Stipulate that creating a tendentious characterization of an opposing argument for the sake of argument is nothing particularly objectionable.
If all you are doing is hashing out ideas in a more or less hypothetical fashion, then you may create and hack down entire brigades of straw-man opponents, without inflicting any real harm on anyone. (I sometimes have to point out to critics of my blog that, if I’m wrong, the stakes are rather low, given my limited influence.)
The situation is much different, however, when we see how often President Obama employs the straw men “some” and “others” to falsely present his own agenda as a sort of moderate Third Way compromise between two equally obnoxious extremes. Obama presents himself as the Goldilocks of public policy, sampling the bowls of porridge at the home of the Three Bears until he finds one that is neither too hot nor too cold. This presentation of rejected (hypothetical) alternatives conveniently relieves Obama of justifying his own specific policy proposals as necessary. Continue reading Of Straw Men, Politics and Policy →
Lots of new developments in New York’s 26th District special election campaign since I blogged about it yesterday. First, here’s a look at that new TV ad from American Crossroads:
They’re targeting Crazy Jack Davis, the fake “Tea Party” candidate who ran three times unsuccessfully as a Democrat in 2004, 2006, and 2008. Meanwhile, in a sign of surging interest in this key race — the special election is May 24 — the national GOP is getting more directly involved on behalf of Republican Jane Corwin:
The National Republican Congressional Committee hasn’t invested in the increasingly competitive race for a vacant western New York House seat – until now.
The House GOP campaign arm has activated its independent expenditure unit, authorizing it to begin spending funds in the race, according to an NRCC official.
Unlike the NRCC itself, the committee’s independent expenditure wing does not face contribution limits in the race and can spend freely on TV, radio ads, get-out-the-vote and other election efforts. . . .
The committee has funneled $40,000 in checks from House GOP lawmakers to her campaign, and has dispatched Speaker John Boehner, Majority Leader Eric Cantor, and NRCC Chairman Pete Sessions to hold in-district fundraisers for her.
The committee has also been holding nightly phone banks in support of Corwin, and is assisting her campaign with GOTV and communications efforts.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, for its part, has invested $250,000 in TV time in the race and has funneled around $100,000 to Hochul’s campaign.
Bellavia and many of his supporters felt betrayed by the GOP establishment’s choice of Corwin. This very much reminds me of the situation during the PA-12 special election a year ago, when the disgruntled Bill Russell refused to support the nominee Tim Burns.
The fortunate difference is that NY-26 is a natural Republican stronghold, whereas PA-12 was Democrat Jack Murtha’s personal fiefdom. So while Bellavia’s disaffection can hurt the GOP, it’s not nearly as disastrous as was Russell’s in the Democrat-leaning Pennsylvania district where the Republicans needed every possible break merely to be competitive. Meanwhile, there’s more big news in NY-26:
The Tea Party group FreedomWorks is mobilizing its grassroots network in New York’s 26th congressional district to “defend the Tea Party brand” against third party candidate Jack Davis, who the group is labeling “a fraud.”
FreedomWorks, led by former House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R), is the latest national group to get involved in the May 24 special election with polls showing a tight three way contest between Democrat Kathy Hochul, Republican Jane Corwin and Davis. . . . “We basically feel that we need to defend the Tea Party brand,” said Brendan Steinhauser, the group’s director of federal and state campaigns, who called Davis “a fraud.”
Steinhauser said the group will coordinate with local Tea Party leaders to organize door-to-door canvassing efforts and ask its members across the country to participate in phone banking efforts targeting Davis.
Less than two weeks until the election, and this one’s turning into a real donnybrook.
So why do we have a conservative PAC making Democrat-style class-warfare attacks on a third-party candidate? I guess the point is to confuse further the already-confused independent voters. Maybe American Crossroads has looked at the polling numbers and figured out something about the NY-26 electorate that isn’t apparent to an outside viewer.
If Republican Jane Corwin goes down in defeat in the May 24 special election in New York’s 26th congressional district, blame Republican Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-Wis.) budget, Donald Trump said Wednesday.
Trump, speaking in the first-in-the-nation primary state of New Hampshire, blamed Ryan’s budget proposal — in particular, its controversial provision to reform Medicare — for dragging Corwin into a competitive race to replace resigned Rep. Chris Lee (R).
“A very popular Republican woman is running for the office. She was expected to win easily,” Trump said in the Granite State. “She’s having a hard time defending that whole situation with Medicare.”
“Too early, too soon. There was no reason for him to do it,” he later said.
Of all the numerous problems facing Jane Corwin in NY-26, I’d guess that this is very close to being a non-factor. That’s merely a guess, of course, since I’m not in the district and just began paying attention to the campaign yesterday. But for Trump to attempt to make this about something happening in D.C., rather than something happening in the 26th District, strikes me as implausible.
Small wonder, really, that the “Trump bubble” as a potential GOP 2012 presidential candidate was so short-lived.
Jess Smochek arrived in Bangladesh in 2004 as a 23-year-old Peace Corps volunteer with dreams of teaching English and “helping the world.” She left six weeks later a rape victim after being brutalized in an alley by a knife-wielding gang. . . .
Today, Ms. Smochek is among a growing group of former Peace Corps volunteers who are speaking out about their sexual assaults, prompting scrutiny from Congress and a pledge from the agency for reform. In going public, they are exposing an ugly sliver of life in the Peace Corps: the dangers that volunteers face in far-flung corners of the world and the inconsistent — and, some say, callous — treatment they receive when they become crime victims. …
But from 2000 to 2009, on average, 22 Peace Corps women each year reported being the victims of rape or attempted rape, the agency says. During that time, more than 1,000 Peace Corps volunteers reported sexual assaults, including 221 rapes or attempted rapes. . . .
Apparently, just as some feminist groups were prepared to give President Bill Clinton a pass on his record of sexual harassment, so now some Democrats are willing to do the same with the Peace Corps on its sorry record on rape. We’ll be waiting to see whether feminist groups who claim to speak for female victims of sexual violence will also be so awed by the memory of John F. Kennedy that they will refuse to pressure Congress to help Peace Corps volunteers who have been victimized while serving their nation abroad.
There is a metaphor somewhere in that story, I’m sure, although I hesitate to speculate what it might be.
One of the basic principles of blogging is, Know Where Your Traffic Is Coming From. How are readers reaching your site? Are they coming from links at other blogs? Are they finding you through search engines? Social networking? Tweets by Alyssa Milano?
If the object of the game is to increase traffic — and doesn’t everybody want more readers? — you’ve got to have some idea of what your current traffic is all about. So I spend a good bit of time looking at SiteMeter statistics, monitoring traffic, and this morning I spotted something unusual.
I screen-capped the visit to preserve a record of it. “F*** Yeah Chubby Girls” is a “body acceptance” site, not an online dating service. (Sorry to disappoint you, guys.) The idea is that plus-sized ladies submit photos of themselves (and brief notes) so as to express pride and confidence in their chubbiness.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
In fact, I’m all in favor of it. (I’m sure “Chubby Chaser” Dan Collins is also in favor of it.) As I’ve explained before, I totally approve of ladies with “more to love” or, as folks say down home, more cushion for the pushin’. Go right ahead and have yourself another plate of biscuits and gravy, sweetheart. It’s all good to me.
Being supportive of the “body acceptance” movement, I think it’s a good idea to share at least one of the “F*** Yeah Chubby Girls” submissions, so that readers can have an opportunity to express their own supportive responses. Continue reading Not Quite Sure What to Make of This →
President Obama’s take from his Austin, Texas, fundraisers is $2 million, a Democratic source said Tuesday. More than 50 attendees paid $35,800 – the maximum legal limit – to dine with the president at a private residence. Attendance at a separate reception for more than 700 people at Austin’s Moody Theater started at $44 for students and $1000 for floor tickets to watch Obama speak and country artist Robert Earl Keen perform.
Ms. Swift turned her attention to the issue of sexist language when she and Casey Miller, her companion, formed a professional editing partnership in 1970 and were asked to copy-edit a sex education manual for junior high school students.
The stated goal of the manual was to encourage mutual respect and equality between boys and girls, but Ms. Swift and Ms. Miller, who died in 1997, concluded that the author’s intent was being undermined by the English language.
“We suddenly realized what was keeping his message — his good message — from getting across, and it hit us like a bombshell,” Ms. Swift said in a 1994 interview for the National Council of Teachers of English. “It was the pronouns! They were overwhelmingly masculine gendered.”
Read the whole thing, which was sent to me by Dave C. from At the Point of a Gun, who should therefore get all the hate-mail from angry feminists. (And let’s face it: If you weren’t angry all the time, you wouldn’t really be much of a feminist, would you?)
As predicted, the president spoke in El Paso, Texas today, where he conflated legal and illegal immigration, pushed for the DREAM Act, and showed his longstanding contempt for the rule of law as regards our immigration system.
The misleading conflation of legal and illegal immigration — accusing proponents of strict enforcement of being “anti-immigrant” — is characteristic of all open-borders advocates, Democrat and Republican. (BTW, this is a major reason I don’t regret the defeat of that two-faced backstabbing crapweasel John McCain in 2008.) Obama’s El Paso speech was a masterpiece of distortion, distraction and outright lies. From the transcript:
Today, there are an estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants here in the United States. Some crossed the border illegally. Others avoid immigration laws by overstaying their visas. Regardless of how they came, the overwhelming majority of these folks are just trying to earn a living and provide for their families. (Applause.)
Why the applause? What was Obama’s audience applauding? The people he is describing are criminals, foreign lawbreakers who are, in essence, trespassing illegally in this country. If we are a nation of laws, it does not matter who these people are, where they came from or why they came; what matters is that they are criminals, all of whom should be apprehended and deported. More from the transcript:
Then they wanted a fence. Well, the fence is –
AUDIENCE: Booo!
THE PRESIDENT: The fence is now basically complete.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Tear it down!
THE PRESIDENT: Then we’ve gone further. We tripled the number of intelligence analysts working at the border. I’ve deployed unmanned aerial vehicles to patrol the skies from Texas to California. We have forged a partnership with Mexico to fight the transnational criminal organizations that have affected both of our countries. . . .
So, here’s the point. I want everybody to listen carefully to this. We have gone above and beyond what was requested by the very Republicans who said they supported broader reform as long as we got serious about enforcement. All the stuff they asked for, we’ve done. But even though we’ve answered these concerns, I’ve got to say I suspect there are still going to be some who are trying to move the goal posts on us one more time.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: They’re racist!
THE PRESIDENT: You know, they said we needed to triple the Border Patrol. Or now they’re going to say we need to quadruple the Border Patrol. Or they’ll want a higher fence. Maybe they’ll need a moat. (Laughter.) Maybe they want alligators in the moat. (Laughter.) They’ll never be satisfied. And I understand that. That’s politics.
Notice that the same audience that applauded the 11 million illegals is now booing and catcalling, demanding that the border fence be torn down and denouncing Republicans as racists. This is the kind of hate-filled sentiment that Obama is actively promoting.
It hasn’t been finished. Just like the illegals to whom the president is pandering, his administration has ignored the law. Sen. Jim DeMint at National Review:
Five years ago, legislation was passed to build a 700-mile double-layer border fence along the southwest border. This is a promise that has not been kept.
Today, according to staff at the Department of Homeland Security, just 5 percent of the double-layer fencing is complete, only 36.3 miles.
The Government Accountability Office (GAO), Congress’s investigative arm, reported in early 2009 that only 32 miles of double-layer fencing had been built. That means under President Obama, only 4.3 miles of double layer fencing has been built. This is woefully inadequate.
So Obama lied about the fence. Notice, however, that in his speech, Obama only identifies Republicans as advocates of strict border security. Are all Democrats now in favor of open borders and amnesty? Because I seem to recall some Democrats desperately seeking re-election last year who ran TV ads portraying themselves as tough on immigration.
We might get a chance to put the president’s claim to the test, because Senate Democrats are promising to re-introduce the DREAM Act amnesty bill. Let’s see how many Democrat senators facing tough re-election fights in 2012 vote for that. Hell, Harry Reid couldn’t even get a cloture vote on the DREAM Act during the lame-duck session last year, because five Democrats voted “no”: Max Baucus (Montana), Kay Hagan (North Carolina), Ben Nelson (Nebraska), Mark Pryor (Arkansas) and Jon Tester (Montana).
So Obama lied about the border fence, he lied about Republicans, and he lied about who it is that’s playing politics with the issue: It’s him.
“He is not only out of touch with what’s really going on . . . he has absolutely no intentions of getting serious about making it a priority [to] empower the states, like Arizona is trying to do to protect themselves. . . . It is ridiculous that the federal government sued Arizona to begin with . . . This is just creating another distraction, which this administration is really good at.”
