With Christie collapsing, the field's wide-open.

Except, this guy argues, it's not.

To understand the Kentucky senatorÂ’s hidden strength, itÂ’s worth remembering this basic fact about the modern GOP: It almost never nominates first-time candidates. Since 1980, George W. Bush is the only first-timer to win a Republican nomination. And since Bush used the political network his father built, he enjoyed many of the benefits of someone who had run before. ItÂ’s the same with Paul. In both Iowa and New Hampshire, he begins with an unparalleled infrastructure left over from his father Ron PaulÂ’s 2008 and 2012 campaigns.

Start with Iowa. Last May, Rand Paul gave the keynote speech at the Iowa Republican Party’s annual Lincoln Day Dinner. How did he secure this prize invitation? Because the chairman, co-chairman, and finance chairman of the Iowa Republican Party all supported his father. Rand Paul’s not the only potential 2012 candidate who will inherit a political infrastructure in the Hawkeye State. Rick Santorum and Mike Huckabee also have networks left over from prior runs. But their supporters don’t play as influential a role in the state GOP. “RPI no longer stands for the Republican Party of Iowa,” noted a recent article in Politico, “but for Rand Paul, Inc.”

And while Ron Paul scared the horses with his previous newsletters and outré positions on foreign policy and oddball bugaboos about precious metals, Rand Paul has avoided most of his father's most disqualifying positions, while the Party has simultaneously moved in a more libertarian direction.

The Meatball said in an email that he liked this article, but they misspelled Scott Walker. The Meatball loves him some Scott Walker.

I think Scott Walker's path is this: Pitching himself as an Establishment candidate (even though he's probably not quite that). When the Establishment is made to realize there are certain depths to which the base will not stoop (Jeb Bush, or a much-damaged Chris Christie, or even Marco Rubio), it will look for a candidate who is at least acceptable to them, if not quite preferable.

And Scott Walker would be acceptable to most of us (though many are questioning his positions on things like amnesty).

And, meanwhile, the Senate appears to be a lean-Republican toss up, per Larry Sabato.

Posted by: Ace at 03:36 PM | Comments (930)
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It's obvious and true, so I'm shocked that the Dallas Morning News wrote it.

At Instapundit:

Wendy Davis (and her zealous Sisterhood of Solidarity) now argues that if a man had just told a series of Gigantic Lies to advance his political career, well, the "Old Boys' Club wouldn't have had anything to say about that!!! Serious You Guys!"

Obviously that's not a real quote. (By the way, it would be useful to have a form of punctuation to indicate "parody quote." I just ran into this problem in the comments on the Sexual Thunderdome Thread. There are things I put in quotes which I intend to be taken as parody, and I think I've signaled that sufficiently, that I'm I'm parodying a position, not accurately reporting it, but it's turns out to not have been clearly signaled. Which leads to confusion and arguments about bad faith.)

But basically that's what she's saying.

A quote from a one-time Fort Worth City Council colleague of DavisÂ’ who alleges a gender-driven double standard. Excerpt from the column, quoting former FW City Council member Becky Haskin:

“If this involved a man running for office, none of this would ever come up,” she said.

“It’s so sad. Every time I ran, somebody said I needed to be home with my kids. Nobody ever talks about men being responsible parents.”

That would be a powerful argument if it were material, or true. Just because itÂ’s a woman charging a double standard in this matter doesnÂ’t make it so.

The image that the Davis people are putting out was exemplified by her willingness to play along with the Today showÂ’s Maria Shriver under the theme #DoingItAll. Shriver went to Fort Worth and did a fawning piece on DavisÂ’ life and career as an example of a woman who worked hard and overcame odds. . . .

If a man campaigned on something like “family values” or a similar theme, and if he had two failed marriages in his past, and if he left two small kids with a spouse for an extended time a couple thousand miles away, and if he dumped that spouse later on, he would run into the same buzzsaw that Davis hit this week.

The public sees when a candidate is trying to have it both ways. And that has nothing to do with a man-woman double standard.

She was running on the platform of #DoingItAll. She'd raised herself by her own bootstraps; she'd raised her kids by her own hand. All while becoming a Harvard lawyer.

Well, only one of those things is true. Becoming a Harvard lawyer is not terribly impressive; many people manage to do so, especially lawyers who attend Harvard.

What made her story special (in her own telling) was that she had had the scrap to pay her own way, and that she had done all this while raising little children.

But she did not do these things. She married (after her first divorce from a blue-collar worker) a wealthy lawyer 13 years her senior who paid her way through Harvard and took care of the kids (including the one from her first marriage) and who she then promptly tossed away like last week's news when her student loans were paid off.

Oh, and she let him have full custody of the kids, too.

Does Wendy Davis really think it is that impressive that a woman should graduate from Harvard Law, alone, without those other distinguishing elements, which turned out to be lies?

Apparently she does.

This is the strange thing about feminism, sometimes. They wish to suggest that women are capable of the extraordinary. But then, to prove that women can achieve the extraordinary, they put forth examples of women achieving the merely ordinary, and they say it's extraordinary, Because a Girl Did It.

That's not quite compatible with the idea that women can #DoItAll, is it?

Incidentally... Does anyone suspect Wendy Davis used her "I'm a single mom raising a bunch of kids all by myself" schtick to help get into Harvard, and then promptly dumped the single status and the kids when she was actually in Cambridge?

Oh, And... Apparently Wendy Davis' top supporters think it's pretty funny that her opponent, Greg Abbot, is a paraplegic. One supporter -- a lawyer, of course -- even laughs about the contrast of the slogan "Stand with Wendy," and stupid ol' cripple Greg Abbot there in his stupid wheelchair.

Posted by: Ace at 01:21 PM | Comments (695)
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Their balance sheets are unpredictable, because Obama can change the law (and how much the government will have to bailout insurers, and how much they will be bailed out) per his whim.

From the Washington Times.

The private credit rating agency said potential fallout from the Affordable Care Act’s implementation — including changes to the individual market and the impact of the law’s “employer mandate” on commercial group plans in January 2015 — presents the greatest challenge to health insurers’ credit profile. Lower reimbursement rates among Medicare Advantage plans also are creating financial pressure, it said.
“While all of these issues had been on our radar screen as we approached 2014, a new development and a key factor for the change in outlook is the unstable and evolving regulatory environment under which the sector is operating,” Moody's said. “Notably, new regulations and presidential announcements over the last several months with respect to the ACA have imposed operational changes well after product and pricing decisions had been finalized.”

AllahPundit jokes that it's time for the Treasury Secretary to make a threatening phone call to Moody's.

Except that's not a joke, is it?

Corrected: I had to correct the headline and the body of the story.

I would explain what the correction was, but it would be far too embarrassing.

Posted by: Ace at 11:42 AM | Comments (361)
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Here's Huckabee's actual quote:

So he's saying he doesn't want the government sending a message that women are helpless and need Uncle Sugar buying their birth control pills.

And so now here's relentless progressive shill and part-time reporter Kasie Hunt "reporting" the quote:

After some pushback for this egregious shilling, she "clarifies." But her clarification is also wrong:

She's still making it sound like Huck believes "women cannot control their libidos." No, he's saying that's the message the Democratic Party propagates.

Notice how quickly and easily the allegedly unbiased "reporters" of the allegedly "mainstream" media propagate attack lines cooked up by the leftwing agitprop organizations.

Ever see a reporter just sling out something they grabbed from a Hugh Hewitt column?

That said, @drewmtips (who alerted me to this) points out that Huck still isn't helping. Whether the thought is coming from his own mouth, or whether he's ventriloquizing it into Democrats' mouths, he's still making the connection that birth control has something to do with "controlling your libido."

I know this is a popular sentiment among the "Best form of birth control is an aspirin, held between your knees" caucus, but there are a lot of married men and women who do not feel that they should control their libidos with one another (indeed, complaints frequently run in the opposite direction) and would like to sometimes have sex without procreation being among the joys flowing from it.

And people really need to get the hell over this, because I'm tired of hearing it, and I'm at least a political ally of those insisting on this sort of message. I cannot fathom how this relentless claim that Sex is for Babiez, Alwayz, line falls on the ears of people not predisposed to giving the right a break.

It's no different than feminists' eternal war over the cultural preferability of pubic hair. What one does in the privacy of their own home -- whether to have childbirth as the result of sex, or to employ birth control -- is their own prerogative. It's every person's right to not use birth control, if they find it sinful; and it's everyone's right to use it, if they don't find it sinful.

The elevation of strictly personal decisions -- and this is strictly personal; abortion doesn't enter into it, so this is entirely about a woman's decision with no reference to a third party's rights -- into a major political issue is childish and tribalist.

Yes we all have a preferred mode of living. News at 11. The law is not about preferred modes of living, and neither should we make "political issues" about it.

Posted by: Ace at 10:12 AM | Comments (822)
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Jimmy "the Gent" Burke died in 1996.

He is believed to have killed one guy involved in the Lufthansa heist. The article notes that, as in the film, other suspects "turned up dead."

But some guys didn't get wacked. And one of them is under arrest.

Note that while five mobsters were arrested on various charges, only one of them has a Lufthansa Heist connection.

The FBI says it arrested five mobsters in pre-dawn raids on Thursday, including one connected to the 1978 Lufthansa heist at New York's John F. Kennedy Airport.

Around $5 million in cash and $1 million in jewels -- worth about $20 million today -- were netted in the robbery of a Lufthansa cargo terminal at JFK airport on Dec. 11, 1978. The heist was made famous in the 1990 film “Goodfellas.”

Federal prosecutors issued a wide-ranging indictment Thursday against five defendants, alleging murder, robbery, extortion, arson and bookmaking. One of them, Vincent Asaro, of Howard Beach in Queens, was accused of participating in the heist — one of the largest cash thefts in American history.

...

At BurkeÂ’s home, agents found human remains that were identified through DNA testing as those of Paul Katz, who disappeared in 1969 after Burke suspected him of being an informant to the police, the New York Post reports.

I guess that's the guy depicted as a rug merchant in the movie?

Corrected: Although the FoxNews headline suggested this guy was a suspect in the heist, I don't think that's true. He's suspected of being connected to it -- via the murder of Paul Katz, who was a suspect in it.

I don't know if this guy actually had anything to do with the heist, or just killing the guys who did.

Thanks to @slublog.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 09:45 AM | Comments (151)
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It's important to note "and Maureen." Perhaps even Maureen's name should come first.

I didn't know the details of this until the podcast last night, but Maureen McDonnell was pretty open about her desire for pricey pretty things.

Cherchez la femme:

Maureen McDonnell hit up Williams [a pharmaceutical executive] to buy an Oscar de la Renta dress for her to wear to her husband's inauguration. She didn't ultimately wear the dress but many more grasping requests followed. The government's indictment described what followed from one of those requests:

"On or about April 13, 2011, JW accompanied Maureen McDonnell to several luxury stores in New York City, including Oscar de la Renta, Louis Vuitton, and Bergdorf Goodman. Maureen McDonnell informed JW that she needed dresses and accessories for her daughter's upcoming wedding and for her and Robert McDonnellÂ’s upcoming anniversary party. JW paid for the entire luxury shopping trip for Maureen McDonnell and spent approximately $10,999 at Oscar de la Renta, approximately $5,685 at Louis Vuitton, and approximately $2,604 at Bergdorf Goodman. As promised by Maureen McDonnell, JW was seated next to Robert McDonnell at the Union League Club event later that evening."

ABCNews has more. The requests for "gifts" was so extensive ABC could even make a Buzzfeed-style listicle out of it.

Apparently at one point Maureen noticed Williams wearing a nice watch. She inquired about its brand, and he told her it was a Rolex. She then told him he ought to buy one for her husband.

3. BLING, BLING: A CUSTOMIZED ROLEX

In August of 2011, Maureen McDonnell asked Williams to purchase a Rolex watch, bearing the engraving ’71st Governor of Virginia’ on the back, for her husband. “MAUREEN MCDONNELL told JW that she wanted JW to buy a Rolex for ROBERT MCDONNELL. JW subsequently bought a Rolex for ROBERT MCDONNELL,” the indictment reads.

Maureen McDonnell later gave the watch to her husband as a Christmas gift.

Gabe thinks they might skate on this, because the law of graft requires a quid pro quo, and the indictment doesn't seem to mention any quo. Correction: That's not what Gabe thinks. See below.

Still, it's repulsive behavior. And no one gives away a hundred thousand dollars without thinking he's going to get some consideration in return.

They did all this, and threw the governorship away (substantially dooming Ken Cuccinelli), thus betraying the people who'd worked hardest to put them in the governor's mansion.

All for some pretty baubles. They behaved like stupid animals, like magpies decorating their nests with shiny things they stole from other nests.

There Was a Quo: My bad. Gabe told me to read the indictment, and I didn't.

Chris writes:

The indictment repeatedly mentions Mr. McDonnell writing the State medical bureaucracy to consider Mr. William's products for distribution. If that's nothing, what's Nike getting from Tiger Woods?

Okay I think I misrepresented Gabe's point then. There was a quid, and there was a quo, but the government may not be able to prove the explicit agreement to exchange the one for the other -- the pro.

Posted by: Ace at 09:00 AM | Comments (257)
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Apparently there's something called the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board. It was created on the recommendation of the 9/11 panel and doesn't seem to have done much until now.

The board voted 3-2 to back the conclusions that the bulk collection of phone records is illegal and should end. But all five board members called for a series of immediate changes, such as requiring court approval for searches, reducing how long the NSA holds the data and limiting the degrees of separation analysts can stray from their initial target from three to two. Obama backed similar reforms in his speech last Friday.

The board's recommendations go farther than the advisory group President Obama created last year to review the NSA's program. But that review group also called for major changes to the bulk data collection and concluded the program has not thwarted any terror attacks.

The NSA claims that bulk collection is authorized under Section 215 of the Patriot Act, which gives the government the power to collect business records that are "relevant" to a terrorism investigation. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court has approved the NSA's argument, saying all U.S. phone calls are "relevant" because the agency needs the full database to map potential terrorist connections.

But the privacy board called the government's justification "circular" and "untenable."

The board's reasoning seems to track with an argument I made last summer that there are very specific categories of people that Section 215 of The PATRIOT Act allow data to be collected on. To expand that limited grant of power to an all encompassing grant to collect whatever the government wants on everyone effectively moots any concept that there is a difference between someone the government suspects is involved in a terrorist plot and everyone within in the United States.

The argument that the plans supporters make that the NSA needs to have all this data to quickly run an analysis or to spot people they didn't know they were looking for are almost certainly correct. But if they want that power, they need to go to Congress and get it. Then our elected representatives can have a debate and be held to account for their decision. To simply rely on secret judicial decisions to distort the plain meaning of the statute because it's more convenient for the executive branch is the exact opposite of how separation of powers and checks and balances are supposed to work.

This board doesn't seem to have enforcement powers but Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act is up for renewal next year. It's certainly going to be another piece of ammunition for those of us who believe in strict adherence to the law and stronger oversight of domestic intelligence programs.

Posted by: DrewM at 07:47 AM | Comments (187)
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In the off chance you morons don’t regularly stalk the Superior Court of the District of Columbia in search of noteworthy cases, Professor Michael Mann of Penn State filed suit in 2012 against, among others, National Review and Mark Steyn for something Mark wrote and NR published on its website (full disclosure – I am an occasional contributor to several publications, including NRO’s Bench Memos). As NR’s capable lawyers have confirmed, there seems to be no case here.

But even if there was a case, who in their right mind would want Mark Steyn as a defendant? He beat the rap when hauled up in front of the Canadian Thought Police Human Rights Commission and thatÂ’s the guy they pick to bully into silence? It brings to mind the thousands of air traffic controllers who were fired for walking off the job in the middle of a labor dispute with President Reagan: Even though we have no legal case, lets try to intimidate the only president who has served as head of a labor union. He wonÂ’t know how to negotiate with a union and will buckle under the pressure! We canÂ’t lose!

This suit has echoes of a similar controversy in Australia. Four scientists who had not been persuaded by Mr. MannÂ’s hockey stick asserted thus:

The scientific community is now so polarised on the controversial issue of dangerous global warming that proper due diligence on the matter can only be achieved where competent scientific witnesses are cross-examined under oath and under the strictest rules of evidence.

I never dreamed we would be able to get Mr. Mann to actually take the stand. NRÂ’s Rich Lowry nicely summarized this line of thinking:

Usually, you donÂ’t welcome a nuisance lawsuit, because itÂ’s a nuisance. It consumes time. It costs money. But this is a different matter in light of one word: discovery.

If Mann sues us, the materials we will need to mount a full defense will be extremely wide-ranging. So if he files a complaint, we will be doing more than fighting a nuisance lawsuit; we will be embarking on a journalistic project of great interest to us and our readers.

It appears from the complaint that Mr. Mann is demanding a jury trial. He might get it yet – after 18 months of procedural absurdity the judge refused to dismiss the case. For 1^st Amendment legal observers, this is the cue to get the popcorn because there is a smack down coming. In fact, charging people to have their photo taken outside the courthouse with Mr. Steyn could be part his fundraising to cover the crushing legal costs of defending the 1^st Amendment (Mr. Steyn is being represented by different counsel than the other parties involved). I don’t know if the DC Superior Court allows cameras, but I for one would pay to watch Mr. Mann being cross examined about global cooling or global warming or climate change or climate collapse or whatever it is being called this week.

If science has proven that global warming is real, that its man’s fault, and that man can fix it, why keep the proof a secret? In 2004, a scientist trying to recreate the data behind this hockey stick and other global warming claims met a brick wall by the keeper of the data. Climatic Research Unit’s Phil Jones famously responded to the request by asking “Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it?”

So it seems that the exercise of independently verifying a scientific discovery has turned into just taking the scientistsÂ’ word for it. Because Science. And also, Shut up.

Let the discovery begin.

The 2^nd Amendment Texan writes and speaks about energy security, among other things, and has experience in both the traditional and renewable energy fields. You can follow him on Twitter: @MichaelJames357

Posted from draft by Andy

Posted by: Guest Blogger at 06:03 AM | Comments (317)
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Happy Thursday.

Today is going to be "much warmer than yesterday" here in D.C., with the high expected to be 28 degrees Fahrenheit. Currently, it's 7 degrees, which is why there are no links in this post. I found it a little difficult to get out of bed and get moving with that frosty reception.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:48 AM | Comments (319)
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• Chuck Schumer Still Obsessing Over The Tea Party
  
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• Bi-Partisan Reform Of Mandatory Minimum Sentencing Laws
  
• The Purpose Of Obamacare Was To Destroy The Relationship Between Employer And Employee
  
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• E-mails Show Cozy Relationship Between EPA and Environmental Groups
  
• Japan Tells World To Stand Up To China
  
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• Planned Parenthood Caught Covering Up Child Rape In Philadelphia
  
• What The Library Of The Future Will Look Like
  
• Eat The Press: NBC Officially Nukes The Fridge
  
• Dad Dresses Up Daughter For Famous Art Portraits
  

Posted by: Open Blogger at 05:10 AM | Comments (197)
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