Archive for 2014
November 7, 2014
LAME DUCKFEST: Senate Democrats plan a legislative rush before power shifts to the GOP.
You know, since apparently nobody reads these bills before voting, how about sneaking in one to repeal ObamaCare and restore the Bush tax rates?
JITTERS: Roll Call: Pelosi Seeks to Soothe Caucus in Post-Election Conference Call.
In a post-mortem conference call with colleagues on Thursday afternoon, Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi repeated talking points from earlier this week to explain the grim outcome of the midterm elections.
She also, if indirectly, touted her ability to continue leading the caucus at a time when many members are privately discussing when there will be a change in senior leadership ranks.
“I know where the money is,” the California Democrat said, according to sources on the call. “I know where to get it.”
Dems outspent the GOP this time around, to little effect. And I thought money in politics was bad?
Plus: White House Dismisses David Krone’s Criticism.
White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest dismissed acid criticism of the White House from Reid’s hard-charging chief of staff, David Krone, about the administration’s handling of a number of issues, including fundraising, in The Washington Post.
“I don’t think they actually reflect the true nature of the relationship that exists between President Obama and Senator Reid, that Senator Obama when he served in the United States Senate, and Senator Reid struck up a genuine friendship when the two men served together in the United States Senate,” Earnest said.
Earnest noted the two worked together to pass the president’s agenda early on in his administration.
Yeah, how did that work out?
JOURNALISM: Take a Look at How Journalists with WFOR in Miami React to Republican’s Re-Election. Democratic operatives with bylines.
ED DRISCOLL: The Rise Of The John Birch Left.
The modern left is built around a trio of laudable principles: protecting the environment is good, racism is bad, and so is demonizing a person over his or her sexual preferences. (In the chapter of his book Intellectuals titled “The Flight from Reason,” Paul Johnson wrote that “At the end of the Second World War, there was a significant change in the predominant aim of secular intellectuals, a shift of emphasis from utopianism to hedonism.” ) But just as the Bircher right began to see communists everywhere, the new Bircher left sees racism, sexism, homophobia, and Koch Brothers everywhere.
They’re lurking around more corners than Gen. Ripper imagined there were commies lurking inside Burpelson Air Force Base. They’re inside your video games! They own NFL teams! They’ll steal your condoms! Disagree with President Obama? Racist! (That goes for you too, Bill, Hillary, and your Democratic supporters.) Not onboard for gender-neutral bathrooms? Not too thrilled with abortion-obsessed candidates like Wendy Davis and “Mark Uterus”? Sexist! Disagree with using global warming as a cudgel to usher in the brave new world of bankrupt coal companies and $10 a gallon gasoline? Climate denier!
And as with the original Birchers, don’t get ‘em started on fluoride.
The original Birchers weren’t bad people, but their Cold War paranoia got the better of them. Similarly, as Charles Krauthammer famously said, “To understand the workings of American politics, you have to understand this fundamental law: Conservatives think liberals are stupid. Liberals think conservatives are evil,” which illustrates how a John Birch-style worldview can cause the modern leftists to take an equally cracked view of his fellow countrymen, to the point of writing off entire states and genders.
Indeed.
THE HILL: After Victories, Tea Party Won’t Back Down.
A broader debate building within the party, over the scope of GOP policy goals, could exacerbate tensions. Both McConnell and Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) have said they want to initially pursue smaller, bipartisan accomplishments, like approving the Keystone XL pipeline and a bill meant to encourage the hiring of veterans.
But Brian Phillips, communications director for Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), who chairs the Senate Steering Committee, said conservatives are concerned that the GOP will get stuck on what he called “small-ball items.”
“The message that conservatives are sending to the new GOP majority is, we can’t just do small-ball items and we can’t just do the things K Street wants us to do even if they’re good policy. We have to make as much a part of our agenda as anything larger reform bills that speak directly to middle class families and working class Americans,” he said.
Phillips listed welfare and education reform as two bigger-picture items conservatives want to see on the agenda, and others have emphasized tax reform as well.
He said he doesn’t see the same sorts of internecine warfare blowing up the legislative process now that Republicans control the Senate. Those battles — like the one that led to the government shutdown — were largely “tactical,” over the “how” of stopping President Obama’s agenda.
In retrospect — as even Chris Hayes was noting Wednesday — that whole government-shutdown thing isn’t looking so dumb.
TUESDAY’S UNNOTICED BIG WINNER? James Webb.
THE NEW NATE SILVER: Grover Norquist wins The Hill’s 2014 elections pundits predictions.
November 6, 2014
THE COUNTRY’S IN THE VERY BEST OF HANDS: U.S. diplomat and longtime Pakistan expert is under federal investigation.
A veteran State Department diplomat and longtime Pakistan expert is under federal investigation as part of a counterintelligence probe and has had her security clearances withdrawn, according to U.S. officials.
The FBI searched the Northwest Washington home of Robin L. Raphel last month, and her State Department office was also examined and sealed, officials said. Raphel, a fixture in Washington’s diplomatic and think-tank circles, was placed on administrative leave last month, and her contract with the State Department was allowed to expire this week.
Two U.S. officials described the investigation as a counterintelligence matter, which typically involves allegations of spying on behalf of foreign governments. The exact nature of the investigation involving Raphel remains unclear. She has not been charged. . . .
The 67-year-old longtime diplomat was among the U.S. government’s most senior advisers on Pakistan and South Asian issues. She is a former assistant secretary of state for South Asia and a former ambassador to Tunisia. At the time of the FBI search of her house, she had retired from the Foreign Service but was working for the State Department on renewable, limited contracts that depended in part on her security clearances.
Hmm. Stay tuned.
SO HE’S BASICALLY RECYCLING OBAMA’S SEQUESTRATION STRATEGY: IRS Commissioner Predicts Miserable 2015 Tax Filing Season. Let’s make it miserable for him, instead.
JIM TREACHER ON “SMART DIPLOMACY:” Ayatollah Khamenei Doesn’t Want To Be Pen Pals With Obama.
STEVE CROWDER does his own catcall video.
CONDI RICE: Democrats’ Racial Attacks “Appalling.”
21ST CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: Date The Atlas, Not The Shrug.
TECHNICALLY, I SUPPOSE THIS VIOLATED BIOLOGICAL-WARFARE TREATIES: A Heroic World War II Nurse Is Finally Being Honored For Intentionally Giving STDs To Nazi Patients. “A Czechoslovakian hospital worker who was assigned to look after German soldiers shortly after their invasion of her hometown took revenge into her own bed, taking up affairs with several officers and intentionally passing along debilitating STDs in the process.”
IF YOU DON’T LIKE IT, COMPLAIN TO THEIR CLIENTS: J. Christian Adams: Big Law Firms Wage “Pro Bono” Lawfare In Texas.
SULTAN KNISH: The Unbearable Lightness of Feminism.
In Nigeria and Iraq, Muslim armies are selling women as slaves. Iran hanged a woman for fighting off a rapist. ISIS was more direct about it and beheaded a woman who resisted one of its fighters.
But we don’t have to travel to the Middle East to see real horrors. The sex grooming scandal in the UK involved the rape of thousands of girls. The rapists were Muslim men so instead of talking about it, the UK’s feminists bought $75 shirts reading, “This is what a feminist looks like” which were actually being made by Third World women living sixteen to a room. This was what a feminist looked like and it wasn’t a pretty picture.
The same willful unseriousness saw Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a survivor of genital mutilation and an informed critic of Muslim misogyny, booted from Brandeis by self-proclaimed feminists. Meanwhile the major feminist cause at the moment is Gamergate, a controversy over video games which can be traced back to a female game developer who slept with a video game reviewer. Professional feminists have spent more time and energy denouncing video games than the sale and rape of girls in Nigeria and Iraq.
That is what feminism looks like and there is something seriously wrong with that. . . .
Professional feminists respond to the negative feedback by claiming that feminism is simply equality. But if feminism were equality, women, and for that matter men, wouldn’t dislike it so much.
A feminist looks like a professional activist wearing a $75 t-shirt made by slave labor while proclaiming that she is a feminist. It isn’t fighting for the rights of women that makes her a feminist. It’s the pricey fashion statement of someone who toots their own horn while exploiting less fortunate women.
The professional feminist is not there to help women, but to promote the agenda of the institutional left.
In that respect, it’s worth revisiting this 2006 essay by Eric S. Raymond: The Gramscian Damage.
YEAH, THAT SEEMS LIKE A PRETTY GOOD IDEA: Orbital Sciences Is Replacing The Soviet-Era Engine Suspected In Its Rocket Explosion.
INSTAVISION: Adam Smith: The Greatest Self-Help Author You Have Never Read. I talk with Russ Roberts about his new book, How Adam Smith Can Change Your Life: An Unexpected Guide to Human Nature and Happiness. (Bumped).
WAR ON WOMEN: Democrats scrap ad buys for Mary Landrieu. They don’t need you anymore, Mary.