The GOP Elites Never Miss an Opportunity to Pick a Fight

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Photo Credit: Breitbart

Photo Credit: Breitbart

In the midst of the Navy Yard attack, former George W. Bush speechwriter David Frum took advantage of the chaos to attack gun rights advocates. Gun control is a repeated hobbyhorse for Frum, who blamed the “gun lobby” for the atrocity at Sandy Hook Elementary in December. His reaction to Navy Yard placed him in common company with a newly-adrenalized Russian diplomat, who used the event to mock America.

A few days before, Frum’s ideological ally, David Brooks, took to the airwaves on PBS’ Newshour to attack what he called “the rise of Ted Cruz-ism,” his term for the efforts of conservatives to tackle such “fringe” priorities as ObamaCare, which is more loathed by the American people than ever. Brooks has been at war with the conservative grassroots since long before the Tea Party, calling Sarah Palin a “fatal cancer” in Oct. 2008.

Both Frum and Brooks are from Canada–a fact that would not merit mention, save for the additional fact that Brooks seems to think that it is acceptable to attack Cruz’s Canadian birth as a mark of illegitimacy. He called Cruz “the senator from Canada through Texas,” a meaningless, pseudo-nativist slur that he evidently believed would strike some kind of ironic chord with PBS’s urbane, intellectual, cosmopolitan, left-leaning audience.

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To Win Minority Vote, GOP Has to Show it’s Ready to Battle Privileged Interests

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Photo Credit: Washington Examiner

Photo Credit: Washington Examiner

How can Republicans do better with minority voters?

The party establishment seems to think the answer begins with amnesty and more low-skilled labor — which just happens to be the policy preference of the GOP’s donor class. Beyond this, the party’s top consultants offer only rhetorical tweaks around the typical GOP package of low-tax corporatism.

A better minority outreach can be found in libertarian populism.

The libertarian populist argument is that the game is rigged in favor of the big and well-connected and against the small and unconnected. This argument should be aimed mainly at the “47 percent” that Mitt Romney wrote off and denigrated: working-class voters who find it hard to get ahead.

Political analyst Sean Trende noted that a large potentially Republican bloc of voters stayed home in 2012 — working-class white voters. Some conservatives have argued that the GOP can and must win these voters.

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Dialing Back the Alarm on Climate Change

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Photo Credit: Dadu Shin

Photo Credit: Dadu Shin

Later this month, a long-awaited event that last happened in 2007 will recur. Like a returning comet, it will be taken to portend ominous happenings. I refer to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) “fifth assessment report,” part of which will be published on Sept. 27.

There have already been leaks from this 31-page document, which summarizes 1,914 pages of scientific discussion, but thanks to a senior climate scientist, I have had a glimpse of the key prediction at the heart of the document. The big news is that, for the first time since these reports started coming out in 1990, the new one dials back the alarm. It states that the temperature rise we can expect as a result of man-made emissions of carbon dioxide is lower than the IPPC thought in 2007.

Admittedly, the change is small, and because of changing definitions, it is not easy to compare the two reports, but retreat it is. It is significant because it points to the very real possibility that, over the next several generations, the overall effect of climate change will be positive for humankind and the planet.

Specifically, the draft report says that “equilibrium climate sensitivity” (ECS)—eventual warming induced by a doubling of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, which takes hundreds of years to occur—is “extremely likely” to be above 1 degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit), “likely” to be above 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.4 degrees Fahrenheit) and “very likely” to be below 6 degrees Celsius (10.8 Fahrenheit). In 2007, the IPPC said it was “likely” to be above 2 degrees Celsius and “very likely” to be above 1.5 degrees, with no upper limit. Since “extremely” and “very” have specific and different statistical meanings here, comparison is difficult.

Still, the downward movement since 2007 is clear, especially at the bottom of the “likely” range. The most probable value (3 degrees Celsius last time) is for some reason not stated this time.

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Why 2014 Shapes Up to Be Another Tea Party Year

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Picture 2014 Another Tea Party YearThe last year has been highly informative for Americans who have been looking for information on hypocrisy, shabby intellectualism, broken promises, opportunism, populist dreck, and IPhones.

Since almost the moment Obama celebrated his re-election with Republican leader John Boehner by proposing to raise taxes on all of us, God has played an enormous practical joke on liberals.

In only ways He could, God has shown that liberals are wrong. Not just wrong, but really, really, seriously wrong. 

Demented even. And yeah, I’m talking about Ezra Klein.

No, the world really doesn’t work the way liberals want, they’ve found out, and what’s more, liberal leaders and scribblers know it. They have known it for years…

It’s been little less than a year for people who enthusiastically voted for Obama in 2012 to find this out. 

And what liberals miss in being wrong on specifics, they make up in volume. 

So let’s make a list, shall we?

1) Tax the Rich! Oh, and you too!…

2) The Great Sequester Doom…

3) IRS-NSA-MOUSE scandals….

4) Missiles Over the Mid-East…

5) Global Warming, er, Climate, uh, Change?…

6) Choooo, Choooo…Obamacare a’coming…

There’s more.

With Obama there is always more.

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Conservatives Must Embrace Principles of Reagan, Lincoln to Succeed

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

In a recent Salon article, “The conservative crackup: How the Republican Party lost its mind,” Kim Messick claims the Republican Party has lurched to the right, bipartisanship has been lost, and that “our government isn’t designed to function in these conditions.”

Messick then compared the Tea Party-infused GOP to tyrannical regimes, writing, “The Republican Party, particularly in the House, has turned into the legislative equivalent of North Korea — a political outlier so extreme it has lost the ability to achieve its objectives through normal political means.”

Though Messick at least gives conservatives some credit for the Republican Party’s long-term success, he wrote of the modern GOP, “Because of its demographic weakness, it is more beholden than ever to the intensity of its most extreme voters. This has engendered a death spiral in which it must take increasingly radical positions to drive these voters to the polls…”

In a Washington Post op-ed, “How to save the Republican Party, courtesy of two Democrats,” William A. Galston and Elaine C. Kamarck lament the party’s woes and argue that the Republican Party should essentially abandon conservatism and conservative activists for its own good…

This has been a consistent liberal attack since the days of Ronald Reagan: Republicans are extremists and crazy not to work in a “bipartisan” manner to support more liberal programs and that being more conservative will lead to the party’s implosion. The left cries crocodile tears, lamenting the destruction of the GOP because it is just too conservative.

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Matthew Shepard, Trayvon Martin, Brandon Darby and the Power of Leftist Mythmaking

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

The blockbuster story that the facts in the Matthew Shepard murder case have been distorted in order to promote a political agenda is another example of the power of the left’s narrative mythmaking. Gay journalist Stephen Jimenez presents a new argument as to the details of Shepard’s murder in The Book of Matt, but he’s up against 15 years of storytelling and inverted reality.

A piece in the gay culture magazine The Advocate by Aaron Hicklin lays out the facts about the Shepherd mythology, but it also contains a line that is the Rosetta Stone to understanding how leftist narrative mythology is so pervasive in both the arts in journalism. Despite the clear evidence that the story that Shepard was done in by deadly homophobia was inaccurate and that Shepard was instead killled in a meth-fueled bender by another man who was bisexual, Hicklin states:

There are valuable reasons for telling certain stories in a certain way at pivotal times, but that doesn’t mean we have to hold on to them once they’ve outlived their usefulness.

Take a moment and read that quote again, because it’s one of the clearest statements ever written on how the left sees “the narrative.” It’s moral relativism applied to epistemology and metaphysics. There is no such thing as truth to the left. There are “certain stories” that can be told “a certain way.” The story tellers, whether they are artist or journalist, simply pick and choose which story they will tell which way depending upon whether it’s a “pivotal time.”

This philosophy explains why in so many cases you get a story that is heavily hyped in the culture at one point and then later the real story comes out. While trying to drive a gay rights agenda, the myth of Matthew Shepard was useful, so that’s what ended up getting reported. If it’s useful to say that Shepard was killed by homophobic good ol’ boys in Wyoming, the news media and the arts go all in on that story.

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Reagan was to Gorbachev what Putin is to Obama (+video)

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Photo Credit: World Economic Forum Creative Commons

Photo Credit: World Economic Forum Creative Commons

Putin Didn’t Save Obama, He Beat Him.

With the Russian proposal on Syrian chemical weapons, the United States is being escorted out of the Middle East.

Maybe Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin really did discuss the idea of putting Syrian chemical weapons under international control last week on the sidelines of the G20 conference. Putin sure doesn’t care that Obama’s taking credit for the proposal, or that the administration is posturing like a Mob enforcer. “The only reason why we are seeing this proposal,” said White House spokesman Jay Carney, “is because of the U.S. threat of military action.”

Right, Putin is laughing to himself. Whatever. If Obama wants to sell it like a Christmas miracle on Pennsylvania Avenue that’s fine with Putin, because Putin won.

Reset with Russia was originally a strategic priority for the Obama administration because it saw Moscow as the key to getting Iran to come to the negotiating table. Putin, from the White House’s perspective, was destined for the role of junior partner. Now Putin has turned “Reset” upside down. By helping Obama out of a jam with Syria, Putin has made himself the senior partner to whom the White House is now beholden. Accordingly, when Putin proposes the same sort of deal with Iran, with Russia having established its bona fides as an interlocutor for Syria, Obama is almost certain to jump at it.

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Subverting the Liberal Cultural Occupation? Bono, Kutcher et al.

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Photo Credit: frontpagemag

Photo Credit: frontpagemag

In a recent National Review piece, Jim Geraghty pondered the alliterative question, “Can Conservative Comments from Celebrities Change the Culture?” He’s worried that by touting two celebrity quotes that espoused conservative values, the right is wading into the shallow waters of pop culture and degrading the serious business of politics. His concern couldn’t be more misdirected.

A few weeks ago, rock star/globetrotting activist Bono asserted that capitalism pulls more people out of poverty than aid does. As if this concept emanating from such a pop icon weren’t refreshing enough to conservative ears, hip actor Ashton Kutcher gave a Teen Choice Awards acceptance speech around the same time, in which he stated that opportunities for success arose from hard work and personal drive; it was an inspirational antidote to the left’s “you didn’t build that” message, delivered to a young, impressionable audience (this video of that speech has garnered over 3.6 million views).

The right, aware more than ever before of the importance of reclaiming the culture (although many simply pay lip service to that), pounced on these statements as hopeful signs that our ideas were beginning to breach the wall of the left-dominated cultural stronghold. This made Geraghty squirm:

I’m still chewing this over, and trying to decide whether this represents a necessary tactic in an era of celebrity-obsessed pop culture, or whether it’s just the latest version of the conservative tendency to instantly adopt and celebrate any celebrity who happens to echo some of our arguments.

After all, when we say it’s shallow and silly and superficial for Democrats to emphasize their Hollywood star supporters at their political conventions, and to hold campaign events with Bruce Springsteen and Jay-Z and such . . . we’re not wrong.

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GOP REP: Obama Speech a ‘Display of Foreign Policy Incompetence’

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Photo Credit: transplanted mountaineer

Photo Credit: transplanted mountaineer


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Rep. Ron DeSantis Tuesday characterized President Barack Obama’s speech on Syria to Newsmax as “a typical Obama performance.”

“He didn’t say anything new,” the Florida Republican told Newsmax. “This is just topping off a catastrophic display of foreign policy incompetence.”

“He basically repeats all the same arguments,” DeSantis added. “He still has not defined a clear military purpose for what he wants to do — certainly no Plan B: If you strike, what happens? — for him to categorically rule out boots on the ground.

“You cannot do that if you’re going to be honest with the American people, because you don’t know what [Syrian President Bashar Assad] would do once you strike,” he said. “All those problems are still there.

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Jonathan Alter: US Cannot Retreat to ‘Fortress America’

By David A. Patten.

Syndicated columnist and best-selling author Jonathan Alter served up sharp criticism of what he sees as a new isolationist shift in American politics, telling Newsmax that he has been “completely surprised” by the sharp anti-war, neo-isolationist fervor that has swept the country since President Obama announced his intention to attack Syrian strongman Bashar Assad’s regime.

Alter, a presidential historian as well as a journalist, has written two books on the Obama presidency, The Promise, and The Center Holds: Obama and His Enemies.

Speaking immediately after the conclusion of President Obama’s national televised address on Tuesday night, the Bloomberg columnist conceded the administration’s response to the Syrian issue “has been not very skillfully handled up to now.”

But he gave the president strong marks Tuesday evening for presenting a compelling case for why the United States must respond to an apparent, blatant violation of international and humanitarian norms regarding Assad’s apparent use of chemical weapons on his own people.

Alter said he could never have predicted the wave of anti-war sentiment that has suddenly swept the United States.

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Obama Rescues Assad

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Photo Credit: Reuters

Photo Credit: Reuters

What could be worse for America’s standing in the world than a Congress refusing to support a President’s proposal for military action against a rogue regime that used WMD? Here’s one idea: A U.S. President letting that rogue be rescued from military punishment by the country that has protected the rogue all along.

That’s where President Obama now finds himself on Syria after he embraced Russian President Vladimir Putin’s offer to take custody of Bashar Assad’s chemical weapons. The move may rescue Mr. Obama and Congress from the political agony of a vote on a resolution to authorize a military strike on Syria. But the diplomatic souk is now open, and Mr. Obama has turned himself into one of the junior camel traders.

What a fiasco. Secretary of State John Kerry, of all people, first floated this escape route for Assad on Monday in Europe where he was supposed to be rallying diplomatic support for a strike. The remark appeared to be off-the-cuff, but with Mr. Kerry and this Administration you never know. In any case before Mr. Kerry’s plane had landed in the U.S., Russia’s foreign minister had leapt on the idea and proposed to take custody of Assad’s chemical arsenal to forestall U.S. military action.

The White House should have rebuffed the offer given Russia’s long protection of Assad at the United Nations—a fact noted with scorn on Monday by Mr. Obama’s national security adviser Susan Rice. Instead Mr. Obama endorsed the Russian gambit as what “could potentially be a significant breakthrough.” The Senate immediately called off its Wednesday vote on the military resolution. By Tuesday Assad had accepted the offer that he hopes will spare him from a military strike.

France will press for a U.N. Security Council resolution supposedly for U.N. inspectors to supervise the dismantling of Syria’s stockpiles, though Russia will no doubt try to put itself in the lead inspecting role. On Tuesday Russia was even objecting to a French draft that would blame the Syrian government for using chemical weapons. Mr. Putin also insisted the U.S. must first disavow any military action in Syria, even as he and Iran make no such pledge.

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