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Posted by Amy Miller on October 20, 2014 21 Comments
We've reported several times on Democratic candidates' unwillingness to be associated with Obama's failed Administration, but things just got a little bit more embarrassing for the President and his supporters. At yesterday's GOTV rally for Maryland gubernatorial candidate Anthony Brown, Democrat supporters who had waited hours for the chance to see the President speak reportedly walked out once Obama began his remarks. Reuters reports:
President Barack Obama made a rare appearance on the campaign trail on Sunday with a rally to support the Democratic candidate for governor in Maryland, but early departures of crowd members while he spoke underscored his continuing unpopularity. ... "You've got to vote," Obama repeated over and over at a rally for Brown in Upper Marlboro, Maryland, near Washington. Democrats have a history of not turning up to vote in midterm elections. "There are no excuses. The future is up to us," Obama said. A steady stream of people walked out of the auditorium while he spoke, however, and a heckler interrupted his remarks.
Reuters and Politico both filed stories about the walkout, and soon after those reports hit Twitter, Maryland Democrats furiously attempted to spin the stories in their favor. Jeff Quinton over at The Quinton Report did a great job curating the panicked tweets of Maryland Democratic Party representative Yvette Lewis. (I've republished a few here, but you really should click through for the full meltdown.)

Posted by Amy Miller on October 19, 2014 37 Comments
Salon.com said This may be the worst race-baiting campaign ad since Willie Horton. Greg Sargent at WaPo announced Willie Horton is back!. The freaking out was over an NRCC-sponsored ad linking Rep. Lee Terry's (R-Neb.) Democratic opponent to convicted murderer Nikko Jenkins, who also happens to be African American. The ad attacks state Sen. Brad Ashford over his support for the state's "good time" laws, and blames those laws for Jenkins' early release. It doesn't mention Jenkins' race. Here's the ad: Here's the original Willie Horton Ad:

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Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on October 19, 2014 22 Comments
Vermont ice cream maker Ben and Jerry's drew the ire of the political correctness brigade when they released "Hazed and Confused," a concoction of chocolate and hazelnut deliciousness. Part of their new Core series, "Hazed and Confused" is injected with a chocolate, hazelnut, fudge core. "Hazed and Confused" being a play off the hazelnuts and famed Led Zeppelin song "Dazed and Confused." "Dazed and Confused" was also an early nineties movie that gave us Matthew McConaughey, and is therefore one of the best movies in existence.

Posted by Amy Miller on October 19, 2014 19 Comments
When it comes to quantifiably productive debate about politics, Twitter is the abyss. Those who choose to wade into its murky depths accept the fact that they're jumping into the deep end with the hackers, the trolls, and the most enthusiastic dregs of internet society. The government recognizes this, and they're here to help. A new project out of Indiana University, dubbed "Truthy," is fully funded by the federal government and seeks to harvest and analyze your Twitter data. The project's developers claim that they've developed a system that "evaluates thousands of tweets an hour to identify new and emerging bursts of activity around memes of various flavors." Here comes the science, courtesy of Indiana University's Truthy homepage:
We also plan to use Truthy to detect political smears, astroturfing, misinformation, and other social pollution. While the vast majority of memes arise in a perfectly organic manner, driven by the complex mechanisms of life on the Web, some are engineered by the shady machinery of high-profile congressional campaigns. Truthy uses a sophisticated combination of text and data mining, social network analysis, and complex networks models. To train our algorithms, we leverage crowdsourcing: we rely on users like you to flag injections of forged grass-roots activity. Therefore, click on the Truthy button when you see a suspicious meme!
Here's a flow chart, which contains even more science: Truthy Architecture

Posted by Amy Miller on October 19, 2014 1 Comment
Yesterday I posted an article detailing what a recent Pew data dump tells us about how voters most likely will behave through early voting and the end of the 2014 election cycle. We already know that hard Democrats' minds won't be changed in time for the midterms, and that instead we should be contacting both independents and likely Republicans to ask for their votes. "Ask" is key, and if (extremely) early returns from key states like Wisconsin and Florida are any indication, Republicans' boots on the ground efforts are working. In Wisconsin, for example, both candidates and pollsters agree that the gubernatorial election between incumbent Republican Scott Walker and Democrat challenger Mary Burke will be decided by which party turns out the most voters.
"The Governor's getting 96% of Republican voters; Mary Burke's getting 94% of Democrats. There is just no crossover vote this year," said Charles Franklin, a Marquette University Law School pollster. 60% of registered voters say they've been contacted by a party or candidate since July, according to the new Marquette University Law School poll. 29% say they've been contacted by just Republicans. Half that, 14%, from strictly Democrats. "Democrats have really learned a lot in the last few cycles about technology of voter contact. Republicans have been mounting a very aggressive phone bank campaign, so both parties know that turnout is the key here. The unknown: how will their voters respond? Who will wake up on Tuesday morning and go "I don't feel like going out today?' Or who will go out and say 'my vote counts.' It could make the difference," said Franklin.

Posted by Mike LaChance on October 19, 2014 100 Comments
Remember all the times Obama golfed, traveled to Hawaii, vacationed in Martha's Vineyard and the liberal media insisted that it was no big deal because an executive can do their job from anywhere? Apparently, that rule doesn't extend to Republican governors and while most Americans might think the government's poor handling of Ebola looks bad for Obama, Katie Glueck of Politico is pretty sure the real loser here is Texas governor Rick Perry:
Rick Perry's Ebola test AUSTIN, Texas — Ebola came to Texas. And Rick Perry went to Europe. Now the Republican governor, a likely presidential contender, is back in Austin and scrambling to avoid a damaging perception problem like the “oops” moment that doomed his first shot at the White House. At first, Perry seemed to have everything under control. When a man in Dallas was diagnosed with the deadly virus, Perry held an Oct. 1 news conference, assuring the public that “there are few places in the world better equipped to meet the challenges posed by this case.” When more people were quarantined, he launched a task force and told Texans to “rest assured our system is working as it should.” But then he left Sunday for a long-planned 7-day trip designed to burnish his foreign policy credentials. During his absence, two more cases of Ebola were confirmed, both of them involving Texas nurses who had dealt with the first patient. The governor cut his trip short and rushed home on Thursday, only to encounter criticism for leaving in the first place; Democrats charged that he was more focused on looking presidential overseas than on fixing a big problem at home.
See? It's all Rick Perry's fault, not Obama's.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 18, 2014 10 Comments
We have covered the American Studies Association academic boycott of Israel since inception, and compiled the definitive list and accompanying statements of universities and associations rejecting the boycott.  Scroll through the ASA Tag for the full history. The short version is that the boycott targeted all Israeli academic institutions, and importantly, faculty and scholars acting on behalf of the institutions either as representatives, ambassadors or by virtue of administrative status. From the earliest days of the ASA boycott, ASA tried to make a distinction between individuals and institutions, as if boycotting an institution was not also boycotting the people who worked there. That was a critical charade, because the boycotting of individuals was too odious even for many people supporting the academic boycott.  So ASA could have a boycott of individuals while pretending it was not boycotting individuals. That ASA distinction was set forth in a December 4, 2013 statement of the ASA National Council supporting the boycott and advocating for membership approval:
Our resolution understands boycott as limited to a refusal on the part of the Association in its official capacities to enter into formal collaborations with Israeli academic institutions, or with scholars who are expressly serving as representatives or ambassadors of those institutions, or on behalf of the Israeli government ....
That is a distinction ASA made throughout its public statements and position papers -- if you were a representative of an Israeli institution, or if you had an administrative title, you were boycotted. For example, a form letter ASA distributed to members to be given to university administrators made the same distinction:

Posted by Mike LaChance on October 18, 2014 10 Comments
Yesterday's announcement that the Obama administration was appointing partisan bureaucrat Ron Klain as Ebola Czar was met with partisan reactions. Liberals think it's a great idea while conservatives are skeptical. Perhaps no one put the situation in perspective better than Charles Krauthammer who, by being a psychiatrist is also a medical doctor and therefore more qualified for the position than Klain. In an appearance on Special Report with Bret Baier, Krauthammer reduced the Klain appointment to what it actually is, a public relations move. Transcript and video by National Review:
“I don’t think it’s going to make any difference one way or the other. . . . It gives the appearance of motion; this is what Obama specializes in. If you have a VA scandal, an IRS scandal, a Secret Service scandal, you fire the guy at the top so you have the appearance of motion; here you’re putting a guy in who’s supposedly going to coordinate.” On Friday’s Special Report, Krauthammer derided Klain’s own assessment of his duties: “There’s a quote in the New York Times about what Klain would do, and he said his job is ‘messaging.’ So we have a virus on the loose that turns your organs into liquid, and the answer is to appoint a guy to do the messaging. . . .
Here's something you probably haven't heard about Ron Klain.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on October 18, 2014 9 Comments
Nina Pham tested positive for Ebola. The 26 year old nurse from Dallas, Texas was among the health care crew taking care of Eric Duncan. Ebola took Duncan's life, October 8. Prior to being transported to Bethesda, Maryland to receive more intensive treatment, Pham seemed to be in good spirits. She teared up saying, "I love you guys. Come to Maryland!" This video was filmed last night before to her departure from Dallas:  

Posted by Amy Miller on October 18, 2014 3 Comments
Earlier this year "#BringBackOurGirls" rose, trended, then fizzled on Twitter; but recent negotiations between the Nigerian government and Islamist group Boko Haram might lead to the release of the 200 schoolgirl hostages whose plight inspired the hashtag. Designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. in 2013, Boko Haram began its mission of violence in 2009 with the goal of overthrowing the Nigerian government and creating an Islamic state. Now, after five years and thousands dead, a cease fire has reportedly been reached. Via Bloomberg:
“A cease-fire agreement has been concluded between the Federal Government of Nigeria and the Jamatu Ahlis Sunna Li Daawa Wal Jihad,” Chief of Defence Staff Air Marshal Alex Badeh said yesterday in an e-mailed statement, referring to Boko Haram. “I have accordingly directed the service chiefs to ensure immediate compliance with this development.” ... Boko Haram said “the schoolgirls and other people in their captivity are alive and well,” Nigerian government spokesman Mike Omeri said in a separate statement from Abuja, the capital.
Reuters reports:
Nigeria's armed forces chief Air Chief Marshal Alex Badeh announced the ceasefire on Friday. On Saturday, two senior government sources said it aims to secure the girls' release as early as Monday or Tuesday, although they declined to give further details.

Posted by Mike LaChance on October 18, 2014 11 Comments
Let's face it, Alison Grimes hasn't been helped by any of her recent missteps regarding whether she voted for Obama. She repeated the refusal to answer the question on local TV again:
U.S. Senate Candidate Alison Lundergan Grimes continues to refuse to say who she voted for in the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections. On Friday, Grimes sat down with WYMT’s Steve Hensley for a taping of an episode of “Issues & Answers: The Mountain Edition.” Here is an excerpt from the interview: Steve Hensley: “You've also said in the past that you voted for Hillary Clinton in the 2008 presidential primary so what's the difference?” Secretary Grimes: “In 2008 I was not Secretary of State and what happened at that convention is all on record so nothing that wasn't already fully disclosed was offered up. It's a matter of principle as I told Bill Goodman, I'm the chief elections official. It is a constitutional right provided in Kentucky's constitution for all Kentuckians to cast their ballot in privacy.” Hensley: “If President Obama offered to campaign for you in Kentucky, would you accept?” Grimes: “Well, I've said I speak for myself, Senator McConnell doesn't understand that. He and his henchmen have spent about 50 million dollars trying to put Barack Obama on the ballot this year. He's not, I am.”

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 18, 2014 48 Comments
AP reports via HuffPo:
The Supreme Court said Saturday that Texas can use its controversial new voter identification law for the November election. A majority of the justices rejected an emergency request from the Justice Department and civil rights groups to prohibit the state from requiring voters to produce certain forms of photo identification in order to cast ballots. Three justices dissented. The law was struck down by a federal judge last week, but a federal appeals court had put that ruling on hold. The judge found that roughly 600,000 voters, many of them black or Latino, could be turned away at the polls because they lack acceptable identification. Early voting in Texas begins Monday. The Supreme Court's order was unsigned, as it typically is in these situations. Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan dissented, saying they would have left the district court decision in place. "The greatest threat to public confidence in elections in this case is the prospect of enforcing a purposefully discriminatory law, one that likely imposes an unconstitutional poll tax and risks denying the right to vote to hundreds of thousands of eligible voters," Ginsburg wrote in dissent. Texas' law sets out seven forms of approved ID — a list that includes concealed handgun licenses but not college student IDs, which are accepted in other states with similar measures.
The Supreme Court Order is here. It denies a request to vacate the stay issued by the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals putting on hold the trial court ruling invalidating the law.
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