• Minnesota, Three Dems Try To Explain Obamacare, One Succeeds
  
• Tax On Medical Devices Has Already Freed 33,000 From Jobs
  
• The Times, They Are A-Changin'
  
• How Likely Are The Democrats To Lose The Senate
  
• FCC Wants To Police Content In Newsrooms
  
• DeBlasio Admin Turning Out As Expected
  
• Boehner Flashback "I'll Commit Suicide Before I Vote On A Clean Minimum Wage Bill
  
• We Cracked The Code On How The Facebook News Feed Algorithm Works
  
• Obamacare: Hello Access Shock
  
• Rand Paul's Foreign Policy Challenge
  
• Fears Grow Over Potential Ukraine Military Intervention
  
• Club for Growth Hits Airwaves With Ads Against Senator Cochran
  
• Is Western Media Ignoring The Violent Crackdown In Venezuela
  
• VDH: The Outdated Business Model Of Diversity, Inc
  
• Thad Cochran Facing Tea Party Challenger
  
• Obamacare Enrollee Can't Get Doctor To See Her
  
• 20 Years Of Broken Promises
  
• More Guns, Less Crime
  
• These States Have The Highest And Lowest Alcohol Taxes
  

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Posted by: Open Blogger at 05:03 AM | Comments (369)
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Assault gun? Whatever, I'm sure the left will call it that eventually.

Via Hot Air. As you probably know, Detroit's chief of police is actively recommending that citizens buy guns in order to defend themselves.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 02:45 PM | Comments (179)
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Oh my stars and garters.

Oh my.

No seriously, Kay Hagan is now writing a Strongly Worded Letter to the Medicare people imploring them to not make the cuts she voted for when she voted for Obamacare.

Thanks to @comradearthur.

Posted by: Ace at 11:59 AM | Comments (308)
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Great article.

#BreadAndCircuses

[T]he President... never wastes an opportunity to show just how right the absurdness of the social media noise machine is. When Obama jokes about being able to do whatever he wants, then turns around and hits an HBO producer up at a State Dinner for advanced copies of television shows to get him through an extended weekend, how are we as a desperate electorate supposed to react? We tolerate the luxuries afforded to our leaders. Just donÂ’t be a dick about it.

How is a world currently engulfed in flames of revolution supposed to react?

The problem for a President who makes any excuse to hit up a golf course or admits to watching tons of HBO is there are still events in the world happening outside his windows. People are desperate for American leadership and canÂ’t wait for the killer on True Detective to be revealed.

Nobody in Kiev is interested in the fallout of the Red Wedding.

Nobody in Venezuela cares about the fate of Zoe Barnes.

Obama and his administration canÂ’t wait to inject themselves into pop culture as it suits their narratives. If Lego Movie is number one at the box office, the Secretary of State is referencing global warming to 3D movies. If the Super Bowl is trending on social media, out come the football analogies. Michelle Obama is on Jimmy FallonÂ’s new Tonight Show and Joe Biden on Seth MeyerÂ’s follow up. Actors pushing health care that they themselves refuse to sign up for. What message does it send the world when cries for democracy in Ukraine and Venezuela are met with silence, but tweeting about a cable show is paramount?

Barack Obama is the first President optimized for SEO and therein lies the problem. When #Venezuela and #Kiev are the top trends on Twitter for two days straight and not #HouseOfCards or #TrueDetective, the online persona machine that elected Barack Obama goes dark and resorts to a spam account selling us crappy insurance.

At the height of violence that erupted with both protests this past weekend, where was he? Hosting a Hollywood premiere style party for #GeorgeClooney and cast of his film #TheMonumentsMen, in private at the White House, simply because he could. Right now in Kiev, historical statues and art are being burned in front of the world. He was content to remain silent and watch a movie about it happening instead. The real world does not interest this President. The set design does.

Via @slublog.

Posted by: Ace at 12:54 PM | Comments (274)
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Interesting.

But how can it be a war, without a bodycount?

Oh, but there is. And there will be further casualties.

Posted by: Ace at 03:35 PM | Comments (503)
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Howie Kurtz wants to know what the FCC was thinking when it proposed to monitor how editorial decisions are made in news media. (Including in newspapers, over which they have no jurisidiction whatsoever.)

Oh, She's got answers. Some of these answers are obvious, but apparently they didn't occur to Kurtz.

After summing up what they were thinking (which I don't want to excerpt, because it's smokin'-hot, and you should click over there), she concludes:

The biggest problem in our nation is not the Democrats, or the Republicans; it is not the Obama Administration, just as it wasnÂ’t the Bush Administration, and it wonÂ’t be future Clinton or Warren Administrations. Our biggest problem is that the press has voluntarily surrendered its freedoms for the sake of idols and ideologies.

Because this is true, our government is either factionalized, fictionalized and bombarded with daily media outrage and indignation, or it is given an utterly free pass, with no accountability required. Either way, it is a process of illusion, which gives assist to the necessary distraction, and thatÂ’s all.

I didnÂ’t want to write about this today. The truth is, I donÂ’t even want to write about politics, anymore, because itÂ’s all distraction and illusion and theater. IÂ’d be happy to write about prayer and scripture, and nothing else, for the rest of my life, and maybe thatÂ’s what IÂ’ll be doing, soon enough. But I am passionate about journalism, passionate about the need for a free press, and so I had to write, today. Without a curious press interested in protecting its own freedoms, there is no there, there. We might as well just put down the mics and turn out the lights, because itÂ’s over.

Posted by: Ace at 01:54 PM | Comments (153)
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He's visiting Iowa.

Posted by: Ace at 10:57 AM | Comments (500)
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On NBC now.

I'm told to avoid spoilers I should not tell you the exact situation. I will say that the situation is dramatic.

Livestream here.

This is women's hockey, the final game, I think.

Posted by: Ace at 10:40 AM | Comments (190)
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Sarah Hoyt, a one-time member in the SFWA, tells her tale the way writers have been doing since the dawn of mankind: In gifs.

Another writer (I think) describes the meltdown at the SFWA in text. Warning: Contains sexist, offensive language such as "Glittery Hoo Haa Brigade" and "Whiny Tw*T."

Oh and she's a she, I think, but you know, Patriarchy.

Both writers make a point: The people doing all the kvetching, agitating, and purging are mostly n00bs without many books to their credit who are using political correctness to go after older, more established people in the field.

More: Another writer (I think) digests some of this meltdown. Apparently the SFWA wanted to shut down its quarterly magazine Bulletin until it could guarantee that nothing that wasn't up to its "standards" -- by which it means was PC-approved -- would be published therein.

Here are some of the writers who signed a petition objecting to this censorship:

Notice who has signed the petition, names included at the bottom of the petition. They include (but arenÂ’t limited to) Gregory Benford, David Brin, Amy Sterling Casil, C. J. Cherryh, Jack Dann, Harlan Ellison, David Gerrold, Janis Ian, Nancy Kress, Mercedes Lackey, Barry N. Malzberg, Jack McDevitt, Larry Niven, Dr. Jerry Pournelle, Mike Resnick, Robert Silverberg, Norman Spinrad, Allen Steele, Harry Turtledove, Vernor Vinge, Gene Wolfe.

Maybe youÂ’ve heard of a few of them?

Only some of the biggest names in the field.

The only name I recognized (other than Gould) who has come out publicly in favor of the oversight committee is C. C. Finlay. The rest are people like Natalie Luhrs (who?) and Angela KorraÂ’ti (again, who?). No disrespect to these ladies intended, but IÂ’ve never heard of them, and I make an effort to keep up with new authors in the field. Obviously, there will be some new authors that I miss.

What I do find interesting (and disturbing) is that there seems to be a generational war going on in SFWA. At least it appears that way from the outside. (IÂ’m not a member, have no desire to be a member, but thatÂ’s a post for another day.)

The generational war, it seems, is less about the generations than the values each generation holds dear. The older writers are liberal in temperament (by which I mean, they object to censorship, and believe in free expression), and the newer writers appear leftist (and they believe speech must be managed and censored by a Oversight Committee of some sort, say, a Vanguard).

Thanks to TV. No not the TV. I'm just calling the tipster TV.

Correction: It was not the SWFA's "bulletin board" which was shut down, as I claimed; it was their quarterly magazine Bulletin.

Thanks to @rdbrewer4 and a guy who claims to be a pirate for that correction.
More: Merovign offers some thoughts below. more...

Posted by: Ace at 09:29 AM | Comments (396)
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We discussed James Poulos' assertion that the right is making "everything" political on the podcast (which will be posted tomorrow).

I have a few thoughts. First, we generally tend to make fun of the left for reading a Political Message into every mundane act. Mary Katharine Ham related a story of a FaceBook friend who had -- oh no! -- been forced to buy Barilla pasta because it was the only gluten-free brand available. He had the vapors as he attempted to seek advice as to which gay cause he should donate to, to expunge himself of sin. (Barilla's CEO said a half year ago that he wouldn't feature gay couples in their ads, as the brand has a brand identity of traditionalism and traditional families.)

But are we following the left in this nonsense by ourselves overreading politics and ideology into things we, of all people, should know are fundamentally human in nature?

That is to say: It is the left which asserts -- or believes -- that people are essentially their ideology. The left asserts that someone is "good person" simply due to that person believing the right things; the ideology requires no actual action, just belief.

Thus, the left conceives people's primary identity as one of ideology, and conceives of humanity as being primarily ideological beings.

One the right, we generally say that ideology is important, but is hardly the sum of any man or woman. Chiefly ideology is important to the extent it creates real world goods, freedom of thought, freedom of worship, freedom to pursue a gainful trade without interference, and so on.

Freedom, in fact, to pursue happiness.

The right has been, historically, against this idea of humans' highest aspiration being a matter of purity of ideology -- that "The personal is political," as I think Gloria Steinem asserted -- and has championed at least three aspects of humanity as being more important than ideology (the metaphysical/religious, the familial/generational, and the ethical/moral; others may add the philosophical and intellectual).

Ideology, in fact, is chiefly important to the right to guarantee freedom to pursue these other aspects of human endeavor.

Sonny Bunch has also written on the emptiness of an entirely politicized life.

I do agree, as you know. One of the reasons -- you've probably gotten sick of me saying this -- but one of the reasons I post Honey Badger videos, or encourage people to post sci-tech stuff, or why I love the book thread, and the gardening thread, and so on, is that I do find a life which is full of nothing but politics is, sadly, empty of anything else.

I don't wish to define myself in such a manner -- I am ideological, but I am more than just ideological -- and will actively fight against being defined as nothing more than a vessel for ideology, for transporting it one from the ideological wellsprings to others' buckets (so that they may in turn deliver ideological water to others).

Is ideology important? Again, of course it is.

But is everything ideological? Surely not.

It occurs to me that attempting to be more than walking poster-board of ideological beliefs is a far more useful political posture in terms of outreach and persuasion. "LIVs" and swing voters and independents pride themselves on not being overly ideological -- they tend to scorn what they detect is "just ideology" from a party or politician -- and so anyone who permits himself to be defined as purely ideological has no chance whatsoever of persuading someone who prides himself on being ideologically flexible.

As silly as we find Barilla Panic Guy, an outside observer would find us pretty silly in asserting that virtually any evil that befalls a man is due to "liberal values" or the like.

We know better than that. We know human beings are more complicated than that -- which is part of the reason we resist so vigorously the One Size Fits All model of the leftist state. There are too many things going on in the human mind and human experience to say "This is due to liberalism" or even "This is largely due to liberalism."

As in many things, there may be some truth here -- may be -- but a little bit of truth can be so overstated as to become false.

I'm told that Ben Shapiro, who wrote the piece Poulous complains of (laying Phillip Seymour Hoffman's death at the feet of "liberal values" or "Hollywood values"), is one of the smartest people alive, and I believe that.

I do think he's misfired here, though. I know he's smarter than this, and I think his readership is smarter than this too. I think 80% of the movement is smarter than this (and 95% of this site's readers). So I don't think we should sell ourselves short in the brains department. I don't see what good it does anyone to pretend to be less smart than he actually is.

Some will say "But some people respond to this." And that is so. But so what? They'll also respond to a more nuanced piece. They may read all the nuance out of the piece, but, having done so, they will then respond to their version of the piece.

And of course this isn't just Ben Shapiro; most on the right (in fact, most anyone who's ever done anything political) are guilty of this. I'm guilty of this (though, like an alcoholic, I'm employing a One Day At A Time recovery strategy).

At the risk of offending people, when I was young and moving towards a right-leaning ideology, I rolled my eyes when Newt Gingrich traced Susan Smith's murder of her two children to the liberal ideology. I mean, come on. This is every bit as ridiculous and overreaching as the left's (and the media's) determination to claim that Jared Loughner's murderous, lunatic rage about English grammar was somehow traceable to Sarah Palin's "anti-government rhetoric."

There may be the glimmering of a point in this statement, but it's only a glimmering; how much weight shall we put on it? I don't think the structure is solid enough to bear but an ounce or two.

I've said this before, I think, but it's important to keep our humanity and our individuality front and center at all times. We may be fighting a political battle, but it's important to always return to why we are fighting it: we're fighting the battle to preserve our dignity as human beings, our freedom which is our right as thinking -- or ensouled -- beings, and our basic individual identity which is surely more than a series of bullet-point slogans and "COEXIST" bumper-stickers. (And for those whom this is not true: I truly pity those such as these.)

I believe -- though I'm not sure -- that part of the reason the military sends soldiers back home periodically is to remind them, tangibly, of what it is, exactly, they're fighting for in the first place. That the fight is not fought just for the fight; the fight is fought for something else again.

I think we're better than this and smarter than this, and I don't think we should be shy about letting people know that.

BTW: I know why people make these connections, because I know why I have often made such connections: Because writers write, and speakers speechify. The pressure to produce results in people putting out material that they might not have bothered with, if they didn't have a speech to give,or a number of columns or posts to write in a week.

So I'm honestly not really slagging either Gingrich or Shapiro (or myself) all that hard.

This stuff falls into the category of "easy content," and writers (or speakers) love no other category more than that of easy content.

That's human nature. Everybody does it. And no, seriously: Everybody does it.

Still, I think it's a tendency that is better checked and restrained than indulged.

Newt Gingrich is, I think, a genius.

Ben Shapiro is, I think, a genius.

And it's hard for geniuses to work at a genius level at all times -- only some of us are blessed enough to make it look easy -- but still, our geniuses should keep, mostly, to genius-level stuff. Or, when they want to take a break, they can slum it all the way down to the superior-IQ gutter.

There's plenty of non-geniuses for this other stuff, this shaky stuff.

Apologies: I had a clear memory of Limbaugh making this Susan Smith connection to liberalism, but Rockmom says my clear memory is clearly false:

BTW, Ace, it wasn't Rush Limbaugh who said that about Susan Smith. It was Newt Gingrich, when he was still Speaker of the House. And it was the day he jumped the shark. The backlash to those comments was tremendous.

Apologies to Rush Limbaugh for misattributing this to him.

As for Newt Gingrich -- I think he's a genius too. (I know he thinks he's a genius.) So the same caution to him as well.

I have deleted the references to Limbaugh, except here, in this correction, and replaced his name with Gingrich's.

Apologies once again.

Posted by: Ace at 08:19 AM | Comments (434)
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