A group of high-ranking Democrat and Republican intelligence, military and national security officials are set to release a report today, ” Shariah: The Threat to America “, at a press conference on Capitol Hill this afternoon. Included in the group is former CIA Director James Woolsey, former DIA director Lt. Gen. Harry Soyster, former Defense Undersecretary for Intelligence Lt Gen. Jerry Boykin and former Clinton federal prosecutor Andy McCarthy. Here’s a sneek peek from Bill Gertz at the Washington Times: Frank Gaffney, director of the Center for Security Policy, said the Obama administration’s policy is based on an incorrect assumption. The Team B report seeks to expose flaws in anti-terror programs, including the policy of not referring to al Qaeda and similar groups as “Islamist” to avoid offending Muslims, he said. “What if it turns out that some of the people the Obama administration has been embracing are actually promoting the same totalitarian ideology and seditious agenda as al Qaeda, only they’re doing it from White House Iftar dinners?” said Mr. Gaffney , referring to the daily meal eaten by Muslims to break their fast during Ramadan. The group of experts was modeled after the official CIA Team B, whose 1976 contrary analysis said U.S. intelligence assessments had underestimated Soviet nuclear forces. That Team B report led to the military buildup under the Reagan administration. John Brennan, deputy White House national security adviser for counterterrorism, told The Washington Times in June that he disagrees that “there is an Islamic dimension to terrorism.” The administration’s policy of not using the word Islam and its derivatives to describe today’s fundamentalist terrorists is aimed at “not according these individuals any religious legitimacy,” he said. But I suspect this report will make the case that Al-Qaeda might actually have religious legitimacy in light of Islam’s call for global domination and jihad waged against all who do not submit. The report will be available online after 12:30pm today at this link at the Center for Security Policy.
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Shariah a threat to US, security pros report say
Paul With two-thirds of the vote counted, Christine O’Donnell leads Mike Castle by almost 10 percentage points in the Senate primary. Unless the remaining vote is heavily skewed towards Castle precincts, O’Donnell obviously is looking very strong. In light of recent polling, an O’Donnell win wouldn’t be surprising. But considering where she started in the race, I certainly think such a win would be an upset. UPDATE: The race has been called for O’Donnell. She wins by 7 percentage points [make that 6 points].. The result represents a victory for the Tea Party Express and Sarah Palin. But I believe the big winner is Chris Coons, the Democrat, whom I expect to defeat O’Donnell handily in November, as Joe Biden defeated her last time. Meanwhile, Beau Biden must be wishing he had run this year. It’s generally believed that Castle scared him off. It’s disappointing to squander an opportunity to pick up a Senate seat. But it will not be tragic for Republicans (or a “nightmare,” to use Politico’s description ) unless it costs Republicans control of the Senate, and that’s unlikely. How unlikely? Nate Silver , who crunches numbers and has a good track record, estimates that O’Donnell’s nomination lowers Republican chances of gaining control of the Senate from 30 percent to 21 percent (if the Republicans nominate Kelly Ayotte in New Hampshire) and from 23 percent to 16 percent (if the Republicans nominate Ovide Lamontagne instead of Ayotte). Lamontagne leads Ayotte in New Hampshire in the early results. If that result holds, then according to Silver’s model, Republican chances of capturing control of the Senate will have dropped in one night from 30 percent, in an optimal scenario, to 16 percent. However, in my view Silver’s model has too many moving parts to put much stock in. It is clear to me that O’Donnell’s victory lowers the odds of Republicans taking control of the Senate, but by how much I have no precise idea. SECOND UPDATE: There’s another possible nightmare scenario associated with O’Donnell’s victory: Coons is elected and during the lame duck session casts the 60th vote for an awful piece of legislation that Castle has opposed. But I think this possibility is remote. JOHN adds: It is worth noting that the Tea Party movement flexed its muscles in New York, too, where businessman Carl Paladino beat Rick Lazio , who ran against Hillary Clinton a few years ago, for the GOP gubernatorial nomination. Lazio is, as far as I know, a solid conservative–I think he is the only New York politician to whose campaign I have ever donated–but Paladino was the upstart Tea Party guy. It probably won’t matter, as either Lazio or Paladino would be a prohibitive underdog against Andrew Cuomo in November. Still, it is one more sign that 2010 is the Year of the Tea Party.
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An upset in Delaware?
Paul Mark Levin attempts to bob-and-weave around some of the inaccuracies that plagued his initial response to my post about the role of some conservative activists in the Delaware Senate primary. Other inaccuracies he simply ignores. I’ll leave it to our readers to assess Levin’s efforts. I will point out, however, that Levin has introduced a new factual error on the core issue of Mike Castle’s voting record. My initial post criticized Levin for exaggerated claims about the extent to which Castle casts liberal votes. I noted that his ACU rating is 52 percent. Taking up my challenge to look at data before opining, Levin writes: Mirengoff pulled the 52 percent figure because it was the last ACU rating – in 2009. But the year before, in 2008, he received a 28 rating from ACU. I am citing the same organization and the same rating system as Mirengoff, and I think any rational person looking at those figures would conclude that Castle votes wrong — from a conservative perspective — most of the time. Actually, the 52 percent figure is Castle’s “lifetime rating,” i.e., for his 17 years in Congress. His rating in 2009 was 56 percent. Levin also claims that, based on the “Buckley rule” I should now support Christine O’Donnell because one poll has her leading Mike Castle. But this argument fails to grasp Buckley’s rule. It has little or nothing to do with who leads in polls among Republicans . The Buckley rule, in essence, is that, when selecting among Republicans, conservatives should support the most conservative electable option. “Electable” entails winning in November against the Democrat. Thus, it’s the polls that pit O’Donnell against the Democrat that matter for purposes of the Buckley rule. Last I saw, they showed her trailing substantially. Levin’s misunderstanding of this concept also informs the portion of his post in which he criticizes me for saying that the Tea Party acted reasonably by supporting conservatives in several states. (Levin is unhappy that I didn’t name names; apparently he has forgotten that my iniitial post, about which he wrote a few days ago, discussed a series of states by name). Levin notes that Joe Miller’s victory in Alaska, for example, was an upset win. The point, though, is that Miller is electable in conservative Alaska. Thus, it was consistent with the Buckley rule for conservatives who were so inclined to support Miller. Delaware is quite a different matter. Levin also has difficulty keeping his story straight on my culpability if O’Donnell is nominated and defeated. At one point, he writes: “Just because I decided to engage him doesn’t mean there’s a single voter in Delaware who gives a damn who he supports or would support.” But a few paragraph later he says: “Mirengoff, et al, may well contribute to [O'Donnell's] defeat in a general election, should it come to that.” I may be a nobody or I may be a spolier. But as much as Levin might wish otherwise, I can’t be both in this context.
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A sur-reply to Mark Levin
Rep. Charlie Rangel: The 20-term New York Democrat faces a public hearing as early as September on charges ranging from failure to pay taxes on rent from a Dominican Republic villa to using his influence as chairman of the powerful Ways and Means Committee to secure donations for a namesake school in his district. Rep. Maxine Waters: Like…
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Rangel may face hearing this month
Paul Earlier this week, Mark Levin responded to one of my posts about the Delaware Senate primary. In that post , I noted that, in 2006, leftist activists supported less than reliably liberal Democratic candidates like Ben Nelson and were rewarded for their flexibility with the passage of Obamacare. I then argued that, by supporting Christine O’Donnell in the Delaware Senate primary despite the likelihood (demonstrated by polls) that she would lose the general election, whereas her centrist opponent in the primary would likely win, certain Republican activists are being less astute than leftists like Markos Moulitsas were in 2006. Levin’s response consists mostly of a series of misstatements about me and misrepresentations of what I argued. The misstatements undermine his ad hominem arguments. The use of straw men undermines his more substantive ones. The misstatements begin in the first paragraph, where Levin erroneously says I once was a lawyer from Minnesota. They end, less trivially, in a brief update where he purports to explain my anti-O’Donnell position by claiming that Power Line supported Arlen Specter over Pat Toomey. In fact, we have been Toomey supporters dating back to 2004 when I wrote a few days before the Republican primary: My reason for favoring Toomey is [that] Specter is simply too liberal to support when there is a decent conservative alternative. . . The time to consider a pragmatic vote for Specter will be in November, if he survives his race with Toomey (he is still ahead, though Toomey is said to be gaining). Next Tuesday, the choice for mainstream Republicans should be obvious — Pat Toomey. Toomey is a proven vote-getter. O’Donnell was routed when she ran for office in the past and currently is well behind the presumptive Democratic nominee in the polls. That, not some prejudice in favor of incumbents when they run against more conservative Republicans, explains my position in the Delaware primary. In the same paragraph, Levin says we supported the nomination of Harriet Miers. I did at first, but changed my position after facts about her past positions came to light. So we can give Levin credit for a half truth on this one. Levin doesn’t just misstate my prior positions; he fails throughout his post accurately to represent the argument he’s attacking. He writes: Mirengoff starts from the proposition that long-time Republican officials deserve re-election. There may be occasions when a decent conservative can be supported over an establishment Republican. But those occasions are few and far between. And the conservative challenger must be as close to a sure thing in the general election as possible, otherwise it’s not worth the effort. Not only do these statements not appear in my post, they are directly contrary to what I wrote. My argument expressly started from William Buckley’s proposition (which I called wise) that conservatives should support the most conservative (or least liberal) electable candidate. I then argued that although Tea Party activists have generally followed this approach in 2010, they are not following it in Delaware, where polls, coupled with the state’s recent electoral history and O’Donnell’s prior poor showings, provide strong evidence that the O’Donnell is unlikely to win in November. Levin never engages these matters. Rather he avoids the issue by erroneously implying that my opposition to O’Donnell stems from the fact that she is not “close to a sure thing.” Neither was Toomey in 2004 (or even in 2010), but I supported him. Levin also declines to address specific problems with O’Donnell as a candidate that have come to light. Unfortunately, the voters of Delaware will almost surely be less forgiving. This willingness to glide past O’Donnell’s various weaknesses is one reason to fear that the left was more astute in 2006 than some of our activists are this year. Levin also claims that I’ve been “talking up” Mike Castle’s voting record. In fact, I have expressed my unhappiness with it, and have made clear that I would support a more conservative option if one appeared to have a decent chance of winning. Indeed, my posts about the Delaware primary didn’t take a position adverse to O’Donnell until polls began to show her trailing the Democrat by double digits. I have noted that Castle votes conservative about half of the time. I based this claim on the fact that his ACU rating is 52 percent. Levin claims that Castle votes the wrong way most of the time, but is unable to cite any quantitative analysis (e.g., some other credible index) that supports this assertion. Instead, he simply lists votes Castle has made over the years that were not conservative. The less than analytical nature of this approach is another reason to fear that the left was more astute in 2006 than some of our activists are this year. My favorite Levin error is his claim that Lindsey Graham is “my brand of Republican.” In fact, I’ve been a persistent and bitter critic of Graham (“the Arlen Specter of the South” as I call him) since the early days of our blog. Several years ago, with Graham’s bid for re-election in mind, I tried to promote an anti-Graham website in South Carolina. More recently, I expressed my hope that the Tea Party movement will target Graham in 2014. My criticism of Graham has not gone unnoticed by his office. A year or two ago, I had a pointed exchange of emails with one of his top staff members. The tip of that iceberg is here . Levin commits other errors as well, but let’s focus now on what he got right: (1) Levin doesn’t know me and (2) Scott Johnson is a “nice guy” and is smarter than I am.
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Are their activists smarter than our activists? A reply to Mark Levin
For general discussion and debate. Possible talking point: Here’s change you can believe in! The number of people in the U.S. who are in poverty is on track for a record increase on President Barack Obama’s watch, with the ranks of working-age poor approaching 1960s levels that led to the national war on poverty. Census figures for 2009 – the recession-ravaged first year of the Democrat’s presidency – are to be released in the coming week, and demographers expect grim findings. The anticipated poverty rate increase – from 13.2 percent to about 15 percent – would be another blow to Democrats struggling to persuade voters to keep them in power. (more stats follow) Should those estimates hold true, some 45 million people in this country, or more than 1 in 7, were poor last year. It would be the highest single-year increase since the government began calculating poverty figures in 1959. The previous high was in 1980 when the rate jumped 1.3 percentage points to 13 percent during the energy crisis. Among the 18-64 working-age population, the demographers expect a rise beyond 12.4 percent, up from 11.7 percent. That would make it the highest since at least 1965, when another Democratic president, Lyndon B. Johnson, launched the war on poverty that expanded the federal government’s role in social welfare programs from education to health care. To be sure, this is really bad news for Obama and Democrats. However, if the poverty rate ends up being the highest since LBJ started this “war on poverty,” doesn’t it mean we’ve lost, and that expanding “the federal government’s role in social welfare programs from education to health care” has totally failed? Of course, such an obvious conclusion won’t be made by the Left which will certainly use this data to call for even more socialism, correct?
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Obamanomics Open Thread: Poverty on Track for Record Gain in 2009
Worst. President. Ever. The number of Americans who in poverty skyrocketed during Obama’s first year in office. People are so poor that they can’t even afford to bury their dead. U.S. Poverty rate increases from 13.2% to record 15% under Obama. The AP reported: The number of people in the U.S. who are in poverty is on track for a record increase on President Barack Obama’s watch, with the ranks of working-age poor approaching 1960s levels that led to the national war on poverty. Census figures for 2009 — the recession-ravaged first year of the Democrat’s presidency — are to be released in the coming week, and demographers expect grim findings. It’s unfortunate timing for Obama and his party just seven weeks before important elections when control of Congress is at stake. The anticipated poverty rate increase — from 13.2 percent to about 15 percent — would be another blow to Democrats struggling to persuade voters to keep them in power. “The most important anti-poverty effort is growing the economy and making sure there are enough jobs out there,” Obama said Friday at a White House news conference. He stressed his commitment to helping the poor achieve middle-class status and said, “If we can grow the economy faster and create more jobs, then everybody is swept up into that virtuous cycle.”
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Poverty Skyrockets Under Obama – People Too Poor to Bury Their Dead
Paul Politico reports that Sen. Lisa Murkowski is close to making a decision on whether to run as a write-in candidate in Alaska, having narrowly failed to win the Republican primary. According to Politico, the indications seem to be that she will go forward with a write-in campaign. As a general matter, I don’t have a problem with Senators who lose their primary running for re-election anyway. Senators must cast difficult votes; they can’t just posture like their challengers frequently do. If their choices alienate their party but not the state’s electorate as a whole, they may well deserve re-election or at least the opportunity to see whether the electorate wants them re-elected. For example, it made sense for Joe Lieberman to run as an independent for the U.S Senate after his courageous stand in favor of succeeding in Iraq — vindicated in my opinion by subsequent events — caused him to lose the Democratic primary in 2006. Lieberman was the Senator from Connecticut, not the Senator from the Democratic voters of Connecticut, and he had every right to see whether the voters of Connecticut wanted him to remain in the Senate. But Lieberman’s decision didn’t present any risk that the seat would fall into the hands of the Republican candidate. Similarly, in Florida Charlie Crist’s decision to run doesn’t open the seat up for Democrat Kendrick Meek (though Crist himself may caucus with the Dems). In Alaska, however, I wonder whether Murkowski’s candidacy might give the Democratic candidate a shot at winning. If so, she should sit the race out. Even if regard for one’s party doesn’t require deferring to the wishes of the party’s voters, it should require not tipping a race to the other party. This is especially true when control of the Senate hangs in the balance, as it well may this year. If Murkowski really did lose the Alaska primary because her supporters didn’t turn out, then she should be able to win the Republican nomination four years from now and challenge the incumbent Democrat at that time. Alternatively, she can leave the party and run in four years as a third-party candidate. But this year, her focus should be on helping the Republican party hold her seat in order to stop the Obama-Reid-Pelosi steamroller. In a two-way race, Joe Miller holds the seat for the Republicans. In a three way race, I don’t think it’s clear that the Democrat loses.
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Say it ain’t so, Lisa
Paul Today, the Friday before the Delaware primary, at 8:30 in the evening, Sen. Jim DeMint finally endorsed Christine O’Donnell. DeMint said that O’Donnell “will stand strong for the principles of freedom.” I like DeMint. But if “principles of freedom” are at stake, I wonder why DeMint didn’t endorse O’Donnell earlier. Her campaign has been attempting to win his endorsement for weeks, if not months. DeMint admitted that he has been watching the race for some time, and jumped in now because the polls showed it tightening. One might have expected him to try to lead, rather than follow public opinion. In any case, if DeMint wants to follow polls, he might be better advised to watch the ones that show O’Donnell lagging well behind the Democrat in the general election. The endorsements of first Sarah Palin and now DeMint help O’Donnell in two ways. First, they may mean better turnout from staunchly conservative voters. Second, they may give enhanced credibility among Repubicans who fall somewhere in between O’Donnell and Castle on the ideological spectrum. Some of these voters may be considering O’Donnell, but know her only as two-time political loser who has trouble with her finances and with telling the truth about her most recent electoral defeat. Maybe the two recent endorsements will cause center-right Republicans to see her in a better light. Unfortunately, they won’t do much to help her win over the center and center-left voters who dominate the Delaware electorate in general elections.
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DeMint finally jumps in
Republicans are pressuring local TV stations not to air campaign ads for Democratic candidates or their allies. There’s been a “pattern of lies, distortions, and falsehoods being pushed by Democratic organizations, candidates, and allies,” according to the National Republican Congressional Committee, which asked station managers to “exercise due diligence” when deciding to air campaign commercials this fall. “As station manager, you are certainly in no way obligated to air these ads and we would encourage you to exercise due diligence in investigating claims and accusations made before airing any ads created by Democrat organizations, candidates, or allies,” Jessica Furst, general counsel for the NRCC, wrote in a letter sent Thursday to station managers in media markets where Democrats have reserved air time. Furst cites a Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee ad aired against Rep. Charles Djou (R) before the May special election vote in Hawaii. She also cites ads by Reps. Zack Space (D-Ohio) and Ben Chandler (D-Ky.) , the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees and other liberal groups. “We request that you exercise your right, consistent with FCC regulations, to reject any attempt by a candidate, political party, or third-party group to purchase time for an advertisement that communicates misleading and blatantly false messages such as those discussed above,” Furst wrote. “In most cases, you can insist that false statements be corrected before your station runs the ad. We trust that you agree that advertisements containing material misstatements of fact intended to deceive voters have no place on your station’s airwaves.”
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Republicans want TV stations to pull the plug on Dem ads