Obama's Malaise

At CNN, "Nearly three-fourths say recession not over" (via Glenn Reynolds and Memeorandum):

Economic experts may believe the recession is over, but try telling that to the public.

Seventy-four percent of Americans believe the economy is still in a recession, according to a new CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll. Only 25 percent think the downturn is over.

One-third of Americans say the recession is serious, while another 29 percent characterize it as moderate ....

Administration officials, while sounding guardedly optimistic about overall trends, have repeatedly expressed concern for those impacted by the sluggish economy.

"Obviously, for the millions of people who are still out of work, people who have seen their home values decline, people who are struggling to pay the bills day to day, [the recession is] still very real for them," President Barack Obama said last week.

CARTOON CREDIT: Theo Spark.

Democrats Unleash Ads Focusing on Rivals' Pasts

At New York Times (via Memeorandum, iOWNTHEWORLD, and Pirate's Cove):

Democratic candidates across the country are opening a fierce offensive of negative advertisements against Republicans, using lawsuits, tax filings, reports from the Better Business Bureau and even divorce proceedings to try to discredit their opponents and save their Congressional majority.

Opposition research and attack advertising are used in almost every election, but these biting ads are coming far earlier than ever before, according to party strategists. The campaign has intensified in the last two weeks as early voting begins in several states and as vulnerable incumbents try to fight off an onslaught of influences by outside groups.

As they struggle to break through with economic messages, many Democrats are deploying the fruits of a yearlong investigation into the business and personal histories of Republican candidates in an effort to plant doubts about them and avoid having races become a national referendum on the performance of President Obama and his party.

Well, it's not "plant doubts about them." It's smear and destroy them. Allen West had his Social Security number released by Florida Democrats. I like playing hardball, but that's especially sleazy. And Dems don't seem to be so concerned on "family values," and hence "divorce proceedings" wouldn't normally be something for a campaign ad buy. That is, unless you're totally desperate:

In Ohio, Representative Betty Sutton calls her Republican rival, Tom Ganley, a “dishonest used-car salesman” who has been sued more than 400 times for fraud, discrimination, lying to customers about repairs, overcharging them and endangering their safety. She warns voters, “You’ve heard the old saying, buyer beware!”

In Arizona, Representative Harry E. Mitchell accused his opponent David Schweikert of being “a predatory real estate speculator who snatched up nearly 300 foreclosed homes, been cited for neglect and evicted a homeowner on the verge of saving his house, just to make a buck.”

In New York, Representative Michael Arcuri introduces his Republican challenger, Richard Hanna, as a millionaire who “got rich while his construction company overcharged taxpayers thousands, was sued three times for injuries caused by faulty construction and was cited 12 times for health and safety violations.”

Empathy? Bill Clinton Says Dems Should Blame the GOP

The Clinton interview ran Wednesday. More recently John Harwood spoke to President Obama and a number of Democrat operatives, and the take there is a bit different, "Obama, Empathy and the Midterms" (via Memeorandum):

That’s where, over salad and swordfish, former aides to another Democratic president, Bill Clinton, explored principal questions hanging over the coming midterm elections. How can Mr. Obama do better at defending his record and his party’s candidates from the wrath of an unhappy electorate? Why doesn’t he receive more credit for winning passage of expanded health care coverage, new financial regulations and an economic stimulus package that many independent economists say helped end the Great Recession? Why can’t he get his message out?

Republicans argue that it’s because Mr. Obama has expanded the size of government and swelled federal deficits, with little to show for it, in the face of public resistance. But Democrats, who share the president’s philosophy, look for other explanations.

The former Clinton aides, like many pundits, turned to Mr. Obama’s cool, cerebral public style. Emotional connection was an aspect of leadership at which Mr. Clinton, for better or worse, excelled. If only Mr. Obama could more effectively demonstrate empathy, they argued, he might be able to convince the supporters he thrilled in 2008 that he’s still on their side.

That observation has gained wide acceptance in Washington. Mr. Obama may have played like a rock star in the campaign arenas of 2008, according to this view, but he displays a Spock-like emotional aridity in more intimate settings. In reality, however, a look back at previous midterm elections, especially during economic weakness, suggests that dollars and cents matter far more than hugs or lip-biting.

Bill Clinton was a better politician than Barack Obama, although both men are stained by the same fatal deceits and socialist ambitions. Democrats can't escape the totalitarian impulse that drives their ideology. What they can do is fool the people, many of whom are already in the tank for the left's secular religion. Either way, sooner or later, a majority of the electorate turns against their party. In response, Dem insiders scheme ways of taking back control, portraying conservatives as venal and outside the mainstream. No biggie right now though. The coming reckoning is going to be huge, and it may make Clinton's 1994 debacle look like a tight contest in comparison. I can't wait.

South African Poacher Killed by Great White Shark

At London's Telegraph:

A poacher in South Africa has been eaten by a great white shark during an illegal fishing trip.

Khanyisile Momoza, 29, was attacked as he harvested valuable perlemoen shells in the waters near Gansbaai in South Africa.

The fisherman was among a group of 12 poachers who had tried to swim to safety after spotting the shark in shallow waters.
A friend of Mr Momoza, who witnessed the attack, said: "There was screaming and crying. We just swam, we didn't look back.

"We were swimming in a group but he was a bit behind us.

"It jumped out of the water with him and then it took him down."

The attack took place on Tuesday between Dyer Island and Pearly Beach, east of Cape Town.

In an interview with the Weekend Argus local newspaper, the victim's friend told how the poaching group had left the beach at 6am and swum for two hours before reaching the island three miles offshore, where they began hunting for perlemoen shellfish.

The men were swimming back to shore with their catch when the great white approached.

The survivors admitted they had been too scared for their own lives to help the stricken swimmer and raced back to dry land.

Once ashore the group alerted authorities to the tragedy.

More at the link.

RELATED: At the Daily Mail, "Jaws exposed: Extraordinary pictures of great whites stripping a whale carcass shows they're actually quite picky eaters."

Florida Democrats Release Alan West's Social Security Number

It's hard to play harder hardball.

At Fox News, "Dems Intentionally Released My Social Security Number, GOP Candidate Says":

It's not unusual for political races to turn nasty. But one congressional race in Florida is reaching a new low as Lt. Col. Allen West, the GOP challenger to Rep. Ron Klein, accuses state Democrats of intentionally including his Social Security number in a mailer to hundreds of thousands of voters.

The Florida Democratic Party says it was a mistake, apologized and offered up to two years of identity theft protection to West.

But the West campaign rejected the offer, calling it a "backhanded apology," and released a 30- second ad highlighting the incident, which it describes as a "desperate act."

"When my family and I first committed to continuing our lives of service to our country over three years ago, we fully expected a tough fight based upon ideological principles – I expected a real and tough debate about the direction of our country," West said in a press release announcing the ad. "Unfortunately for the voters of the 22nd Congressional District, my opponent – incumbent Ron Klein – has decided to engage in gutter politics instead of talking about the real issues facing our country."

That last video c/o Another Black Conservative, Shark Tank, and Memeorandum.

Prop 19 Backers Urge 'Burnout Turnout' in November

From Rolling Stone's pro-legalization article last month:

The black community isn't the only pivotal constituency in the battle for legalization: The state's prison guards are also likely to play a key role. Two years ago, when reform advocates in California placed an initiative on the ballot that would have relaxed penalties for nonviolent drug offenders, the measure seemed very likely to pass. Major donors like George Soros funded the campaign, and the initiative led in the polls for much of the year. Then the California Correctional Peace Officers Association — one of the most powerful unions in the state — spent $1 million on an ad campaign featuring Dianne Feinstein denouncing the initiative as a "drug dealer's bill of rights." In the end, the measure wound up losing by 19 points on Election Day. "If big money comes in on the other side," says Gutwillig of the Drug Policy Alliance, "it's very hard to win a reform of this nature."

For now, though, the prison guards are staying out of the fight. The union appears to have less of a stake in the measure than it did in the 2008 campaign, which directly threatened to reduce jobs in the prison industry. "At this time, we haven't taken a position on Proposition 19, and it's not certain that we will," says JeVaughn Baker, a spokesman for the union. The Tax Cannabis campaign, meanwhile, has won the endorsement of many prominent cops in the state, who argue that legalization will curb drug violence and free up cash-strapped police departments to focus on more serious crimes. "Like an increasing number of law enforcers, I have learned that most bad things about marijuana — especially the violence made inevitable by an obscenely profitable black market — are caused by the prohibition, not by the plant," retired San Jose police chief Joseph McNamara wrote in a recent op-ed for The San Francisco Chronicle.

This law-and-order approach plays well with soccer moms in Los Angeles, who often provide the swing vote in California politics. "Like most things in politics these days, it's going to come down to the conflicted baby boomers," says Bill Carrick, a prominent Democratic consultant based in Los Angeles. But leading Democrats are still shying away from the measure, fearing that legalization will be used against them as a wedge issue. At recent meetings, both the California Democratic Party and the California Labor Federation voted to remain neutral on Prop 19. "The Democratic point of view, which is understandable, is that we don't want to be seen as the party of drugs and dope," says Carrick.

In fact, advocates argue, the campaign to legalize pot could actually have the opposite effect, sparking a "burnout turnout" that will boost Democrats in November. When asked how the party can get first-time Obama voters to show up this fall, the 78-year-old chairman of the California Democratic Party, John Burton, gave a one-word answer: "Pot." Indeed, polls indicate that legalization could lure Obama voters to the polls like no other issue. The progressive blog Firedoglake and Students for Sensible Drug Policy recently launched a "Just Say Now" campaign, both online and through college campuses, to turn out young voters. And Nate Silver, the noted political statistician, believes that polling on pot, which shows legalization with a 50-50 chance of passing, may undercount its true support. In a reverse of the so-called Bradley Effect, in which white voters support black candidates in public but vote against them in private, voters may denounce legalization to pollsters but quietly support it on Election Day. Silver dubs this the "Broadus Effect" in honor of Calvin Broadus, better known as Snoop Dogg.

Like most ballot initiatives, the fight to legalize pot will ultimately come down to money, especially since neither side has much funding right now. In the first six months of this year, Public Safety First raised only $41,000 — most of it from the California Police Chiefs Association — and spent all but $19,000. Tax Cannabis raised considerably more, though it still has only $62,000 in the bank, a paltry number in California politics. (By comparison, the campaigns for and against gay marriage spent a total of $80 million.) Richard Lee, who launched the legalization measure, is largely tapped out, and it's unclear if big-money supporters like George Soros will join the fray. "I don't see anybody jumping in big-time tomorrow," says Nadelmann, who has coordinated funding for previous drug-reform efforts. "But funders are keeping their ears open. So they're not saying no."

RTWT at the link.

Look, marijuana's a gateway drug and users suffer from reduced cognitive ability and decreased motivation (and I've already posted damning rebuttals to the initiative and Mexican decriminalization). But hey, throw George Soros and Jane Hamsher into the mix and you know this is a freakin' loser of a deal.

Communists for cannabis?

No on 19, duh.

Seriously? Brown Leads Whitman 49%-44% in New Poll

Last I heard Jerry Brown was running a shoestring campaign, but he's come up with the cash for a major ad buy with this clip, "Serious." And that's exactly what I'm thinking. Seriously? That's all he's got? A pledge for no new taxes without voter approval, just like the current governor. How'd that work out? And what's this part, "At this stage in my life that's what I'm prepared to do"? At this stage he should be retiring. We've already had a Governor Jerry Brown. Shoot. We had Governor Pat Brown before that. Maybe it's Christine Whitman? She's the most epic RINO to roll around in ages, and that's saying a lot for California, with Governor "Global Warming" Schwarzenegger leaving office after 7 failed years. This state is messed up.

See LAT (at Memorandum):

Democrat Jerry Brown has moved into a narrow lead over Republican Meg Whitman in their fractious contest for governor, while his party colleague Barbara Boxer has opened a wider margin over GOP nominee Carly Fiorina in the race for U.S. Senate, a new Los Angeles Times/USC poll has found.

The Democratic candidates were benefiting from their party's dominance in California and the continued popularity here of President Obama, who has retained most of his strength in the state even as he has weakened in other parts of the country. Support for Obama may play a key role in the Senate contest, one of a handful nationally that could determine which party wins control of the chamber.

At the same time, the survey showed, Republicans Whitman and Fiorina have yet to convince crucial groups of voters that their businesswoman backgrounds will translate into government success.

Brown, the former governor and current attorney general, held a 49%-44% advantage among likely voters over Whitman, the billionaire former chief executive at EBay.

Boxer, a three-term incumbent, led Fiorina, the former head of Hewlett-Packard, by 51%-43% among likely voters in the survey, a joint effort by The Times and the USC College of Letters, Arts and Sciences.

Both Republicans were hamstrung by voters' negative impressions of them — particularly Whitman, who has poured a national record $119 million of her own money into an advertising-heavy campaign yet has seen her unpopularity rise, the survey showed.

Still, in this year of political tumult, the Democrats were facing stiff challenges too. As they do nationally, Republicans in California held a fierce edge in enthusiasm among likely voters. The poll defined likely voters based both on past voting history and enthusiasm about voting this year — a measure that projects an election turnout that is more heavily Republican than is typical in California. If the Democratic turnout ends up being even more sharply depressed, that would put the party's candidates at risk.

Obama's still popular in the state? Of course. He could be facing impeachment and folks would be still swooning. I give Whitman better odds than Fiorina. The former's going to plow millions more into the race, and if she can find a theme --- anything to spark some interest --- she may be able to pull out some kind of lead over the final stretch. I'll have more on Babs Boxer later. Incumbency is a powerful influence on reelection, especially on the left coast. But we'll see. Fiorina's an attractive candidate and a great debater. If she opens up her personal fortune for a big ad buy she might pull up even in the polls before November 2nd. That said, I'm not thrilled with any of the candidates, especially in the governor's race. And I'm still not sure how I'm going to vote. Maybe a third party candidate, which would be first for me.

Van Tran Blasts Loretta Sanchez Comments as 'Offensive' and 'Divisive'

And good for him.

At LAT and Memeorandum:

Democratic Rep. Loretta Sanchez found herself in hot water this week after she said in a Spanish-language interview that "the Vietnamese" and Republicans were trying to take control of her seat.
Sanchez, who is up for reelection, was put on the defensive after her main opponent, Assemblyman Van Tran (R-Garden Grove), a Vietnamese American, jumped on the issue and called her statements "offensive" and "divisive."

The tiff highlights the political dichotomy of central Orange County, where two big voting blocs are Latinos and Vietnamese.

In an interview last week on Univision, a nationally broadcast Spanish-language television network, Sanchez said in Spanish: "The Vietnamese and the Republicans are — with intensity — trying to take away this seat, this seat for which we have already done so much for our community. [Taking] this seat from us and [giving] it to this Van Tran, who's very anti-immigrant and very anti-Hispanic" ....

Sanchez is facing her toughest reelection race in years against Tran, the highest-ranking Vietnamese American politician in California and somewhat of a kingmaker in Little Saigon.

Tran said he believes her statements will damage her standing in the Vietnamese community. In an interview, he characterized Sanchez's remarks as a "racial rampage."

"This is a mischaracterization that there is an alleged wedge between the Vietnamese and Latino community," he said.

Tran wrote a letter to Sanchez's office asking for an apology for her comments. "With such a diverse immigrant population that call central Orange County home, you should know better than stoking the flames of racial division in our community," he wrote.

The 47th Congressional District, which encompasses parts of Santa Ana, Garden Grove and Anaheim, has the only House seat held by a Democrat in Orange County. Sanchez has been in the post since 1997.

RELATED: At Legal Insurrection, "Saturday Night Card Game (Questions for Loretta Sanchez - in Vietnamese)."

BONUS: From Joel Kotkin, at Politico, "Latino Dems Should Rethink Loyalty."

Legalization in Mexico Won't Work

Fausta has the latest from left-leaning Brookings:

The Brookings Institution has just published this report:

"Why Legalization in Mexico is Not a Panacea for Reducing Violence and Suppressing Organized Crime" (emphasis added)

Proponents of legalization in Mexico make at least two arguments: The DTOs are believed to make 60% of their income from marijuana, so taking this income away from them via legalization will severely weaken them. Second, legalization of marijuana (and perhaps other drugs) would free Mexico’s law enforcement to concentrate on murders, kidnappings, and extortion.

A country may have good reasons to want to legalize the use and even production of some addictive substances (many, such as, nicotin and alcohol, are legal) and ride out the consequences of greater use. (It is difficult to estimate how much additional use would result from legalization since elasticity price-consumption relations and other factors, such as social stigmas and attitude changes, are not fully known.) Such reasons could include providing better health care to users, reducing the number of users in prison, changing the priority and resource allocation of law enforcement, and perhaps even generating greater revenues for state and giving jobs to the poor.

But, even if legalization did displace the DTOs from the marijuana production and distribution market in Mexico, they can hardly be expected to take such a change lying down. Rather, they may intensify the violent power struggle over remaining hard-drug smuggling and distribution. (Notably, the shrinkage of the U.S. cocaine market is one of the factors that precipitated the current DTO wars.) Worse yet, the DTOs could intensify their effort to take over other illegal economies in Mexico, such as the smuggling of migrants and other illegal commodities, prostitution, extortion, and kidnapping, and also over Mexico’s informal economy – trying to franchise who sells tortillas, jewelry, clothes on the zócalo — to mitigate their financial losses. They are already doing so. If they succeed in franchising the informal economy and organizing public spaces and street life in the informal sector (40% of Mexico’s economy), their political power over society will be greater than ever.

Nor would law enforcement necessarily become liberated to focus on other issues or turn less corrupt: The state would have to devote some resources to regulating the legal economy and enforcing the regulatory system. Corruption could well persist in a legal or decriminalized economy. In Brazil, after drug possession for personal use was decriminalized, the deeply corrupt police did not clean up. Instead, they often continue to extort users and franchise pushers by threatening to book users for greater amounts than personal limits unless they pay a bribe or buy from their pushers.

Additionally, a gray marijuana market would likely emerge. If marijuana became legal, the state would want to tax it – to generate revenues and to discourage greater use. The higher the tax, the greater the opportunity for the DTOs to undercut the state by charging less. The narcos could set up their own fields with smaller taxation, snatch the market and the profits, and the state would be back to combating them and eradicating their fields. Such gray markets exist alongside a host of legal economies, from cigarettes, to stolen cars, to logging. Often, as in the case of illegal logging alongside legal concessions, such gray markets are highly violent, dominated by organized crime, generating corruption, and exploitative of society.

Moreover, if the state does not physically control the territory where marijuana is cultivated – which in Mexico it often does not – the DTOs could continue to dominate the newly legal marijuana fields, still charge taxes, still structure the life of the growers, and even find it easier to integrate into the formal political system. Many oil and rubber barons started with shady practices and eventually became influential (and sometimes responsible) members of the legal political space. But there are good reasons not to want the very bloody Mexican capos to become legitimized.

Face it: the cartels are after power and money. Legalizing marijuana won’t change that at all.

No doubt drunkard JBW's got some brilliant riposte up his sleeve: "Victims, Victims ... you're all just whiny little victims!!"

Mike Malloy, Leftist Talk Radio Host, Slurs Dick Cheney for Engineering 'Worst Attack on This Country Since War of 1812'

Via Chicks on the Right, "Mike Malloy ... should never be dressed in anything other than a straight jacket." And cross-posted from American Power.

Mike Malloy is an Atlanta-based talk radio host. His show used to appear on Air America Radio and he's a contributor at Huffington Post. Thus, there's no doubt of this guy's mainstream left-wing/Democrat Party creds. And that's the thing. How can such vile statements and what's essentially hate speech pass for "liberal" commentary in today's political world. This is absolutely stunning — 9/11 truthers gaining ground on the "mainstream" left. And that's to say nothing of the death chants for the former vice president. Newsbusters has the transcript.

Blake Lively at Interview

Consider this a Rule 5 entry, with special mention for American Perspective and Pirate's Cove. Plus a bonus entry at Theo Spark's.

Interestingly, Ben Affleck performs the interview:

AFFLECK: We met when you came to do The Town, and when you turned up, I was a little taken aback. I was like, "How did you learn this Boston accent? How did you learn all of this stuff?" Which I thought was hard to get because I had been doing readings with all of these actresses in New York and L.A., and it was just hard to find the right person. You were by far the best, and when I asked you how you got everything down, it turned out that you had tried to work with this one dialect coach, and then tried another one, and then just started doing all of this incredibly thorough, diligent, independent research on your own-seeking out people who spoke the way your character does, seeking out people whose own life experiences you could draw upon. How did you get to the point where that became your approach? Because it's certainly nothing I ever did at any point in my twenties. Where does that instinct come from?

LIVELY: I don't know. I think it comes from the fact that I never really thought about acting as a child. It wasn't like, "This is the career that I want to pursue." So when I first started acting, I was more concerned with just being on a set and all of the woes of that, and I didn't really know it or understand it as a craft yet. When I saw my first movie, I was fine, but I thought, "Oh, my heavens. It's not about just standing there on my mark and saying these lines. I need to actually act." It was great to have my first opportunity be such a big role, but also not great because all of the mistakes I made-the entire learning process was on the big screen for everyone to see. That's been something, movie by movie, that I've been able to grow and learn from-that I always need to work harder to be better because it's still a new craft for me.

AFFLECK: Did anyone help you learn that?

LIVELY: I just did it on my own. I've never worked with an acting coach, but my parents had acting classes and I grew up around them my whole life just because I didn't have a babysitter. I'm actually a very shy person-that's a big secret, so don't tell-but being in those classes pushed me to break out of that a little bit. It's like nature versus nurture: I'm naturally very shy, but I was brought up in a way where I had to get up and get out of that.

AFFLECK: I wouldn't really describe you as shy. That hasn't been my experience of you.

LIVELY: Well, I had to be bold with you! I had to be brave because this role was terrifying. But it was all smoke and mirrors because I read the script and I didn't know how I couldn't do it. I loved this character so much. I was a little selfish in wanting to do it because I also thought, Well, maybe I'm not the best person for this, but I really want it. I didn't know how to do a good Boston accent, so I went and got a dialect coach, and she was really good, but it was a real proper accent I was learning, and my character is from the projects. But she'd lived in Charlestown her whole life, and the kind of accent she would have had is very different from an across-the-board Boston accent. So one of my best friends, Jennifer, who is a hairdresser on Gossip Girl, is from Boston and she had her family come down to New York one weekend.

RTWT.

Obama Pushes Tax Cuts to Revive the Economy 18 Months Late

Listening to the president's weekly address I'm struck at the lost opportunities of this administration. Voters hate ObamaCare but they sure would have appreciated (non-pork) efforts to stimulate small business in 2009. Obama practically sounds like a Republican, except for the constant references to "when I took office" (blame, blame, blame). That said, the Dems are still pushing class warfare. As long as the left seeks to punish high-income earners, the Democrat Party will be continue to wear the socialist albatross around its neck.

'If you thought the 1994 election was historic, just wait till this year'

Just what I've been saying all along.

From Peggy Noonan, "The Enraged vs. the Exhausted" (with a feminist twist):

This election is more and more shaping up into a contest between the Exhausted and the Enraged.

In a contest like that, who wins? That's like asking, "Who would win a sporting event between the depressed and the anxious?" The anxious are wide awake. The wide awake win.

But Rep. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee suggests I have the wrong word for the Republican base. The word, she says, is not enraged but "livid."

The three-term Republican deputy whip has been campaigning in Alabama, Colorado, Georgia, Mississippi, Missouri, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and South Carolina. We spoke by phone about what she is seeing, and she sounded like the exact opposite of exhausted.

There are two major developments, she says, that are new this year and insufficiently noted, but they're going to shape election outcomes in 2010 and beyond.

First, Washington is being revealed in a new way.

The American people now know, "with real sophistication," everything that happens in the capital. "I find a much more knowledgeable electorate, and it is a real-time response," Ms. Blackburn says. "We hear about it even as the vote is taking place."

Voters come to rallies carrying research—"things they pulled off the Internet, forwarded emails," copies of bills, roll-call votes. The Internet isn't just a tool for organization and fund-raising. It has given citizens access to information they never had before. "The more they know," Ms. Blackburn observes, "the less they like Washington."


Second is the rise of women as a force. They "are the drivers in this election cycle," Ms. Blackburn says. "Something is going on." At tea party events the past 18 months, she started to notice "60% of the crowd is women."

She tells of a political rally that drew thousands in Nashville, at the State Capitol plaza. She had brought her year-old grandson. When the mic was handed to her, she was holding him. "I said, 'How many of you are grandmothers?' The hands! That was the moment I realized that the majority of the people at the political events now are women. I saw this in town halls in '09—it was women showing up at my listening events, it was women talking about health care."

Why would more women be focusing more intently on politics this year than before?

Ms. Blackburn hypothesizes: "Women are always focusing on a generation or two down the road. Women make the education and health-care decisions for their families, for their kids, their spouse, their parents. And so they have become more politically involved. They are worried about will people have enough money, how are they going to pay the bills, the tuition, get the kids through school and college."

Ms. Blackburn suggested, further in the conversation, that government's reach into the personal lives of families, including new health-care rules and the prospect of higher taxes, plus the rise in public information on how Washington works and what it does, had prompted mothers to rebel.

The media called 1994 "the year of the angry white male." That was the year of the Republican wave that yielded a GOP House for the first time in 40 years. "I look at this year as the Rage of the Bill-Paying Moms," Ms. Blackburn says. "They are saying 'How dare you, in your arrogance, cap the opportunities my child will have? You'll burden them with so much debt they won't be able to buy a house—all because you can't balance the budget.'"

How does 2010 compare with 1994 in terms of historical significance? Ms. Blackburn says there's an unnoted story there, too. Whereas 1994 was historic as a party victory, a shift in political power, this year feels more organic, more from-the-ground, and potentially deeper. She believes 2010 will mark "a philosophical shift," the beginning of a change in national thinking regarding the role of the individual and the government.

I'm reading the influence of the tea parties here as well. What an amazing year in politics.

Arthur Gregg Sulzberger

It's not the article that caught my attention ("Voters Moving to Oust Judges Over Decisions"), but the byline: A.G. SULZBERGER. That would be Arthur Gregg Sulzberger, the son of Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, Jr. and heir-apparent to the publishing throne at the New York Times. This interests me since for all the anger and outrage at the far-left agenda at the Old Gray Lady, the paper still remains the county's most famed publishing institution. I've hammered the Times repeatedly --- getting fuming mad in the process --- and even forced a correction a couple of months back. But I still admire some of the journalism over there. I've recently been reminded of what good old-fashioned journalism can be like, and could still be like, in some recent reporting at the Times. On September 11, the Times published a fascinating article on the resurgence of German nationalism and the implications for the EU: "German Identity, Long Dormant, Reasserts Itself." Then just the other day the Times published a related piece on Germany that added a potentially troubling element to the tide of nationalism: "Right-Wing Sentiment, Ready to Burst Its Dam." This adds up to an interesting theme that some folks might not notice. But putting aside the paper's left-wing bias, it's not unrealistic to reconsider the reemergence of "The German Problem" in international relations, which is coming just as stresses on the EURO have raised questions about the fate of the European Union — The Wall Street Journal, a better newspaper in my opinion, wrote on this yesterday, "On the Secret Committee to Save the Euro, a Dangerous Divide". In any case, the Times is facing financial turmoil right now. Circulation revenue is declining (despite an increase in ad sales) and the senior Sulzberger recently conceded that the Times may be forced to cease print operations sometime in the next few years. So look for interesting days for the New York Times. A.G. Sulzberger is about 29 years-old. The torch will pass. Perhaps he's got the youthful mojo to keep the flame alive.

This is Sharia: Taliban Stone Woman to Death in Northwest Pakistan

This is "What Shariah Law Is All About." Imam Rauf — We've got your number:

Via Atlas Shrugs.

'Waiting for "Superman"'

I always enjoy movies on education reform, but I'm especially excited about "Waiting for Superman." It turns that the leftist teaching/union bureaucracy protested the film's premier tonight in New York. And leftist Patrick Goldstein at LAT is perplexed that right-wing critics are digging the film. One of those is at NY Post, "Film's anguished lesson on why schools are failing."

Caroline Glick: What the Left Really Wants

At Jerusalem Post:

What the Left truly seeks is not peace or even security. In pushing their land surrender policy in the face of a mountain of evidence that it imperils the country, leftist ideologues and political leaders are seeking to destroy their ideological rivals on the Right. That is, they wish to destroy religious Zionism.

Los Angeles Times Opposes Proposition 19 — 'Californians Cannot Legalize Marijuana'

I have no idea how influential the Los Angeles Times editorial page is nowadays. In earlier decades the Times was often a leader in national and state opinion-making. I'm not so sure today. That said, I was surprised to see today's lead editorial opposing the November ballot initiative that would legalize marijuana in the state, "Snuff Out Pot Measure":

Whether marijuana should be legal is a valid subject for discussion. Californians ought to welcome a debate about whether marijuana is any more dangerous than alcohol, whether legalization would or would not increase consumption, and whether crime would go down as a result of decriminalization. But Proposition 19 is so poorly thought out, badly crafted and replete with loopholes and contradictions that it offers an unstable platform on which to base such a weighty conversation.

Its flaws begin with the misleading title: Regulate, Control and Tax Act. Those are hefty words that suggest responsibility and order. But the proposition is in fact an invitation to chaos. It would permit each of California's 478 cities and 58 counties to create local regulations regarding the cultivation, possession and distribution of marijuana. In other words, the law could change hundreds of times from county to county. In Los Angeles County alone it could mean 88 different sets of regulations.

The proposition would have merited more serious consideration had it created a statewide regulatory framework for local governments, residents and businesses. But it still would have contained a fatal flaw: Californians cannot legalize marijuana. Regardless of how the vote goes on Nov. 2, under federal law marijuana will remain a Schedule I drug, whose use for any reason is proscribed by Congress. Sure, California could go it alone, but that would set up an inevitable conflict with the federal government that might not end well for the state. That experiment has been tried with medical marijuana, and the outcome has not inspired confidence. Up and down the state, an untold number of residents have faced federal prosecution for actions that were allowed under California law. It's true that the Obama administration has adopted a more tolerant position on state laws regulating medical marijuana, but there's no guarantee that the next administration will. Regardless, Obama's "drug czar," Gil Kerlikowske, has firmly stated that the administration will not condone marijuana's legalization for recreational purposes.

One reason given by Proposition 19 supporters for legalizing marijuana is that California is in dire fiscal straits, and taxing the cannabis crop could ultimately enrich state and local coffers by $1.4 billion a year. But again, critics say that argument is misleading. The act essentially requires local governments that choose to regulate and tax marijuana to establish new bureaucracies and departments, and much of the new revenue could be eaten up by the cumbersome process of permitting and licensing sales, consumption, cultivation and transportation.

Far from helping the state's economic outlook, Proposition 19 could cause substantial harm. For instance, it would put employers in a quandary by creating a protected class of on-the-job smokers, bestowing a legal right to use marijuana at work unless employers could actually prove that it would impair an employee's job performance. Employers would no longer have the right to screen for marijuana use or discipline a worker for being high. But common sense dictates that a drug-free environment is crucial at too many workplaces to name — schools, hospitals, emergency response and public safety agencies, among others.

The multiple conflicts with federal law, and the strong probability of confusing and contradictory municipal laws that would result from its passage, overwhelm the hypothetical benefits of Proposition 19.

This is the first of The Times' endorsements in the Nov. 2 election. Upon publication, they will be collected at latimes.com/opinion.

RELATED: At The Blog Prof, "Video: Chrysler Employees In Detroit Caught On Tape Smoking Pot, Drinking On the Job":

Obama Zombies Losing Hope

And it's not just Shepard Fairey, either.

See James Taranto, "Now He's Lost Margaret Carlson":

By now it should be clear that the only new idea Obama introduced into American politics was the idea of Obama: Obama the voice of a new generation, Obama the brilliant technocrat, Obama the postracial leader.

The reality of Obama has been quite the opposite. The fresh-faced young leader has governed according to stale old ideas. The dazzling intellect has proved inadequate to basic managerial challenges. We haven't even been able to enjoy the achievement of having elected a black president, because so many of Obama's supporters (though not Obama himself, to his credit) won't shut up about how every criticism of the president and his policies is "racist."

Yet in America's current predicament, there is ample reason for optimism. We'd like to think that the failure of Obama's policies will discredit the bad economic ideas on which they're based, that his incompetence will discredit the notion that the cognitive elite should run the lives of everyone else, and that the phony charges of racism will discredit the long-outdated assumption of white guilt, at last bringing America close to the ideal of a colorblind society.

This is not to deny that the Obama presidency has been ruinous. But sometimes the costliest mistakes are those from which we learn the most.

Stephen Colbert Appears Before Congress

Politico's got the wrap up from Capitol Hill: "Colbert knocks Dems off message." But Byron York reports that John Conyers, Chairman of the Judiciary Committee with jurisdiction over the hearing, asked Colbert to leave (via Hot Air and Memeorandum). Ultimately Colbert was allowed to comment, and you can see the result at the video. Perhaps the Dems needed the comic relief. Other than that I can't understand why the majority would even allow this kind of testimony: