The number one single today in 1970:
The number one single today in 1976 is the first record I ever purchased, for $1.03 at a Madison drugstore:
Today in 1977, a member of the audience at a Ray Charles concert tried to strangle him with a rope.
You’d think the environmental credentials of a founder of Greenpeace would be solid.
The problem from the environmental movement’s perspective is that Patrick Moore, Ph.D., acts like an actual scientist, which is why he said this (from Capitali$m Is Freedom):
There is no scientific evidence that human activity is causing the planet to warm, according to Greenpeace co-founder Patrick Moore, who testified in front of a Senate committee on Tuesday.
Moore argued that the current argument that the burning of fossil fuels is driving global warming over the past century lacks scientific evidence. He added that the Earth is in an unusually cold period and some warming would be a good thing.
“There is no scientific proof that human emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) are the dominant cause of the minor warming of the Earth’s atmosphere over the past 100 years,” according to Moore’s prepared testimony. “Today, we live in an unusually cold period in the history of life on earth and there is no reason to believe that a warmer climate would be anything but beneficial for humans and the majority of other species.”
“It is important to recognize, in the face of dire predictions about a [two degrees Celsius] rise in global average temperature, that humans are a tropical species,” Moore said. “We evolved at the equator in a climate where freezing weather did not exist. The only reasons we can survive these cold climates are fire, clothing, and housing.”
“It could be said that frost and ice are the enemies of life, except for those relatively few species that have evolved to adapt to freezing temperatures during this Pleistocene Ice Age,” he added. “It is ‘extremely likely’ that a warmer temperature than today’s would be far better than a cooler one.”
Indeed, cold weather is more likely to cause death than warm weather. RealClearScience reported that from “1999 to 2010, a total of 4,563 individuals died from heat, but 7,778 individuals died from the cold.” Only in 2006 did heat-related deaths outnumber cold deaths.
In Britain, 24,000 people are projected to die this winter because they cannot afford to pay their energy bills. Roughly 4.5 million British families are facing “fuel poverty.” …
“When modern life evolved over 500 million years ago, CO2 was more than 10 times higher than today, yet life flourished at this time,” he added. “Then an Ice Age occurred 450 million years ago when CO2 was 10 times higher than today.”
Moore added:
“Extremely likely” is not a scientific term but rather a judgment, as in a court of law. The IPCC defines “extremely likely” as a “95-100% probability”. But upon further examination it is clear that these numbers are not the result of any mathematical calculation or statistical analysis. They have been “invented” as a construct within the IPCC report to express “expert judgment”, as determined by the IPCC contributors.
These judgments are based, almost entirely, on the results of sophisticated computer models designed to predict the future of global climate. As noted by many observers, including Dr. Freeman Dyson of the Princeton Institute for Advanced Studies, a computer model is not a crystal ball. We may think it sophisticated, but we cannot predict the future with a computer model any more than we can make predictions with crystal balls, throwing bones, or by appealing to the Gods.
Perhaps the simplest way to expose the fallacy of “extreme certainty” is to look at the historical record. With the historical record, we do have some degree of certainty compared to predictions of the future. When modern life evolved over 500 million years ago, CO2 was more than 10 times higher than today, yet life flourished at this time. Then an Ice Age occurred 450 million years ago when CO2 was 10 times higher than today.
There is some correlation, but little evidence, to support a direct causal relationship between CO2 and global temperature through the millennia. The fact that we had both higher temperatures and an ice age at a time when CO2 emissions were 10 times higher than they are today fundamentally contradicts the certainty that human-caused CO2 emissions are the main cause of global warming.
Today we remain locked in what is essentially still the Pleistocene Ice Age, with an average global temperature of 14.5oC. This compares with a low of about 12oC during the periods of maximum glaciation in this Ice Age to an average of 22oC during the Greenhouse Ages, which occurred over longer time periods prior to the most recent Ice Age. During the Greenhouse Ages, there was no ice on either pole and all the land was tropical and sub-tropical, from pole to pole. As recently as 5 million years ago the Canadian Arctic islands were completely forested.
Today, we live in an unusually cold period in the history of life on earth and there is no reason to believe that a warmer climate would be anything but beneficial for humans and the majority of other species. There is ample reason to believe that a sharp cooling of the climate would bring disastrous results for human civilization.
Moving closer to the present day, it is instructive to study the record of average global temperature during the past 130 years. The IPCC states that humans are the dominant cause of warming “since the mid-20th century”, which is 1950.
From 1910 to 1940 there was an increase in global average temperature of 0.5oC over that 30-year period. Then there was a 30-year “pause” until 1970. This was followed by an increase of 0.57oC during the 30-year period from 1970 to 2000. Since then there has been no increase, perhaps a slight decrease, in average global temperature. This in itself tends to negate the validity of the computer models, as CO2 emissions have continued to accelerate during this time.
The increase in temperature between 1910-1940 was virtually identical to the increase between 1970-2000. Yet the IPCC does not attribute the increase from 1910-1940 to “human influence.” They are clear in their belief that human emissions impact only the increase “since the mid-20th century”. Why does the IPCC believe that a virtually identical increase in temperature after 1950 is caused mainly by “human influence”, when it has no explanation for the nearly identical increase from 1910-1940?
It is important to recognize, in the face of dire predictions about a 2oC rise in global average temperature, that humans are a tropical species. We evolved at the equator in a climate where freezing weather did not exist. The only reasons we can survive these cold climates are fire, clothing, and housing. It could be said that frost and ice are the enemies of life, except for those relatively few species that have evolved to adapt to freezing temperatures during this Pleistocene Ice Age. It is “extremely likely” that a warmer temperature than today’s would be far better than a cooler one.
I realize that my comments are contrary to much of the speculation about our climate that is bandied about today. However, I am confident that history will bear me out, both in terms of the futility of relying on computer models to predict the future, and the fact that warmer temperatures are better than colder temperatures for most species.
If we wish to preserve natural biodiversity, wildlife, and human well being, we should simultaneously plan for both warming and cooling, recognizing that cooling would be the most damaging of the two trends. We do not know whether the present pause in temperature will remain for some time, or whether it will go up or down at some time in the near future. What we do know with “extreme certainty” is that the climate is always changing, between pauses, and that we are not capable, with our limited knowledge, of predicting which way it will go next.
I first heard Moore at a Wisconsin Paper Council meeting in the 1990s, when Moore pointed out that growing trees for paper specifically and additional things like houses was not environmentally bad practice, since trees cut down for paper are replaced by new trees that grow, use carbon dioxide and give off oxygen.
Moore two years ago said this about CO2:
“We should challenge them to admit that CO2 is the most important nutrient for all life on earth and to admit that it is proven in lab and field experiments that plants would grow much faster if CO2 levels were 4-5 times higher in the atmosphere than they are today. This is why greenhouse growers pipe the exhaust from their gas and wood heaters back into the greenhouse to increase CO2 levels 3-5 times the level in the atmosphere, resulting in 50-100% increase in growth of their crops. And they should recognize that CO2 is lower today than it has been through most of the history of life on earth.
“There is no ‘abrupt’ increase in CO2 absorption, it is gradual as CO2 levels rise and plants become less stressed by low CO2 levels. At 150 ppm CO2 all plants would die, resulting in virtual end of life on earth.
“Thank goodness we came along and reversed the 150 million-year trend of reduced CO2 levels in the global atmosphere. Long live the humans.”
Moore contrasts with Al “Earth in the Balance” Gore, whose Tennessee house uses enough electric power for an entire neighborhood, and who sold his Current TV to Al Jazeera, whose funds to purchase Current TV came from … oil.
If envornmentalists really want to not be hypocrites, there’s a logical solution for that.
Robert W. Merry identifies “Barack Obama’s Biggest Failure”:
Of all the disappointments of the Barack Obama presidency, probably the greatest was his inability to honor his campaign commitment to change the political culture in Washington. Nearly everyone agrees that he came to power at a time of poisoned politics in the nation’s capital. He promised to change that. No one can credibly argue that things are better now. But there remains widespread and intense disagreement on who bears the blame for the ongoing rancor of our national politics some five years into the Obama presidency.
Looking at it from the standpoint of how American politics works, the blame rests with Obama.
During his initial 2008 presidential campaign, Obama promised to “turn the page on ugly partisanship in Washington so we can bring Democrats and Republicans together to pass an agenda that works for the American people.” On another occasion, he declared that “the time has come to move beyond the bitterness and anger that’s consumed Washington….To build a coalition for change that stretches through red states and blue states….We’re choosing unity over division.” …
Obama’s failure to redeem that promise has generated abundant commentary over the years, and it has generally fallen into three categories.
First, Obama supporters have placed the blame squarely on Republicans. “We met an implacable opposition in the Republican leadership,” said presidential acolyte David Axelrod. Former White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel added, referring to the congressional opposition, “If you decide before you listen what your position is, it’s really hard to build trust, cooperation and openness.”
This is lame. Obama didn’t promise to change the political culture in Washington if the Republicans would let him. He issued his promise unconditionally. That placed a burden on him to find a way to make it work.
Second, many in the news media have simply dismissed the promise as impossible to fulfill in our time of polarized politics and hence not something to fret much about. A New Yorker writer described the promise as “not just naïve but delusional.” Balz wrote that, in light of subsequent events, it sounds “quaint, even naïve.” Obama himself acknowledged to Oprah Winfrey that he wasn’t able to alter Washington’s “tone” as much as he thought and was “probably…overly optimistic.” This is a cop-out. It might have some resonance had Obama made a serious and sustained effort to operate in a new political style, searching for a new political paradigm to replace the tired old nostrums contributing to governmental gridlock. But he didn’t.
Third, Republicans blame Obama for not reaching out to them at the start of his presidency, when he was pushing for a stimulus package to combat the recession that then had the nation in its grip. According to this view, expressed by House Speaker John Boehner, Republicans were prepared to work with Obama on that legislation but were stiffed in favor of a partisan approach in which Democrats took exclusive control of the process.
This is incomplete. If Obama truly had been serious about improving the political culture of Washington, he certainly had to find a way to work with Republicans (though not necessarily with Republican leaders). And the stimulus was a good place to start. But what’s missing from the Boehner formulation is any role for the American people. Nobody can change the culture of Washington by working simply within the culture of Washington.
Here’s where we get to the crux of Obama’s failed promise. Gridlock and political rancor occur when the parties cling to old ideas that no longer work, when events have moved beyond old political paradigms but politicians can’t bring themselves to shed them. That was the situation in 2009, when Obama became president. But, instead of crafting new paradigms for a new era and seeking to sell it them the American people (thus bringing new pressure on Washington to adjust to a changing nation), he doubled down on the tired old Democratic notions of income redistribution, class conflict and governmental aggrandizement.
It didn’t work. His greatest accomplishment in this realm was the Affordable Care Act, and this injected more rancor and political poison into the body politic than any other legislation of the past generation. As with his stimulus package, also a throwback to old Democratic formulas, Obama got his Obamacare legislation through Congress without a single Republican vote.
Thus, it wasn’t merely a matter of getting Democrats and Republicans to work together in the context of the old politics, which Obama had no intention of doing anyway. It was a matter of crafting a new brand of politics—growth strategies, tax reforms, entitlement initiatives, infrastructure projects, new foreign-policy thinking—all aimed at busting past the old political fault lines and creating new political coalitions.
That’s what great presidents do. If we look at the presidencies of Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln, the two Roosevelts and Reagan, we see that each scrambled up the old terms of debate and in the process created new governing formulations that propelled the nation in new directions. And they did it in conversation with the nation at large, not just with the pols of Washington.
That’s how presidents can break up deadlocks and lance the boils of rancor and nastiness that are the product of deadlock.
Reagan comes to particular mind here. The Republican Party never had a majority in that dictatorship of the majority that is the House of Representatives. And yet Reagan went right over the top of Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill and got his major initiatives into law, particularly two major tax cuts. For that matter, Lyndon Johnson got John F. Kennedy’s civil rights legislation enacted with significant Republican support and significant Democratic opposition.
(I’d add Bill Clinton to this list, but I don’t think he counts because his interests were less ideology than his own political fortunes. In contrast, though, the Clinton presidency was a marvel of bipartisanism.)
Merry’s thesis demonstrates not only that Obama is a fraud. It also demonstrates a character flaw in the occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. N.W. Regardless of the election results, whoever wins the presidential election is supposed to be the president of all the American people, not just those who voted for him. The only thing that interests Obama is the political interests of his supporters. He has not now, nor has he ever, demonstrated unqualified love of this country and what it stands for, irrespective of whether he agrees with its politics.
I have always thought that Obama’s biggest mistake was his misreading of the 2008 election results, as if he won out of a huge Democratic mandate. (Which, if that were the case, magically disappeared two years later.) Voters do not want change per se; voters want improvement. Now I think Obama didn’t care what the 2008 election results meant. That either counts as misjudgement or arrogance, or perhaps both, either of which would be another character flaw.
The number one single today in 1961:
The number one British single today in 1964 was sung by a 21-year-old former hairdresser and cloak room attendant:
That day, the Rolling Stones made their second appearance on BBC-TV’s “Top of the Pops”:
What does it say about Michigan voters that U.S. Rep. Gary Peters (D-Michigan) is not only in office, but running for the U.S. Senate?
Cain TV explains:
You already know that Democrats are trying to use the Internal Revenue Service to silence their political adversaries. Now Democrats are trying to use the Federal Communications Commission to do the exact same thing.
On Thursday, a law firm representing the Senate campaign of U.S. Rep. Gary Peters (D-Michigan) sent a threatening letter to television stations running an ad paid for by Americans for Prosperity, and critical of Peters for voting for ObamaCare.
Specifically, the letter mentions a “fact check” article by the Washington Post that questions some of the claims made in the ad by Michigan resident Julie Boonstra, who has Leukemia and saw her health insurance thrown into chaos by ObamaCare. Because Washington Post “fact checker” column gave the ad “two Pinocchios” and claims Boonstra’s new ObamaCare insurance is a better deal for her than she says it is, the law firm for the Peters campaign demands that TV stations provide facts to back the AFP’s position in the ad, under threat of losing their broadcast license if they do not.
Here is a PDF image of the letter.
Let’s cut to the chase here. Congressman Peters, who hopes to become Senator Peters, is using his position as a member of Congress to threaten TV stations with the loss of their broadcast licenses if they air ads critical of him. This is an abuse of power every bit as egregious as the use of the IRS to harass Tea Party groups.
I am sure liberals will counter that TV stations are indeed accountable for the content of ads they run, and that’s true. If you knowingly air an ad that is patently false, you could be held in violation of your FCC-issued license.
But to claim this is such a situation is beyond absurd. For one thing, the Washington Post “fact checker” column is not an authoritative arbiter of the truth. It is a political opinion column – nothing more, nothing less. How many political ads have aired, only to be criticized by a political columnist? That is all fair debate and commentary, but the fact that an ad was criticized by a member of the media is not evidence that it is untrue.
Also, you will notice in the letter how the law firm claims public officials have a right to the airwaves that others do not. Gary Peters can apparently say anything he wants! But a group criticizing Gary Peters cannot.
It is also beyond absurd to think that Glenn Kessler, who writes the “fact checker” column for the Post, knows Julie Boonstra’s situation better than Julie Boonstra does. This disagreement is a matter of opinion, and anyone with a brain would give the benefit of the doubt to Ms. Boonstra because we’re talking about her life and her situation.
But that is not stopping Congressman Peters, through the law firm his campaign has hired, from threatening those who seek to hold him accountable for supporting ObamaCare. And he’s not just going after AFP. He’s going after the media outlets who are simply exercising their prerogative as broadcast companies to sell their time to advocacy groups.
Peters’ ability to threaten TV stations’ licenses don’t extend to the Internet, so here’s the ad:
Boonstra has leukemia and claims to have a 20 percent chance of survival. Peters, on the other hand, has cancer of the soul, and one hopes it’s terminal to his political future. And present.
On the other hand, it looks as if Peters picked the wrong cancer patient to try to intimidate.
Henry Olsen of the National Interest:
Exit and entrance polls of Republican primaries and caucuses going back to 1996 show that the Republican presidential electorate is remarkably stable. It does not divide neatly along establishment-versus-conservative lines. Rather, the GOP contains four discrete factions that are based primarily on ideology, with elements of class and religious background tempering that focus. Open nomination contests during this period are resolved first by how candidates become favorites of each of these factions, and then by how they are positioned to absorb the voting blocs of the other factions as their favorites drop out.
This analysis allows us to explain what we consistently observe. It explains why a conservative party rarely nominates the most conservative candidate. It explains why the party often seems to nominate the “next in line.” And, perhaps most importantly, it explains why certain candidates emerge as the “surprise” candidate in each race.
Analysts and advisers who understand this elemental map of the Republican electorate will be better positioned to navigate the shoals of the Republican nominating river and bring one’s favored candidate safely home to port.
REPUBLICAN VOTERS fall into four rough camps. They are: moderate or liberal voters; somewhat conservative voters; very conservative, evangelical voters; and very conservative, secular voters. Each of these groups supports extremely different types of candidates. Each of these groups has also demonstrated stable preferences over the past twenty years.
The most important of these groups is the one most journalists don’t understand and ignore: the somewhat conservative voters. This group is the most numerous nationally and in most states, comprising 35–40 percent of the national GOP electorate. While the numbers of moderates, very conservative and evangelical voters vary significantly by state, somewhat conservative voters are found in similar proportions in every state. They are not very vocal, but they form the bedrock base of the Republican Party.
They also have a significant distinction: they always back the winner. The candidate who garners their favor has won each of the last four open races. This tendency runs down to the state level as well. Look at the exit polls from virtually any state caucus or primary since 1996 and you will find that the winner received a plurality of or ran roughly even among the somewhat conservative voters.
These voters’ preferred candidate profile can be inferred from the characteristics of their favored candidates: Bob Dole in 1996, George W. Bush in 2000, John McCain in 2008 and Mitt Romney in 2012. They like even-keeled men with substantial governing experience. They like people who express conservative values on the economy or social issues, but who do not espouse radical change. They like people who are optimistic about America; the somewhat conservative voter rejects the “culture warrior” motif that characterized Pat Buchanan’s campaigns. They are conservative in both senses of the word; they prefer the ideals of American conservatism while displaying the cautious disposition of the Burkean.
The moderate or liberal bloc is surprisingly strong in presidential years, comprising the second-largest voting bloc with approximately 25–30 percent of all GOP voters nationwide. They are especially strong in early voting states such as New Hampshire (where they have comprised between 45 and 49 percent of the GOP electorate between 1996 and 2012), Florida and Michigan. They are, however, surprisingly numerous even in the Deep South, the most conservative portion of the country. Moderates or liberals have comprised between 31 and 39 percent of the South Carolina electorate since 1996, outnumbering or roughly equaling very conservative voters in each of those years.
Moderate and liberal voters prefer someone who is both more secular and less fiscally conservative than their somewhat conservative cousins. In 1996, for example, they preferred Tennessee senator Lamar Alexander over Bob Dole. In 2000, they were the original McCainiacs, supporting a candidate who backed campaign-finance regulation, opposed tax cuts for the top bracket and criticized the influence of Pat Robertson. In 2008, they stuck with McCain, giving him their crucial backing in New Hampshire and providing his margin of victory in virtually every state. In 2012, they began firmly in Ron Paul’s or Jon Huntsman’s camp. Paul and Huntsman combined got 43 percent of their vote in Iowa and 50 percent in New Hampshire. Once it became clear that their candidates could not win, however, the moderate or liberal faction swung firmly toward Romney in his fights with Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum.
This latter movement is perhaps most indicative of their true preferences. The moderate or liberal voter seems motivated by a candidate’s secularism above all else. They will always vote for the Republican candidate who seems least overtly religious and are motivated to oppose the candidate who is most overtly religious. This makes them a secure bank of votes for a somewhat conservative candidate who emerges from the early stages of the primary season in a battle with a religious conservative, as occurred in 1996, 2008 and 2012.
The third-largest group is the moderates’ bête noire: the very conservative evangelicals. This group is small compared to the others, comprising around one-fifth of all GOP voters. They gain significant strength, however, from three unique factors. First, they are geographically concentrated in Southern and border states, where they can comprise a quarter or more of a state’s electorate. Moreover, somewhat conservative voters in Southern and border states are also likelier to be evangelical, and they tend to vote for more socially conservative candidates than do their non-Southern, nonevangelical ideological cousins. Finally, they are very motivated to turn out in caucus states, such as Iowa and Kansas, and form the single largest bloc of voters in those races.
These factors have given very conservative, evangelical-backed candidates unusual strength in Republican presidential contests. The evangelical favorite, for example, surprised pundits by winning Iowa in 2008 and 2012, and supplied the backing for second-place Iowa finishers Pat Robertson in 1988 and Pat Buchanan in 1996. Their strength in the Deep South and the border states also allowed Mike Huckabee rather than Mitt Romney to emerge as John McCain’s final challenger in 2008, and that strength combined with their domination of the February 7 caucuses in Minnesota and Colorado allowed Rick Santorum to emerge as Romney’s challenger in 2012.
This group prefers candidates who are very open about their religious beliefs, place a high priority on social issues such as gay marriage and abortion, and see the United States in decline because of its movement away from the faith and moral codes of its past. Their favored candidates tend to be economically more open to government intervention. Santorum, for example, wanted to favor manufacturing over services, and Buchanan opposed NAFTA. This social conservatism and economic moderation tends to place these candidates out of line with the center of the Republican Party, the somewhat conservative voter outside the Deep South. Each evangelical-backed candidate has lost this group decisively in primaries in the Midwest, Northeast, Pacific Coast and mountain states. Indeed, they even lose them in Southern-tinged states like Virginia and Texas, where McCain’s ability to win the somewhat conservative voters, coupled with huge margins among moderates and liberals, allowed him to hold off Huckabee in one-on-one face-offs.
The final and smallest GOP tribe is the one that DC elites are most familiar with: the very conservative, secular voters. This group comprises a tiny 5–10 percent nationwide and thus never sees its choice emerge from the initial races to contend in later stages. Jack Kemp and Pete DuPont in 1988; Steve Forbes or Phil Gramm in 1996 and 2000; Fred Thompson or Mitt Romney in 2008; Herman Cain, Rick Perry or Newt Gingrich in 2012: each of these candidates showed promise in early polling but foundered in early races once voters became more familiar with each of the candidates. Secular moderates and somewhat conservative voters preferred candidates with less materialistic, sweeping economic radicalism while very conservative evangelicals went with someone singing from their hymnal. Thus, these voters quickly had to choose which of the remaining candidates to support in subsequent races.
This small but influential bloc likes urbane, fiscally oriented men. Thus, they preferred Kemp or DuPont in 1988, Forbes or Gramm in 1996, Forbes in 2000 and Romney in 2008. In 2012, this group was tempted by Rick Perry until his lack of sophistication became painfully obvious in the early debates. It then flirted with Newt Gingrich until his temperamental issues resurfaced in Florida. After that, faced with the choice of Rick Santorum or Mitt Romney, it swung behind Romney en masse.
The latter example is in fact this group’s modus operandi. They invariably see their preferred candidate knocked out early, and they then invariably back whoever is backed by the somewhat conservative bloc. Forbes’s early exit from the 2000 race, for example, was crucial to George W. Bush’s ability to win South Carolina against the McCain onslaught. In New Hampshire, Bush won only 33 percent of the very conservative vote; Forbes received 20 percent. With Forbes out of the race, however, Bush was able to capture 74 percent of the very conservative vote in South Carolina. …
The 2016 field is still developing, but it’s already possible to discern which candidates are focusing on which factions. Ohio governor John Kasich is staking out ground in the moderate-to-liberal wing with his focus on expanding Medicaid and rhetorically supporting active government. New Jersey governor Chris Christie is trying to make himself the mainstream, somewhat conservative favorite by eschewing fiery rhetoric, emphasizing commonsense governing and attacking Washington. If they run, this will also be Representative Paul Ryan’s and former Florida governor Jeb Bush’s faction. If neither of those two run and Christie falters, Wisconsin governor Scott Walker stands to benefit, as Walker is displaying a similar approach to his competitors. Rick Santorum and Mike Huckabee could face off for the very conservative, evangelical nod. Santorum’s 2012 support in primaries and caucuses came in the same areas and from the same people who backed Huckabee in 2008. There would not be room for both candidates in 2016, so the preseason jockeying between these two could be intense.
Virtually everyone else in the race is competing for the favor of the smallest, least influential group: the secular conservatives. All focus on some sort of fiscal issue as their primary focus, and most also try to adopt an anti-Washington tone. Some have secondary messages designed to appeal to other factions, much as George W. Bush did in 2000. Senator Rand Paul’s focus on civil liberties and limiting overseas military actions would hold some appeal for GOP moderates and liberals, as would Senator Marco Rubio’s occasional forays into antipoverty efforts. Rubio’s backing of immigration reform is of interest to somewhat conservative donors, and his authoring of federal antiabortion legislation creates some support among the socially conservative wing. But Paul’s, Rubio’s and Texas senator Ted Cruz’s hope must be that the secular, very conservative wing is in fact much larger in 2016 than it has been in the past.
Tea Party–backed victories in senatorial and congressional primaries give them some reason for hope. In race after race in 2010 and 2012, a populist conservative focusing on fiscal issues upset a more establishment candidate from the somewhat conservative or moderate-to-liberal wings. Many observers say this has pushed the national party to the right, something that also should help a Tea Party fiscal conservative. A careful analysis of the data and of these races, however, shows that these hopes are likely unfounded. …
In sum, a Tea Party candidate either needs to clearly deny any breathing space to a more evangelical candidate or he must emulate George W. Bush in 2000 in having enough appeal to other factions to gain enough strength to survive the early states. The likelier outcome will be a repeat of the traditional GOP three-way war between its somewhat conservative center and the two large ideological wings: the moderate secularists and conservative evangelicals.
PAST NEED not be prologue, however. In the movie Lawrence of Arabia, Peter O’Toole’s Lawrence decides to go back into a hellish desert to rescue a straggler. His close aide, Sherif Ali, tells him not to bother, that the straggler’s fate is foreordained. “It is written,” Ali tells the Englishman. “Nothing is written,” Lawrence angrily yells back. He then goes into the desert and returns with his man.
Lawrence could conquer the desert and its heat through his will, but he could not will the desert away. GOP aspirants would do well to emulate Lawrence’s will and resourcefulness, but they too cannot will away their surroundings. Whichever candidate from whichever faction emerges, he or she will have done so by understanding the four species of GOP voters and using their wiles and the calendar to their advantage. For truly, as Ali said of Lawrence, for some men nothing is written until they write it.
Today in 1955, Billboard magazine reported that sales of 45-rpm singles …
… had exceeded sales of 78-rpm singles for the first time.
The number one single today in 1966:
It’s safe to assume the U.S. Olympic Committee will try to convince the International Olympic Committee to award a Winter or summer Olympics to the U.S.
Should the U.S. pursue another Olympics? USA Today explores pros and cons:
The leaders of the U.S. Olympic Committee intend to bid for the 2024 Summer Olympics if certain criteria are met. In the next two months, the USOC will likely have a short list of three candidate cities and by the end of the year will be in a position to make its decision.
There’s also the possibility that the USA will consider bidding for the 2026 Winter Games, even though the Summer Games is the more prestigious prize.
Whatever the case, given the expense, security concern and politics – all central issues heading into Sochi – is it worth it? Does a country like the United States need the Olympic Games?
“It’s a big, heavy burden on cities and states,” USOC CEO Scott Blackmun acknowledged, given the federal government is only responsible for helping with security and transportation. “The payoff is what it does to transform sport in (a host city’s) community and what it does for the nation.”
Given the cuts in college sports programs, which serve as a feeder system for most summer Olympic sports, Blackmun said a Games in the United States would help boost those programs. “Bringing the Olympics back to the U.S. makes sure that the level of interest in those sports stays high,” he said.
Sochi spent a record $51 billion on these Games. Unlike Sochi, which had to build everything from nothing, the USA would have a far more developed infrastructure in place. On top of the list of potential bid cities are New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco, but of those cities, only Los Angeles has publicly expressed interest in hosting the Games.
Other cities around the world that have expressed interest in bidding for the 2024 Games include Paris; Doha, Qatar; and Durban, South Africa. The International Olympic Committee vote on the 2024 Games will be in 2017. …
Until recently the USOC was considered a four-letter word in IOC circles. Both American bids to host the 2012 and 2016 Olympics (New York and Chicago) failed miserably in large part to a revenue-sharing feud between the USOC and IOC. Two years ago the two sides resolved that dispute and under Blackmun the USOC is now in back in the IOC’s good graces. Both USOC chairman Larry Probst and Blackmun have spent significant time the past two years building friendships and support and Probst is now an IOC member.
Given the backlash over Russia’s anti-gay legislation, the IOC has been pressed to consider human rights issues as much as it considers venues and finances when awarding future Games.
“Our message well before the human rights catastrophes of Sochi has been you cannot have a successful Olympics where you have major human rights abuses,” said Minky Worden, the director of global initiatives at Human Rights Watch.
When criticized for not forcefully speaking out against human rights issues in past and future host cities, IOC leaders have repeatedly said they rely on “quiet diplomacy,” reminding their critics that they are a sports organization, not a government or political body.
IOC president Thomas Bach made this clear in his opening and closing marks in Sochi. “Please understand what our responsibilities are and what your responsibilities are. Have the courage to address your disagreements in a peaceful direct political dialogue and not on the backs of the athletes,” Bach said in opening remarks.
Though he didn’t publicly named the Obama administration, the inference was clear. The White House named three openly gay athletes to its delegation for the opening and closing ceremonies of the Sochi Olympics, which was seen as a direct message of opposition to Russia’s anti-gay laws. Clearly this insertion of politics irked Bach, and other IOC members.
Dick Pound of Canada said that the White House’s response was unfortunate and unwise. “This is how the United States of America, the world’s most important, influential nation handles this issue? In an Olympic context, at a time when you’re thinking about bidding for the Olympic Games?” Pound told USA TODAY Sports.
USOC members went out of their way in Sochi to make nice. In their closing news conference, Probst said Russia did a “phenomenal job” mentioning everything from smooth transportation to Vladimir Putin’s presence throughout the Games. “We are very, very impressed,” Blackmun said.
So getting the IOC to award the U.S. a bid requires making nice to not merely the IOC, but the likes of Vladimir Putin. Americans should immediately lose interest.
Beyond that, there is the Olympics’ immense cost without corresponding long-term benefit. Obviously millions of tourist dollars get spent, arguably tourist dollars that wouldn’t otherwise be spent in a host area. However, the money spent on Olympic infrastructure is not money that magically appears out of nowhere, and it is often spent on buildings that don’t have use after the Olympics. The Olympics are a repeatable argument about whether sports facilities make economic sense every time a new one is built. Unless you’re planning to open a university, what do you do with an Olympic village? What do you with ski jumps, or speed skating tracks, or whatever you want to call the various extreme sports venues?
Hosting an Olympics makes sense if you already have the majority of the facilities on hand, or if you have future uses for the facilities. The 1984 Los Angeles Olympics used the L.A. Coliseum (which hosted the 1932 Olympics) for opening ceremonies and track and field. UCLA’s Pauley Pavilion hosted gymnastics. The L.A. Sports Arena hosted boxing. The Forum hosted basketball. Facilities at other Los Angeles-area colleges hosted events. The Rose Bowl hosted soccer. Only two new venues, for swimming and bicycling, were built; the latter was torn down in 2003.
Can a U.S. city host an Olympics as well as Los Angeles did? The nightmare scenario is Montreal, whose Olympic Stadium doubled in cost between design in 1970 and (unfinished) opening in 1976. The stadium was paid off in 2006, finally being the second most expensive stadium in history.
Then there’s Atlanta, which did two seemingly clever things for 1996: It built the Georgia Dome, and used half of it for basketball and the other half for gymnastics. The new Olympic Stadium was partially disassembled to become Turner Field, the Braves’ new ballpark. Now, however, the Braves are leaving Turner Field, and the Falcons want out of the Georgia Dome. (The Omni hosted volleyball. It’s gone, replaced at the same site by Philips Arena, used by the Hawks and Thrashers.)
This list of caveats doesn’t include the bazillions in construction costs for upgraded roads and mass transit (the latter of which doesn’t get used after the event), not to mention the inconvenience for locals who may not be able to afford to go to Olympic events, but will be paying for them one way (taxes) or another (increased costs of sponsors’ products), not to mention the civil-liberties-infringing security in this post-9/11 world.
Who wants the Olympics? (Besides NBC, that is.)
If Jonathan S. Tobin is right, I have just scared liberals with this two-word headline:
This past week Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker was the target of a massive assault by the liberal mediathat sought to inflate a minor story about his administration as Milwaukee county executive into a scandal that could eliminate him as a 2016 presidential contender. The effort fell flat as the issues involved were insignificant and there was no link between the governor and any wrongdoing. Even a fishing expedition into 27,000 pages of emails revealed nothing more damning than an internal debate about whether a former thong model was a suitable candidate for a job. Liberals may have had a brief moment of elation when they thought this would remove Walker from the 2016 picture as effectively as Bridgegate turned Chris Christie’s presidential hopes to ashes. But Democrats would do well to ignore this distraction and instead take a deep dive into a story published today in the New York Times that centers on the real reason why the Wisconsin governor is so important: fiscal reform.
Though the slant of Steven Greenhouse’s lengthy feature is not so much Walker’s record but an attempt to engender sympathy for the unions he defeated in a 2011 legislative showdown, the governor still emerges as the hero of the saga. Wisconsin’s public-sector unions are telling their colleagues around the nation to worry about other states emulating Walker’s efforts to change the balance of power between labor and government. They’re right. Though Walker paid a high price in terms of vilification and a recall effort that failed to drive him from office, the results of his reforms are now apparent. As the Times reports, Wisconsin’s municipalities and school districts have saved more than $2 billion in the last two years. The nation confronts a future in which the costs of public-sector salaries and benefits could push a host of cities off the same fiscal cliff that landed Detroit in bankruptcy and civil ruin. Though the unions that lost their power to raid the public treasury will never forgive Walker, his courage in standing up to them and achieving results provides a compelling story that could very well inspire a run to the White House.
Not everyone in Wisconsin is happy about what happened there in 2011, when Walker pushed through his reform agenda despite the spectacle of union thugs and left-wing activists that descended on the state capitol in Madison in an effort to shut down the rule of law in the state. As Greenhouse writes, the unions that took for granted their right to run roughshod over state and municipal officials bitterly regret their defeat. They took for granted their right to demand and get pay and benefits that most of the taxpayers paying the bill couldn’t dream about. As Walker learned when he was Milwaukee’s county executive, the name of the game was union power. Budget shortfalls were mere details to leaders who would rather see workers laid off and services to the citizens curtailed than make concessions to balance the budget. If those unions are now demoralized, their regret is that they no longer have the whip hand over the government. Walker’s rollback of union power enabled the those elected by the people to function without the sort of union blackmail that make it impossible for mayors and governors around the country to stand up to threats of strikes and political payback.
Just as important, the changes brought about by Walker forces public sector unions to go back to their original purpose: serving their members rather than playing political power brokers. The provisions that force them to recertify compels the unions to demonstrate to their members that they are there to help them rather than to act as the storm troops of the Democratic Party. This accountability dethrones them as the tyrants of the workplace as well as of the public square.
While other Republicans (including Christie) shared his views about reform, it was only Walker who dared to directly take on public sector unions and their political allies. In 2011, the conventional wisdom was that he was a rash politician who tried to do too much and would fail. But where others made incremental gains at best, by carrying out his campaign promises Walker showed both his party and the nation that it was possible to tell the truth about the fiscal peril, do something about it and live to tell the tale.
Just as they did in 2012 when liberals made Walker’s recall a national priority, the left is once again hoping to end the governor’s career by defeating him for reelection this fall. But if he is favored to win in November it is not just because voters remember the irresponsible efforts of unions and Democrats to thwart reform or because Walker is a likeable and able politician. Rather, it is because he has demonstrated the kind of political courage that is very rare in our system today and produced results.
The number one country and western single today in 1956 was the singer’s number one number one:
The number one British album today in 1984 was the Thompson Twins’ “Into the Gap”:
The number one single today in 1984 was adapted by WGN-TV for its Chicago Cubs games — a good choice given that the Cubs that season decided to play like an actual baseball team:
Steve Prestegard.com: The Presteblog 