CHINA: New Taiping Rebellion Threatening Beijing?

REPUBLICANS BEMUSED by White House response to Plan B. “Republicans on Capitol Hill, to put it mildly, were somewhere between shocked and amused by the president’s rejection of their suggestion to spare all but millionaires a tax hike. It was not only that Senate Democrats had voted to do just that in 2010; it was that the threat to reject such a bill if passed by the House rang hollow in the absence of any alternate measure that could pass both houses. So now President Obama was going to hold middle-class taxpayers hostage? Somehow Republicans weren’t buying it.” So pass it and go home.

Plus: “On the House side, Republicans found Sen. Harry Reid’s objection to a proposal he once voted for a bit too much to swallow. A GOP leadership aide wisecracked, ‘Sen. Reid has been a conscientious objector in the Battle of the Fiscal Cliff. It’s time for him to get in the game.’”

HEY, THAT’S NOT THE NARRATIVE! Democrats Facing Diversity Drought.

Come January, Republicans will have at least as many minority senators as Democrats and will have four minority governors to Democrats’ one.

The Senate appointment of Rep. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) and the death of Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) on Monday mean that, at least for now, the GOP will have three incoming minority senators, and Democrats will have two or three (depending on who is appointed to Inouye’s seat, though it seems likely to be another minority candidate).

For whatever reason, the GOP is doing a better job of cultivating minority candidates for major statewide office these days. But why? The answer isn’t simple, but a big reason for it is actually a law that was designed to help minorities: The Voting Rights Act. . . . In fact, the National Journal reported that Democrats elected just six minorities to majority-white districts and states in 2010. And they actually had fewer minorities elected to such offices than Republicans did.

Read the whole thing. Meanwhile, the WSJ notes the Democratic/Media narrative failure here:

Mr. Scott will become the Senate’s lone black member and the first black senator from the South since Reconstruction. The GOP will no doubt enjoy having a high-profile black politician to assist in minority outreach. But it’s also worth noting that Mr. Scott is a favorite of the tea party activists whom Democrats and liberals have tried to dismiss as bigots. Two years ago, the NAACP passed a resolution condemning “racist elements and activities” in the tea party. The civil rights group also issued a report that accused the movement of giving a “platform to anti-Semites, racists and bigots.”

The popularity of other black tea party heroes like Herman Cain and Florida Congressman Allen West should have been enough to put this nonsense to rest. But now that this supposedly “racist” grass-roots movement is partly responsible for the Senate’s only black member come January, be assured that the media will set about refuting these baseless accusations.

That was a joke.

Yes, it was.

Related: Obama Losing Ground With Young Black Men? Impossible. All black people think and vote the same way. Everyone knows that. On the other hand, what, exactly, has Obama done for them besides be black himself?

UPDATE: Reader Gregg Geil writes:

Democrat Rep. Lloyd Doggett of Texas – a white male – represents a Latino majority district. Latinos did not turn out to vote in the primary but hordes of young, urban, white hipsters did, and they voted overwhelmingly for the white liberal over the Mexican American candidate.

Racists!

NOBEL PEACE PRIZE UPDATE: President Obama’s War Report: War on Terror in Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia, “Various Other Locations,” U.S. Forces in Central Africa, Egypt, Kosovo, on the High Seas.

WHY DO WE CELEBRATE CHRISTMAS on December 25th?

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ROBERT BORK has died.

He and I were not at all on the same page, but he was a major figure in 20th Century American legal thought.

HILLARY! 2016: Benghazi verdict: grossly inadequate security and systemic failures of leadership. If they ask her about it in the debates, I guess she can just duck out for an emergency colonoscopy or something.

OBAMACARE UPDATE: Court: Obama must rewrite contraception mandate to accommodate religious liberty. “Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius cannot enforce the Obamacare contraception mandate as it is written, but must follow through on a promise to rewrite the rule to accommodate religious liberty, a federal appeals court ordered. . . . Yesterday’s ruling marks the second time in two weeks that a judge has decided that Obama’s promise to change the rule eventually is an insufficient remedy to the religious liberty issues raised by opponents of the mandate.”

TIME MAGAZINE’S “PERSON OF THE YEAR:” Barack Obama, Again.

COMPETENCE: Bin Laden film leak was referred to Justice; leaker top Obama official.

JOURNALISM: High Magazine Clips And The Shoulder Thing That Goes Up.

WHITE HOUSE ENDORSES specific gun restrictions. “In addition to the proposed prohibition on assault weapons, White House press secretary Jay Carney said the president would back legislation that closed so-called gun show loopholes and cracked down on high-capacity ammunition clips.”

The big question here is whether Republicans will go wobbly. They need to hear from constituents.

HEH: Obama Reelected, Women, Minorities, ‘Progressive’ Talk Radio Hardest Hit.

NEW YORK SUN: The Indecency Of The New York Times.

AT AMAZON, today is the last day for free Super Saver shipping with delivery by Christmas, but you have to order by 3 p.m. Eastern. Tomorrow is the last full day for two-day shipping.

MORE HATE SPEECH: Texas Dem. party official apologizes for threatening NRA, Twitterers don’t accept.

When will President Obama denounce this hate-filled eliminationist rhetoric from his supporters? Never, is my guess.

WASHINGTON POST: Chuck Hagel is not the right choice for defense secretary. “Mr. Hagel’s stated positions on critical issues, ranging from defense spending to Iran, fall well to the left of those pursued by Mr. Obama during his first term — and place him near the fringe of the Senate that would be asked to confirm him.”

First Susan Rice, now this. All of Obama’s second-term appointments seem to be targeted for racist attacks.

PEJMAN YOUSEFZADEH on Andrew Sullivan and Leon Wieseltier.

ROGER SIMON ON THE RETURN OF BENGHAZI. “Security at the Benghazi compound was obviously horrendous. It didn’t take a report — or a rocket scientist — to tell you that. . . . The report also makes 29 recommendations for tightening up security in these dangerous foreign venues, which Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, herself not able to testify because of a concussion, has nonetheless found time to accept. She thanked the review board for their work.”

The Dems would much rather talk about gun control.

Related: Claudia Rosett: Benghazi in Brief.

WAIT, THEN THERE’D BE NO POLITICAL HAY TO BE MADE: Ron Fournier: What If Nothing or Nobody is to Blame for Adam Lanza?

Besides, the press is always happy to blame the NRA. Doing so unfairly just makes it more satisfying.

But Fournier, Megan McArdle, and even Ezra Klein are wrestling with the strong likelihood that there’s no policy response that will make such events less likely.

Though having more armed people around — instead of waiting 20 minutes for the cops to show up — would make such events much less destructive.

EUROPE: Asking a socialist to embrace austerity is like asking a prostitute to embrace chastity: it’s simply not part of the business model. True here, too.

RACISM IN OBAMA’S AMERICA: “I don’t care if a bunch of white kids got killed.”

ED MORRISSEY: Shame on Congress for Robbing Hurricane Sandy Victims.

NOTE: When people say things like “don’t let this moment pass without acting on gun control,” what they’re really saying is our arguments are so unpersuasive that they can only succeed when people aren’t thinking clearly.