-Hey, did YOU know that Pakistan is going to hell in a handbasket? Me neither! I guess we've all been a wee bit busy trying to invade Iran. [CS Monitor]
(P.S. Biden is totally on the beat. So is The Atlantic.)
-Will the Crusades never end? A special report. [Economist]
-Once in a while, a mothy academic unearths a quaint and long-forgotten document called a constitution and performs a purely theoretical thought experiment in which Congress shall have the sole power to declare war and raise and support the armed forces. [WaPo]
This article contains the following phrase, which should be reason enough for you to want to read it: "The sex and shopping habits of four rich Saudi girls." [Reason]
-A superhighway from Mexico to U.S. to Canada that subverts national sovereignty, carries truckloads of Chinese toys and toothpaste, and brings brown people! Aux armes, citoyens! [The Nation]
-Michael Bloomberg's billions and billions. [Newsweek]
-It's a sad day in America when LaRouche's little moonbat army runs out of ink and paper and can no longer harass us on our way to the Metro. [Washington Monthly]
-Music, and why your parents are so hopelessly square. [The New Criterion]
-Apostate? Geostrategic soothsayer? A rogue political scientist who brought rational choice theory into the mainstream wants to change the nature of the field -- and use predictions to propose better foreign policy. I have no idea what I just said but it sounded pretty smart. [Good Magazine]
Hillary seems to have discovered that Hillary is a woman, and sees the advantage therein. "Ah!" Hillary says to herself. "Although I am a frontrunner, which makes it not at all surprising that my panicked Democratic challengers are ganging up on me in an effort to take me down, I can play the gender card, and then I will be untouchable! For what kind of man would hit a woman?" Herewith, a roundup.
Maureen channels Dylan: "Women need to rally to support Hillary and send her money because there are men, men like Tim Russert, who have the temerity to ask her questions during a debate. If there are six male rivals on stage and two male moderators and heaven knows how many men manning lights and boom mikes, the one woman should have the right to have it two ways...If she wants to run on her record as first lady while keeping the lid on her first lady record, that’s only fair for the fairer sex...But she can break, just like a little girl, when male chauvinists are rude enough to catch her red-handed being slippery and opportunistic."
Unsuccessful 1984 veep candidate Geraldine Ferraro hopes to run the country vicariously through Hillary: “John Edwards, specifically, as well as the press, would never attack Barack Obama for two hours they way they attacked her...It’s O.K. in this country to be sexist...It’s certainly not O.K. to be racist. I think if Barack Obama had been attacked for two hours — well, I don’t think Barack Obama would have been attacked for two hours.”
Ruth Marcus is like, "What a buncha BS!": "...a candidate as strong as Clinton doesn't need to play the woman-as-victim card, not even in "the all-boys club of presidential politics," as Clinton called it in a speech yesterday at her all-women alma mater, Wellesley College. I have a pretty good nose for sexism, and what I detected in the air from Philadelphia was not sexism but the desperation of candidates confronting a front-runner who happens to be a woman."
And in the campaign video that started it all, Mozart shows he can change the terms of the debate from beyond the grave:
Larry Flynt, editor and publisher of Hustler magazine, just told FOX Business Network’s Neil Cavuto that he’s “hoping to expose a bombshell” that will stand “Washington and the country on its head.” Within the next week or two, he says his magazine will expose a sex scandal of huge proportions involving a prominent United States Senator. Flynt refused to comment on the Senator’s political affiliation, but alluded that he or she is a Republican.
Little birdies are telling me that said prominent United States Senator will be none other than Mitch McConnell. Remember, kids: You heard it here first.
Voter turnout is abysmal in the free world. So P.J. O'Rourke will forgive me for quoting at length from a recent article of his in The Atlantic that addresses that very issue. I may be teetering on the razor's edge of a copyright violation, but I'm only performing a civic duty. So if posting this is wrong, then I don't wanna be right. ...do you know what causes low voter turnout in America? It’s the result of having the fate of our nation at stake. This began with the bitter presidential election of 1828, which pitted the education, cultivation, and puritan constraint of John Quincy Adams against the yahoo populism of Andrew Jackson, thereby deciding permanently whether America would become a shining city upon a hill or an overlighted strip mall along a highway. Voter turnout that year was 55.2 percent. A dozen years later, a small and unctuous incumbent, Martin Van Buren, the first professional politician to occupy the White House, ran against the vacuous William Henry Harrison, who would die from the pneumonia he contracted by giving an overlong inauguration speech in the freezing rain. Harrison’s platform consisted entirely of the slogan “Tippecanoe and Tyler Too.” Van Buren’s platform was even less substantive. There were no issues of note. And voter turnout was 77.5 percent.
In 1860, when a vote for or against Abraham Lincoln meant deciding whether to fight a civil war, 72.1 percent of eligible voters went to the polls. In 1876, when a vote for or against Rutherford B. Hayes meant bubkes, 82.9 percent of eligible voters showed up.
In 1932, with Republicans and Democrats offering radically different political and economic responses to the Great Depression, voter turnout was 56.8 percent. In 1940, with the reelection of FDR a foregone conclusion, turnout was 62.9 percent.
Another way to guarantee that a lower percentage of eligible voters will exercise the right to their franchise is to guarantee their franchise rights. Voter turnout in the presidential election of 1916 was 61.9 percent. Then, in 1920, the 19th Amendment was ratified, giving the vote to women. Voter turnout in that year’s presidential election was 49.2 percent. The Voting Rights Act, ensuring access to the polls for blacks, was passed in 1965. Voter turnout went from 63.3 percent in 1964 to 62.5 percent in 1968. And after the voting age was lowered to 18, in 1971, voter turnout took a further dip, to 56.4 percent in the 1972 presidential election.
Extrapolating from the trend lines evident in Historical Statistics, we see that if one of the 2008 presidential candidates is a vicious moron (entirely possible) and the other is a beneficent genius (not as likely), and all life on Earth is threatened because al-Qaeda has discovered a way to poke every American with a sharp object simultaneously (could happen), and we extend the franchise to absolutely everyone, including preschoolers, citizens of the EU, illegal aliens, space aliens, and household pets (probably resulting in a better-informed electorate), we could achieve a voter turnout of zero.
-Ah, the media: guardians of truth, defenders of the public trust. [CS Monitor]
-Dad called. He wants your allowance back. Also, your paycheck, your mortgage, your car, your savings, and the change in your wallet. [Weekly Standard]
It's Monday and I damn well ain't happy about that, so what I thought I'd do is pick on long-shot candidates running pathetically laughable campaigns. That's how cranky I feel. Stay out of my way.
Here is Ron Paul throwing a tantrum. Gosh, he's so electable.
Here is Mike Gravel trying his best John Cage impression. Gosh, he's so hip -- not at all the mean, angry old man of campaign lore.
John Dickerson's fascinating Derridean deconstructionist meta-analysis of said video here.
Looking over my shoulder as I post this from Brian Beutler: "I think I'll have much more about this later, but in the meantime, feast your eyes on this GAO report about how, for seemingly no reason at all, we have a terror watch list with nearly a million names on it. I believe that all of al Qaeda is about one percent that size."
Ok. I wasn't born here. I speak French. And I was once detained at Miami International because I was caught reading Behind the Veil in Arabia for an anthro course (I placed the book face up at check-in and the TSA agent, noticing the book, secretly starred my ticket. Then I lost my dignity at security.)
So you know when you're standing in line at Chipotle and you get to the moment of truth: guacamole or none? Tough decision. Guac adds a whole nother dollar to the entire deal.
That choice just got easy. The wildfires that consumed 300,000 in Southern California have also incinerated a third of their avocados, pushing the price to two bucks a pop: "The avocados are going to be over a $1.50 a piece -- around $2 -- because there's going to be a very high demand on avocados,” San Jose produce stand owner Nader Mechel said.
The problem, according to Mechel, is that avocados grow on trees.
If you elect me as your next president, you will see this woman [Jeri Thompson] on TV nearly every day, jogging around the Rose Garden in tight Lycra shorts, bouncing all over the place with a figure that Americans of every stripe—from surgeons to truckers—will want to nail. Yours will be a first lady who is not only hot enough to appear in Playboy, but who might actually be willing to appear in Playboy. And if you choose me to be your next president, that is exactly what she'll do, in the November 2012 issue, guaranteeing me a second term once the public gets a good look at those truly incredible bazongas.
Iran has an economy the size of Finland's and an annual defense budget of around $4.8 billion. It has not invaded a country since the late 18th century. The United States has a GDP that is 68 times larger and defense expenditures that are 110 times greater. Israel and every Arab country (except Syria and Iraq) are quietly or actively allied against Iran. And yet we are to believe that Tehran is about to overturn the international system and replace it with an Islamo-fascist order? What planet are we on?
...
We're on a path to irreversible confrontation with a country we know almost nothing about.
-After 9/11, academics and politicians fell over themselves to emphasize that Islam is a religion of peace. Eeeeh, maybe perhaps not so much: NY Review
But that's so last summer. Fall style is all about burnishing your anti-Hil street cred. Slate's Chris Beam has the details on the new War On Hillary:
If the GOP debate in Michigan earlier this month was the Fred Thompson debate, last night's was the Hillary debate. (Click here for a transcript.) No matter what the topic, talk kept reverting to the Democratic senator from New York. Just take a look at the number of Hillary references, compared to other mentions:
I'm surprised to see that Thompson placed fourth in the Values Voter straw poll. I'm even more surprised that Ron Paul finished ahead of a top tier candidate billed as the second coming of Ronald Reagan. Sure, Paul's been doing very well in polls taken after presidential debates, but that's because his tech-savvy bloggy base of supporters knows what an SMS is and how to send one. But there was no text message spam going on here -- the shoddy cell phone reception at the Hilton actually makes that physically impossible. So unless these ballots were stuffed, I could see Thompson (lazy and stupid by some accounts) dropping out soon.
No surprise that Huckabee finished second, but why did Romney come in first? It's a clear indicator that Romney has managed to effectively deflect criticism that he's a flip-flopping, abortionist Log Cabin sympathizer. With that no longer a hurdle, Romney's newfound Values Voter friends could imperil Giuliani's candidacy (who did not even place in the top four).
As a side note, according to the poll, the issues that matter most to Values Voters are, in ascending order: life/abortion, sanctity of marriage, tax cuts, permanent tax relief for families. Note the absence of war or terrorism from this list -- Giuliani's flagship issues.
Dodd Family Immigrates to Iowa to Seek Employment, Oval Office Posted by Anastasia October 20 at 11:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
We're here at the Values Voter summit, where attendees are fond of pointing out that Democrats are no friends of the family. I dunno about that, but I will say this: Chris Dodd is certainly no friend of his family. The Democratic candidate, best known for consistently polling at 1%, is uprooting his entire family, kids and all, and moving them to Iowa because he thinks it will win him the primary.
Uh, Chris? Reality check: it won't. I admired your steadfast dedication to a pipedream until it forced lil' Grace and Christina to change kindergartens and make all new friends. Think of the children!
"Nobel laureate biologist James Watson was suspended Friday from his longtime post at a research laboratory and canceled his planned British book tour after controversial comments that black people are not as intelligent as white people."
The source of the controversy is a Sunday Times interview in which Watson was quoted saying, "All our social policies are based on the fact that [African] intelligence is the same as ours, whereas all the testing says not really."
Watson has since apologized, claiming that he "cannot understand how I could have said what I am quoted as having said."
White African American Rabbi Daniel Lapin on the homosexual agenda, emphasis on the s's: "...ssssspreading a ssssordid ssstain of sssecular sssocialism."
Very good, rabbi. Sssuch a sssophisticated grasssp on the isssues you have.
So far McCain, Brownback, and Tancredo have had it relatively easy preaching to the choir. No surprises there. The question on everyone's minds here is what kind of red meat can Giuliani throw this conservative audience when he takes the podium tomorrow?
The two problems this crowd has with Giuliani is that he's pro-choice and has gay friends. Since he can't gain any ground with social conservatives on those issues, he'll have to point to the accomplishments under his belt that do appeal to value voters. His line so far has been that conservatives shouldn't let the perfect be the enemy of the good and that he's on the right side of the issues that matter most (9/11! 9/11!):
"There are always some differences. But that I ask you to look at the whole candidate and the whole picture of what we face in 2008 and going forward...The idea is going to be that there’s enough for us to agree about and enough that we’re facing in terms of the outside world, meaning foreign threats and domestic problems in terms of spending and everything else, that may just be [when] they think about it that I’m the best candidate and we’re certainly not at odds."
But there are a few social issues on which Giuliani can legitimately claim a conservative victory. Jim Geraghty has the details from a source close to the campaign:
"Getting rid of porn shops in Times Square - I think people may have forgotten what Times Square in 1992 was like" - his efforts against the dung-painting of Mary at the Brooklyn Art Museum exhibit, his creation of the Administration for Children's Services and the drop in the abortion rate. "He can say, 'here are some tangible things I can point to. Now ask the others, 'what are the things you can point to?''
Tancredo Tastes the Sweetness of Popularity, False Optimism Posted by Anastasia October 19 at 9:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
An uncharacteristically vibrant and funny (yes, funny!) Tom Tancredo has just declared war on hyphenated conservatism, blaming Rovian neologisms like compassionate conservatism for nightmares like No Child Left Behind. He explains, "When conservatives run on principles, we win. When conservatives run away from principles, we lose."
He does, however, have a weakness for "unapologetic conservatism." That line drew wide applause. So do all his lines, come to think of it. Tancredo is wildly popular with these folks.
...of the Republican presidential race, the hopefuls of which congregate today at the Value Voters Summit in Washington. Politalk will be covering it all day. McCain just wrapped up his speech and Brownback has taken the stage. He's saying something about religious voters, something about The Children, and something else about "carrying the cause on forward." But I'm not listening. I'm waiting for two words: "I quit."
A couple of weeks ago, a knife-wielding veteran from Reno named Jim Broussard made headlines when he went all apeshit outside a Mexican restaurant while its owner stood hilariously nonplussed, watching the patriotic drama unfold. The offense? Flying the Mexican flag above the American flag, an act that Broussard deemed illegal. Is it?
Eeeeh, not exactly. According to U.S.C. Title 4 Chapter 1 §7:No other flag or pennant should be placed above or, if on the same level, to the right of the flag of the United States of America, except during church services conducted by naval chaplains at sea, when the church pennant may be flown above the flag during church services for the personnel of the Navy.
Yes, it's written in the U.S. Code, but our trusted sources at Wikipedia helpfully point out that: Although the Flag Code is U.S. Federal law, there is no penalty for failure to comply with the Flag Code and it is not widely enforced—indeed, punitive enforcement would conflict with the First Amendment right to freedom of speech. Passage of the proposed Flag Desecration Amendment would overrule legal precedent that has been established in this area.
So why do I bring all this up? Because a one MomentaryLapseOfReason has beenpostingallover the Politalk message boards about his own message board site, dedicated to and inspired by none other than Mr. Broussard, "the real patriot".
Given all that, was Mr. Broussard's reaction appropriate? You be the judge.
"It truly saddens me that ComEd, CTA, Daley, Stroger, and other companies continue to raise taxes without legitimate reason! They raise taxes and costs so that they can meet their budget which tells me that they are mismanaging the funds they collect throughout the year, which in turn hurts the citizens of Chicago. I don't understand why we don't have a voice of reason speaking up for the citizens. Most of us live our lives check-to-check and yet we manage. We are not a common concern for Daley or the rest of them, as long as they get their money. I believe they are truly mismanaging the funds and I wish someone would stand up for the citizens of Chicago and put an end to all of these tax hikes! It just doesn't make any sense." -ConcernedCitizen1
I'm not really sure what he means by companies raising taxes (companies generally being in the business of creating value while taking it away from others would be the government's job) but his heart is in the right place. And it warms mine. Yes, warm and fuzzy feelings of civic commiseration all around.
