The David Brat “earthquake”

The New Neo Posted on by

The David Brat victory has been widely described as an earthquake. In the political world of DC, I suppose it is. To the rest of us it’s a surprise—pleasant or unpleasant, depending on your politics—but buildings are still standing and nothing has fallen off the shelves yet.

Funny thing how everyone’s ignoring Lindsay Graham’s victory, which appears to give the opposite message of Brat’s. Each race had special circumstances that make it difficult to generalize, but I think we can safely say that Brat’s does indicate a certain anti-DC, anti-incumbent fever that we already knew has been brewing for a long, long time. However, I don’t think it would have made as much difference had Brat himself not been a personable, smart, articulate guy, or if there hadn’t been a lot of anti-illegal-immigration news in the headlines right before the primary. It also helped that the vote was in a single district with a small turnout. In South Carolina, in his statewide contest, Graham faced a slew of opponents all of whom split the opposition vote among them, and that mattered in his victory.

I dismiss the idea that Democratic crossover votes had much effect at all in the Brat race, by the way. The argument offered by DrewM at Ace’s makes tremendous sense to me:

If you think 10,000 Democrats came out to vote for Brat (that’s about 1 in 6 votes cast), you’d think there’d be some sort of evidence of an organized effort. The notion that Democrats “smelled blood in the water” is ridiculous. No one saw this coming. Why would so many Democrats on their own suddenly think they could sway a race that everyone thought would be a Cantor blowout?

I think what will be especially interesting is how the so-called “establishment” Republicans react to this over time. Will Cantor be asked to resign from his post, and who would replace him? Will other Republicans change their amnesty-deal-friendly rhetoric? Or will they look at Graham’s win instead and decide that Brat’s victory was a one-off rather than a trend? I think it more likely that they’re pretty scared right now.

One thing I would hate to see is a civil war in the Republican Party that hurts their chances in 2014. First things first, and first is stopping or at least slowing down this president in the damage he can do before January of 2017. I happen to think that we need more fighters and fewer accommodators, and so far Brat fits the mold of the former rather than the latter, so I’m happy about his victory—just as long as he wins against his opponent in November.

[ADDENDUM: Interesting story about one of Brat’s winning moves.]

The Bum Won

The New Neo Posted on by

Brat’s victory last night made me think of this song from the musical “Fiorello.” I saw it as a child and it was one of my favorites, although it’s hardly ever performed today. It has several really clever songs about politics, including this one that the New York Republican Party guys sing after Fiorello wins a local victory running as a reform candidate against the Democratic Tammany Hall machine candidate.

They never in their wildest dreams expected him to win:

The lyrics are awfully good:

Even without our help, look at the way he won
Everyone sold him short.
(“You think they’ll ask for a recount?”)
We got a winner, but what good is that to us,
Not if he doesn’t feel grateful for our support?
(“You mean no patronage, huh, Ben?”)

I gotta talk to him.
Someone, pinch me, maybe this is just a beautiful dream
I’m in a bad state of shock.
I’d like to know just how the hell it happened
What we did right
Fellas, the whole thing is cock-eyed…

If you liked that one, you may like two more from the show. They hold up very well after all these years.

The first one’s about the nominating process in a lopsided district where the pols think whomever they nominate will inevitably lose:

And the second is about political corruption on trial:

Big upset in Virginia: Brat beats Cantor

The New Neo Posted on by

Wow, I didn’t see this coming. Not that I was paying close attention, because my impression was that Brat didn’t have a chance:

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor lost in his Republican primary election Tuesday to a little-known economics professor, a stunning upset for the GOP’s No. 2 in the House and a major victory for the tea party.

Cantor, viewed as a possible successor to House Speaker John Boehner, was taken down by a political novice with little money named Dave Brat. His win marked the biggest triumph this year for tea party supporters who until a few years ago backed Cantor, a former state legislator who rose to Majority Leader in 2011.

Since immigration and amnesty were huge issues in this race, I wonder how much the story that just broke the other day—about the masses of illegal immigrant children overwhelming Arizona and Texas, and being released into the community—affected the results in Cantor’s district. My sense is that it had to have had a pretty big effect, and maybe even made the difference in the race. Cantor has been a less than strong presence in Congress as a leader, too Mr. Nice Guy and not perceived as a fighter. Right now I think the mood is for a fighter.

What is a little odd is that Brat actually has a mild-mannered professorial demeanor, like Cantor (and in fact, he is a professor—of economics) and even slightly resembles Cantor physically:

Take a look:
BratCantor.jgp

In other news, Lindsay Graham has won his primary in South Carolina. So it’s hard to see any patterns in the whole thing.

The commentators on Fox have all been saying this means amnesty is dead in the House. I’m not sure, but they’re also saying it probably doesn’t matter because President Obama has made it pretty clear that if Congress doesn’t give him what he wants re immigration he’ll do it himself. What a guy! If he does that, it will one of the very worst things he has done in terms of domestic policy and Constitutional overreach (and that’s saying a lot). It would make it more clear than ever that he is assuming dictatorial powers. No doubt he considers it worth it, though, because getting all those new Democratic voters into the country takes top priority. Never mind if he starts a civil war in the process.

I really, really hope the prognosticators who say Obama will now go the phone/pen route are wrong. But I think it much more likely that they are right. Remember how everyone (including me) was celebrating Scott Brown’s victory in Massachusetts in early 2010 because they thought it meant the end of Obamacare in the Senate? Turns out it only meant that Obama and the Democrats would have to be more creative about getting what they wanted.

[ADDENDUM: If Brat does get elected, he sounds as though he’ll be one of the most interesting and unique members of the House. Here’s part of his resume:

Dave Brat presents a major problem for liberals who try to continue increased government spending by discrediting conservatives and claiming the budget is “too complicated” for conservatives to understand….

A product of the rural Midwest, he learned the value of faith, family, and a strong work ethic at a young age. Dave was determined to get an education that would empower him to help others reach their economic dreams.

Dave’s journey led him to Princeton where he obtained a Masters in Divinity and on to American University where he earned a Ph.D. in Economics. That education has led him to a career serving the Commonwealth.

In 1996, Dave and Laura moved to Henrico and he began teaching Economics and Ethics at Randolph-Macon College, and he chaired the Economics and Business department for the past 6 years.

That’s quite a combination.]

[ADDENDUM II: Looking at Brat, I think another reason Brat won was because,unlike many such challengers, he’s a good candidate: smart, not wacky, an appealing person who comes across as honest and sincere. That said, he couldn’t scare up even much Tea Party support prior to tonight.

For those conservatives who turned their backs on Ann Coulter during the 2012 election as an “establishment Republican” because she championed the supposed RINO [sic] Romney, note that she was one of the few big names who supported Brat in this race.]

[ADDENDUM III: A list of Brat’s scholarly publications.]

A trip back in time: remember Honduras?

The New Neo Posted on by

Early in his first administration Obama showed us who he was, and most people probably don’t remember when and how.

The subject was the attempt by Honduras’ President Zeleya to seize more power, and the battle against him. I was deeply alarmed when it happened because Obama’s support for Zeleya solidified—nay, proved—what I’d strongly suspected and feared about him prior to that. At the time I wrote:

Regular readers of this blog know that I have written quite a bit about Obama’s policy on Zeleya and Honduras. This isn’t just because I am concerned for the people of Honduras””although I am that””but for what Obama’s support of Zeleya’s attempt to expand his power in these time-honored ways tells us about Obama himself, and his own propensities and possible plans.

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.

It was chilling when I wrote it. It was chilling back then when I saw how the MSM distorted what was happening in Honduras in order to defend Obama’s attitude towards it. And it’s chilling now that I’ve seen how the last five years have gone.

In that same post back in September of 2009 I also wrote:

…I have observed that every single step of the way [Obama] has shown his propensity for consolidating government and his own power, stomping on or eliminating the opposition…, affiliation with figures of the far Left, lying and misrepresenting himself in a host of ways, secrecy about his past, and cozying up to dictators such as Hugo Chavez.

At present, it’s Chavez whom I see as closest to Obama, both in goals and in modus operandi.

The only revision I’d make to that now is that I think Obama is worse than Chavez. Chavez was a player mostly on the Venezuelan and Latin American stage. Obama is a player on the worldwide stage, in a country that has been far more important to and influential in the world.

Obama to Congress: I don’t trust you…

The New Neo Posted on by

…but I trust them:

A political storm over the trade of five Taliban inmates for a captured American soldier intensified on Monday when Obama administration officials told U.S. lawmakers that up to 90 people within the administration – but no members of Congress – were told in advance about the swap.

“It strikes me as unfortunate that they could have 80 to 90 people in the administration aware of what was happening and not be able to trust a single Republican or Democrat in the House or the Senate,” Representative Greg Walden of Oregon, a member of the House of Representatives Republican leadership, told reporters after leaving a briefing on the exchange.

And this, of course, despite the fact that Obama was required by law to inform Congress 30 days ahead of time.

Ted Cruz is proposing legislation in the Senate that “would bar any federal funding for Guantanamo transfers for six months.” The same will be happening in the House. There is even a very remote possibility that such a statute might pass, even in the Democrat-controlled Senate, because Democrats are that angry at the president. And isn’t it interesting how so many of the bipartisan votes in Congress during this administration have been in opposition to Obama rather than in agreement?.

Of course, it won’t matter, even if the bill does manage somehow to pass. Obama will just defy it if he wants to and take the funds from elsewhere. But the more Democrats in the Senate he pisses off, the more likely it is that some day he could be impeached in the House and convicted through the votes of Democratic senators joining Republicans to do so. I am not saying this has any sort of likelihood of happening, of course; the possibility is remote as well. But that would be the route by which it at least theoretically could happen.

Members of Congress don’t like to find out they’re just figurehead puppets to this president. But if they don’t want to be considered puppets, they’d do well not act to like puppets. Tyrants usually work their way into greater power by getting a legislature to vote away some of its power (see the Enabling Act, or the history of Hugo Chavez, for example) under the guise of crisis. So far Obama has dispensed with that step. He figures he can accomplish the same thing without it.

[NOTE: Egad.

I guess Congress is always the last to know.]

The fall of Iraq: those helicopters left the roof a long time ago

The New Neo Posted on by

As soon as Obama was elected it was a foregone conclusion that this would be the result in Iraq—that the country would be taken over by the worst forces in the area. Since then, it’s just been the slow denouement:

Insurgents seized control early Tuesday of most of the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, including the provincial government headquarters, offering a powerful demonstration of the mounting threat posed by extremists to Iraq’s teetering stability.

Fighters with the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), an al-Qaeda offshoot, overran the entire western bank of the city overnight after Iraqi soldiers and police apparently fled their posts, in some instances discarding their uniforms as they sought to escape the advance of the militants…

The collapse of government forces in Mosul echoed the takeover earlier this year of the town of Fallujah in western Anbar province, where U.S. troops fought some of their fiercest battles of the Iraq war…

The Iraqi government is calling for international and/or US help, “by virtue of the Joint Cooperation agreement between the two countries.” But that horse left the barn a long time ago, and there are not even any residual US forces left in the country:

In order to land an effective fighting force to defend Baghdad and retake Mosul, we would need to commit tens of thousands of troops and a large amount of materiel in a big hurry. Logistically speaking, that would be a feat worthy of George S. Patton and the Battle of the Bulge in order for us to get to Baghdad before ISIS does, especially with Iraqi security forces collapsing.

Politically speaking, it’s a dead letter.

David French at National Review thinks Obama’s policy on Iraq demonstrates his foolishness rather than his knavishness:

At the heart of the Obama administration’s folly is a set of unshakeable convictions ”” gained through long-term exposure to the total nonsense that passes for foreign-policy analysis in America-hating quarters of elite academia ”” that jihadist rage is ultimately grounded in a series of legitimate complaints against America and Israel (rather than in its own dedication to Islamic supremacy), that concessions improve relations, and that the right kind of tone and respect for Islam will soothe hurt feelings and build bridges of trust. In reality, the jihadist mindset can be summed up in eight simple words: “Give them nothing, but take from them everything.”

I beg to differ, although it makes sense because Obama is both a narcissist and a man who used to present himself as a liberal, and liberals do actually believe that sort of thing. But Obama really doesn’t care all that much about making peace there, although that would be a nice feather in his cap, too. What else might be motivating Obama’s Iraq policy? He was and still is eager to (1) placate his base, which has always been against the war in Iraq (2) reduce and then eliminate America’s influence in the region and around the world (3) undo the work and efforts of his predecessor George Bush and his enemies the Republicans; and (4) reduce and then eliminate trust in America around the world (which is related to #2 but not exactly the same).

Whether Obama cares much about what actually happens to Iraq and the Iraqis depends on whether he’s trying to promote the jihadi cause around the world. Certainly it seems so more and more, especially after the release of the Taliban Five, which threatens to help complete the same job in Afghanistan. But his policies could just be a subset of his wanting to take America down a peg or two—or three or four or more. Perhaps he doesn’t really give a hoot what happens to the Iraqis or the Afghans, and the pullout has advanced his other aforementioned political and geopolitical purposes.

At any rate, this is certainly true:

This [the takeover of Mosul] is the reason why it made sense to keep American forces in Iraq as a back-up to Iraqi security forces, but that option is all but dead now. Unless Iraq finds some deep well of nationalistic strength and repels ISIS on its own, the only democratic Arab republic may be very short-lived indeed.

Whatever Obama’s true motivations, by the time he got elected the public’s sentiment on Iraq had reached the point that it would have taken a strong resolve on the part of a US president to stay there. Bush had that resolve. Obama not only did not have it, he had the opposite: a strong resolve to leave.

And so it has all come to pass.

[NOTE: The title of this piece refers of course to the fall of Saigon. From the start of the war in Iraq, the left has been working to recreate that scenario.]

[ADDENDUM: Mosul is on the site of Nineveh. Remember Nineveh? Lest we forget…]

What’s next in the child illegal immigrant crisis?

The New Neo Posted on by

In a segment I just heard on Fox’s Kelly File about the current immigration crisis, Dennis Michael Lynch predicted that things are due to get a lot worse soon, because entire villages in Central America are practically being emptied out and will be arriving here in a few weeks.

From Judge Andrew Napolitano in the same segment:

This is going to transform this country. [Obama] doesn’t need a pen, and he doesn’t need a phone. All he needs is a blind eye.

First and foremost, Obama wants more illegal immigrants to come here. It wins him stronger support and turnout from his base, and these children also represent future Democrat votes.

And he doesn’t in the least mind sowing chaos in the process. The more chaos, the more he undermines order. And the more disorder, the more power he can assume to “fix” it.

NOTE: I can’t find a clip of the Lynch interview I’m talking about, but here’s an interview Kelly did with him last November:

Hillary Clinton does not believe in free speech

The New Neo Posted on by

Free speeches, that is. At least, not when they’re hers and Bill’s:

And they called Romney elitist! I cannot imagine that this is a good approach for that would-be populist and champion of the working class, Hillary. But I guess by definition she’s not a rich and clueless fat cat, because she’s a Democrat.

[NOTE: More from DrewM at Ace’s.]

Give me your tired, your poor, your unaccompanied children

The New Neo Posted on by

While we were busy talking about plenty of other things (whack-a-mole, anyone?), the illegal immigration situation in this country seem to have gone from dreadful to utter chaos, with no end in sight.

This is absolutely disturbing on so many levels it’s hard to process. Also, as a side issue, are Jan Brewer and Arizona being punished by the Obama administration?:

Hundreds of migrants nabbed by the border patrol after illegally crossing the US-Mexico border through Texas have been flown to Arizona and left at Greyhound Bus stations in Tucson and Phoenix during the past month…Critics charge that released border-crossers will vanish into the woodwork. Immigrant advocates accuse the federal government of releasing migrants without providing enough basic necessities such as food and water on days that hover around 100 degrees F.

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R) calls it “another disturbing example of a deliberate failure to enforce border security policies and repair a broken immigration system” in a letter to President Obama.

Yeah, a letter! That’ll do it. Although to be honest, I don’t know what the remedy would be. Even impeachment wouldn’t do it at this point, because fixing this would require that both parties be dedicated to tightening both border security and lessening the cornucopia of services available to illegal immigrants, which would require some harsh and extremely difficult decisions that I don’t think our politicians are up to.

Meanwhile, things have been getting worse. In the last couple of weeks or so I had read a couple of articles about how more children have been crossing the border alone. The articles explained that they are fleeing political and social turmoil in their countries of birth, but none that I read managed to point out the obvious, which is that people are sending children here because they perceive them as being less likely to be deported than in the past, and if the parents follow, they too will be unlikely to be deported because of policies that favor family unification (here’s a typical article of this type, from the NY Times of May 17). The Christian Science Monitor article I linked to at the beginning of this post was the first one I had seen that alludes to the Obama administration’s policies as at least a partial explanation of what’s been happening.

The CS Monitor offers more background here on why the number of illegal child immigrants has increased in the last two years:

At issue is Mr. Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), which in 2012 allowed some undocumented immigrants who came to America as minors to defer deportation for two years. Last week, the administration announced guidelines for how these immigrants could defer deportation for a further two years.

DACA would not apply to anyone coming across the border today. Only undocumented immigrants who were brought to the US as minors before June 15, 2007, are eligible. But to Republican critics, DACA created the opportunity for misinformation and confusion.

“Word has gotten out around the world about President Obama’s lax immigration enforcement policies and it has encouraged more individuals to come to the United States illegally,” said Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R) of Virginia, a key broker in immigration reform efforts on Capitol Hill, in a statement last week…

During the decade preceding fiscal year 2012, the federal government agency tasked with caring for unaccompanied minors who cross the border illegally dealt with an average of 7,000 to 8,000 cases a year, according to a Department of Health and Human Services fact sheet. In fiscal year 2011, the number was 6,560.

The following year, however, the number jumped to 13,625. This fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30, 2014, federal officials are estimating that the number could be 80,000, according to an internal memo cited by The New York Times.

Obama called the situation a “humanitarian crisis” Monday. Poverty and violence are driving the migration, administration officials say, and activists working with migrants agree. But some also suggest that DACA could be a factor.

Ya think?

That article goes on to say that Obama is being pressured by his base to stop deportations of illegals altogether. As a pro-immigrant San Francisco crowd yelled to him last November: “”Stop deportations! Yes we can!” And why not? Obama makes the laws and he also breaks the laws at his pleasure, so the crowd was well within its rights to think Obama could and would do it. Obama needs his base (which includes Hispanics/Latinos) to come out in force for Democrats in 2014 or he could lose the Senate, so his motivation to please them is very strong (although he was already motivated to allow as many illegal immigrants—and potential Democratic voters—as possible to come into this country). It’s no accident, either, that Obama announced DACA in 2012, a presidential election year.

The CS Monitor seems to be the mainstream paper covering these issues in the most depth. Here’s another article from them about it, which mentions the fact that most of the children coming across the border alone are boys over twelve.

One small ray of sunshine in an otherwise very gloomy situation is that the increasing phenomenon of child illegal immigrants might help convince people that the border is nowhere near as secure as Obama says it is. In turn, this could discourage Republicans in Congress from caving on immigration/amnesty. As Jan Brewer said, ““If the Obama administration put half the effort into securing our border as it has invested to institute this operation, our state and nation would not be facing this situation.”

More:

Nora Griselda Bercian Diaz, a mother from Guatemala who crossed into the U.S. illegally with her 6-year-old daughter, told local media outlet KRGV that the message being spread in her home country is, “Go to America with your child, you won’t be turned away.”

Bercian Diaz said she thought the U.S. border was open to all families. She added that news reports are circulating in her country which state that mothers and children are obtaining bus tickets.

And once they come they need not only food and water and housing, but they need lawyers to fight deportation. So here’s some money for the lawyers.

Obama’s reaction to all of this is to ask for even more money to help the illegal immigrants once they’re here. And there is little question that their plight is indeed very troubling and pathetic at this point, because the numbers have overwhelmed whatever system was already in place. But the truth is that incentivizing a behavior increases it, and this is what Obama has been doing right along. His response to this new crisis is to incentivize the behavior even more.

[NOTE: I agree with this article, but I do not agree that Democrats were unaware of the incentivizing effect of amnesty. They are well aware, and for them it’s a feature rather than a bug.]