Last week I had the opportunity to get a sneak-peek at the RNC's new Facebook application. Designed, in the words of one RNC staffer to "take our message where the people are," the Social Victory Center app will, among other things, hook users up with campaign news targeted based on their location and preferences (which Facebook already knows, of course), let users join volunteer efforts, distribute voter registration forms, and provide an online phone bank, all without leaving the Facebook website. It will also, if users wish, put those activities on the user's Facebook wall, letting their friends see what they're up to and, hopefully, encouraging them to join in.

It's an attempt to leverage Facebook's popularity in a new way and, at the moment, the Democrats have nothing like it. The Social Victory Center was unveiled to the public yesterday, so if you're on Facebook, check it out. As the general election ramps up, check back for volunteer activities as they're added. Also, like I did in 2008, I'll be pushing online phone banking in the final weeks of the election, only this time the RNC will have done the heavy-lifting that the McCain team wasn't too keen on.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 03:38 AM | Comments (241)
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GFM.

There was a bit of drama yesterday in the Texas battle to deny funding to Planned Parenthood affiliates. To sum up: Texas is trying to deny state funding to Planned Parenthood affiliates, including those that don't "directly" provide abortions. In retaliation, the Obama Administration cancelled federal funding for all of Texas' women's health programs. Texas is going to continue funding those programs on its own, but not Planned Parenthood affiliates. The Texas rule was supposed to go into effect yesterday. Planned Parenthood sued, arguing that it has a constitutional right to that funding.

On Monday, a district court judge agreed with Planned Parenthood in a terribly reasoned opinion that avoids the major Supreme Court precedent on the issue, which is squarely in Texas' favor. Yesterday, Judge Smith of the Fifth Circuit, whom you may recall was recently in the news, put the kibosh on the district court judge's decision and allowed Texas to withhold the Planned Parenthood funds. It was a rather fast turnaround, but it's only temporary. In the meantime, Planned Parenthood is funding the affected affiliates itself. Imagine that, funding your own damned activities! (I use the term "damned" advisedly.)

In other news:

Newspaper report: USAToday remains the most widely-read print daily in the United States. NYTimes circulation is up an insane 73% year over year, due to digital subscriptions. WaPo circulation fell 7.84% over the same period.

Taliban suicide bombers killed 7, injured dozens in Kabul after Obama's visit.

Elderly sisters, aged 94 and 93, fought off armed carjacker in New Jersey. Nice work, ladies.

Last one, just for the headline, which I am quoting exactly: "Dinosaurs were DRAINED of blood by GIGANTIC HORROR FLEAS." I'm going to make it my new go-to for shock value. That's how the pros do it. Examples: "U.S. debt ACCELERATES due to GIGANTIC HORROR OBAMA." "Shoppers were RUN DOWN by GIGANTIC HORROR CART (that I may or may not have pushed from across the store)." "GIGANTIC HORROR BOYFRIEND keeps STEALING the covers."

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:55 AM | Comments (165)
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A Life in Full: Benzion Netanyahu Dies at Age 102

He was the father of current Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. I had never heard of him before but his obituary is a fascinating read:

Born Benzion Mileikowsky in Warsaw, Poland, in 1910 and moving to Mandatory Palestine in 1920, Netanyahu was a devout follower of revisionist Zionist leader Zeev Jabotinsky, who advocated Jewish military strength and the establishment of a Jewish state on both sides of the Jordan River. Netanyahu served as his personal aide until Jabotinsky's death in 1940.

He then edited right-wing Jewish publications and earned a Ph.D in history from Dropsie College in Philadelphia. Later, he was a professor of Jewish history and Hebrew literature at the University of Denver and Cornell University, where he served as chairman of the department of Semitic languages and literature.

He and his wife Tzila had three sons, Benjamin, Yoni, who was killed in an operation to free Israeli hostages from an Entebbe, Uganda airport in 1976, and Iddo, a doctor and playwright.

When you've seen your life's dream come to fruition and the least well-known of your children is merely a doctor and an acclaimed playwright, you've done quite well in life.

And at the other end of the human spectrum...

Do These Guys Seem Like The Type To Blow Up a Bridge?

Well yeah if you're willing to give partial credit for trying and failing. I for one am glad to see that the #Occupiers are willing to hire the mentally challenged.

Posted by: Maetenloch at 06:04 PM | Comments (723)
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Operation Spike The Ball is underway.

The reason he's there (aside from the ball spiking) is to sign an agreement on the long term relationship with Afghanistan.

This is the post I wrote after Obama's big December 2009 Afghanistan speech at West Point. Sadly, I think it's held up pretty well.

Obama just announced we've been negotiating directly with the Talleybohn.

This is going to be a fine line for Romney. He's been all over the "commanders in the field" line but getting out ASAP will be popular, even with a lot of Republicans. The interventionist wing will freak out but they are pretty marginal these days.

Posted by: DrewM at 03:33 PM | Comments (491)
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Interesting piece. Read the whole thing, but here's the nut of it.

Observing an author (Jack Balkin) discuss his book (Living Originalism) at Yale Law School, the faculty went Full Squatch.

It is impossible to convey the constitutional establishment’s near-clinical obsession with, and hysteria over, the possible invalidation of the ACA’s individual mandate. It would, they say, amount to an unconscionable act of aggression on the democratic process. A reversal of the New Deal and a resurrection of the ancien régime of the Second Republic. A judicial coup d’état. The Constitution in Exile... Much handwringing arose over the elite media’s commitment to be fair to both sides even when, as here, there is no reasonable other side. The plaintiffs’ briefs are beneath contempt. Randy Barnett is a creature of The New York Times and its addiction to a false neutrality...

Me, I can explain it only this way: the resistance is to the very notion of any limit, qua limit. This is why progressivism always exceeds its own reach. You canÂ’t just defend abortion as a constitutional right; you have to defend partial birth abortions. You canÂ’t just defend equal rights for women; you have to insist that spousal abuse is a federal hate crime. You canÂ’t just advocate campaign finance regulation and disclosure; you have to insist that the Federal Election Commission can ban books and movies.

I donÂ’t think that my friends at Yale actually believe any of these positions. (They hold many false beliefs, but they are not insane.) Nor can they seriously believe that, but for their extravagant positions, we would hand over the country to Opus Dei, bind our wivesÂ’ and daughtersÂ’ feet, allow George Soros or David Koch to buy their very own Congressmen, or for that matter toss ailing widows and orphans into the streets. The real fear is that the Constitution might pose some limit to progressivismÂ’s anything-goes imagination.

One could argue that the Constitution was enacted for precisely that purpose.

Which is why they must recreate it to serve their true purposes.

Posted by: Ace at 02:55 PM | Comments (159)
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Yes. Just horrible for Obama.

Via Geraghty.

Posted by: Ace at 02:02 PM | Comments (244)
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S.E. Cupp shows off her... novelty t-shirt slogan.

I'm just such a fan of novelty t-shirts. The quote comes from the TV show/elaborate hoax Finding Bigfoot, when a guy named Bobo hears a noise and declares "Dude, that sounds squatchy."

But really, I wasn't aware of this "squatchy" term and thought it sounded fun.

According to Urban Dictionary, it means what you'd guess it does:

Squatchy

of, pertaining to, or a likeness of the Sasquatch and/or its habitat
Can you believe how deep that woman's voice was? She was so squatchy.

That's such a squatchy house. It's all run-down and falling apart.

2. Squatchy
1. describing hearing a sound that could be of possible Sasquatch origin.

2. Making a noise that sounds as if could have been made by a Sasquatch.
A nervous but cool camper in the woods exclaims "Wow did you hear that? That was Squatchy."

So there you go. "Squatchy." I don't know if the opportunity to use this term will ever actually come up, but if it does, I'll be ready.

Posted by: Ace at 01:22 PM | Comments (252)
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This is what I was getting at, last week, when I argued that 2.5% growth for Obama would not cut it-- 2.5% is fine (if tepid) growth in a recovered, growing economy.

But our economy hasn't recovered. It's just growing along the bottom, not back up at the top.

Krugman terms this situation a "depression," definitionally, and notes that the 30s had periods of "recovery" and "recession" as well, but all marked from the bottom, as the country was in depression even during its "recoveries."

I don't agree with him about his prognosis -- Spend, spend, spend! -- but yeah, I'll agree we're in a depression.

Posted by: Ace at 01:03 PM | Comments (138)
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Wonderful.

It's one thing to hold the position that gays can't have marriages.

But how about jobs?

Pieces in two conservative publications, the National Review and Daily Caller, reflected the uproar by some social conservatives over the appointment.

In the National Review, Matthew J. Franck wrote late last week: “Suppose Barack Obama comes out — as Grenell wishes he would — in favor of same-sex marriage in his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention. How fast and how publicly will Richard Grenell decamp from Romney to Obama?”

Of course Mitt Romney accepted the resignation and we have no evidence he protested.

On the plus side: He's amenable to pressure from the right.

On the negative side: Not exactly a profile in courage.

Buying Into The Narrative: Commenters point out, correctly, that we actually have no evidence of an "uproar" over Grenell.

We don't know why he chose to resign; not exactly. Romney wasn't using him, putting him out there, and perhaps that was over concerns about how he'd be received.

Apart from the two pieces Rubin links to, we don't know of any "social conservative uproar."

Honestly, I never heard of such an uproar. Can an uproar occur in quiet?

Posted by: Ace at 11:51 AM | Comments (433)
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Even Nebbishy Nincompoop Dana Milbank notices that the President's job duties seem limited to "campaigning."

In a political culture that long ago surrendered to the permanent campaign, Obama has managed to take things to a whole new level. According to statistics compiled for a book to be published this summer, the president has already set a record for total first-term fundraisers — 191 — and that’s only through March 6. Measured in terms of events that benefit his reelection bid, Obama’s total (inflated in part by relaxed fundraising rules) exceeds the combined total of George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush, Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter.

ItÂ’s not just the gatherings officially categorized as campaign events. To a greater extent than his predecessors, Obama has used the trappings of his office to promote his reelection prospects even while handling taxpayer-funded business.

According to the same book, “The Rise of the President’s Permanent Campaign,” by Naval Academy political scientist Brendan Doherty, Obama was the first commander in chief in at least 32 years to visit all of the presidential battleground states during his first year in office. He has kept that pace, devoting nearly half of his travel to 15 swing states that account for just over a third of the population.

The election is still six months away, but itÂ’s increasingly difficult to distinguish ObamaÂ’s political events and speeches from the official ones.

So now he's in Afghanistan. Supposedly this is an official visit -- and not, say, a campaign event, which will supply video and photographs to be used in commericials and donor solicitations.

He'll be speaking shortly. I'll bump the thread when he's on. Update: I saw that he'll address the nation "tonight," which I take to mean -- of course -- prime time.

Posted by: Ace at 11:07 AM | Comments (263)
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