Call It A Comeback
Or perhaps the many, many problems with France are well discussed by Fareed Zakaria. I think this is good companion to my comments on the usefulness of the Security Council and the UN to the United States.
Appeals to the Security Council serve our interest. If nothing else, it calls out the French, for being French.
Barney Frank just really bugs Dick Armey so he makes really stupid comments about any group Barney Franks is a member? Or maybe he is just a moron.
Learning from other people’s mistakes usually means one looks at the mistake, analyze what went wrong and then adjust behavior accordingly. Instead of doing this as a deliberate process, one could also choose to do the oppositve of the previous action and hope. It seems to me that this is what David Broder is describing. He discusses it as a radical departure from the recent past for Republicans. I see it as avenging Daddy without much thought as to the consequences.
Dick Morris says polling is now unreliable. Actually, it is Dick Morris who is unreliable. Polling is more challenging now than in the past, but Zogby has overcome this by taking care in getting a random, but representative sample. Other pollsters still fall within the margin of error so the whining is, as usual for Morris, what is unreliable. Likely voter models have always created divergence and now we are simply adding another layer of checks to ensure validity. Other pollsters are already following Zogby’s lead.
Kaus offers up comments on welfare again and loses any sort of balanced approach. First, welfare caseloads are down. This may or may not be a good sign. One of the features of welfare reform is that states have every incentive to cut-off recipients and so we see an increase in administrative cut-offs. From his link, we don’t have an analysis of what kind of cut-offs are they so whether this is good or not is hard to tell.
Admin cut-offs are for violating rules. Adding to this, caseloads should be dropping since many states are hitting the 5 year time limit–though many are evading this as well.
The second piece of news is also mixed. It is great that black children are moving out of poverty, but what does that mean about other race poverty since overall child poverty is constant? Probably that rural poverty isn’t being improved and that is going to be a serious test of welfare reform. Rural poverty is much harder to target as are rural schools.
Welfare reform did some good things, some bad things (permanent residents) and some things we just don’t understand yet. Kaus seems intent on using every piece of evidence to prove his point. The problem is he is supposed to be a journalist who has some objectivity.
Not Chuck Conway either….
K-Mart has more problems.
Steve Rhodes gives airing to Schipper some space regarding the conspiracy theories concerning Hamas, Oklahoma City, and Iraq. It is a conspiracy theory. Sometimes they turn out to be true, but mostly not. This probably falls in the not category.
Additionally, the theory seems to be that Hamas and Iraq cooperated on this. There is little evidence that Hamas operates outside of Israel and the immediate area. Fundraising yes, operations no.
This paragraph is especially problematic:
Schippers had come full circle. His theory: A Hamas front had trained Iraqis for participation in the Oklahoma City bombing. The path of Wright?s investigation had been converging with Davis?s all along. And bin Laden was behind the entire mess. Worse still, sources were saying the same conspirators were going to strike again.
This means Hamas, al Qaeda, and Iraq were cooperating to perform this function. This is hard to believe without substantial intelligence information.
Even stranger, why are they training for a job that really requires 2-4 people at most? At best, this is sloppy thinking.
What one seems left with is:
1) Hamas might be training in the US
2) There might be a third person involved in Oklahoma City
3) Apparently terrorists are now suing for libel?
Wanting something to be true, doesn’t make it so. And most of the “evidence” seems to be based on similar reasoning to those who compare coincidences between the Kennedy and Lincoln assassinations.
Rich Miller has the scoop on Lee Daniels’ money problems for the HRCC. The implications are very serious for the Illinois Circular Firing Squad Team. That money is used for a wide variety of functions including GOTV and GOTV is going to be the key to keeping Topinka and Birkett with a chance.
One should remember the Devine campaign a few years ago. He was well behind the incumbent and ended up winning through efforts of the coordinated campaign. On a statewide basis, a repeat for Dart is entirely possible and it would make the difference for Lisa Madigan.
I think at this point the polls for the Illinois race are going to have to be reexamined. This kind of debacle often leads to very low turnout for the Party facing multiple problems. Roesser made the point in his last column as well.
MONEY TROUBLES (excerpt) The House Republican Campaign Committee is meeting Thursday to talk about the budget for this fall’s electoral contests. This will not be a pleasant meeting.
Contributions have slowed to a trickle since the feds started poking around House GOP Leader Lee Daniels’ operation. And for the past few months, some of Daniels’ own members, even a few in hot races, are eschewing all funds from the HRCC and raising their own cash, which is diverting money that would have gone to Daniels’ fund. Some of Daniels’ members are also upset with him for refusing to supplement the HRCC account with money from his Friends of Lee Daniels fund, and that is leading to plenty of back-room sniping.
Rumors started flying this week when Daniels and the HRCC canceled a fundraiser scheduled for next month in Chicago. Insiders insist the fundraising event was never a major priority, but other Republicans believe Daniels couldn’t sell enough tickets to make it worthwhile. As Capitol Fax told you several days ago, Daniels has angrily lashed out at some lobbyists who have refused to contribute money. But since everyone figures he’s a goner after this term, he can’t strike much fear into anyone’s heart these days.
Word is the HRCC fall budget could be slashed in a major way, which would mean Daniels could have to bail out of some races that he might have a legit shot at if he had the dough.
Fortunately, Tim Noah did it for me. Gore is consistent on his position. He is still a giant pompous ass though. Big giant pompous ass.
Did I mention he is a big giant huge pompous ass?
The Circular Firing Squad is pointing out that all of the Illinois Dem statewide candidates are from Chicago. One problem, only one of their candidates is from below I-80 and he is from Galesburg. Oh, and one is from Rockford.
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