2012 Presidential Election

The group warned that it could not predict its future outlay on lawyers’ fees and civil settlements with phone hacking victims

Originally posted here:
News Corp hacking costs near $200m

From Michael Memoli at the L.A. Times : But looking at the state-by-state results, there are some troubling signs for the Romney team in Boston. For starters, Romney won both of last night’s caucus states in his 2008 bid for the GOP nomination, when he was seen as a more conservative alternative to John McCain. And Tuesday’s third-place finish in Minnesota was especially embarrassing, both for Romney and his national co-chairman, former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty. The kind of person who votes in a meaningless primary or goes to a party caucus in February is the same person a nominee will need this fall volunteering to make phone calls, go door-to-door and rally others to vote in the general election. In other words, the base. So even as the narrative was that Romney was getting closer to locking up the party’s nomination, hundreds of thousands of the party’s core supporters turned out and voted for someone else. Up until yesterday, Romney was doing as well — if not better than — anybody else with self-described conservatives, Tea Party voters, and even SoCons. That’s still true this afternoon, only less so. And a chink has appeared in his armor. But then there’s this: That being said, the fundamentals of the Romney campaign are still strong. He’s got a decided advantage in fundraising, and a super PAC ready to fuel an air war ahead of Super Tuesday contests. Those resources were notably not deployed this week. He’s got an organization that can wage a multi-front campaign, while rivals Gingrich and Santorum won’t even be on the ballot in some states, like delegate-rich Virginia on March 6. If he wins the nomination, as still seems likely, then Romney’s general-election strategy would seem to be a mirror-image of Obama’s: Just absolutely smear the other guy with everything and everything and hope your base remains slightly less dispirited than his base. It would make Election 2000 look absolutely wholesome. I need a drink.

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The Trouble with Romney

On Monday (appearing in the print edition on Tuesday, New York Times op-ed columnist Joe Nocera gave President Barack Obama a pass for rejecting the Keystone Pipeline. In the process, he also complained about “the way our poisoned politics damages the country,” and, in a revelation which shouldn't but did surprise him, learned that far-left environmentalists want to stop all tar sands development and not just the pipeline. Imagine that. Here are several paragraphs from Nocera's column (my comments are in italics): … I realize that President Obama rejected Keystone because, politically, he had no choice. My guess is that, in his centrist heart of hearts, the president wanted to approve it. But to give the go-ahead before the election was to risk losing the support of the environmentalists who make up an important part of his base. (And where were they going to go? — Ed.) I also understand that the Republican decision to force Obama’s hand was a political stunt, allowing them to denounce his decision during the campaign. As Jennifer Steinhauer put it in The Times recently, “Republicans are framing Keystone as an urgent jobs and energy project at a time of high unemployment and creeping gasoline prices.” (Uh, because it is “an urgent jobs and energy project at a time of high unemployment and creeping gasoline prices” — Ed.) … Surely, though, what the Keystone decision really represents is the way our poisoned politics damages the country. Environmental concerns notwithstanding, America will be using oil — and lots of it — for the foreseeable future. It is the fundamental means by which we transport ourselves, whether by air, car or truck. Where do we get that oil? Mostly from countries that don’t like us, like Venezuela, which has the world’s second-largest oil reserves. (But the President doesn't seem too concerned about that. — Ed.) … As it turns out, the environmental movement doesn’t just want to shut down Keystone. Its real goal, as I discovered when I spoke recently to Michael Brune, the executive director of the Sierra Club, is much bigger. “The effort to stop Keystone is part of a broader effort to stop the expansion of the tar sands,” Brune said. “It is based on choking off the ability to find markets for tar sands oil.” (Where have you been, pal? — Ed.) This is a ludicrous goal. If it were to succeed, it would be deeply damaging to the national interest of both Canada and the United States. But it has no chance of succeeding. (As long as Obama is in the White House, you can't rule it out — Ed.) Nocera wraps by writing that “at least one country in North America understands where its national interests lie. Too bad it’s not us.” Oh, we know where our interests lie, Joe. President Obama either doesn't know, doesn't care, or is hostile to our interests. Which do you think it is, pal? Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com .

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NYT’s Nocera: Obama Rejected Keystone Pipeline ‘Because He Had to Politically’

On Super Bowl Sunday, America was treated to the most expensive political commercial in history—brought to you by Chrysler—called “It's Halftime in America.” In a series of vapid non sequiturs, Clint Eastwood's gravelly voice pinned the promise of a city—no, a nation—to government dependency, claiming that “the people of Detroit” lost almost everything but because “we” pulled together and the “Motor City is fighting again”—punching, roaring, imbued with American grit—we survived. Or, some might argue, after screwing stakeholders, discarding legal contracts, rewarding failed business models (while punishing those who employ better ones) and sticking taxpayers with the unions' fat pension tab, America got a heaping spoonful of the Obama administration's economic policy. Either way, it's odd that we didn't hear much griping about “corporatism,” oligarchies and Citizens United, though a corporate-sponsored campaign spot laid out the president's re-election narrative rather nicely. Now, I have no beef with Chrysler's running a campaign ad, but the thing is that if Obama had his way, Republicans would have a good case for banning this kind of politicking. You know, for the good of democracy. You may remember that the Supreme Court's Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision centered around the ability of a corporation to air a documentary critical of then-candidate Hillary Clinton. In her first case as solicitor general for the Obama administration, in fact, current Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan went so far as to argue that the federal government should be empowered to ban books if Washington deems that they amount to “political electioneering.” Let's just say the spirit of Voltaire is not exactly soaring in Washington these days. You may also remember that when Ford ran a TV ad praising its innovative strategy of competing without taxpayer charity (a bit of a myth itself), the White House was reportedly incensed, viewing Ford's defense of free enterprise as an attack on the president. Needless to say, upsetting this administration is bad for business, and Ford pulled the ad. What about commercials? What about commercials produced by companies that benefited (in this case, a Bush bailout supported by Obama) from policies supported by this administration? What about “It's Halftime in America”? Well, cheers all around! White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer tweeted, “Saving the (American) Auto Industry: Something Eminem and Clint Eastwood can agree on.” (Eminem apparently read a script that was written by the same people who wrote the script that Eastwood read.) Obama's campaign architect, David Axelrod, tweeted: “Powerful spot. Did Clint shoot that, or just narrate it?” Hmm. Not sure. David—if I may—maybe you could ask Clint or the agency that created the commercial, Wieden+Kennedy, because it is reportedly staffed by folks who have worked on Obama campaigns and Democratic causes for years. As for those super PACs—the main boogeyman of Citizens United— The Washington Examiner reminded me, the president once asked voters to “challenge every elected official who benefits from these ads to defend this practice or join us (in) stopping it.” Join us? Let's start with Obama, who is going to have to challenge himself, as this week, his campaign asked top fundraisers to support his own super political action committee. Admittedly, brutes like me live under a preposterously antiquated notion. We believe that citizens should be free to support any candidate with as much money as they'd like—anonymously, if they desire. But if super PACs and corporate-sponsored politicking are really jeopardizing the very fabric of American life—Obama once claimed they were a “threat to democracy”—why would the president partake in this orgy of gruesome selfishness? It was reported that Obama had one of his internal “evolving conversations” on the issue, conversations that always seem to evolve into Obama's rationalizing whatever is best for Obama. Conversations that are educational. Because the next time the administration claims that more speech is threatening democracy—corporate speech, super PACs, Citizens United—what it really will mean is that more speech is threatening its second term. David Harsanyi is a columnist at The Blaze. Follow him on Twitter @davidharsanyi. COPYRIGHT 2012 CREATORS.COM

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Obama’s Halftime Hypocrisy

Indiana Democrats gave Fox News a detailed list of Sen. Dick Lugar’s (R-Ind.) travel accounts on Wednesday, slamming him for spending taxpayer dollars on hotels since he doesn’t have a home in the state. The papers suggest that Lugar’s time in the state has been limited to less than a year over the last two decades, which the Lugar campaign says is completely false.”[Lugar] spends a quarter of the year, every year in the state,” Lugar spokesman David Wilkie told Fox, and pointed out that Lugar still owns a farm in Indiana and has spent 89 days in the state in the last year. National Democrats pounced on the story. “If there were still any doubts about how badly Dick Lugar has turned his back on Indiana, this report removes them entirely,” said Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee spokesperson Shripal Shah. “It’s bad enough that Dick Lugar has completely neglected Indiana since coming to Washington decades ago, but it’s even worse for him to make tax payers pay for him to sporadically visit the state at his own convenience.” Lugar’s primary challenger, Tea Party favorite and Indiana State Treasurer Richard Mourdock (R), has been hitting him on the issue for some time. Lugar will be the heavy favorite over Rep. Joe Donnelly (D-Ind.) if he wins his primary, but while he has a major cash advantage over Mourdock, whose campaign has struggled with organization, he could face a tough primary race.

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Lugar’s foes on left and right hit him for living in Washington

(Steven Hayward) In light of yesterday’s setback for Romney, I’ve decided to rechristen this “deconstructing” series as Romney Agonistes.  Anyway. . . Up in our “Picks” section is a link to those madcaps at The Onion , who offer a spoof of Obamamania called “ Romneymania Sweeps America! ”  This may be their best spoof since their bit about Grover Norquist’s tryst with the corporate income tax a while ago (“ I Engaged in a Week-Long Drug-Fueled Orgy With Corporate Income Taxes ”). Many young Americans acknowledged they had felt disillusioned by politics until hearing Romney’s explanation of how his coordination of corporate funding for the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics renders him uniquely qualified to be president, an assertion they said immediately revived their faith in American democracy. “Simply put, when Mitt Romney speaks, he inspires people to be better,” said political scientist Deborah Klein of Brown University, adding that given his effusive charisma, people are likely to follow the Republican candidate anywhere. “Anytime he meets factory workers on the campaign trail or stands at the podium in a debate, his reputation as a highly relatable man of the people is indisputable.” This really is a nice and semi-subtle sendup of the over-the-top Obamamania.  But here’s the thing.  Even discounting all of Romney’s defects, conservatives just don’t swoon for candidates and think them messiah-like figures the way liberals do.  Reagan was popular, to be sure, but was never the object of worship anything like we saw with Obama four years ago.  At the root of this is a substantive difference between left and right. Second, as suggested here the other day, our low expectations of Romney could be to our benefit (if he holds on and wins not just the nomination but the election—two very big “ifs” right now).  Conservatives will be on a hair-trigger from day one, and will sound the alarm early and loudly if he goes wobbly.  He won’t have the same leeway that Reagan or George W. Bush had to wobble.  He’ll need to worry about a primary challenge in 2016 from day one. Got your copy ordered yet? Third, one difference a President Romney will have over Reagan is that Reagan had a hostile Congress, and at least 15 liberal Republicans in the Senate.  Romney might well find a Congress slightly to the right of him.  Moreover, an atmosphere of low expectations from conservatives may lead conservatives to concentrate more on finding leadership from Congress, which would be a very healthy thing, as a great new book argues (hint, hint).  (David Freddoso argued a similar point in The Examiner the other day, saying conservatives should put more effort into getting the Senate elections to come out right.)

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Romney Agonistes, Part 3: The Upside of Low Expectations

Russian PM warned that Moscow must not let the uprisings of Libya and Syria be repeated in Russia

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Putin gives clue to veto of Syria sanctions

What a sad state of affairs. Well, what do you expect?  When schools don’t teach history or government and focus on community organizing this is what you get… An ignorant population of leftists ready to hand control of their lives over to some dictator-wannabe. 39% of American voters believe it’s OK for Obama to trample on religious freedom. Rasmussen reported: Half of voters do not agree with the Obama administration’s action forcing Catholic institutions to pay for birth control measures that they morally oppose. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 39% of Likely U.S. Voters believe the government should require a church or religious organization to provide contraceptives for women even if it violates their deeply held beliefs. Fifty percent (50%) disagree and oppose such a requirement that runs contrary to strong beliefs, while 10% more are undecided.

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39% of Voters Think It’s OK for Obama to Trample On Religious Freedom

A recent Livescience.com article appearing in Yahoo! News highlighted a study by psychologist Gordon Hodson of Brock University in Ontario in which a nexus is supposedly found between being unintelligent and conservative and being racist. I presume then that, as conservatives and morons tend to be more racist, the dots between them are connected? The story not only provided an overview of the study but also links to other similar studies which appear to back up Hodson’s conclusions. Well then, there it is. We always knew that liberals are smarter and more tolerant. We just needed a study to prove it. Gordon Hodson At best, psychology is an inexact science, as the human brain is the most complex system in the known universe, and to try to understand what makes it tick is daunting if not impossible. But layer on top of that the possibility that the researchers themselves may harbor a bias that leads them to subconsciously steer their studies towards reaching pre-determined conclusions, and you have the makings of a sham science project … with predictable results. Hodson’s complete study is not available for free online, so I readily admit I only know what has been made public. Apparently the researchers offered a list of questions which would measure participants’ left or right leanings based upon the answers. For example, one measure in defining “conservative” is gauging one’s level of agreement with the statement “schools should teach children to obey authority.” Then they overlaid these results with responses to questions with overtly racial overtones such as “I wouldn’t mind working with people of other races.” I guess if you answer “yes” to authority and “no” to working with others not like you, you are a conservative racist. Conversely, if you replied “fight the power, maaan” and “I want my office to look like a rainbow, my brother,” then you are a tolerant and cognitively well-adjusted liberal. Oh, if only the world were so simple. But the world is not simple.  Even the questions I offer as examples have nuance. For instance, I was never taught by my Marine Corps dad (as conservative as they come) to unconditionally obey authority. In fact, he revered the Founding Fathers, for whom declaring our independence was an enormous thumb in the eye of the crown’s authority. I was, however, taught to respect authority. There is a subtle difference. When it comes to blindly obeying, it depends on the situation. If it involves heeding police instructions at an intersection, then by all means I do it—unless I discover that the cops are beating a man to death with night sticks and demanding I join in.  As to working with other races, that depends on the individuals. Are they college-educated or street thugs? Are they going to speak a foreign language in my presence all day, making me uncomfortable? This applies to whites as well, though. Are they respectable or trailer trash? So it is not race per se that will make me choose the complexion of my co-workers but who they are. How does one distill these textured concepts into a questionnaire that may pigeonhole me as racist if I check box A instead of B? Speaking of complexity and texture: to me, the salient feature of this article and only real admission that this study may not be fair, or even complete, is this parenthetical afterthought: “(These questions measured overt prejudiced attitudes, but most people, no matter how egalitarian, do hold unconscious racial biases ; Hodson’s work can’t speak to this ‘underground’ racism.)” Well, I can speak to it. “Underground racism” is an antiseptic term for  “how liberals behave as opposed to what they profess.” One can insist until blue in the face that they are color-blind (and answer as such on Hodson’s study earning them a gold star), but the moment they can afford to, they will move as fast as they can to an all-white neighborhood to raise their kids. They will insist  they do not see the world through multi-colored glasses, but when a presidential candidate calls Barack Obama the “food stamp president,” immediately those whom I bet this study would label as the non-racists jump to the conclusion that such a statement is racially charged. It is not. It is a straightforward fact that more Americans of all shades have joined the food stamp rolls during Obama’s watch than ever before. One can argue the economics underscoring this trend, but only those who either consciously or subconsciously associate food stamps with blacks would see racism in such a statement where none exists. So who are the true bigots again? I refer you to Bill Maher for an illustration of the concept. “Underground racism” comes in many forms, some of which are quite insidious, such as  paternalism of the state. Also, there is that ever-so-subtle patronizing so common in liberal arts academia and mainstream journalism. For example, some can argue that those who oppose “Black History Month” could be racist. Yet, what does promoting such an idea say about those who envision and proffer it?  As black actor Morgan Freeman once said in a moment of racial clarity that has since abandoned him, only one who views the world through the prism of color would see ‘black history’ at all and not simply American history. Freeman asked the poster-child of elitist race-pandering Mike Wallace, who also happens to be Jewish, what month is “Jewish History Month”? There is none. Does Wallace want one? Emphatically, he replied no.Yet he defends Black History Month why, exactly? I wonder how Wallace and his peers would have scored on Hodson’s study—a study in which the very definition of racism is, if not off-sides, then at least incomplete. In a way, even well-intentioned academics could be falling victim to some odd cousin of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle with such studies. I find it somewhat unfeasible that a liberal (call it a hunch) who views conservative ideology with hostility could possibly create a study that does not have this bias seep into the methodology making truly impartial findings beyond reach. As anyone who has seen the liberal bias of  the mainstream media in action can attest (see Obama 2008 campaign), it is almost impossible to separate personal beliefs from such human nature studies far removed from the more precise physical sciences that attempt to link a political ideology to both intelligence and an ingrained, if unpleasant, human characteristic. Another attempt to explain this human characteristic is provided by Ms. Pappas through a link to a piece about the various “isms” and their relation to societal rather than cognitive influences as studied by Georgia Tech psychologist Paul Verhaeghen. “There’s one idea that people tend to associate black people with violence, women with weakness, or older people with forgetfulness because they are prejudiced. But there’s another possibility that what’s in your head is not you, it’s the culture around you,” Verhaeghen said in a statement. To me there is a glaring problem with Verhaeghan’s thinking at its core and reveals a pre-determined idea of what counts for an “ism” that surely influences his research. Whatever their origin, his examples  are not expressions of bias at all. They are associations based upon empirical fact, regardless of how uncomfortable or politically incorrect. In the United States, blacks do commit an alarmingly disproportionate number of violent crimes relative to their population. It is therefore not ‘prejudiced’ to associate blacks, who though only 18% of the population commit half of all homicides, with violence more than whites, but rather a reflection of a sad reality. If I am prejudiced for saying this, then what of Jesse Jackson who admitted: “ There is nothing more painful to me… than to walk down the street and hear footsteps and start thinking about robbery. Then look around and see somebody white and feel relieved. ” And it is not a stereotype to label women as physically weaker than men on the whole. If you think otherwise then you have never watched a sporting event in your life. There is a reason why we have the WNBA, women’s tennis, women’s golf, etc. Again, that is just seeing life as it is, not as one would want it to be. Yet again, one aspect of old age for many seniors is indeed memory loss (as I am starting to discover myself, unfortunately). Yet again, one aspect of old age is indeed mem—ach, you see? So the question really comes to mind: how can one possibly make a study of what is “prejudiced” or not when its very definition I believe to be suspect or at least  in the eye of the one running the study. What one researcher describes as a “stereotype” I would argue is just recording what your own eyes see and what the data confirms. In some circles this is known as a reality check. And based on his faulty notion of prejudice, in the end we see a supposedly impartial researcher’s true left-wing agenda seep through in the conclusion he drws from his biased study. After deciding that what you see, hear, and read is making us bigots rather than observers, Verhaegan offers something that would make George Orwell cringe: “There’s a reason for political correctness ,” he says. “At least, as studies suggest, it might be a good idea to not put stereotypes out there too clearly, because if you do, people will internalize them.” Oh yes, we need even more stifled dialogue. Maybe that will get us to racial nirvana. Do such studies ever leave liberals holding the short intelligence straw? Actually, in May 2010, the Journal of The American Institute for Economic Enlightenment did a study trying to find clues to economic literacy which included links to political ideology. It asked eight questions about economics such as “Agree/disagree: rent control leads to housing shortages” (Disagree=economically unenlightened). The results found that the least economically enlightened defined themselves as “progressive/very liberal.” The most economically astute were “very conservative.” So what does this pro-conservative economics survey tell us? Are liberals, in fact, economic nit-wits? Well, I’m not sure, but I know I didn’t read about it on and the ABC-affiliated Yahoo! News . And I highly doubt even if they did grudgingly report the findings, they would have led with something so damning as “As is to be expected, liberals are economically illiterate.” One thing it could mean is that such surveys involving correlations between intelligence, racism, economics and politics could be as inexact as the science of psychology itself… and as prone to bias as the researchers clamoring for relevance—and perhaps, even, also seeking a bit of reassurance that their own left-wing political beliefs stem from a superior intelligence to match their attitudes.

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Are Liberals Smarter and Nicer? Just Ask Academia

AP – Federal policing of oil and natural gas drilling on public lands is lax and inconsistent, with only 6 percent of violations resulting in monetary fines over 13 years, House Democrats said in a report Wednesday.

Link:
APNewsBreak: Dems hit lax fed drilling oversight
(AP)