And next week the Supreme Court will hear arguments on its constitutionality. Many are suggesting that a decision in ObamaCare’s favor will actually damage Obama’s reelection chances.
More specifically, eight out of the eleven “Stupak Block Flippers” (i.e., the theoretically staunch pro-life Democrats who swore up and down they would never, ever, ever vote for ObamaCare if it included taxpayer funding for abortion, right up until they voted for taxpayer-funded abortion) went down in electoral defeat. At the time, the insistence for public funding for abortion seemed like a tactical error on the part of liberals. After all, why bother with that tiny sop to feminists when you’re busy nationalizing one-sixth of the economy?
But since then, the fervor with which Democrats have pursued imposing this mandate on Catholics (part and parcel of their contempt for religion), their white hot fury at Rush Limbaugh’s (admittedly foolish) remarks, and the continuing overheated, drama queen “war on women” rhetoric coming from the left side of the blogsphere suggests that yes, that was what ObamaCare was really about, and they’re willing to remain a permanent political minority to maintain it.
So be it. If forcing taxpayers to pay for abortions is the hill they want to die on*, I suppose we should let them. (Though not at the cost of failing to mention Obama’s failure on the economy, on creating the conditions for private industry to create jobs, Fast & Furious, or his naked cronyism.) As Mickey Kaus has noted, this issue is a serious political loser for Obama, and we should keep hammering away on it, not despite the shrieks of outrage from liberalism’s feminist amen corner, but because of them.
*”Violent, eliminationist” military metaphor offered up as free rhetorical bonus!
I was busy with a family even over the weekend, so I haven’t had a chance to sit down and watch the debate all the way through. But I’ll go ahead and put it up for others to take a gander at (Hat tip: The Right Side of Austin). Be aware that the debate doesn’t actually start until over an hour into the video. I’ve heard of long intros, but that’s ridiculous…
The Cruz campaign sent out a list of links, and rather than link all of them and claim them as my own, I’ll just direct you thataway.
One link they didn’t send out was this review over at Big Jolly Politics, where he gave James, Addison and Dewhurst As, Cruz a B, and Leppert a C.
Kathleen McKinney ranked it Cruz first, James second, and Leppert last (“Not a lot of flash there”), though her overall impressions of all were positive.
We’ve lost one of the great heroes of the 20th century.
Vaclav Havel, a man who was (in chronological order) an important playwright, a hero of the struggle against communism, and founding President of the Czech Republic, is dead at 75.
Of the three, Havel’s role in the struggle against communism was far and away the most important. In a country in which the state’s (and in turn Moscow’s) imprimatur was necessary for a playwright to make a living, Havel refused to buckle under or avoid criticizing the great evil that was communism. In the wake of Prague Spring, his works were banned and he was repeatedly imprisoned, but he kept speaking out, finally helping lead the Velvet Revolution and, after the fall of Communism, setting the stage for the “Velvet Divorce,” in which the Czech Republic and Slovakia split peacefully into two separate nations, even though he opposed it.
Havel, unlike Yasser Arafat, Le Duc Tho and Barack Obama, never won a Nobel Peace Prize, despite doing more for peace, justice and freedom than the vast majority of winners.
Understand that there are people as noble, brave and truthful as Havel sitting in jail in Cuba and China this very moment, many of whom who have been beaten and tortured for speaking truth to power. And Havel, in and out of power, never stopped fighting for the victims of communism, as shown by this video:
Craig James takes a leave of absence from ESPN to mull a Senate run. That’s certainly a much stronger indication he’ll run than we’ve had before.
I was unaware until I read this Chronicle piece that James joined the Texas Public Policy Foundation (and seems to have done some events for them, though he does not seem to currently be on the board), which would indicate at least some familiarity with conservative policy issues. Of course, Ted Cruz used to work in TPPP’s Center for Tenth Amendment Studies.
Another longshot Republican candidate , “Dr. Joe” Agris, files for the race. Dr. Agris is evidently a plastic surgeon who has done some good works, many in association with late Houston broadcasting legend Marvin Zindler (who made use of Dr. Agris services on many an occasion). Dr. Agris is not entirely a political neophyte, having run in the general election for Texas House District 134 in 2008. He reportedly waged a low-effort campaign (or so says lefty Houston blog Off the Kuff), pulling in only 42% of the vote in a distract John McCain won. He’s evidently been contemplating this run at least since April.
It takes a while for the FEC to put up the list of individual donations (even longer than putting up the summary reports), so I didn’t think to check out David Dewhurst’s individual contributions until this week. One thing that jumped out at me from the report was just how many donations he got from lawyers at Fulbright & Jaworski.
Fulbright & Jaworski ranked 52 overall on the Vault list of the top 100 law firms in the U.S., and fourth in the energy sector. The Jaworksi in the name comes from Watergate prosecutor Leon Jaworski. They’re headquartered in Houston but have offices worldwide. They’re generally considered one of the three biggest law firms in Houston, the other two being Baker Botts and Vinson & Elkins.
From the FEC, here are the donations Dewhurst received from Fulbright & Jaworski employees for his senate race (presented in the same format provided by the FEC, both for authenticity, and because I’m too lazy to reformat them):
BELL, JERRY A MR JR AUSTIN TX 78701 09/27/2011 1000.00 FULBRIGHT & JAWORSKI, L.L.P./ATTOR
BODE, JOYCE R MS AUSTIN TX 78701 09/27/2011 1000.00 FULBRIGHT & JAWORSKI, L.L.P.
I actually offer this up as more of a data point than a “gotcha.” While some Fulbright & Jaworski lawyers have been involved in liberal causes (like representing detained terrorists at Guantanamo Bay), 71% of their political donations have gone to Republicans. Fulbright & Jaworski seems to have done a lot of work for Dewhurst’s company Falcon Seaboard. (The Howard Wolf listed above is actually a retired partner for Fulbright & Jaworsk, as he’s currently President and Acting Chairman of Falcon Seaboard, has been appointed to several state boards, and is one of Dewhurst’s closest confidants.) Indeed, Dewhurst’s ties to the company are so extensive that he was he was willing to do this video taking about how awesome they are:
(I was also surprised to find an old high school classmate in the same video…)
A roundup of Texas Senate Race news, some of which I would have reported sooner if my week hadn’t been so packed…
Rep. Mike McCaul passes on the race. Big news, and I think the Ted Cruz campaign is heaving a sigh of relief at not having someone as rich as David Dewhurst (but demonstrably more conservative than the Lt. Governor) in the race.
Here’s the audio for Ted Cruz’s appearance on the Mark Levin show.
Standard democratic talking points, well-spoken, but delivered in the tone of a slightly bored high school algebra teacher. Gravitas he’s got, but if this is the best he can do charisma wise, I don’t think any of the likely (or even unlikely) Republican candidates have anything to worry about. That accomplished, Sanchez seems to have gone back in hibernation for the rest of the week.
Robert T. Garrett of the The Dallas Morning News offers up a hard-hitting expose that absolutely nails Cruz…on not doing reporter’s homework for them. The upshot is that Cruz’s father was tortured by and fled the Batista regime rather than Castro’s communist regime. Did Cruz tell his story in a way that led people to believe that his father fled Castro? Yeah, he did. And that’s worth reporting. I can see doing at least a paragraph on that as part of a general article on Cruz. But it doesn’t explain why Garrett felt the need to expend 769 words explaining not that Cruz lied, but that he told an easily misinterpreted truth. Given that he hasn’t lied about anything, and has told the precise story forthrightly upon being questioned about it, it’s hard for me to work up any indignation about people misconstruing one part of a candidate’s father’s history.
Curt Cleaver raised $3,208, which is respectable for a longshot, especially considering his late start. (Psst, Curt, handy campaign tip: It actually costs you nothing to update your Facebook and Twitter pages more than once a month…)
Andrew Castanuela has raised $1,503. Coming up the rear is Beetlebaum Stanley Garza with $200…of which he’s spent $199. Got to save up for that big ad blitz…
Moammar Gadhafi, that is, in the Libyan city of Sirte. Although there are conflicting reports that he was only wounded, but this (graphic) video from the Telegraph shows someone who looks: A.) An awful lot like Gadhafi, and B.) An awful lot like dead.
Also reported dead: Moammar Gadhafi, Muammar el-Qaddafi, Moammar Kadafi, Muammar Gaddafi, Muammar Gadafy, Moammar Gaddafi, and Moammar Khaddafy.
According to the BBC, he was founding hiding in a drainage pipe, much like Saddam Hussein was pulled from his spider hole.
This is good news for Libya, for the United States, and the world. Now if we can just keep Jihadests from taking over in Tripoli, Obama will have an actual foreign policy accomplishment on his resume.
The MSM seems to have noticed that the Mexican cartels employee heavily armed paramilitary units, which anyone following the story on blogs would have known for, oh, at least a year.