/left/media politic intimidation and violence
I'll get things started:
Incivility:
*Nazi
*racist
*1/3 of Dem congressman not showing up for inauguration
etc
*Mad Maxine
*Hillary's call for incivility
*Holder's "Kick them"
Intimidation and violence:
*1,000 Sandernistas crashing and shutting down Trump campaign rally in Chicago
*attacking Trump supporters outside rallies, e.g. in Arizona
*White powder to Don Jr. Trump's wife
*White powder to Mattis, Paul Ryan, and? (double check me on these please)
*Antifa (lets develop list of specific examples
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Second post
Unfortunately this drifts into some territory that I wish it wouldn't, but nonetheless the opening paragraphs are strong.
https://gellerreport.com/2018/10/fake-bombs-dem.html/
"Why are fake bombs sent to Democrats more shocking than real ricin packages to Republicans?
"Democrats have a history of rhetoric that glorifies and encourages political violence
By Christopher Buskirk, Spectator, October 26, 2018:
"Remember that time American media was consumed with news that the deadly poison ricin – contact with the skin can be deadly – was sent to President Trump, Republican Senator Ted Cruz, Defense Secretary James Mattis, and the Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral John Richardson? Remember all of the introspective opinion pieces wondering if attacks on the president had gone too far? Or if claiming that Republican policies kill people, might not be an incitement to violence?
"Me either. But who can remember all the way back to October 2?
"There are a few other differences between then and now. The target then was the president, his Secretary of Defense, a senior naval officer, and a Republican Senator. And then, wasn’t there more than an implication that Republicans have it coming? After all, Democrats routinely claim that Republicans are not just cruel but that, as Nancy Pelosi said ‘millions, hundreds of thousands will die’ if Republicans get their way. What stronger language is there than that? And if you believe it, then violence against Republicans becomes a justifiable – perhaps even heroic — act of self-defense.
"That was certainly the case when James Hodgkinson attempted the mass murder of Republican Congressmen and staffers playing softball last year sending Rep Steve Scalise and four others to the hospital. Hodgkinson was a volunteer for socialist Bernie Sanders who declared ‘It’s time to destroy Trump & Co.’ in one of many anti-Republicans social media posts. And CNN claimed in a laudatory profile that the violent left-wing paramilitary group Antifa ‘seeks peace through violence’ while its anchors Chris Cuomo and Don Lemon have both defended the group’s violent streak because, as Cuomo said, ‘fighting against hate matters.’ But such action is wrong not just for the obvious reasons, but because it is an attempt to appropriate more than one’s legitimate share of political influence. Every vote is supposed to count the same, but by physically imposing on an elected representative, agitators are trying increase their own power at the expense of their fellow citizens using fear rather than reason."
It goes downhill from here.
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* Rep Congressman being stabbed a few weeks ago
What was his name?
* Rep Congressman being sucker punched a few weeks ago
What was his name?
* Anti-free speech rioters on universities shutting down Ben Shapiro, Milo, Ann Coulter, Charles Murray, and many others
* Mass murder of police at Black Lives Matter rally in Dallas: A Black Lives Matter-sponsored shooting that happened in 2016.
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https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/protesters-assault-trump-supporters-eggs-bottles-punches-after-rally-n585096?fbclid=IwAR1HSUKk-ZaV__UQ_krjUDOB1LMNwLuxwlv4Bt_Ip31OmpTtvX6HCSzYxs8
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https://www.rawstory.com/2018/10/going-ugly-nyt-reporter-tells-cnn-trump-not-prepared-flood-dem-subpoenas/?fbclid=IwAR2BCV5aMbhrNAMv-vDITU7bJupbZXdAodTwC6JWfJIcprsDb2OIa4WCZnI
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From CD post above from NY slimes :
https://www.rawstory.com/2018/10/going-ugly-nyt-reporter-tells-cnn-trump-not-prepared-flood-dem-subpoenas/?fbclid=IwAR2BCV5aMbhrNAMv-vDITU7bJupbZXdAodTwC6JWfJIcprsDb2OIa4WCZnI
"subpoena powers to investigate multiple Trump White House scandals."
My question what SCANDALS ?
There are no "scandals".
we are talking the Russian hoax?
They are making things up.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=249&v=Awj93FVoRD
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second post
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second post
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=10&v=75a9Wa6KL7k
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Thanks for the catch.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/our-descent-into-vitriol-began-long-before-trump--and-democrats-are-culpable-too/2018/10/30/e5c1b6b6-dc51-11e8-85df-7a6b4d25cfbb_story.html?utm_term=.222516ad9902
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=131&v=_U21xq19kyA
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http://thefederalist.com/2018/11/07/incoming-democrat-chairman-dems-will-go-all-in-on-russia-impeach-kavanaugh-for-perjury/
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https://thehill.com/policy/finance/415642-maxine-waters-will-soon-wield-gavel-in-feud-with-white-house?userid=188403
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And what will Max do?
Everything she can to stifle growth and middle class benefits
and all the while saying she is leveling the playing fleld against the financial sector for the average "folks"
Should be a great opportunity to teach AMerica the craziness of her ways. But doubt the cans can get through the MSM blockade and propaganda
It would be good if Trump can do but not by calling her names but with the facts - doubtful.
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"Waters said she’s prioritizing efforts to expand affordable housing,
Whatever
"undo the Trump administration’s weakening of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
This could play very well and put Reps in the Scrooge role yet again
"snuff out predatory financial products
Again, the Scrooge role for Reps
"and bolster federal shelter support for struggling Americans."
The homeless? Tucker Carlson has been very articulate about looking our for homeless Americans over illegal aliens. Not impossible that this could play well for her.
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Though technically correct in its logic, the following article misses quite a bit when it comes to the emotions involved. The fact is that a real strong case can be made that the payday lenders on the whole are a nasty bunch of shits-- I remember seeing a John Oliver episode on this that I thought quite persuasive and which left me feeling quite angry.
Mad Maxine will make hay out of this.
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https://www.speroforum.com/a/TVLLLODXSX20/84253-Examples-of-lawlessness-in-the-Department-of-Justice?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=MRVQAHIDTV55&utm_content=TVLLLODXSX20&utm_source=commentary&utm_term=Examples+of+lawlessness+in+the+Department+of+Justice#.W-UcguJRfcs
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"Waters said she’s prioritizing efforts to expand affordable housing,
Whatever
...
Every government intervention lever either causes housing costs go up or incomes to go down.
To translate Leftist-speak to english, replace the word affordable with unaffordable.
What she is saying is that just like Democrats and healthcare she will 'prioritize' making Americans more dependent on government for housing.
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https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/midterm-election-results-breakdown/?fbclid=IwAR3VRH7Ye_ASJ07JrbGa3XbieVurBGllb49y9WP6etvY20NDEljRdJHcFQU
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Obama’s Judges Continue Thwarting Trump
By Andrew C. McCarthy
November 10, 2018 6:30 AM
President Obama at a White House press conference in 2016. (Carlos Barria/Reuters)
To the Lawyer Left, elections represent a policy choice only when Democrats win.
As I write on Friday, the restraining order hasn’t come down yet. But it’s just a matter of time. Some federal district judge, somewhere in the United States, will soon issue an injunction blocking enforcement of the Trump administration’s restrictions on asylum applications.
The restrictions come in the form of a rule promulgated jointly by the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security, and a proclamation issued by President Trump. In conjunction, they assert that an alien who wishes to apply for asylum in the United States must act lawfully: An alien who is physically present here and wishes to apply must be in the country legally; an alien outside the country who wishes to apply must present himself at a lawful port of entry — not attempt to smuggle his way in or force his way in as part of a horde (i.e., no invasions by caravan).
Of course, what used to be assumed is today deemed intolerable. It is no longer permitted to expect of non-Americans what is required of Americans — adherence to American law while on American soil.
Therefore, the fact that the administration’s action is entirely reasonable will not matter. No more will it matter that, contrary to numbing media repetition, the rule and proclamation derive from federal statutory law. Nor will it make any difference that, in part, the president is relying on the same sweeping congressional authorization based on which, just four months ago, the Supreme Court affirmed his authority to control the ingress of aliens based on his assessment of national-security needs.
Just two things will matter. The first is that the asylum restrictions represent a Trump policy that reverses Obama policies — specifically, policies of more lax border enforcement, and of ignoring congressionally authorized means of preventing illegal aliens from filing frivolous asylum petitions (with the result that many of them are released, evading further proceedings and deportation). The second is that, precisely to thwart the reversal of Obama policies, President Obama made certain that the vast majority of the 329 federal judges he appointed were progressive activists in the Obama mold.
The media-Democrat complex will tell you this is “the rule of law.” In reality, it is the rule of lawyers: the Lawyer Left on the front line of American decision-making, a line that runs through courtrooms, not Capitol Hill.
You can already hear the retort: Conservatives do the same thing — put conservative judges on the bench to dictate conservative results. Au contraire. Conservatives really do want the rule of law, as in the laws that Congress passes and the president signs. That is, we want the country run by accountable office holders who answer to us, whom we can remove if they make bad decisions. We are willing to live under laws we oppose, provided that we have a fair opportunity to repeal or amend them. To take an obvious constitutional-law example: Though we oppose abortion, we are not looking for robed right-wingers to “discover” a prohibition of abortion in, say, the due-process clause. We think it is a matter for legislation, primarily at the state level.
That is not what the Lawyer Left is doing. They talk a good game about “ground-up democracy,” but the actual goal is top-down control. Those judges — their judges — are in place to dictate policy outcomes, not to let democracy happen.
The people of the United States, through their elected representatives, have empowered the president to suspend or impose conditions on the ingress of aliens if he finds their entry would be “detrimental to the interests of the United States.” How can it be denied that the illegal entry of aliens — which patently undermines the rule of law — is detrimental? Yet, there is certain to be a race to be the first judge to issue a restraining order, to champion an imaginary right of aliens to seek asylum however they damn well please.
Just as the administration was readying the new asylum standards, a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit ruled that Trump is powerless to reverse Obama’s DACA policy (Delayed Action on Childhood Arrivals). You’ll be shocked, no doubt, to learn the panel’s composition: two Obama judges and one Clinton judge who was on Obama’s short list for elevation to the Supreme Court.
DACA effectively amended deportation law, a presidential usurpation of legislative power. Obama imposed it unilaterally despite several times conceding that he lacked the authority to do so. (If you don’t remember, my friend Hans von Spakovsky reminds you here.) But the judges are enshrining it nonetheless. Mind you, DACA is not even a regulation, much less a law (indeed, Congress declined to enact such a law). Obama decreed it by having his homeland-security secretary issue a policy memo.
Yet the judges would have you think it was engraved on tablets pried from the Ark of the Covenant. The court’s opinion often reads like a bad novel — as if jurisprudence has become Sonia Sotomayor’s world, and we’re just empathizing in it. Otherwise, it reads like a policy memo that borrows liberally from Obama’s policy memo. Bottom line: The Ninth Circuit says Trump did not provide a good enough explanation for changing Obama’s policy.
Do you suppose there would ever be a good enough explanation for the Ninth Circuit?
On the same day, an Obama judge in Montana issued an injunction blocking the Keystone Pipeline. This toed the Obama line, the former president having halted construction of the pipeline — which would transport oil from Canada to Nebraska — in obeisance to his green base and as an exhibition of American global leadership on climate change.
Trump ran against these policies in his presidential bid. He sought to convince the public that the promotion of economic development was essential to national prosperity and would not harm the environment. He urged voters that Obama’s conception of global leadership was to preen while developing countries ignored his greenhouse-gasbaggery and developed countries made commitments that were “aspirational” (translation: economically ruinous) and that they had no intention of trying to keep.
You may have been under the impression that Trump won the election, and that choosing among competing policies is what elections are about. That is how it is supposed to work in our free, constitutional republic. But day by day, the space for free choice is shrinking. To the Lawyer Left, elections represent a policy choice only when Democrats win. The rest of the time, the courts are there to consolidate the Left’s gains, to repel democratically driven policy shifts.
Like his colleagues on the Ninth Circuit, the Obama judge in Montana says Trump did not provide a good enough explanation for changing Obama’s policy. The administration is weighing an appeal. Did I mention that appeals from the District of Montana go to the Ninth Circuit?
Comments
The Trump administration has done a great job filling vacancies on the federal appellate courts, but there are still eleven slots open, and 111 open seats on the district courts. There is not going to be much legislating done with Democrats now controlling the House. So let’s use the time wisely. The Republican-controlled Senate, having increased its majority, must prioritize the conveyor-belt confirmation of Trump nominees.
If the courts are to be prevented from dictating an ideological agenda, rather than allowing the nation to govern itself, rule-of-law judges must be installed. If not, you can elect Republican presidents to govern, but you’ll be ruled by the Lawyer Left.
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We are watching the country die right in front of us.
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Only if we give up!
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From September 1:
https://reason.org/policy-brief/forest-fires-management-reform/?fbclid=IwAR23A9DAAKD9AzkkCXKhKRPg-azuVeE9VcY6F12LYM6zQpbvI4jSq1ONEOs
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https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/417140-rise-of-big-cities-push-texas-to-swing-state-territory-maybe-by-2020
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https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/417232-dem-gains-put-sunbelt-in-play-for-2020?userid=188403
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https://www.dailysignal.com/2018/11/14/election-results-point-to-a-political-change-occurring-among-black-young-adults/?utm_source=TDS_Email&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Top5&mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiTW1WbU5XUTVPVE5sT1RoayIsInQiOiJEQkdlRE5RaWtUU0VcL0h3T1wvMHlQVyt6cXFHQVRWblwvZXlLaHlSaDVrekNEZithSnQ2ejdqYldMdFlMM0hPUGxiT3FNNDhFb1wvTkxWVjhiWmtHZ25jd0o2S3ZrSlE1ek45aWIycmdDNkdwY01FaitoVWkydnBPWDlMYkk2ZGdhUVwvIn0%3D
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Will he be like General Grant / Patton Jackson or like the gutless phony George B. McClellan?
https://www.conservativereview.com/news/schumer-and-pelosi-play-hardball-with-republicans/
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Macron’s Warning to America’s Ascendant Left
The French president thought he could steamroll the rural minority on fuel taxes. Riots ensued.
384 Comments
By Joseph C. Sternberg
Dec. 6, 2018 6:34 p.m. ET
French President Emmanuel Macron speaks in Paris, Nov. 21.
French President Emmanuel Macron speaks in Paris, Nov. 21. Photo: pool new/Reuters
The most common explanation for France’s gilets jaunes protests against fuel-tax hikes is that they arise from too little democracy. Lower-income and rural citizens feel left behind by President Emmanuel Macron’s aggressive economic reform agenda, which ignores their interests and benefits an urban elite. The opposite is true. The protests are happening because France has too much democracy. What it’s lacking is politics.
Mr. Macron’s political movement was born of the notion that France needed to become more democratic. As a young technocrat-in-training and junior government minister, he became convinced that special interests within the traditional parties obstructed national progress.
As Economist correspondent Sophie Pedder notes in her illuminating biography of the president, the premise is that as a numerical matter there are enough actual or potential winners from economic reform and globalization that a leader could cull those voters from the old parties and unite them under a new banner. It would then be possible to steamroll minority opposition.
Which is precisely what Mr. Macron did. It helped that his rise came in an era when French politics was becoming steadily more democratic overall.
A 2000 constitutional amendment shortened the presidential term to five years from seven—explicitly to align the presidential and legislative election calendars. This amplifies a president’s mandate (already bolstered by a runoff voting system meant to exaggerate electoral support for the eventual winner) by reducing the risk that he might have to “cohabit” with a National Assembly controlled by the opposing party. Mainstream parties have adopted the U.S. style of intraparty primary campaigning, allowing party members to pick who leads them into general elections.
The inexorable logic of all this democratization: If the rural, low-income yellow-vest protesters feel left behind, well, leave them behind. Christophe Guilluy, the geographer who coined the phrase “peripheral France” to describe this segment of the population, estimates it at about 60%. But there’s reason to suspect that’s an overcount. Most conspicuously, the far-right National Front that everyone thinks is the natural home for peripheral voters keeps losing. Marine Le Pen, the party’s presidential candidate last year, scored only 21% in the first round and 34% in the runoff against Mr. Macron.
Similar “peripheral” movements elsewhere, from the Sweden Democrats to the Alternative for Germany, also have discovered there’s a limit to their support somewhere short of one-third of the electorate. Not even Donald Trump represents a full victory of the periphery, having run two percentage points behind Hillary Clinton in the nationwide popular vote.
Yet peripheral voters still are a substantial minority. And the widespread rioting in France shows the dangers of allowing a healthy dose of democracy to transmogrify into a brutal majoritarianism. Majority rule has its place, but it’s no way to knit together a diverse society.
Those special interests Mr. Macron derided turn out to have provided ballast. A center-right Republican Party under its failed 2017 candidate, François Fillon, would have effected some labor-law and civil-service reforms for which there is now broad support, but that party’s rural base would have precluded the green-energy follies that are sinking Mr. Macron.
The other word for this is “politics,” whose practitioners delicately trade interests and strike compromises to make majority rule more palatable to the minority. Having eschewed this form of politics, and lacking any formal way to account for peripheral concerns in a constitutional system that mercilessly rewards majority rule, Mr. Macron can only flail. The fuel tax that started this mess is on hold. So may be other parts of his agenda, some of which could have enjoyed more durable support.
Do America’s coastal Democrats get the message? They believe they represent an ascendant majority, and election results in recent years suggest they may be right for now. One can sympathize with their frustration that America’s complex federal system doesn’t automatically translate an electoral majority into power where it counts in Congress or the White House. This frustration increasingly leads to rhetorical attacks on the Constitution, whose mechanisms—especially the Senate and the Electoral College—block majoritarianism and make it impossible for progressives to govern from their demographic strongholds on the coasts.
The lesson from France is that restraints on majority rule are a good thing. Democrats would do better to focus on the practice of politics rather than on constitutional re-engineering. Mr. Macron is discovering that those politicians who live by strict majoritarianism can die by the social unrest it triggers. So can their agendas.
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https://www.thelibertyeagle.com/martin-luther-kings-daughter-writes-letter-to-support-trump/?fbclid=IwAR3HSIkT8ZATNq3HuRb16pcyR-gzrk4Cy8cTz_9FI-sYov1b17uAP4oamhU
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https://www.cnsnews.com/blog/craig-bannister/hispanic-approval-trump-surges-50-employment-sets-record
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https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/native-american-activist-nathan-phillips-has-violent-criminal-record-and-escaped-from-jail-as-teenager?fbclid=IwAR0ShOpBH3sUBe2sbsBtnbL_F4XZrM2hrSSP7CFBVz0i2qtTKmW3mrscMyg
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Weak deal on judges?
https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-bad-judges-deal-11548807717
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https://dailycaller.com/2019/01/30/trump-blames-paul-ryan-wall-funding/?utm_medium=email
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Judicial Scramble Drill
The White House walks away from a bad deal but harms a good nominee.
50 Comments
By The Editorial Board
Jan. 31, 2019 7:13 p.m. ET
Our editorial Wednesday on White House negotiations with California Democrats over judicial nominees struck a nerve, and it’s good to know we get results. The Trump Team appears to have backed off this bad idea, though not without treating one nominee as collateral damage.
Potomac Watch Podcast
The White House Considers Concessions
On Wednesday evening the White House announced more judicial selections, including two of the three Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals nominees who were originally nominated last year but went missing from a renominations list earlier in January. The rushed release was damage control after our reporting that the White House counsel’s office had withheld the names while negotiating over nominees with Senators Dianne Feinstein and Kamala Harris.
Kenneth Lee and Daniel Collins have now been renominated for seats on the Ninth Circuit, and both are lawyers in private practice who have considerable government experience. The White House also nominated Daniel Bress, an appellate lawyer and former clerk for Antonin Scalia, to the Ninth Circuit.
Mr. Bress is certainly qualified, but he replaces Patrick Bumatay, who was nominated to the Ninth Circuit last year but this time was nominated for the federal district court. District judges typically handle trials, while circuit judges handle appeals and constitutional claims. Appellate judges are also the bench from which Supreme Court nominees are often selected.
The 40-year-old gay Filipino-American was the prime target of Ms. Feinstein and Ms. Harris, and this White House concession makes no sense. Mr. Bumatay may now be years away from a circuit-court seat if he ever wins one. Worse, the White House has lent credence to the specious Democratic claims that he isn’t qualified.
Mr. Bumatay’s demotion won no goodwill from Ms. Feinstein, who denounced the appointments. She seems especially upset that our editorial exposed her White House parley. Some on the right are taking White House dictation that this wasn’t a real threat, but they need better sources.
Ms. Feinstein says she merely wants a deal like the one Senators Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth negotiated on Illinois nominees for the Seventh Circuit. Yet Mr. Durbin negotiated promptly and in good faith, while Ms. Feinstein and Ms. Harris are best known for their starring roles in trying to destroy Brett Kavanaugh. If she wants the courtesy of being consulted about home-state nominees, she should stop taking rote orders from the political left.
At least the White House avoided a disastrous deal with liberal Senators. But the episode shows that the new White House judicial shop isn’t up to cruising speed. New White House counsel Pat Cipollone doesn’t need to reinvent an operation that worked better than anything else in the Administration. If Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg retires, there won’t be room for amateur mistakes in what would be a ferocious confirmation fight.
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https://www.nationalreview.com/news/national-organization-for-women-calls-on-justin-fairfax-to-resign/
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(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DyqpRJeV4AAgs2G.jpg)
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https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2019/03/04/39488457/king-county-among-the-least-politically-tolerant-communities-in-the-us?fbclid=IwAR3V_E20hGiRWN0eTF6yJPgJIg4xI-TKsB6r9xrCw2xERzSriELfO64casw
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Second place was Miami. This means the powers believe states like Wisconsin, 86% white, are more likely pickup than states like Florida, much more diverse. Milwaukee is more black and Miami more Hispanic. Third place Houston dropped like a bad habit, meaning Texas is again not.in.play. Interesting. https://www.tmj4.com/news/local-news/milwaukee-selected-to-host-2020-democratic-national-convention
Republicans 2008 picked St. Paul and lost MN by double digits. Then picked Florida and Ohio, 2012, 2016. "Republicans are set to gather in Charlotte, the largest city in battleground North Carolina, on Aug. 24-27, 2020."
The 2020 Dem convention could turn into a food fight, understatement alert, see DNC Chicago 1968. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tv0rI-5ycBU
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even more obnoxious is the Dems having unlimited airtime to market their candidates on CNN
what her face gabby on last hs is a love fest softball show.
Then all the debates on msm networks.
'
As for GM's post 2posts prior to this,
Even after RPG is gone they will have a look alike Hollywood "actor" (the word 'actress" I noticed seems to have been dropped from the English language as even the women are now called actORS) playing "RPG" till Trump is out:
https://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/magazine/00000153-3e1f-d365-a5d3-3f5f4a300000
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https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/mar/17/donald-trumps-approval-rating-stays-after-state-un/?utm_source=Boomtrain&utm_medium=manual&utm_campaign=20171227&utm_term=newsletter&utm_content=morning&bt_ee=GEwQrgRQLBkyOTMgWOw4xkyWSUkV7AGAm0xd8uExKqKKIUiSN3qgkEuq6TWNYagn&bt_ts=1552911937296
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A moderate Democrat friend brought up to me the anger he feels at that the new extreme taking his party leftward.
The party is split. 37% of Dems support Green New Deal (new Fox poll), 31% support reparations, whatever that means and similar for other extreme positions of the Left. Two thirds of Democrats roughly oppose those.
If the far Left wins the nomination, they will lose votes from traditional Democrats. If a moderate centrist type candidate starts to win the Democratic nomination by running against the extreme, there will be civil war on the Left.
In 2016, the more centrist candidate won by cheating and by adopting the positions of the far Left challenger and Bernie stepped aside and was bought off gracefully avoiding that fight. 2020 will be different.
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The split in a party reminds me that to convert someone in politics is worth two points. One point for leaving a party and one if they join the other.
These days we are seeing only one point conversions. There are Democrats who won't vote socialism or Green New Deal but will also not vote for Trump, and there are Republicans who won't support Trump but will not convert to Democrat.
The far Left is partially backfiring with in your face rhetoric and proposals, energizing some while chasing away others. Common sense conservative constitutional, limited government views are mostly unspoken, converting no one and hoping young people live long enough to find their way there on their own.
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https://www.nationalreview.com/news/michael-avenatti-indicted-by-federal-prosecutors-on-extortion-fraud-charges/
What a small world!
https://www.theblaze.com/news/lawyer-who-represented-jussie-smollett-colin-kaepernick-named-co-conspirator-in-avenatti-charges?utm_content=buffer4d554&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=glennbeck&fbclid=IwAR3Q1EquxGXQeu9X5DQ5gnFQYJIXyLWoVohZsSI-ab_1riaCSYb4g9A_rYc
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https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/273133/dear-jewish-american-leftists-its-time-talk-valerie-sobel?fbclid=IwAR1NQe5h1jIwISNn3tbEoLPhk4mO4XZe_0L7Udl57MvoSc2I9_S6HeqLVAU
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religion in America :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_and_religion#/media/File:Income_Ranking_by_Religious_Group_-_2000.png
Yet they bash the country they have done so well in .
They promote their party of race gender cultural politics and want open borders to destroy the USA for their beloved Democrat Party
They think that voting for crats and running around telling everyone they are "for the poor" excuses them of any guilt about their success and makes them more virtuous than the Conservatives and thus BETTER than us.
They are wrong. But don't expect anyone of them to admit it.
Got to remember something else about us Jews - we are very stubborn.
And anyone disputes this just look at so many Jews, who despite 2 yrs of harassing Trump are still leading the charge against Trump - Cohen of Tennessee , Shifty Schiff, fat Nads, and the "Berg" less Zucker fucker , (as well as the "berged" Zucker too) and so many others including the Jews involved in the get Trump crew from SDNY.
I Thank God everyday for Levin the Horowitz and the Charens and others.
( and CD )
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"Maybe the time frame to just speak up is a little more lenient than to press charges but not decades or generations."
We were talking Biden but how about Lt Gov Justin Fairfax in Virginia? The first charge I think is from early 2000s. She spoke up because somebody else had the same thing happen to her; we are talking rape, date or acquaintance rape. Seems really credible to me: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/justin-fairfax-accuser-meredith-watson-says-he-targeted-her-because-she-was-allegedly-assaulted-before/ It's too old to prosecute, so what do you do, ignore it? If you are the news crew? Don't take this story, don't hear her out, don't broadcast it? Or let her story out if you find it credible and let the public sort it out?
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is like the Kardashians
shoved in our faces , like it or not , every day
I wish they would all go away for good.
Who cares about any of them.
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https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2019/04/09/watch-maxine-waters-battles-steven-mnuchin-this-is-a-new-way-i-have-the-gavel/
I take it they will not be on each other's holiday card list.
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https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2019/04/09/watch-maxine-waters-battles-steven-mnuchin-this-is-a-new-way-i-have-the-gavel/
I take it they will not be on each other's holiday card list.
In my moderate suburban congressional district that flipped like the House, people didn't care that a vote for their Democratic moderate business owner, non-flame thrower candidate was a vote for vote for making Maxine Waters chair of the Financial Services Committee and Ocasio-Cortez spokesperson for the house. In the political minority, the extremist Leftists in the House were far less relevant. Elections have consequences and so did the Republican legislative failures and perceived failures of the previous two years.
Isn't it interesting that the Trump cabinet member is the sane and responsible one with experience and wisdom, and the most powerful people in the opposition are the nut cases. Assuming the prestigious mainstream news organizations had it right, shouldn't it be the other way around?
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Trump recently labeled himself a "nationalist" in contrast with being a "globalist" and 'mainstream' 'journalists' cringed like he doesn't know the history of nationalism - meaning Nazism.
Candace Owens made a point yesterday that Hitler was not a nationalist.
Besides having Socialist in their name like the USSR, and Big Government as their enforcement mechanism, like the Left and opposite of our deregulation President pursuing greater individual and economic freedoms, Hitler was most certainly a one-world globalist. WWII was not a fight about the world attacking Germany's internal nationalism.
Trump wants to bring us home from foreign conflicts, Afghan, Iraq, Syria, for example. No one called Hitler an isolationist. Bad analogy. Over his dead body was when troops were called home.
Ironically it is the Leftist Climatistas that are explicitly in pursuit of having one world governance and having their policies govern the world along with the coercion to enforce it.
When the Left accuses, most often they are projecting.
Without mass murder or genocide, no one should be called a Nazi. The Left has no concentration camps for opponents. But the leading edge of the Left is jailing their capitalists, the American Left sides with him still, and our rivals in the UN, Russia and China rush in to globalize the crisis.
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/energy/article/Citgo-executives-arrested-by-Maduro-forgotten-13575337.php
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"When the Left accuses, most often they are projecting. "
THIS!
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which has to piss zucker and mob off:
https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/20/politics/cnn-poll-impeachment-trump-russia/index.html
They are waiting and furiously trying to get the numbers up.
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" Schiff told "This Week" co-anchor Martha Raddatz the decision whether to begin proceedings to impeach President Donald Trump will be made based on the "best interests of the country."
"https://www.yahoo.com/gma/congressional-dems-may-impeachment-wake-mueller-report-adam-131757805--abc-news-topstories.html
aka : we're polling up our wazoos to see if we can get away with impeachment proceedings or to see if it would backfire on our mob.
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https://bigleaguepolitics.com/justin-amashs-business-interests-in-china-underscore-his-push-to-impeach-trump/
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****https://bigleaguepolitics.com/justin-amashs-business-interests-in-china-underscore-his-push-to-impeach-trump/****
wow.
just nothing is as it seems is it?
I was shocked to see he has a 90% Liberty score on Levin's conservative review
that is better than nearly everyone else
so coming out against Trump who has been the only fighting for the Right is a surprise
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Some of the hard right takes a hard stance against tariffs , , , especially when the tariffs hit in one's own wallet.
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Some of the hard right takes a hard stance against tariffs , , , especially when the tariffs hit in one's own wallet.
True, but plenty of people who are hit in the wallet support the strategy. These tariffs are part of a strategy aimed at achieving zero tariffs, both ways, and it works only if the country stands behind it.
Notice that the Democrat candidates aren't criticizing Trump for getting tough with China. They criticize his style not his substance on this. Plenty of independents and Democrats support his trade policy, cf. 304 electoral votes including Wisc, Pa and Mich.
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It was just an observation on his 90% liberty score with Lavin.
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https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/446347-trumps-approval-rating-hits-highest-point-in-two-years
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https://bigleaguepolitics.com/watch-donald-trump-predicts-justice-for-jeffrey-epstein-at-cpac-2015/
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/07/08/lanny-davis-goes-to-bat-for-bill-clinton-as-epstein-case-heats-up/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=daily&utm_campaign=20190708
Hat tip CCP:
https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/guess-whose-daughter-is-reportedly-a-prosecutor-in-jeffrey-epstein-case/
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Trump and the Sex Offender
Guess why the press makes a villain out of Jeffrey Epstein’s only successful prosecutor?
By Holman W. Jenkins, Jr.
July 9, 2019 6:59 pm ET
Demonstrators protest Jeffrey Epstein in New York, July 8. Photo: shannon stapleton/Reuters
Anybody who has read about Jeffrey Epstein in the past dozen years would come away with the same impression Mr. Epstein apparently had about himself. The guy will soon be back in jail.
In his luxurious Manhattan townhouse, he reportedly commissioned a mural of himself at the center of a prison yard. According to the New York Times, he told a recent visitor, “That’s me, and I had this painted because there is always the possibility that could be me again.’’
Mr. Epstein is back in a holding cell, under indictment by a U.S. attorney in New York. He will have his day in court. Presumably we will find out whether the evidence against the hedge-fund impresario for sexually abusing numerous underage girls in the early 2000s is as strong as it seems.
But one element of the story should give us pause, and that’s the seemingly concerted effort by the press to make a secondary villain out of the only prosecutor who succeeded in holding Mr. Epstein accountable till now because, 12 years later, that prosecutor is Donald Trump’s labor secretary.
A much-cited story in the Miami Herald last November is headlined “How a future Trump Cabinet member gave a serial sex abuser the deal of a lifetime.” The paper thereby invokes a previously unknown form of retroactive quantum action at a distance, since Alexander Acosta’s actions as a U.S. attorney in Florida in 2007 could not have been premised on Mr. Trump being president a decade later.
The headline is also misleading. In fact, the Herald’s 5,000-word exposé tells us very little about the reasons and circumstances behind the 2008 plea deal in which Mr. Epstein agreed to plead guilty to two felonies, serve an 18-month jail sentence, pay restitution to certain victims, and accept designation for life as a registered sex offender.
Instead, the paper tells us what its own sources are willing to say now about Mr. Epstein more than a decade after the prosecution. What a newspaper can report in 2018 and what a prosecutor can prove in 2007 are two very different things. A fact the Herald also should have made plain: It was precisely Mr. Epstein’s conviction at the hands of Mr. Acosta that helped fuel the filing of civil lawsuits and emergence of newly declared victims that became the basis for the Herald’s own reporting.
Making an even bigger joke of the paper’s positioning of Mr. Acosta as Mr. Epstein’s protector is this glaring fact: It wasn’t Mr. Acosta but New York County’s district attorney—a member of the city’s ruling Democratic elite, with the illustrious name of Cyrus Vance Jr.—who in 2011 sought to undo Mr. Acosta’s work by relieving Mr. Epstein of his Level 3 sex offender status in New York state.
But then Mr. Vance is not a member of the Trump administration.
Maybe none of the prosecutors involved in this matter belong in the pantheon, but Mr. Acosta convicted Mr. Epstein and ended his depredations. Ninety-seven percent of federal prosecutions end in plea deals. The Herald tells us almost nothing about why this one did as well, except to note in passing that Mr. Vance later argued before a New York judge that Mr. Epstein’s “underage victims failed to cooperate in the [Florida] case.”
In fact, our best information right now comes from a three-page letter Mr. Acosta himself wrote to the Daily Beast in 2011. He described how his office was recruited into an already-existing prosecution by Palm Beach police who feared their state prosecutor intended to let Mr. Epstein off with probation. Mr. Acosta’s role was hindered by the need to find a federal crime to charge. He also had to show deference to Florida. Mr. Epstein’s well-connected legal team—including Alan Dershowitz and Kenneth Starr—kept appealing over his head to Washington. It sought dirt on Mr. Acosta’s staff in hopes of disqualifying key underlings from the case. He fretted about a drawn-out prosecution in which Mr. Epstein would walk free. He had no role in Florida’s subsequent decision to let Mr. Epstein out of jail six days a week to continue his business. Mr. Acosta also says that with the witnesses who subsequently have come forward, he could have made a stronger case.
The outcome may not have been deeply satisfying, but Mr. Acosta persevered to a conviction despite Mr. Epstein’s deep pockets and his constantly invoked list of powerful “friends,” including Bill Clinton, Prince Andrew and Donald Trump (though it was Mr. Trump who, in typically Trumpian fashion, raised an eyebrow as early as 2002 with a comment to New York magazine about the apparent youth of Mr. Epstein’s girlfriends).
It also bears asking: Would the Herald even have invested in reporting the Epstein story if it couldn’t also have flounced up an anti-Trump angle?
Yes, it’s been rough couple of decades for the newspaper business. At the kindest, the Herald should have had the confidence to rest its claim to public attention on what it had to reveal about Mr. Epstein’s behavior rather than trying so pathetically to annex its reporting to an au courant anti-Trump narrative.
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https://michaelsavage.com/podcast-a-tweet-too-far/
he is right :
what happened to the arrests last wknd of illegals?
died without a peep.
and yes, Trumps impulsiveness makes for another political blunder
liberal Jews helped Omar get elected ? hopefully they will vote otherwise next time around.
and speculates the Indian Nationalist is behind AOC feeding her the talking points.
I speculate he is only one - of many radical Democrat liberals telling her things to say and how to say them.
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liberal jews still play they are above it all and call Trump racist:
https://www.jpost.com/American-Politics/How-Jews-have-reacted-to-Trumps-tweet-targeting-Democratic-congresswomen-595783
so they may vote her back in because they are stubborn in their self perceived virtuosity .
my opinion
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https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/07/no-one-really-wants-to-send-her-back/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=WIR%20-%20Sunday%202019-07-21&utm_term=WIR-Smart
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https://www.theblaze.com/news/bernie-sanders-calls-trumps-baltimore-criticisms-racist-but-heres-what-sanders-said-about-the-city-just-a-few-years-ago?utm_content=buffer65bc7&utm_medium=organic&utm_source=facebook&utm_campaign=fb-glennbeck&fbclid=IwAR3yx-rF89mUlrLFiVGUxCjwytkBInplnJUolm4KDOQkLR8xSP_Pchw0JfA
https://www.theblaze.com/news/baltimore-resident-reveals-how-locals-really-feel-about-elijah-cummings-with-scathing-honesty?utm_content=bufferd292e&utm_medium=organic&utm_source=facebook&utm_campaign=fb-theblaze&fbclid=IwAR0f7ujvoE7h0LzKs4Lj57dWWaqqgbpTd2BD5Mt_hOO5cFpiyXnfG2UjRS0
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https://nypost.com/2019/07/22/baltimores-new-deputy-police-commissioner-gets-mugged-at-gunpoint/?fbclid=IwAR1qfjezi2WT_4VSAQUfkijL03pMmTgtD8eJd8rdHRHIbzizU8b4QiTs1b8
https://www.baltimoresun.com/entertainment/movies/bs-fe-rat-film-20180226-story.html?fbclid=IwAR0Hty0k9RQsMD3dYg4jWwacV_pZr8GnRiZSo2wWehfy-6ybj2i9NPq0qR4
https://www.theblaze.com/news/political-strategist-who-shared-video-and-photos-of-deplorable-conditions-in-baltimore-is-being-targeted-for-harassment-by-the-press
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https://nypost.com/2019/07/22/baltimores-new-deputy-police-commissioner-gets-mugged-at-gunpoint/?fbclid=IwAR1qfjezi2WT_4VSAQUfkijL03pMmTgtD8eJd8rdHRHIbzizU8b4QiTs1b8
https://www.baltimoresun.com/entertainment/movies/bs-fe-rat-film-20180226-story.html?fbclid=IwAR0Hty0k9RQsMD3dYg4jWwacV_pZr8GnRiZSo2wWehfy-6ybj2i9NPq0qR4
https://www.theblaze.com/news/political-strategist-who-shared-video-and-photos-of-deplorable-conditions-in-baltimore-is-being-targeted-for-harassment-by-the-press
edited to add
https://gellerreport.com/2019/07/trump-calls4-cumming-investigation.html/
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https://www.yahoo.com/news/both-democrats-republicans-call-unacceptable-092409267.html
I had gone down to Baltimore 2.5 hr drive few times past 2 yrs for conventions.
Driving to the convention center and once to Hopkins for infectious disease conference.
One section I had to drive through did look a bit like some poor areas in Rio.
People were helpful when I had to ask for directions.
I don't have GPS - I don't want to be followed by music thieves.
It is no what Trump means when he makes his tweets. It is how he says it.
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https://www.yahoo.com/news/both-democrats-republicans-call-unacceptable-092409267.html
I had gone down to Baltimore 2.5 hr drive few times past 2 yrs for conventions.
Driving to the convention center and once to Hopkins for infectious disease conference.
One section I had to drive through did look a bit like some poor areas in Rio.
People were helpful when I had to ask for directions.
I don't have GPS - I don't want to be followed by music thieves.
It is no what Trump means when he makes his tweets. It is how he says it.
I've been railing for a long time about America's inner city, see urban issues thread. The President has his own indelicate way of putting things but kudos to him for drawing attention to what most people know but don't see.
Like Minneapolis, Baltimore has the best there is with companies and institutions like T. Rowe Price and Johns Hopkins, and they have the worst with what Bernie Sanders called a third world country.
The causes and solutions are the heart of the differences in politics in this country. Democrats run these places and keep proposing more of the same. Take what caused these problems and double, quadruple and octuple down on those strategies. If it involves welfare, free sh*t anything else that undermines work ethic and free enterprise, Democrats are for it. What makes conditions worse makes demand for their political positions greater. Republicans on the other hand believe in these people. They believe that even people of the inner city and 'people of color' are capable of lifting themselves up in a national rising tide with hard work, good schools, strong families, individual freedom and individual responsibility.
The more we dive into the facts, the more they lose. Trump policies took the black and Hispanic unemployment rates to record lows - without targeting race, color or congressional district, while Democratic policies make things worse everywhere from west Baltimore to Venezuela.
If this is the fight, let's engage.
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" .Like Minneapolis, Baltimore has the best there is with companies and institutions like T. Rowe Price and Johns Hopkins, and they have the worst with what Bernie Sanders called a third world country.
The causes and solutions are the heart of the differences in politics in this country. Democrats run these places and keep proposing more of the same. Take what caused these problems and double, quadruple and octuple down on those strategies. If it involves welfare, free sh*t anything else that undermines work ethic and free enterprise, Democrats are for it. What makes conditions worse makes demand for their political positions greater. Republicans on the other hand believe in these people. They believe that even people of the inner city and 'people of color' are capable of lifting themselves up in a national rising tide with hard work, good schools, strong families, individual freedom and individual responsibility.
The more we dive into the facts, the more they lose. Trump policies took the black and Hispanic unemployment rates to record lows - without targeting race, color or congressional district, while Democratic policies make things worse everywhere from west Baltimore to Venezuela."
WHAT IF TRUMP TWEETED THIS ! INSTEAD OF CALLING BALTIMORE A RAT INFESTED (SHITHOLE)
NOW THAT WOULD "F" the LEFT more than giving them headline ammo for the free shit crowd!
IT is not what Trump implies it is HOW he blurts it out in impulsive anger that is so "unpresidential " (if you will)
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1) When I did a seminar in Baltimore area a few years back the big local story was about a black prison gang running the prison-- including its leader fathering children with women corrections officers!
2) Remember what the black community and the local power structure revealed about themselves in the riots over the case wherein a black drug dealer died in police custody
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https://www.dailywire.com/news/49996/democrat-baltimore-mayor-caught-camera-complaining-ryan-saavedra?utm_medium=email&utm_content=072919-news&utm_campaign=position1
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https://www.cnsnews.com/blog/craig-bannister/rat-photo-bombs-reporters-live-coverage-baltimores-decay?utm_source=sumome&utm_medium=facebook&utm_campaign=sumome_share
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Your racist eyes are obviously hallucinating rats!
#howmanyfingerswinston
https://www.cnsnews.com/blog/craig-bannister/rat-photo-bombs-reporters-live-coverage-baltimores-decay?utm_source=sumome&utm_medium=facebook&utm_campaign=sumome_share
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Let's look up the Black Guerilla Family running the prison/jail in Baltimore. Some amazing stuff will be found.
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Let's look up the Black Guerilla Family running the prison/jail in Baltimore. Some amazing stuff will be found.
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/exm9q7/the-illicit-ventures-of-the-black-guerrilla-family-in-the-maryland-prison-system-1208
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https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/07/27/2020-democrats-economy-rust-belt-227484
Worthy of reading and studying, I'm not liking or necessarily agreeing with this but he makes a point backed up with data and examples.
The more that entrepreneur capitalism succeeds, the more people think we can turn away from it and toward socialism to take care of those left behind - and give them more of the system that left them behind.
WE HAVE A MESSAGING PROBLEM WITH THESE VOTERS. Maybe Trump can overcome that where almost no other Republican has.
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The problem is the leftist indoctrination system in this country.
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/07/27/2020-democrats-economy-rust-belt-227484
Worthy of reading and studying, I'm not liking or necessarily agreeing with this but he makes a point backed up with data and examples.
The more that entrepreneur capitalism succeeds, the more people think we can turn away from it and toward socialism to take care of those left behind - and give them more of the system that left them behind.
WE HAVE A MESSAGING PROBLEM WITH THESE VOTERS. Maybe Trump can overcome that where almost no other Republican has.
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" .WE HAVE A MESSAGING PROBLEM WITH THESE VOTERS"
Yes and its called the Main Stream Media
which attacks Trump and Republicans 24 /7 from every conceivable angle real or imagined
and now with the trade war with China we will have the WSJ and its hordes bashing Trump as well
does anyone have a better way to take on the Red Chinese?
I expect we will lose because Americans will not have the resolve to see this through.
I would love to be wrong.
This is not self inflicted
this is fighting the Red Chinese back.
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quote author=ccp
"Yes [messaging problem] and its called the Main Stream Media ..."
And we allow them to still be the "mainstream media" which they are not and answer back with only one voice, Trump's twitter feed.
"does anyone have a better way to take on the Red Chinese?"
As you allude, partner up with the Democrats on this. Russia and China should be pulling us together, not splitting the country and the resolve.
I have not followed all the questions and answers of the debates but don't Democrats have to admit that we break down these barriers with the Chinese ONLY if we pull together as a nation under what happens to be the Trump strategy? Can't a Democrat say, 'Trump is right in this one case, I will finish what he started', and still win the Presidency?
"Our differences end at the water's edge." My God is that an outdated phrase!
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The left only sees traditional Americans as the enemy.
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"Can't a Democrat say, 'Trump is right in this one case, I will finish what he started', and still win the Presidency? "
Doug please don't hold your breath on this - we need your voice .
Even the Dems who aren't Ainos *
are Democrats first , then , Americans.
* DougMacG: Dogbrothers Forum, reply 1035; 10:27.20 am 8/5/19.
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https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2019/08/08/yes_the_gop_should_worry_about_texas.html
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"Texas in play?"
It sure is :
https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/08/house-republican-retirements-suburban-districts-battlegrounds/
but wait . I thought all those republicans fleeing California to Texas due to high taxes should be making Repubs stronger ?
what gives. Can't be millions of immigrants who tend to vote Dem could it?
Nah
of course abortion and guns may sway the suburban gals too I suppose
of course Trumps personality does not help
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"but wait . I thought all those republicans fleeing California to Texas due to high taxes should be making Repubs stronger?"
Being averse to paying taxes themselves does not make them Republicans. The immigrants seeking freedom don't all vote for it either.
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" .Being averse to paying taxes themselves does not make them Republicans."
True but if Dems are leaving Cal for Tex then that does not explain why Republicans are vanishing off the face of state government there.
Though it could explain the bluing of Texas I suppose .
"immigrants seeking freedom don't all vote for it either"
some of the foreign born doctors I worked with are Repubs but there is not doubt some do not appreciate what they perceive as insults from Donald.
I could not convince them otherwise .
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Could someone post this article please?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/11/08/red-vs-blue-a-brief-history-of-how-we-use-political-colors/
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https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/456277-texas-faces-turbulent-political-moment
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https://www.theblaze.com/news/thank-you-joaquin-customers-line-up-around-block-at-bbq-joint-after-democratic-rep-castro-outs-owner-as-donor-to-president-trump?utm_content=bufferf6749&utm_medium=organic&utm_source=facebook&utm_campaign=fb-glennbeck&fbclid=IwAR2TxrycA56RhNmv0NKMBew8IJkJm8WCwdfLDSp19dve7eJtRrhg7cg47uA
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https://pjmedia.com/trending/aoc-omar-tlaib-silent-as-palestine-outlaws-lgbt-activity-in-west-bank/?fbclid=IwAR3xz4n_M6_Srhgd5iMW-tW1YGLK3vw6zcPoihq5E9931x4MlICM8RQGSSY
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Beattles parody (from Reason magazine)
https://reason.com/video/remy-all-my-loving-beatles-parody/
Sums it up nicely.
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https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/09/joe-biden-unfit-for-presidency/
Is it possible to run for President with a slogan "I will never lie to you"?
Can anyone imagine someone running with this statement?
Is is even possible?
Is it even realistic?
Is it even foolish?
My father was the most honest person I ever knew.
Was he a fool?
I question my own values.
I watch all these sleaze balls in the music industry just making up stories on Katherine's stolen lyrics .
All the people around us who excepted bribes from friends relatives neighbors work men and many more .
They all lied to us , the few police who tried to help us .
I just don't know when even the semblance of trying to be honest is not something to admire but to laugh at.
My father did not grow up rich , his father worked as laborer for Esso gas all his life.
But he certainly did not grow up street wise.
Neither did I . But I learned later in life the hard way.
I agree with Kevin Williamson more than I ever have with anything he has ever written.
But is it all rowing merrily merrily forever chasing a dream? :cry:
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Honesty is rewarded in "high trust" societies. We are rapidly devolving into a low trust society.
https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/09/joe-biden-unfit-for-presidency/
Is it possible to run for President with a slogan "I will never lie to you"?
Can anyone imagine someone running with this statement?
Is is even possible?
Is it even realistic?
Is it even foolish?
My father was the most honest person I ever knew.
Was he a fool?
I question my own values.
I watch all these sleaze balls in the music industry just making up stories on Katherine's stolen lyrics .
All the people around us who excepted bribes from friends relatives neighbors work men and many more .
They all lied to us , the few police who tried to help us .
I just don't know when even the semblance of trying to be honest is not something to admire but to laugh at.
My father did not grow up rich , his father worked as laborer for Esso gas all his life.
But he certainly did not grow up street wise.
Neither did I . But I learned later in life the hard way.
I agree with Kevin Williamson more than I ever have with anything he has ever written.
But is it all rowing merrily merrily forever chasing a dream? :cry:
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"We are rapidly devolving into a low trust society."
even the former FBi director lies like any common street criminal
and For GOD'S SAKES McCabe being brought on CNN , rewarded for criminal behavior while at the FBI , being payed to speak to us about the recent shooting .
Only because of his politics..........
There were some Presidents I can generally call honest (as far as I know). - Eisenhower, Carter , Reagan , HW Bush , and despite what the political opposition says about W . with regards to WMD in Iraq - I can say him.
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The nice part of this strategy is that Democrats are doing the work.
https://thefederalist.com/2019/09/05/rnc-chief-tying-dems-to-socialism-is-swaying-suburban-women/
[tying Democrats to socialism is working to win back college-educated suburban women] "this is something that we are seeing that they do not like.” “Where the left is going — open borders, no rule of law, health care for undocumented immigrants — these are things that when you come down to the binary choice, maybe they say, ‘Okay, I don’t like this about what’s happening right now, but here’s what’s coming my way. And this means poverty. This means a government takeover of my private health care plan, maybe losing my private health care plan. I like my doctor, I like my pediatrician, I don’t want the government taking those things away.'”
------------------------------
[Doug] In 2018 Democrats won suburban districts by running moderates and fake moderates under the banner that all politics is local. In the Presidential year coming up, Democrats are not running moderates at the top and local candidates will have to endorse or separate themselves from these policies. The presidential fornt runners are admitted socialists along with candidates whose policies are indistinguishable from socialism. As the race sits now, Dems have the aging gaffe machine followed by a socialist and an anti-capitalist. For Biden to win the nomination he will have to commit to socialist, anti-free enterprise policies to beat the challenge from his left.
People who say they disapprove of Trump may be one his best constituencies.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=30&v=BG0T_hVMqLs
Republican versus socialism and ignorance.
Forced obedience: starvation.
'Mine is a face of freedom, not white, not outrageous, not racist. not socialist. I am a Republican.'
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initially there will be no violence or torture, just financial legal and other modes of forced intimidation of our actions , beliefs, and lives . The torture and physical violence will come later :
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/may/07/mao-little-general-horror-cultural-revolution
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We would already be in the middle of our "cultural revolution" right now if it were not for the well armed TradAms. This is why the left is now pushing so hard for gun confiscation. Can't terrorize and murder with impunity if your intended victims can shoot back.
initially there will be no violence or torture, just financial legal and other modes of forced intimidation of our actions , beliefs, and lives . The torture and physical violence will come later :
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/may/07/mao-little-general-horror-cultural-revolution
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https://www.daybydaycartoon.com/comic/ideas/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+DayByDayCartoon+%28Day+by+Day+Cartoon+by+Chris+Muir%29
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https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/williesworld/article/Impeachment-a-winner-for-Democrats-Don-t-bet-14803559.php
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https://www.wsj.com/articles/eric-holder-takes-virginia-11573167564
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The editorial might have mentioned that the Dem governor in LA was pro-gun and pro-life.
GOP Defeat in the Deep South
Surging Democratic turnout racks up another Trump-era win.
By The Editorial Board
Nov. 17, 2019 6:35 pm ET
Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards speaks in Baton Rouge, Nov. 16. PHOTO: MATTHEW HINTON/ASSOCIATED PRESS
As the 2020 election year approaches, Republicans are on a losing streak. The latest defeat came Saturday in Louisiana when Democratic Governor John Bel Edwards held off GOP challenger Eddie Rispone to win re-election despite President Trump’s repeated visits on Mr. Rispone’s behalf.
Incumbents are typically hard to beat in good economic times, though the GOP managed that feat earlier this month in Kentucky. One common feature in both states was enormous voter turnout for an off-year election. Mr. Edwards won with 51% of the vote, or about 40,000 votes, but increased his vote total by 127,609 over 2015. Mr. Rispone gained 228,199 more votes than the GOP candidate in 2015 but still lost.
The difference came in Orleans and East Baton Rouge parishes, where Mr. Edwards rolled up margins of nearly 102,000 and 51,000, respectively. That compares to 69,000 and 42,000 in 2015. This repeats a common pattern since President Trump took office.
Even when GOP candidates exceed turnout expectations, they often lose because Democratic turnout surges too. Louisiana isn’t a national bellwether, but the GOP’s troubles in cities and suburbs even in the deep South signal danger for the party in 2020.
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second post
https://dailycaller.com/2019/11/17/jim-jordan-referee-ohio-state/
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"The editorial might have mentioned that the Dem governor in LA was pro-gun and pro-life."
Good point! A Democrat runs as a Republican and wins and that shows Republican weakness? The Kentucky and Louisiana Gov races might have national implications if the national Dem party was to nominate a pro-gun and pro-life Democrat.
Hell will freeze over before that happens.
The other aspect of it is that election of these conservative Democrats to the high office of governorships does nothing to deepen the national Democratic bench if these people are systematically excluded from national service. Under current rules they can't even speak at their convention.
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https://www.yahoo.com/news/rnc-spent-nearly-100-000-131439242.html
my response, so what!
however I am shocked the DNC did not buy 100K
:-P
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A very common shenanigan, most unfortunate to see it here with the President's son. Makes for easy Swamp accusations , , ,
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https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/01/09/nancy-pelosi-in-2011-barack-obama-did-not-need-authorization-to-use-force-in-libya/
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https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/01/09/nancy-pelosi-in-2011-barack-obama-did-not-need-authorization-to-use-force-in-libya/
Mere "kinetic" operations:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_military_action
It's not like there was a risk of anyone getting hurt:
According to the Libyan Health office, the (US-coalition) airstrikes killed 1,108 civilians and wounded 4,500 by July 13.
The war powers act of 1973 is unconstitutional if it limits the powers of the Presidency set out in the constitution.
https://www.foxnews.com/media/mark-levin-war-powers-act-iran-unconstitutional-paul-lee-gaetz-wrong
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_2011_Libyan_Civil_War
Democrats keep wanting to impeach Trump for things Obama did first.
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https://www.dailywire.com/news/democrats-block-resolution-condemning-iran-for-murdering-protesters-shooting-down-plane?itm_source=parsely-api?utm_source=cnemail&utm_medium=email&utm_content=011520-news&utm_campaign=position1
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https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1217153544475811840
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https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1217153544475811840
Awesome.
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https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2020/01/17/pelosi-i-want-trump-to-know-that-he-is-impeached-forever/
it is our job to make sure Trump is the first President to be impeached and then re elected!
pelosi will go down in history as having had the biggest rebuke of any house majority "leader"
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Thomas Sowell 2008:
"People ask me why I'm going to vote for McCain rather than Obama. It's because I prefer disaster to catastrophe."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGvYqaxSPp4 23:00
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"Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer will deliver the Democratic response to President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address on Feb. 4. Rep. Veronica Escobar of Texas will deliver the Spanish-language response."
ok a couple of women but a response in Spanish
:-(
What ever happened to just plain "America"? Everything has to be identity .
Why don't they have response beamed to every South American Asian and African and Caribbean market and forget the speech here?
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https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2018/02/02/cbs_news_43_of_democrats_approved_of_trumps_state_of_the_union_buries_poll.html
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The Iowa App and the Clinton Cabal
There’s money to be made in “progressive” politics.
By James Freeman
Feb. 7, 2020 1:20 pm ET
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and former President Bill Clinton play the Beacon Theatre in New York in April, 2019.
PHOTO: STEPHEN YANG/REUTERS
What do you get when you combine Team Clinton’s business savvy with panicked Democrats eager to counter Donald Trump’s use of digital technology? Behold the Iowa Democratic Party’s caucus reporting app.
In competitive elections, you win some and you lose some. But if you can create recurring revenue streams from both the national and state offices of one of America’s two leading political parties, you can win every time! For Democratic tech vendors, the timing is perfect as party officials look to digital investments to counter a perceived Trump advantage.
People will continue to debate which Democrats deserve the most blame for their worst-in-the-nation caucus performance on Monday. The latest twist in the tale comes from Jason Clayworth, who reports in the Des Moines Register:
The reporting app that is getting a large share of the blame for the chaos surrounding Monday’s Democratic caucus results was working until the national party required the installation of a security patch less than 48 hours before the first-in-the-nation contest, a recent member of the Iowa Democratic Central Committee said Thursday.
As for the creators of the app, people outside of the political world may find it increasingly difficult to understand how they were ever hired. The company charged with building the essential technology has a short and unsuccessful history. But it does have valuable connections.
The little-known technology start-up under scrutiny after the meltdown of the Iowa Democratic caucuses on Monday was founded little more than a year ago by veterans of Hillary Clinton’s failed 2016 presidential campaign who had presented themselves as gurus of campaigning in the digital era.
Shadow Inc. was picked in secret by the Iowa Democratic Party after its leaders consulted with the Democratic National Committee...
Just who works at Shadow was not clear on the company’s webpage Tuesday. But resumes posted on the online business networking site LinkedIn show the company’s top executives all worked in the Clinton campaign’s digital operation in 2016.
Who would have thought Bernie Sanders fans wouldn’t be suspicious enough of people seeking profits? Since the app disaster some Sandernistas have been busy online venting suspicions of some kind of conspiracy to rig the caucus results. A more likely explanation is that the Clinton crowd was simply trying to suck revenue out of state Democratic organizations like Iowa’s.
The for-profit firm Shadow run by former Clinton hacks might not even exist without help from a firm called Acronym, which is organized as a non-profit under the tax laws.
At the intersection of money and Democratic politics, it turns out to be a very small world. James Hohmann reported in the Washington Post in 2018:
Tara McGowan, who runs Acronym, oversaw a $42 million digital program in 2016 for Priorities USA, the primary super PAC for Hillary Clinton.
A Tuesday New York Times report from Matthew Rosenberg, Nick Corasaniti, Sheera Frenkel and Nicole Perlroth revealed how crucial Acronym’s support was to the “success” of the tech venture:
Acronym... quietly invested millions of dollars in a nearly bankrupt company called Groundbase, a tech firm that renamed itself Shadow soon after... its main technology, a texting platform designed for campaigns, failed to catch on as users complained that it was slow and cumbersome.
The failure left the firm perilously underfunded, and it was close to shutting down when Acronym stepped in with an infusion of cash... The new money brought new projects...
There were also new clients. According to the most recent campaign filing reports, Shadow earned roughly $150,000 last year working for the Nevada and Wisconsin state Democratic parties and three presidential campaigns — those of former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., Pete Buttigieg, former mayor of South Bend, Ind., and Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, who dropped out of the race in August.
As for the app at the heart of the Iowa debacle, the Times reports:
Shadow was put into a race that engineers at the most well-resourced tech giants, like Google, said could not be won. There was simply not enough time to build the app, test it widely to work out major bugs and then train its users.
Shadow was also handicapped by its own lack of coding know-how, according to people familiar with the company. Few of its employees had worked on major tech projects, and many of its engineers were relatively inexperienced.
How inexperienced was the Shadow workforce? Emily Glazer, Deepa Seetharaman and Alexa Corse report in the Journal:
One of its workers recently was a prep cook for Starbucks. Another was a teacher.
So how on earth did this firm get hired? It seems that the Shadow crew wasn’t going to impress anyone with its technology chops. The Journal reports:
... over the past year, Acronym and its founder Tara McGowan made introductions that allowed Shadow to secure some contracts with state Democratic parties and presidential campaigns, according to people familiar with the matter.
In a Nov. 21 private email to donors and friends, Ms. McGowan described Shadow as “a political technology company owned by Acronym.” She said Shadow had a “trial contract” with the Democratic National Committee and would make its flagship product, Lightrail, available to all the state parties and all the presidential candidates, according to the email that was reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.
But there was just one little recurring problem with this tech company—its tech. The Journal reports:
Over the past year, Shadow pitched products including a texting app and a data integration tool, but got a mixed reception. Several people who saw the presentations or were briefed on them said the technology wasn’t impressive and didn’t stand out among the crowd of vendors. Others were sharply critical.
Democrats may or may not succeed in defeating Donald Trump this November. But regardless of the election outcome, at least a few of them are sure to be winners.
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https://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/298592/the-russia-scare
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https://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/feb/18/chrissie-hynde-pens-kind-letter-to-trump-reveals-s/
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NYT columnist Gail Collins called it the Trump Virus. Other pundits say it is the Democrats' big opportunity to get Trump. But does a closer look at the timeline and what everyone was doing at the time favor the Democrats?
What were Democrats doing in early when China was covering up the outbreak of the virus?
It was on all the channels. They were intentionally tying the hands of Washington and the Trump Administration with the impeachment hearings, vote and trial that everyone knew from the start was going nowhere.
Is that what we call governing competence? While Trump organized a task force and quickly ordered travel bans and quarantines. A closer look does not favor Democrats. They think the office of President is meaningless if they don't hold it.
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Fight the coronavirus through open borders and free healthcare for all!
NYT columnist Gail Collins called it the Trump Virus. Other pundits say it is the Democrats' big opportunity to get Trump. But does a closer look at the timeline and what everyone was doing at the time favor the Democrats?
What were Democrats doing in early when China was covering up the outbreak of the virus?
It was on all the channels. They were intentionally tying the hands of Washington and the Trump Administration with the impeachment hearings, vote and trial that everyone knew from the start was going nowhere.
Is that what we call governing competence? While Trump organized a task force and quickly ordered travel bans and quarantines. A closer look does not favor Democrats. They think the office of President is meaningless if they don't hold it.
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these people just refuse to go away:
https://pjmedia.com/trending/media-darling-katie-hills-glam-media-rehab-tour-continues/
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Democratic Voters Smash Media Myths
Journalists need to start explaining the world as it is—not as it appears to them on Twitter.
By Rahm Emanuel
March 12, 2020 12:48 pm ET
In Washington, few lines are as hackneyed as Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s aphorism that “everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.” That’s true, but it’s also true that pundits can sometimes twist a few “facts” into a false narrative. Consider three widely accepted misconceptions about the Democratic Party—each of them debunked by the outcome of the primaries to date.
First, those who see the party as a collection of self-interested identity groups get it wrong. Many assume that female candidates had a distinct advantage with female voters, African-American candidates with African-American voters, Hispanic candidates with Hispanic voters, etc. But neither Cory Booker nor Kamala Harris had a line on African-American Democrats. Julián Castro failed to dominate within the Hispanic community. Maybe most remarkable, Elizabeth Warren didn’t win female voters even in Massachusetts.
Joe Biden Takes a Commanding Primary Lead
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Let that be a lesson to everyone pontificating about who our nominee should pick as his running mate to “balance” the ticket. I know plenty of female voters who, while caring about day care and early childhood education, also worry about America’s forever wars and climate change. In the same way, Hispanic voters don’t necessarily believe new arrivals should immediately get free health care. And as the African-American community’s support for Joe Biden reveals, not all African-American voters rule out leaders who have a history of being “tough on crime.”
Among Democrats, demographics are not destiny—they are informative, not determinative. As Sen. John F. Kennedy said nearly 60 years ago, “I am not the Catholic candidate for president. I am the Democratic Party’s candidate for president, who happens also to be a Catholic.”
Second, it’s time to reset the media’s obsession with money in politics. I got my start as a fundraiser, so I’m well aware that candidates need a certain level of support to mount a successful campaign. Moreover, I’ve been horrified to see excessive sums of corporate money pour into the process since the Supreme Court wrongly decided Citizens United.
But the conventional wisdom about money’s role in American politics is overblown. The two billionaires in the race fell flat. Their ability to self-fund became a political liability. Maybe even more remarkable, the candidates whose campaigns were fueled by armies of small donors didn’t do much better. In Democratic politics, biography, ideas, character, message and organization all bear more heavily on a candidate’s fortunes.
Third, it’s time to retire the absurd notion that the Democratic Party is beating a path toward Scandinavian-style socialism. For reasons that escape me, the media has come to presume that one’s reach on Twitter correlates with one’s influence in the corridors of power and hold on the progressive electorate writ large. Gazing at social media is no way to gauge the opinions of Democrats. When it comes to politics, Twitter is a funhouse mirror.
That has broader implications. The results over the past two weeks prove that many reporters and pundits pay too much attention to a select few members of the Democratic Caucus and too little to the elected officials who actually established our House majority. For every journalistic inquiry to a young representative who ran against another Democrat, reporters should seek out a Democrat who flipped a Republican seat—members such as Lucy McBath of Georgia, Elissa Slotkin of Michigan and Lauren Underwood of Illinois. If you want to gauge how the party has evolved on the challenges of the day—health care, climate change, social justice—ask one of them.
That leads to the most important misconception. While the Republicans have abandoned the center right for the crazy angry populism epitomized by President Trump, the last two weeks have proven that the Democrats are still a center-left party, not a far-left party. That’s been true for cycle after cycle, but much of the media simply isn’t able to differentiate what matters from what doesn’t. Our Revolution, the group born out of Sen. Bernie Sanders’s failed 2016 campaign, didn’t flip a single seat in the fight to give Nancy Pelosi a House majority in 2018—not one. Why? Because only half of their political analysis is right.
Mr. Sanders’s general theory was that Democrats needed to turn out a lot of additional young voters. While he was right to note that our fate depended on turnout, we needed more than the young. To the far-left’s shock, the Democratic base isn’t on college campuses. While the surge of young voters the Sanders campaign predicted never materialized, we’ve seen an explosion in suburban turnout. The party’s core is in a coalition of urban and suburban areas we should call the Metropolitan Majority. Democrats’ long-term success hinges on our listening to these voters and turning them out year after year. Pundits whose job is to explain the political sphere need to shake preconceived ideas about the youth vote and what comprises the Democratic Party.
Here’s the problem. The media’s obsession with identity politics, the role of money, and the views of politicians who flourish on Twitter prevents citizens from getting a full picture of what’s going on at the heart of the campaign. If voters are going to regain trust in the world of journalism, journalists need to start explaining the world as it is—not as it appears on an app.
This year’s Democratic primaries remind us that beyond the fourth estate’s role explaining politics to ordinary citizens, pundits need to take a moment for self-reflection, and ask: What did I think I knew at the beginning of this campaign—and what have I learned?
Mr. Emanuel was a senior adviser to President Clinton and chief of staff to President Obama. He represented Illinois’s Fifth Congressional District, 2003-09, and served as mayor of Chicago, 2011-19. He is author of “The Nation City: Why Mayors Are Now Running the World,” published in February.
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https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8110423/Florida-Democrat-Andrew-Gillum-hotel-room-male-escort-overdosed.html
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". https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8110423/Florida-Democrat-Andrew-Gillum-hotel-room-male-escort-overdosed.html "
so not only could he run and win for DC mayor in a heartbeat
he could win in San Francisco too.
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https://freebeacon.com/latest-news/woman-who-ingested-fish-tank-cleaner-was-prolific-donor-to-democratic-causes/
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https://freebeacon.com/latest-news/woman-who-ingested-fish-tank-cleaner-was-prolific-donor-to-democratic-causes/
Good.
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cnn hashtag just now was FDA approves drug for use for corona
"despite little use of efficacy"
A lot of Dems in the health care field :wink:
yet same ones taking it themselves ........?
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https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/why-is-susan-rice-using-coronavirus-as-an-excuse-to-shill-for-china
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https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/04/coronavirus-truth-national-security-council-pandemic-team/
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https://www.dailywire.com/news/petty-chuck-schumer-to-push-for-legislation-banning-president-trumps-signature-from-stimulus-checks?utm_content=non_insiders&utm_campaign=dw_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_source=housefile&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-_IUKRoTiglfIlpYZGrdefPObPGwcYHc5cT-6ofTzUrqhtuFKA36x6IR6ohPPGtM-wKAu05JTp0b1m4XUX1m4elcGmjZA&_hsmi=87074855
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We have rarely needed a thread for when Democrats say or do something right. President Obama authorized the Osama bin Laden kill. Now one liberal celebrity puts principle ahead of party:
https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/rose-mcgowan-lashes-out-democrats-media
"This is about holding the media accountable,” McGowan tweeted. “You go after Trump & Kavanaugh saying Believe Victims, you are a lie. You have always been a lie. The corrupt DNC is in on the smear job of Tara Reade, so are you. SHAME."
----------------------
More of the shame is that it is Fox News who covers liberals who won't accept the double standard. It took Fox News 3 weeks to get to it when no one else would. If her message was, 'no problem Joe, we love you', the MSM would be all over it, like VP Amy falsely claiming the NYT cleared him.
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https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/05/07/chris-christie-slams-obama-doj-after-supreme-court-overturns-bridgegate-convictions/
Charlie Kushner what say you ?
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https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1191355494818107392
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https://americanannouncement.com/2020/05/new-press-secretary-is-all-the-rage/
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".https://americanannouncement.com/2020/05/new-press-secretary-is-all-the-rage/"
move over Dana Perino. :-D :wink:
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Just wondering
You posted you have poltiical discussions with liberals
Do you ever change their opinions?
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Yes.
Had a convo with my sister last night. She lives in Chicago with her husband, and three boys (college and HS age). Major PC liberal type. They now prepare by being sure that their hose is ready to put out fire. To that end they also bought a fire extinguisher.
I went right there and reminded her of our previous conversations on guns and gun rights. This time she was silent.
I then pointed out the spray from the fire extinguisher could be used to back up a pack of jackals. She was grateful for the tip.
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Yes.
Had a convo with my sister last night. She lives in Chicago with her husband, and three boys (college and HS age). Major PC liberal type. They now prepare by being sure that their hose is ready to put out fire. To that end they also bought a fire extinguisher.
I went right there and reminded her of our previous conversations on guns and gun rights. This time she was silent.
I then pointed out the spray from the fire extinguisher could be used to back up a pack of jackals. She was grateful for the tip.
Enough to buy you a second to get to the guns you better have.
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Love her dearly, but this is not likely-- at least however she acknowledges the merit of our POV.
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Love her dearly, but this is not likely-- at least however she acknowledges the merit of our POV.
In the upcoming collapse: When seconds count, the police are minutes hours days away Not fcuking coming.
Plan accordingly.
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Love her dearly, but this is not likely-- at least however she acknowledges the merit of our POV.
In the upcoming collapse: When seconds count, the police are minutes hours days away Not fcuking coming.
Plan accordingly.
Fire Dept not coming also. If they are coming for the police hq or the main P. O. they aren't coming for your place.
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Karl Rove flashed these poll numbers on Fox News Sunday:
73% support the peaceful protests.
79% oppose the looting, arson, etc.
The candidate of Trump or Biden who threads that needle, wins, if this is the issue in November.
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On the first point, 100% should support peaceful protests, except for certain facts: a) most of the narrative the protests are protesting is false, and b) much of the peaceful protests are intrinsically intertwined with the rioting, looting and carnage.
On the second point, shouldn't it be nearly 100% opposed the looting? 21% means that roughly half of the Democrat-Left is so far pver the edge that they support the burning down of their own city and civilization in order to accomplish goals they cannot articulate. I don't see anyone who is part of the sensible, persuadable center can find that message and those tactics appealing.
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"Trump or Biden who threads that needle"
neither can do it.
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https://www.louderwithcrowder.com/ted-cruz-and-ron-perlman-want-to-fight-each-other-and-what-is-even-happening-right-now
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The Berman Resistance
The grandstanding former U.S. Attorney is no political martyr.
By The Editorial Board
June 21, 2020 12:46 pm ET
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U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Geoffrey Berman in New York, Oct. 10, 2019
PHOTO: JUSTIN LANE/SHUTTERSTOCK
So here’s the plan. We need to remove a U.S. Attorney because he’s investigating associates of the President. Let’s wait until four months before the election, and let’s do it on a Friday night so it looks suspicious and the guy can refuse to step down and make himself a martyr to the Resistance. Yeah, that’ll fool everybody.
That’s what the media and Democrats want everyone to believe about President Trump’s weekend dismissal of U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman. It’s more accurate to say this looks like a fiasco of bungled execution by the Administration and self-indulgence by Mr. Berman that is being overplayed as an abuse of power. In other words, it’s your average Trump melodrama.
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Mr. Berman has been U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York for more than two years under a judicial appointment but was never nominated or confirmed by the Senate. Mr. Trump has every right to fire Mr. Berman as an inferior officer in the executive branch. Attorney General Bill Barr was negotiating with Mr. Berman over a transfer to another senior job on Friday when the Justice Department issued a statement that Mr. Berman is “stepping down,” which is standard Justice Department language in these cases.
The White House said at about the same time that the President would nominate SEC Chairman Jay Clayton to replace Mr. Berman. The highly competent Mr. Clayton, a New Yorker, had planned to leave the Administration but said he’d stay for the U.S. Attorney job.
Mr. Berman then issued a grandstanding press release late Friday saying he wouldn’t go until a successor was nominated and confirmed by the Senate. Mr. Trump finally fired him on Saturday at Mr. Barr’s recommendation, and Mr. Barr said in a letter to Mr. Berman that his deputy, Audrey Strauss, will replace him until a successor is confirmed.
That should end this as a legal matter. Mr. Berman doesn’t have squatter’s rights to the job, and there is no violation of law or abuse of power here.
The political cost is a different story. The Washington Resistance to Mr. Trump is portraying this as an attempt to protect his political allies. Mr. Berman has prosecuted Mr. Trump’s former associates, including attorney Michael Cohen, and the hush-money payments to Stormy Daniels. He’s also said to be investigating Deutsche Bank’s business dealings with the Trump Organization before Mr. Trump was President.
But our Justice sources say Mr. Berman’s active investigations don’t involve Mr. Trump’s allies, except a minor one related to Trump adviser Rudy Giuliani. Replacing Mr. Berman with Mr. Clayton or anyone else won’t make investigations go away. The minute anyone moved to shut one of them down, the news would leak and career prosecutors would resign. Mr. Barr’s Saturday letter to Mr. Berman said he tasked Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz with examining any “improper interference” with current investigations. If this is a coverup, it’s the most inept in history.
The shame is that all of this wastes more of Mr. Barr’s political capital. The AG is trying to clean up the Justice Department after its 2016 campaign abuses, and U.S. Attorney John Durham is investigating what happened and why. But the media and the FBI and Justice officials who spied on Trump campaign officials, promoted the false Steele dossier, and lied to the FISA court are desperate to tarnish Mr. Barr before Mr. Durham reports. That’s what’s really behind all the outrage over what should be a routine replacement of a U.S. Attorney.
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look at how the MSM twists all the facts and truth around to paint an anti trump picture:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/barr-standoff-prosecutor-adds-string-122550746.html
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look at how the MSM twists all the facts and truth around to paint an anti trump picture:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/barr-standoff-prosecutor-adds-string-122550746.html
This is why all other elected Republicans act so timidly. Every action turns into a fiercely negative news story. Even the basic fact that in these positions, like John Bolton, you serve at the pleasure of the President.
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Bolton’s Warmed-Over Venezuelan Dish
The elephant in ‘The Room Where It Happened’ is an intelligence failure.
By Mary Anastasia O’Grady
Updated June 21, 2020 10:42 pm ET
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National security adviser John Bolton speaks in Lima, Peru, Aug. 6, 2019.
PHOTO: HO/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
During John Bolton’s 17 months as White House national security adviser, he headed a U.S. policy aimed at removing Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro and restoring that country’s democracy. A chapter in his new memoir, “The Room Where It Happened,” is his version of what went wrong.
The book isn’t the “tell-all” it’s cracked up to be. The U.S. policy crackup in Venezuela is more than anything else a colossal intelligence failure. Either because he doesn’t understand that reality or, more likely, because writing about U.S. intel capabilities would have landed Mr. Bolton in legal trouble, he doesn’t go there.
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Instead he trains his firepower on the lack of coordination of the interagency process and lays the blame on President Trump. The breakdown in intel is there—but you have to read between the lines to find it.
The president claims he fired Mr. Bolton in September 2019. Mr. Bolton says he quit. In either case they parted on bad terms and now Mr. Bolton is getting even. The 39 pages of his book devoted to Venezuela include juicy tidbits from private conversations and closed-door meetings that many argue he was honor-bound to withhold from the public at least until after Mr. Trump’s time in office.
Trump critics will delight in these vignettes, as they support charges that the president is an erratic decision maker with a short attention span and weird fixations. Mr. Maduro can be expected to make hay out of claims that Mr. Trump has been privately critical of interim Venezuelan President Juan Guaidó, at one point referring to him as “the Beto O’Rourke of Venezuela.”
The Venezuela mess predates the Trump presidency. President Obama was clueless about the threats that the military dictatorship in Caracas and its handlers in Havana pose to the region, and his policies weakened the democratic opposition by strengthening U.S. ties to the Castro regime. John Kerry, Mr. Obama’s secretary of state, even declared the end of the Monroe Doctrine. Mr. Bolton thinks his Venezuela policy failed because Mr. Trump wasn’t sufficiently committed to its success.
In January 2019 Venezuelans cheered when Mr. Guaidó, then-president of the National Assembly, made a constitutional claim on the presidency. “The revolution was on,” Mr. Bolton writes. He ordered his staff to issue a statement in support of the new government while Mr. Maduro refused to step aside.
The U.S. recognized Mr. Guaidó, and Mr. Bolton argued that Washington should move fast with biting sanctions on the Maduro regime. For that he needed leadership from Treasury and the State Department, and he says he got none.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin takes the sharpest criticism from Mr. Bolton, who says that Treasury resisted oil sanctions and financial sanctions every step of the way. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross explained to Mr. Bolton that Mr. Mnuchin was “more worried about secondary effects on U.S. companies than about the mission.”
The State Department wasn’t much help. In answer to Mr. Mnuchin’s objections to the oil sanctions, Secretary Mike Pompeo suggested that they be done “in slices,” a far cry from the shock and awe Mr. Bolton wanted.
Mr. Pompeo didn’t have a handle on the bureaucracy below him either. State’s Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs went into “open revolt against petroleum sanctions” on the grounds that they would “endanger embassy personnel.” Mr. Bolton writes that Mr. Pompeo one day called him, “uncertain about what to do about the bureaucracy’s resistance.”
Mr. Pompeo eventually went along with the oil sanctions, but Mr. Bolton worried that State personnel were simultaneously undermining coalition-building efforts in the region. Later, when Mr. Bolton announced in a meeting a plan to broaden and deepen the sanctions, Energy Secretary Rick Perry, National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow, Commerce’s Mr. Ross and Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen backed him. “Mnuchin was resistant” and “Pompeo was largely silent.”
“Disarray” at the State Department and “Treasury footdragging” were harmful to the sanctions cause, Mr. Bolton writes, insisting that “time lost in internal debate was equivalent to throwing Maduro a lifeline.”
Yet the elephant in the room—where it happened—is the glaring absence of human intelligence on the ground. Mr. Pompeo’s decision to close “Embassy Caracas and withdraw all U.S. personnel” because he feared “another Benghazi” was a devastating miscalculation. In particular, when Mr. Guaidó launched an effort to unseat Mr. Maduro on April 30, 2019, the U.S. was flying blind.
Mr. Bolton’s tactical maneuvers failed, but probably not for the reasons he gives. The U.S. is in a proxy war with Russia, Iran, China and Cuba in Venezuela, and Washington fails to assess adequately its enemies’ effectiveness in the areas of intelligence, propaganda and strategy. Mr. Bolton’s narrative takes revenge but does nothing to advance U.S. interests.
Write to O’Grady@wsj.com.
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In Venezuela, "The book isn’t the “tell-all” it’s cracked up to be." - WSJ, previous post.
--------------------------
In South Korea:
"South Korea slams Bolton book as 'distorting the reality' of nuclear talks"
"inaccurate", "distorting the reality"
“It does not reflect accurate facts and substantially distorts facts,” South Korea’s national security adviser, said in a statement, according to Reuters.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-usa-southkorea/south-korea-says-boltons-memoir-on-trump-kim-summit-is-distorted-idUSKBN23T0F2
https://thehill.com/policy/international/asia-pacific/504016-south-korea-slams-bolton-book-as-distorting-the-reality-of
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/south-korea-says-boltons-claims-on-trump-kim-summit-distorted/2020/06/22/f074d1d2-b44b-11ea-9a1d-d3db1cbe07ce_story.html
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Making Trump's case for him. It seems this storm has passed before the book release even happens.
The only bombshell seems to be that a former darling of the hawk-right is willing to say to liberal media that Trump is unfit to be President. That is opinion in the interest of selling a book rather than facts that the book is touting and the critics are craving.
Bolton's foreign policy clashed with Trump. Bolton did not get his way with Korea or with Venezuela, or anywhere else. But America prefers Trump foreign policy to Bolton's. Trump liked the perception with enemies of being a loose cannon with hawks all around him ready to attack and invade, but Trump does NOT want to be a war President and America does not US war right now in Venezuela, North Korea, Syria, Iran, China or anywhere else.
Question remains for Bolton: America can have Trump or continue its march to the Left. Choose one. It isn't 17 Republicans running anymore. No one is saying Trump is a perfect man or perfect leader but his foreign policy has been largely a success.
This is an election year and the choice is binary. March on toward Antifa-ruled, escalating Democratic violent socialism with a guy who sent planeloads of US$ to enemy mullahs for weapons to kill Americans, or give the guy who kept us safe and grew the economy twice as fast as his predecessor four more years.
The Atlantic wrote June 16, "Despise Bolton, but Read His Book Anyway"
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/06/despise-bolton-read-his-book-anyway/613075/
If they made the correction it might say, 'Despise Bolton, and know his account of events is not accurate or reliable'.
The last unabashed hawk to run, McCain, lost where Trump won in OH, FL, PA, WI, MI, IA, IN, NC and more. Peace through strength does not mean invade.
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I don't know what to make of a guy
who was making money at Fox
and was lobbying for a Trump admin. job
then gets one
and takes supposedly very detailed notes all day long
(obviously to be able to write. book)
and then when does not see eye to eye with the Pres. comes out and joins the chorus and the LEFT to fight the administration that gave him a job in the first place and influence and election
Truthfully there is not really much we don't already know about Trump anyway is there?
Bolton is saying Biden would be better I guess. I just don't see how that works. Biden/obama has to be even more of a dove against Bolton's historically hawkish views.
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Women see political things differently than men and tend to be more liberal.
Here's a tip on explaining the Leftist protests to women: When you hear mainstream media describe "mostly peaceful protests", think of mostly faithful husbands.
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Women see political things differently than men and tend to be more liberal.
Here's a tip on explaining the Leftist protests to women: When you hear mainstream media describe "mostly peaceful protests", think of a mostly faithful husbands.
Heh! Well done.
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I will be playing that forward!!!
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https://www.foxnews.com/media/colin-powell-media-hysterical-russia-bounties-afghanistan
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https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/jeff-reynolds/2020/07/22/gun-sales-spike-in-2020-driven-by-new-purchases-by-black-men-and-women-n671630
Doesn't pro-second-amendment also mean leaning Republican?
School choice and safe neighborhoods. Who knew 'people of color' wanted that?
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I get it as much as anyone, the polls are wrong in structure and mid July is pre-season. That said:
Biden leads nationwide, including all swing states, including latest Fox polls in Mich, Penn, Minn. He leads without coming out of his basement. Democrats currently lead to flip the Senate, picking up all the so-called tossups. Dems have a huge lead in money to defend their majority in the House. That fact is not skewed by the pollsters.
Why shouldn't they be leading? They control the message in nearly every venue. Theyu wrote the political language. They raised the children who grew up to be new voters.
What the polls say now is not what I predict will happen in Nov. Rasmussen shows the double digit Biden lead shrunk to 3 points, still pre-game.
Democrats are closing the political gap in Texas, as they did in California, Colorado, Nevada, Arizona. When they overtake Texas, what is left of the electoral college for conservatives?
For decades I have argued that our side needs to push the real issues throughout the 4 year cycle, before election time when the focus is all on flawed people, issues and policies.
Every school day and every news day and in every level of government down to the Library Board, every network and every social platform, Liberals and Leftists organize and march forward with their agenda, while conservatives and libertarians keep their mouths shut and quietly live their lives, accepting defeat.
Now here we go again, stuck hoping people will wake up to lies and mis-information without putting out a competing message, hoping people won't really vote the way they answered the poll takers.
In a Republican year, the 'mainstream' polls turn out to be wrong. In a Democrat year, the polls turn out to be right. This is apparently not a Republican year. It will take more than a little luck for Republicans to eek out a win in the White House and/or in the Senate. They can't take back the House if they can't put out a strong message nationally and in the individual districts. What is the message? I don't even know. One idea below.
Best case: we get divided government. Ugh. Worst case: we go the way of Hugo Chavez and Venezuela except for the difference that elected Marxism in that small country did not bring down the rest of the world with it. The demise of the US, if we let it happen, will take down the world. No exaggeration.
-----------------------------
What is the message? Economic freedom, not statism, is what lifts people out of poverty and into prosperity. This country still needs to lift millions more out of poverty and needs to lift the entire center of the country into greater prosperity. Per JFK, we need the rising tide. We need economic growth and greater prosperity to pay for our escalating healthcare needs. We need greater prosperity to make the transition to cleaner energy, better food, better transportation, better homes, better education, better retirements, better public health and pandemic readiness - for the next time around. We aren't there yet. We need economic growth and greater prosperity to balance our budget, service our debt and normalize our monetary policy. Sitting still on what we have will not keep us where we are. The end of growth and the killing of the growth engine, as was done in other places, will bring economic collapse like no one has ever seen.
Look at the Heritage Index of Economic Freedom and list of countries ranked where the United States has fallen to a humble 17th place:
https://www.heritage.org/index/ranking
The more economic freedom a country has, the cleaner and healthier and more peaceful it is. It's hard to find exceptions to that rule. There are no poor countries at the top of the economic freedom list and no rich countries at the bottom. Economic freedom brings prosperity and prosperity is what a clean earth and healthy people require. No one, not even the Left, argue that poor people have it better. Yet they want you to be poorer.
Prosperous countries can afford better safety nets for those truly in need. But 'redistribution' cannot become the main industry. Redistribution alone produces nothing.
Look at which policies favor economic growth and which candidates and parties favor those policies. Choose growth and prosperity over decline and collapse. Why is that so hard?
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for this for decades - since Reagan .
"every school day and every news day and in every level of government down to the Library Board, every network and every social platform, Liberals and Leftists organize and march forward with their agenda"
we only have influence in a small fraction of the media
we can scream as loud as we want on our few outlets
the Democrats are in bed with the teachers unions (and the majority of teachers - who like most government workers are Democrats)
the universities are loading up on foreign born minorities and the gays and other woke tribes who are all brainwashed , not with freedom for all, but identity politics
"What is the message? Economic freedom, not statism, is what lifts people out of poverty and into prosperity. "
unfortunately , Trump , even if he speaks the speak talks the talk , he has along with the Leftists made this all about hiim.
because in his mind it is all about his personal scorecard
frankly I am a total pessimist
these people will have to learn the hard way - one day they will really wake up and we will be Venezuela and at least some of them
will think - what have I wrought. others like AOC will simply vie to be the inside people who will control the rest of us.
I just don't see anyway out.
Republicans tried to unify around Trump but he is not the spokes person we thought he might become ( or at least me)
because every time he speaks half the country only seethes with anger at anything he says. They don't listen to his words they see HIM.
Addendum :
of course it is not Trumps fault - as there was no one else really
can anyone imagine if we had Romney or McCain or Jeb
they don't fight at all - just play nice and pretend to be gentlemen while we keep getting smashed
Trump as far as I can tell was our best shot.
But his personality got in the way with the people who can vote either way who decide the elections etc.
as for the Left ALL Republicans are Nazis.
praying for miracle in NJ
Could someone like Hawley become our spokesperson - ?
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"Trump , even if he speaks the speak talks the talk , he has along with the Leftists made this all about hiim.
because in his mind it is all about his personal scorecard"
But his personal scorecard requires him to win reelection. Winning reelection requires him to have a winning message. The winning message necessarily includes something along the lines I wrote, growth and prosperity for those who need it which is everyone except the very richest already. He MUST define winning as nationalizing the whole ballot and sweeping the House and Senate too.
His impeachment came from the Democrat House. His second impeachment will come from a Democrat House. All that BS with Nancy Pelosi came from the Democrat majority House. All of what he needs to do but hasn't yet done comes through the House, which means none of it happens in a Democrat House. Lose the Senate and he is done with judges, perhaps his biggest legacy to date.
Seeing it as all about him means making it about all of this. Anything short of full political victory this year will make the legacy of Trump - what ended under him, not the world peace and economic revival that he started.
He has one more at bat and this is it.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=udcnzjX4mWw&feature=emb_logo
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One more point from the 2020 MN primary this Tuesday. It would seem that far more Democrats than Republicans voted. Understandable in Minneapolis where the divisive Omar turned out the vote for and against. But this also happened in my formerly conservative state representative race. The one term, unopposed Dem state rep got many more votes than the combined vote of the republican challengers contested race. Ugh.
I don't have a plan for being governed by the Marxist anarchists. We seem to have no plan, no focus, no message to counter them except to hope that people suddenly see light on their own.
Our message seems limited to sharing the unencumbered Left in their own words:
https://twitter.com/ForAmerica/status/1293247869793771521
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" It would seem that far more Democrats than Republicans voted "
I have a close relative
who is Republican
worked in local politics a bit
as volunteer
but she absolutely detests Trump and so far has refused to vote for him
she agrees Biden is worse but when I explain forget Trump the man and go with what is best for our country she will not vote for him
she did not vote in 2016 and will do same this time.
she. is not so crazy as to help democrats like the bush never trumpers etc
but she will just sit it out ; "they [Trump and Biden] are both unqualified"
Trump did great damage to himself with his impulsiveness and off the charts narcissm
as we all know ad nauseum
i don't see him winning
the idea my relative would waste a good vote while the likes of Biden and harris would take control of the country makes no sense to me.
but this election is very much an emotional one for many
I need to ask her if she will at least vote for every other Republican up for election this November
:-o
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Simply well stated:
"Why isn’t his agenda ever framed that way? Well, because the “center” of American politics will always be wherever the Democratic Party’s nominees happen to stand."
https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/08/kamala-harris-imaginary-centrist/
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https://www.israelhayom.com/2020/08/14/harris-omar-and-the-partys-great-march-leftward/
Harris, Omar and the party’s great march leftward
Joe Biden’s decision to name Sen. Kamala Harris as his running mate has to do with only one thing: Identity politics.
(August 16, 2020 / JNS) Last Tuesday, two notable events occurred in the Democratic Party. Joe Biden announced that he had selected California Senator Kamala Harris to serve as his running mate in November; and Rep. Ilhan Omar won her primary, all but guaranteeing her return to Congress for a second term.
On the face of things, Harris’s selection seems like the more significant of the two events. But actually, Omar’s primary victory was far more momentous.
Traditionally, presidential candidates have selected their running mates based on electoral considerations. For instance, in 2016, then-Indiana governor Mike Pence was an easy choice for Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump for two reasons that had everything to do with electoral calculations.
Indiana, like neighboring Wisconsin and Michigan, is a swing state. As a vice-presidential candidate, Pence was well positioned to sell swing voters in those states on the Trump-Pence ticket. Moreover, as a devout evangelical Christian, Pence was able to assist Trump in securing the support of that critical Republican demographic.
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Unlike Pence, Harris hails from California, a progressive, deep-blue state. As a progressive, wealthy native of northern California, Harris has little ability to mobilize supporters in places like Detroit or Pittsburgh. Moreover, Harris has not distinguished herself as a great vote-getter. Last year, when Harris entered the Democratic presidential primaries, she enjoyed enthusiastic support from the media and deep-pocketed progressive donors. But despite these advantages, she failed to win over significant support for her campaign even in her native state. Her campaign fizzled out very quickly.
While the progressive media refers to Harris as a “moderate,” since her election to the Senate in 2016 Harris has racked up one of the most radical voting records in the upper house. She supports revoking all limitations on abortions. She supports harsh limitations on the right to bear arms. She supports banning oil fracking and ending energy exploration on federal lands.
While popular with the Democrat base in California and other deep-blue states, Harris’ extreme positions render her incapable of winning votes in places like Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan. Indeed, she is likely to be more of a drain than an asset to Biden’s bid to win over these critical states.
So why did Biden choose her for his running mate?
In two words: Identity politics.
While progressives are more likely to be atheists than conservatives, they are religiously political. And one of the things they sanctify is identity politics. Recognizing this, Biden chose Harris not because of the votes she can bring, but for the support she can garner from the Democratic base. In other words, Biden chose her because she is a woman rather than a man and because as the daughter of a father who immigrated to America from Jamaica and a mother who immigrated from India, Harris is not white.
Biden himself doesn’t sanctify identity politics. On the contrary—some of Biden’s statements on the campaign trail have been arguably racist. In the past week alone, Biden committed two racial gaffes. He asked a black journalist if he was a junkie and he said that “with notable exceptions” all black people think the same way.
Biden is probably not a racist and he certainly isn’t an ideologue. The only thing that Biden is most assuredly is a weather vane. For more than 40 years Biden has consistently adapted his “convictions” to the prevailing winds in his party. When the party was opposed to abortion, Biden was an anti-abortion Catholic. Now that his party supports unlimited abortion on demand, Biden does too.
Back in the day, Biden opposed illegal immigration. Now that the Democrat Party has embraced open borders, Biden supports giving illegal immigrants free healthcare and schooling.
Harris is cut from the same cloth. Her “evolving” views on Israel demonstrate this clearly. Harris was considered the most “pro-Israel” candidate among the women Biden was considering selecting as his running mate. Her pro-Israel credentials derived mainly from the fact that she did not speak at the anti-Israel lobby J Street’s annual conference and that she agreed to address AIPAC’s policy conference in 2017.
But as the Democrat Party openly adopted an increasingly anti-Israel position over the intervening years, Harris reduced her support. In 2018, as the midterm election raised the profiles of radical Israel-hating candidates, Harris only agreed to speak at the AIPAC conference on the condition that her remarks not be made public.
Along with all the other Democrat presidential hopefuls last year save for Mike Bloomberg, Harris refused to speak at the AIPAC conference on any terms.
Not only has Harris refused to condemn Reps. Omar and Tlaib for their repeated anti-Semitic statements. Harris warned the Jewish community against protesting Omar’s anti-Semitism, saying that “the spotlight being put on Congresswoman Omar may put her at risk.”
The fact that Omar’s unbridled anti-Semitism was putting American Jews at risk apparently made no impression on Harris.
Like Biden and the rest of her party, Harris supports renewing Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran, which will put nuclear weapons and billions of dollars in the hands of Iran’s genocidal ayatollahs. Harris doesn’t support the BDS movement but she opposed a senate bill that would have harmed the campaign to boycott the Jewish state and discriminate against American Jews.
As California’s attorney general from 2011-2017, Harris received numerous requests to take action against California’s public universities for having allowed their campuses to become hostile environments for Jewish students. Harris ignored their entreaties.
On the other hand, her husband is Jewish.
The slavish devotion that both Biden and Harris have demonstrated to their party’s grassroots is a dangerous omen for Jewish Americans because the organizations that comprise a large part of those grassroots are openly anti-Semitic.
For instance, on Tuesday more than a hundred progressive groups signed a letter calling on the “progressive community” to boycott the Anti-Defamation League. Among the various reasons they gave for their boycott call was the ADL’s criticism of Black Lives Matter for its anti-Semitic charter. The BLM charter accuses Israel of committing “genocide” against the Palestinians and refers to the Middle East’s only liberal democracy as an “apartheid” state.
The charter endorses the anti-Semitic BDS movement and firmly places the self-declared black civil rights movement in the camp of the virulent anti-Semites who reject the Jewish state’s very right to exist.
Other crimes the progressive groups accused the ADL of committing included criticizing Omar for her anti-Semitism and opposing the BDS campaign against Israel and American Jews.
The progressive groups’ sudden denouncement of the ADL is as ironic as it is foreboding. In recent years the American Jewish community’s best-funded organization dedicated to fighting anti-Semitism received significant criticism for its unwillingness to seriously confront anti-Semitism emanating from the political left and its exaggeration of the threat that far-right anti-Semitism poses to Jewish life in America.
Under the leadership of Obama White House alumni Jonathan Greenblatt, in recent years the ADL has tried to reinvent itself as a progressive group that focuses mainly on criticizing the other side of the political divide.
The ADL’s fervent efforts to ingratiate itself among progressives places in stark relief the “Open Letter to the Progressive Community” signed by more than a hundred groups calling to ostracize it. It shows that today’s Democrat party is unwilling to accept Jews or politicians who are both progressive and pro-Jewish.
This brings us to Omar’s primary victory. It wasn’t particularly surprising that Omar won the poll. Her national profile has made her a lightning rod in national politics. While as a bigot she is justifiably hated by many, leftist donors and activists adore her and back her as an anti-Semite.
While predictable, three aspects of her win are particularly significant. First, the main difference between Omar and the progressive black opponent she defeated is that unlike Omar, Antone Melton-Meaux isn’t an anti-Semite. Rather than drawing praise from progressives for his lack of bigotry, Melton-Meaux was decried by progressive activists who accused him of being controlled by Jews.
The second significant aspect of Omar’s win is that despite her open anti-Semitism, her reelection bid—and that of her anti-Semitic comrade Rashida Tlaib—was endorsed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Pelosi even donated $14,000 to Omar’s campaign from her political PAC. Pelosi was long viewed as a friend to both American Jews and to Israel. The fact that she monetarily supported an out-and-out anti-Semite speaks volumes about the direction of the party.
The final significant aspect of Omar’s win is that it was a testament to the rapidly growing power of the radical left in the Democrat Party. Two years ago, four female radicals with harshly anti-Israel positions were elected as first-time lawmakers. The joined together, called themselves “The Squad” and proceeded to drain all the air out of the policy discourse in their party.
As the squad’s members rose in power and prestige, moderate Democrats insisted their voice was out of sync with their actual power. To be sure, the moderates argued, the likes of Omar and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have the loudest microphones, but they represent but a fraction of the party’s congressional delegation.
So far, Tlaib and Omar handily won their primaries and three new candidates with their same brand of radical, anti-Israel positions just won their primaries, replacing moderate lawmakers who either retired or were defeated. These victories point to two things. First, the squad has already nearly doubled its numbers in one congressional term, and two, they have become, without a doubt, the rising force—and with Pelosi’s backing, the dominant force in the Democrat Party.
In light of all of this, it is self-evident that Omar’s primary victory was far more significant than Biden’s selection of Harris as his running mate. Biden and Harris, weather vanes both, will not lead their party. They will follow their party’s grassroots and donors as they lead the Democrats every further along on their great march into the anti-Semitic leftist abyss.
Caroline Glick is an award-winning columnist and author of “The Israeli Solution: A One-State Plan for Peace in the Middle East.”
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https://theresurgent.com/2020/08/27/the-state-of-the-tar-heel-state/
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https://www.daybydaycartoon.com/comic/state-of-denial/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+DayByDayCartoon+%28Day+by+Day+Cartoon+by+Chris+Muir%29
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https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/11/12/2020-election-analysis-democrats-future-david-shor-interview-436334
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https://www.spiked-online.com/2018/07/02/why-young-white-men-are-abandoning-the-democrats/
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Republican Senate helps Biden stand up to his squad and left wing. Biden knows how to fight Senate Republicans. He's done it his entire adult life. Opposing Senate Republicans defines his career power base. He doesn't know how to stand up to Bernie, Warren, AOC. He has no base of power without them. But IF Republicans win in Georgia on Jan 5, nearly everything short of executive orders needs to go through a Republican Senate. Cabinet appointments, nominees, legislation, treaties? Only with Mitch McConnell's blessing. Ask Justice Garland.
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Trump Gives Schumer an Assist
The President writes a $2,000 check to make Democrats the majority.
By The Editorial Board
Updated Dec. 28, 2020 8:19 pm
President Trump finally signed the Covid-19 relief bill and 2021 budget on Sunday night, but not before giving a big assist to Democratic hopes of gaining control of the Senate in the two runoff elections on Jan. 5. Current GOP Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is left this week trying to undo the significant political damage.
Mr. Trump had been insisting that Congress write checks of $2,000 each to most Americans, rather than the $600 in the bill. His own Treasury Secretary, Steven Mnuchin, negotiated the $600 figure. But after the bill passed, Mr. Trump decided that wasn’t enough
Never mind that the $2,000 would go to tens of millions of Americans who have kept their jobs and maintained their incomes during the pandemic. It would also add some $350 billion or more to a federal deficit that is already into the trillions of dollars. The economy won’t benefit since the recipients aren’t going to change their behavior knowing it’s merely a one-time check.
Senate Republicans oppose the $2,000 for these sound reasons, but Mr. Trump has put them in a political spot. Democrats immediately joined Mr. Trump’s call for the $2,000, and on Monday they passed the larger amount through the House, 275-134.
That leaves Mr. McConnell with a tough call of barring a vote as Democrats bang away in TV ads in Georgia against GOP incumbents David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler. Or he can hold a vote, which would split the GOP caucus and upset fiscally conservative voters. Either way it amounts to a Donald Trump in-kind contribution to Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Joe Biden.
By all accounts Mr. Trump is angry about his election defeat, and he is lashing out at anyone who won’t indulge his hopeless campaign to overturn it. This includes Senate Republicans, who need to win in Georgia to retain their majority and block Mr. Biden’s ability to indulge the Democratic left.
Mr. Trump’s narcissism isn’t news. But if Republicans lose the two Georgia seats and their majority, Republicans across the country should know to thank Mr. Trump for their 2021 tax increase.
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Donald Trump and Chuck Schumer keep demanding another $2,000 in relief checks for their own political reasons, but it looks like Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell may hold them off with some crafty political maneuvering. He’s also right on the policy merits.
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Mr. McConnell has linked the $2,000 checks to Mr. Trump’s other demands to repeal a liability shield for big tech firms and establish a commission to investigate voter fraud. Democrats don’t like the latter two provisions, so a bill with all three isn’t likely to pass the Senate. This betrays that Democrats are merely using the $2,000 checks to help the Democratic candidates in the Georgia Senate runoffs next week.
Mr. Schumer wants the Senate to pass the bill the House passed earlier this week with the $2,000 checks. The Senate Finance Committee staff has examined the details of both the House bill and Mr. Trump’s proposal, and it turns out they’re even worse than we thought in flowing to affluent Americans.
The House bill would increase the $600 checks to $2,000 ($4,000 for joint tax filers) with another $2,000 for each dependent regardless of age. All told the House bill would provide benefits to a family of five making up to $350,000 a year. The cost would add $463.8 billion to the national debt in addition to the $165.7 billion in checks that passed Congress this month. In other words, Democrats want to burden future taxpayers to write even bigger checks to affluent families today.
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Mr. Trump’s proposal is somewhat less spendthrift in leaving payments to children age 18 or younger at $600. But he would still provide benefits to a family of five earning up to $266,000 a year and add $315.5 billion to the debt.
Mr. McConnell called this “another fire hose of borrowed money that encompasses other people who are doing just fine.” The bill that has already passed Congress is better targeted at the unemployed and low-income workers with more cash, more food stamps, more child-care subsidies, and higher jobless benefits.
Even some Keynesian economists who aren’t entirely in the Democratic tank are opposing the $2,000 checks as poorly targeted and unneeded given the pace of economic recovery and vaccine deployment. The press loves the new Trump-Schumer condominium, but Mr. McConnell and Senate Republicans are better serving the country this year and into the future.
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https://townhall.com/columnists/kurtschlichter/2020/12/31/my-prediction-for-2021-is-pain-n2582295
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https://townhall.com/columnists/kurtschlichter/2020/12/31/my-prediction-for-2021-is-pain-n2582295
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https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2021/01/08/joe-biden-compares-ted-cruz-josh-hawley-to-nazi-propagandist-joseph-goebbels/
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Where is the outrage from anti semitism groups?
Where are all these Republican hating Jews we see on the airwaves and in the news reports
every day ?
Where is their outrage?
They are comparing Cruz Hawley to Nazis?
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The outrage [lack thereof] is the racist and nazi fatigue showing. It's what they do when it's not gang rape and pubic hair on a coke can.
And says he is a Uniter? More like cleanse us and unite the left, which he can't do either. The first sentence he speaks without hate speech toward Republicans, AOC will call for his head.
Cruz, Hawley wanted vote fraud investigated. That's what his people wanted on Kavanaugh, and Russia collusion, and Ukraine phone call. He's calling his own VP a Nazi.
https://abc7news.com/politics/kamala-harris-calls-for-new-investigation-into-brett-kavanaugh/5546024/
Problem with the Nazi analogies is the 6 million incinerated and the 75 million killed in WWII. Did Cruz, Hawley - and Kamala Harris - do that?
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The left projects like an IMAX theater.
The outrage [lack thereof] is the racist and nazi fatigue showing. It's what they do when it's not gang rape and pubic hair on a coke can.
And says he is a Uniter? More like cleanse us and unite the left, which he can't do either. The first sentence he speaks without hate speech toward Republicans, AOC will call for his head.
Cruz, Hawley wanted vote fraud investigated. That's what his people wanted on Kavanaugh, and Russia collusion, and Ukraine phone call. He's calling his own VP a Nazi.
https://abc7news.com/politics/kamala-harris-calls-for-new-investigation-into-brett-kavanaugh/5546024/
Problem with the Nazi analogies is the 6 million incinerated and the 75 million killed in WWII. Did Cruz, Hawley - and Kamala Harris - do that?
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https://americanmind.org/salvo/if-hawley-and-cruz-are-cancelled-conservatism-is-next/?fbclid=IwAR2vtDF10qpDep7S3ozFS2MxTBtABc9Fc1kypsnUFSrSY3A7lWDpl42eeoQ
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Does anyone remember the terms "Rich Republican" and "blue collar Democrats"?
Now nearly all the richest businessmen are Democrats and the workers are Republicans.
Country Club Republicans are liberal elite Democrats.
The switch is almost complete. 26 of the 27 richest congressional districts are represented by Democrats:
https://cnsnews.com/article/washington/terence-p-jeffrey/26-27-richest-congressional-districts-represented-democrats
Meanwhile blacks and Hispanics are trending Republican. What this means, nobody knows.
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https://ultimateflags.com/products/fuck-biden-flag-for-sale/
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https://www.nationalreview.com/the-morning-jolt/joe-manchin-in-command/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=MJ_20210224&utm_term=Jolt-Smart
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Did search on this very question and this comes up with helps provide better understanding of the answer:
https://www.wvpublic.org/news/2018-10-12/why-is-joe-manchin-a-democrat
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Nassim Taleb:
Ignore individuals, follow policies.
https://mobile.twitter.com/nntaleb/status/1361688955373187072
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[Doug] Trump was his own worst enemy in this regard.
But take Ted Cruz for example. He knew as he did it, took the family to Mexico during the freeze, the 'optics' were terrible. Now I hear him graveling with endless apologies. Put that aside. What are the policies Texas and the US needs to NEVER have this happen again? Vote for who is mostly likely to do that.
G M teased me about changing the minds of my liberal friends. Studying that further, I find they hated Trump, voted Biden, and are maybe subconsciously aware that those policies were (mostly) good for the country and these policies aren't.
"Center Left" means they vote Dem but reject the ideas of the radical Left. But voting Dem brings with it the policies of the far Left. Examples are here on every thread. Shutting down oil before we have the alternative. Subsidize what doesn't work. Socialize everything important. Fly planeloads of cash to Iran - in euros! Fascism in the IRS. Censorship in the universities. "Modern Monetary Theory" where even pretending to care about budget, deficit, debt is a thing of the past. This is not what 'Center Left' wants, but it is what they vote for. How do we call that out and pick off some of those votes?
What they hate is not the economy of the Republican governance, best income growth and lowest minority unemployment in recent history. How could they hate that, they never knew it. They hate the caricature of the individuals conservatives that is painted and so widely disseminated.
Trump fell into their trap, but the trap is set no matter who takes that role. We still don't know how to shift the debate to policies, and results.
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"Trump fell into their trap, but the trap is set no matter who takes that role. We still don't know how to shift the debate to policies, and results."
"ut take Ted Cruz for example. He knew as he did it, took the family to Mexico during the freeze, the 'optics' were terrible. Now I hear him graveling with endless apologies. Put that aside. What are the policies Texas and the US needs to NEVER have this happen again? Vote for who is mostly likely to do that"
STOP The groveling. Apologize and admit it was wrong
and then focus on how to fix
and why he is the best one for Texas
Why do we keep allowing the left control the topic?
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https://www.breitbart.com/the-media/2021/03/02/nolte-medias-metooing-of-andrew-cuomo-is-really-about-protecting-four-democrat-governors/
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https://rumble.com/vecs8v-rep.-jordan-speaks-to-oan-on-dems-election-overreach-cancel-culture.html?mref=6zof&mc=dgip3&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=One+America+News+Network&ep=2
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President Biden is not throwing away Donald Trump’s immigration policy. He’s throwing away the border policy of every president since Bill Clinton. When the early 1990s dawned so did the realization behind what became known as “prevention through deterrence”—the U.S. may not be able to control its border but it can influence the incentives of those who seek to cross.
Experiments in the McAllen and El Paso sectors showed that beefed-up surveillance in urbanized border areas could curtail crossers then habituated to exploiting border-officer downtime or the presence of crowds. Constrict these pathways and the risks involved in crossing the open desert or the Rio Grande would do the job of semi-regulating illegal inflows.
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This was hardly a lustrous way of proceeding. Mr. Trump would come along later with the naive old-school assumption that first you control the border and then you decide who gets in.
Which brings us to a question. Is anything deliberate going on in Mr. Biden’s reversal of this approach? His failure to hold a press conference in more than 50 days, unlike any president since Coolidge, might not be an issue if the country were confident that he’s on top of his game. The alternative? That unelected staffers, with no vision beyond not being Donald Trump and trying to placate progressive Twitter users, have given us today’s border dynamic.
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The same question comes up in relation to a bunch of issues: the wish list that passed Congress under the name coronavirus relief, the excessive investment in trying to relabel Trump’s vaccine policy as Biden’s, the strange alchemy by which Mr. Trump’s leverage over Iran becomes Iran’s leverage over Mr. Biden.
Some bombs were dropped three weeks ago on Syria. Was Mr. Biden involved in the deliberations or was there a second discussion about when and how to involve the president?
The press might like to ask but he’s not making himself available.
If triggering immigration chaos was a plan, the plan must have included an assumption the press would direct the public’s attention elsewhere in line with the theme that all such messes are Mr. Trump’s doing. It’s not working. A media that covered up the Hunter Biden laptop isn’t covering up a swelling crisis at the border, the deployment of the ill-suited Federal Emergency Management Agency to handle a deluge of unaccompanied minors, the release of hundreds of asylum seekers into the U.S. in return for questionable promises to show up for a court date.
Press coverage of the California road horror, after a van packed with 25 illegal migrants collided with a semi, suggests Mr. Biden can’t count on the subject being changed in his favor. As Mr. Trump fades in the rearview mirror, the media seems to have realized covering up news isn’t a business model to produce viewership and ad revenues in the long run.
READ MORE BUSINESS WORLD
Cuomo and the Covid Death Count March 12, 2021
Wuhan Lab Theory a Dark Cloud on China March 9, 2021
Jan. 6 and D.C.’s Political Death Inquests March 5, 2021
Big Oil ‘Friends’ the Carbon Tax March 2, 2021
What Altered the Public’s Taste for Lies? February 26, 2021
Let’s back up. My favorite radio moments are when a sympathetic liberal source says something that goes right over the head of an NPR interviewer. At the height of the family reunification furor, an ACLU lawyer not only agreed with the Trump administration claim that families weren’t letting their children be returned to them. His solution amounted to: If an unaccompanied minor arrives at the U.S. border, the entire family should become entitled to emigrate to the U.S.
The point being that lots of organized interests by now are attuned to the U.S.’s unworkable, unenforceable, chaos-producing border policies. The Transnational Institute points out that the 13 biggest border security companies’ top employees contributed three times as much in 2020 to Mr. Biden as they did to Mr. Trump—$5,364,994 vs. $1,730,435. The statistic nobody keeps is how many would-be immigrants lose their deterrence bet, dying at the hands of traffickers, or in the Sonora desert or the Rio Grande. The Mexican government once estimated that 450 die annually on either side of the border.
The Biden strategy seems not devised to improve matters, if there’s any strategy at all. The administration has only incited a fresh flood of risk takers. If there’s a strategy, it may be a political strategy—the same as seen behind two gun-control bills last week passed by House Democrats. Cram as many gestures to the left as possible into the administration’s first weeks in hopes of changing the subject when next year’s Congressional midterms roll around.
Hope too that Congress’s and the Fed’s unlimited spending will coincide with a post-pandemic boom that an amnesiac media and public will interpret as the universe shining on Mr. Biden after the Trump darkness.
Ironically, the image-obsessed Mr. Trump did seem to care about concrete outcomes: a decline in border arrests, higher wages for unskilled workers, billions in tariffs collected from buyers of Chinese imports, vaccines—as if Mr. Trump mistily suspected there was a real world and a president could affect it. If Mr. Biden has such notions, he might hold a press conference to let us know.
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https://dailycaller.com/2021/03/22/joe-biden-immigration-border-crisis-hispanic-voters-donald-trump/?utm_source=piano&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=recaps&pnespid=i7dxo.9DXBeNC0zC1y7u8Atg4wdjHzzy5I2Zpvti
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Definitely underwhelming.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jy_oG4gcSw
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https://www.nationalreview.com/news/former-doj-lawyer-denies-gaetzs-extortion-accusation/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=MJ_20210331&utm_term=Jolt-Smart
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As NBA Ratings Decline, Poll Shows 34% Watched Less Sports Over Social Justice Messages
https://www.newsweek.com/nba-ratings-decline-poll-shows-34-watched-less-sports-over-social-justice-messages-1579886
NFL went through a similar situation with the kneeling. Late night comedy, all one sided politics, not humor. AARP, Obamacare activists. Networks like CNN, MSNBC, PBS, NPR, 'Scientific American', all openly, flaming Left, while other outlets take up the lost market share. They are losing the main strength they had, being a bridge that connects us. And they don't care. They become the basketball league of the Left. Sports viewing for the Left. Retirement association for the Left. Science journals for the Left. Airport news for the Left. Colleges for the Left. A good number of us are saying fuck them, who needs them. The TV has an off switch. Watching them was a waste of time anyway. Good riddance.
I don't get why they want to lose half their audience and put partisanship above market share. Isn't that bad business? Malpractice to shareholders? They are putting advocacy and activism above the bottom line. Like minded people may find that acceptable and noble, but in fact they cross the line from advocating goodness to supporting far left wackiness. NBA supports the genocidal regime of China for their money but openly rejects conservatives support at home, at the cost of losing major audience. Makes no sense.
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https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_morningbrief/documents-outline-alleged-scheme-to-extort-rep-gaetzs-family_3759137.html?utm_source=morningbrief&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=mb-2021-04-02&mktids=1f427e2459d3cb32c0793c1634d1c407
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The Atlantic gets its panties in a bunch:
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/04/only-congress-could-give-us-matt-gaetz/618494/?utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook&utm_campaign=the-atlantic&utm_content=edit-promo&utm_term=2021-04-02T18%3A32%3A58&fbclid=IwAR1o_9300CQ-yY2DBwrRyLmiKT5OkgBsY2lWKyg0-q4rmHwYX1C_38l7fIw
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maybe the Atlantic could spend more time
looking into prostitution down the street
at the Asian spas
indeed maybe men should boycott Asia spas in protest like MLB
and all the rest of the sell. outs
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The Atlantic gets its panties in a bunch:
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/04/only-congress-could-give-us-matt-gaetz/618494/?utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook&utm_campaign=the-atlantic&utm_content=edit-promo&utm_term=2021-04-02T18%3A32%3A58&fbclid=IwAR1o_9300CQ-yY2DBwrRyLmiKT5OkgBsY2lWKyg0-q4rmHwYX1C_38l7fIw
If I'm reading this correctly, they have no idea if he did any of it but go to print anyway.
"David A. Graham, Staff writer at The Atlantic
Last week, Representative Matt Gaetz tweeted that if he were ever engulfed in scandal, he wanted it to be called “Gaetzgate.” (The Floridian was replying to a groaner of an Elon Musk pun that he seemed to have missed; that lack of perceptiveness was an omen.)
Gaetz got his wish quickly, and then some. First, there’s reportedly a federal criminal investigation into whether the 38-year-old Gaetz paid women for sex and whether he had a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old girl. Second, Gaetz has alleged that he is the subject of an extortion attempt related to this investigation. Third, CNN reports that Gaetz showed House colleagues nude photos of his sexual conquests, sometimes even on the House floor."
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It might all be true but The Atlantic printing it is a contrary indicator.
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https://www.axios.com/trump-data-latino-support-49a0f0ed-b244-4b27-86b3-ee022e21f8c1.html
Who knew?
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Hmmmm , , ,
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/apr/7/matt-gaetz-sought-blanket-pardon-from-the-trump-ad/
OTOH
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/apr/6/bob-kent-accused-trying-extort-matt-gaetz-admits-h/
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https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/apr/7/matt-gaetz-sought-blanket-pardon-from-the-trump-ad/?utm_source=Boomtrain&utm_medium=subscriber&utm_campaign=newsalert&utm_content=newsalert&utm_term=newsalert&bt_ee=uEAv6IEA7u7F40RrEx7L9NUMeqoL6hVVUTDt4cBNml42N2ulwBzRpI4Sgg%2B7zfN1&bt_user_id&bt_ts=1617856344312
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NYT: Indicted Matt Gaetz Associate Is Expected to Plead Guilty, Lawyers Say
ORLANDO, Fla. — A former local official in Florida who faces an array of federal charges, including a sex trafficking count, is expected to plead guilty in the coming weeks, a prosecutor and a defense lawyer said on Thursday in an indication that the defendant could cooperate as a key witness against Representative Matt Gaetz, who is under investigation.
A plea by the former elected official, Joel Greenberg, could significantly strengthen the Justice Department’s hand as it investigates Mr. Gaetz and others who met Mr. Greenberg through Florida Republican politics and are being scrutinized on potential sex trafficking violations.
Mr. Greenberg met women through a website that connects people who are willing to go on dates in exchange for gifts and allowances, then introduced them to Mr. Gaetz, who along with Mr. Greenberg had sex with them, people familiar with the matter have said.
‘Uniquely Situated’: Lawyer For Matt Gaetz Associate Makes Ominous Statement About Possible Plea Deal
When asked whether Greenberg has a “bargaining chip” to use in negotiations with prosecutors in the Gaetz probe, Scheller said only that his client was “uniquely situated” to provide information in any plea agreement.
Matt Gaetz’s Female Staffers Release Statement Defending The Congressman Amid Sexual Allegations Scandal
Republican Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz’s female staffers released a statement Thursday defending their boss after he denied accusations of having a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old girl.
Gaetz’s chief of staff, Jillian Lane Wyant, sent out an email with the statement which defended Gaetz’s behavior and said they have never experienced the Congressman doing anything unprofessional and that they will continue to defend him despite the allegations. The Daily Caller was told the entire office signed the statement, which includes all eight women who work for Gaetz.
“After the shocking allegations last week in the press, we, the women of Congressman Matt Gaetz’s office, feel morally obligated to speak out. During Congressman Gaetz’s time in office, we have been behind the scenes every step of the way. We have staffed his meetings. We have planned his events. We have traveled with him. And we have tracked his schedule,” the statement reads.
The New York Times reported that the Justice Department is investigating whether Gaetz had a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old girl. Gaetz reportedly showed other lawmakers photos and videos of nude women and talked about having sex with them, according to a CNN piece published on April 1. Some of the incidents reportedly happened on the House floor.
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https://dailycaller.com/2021/04/08/matt-gaetz-daily-beast-joel-greenberg-venmo-sex-trafficking/?utm_source=piano&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=recaps&pnespid=luNo_PdVFBCN04AQlK3CmlkUtVm5OOigtoiR.HLJ
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https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9708705/The-relatives-Biden-staff-hired-administration.html
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1. Politics Abhors a Vacuum. Conservatives too often wait merely to oppose a liberal proposal, which leaves the initiative always in the hands of liberals. It is important to beat liberals to the lead.
2. Write the Resolved Clause. One secret of winning a debate is to decide up front what it is going to be about. Liberals seem to know this instinctively, conservatives all too often don’t—which means they wind up discussing what solutions to adopt, or not, to problems that the liberals have selected. This permits the left to maintain the rhetorical offensive, define the scope of possible action, and wind up getting much of what they want. Conservatives must avoid the trap of simply debating issues as the left presents them, and instead define the issue for themselves.
3. Nothing Is “Inevitable.” This is one of the hoariest verbal-conceptual tricks in the liberal handbook. Usually what is called “inevitable” in Washington is something leftward activists or Beltway pundits assume or want, thus encouraging their cadres while demoralizing their opponents. Conservatives should resist this dismal counsel wherever it is offered, remembering that by their own exertions and advocacy they can change the dynamics of most political situations (and have often done so).
4. Fighting Is Better Than Not Fighting. A self-evident proposition, one would think, but apparently it isn’t. Nothing can more certainly assure the victory of leftward causes than the failure of conservatives, Republicans, businessmen, et al., to oppose them. This doesn’t mean every battle can be won, or that all battles can be fought at once. It does mean that, generally speaking, a vigorous, sustained resistance well-grounded in the facts can drastically change the feedback from the polls and focus groups that are so much relied on.
5. Washington Is Not America. Republicans for the most part come to DC repeating this mantra to themselves, but once more there seems to be a memory problem. The enveloping atmosphere of the city, the hugeness of the government itself, the clamorous interest groups, the TV talking heads—all of this is hard to ignore or overcome. In these precincts, many liberal ideas are regarded as a done deal, something no sustained or decent person could oppose. Opinion surveys often reveal, however, that things look quite different outside the Beltway, especially after the opposition finally starts to oppose.
6. Taxes Are Trumps. As all of the above suggests, the question of high and rising taxes remains what it has ever been—the gold standard of Republican issues. This is the great trump card of the GOP, a solid, powerful and intelligible topic that can be placed over against all the standard liberal promises of something-for-nothing from the federal larder. Whenever the GOP has been able to use this issue in credible fashion—most notably under Ronald Reagan—it has emerged the winner. Whenever it strays from the anti-tax position—as under George H.W. Bush—it gets itself in trouble.
Stan Evans, Steve Hayward new book
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2021/06/stan-evanss-six-rules-for-political-combat.php
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Most republicans aren't willing to engage.
1. Politics Abhors a Vacuum. Conservatives too often wait merely to oppose a liberal proposal, which leaves the initiative always in the hands of liberals. It is important to beat liberals to the lead.
2. Write the Resolved Clause. One secret of winning a debate is to decide up front what it is going to be about. Liberals seem to know this instinctively, conservatives all too often don’t—which means they wind up discussing what solutions to adopt, or not, to problems that the liberals have selected. This permits the left to maintain the rhetorical offensive, define the scope of possible action, and wind up getting much of what they want. Conservatives must avoid the trap of simply debating issues as the left presents them, and instead define the issue for themselves.
3. Nothing Is “Inevitable.” This is one of the hoariest verbal-conceptual tricks in the liberal handbook. Usually what is called “inevitable” in Washington is something leftward activists or Beltway pundits assume or want, thus encouraging their cadres while demoralizing their opponents. Conservatives should resist this dismal counsel wherever it is offered, remembering that by their own exertions and advocacy they can change the dynamics of most political situations (and have often done so).
4. Fighting Is Better Than Not Fighting. A self-evident proposition, one would think, but apparently it isn’t. Nothing can more certainly assure the victory of leftward causes than the failure of conservatives, Republicans, businessmen, et al., to oppose them. This doesn’t mean every battle can be won, or that all battles can be fought at once. It does mean that, generally speaking, a vigorous, sustained resistance well-grounded in the facts can drastically change the feedback from the polls and focus groups that are so much relied on.
5. Washington Is Not America. Republicans for the most part come to DC repeating this mantra to themselves, but once more there seems to be a memory problem. The enveloping atmosphere of the city, the hugeness of the government itself, the clamorous interest groups, the TV talking heads—all of this is hard to ignore or overcome. In these precincts, many liberal ideas are regarded as a done deal, something no sustained or decent person could oppose. Opinion surveys often reveal, however, that things look quite different outside the Beltway, especially after the opposition finally starts to oppose.
6. Taxes Are Trumps. As all of the above suggests, the question of high and rising taxes remains what it has ever been—the gold standard of Republican issues. This is the great trump card of the GOP, a solid, powerful and intelligible topic that can be placed over against all the standard liberal promises of something-for-nothing from the federal larder. Whenever the GOP has been able to use this issue in credible fashion—most notably under Ronald Reagan—it has emerged the winner. Whenever it strays from the anti-tax position—as under George H.W. Bush—it gets itself in trouble.
Stan Evans, Steve Hayward new book
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2021/06/stan-evanss-six-rules-for-political-combat.php
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65% of the Americans making more than $500,000 a year are Democrats, and 74% of those who earn less than $100,000 a year are Republicans, according to IRS statistics
By 2018, Democratic representatives were in control all 20 of the wealthiest congressional districts. In the recent presidential primaries and general election, 17 of the 20 wealthiest ZIP codes gave more money to Democratic candidates than to Republicans.
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2021/07/15/democratic_party_wont_admit_its_become_the_party_of_wealth_146083.html
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https://dailycaller.com/2021/07/25/pelosi-adam-kinzinger-jan-6-commission-jordan-banks/
by now law enforcement and intelligence agencies
have overturned every stone
what we don't know is what THEY are/were doing.
IMHO, if anyone should be made to answer it is them.
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Listening to the guys who replaced Rush on radio talk about mask mandates all the time, it occurs to me the vaccine and mask mandates and threats are VERY effective. They are taking the attention of the country off of the border crisis. No one (it seems) is talking about gas prices nearly doubling, real wages falling, inflation surging, China surging, Russia hacking, pessimism spiking, police quitting, murders surging, or THE DEFICIT TRIPLING.
Constant introduction of new crises IS their strategy. If we keep following them to their new crisis without accelerating the fight on all other issues, they are winning.
[Credit to the forum; we do keep the heat on other issues. We just need 90 million followers.]
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".Listening to the guys who replaced Rush on radio talk about mask mandates all the time, it occurs to me the vaccine and mask mandates and threats are VERY effective. They are taking the attention of the country off of the border crisis. No one (it seems) is talking about gas prices nearly doubling, real wages falling, inflation surging, China surging, Russia hacking, pessimism spiking, police quitting, murders surging, or THE DEFICIT TRIPLING."
for past 2 to 3 weeks I change the station when I hear conservative radio hosts or cable hosts go off on the vaccine stuff
I get it
individual liberty to say no
and to stop government control
But I totally disagree that this is NOT the issue to take a stand on (the hill to die on - this is NOT Bunker Hill)
Do we want the epidemic to continue on for longer than it need to ?
of course vaccines help
not perfect
of course
but clearly they have made a big difference.
yes one can find epidemiologist who can pull out numbers and the Goddam endless
reference to "data"
So what
I warned here long watch out for those who continue to cite an interpretation of data
especially when is is reaching to show some pre planned agenda
as for closing down places I am totally against doing that again
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"Constant introduction of new crises IS their strategy. If we keep following them to their new crisis without accelerating the fight on all other issues, they are winning."
THIS.
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Just trying to help the other side:
Democrats: Keeping us poor since 1964.
40 million in poverty in America the day before the 'war on poverty'.
Think of what has happened since then, productivity and wealth gains worldwide, man on the moon,
Projected cost approaching $40Trillion.
https://www.heritage.org/poverty-and-inequality/report/the-war-poverty-after-50-years
Result: 40 million in poverty today. Not on person lifted out of poverty with $1 million per p0erson spent.
Dim Dem response: Double down on government dependency. MORE of the same - because it's not working!
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Very good big picture point. Where should we also put it so that it does not get lost?
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(https://i1.wp.com/www.powerlineblog.com/ed-assets/2021/08/IMG_3816.png?w=848&ssl=1)
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https://www.nationalreview.com/news/69-percent-of-hispanics-disaprove-of-bidens-handling-of-immigration/?utm_source=email&utm_medium=breaking&utm_campaign=newstrack&utm_term=25256149
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v09044g40000c5s6t7rc77u0a15k5lq0.mp4
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".v09044g40000c5s6t7rc77u0a15k5lq0.mp4 "
is this a link?
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Sent to me by my wife via email as an attachment. In that context it opened for me, but when I post it as a URL I am told my settings do not permit opening it.
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https://amgreatness.com/2021/10/29/loudoun-county-sheriff-rejected-school-superintendents-extraordinary-security-requests-for-school-board-meetings/
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Interesting idea heard today, GOP should take the slogan "Build Back Better" right under their nose. There can't be a trademark on basic political speech. Call the question, who builds back better?
Them: Higher gas prices, higher heating bills, higher inflation, empty shelves, border in crisis, increasing poverty and homelessness, housing scarcities, negligent foreign policy.
Us: Lowest black and Hispanic unemployment rates, best economic growth for all, lower energy prices, secure the homeland, spend within means*, (* = going forward).
While we're at it, steal the color blue back and paint them red.
Yes, then vote harder! )
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"While we're at it, steal the color blue back and paint them red."
Letting them get away with the switcheroo on this was a deep error on our part. Red is the color of deficits and communism. Throughout the world, blue is the color of the Right and we just let them reverse it without our even noticing.
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Right-Trending Political Alignment Among Hispanics?
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/guybenson/2021/11/17/change-hispanic-texas-democrat-announces-party-switch-to-gop-n2599115
Democrats Slipping With Asian-American Voters
https://freebeacon.com/democrats/democrats-slipping-with-asian-american-voters/
Leftists Are Pushing Asian Americans Out Of The Democratic Party
https://thefederalist.com/2021/03/15/leftists-are-pushing-asian-americans-out-of-the-democratic-party/
Trump made gains with Black voters - Vox
https://www.vox.com/2020/11/4/21537966/trump-black-voters-exit-polls
Suburban shifts hand GOP Virginia along with fresh messaging
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/analysis-suburban-shifts-hand-gop-virginia-fresh-messaging/story?id=80864955
Gallop: GOP Takes Unprecedented 10-Point Lead on Generic Ballot
https://news.gallup.com/poll/142718/gop-unprecedented-lead-generic-ballot.aspx
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If the election were held today ... the election will not be held today. Much more work to do, but the idea that the Republicans have a monopoly on political stupidity and self inflicted wounds is over. It's time to start judging policies against results.
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Extended interaction with CNN interview. I'm impressed. This woman bears watching.
https://rumble.com/vpmeed-winsome-sears-educates-clueless-cnn-host-on-critical-race-theory.html?mref=22lbp&mc=56yab&fbclid=IwAR2qYRdwXrF6BEF4yaPFSOym472-gm2HszKCDwR7xLyvJA2SxV8DeuQ8b0o
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https://townhall.com/columnists/wayneallynroot/2021/11/28/get-ready-for-president-hillary-clinton-n2599713
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"Don't laugh. Get ready. It's coming. Clinton/Obama in 2024."
:-o
versus Trump/? '24?
:-oa :cry: :-o :cry:
what a country. ! :roll:
PS
if Hillary reads this she will have an orgasm and begin calling out all her snakes lying in the lairs so they can slither around DC planning the next con on America
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Byron York on the results of a Democrat internal poll:
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/byron-yorks-daily-memo-democrats-deepest-fears
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https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/12/biden-is-losing-his-grip-on-the-democratic-party/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=NR%20Daily%20Monday%20through%20Friday%202021-12-09&utm_term=NRDaily-Smart
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https://hotair.com/allahpundit/2021/12/09/many-more-democrats-in-nevada-are-switching-to-republican-than-vice-versa-n434415
Reminds me that my grandfather came to be Republican by voting for Democrat Woodrow Wilson and watching the disastrous results.
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https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1469497028354924549?fbclid=IwAR1iL1zcSOf8pDKR5KizpQApxBAurhPfIzga4NgshWXZxl6QGB_Ur-cfpu8
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Good video
I can hear the screams now:
"threat to democracy !"
Or the latest:
' just a black face spewing white supremacist ideals "
did you see Levin tonight ?
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Yes I did, my 89 year old mom was over for dinner, we watched together. :-)
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"my 89 year old mom was over for dinner, we watched together."
That is great.
But wait . Didn't your Mom invite Bella Abzug to your house, or something yrs ago.
Bella was a Democrat stalwart in NY?
She watches Levin now? :-o
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Bella and my mom co-chaired a committee in the 17th CD for McCarthy for President in 1968-- i.e. that was 53 years ago! :-D
And yes, she now watches FOX pretty much all the time.
The world retains its ability to surprise :-D
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WOW!
:-D
your mother is cool 8-)
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WOW!
:-D
your mother is cool 8-)
Likewise. Wow!
Do you admit some influence? It's a puzzle to understand how people change their mind - so that maybe more would.
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While I proudly admit to some influence, she has always been a free thinker.
A long story, but she was doing a do-good private sector conversion of a brownstone in Harlem to a rooming house (this was written up in the NY Times btw) and the manager called and left a message on a message in an empty apartment saying "Judy, we need some more bags" meaning garbage bags. Somehow , , , the police listened to it and decided my mother must be a drug dealer and raided her home in upstate NY, pointing guns at her sweet dog and taking her computer and holding on to it for months until she laid out $10k for a lawyer to get it back.
This had a distinct effect on her attitude towards government.
Also, in her early 70s she was doing some do-gooder work in Peru (about 200 km south of Lima) helping a certain village there get a grape growing effort going and showing them that if they alternated rows of beans and corn they would not need to buy nitrogen fertilizer. There was a monster earthquake and she saw how the NGOs were really a bunch of vultures.
This too affected her way of thinking.
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"Somehow , , , the police listened to it and decided my mother must be a drug dealer and raided her home in upstate NY"
Thank goodness they didn't think her fertilizer work in Peru was not a cocaines smuggling operation !
"she saw how the NGOs were really a bunch of vultures."
I am also hesitant and thus rarely contribute to charity orgs for this reason.
Reminds me of the Clinton " charity " work in Haiti........
If I recall my grandmother was in S. America during an Earthquake but it must have been this one in Peru in 1966. I would have been 9
I remember my parents and everyone worried when they heard about it in the news.
My grandmother reported being on a bus and the driver having a hard to time keeping it on the road and swerving back and forth.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_earthquakes_in_Peru
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I would distinguish NGOs and Charity organizations.
(BTW see the Charity thread and our options for evaluating the bang for the buck)
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https://www.charitywatch.org/charities/clinton-foundation
Clinton foundation listed as A - (??? hard to believe )
Wounded Warrior only a C + (well they do have tracy Adkins as front man and I can tell you he is a lying piece of garbage)
Fisher house A + (for veterans and families )
Unicef A
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I stopped giving to Wounded Warrior years ago when I read about management giving themselves mega salaries.
In no particular order I give to:
a) Michael Yon;
b) Hillsadale College;
c) Patriot Post;
d) forget the exact name but it sends children of fallen Green Berets to college. Recommended to me by Frankie McRae
e) USO
f) North Carolina Sheriffs Ass'n (I get nifty bumper sticker and decal to put on my truck ;-) )
g) some others which do not come to mind in this moment
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While I proudly admit to some influence, she has always been a free thinker.
A long story, but she was doing a do-good private sector conversion of a brownstone in Harlem to a rooming house (this was written up in the NY Times btw) and the manager called and left a message on a message in an empty apartment saying "Judy, we need some more bags" meaning garbage bags. Somehow , , , the police listened to it and decided my mother must be a drug dealer and raided her home in upstate NY, pointing guns at her sweet dog and taking her computer and holding on to it for months until she laid out $10k for a lawyer to get it back.
This had a distinct effect on her attitude towards government.
Also, in her early 70s she was doing some do-gooder work in Peru (about 200 km south of Lima) helping a certain village there get a grape growing effort going and showing them that if they alternated rows of beans and corn they would not need to buy nitrogen fertilizer. There was a monster earthquake and she saw how the NGOs were really a bunch of vultures.
This too affected her way of thinking.
Great stories. Thank you. Reminds me a bit of Thomas Sowell who grew up partly in Harlem. After studying economics under the best, Milton Friedman and others, he was still a Marxist. Worked a short time in a government office. Saw how things work from the inside and became one of the world's greatest thinkers on free market capitalism.
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https://townhall.com/tipsheet/landonmion/2021/12/14/connecticut-senator-touts-build-back-better-act-at-communist-awards-show-n2600589
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many of these jewish libs would certainly have been bolsheviks
supporting stalin
many less would have survived
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DEMOCRATS
Progressives rethink Hispanics’ support for racial justice agenda
BY KERRY PICKET THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Hispanics’ rejection of the transgender-friendly term “Latinx” has left-wing operatives wondering if it was a mistake to classify them as fully aligned with progressive values.
In a recent essay, Ruy Teixeira, a senior fellow at the liberal Center for American Progress, needled fellow progressives for assuming all Hispanics would support the party’s racial justice agenda.
“It is hard to avoid the conclusion that Democrats have seriously erred by lumping Hispanics in with ‘people of color’ and assuming they embraced the activism around racial issues that dominated so much of the political scene in 2020, particularly in the summer. This was a flawed assumption,” he wrote in “The Liberal Patriot” newsletter on Substack.
“The reality of the Hispanic population is that they are, broadly speaking, an overwhelmingly working-class, economically progressive, socially moderate constituency that cares above all, about jobs, the economy and health care,” he said.
Mr. Teixeira warned Democrats that the Hispanic constituency “does not harbor particularly radical views on the nature of American society and its supposed intrinsic racism and white supremacy. … They are instead a patriotic, upwardly mobile, working-class group with quite practical and down-to-earth concerns. Democrats will either learn to focus on that or they will continue to lose ground among this vital group of voters.”
The conservative pushback from Hispanic voters was felt in a recent Bendixen and Amandi International poll that revealed only 2% of Hispanics used the “Latinx” term while 40% were offended by it.
More troubling for liberals, recent Census Bureau data sets showed that an increase in the numbers of voters of color did not come mostly from Black voters. The spike came from Hispanic, Asian American and mixed-race voters — groups that did not support Democrats by huge margins in recent election cycles, according to analysts.
Republicans see an opportunity to capitalize on a political shift among Hispanics. They are tailoring a national messaging campaign to Hispanics’ concerns about the economy and the rising crime.
“Hispanic voters are moving toward the Republican Party because Democrats’ reckless spending caused a massive inflation crisis,” said Mike Berg, a spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee that works to elect GOP candidates to the House.
Progressives’ concerns regarding the loss of Hispanic voters were echoed in a new “postmortem” analysis of the 2016 and 2020 elections by Equis Research, a Democratic-associated Hispanic research firm.
The report, titled “The American Dream Voter,” revealed that Democrats lost Hispanic voters, dropping from 71% voting Democratic in 2016 to 63% voting Democratic in 2020.
There was not a significant shift among white, Black, and Asian voters between 2016 and 2020.
Other polls since the 2020 election confirm this analysis. A recent Wall Street Journal survey of Hispanic voters showed the demographic split evenly between Democrats and Republicans on a 2022 generic Congressional ballot.
The poll also shows that in a 2024 hypothetical rematch between President Biden and former President Donald Trump, Hispanics broke for Mr. Biden by just 1 point.
Matthew Thomas, an organizer with the NYC-Democratic Socialists of America, wrote in the Aug. 16 “Vulgar Marxism” newsletter on Substack that he noticed the pro-Trump Hispanic shift in Queens. He noted that the 2020 Census Bureau data of the region showed that the once majority-white borough has more people of color living in it than ever before, particularly Hispanics and Asians.
Despite this growth over the last decade, Mr. Thomas wrote, “That didn’t stop Donald Trump from notching the best performance by a Republican presidential candidate here in 16 years.” He added, “Only at the height of the country’s jingoistic fever in 2004 did George W. Bush manage to grind out another half-point during his reelection campaign. But Trump still beat Bush’s margin from 2000, and Biden still did worse than Al Gore.”
A survey by the Democracy Fund Voter Study Group, a bipartisan research collaboration, revealed that over 70% of Hispanic voters rated jobs, the economy, health care and the pandemic as “very important” issues.
Additionally, Hispanic voters rated the issue of crime as more important than immigration or racial equality while largely not supporting the defunding of the police or decreasing the size of law enforcement.
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https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2022/01/04/liberals-blaming-glenn-youngkin-over-va-winter-storm-response-are-missing-a-simpl-n2601387
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https://apnews.com/article/oddities-bette-midler-west-virginia-governor-jim-justice-dog-f791d896f56707884d1ad7effbe99ffa?fbclid=IwAR0OoATynVpMJnOEevcW2mm0W8lnR7MLdSUZguYBVorTcZfKf2MuVl2k6eg
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https://www.politico.com/news/2022/02/07/texas-hispanic-women-leaders-00006072
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Posted simply to note the position of the WSJ, which is an influential editorial page.
I differ substantially.
I would like to see the Reps take the House, and Senate, and impeach both Biden and Harris for dereliction of duty with an eye to replacing them by the new Speaker of the House.
============
The President We Have
Biden needs new advisers and help from Congress to deter Russia and other escalating threats.
By The Editorial Board
Follow
March 27, 2022 6:31 pm ET
More or less the whole world—including his own advisers on background—has criticized President Biden for his latest gaffe in saying in his Warsaw speech on Saturday that Vladimir Putin “cannot remain in power.” There’s no need to pile on. And someone should say that Mr. Biden’s unscripted remark did have the virtue of telling the truth that the problem in Russia won’t end even if Mr. Putin orders his troops out of Ukraine.
Mr. Biden’s remark, even after its repudiation on Sunday by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, may well make it harder to negotiate with Mr. Putin over Ukraine or anything else. And Mr. Biden’s habit of misstating his own policies—no fewer than three times during his European trip—is especially dangerous amid an international crisis.
Then again, the same critics who are lambasting Mr. Biden helped to hide his obviously fading capacities in the 2020 campaign. They circled the wagons around his Delaware basement because they thought he was the only Democrat who could defeat Donald Trump.
The reality is that we have to live with Mr. Biden for three more years as President. And please stop writing letters imploring us to demand that Mr. Biden resign. Do you really want Vice President Kamala Harris in the Oval Office? She was chosen as a bow to identity politics to unite the Democratic Party in the election campaign, not for her ability to fill the President’s shoes. In the last 14 months she has failed to demonstrate even the minimum knowledge or capacity for the job. We are fated to make the best of the President we have.
In that regard, Members of Congress of both parties will have to play a more assertive role, and the good news is that they have been doing so to good effect on Ukraine. Congress has stiffened Mr. Biden’s resolve on sanctions and military aid. The pattern is that the White House resists a tougher policy until it faces a defeat or difficult vote on Capitol Hill. Bipartisan coalitions of the willing will be even more important as the war continues, and threats from Iran, China and North Korea escalate.
As we’ve argued, Mr. Biden would also be wise to bring some high-profile conservatives and Republicans into his Administration. In 1940, as the prospect of world war approached, FDR brought in experienced GOP internationalists Henry Stimson as Secretary of War and Frank Knox as Secretary of the Navy. They built credibility with the public and on Capitol Hill for the hard choices to come.
Harry Truman worked with GOP Sen. Arthur Vandenberg to build support for NATO at the dawn of the Cold War. Jimmy Carter at least had the hawkish Zbigniew Brzezinski as his national security adviser when the Soviets tried to exploit Mr. Carter’s weakness.
Mr. Blinken has shown impressive energy as Secretary of State, and he was right in advising Mr. Biden not to withdraw in toto from Afghanistan. But Mr. Biden desperately needs to diversify the advice he gets beyond the liberal internationalists who dominate his councils. Susan Rice, Ron Klain and Jake Sullivan have the Afghan failure on their resumes.
Better advice is needed because Mr. Biden is right that the Russia problem won’t go away as long as Mr. Putin sits in the Kremlin. This doesn’t mean open advocacy of regime change is wise. Russians will have to decide if Mr. Putin must go.
But Mr. Biden’s muscular assertions in the written text of his Warsaw speech need to be supported by more than rhetoric. The U.S. and the West need to urgently restore and strengthen the credibility of their military and diplomatic deterrents. More hawkish advisers would send a more determined signal to the world—and especially to adversaries.
The world is entering the most dangerous period since the Soviet Union collapsed, and perhaps since the 1930s. The Covid crisis obscured the trend, but the dangers have become obvious as adversaries have reacted to what they perceive to be the American decline, division and weakness at the root of the Afghanistan debacle. Mr. Biden needs to back up his Warsaw words with a defense buildup and far more diplomatic realism to confront the great risks ahead.
-
Except for being totally wrong on:
Energy
Immigration
Crime
Education
Foreign Policy
Inflation
Taxes
Spending
Gender denial
and 10 small areas articulated in the Bill of rights,
Other than needing to "pivot" on all the major issues of the day back to freedom, strength and responsibility, they really are quite nice, electable people.
---------
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/biden-approval-numbers-mark-penn
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Except for being totally wrong on:
Energy
Immigration
Crime
Education
Foreign Policy
Inflation
Taxes
Spending
Gender denial
and 10 small areas articulated in the Bill of rights,
... Other than needing to "pivot" on all the major issues of the day back to freedom, strength and responsibility, Democrats really are quite nice, electable people.
---------
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/biden-approval-numbers-mark-penn
-
The dem acts like they don't have to worry about elections. I wonder why...
Except for being totally wrong on:
Energy
Immigration
Crime
Education
Foreign Policy
Inflation
Taxes
Spending
Gender denial
and 10 small areas articulated in the Bill of rights,
Other than needing to "pivot" on all the major issues of the day back to freedom, strength and responsibility, they really are quite nice, electable people.
---------
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/biden-approval-numbers-mark-penn
-
right
besides cheating
bribery
is the millions of illegals and another 5 mill slated to walk across this yr along
the vast majority future Dem voters
-
I was told that population replacement is a racist right wing myth.
It's not?
right
besides cheating
bribery
is the millions of illegals and another 5 mill slated to walk across this yr along
the vast majority future Dem voters
-
Rat Colony Beneath D.C. Disgusted To Find City Infested With Politicians
- Babylon Bee
-
https://republicbrief.com/democrats-demanding-the-sacking-of-ag-merrick-garland/
Like Trump pissed at his attorney generals :?
-
"What do you get when you combine the Democrats’ Hispanic voter problem with the Democrats’ working class voter problem? Something like the Democrats’ Nevada problem."
https://theliberalpatriot.substack.com/p/the-democrats-nevada-problem
---------
I was returning a rental car in sunny Southern Calif this past week, chatting with a Hispanic looking worker checking it in. He mentioned the crazy high cost of gas. I said, don't vote for the people doing that to us and he responded with instant, passionate agreement. Better agreement than I ever get on any issue from wealthier, 'moderate', (liberal voting) friends at home.
Gas prices, home prices, food prices, inflation hit you like, well like taxes, and we know who's doing it. One party wants them ever higher and one party wants them lower and stable. One side is working for you. The other side against you. We used to call them kitchen table issues. I can't win that argument with anyone but reality can.
-
".Better agreement than I ever get on any issue from wealthier, 'moderate', (liberal voting) friends at home."
astonishing isn't it?
how the die hard Dem partisans NEVER admit to anything
the most I ever got as a concession from any of these disciples of the Party line
is:
if I say the Dems are lying their response
is "all the politicians do it"
without any acknowledgement that any Dem if full of it
or that it is wrong
and they only say this to end the discussion in order not to admit their people are lying etc.
-
https://dailycaller.com/2022/04/13/quinnipiac-poll-biden-support-hispanics-collapses/?utm_medium=email&pnespid=v_d1An9VOPMagvWQpTG7Gc6CvBG0UMtnLPWk3bN68RpmK1p3cRXMp9iOVGKSPwIrsyWQUQ3r
-
https://www.hoover.org/news/qa-senior-fellow-david-leal-past-present-and-future-latino-vote?utm_campaign=Cultivation&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=209810202&_hsenc=p2ANqtz--TlC56b16H2utT8UeYLTFRZB597VDJ1mL8VHgo1CS0nH-CF_f9mfWFrieqtVhDiaL0mivtJEd78MkzThrtRoRm3Rw-9g&utm_content=209810202&utm_source=hs_email
-
https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/15/politics/biden-youth-approval-polling/index.html
Question authority.
-
I am much less clear
that this means they are turning into Republicans
or, they like Trump now
-
prior to election
would this shift younger people back to approving Biden much ?
I don't know:
https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2022/04/15/psaki-canceling-student-debt-on-the-table-relief-from-inflation-is-a-big-part-of-the-consideration/
-
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/lost-bidens-agenda-democrats-offer-competing-theories-failure-build-ba-rcna24552
I forget who had the dog food marketing analogy for politics,. It wasn't selling and so they kept trying different advertising approaches until someone pointed out the truth, the dogs didn't like it.
Moderates blame the progressives and progressives blame the moderates in the Democratic party but the people are not sold on more policies that bring more class warfare, more stagnation and more inflation, especially after having a pre-Covid teaser of across the board, pro-growth policies that helped everyone and the ended so suddenly.
The people weren't voting for these policies, they were voting against mean tweets.
-
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2022/apr/22/gop-community-center-stakes-claim-hispanic-neighbo/?utm_source=Boomtrain&utm_medium=subscriber&utm_campaign=evening&utm_term=evening&utm_content=evening&bt_ee=cUddRrUNyBS%2BZvgIlWF9fawTdIkEMKpHNYzoaOzzCt3yFEpa4oOdgv0w1ci5QNOH&bt_ts=1650659149049
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Republicans gain popularity with Hispanic, non-White voters
Survey finds disenchantment with Biden administration
BY SUSAN FERRECHIO THE WASHINGTON TIMES
A recent Marist Poll showing a Republican advantage in the upcoming election has some additional good news for the GOP — big gains among Hispanic and other non-White voters.
The survey, taken in late April, reflects a national trend signaling Hispanic and non-White voters are increasingly disenchanted with the Biden administration and with Democrats who run Congress. In rising numbers, they plan to pick GOP candidates in November, when every House seat and 34 Senate seats are up for grabs.
A Wall Street Journal poll in March found Hispanic voters picked a Republican candidate over a Democrat by 9 percentage points on the generic congressional ballot.
The survey found that support for Democrats among Black voters had shrunk dramatically, from 56% in November 2021 to 35% in March. Black voters increased their support for GOP candidates, the poll found, from 12% to 27% from November to March.
Republican strategists are optimistic, but say the upcoming election will truly test whether the trend spotted in polls will provide real gains to the party, which has traditionally lagged behind Democrats when it comes to Hispanic and non-White voters.
“We’ve seen a surge in polling showing Hispanics are moving to the GOP, but have yet to see any real evidence in recent special elections and off-year elections,” said Republican strategist Ryan Girdusky.
The Marist poll of registered voters showed that 47% planned to vote for a GOP candidate, compared with 44% who said they would more likely choose a Democrat. Independent voters picked Republicans over Democrats 45% to 38%.
Among Hispanics, whose vote has become increasingly critical in swing areas of the country, 52% said they would pick a Republican if the election were held immediately, compared with 39% who planned to vote for a Democrat.
Half of non-White voters said they would pick a Democrat, but 41% said they would choose a Republican candidate.
The big gains for the GOP suggest that while President Biden will not be on the ballot, he’s poised to cast a long shadow over the results.
Voters are increasingly concerned about inflation, high gas prices, crime and other economic woes that have persisted or worsened under the Biden administration.
Among Hispanic voters polled by Marist, 60% disapproved of Mr. Biden’s handling of the economy, while 33% said they approved of his job performance. Non-White voters disapproved by a margin of 50% to 43%.
Giancarlo Sopo, a Cuban American Republican strategist, said the Marist poll shows Hispanic voters are unhappy about the economy and other issues, including rising crime.
“The data strongly suggest Biden’s Hispanic woes stem from concerns over the economy and public safety,” Mr. Sopo tweeted. “Hispanics disapprove of economic handling by 27 points. This makes sense. The median Hispanic household income is $55k. Inflation is bad for everyone and brutal for Latinos.”
Mr. Girdusky said Senate and House races in Nevada, Texas, Arizona, and in California’s Central Valley, where Hispanics make up a substantial part of the electorate, “will tell us how substantial the movement is.”
According to the nonpartisan, nonprofit National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials, 1 in every 10 voters in 2022 is expected to be Latino, an increase of more than 34% since 2014.
In Arizona, where Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly is defending a seat that could determine whether the party maintains the Senate majority, Hispanics are expected to make up nearly a quarter of all voters.
Mr. Biden won the state by fewer than 10,000 votes in 2020, and Arizona voters have since then soured on the administration.
An OH Predictive Insights poll taken in late March found 55% of Arizona voters were unhappy with Mr. Biden’s job performance. Among the respondents, 22% were Hispanics.
The wavering Hispanic vote will be critical in Nevada’s Senate race, where Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto is battling Republican challenger Adam Laxalt.
More than 16% of the 2022 electorate in Nevada is expected to be made up of Hispanic voters. They helped Mr. Biden narrowly win the state in 2020, but polling in late March found Hispanic voters in Nevada now favor Mr. Trump by 19%.
The Blueprint Polling survey found Ms. Cortez Masto and Mr. Laxalt tied among Hispanic voters.
Democrats told The Washington Times they plan to educate Hispanic voters on the difference between the two political parties on taxes, health care and other issues.
“While Democrats lower costs and invest in communities, Republicans plot to hike taxes on working families and attack affordable health care, all while emboldening the extremists and White supremacists in their rank,” said Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spokeswoman Hallen Kalla.
Mr. Sopo told The Washington Times that Democrats need to focus on issues that are most critical to Hispanic voters and not “political correctness and making minorities feel like victims in America,” which he said, “is just not how most Hispanics view ourselves or this country.”
-
The great replacement isn’t so bad…
:roll:
Republicans gain popularity with Hispanic, non-White voters
Survey finds disenchantment with Biden administration
BY SUSAN FERRECHIO THE WASHINGTON TIMES
A recent Marist Poll showing a Republican advantage in the upcoming election has some additional good news for the GOP — big gains among Hispanic and other non-White voters.
The survey, taken in late April, reflects a national trend signaling Hispanic and non-White voters are increasingly disenchanted with the Biden administration and with Democrats who run Congress. In rising numbers, they plan to pick GOP candidates in November, when every House seat and 34 Senate seats are up for grabs.
A Wall Street Journal poll in March found Hispanic voters picked a Republican candidate over a Democrat by 9 percentage points on the generic congressional ballot.
The survey found that support for Democrats among Black voters had shrunk dramatically, from 56% in November 2021 to 35% in March. Black voters increased their support for GOP candidates, the poll found, from 12% to 27% from November to March.
Republican strategists are optimistic, but say the upcoming election will truly test whether the trend spotted in polls will provide real gains to the party, which has traditionally lagged behind Democrats when it comes to Hispanic and non-White voters.
“We’ve seen a surge in polling showing Hispanics are moving to the GOP, but have yet to see any real evidence in recent special elections and off-year elections,” said Republican strategist Ryan Girdusky.
The Marist poll of registered voters showed that 47% planned to vote for a GOP candidate, compared with 44% who said they would more likely choose a Democrat. Independent voters picked Republicans over Democrats 45% to 38%.
Among Hispanics, whose vote has become increasingly critical in swing areas of the country, 52% said they would pick a Republican if the election were held immediately, compared with 39% who planned to vote for a Democrat.
Half of non-White voters said they would pick a Democrat, but 41% said they would choose a Republican candidate.
The big gains for the GOP suggest that while President Biden will not be on the ballot, he’s poised to cast a long shadow over the results.
Voters are increasingly concerned about inflation, high gas prices, crime and other economic woes that have persisted or worsened under the Biden administration.
Among Hispanic voters polled by Marist, 60% disapproved of Mr. Biden’s handling of the economy, while 33% said they approved of his job performance. Non-White voters disapproved by a margin of 50% to 43%.
Giancarlo Sopo, a Cuban American Republican strategist, said the Marist poll shows Hispanic voters are unhappy about the economy and other issues, including rising crime.
“The data strongly suggest Biden’s Hispanic woes stem from concerns over the economy and public safety,” Mr. Sopo tweeted. “Hispanics disapprove of economic handling by 27 points. This makes sense. The median Hispanic household income is $55k. Inflation is bad for everyone and brutal for Latinos.”
Mr. Girdusky said Senate and House races in Nevada, Texas, Arizona, and in California’s Central Valley, where Hispanics make up a substantial part of the electorate, “will tell us how substantial the movement is.”
According to the nonpartisan, nonprofit National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials, 1 in every 10 voters in 2022 is expected to be Latino, an increase of more than 34% since 2014.
In Arizona, where Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly is defending a seat that could determine whether the party maintains the Senate majority, Hispanics are expected to make up nearly a quarter of all voters.
Mr. Biden won the state by fewer than 10,000 votes in 2020, and Arizona voters have since then soured on the administration.
An OH Predictive Insights poll taken in late March found 55% of Arizona voters were unhappy with Mr. Biden’s job performance. Among the respondents, 22% were Hispanics.
The wavering Hispanic vote will be critical in Nevada’s Senate race, where Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto is battling Republican challenger Adam Laxalt.
More than 16% of the 2022 electorate in Nevada is expected to be made up of Hispanic voters. They helped Mr. Biden narrowly win the state in 2020, but polling in late March found Hispanic voters in Nevada now favor Mr. Trump by 19%.
The Blueprint Polling survey found Ms. Cortez Masto and Mr. Laxalt tied among Hispanic voters.
Democrats told The Washington Times they plan to educate Hispanic voters on the difference between the two political parties on taxes, health care and other issues.
“While Democrats lower costs and invest in communities, Republicans plot to hike taxes on working families and attack affordable health care, all while emboldening the extremists and White supremacists in their rank,” said Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spokeswoman Hallen Kalla.
Mr. Sopo told The Washington Times that Democrats need to focus on issues that are most critical to Hispanic voters and not “political correctness and making minorities feel like victims in America,” which he said, “is just not how most Hispanics view ourselves or this country.”
-
https://dailycaller.com/2022/05/02/poll-hispanic-voters-southern-border-closure/?utm_medium=email&pnespid=urhnBClGPbMZxKeRvWymAY6F7hu3U8Fqd.qumLdy8BBmbOs3DCVmDW1Vqn05WabtEn3m9TYT
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The shiny object release of the Alito draft is tempting our side into overreach.
It is a DRAFT.
The efforts at intimidation may well have effect and the final decision may well be quite a bit less.
In the meantime, Louisiana is talking about criminally punishing women who abort. While logically consistent, politically this is stupid.
Other states are talking about criminalizing efforts to assist travel to pro-abortion states for abortions. While logically consistent, this too is politically stupid.
We on the right have been dogs chasing the car called Roe v. Wade. Now that we may have caught it, we need to think well about what to do with it.
-
Shiny object is correct.
WW III and/or the continued collapse of the US into the hot CW2 are what to focus on for firsthand planning and preparation. When the EBT cards don't work or won't buy a weeks worth of food, abortion won't matter.
The shiny object release of the Alito draft is tempting our side into overreach.
It is a DRAFT.
The efforts at intimidation may well have effect and the final decision may well be quite a bit less.
In the meantime, Louisiana is talking about criminally punishing women who abort. While logically consistent, politically this is stupid.
Other states are talking about criminalizing efforts to assist travel to pro-abortion states for abortions. While logically consistent, this too is politically stupid.
We on the right have been dogs chasing the car called Roe v. Wade. Now that we may have caught it, we need to think well about what to do with it.
-
Could not agree more.
1. It is a draft; it hasn't happened yet.
2. Criminalization. Polling is all over the map, but public opinion is 50/50 at best with variances from state to state and how you frame the question. You do not criminalize what huge numbers of people do not even think is wrong.
I have tried since the start of the (abortion) thread to frame the issue in terms of winning hearts and minds first, distinguishing right from wrong, not advocating strict laws in the environment of divided political opinion.
3. Do not mess with rape. The keyword phrase is, exceptions in the case of rape, incest and life of the mother. No matter your personal belief, don't cross that line in public policy discussion or in law. It's over-rreach, you don't have public opinion with you and you're hurting your own cause.
4. 'Criminalizing efforts to assist travel' to other states is unconstitutional and "politically stupid".
5. Early term. Somewhere along the timeline a blob become a recognizable "independent existence". I think the Mississippi law draws a line at 16 weeks using "rational basis" to tie that age to where the procedure required becomes what a reasonable person might call "barbaric". If you have to kill it to remove it, you are recognizing it is a life.
I don't know where the best place is to draw the line is but that argument seems reasonable. Divided opinion means compromise. You are not outlawing all abortions with that line and you are not killing late term unborns that are indistinguishable from healthy babies. And you are not prohibiting travel or preventing willing people, not taxpayers, from sponsoring your travel.
6. Along the line of G M's point, screw this up so that we lose elections and we lose the country. Conservatism is a synonym for common sense, not extremism.
7. The real point with Roe v Wade is that it was a wrongly decided case. If this ruling goes through, that is remedied. Celebrate that we preserved our constitution for another minute. Lose the Senate in 5 months and that may be gone.
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The country was lost.
They blatantly stole an election right in front of us. Zero consequences paid.
Who went to jail for Burning/Looting/Murdering ?
No border, no rule of law, but gosh darn it, we are going to totally vote harder at the midterms!
-
"Conservatism is a synonym for common sense, not extremism."
Conservatism hasn't been able to conserve the Women's Room for biological females, much less anything else.
-
"Conservatism is a synonym for common sense, not extremism."
Conservatism hasn't been able to conserve the Women's Room for biological females, much less anything else.
We don't attract 40-something percent to the movement and win. We don't lose the popular vote and win control of the issues and institutions.
We don't fail to put our money where our mouth is and win. It took Elon Musk of unknown political views to be the first to buy a major outlet out from under them. And he did it with their money, the EV credit.
We don't win one four year term in the White House, and remake the federal government workforce.
We did win 6 of 9 Supreme Court seats, majority of state legislatures, governorships and from time to time the White House and Congress, so winning is possible, but losing in all but one(?) college, all broadcast networks, 99% of newspapers, all pop culture, all bureaucracies, down to all k-12, even private schools, makes everything an uphill climb.
This year we used our secret weapon, letting the Left and the results that come from their policies expose themselves. We have every opportunity for a clean sweep of everything on the table. Whether we win, how we win, where we win, and what we do with that win will determine everything.
The problems have been defined. Let's visualize solutions.
-
Do you think the deep state will allow it's power to be removed?
Remember when the republicans ended Obamacare?
"Conservatism is a synonym for common sense, not extremism."
Conservatism hasn't been able to conserve the Women's Room for biological females, much less anything else.
We don't attract 40-something percent to the movement and win. We don't lose the popular vote and win control of the issues and institutions.
We don't fail to put our money where our mouth is and win. It took Elon Musk of unknown political views to be the first to buy a major outlet out from under them. And he did it with their money, the EV credit.
We don't win one four year term in the White House, and remake the federal government workforce.
We did win 6 of 9 Supreme Court seats, majority of state legislatures, governorships and from time to time the White House and Congress, so winning is possible, but losing in all but one(?) college, all broadcast networks, 99% of newspapers, all pop culture, all bureaucracies, down to all k-12, even private schools, makes everything an uphill climb.
This year we used our secret weapon, letting the Left and the results that come from their policies expose themselves. We have every opportunity for a clean sweep of everything on the table. Whether we win, how we win, where we win, and what we do with that win will determine everything.
The problems have been defined. Let's visualize solutions.
-
"Do you think the deep state will allow it's power to be removed?"
- Do you mean by asking them nicely or by firing them one by one?
"Remember when the republicans ended Obamacare?"
- I said conservatives and you switched it to people who put an R by their name (cf. McCain) to get elected. We didn't have 50 or 51 honest, conservative Senators, nor did we have a plan.
When you fully give up hope or even trying, the discussion isn't very interesting.
Why don't we ask it another way: When will be a better time than now to start the effort to right this ship?
If you think freedom and liberty, gun rights, speech rights, property rights, etc. will be easier to attain after total economic and societal collapse, I'd say, a. I don't believe that, and b. cite your reasons. Looking around the world and throughout history, when did that work out well for anyone?
NO ONE EVER SAID IT WOULD BE EASY.
If history cycles itself then the time we are in is Jimmy Carter's Presidency when Paul Volcker started raising interest rates. Democrats controlled the Presidency, House, Senate and Courts, and schools and colleges and media. For a feel of the nation, they showed the headlines of the day in the opening of the movie "Miracle" and it was despair. Not only were the Soviets winning, we were becoming them from the inside out.
Skipping a few details, Reagan emerged from being a not very likely challenger with child-like optimism who never really led in the polls, to winning three landslide elections (including his exit election). One point that I'm getting at is that 12 years later Democrats had to split with the far Left of their party to be competitive nationally, and two years after that with the Gingrich revolution, the Dem President had to join the other side to govern, cutting tax rates and ending welfare as we know it. We had a 25 year economic expansion and you don't do that without a little liberty. [Then Republicans squandered all that had been gained.]
'But Doug, the country is different now.' Of course it is and now we have Hispanics coming over to our side, and blacks, and we own the vote of working people (until the next time we screw it up), and strangely, they have the mega-rich. When [in my lifetime, I'm 65] has there ever been a better time to get around their lock on the media? When have the Left's weaknesses been more exposed? Not since Carter? No. This is far worse for them right now.
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https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2022/may/11/gop-accelerates-outreach-asian-americans-makes-inr/?utm_source=Boomtrain&utm_medium=subscriber&utm_campaign=evening&utm_term=evening&utm_content=evening&bt_ee=M1D351t3dttrOJvrgjoS%2BFlfqeI8QzwXwyN2cL372IQebG19Ear9GVztt5HcgYe9&bt_ts=1652300742077
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https://nypost.com/2022/05/29/nancy-pelosis-husband-paul-82-arrested-for-dui-report/
Bail set at $5,000 for the 82 yo
-
https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1540060601631723520
-
https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1540060601631723520
Awesome!
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https://www.foxnews.com/media/asian-american-voters-furious-progressive-leftist-policies-democrats-friends?fbclid=IwAR1GM2Qm7MB4KUZhKc4B3j48zQYdsVRapbgeS_UIEJwFEyzKDbBz95qCwL0
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https://www.foxnews.com/media/teachers-union-survey-backfires-turns-epic-self-own-democrats-education-policy-expert?fbclid=IwAR11RT5AzljT_x6Dq3xSZ29kvC0II6jWXI5E86JcFCF9nYQV3d70IS8xRM4
-
https://michaelyon.locals.com/upost/2679141/meme-wars-pedohitler-taking-off
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Observation: This can, and likely will be, portrayed as calling for pulling the rug from under the Ukes just as they are doing well.
https://www.defenseone.com/policy/2022/09/conservative-groups-urging-lawmakers-vote-no-more-ukraine-aid/376954/
Observation: The better the Ukes do, and at the moment it looks like they are on the beginning of a good run, the better for Biden and the Dems in November.
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Pulling the rug from the 70% of money and materials being stolen before they get to the battlefield?
According to western media, the Ukes have been doing well all along!
Observation: This can, and likely will be, portrayed as calling for pulling the rug from under the Ukes just as they are doing well.
https://www.defenseone.com/policy/2022/09/conservative-groups-urging-lawmakers-vote-no-more-ukraine-aid/376954/
Observation: The better the Ukes do, and at the moment it looks like they are on the beginning of a good run, the better for Biden and the Dems in November.
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My observations of the politics are just that, observations-- not advocacy.
Do you agree or disagree with them?
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The graft machine always screams when anyone tries to slow the graft.
My observations of the politics are just that, observations-- not advocacy.
Do you agree or disagree with them?
-
Duh.
Will it work?
-
Duh.
Will it work?
https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/111/852/204/playable/b988b46ee2eaae99.mp4
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I'm guessing he is not a voter.
-
I'm guessing he is not a voter.
This is a good representation of the level of awareness from the typical voter.
-
Two obvious examples:
1. The student loan "forgiveness", transference to the taxpayers is a blatant cynical move to buy young votes coming into the midterms. We argue that it fails because of the people it leaves out and the people who got screwed by paying off their loans, BUT nonetheless... It IS a blatant cynical move to buy votes - WITH OUR MONEY.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BsV6axZ6e8 Steve Forbes spells it out.
2. The Strategic Midterm Petroleum Supply
https://roserambles.org/2022/09/13/biden-withdraws-record-amount-of-crude-from-strategic-midterm-reserve-sept-13-2022/
What is the purpose of this policy other than to buy votes in the midterm?
For every barrel depleted, we are less prepared for the emergency situation that just gets closer and closer. Maybe we could have kept Europe from freezing to death for example, or ourselves. But no. The amounts and timing of the releases are aimed at none other than the midterms. Get the gas at the pump price down just enough to avoid electoral carnage in the midterms. Then the price goes up artificially and painfully as we restore the levels. Or will they leave us depleted the way these reckless incompetents did when they raided the N95 mask supplies and never replaced them years before Covid.
THIS is what passes for leadership in 2022. Vote them out.
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If the Uke War goes well, it will be bad for Trump and good for Biden and the Dems.
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If the Uke War goes well, it will be bad for Trump and good for Biden and the Dems.
How? What would "goes well" look like?
Biden turned the fucking taliban into the 26th largest military without them even having to change their name.
Ukraine has been an endless rathole of graft and corruption that we continue to dump Debtbux into meanwhile actual US military families need EBT cards for food and our military stockpiles are gutted.
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If the Uke War goes well, it will be bad for Trump and good for Biden and the Dems.
How? What would "goes well" look like?
Biden turned the fucking taliban into the 26th largest military without them even having to change their name.
Ukraine has been an endless rathole of graft and corruption that we continue to dump Debtbux into meanwhile actual US military families need EBT cards for food and our military stockpiles are gutted.
https://media.gab.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=1050,quality=100,fit=scale-down/system/media_attachments/files/115/820/465/original/cac626284ea2ba5f.jpg
(https://media.gab.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=1050,quality=100,fit=scale-down/system/media_attachments/files/115/820/465/original/cac626284ea2ba5f.jpg)
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AMEN!!!
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https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/09/tears-hypocrisy-marthas-vineyard-homeless-shelter-coordinator-breaks-crocodile-tears-hugs-illegal-aliens-boots/?fbclid=IwAR3IbzoUP51FQK-KXZLlkZJyKznygIaDfcXNLxZnFwbgJPnzWEzHkFrRsLo
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https://ace.mu.nu/archives/mcconnellmustgo.jpg
(https://ace.mu.nu/archives/mcconnellmustgo.jpg)
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If we don't fk McConnell we are fuct.
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If we don't fk McConnell we are fuct.
McConnell is just one of many.
It's not called the DC Uniparty for no reason.
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So, your question presented in the ACTION thread was what happens if we win, yes?
Good question.
The floor is open.
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So, your question presented in the ACTION thread was what happens if we win, yes?
Good question.
The floor is open.
Nothing of any value happens. That's what.
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So, your question presented in the ACTION thread was what happens if we win, yes?
Good question.
The floor is open.
Nothing of any value happens. That's what.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FdFf5fBXEAA0Qrh?format=jpg&name=small
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FdFf5fBXEAA0Qrh?format=jpg&name=small)
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To quote someone I read yesterday, Steve Hayward(?), "I miss the days when socialism was creeping and inflation was transitory".
The fairer question is, what could we do with 2 or 3 or more red waves? With 1 red wave, we could stymie Joe Biden for two years, limit his further damage to "Executive Orders", stop his further Judicial picks, keep the filibuster and the Supreme Court, clean up some election processes in some states
In the case of Reagan where we never won the House, barely won a Senate, followed by Gingrich where we won the House and Senate, but failed to win the White House back, we still set off a 25 year economic expansion and balanced the budget for a moment.
Capitalism equals economic freedom and is a symbol for all our freedoms, speech, gun rights, freedom from unreasonable search and seizure and the rest, all of which we are losing. Ron Johnson wants to investigate and end FBI abuse. Ron Johnson's opponent wants to "stymie capitalism". Ron Johnson is on the list. Lose that one race and it's over.
Corker and Flake are gone. McCain broke his promise to end Obamacare. McCain is gone, but his seat was lost. An AZ seat is in the list with a great candidate. Replace Murkowski is on the list.
You seriously can't see a difference between Hershel Walker pursuing freedom and Rafael Warnock pursuing totalitarian statism? DC "Uniparty", both parties the same? Good grief. Get real
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FYI, here's your Uniparty, one party rule, 15% tax increases on everybody, compounding annually. And they favor"sustainability"?
https://m.startribune.com/st-paul-city-council-approves-15-34-maximum-property-tax-levy-increase/600209076
Total collapse of western civilization is on the ballot. Vote no.
Freedom isn't free anymore. (Never was.)
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To quote someone I read yesterday, Steve Hayward(?), "I miss the days when socialism was creeping and inflation was transitory".
The fairer question is, what could we do with 2 or 3 or more red waves? With 1 red wave, we could stymie Joe Biden for two years, limit his further damage to "Executive Orders", stop his further Judicial picks, keep the filibuster and the Supreme Court, clean up some election processes in some states
In the case of Reagan where we never won the House, barely won a Senate, followed by Gingrich where we won the House and Senate, but failed to win the White House back, we still set off a 25 year economic expansion and balanced the budget for a moment.
Capitalism equals economic freedom and is a symbol for all our freedoms, speech, gun rights, freedom from unreasonable search and seizure and the rest, all of which we are losing. Ron Johnson wants to investigate and end FBI abuse. Ron Johnson's opponent wants to "stymie capitalism". Ron Johnson is on the list. Lose that one race and it's over.
Corker and Flake are gone. McCain broke his promise to end Obamacare. McCain is gone, but his seat was lost. An AZ seat is in the list with a great candidate. Replace Murkowski is on the list.
You seriously can't see a difference between Hershel Walker pursuing freedom and Rafael Warnock pursuing totalitarian statism? DC "Uniparty", both parties the same? Good grief. Get real
-----
FYI, here's your Uniparty, one party rule, 15% tax increases on everybody, compounding annually. And they favor"sustainability"?
https://m.startribune.com/st-paul-city-council-approves-15-34-maximum-property-tax-levy-increase/600209076
Total collapse of western civilization is on the ballot. Vote no.
Freedom isn't free anymore. (Never was.)
By what percentage did Reagan cut the federal government?
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quote author=G M
By what percentage did Reagan cut the federal government?
Seemed clear in my post, Reagan never won the House.
He accomplished quite a bit though that you seem willing to gloss over. The win over the Soviet Union was a pretty big one. Lowering the top tax rate from 70 to 28% - that's a bfd imho - while doubling revenues to the Treasury. If you think Reagan winning 93 states was inconsequential, uniparty stuff, that Carter and Mondale would have done about this same, how do I say nicely, that's bullshit.
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quote author=G M
By what percentage did Reagan cut the federal government?
Seemed clear in my post, Reagan never won the House.
He accomplished quite a bit though that you seem willing to gloss over. The win over the Soviet Union was a pretty big one. Lowering the top tax rate from 70 to 28% - that's a bfd imho - while doubling revenues to the Treasury. If you think Reagan winning 93 states was inconsequential, uniparty stuff, that Carter and Mondale would have done about this same, how do I say nicely, that's bullshit.
I’m not glossing over any of Reagan’s accomplishments, just pointing out how now matter who is in office, the swamp/deep state grows.
Dems get new parts in, then they only grow in size and budget, no matter how hard they fail.
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Baseline budgeting played an important role in this. The rapid decline in inflation meant that spending increased in real terms.
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Just returned from traveling with some politically varying good friends. Gained very few insights as everyone is afraid to touch the divisive issues and differences.
Not to me, but I overheard the most liberal of the group say to another how tired he is about hearing from Trump. Quite accurate. The outlets he follows and the people he follows in Washington are obsessed with Trump. Also ironic since he just brought up the name for no apparent reason.
Another very good friend in a brief exchange about inflation, pointed out inflation seems to be a global issue [as opposed to a Biden Dem issue], then dropped it quickly in conflict avoidance. This, I think, is important because I can't figure out the economic thinking of honest and sincere people. For one thing they are ingesting different facts and opinions. But in this case, the policies are not in doubt, the fact of inflation is not in doubt, so the only thing left is to not connect the policies with their consequences. If you did, you would no longer be a liberal, at last on economic issues. THIS is the group we need to talk to. There is a dishonesty inherent in liberal economic thinking and a disconnect between policies and consequences. Often the facts are hidden by media, but can't fully be hidden like inflation, failed programs and crime and violence in places like Minneapolis and St. Paul. One friend's son was very recently car jacked at gunpoint in a nice neighborhood not far from the trouble areas.
The leaders of the Left are dishonest and worse but don't assume all of the 60, 70. 80 million who are inclined to follow them are dishonest. SOME of these people are persuadable by events, facts and contrary thinking, and that process takes time and long term sustaining effort.
The two friends on this trip who are most conservative (other than me) have very liberal wives and are not allowed to utter aloud a dissenting word on that in their presence.
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Saw a clip of Joe Scarborough today played on FOX of him saying the Dems have been seriously wrong on the Border issue!
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Just returned from traveling with some politically varying good friends. Gained very few insights as everyone is afraid to touch the divisive issues and differences.
Not to me, but I overheard the most liberal of the group say to another how tired he is about hearing from Trump. Quite accurate. The outlets he follows and the people he follows in Washington are obsessed with Trump. Also ironic since he just brought up the name for no apparent reason.
Another very good friend in a brief exchange about inflation, pointed out inflation seems to be a global issue [as opposed to a Biden Dem issue], then dropped it quickly in conflict avoidance. This, I think, is important because I can't figure out the economic thinking of honest and sincere people. For one thing they are ingesting different facts and opinions. But in this case, the policies are not in doubt, the fact of inflation is not in doubt, so the only thing left is to not connect the policies with their consequences. If you did, you would no longer be a liberal, at last on economic issues. THIS is the group we need to talk to. There is a dishonesty inherent in liberal economic thinking and a disconnect between policies and consequences. Often the facts are hidden by media, but can't fully be hidden like inflation, failed programs and crime and violence in places like Minneapolis and St. Paul. One friend's son was very recently car jacked at gunpoint in a nice neighborhood not far from the trouble areas.
The leaders of the Left are dishonest and worse but don't assume all of the 60, 70. 80 million who are inclined to follow them are dishonest. SOME of these people are persuadable by events, facts and contrary thinking, and that process takes time and long term sustaining effort.
The two friends on this trip who are most conservative (other than me) have very liberal wives and are not allowed to utter aloud a dissenting word on that in their presence.
Orangemanuel Trumpenstein
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvGmOZ5T6_Y
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https://hotair.com/tree-hugging-sister/2022/10/03/bidens-economy-are-latinos-about-to-hand-the-gop-wins-in-az-and-nv-n500438
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https://hotair.com/tree-hugging-sister/2022/10/03/bidens-economy-are-latinos-about-to-hand-the-gop-wins-in-az-and-nv-n500438
https://lasvegassun.com/news/2022/jan/01/expanded-mail-in-voting-laws-taking-effect-nevada/
The dems have "fortified" all of NV's future elections.
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all of the Harry Reid unions will have their people out in droves to find tens of thousands (if not more) ballots to get them over the top late in ballot counting game
we are often ahead until late in voting and every time the sacks start rolling in.
and never can Republicans figure out what to do about it.
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all of the Harry Reid unions will have their people out in droves to find tens of thousands (if not more) ballots to get them over the top late in ballot counting game
we are often ahead until late in voting and every time the sacks start rolling in.
and never can Republicans figure out what to do about it.
Republicans will VOTE HARDER next time!
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States With All-Mail Voting
State Early Voting Begins Early Voting Ends Locations Hours and Days
1). California
Twenty-nine days before election Day of election
County election officials’ offices
Satellite locations as determined by county election officials
Varies from county to county
2). Colorado
C.R.S. §1-5-102 Voter service and polling centers must be open 15 days before an election. Day of election Determined by county election officials. Every day but Sunday during the early voting period. Normal business hours (but may be expanded by county board of commissioners).
Hawaii
HRS § 11-131
Ten business days prior to Election Day. 7 p.m. on Election Day Voter Service Centers Monday-Saturday 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
3). Nevada
N.R.S. §293.356 et seq.
Third Saturday preceding election
Friday before election
Permanent places for early voting as designated by county clerk
Branch polling places for early voting as designated by county clerk
There are special requirements for early voting sites on Native American reservations.
Monday through Friday for at least eight hours a day, to be established by the clerk. Any Saturday that falls within the early voting period for at least four hours, to be established by the clerk. A clerk may choose to offer Sunday hours as well.
4). Oregon
§254.470, Secretary of State Rules Dropsites must open the Friday before an election, but may open as soon as ballots are available (18 days before). Day of election Election offices or other staffed locations (libraries, city halls, etc.) or outdoor mailboxes (drive-by or walking traffic). Normal business hours.
5)Utah
Utah Code §20A-3-601
Fourteen days before election
Friday before election, though an election official may choose to extend the early voting period to the day before the election
In government offices as determined by election officer
At least four days per week, and on the last day of the EV period.
The election officer may elect to conduct early voting on a Saturday, Sunday or holiday.
6) Vermont
Tit. 17, §2531 thru 2537
Forty-five days before election
5 p.m. day before election
Offices of town clerks
Clerks may make “mobile polling stations” available
Not specified
7) Washington
RCW §29A.40.160 Vote centers must be open 18 days before an election. 8 p.m. on day of election. Election offices or other locations designated by the county auditor.
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Note the dates, March 2020. Trump economy was roaring. Dems salivate the the Chiina virus could sink Trump:
Chuck Todd:
Coronavirus Can Be to Trump Like Iran Hostages Were to Carter
March 8th, 2020
https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/nicholas-fondacaro/2020/03/08/todd-coronavirus-can-be-trump-iran-hostages-were-carter
MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace and guest discuss coronavirus that could become ‘Trump’s Katrina’
March 7, 2020
https://twitchy.com/dougp-3137/2020/03/07/shes-actually-smiling-msnbcs-nicolle-wallace-and-guest-discuss-coronavirus-that-could-become-trumps-katrina/
Human scum, on almost every channel.
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https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/10/will-hold-house-winning-seats-pelosi-says-democrats-will-sweep-midterm-elections-video/
Fortified elections, for your protection!
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https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/tulsi-gabbard-announces-leaving-democratic-party-rcna51659
Her explanation for leaving is mostly excellent. She is openly anti woke. Dems are run by the elite. She's right about that.
Congresswoman.
https://tulsi.substack.com/p/why-im-leaving-the-democratic-party?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader2
Surfer:
(https://www.veteranstoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/ScreenHunter-1478-696x752.jpg)
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Doug's best post ever!
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/tulsi-gabbard-announces-leaving-democratic-party-rcna51659
Her explanation for leaving is mostly excellent. She is openly anti woke. Dems are run by the elite. She's right about that.
Congresswoman.
https://tulsi.substack.com/p/why-im-leaving-the-democratic-party?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader2
Surfer:
(https://www.veteranstoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/ScreenHunter-1478-696x752.jpg)
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watched newsmax last night
yes Tulsi is a hot ticket .
newsmax host was even calling for her to be Trump's VP
though I think that is a bit much
if Trump sees Doug's post however he might agree
since he likes surrounding himself with beautiful women
Melania will just have to put up with it .....
just thinking ahead of the next tabloid for trump .... :wink:
OTOH I bet Tulsi could get Putin to the table !
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If I am not mistaken, that foto has been mistakenly attributed to TG, but in point of fact is actually a super model with similar face.
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".If I am not mistaken, that foto has been mistakenly attributed to TG, but in point of fact is actually a super model with similar face."
:-o
well maybe not VP material for Trump then.............
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I'm thinking either way Melania would have final say haha.
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As a demographic, they are the most loyal to the Democrat Party, 92%.
They are motivated to vote this year and these are their top 4 concerns:
1. Rising cost of rent and housing
2. Rising cost of food and gas
3. Access to abortion
4. Rising crime.
https://www.higherheightsleadershipfund.org/blog/new-higher-heights-poll-black-women-highly-motivated-to-vote-but-desire-more-representation-change-on-multiple-issues/
I suspect they'll vote Dem anyway, but if they are wavering on that, they may not tell their friends, family and pollsters about it right away.
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"We need moar free shit from the gobberment"! Is what they'll vote for.
Always.
As a demographic, they are the most loyal to the Democrat Party, 92%.
They are motivated to vote this year and these are their top 4 concerns:
1. Rising cost of rent and housing
2. Rising cost of food and gas
3. Access to abortion
4. Rising crime.
https://www.higherheightsleadershipfund.org/blog/new-higher-heights-poll-black-women-highly-motivated-to-vote-but-desire-more-representation-change-on-multiple-issues/
I suspect they'll vote Dem anyway, but if they are wavering on that, they may not tell their friends, family and pollsters about it right away.
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/marco-rubio-canvasser-a-notorious-white-supremacist-was-beaten-in-miami-area/ar-AA13ksSq?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=c9442fbf8b9d4eebd13b778d9fefd4d7
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/marco-rubio-canvasser-a-notorious-white-supremacist-was-beaten-in-miami-area/ar-AA13ksSq?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=c9442fbf8b9d4eebd13b778d9fefd4d7
Yes. Story opens up more questions than answers.
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https://www.nationalreview.com/news/police-make-second-arrest-in-brutal-beating-of-rubio-canvasser-victim-maintains-attack-was-politically-motivated/?utm_source=email&utm_medium=breaking&utm_campaign=newstrack&utm_term=29499502
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https://www.nationalreview.com/news/police-make-second-arrest-in-brutal-beating-of-rubio-canvasser-victim-maintains-attack-was-politically-motivated/?utm_source=email&utm_medium=breaking&utm_campaign=newstrack&utm_term=29499502
I like that there are two arrests. Thank you Florida. (Hopefully they got the right people.)
We still only know from the victim it was political, but the victim was obvious about his politics and reason for being there and the attack definitely happened. There is no other reason or apparent motive for the attack given at this point.
Is there something wrong about being a former supremacist? Don't we want them to reform and mainstream themselves? Like a drunk driver, don't we want them to become former drunk drivers?
The reports from the Left of his past views make the attack sound justified. That's not right.
Who spoke at Klansman Robert Byrd's funeral, Sen Joe Biden? Was the Dem Klansman forgiven for his past? Only on the Left?
---------------
Fact check, Byrd was Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard and Biden eulogized him, partly true.
https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-factcheck-byrd-eulogy-biden-kkk-grand-idUSKBN26S2EE
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"former supremacist?"
Here is my understanding of the "Proud Boys": They see themselves as believing in the CULTURAL superiority of Western Civilization i.e. a racially neutral concept. Of course, the Privdas misportray this and are baffled by the fact that Florida PBs are led by a black Cuban.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JgoGn5AGQXU
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https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/hispanic-midterm-voters-watch-democrat-party-becomes-anti-latino-party?fbclid=IwAR3eOWloTPZtKOt8QnHcfEiS7fasZl7lED9ZbXqnrwq6e9Ryy4GLXqd8SWU
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A poll released Monday morning shows that the Republican Party is continuing to make inroads among black and Hispanic voters with just one day to go before the 2022 midterms.
Some 17 percent of black voters told a Wall Street Journal poll that they would pick a Republican candidate for Congress over a Democrat, which is larger than the 8 percent of black voters who voted in favor of President Donald Trump, a Republican, in 2020. During the 2018 midterm elections, 8 percent of black voters backed GOP candidates in House races.
For decades, black Americans have voted in favor of Democrats over Republicans by large margins.
Among Hispanic voters, Democrats have a mere 5 percent lead over Republicans overall, according to the WSJ poll. During the 2018 midterms, Democrats had a 31 percent lead over Republicans and a 28 percent lead in 2020, it noted.
When the WSJ carried out a similar poll in August, Democrats had an 11-point lead over Republicans in the choice of a congressional candidate.
“I think that this could be a paradigm-shift election, where Republicans are not only making inroads with the Latino vote, but they’re now making inroads with the African-American vote,” John Anzalone, who served as President Joe Biden’s top pollster in 2020, told the WSJ on Monday. Anzalone helped conduct the WSJ poll that was published Monday.
And Tony Fabrizio, former President Donald Trump’s lead pollster in 2020 who assisted in the WSJ Poll, told the paper acknowledged “it is wholly possible that Republicans reach a new high water mark among both African-Americans and Hispanic voters in this election.”
For most of 2022, Democrat candidates have said that black voters are not turning to Republicans in spite of polls saying otherwise.
“It’s a bit of a misconception that black men are shifting away,” Stacey Abrams, the Democratic nominee for Georgia’s gubernatorial seat, said in August. However, in a weekend MSNBC interview, Abrams said that black men “have been a very targeted population for misinformation,” adding that it is “not misinformation about what they want but about why they want what they deserve.”
Abrams was referring to a recent Marist College poll that found 82 percent of black voters are planning to vote for Abrams, which would represent a decline in support. Abrams did not provide any evidence for her claims.
“Let’s be clear, the false narrative that voter turnout has felled the idea of voter suppression misunderstands the effectiveness of suppression,” Abrams alleged before she blamed “white supremacist groups” and “hard-right groups.” “It has never been about stopping all voters. It is about clogging the arteries of the process and stopping certain voters. There is a precision to voter suppression.”
But Republicans said that they are able to make inroads at the Democrats’ edge with blacks and Hispanic voters due to a variety of reasons. One of them, said Republican congressional candidate Wesley Hunt to the WSJ, is due to the GOP’s success in organizing.
The poll surveyed 1,500 people between Oct. 22 and Oct. 26.
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Hey Zoomer, What don't you get about a nation and its policies headed in the wrong direction?
(Don't they say, "Hey Boomer"? How do I say, hey under 30 voter?)
See chart on the monetary page. The 'normal' deficit has become a trillion dollars a year. Some factors already playing out make the new normal two trillion. Add that each year to the debt and quadruple the interest rate.
I've argued until I'm red in the face for fiscal sanity and the under 30s and unmarried women voted in massive numbers and percentages to shoot down any reform and do more of the same. More spending, more deficits, more inflation and resulting higher interest rates leading to stagnation, contraction, recession, stalling growth and revenues and even higher deficits and interest costs. Also, higher tax rates that kill off growth don't bring in more revenues
If you were my age you might say we've heard all this before. I argued some years ago, we can survive this but need the next two elections to even start the policies of a turnaround - and we didn't.
Now we're even deeper in it and further from the possibility of starting to turn it around.
We made our case to the nation, and for every parent, suburbanite, black or Hispanic who started to see our point, there was an under 30 voter in college with ballot harvesting or fresh out of indoctrination who voted us down.
I started to make some progress with an under 30 recently, but by the time she may or may not get turned around, she won't be under 30 anymore.
I can survive this as well as anyone can and I'm getting too old to fix it, especially when no one listens. Hey Zoomer, Yoomer, Xoomer, whatever you want to be called, this is your problem now.
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being that you are active in campaigns
Doug,
have you had any feedback or input from generation Zzzzzz?
are they even open to debate
or are they so brainwashed as to not listen
like my liberal Democrat Jewish friends relatives
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I wondered where this phrase came from :
"election denier!"
watching the Kayne West video the phrase "holocaust denier" came up
the same people who use the phrase "holocaust denier " must have re used it but this time
rephrased as "election denier"
problem is the two are not equivalent in reality but MSM takes it and does their duty and runs with it.
this being an election denier is just as evil as a holocaust denier.
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How about "Voter Integrity Denier"?
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Republicans Won 3 Million More Votes Than Democrats, but Not Where It Counted
By Jack Phillips November 25, 2022 Updated: November 25, 2022biggersmaller Print
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Republican House candidates gained over 3 million more votes than Democrats in the Nov. 8 midterm elections, but barely secured a GOP majority in the lower chamber.
Recent data published by the Cook Political Report show that Republicans lead by some 3.5 million votes when all 435 House races are combined. As of Friday morning, Republicans had 54.13 million votes as compared with Democrats’ 50.79 million votes.
With several races called this week, the GOP has 220 seats to Democrats’ 213, giving Republicans the majority. Two House races—one in Colorado and one in California—remain uncalled, although Republicans are leading in both.
But Democrats were able to maintain their majority in the Senate with at least 50 seats and are waiting for the conclusion of the Georgia Senate runoff to determine if the upper chamber be an even 50–50 split or not. Vice President Kamala Harris would cast the tie-breaking vote for Democrats if that is the case.
Republicans did not pick up seats in several Senate battleground states—including Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Nevada, and Arizona. However, a closely contested race in Wisconsin went in favor of Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.).
“Simply put, Republicans picked up the votes they needed, just not where they needed them most,” Charlie Cook, a longtime analyst and founder of the Cook Political Report, wrote after the election. “Clearly something or someone intervened, affecting the outcome of the election in the places that mattered.”
Michael McKenna, a Republican operative and aide in the Trump administration, told the Washington Times this week that Democrats benefitted from redistricting in certain states following the 2020 census. However, he suggested that it might not pan out for Democrats in future elections.
“This is the first cycle inside a redistricting cycle. My guess is two years from now they’re going to regret this,” he said, adding that a number of first-time Republican candidates were close to taking seats held by Democrat House incumbents.
Overall, he added, the United States “is in the middle of a national realignment, and that’s going to benefit the Republicans,” he said, pointing to some Republican gains among black and Hispanic voters. He noted that Democrats benefitted the most from college-educated unmarried women.
Republicans got 3 million more votes in 2022 than during the 2018 midterms. Democrats got 10.3 million fewer votes than 2018, during which the party won control of the House at 235–199.
Meanwhile, some Republicans said their party suffered during 2022 midterms, in part, because former President Donald Trump was not standing in an election this year. However, some in the GOP have suggested that the 45th president was a drag on the party amid several investigations and lawsuits, claiming some of his high-profile picks like Dr. Mehmet Oz and Kari Lake did not pan out.
Epoch Times Photo
Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) speaks during the Turning Point USA Student Action Summit held at the Tampa Convention Center in Tampa, Fla., on July 23, 2022. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
“Donald Trump remains a very popular figure in the Republican Party in each corner of the country,” Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.), the head of the influential Republican Study Committee, told Fox News earlier this month, noting the former president “wasn’t on the ballot.”
A week after the midterms, Trump announced that he would run for president in 2024 during an event at Mar-a-Lago.
Where Races Stand
This week, Alaska’s at-large congressional seat was called for Rep. Mary Peltola (D-Alaska.) over two Republican candidates, former Gov. Sarah Palin and Nick Begich. Earlier this year, Peltola also defeated Palin and Begich in a special election that was sparked by the death of Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska.), although the state features a controversial ranked-choice voting system that was approved by voters a year before.
Palin in September criticized the state’s ranked-choice voting system and called it a mistake. Several days ago, Palin signed an initiative to repeal the system, according to local media reports.
A week ago, Democrat Adam Frisch announced that he had called Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) to concede the race for Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District. The Associated Press and other news outlets have not yet called the race for Boebert, who was endorsed by Trump, despite 99 percent of the vote being tallied.
And in California’s redrawn 13th Congressional District, Republican John Duarte has received 50.2 percent of the total votes with 99 percent of the votes counted. Democrat candidate Adam Gray trailed Duarte by about 600 votes, fewer than 0.5 percentage points, as of Friday.
Days before that, AP and others called another California House race in favor of Republican Kevin Kiley, who was endorsed by Trump. Kiley currently has about 53.3 percent of the vote as compared with Democrat Kermit Jones’ 46.7 percent, according to AP.
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/jim-jordan-urged-far-right-colleague-to-stand-for-zelensky-he-refused-report/ar-AA15xHYc?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=70660d2ca7634bbc8644abf455589b27
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NBC
Lauren Boebert And Matt Gaetz Don't Applaud For Zelensky During Address
As Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky addressed Congress, Lauren Boebert and Matt Gaetz are see not applauding the President during his speech
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https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/how-many-philadelphians-must-be-killed-before-the-city-stops-voting-for-democrats
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https://www.powerlineblog.com/ed-assets/2022/12/image-4.png
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EAGAN, Minn. (AP) — As Republican Tyler Kistner's closing ad aired last month in one of the most competitive congressional districts in the U.S., Vickie Klang felt that something was missing.
The 58-year-old veterinary technician and self-described independent voter watched as the 30-second spot showed grainy black-and-white images of President Joe Biden with two-term Democratic Rep. Angie Craig superimposed alongside him. The narrator ominously described life in America as “dangerous and unaffordable" because of an alliance between the two Democrats.
Absent from the ad, Klang thought, was anything close to a solution beyond electing Kistner.
“You’re never telling me what you're going to do for the state or the country,” Klang recalled. “That’s a huge turnoff
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https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2022/12/27/exclusive-conservatives-build-governing-machine-ready-2025/
How can someone like this be trusted to govern? Just because he has R in front of his name does not let him off the hook
what galls me even more is how the LEFT let's Dems who lie slide
but then go on picnic with endless headlines about the Repub who lies(d)
Does not Biden lie - "I was at top of my law school class". "corn pop" etc
Schiff ?
Pelosi ?
Clintons ?
etc
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/ted-cruz-cuts-off-merrick-garland-multiple-times-in-explosive-exchange-on-supreme-court-justices-can-i-answer-the-question/ar-AA186sq4?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=e5bb4723883c410a8adb7a6d789d9247&ei=12
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https://www.louderwithcrowder.com/marjorie-taylor-greene-60-minutes
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https://nypost.com/2023/06/13/millions-losing-faith-in-our-system-over-trump-biden-divide/
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I recalled a conversation with a friend about the indictment of Donald Trump.
He repeated a phrase he had heard recently: “We’re not voting our way out of this.”
GM do you know Mike Goodwin?
:-D
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I recalled a conversation with a friend about the indictment of Donald Trump.
He repeated a phrase he had heard recently: “We’re not voting our way out of this.”
GM do you know Mike Goodwin?
:-D
No, but that phrase kind of sounds familiar for some reason....
:-D
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From the article:
"...no matter how you interpret the phrase, all roads end in a bad place."
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From the article:
"...no matter how you interpret the phrase, all roads end in a bad place."
What kind of place are we in now?
Ashli Babbit unavailable for comment.
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No logic string connects Ashlie Babbitt's murder to giving up.
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https://nypost.com/2023/06/17/sen-john-fetterman-garbles-words-wears-baggy-shorts-with-joe-biden-in-philadelphia/
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No logic string connects Ashlie Babbitt's murder to giving up.
The only thing I am telling you is to give up your “vote harder” fantasies.
Ashli Babbit is a reminder that the feral government will not think twice about murdering anyone that dares to contest blatantly stolen elections.
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https://nypost.com/2023/06/17/sen-john-fetterman-garbles-words-wears-baggy-shorts-with-joe-biden-in-philadelphia/
A totally fraud free election, right?
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No logic string connects Ashlie Babbitt's murder to giving up.
The only thing I am telling you is to give up your “vote harder” fantasies.
Ashli Babbit is a reminder that the feral government will not think twice about murdering anyone that dares to contest blatantly stolen elections.
Quick question, if you were on the side of the fascist totalitarians instead of on our side, and you wanted militant Leftists to take even greater power, sooner, wider, faster, what would you do differently beyond joining discussion boards and telling pro-freedom people to give up?
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Inquiring minds want to know , , ,
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https://www.reuters.com/world/us/some-black-men-lose-faith-biden-democrats-2024-2023-08-01/
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Brian Kemp won the 2022 Georgia Governor's race by 7 and 1/2 points, over eight points if you count 0.7 to the libertarian.
Republicans have a 101-79 advantage in the Georgia House. Republicans have a 33-23 advantage in the Georgia Senate following the elections of 2020 and 2022.
The elected Georgia lieutenant governor is Republican. The elected Georgia attorney general is Republican. The elected Georgia Secretary of State is Republican.
https://www.politico.com/2022-election/results/georgia/statewide-offices/
Something like six states control the destiny of the United States right now. Georgia is perhaps the most winnable for Republicans of those six. In other words, if Republicans lose there, they will lose nationwide.
Trump is leading for the Republican nomination right now by far, and Trump will lose in Georgia for sure, witness the four US Senate races recently and the 2020 Presidential.
What's wrong with this picture?
Trump deserves vindication on most (or all?) of his legal matters. Trump does not deserve the Republican nomination as he is headed to disaster in the general election.
There is a lesson in all this and we've got minutes to learn it.
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Partly about Ted Cruz but largely about political trends in Texas, which voting-wise is one big suburb.
One conclusion, if Trump is the R nominee for President, Cruz could lose the Senate seat.
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2023/08/16/could_ted_cruz_lose_reelection_149629.html
All these key states are one big suburb. Republicans can't win nationally and keep losing in the suburbs.
Wake up people.
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Give Me Liberty or Give Me Democrats
- RCP, Am Greatness column name today. Pretty good bumper sticker
https://amgreatness.com/2023/09/30/give-me-liberty-or-give-me-democrats/
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https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/new-deal-politics-turned-upside-down
The reason for this I think is because, they don't care about people like you.
If they cared, would they want you to pay $80 at the gas pump?
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Gay marriage, trans bathrooms, and thousands in EV credits to millionaires, these are the issues when we take peace and prosperity for granted, and good to have that all sorted out.
Stagnant wages, unaffordable living costs and a world on fire, these are the results of taking peace and prosperity for granted.
Those old enough to remember the early 1990s remember the shortsighted debate of how we should 'spend' the 'peace dividend' as the massive Soviet threat was (mostly) gone.
We neglected our defenses and our foreign intelligence and within a decade were attacked worse than the Soviets ever did to us. To fully visualize that, imagine the Pentagon and White House burnt to the ground the way Twin Towers went.
In Israel we see terrorists by the thousand breaking through barriers and executing terror door to door, destroying, raping, killing taking hostages and posting with glee on social media. In America, the southern 'barrier' currently has an 'everyone welcome' sign up, and known terrorists are among those entering.
Democrats of the 1980s couldn't believe the (relatively small deficits of the time even while they controlled the House and spending the entire time. Today with the party control reversed we increased spending (on nothingness) 43% in 4 years, currently spending 40% more than we take in, mostly transfer checks from future taxpayers to preferred political groups.
The euphemism 'what could go wrong' is quickly being replaced with a reality of what IS going wrong.
Real wages are falling, energy prices skyrocketed, savings rate below zero, credit card debt exploding, homes unaffordable and a collapse of deterrence leading to a world on fire.
Yes this means the pendulum should swing back to the party more trusted and more competent at managing the economy and world affairs, but it didn't have to come to this.
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These Dems haven’t wasted any time making it clear how much daylight there is between them and Biden. Still plenty of time for things to change—hell, Biden looks like he may keel over, or wander off in mismatched socks and fuzzy slippers to a 7/11 in SE DC—but it heartens me to see Dems in tough races so promptly abandon the party line.
https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/4251128-these-democrats-calling-biden-freeze-iran-funds/
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https://www.spiked-online.com/2023/10/23/why-jews-are-abandoning-the-left/
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I would like to see a thread devoted to political persuasion but I know that overlaps every other thread.
I bumped into an old friend, happens to be of the Left, a retired former partner of a major law firm now living in a low tax state. Seeing me prompts political thoughts; I seem to be the only Republican these people know. It's a social setting and everyone is trying to be nice. He gently tries to confirm that I'm at least not supporting Trump and I told him I like DeSantis. Immediate reaction, he just hates the book banning, then went on with something about nothing can be taught in Florida about slavery that doesn't portray whites in a good light.
On the first point I let him know the issue was about not sexualizing kids K-3 and that the 'don't say gay' laws don't mention gay. On the second point I have a puzzled look on his struggle to say Republicans want to sugar coat slavery.
On further reflection he was referring to rejecting the 1619 project that was renounced by it's primary author.
I gently suggested he check his sources and he suggested I check mine. End of politics.
I realize he is not the least bit persuadable, nor am I unless my facts are wrong, but there were people within earshot taking it in who might be.
In one sense, that's why I'm here doing this, sharpening my readiness for these moments. In another sense, we get accustomed to so called preaching to the choir and my real persuasive ability when needed is lacking.
Most infuriating isn't the differences of opinions; it's the differences of facts.
...
Further to the education in Florida discussion (Florida is already a swear word to the Left) I said, look at Virginia. The reaction to what is happening in the schools (that elected a Republican Governor in a recently turned blue state) was about something that is happening in the schools. Blank reaction.
Strange that in such a Hate Trump world they have already demogoged his second place rival beyond repair, who just ate their lunch at the ballot box.
I wish I had better answers, but mostly I wish our politicians did.
How many times can NYT et al be wrong, and especially wrong by omission, and still be so trusted? And how many times can right conspiracy type sites be right and still be thought of as tin foil?
It's a strange world we live in.
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76% of lawyers from top schools donate to Democrats > Republicans
According to this, lawyers prior to the 60s and 70s were more conservative
so thanks to the 60s generation
they are now mostly Democrats
https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2017/08/analyst-gauges-the-political-bias-of-lawyers/
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"I would like to see a thread devoted to political persuasion but I know that overlaps every other thread."
Ummm , , , we already have that: "The Way Forward" threads.
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https://dnyuz.com/2023/10/24/millennials-and-gen-z-are-tilting-left-and-staying-there/
Disclosure, NYT is usually wrong.
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https://dnyuz.com/2023/10/24/millennials-and-gen-z-are-tilting-left-and-staying-there/
Disclosure, NYT is usually wrong.
https://tippinsights.com/18-24-year-olds-could-swing-2024-to-trump/
Who does a dynamic, flourishing economy help most? Those just starting out?
Who does a dying, stagnating economic hurt most? Those just starting out?
Who does high interest rates hurt the most? Those hoping to buy their first car, first house?
Who is allegedly going to have to pay for all this excess spending? The youngest voters among us?
If we had any kind of messaging at all ... the table has never been set better for victory.
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https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2023/11/10/what-john-fetterman-did-is-going-to-drive-pro-hamas-protesters-insane-n2631045
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https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2023/11/nevada-biden-trump-2024-polling/675997/?utm_source=msn
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Nevada redder?
I dunno.
We see Repubs are slightly ahead pre election a lot, and then at the last minute the unions get all their housekeepers hotel clerks etc out in droves and win the day for the marxists.
Reid was master at this.
Now he is gone it still seems to occur.
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Funny little twist in politics, Black voters understand targeting.
They probably never read about IRS targeting (2012) but everyone can see the targeting of Trump.
https://www.dailyfetched.com/al-sharpton-hits-panic-alarm-over-black-voters-ditching-democrats/
Young voters keep leaning Left from their schooling, but somehow young black voters are emerging with the wisdom to question authority. In this case the Big Left authority is telling them if you don't vote Democrat, "you ain't black".
Nice to hear people are wise enough to know how insulting that is.
Then there was (same guy), "They're (Republicans) gonna' put you'all back in CHAINS."
But instead black unemployment dropped to the lowest in history with real wage gains surging. That was after candidate Trump challenged them, "What have you got to lose?"
The party that wanted the police disbanded faces the neighborhoods that are crying for police protection.
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Then you have roughly equal numbers of Muslim Americans and Jewish Americans all in the same party wanting opposite policies. Good luck with that.
Biden approval 40%. Harris latest approval 29%. Hard to reverse that with drool spilling on the bully pulpit and fiscal time bombs starting to implode.
https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/polling/bidens-approval-declines-all-time-low-he-struggles-ahead-2024-election-poll
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https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/08/todd-akin-missouri-claire-mccaskill-2012-121262/
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https://substack.news-items.com/p/the-podcast
44 minutes of analysis I found helpful, from NH, SC and the Pres race to AI (AGI) to the border. Two very veteran reporters, Ellis, Boston Globe, a Bush Sr. admirer. Klein of Time, Newsweek, I think a Clinton insider, wrote 'primary colors'.
Not my bias and I wouldn't send them money but good political insights when free.
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Doug,
Seems to be paywalled.
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https://substack.news-items.com/p/the-podcast
44 minutes of analysis I found helpful, from NH, SC and the Pres race to AI (AGI) to the border. Two very veteran reporters, Ellis, Boston Globe, a Bush Sr. admirer. Klein of Time, Newsweek, I think a Clinton insider, wrote 'primary colors'.
Not my bias and I wouldn't send them money but good political insights when free.
I had no issue listening to this re paywalls.
Indeed, not my cup of tea, but more than a few bon mots. Heck, anyone that references the “boys on the bus*” along with an anecdote or two will gain my attention, at least to some degree. With that said, these two have certainly hung onto the coat tails of the MSM and political class and it shows.
* https://www.amazon.com/Boys-Bus-Timothy-Crouse/dp/0812968204
A great read!
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This could go several places, but given the range of political missteps discussed, I'll drop it in a more generic thread. The points made about LNG futures our allies own and now have to come up with a plan B for are worth mulling:
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2024/01/biden_the_border_and_tik_tok_too.html?fbclid=IwAR1UcWRjwFEIWPBBrdEMQ2E_uByMLbpZkcO7rGwue0PigvfDo_1LLhi0Bn8
I've communicated with the author a couple times and think she is well worth following.
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Love your ongoing efforts in thread coherency :-D but not a good fit here.
I would suggest Homeland and Energy Policy as better threads.
As always, when a piece merits, feel free to post it in more than one thread. Witness for example my double posting just now of a George Friedman piece both in the FUBAR thread and the Iran thread.
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Love your ongoing efforts in thread coherency :-D but not a good fit here.
I would suggest Homeland and Energy Policy as better threads.
As always, when a piece merits, feel free to post it in more than one thread. Witness for example my double posting just now of a George Friedman piece both in the FUBAR thread and the Iran thread.
Okay. The dual focus on the southern border and the LNG heavy handedness left me thinking threads focusing on either immigration OR energy would give short shrift to the subject not covered by the thread’s title.
Oh well, I’ll keep seeking to sort it out.
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The term Politics could cover pretty much everything; I envision the thread more for the ongoing mudslinging, lying, and everyday maneuvers of the players in the political class.