Image 01 Image 03
Sign In or RegisterLogout

November 2014

Posted by Amy Miller on November 18, 2014 15 Comments
Democrat incumbent Senator Mark Begich has finally conceded the Alaska Senate race to Republican challenger Dan Sullivan nearly a week after the Associated Press called the race for Sullivan. Begich had initially refused to concede the race, citing concerns over uncounted ballots. The race dragged on until last Wednesday, when the AP finally declared Sullivan the winner. In his concession, Begich jabbed at Sullivan about the need for bipartisanship, and hinted at a return to politics. Via Politico:
“When I spoke with Dan Sullivan today, I encouraged him to adopt a bipartisan resolve in the Senate,” Begich said in a statement. “Alaska is ill-served by the partisan fights that don’t reflect our state’s unique needs and priorities.” The 52-year-old hinted in his concession that he might not be finished with politics. His 500-word statement listed a series of accomplishments, from expanding energy production to protecting military bases, during his six years. “As a born and raised Alaskan, I will always be involved in my community, and the results of an election have never diminished my desire or passion to achieve these goals,” he said.
Sullivan seems ready to go to work, citing a desire to serve on committees that address issues related to commerce, public works, and the environment.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on November 18, 2014 15 Comments
As Ebola continues to rage in Africa, one key person seems to be missing in action: Ron Klain, Ebola Czar.
Ebola was on the top of everyone’s minds five weeks ago, but now that it’s largely disappeared from the mainstream media, it continues to fade into the background in this country. But the fact remains: Ebola continues to kill hundreds of people in Africa. Ebola continues to destroy families and leave many children without parents. It was sad for me to hear about the passing of a surgeon – who was a citizen of Sierra Leone and a permanent resident of the U.S. – on Monday. From what I know, he was a dedicated health care professional who did his best to keep his patients safe and alive. But what is sadder to me is that our Ebola czar, Ron Klain, did not have the courage to publicly come out and offer a statement in regards to the death of this physician, and also has failed in keeping the American public informed about the progress in this Ebola war.
I would have expected a political operative such as Klain to at least try to "message" us. Hopefully, we won't discover videos of him calling Americans stupid for being concerned about a potential pandemic..after being paid millions in taxpayer dollars for questionably professional services. However, at least Ebola did attract some mainstream media coverage. That differs from Enterovirus-D68, which has swept through the country and has sent hundreds of American children into emergency rooms with respiratory distress. There has been very limited, local coverage. One of the few who took up the story is Sharryl Attkisson, who now reports that 12 deaths have now been linked to this pathogen.

Posted by Amy Miller on November 17, 2014 11 Comments
It would be sad if it weren't so beautiful. With just a few weeks to go until the Louisiana Senate runoff, Bill Cassidy is taking advantage of incumbent Mary Landrieu's spiraling chances at re-election by pointing out Landrieu's unfortunate tendency to vote for Obama's pet policies a whopping 97% of the time. Cassidy's new ad, called "Represent You," hits Landrieu on the issue of immigration, which is reemerging in talking points in conjunction with Obama's impending executive action on amnesty. From the Washington Post:
An open-ended Gallup poll in October, less than a month before the midterm election, found only 7 percent of voters said immigration was the most important problem facing the country. The issue wasn't at the forefront of campaigns during the midterm, but occasionally popped up, as it did when Scott Brown (R) ran an ad on border security in New Hampshire over the summer, and when Arkansas' Tom Cotton (R) said terrorists were collaborating with Mexican drug cartels during a tele-town hall meeting in October. Republicans have positioned Obama's executive order, which would keep millions of immigrants from being deported, as an overstep of his authority, and Sen. John Boehner (R) has threatened to sue Obama.
Watch:

Posted by New Neo on November 17, 2014 13 Comments
When I heard that Dr. Martin Salia, a Sierra Leone native who is married to a US citizen and who contacted ebola while treating patients in his native country, had been flown here for treatment and was in "very critical" condition, I thought "if we can cure him, then American medicine is really onto something in the treatment of ebola." Sadly, it was not to be: Dr. Salia has died of the disease. He was very very far gone when he arrived:
"He was placed on dialysis, a ventilator and multiple medications to support his organ systems in an effort to help his body fight the disease. He also received a dose of convalescent plasma and ZMapp therapy was initiated on Saturday," the hospital said in a statement. "We used every possible treatment available to give Dr. Salia every possible opportunity for survival," Smith said. "As we have learned, early treatment with these patients is essential. In Dr. Salia's case, his disease was already extremely advanced by the time he came here for treatment."
There are two very salient facts about the case of Dr. Salia. The first is that he never knew how he got the disease; he was a general surgeon in Sierra Leone and was not specifically treating ebola patients. This reflects the fact that ebola is not always easy to spot, even for medical personnel who are well-versed in its diagnosis and are treating patients in areas where it is endemic, and therefore would be on high alert for it. That is one of the many many dangers of the disease, and you may recall that the same thing happened with Dr. Rick Sacra, who was treated here much earlier in the disease's course than Salia and has survived. The second thing I'd like to highlight is that it took four (or five; I've read differing accounts) full days after Dr. Salia first showed ebola symptoms for his blood test to become positive for the disease. By that time he was extremely sick indeed. The loss of those days of possible treatment here may have made a big difference. Here is the story:

Posted by Amy Miller on November 17, 2014 6 Comments
It's fun to watch politicians play with each other on Twitter, and today, Speaker John Boehner took advantage of an opportunity to take Dems to task over the very public truthiness problems in their messaging strategy. Because it's unheard of for Democrats to let an opportunity go to waste, both Nancy Pelosi and Debbie Wasserman Schultz decided to make a laughable attempt to nail the Speaker on his non-existent disregard for the welfare of the elderly. It's gotten so bad for Democrats that they can't even wish a colleague a happy birthday without sneaking in a political jab. Um, ageism, anyone? Zing. Well played, sir. Well played.

Posted by Amy Miller on November 17, 2014 18 Comments
Embattled Senator Mary Landrieu is in trouble, and Tuesday's vote on the Keystone XL pipeline approval might be her last chance to convince Louisiana voters that her representation in Washington is worth their vote. Challenger Bill Cassidy is up 16 points and by all accounts headed for a landslide win over the incumbent Democrat, who has come under fire from all sides but her own for not representing the interests of her home state. Landrieu's last-ditch effort to push for a vote on the pipeline looks more and more desperate, (at last count she had only 59 votes backing the project,) seeing as how the President would have to throw himself under the bus in order to stand behind Landrieu and green light the project. Via Fox News:
Most political analysts think Landrieu’s effort to win a fourth term by trying to show voters in oil-rich Louisiana how much she supports Keystone is a lost cause, with reports of Washington Democrats pulling out and polls showing Cassidy ahead by double digits. South Dakota GOP Sen. John Thune said on “Fox News Sunday” the vote will be a “cynical attempt to save a Senate seat in Louisiana," considering Reid has blocked the vote for years. President Obama appears to be giving every indication that he will veto the bill, repeatedly saying the only way the $8 billion pipeline can be approved is after the completion of a long-stalled State Department review. There is also the pending outcome of a legal challenge to the pipeline's route through Nebraska. And during his recent trip to Australia for an economic summit Obama said: “I have to constantly push back against this idea that somehow the Keystone pipeline is either this massive jobs bill for the United States or is somehow lowering gas prices.”
The media may be willing to run preliminary defense against a presidential veto, but members of her own party haven't been willing to stand by and let the token vote gain meaning:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 17, 2014 29 Comments
Last Friday Kemberlee covered the feminist attack on Dr. Matt Taylor, the brilliant British scientist who helped achieve the seemingly unachievable, landing a scientific probe on a comet hundreds of millions of miles away, 5 Reasons “feminists” can’t complain about comet scientist’s “sexist” shirt. How dedicated was Taylor to his work? He had a large tattoo regarding the project on his right front thigh: Matt Taylor Rosetta Project Leg Tattoo That's how much this project meant to him. Taylor was attacked not for the tattoo, but because Taylor wore a shirt -- given to him by a female friend -- which had cartoon characters of pretty women on it. Not naked women. Not women engaging in sex acts. Just pretty women in "sexy" outfits. Here is the shirt in close-up (it's sold out since the controversy): You can see it easily in this photo, but on the video you have to really be looking for trouble to find it. The camera is pretty far away, and Taylor is only a relatively small part of the overall report.

Posted by Amy Miller on November 17, 2014 11 Comments
The new Congress hasn't even been sworn in yet, but many pundits and activists are already assuming that come January, we're in for a world of pain, disappointment, and failure---but maybe we should rethink our gloomy outlook. Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace had Sens.-elect Cotton and James Lankford on this weekend to talk about the upcoming battle between the Republican Senate majority and President Obama, and when the conversation turned to repealing Obamacare (and dealing with the mass #Grubering of the American people) Cotton put to bed the idea that a Senate majority won't be able to get anything productive past President Obama (emphasis added):
WALLACE: But Senator-elect Cotton, realistically, what do you think you can get down about ObamaCare while President Obama is still in office? COTTON: Well, Arkansans are conservative people, but they're practical people as well. They realize it's going to be hard to repeal a law named ObamaCare when the president is named Barack Obama. What they want is relief from the immediate harms. The House of Representatives has already passed a lot of bills that would stop those harms, like preventing people from having to pay a tax that they can't afford in ObamaCare plan, or business from having to pay a tax if they can't provide an ObamaCare plan, or letting people keep their plans as was promised. Those passed the House with bipartisan support. The president has taken some of those steps as an administration measure. I think we could pass that legislation again and the president would be hard pressed to explain why he wants to veto it if he's already done it as an administrative measure and it has broad bipartisan support.
I'm all for managing expectations during a lame duck session, but isn't what Sen.-elect Cotton is talking about the point of electing new representatives to Congress, as opposed to just throwing in the towel?

Posted by Amy Miller on November 16, 2014 7 Comments
Multiple outlets have already reported on ISIS' latest (and as yet unverified) video claiming to show the severed head of U.S. aid worker Peter Kassig. The new video does not show Kassig alive, or his alleged murder; instead it shows a masked militant standing next to what he claims to be Kassig's head, blaming both Barack Obama and Kassig's own service as an Army Ranger for the brutality inflicted upon western hostages. From the Associated Press:
"We say to you, Obama: ... You claim to have withdrawn from Iraq four years ago," the militant said. "Here you are: You have not withdrawn. Rather, you hid some of your forces behind your proxies." A U.S.-led coalition is targeting the Islamic State group in airstrikes, supporting Western-backed Syrian rebels, Kurdish fighters and the Iraqi military. The militant's voice is distorted in the video. Previous videos featured a militant with a British accent that the FBI says it has identified, though it hasn't named him publicly. Later, the militant claims Kassig, 26, was killed because he "fought against the Muslims in Iraq while serving as a soldier." Kassig, from Indianapolis, Indiana, served in the U.S. Army's 75th Ranger Regiment, a special operations unit, and deployed to Iraq in 2007.
The fact that Kassig does not appear alive in the video has many wondering whether or not he refused to deliver ISIS' message to the west firsthand. (In previous videos released by the militant group, hostages were forced to recite a prepared statement before their executions.) According to Fox, this video is longer than those previously released, and shows multiple hostages being executed. U.S. officials are working to verify the authenticity of the video. ISIS released this video just as President Obama left for the G-20 summit in Brisbane, which means they're hoping that their actions will derail discussions on climate change, the conflict in Ukraine, and other issues. I don't believe that ISIS is terribly concerned with whether or not the world condones their violent takeover of territory in Iraq and Syria, but I do believe that part of their strategy in the timing of this release could relate to their need to maintain a steady stream of funding from the west.

Posted by David Gerstman on November 16, 2014 12 Comments
An editorial in The New York Times today about the ongoing P5+1 nuclear talks with Iran warns about the dire consequences of the two sides not reaching an agreement.
The consequences of failure to reach an accord would be serious, including the weakening of President Hassan Rouhani of Iran and his foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, who count as moderates in Iran, and who, like President Obama, have taken a political risk to try to make an agreement happen.
That would be terrible. Rouhani and Zarif would be weakened!  Or would it? How much political power does Rouhini have anyway? And if they have any real political power, how moderate are they anyway? As far as the first question, well, they don't call Ayatollah Ali Khamenei the Supreme Leader for nothing. In an investigative report last year, Reuters showed that Khamenei using the organizations under his control has amassed a huge fortune by property seizures. David Daoud recently wrote:
More importantly, the Rahbar [the Supreme Leader] effectively decides who will or will not be the public face of his rule—that is, who will or will not be the president of Iran. Khamenei selects the 12 members of the Shura-ye Neghahban (“Guardian Council”), which is tasked with vetting and approving presidential candidates based on their allegiance to the ideals of the Vilayat-e Faqih. The Western media often calls Iranian leaders like ex-president Mohammad Khatami and current president Hassan Rouhani “moderates” or “reformers,” but the Guardian Council’s policies render such a characterization absurd. No genuine moderate or reformist candidate can get through the Council’s dragnet. In effect, then, the vetting process and the Rahbar’s ultimate authority negate any possibility of material change in Iran’s foreign or domestic policies.
In other words not only is Rouhani not the ultimate power in Iran, he wouldn't have achieved even his limited authority unless he was a true believer in the system. Rouhani is only a "moderate" in that he's willing to talk to the West to achieve his goals, but his goals and views are identical to those of Khamenei.

Posted by Mike LaChance on November 16, 2014 10 Comments
Liberals in politics and media are placing all their eggs in Hillary's basket for 2016 but remember: When it comes to presidential elections, Iowa is a very important state and as Lee Rood of the New York Post points out, Hillary may have a problem:
Is Iowa already sick of Hillary Clinton? DES MOINES, Iowa — If you’re a die-hard Democrat in New York hoping to overcome the disappointment that was Nov. 4, you’re worried. But here in Iowa, where the first-in-the-nation caucuses are a mere 14 months away, some are breaking into a cold sweat. Most party leaders here will assure you all conversations about the 2016 presidential nomination still begin and end with Hillary Clinton. The former first lady and secretary of state is a sentimental favorite. Though she has not formally announced her candidacy, her well-oiled super PAC may be the most deeply rooted ever at this stage in the Hawkeye state. “I don’t know of any party regulars or activists who are really pushing anyone else,” says Jerry Crawford, who co-chaired Clinton’s 2008 campaign in Iowa and helps lead Ready for Hillary in the state. But that may be the problem. Familiarity breeds if not contempt, then frustration.
Do you know who else isn't excited about the prospect of a Clinton run? Joe Biden.

Posted by Andrew Branca on November 16, 2014 22 Comments
There is much speculation around when the Ferguson Grand Jury is likely to finally release their (widely expected) no true bill (non-indictment) of Police Officer Darren Wilson over the shooting death of Mike Brown. A great many people, myself included, have suggested that the authorities responsible for the release of the Grand Jury's findings would be prudent to wait for colder weather to do so, relying on the conventional wisdom that colder temperatures tend to diminish the frequency and intensity of riots and the other violent behavior (looting, arson) exhibited by the Ferguson protestors. Legal Insurrection commenter Another Ed, however, has moved us past mere conventional wisdom on this subject by kindly linking to a scientific paper that studies precisely the correlation between riots and temperature. That paper, "Ambient Temperature and the Occurrence of Collective Violence: A new Analysis," by JM Carlsmith and CA Anderson of Stanford University, was published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology in 1979. It is embedded at the bottom of this post, for those of you who enjoy reading primary research scientific literature. The Carlsmith paper conducted a re-analysis of earlier research, and found that in fact rioting (or, as they more politely refer to it "collective violence," as if it were a workshop of some kind) increases "monotonically" with temperature. The results of their research and analysis?
We conclude that the likelihood of a riot in a given city increases as the maximum ambient daily temperature in that city increases.
They helpfully include a graphical representation of their findings:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 16, 2014 35 Comments
One of the most frequent questions I get is "How can we stop Obama from ...." The ellipses reflects that there are a variety of issues on which people want Obama stopped. The answer to most of those questions is, as Obama himself suggested, to go out and win some elections. And that is exactly what just happened earlier this month. In what appropriately could be termed a legal insurrection, voters around the country rejected the Party of Obama and his policies. So much so that Republicans in the House have a historic majority even beyond what the 2010 wave brought in, and Republicans regained control of the Senate by a comfortable margin. That will go a long way towards stopping Obama, but only if Obama respects the boundaries of his constitutional power. By tradition, a President respects the constitutional powers of the other branches of government, although there always is tension. When that respect is breached, there is precious little constitutional enforcement power. Congress can write laws, but it cannot execute those laws; for that Congress depends on the Executive Branch, which is given some level of enforcement discretion since no legislation can be so specific as to delineate who does what and when. Similarly, the Courts are loathe to get involved in refereeing political disputes between Congress and the President, and there even are questions as to whether Congress has "standing" to sue to demand enforcement. The Supreme Court has no army, other than the public expectation that its decisions will be respected. On the flip side, Congress has no power, for example, to conduct its own foreign policy, appoint its own ambassadors and operate its own embassies. The bonds that keep our constitutional system working are not through the barrel of a gun, but through the core good faith of each branch respecting constitutional boundaries.
MORE POSTS
Accessibility by WAH