Old and busted lefty talking point: Citizen's United ruined America.

New hawtness: McCutcheon ruined America.

The Supreme Court struck down limits Wednesday in federal law on the overall campaign contributions the biggest individual donors may make to candidates, political parties and political action committees.

The justices said in a 5-4 vote that Americans have a right to give the legal maximum to candidates for Congress and president, as well as to parties and PACs, without worrying that they will violate the law when they bump up against a limit on all contributions, set at $123,200 for 2013 and 2014. That includes a separate $48,600 cap on contributions to candidates.

The $2,600 limit on donations to a single candidate wasn't touched by this decision but you have to think when a case challenging that comes up they will be struck down as well.

Basically what this means is that before today one Koch brother could basically donate $2,600 to 47 candidates ($2,600 x 47= $122,200). Now he can donate $2,600 to 535 candidates (435 in the House and 100 in the Senate).

This will make Harry Reid's head explode because he will ignore (publicly anyway) that Democrat mega-donors can do that same thing.

Personally, I agree with the notion that campaign contributions are speech and speech can't be regulated so I like this decision. I'd like it even more if I were a campaign consultant because a lot of money is going to be flowing into campaigns across the country.

Posted by: DrewM at 07:00 AM | Comments (335)
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Happy Wednesday.

Guy Benson takes a stroll through the squirming horror of the progressive mind.

Gov. Jindal will announce a plan to repeal and replace Obamacare.

Mississippi lawmakers have approved a religious freedom act modeled on the federal RFRA. Lawgeeks, bill text is here. The governor is expected to sign.

Uh oh.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:53 AM | Comments (564)
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Because nothing happens on a Tuesday night.

WTF is Wrong With Jeopardy Champion Ken Jennings?

Was he always an asshole or did someone slip him a case of douchebag pills over the weekend? (thanks to Ben K)

Department of Education Throws Up A Roadblock to Online Education

Because restricting and controlling education is their real purpose.

The Department of Education is revisiting a fight it lost in 2012: to make states authorize every distance education provider that enrolls students within their borders. Ever since a federal judge struck down this requirement on procedural grounds, states have been able to exempt online programs from the authorization process as long as it's accredited somewhere else.

Otherwise someone might lose their phony-baloney job. Because educators are all about the kids. (thanks to Slu)

Cracked: 6 Unexpected Things I Learned Resisting the Nazis in WWII

#4. Nobody Is Who You Expect

Going to school, this girl, Tanya, was there. Her dad was a mayor of a big town, so she was wealthy. We always wondered, though: Why would she come from 100 miles away just for school? She was even friends with this girl who was the girlfriend to a member of the Hlinka Guard. She, despite being rich, would go to the poor areas at night. We always wondered why she went there. It wasn't until after the war we found out why.

One of these three school girls would go on to fight the Nazis and save Jews while another would become a Nazi collaborator. Can you tell just from the picture?

Also:  Who Goes Nazi?

Posted by: Maetenloch at 06:13 PM | Comments (622)
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First world problems.

I don't have any problem with the Girl Scouts ending the cookie sales because I'm not quite sure why they're selling cookies in the first place. Oh sure, I know it's for fundraising, and I've had to do that for teams myself.

And I always hated it. It's a scam, isn't it? Well, the overpriced candy bars are a scam. The Girl Scout cookies are almost a deal.

Still, it's weird to have kids out there selling candy to adult stranger. Reverse this transaction and you have grounds for arrest.

But that's not why the tradition is being reconsidered, of course. It's being reconsidered because of Concern.

I've really had it up to my neck with the Concern Pageant this whole f***ing country has become.

Human beings have an intense desire to compete, and a desire to feel like they're the best at something.

I get that.

But I am sick of these loser motherf***ers who are not good at anything so they've decided that the field they'll compete on is the field of Concern.

And they'll Out-Concern everyone else. And if a challenger arises, someone who's really a Natural at Being Concerned About Bullshit, why, they'll just run Concern Windsprints until dawn and drink Concern Energy Drinks until they're better at Concern than that young upstart, too.

Can we just give these people Participation Medals? Will that satisfy their urge to compete in the Olympics of Microaggressions?

Posted by: Ace at 04:18 PM | Comments (633)
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Apparently there's a mime in France (I can hear browsers clicking on to Hot Air as I write this) with some kind of a YouTube following.

I looked this guy Galliard's bits. Eh, they're okay. Here, he takes the stage in a Mister Universe tournament, despite not having any muscle mass, and despite, also, not having any permission to go on stage.

Eh, kind of cute.

Even better is "Urban Touchdown," which is pretty darn funny.

Well, he had another idea. He realized that if he had a friend videotape him from the right angle, he could, for example, stand ten feet away from a woman bending over to tie her shoe, and yet the angle would make it look like he was standing right behind her.

And then: He could mime having sex with her.

Yes, pretty much, this guy re-discovered the Benny Hill Trick-Perspective Shot.

But he went a bit further with it than ol' Benny did (Moderate Content Warning -- he goes to town in his "air sex").

Well, while most of us would see this as a rude, but harmless, prank, the Agents of Outrage of course have to prove they're Concerned and also Clever by making connections no sane human being ever would, and claim that, by pulling a silly prank, he was somehow encouraging (wait for it...) "rape culture."

Um, no he's not. Like those paid to detect Dog Whistles that don't exist, there are a certain number of professional gender-based grievance mongers who are paid to claim that pretty much anything involving a man and a woman is, in some way, perpetuating our "rape culture."

The Daisy Chain of bent logic goes something like this:

1. If you make any kind of sexual joke at a woman's expense, you are in some way subjecting her to unwanted sexual attention and unwanted sexual aggression.

2. By promoting a culture in which unwanted sexual aggression is established as a permissible norm, you are normalizing unwanted sexual aggression.

3. Some people will take a culture permitting unwanted sexual aggression to also permit actual sexual assault.

4. Those who laugh at this video, then, are encouraging -- and also laughing at -- actual rape, and are therefore akin to rapists themselves.

But this reasoning is ludicrous. Because using the same sort of connect-the-dots logic, I can prove that anyone who speeds on the highways promotes the death of children. Like so:

1. If you speed, you help perpetuate a highway environment in which speeding is seen as permissible.

2. For every 5 mph above the posted limits a population drives, a certain number of additional highway fatalities can be expected.

3. A significant fraction of those additional highway fatalities will be children.

4. Therefore anyone who speeds on the highways is blessing the needless deaths of children and should be stigmatized to nearly the extent a child-murderer would be stigmatized.

Do you let your kids watch Rugrats? Well how dare you -- you support The murder of police officers. Here, let me show you.

1. Rugrats encourages a social norm of undermining and resisting authority.

2. Police officers represent the authority of the state.

3. By letting your children watch Rugrats, you make the show more profitable, and they make more shows.

4. By making more shows, they increase the number of children exposed to anti-authoritarian messaging.

5. People will often act in comportment with the lessons they've learned as children.

6. Some people, when challenge by police, will react with the anti-authoritarian impulses they learned as children.

8. Among those reacting according to the anti-authoritarian impulses they learned as children, there must be -- as a statistical inevitability -- some number of persons willing to use violence as the vehicle of their resistance.

9. Some number of these persons will shoot and murder police officers. The law of large numbers makes this statistically inevitable.

10. Therefore, watching Rugrats encourages the shooting of policemen in the street.

Now, in each of these chains of logic, there is a certain amount of truth-- yes, one does support, sort of, in a very trivial way, the "increased marginal number of children's deaths" when one chooses to speed.

But no one thinks about this, because the links are so attenuated and weak.

And certainly no one would make the case that your routine 10 mph over the limit speeder is somehow a malefactor on par with child murderer.

But feminists deploy this weak Daisy Chain every day of the week to link some alleged social ill to rape, and then casually denigrate the perpetrator of such thoughtcrimes as near-rapists.

And no one ever says: "That makes no sense, and it's unfair and foul. Now stop that and behave properly."

And that's because if you object to the silly-string and duct tape that holds this nasty syllogism together, well, then, you are also guilty of encouraging rape, by denying the logic of the "rape culture" analysis.

Thanks to the Phantom Tipster.

Posted by: Ace at 01:45 PM | Comments (279)
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They're in favor of freedom-- the freedom to think, act, speak, believe and be precisely as they instruct you to be.

First the dating site OKCupid began a campaign -- apparently on the front page of its website -- suggesting a boycott of Mozilla (makers of the popular FireFox browser) for the crime of having agree with Barack Obama on gay marriage in 2006.

Then, of course, MSNBC began campaigning against him, calling his political donation a "black mark" in an otherwise-acceptable Stasi file.

Now, get this, Mozilla employees are tweeting that their CEO must step down.

Incredible.

Here's a fun thought experiment:

What if the CEO fired the employees demanding he resign?

Can you imagine the firestorm?

I'm inclined to actually support his doing so, to illustrate the egregious double-standard on display here. Someone with a dissenting right-wing view? Purge 'em, with a million cheerlearders.

But someone with fired over a leftwing view? Why, the heavens would shake from the gnashing of teeth.

It would be a curious thing to watch the fired employee explain the following:

1. That I shouldn't have been fired for expressing my honestly-held political belief.

2. But my boss should have been fired for his own honestly-held political belief. Because, because -- No H8, Serious You Guys!!!

I really would like this vicious tribal hypocrisy put into sharp relief by a stunt firing like this.

Not because I support political firings -- I oppose them, strenuously -- but I would like the people calling for political firings to maybe understand their own interest in not calling for political firings every five minutes.

Of course, that will never happen. The left has laid down the rule that their political rights shall never been infringed by an economic penalty, because McCarthyism. While they meanwhile demand the exact same sort of McCarthyism for everyone else.

Posted by: Ace at 12:28 PM | Comments (442)
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AllahPundit writes of Rand Paul's statement that, as regards immigration policy, we have to "get beyond deportation," which is kind of controversial but not completely.

I don't really care about that.

Here's what I care about, which is probably something you've been thinking about.

1. We cannot win elections on the presidential level for many more years without significantly attracting more Hispanic voters. Demographics is destiny, and the Hispanic population is growing. Meanwhile, the white population is declining (relatively).

Mitt Romney attracted 59% of the white vote, but he lost the election due to losing so many minority votes.

2. Hispanics lean strongly progressive in all areas. We keep hearing about them being more "socially conservative," supposedly, but a, that's not really true (they support, for example, abortion and gay marriage more than the baseline average of the country), and b, for someone who cares less about social issues than the increasing socialization of the nation, the fact that Hispanics are socially conservative (allegedly, but falsely) is a pretty minor comfort.

Allah rebuts the claim that Hispanics are really just conservative voters who don't know it yet with this depressing graphic:

So as you can see, by the third generation of American citizenship, Hispanics have moved from being outright socialist (it's not surprising that immigrants from socialist countries favor socialism) to being merely strongly, strongly Democratic/progressive.

Those of us who oppose socialism will just have to take our Big Victory in the finding that while first generation Hispanic immigrants support socialism by 82-12, by the third generation of American citizenship, we can reduce that lopsided margin all the way down to 58-36.

By the third generation, then, out of every 1,000,000 Hispanic voters, we'll merely be losing net 220,000 votes.

Of course, that's just the third generation. When all Hispanic voters (of all generations) are asked the question, they support a bigger government by 75-25. So out of every 1,000,000 new Hispanic voters, we'll be losing a net half million votes to the socialists.

I will be honest about this: I don't see what the hell there is to do about it. Voters will have their way, and the voters of the future will be voting socialist.

I guess all we can do is play for the near term and Hope a Miracle happens at some point -- that socialism will be more thoroughly discredited, that capitalism and freedom get some positive press, such that long-established political preferences can be changed.

But Hoping for a Miracle doesn't sound like political strategy. It sounds like folly. It sounds like desperation.

Posted by: Ace at 11:36 AM | Comments (485)
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(with a few potshots to take at Team Romney along the way, because why not?)

When we last really focused on Wisconsin, Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney halved President Obama's 2008 landslide win, leaving Republicans who had just witnessed Governor Walker's wallop of Barrett during the recall apoplectic and questioning everything they could. How could this have happened? Was Gov. Walker just lucky with the recall? Is there a way for any Republican to win statewide in a Presidential year? How can we possibly beat the turnout in Milwaukee? Most important, is Walker favored to win re-election? more...

Posted by: CAC at 02:56 PM | Comments (174)
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Pretty much, yes.

[O]utside of local media like San Francisco magazine, the coverage was surprisingly muted.The New York Times buried the story as a one-paragraph Associated Press report on page A21, with the bland dog-bites-man headline, "California: State Senator Accused of Corruption." This even though Yee was suspended, along with two others, from the California state senate in light of the indictment.

CNN, home (also until last week) of Piers Morgan, whom Yee had praised for his anti-gun activism, didn't report the story at all. When prodded by viewers, the network snarked that it doesn't do state senators. Which is odd, because searching the name of my own state senator, Stacey Campfield, turns up a page of results, involving criticisms of him for saying something "extreme". Meanwhile, CNN found time to bash Wisconsin state senator and supporter of Gov. Scott Walker, Randy Hopper over marital problems.

But there's a difference. They're Republicans. When Republicans do things that embarrass their party, the national media are happy to take note, even if they're mere state senators. But when Democrats like Yee get busted for actual felonies, and pretty dramatic ones at that, the press suddenly isn't interested.

This feels more and more like arguing with a dull-witted child.

Posted by: Ace at 09:01 AM | Comments (516)
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In addition to the 4.8 million vehicles recalled for various problems ranging from dodgy ignition switches to non-deploying airbags, an additional 1.3 million are now being recalled due to a problem with the power steering that could cause an accident.

"If power steering assist is lost, a message displays on the Driver Information Center and a chime sounds to inform the driver. Steering control can be maintained because the vehicle will revert to manual steering, but greater driver effort would be required at low vehicle speeds, which could increase the risk of a crash”, says the carmaker in its official press release.

An economist at the Guardian recounts GM's recent recalls:

Overall, GM has recalled 6.3m cars over the past couple of months – so far. The range of makes and model years present an impressively sprawling display of incompetence:

* 1.6m Chevy Cobalts had faulty ignition switches that would turn off the carÂ’s engine if bumped by the driverÂ’s knee and which may have caused 12 deaths.

* 1.3m Chevy Traverses with faulty airbags.

* Another 700,000 cars – ranging from Chevy Silverados to GMC Sierras and Yukons – had loose transmission lines that could cause fires.

* A batch of Chevy Cruzes had a problem in which the front wheels might lose power, even though the engine would keep going.

* Over 300,000 GMC Savana and Chevy Express vans were recalled by the National Highway Safety Traffic Administration over other airbag problems. (GM built those vans between 2009 and 2014, the same years the company was creating a victorious comeback narrative around its bankruptcy.)

* Just yesterday, the company issued a wider recall of 1.3m Chevy, Saturn and Pontiac cars for power steering issues.

Then there are cars GM didnÂ’t bother recall: 2005-vintage Chevy Cobalts and Pontiac Pursuits, which had incorrectly wired airbags that could inflate so aggressively that they would injure, not help, the driver and passenger during a crash. GM chose instead to send a mildly-worded note to dealers, according to one report.

GM isnÂ’t legally liable for the problems with its cars before 2009, because the bankruptcy wiped out its responsibility. But thereÂ’s plenty more to answer for, after the bailout. The range of cars includes those made in 2005 all the way up to 2013, 2014 and 2015 models.

Jim Geraghty notes the very underplayed angle here -- that the government knew about some of the problems at Government Motors and did nothing, if you can believe such a thing.

Nitrobahn reports:

Seven years ago, a National Highway Traffic Safety Administration manager recommended investigating the reason for the non-deploying airbags in General Motors’ 2003-2006 Chevrolet Cobalt and Saturn Ion cars. This was revealed in a memo issued by the House Energy and Commerce Committee. The chief of NHTSA’s Defects Assessment Division e-mailed other officials in the Office of Defects Investigation in September 2007, saying owner complaints from 2005 and “early warning” data about warranty repairs and injuries justified an investigation. According to an interview between current NHTSA officials and the House committee’s staff, the agency reconsidered after reviewing the data thus deciding not to open a formal investigation.

Geraghty asks: Where the hell is the press? This is not just a GM story; this is a government story. So where the hell are the stories?

Possibly prodded by Geraghty, the useless Howie Kurtz shows why people call him "One of the six thousand best media critics in the business."

The General Motors safety debacle is about everything thatÂ’s wrong with Washington.

And yet somehow it hasnÂ’t caught the imagination of television news.

Apparently, at least 13 people dying from a car defect that was covered up by a giant American automaker and has led to a recall of 2.6 million vehicles doesnÂ’t hold a candle compared to, say, a missing Malaysian airliner.

But the federal government is complicit is more ways than one.

Howard Kurtz' main role in the media is identifying a situation of media bias and then explaining to you why it's not bias. So, after identifying the problem -- the media is embargoing an important story about Washington -- he then says it's just a structural problem with the media.

My theory is that in a television culture that thrives on heroes and villains, itÂ’s hard to know who to blame.

You canÂ’t single out President Obama because the governmentÂ’s failure to act stretches back to the Bush administration, so it doesnÂ’t make for a left/right slugfest.

You canÂ’t fault Mary Barra, the new GM boss, because she didnÂ’t know about the cavalier disregard for safety until she was promoted into the top job.

You most certainly can blame a Beltway culture of coziness between the regulators and the regulated—but that’s an old story and perhaps too abstract.

Really?

Geraghty's not so sure of that.

In another example of the phenomenon discussed in this piece, a wide variety of voices who are quick to lambaste “corporate greed” and “evil businessmen” – be it Wall Street, Big Oil, Big Tobacco, health insurance companies, or any one of many others – are strangely quiet about a car company that manufactured and sold cars with a fatal defect. Why? Because progressives don’t begin from the principle, “a company must make safe products to be a good company.” They begin with “Barack Obama is the good guy.” Barack Obama supported and enacted the bailout of GM, thus that bailout must be a good thing. Thus, GM must be a company worth helping. Acknowledging that GM made dangerous cars, lied about it to the public, and then had the audacity to ask the taxpayers for money while keeping the danger of the cars secret would disrupt the “GM is worth helping, and Obama was right to help them” narrative, so it must be ignored, shoved aside, eyes averted, and so on.

That said, even Howie Kurtz' explanation -- he always wants to find non-ideological reasons to explain away ideological bias -- itself reveals ideological bias.

He says the press needs "someone to blame" in a story. Apparently, if it's not clear who to blame, they just have no interest.

Why should "Someone To Blame" be required to generate press interest?

Even if you don't know who to blame in the Government Motors recall, the story is still worth reporting. You might not know who to blame for the 2005 Thailand tsunami, but the story is still certainly worth reporting.

Let me modify Kurtz' proposed explanation for something closer to the truth:

When something awful has happened, and it's not clear that you can blame a Republican for it, or, even worse, that a Democrat may ultimately be to blame, the press cannot find any interest in reporting the story or asking questions.

The press likes asking questions whose answers they already know. They like asking "Are Republicans to blame?" when they think Republicans are to blame.

But in a case like this, where Republican blame seems unlikely, and where it could actually turn out to be the case that Barack Obama may share in the blame, the press just finds the whole situation rather "abstract," as Kurtz terms it.

Compare the media's vim in reporting on Bridgegate -- going so far as to speculate that maybe a ten-minute slowdown in an ambulance transport might put Chris Christie on the hook for involuntary homicide -- with its lack of anything resembling basic curiosity in the case of Government Motors.

Posted by: Ace at 07:54 AM | Comments (346)
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