Roundup
I don’t usually just offer a list of links, but I every now and then there are a lot of stories and not enough time to write all I’d like about them. So here you go:
Lots here about Rand Paul’s old-fashioned filibuster, which I support—although John McCain and Lindsay Graham do not (an example of my frustrations with both men, who continually try to position themselves as noble, above-the-fray voices of reason, but who end up being used by the left). See this for more.
The South today, racism, and SCOTUS.
Victor Davis Hanson on the state (in both senses of the word) of California (hat tip: “Don Carlos”).
I offer Walter Russel Mead’s latest essay as the perfect complement to Victor Davis Hanson:
http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2013/03/06/blue-civil-war-the-battle-for-california/
I think they’re upset because Paul upstaged the “Loaves and Fishes With Squishes” dinner extravaganza.
Usually when Obama organizes a divide and conquer meeting with senators he can manipulate, the news is focused on McCain and Graham who love the attention and kudos from the media.
Hats off to Rand Paul, Rubio, and Ted Cruz for taking a stand for liberty, while Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dumb were having their egos stroked by the biggest ego of them all.
Rand Paul now must be considered the Republican frontrunner for 2016.
More importantly: With everyone from frustrated small-government conservatives to liberal pacifists to freaking Code Pink praising him, we may be seeing the outlines of a new party.
If you have a republican senator/s please let them know that you admire the young turks. Especially if one of your senators is McCain or Graham. 🙂
There are more critically ideological, ardent, committed, and dedicated black racists who do more damage to this nation by that racism in the Justice Department and the White House than there are habitually opinionated white racists in all of the South. Who watches the watchers?
I like John Yoo’s take on Obama’s drone policy vs Bush’s drone policy:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323951904578288380180346300.html
Both are controversial and the killed persons may be the same, but Bush drew a bright line with established legal war-time precedents that firewalled constitutional rights. Obama has obscured the line for seemingly no better reason than to instate an inferior and dangerous legal framework for the sake of appearing to be different than Bush.
parker: Good idea. However, McCain and Graham don’t have to be “your” Senator. Their votes effect us all. They answer their phones until 6pm. I’ve found it easier to get through after about 5pm. I like talking to someone in person rather than voice mail.
John McCain (RINO, AZ) said,
“If Mr. Paul wants to be taken seriously, he needs to do more than pull political stunts that fire up impressionable libertarian kids.”
I have a lot of trouble thinking of any left/liberal ridiculing another left/liberal in public, for the cameras, that way. Even if McCain is sincere in his belief, I see no reason to lend aid and comfort to the left war machine by airing the dirty laundry this way.
This is not the way to present a united front against the left-fascism threatening to swallow up my country, if it indeed has not already done so.
I think I’ll quit while I’m behind . . . well, here, I’ll let Allahpundit (hotair.com) say it for me:
“Leave it to a guy who lost to Obama head to head to try to spoil a rare victory against The One by not even mustering polite disagreement with the man responsible for it.”
Here’s the lead-up context:
http://hotair.com/archives/2013/03/07/video-mccain-sneers-at-rand-pauls-filibuster-on-the-senate-floor/
BEGIN EXCERPT
Paul’s performance yesterday was, I think, the biggest rout Obama’s suffered since the 2010 midterms. The sense we were left with after November was that, as a matter of pure politics, he and the Democrats are running rings around the GOP. They’re shrewder about their messaging, they’re vastly, vastly better in using technology to appeal to voters, and of course they can count on the media to help them in a pinch when needed. They know what they’re doing whereas the GOP seems chronically hapless. Yesterday felt like watching Wooden-era UCLA getting run off the court by an unranked team. If Obama caved to Paul’s demand that he formally repudiate drone strikes on Americans inside the U.S., he’d lose. If he stayed conspicuously silent while Paul begged him, hour after hour, to simply be the guy he pretended to be in 2008, he’d lose. Meanwhile, the spectacle of seeing Obama humiliated on a big political stage in the name of civil liberties managed to bring both libertarians and mainstream conservatives into alignment, however temporarily, behind the Paulian view of the war on terror. And the left, which is usually frantic to come to O’s defense, had to sit mostly silent after being reminded that they’re supposed to be critical of executive overreach on terrorism. It was a shockingly deft play by a guy whose patrilineage did not suggest an ability to rally support from mainstream Republicans. And while I don’t share Mollie Hemingway’s receding cynicism, I understand why she feels that way. No one, including me, doubts that Paul spoke from the heart. As Noah Rothman puts it, he chipped away at the Democrats’ “monopoly on romance,” which may mean something to young voters.
So now here comes McCain, with the unranked team and its fans celebrating at halfcourt after the game, to tell them that they played terribly and deserved to lose. He’s the antithesis of Paul in every relevant way: Much older, part of the Senate establishment for several decades, extremely pro-interventionist, way too eager to compromise with Democrats on constitutional matters (campaign finance reform), and not a little bit personally nasty in quoting the Journal’s line about Paul pulling a “stunt” to fire up “impressionable libertarian kids.” His underlying point is straightforward – why wait for an enemy combatant to pose an imminent threat to take him out, even if he’s in the U.S.? – but it’s difficult to engage that point because his tone is so jarringly discordant from the mood of the rest of the party today. Leave it to a guy who lost to Obama head to head to try to spoil a rare victory against The One by not even mustering polite disagreement with the man responsible for it.
END EXCERPT
McCain isn’t a Republican so much as the founding & sole member of the Maverick party. All you have to do is ask “What’s in it for McCain?” to know which way he’ll react. Paul stole his thunder – the (potential) formation of another ‘gang of N’ compromise over dinner with Obama – and for that, he must be publicly punished.
Can the good citizens of AZ please rid us of this man?
McCain and Graham are not mavericks. They are establishment Republicans. Let’s see who comes out in support of Rand and who criticizes McCain and Graham. Establishment Republicans are happy with big government. They are the problem not the solution.
I don’t really think McCain and Graham are establishment Republicans. They are a different breed–maybe establishment supermoralists who answer to their own egos.
MJR is correct in criticizing them for fighting internal battles in public. They seek compromises with the Dems, but don’t seem willing to even listen to fellow Reps.
I don’t care about who attended the Obama dinner last night. Anyone who declined would have been cast as an obstructionist. I do care very much if they come away trusting anything Obama said. We’ll have to see what happens next.
The filibuster showed that Paul has guts, but it hasn’t yet shown himself in other areas such as policy. I’m keeping an open mind.
BTW, Van Jones praised Paul for the filibuster. Even Code Pink liked it. Are we seeing more cracks in BO’s facade, or will these people creep back into the Obama camp?
I have to share with y’all something I just saw on Facebook, posted by a lefty friend. It seems to represent some sort of pinnacle of attempted spin. It’s a picture of the one-sentence letter Holder wrote to Paul saying that the answer to his question is “no”. This is being touted as a victory for Holder, with the caption “It took Rand Paul 11 hours to ask this question. It took one sentence for Eric Holder to answer it.” Followed by comments about what an idiot Paul is etc. Someone posted a YouTube link to the exchange in which Holder repeatedly evaded the question face-to-face, but that had no effect at all on the cheers for him.
Words fail me. If you were to meet the person who posted this, you would see a very personable and seemingly intelligent woman. Moreover, during Republican administrations she’s been very paranoid about the power and influence of the military and the intelligence agencies.
“Obama has obscured the line for seemingly no better reason than to instate an inferior and dangerous legal framework for the sake of appearing to be different than Bush.” Eric
So you give no credence to the hypothesis that flying hundreds of drones over US soil may have a far more inimical purpose?
Recently uncovered government documents reveal that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) unmanned Predator B drone fleet has been custom designed to identify civilians carrying guns and track cell phone signals.
That the 1.6 billion rounds of hollow point ammo Federal agencies have purchased is only needed to patrol our borders and respond to terrorist attacks?
That 2700 light tanks are needed by the DHS?
That the Army’s 2010 INTERNMENT AND RESETTLEMENT OPERATIONS manual is not reason for concern?
“detention camps will have PSYOP teams whose responsibility will be to use “indoctrination programs to reduce or remove antagonistic attitudes,” as well as targeting “political activists” with such indoctrination programs to provide “understanding and appreciation of U.S. policies and actions.”
“throughout the manual there are scores of references to how the U.S. Army would work together with the DHS, ICE and FEMA (page 24) to implement the policies “within U.S. territory” as part of “civil support operations” in the aftermath of “man-made disasters, accidents, terrorist attacks and incidents in the U.S. and its territories.” (page 38).
“The document also contains numerous references to U.S. citizens (notably pages 13, 41). Page 13 notes how “U.S. citizens will be confined separately from detainees,” meaning they will be separated from foreign prisoners in the camps
On page 146 of the manual, we learn how prisoners in the camps are to be identified.”
“The prisoner’s last name, first name, and middle initial are placed on the first line of a name board, and the prisoner’s social security number is placed on the second line.”
Yet the United States Social Security Administration does not hand out social security numbers to foreign terrorists.
“On page 193 of the document, we learn that the policies outlined in the manual can be applied domestically. The language makes it clear that so long as the President passes an executive order to nullify Posse Comitatus, the law that forbids the military from engaging in domestic law enforcement, the policies “may be performed as domestic civil support operations.”
That this all quite innocent and not evidence of preparation for civil unrest?
“That this all quite innocent and not evidence of preparation for civil unrest?”
IMO it is not innocent, it is prepping for civil unrest.
There are various scenarios: when/if the USD loses its status as world reserve currency; or some other straw ( big bank default) leads to the tumble of the shaky global financial system; or a self-created disaster or war is used in an attempt to allow BHO to remain president beyond January, 2017.
I’m sure . others can come up with other credible scenarios. Remember, these are not nice people with the wellbeing of the nation as their agenda Their agenda is power for the sake of power.
the atlantic has a interesting article, and i have no place to share it. but basically they are asying that the US can print all the money it needs so it doesnt mattter how much it borrows. and that this printing thing CALMS markets…
its AMAZING….
sorry for the commercial…
but the elite read the atlantic, and policy wonks
and having some inane excuse that the us can never be greece as it borrows its own currency and can print all it wants… well. thats a real financial bomb in an economic war…
This little imbroglio between McCain and Paul is the clearest example to date of the vast divide between the doddering old farts of the traditional Republican Party and the young guns. Very like the chasm between the placating whigs and the Republican Party just prior to the start of the Civil War. That, too, involved the new party holding the moral line vs. the “go along to get along” oldsters.
Makes me ashamed of my Old-Fartness.
It’s not their age, it’s the lack of allegiance to principle. McCain et al do not understand that compromise must be in service to principle, otherwise compromise is a betrayal of principle.
“You’ve got to stand for something or you’ll fall for anything” Aaron Tippin
This Mediaite article seems to have the best description I’ve seen of what Paul accomplished with his filibuster:
“His voice, once lonely, grew in stature as his Republican colleagues — one after the next — shared his demand for redress from the White House, though all knew that would not be forthcoming. It was poetic. It was romantic. What may be most important, it reframed Congressional Republicans. All of the sudden, they were fighting for a cause with self-evident nobility that requires no public education campaign: life, liberty, and due process. In filibustering, Paul chipped away at the monopoly on romance that the left has enjoyed for more than a century. ”
http://tinyurl.com/bnsmfpb
artfldgr said, “the atlantic has a interesting article, and i have no place to share it. but basically they are asying that the US can print all the money it needs so it doesnt mattter how much it borrows. and that this printing thing CALMS markets… ”
It sounds like the Atlantic is plowing the field for Modern Monetary Theory (MMT). That is a new economic theory that says there is no such thing as too much government debt or too much money in the system. Need money – just print it. Too much money in the system – raise taxes. Sovereign debt supposedly has nothing to do with it. Google it and start reading. I can punch holes in the theory pretty easily because it can only work as long as your money is the world reserve currency. Something, IMO, that cannot be assumed for the indefinite future. I think people with a better knowledge of economics than I could do an even better job of debunking it.
This theory seems to have gained credence inside the White House and may be one reason why Obama’s economic advisers don’t seem to stick around very long. (Larry Summers, Christina Roemer, Austin Goolsbee, etc.) Nancy Pelosi refers to these ideas occasionally, but her understanding of the theory seems limited to slogans like: “We don’t have a debt problem.”
Only MMT seems to explain why Obama seems to never care about the debt or deficit spending.
Geoffrey,
I’ll meet you halfway. I’m not ready to assign that particular hostile domestic intent and plan to Obama, but I am ready to agree with John Yoo that Obama replaced Bush’s balanced legal framework with a more dangerous legal framework that can be used for such a hostile domestic intent and plan.