Charles Cooke says this spot has the greatest opening line in the history of political ads. Personally I think "I'm Joani Ernst" is kind of meh but that next line is by far the greatest second line ever in the history of political ads.

And just to be *that guy*, we need to get beyond the idea that pork spending, no matter how annoying, isn't the problem. It's the entitlements, stupid. Also, does she include farm subsidies, wind power credits and the ethanol mandate as "pork" or is that good old fashioned necessary "investments"?

Still...funny ad. Which was sort of the point of this post before it got away from me for a second.

Since I'm swiping that video from Cooke you should check out his post on how the left turns on its rising stars the second they dare go off script.

Posted by: DrewM at 11:34 AM | Comments (318)
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Jonathan Karl of ABC asked Obama a question today that wounded Obama's vanity so he answered it like the petulant man-child he is.

“In China, in Syria, in Egypt, and now in Russia, we’ve seen you make strong statements, issue warnings that have been ignored,” Karl began. “Are you concerned that America’s influence in the world, your influence in the world, is on the decline?”

“In light of recent developments, do you think that Mitt Romney had a point when he said Russia is America’s biggest geopolitical foe?” Karl continued.

...

“Russia is a regional power that is threatening some of its immediate neighbors, not out of strength but out of weakness,” Obama asserted, as though he was talking about the psychological insecurities that plague the average playground bully.

“The fact that Russia felt compelled to go in militarily and lay bare these violations of international law indicates less influence, not more,” Obama insisted.

"A regional power"?

I'm going to guess Obama has never looked at a globe and noticed that Russia stretches across many regions...Europe, it's very near the Mideast and encompasses central Asia and reaches to the Pacific.

As Greg Pollowitz notes, if you have a fleet of ICBMs, you're pretty much by definition beyond "a regional power".

They are also making noises about establishing bases in Latin America.

Is Russia a hyper-power like the US or even the superpower it was during the, dare I say, "original", Cold War? Not really. But that doesn't mean they aren't capable of making trouble in many parts of the world for the US.

I am decidedly in the non-interventionist camp when it comes to places like Libya and Syria. I'm also very skeptical of our ability to do much if anything about Russian designs on Ukraine or non-NATO areas of the former Soviet Union but that doesn't mean we can afford to take Russia lightly.

We need to make it clear that NATO boundaries are real and can not be crossed. I don't think we show resolve by drawing lines in areas like Ukraine where our interests are more theoretical than real and our ability to enforce our position is questionable at best.

Critics will say that if we don't make a stand in places like Ukraine Putin won't believe our resolve somewhere like the Baltics. My feeling is it's better not to make a stand if the reality is you will back down when push comes to shove. No one thinks we'd go to war over Ukraine so why pretend we would? Having your bluff called is real weakness that will invite further probing by an adversary.

What should we be doing? If you want to sanction Russia and send military aid to Ukraine, fine. The real aim of our efforts should be showing friendly governments in places like Poland and the Baltics we are serous since they are the ones most open to Russian intimidation. We should be conducting military exercises with the Polish Army and Air Forces. We should be sending US Navy warships to Baltic port visits. In fairness, we are doing things like this.

We should also remember that China is watching and we need to make clear our commitment to Japan, while encouraging the Japaneses to continue their defense build up.

If you missed it earlier, I spoke with Noah Rothman of Mediate about these subjects for a podcast posted earlier today.

Listen: [Stream with Stitcher] [Download]

Unlike Rothman, I think US allies have to carry a greater load of our collective defense efforts. Politically it's just a reality that the US isn't going to keep spending a disproportionate share of defense spending. It's also important that other countries have skin in the game. We can't incur all the costs and run all the risks in confronting Russia while the Europeans use the money they save to compete with us economically and do business with the Russians.

At the very least we need to do more to make it possible for Europeans to buy energy from us and not Russia.

Obama's world view is very much informed by liberal elites who are unconcerned with how the world actually operates. They insist that it should conform to their post-nation state, cosmopolitan, citizen of the world nonsense. These self-styled elite insist that global actors who don't share this view change their outlook and actions to conform to the faculty approved version of reality. Obama actually said today that he's not very interested in the motivations behind Russia's recent actions. People like Putin eat these guys for lunch every time.

Posted by: DrewM at 10:32 AM | Comments (438)
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Ilya Shapiro seems optimistic.

Washington Post has a fairly neutral write-up. It appears that some of the justices were hung up on the "Parade of Horribles." That would be Lie 2 on my list.

The transcript should be up this afternoon.

Consider this an open thread.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 09:39 AM | Comments (194)
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Well, I've been feeling rundown for a while and today I just feel unwell.

I'm going to put up some very light stuff (lighter even than my recent blow-off stuff) but pretty much I'm taking the day off.

Posted by: Ace at 08:38 AM | Comments (367)
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Unless you've been living under a rock, you know that the Supreme Court will today hear the contraception mandate cases, popularly styled Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby. Politically, these cases hit a bunch of fraught notes on sex, power, religion, and free speech. I covered that, with emphasis on the lies leftists will tell, yesterday. Legally, however, these cases also raise important questions, and I want to cover that today.

As I've written before, these cases won't bring down Obamacare. But they will determine how government will interact with religious individuals for decades to come. Here are the most important legal questions the Supreme Court will have to consider today.
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Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 06:59 AM | Comments (316)
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• Indiana Becomes The First State To Withdraw From Common Core
  
• Six Lies The Leftist Media Tells About The Contraception Mandate Cases
  
• Lefties Blaming Washingtinton Mudslide On Global Warming
  
• Harry Reid Says GOP May Have Helped Russia Annex Crimea
  
• Sects And Drugs
  
• Editor Leaves Bloomberg Citing China Coverage
  
• Cost Conscious Obama Travels To Belgium With 900 Member Entourage
  
• Alaska Dem Senator Polling Behind Republicans For The First Time
  
• Canada Probes Possible Ebola Case
  
• Republican Congressman Wants To Bring Back Earmarks
  
• Walmart Makes Official Its Reliance On Food Stamp Recipients For Profits
  
• Obamacare: A Cascade Of Failures
  
• Would America Go To War With Russia
  
• Ukraine Marines Betrayed By Russian Raid
  
• I Have A Feeling This Will Be A Quick Hit Topic
  

Follow me on twitter.

Posted by: Open Blogger at 05:23 AM | Comments (230)
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Happy Tuesday.

Washington Redskins owner Dan Snyder isn't backing down on the team name, announces creation of Washington Redskins Original Americans Foundation.

White House, Congress, and the intelligence community all aligning on a "fix" for the phone metadata collection program: let the phone companies keep their records like usual and provide them upon request, in real time, to NSA.

[RSS]

[On iTunes]

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:51 AM | Comments (241)
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Your Government Servants at Work: Operation Something Bruin

What do U.S. Forest Service wildlife officers do when they've been ordered to infiltrate bear-poaching gangs, but they can't actually find any poaching gangs? Well they get creative...and became poachers themselves.

In late 2010 through 2011, under time constraints, and possibly due to not finding any illegal activity, Arnold and Webb resorted to various schemes to try to entice the hunters to break laws.

During one hunter's trial in Haywood County, agents admitted to buying illegal bait for bears in Tennessee, and placing it in a hunter's yard in Graham County. Hunters witnessed the officers killing at least four of the ten bears that were taken. These agents, against the advice of hunters, removed the bears' gallbladders and called hunters from surrounding counties to try to get them to participate in the illegal selling of bear parts. The hunters refused to take part in this illegal activity. These are only two of the many tactics used in attempts to entrap hunters of Western North Carolina.

But it gets worse because Someone Must Be Arrested no matter what. And so they arrested all the hunters they tried to frame along with their friends. And arrested them again.

After state and federal wildlife officials arrested these "so-called" poachers in February, 2013, the state dismissed all charges on some of them in April, 2013. Some hunters were arrested again in June, 2013 by United States Forest Service officials.

To date none of the hunters have been convicted and several have been acquitted after a trial. Meanwhile all the officers involved got awards and commendations.

In recent news, it has been reported that six U.S. Forest Service (USFS) employees from Western North Carolina were awarded "Law Enforcement and Investigations Awards" by the USFS for their roles in "Operation Something Bruin", a four-year, multi-agency investigation targeting "bear poachers" in WNC and surrounding states, resulting in arrests in February 2013.

Also, in October, the National Wildlife Federation bestowed "prestigious conservation honors" on Sgt. Chad Arnold, an officer from Charlotte with the Special Investigations Unit of the N.C. Wildlife Commission. Arnold was named "Wildlife Enforcement Officer of the Year", and the Commission was named the "Natural Resources Agency of the Year", according to a press release from the N.C. Wildlife Commission.

And Jesus fucking wept.

Savages

Well the Palestinians are willing to kill their own children in order to attack Israelis so why wouldn't they kill puppies too. Reason #16 why I've become indifferent to the fate of the Palestinian people.

Posted by: Maetenloch at 05:43 PM | Comments (838)
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You may know Noah Rothman, editor at Mediate, for his daily coverage of the idiocy to be found on cable TV news but his educational background is actually in Russian national security and defense issues.

I took advantage of this to talk to him about the situation in Ukraine, US-Russia relations and the wider issue of America's role as the guarantor of peace and stability across much of the globe. While you may not agree with his support for America to act as the "world's policeman" but he makes an interesting case for it.

Listen: [Stream with Stitcher] [Download]

You can (and should) follow Noah on Twitter.

Subscribe: [ RSS] [iTunes]

Questions?: [Ask The Blog]

On a related note, the Senate passed a Ukraine aid bill yesterday. This follows the House's action from about two weeks ago. Unlike the House however, the Senate's bill includes an unrelated item to approve and fund governing changes for the International Monetary Fund.

James Roberts of The Heritage Foundation sums up much of the conservative criticism of the reforms.

In late 2010 the IMF Executive Board, with strong behind-the-scenes support from the Obama Administration, proposed a series of reforms that would increase the voting power of certain emerging market nations.

Additionally, these reforms would double the amount of member countries’ national “quota” contributions—the primary source of funding for IMF loans. The higher “quota” levels would come from shifting certain special “emergency account” funds over which the United States has had more control. Loss of U.S. control over these “emergency account” funds could also expose U.S. taxpayers to billions of dollars in additional financial liability from morally hazardous IMF loans (e.g. to Greece).

The reform package would also change the rules for IMF Executive Board elections, and the U.S. would lose its current right to appoint its own representative to the board—the epicenter of power at the IMF.
Instead, under the new rules, the U.S. executive director would have to be elected and, if enough other countries were opposed to the person nominated by the U.S., it is possible that a future American President might not be able to name someone to the IMF who shared his or her political and economic philosophies.

One additional problem with the reform package is that in order to offset the costs, the Senate bill takes money away from the US Army and Navy.

House Republicans meanwhile want to do something useful...use this bill or a separate one to tie the IMF money to a one year delay in the anti-free speech regulations Obama's IRS is currently set to enact.

Only 17 GOP Senators stood up yesterday and opposed Harry Reid's effort to reduce America's influence at the IMF and to preserve the House's leverage to block the Obama IRS regulations.

Just remember when the media goes on and on about GOP obstructionism, the House already passed a clean Ukraine aid bill and the Senate could have done the same two weeks ago. The "delay" will be blamed on those crazy House Republicans but it's Harry Reid and the Senate Democrats who are playing political games with aid to the Ukraine.

Posted by: DrewM at 06:28 AM | Comments (101)
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So, it turns out one of our morons is a paramedic and firefighter and as it happens was the guy who shot the video of a dust devil dragging hundreds of tumbleweeds into a controlled burn in Colorado (I linked it in the headlines over the weekend).

It also turns out he can kill you with fire tornadoes.

Anyway he wrote "Ask the Blog" and sent along this about how it all went down. Apparently there's a lot of embellishments and claims of "out of control mayhem" and whatnot.

Video and his write up (kinda long but chock full of factual facty things) below the fold. He calls himself "Thomas" but I call him "Prometheus, Bringer of Fire and Also Dude Who Can Kill You With Fire Tornadoes".

You got to respect that right there.

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Posted by: Dave in Texas at 04:15 PM | Comments (179)
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