What does that mean?

As usual, it means he'll ignore the constitutional scheme of law-passed-by-Congress-signed-by-President and attempt some executive-only power grab, based on dubious regulations.

Original article here; originally noted by Instapundit.

The couple [Jim and Sarah Brady] reportedly were meeting with press secretary, Jay Carney, when, according to Sarah Brady, the President came in. She said the President told her he wanted to talk about gun control and "fill us in that it was very much on his agenda."

She went on to say Obama told her, "I just want you to know that we are working on it. We have to go through a few processes, but under the radar."

The statement reinforces an article in the Huffington Post describing how the administration is exploring ways to bypass Congress and enact gun control through executive action.

I can't wait to win the White House. Turns out the President has plenary power, like a king, whenever he wishes to have it.

Awesome.

Thanks, guy.

Posted by: Ace at 09:52 AM | Comments (146)
Post contains 179 words, total size 1 kb.

Hello, Tampa!

Hello, Florida retirees!

Are you ready to rock!?

Are you ready for... hard truth about our unsustainable entitlements programs which are going to be savaged by drastic cuts in just 8 years are so, by operation of law, unless something is changed?

A day after telling Iowans their beloved ethanol subsidies will have to go, Republican presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty used a stop in senior-heavy Florida to call for reining in Social Security and Medicare benefits for future retirees.

The former Minnesota governor, who launched his campaign Monday, talked about entitlement reform during a 30-minute Facebook town hall and in a question-and-answer session with reporters at the Biltmore hotel.

It's part of a tough-medicine tour, designed to highlight Pawlenty's willingness to tell "hard truths." He's also planning to visit Washington to call for less-generous pay and benefits for public sector employees and to New York to call for an end to Wall Street bailouts.

"We won't have Medicare or Medicaid or Social Security as we know it in the future if we don't make changes and adjustments now that can preserve these important programs," Pawlenty told the Facebook audience.

Pawlenty said Social Security's retirement age must "gradually" increase for people who are not yet in the system. He also called for ending cost-of-living increases for wealthy retirees. He said he'll release details soon and said the changes would not affect current retirees.

This meme may sound crazy, but it's my guess this will be the next media meme. (There's even some truth to it, to the extent that counts.)

Here Ben Smith and Byron York discuss T-Paw's problem as a worthy candidate being dismissed for the slightest of reasons -- he's "boring" -- while candidates with very serious problems are treated far more seriously.

As the media likes to do these "Change of Narrative" stories (as I do, as anyone does -- it's interesting), expect a mini-counter-narrative on the way.

Meanwhile, Ramesh Ponnuru maps out T-Paw's narrow, narrow path to victory.

Among the obstacles he has to overcome is obviously the "Nice" factor. I think it's insane to push a bunch of candidates whose primary attraction is that they scare the crap out of leaners and independents, but there is no doubt that's what the base is in the mood for.

Can Pawlenty appear scary enough to independents while not seeming false and contrived?

Not only is Pawlenty naturally mild-mannered, he has spent eight years pushing conservative policy statewide in blue Minnesota, where inflammatory words would not help his cause. The current conservative mood, though, rewards rhetorical combativeness. Witness the recent boomlet for Donald Trump, who had no conservative credentials whatsoever but who was a famous loudmouth.

Back in 2008, Mitt Romney got a rap for inauthenticity by shifting rightward on the issues. Pawlenty runs a risk of making himself inauthentic by changing his affect. HeÂ’ll have to find a way to make himself interesting without betraying his natural persona (which may well be an asset in appealing to the middle in a general election). Is it possible to be nice and reasonable yet compelling? WeÂ’ll find out.

I don't know if T-Paw's current mode -- Speak Softly and Carry A Big, Big Radical Rightwing Social Engineering Agenda -- makes a lick of sense politically, but I like it.

On Medicare, T-Paw does not embrace Paul Ryan's plan. He says he'll have his own plan. He talks up parts of Ryan's plan that he likes -- reforms, premium support -- but doesn't embrace the full plan.

That doesn't bother me because as I've been saying for weeks I don't really expect anyone to actually embrace a plan that could cost them the election.

What I expect them to do is finesse it.

Is that dishonest?

Eh.

It is what it is. The moment Barack Obama starts being honest about taxing the bejesus out of the middle class is the moment I start demanding perfect candor from our own candidates.

Picture from Politico. Thanks to a commenter, but I forget who.

Posted by: Ace at 08:50 AM | Comments (240)
Post contains 728 words, total size 5 kb.

Caution on this. I didn't hear this myself and am relying on "Bruce's" description of the interview with Mike Pence. He says that while talking to Pence, Ingraham offered the nugget that she knows someone very connected to Perry, and that guy says he's in.

So there are a lot of ways in which this tip could be false.

But that's what was said. Or, um, that's what I'm told was said.

Bonus: Fat stupid sweaty sub-cretin who can barely speak calls Ingraham "a rightwing slut" on TV, but that's okay, because it's "The Truth" or something.

Change the tone, change the tone.

Incidentally, will the excitable Tommy Christopher admit, whatever Schutlz' intent, that this is a problem?

I'm going to respond to Christopher later, seriously, and tell him what a jackass he is. But for now I'll just note he's failed to sufficiently condemn Schultz, as far as my own exquisitely-sensitive Offense-O-Meters are concerned.

Perry Spectacularly Well-Positioned This Cycle? I've already begun to really like T-Paw (and I didn't even note his guts in Florida; I'll do that later).

T-Paw was a good governor with a good conservative record.

But Perry has a little datum that will make him very attractive. That datum is that during the worst recession since the Great one, Texas has added 732,000 jobs.

I am always a skeptic about the power of ideological, verbal appeals. I do not believe people change their minds based on such things. I think people have heard all that, mostly, and either buy into it, or they do not.

Repeating it endlessly with increasing stridency and "confidence" doesn't change the fact that everyone's heard this.

What I do believe changes minds are practical results and facts on the ground.

I do not believe people embraced a more liberal economics because of Reagan's words. His words were as good as you could hope for, but that's not what changed minds.

What changed minds is that his words about the economy were followed, in two and a half years, by a vigorously growing economy, pumping out something like 6-10% quarterly GDP growth per quarter.

I continue thinking that people who think it's a winning strategy to just field candidates simply repeating the same dogma over and over -- but doing it "unapologetically" this time -- are borderline delusional.

They can look to their very selves for a refutation of this idea: The leftwing media pumps ideology to them 24/7. Have their views changed? Did they themselves convert to liberalism simply when it was "explained clearly" to them?

No. And yet this part of the conservative party is damn-sure that just "explaining it right" to the public is suddenly going to shift opinions to our side.

Doesn't work. Or works to a trivial extent. Necessary, but more as a logical framework for one's actions than something that is persuasive in itself.

One thing I agree with David Frum about -- one of the few things -- is a disdain for what Frum calls the "Say It Louder" theory of political persuasion.

What changes minds is facts and results. Period.

We sit here all day mocking the liberals for being ideological and thinking that their pretty words have any meaning, stating, over and over again, that it is results and not intentions and not theory that counts.

And yet... when it comes 'round to our side, some of us start making the claim that all we need to do is explain conservatism properly this time, and it'll all work out for us.

Posted by: Ace at 07:49 AM | Comments (310)
Post contains 613 words, total size 4 kb.

You may not know a lot about Huntsman yet but here are a few key facts....

He's essentially John McCain without the war record and goofy daughter.

He's also the guy liberals in the media are talking up as a real threat to Obama. You know you can trust those guys because they have the best interest of Republicans and conservatives at heart.

Well, the guys at Verum Serum are getting out in front of this early and trying to make sure everyone knows who Huntsman really is.

Yeah. Pass.

Posted by: DrewM at 06:31 AM | Comments (326)
Post contains 118 words, total size 1 kb.

Paul Ryan explains medicare reform. more...

Posted by: rdbrewer at 04:17 AM | Comments (224)
Post contains 270 words, total size 2 kb.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 03:02 AM | Comments (159)
Post contains 8 words, total size 1 kb.

Ace knows how to jam on the guitar. Watch him work his magic below the break. Fun starts at 1:03 of the video. H/t neatorama more...

Posted by: Open Blogger at 02:19 AM | Comments (22)
Post contains 33 words, total size 1 kb.

Maybe Fred Baron wasn't the bestest friend ever after all. But he can hardly be blamed, cause he's dead.

John Edwards on the other hand..

The United States Department of Justice has green-lighted the prosecution of former presidential candidate John Edwards for alleged violations of campaign laws while he tried to cover up an extra-marital affair, ABC News has learned.

A source close to the case said Edwards is aware that the government intends to seek an indictment and that the former senator from North Carolina is now considering his limited options. He could accept a plea bargain with prosecutors or face a potentially costly trial.

As with Clinton, liberals will spin desperately to make this all about sex (well, those liberals who give a rat's ass about John Edwards, which means media punditheads and a few wavy hair fans). It ain't that at all. It's whether campaign hush money was paid to Young and Hunter to shush em up while Edwards made his run at the Presidency.

One is most assuredly not a crime. The other thing, maybe so.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 07:52 PM | Comments (69)
Post contains 214 words, total size 1 kb.

The Wisdom of Everyday People

Courtesy of ruminations.com where people can post their Jack Handy-esque thoughts. Here are a few selections:

1. I wish Google Maps had an “Avoid Ghetto” routing option.

2. More often than not, when someone is telling me a story all I can think about is that I canÂ’t wait for them to finish so that I can tell my own story thatÂ’s not only better, but also more directly involves me.

3. Nothing sucks more than that moment during an argument when you realize youÂ’re wrong.

4. I don’t understand the purpose of the line, “I don’t need to drink to have fun.” Great, no one does. But why start a fire with flint and sticks when they’ve invented the lighter?

21. Whenever someone says “I’m not book smart, but I’m street smart”, all I hear is “I’m not real smart, but I’m imaginary smart”.

43. When I meet a new girl, IÂ’m terrified of mentioning something she hasnÂ’t already told me but that I have learned from some light internet stalking.

48. I keep some peopleÂ’s phone numbers in my phone just so I know not to answer when they call.

Posted by: Maetenloch at 06:40 PM | Comments (832)
Post contains 860 words, total size 8 kb.

Let the overreactions begin!

A couple of random thoughts...

Special elections are always hinky affairs at best. With a fake tea party candidate in the race and the previous seat holder disgraced in a Craig's List dating scandal, this wasn't anything approaching "at best" for Republicans.

The NY GOP just sucks at these (as does the party nationally). They lost NY-20 when Kirsten Gillibrand was named to the Senate. They lost NY-23 when John McHugh was named Secretary of the Army (that was the whole Dede Scozzafava v. Doug Hoffman race). The one win was the race to replace Eric "The Tickler" Massa in NY-29 but that special was held concurrently with the general election last November.

The party picked candidates (NY doesn't allow for primaries in specials, the county chairs name candidates) in NY-20 and NY-23 did lousy jobs. I really didn't follow this race, so I can't say what kind of job she did. She was apparently late in reacting to the Democratic attacks via Medicare). Another strike against her may have been her opposition to Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo's budget cuts.

Naturally, the Democrats and the MFM will see this as a referendum on the Ryan plan. Of course if Corwin had won they would have said Ryan had nothing to do with it.

As someone noted on Twitter (sorry, can't remember who)...it's not like the Democratic wins in special elections in 2010 meant much come November, did it?

On the upside, the GOP got a look at the Democrats playbook on attacking the Ryan plan. We should be better prepared moving forward. Yeah, we shouldn't have been surprised this time but some lessons have to be learned anew.

NY is slated to lose 2 House seats next year through redistricting. This seat could be one of them anyway.

And finally, BaseballCrank has some sage advice for the NY GOP for the next time this situation comes up.

Posted by: DrewM at 06:38 PM | Comments (72)
Post contains 331 words, total size 3 kb.