Three kidnapped Israeli teenagers found murdered. What will the reaction be?

The New Neo Posted on by

The finding of the bodies of the three kidnapped Israeli teenagers is very sad but not unexpected news:

The Times reports that senior government officials in Israel said military searchers found the three bodies buried “in a field near Hebron,” a large West Bank city:

“They know it’s the three, they will know for sure after they do the autopsy.” The official said the three appeared to have been shot to death, likely “very close to the kidnap” time, and that the prime suspects had still not been caught…

New York Times Jerusalem bureau chief Jodi Rudoren tweeted that Israeli forces are blocking roads into and out of Hebron.

From the start I had assumed the three were going to be killed, perhaps torturously, or kept alive and used to extract enormous concessions from the Israeli government. The Israeli government has a history of releasing terrorists, sometimes in large numbers, in order to save the lives of kidnapped hostages, which only encourages further kidnappings. In this case the hostage situation did not occur, and the boys are rumored to have been killed early on.

The Israeli government also seems to have known a fair amount about the kidnapping, apparently from a phone call one of the kidnapped teens managed to make.

The political context is as follows:

The disappearances set off an uproar in Israel and deeply aggravated the already strained relations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, which had just taken steps to form a unity government backed by Hamas, the militant group that controls the Gaza Strip. Israeli officials, who have rejected that government, have identified two Palestinians from Hebron they say are affiliated with Hamas as prime suspects. Hamas did not take responsibility, but praised the abductions.

Let that sink in: Hamas praised the abductions. We give the Palestinian Authority aid, and a unity government causes Hamas to get that aid unless unless we cut the assistance off, which Congress had threatened to do even before the kidnapping if Hamas joined the government. There is a new resolution to that effect going through the legislative process in the House, which has a lot of support. However:

Lowey sources explained that the White House now controls the current year’s appropriation, which is transferred in tranches. There is little possibility that will be stopped, they say. It is the new 2014-2015 appropriation that is under review. Even if the funding cut is successful in the House, a similar measure must pass in the Senate.

Ah yes, what does President Obama think of it all? He sings a different tune, as you might expect. As I read the following I could only conclude that if the House passes the resolution Harry Reid will never bring it to a vote in the Senate. The chances are close to zero because his aim is to avoid embarrassing Democratic senators. They would either have to vote for it and defy Obama (unlikely most would do that) or block it and enrage most of the American public—that is, most of those who manage to hear about it [from June 3, 2014]:

The Obama administration sought Tuesday to bridge a rift with Israel over the willingness of the United States to recognize and fund a new Palestinian government affiliated with the militant group Hamas, arguing that the new government deserves a chance to succeed.

State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf [yes, Marie Harf] read a lengthy statement defending the U.S. position even before reporters could ask her about harsh criticism from Israeli officials.

She stressed that the announced lineup of ministers includes none who are members of the militant Palestinian group that has advocated Israel’s destruction. The new coalition reunites the moderate Fatah faction ”” which has held peace talks with Israel ”” with Hamas.

Why, they’re just pussycats, then.

Dore Gold, a former Israeli ambassador to the United Nations and Netanyahu adviser, said:

…any international move that legitimizes Hamas is a dangerous mistake.

“I don’t think that people in Washington understand the depth of Israel’s disappointment over the decision to support this government,” Gold said.

“Hamas isn’t just a terror organization. Hamas is not just fundamentally against peace and against Israel’s right to exist. Hamas is an organization that has adopted an agenda to annihilate Jews.”

I don’t think Dore Gold understands that those “people in Washington” (i.e. Obama and his administration) understand that only too well.

So does Hamas. They don’t seem too frightened about the possibility of an aid cuttoff, do they? Recall, also, that one of the murdered teenagers was a citizen of both Israel and the United States. Obama will probably mouth some “concern” about that and move on. Israel will almost certainly retaliate against Hamas in some way, although it’s hard to see what good that will do, especially now that under Obama the US has joined the nations of the world who wink at Palestinian terrorism.

More SCOTUS: public sector union dues

The New Neo Posted on by

In another ruling today, SCOTUS held 5-4 that public sector unions cannot compel dues from non-members who are not “full-fledged” public service workers.

More here:

Union leaders had feared that the justices might strike down those state laws [requiring public service workers who are not union members to pay dues anyway] as unconstitutional. The justices did not go that far. They issued a more narrow ruling that the home health care workers at issue in the case are not “full-fledged public employees” because they are hired and fired by individual patients and work in private homes, though they are paid in part by the state, via Medicaid.

Because they’re not truly state employees, the justices decided these workers did not have to pay union dues…

…[I]n writing for the majority, Justice Samuel Alito sharply criticized a 1977 precedent, known as Abood, that granted states the right to compel union dues. Alito called that ruling “questionable” and “anomalous,” all but inviting a further challenge in the future. He was joined in his opinion by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas, Antonin Scalia and Anthony Kennedy.

Alito cited a “bedrock principle that, except perhaps in the rarest of circumstances, no person in this country may be compelled to subsidize speech by a third party that he or she does not wish to support.”

Seems pretty obvious to me. But it’s not the least bit obvious to the liberal justices. And if it were struck down it would toll the death knell for public service unions, and the unions know it.

Anyone who still doesn’t understand how important it is to elect a Republican president in 2016, please realize that rulings on cases of this sort would go very differently if one of the conservative justices on the Court (Scalia, who is 78, for example, or even swing vote Kennedy, who is 77) retires and a Democrat gets to choose his successor. In other words, a Democratic president in 2016 could easily turn the Supreme Court into a reliably and consistently liberal institution, marginalizing the remaining conservative justices entirely.

And saying it doesn’t matter who appoints justices because Roberts (appointed by Bush II) sometimes votes with the liberals, and Kennedy (appointed by Reagan) votes with liberals about half the time, is hardly the point, because (a) judges appointed by Democratic presidents will always vote with the liberals, as opposed to just sometimes; (b) three out of the five justices appointed by Republican presidents vote very consistently conservative; and (c) the oldest justice, Ginsburg (who is 81), is most likely the one to retire soon, and if she holds out till after Obama’s term his successor will be appointing her replacement, giving a Republican president the opportunity to make the Court quite consistently conservative.

In other words, the next president could determine the direction of the Court for the next decade or more. And that’s just the Supreme Court; the same is true for other federal courts, because a president gets to make such appointments during his/her term of office, too.

This is enormously important in helping shape the country’s direction in a wide variety of ways. Plus, although a more conservative Court cannot by itself stop a tyrant who is intent on grabbing more power from doing so, it can certainly do its bit to help or to hurt.

Remember back in Obama’s first term, when he acted on Honduras to support Zeleya’s power grab and block his removal? Most people were not paying much attention, but it was highly significant. Time to revisit what the controversy was actually about:

Mr. Zelaya, a frequent critic of the U.S., has been locked in a growing confrontation with his country’s Congress, courts, and military over his plans for the referendum ”” planned for Sunday ”” that would have asked voters whether they want to scrap the constitution, which the president says benefits the country’s elites.

The Supreme Court had ruled the vote was illegal because it flouted the constitution’s own ban on such referendums within six months of elections. The military had refused to take its usual role of distributing ballots. But Mr. Zelaya fired the chief of the army last week and pledged to press ahead.

So fairly early in his first term Obama attempted to defend Zeleya’s power grab against Honduras’ constitution, its military, and its Supreme Court’s attempt to limit him. It was a very ominous sign for the future, as I wrote:

It’s not a mere question of Obama looking on and doing nothing while a Chavez-inspired Zelaya grabs more power; I could understand non-intervention in the Honduran process. But Obama has gone out of his way””in a manner that contradicts his own stated preference for the autonomy of other nations””to actively intervene in Honduran affairs in order to protect Zeleya and his undermining of Honduran due process and its constitution.

There is no benign explanation for this policy of Obama’s. If the American people don’t understand what it tells us about him, it would mean that we have failed to understand history and learn from it.

The Supreme Court is one of the bulwarks against such power grabs, although it can’t stop them by itself. And although the recent 9-0 ruling against Obama’s pretend-recess appointments may be a sign that, if the executive’s offense were especially egregious, even the liberals on the Court might decide to vote against Obama, there’s no question that putting more liberals on its bench is flirting with danger and asking for trouble.

SCOTUS rules against Obamacare and for religious freedom in Hobby Lobby

The New Neo Posted on by

But it’s a relatively narrow ruling.

It was also another 5-4 decision, indicating how small the margin usually is on the Court. The swing vote this time—the vote that distinguished it from the all-important “is it a tax or a penalty?” question—was that today Justice Roberts voted against Obamacare and his earlier vote kept it viable.

The lede in the AP story goes like this:

The Supreme Court ruled Monday that some corporations can hold religious objections that allow them to opt out of the new health law requirement that they cover contraceptives for women.

The justices’ 5-4 decision is the first time that the high court has ruled that profit-seeking businesses can hold religious views under federal law. And it means the Obama administration must search for a different way of providing free contraception to women who are covered under objecting companies’ health insurance plans.

The casual reader who stops right there wouldn’t know that the companies in Hobby Lobby were not refusing to cover contraception in general, merely specific types of contraception where the mechanism might possibly be to block the implantation of a fertilized egg. Nor would they know that “some” corporations were narrowly defined as those that “are under the control of just a few people in which there is no essential difference between the business and its owners.”

The ruling has other limitations:

Alito also said the decision is limited to contraceptives under the health care law. “Our decision should not be understood to hold that an insurance-coverage mandate must necessarily fall if it conflicts with an employer’s religious beliefs,” Alito said.

He suggested two ways the administration could ensure women get the contraception they want. It could simply pay for pregnancy prevention, he said.

Or it could provide the same kind of accommodation it has made available to religious-oriented, not-for-profit corporations. Those groups can tell the government that providing the coverage violates their religious beliefs. At that point, the groups’ insurers or a third-party administrator takes on the responsibility of paying for the birth control

The ruling actually affects very few companies and relatively few employees. Nor does it seem to threaten Obamacare in any real way. It does have the effect of carving out a small exception that supports religious freedom, which is a good thing. But as a blow to Obamacare it leaves a lot to be desired.

[ADDENDUM: Justice Ginsburg says that with this ruling SCOTUS has “ventured into a minefield.” Is she really unaware that they’ve been walking in a minefield for several years now?]

Illegal immigrants: crisis, opportunity

The New Neo Posted on by

Opportunity for what?

I usually take Sunday off, and I plan to take Sunday off, so this post will be much briefer than the situation warrants.

I offer for your perusal this:

Saturday at a press conference from the Rio Grande Valley, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) discussed her tour of a border holding facility and addressed the humanitarian crisis of thousands unaccompanied minors flooding across the U.S.-Mexico border, which she called a “humanitarian opportunity.”

Pelosi explained, “We are all Americans — north and south in this hemisphere,” and urged America to see this as not a crisis but an opportunity “to be helpful.” She also said she wished she could simply “take home” the thousands of children temporarily housed in the overburden facilities.

Actually, she could take home hundreds, but what the hey.

And what’s the plan with this proposal from Obama?:

The Obama administration, in a dramatic escalation of its border-control strategy, will seek more than $2 billion in emergency funds to help stem an influx of Central American women and children entering the country illegally, as well as new measures to more quickly deport those already here, the White House confirmed Saturday.

President Obama intends to notify Congress of his request on Monday, and the administration will ask lawmakers to modify existing statutes to make it easier to return unaccompanied children to their home countries, an administration official said. The administration’s plans were first reported Saturday by the New York Times.

My first question is: is this true? After all, it hasn’t happened yet, and it was reported by the Times. Maybe we should wait for a more reliable source, such as the National Enquirer.

Second question: what’s the angle? We know nothing Obama does is straightforward, unless it’s obviously bad for Republicans and for America. Note that he doesn’t seem to be requesting more funds for border control. And unless the current rules are modified a great deal, and in the direction of making it much easier to deport, this will merely expedite the dispersal of this great influx of illegal immigrants into the vast pool that’s already here. Plus, he faces a lot of possible opposition from his own left, and if the Republicans try to tie it in with greater border security and somehow it does pass, he may veto the bill and blame the failure on them.

Now, go and have a nice Sunday!

What’s up with this “clean” food I keep hearing about?

The New Neo Posted on by

I hear it everywhere: people bragging about eating clean.

If you don’t believe me, just Google it, and voila:

“10 Ways to Eat Clean”
“23 Ways To Eat Clean” [are 23 always better than 10?]
“Eating Clean For Dummies Cheat Sheet
“Clean Eating 101” [I assume that’s a more advanced course than clean eating for dummies]
“10 Clean Eating Recipes for Weeknights” [a bit less fancy than clean eating recipes for those very special weekends?

And so forth.

Cynthia Sass at CNN has helpfully provided a cheat sheet for us dummies who don’t even know what clean eating is, although so far most of us have somehow managed to refrain from using dirt instead of flour to dredge our food. From Sass:

Today,…clean eating, or eating clean, is a major movement, spurred by people from all walks of life who want to feel good about what they’re putting in their bodies.

When I asked via Twitter, “What does clean eating mean to you?” I received a variety of replies, from simply “eating fresh fruits and veggies,” to “not eating anything artificial.”

Aha! So it’s a way to say that you’re self-righteous about what you eat, and you can define the good in any way you want. Works for me.

I guess you might say I eat pretty clean, except when I eat very very dirty. When I fall off the wagon and into the gutter, I fall hard.

But not dirty like this. I obey the 3-second rule:

Meanwhile, the border invasion continues…

The New Neo Posted on by

…and now it’s spreading disease.

Well, of course. After all, the people who are entering come from countries where disease is far more rampant. So why not? In earlier non-PC days we actually paid attention to that sort of thing. Of course, that was also back when illegal entry was considered—well, illegal.

I noticed today that Drudge is covering the border influx heavily, with a large central headline about HIV spreading, and twelve others on the topic that are placed above it and to the left. Drudge has a daily—yes, daily—circulation of twenty-five million, so the news is getting out, at least to the choir. (Are liberals more likely to read Drudge any more than they watch Fox? Don’t think so.)

If ever a region needed to be declared a federal disaster area, it’s the border and the region near it. That’s a particularly ironic though, since this would be a disaster that not only requires federal assistance, but it’s also one created by the federal government, most likely on purpose.

And lest you think this situation wouldn’t fall under the criteria for the official federal designation “disaster area,” take a look at the definition:

A disaster area is a region or a locale, heavily damaged by either natural, technological or social hazards. Disaster areas affect the population living in the community by dramatic increase in expense, loss of energy, food and services; and finally increase the risk of disease for citizens.

Who’s bearing the brunt of this? The local communities, and to a certain extent the states involved. That’s win/win for Obama, since (surprise!) these are red states, mainly Texas but also Arizona.

We’ve already heard about disease, but there’s this, too:

Small towns and counties in states bordering Mexico are drowning in debt due to the swarm of illegals stealing and destroying property, requiring expensive medical care and needing proper burials, all of which the federal government has largely refused to pay for.

For example, in Brooks Co., Texas, which is 75 miles north of the Mexican border, county judge Raul M. Ramirez told Infowars that autopsies of dead illegal aliens are rapidly draining his county’s resources which were already meager after the oil & gas industry left town.

As for crime:

Sex offenders, murder suspects and gang members are making their way through the vast rangelands of Brooks County.

The Vickers ranch is one of the many land spreads affected by the surge in illegal immigration. What is more concerning to the ranch owners is the type of people trekking through their land.

Linda Vickers never wanders away from her house without her trusty canine companions – Blitz, Elsa, Schotten and Tinkerbell.

The dogs provide a sense of security in a land of insecurity.

“The safety factor out here has changed,” Vickers said…

It’s not just gang members that worry Vickers. Border Patrol agents arrested a wanted murderer near Falfurrias and sex offenders in the Rio Grande Valley last weekend.

“They’re everywhere,” Vickers said.

Border Patrol Spokesman Oscar Saldana said criminals won’t turn themselves in like families and unaccompanied children.

The children act (consciously or unconsciously) as a screen, like the person who distracts the mark while the pickpocket goes to work.

Ace has some questions for Obama

The New Neo Posted on by

They’re excellent questions, and in a way somewhat obvious. So why doesn’t the media ask them?

Krauthammer notes that Obama’s actions [in exceeding his constitutional authority] serve as precedents for future presidents, which raises a question I wish our corrupt media would ask him:

Do you, President Obama, endorse and support a Republican President’s assertion of the same powers you assert? Do you suggest that other presidents follow[ing] you follow your model of presidential power?

Would you support a Tea Party president writing the immigration law himself as well?

Now, you might say that the reason why the MSM doesn’t ask Obama all of this is obvious: the media is on the left. But not everyone in media is on the left. There are a few people either on the right or somewhat in the middle (or who at least seem relatively fair, whatever their politics) who attend presidential press conferences and have asked a couple of hard-hitting queries in the past. Jake Tapper comes to mind, although looking at the one-on-one interview he did with President Obama in January of 2014, he seems to me to be softballing it lately.

What happened? Why doesn’t he ask these fairly obvious questions? Is he afraid he’ll lose access, is that the threat? Or is he intimidated by things like the James Rosen incident? In other words, is it that 95% of the press remains firmly placed in Obama’s pocket, and the other 5% is frightened, and 100% of them are worried about being shunned on the cocktail party circuit?

At any rate, my guess as to what Obama’s answers would be if by some miracle he were to be asked Ace’s questions is some version of the following:

“What overreach? I’m a constitutional law professor, you know, and there is no problem whatsoever with what I’m doing.”

Alternatively, “I’m not doing anything any other president hasn’t done.”

Or maybe, “No other president ever has or ever will face such personal animosity from a Congress determined to block what’s good for America as it faces these terrible crises. It’s okay for me to do this because of these special and completely unique circumstances. I owe it to the American people.”

Or how about this one?: “Don’t worry, there won’t be any future presidents.”

And then the reporter who asked the questions would get a letter from the IRS…

Thanks from FredHJr’s family

The New Neo Posted on by

To those of you who saw the FredHJr thread and commented there, I want to convey the thanks of his widow, who read the thread and got in touch with me. She wrote:

It means so much that you have done this remembrance every year and it is amazing to me that people who met him were touched by him.

Well, he was an amazing man.

More on those racially-charged Cochran ads

The New Neo Posted on by

Bruce Carroll at Legal Insurrection quotes the Daily Mail (another example of British papers doing the work American ones won’t) as having uncovered this:

The article also ties a progressive activist to the payment of the radio ads. Carol Stern, a left-leaning former marketing executive, paid the Mississippi radio station to run the racially charged ads based on evidence provided to the Daily Mail.

Quelle surprise.

The Obama infomercial

The New Neo Posted on by

There really hasn’t been a previous president capable of this sort of thing:

Obama describes Republicans and their actions by saying, “It’s not on the level.” “It makes people cynical.” But that’s a good way to describe Obama himself. Note, also, the affectation of his constantly dropped “g’s,” part of his effort to seem like he’s just one of the little guys. He even says, “I was you guys” [at minute 1:25].

And then there’s the sentence at minute 2:16 that begins, “I’ll be honest with you.” When Obama starts that way, watch out because it means there’s an especially pernicious whopper coming. This time it was this [emphasis in the original]:

We’ve got a party on the other side whose only rationale, motivation seems to be opposing me.

Note he doesn’t even say “opposing my agenda.” It’s all about him you see; it’s personal, and of course there’s always the implied racism of his opponents, because why else would they concentrate so much on him? Otherwise, it would be on his party or his policies.

And hating on him is not just his opponents’ agenda, it’s their only agenda. According to Obama, they adhere to no policies that are opposed to him, they have no philosophy of government that he’s running roughshod over. All they have is this agenda of opposing him out of sheer spitefulness, bile, orneriness, hate.

Have we ever seen a president like this? All opposition to his proposals are by definition ad hominem attacks, according to him. And yet most of his attacks actually are ad hominem attacks. It’s a beautiful Orwellian circle he’s got going there.

Obama also seems awkward and tense here, almost hesitant. But he keeps doing it, and I suppose somebody’s still buying it. After all, his approval ratings are still well above the 5% they should be at this point.

Every previous president I can remember in my lifetime, Democrat or Republican, showed a basic respect for his opposition. For the most part, they also thought they had to answer to scandals and take them seriously. Obama does neither, and therefore doesn’t just disrespect the office and the opposition, he disrespects the American people—although I have to say that by electing him twice, they’ve earned it.

[NOTE: Here’s a companion piece; do the nine SCOTUS justices oppose Obama for the sheer bile of it, too? And please watch the whole thing, because it’s the second half that’s most important, and it’s not all that long:

I agree with it for the most part, although I don’t think that even Obama thinks he’s doing good any more. I think more of his motivation is hatred at this point. And yes, Obama the constitutional law teacher knows exactly what he’s doing in terms of unconstitutional overreach.]

On the silence of the liberal media

The New Neo Posted on by

From Roger L. Simon at PJ:

Obama is beside the point. They [the liberal media] don’t even like Obama anymore. Nothing could be more obvious. Almost nobody does. But they won’t say so in public because that would mean that they would be revealed as fools who believed the most banal tripe imaginable. It would also mean admitting Barack Obama never really existed, that they invented him. He was their projection. Barack Obama is the creation of the New York Times, et al. Without them he would never have happened and they know it.

So the media are left in an untenable position. If you say Barack Obama is a mistake, then you yourself are a mistake. Who wants that?

No wonder they won’t investigate the scandals. No wonder they won’t report any of this. They are too ashamed of themselves to speak.

I sort of agree and sort of disagree. I think the MSM is deeply disappointed in Obama, and deeply reluctant to say so. But I doubt they’re as deeply disappointed as all that, not deeply enough to question themselves and their own role in the whole thing, or their belief system. That takes a great deal of courage and integrity, particularly for people with entrenched and vested interests—such as the Times editors and their ilk, as Roger points out—who would therefore be extremely reluctant to do it.

So no, my hunch is that they’re not especially ashamed of themselves. And I’m pretty sure there’s very little real soul searching going on, except perhaps to try to figure out how better to engineer things for Hillary or Elizabeth Warren or whoever emerges as the next liberal nominee.

No, I’m afraid what the Times is doing is ass-covering. They can’t think of a way to spin Obama’s abysmal failures any more (they do have certain standards, although those standards are pretty low), so they are silent.

They’re also very accustomed to setting the news agenda, and think they can get away with ignoring news they don’t like. That Times slogan “All the news that’s fit to print” takes on new meaning, doesn’t it? Up till now I’d always assumed they were conveying the idea that they cover the news thoroughly (they’d like us to think they cover it objectively, too, but that’s an absurdity). But did you ever wonder what sort of news isn’t “fit to print”? Why, it’s news that would hurt liberals and help conservatives, that’s what news. And it doesn’t matter if that news constitutes the biggest scandal since Watergate—potentially even bigger than Watergate.

At the time of Watergate, I never for a moment stopped to wonder what would have happened had Nixon been a Democrat and done exactly the same thing. Well, now I don’t have to wonder.

[ADDENDUM: Please see this Onion article for some comic relief:

More than a week after President Barack Obama’s cold-blooded killing of a local couple, members of the American news media admitted Tuesday that they were still trying to find the best angle for covering the gruesome crime…

“What exactly is the news hook here?” asked Rick Kaplan, executive producer of the CBS Evening News. “Is this an upbeat human-interest story about a ‘day in the life’ of a bloodthirsty president who likes to kill people? Or is it more of an examination of how Obama’s unusual upbringing in Hawaii helped to shape the way he would one day viciously butcher two helpless citizens in their own home?”

“Or maybe the story is just that murder is cool now,” Kaplan continued. “I don’t know. There are a million different angles on this one.”]

You can bet on it: the left will be exploiting the rifts on the right

The New Neo Posted on by

And they’ll be laughing all the way. Be on the lookout for it.

That’s the main reason I’ve written so much about those flyers and robocalls in Mississippi. My primary (pun intended) motivation is not to defend the Cochran campaign. I’m keen on neither Cochran nor Barbour, although in the general I would vote for Cochran over the Democrat if I lived in Mississippi. But I probably would have voted for McDaniel in the primary.

You may not care who put out either the flyer or the robocalls, because you’re mad at Cochran for cynically reaching out to the Democrats in order to win, Democrats who will almost certainly not vote for him in the general. You may also not like him because he emphasizes how much federal money he’ll get for the state, which is hardly a conservative stance. Of course, that’s usually a way to win in a general election—it’s just human nature—and conservatives in a state like Mississippi need to face the possibility that without such a promise, the race might go to a Democrat, who will most definitely promise it and will deliver if he/she can.

Now, conservatives usually respond that it doesn’t matter; if Republicans have to make such promises in order to win races, then there’s no difference between the two parties. But you know what? There is a difference, especially on major issues such as appointing judges, and foreign policy, and what legislation is brought up for a vote (Harry Reid as Majority Leader means all legislation dear to conservatives will be automatically blocked).

And so another big question that races such as the one in Mississippi present is: what to do about certain facts of human nature? Conservatives often blame liberals for ignoring human nature when they plan their Utopian state. But conservatives ignore it, too, just in a different way. Conservatives often want people to be nobler than they are (“Nature, Mr. Allnut, is what we are put in this world to rise above”), and want the majority of people not to gravitate to a candidate who brings pork to their state. I agree; I’d really, really, really like that, too. But I don’t think it’s true.

Anyone who reads this blog knows that I think that the in-fighting between so-called establishment Republicans and conservatives, while ideologically understandable (I share it, and usually am on the Tea Party side), is strategically destructive in the short haul. And I think this country is very very much in danger in the short haul, and if we lose in 2014 and 2016, you can just about kiss goodbye any hopes of saving the rule of law. And that will make it harder in the long haul.

And so I am very discouraged by the eagerness of so many conservatives to hop on the bandwagon of hating Cochran and Barbour for these calls and flyers. The left really, really, really likes you to do that, wants you to spread those rumors, and would especially like for conservatives in Mississippi to stay home in November. Unfortunately, that would hurt all of you and everything you stand for.

The left is laughing at you. I continue to think they engineered those flyers and robocalls, knowing full well what the reaction of the right would be, and I think it highly probably that you are being played. In addition, looking beyond the Mississippi race, I don’t think enough people on the right are on the lookout for Democratic dirty tricks, and that the right will be played again because of it.

By the way, Democratic groups have claimed that they are the ones who put out those anti-Tea Party flyers and robocalls, for what it’s worth. Believe me, Cochran and Barbour did enough for you to be angry at them without attributing these particular things to them when you lack knowledge of whether they did it or not. Why not stick to the facts, to what you actually know that Cochran and Barbour did?

And remember that, if you’re looking for angels in politics, you’re not going to get them. You’ll probably get Democrats instead.

[NOTE: Sometimes I see this argument, which we’ve had before, as the one between Don Quixote and Sancho Panza. I see myself as Panza, by the way, in case that’s not already abundantly clear.

Also, a lot of you will say that you’ve heard the points I’m making before, and you are heartily sick of them and of compromising your principles over and over and getting kicked in the teeth. But it doesn’t make the arguments any less true or less urgent. Remember, also, that I’m talking about the general, not the primary. In the primary, unless a Tea Party candidate is a nut case, I would almost always support that person.]