'Cos This is What We've Seen...

I'm down with the idealism, although not the policy implications. Among the band's very first political songs, "Driven to Tears":

How can you say that you're not responsible?
What does it have to do with me?
What is my reaction, what should it be?
Confronted by this latest atrocity

Driven to tears

Hide my face in my hands, shame wells in my throat
My comfortable existance is reduced to a shallow meaningless party
Seems that when some innocent die
All we can offer them is a page in a some magazine
Too many cameras and not enough food
'Cos this is what we've seen

Driven to tears

Protest is futile, nothing seems to get through
What's to become of our world, who knows what to do

Driven to tears

Ann Althouse in 1981

The eternal student:

The Irreparable Tarnishing of the Golden State?

The photo is at the offramp at Pico Boulevard in West L.A. (a couple of months back, when I saw "Restrepo.") I took a quick snapshot while waiting for the light to change. Look carefully: "DEATH TO CALIFORNIA POLICE." Chilling. And this isn't a gangland section of Los Angeles.

Anyway, I can't go all the way with "irreparable," at Jennifer Rubin's essay, at Commentary, "California, There It Went." It's a great piece. And, yeah, sadly, I'm convinced that neither Jerry Brown nor Meg Whitman will be any better than Arnold Schwarzenegger, and that California will continue to be driven by unaffordable ballot-driven governance (initiatives) that makes that state ungovernable and prone to collapse. But Californians are fighters. The tax revolt started here in 1978. A new burst of good-government reform, focusing first on the crisis in state budgeting, will become a reality in due time. It has to. Things simply can't continue as they are. And that's what makes Rubin's piece a must read:

California today bears little resemblance to the land of opportunity whose promise of a better life in a perfect climate once lured so many. Schools, even in expensive residential areas, are substandard and getting worse. Public parks are unseemly and unsightly. Libraries are understaffed and understocked. Commutes have extended from 30 to 60 to 90 minutes or longer.

Because the 21st-century economy is global and portable, residents and businesses have other options. Employers and educated people can uproot themselves, and they have been, fleeing the congestion, the traffic, the crumbling infrastructure, and the deficient schools. Between 1990 and 2000, 2 million more left the state than arrived from other states.

The U.S. Census Bureau report noted that a number of states have benefited from California’s woes: “199,000 of the 466,000 people who moved to Nevada during this time came from California.... Between 1995 and 2000, 644,000 people moved to Colorado from other states, led by 111,000 migrants from California.”

California’s unemployment rate at present hovers a few points above the national average, in part due to a state judiciary hostile to business and the proliferation of pro-plaintiff litigation rules that have made the state a toxic environment for employers. In recent years, Northrop Grumman, Fluor Corporation, Hilton Hotels, Computer Sciences Corporation, and defense contractor SAIC all moved their headquarters out of the state.

The optimism of the 1960s has been replaced by cynicism and resignation: Did you hear that gubernatorial candidate Jerry Brown gets multiple pensions totaling $78,000 a year? Did you read about the little city of Bell’s council members who pay themselves nearly 100 grand a year and paid the city administrator $1.5 mil a year? Gallows humor, appropriate for a dying state, is de rigueur among the state’s political class.

My own family has come full circle. My husband (whose family moved from Indiana to Northern California a year before mine moved from South Jersey) and I joined the out-migration in 2005, moving East with our two sons. It was our turn to amaze West Coast friends and family by leaving home. But unlike the trek four decades earlier, there was little confusion about the reasons for our departure. Instead, people seemed wistful, curious about whether they would learn from us that there might be a better life elsewhere, with workable schools, functioning state and local governments, and more modest taxes.

And in the years since our exodus, we have become acquainted, once again, as we had been in our youth, with normal public schools, pleasant neighborhood parks, well-stocked libraries, and state and local governments that live within their means, more or less.

Conventional Wisdom: GOP Takes House

But listen to James Carville in the second half of the segment. History shows that both the House and Senate change hands in an electoral earthquake, as in both 1994 and 2006. Carville nearly says he expects the Senate to go GOP on November 2nd. But it's the body language that's telling. Fascinating:

Who Knew? Bill Clinton Beats Obama for Positive Impact On Campaign

Hey, I scooped Gallup — by three days!

And that pic with Loretta Sanchez is the clincher!

Here's my post from Saturday: "Bill Clinton Stands In for Barack Obama So Voters Will Forget They Hate Democrats, Or Something."

And here's Gallup this morning: "Bill Clinton's Impact More Positive for Democrats Than Obama's."

Former President Bill Clinton has the potential to do more good for Democratic candidates on whose behalf he campaigns than does President Barack Obama. The net positive impact of Clinton's campaigning among Democratic registered voters is +48, while the number is a slightly lower +42 for Obama. Clinton, however, has a significantly more positive impact than Obama does among independents -- and among Republicans.

Maybe Obama can have sex with a White House intern to turn some of those numbers around. Worked for Clinton.

Gallup Finds U.S. Unemployment at 10.0% in Mid-October

At Gallup:

Where are the jobs?

The Obama-Dem Socialists have a lot to answer for.

The Kentucky Senate Debate

The one everyone's talking about.

And some of the other wild escapades at Politico, "Losing it: Politics goes nuts."

Vile Anti-Semitism

From Lisa Richards, at NewsReal Blog, "Lurking Anti-Semitism: A Vile Reader Email":

Recently I wrote a post exposing radical libertarian Ron Paul as the leftist progressive he is, as well as his anti-Semitic comments toward Israel. This sparked anger in a longtime reader who is a conspiracy theorist with wild meltdown theories: this reader believes Obama is going to declare martial law in November and place all conservatives in concentration camps.

This week the reader emailed me after I published “7 Videos That Prove Ron Paul is a Leftist in Libertarian Clothing.” The email was offensive, anti-Semitic, and caused me to remove this person from my mailing list and Facebook. It begins with the reader, who I shall leave nameless, disagreeing with the column:

Well, I didn’t have time to watch all the videos, but I’ve already seen several of them. We’ll have to agree to disagree this time. I’ve taken countless assessments, and I ALWAYS come out as a Libertarian. I have changed my mind about some of the things we have done in this country. I feel extremely duped about going into Iraq. I believe we could have gone in and taken Hussein out, stayed for a few months, and gotten the hell out. This was a bogus war in my view. I didn’t see it at the time, but I sure do now. We were all fearful after 9/11, and Bush did a great job of convincing his base at least that this is what was needed. It was NOT what we needed to do. We have been sticking our noses into other countries’ business for far too long. And I maintain it’s time to stop that. Who are we to impose our form of government and way of life on others? It makes us an elitist country and an imperialistic one as well.

Not a problem, a lot of Americans feel this way. The next paragraph insulted and deeply offended me:

Also, I have greatly altered my view on our own CIA and on Israel. Did you know that 40 Jews were picked up right after 9/11 who knew about 9/11 BEFORE it happened? This is 100% true. It was on Fox News, reported by both Brit Hume and Tony Snow. I saw all the videos. Israel plays us to the hilt. I know you’re working for a Jew, and I’m not saying they’re all bad. I have a lot of respect for David Horowitz. But watch them closely. They are NOT our big buddies… Just my opinion…

Not a very decent opinion.

Let me be honest, I do not write in a pro-Israel fashion because Mr. Horowitz, whom I greatly respect, is Jewish. I support Israel because I am a Christian who worships a Jew. I consider myself a spiritual Jew.

RTWT.

It gets pretty bad, but of course, this is "imaginary" anti-Semitism. You know, since folks like us are always looking for something to gripe about, because we're jonesin' for victimhood, or something.

More Questions for Facebook

At WSJ:

Two House members asked Facebook Inc. for more details about the way applications on the social network handle user information, following revelations of new privacy concerns.

U.S. Reps. Edward Markey (D., Mass.) and Joe Barton (R., Texas) sent Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg a letter expressing concerns that "third-party applications gathered and transmitted personally identifiable information about Facebook users and those users' friends." The two representatives are co-chairmen of the House Bipartisan Privacy Caucus.

Their letter follows an article in Monday's Wall Street Journal highlighting a potential privacy loophole in many of the most popular applications on Facebook. The Journal reported apps were transmitting identification numbers for users and their friends to dozens of advertising and Internet tracking companies. The ID numbers can be used to look up a user's real name, and sometimes other information users have made public, and potentially tie it to their activity inside the apps.

Given Facebook's 500 million users and the amount of information they post on the site, "this series of breaches of consumer privacy is a cause for concern," the lawmakers wrote.

The letter asked Mr. Zuckerberg how many users had been affected by the breach, when Facebook became aware of it, and what changes Facebook plans in order to deal with the problem, among other questions. Facebook must respond by Oct. 27.

In August, Reps. Markey and Barton requested information about data-collection practices from 15 websites identified by the Journal as installing the most tracking technology on visitors' computers.

A Facebook spokesman said the company looked forward "to addressing any confusion" and working with the congressmen. "The suggestion that the passing of a user ID to an application, as described in Facebook's privacy policy, constitutes a 'breach' is curious at best," he said.

More at the link.

RELATED: From Kashmir Hill, "Did the Wall Street Journal Overreact to Facebook Privacy ‘Breach’?"

Helen Rittelmeyer

I haven't heard anything from Helen Rittelmeyer since sometime around the time Culture 11 crashed. She's an interesting woman, and apparently ready for a career in electoral politics, considered her dignified response to this completely gratuitous slam by her ex-boyfriend Todd Seavey during a C-Span taping. Talk about reality television:

And by the way, I love anyone willing to take down that asshat E.D. Kain, and take him down mercilessly.

Bikini Monday

Via Theo Spark:

And more great blogging at Washington Rebel.

Caledonia's Nightmare of Fear and Anarchy

It's fascinating.

Blazing Cat Fur points us to a book on the Grand River land dispute. From the YouTube blurb:

This book is not about aboriginal land claims. The book is not about the wholesale removal of seven generations of indigenous youngsters from their reserves and families - this was by dint of federal government policy - or the abuse dished out to many of them at the residential schools into which they were arbitrarily placed or the devastating effects that haunt so many today. This book is not about the dubious merits of the reserve system which may better serve those who wish to see native people fail than those who want desperately for them to succeed. I do not in any way make light of these issues, and they are one way or another in the background of everything that occurred in Caledonia.

"What Helpless is about is the failure of government to govern and to protect all its citizens equally." -- Christie Blatchford.

Mitch Williams

I watched last night's exhilarating Game 2 of the NLCS. I know Roy Oswalt's a pitching phenom. But with no designated hitter in the National League, I'm always stoked when pitchers turn in offensive performances worthy of a lead-off batter. Oswalt's seventh inning score from second base, off Placido Polanco's base hit, was pure excitement.

But earlier in the game Joe Buck and Tim McCarver had Mitch Williams on the phone for some pitching analysis. Turns out that Williams joined the announcers in the booth for game one, and check the link for Williams during the post-game recap on Fox Sports.

Anyway, forgive me for being out of the loop. My 9 year-old kid hogs the living room TV most of the time, so I don't watch as much sports as I'd like. But seeing Mitch Williams doing the game-time commentary was a throwback. The dude was the Phillies' goat in 1993 after he gave up the series-winning home run to Joe Carter, giving the World Championship to the Toronto Blue Jays. Man, it's tough recovering from that kind of mistake. Donnie Moore eventually ended his life after being booed endlessly by fans for blowing the save against Boston during 1986 ALCS final. The Phillies fans came to respect Williams, however, and he's apparently a well-liked member of the community:

Williams placed the blame on himself for what happened in the 1993 World Series, adding that he had put the ordeal behind him:

“ I'm not going to go home and commit suicide...I wish I hadn't thrown it down and in to Carter. I was trying to keep the ball away from him. It was a mistake...It ain't comin' back...I can't replay it and win it...I can't change this one, much as I'd like to, if only because my teammates busted their butts. I let 'em down...But don't expect me to curl up and hide from people because I gave up a home run in the World Series. Life's a bitch. I could be digging ditches. I'm not. ”

—Mitch Williams on his feelings abot surrendering the home run to Joe Carter.

Although Phillies fans continued to blame him for the Series loss and heap him with scorn and abuse for several years afterward, the fact that he did not make excuses for the blown saves, shift the blame to others, or run and hide from the media or the city of Philadelphia caused many fans to ultimately forgive him and embrace him once again as a local figure.

Well Maybe You're Just Too Blind To — See...

Leon Russell's been in the news with his new release with Elton John, "The Union."

I heard "Tightrope" during drive time this morning, as The Sound LA was working its way through The Letter "T" (the station started an A to Z series last Monday). So, what the heck. Enjoy:

Sarah Palin Kicks-Off Victory Lap for Tea Party Express

It's the final Tea Party Express tour for 2010.

At LAT:

Seeking to channel the sign-bearing, flag-waving enthusiasm of the "tea party" movement into ballot-box victories, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin told hundreds of supporters here Monday they couldn't "party like it's 1773" until Washington was flooded with committed conservatives.

Though an exuberant Palin plugged Sharron Angle, the Republican running neck-and-neck with Nevada Sen. Harry Reid, Palin spent much of her 26-minute speech denouncing the policies of Democrats, whose base is dispirited and whose congressional majorities are at stake in November.

"The only way that government can allow our economy to get roaring again is for government to get out of the way and let the private sector do it," Palin said in a state that leads the nation in joblessness and foreclosures. "Liberals need to know they can't legislate prosperity from Washington."

The event launched a 30-city nationwide tour for the Tea Party Express, the California-based concern whose financial backing helped Angle, Alaska's Joe Miller, Delaware's Christine O'Donnell and other conservatives secure Republican Senate nominations, but also strained relationships between the tea partiers and the GOP's more moderate wing.

That tension has been on display in Nevada, where Reid has racked up endorsements from Republican business and political leaders who worry losing his Washington clout would harm the sparsely populated state. Even the newspaper in the Republican stronghold of Elko endorsed Reid in hopes that he could block legislation that might hurt the state's robust gold-mining industry.

Angle, meanwhile, has enjoyed a fundraising bonanza by battling arguably the tea party's top electoral target, despite a string of controversies that included calling the unemployed "spoiled" (she later apologized). Angle did not attend Monday's rally, but was touted as one of the tea party hopefuls who "promise to listen and to lower taxes and repeal and replace that unaffordable, unbelievable mother of all unfunded mandates called Obamacare," Palin said.

"I'm talking candidates like Sharron Angle," said Palin, who spoke in the parking lot of a Reno plaza adorned with a giant blow-up eagle and signs proclaiming "Vote Out Our Ruling Classless" and "We the People, Not We the Sheeple."

See also the Reno Gazette-Journal, "Palin to Reno crowd: 'Keep the faith' ahead of Nov. 2 election."

The ObamaCare Anvil

From the House Republican Conference, "ObamaCare is Hurting America's Small Businesses":

The Most Important Question for Obama-Dem Socialists

From the House Republican Conference, "Where Are the Jobs?":

Rand Paul Responds to 'Anti-Christian' Attack Ad

It seems eons ago, but back in May I wrote in defense of Rand Paul's comments on the meaning of the Civil Rights Act. Paul had just won his Senate primary race and he took a big gamble debating the nuances of states' rights and federal policy on the Rachel Maddow show. On principle, Rand Paul "won" that debate hands down. The problem is that we're past the point in America where it's even respectable to make states' rights arguments --- e.g., a business owner's right to serve whom they want without federal interference --- without appearing cold-hearted at least and out-an-out racist at worst. Rachel Maddow was having a field day, and Paul held off on public appearances for a week or two after that.

I haven't paid much attention to Paul since then, and I suspect that in the long run his ideas aren't all that different from his dad's, and thus pretty much unforgivable. So I'm interested in this new attack on Paul from his opponent Democrat Jack Conway. Left Coast Rebel's got the background: "After Debate, Rand Paul Refuses to Shake Hands with his Democratic Opponent Jack Conway." At issue is this Conway ad, which attacks Paul as anti-Christian:

That's a scorcher. And Rand Paul's not taking it lying down:

My good friend Tim is urging his readers to "Support Rand Paul." I'm not going that far. I'm still a bit agnostic on the Kentucky GOP Senate nominee. Paul's got big question marks on foreign policy. See Philip Klein, "Rand Paul and Israel," Jenn Q. Public, "Rand Paul: A Jeremiah Wright Republican," and especially Sultan Knish, "Rand Paul, Anti-War, Anti-Gitmo and Anti-American."

RELATED: From Melissa Clouthier, "Libertarians: Still In Search Of Their Perfect World. Practically Irrelevant."

Where's Michael Steele?

I had no idea Chairman Steele was going to be in Anaheim. I was suprised when he came up on stage with the O.C. congressional delegation. I don't think anyone really cares for him, but as many have noted, firing Steele would be attacked as RAAAAACIST by the lefty chattering classes, so the dude's safe.

That said, according to Fred Barnes, Steele's nowhere to be seen this electoral season, "Mr. Steele and the Irrelevant RNC":

Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairman Michael Steele is the missing person of the midterm election. Instead of cable news appearances and debates with Democratic counterpart Tim Kaine, Mr. Steele has spent the past month leading a "Fire Pelosi" bus tour across the country.

His small role in the campaign, highly unusual for a party chairman, is matched by the scaled back effort the RNC has mounted in 2010. And no one is happier than Mr. Steele's many Republican detractors, glad to see he's attracting little attention from the national media.

Since Mr. Steele was elected chairman last year, the RNC has raised almost $153.7 million, roughly $90 million less than in 2006. It has aired only a few TV ads and its get-out-the-vote (GOTV) drive is considerably less ambitious than in previous midterm elections.

Yet Republicans, including Mr. Steele, appear satisfied with the division of labor in the campaign. What the RNC isn't doing, well-financed outside groups like Americans for Prosperity and the Republican Governor's Association (RGA) are. Mr. Steele's bus tour doesn't interfere. Exploiting House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's unpopularity, it has drawn largely favorable coverage from local and regional media.

This improvised arrangement is entirely fortuitous. The so-called independent expenditure groups were established to counter campaign spending on behalf of Democrats by liberal groups, particularly the Service Employees International Union, the AFL-CIO and MoveOn.org. They also aimed to offset the fund-raising advantage (now 1.5 to 1) of Democratic candidates.

The need to bail out the RNC arose last year after it quickly ran through $22.8 million and had trouble replenishing its war chest. Reliable donors were turned off by Mr. Steele's overexposure in the media, his insistence on making paid speeches as chairman, and statements that put him at odds with other Republican leaders.

The RNC brought in $9.7 million in September, $4 million short of its goal. This compares with $11.2 million raised last month by the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), which supports House candidates. And the RGA, led by Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, raised $31 million in July, August and September.

Many congressional Republicans and governors no longer trust Mr. Steele as their spokesman. They tend to work around the RNC rather than engage Mr. Steele. He does have supporters, and he has recruited an experienced staff. But his dismissal of Rush Limbaugh on CNN as an "entertainer" and other statements have stirred criticism.

RTWT.

Whoa. That's worse that I though.

Barnes notes that the RNC chair's term is two years, not four. But with the Dems' expected whomping come November, my bet is that Steele successfully deflects critics and hangs on for another two. And that'll mean that the GOP will be retaking the White House without the national party at the center of campaign coordination in the general election. Some political scientists have long argued that the political parties were dead (they've never been the same since the decline of the old big city party machines a century ago). And it turns out that Michael Steele's providing a significant data point toward validating that thesis.

Photo via Facebook.

Holiday in Cambodia

Maetenloch posted "Holiday in Cambodia" the other day, and that reminded me that I posted "California Über Alles" after Jerry Brown clinched the Democrat gubernatorial primary in June. (He was unopposed, I know, which goes to show how lousy a job it is as California governor.) Anyway, I'll post "Holiday in Cambodia" on November 3rd if Brown slides under the wire against Whitman. More DKs here: