Saturday, April 30, 2011

Obama shines at White House correspondents' dinner


The White House Correspondents' Dinner is, for the media, a thoroughly self-aggrandizing affair, a disgustingly smarmy occasion for self-important media insiders to hobnob even more openly with the people they cover. (Consider Politico's obsessive coverage.) Nonetheless, it can also be the scene of some fairly remarkable speaking-truth-to-power comedy. (Think back to Colbert's hilarious appearance in 2006.) 

A lot depends on who's there and who's telling the jokes. At the 2011 event last night, SNL's Seth Meyers was funny, if not quite Colbert-level poignant, and President Obama got in some great zingers. For example:

-- "Donald Trump is here tonight. Now, I know that he's taken some flak lately but no one is prouder to put this birth certificate matter to rest than the Donald. And that's because he can finally get back to focusing on the issues that matter, like, 'Did we fake the moon landing?' 'What really happened in Roswell?' And 'Where are Biggie and Tupac?'"

-- "Michele Bachmann is here. She is thinking about running for president, which is weird because I hear she was born in Canada. Yes, Michele, this is how it starts."

The man can tell a joke. Though it certainly helps that his opponents are such easy targets.

Hot Senate races in 2012

By Richard K. Barry

If we are counting correctly, the next general election in the United States will take place in about eighteen months on Tuesday, November 6, 2012. Between now and then there will be a great many nomination races not only to see who the Republicans put up against President Obama but also for House and Senate seats in both parties.

And then comes the general election itself, which will determine the composition of the executive and legislative branches of our government. In other words, many, many contests to think about.

It's occurred to us here at The Reaction that it might be useful to begin wrapping our heads around some of the more important or, to put it differently, more hotly-contested races.

As a starting point, we thought we would look at the United States Senate, which, as any grade school child knows, elects a third of its membership of 100 every two years, who then get to serve six-year terms. In other words, those 33 who will be elected on November 6, 2012 will serve from January 3, 2013 to January 2, 2019.

At the moment, Democrats control the Upper House by a margin of 53-47, which means that the GOP would need to win 3 or 4 seats to take control, depending on who wins the White House because the President of the Senate, who is also Vice President of the United States, gets to break a tie.

Unless something changes, Democrats are expected to have 23 seats up for election, which include two independents, who caucus with the Democrats, while the Republicans have only 10 seats up for election.

Predicting what things will look like in a year and a half can be dodgy business, but the simple fact that far more Democratic seats need to be contested might suggest that there is greater potential for Republicans to win back the Senate. It may also be true that some Senate seats currently held by Democrats are in states which are more traditionally Republican.

In any case, our goal here is to have a look at some of these races to see how things are developing and to provide some background to educate ourselves and to perhaps solicit some comments from those who may be closer, both geographically and in terms of intimate knowledge, to some of these races. That would be fine too.

Just to have a starting point, here are 17 of the 33 Senate races that could bare some scrutiny, either because they could flip to the other party or because they could be seriously contested in nomination battles. Others, of course, may be interesting for all sorts of reasons.

Listed is the incumbent and his or her status:

Republicans who are retiring (or have resigned):
Republicans who are running again:

Democrats who are retiring:
Democrats who are running again:
So, that'll keep us busy for a while and along the way we fully expect to get to some of the more interesting House and gubernatorial races -- in fact, we've already started. It will be, we are sure, a very interesting year and a half.

(Cross-posted to Lippmann's Ghost)

Here come the WHO-crats. World Health Organization takes on chronic disease. But how? With research, medicine, and cures? Or with national, and now international, nanny-statism?

The Washington Post reports this morning on a World Health Organization (WHO) meeting in Moscow on public health, food, and lifestyle.   In the pages of the Post, the issues seem so clinical and laboratory-like.  But in reality, popular passions are certain to be provoked--and so popular sovereignty must once again be invoked.   

It's great to eat right and be healthy, but those who wish to eat wrong still have rights--and they will fight to preserve them.   As we shall see, new rules on what you can eat--that is to say, new rules on personal freedom--are coming.   And the Obama administration appears to be an eager participant into the next round of a restrictive rule-writing process.   Post reporter Will England sets it up: 

The World Health Organization focused for decades on infectious diseases, but now it’s putting non-communicable diseases near the top of its agenda. The fight against heart disease, diabetes, stroke, lung cancer and chronic respiratory disease may not seem as heroic as the struggle against smallpox or H1N1, but chronic illnesses account for 63 percent of deaths worldwide — 70 percent in the United States and 90 percent in Russia.

Important statistics, reminding us that the stakes are, indeed, high.   And then he adds these hopeful words about improving the quality and length of life:

“And these [chronic diseases] are preventable,” said Margaret Chan, director general of WHO, at a three-day series of meetings here this week devoted to chronic diseases. “People don’t have to suffer. People don’t have to die.”

OK, so far, so good.  The Serious Medicine argument is that health insurance, for example, is a lot less important to people than health itself.  It’s medical science we need, much more than healthcare finance.    And so just as we eliminated many killer infectious diseases in the last century, it would be a humanitarian achievement if we could eliminate many killer chronic diseases in the next century.  

But as the Post article makes clear, the WHO vision of better health for the future is driven more by politics than by science.   That is, the leaders of his new health push will be bureaucratic regulators, not disease-eradicators.   We also need medical science more than we need governmental red tape, however well-meaning that red-tape might seem to be.  

Indeed, as we keep reading the Post article, a disturbing pattern starts to appear.  We see much discussion--and real action--leading toward government regulation of human behavior, and little or nothing about the transformative or curative science.  It would be useful, for example, if leaders were focusing on better treatments and cures for diabetes or chronic respiratory disease.  And while of course such scientific research is occurring, it does not appear that such scientific research is anywhere close to the top of WHO’s international agenda.  

Instead, we see what appears to be nanny-statism--not only at the national level, but also at the international level.  That is, WHO and various governments and NGOs are coming together to start passing restrictions on diet and lifestyle and behavior patterns.    Education about health is fine, so long as its genuine, fact-based education, provided by an unbiased trustworthy source.  Freedom means freedom, but freedom can always be better informed by the truth.

Indeed, many companies are heavily involved in good-hearted public education.  One such company is Dole Foods.  Inspired by the visionary leadership of owner David Murdock, Dole has created the Dole Nutrition Institute, which spends many millions each year in pro bono efforts to inform Americans, especially, the young, about the benefits of healthy eating and a healthy lifestyle.   To be sure, Dole is in the healthy foods business to begin with, but the Nutrition Institute's health-promotion  efforts reach far beyond what Dole sells.   Indeed, Murdock has personally endowed an entire research campus in North Carolina, dedicated to public-spirited research on nutrition and health.

Murdock and the Dole Nutrition Institute provide a sterling example of education for health.   And their efforts are all voluntary; we can note that neither Murdock nor the Dole Nutrition Institute, has any power to make anybody do anything.

Yet as we know, government operates on a different principle--the principle that if persuasion doesn't work, there's always the option of coercion.

As we have learned here in the US on other issues, government-funded “education” has a way of turning into hectoring, taxing, and mandating.  Indeed, even research itself can be skewed, in the name of driving such research to a pre-designated conclusion.  That has been, for example, the twisted and coercive fate of much "research" and “education” about global warming and climate change.   Without attempting to delve into the science at all, suffice it to say that the US government got way ahead of what was scientifically demonstrable, to say nothing of politically feasible.   Indeed, the backlash against climate change should serve as a sobering warning sign to would-be food czars.   

And while the science of, say, the dangers of some lifestyle habits, such as smoking or snuff, are completely settled, it's still the case that tobacco users have rights--even if not everyone agrees.

So we can only wonder what future policy directives will be coming out of WHO and lesser entities in the months and years to come.   Here’s more from the Post report:

No tobacco and less sugar, fat and especially salt are WHO’s top targets; reducing alcohol consumption and increasing exercise are right behind. Those factors alone account for 25 million of the 36 million deaths attributable to chronic diseases annually, according to WHO, and place a huge economic burden on families and nations.  But a cigarette is not like a microbe: It can’t be eliminated by a doctor. Fighting chronic diseases requires political decisions — in areas as disparate as finance, regulatory policy, agriculture, education and trade — and the will to see them through.

OK, so we are starting to see a pattern here: The WHO meeting seems to be a chance for international officials to gather together work through their whole policy arsenal; as the Post piece says, “in areas as disparate as finance, regulatory policy, agriculture, education and trade.”

A cynic would say, here’s a big opportunity for big government to get a lot bigger, as regulators, inspired by this Moscow conference, return to their home countries full of newfound zeal. 

And once again, we can note: Even in that litany of governmental tasks mentioned above, there was no mention of medical research.  What if we could develop a cure for diabetes?  Or a foolproof appetite suppressant?  Or some other outside-the-box approach that we might not have even thought of yet?   Wouldn’t such a techno-fix be an easier way to solve some of these public health issues, thus obviating the need for heavy-handed regulation?  Sure it would.  Which leads one to wonder: Could it be that those WHO officials and their allies are uninterested in scientific transformation precisely because they are more interested in social regulation?   That is, the WHO-crats would rather have the bureaucratic regulation (imposed, of course, by people like them), than the scientific transformation (achieved, most likely, by scientists they barely know). 

And in fact, in the hands of bureaucrats education always seems to turn into regulation; as the Post article suggests, the Moscow conference is just the beginning.  That is, the corporations will get their say, and then the bureaucrats will take it from there.  

Unhealthy food, and what to do about it, was the most sensitive topic at the gathering here. Representatives of PepsiCo, Coca-Cola and Nestle joined the discussions after a decision by WHO to allow the big international food concerns a voice as the organization prepares an agenda for a U.N. meeting in September.

So we can expect that in that next meeting, in tandem with the UN General Assembly this September,  we will see a lollapalooza of new decrees and rules.   UN pronouncements don’t have force in the US, of course--except when they do; there’s no shortage of internationalist-minded activists and even jurists in the US who think that it is their job to “harmonize” American policy and culture with that of the rest of the world.   

For her part, WHO director-general Chan jumps in with her own view on the future.  Speaking of voluntary industry actions: “Self-imposed voluntary action is a good first step.”   And if voluntary action is the "first step," what, we might ask, is the second step?    For her part, US Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, also in Moscow, agreed that companies ought to get the first opportunity to do the right thing.  But then she added, “there’s definitely a role for regulation.” 

So stay tuned for a fight on the US homefront.   Fighting off the excesses of the WHO-crats and their US allies will be another mission for libertarians, tea partiers, and all those who think that people should have freedom of choice--even the freedom of choice to make mistakes.   Yes, there are a many ways to weave personal responsibility into society--variable pricing for health insurance is one of many possible incentivizers--but there will be a backlash against overweening regulation that crimps freedom.  This is America.  Here, the people rule. 

Healthy eating is good, and informed consumer choice is good, too, as part of our overall commitment to personal freedom and individual dignity and autonomy.   But if the Affordable Care Act of 2010, aka "Obamacare," is an indication, any idea that paternalistic public health officials think is a good idea--will soon be a mandatory idea.

And so, once again, the American people will have to rise up and defend their rights.  Including their right to do things that Washington DC doesn't approve of.   Such populist rebellions have happened before, even very recently.  And now it looks as if another such upsurge is coming.  

Can Sila Sahin Save The Women of Islam?

Seems like the Muslim ladies have more cojones than their beard-wearing counterparts, or your average American liberal.  First we had Pakistani actress Veena Malik giving an earful to a critical mullah and a media lackey, telling them to f*ck off and mind to their own business, while informing them of exactly where to apply their lash. Now we have Sila Sahin, a German Muslim raised by strict Turkish parents, posing in Playboy.  And boy, are the bearded monkeys howling:



Islamic internet sites are being monitored by the BND - the German intelligence agency - after threats were posted about her "shaming Muslim womanhood" and "prostituting herself for money".


One poster on the Jihad Watch website wrote: "She needs to be very careful..." Another simply said: "She must pay."

A kebab shop owner, asked on German TV what he would do if Sila were his daughter, replied: "I would kill her. I really mean that. That doesn't fit with my culture."

The Islamic Community of Germany has called for a boycott of Sila.

About three million Muslim immigrants live in Germany, which has seen numerous honour killings in recent years by fanatical husbands, fathers and brothers.

In 2009, an asylum seeker was sentenced to life after killing his "too independent" German wife.

One police intelligence officer said of Sila: "I think what she did was either very brave, or very stupid.She will be double-locking her door at night for a long time to come."


Wow, the German police were much braver back in the day when all they had to do was round up Jews and put them into cattle cars.  I suppose if they want to learn courage, they can lear at the feet of Sila Sahin:


Sila, 25 - star of German soap Good Times, Bad Times - claimed the shoot was a reaction to the "slavery" of her youth.

She added: "What I want to say with these photos is, 'Girls, we don't have to live according to the rules imposed upon us'.

"For years I subordinated myself to various societal constraints. The Playboy photo shoot was a total act of liberation."


As with Veena Malik, I pray for her safety.  Much like the American Left reacts with vicious outrage and unadulterated hatred any time one of "their own" - a black, a woman - leaves the Democratic plantation and becomes a Republican, Muslims fundamentalists know that if women throw off the veil and declare themselves to be beautiful, free, and worthy of admiration and respect, their entire system of misogynistic semi-slavery can come tumbling down.  After all, what's the point of adhering to a 12th century religion if you can't even get a cowering, terrified, humiliated female to serve your every sick whim?

Veena and Sila may be the sparks that starts the rebellion among Muslim women, which will lead to a breaking off of strict Muslim men, who will shed their beards and remove their robes if that's what it takes to get the hot ladies.  Sometimes faith is only (fore)skin deep.

In honor of her guts, we'll give Sila a photo spread of her own, just like we did for Veena.  Muslims, feel free to shake your fist at your monitors in outrage, then just move your hands down south....






That's Sila on the left, Janini Uhse in the middle, and not sure about the hottie on the right.  WARNINIG: The next shot is very NSFW, but....wow:


Friday, April 29, 2011

Elephant Dung #28: Is NY-26 the new NY-23?

Tracking the GOP Civil War

By Michael J.W. Stickings

(For an explanation of this ongoing series, see
here. For previous entries, see here.)

Earlier today, R.K. Barry posted on the goings on in NY-23, the district that in 2009 saw one of the very first Tea Party uprisings.

As you may recall, Conservative candidate Doug Hoffman emerged to challenge moderate Republican Dede Scozzafava in a special election to replace John McHugh, who resigned to become secretary of the Army. With lackluster backing from the party that nominated her and some high-profile Republicans switching their support to Hoffman, Scozzafava pulled out of the race, endorsing Democrat Bill Owens, who ended up winning the seat narrowly over Hoffman. Owens won again in 2012, even more narrowly over Republican Matthew Doheney. But it was Hoffman who made the difference. He took just enough support away from Doheney to allow Owens to pull it out.

Well, what happened in NY-23 may also be happening in NY-26, where a rich Teabagger, Jack Davis, is dividing Republican/conservative support just the way Hoffman did. The seat is currently vacant, following the resignation of Republican Chris Lee (of Craigslist scandal fame) earlier this year, and Gov. Andrew Cuomo called a special election for May 24.

There's little doubt that it's a Republican seat to lose. Republican Jane Corwin is ahead in the polls, but not by much. Democrat Kathy Hochul is just a few points behind. But Davis is running a strong third, and he's clearly draining support from Corwin. If his support holds up, Hochul could squeak through. Indeed, what should be a slam dunk for the Republicans has been turned into a toss-up by Davis, and the only way the Democrat can win is if the Republican/conservative vote is split, if Davis, like Hoffman, makes just enough of a difference.

What's interesting, though, is that Davis is an ex-Democrat. He even ran for the seat as a Democrat in 2006 and 2008, losing both times. And his views are hardly mainstream (conservative) Republican. He's opposed to the Republicans' budget proposals and is generally isolationist/protectionist. In that latter regard, he's more Buchananite paleo-conservative than business-oriented Republican. He appears to be a right-wing populist, and is certainly trying to appeal to the Tea Party, but he's certainly less of a Teabagger than Hoffman. And, indeed, the Tea Party itself is split between Corwin, something of a Scozzafava-like moderate, and Davis.

It looks to be a brutal campaign, with the right bitterly divided. The district may be Republican enough that Corwin can pull it out, but it's certainly going to be a lot closer than it otherwise should have been. And, once again, we see conservatives turning a safe Republican seat into an opportunity for the Democrats, and all because the Tea Party and its allies on the right are waging a campaign to control the Republican Party by narrowing its ideological scope and purging it of insufficiently conservative (in Tea Party terms) elements. So determined are they, so convinced of their righteousness, that they're apparently willing to commit political suicide in the process.

We'll have to see if NY-26 is indeed the new NY-23. I suspect that Davis has peaked and that Corwin, who has some Tea Party support, will pull it out. But what's going on there is instructive, and what we're seeing is a preview of much more to come in 2012.

William and Kate: The Royal Wedding


In case you've been living under a rock and you haven't heard, Prince William married Kate Middleton earlier this morning in a royal ceremony broadcasted world-wide.

Now, I love weddings as much as the next person, actually probably a little bit more, but frankly I feel like for the most part people were obsessed.

Kate looked gorgeous in her Sarah Burton of Alexander McQueen gown, and William stunning in his Scarlet Irish Guard uniform. The bride and groom both seemed genuinely happy, but that couldn't be said for everyone in attendance...










For me, this was the best picture to come out of the whole thing:

Little 3-year-old bridesmaid, Grace van Cutsem, covers her ears as the crowd of roughly 1 million people roar with glee after witnessing Prince William of Whales kiss his bride Kate Duchess of Cambridge on the balcony of Buckingham Palace .

Photo of the Day: Royal Wedding insanity 2


Following up on my PotD post from yesterday...

The wedding is done. Over. But it's been hard to escape it today.

Even in Canada...

We have a federal election on Monday and yet our media have been swept up in the insanity across the pond, and all because this country is too pathetically servile, too disrespectful of our liberty, to cast off the British Monarchy for good, to toss it in the dustbin of our history, where it belongs. Even our most prominent journalist, CBC news anchor Peter Mansbridge, has been reporting from London. I find it all utterly revolting.

You can find photos all over the place. (Or you can just turn on the TV.) But here's another pre-wedding one. The insanity is palpable.


(Photo from The Globe and Mail: "Royal fans wait outside Westminster Abbey Thursday. The marriage of Prince William and Catherine Middleton takes place Friday in London, England.)

I'm embarrassed today even to have anything to do with Britain, even though my family lives there and I'm a British (and Canadian) citizen. It's a wonderful place, in many ways, a country I love.

And yet...

Obama Offends "Carnies"; But Gets A Job Offer Nevertheless...

...one that has been reviled and mocked for a century or more, with its participants and proprietors subject to public ridicule, scorn, and second-class treatment.

I'm talking about...the carnival industry.  They are none to pleased about Obama's derogatory reference to their trade at the president's now-infamous "birther" news conference:

"We’re not going to be able to solve our problems if we get distracted by sideshows and carnival barkers.”


The response to Barack Obama's ugly and slanderous slur was fast and furious:

"I am extremely upset by the reference," said Frank Zaitshik, who runs Wade Shows, a carnival business with over 100 amusement rides and attractions that entertains over 15 million people each year.


Zaitshik, a second generation carnival worker -- a term he prefers to the word "carny," which is used as a pejorative -- has spent much of his life battling negative stereotypes about his industry.

"I think what Obama said is the same type of stereotype that has been placed on African Americans." Zaitshik said. "You wouldn't expect those comments from someone who is a minority and has faced prejudice."

Ron Weber, editor of Carnival Warehouse.com, a website dealing with the industry, thought the president should be more sensitive about singling out groups when making disparaging comments..."A person who has fought for equal rights may not realize he's hurting a group of people," Weber said. "Maybe carnival people are the last safe stereotype to attack."

 
And as to be expected, Obama even got the terminology wrong.  What an intellectual lightweight:
 
In fact, the correct term is "talker," according to Scott Baker, who has been doing this sort of work for 16 years, currently with the Coney Island Sideshow.

"Anyone who uses the term 'barker' is betraying their ignorance," Baker said. "You have 'inside talkers' and 'outside talkers,' and sometimes the term 'lecturer' is used. But the term 'barker' has never been used."

Baker said he has a bone to pick with people who use the term "carnival barker" and admitted to being shocked when the President singled out his industry.

"Our jaws did drop," Baker said. "This silliness has gone on for years, but, the fact is, we work very hard to create a great show. We pride ourselves in Class A entertainment."




And the final humiliation for the president: An job offer that seems to be a perfect match for his intellectual capabilities and warped worldview...

If Obama wants to make it up to Baker, he said he's got just the solution.
 "I think the President should come see our show," he said. "We'll let him in for the kid's price. Maybe we can use his birth certificate as the 'blow-off,' which is the extra entertainment that's not officially part of the show...

Barack Obama as a sideshow freak?  Wikipedia describes "blow-off" thusly:

The ten-in-one would often end in a "blowoff" or "ding," an extra act not advertised on the outside, which could be viewed for an additional fee. The blowoff act would be described provocatively, often as something deemed too strong for women and children,....

An extra fee? Too offensive for woman and children?  Seems like the perfect fit for Baracky, who, after all, will in fact be looking for work in late 2012....
Lady, if you want to see a real contortionist, check out the guy in the Oval Office...

The appalling bigotry of Sally Kern II


In March of 2008, I wrote about Sally Kern's ridiculous, bigoted claims that that homosexuality is "the biggest threat our nation has, even more so than terrorism or Islam, "that proponents of "the homosexual lifestyle" "want to get [children] into the government schools so they can indoctrinate them," and that "no society that has totally embraced homosexuality has lasted for more than, you know, a few decades."

Well, the Oklahoma Republican was back at it on Wednesday, this time directing her bigotry at people of color:

The Republican-controlled Oklahoma House of Representatives passed a proposed constitutional amendment [on Wednesday] that would eliminate Affirmative Action in state government. The offical GOP reasoning for the change is that while "discrimination exists," "I don't think Affirmative Action has been as successful as we like to believe," the bill's sponsor, state Rep. T.W. Shannon (R), explained. But perpetual extremist state Rep. Sally Kern (R) offered her argument for ending the system that helps minorities advance: "blacks" simply don't work as hard as whites:

Rep. Sally Kern, R-Oklahoma City, said minorities earn less than white people because they don't work as hard and have less initiative.

"We have a high percentage of blacks in prison, and that's tragic, but are they in prison just because they are black or because they don't want to study as hard in school? I've taught school, and I saw a lot of people of color who didn't study hard because they said the government would take care of them."

There isn't really much that needs to be said about this. Such bigotry, I think, speaks for itself. It's an appalling example of an all-too-common form of somewhat indirect racism. Racists like Kern don't necessarily say that blacks and other "minorities" are sub-human and don't deserve equal rights, just that they're all or mostly (note the broad generalization) lazy, uneducated, and undeserving of government support -- and, worse, "lazy" can be understood as a euphemism for un-American and worse. It's a way of explaining, justifying, and ultimately perpetuating racial inequality.

As Steve Benen asks, "where does the Republican Party even find people like this? Is there a website where a party can order cartoonish racists to serve in state government?"

It apparently doesn't have to look too hard. Cartoonish racists are right at home in the GOP.

Allen West Knows Why He's In The "Crosshairs"...

...hey, don't blame me.  That's the New York Times talking, not me.  Guessed they missed their own memo.

Congressman West knows why he, more than any freshman Representative from the class of 2010, must be defeated at all costs:

...Mr. West’s place in the Democratic crosshairs stems, he said, from the fact “that I scare the liberal establishment.”


“You’re looking at a black man who was brought up in the inner cities, career military, a conservative, married going on 22 two years, two beautiful daughters, and for whatever reason that really does scare them,” he said. “My theory is that for whatever reason I could cause others like me to reject these liberal social-welfare policies.”

His theory is spot-on.  If other minorities see that you can flee the Democrat's plantation and survive, even thrive, hell, they might do the same thing.  And without that constituency, the Democrats are out of business, now and forever.

So they do to West what any plantation boss would to an escaped slave: Mock him, deride him, but secretly hate him, and work tirelessly to either bring him back in chains, or bring him back dead, so that the message gets thru loud and clear to any other would-be defectors....

What's new in New York's 23rd Congressional District?


I was wondering today how things were going in the NY-23rd Congressional district. You may recall events in the district that took what probably should have been a safe GOP seat and handed it to the Democrats due to infighting between more mainstream Republicans and the Tea Party.

This started when Republican John M. McHugh resigned the seat on September 21, 2009 in order to become the Secretary of the Army. Thus a special election was required, which, under normal circumstances almost certainly would have been won by the Republican nominee, Dede Scozzafava, who had previously been a member of the New York State Assembly.

What made circumstances other than normal was that Scozzafava supported abortion rights and gay marriage and had other unseemly affiliations, as far as the emerging Tea Party movement was concerned.

Tim Pawlenty and Sarah Palin, among others, decided to put their weight behind some sad sack character who would run under the Conservative Party banner. I believe his name was Doug Hoffman, though as I recall he was a terrible political performer and has mercifully disappeared into political obscurity, but not before he could lend the Democrats a very useful helping hand.

Long story short, running as a third party candidate, Hoffman made it impossible for Scozzafava to win. Upon realizing this, and no doubt sick of being vilified by members of her own party, she dropped out and ending up endorsing the Democrat, Bill Owens (pictured above).

Owens not only won in 2009, but won again in 2010 when Hoffman, having failed to secure the Republican nomination ran (again) as a third party candidate allowing Owens another two-year term. Oddly, Hoffman dropped out late in the race, but too late to have his name removed from the ballot. In the end, Owens got about 48%, the nominated Republican (Matthew Doheny) got about 46% and our helpful friend Hoffman got 6%. That's what they call a spoiler. Yes indeed.

I think I've got the details mostly right and I only recount them because I see that the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) is already hard at work to reclaim the seat, as they may be able to do (assuming they don't blow their feet off again). Okay, I'm also recounting it because I'm really hoping that Republicans and the Tea Partiers amongst them dance the same dance all over America in 2012.

In total, the NRCC is targeting 23 Congressional districts with robo calls and even some television ads with the same basic message, which I found interesting and perhaps indicative of things to come. So, take heed.

Here's the script:

Hello, I'm calling from the National Republican Congressional Committee with an important alert about your Congressman Bill Owens. Thanks to Owens' addiction to spending, the federal government borrows $4 billion every day. That's given us fourteen trillion dollars in debt on the backs of our children and grandchildren. And Bill Owens is making it worse. He voted for another Pelosi budget that would strangle our economy with more spending, more debt and more borrowing from China. Call Congressman Owens and tell him to stop spending your money. Paid for by the National Republican Congressional Committee. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.

And, if you insist, here's the ad:


The usual ham-fisted bullshit. My favorite part is the bit with the People's Republic of China and the big red curtain and the Statue of Liberty, that and the beautiful children we are condemning to lives of desperation. It almost brings a tear to my eye.

I didn't see any seniors in the clip who will live their "golden years" terrified that they won't be able to pay for their health care if the Republicans get their way. Maybe the next ad will cover all that.

Just to prove the game is on, a spokesperson for Congressman Owens responded by saying:

Now the Washington attack dogs are trying to distract voters from Rep. Owens' fight to protect Upstate seniors from the Ryan Budget, which would end Medicare as we know it and increase health care costs for the next generation of seniors.

Indeed.

(Cross-posted to Lippmann's Ghost.)

Washington Post Gets Definitive On Obama's Intelligence...

...in a story about Donald Trump's role in forcing the release of Barack Obama's birth certificate, we see an odd assertion:

But even as he suggested that one controversy might be put to rest, Trump raised new questions Wednesday about Obama’s background.


“The word is, according to what I’ve read, is that he was a terrible student when he went Occidental. He then gets to Columbia. He then gets to Harvard,” Trump said. “I heard at Columbia he wasn’t a very good student. He then gets to Harvard. How do you get into Harvard if you’re not a good student?”

Obama, a former constitutional law professor and the first black president of the Harvard Law Review, is widely recognized as an intellectual heavyweight...

By who, exactly?  The folks who work at the Washington Post?

You would think that if a major newspaper would make this type of assertion in a news story, they would follow it up with anecdotal evidence of said subject's intellectual heft.  But strangely enough, none is provided. The next sentences goes on to repeat Obama's proven falsehood (thank you, Jake Tapper) about the "birther" story dominating new coverage...

A sad trend amongst liberals is that when provided unassailable evidence that their pet theories do not work when applied to real life, their answer is not to reconsider their convictions, but to close their eyes, stamp their feet, plug their ears, and repeat their false assertions ad nausem, as if it will act as a magic talisman to bend reality to their demands.

Seems as if the Washington Post is now travelling down the same road...

Rebels without a cause

By Capt. Fogg

To be honest, I've come to hate activists, even when I agree with them. The passion behind so many crusades has often rendered the crusaders irrational, intemperate and more than half blind. It prompts them to accept spurious facts and figures and sometimes to invent them and in too many cases there's a kind of regenerative feedback that mimics a PA system with too much gain. It begins to howl and screech. Whatever was said into the microphone and what the howling is about matters little, only the joy of crusading, which not only surpasseth understanding, but prevents it.

Take genital mutilation, for instance. On the list of people I hate well in excess of my general contempt for humanity are those who painfully slice up young girls in a way that is intended to prevent them from enjoying sex as an adult. Yes, we have a constitutional ban on government interference with "free exercise" of religion, but we have a long standing interpretation of it that limits that free exercise to otherwise legal actions. We are, even so, usually able to make fair decisions because we distinguish between minor cosmetic surgery and malicious mutilation without a lot of hysteria. We can sometimes tell whether a comparison is ludicrous or not. We're able to take notice of the testimony of close to a billion males that it's not an impairment; unless we're prone to activism, that is.

Is circumcision, demanded by two of the major religious categories, really the kind of "mutilation" that falls outside of constitutional protection? To the activists of San Francisco, there are no uncertainties and certainly no distinction between something that is initially agonizing and a cruel lifelong impairment and something that isn't either. And let me be clear, this isn't a subject that will be illuminated by our traditional, left-right dichotomy. It simply doesn't matter whether it's liberals or Conservatives behind it; whether it's neither or both. I'd go so far as to say that the stated justifications for banning the circumcision of male babies is irrelevant to the passion for it and has too much to do with "aesthetics" to be more than an excuse. So I'm not going to indulge myself in modern fashion by invoking the traditional straw men ( and women of course) and restrict my contempt for people who need to have a cause and need it so much they aren't quite scrupulous about the high contrast, black and white scenarios they use in their passion plays.

If the crusade succeeds, much like the one that captured Jerusalem in 1099, the City by the bay will be as slippery a thing to hold on to. Jews and Muslims will simply use maternity facilities elsewhere or have the religious rite performed elsewhere. The Brit Milah, given in Gen. 17:10-14 to Abraham and in Lev. 12:3 is carried out on the eighth day. Muslims have a similar guideline. The law them would be only an inconvenience, like having to drive to the next town to purchase alcohol is in some places.

What then will it accomplish than, after all the sound and fury and obsession with penises wanes? Certainly nothing to stop what was intended to be stopped unless a further incursion by the dominant religion into the neighborhood of tolerance was part of the game all along.

(Cross posted from Human Voices)

Elephant Dung #27: Rand Paul takes aim at Donald Trump's questionable Republican cred

Tracking the GOP Civil War

By Michael J.W. Stickings

(For an explanation of this ongoing series, see here. For previous entries, see here.)

I'm not exactly a fan of Rand Paul, the Tea Party Republican senator from Kentucky. But I've got to hand it to him, he's a funny guy and he's got a knack for hilarious one-line swipes at fellow Republicans. Earlier this month, he took aim at Newt Gingrich. Yesterday, his target was Donald Trump:

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) on Thursday took a swipe at billionaire businessman Donald Trump, demanding to see his "Republican registration."

While speaking at a breakfast with New Hampshire Republicans one day after "The Donald" visited the Granite State, Paul riffed off the potential GOP presidential candidate's "birther" questions.

"I've come to New Hampshire today because I'm very concerned," said Paul, according to The New York Times. "I want to see the original long-form certificate of Donald Trump's Republican registration."

Paul's comments follow up on some GOP-aligned groups' effort to discredit Trump as a conservative. The free-market Club for Growth has accused Trump of being a liberal for his previous support of universal healthcare and his desire to raise tariffs on China.

It's hard to be a successful Republican when you've got both the Tea Party (via Rand Paul) and the Club for Growth aligned against you. Which is no doubt partly why Trump has so enthusiastically embraced the whole Birther thing and is now channelling his racism (what else is it?) into suggesting that Obama is an affirmative action case.

Now, is Trump a Republican? Yes, no doubt. His wealth-based sense of entitlement and megalomania would seem to indicate that he leans to the right, as would his pro-business (or, to be more precise, pro-Trump business) views. But his own political history is mixed. He has espoused various liberal positions over the years, and he was a registered Democrat for years. As he himself has acknowledged, if prior to his current courting of the Republican base, he's an independent, and he has voted for and financially supported both Democrats and Republicans.

None of this should disqualify Trump from being a Republican today, but of course the Republican Party, and in particular its powerful Tea Party wing, is all about party purification. They're the new Bolsheviks. If you're not Republican enough, Republican as they define it, they'll purge you from the party. We're seeing this happen again and again, with the Tea Party and others on the right challenging even established conservatives like Orrin Hatch, Richard Lugar, and John Boehner. The Republican Party is descending into madness, as I've said many times, and all this ongoing purge is accelerating that descent.

Trump has the media platform, not to mention the temperament, to fight back against those who would challenge him, including Paul. But Paul's onto something. Birtherism aside, Trump just isn't the sort of Republican, if truly Republican at all, to win over enough of the grassroots base to win the nomination, even if he manages to lure some of the party establishment (like Ralph Reed). He's got the anti-Obama attack going, and that's sustaining his popularity in the party, but were he to run that popularity would likely fracture once he was actually subjected to any sort of sustained scrutiny of his record. In that sense, he's got a Romney problem, and it's the sort of problem that's virtually insurmountable. Just ask Mitt.

And just ask Rand, who threw a pile of dung at the upstart Trump. If The Donald insists on remaining in the Republican spotlight, there will no doubt be much more to come.

Paul Ryan Gets A Standing "O"...

....message to the Left:  These are not the protests you have been looking for....

Check out Granny at the :20 mark standing up and applauding the Ryan plan.  Not quite the image the Democrats were trying to manufacture during the Easter recess, no matter how much co-operation they got from CNN and NBC:





To be fair, protesters have been seen on the outskirts of Paul Ryan's town halls:



Good luck with the faux outrage, guys.  We've got the real thing, and in case you haven't noticed, it's pointed  precisely in your direction...

Thursday, April 28, 2011

Obama, Panetta, Petraeus


President Obama shook up his national security team yesterday, notably moving CIA Director Leon Panetta to the Pentagon and Generalissimo David Petraeus to the CIA.

It was "a game of musical chairs," Slate's Fred Kaplan observed, though "under the circumstances, it's hard to imagine a shrewder set of moves, both politically and substantively."

Panetta is a Washington insider. Can he succeed at the Pentagon? Maybe. He certainly has credibility where it matters, on Capitol Hill:

The next defense secretary will have to wind down the wars without losing them and will almost certainly have to cut the budget without wreaking havoc in the Pentagon. It's a nightmare job for anyone, but Panetta has as much experience as anyone at carving out that sort of territory.

I don't much care for him, and he's come to be an apologist for the Bush-Obama national security state, but I suppose he has the political clout to lead what is undeniably a deeply political office. (Whether he manages to secure the trust and support of the military brass, not to mention of the rank-and-file, is another matter, though that may not matter given his political priorities in the months/years ahead.)

As for Petraeus, well, Obama had to do something with him, not least given his political inclinations, if not aspirations, and connections to the conservative/Republican foreign/military policy establishment:

Picking Petraeus to run the CIA is a move worthy of chess masters. He's been a wartime commander of one sort or another for eight years, almost non-stop. It's time for him to leave the battlefield; that was clear even to him. Yet for much of that time, he's also been a household name -- and widely hailed as the U.S. military's finest strategic mind in a generation. So the question -- which would have been vexing for any president -- is: What to do with this guy? Some who are close to the general refer to this question, with a slight smile and a cocked eyebrow, as "the Petraeus problem."

*****

Keeping Petraeus on the inside -- in a job that's related to, but not quite of, the military -- is a judicious stroke.

But will anything actually change? Well, we'll have to see. Maybe Panetta is the right man to deal with Iraq and Afghanistan, and particularly to preside of the end of the latter war. And maybe Petraeus will be a fine CIA director.

But these are political moves, first and foremost. Obama puts an ally/confidante at the Pentagon and a possible rival/critic at the CIA. Panetta will do what Obama wants him to do. Petraeus will perhaps be more independent, but he will also be constrained by his position.

Yes, it was a game of musical chairs. And Obama won.