NYT:Say,thisindictmentofthesuper-awfulRick

NYT: Say, this indictment of the super-awful Rick Perry does look a little suspect to us

posted at 12:41 pm on August 19, 2014 by Ed Morrissey

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When the New York Times editorial board rebukes Democrats for perverting the criminal justice system in a political attack against a Republican, the shark has well and truly been jumped. This is an editorial board that is not exactly known for its even-handed consistency when it comes to political attacks, and which spends most of its political effort hailing Democrats for doing the same things it laments when Republicans do them. In fact, today’s editorial spends most of its time calling Texas Governor Rick Perry the worst thing since New Coke, while bookending their scolding by reminding Texas Democrats that politics isn’t a crime:

Gov. Rick Perry of Texas is one of the least thoughtful and most damaging state leaders in America, having done great harm to immigrants, abortion clinics and people without health insurance during his 14 years in office. But bad political judgment is not necessarily a felony, and the indictment handed up against him on Friday — given the facts so far — appears to be the product of an overzealous prosecution. …

Governors and presidents threaten vetoes and engage in horse-trading all the time to get what they want, but for that kind of political activity to become criminal requires far more evidence than has been revealed in the Perry case so far. Perhaps Mr. McCrum will have some solid proof to show once the case heads to trial. But, for now, Texas voters should be more furious at Mr. Perry for refusing to expand Medicaid, and for all the favors he has done for big donors, than for a budget veto.

One has to read this editorial to appreciate the angst it engendered in the Gray Lady’s panel of handwringers. It’s an expert lesson in the use of weasel words. They are declarative on Perry being “one of the most damaging state leaders in America” despite having won enough confidence from Texans to serve four consecutive terms running their state government. On the other hand, the “ill-advised veto” only “doesn’t seem to rise to the level of a criminal act.” The voters of Texas should be “furious” at Perry for opposing Medicaid expansion, but Rosemary Lehmberg should only “los[e] her credibility as a prosecutor of drunk-driving cases” for threatening to get police officers fired for arresting and booking her for her DWI. And so on.

Unfortunately, the abuse of power on this episode cannot escape even their notice, which is why they waggled their finger at Texas Democrats today. That should serve as a warning, because it’s no secret that Democrats take their cues from the New York Times, and this means that they will be very much on their own. If the Times editorial board won’t run interference for them, they’re not going to have any political cover at all.

By the way, Tom Delay told everyone yesterday, “I told you so.” Delay had been convicted of corruption based on a prosecution from the same public-integrity unit, which eventually got overturned by a higher court — one not in Travis County, Delay points out. Republicans need to push this function into the state Attorney General’s office to prevent future abuses of power, he advises. In fact, Delay believes that this indictment demonstrates a “conspiracy” by Democrats to abuse power and smear Republicans for electoral advantage, and not just in Texas:

DeLay told Fox News on Monday that he wanted Perry to do more to dismantle the agency and that for years he has openly questioned its constitutionality, arguing in part that the district attorney in charge is locally elected but has statewide jurisdiction.

DeLay said Monday he cannot prove that Washington Democrats are trying to knock Perry out of the 2016 race but added the situation reminded him of when House Democrats Nancy Pelosi, of California, and Patrick Kennedy of Rhode Island, were trying to drum him out of Congress in the mid-1990s.

“Democrats love what’s going on,” he said. “They used the legal system to take me out. It is a conspiracy to use the legal system to criminalize politics.”

DeLay also offered words of advice to Perry.

“You better take this seriously,” he said. “All of the judges are Democrats. And we polled 300 jurors, and the best I got was a Green Peace activist.”

Maybe that’s why the Gray Lady is distancing itself from the debacle.

The Washington Post’s editorial board struck a much more convincing chord:

It’s true that the case revolves around bare-knuckled tactics by Mr. Perry (R). Last year, he threatened to veto $7.5 million in funding for the prosecutorial unit in Austin that investigates public corruption, unless that unit’s boss, an elected Democratic district attorney, resigned. That was bound to be controversial, given that the office was looking into the purported diversion of state cancer research funds to Mr. Perry’s political allies — and that Mr. Perry would appoint a successor. However, the governor acted only after the Travis County district attorney, Rosemary Lehmberg, was caught on video committing a pretty spectacular drunk driving offense that eventually cost her 45 days in jail. Many people would find it reasonable to pursue the ouster of such a person from such a position. When Ms. Lehmberg refused to go, Mr. Perry carried out his veto.

What everyone should recognize is that this particular kerfuffle fell within the bounds of partisan politics, which, as the saying goes, ain’t beanbag. The grand jury, however, would criminalize Mr. Perry’s conduct by twisting the pertinent statutes into a pair of pretzels. The indictment contends that vetoing funding for Ms. Lehmberg’s unit violated a Texas “abuse of official capacity” law against the knowing “misuse” of government funds with intent to “harm another.” Even more implausibly, the indictment characterizes the mere threat of a veto as “coercion of a public servant,” even though the relevant law pretty clearly wasn’t intended to cover a governor’s exercise of his constitutional powers. By the weird logic of the indictment, Mr. Perry would have been in the clear if he had simply vetoed the funding without threatening to do so first. …

Of course, public servants should be held to a higher standard. But criminal prosecution is not always the appropriate remedy for dubious or despicable behavior by those in power, especially not where the relevant law is not clearly applicable. Political abuses call for political accountability, which is why we have media exposure, elections and impeachment. Mr. Perry is not a candidate for reelection; his term ends in a few months. Perhaps some of those in Texas who back his indictment hope to derail his reported plans for another run at the presidency in 2016. If so, they are going about it the wrong way.

The NYT editorial did manage to work in Lehmberg’s threats to police officers, which the Post’s editorial missed, but otherwise sounds a lot more convincing.

Update (AP): Yikes.

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NYT:Say,thisindictmentofthesuper-awfulRick

NYT: Say, this indictment of the super-awful Rick Perry does looks a little suspect to us

posted at 12:41 pm on August 19, 2014 by Ed Morrissey

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When the New York Times editorial board rebukes Democrats for perverting the criminal justice system in a political attack against a Republican, the shark has well and truly been jumped. This is an editorial board that is not exactly known for its even-handed consistency when it comes to political attacks, and which spends most of its political effort hailing Democrats for doing the same things it laments when Republicans do them. In fact, today’s editorial spends most of its time calling Texas Governor Rick Perry the worst thing since New Coke, while bookending their scolding by reminding Texas Democrats that politics isn’t a crime:

Gov. Rick Perry of Texas is one of the least thoughtful and most damaging state leaders in America, having done great harm to immigrants, abortion clinics and people without health insurance during his 14 years in office. But bad political judgment is not necessarily a felony, and the indictment handed up against him on Friday — given the facts so far — appears to be the product of an overzealous prosecution. …

Governors and presidents threaten vetoes and engage in horse-trading all the time to get what they want, but for that kind of political activity to become criminal requires far more evidence than has been revealed in the Perry case so far. Perhaps Mr. McCrum will have some solid proof to show once the case heads to trial. But, for now, Texas voters should be more furious at Mr. Perry for refusing to expand Medicaid, and for all the favors he has done for big donors, than for a budget veto.

One has to read this editorial to appreciate the angst it engendered in the Gray Lady’s panel of handwringers. It’s an expert lesson in the use of weasel words. They are declarative on Perry being “one of the most damaging state leaders in America” despite having won enough confidence from Texans to serve four consecutive terms running their state government. On the other hand, the “ill-advised veto” only “doesn’t seem to rise to the level of a criminal act.” The voters of Texas should be “furious” at Perry for opposing Medicaid expansion, but Rosemary Lehmberg should only “los[e] her credibility as a prosecutor of drunk-driving cases” for threatening to get police officers fired for arresting and booking her for her DWI. And so on.

Unfortunately, the abuse of power on this episode cannot escape even their notice, which is why they waggled their finger at Texas Democrats today. That should serve as a warning, because it’s no secret that Democrats take their cues from the New York Times, and this means that they will be very much on their own. If the Times editorial board won’t run interference for them, they’re not going to have any political cover at all.

By the way, Tom Delay told everyone yesterday, “I told you so.” Delay had been convicted of corruption based on a prosecution from the same public-integrity unit, which eventually got overturned by a higher court — one not in Travis County, Delay points out. Republicans need to push this function into the state Attorney General’s office to prevent future abuses of power, he advises. In fact, Delay believes that this indictment demonstrates a “conspiracy” by Democrats to abuse power and smear Republicans for electoral advantage, and not just in Texas:

DeLay told Fox News on Monday that he wanted Perry to do more to dismantle the agency and that for years he has openly questioned its constitutionality, arguing in part that the district attorney in charge is locally elected but has statewide jurisdiction.

DeLay said Monday he cannot prove that Washington Democrats are trying to knock Perry out of the 2016 race but added the situation reminded him of when House Democrats Nancy Pelosi, of California, and Patrick Kennedy of Rhode Island, were trying to drum him out of Congress in the mid-1990s.

“Democrats love what’s going on,” he said. “They used the legal system to take me out. It is a conspiracy to use the legal system to criminalize politics.”

DeLay also offered words of advice to Perry.

“You better take this seriously,” he said. “All of the judges are Democrats. And we polled 300 jurors, and the best I got was a Green Peace activist.”

Maybe that’s why the Gray Lady is distancing itself from the debacle.

The Washington Post’s editorial board struck a much more convincing chord:

It’s true that the case revolves around bare-knuckled tactics by Mr. Perry (R). Last year, he threatened to veto $7.5 million in funding for the prosecutorial unit in Austin that investigates public corruption, unless that unit’s boss, an elected Democratic district attorney, resigned. That was bound to be controversial, given that the office was looking into the purported diversion of state cancer research funds to Mr. Perry’s political allies — and that Mr. Perry would appoint a successor. However, the governor acted only after the Travis County district attorney, Rosemary Lehmberg, was caught on video committing a pretty spectacular drunk driving offense that eventually cost her 45 days in jail. Many people would find it reasonable to pursue the ouster of such a person from such a position. When Ms. Lehmberg refused to go, Mr. Perry carried out his veto.

What everyone should recognize is that this particular kerfuffle fell within the bounds of partisan politics, which, as the saying goes, ain’t beanbag. The grand jury, however, would criminalize Mr. Perry’s conduct by twisting the pertinent statutes into a pair of pretzels. The indictment contends that vetoing funding for Ms. Lehmberg’s unit violated a Texas “abuse of official capacity” law against the knowing “misuse” of government funds with intent to “harm another.” Even more implausibly, the indictment characterizes the mere threat of a veto as “coercion of a public servant,” even though the relevant law pretty clearly wasn’t intended to cover a governor’s exercise of his constitutional powers. By the weird logic of the indictment, Mr. Perry would have been in the clear if he had simply vetoed the funding without threatening to do so first. …

Of course, public servants should be held to a higher standard. But criminal prosecution is not always the appropriate remedy for dubious or despicable behavior by those in power, especially not where the relevant law is not clearly applicable. Political abuses call for political accountability, which is why we have media exposure, elections and impeachment. Mr. Perry is not a candidate for reelection; his term ends in a few months. Perhaps some of those in Texas who back his indictment hope to derail his reported plans for another run at the presidency in 2016. If so, they are going about it the wrong way.

The NYT editorial did manage to work in Lehmberg’s threats to police officers, which the Post’s editorial missed, but otherwise sounds a lot more convincing.

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Feinstein:We’regoingtoneedmorethana

Feinstein: We’re going to need more than a few airstrikes on ISIS

posted at 11:31 am on August 9, 2014 by Ed Morrissey

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How has Barack Obama’s reactive strategy to the sweep of the Islamic State across Iraq been received so far in Washington? Not well, as critics arose across the partisan spectrum. “It takes an army to defeat an army,” Senator Dianne Feinstein said yesterday in regard to the threat ISIS now poses to the region — and the US:

Senate Intelligence Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein warned Friday of the risk that the insurgent group ISIL could be preparing fighters to attack American and European targets.

“It has become clear that ISIL is recruiting fighters in Western countries, training them to fight its battles in the Middle East and possibly returning them to European and American cities to attack us in our backyard,” the California Democrat said in a statement backing military action authorized by President Barack Obama. “We simply cannot allow this to happen.”

Feinstein called for a broader military campaign against ISIL, not just the targeted missions authorized by the president.

“It takes an army to defeat an army, and I believe that we either confront ISIL now or we will be forced to deal with an even stronger enemy in the future. Inaction is no longer an option. I support actions by the administration to coordinate efforts with Iraq and other allies to use our military strength and targeting expertise to the fullest extent possible,” Feinstein said.

That’s a sharp rebuke to Obama, who has tried to walk a tightrope between his claims of victory in Iraq and the acute need to stop the genocide of Yazidis. Obama spoke earlier today before flying off to his vacation on Marine One reinforcing his remarks on Thursday, promising nothing new. “Once again, America is proud to work” with our allies, Obama insisted, but announced no new efforts on their part other than diplomatic expressions of support. The only call Obama made was for Iraqis to unite, claiming again that “only Iraqis” can secure Iraq. Feinstein very obviously does not want to sit idly by while waiting for Iraqis to wipe out ISIS (or ISIL) in order to remove the threat to American national security.

Neither does Sen. Marco Rubio, her colleague across the aisle:

But America’s security interests extend well beyond the fate of Iraq’s religious minorities. Because ISIS, with thousands of foreign fighters, many of them from the West, will not rest once it has taken Erbil or Baghdad. Its expansionist ideology will lead it to attack U.S. allies in the region and eventually Europe and the United States.

We have seen time and again in recent decades that terrorist groups, once established, use safe havens to launch attacks on the United States and our interests. We ignore this history at our own peril.

Instead of confronting this challenge head on, President Obama has until now avoided taking decisive action. He has let the civil war in Syria simmer for years, creating the space for this jihadist threat to grow and letting instability spread to Syria’s neighbors. Even after ISIS captured Iraq’s second largest city, Mosul, in June, the President was hesitant in his response, sending several hundred military advisors but not confronting ISIS directly even as it made military gains. Now, we are rightfully providing food and water to people who face slaughter from extremists who have pledged to kill them. …

ISIS’s continued rise is not just a problem for Iraq or its neighbors. If we do not continue to take decisive action against ISIS now, it will be not just Iraqis or Syrians who continue to suffer, it will likely be Americans, as a result of a terrorist attack on the U.S. homeland or on our personnel overseas. America was faced with the same choice President Clinton faced in the 1990s during the emergence of al Qaeda: take action now, or we will be forced to take action in the future.

It is time to begin reversing this unprecedented tide of jihadist victories. America’s security and the safety of the American people are at stake.

For that matter, so does the Washington Post editorial board. Their editorial scolds Obama for clinging to his “minimalist and unrealistic” policies and start taking the threat seriously:

U.S. officials say that Mr. Obama has refrained from a broader campaign because he believes the Islamic State is “an Iraqi responsibility,” as Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel put it. The administration is pushing Iraq’s political factions, sharply divided along sectarian lines, to join in forming a new government; once such a government is formed, Mr. Obama said, “the United States will work with it and other countries in the region to provide increased support.”

The White House is hopeful that a new prime minister could be nominated this weekend. Even if that occurs, it will probably take Iraqis many more weeks to agree on a common political program, if they are able to do so at all. Kurds and Sunnis are demanding a major decentralization of power, and one of the “other countries” that the United States must balance is Iran, which seeks to perpetuate Shiite dominance in Baghdad. Meanwhile, as senior Kurdish leaders told the administration in a visit to Washington last month, Iraqi army and Kurdish forces probably cannot defeat the Islamic State on their own.

It’s past time for Mr. Obama to set aside a policy that is both minimalist and unrealistic. The United States should offer sustained military support to friendly forces that fight the Islamic State, beginning with the Kurds and including moderate Syrian rebels and Iraqi Sunni tribesmen. It should seek to erode the Islamic State’s military power as much as possible with airstrikes. It should not press for a new Iraqi government unless Shiite leaders and their Iranian sponsors agree to a fundamental restructuring of power. And it should forge a political and diplomatic strategy that encompasses both Iraq and Syria and their interrelated conflicts. The primary aim should not be to minimize U.S. involvement — as Mr. Obama would have it — but to defeat the forces that are destroying the region.

Obama spent a lot of time talking about the “weaknesses” of the Iraqi government, but kept insisting that if only Baghdad would reach out to the Sunnis and Kurds, the problems would be solved. The Shi’ites, though, have been facing this existential threat for months and still aren’t cooperating, because they don’t want to give up power and think Iran will bail them out.

Obama also suggested that Iraq’s Sunni neighbors would “join the fight” against ISIS, but … why would they do that? The Saudis in particular have been attempting to push Bashar Assad out of Syria, which led to the vacuum that allowed ISIS to metastasize. Does Obama really think that the Saudis will join a military campaign against ISIS that will benefit Assad, Maliki, and Iran in the short run? Does he think the Jordanians will go to war against ISIS in western Iraq? Why would either of these nations do so when the US insists it will sit it out? The only neighboring nation that would launch military strikes against ISIS might be Israel, which this administration has spent the last several weeks attempting to hamstring while Hamas lobs missiles at civilian population centers.

No one will march into western Iraq to fight ISIS without the US leading the way … which means no one will be fighting ISIS other than the collapsing Iraqi forces for the foreseeable future, and the Kurds who are bravely attempting to protect their homeland from the barbarian horde that threatens to overrun them.

In today’s final question, Obama got challenged on whether he should have left troops in Iraq after all. Obama proceeded to offer a cynical and disingenuous exercise in buck-passing, claiming that it was all Iraq’s fault that American troops were not left in the country. Let’s recall that Obama bragged about bringing all the troops home in the 2012 election, and that it was well known that the US had a clear opening for a follow-on force. Instead, Obama and Joe Biden blew off the negotiations, refusing to even come to the phone in an attempt to salvage them. He got the short-term boost to his approval ratings that he sought at the time, and now when his approval levels are cratering, Obama claims he was helpless to do anything in the face of Iraqi intransigence. Not only will few buy that explanation, those who do will have to explain how being impotent with Maliki makes Obama a foreign-policy genius.

Obama today: "As if this was my decision." Obama in Oct 2011: pic.twitter.com/fnTQSKxt7N A promise he kept, and he's running from it? #OwnIt

— Ron Fournier (@ron_fournier) August 9, 2014

Well, it’s never his fault, right?

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WaPo editorial: Why is the world ignoring Hamas’ depravity?

WaPoeditorial:WhyistheworldignoringHamas’

Poll: 50% say Equal Protection Clause of U.S. Constitution gives gays the right to marry

Poll:50%sayEqualProtectionClauseofU.S.

WaPo:ObamasanctionsonRussianotenoughfor

WaPo: Obama sanctions on Russia not enough for “first forcible change of borders in Europe since World War II”

posted at 10:01 am on April 29, 2014 by Ed Morrissey

While the Washington Post editorial board gets its position on sanctions correct, the editors have a little less luck on research. The Post slams the incremental increases in sanctions applied to Russia over its actions in Ukraine, actions which John Kerry claimed publicly are directly controlling the unrest in the eastern provinces of its neighbor. Calling the new sanctions “half measures,” the editorial board demanded more comprehensive penalties for Vladimir Putin:

President Obama’s response has been slow and excruciatingly measured. New U.S. sanctions announced Monday fall well short of the steps that senior officials threatened when the Russian offensive in eastern Ukraine began three weeks ago.

No wonder that, even as he announced them, Mr. Obama expressed skepticism that they would work. “We don’t expect there to be an immediate change in Russia’s policy,” a top aide told reporters. This official acknowledged that the United States could take steps that would impose “severe damage on the Russian economy” but was holding them back. The obvious question is: Why would the United States not aim to bring about an immediate change in Russian behavior that includes sponsorship of murder, torture and hostage-taking?

Why, indeed? These are extremely serious and disturbing tactics used by Moscow, which should prompt a massive economic response from the West. Instead, Obama and his European allies dither, giving Putin no reason to stop using those tactics. When asked why the US insists on taking a micro-incremental approach, one “senior official” suggested that they didn’t want to impact economic growth in an election year.

Well, that’s one for the reprint of Profiles in Courage.

Still, the editorial board seems to have missed an entire decade with its payoff pitch in the conclusion:

Those are understandable motives, but they ought to be trumped by the imperative of standing unambiguously against the first forcible change of borders in Europe since World War II.

WashPost editorial board calls Ukraine "first forcible change of borders in Europe since World War II." Uhhhhhhhhh cc: @dandrezner

— Olivier Knox (@OKnox) April 29, 2014

Ahem. The layers of editors and fact-checkers at the post seem oblivious to the Balkans Wars of the 1990s, when a number of European borders got redrawn by force. That’s odd, since the US conducted bombing campaigns against Serbia and Slobodan Milosevic when it resisted redrawing those borders. The UN got called in as peacekeepers and have been there ever since in one form or another, although they stood by and allowed the genocidal massacre of Srebrenica after establishing it as a sanctuary for civilians. And let’s not forget that the borders in eastern Europe remained static only by the threat of force, or in some cases — Hungary and Czechoslovakia among them — with force itself.

Marshal Tito only kept Yugoslavia from erupting into chaos through the use of his police-state force and Soviet support, and his nation barely lasted twelve after his death, and three after the beginning of the Soviet collapse. No one puts Baby Tito in the corner, or Milosevic either when it comes to forcible border changes in Europe, not even the Washington Post’s editors.

Getting back to the sanctions, McClatchy’s Kevin Hall isn’t impressed either:

While the new sanctions don’t target Russia’s energy sector _ Obama said that step would be taken if Russian troops crossed the border into Ukraine _ they take aim at individuals whose wealth comes largely from Russia’s vast oil and natural gas industry. The reluctance to impose broad sanctions on Russian sales of oil and natural gas reflects concerns that such a step would cripple Europe’s economic recovery _ the European Union is deeply dependent on Russian energy _ and likely drive up global oil prices, which would hurt U.S. consumers and slow the U.S. economy ahead of hotly contested midterm elections in November.

The sanctions also don’t target Putin. “The goal here is not to go after Mr. Putin, personally,” Obama said. “The goal is to change his calculus with how the current actions he’s engaging in in Ukraine could have an adverse impact on the Russian economy.”

“It seems to me a pretty modest step,” said Michael Singh, a former senior national security adviser in the Bush administration, who thinks the administration’s approach has emboldened rather than punished Putin. “You have to be willing to show that you are ultimately willing to incur a cost to deter Russia.”

Maybe Obama will have more flexibility after the election, eh?

Update: Forgot to include tweet from my friend Olivier Knox at Yahoo News, who tipped me to the problem.

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WaPo:TeaPartyPACsspendmostoftheir

WaPo: Tea Party PACs spend most of their cash on themselves

posted at 2:01 pm on April 28, 2014 by Ed Morrissey

As Matea Gold points out in her report, this makes Tea Party PACS somewhat similar to other PACs in the political arena — but “business as usual” isn’t the point of the Tea Party, either. In the Washington Post analysis of contributions and expenditures from Tea Party-related PACs, less than half of the intake goes to candidates or independent expenditures on races and issues. Most of the money ends up funding the organizations and their consultants:

Out of the $37.5 million spent so far by the PACs of six major tea party organizations, less than $7 million has been devoted to directly helping candidates, according to the analysis, which was based on campaign finance data provided by the Sunlight Foundation. …

Roughly half of the money — nearly $18 million — has gone to pay for fundraising and direct mail, largely provided by Washington-area firms. Meanwhile, tea party leaders and their family members have been paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in consulting fees, while their groups have doled out large sums for airfare, a retirement plan and even interior decorating. …

Three well-known groups — the Tea Party Patriots, the Tea Party Express and the Madison Project — have spent 5 percent or less of their money directly on election-related activity during this election cycle. Two other prominent tea party groups, the Senate Conservatives Fund and FreedomWorks, have devoted about 40 percent of their money to direct candidate support such as ads and yard signs.

On average, super PACs had spent 64 percent of their funds on directly helping candidates by roughly this stage in the 2012 election cycle, according to Federal Election Commission data.

None of this is illegal, nor is it terribly unusual in the industry. There are, though, a few questionable relationships between PAC officials and vendors. Tea Party Patriots finance director Richard Norman has direct-mail firms that got $2.7 million worth of business from the PAC for fundraising campaigns. Senate Conservatives Fund has paid almost $300,000 to vendors owned by its executive director, Matt Hoskins. Gold challenged Tea Party Express chief Sal Russo in particular, who responded that the figures don’t tell the whole story:

The Tea Party Express, a PAC run out of Sacramento by longtime Republican consultant Sal Russo, has paid Russo’s firm $2.75 million since the beginning of 2013, while donating just $45,000 to candidates and spending less than $162,000 on ads and bus tours supporting their election.

Russo said that figure was misleading because most of the payments to his firm were reimbursements for the cost of staffing the elaborate bus tours and rallies that the group holds around the country.

“Everything goes on our credit card,” he said. “Sometimes there’s up to 45 people that we’ve got to feed and house.”

Those activities, while not explicit political expenditures, give a bigger return than expensive television ads, Russo said.

Gold suggests that this is just the natural metamorphosis from grassroots to professional character in the Tea Party. Fundraising costs money, and those costs do tend to be front-loaded in cycles, too. Still, even for this early in the cycle the balance seems far off from what most Tea Party activists would have in mind for their contributions.

Jennifer Rubin expresses outrage over the “charlatans” exposed by the report:

Republicans who have been targeted as sell-outs by these groups have every right to be infuriated. They’ve been used to generate huge money – for the PAC leaders. It is good business to harangue mainstream Republicans, fundraise off of the “sell outs” and then reap the rewards. The notion that these groups are helping the GOP or the country is preposterous. A senior GOP aide told Right Turn. “It seems pretty clear that these so-called Tea Party leaders are more interested in lining their own pockets than living by the values and principles of the millions of Americans who have donated their hard-earned dollars to support the conservative cause.” …

It will be interesting to see if rabid rightwing blogs and high-powered talk show hosts which often team up with these groups – carrying their message, giving free media time, interviewing the groups’ leaders, amplifying their attacks against incumbent Republicans — express outrage and call for an end to the fleecing of donors. After all, it is their readers and listeners who have been ripped off. And will Jim DeMint, who founded the Senate Conservatives Fund and now heads the Heritage Foundation also denounce these practices? Silence would speak volumes.

In order for the Tea Party to have an impact on politics, it had to organize and do so professionally, and that organization flowed up from its grassroots beginnings. That process was always going to be bumpy, but it’s time to get the same kind of accountability from these groups that they demand from government and elected officials. It’s the donors who are owed that accountability, and perhaps should approach groups with a little more scrutiny in the future.

However, just because some of these groups may (or may not) have “fleeced” donors doesn’t make their political agenda incorrect, either. It just means that the Tea Party may need to go a little Tea Party on their own “establishment.” Let’s see if the Tea Party movement can police itself.

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WaPocolumnist:Homeownershipisalousyinvestment

WaPo columnist: Home ownership is a lousy investment

posted at 8:01 am on April 23, 2014 by Ed Morrissey

Most people include home ownership as one of the basic elements of the American Dream. It stands not just for independence, but also in most minds an investment in tangible and significant property. It’s not a universally-held goal — some people prefer to rent even with the means to own — but home ownership is usually seen as one of the building blocks to middle-class wealth.

As I noted, some people prefer to avoid home ownership, but not usually on the basis of it being a lousy investment. See if you can pick out the huge, gaping flaw that the Washington Post’s editors apparently missed in Catherine Rampell’s column:

The fact that Americans still financially fetishize homeownership baffles me. Never mind that so many people lost their shirts (among other possessions) in the recent housing bust. Over an even longer horizon, owning a home has not proved to be a terribly lucrative investment either. Don’t take my word for it; ask Robert Shiller, winner of the 2013 Nobel Prize in economics who previously became a household name for identifying the housing bubble.

“People forget that housing deteriorates over time. It goes out of style. There are new innovations that people want, different layouts of rooms,” he told me. “And technological progress keeps bringing the cost of construction down.” Meaning your worn, old-fashioned home is competing with new, relatively inexpensive ones.

Over the past century, housing prices have grown at a compound annual rate of just 0.3 percent once one adjusts for inflation, according to my calculations using Shiller’s historical housing data. Over the same period, the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index has had comparable annual returns of about 6.5 percent.

Yet Americans still think it’s financially savvy to dump all their savings into a single, large, highly illiquid asset.

Perhaps it helps to identify the one word that Rampell never includes in this essay … rent. The primary home is not just “a single, large, highly illiquid asset”; it’s where people live, too. If they don’t have a house to own, they will have to pay rent.

For instance, I’ve owned my current house for a little over sixteen years, and it’s the longest I’ve ever lived in one place. I’ve paid between $1,050-$1,125 each month for my “investment,” and the rents in my community for even a somewhat-smaller place run at least that amount (according to Zillow). Either way, I’d have paid roughly $211,200 for a place to live. However, I had the choice to sink that cash into either a property in which a significant amount cash would be recoverable in a sale (equity), or handing it all over to a landlord with no return on it whatsoever.

Which is the better investment? Even if I could squeeze into a smaller space (2 bedrooms), I’d only have saved about $200 a month, or roughly $38,000 overall. In sixteen years, my equity has increased by about three times that amount, even with the housing bubble and crash a few years ago. I didn’t just go out and burn $172,800 by handing it to another property owner without a stake in the property for myself.  This may not turn out to be the best investment I’ve ever made in terms of pure cash return, but it’s saved me at least the $172,800 I would have spent without any return at all — which in real terms makes it the best possible investment I could have made.

Now, this may not be the biggest issue in the public square at the moment, but Rampell’s argument had to go through the “layers of fact-checkers and editors” we hear exist at journalistic outlets such as the Post. Yet no one apparently knew enough about the concept of “rent” and “opportunity cost” to flag the column and ask Rampell to address the gaping hole in her argument. Odd, and it suggests that the people involved aren’t terribly well acquainted with economic reality.

Update: Jim Geraghty suggests other ways to get government out of subsidizing the American Dream. Also, Rampell’s point about scaling back or ending government policies that incentivize home ownership actually works better by underscoring what a great ”investment” primary home ownership actually is. Why do we need to incentivize it when the opportunity costs already do so as strongly as they do?

Tags: American Dream, home, WaPo

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SnowdenreportingwinsthePulitzerforWaPo,Guardian

Snowden reporting wins the Pulitzer for WaPo, Guardian

posted at 8:41 am on April 15, 2014 by Ed Morrissey

Bloomberg’s report suggests that “there was a lot of debate” about whether the Pulitzer Prize committee would reward the Guardian and the Washington Post for their coverage of Edward Snowden’s leaks. Was there a debate, though? There hasn’t been much of a debate from the editorial caste of the news media over the news value of the information, which uncovered the scope of domestic surveillance conducted by the NSA, although there has been plenty of passionate debate elsewhere over whether the Guardian and the Post stepped over the line:

The Hill covers the award itself, given out yesterday:

The Pulitzer Prize for public service was awarded Monday to The Washington Post and The Guardian, which broke the story of National Security Agency surveillance programs leaked by Edward Snowden.

In giving U.S. journalism’s top prize to the Guardian and the Post, the Pulitzer committee delivered support for Snowden and Glenn Greenwald, the former Guardian journalist most associated with the story, while offering a rebuke of the government.

The Pulitzer board called out the Post for its “authoritative and insightful reports that helped the public understand how the disclosures fit into the larger framework of national security,” and the Guardian for “helping through aggressive reporting to spark a debate about the relationship between the government and the public over issues of security and privacy.”

Publication of the NSA stories deeply embarrassed the Obama administration, and turned Snowden into perhaps the country’s most famous fugitive.

Critics say that the leaks have weakened U.S. national security and put Americans in danger. They also argue that Snowden’s files, including information not yet released to the public, is likely in the hands of the Russians and Chinese.

Politico’s Dylan Byers predicts that the award will be claimed as vindication by Snowden and his media partners:

Edward Snowden didn’t win a Pulitzer on Monday, but he might as well have.

In a move certain to be interpreted as a vindication of the former government contractor’s efforts, the Pulitzer Prize Board on Monday awarded The Guardian US and The Washington Post its coveted Public Service award for reporting on the National Security Agency’s domestic surveillance practices.

Byers confirmed his own prediction:

Snowden immediately declared the decision “a vindication.”

“Today’s decision is a vindication for everyone who believes that the public has a role in government,” he said in a statement to The Guardian. “We owe it to the efforts of the brave reporters and their colleagues who kept working in the face of extraordinary intimidation, including the forced destruction of journalistic materials, the inappropriate use of terrorism laws, and so many other means of pressure to get them to stop what the world now recognizes was work of vital public importance.”

Martin Baron, the executive editor of the Washington Post, told POLITICO, “None of this would have been possible without Snowden’s release of classified information. I understand that’s a source of controversy, but without his disclosures there would be no discussion of the shift from the rights of the individual to state power, no debate about the balance between privacy and national security.”

Not everyone is happy with the decision. PJM’s Bridget Johnson captured Rep. Peter King’s reaction to the decision:

But today’s announcement of the 2014 Pulitzer Prizes stoked an old debate about whether a former NSA contractor who leaked details about the surveillance programs — among other leaks — is a traitor or a whistleblower. Today, he was the muse of award winners.

“Awarding the Pulitzer to Snowden enablers is a disgrace,” tweeted Rep. Pete King (R-N.Y.).

At least for one day, the award didn’t seem to make too many people change their minds about Snowden, or about the nature of the leaks he’s engineered over the past eleven months about US surveillance and intelligence efforts. That shows in large part how little a Pulitzer means outside of the editorial caste and to their recipients. It’s a bragging point within the industry, not a vindication, no matter how much one wants to see it as a blessing from on high. It’s simply a recognition within a peer group of perceived excellence, and few inside that peer group seemed anything but fully supportive of Snowden and his media partners from the first.

For me, Snowden and the reporting that followed from his massive theft of classified material are a mixed bag. It seems clear that abuses were occurring, and that officials like James Clapper lied about it to Congress. (Why Clapper remains as DNI is a mystery that even exceeds that of Sebelius’ longevity in the Obama administration.) Whistleblowers have channels within the US to call attention to real abuses; it’s still an open question as to whether Snowden actually tried to use those, and also a question as to whether those are safe and effective, too. Still, the scope and nature of Snowden’s actions tends to argue against him as just a mere whistleblower looking to stop abuses. The Snowden cache and exposure went far beyond that into areas that appeared deliberately designed to damage American intelligence capabilities abroad, and Snowden’s attempts at asylum in China and then Russia raise serious questions about his motivations — especially with a newly-aggressive Russia.

Tags: Barton Gellman, Edward Snowden, Glenn Greenwald, Guardian, Pulitzer Prize, WaPo, whistleblower

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WaPo: WH wants Kerry to admit defeat on Israeli-Palestinian effort

posted at 8:01 am on April 4, 2014 by Ed Morrissey

Every presidential administration thinks they have the answers that have eluded a century of diplomats which will solve the Jewish-Arab conflict in the Middle East. Some have gotten closer than others; Bill Clinton thought he’d succeeded until Yasser Arafat threw Clinton’s efforts aside for more war, and Jimmy Carter’s one solid accomplishment in foreign affairs was the Israeli-Egypt peace accord. In the end, though, the world’s Gordian knot remains tied, and eventually every administration realizes that it’s time to focus on other issues of more import to the US.

And according to White House sources going almost fully public on the Washington Post’s front page today, they want John Kerry to know that he has reached that point already (via Jim Geraghty):

When his aides get discouraged about the prospects for Middle East peace, Secretary of State John F. Kerry often bucks them up with a phrase: “Don’t be afraid to be caught trying.”

But as his tireless efforts to broker Israeli-Palestinian negotiations hit bottom Thursday, with Israel’s cancellation of prisoner releases that were considered crucial to keeping the talks alive, there are some around Kerry — including on his senior staff and inside the White House — who believe the time is approaching for him to say, “Enough.”

Kerry risks being seen as trying too hard at the expense of a range of other pressing international issues, and perhaps even his reputation, according to several senior administration officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity about sensitive internal and diplomatic matters.

“A point will come where he has to go out and own the failure,” an official said. For now, the official said, Kerry needs to “lower the volume and see how things unfold.”

After negotiators met through the night, Israel announced that it would not release 26 long-serving Palestinian prisoners, the final members of a group of 104 whose freedom was part of last summer’s agreement to start talks. The Israelis said they were responding to a Palestinian decision to take unilateral steps to claim greater recognition as a state by the United Nations — a step that was itself a response to additional Israeli demands and an earlier delay in the prisoner release.

So far, Kerry isn’t taking the hint. Yesterday, he talked about the progress “over the last few days,” and claimed that the only differences between the two sides related to process rather than the final status agreement:

If Kerry really believes that, then it’s no small wonder that the White House had to send its sources to the Post to get Kerry’s attention. Over the long period of years, one thing should have been clear, especially after Arafat’s final refusal — the Palestinians want Israel back, and Israel doesn’t want to give it up — and probably doesn’t want to give up much of the West Bank, either. Those aren’t “process” issues. The demand for the right of return, for instance, is an existential question for Israel, as are settlement and water issues for the Palestinians. If the Palestinians have given up on the right of return and the refusal to acknowledge Israel as a sovereign Jewish state while Israel agreed to dismantle the settlements, that’s news to the rest of us.

As Jeffrey Goldberg argues, it’s difficult to blame Kerry for trying to find a solution. People are dying as a result of the ongoing conflict, and the Israelis are our friends and a key ally; why wouldn’t we want to help find a solution? However, the US has other issues that are of more direct import to our own national interests, and having our Secretary of State so publicly mired in this standoff with no results to show from it doesn’t do much for our credibility on those other areas of foreign policy. Hillary Clinton was smart to downplay her involvement in this area.

The most striking part of this story is the fact that the White House — and Kerry’s own staff — need to go to the Post to send the message that it’s time to pack it in. That sends a bigger signal of dysfunction at State and between Kerry and Barack Obama. With Russia mobilizing on its western front, the NATO/EU response of weakness and indecision, and the Iran negotiations on its nuclear-weapons program appearing to spin out of control as a result, Kerry’s attention should be elsewhere, rather than on an attempt to salvage his reputation while failing ever more spectacularly on this conflict. When both sides are equally desirous of peace and co-existence, then the Israelis and Palestinians will find an accommodation with or without a US Secretary of State on hand to midwife it.

Tags: Barack Obama, Israeli-Palestinian conflict, John Kerry, WaPo

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ABC/WaPo poll: Democratic support for ObamaCare surges, plurality of public now supports the law

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WaPo: Four Pinocchios for Dems’ Koch habit

posted at 10:01 am on March 14, 2014 by Ed Morrissey

Harry Reid’s unhinged rants on the Senate floor about David and Charles Koch reflect not just one man’s paranoia but an empty strategy of demagoguery by a major political party. A new ad from the party’s Senate Majority PAC attempting to protect Mary Landrieu from the consequences of her support for Barack Obama’s agenda tried to shift attention in Louisiana to “out-of-state billionaires,” by which they did not mean George Soros or Tom Steyer. The ad claims that the Kochs support “tax cuts for companies that ship our jobs overseas,” but as the Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler deduces, practically nothing in that argument is true … including the that and the for:

Matsdorf cites the fact that ATR has a taxpayer pledge for candidates to “oppose any and all tax increases” and that ATR once ran a fact check blog post on an Obama speech that said that “companies don’t get tax breaks for moving anything overseas.” (One can argue over semantics, but Obama has a tendency to suggest this is a special loophole. Instead, it’s a standard moving expense deduction that is part of the tax code, whether you are moving jobs to Vienna, Va., or Vienna, Austria.)

But we could find no evidence that ATR ever took a position on this bill, which after all is supposedly the reason why Senate Majority PAC says that saving this “tax cut” is a central part of the Koch agenda. Indeed, Ryan Ellis, ATR’s policy director, told The Fact Checker: “I’ve never heard of that bill, so I can tell you with some confidence that we don’t have a position on it.”

Americans for Tax Reform did get a contribution from the Kochs’ organization, but it amounted to 1% of their contributions for the year — so this isn’t a Koch operation anyway. The Post’s own analysis of the reach of the Koch brothers called it an “outside ally,” not part of their operation, but SMP used it as the basis of their attack ad.

Needless to say, Kessler was unimpressed, giving Senate Majority PAC four pinocchios:

Upon examination, this claim crumbles into dust. The ad not only mischaracterizes an ordinary tax deduction as a special “tax cut” but then it falsely asserts that “protecting” this tax break is part of the Koch agenda. It turns out this claim is based on a tenuous link to an organization that never even took a position on the legislation in question.

Equally unimpressed is National Journal’s Alex Roarty, who wonders what Democrats think they’re accomplishing by stoking their own Koch habit:

A Quinnipiac University poll in January ranked, in order, the three issues voters cared about the most: the economy, the federal budget deficit, and health care. Not included on the list? Charles and David Koch.

And therein lies the dilemma for Democrats, who of late have turned the full fury and might of their political operation against the billionaire brothers from Kansas. …

Voters don’t like the outside interference, but their distaste doesn’t necessarily have the resonance to push voters away from the GOP. And even for all of the influence wielded by Americans for Prosperity and other Koch-affiliated enterprises, they’re still just outside groups in an election in which voters are still just choosing between Republicans and Democrats.

“There’s a trap in campaigns that’s called the Other People’s Money trap,” said Brad Todd, a Republican strategist. “Voters care about their money, not other people’s money. Anytime my candidate is talking about the voters’ money and my opponent is talking about other people’s money, I feel pretty good about our chances.”

It gets trickier for Democrats in individual races. Along with Begich, Sens. Mark Pryor in Arkansas and Mary Landrieu in Louisiana each accepted money from the Koch Industries PAC in recent years. Blasting them now—all three are battleground races this year—risks making the incumbent look like a hypocrite.

That’s especially true when they’re hijacking the Senate on behalf of Thomas Steyer for an issue that is among the lowest priorities for Americans in this election cycle — or missing from the priority list altogether. When asked to rank their top priority, unemployment and jobs topped yesterday’s Gallup poll list, while environmental issues and global warming didn’t even make the list. Income inequality, by the way, polled 2% at the bottom.

They’re flailing, and the reek of desperation is only getting more obvious.

Addendum: Not everyone at the Post has the time to check facts:

WaPo blogger praises Dem Koch attack ad. http://t.co/RtXDgJYrmQ WaPo factchecker demolishes it. http://t.co/bdtpU1Yt2m

— Byron York (@ByronYork) March 14, 2014

Tags: demagoguery, Harry Reid, Koch Brothers, Pinocchio, Thomas Steyer, WaPo

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WaPo poll: 52% support Obama using executive orders to bypass Congress on his legislative goals

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Poll: Nearly five years into Obama’s presidency, most Americans still blame Bush for economic problems

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WaPo:Obamapollingisworsethanitstopline

WaPo: Obama polling is worse than its topline looks

posted at 11:21 am on December 5, 2013 by Ed Morrissey

Over the last couple of weeks, we’ve looked at the various polls on Barack Obama’s performance and noted the dramatic decline in approval on both policy areas and personal qualities. Today, the Washington Post’s Aaron Blake and Sean Sullivan take a look at the former, and inform readers that Obama is in much bigger trouble than just dropping below 40% overall approval:

Recent polling from the Pew Research Center and Quinnipiac University has shown Obama’s approval rating on almost all major issues plunging into the 30s — below even his lowest-ever overall approval rating, which has stood around 40 percent in recent polls.

One might expect Obama’s issue approval rating to be lagging on the economy, for example. And it is.

But even with an issue on which which the president appears to fall in line with a majority of Americans, he’s struggling.

The Pew poll showed Obama’s approval rating on immigration, for instance, was at 32 percent, with 60 percent disapproving, and Quinnipiac showed just 35 percent approving of Obama on that issue.

The two wonder why Obama’s job approval rating remains a little above his ratings on these critical issues.  One of their theories is that his likeability may still be softening the blow, or that the collapse of his leadership approval numbers means that people believe he simply can’t deliver. I’d lean a little more toward the former, although we haven’t seen a poll on likeability in a while.

They miss, however, the big issue of his personal honesty and integrity.  For the first time in his presidency, Obama finds poll numbers plunging on that key attribute, as I noted in my column at The Week yesterday:

His average approval rating on Real Clear Politics has dropped below 40 percent for the first time in his presidency. But worse yet are the ratings on personal qualities like honesty, integrity, and leadership. CNN’s latest poll, taken just before Thanksgiving, shows 53 percent believing that Obama isn’t honest or trustworthy. A CBS News poll put trust in Obama’s word at 49 percent, eleven points lower than a year earlier, while a Washington Post/ABC News survey gave him a 47/50 result on whether he was “honest and trustworthy” — and 33/63 when those attributes were applied to the ObamaCare implementation.

That’s why Obama is in big trouble, and why a fancy speech and a couple of pivots won’t work this time.  That may be especially true among millennials, as I write in today’s column at The Fiscal Times. Those are the voters where disillusionment will hit the hardest on bald-faced lies like “If you like your plan, you can keep it,” and where the damage will hurt Obama and Democrats the most:

Obama wants to counter this with a sales pitch to younger voters, combined with a pivot of sorts to the economy – namely, a demand for a minimum-wage hike. Obama’s problem in this effort is his track record on sales pitches, as well as the demonstrable incompetence of his administration to manage his projects. Young voters bought all of those Obama lines about keeping your plan if you like it, and lower premiums for all. They are not likely to fall under that swoon again when the bills are now coming due each month for the betrayal Obama provided in place of his promised Utopia.

And it’s not just the President who needs to worry about this. In a demographic that usually skews sharply Democratic, the partisan affiliation gap has closed nine points, 33/24. Among those 25 years of age and younger, it’s down to six points in the Harvard poll. Across the whole survey, more align themselves with conservatives than liberals (37/33, 26/22 without leaners). Only half of the survey say they will definitely or probably vote in the 2014 midterms.

Losing their traditional demographic edge would be a disaster for Democrats, not just in votes but also in enthusiasm and activism. That’s what happens when the bill comes due on Obamacare, as younger Americans are increasingly discovering for themselves.

Alex Roarty at National Journal says Obama’s losing another key demographic, too, and Democrats should be very worried:

It’s not the voters who hate Obamacare the most who are going to matter in next year’s elections. It’s the independents who frequently side with Democrats but could, if propelled by a distaste for the health care law, take a serious look at the GOP in 2014. And on this front, Democrats have a big problem with one of their most crucial constituencies—white women.

Polling provided to National Journal by the Kaiser Family Foundation shows that white women have soured considerably on the law, especially in the month since its botched rollout. The skepticism runs especially deep among blue-collar women, sometimes known as “waitress moms,” whose deeply pessimistic attitudes toward the Affordable Care Act should riddle Democratic candidates with anxiety.

Certainly, the law’s unpopularity gives Republicans a tool to counter the Democratic claim of a GOP “war on women”—something Republicans failed miserably at in 2012. But more significantly, it demonstrates that Democrats will have to fight just to retain core elements of their constituency. With 2014’s most important campaigns already lying in hostile territory like Alaska, Arkansas, and South Dakota, it’s a battle many of these candidates can ill afford.

Be sure to read it all, and then ask how Obama can possibly sell them on a program they hate by making more promises of success while having all of his other promises on this exposed as flat-out lies. As Blake and Sullivan say, Obama is in bigger trouble than just his overall approval ratings.

Tags: Barack Obama, honest, like your plan, millennials, polls, WaPo, young voters

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