BAD NEWS FOR HILLARY: Not All Good Leaders Are Bossy.
Archive for 2014
March 12, 2014
GET ‘EM WHILE THEY’RE HOT: At Amazon, Hot New Releases, Updated Every Hour.
Also, College Hoops Fever: Deals and Special Offers.
Plus, today only: Miracle-Gro AeroGarden Indoor Garden with Gourmet Herb Seed Pod Kit plus Bonus Seed Starter System, 40% off. The Insta-Wife grew some fabulous tomatoes with the somewhat-similar Earth Box a couple of years back.
THE ANARCHISTS AND TERRORISTS ARE IN COMPLETE CONTROL: ObamaCare’s Secret Mandate Exemption: HHS quietly repeals the individual purchase rule for two more years.
CRONY CAPITALISM: Recalls: Did The Obama White House Protect GM? And was competitor Toyota targeted?
IRS SCANDAL UPDATE: Lois Lerner Under Fire In New House Oversight Committee Report.
JAMES TARANTO: Speak of the Devil: The silly, sinister campaign against the Koch brothers.
There are some clues here that this campaign isn’t aimed at a mass audience. The Kochs are so obscure, even to Times readers, that the reporter felt obliged to identify them right off the bat, necessitating a yawner of a lead paragraph. They’re also sufficiently unknown that the pun on their name needs a pronunciation guide, which deprives the joke of all its sting.
This is a play to the base–and are they ever base. Back in February 2011 we noted an anti-Koch rally in California where various “progressives” were captured on video calling for the assassination of Supreme Court justices who voted to uphold the right to free speech. Establishment Democrats like Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid haven’t gone that far, but they are joining in the demonization of private citizens, following Saul Alinsky’s 13th rule: “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.” . . .
We’re torn between finding this effort sinister and ridiculous, and the truth is it’s both. Alinskyite tactics were meant to be applied against the powerful by the powerless. When applied by powerful men, like Reid, who are supposed to be public servants, they take on the character of tyranny rather than rebellion.
No doubt the Kochs can take it, but note that his attack aimed not only at them but also at ordinary Americans who have been victimized by ObamaCare and spoken out about it. The aim is clearly to intimidate others and thereby suppress information about ObamaCare’s failures.
It’s unAmerican. Have they no decency, no decency at all? Well, no:
On the ridiculous side, the Washington Free Beacon reports on an anti-Koch protest over the weekend staged by a pair of unions, the New York State Nurses Association and the Service Employees International Union Local 1199, along with the state chapter of the NAACP. They were protesting a new hospital wing.
Yes, you read that right. They objected to “the soon-to-be-built David H. Koch Center at New York-Presbyterian Hospital,” for which the eponymous donor gave $100 million.
But it’s all about discouraging other rich people from donating to Republicans, lest they be demonized too. But, as a great man once said, get in their face and punch back twice as hard. You get more of what’s rewarded, and less of what’s punished. So punish this.
DRILL, BABY, DRILL: Ukraine Neighbors Urge Expansion of U.S. Gas Exports. “European officials who want to reduce their dependency on Russian gas also have seized on the situation to mount a major lobbying campaign in Washington for new legislation to ease regulations on American LNG exports. Some of these countries, including Bulgaria, Sweden and the Baltic states, rely on Russia for 100 percent of their gas supplies, and Moscow has shown repeatedly it is willing to crimp supplies for leverage in political disputes.”
BY ALL APPEARANCES, THE ANSWER IS NO: Do D.C. Voters Care If Politicians Are Corrupt?
MAYBE IT’S THE OBAMA ECONOMY? Labor market mystery: The ranks of the long-term unemployed swell, despite benefits cut.
TRAIN WRECK UPDATE: ObamaCare enrollments dip. Unexpectedly!
MICHAEL BARONE: Wendy Davis’ filibuster against late-term abortion ban repels Texas Hispanics.
Davis won the Democratic primary easily, by a 79 percent to 21 percent margin over Reynaldo “Ray” Madrigal, who spent little or no money and had no perceptible name identification. Yet Davis lost 26 of Texas’ 254 counties to Madrigal, mostly heavily Hispanic counties in the Rio Grande Valley. They included the largest county in the Lower Rio Grande, Hidalgo, as well as Webb County, centered on the biggest U.S.-Mexican border truck crossing, Laredo. Seventeen of these counties voted for President Obama in 2012; indeed they constituted 17 of the 26 Texas counties he carried. Also, zero Democratic votes were cast in 20 counties, and in two counties, Davis and Madrigal were tied.
These numbers point to the conclusion that Davis’ stand on the abortion issue, wildly popular among the Democrats’ feminist left, is significantly unpopular among many Texas Hispanic voters — most of them probably Catholic, but including a significant number of evangelical and pentecostal Protestants. National Democratic strategists may hope that Davis can build a Texas majority on a feminist-black-Hispanic base. But that Hispanic base looks shaky. What enthuses one part of a party’s constituency can antagonize another part. This is true of Republicans as well as Democrats. But when you start out in the minority, as Democrats do in Texas, splitting your party base is dangerous.
Shockingly, a rich white woman with an Ivy League law degree might not be the best person for minority outreach.
March 11, 2014
BATTLESPACE PREPARATION: Clintonworld Goes After The Washington Post: A Hillary Clinton adviser is implicated in the D.C. corruption scandal but an aide fires back, calling the allegations “bizarre and brazenly false.”
Before 2016, the press must be conditioned not to report anything damaging for fear of the consequences. On the other hand, saying “I think The Washington Post is acting like some kind of an Internet blog or something” suggests that the Clinton operation is stuck in the 1990s. You meddling kids!
JAMES JAY CARAFANO: Why Hating Spies Is All The Rage. I don’t mind spying on foreigners. That’s their job. But spying on Americans raises too many possibilities for political abuse — especially in an administration that has shown a tendency to weaponize and politicize the allegedly neutral bureaucracy. And I actually think that that — the lack of trust — is what’s behind current sentiment.
CULTURE OF CORRUPTION: Democrats talk about climate, rake in billionaire bucks. “Beyond exercises in faith and identity politics, the Democratic all-nighter should be understood as a very odd fundraiser. Most fundraisers feature one or two politicians speaking to dozens of donors. Monday night featured a dozen politicians speaking to one donor: Energy billionaire Tom Steyer.”
NEIL DEGRASSE TYSON: “When the universe lands in a GQ shoot, you know science is trending in the world.”
REPUBLICANS WIN FL-13 SPECIAL ELECTION, despite libertarian getting almost 5%. I kinda figured this was coming when Dems started tweeting this morning that special elections don’t mean anything. . . .
KEVIN KELLY: Why You Should Embrace Surveillance, Not Fight It.
AT AMAZON, new markdowns in Jewelry.
TRISH WILLIAMS: Firearms, an Equalizer for Women: In Hollywood and in real life.
A SHORT REPORT FROM THE Foresight Institute’s 2014 Nanotechnology Conference.
GALLERY: People Around the World Pose With Everything They Eat in a Day.
Somehow this reminds me of the guy ahead of me in line at Walgreen’s a few weeks back. He had a box of frozen microwave burritos and a six-pack of Natural Light. The cashier looked at him sadly and said, “Oh, honey, is that your dinner?” He responded with oblivious delight: “Yes!”
ALAN TURING WAS A SMART MAN: Turing’s theory of chemical morphogenesis validated 60 years after his death. “Alan Turing’s accomplishments in computer science are well known, but lesser known is his impact on biology and chemistry. In his only paper on biology, Turing proposed a theory of morphogenesis, or how identical copies of a single cell differentiate, for example, into an organism with arms and legs, a head and tail. Now, 60 years after Turing’s death, researchers from Brandeis University and the University of Pittsburgh have provided the first experimental evidence that validates Turing’s theory in cell-like structures.”
VIRGINIA POSTREL: ‘Average’ Barbie Is Just as Fake.