AT MAGGIE’S FARM, a suggestion for Obama’s global-warming speech on Tuesday: “Why not cut off power to the government first? Heat, a/c, and electric. That would show real leadership. Pres. Lincoln managed fine without electricity, central heating, or a/c, and he rode around town on a horse. First, the gummint should cut the power to the NSA and the IRS. Then, the White House. then Congress.”
It’s never about reducing power to the government. . . .
MAN OF STEEL: A Review.
IN THE MAIL: World Divided (Secret World Chronicle).
TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 45.
OBAMA ADMINISTRATION POSITION: “Leaks to the media are equated with espionage.”
Call it the “Omerta Administration.”
ROSS DOUTHAT: The Great Disconnect:
This January, as President Obama began his second term, the Pew Research Center asked Americans to list their policy priorities for 2013. Huge majorities cited jobs and the economy; sizable majorities cited health care costs and entitlement reform; more modest majorities cited fighting poverty and reforming the tax code. Down at the bottom of the list, with less than 40 percent support in each case, were gun control, immigration and climate change.
Yet six months later, the public’s non-priorities look like the entirety of the White House’s second-term agenda. The president’s failed push for background checks has given way to an ongoing push for immigration reform, and the administration is reportedly planning a sweeping regulatory push on carbon emissions this summer. Meanwhile, nobody expects much action on the issues that Americans actually wanted Washington to focus on: tax and entitlement reform have been back-burnered, and the plight of the unemployed seems to have dropped off the D.C. radar screen entirely.
Hey, Washington’s economy is doing just fine. Plus: “Gun control, immigration reform and climate change aren’t just random targets of opportunity. They’re pillars of Acela Corridor ideology, core elements of Bloombergism, places where Obama-era liberalism overlaps with the views of Davos-goers and the Wall Street 1 percent. If you move in those circles, the political circumstances don’t necessarily matter: these ideas always look like uncontroversial common sense. Step outside those circles, though, and the timing of their elevation looks at best peculiar, at worst perverse.”
RAND PAUL: Our DNI Lied, Snowden Told The Truth.
REPORT: Another Bob Menendez Sex Scandal? At least he didn’t stiff an underage prostitute.
BYRON YORK: Nightmare Scenario For The Democrats. “Look for a mad dash by little-known candidates if Hillary doesn’t run in 2016.” Actually, I’d say that by 2016, somebody with no connections to this administration may be a dream for the Dems, not a nightmare.
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EDWARD SNOWDEN HAS LEFT HONG KONG FOR A THIRD COUNTRY.
UPDATE: Heading for Moscow? This won’t end well. But I agree with Ron Fournier that Kardashianizing Snowden distracts from the real story, which is what the NSA is doing.
Plus, a comment on the Hong Kong statement: “It’s clear that neither the Chinese government, nor the Hong Kong government, have any respect for Obama at this point. What a disaster.” Yeah, you’d have thought that our “smart diplomacy” would have had everyone rallying around.
ANOTHER UPDATE: Snowden reported heading to Ecuador.
THE HORROR OF letting down the Sisterhood. Sometimes feminism seems like an especially catty sorority.
PEGGY NOONAN: WHERE WAS THE TEA PARTY?
Think about the sheer political facts of the president’s 2012 victory. The first thing we learned, in the weeks after the voting, was that the Obama campaign was operating with a huge edge in its technological operation—its vast digital capability and sophistication. The second thing we learned, in the past month, is that while the campaign was on, the president’s fiercest foes, in the Tea Party, were being thwarted, diverted and stopped.
Technological savvy plus IRS corruption. The president’s victory now looks colder, more sordid, than it did. Which is why our editor, James Taranto, calls him “President Asterisk.”
Indeed. Some of us, of course, saw the “colder, more sordid” side of the Obama operation earlier than others.
Meanwhile, Prof. Stephen Clark writes: “Suppose this is right, then one should expect similar efforts in 2014. Shouldn’t those who were targeted before be thinking of ways around such bottle necks? Hopefully it isn’t the case that the emergence of a movement election like the 2010 midterm now depends on 501(c)4 regulations. That would be a pathetic denouement for our political system.”
There’s an answer to the (c)4 thing — self-exempt. But people should be thinking of other countermeasures, and other possible tactics. Obama’s weaker now, but the Dems haven’t given up — and need to keep Senate to help limit investigations before 2016.
Well, I just follow a lot of interesting people, and retweet whatever strikes me. Basically the same thing I do on the blog. You can follow me if you like.
ROGER KIMBALL: The DMV as an Allegory of American Decadence.
MEGAN MCARDLE: “I am worried about unemployment at the bottom of the economy. Let’s unpack why.” “Right now, we are not creating a lot of good new jobs–defined as jobs that are relatively secure, physically tolerable, and decently paid. People with enough grit and imagination can invent themselves new jobs, but at no time in history has that described the majority of the population. The alternatives for the rest aren’t very attractive.”
SO DOES THIS MEAN THE NSA SPIES ON MEMBERS OF THE SENATE? Biden: ‘At least five senators’ would like to change gun control vote.
UPDATE: Reader Roland Mar writes:
Of course it does. The administration has admitted to spying on everybody, including the press; collecting every bit of communications and personal data it can, including credit ratings, purchases, and browsing history. Nowhere have they said Congress is exempt. Verizon was the first phone company where it was admitted that everything they touch goes to the NSA. Upon taking office, every member of the House and Senate is handed a Blackberry to do everything on. Who has the contract for the Congressional Blackberries? Verizon.
Since this started in 2009, one has to assume that every member of Congress regardless of party has been compromised, or has family that has been compromised; and is being blackmailed, extorted, or bribed in some form or combination, and is under the control of the administration. This explanation is the Occam’s Razor for why the Congress, the Republican Caucus in particular, has been so passive and refused to fight back against Obama.
There are implications for the future of the country.
Yes, there are.
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