Update
Election Day, November 7, 1972
Friday, November 7, will be exactly 42 years since I was elected to the Massachusetts Senate. Below is the blub on election night from my first book, The Good Bits: The Marines, the MassachusettsSenate and Managing Associations
*****
I came back from Vietnam convinced the war—though just—was screwed up by the damn politicians. Being young and naïve, I decided to abandon my thoughts of a Marine Corps career, get out, go to college, and go into politics to “fix things.” So I left the Corps in 1968 and entered college.
By the time I graduated from the University of Massachusettsin June of 1972, I was already deep into a campaign for the Massachusetts State Senate against an incumbent Democrat, Senator Joe Ward. The Third Worcester District was about 4 to 1 Democratic, having last elected a Republican in 1938. Joe was considered the most powerful politician to ever come from our part of the state. He hadn’t had an opponent in the last three elections. Before serving five terms in the Senate, he’d been Secretary of State and lost a close election to John Volpe for Governor in 1960. He was a successful lawyer with the support of the local establishment. And 1972, the McGovern year, wasn’t a good one for Republicans in Massachusetts.
I was a 26-year-old kid from New Jersey, who had only lived in the district the four years I was in college, though it was my voting address while I was in the Marines. Seemed like a fair fight.
When the polls closed on election night, the best prediction we heard on the radio was that I had run a good campaign and would probably only get beat about 2 to 1.
At two in the morning, we were about 2,000 votes down. Joe went on the radio and thanked his constituents for re-electing him. His supporters drove by my house blasting their horns. My supporters said, “good campaign” and went home to bed—except for the high school and college kids who had worked so hard.
Then Lunenburg, where I lived, came in and gave me a 1,000-vote plurality. The Democratic stronghold of Clinton, where we were predicted to lose by 2,000 votes, came in and I had carried the town by 54 votes. Shaking 6,000 hands there on Election Day—while almost crippling my arm—had paid off.
The next four precincts to come in gave me pluralities. The Town of Westminstercame in about 4:30 am, giving me a 300-vote victory, and leaving me 147 votes behind, with one town—Shirley—left to report out of the 13 cities and towns in the district.
In those days, everything was paper ballots, slow counting, but thankfully no machines to “fix.” Shirley was told the Senate race depended on them, so they counted three times.
At 6:30 am, the call came in from Shirley. They read the numbers; I repeated them out loud. We all did the math. Then the cheers erupted. I had carried Shirley by 156 votes, upsetting an incumbent state senator by nine votes—out of over 60,000 votes cast.
*****
Actually, I won the first election by 126 votes, once all the recounts were over. This was a good thing, as the Democrats in the Senate would have probably appointed a committee to investigate the election, found ten challenged Hall votes to throw out, and seated Senator Ward in my place. In fact, a Democratic leader later told me that was the plan. Not without precedent—in my district, the Republicans did just that to the Democratic challenger back in 1938. But I wasn’t eager to be the victim of poetic justice for something that happened before I was born. Luckily, the leadership decided 126 were too many votes to safely throw out—bad PR with voters who like to think they live in a democracy. Senator Ward asked the Senate to seat him any way, and considered a court challenge. It was December—a month after the election—before I was sure I’d be seated.
Seeing the various way voters could screw up paper ballots was enlightening. People wrote messages to their government on them. People voted for cartoon characters. People voted for themselves. All of these ballots were challenged as having “identifying marks.” The 126-vote margin meant the challenges ended up being moot, as the election didn’t go to court.
It was interesting to note the number of folks who voted for either right or left wing fringe candidates, who also voted for me for state senator. Since there was hardly philosophical agreement across that spectrum, I assume these were anti-incumbent votes.
In my town of Lunenburg, there was one fellow noted for being a good citizen. He showed up for every election—and wrote himself in for every office. At least, it was assumed that the he was the one writing himself in, and not his wife or neighbor.
In 1972, he again voted, and again wrote himself in for every office. Except for state senator, where he broke ranks and voted for me. I was proud of getting his vote away from himself.
In fact, I think if only the kooky votes had counted, I’d have won in a landslide.
(In my recount in 1972, the big gain on my 9-vote margin was a block of 50 votes in Fitchburgthat had been recorded as 39 for Ward, 11 for me. It was the other way around when we had observers, giving me a net gain of 58 votes. Maybe an accident, but as almost always it was an error that benefited the Democrat in a Democrat-controlled city. ~Bob)
General News and Comment
Congrats to racist old white men Joni Ernst, Tim Scott, Mia Love, Nikki Haley and Elise Stefanik.
Must Read: The Democratic Party’s Civil War Is Here. By Daniel Greenfield
Excerpt: There are really two Democratic parties. One is the old corrupt party of thieves and crooks. Its politicians, black and white, are the products of political machines. They believe in absolutely nothing. They can go from being Dixiecrats to crying racism, from running on family values to pushing gay marriage and the War on Women. They will say absolutely anything to get elected.
Republican sweep extends to state level
Excerpt: That would give the party control of 67 chambers, five more than their previous record in the modern era, set after special elections in 2011 and 2012. It also would give Republicans total control of 24 states, in which they hold the governor’s mansion and both chambers of the state legislature (Nebraska’s unicameral legislature is technically nonpartisan, but in practice Republicans control the chamber by a wide margin). Democrats, by contrast, are likely to control all three legs of the governing stool in only six states. (When I was one of 40 Massachusetts State Senators, we usually had seven Republicans. Once up to 8, once down to 6. Must be nice. ~Bob)
Worth Reading: Obama Isn't Listening to Voters He Claims to Hear. "I hear you," the president says. But he doesn't. By Ron Fournier Excerpt:
Shellacked and
thumped by an angry electorate, President Obama declared to every American who voted in Tuesday's elections—and to those who've checked out of the political process—"I hear you." And then he ignored them. From all appearances Wednesday, the president won't change—not his policies, not his style, not his staff, not nothing. (No surprise here. ~Bob)
Excerpt: Well, enough Americans finally woke up, and enough other Americans stayed away, that we finally were able to give Democrats the sort of smackdown they have so richly deserved for so long. (No. First, you don't have the votes in the senate to convict. Second, an impeachment effort would mobilize Democrats, especially blacks, to defeat Republicans. And it would help Obama recover as it helped Clintonrecover. [I said that was dumb at the time.] But suppose you succeeded? There would be riots, hundreds of deaths and tens of millions of dollars in damage in the cities. All this would help incumbent Biden going into the 2016 election with a mobilized party behind him, all the folks you say "stayed away" would turn out to vote, and you would very likely get President Biden for four years. Remember that Gore got more votes than Bush in 2000, even as a non-incumbent. We cannot risk that disaster. ~Bob)
America faces most dangerous two years in 150 years. By Charles Hurt
Excerpt: If President Obama suffered a "shellacking" in the 2010 elections, then what he endured Tuesday night was nothing short of a vicious gangland beat down the likes of which have rarely been seen before in the history of electoral politics. This, of course, is a wonderful and well-deserved outcome. But beware: America now enters the two most dangerous years of her existence — or certainly the most dangerous since the Great Depression and possibly going all the way back to the Civil War.
Interesting: Midterm disaster rips apart awkward ties between Obama and Senate Democrats. By Paul Kane
Excerpt: Less than two months after their most joyous moment together, the relationship between the Obama White House and Senate Democrats went off track and has never recovered. Instead of basking in the victory glow of President Obama’s impressive 2012 reelection and an improbable two-seat gain for Democrats, they found themselves at the edge of the now infamous “fiscal cliff.” (Maybe they should have looked beyond skin color when selecting a nominee. ~Bob)
West Virginia Elects America’s YoungestStateLawmaker
Excerpt: A
West VirginiaUniversityfreshman who did most of her campaigning
out of her dorm room became the youngest state lawmaker in the nation Tuesday. Republican Saira Blair, a fiscally conservative 18-year-old, will represent a small district in
West Virginia’s eastern panhandle, about 1½ hours outside
Washington, D.C., after defeating her Democratic opponent 63% to 30%, according to the Associated Press. (I was an ancient 26 when first elected. And not near as good looking. ~Bob)
Mixed Message? Obama strikes bipartisan tone after GOP wins, vows exec action on immigration
Excerpt: President Obama, after his party suffered bruising midterm defeats in races that Republicans deemed a referendum on his policies, vowed anew Wednesday to work across the aisle in his final two years in office – while at the same time, vowing to press ahead with controversial executive action on immigration.
Remember when Democrats swept in ‘06 & the media said it was important they compromise with Bush? ME NEITHER
Wendy Davis Spent $36 Million and All She Got Was This Lousy Landslide. Now What? The group that wants to turn the LoneStarState blue heads back to the drawing board. By Tim Murphy Excerpt: Last year, fresh from a presidential reelection campaign in which it was hailed for its 21st-century tactics and organizing prowess, a group of Obama for Americaveterans descended on Texaswith the goal of turning the state purple. They launched a new group, Battleground Texas, raised millions from wealthy donors, and teamed up with a rising Democratic star running for statewide office. What happened next will...probably not shock you. In the first test-drive for Battleground Texas, Democrats got trounced, losing every statewide race for the 16th consecutive election.
Excerpt: Judicial Watch announced today that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) admitted to the court that it failed to search any of the IRS standard computer systems for the “missing” emails of Lois Lerner and other IRS officials. The admission appears in an
IRS legal brief opposing the Judicial Watch
request that a federal court judge allow discovery into how “lost and/or destroyed” IRS records relating to the targeting of conservative groups may be retrieved. (If you're the guy who dumped the body off the bridge, you don't have to look for it to know where it is. ~Bob)
Nate Silver's 538 picks Brown (MD-94% chance of winning) Christ (FL-60%), Davis (KS-82%), Michaud (ME-57%) and Quinn (IL-66%) the day before the election. All lost.
Excerpt: Floridavoters have to choose one of these guys. FiveThirtyEight thinks Crist is slightly more likely to be that guy; he has a 60 percent chance of winning.
The Evaporating Democratic Majority. By Ross Douthat, NYT
Excerpt: “For Republicans, what counts as victory?” I asked in
my pre-election post, and now we have an answer: This counts. Control of the Senate with room to spare, easy victories in what were supposed to be tight purple-state races and even easier victories in red states, an unexpected nailbiter in Virginia and an upset win in North Carolina, Rick Scott and Scott Walker re-elected, gubernatorial wins all over the map in deep blue states, a historically-large House majority … it’s a wave, it’s a thumping, it’s whatever metaphor you favor to describe a major repudiation of the president and his party.
Excerpt: Tuesday night's victory for the Republicans wasn't just a blow to President Barack Obama - it was also a knock on Hillary Clinton, who campaigned for almost all of the candidates who lost Democratic US Senate seats on Tuesday.
Sharyl Attkisson Confirms Obama’s “Enemies List”: “I was on it.” By Dean Garrison
Excerpt: The stunning upset that wasn’t two decades ago may have been an early indicator of what was yet to come: On Tuesday, Hogan pulled off perhaps the most surprising victory of the 2014 cycle, a year in which there were plenty. Although he served as a cabinet secretary in the administration of former
Marylandgovernor Bob Ehrlich, the 58-year-old businessman has never held elected office. And, though not a
single public poll had showed him ahead, on Tuesday Hogan defeated
Maryland’s lieutenant governor, Anthony Brown, by five points.
Excerpt: The Duke of Wellington said of his close-run victory over Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo that the French “came on in the same old way, and we sent them back in the same old way.” Something like that happened to the Democrats in Tuesday’s midterm elections, as they lost the Senate, a few more seats in the House, and additional governorships. They came on with the same old strategy, but this time they went down with it.
Election 2014: Maybe the Kids Are Alright After All. By Jim Geraghty, Morning Jolt
In
2012, voters from 18 to 29 made up 20 percent of the electorate in
Colorado. That year,
Coloradovoters legalized marijuana through a
popular initiative. In
2014, voters from 18 to 29 made up 14 percent of the electorate in
Colorado. Hm. Once you legalize marijuana, the youth vote drops. Perhaps I have been completely off base in my wariness about legalizing weed. Heck, give it away for free on college campuses in early November!
An Early Look at the Youth Vote in the 2014 Elections. By David Pasch Excerpt: Overall, young voters were more likely to show up at the polls and more likely to cast their ballots for Republicans than they were in 2010. With the exception of Arkansas, where the GOP nominated a likeable 37 year-old candidate, the youngest voters within our demographic (18-24) were more likely to vote Republican than the older ones (25-29). This confirms a trend we observed in 2012 and 2013: first-time voters who supported Barack Obama in 2008 have been somewhat loyal to his party, while their younger siblings and those who came of voting age during the Obama presidency have largely turned away from Democrats in the face of crippling student loan debt and the highest sustained youth unemployment levels since World War II.
Harry Reid: Don't Blame Me, Obama Just Sucks
Excerpt: The actual truth is that Obama simply doesn't do his job, because he is lazy, and he refuses to do the non-glamorous, non-"fun" parts of his job such as compromising, horsetrading, or working out the details, because he is a committed die-hard ideologue who also suffers from an intense Messianic complex in which he can only be the conquering hero. And also, he seems to be lethargic because he is psychologically a depressive, whose mood is only elevated by hero worship -- something he hasn't gotten in a while, because he's a miserable failure.
2014 Midterm Elections: How Did We Do in the Senate Races?
Excerpt: There were 36 U.S. Senate races this year, and as usual most of them weren’t close and weren’t polled much, if at all. We pride ourselves on polling every race at least once, although we generally looked at ones that weren’t expected to be close only once or twice at most. That was a mistake in the case of
Virginiawhere a popular Democratic incumbent ended up winning by less than a point. But we clearly saw the Republican wave coming, although the margins in the races in some cases proved to be bigger than some of our final polls projected. To see a comparison of our numbers to the final outcomes in all the Senate races,
click here. Also included for comparison is the Real Clear Politics average of all the most recent polls, not just ours, in each race.
56% of GOP Voters Felt ‘Compelled’ to Vote Vs. 43% of Democrats
Obama seems numb to this latest ‘shellacking’ of Democrats. By Dana Milbank
Excerpt: “I hear you,” President Obama said to the voters who gave Democrats an electoral drubbing in Tuesday’s midterm elections. But their message went in one presidential ear and out the other. The Republican victory was a political earthquake, giving the opposition party control of the Senate, expanding its House majority to a level not seen in generations and burying Democratic gubernatorial candidates. (because it's Bush's fault. Or the Koch brothers. Or maybe Global Warming. Certainly not Obama's. ~Bob)
Worth Reading: The first steps Republicans should take. By George F. Will
Excerpt: Unlike the dog that chased the car until, to its consternation, he caught it, Republicans know what to do with what they have caught. Having completed their capture of
control of the legislative branch, they should start with the following six measures concerning practical governance and constitutional equilibrium:
The Only Chart You Need: Full 2014 Election Results
In January, the GOP will have 52 to 55 (likely 54) Senate seats, 243 House seat and 31 to 33 Governors.
Watch This Woman Receive 100 Catcalls While Walking Around For A Day
Excerpt: "I’m harassed by white men, black men, Latino men. Not a day goes by when I don’t experience this.” (All the harassers in the video that I could see were black. HuffPo doesn't mention that. ~Bob)
Watch the evolution of an MSNBC meltdown
Excerpt: As a rule, the most interesting coverage of an election night is always the losing side’s coverage. Last night, MSNBC’s anchors, most of whom would concede they are more ideologically friendly toward Democrats than Republicans, lost and lost big.
Quote From The Patriot Post
"The principle of the Constitution is that of a separation of legislative, Executive and Judiciary functions, except in cases specified. If this principle be not expressed in direct terms, it is clearly the spirit of the Constitution, and it ought to be so commented and acted on by every friend of free government." --Thomas Jefferson, letter to James Madison, 1797
GOP gains traction among Hispanic voters with aggressive outreach campaigns
Excerpt: The Republican rout Tuesday helped the GOP regain ground among Hispanic voters, a bloc that both parties consider crucial for the 2016 presidential race but that not long ago seemed an increasingly stalwart Democratic constituency. In Florida and Colorado, two states likely to be major battlegrounds for the White House, GOP candidates won competitive races for governor and Senate, respectively, after aggressive outreach campaigns that included Spanish-language ads.
'Monsanto Protection Act' Roll Call: How Did Your Congressperson Vote On HR 933?
Excerpt: A national chorus of rage is rising over the "Monsanto Protection Act," a provision of the HR 933 spending bill that was passed by Congress this month and signed into law Tuesday by President Barack Obama.
Dear Republicans: No One Elected You to Work with Democrats. By Leon H. Wolf But we must always maintain the posture of being willing to work with anyone to get beneficial things done for the country. Otherwise, you give the left media the ammo to smear the GOP with the low-info voters. Not to worry--the left won't compromise at all. ~Bob
Walker Win Should Offer Blueprint for GOP. Thrice-elected governor enters second term leading political transformation of Wis.By Brian Sikma
Excerpt: Mounting the stage last night at his victory rally in a large pavilion at Wisconsin’s StateFairPark, Gov. Scott Walker delivered a speech unlike any other he’s given in a moment of victory. References to Wisconsin were replaced by references to America, comments about state political foes were replaced by references to special interests in Washington, D.C. and aside from a couple of mentions of Wisconsin unity, much was said about the American dream and the national future. If there was any doubt that Walkeris looking for national prime time, it was wiped away last night. His resume is impressive for a governor just wrapping up his first term.
Wisconsin League of Conservation Voters spent $400K in final week and half - mostly anti- Walker. How'd that work out
@wiconservation?
MSNBC Interview: "Angry Group" of Men Responsible for Scott Walker Victory
Excerpt: If progressives like Ruth Conniff think Walker only won among an "angry group" of men and that they need to double down on the 'War on Women' to close the gap, more power to them. Whatever helps them sleep at night. The truth is,
Walkerdid win overwhelmingly among men (60/39). But he also held his own among women.
Walkerearned 94% of the vote among Republican women and 46% of the vote among independent women according to
election day exit polls. And among married women,
Walkerearned 48% to Burke's 51%. (I know many women who voted for
Walker; they were angry too. How about the Democrat gender gap with men? Why is that not a problem? ~Bob)
Yes, Democrats please keep insulting women and everyone else. I like this strategy for you.
Vote Fraud News
Texas ID law didn’t mess with as many voters as feared. By Tom Bartlett, Al Jazeera Excerpt: This state’s new voter identification law — widely considered the most stringent in the nation — received its first major test in Tuesday’s midterm elections amid fears that hundreds of thousands of voters, including many Hispanics and African-Americans, would be prevented from voting. One federal judge even likened the situation to the state’s “shameful history” of poll taxes. But early indications suggest that while some voters ran into roadblocks, the effects were perhaps less dire than the law's harshest critics predicted. A hotline for voter questions, set up by Election Protection, a nonpartisan organization, fielded nearly 500 phone calls from Texans who did not have at least one of the seven approved forms of ID needed to vote or who were confused about the requirements. (500? What happened to the claimed 600,000 Texans who were too incompetent to get IDs. This from Al Jazeera which I assume is not a supporter of Voter ID. ~Bob)
Race Card News
Worth Reading: (Senator)Tim Scott: People Are Voting Based on Values, Not Race
http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-TV/2014/11/05/Tim-Scott-People-Are-Voting-Based-on-Values-Not-Race
Excerpt: Senator Tim Scott (R-SC) argued that voters “are aligning their votes with their values and they’re voting for candidates who are simply not their own complexion” in an interview broadcast on Wednesday’s “OutFront” on CNN. Scott talked about his experience last night becoming the first African-American elected to the US Senate since Reconstruction, saying “I'm blessed to have a grandfather that is 94 years old. He's seen a different America growing up than I have, and here is a fella who was a youngster picking cotton and in his lifetime he's seen his grandson get elected to Congress and now the Senate. (First from the South. My friend and political mentor, Sen. Edward Brooke, R-MA, was the first. The racist liberal Democrats took him out in 1976, based on charges proved unfounded AFTER the election. And Brooke was a liberal Republican. Scott got 63% of the vote in "racist" SC, which also reelected their Asian governor. ~Bob)
The Elections and the Last Racists. By Bob Tyrrell
Excerpt: Finally, there are two more races that spring to mind, in South Carolina and Utah. Tim Scott, a black Republican, won the Senate seat in South Carolina, and Mia Love, a black woman Republican, won a House seat in Utah. Possibly it is time for the Democrats to desist from their vulgar practice of pitching campaigns towards supposed women's issues and the inflammatory issue of race. Those issues have grown tiresome. Who else besides a Democratic candidate would think that condoms and race are anything but passe issues today? Birth control lost its ability to shock us about 50 years ago, and certainly by this election it has lost its ability to turn out large numbers of angry women. As for playing the race card, it should have lost its ability to fire up the Democratic base after the 2008 election, when the American people elected their first black president. Then, many voters were glad to vote for Barack Obama, if for no other reason, to put the issue of racial prejudice behind us. What other Western power had elected a black man to such an exalted office?
The shackles may be gone but the left still views minorities as their property. Any minority who defies that is illegitimate.
Obamacare/Government Healthcare News
Seven Obamacare Bills That The New GOP Senate Majority Should Pass In 2015. By Avik Roy Excerpt: One underappreciated aspect of the last four years is that the GOP-controlled House of Representatives passed dozens of health care-related bills that were popular with the public. But Sen. Harry Reid (D., Nev.), the Senate Majority Leader, blocked those bills from coming to a vote, in order to prevent embarrassing Democratic defections. Under a Republican Senate, a number of those bills will now get to the President’s desk, and there’s a number that he may sign. Up until now, much of the conversation in the media and on Capitol Hill has centered on measures favored by health industry lobbyists, such as a repeal of Obamacare’s
premium-increasing tax on medical devices.
28 senators who voted for Obamacare and won't be part of new Senate
Excerpt: To be sure, it isn’t fair to attribute all of the turnover in the chamber to Obamacare. Many senators voted for Obamacare and lost re-election battles in which they were hit hard for their support for the law, and other Democrats were forced to retire because they had no hope of getting re-elected given their support for the law. But in some cases — such as John Kerry leaving his seat to become secretary of state, or Robert Byrd passing away — Obamacare clearly had nothing to do with it.
Curing Medicare in Congress
Excerpt: Repeal the SGR formula. Congress created the Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) formula in 1997, which automatically cuts Medicare's payments to doctors each year. However, Congress has also overridden the cuts every year since 2003. The formula is flawed, and continuous cuts to doctors will only reduce access to care for those in the government health care program. Moffit says a new Congress must replace the SGR without forcing taxpayers to pick up the tab. Tackling Medicare cuts. Obamacare cuts Medicare payments in order to create $716 billion in alleged savings; however, those cuts only make it more difficult to meet health care providers' costs. The CMS Actuary has shown that, due to the cuts, half of all hospitals and two-thirds of skilled nursing facilities will have negative total facility margins by 2040, and providers will have to cut back services, withdraw from Medicare entirely or shift costs to private payers. One-third of seniors are enrolled in Medicare Advantage, a system of competing health care plans. Seniors are highly satisfied with these plans, yet the administration targeted the program for cuts. Moffit says the program should be protected, and the new Congress should put more free-market reforms into the program.
Undocumented Democrat News
Obama: If The GOP Passes An Immigration Bill, The Executive Actions That I Take Go Away. By Debra Heine
Excerpt: NBC political analyst Chuck Todd predicted Tuesday night that the president would have to back away from his threat to act unilaterally on immigration because of the Republican sweep.
Border stat posted, and then removed. By Andrew Becker
Excerpt: Most of the people the Border Patrol stopped from sneaking into the country last year were from countries other than Mexico, according to agency statistics, a shift that might have provided fodder for politicians leading up to Tuesday’s election. But they didn’t get much of a chance. The Border Patrol’s annual statistics were posted on the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Web site for about five hours on Oct. 10, then taken down. Now some are questioning whether that decision was an example of the Obama administration playing politics with public information. (Ya think? ~Bob)
Missing Mexican journalist's body found riddled with bullets. By Roy Greenslade Excerpt: Jesús Antonio Gamboa Urías, a Mexican journalist who edited the online news site Nueva Prensa, was found dead a week after being abducted. His body, riddled with gunshots, was found in a village near the city of
Los Mochis, in the north-western state of Sinaloa, which is one of
Mexico's most violent regions. ... "This case represents yet another blow to press freedom in
Mexico, a country that has been ravaged by violence and impunity for several years now," said Vanessa Garnica, IPI's press freedom adviser for Latin America and the
Caribbean. (the culture that they want to bring here. Bet on increasing murder rates. Buy a gun. ~Bob)
"You're Greener than Gore" News
Did Tom Steyer's $65M gamble to make climate change an election issue pay off? By Dana Hull Excerpt: Bay Area billionaire Tom Steyer poured more than $65 million into the midterm elections in an attempt to make climate change a top tier issue for voters -- and lay the groundwork for an expanded effort in 2016. But with Republicans trouncing Democrats in races across the nation and gaining control of the Senate, the environment appears to have lost big, and some political experts say Steyer just wasted a fabulous amount of his personal fortune. (Isn't burning money bad for global warming? ~Bob)
Here is what a GOP energy agenda will look like. By Zack Colman Excerpt: Approving the Keystone XL oil sands pipeline, handcuffing regulations to curb greenhouse gas emissions, removing restrictions for building pipelines and speeding up permissions to drill and export fossil fuels will top a GOP agenda with Republicans in control of the Senate. The GOP caucus in the upper chamber will seek to be more reserved than its House counterpart, but Republicans in both houses will pursue the same agenda.
Religion of Peace News
Obama to seek new authorization for fight against Islamic State
Excerpt: President Obama said Wednesday that he will ask Congress for new authority to combat the Islamic State, replacing the administration’s reliance on laws passed more than a decade ago to justify its current military operations against the militants in Syriaand Iraq. (The Midterms made him notice Congress. ~Bob)
Excerpt: A wanted al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula leader who was involved in last year's plot that forced the USto close more than a dozen diplomatic facilities across the world has been killed in the yesterday's USdrone strike in central Yemen. AQAP's emir for the central province of Baydah, where the jihadist group is battling encroaching Houthi rebels, was also killed in the same airstrike.
Excerpt: Mortar bombs slammed into a school Wednesday in a rebel-held suburb east of
Damascus, killing at least 13 children, activists said, as the army retook two
Homs gas fields from
ISIS. Syrian children often have been the victims of the country’s civil war, now in its fourth year, but they rarely are specifically targeted. Still, Wednesday’s attack in the town of
Qaboun marked the most serious violence against Syrian minor-s since a twin suicide bombing killed at least 25 children in a government-controlled neighborhood in the central city of
Homs in October. (as I've said about a hundred times, there are no good guys in
Syria. ~Bob)
London couple from Afghanistan who threatened to kill their daughter for refusing forced marriage had told her they would 'cut her head off' if she went to the authoritieshttp://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2821702/London-couple-Afghanistan-threatened-kill-daughter-refusing-forced-marriage-told-cut-head-went-authorities.html#ixzz3IDSG6xfoExcerpt: A judge has since granted a temporary forced marriage protection order, banning the parents from leaving Britain, after the local authority in Croydon, London, said it 'did not trust them an inch' and feared younger children in the family would be spirited out of England if they were able to leave. The girl, known as S, claims she suffered repeated violence at the hands of her parents and grandmother as a teenager and was told she would be killed if she refused to marry abroad as this would 'bring dishonour on the family.
Excerpt: “One should remember that enslaving the families of the kuffar — the infidels — and taking their women as concubines is a firmly established aspect of the Shariah, or Islamic law.” Indeed so: “When a child or a woman is taken captive, they become slaves by the fact of capture, and the woman’s previous marriage is immediately annulled.” (Umdat al-SalikO9.13). (Special two-for-price-of-one sale to honor Imam John Kerry's "Real Islam." ~Bob)
Excerpt: This shocking development shows that the insurgents are in total control of the town, which they recaptured last week from the Nigerian troops. ... Surprisingly, the sect on Monday announced the introduction of Sharia and the amputation of 10 people in the town, the second largest in the state.
Report: Iran Forcing Gays and Lesbians into Gender Reassignment Surgery. by Frances Martel
Excerpt: The Iranian government-- which punishes homosexuality by death-- accepts the existence of transgendered individuals. The Ayatollah's fatwa allowing gender reassignment surgery has led to immense pressure-- and sometimes full enforcement-- on cisgender homosexual men and women to undergo these dangerous surgeries.
Kerry's Real Islam: Caliphate In Europe: Sweden Cedes Control Of Muslim Areas
Excerpt: The perils of multiculturalism and open borders have reached critical mass in Sweden. There are Muslim enclaves where postal, fire and other essential services — even police officers themselves —require police protection.
A police report released last month identifies 55 of these "no-go zones" in Sweden. These zones are similar to others that have popped up in Europein recent years. They formed as large Muslim populations emigrating to politically correct and tolerant European states refuse to assimilate and set up virtual states within a state where the authorities fear to tread. (This is what comes of Political Correctness taken all the way into blind stupidity and cowardice. If the Swedish authorities had come down on the Muslim extremists when the nonsense started about controlling their local areas to the exclusion of the legitimate Swedish government and its agencies, they could have avoided this. And if they had tightened up on immigration as soon as the problems of "multiculturalism" showed themselves, over ten years ago, the problems would also have been minimized. But they could not do any of that because of the ultra-liberal beliefs and policies of the ruling class, that dictated against recognizing the problems as they began to show themselves. To this day they will not identify the background of rapists, because to do so would reveal the huge majority of rapes are by young Muslim men, who are not apologetic when caught, because those women "were asking for it" by the way they dressed. And PC thought says you cannot acknowledge that a particular cultural group is the main part of the problem. So now they have lost control entirely of 55 zones (remember, Sweden is a small country!) and the police are no longer even trying to go in there. And the locals have checkpoints to bar anyone entering they don't approve of. What should happen is the government should pass some laws quickly about civil disobedience and hooliganism, and sweep up everyone at any such checkpoints, and put them in jail on an island, and not with nice cells with TVs and wifi. And if necessary, call in the military to start doing sweeps through the "no go" zones, with police, and arrest anyone who gets in the way. And then exports them right back to where they came from. Coming down very hard and thoroughly on these maniacs who are worse than the dog who bites the hand that feeds them is what Swedish society needs to do to defend itself. But they won't do that, and of course that only means it'll just get worse and worse. Meanwhile, a serious fraction of these immigrants are living wholly on the wonderful welfare programs of Sweden, which makes it all even more ridiculous. Working Swedes are paying to support nicely the people who will not recognize the government that gets them these benefits. We may see some kind of real disaster overtake Sweden in the next 20 years, as the fires they have allowed to start burning of hostile foreign settlements in their midst just get bigger and bigger. And they have no one to blame but their own empty-headed governments they elected. --Del)
AL: Voters in This State Overwhelmingly Pass Amendment to Ban Sharia Law, Other ‘Foreign Laws’ — Here Are the Details. By Jason Howerton Excerpt: By an overwhelming 72-28 margin, voters in Alabama voted on Tuesday to ban Sharia law and other “foreign laws” in the state’s courts. The state constitutional amendment was criticized as an attack on Muslims by some Islamic groups. (Dame racists are against child marriage, polygamy, stoning adulterers, executing gays, killing apostates and the other enlightened provision of Shari'a Law. ~Bob)
As End Looms, US Warns Afghan Troops Taking ‘Unsustainable’ Casualties
Excerpt: This past year has been shaky for Afghanistan. The massive NATO drawdown is well under way. Former President Hamid Karzai is out and a new president now shares the spotlight in Kabul along with his election rival. But the greatest and most telling development this year could be the unprecedented scale of casualties that Afghan army and police are taking as they transition from “in the lead to full responsibility” for Afghanistan’s security in 2015. It’s the sort of pressure on the force that a top U.S. general in Afghanistan flagged Wednesday as “unsustainable.”
Ignoring Anti-Semitism in the Name of Palestinian Solidarity at UC Davis. By Richard L. Cravatts, PhD,
Excerpt: Since its founding in 2001, the radical campus group Students for Justice in Palestine has had as its mission to demonize Israeland promote a campaign to accuse the Jewish state of apartheid, racism, brutal occupation, and crimes against humanity, among other accusations. Its radical behavior has created a toxic atmosphere on campuses where its programs and events have regularly morphed into what has been categorized as being anti-Semitic in nature. Now, apparently in an effort to bring that same vituperative ideology to the faculty, a group on the UC Davis campus calling itself Faculty for Justice in Palestinerecently decried a letter sent to the UC Davis administration by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) which warned that:
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Robert A. Hall is a Marine Vietnam Veteran who served five terms in the Massachusetts State Senate. He is the author of
The Coming Collapse of the American Republic.
http://tiny.cc/g02s4 For a free PDF of
Collapse, e-mail him at tartanmarine(at)gmail.com. Hall’s eleven books are listed here:
http://tinyurl.com/o4nu65u. His blog of political news and conservative comment is
www.tartanmarine.blogspot.com.
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