HALF-FULL REPORT 06/10/11

Jack Wheeler has been tied up in Saudi Arabia and is now on his way to Bulgaria, so he asked me at pretty much the last minute to throw the Half Full Report together. I hope that’s not too evident. It’s been an eventful week for Jack to be away.  Lots of stuff has been happening.

Let’s begin with the Weiner roast.

House Democratic leaders began an orchestrated effort on Wednesday to force Representative Anthony D. Weiner of New York to resign his seat, saying his sexually explicit Internet messages and subsequent lies about them were making him, and the party, the subject of ridicule, the New York Times reported.

But Weiner is unwilling to go quietly into that good night.  He’s resisting because his wife wants him to stay in Congress, CNN reported Thursday (6/09). 

It’s so nice that Mr. Weiner has begun to think of the little woman, after spending most of the first year of their marriage sending risqué emails to other women, most of them very much younger than he. 

The same day that an explicit photo of Mr. Weiner’s wiener was published online, the New York Times reported that his wife, Huma Abedin, is pregnant.

Ms. Abedin, 35, is in the early stages of pregnancy, according to three people with knowledge of the situation.  The pregnancy, which the couple have disclosed to close friends and family, adds a new dimension to questions about the future of their marriage.

I’ll say.  Andrew Breitbart, who first broke the story on his Web site Big Government, thinks the pregnancy announcement is a ploy to elicit sympathy and distract attention.

Chuck Bennett of the New York Post thinks the real reason Weiner is hanging on is because he needs the money.

Unlike many of his peers in the House, Weiner doesn’t have a business or even a law degree to fall back on. Weiner, 46, took home $156,117 in 2010, according to his federal tax returns released by his staff.  His humiliated wife, Huma Abedin, a top aide to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, earned $154,000 in 2009, federal records show.

He owes between $10,000 and $15,000 on his American Express card, according to his most recent financial-disclosure forms. If he steps down, he could grovel to cable TV execs for talking-head "analyst" gigs that hopefully pay more than the $825 he gets for appearing on HBO’s "Real Time with Bill Maher." But with Weiner’s reputation in ruins, other lucrative jobs may be hard to get.

Huma Abedin is a Moslem of South Asian descent (her father was Indian, her mother Pakistani) who is a senior aide to Hillary Clinton.  (She wasn’t at her husband’s side this week in part because she’s in Africa on a trip with Hillary.)  Huma grew up in Saudi Arabia and speaks Arabic.

There have from time to time been rumors that Ms. Abedin’s relationship with Ms. Clinton has been more than professional.  Jack Wheeler is among those who think Hillary swings both ways, as he wrote in The Washington Times in 2004.

Both Republican and Democratic campaign operatives were spreading rumors in South Carolina in 2007 that Hillary and Huma were more than just friends.  The rumors made the front page of the Times of London that year.  Descriptions like this by Michelle Cottle in the New Yorker did nothing to quell such speculation:

Huma Abedin, Hillary’s beautiful, enigmatic ‘body person,’ spends nearly every waking minute with Hillary and so has the best sense of her daily rhythms and routines.

TTPers had a lively discussion about this back in 2007.  If you’re curious, type ‘Abedin’ in the Forum search box.

I’m agnostic about the rumors, as I am about the rumors Ms. Abedin is a spy for Saudi Arabian intelligence, or for Mossad.  But if her marriage is like most suspect Hillary’s is,  a marriage for political convenience, I can well believe Ms. Abedin is devastated by the scandal, not because her husband has been sending pictures of his pecker around the Internet, but because the political big shot she married has become a laughingstock, and is about to become a nobody.

There is something I am curious about.  Huma’s mom teaches at a fundamentalist academy in Saudi Arabia.  I wonder what mom thinks about the Weiner wiener scandal, the rumors about her daughter and Hillary, or the fact that Huma married a Jew.

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There is a woman in politics who is as stupid as the news media like to claim Sarah Palin is.  She’s Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, D-Fla, the new chair of the Democrat National Committee.

Ms. Wasserman-Schultz gives hypocrisy a bad name.

The Hill says the new chair of the national Democratic party — who ripped Republicans today for not backing President Barack Obama’s auto bailout and suggested they’d have Americans "driving foreign cars" — apparently drives a foreign car herself.

"If it were up to the candidates for president on the Republican side, we would be driving foreign cars; they would have let the auto industry in America go down the tubes," she said at a breakfast for reporters organized by The Christian Science Monitor. 

"But according to Florida motor vehicle records," the Hill reports, "the Wasserman Schultz household owns a 2010 Infiniti FX35, a Japanese car whose parent company is Nissan, another Japanese company. The car appears to be hers, since its license plate includes her initials." 

Ms. Wasserman-Schultz literally does not understand the difference between ‘literally’ and ‘figuratively.’

Washington (CNN)-Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz might "say anything," but she also might take it back. After being blasted by opponents for invoking Jim Crow during a critique of voter identification laws backed by Republicans, the congresswoman admitted using the "wrong analogy."

When asked about the measures including identification requirements and shorter windows for early voting Sunday, the Florida congresswoman told Roland Martin, CNN contributor and host of "Washington Watch" on TV One, "You have the Republicans, who want to literally drag us all the way back to Jim Crow laws and literally – and very transparently – block access to the polls to voters who are more likely to vote for Democratic candidates than Republican candidates." But she later backed down.

Back in March, Paul Ryan ate her lunch in a debate over Obamacare on Fox News.

Ms. Wasserman-Schultz is a ‘chump,’ said the Orlando Sentinel.

When this U.S. representative from South Florida became head of the Democratic National Committee in April, we warned about members of Congress leading political parties. Her comments (GOP Medicare plan is throwing seniors "to the wolves") and gaffes (DWS drives an Infiniti but huffed "we would be driving foreign cars" if anti-bailout GOP had its way) are embarrassing her party and her constituents. Stop already.

The Politico said this morning that Wasserman-Schultz is off to a ‘rocky start.’

No one seems ready to declare her the Democratic version of Michael Steele, the gaffe-prone former Republican National Committee chairman whose rhetorical and administrative missteps led numerous party leaders to publicly insist he had to go. But some Democrats are already privately fretting about the media-loving Wasserman Schultz’s tendency to put her foot in her mouth ‘ after all, her ability to be the party’s frontwoman and messenger was a major reason President Barack Obama selected her as chairwoman.

Playing off the old Saturday Nite Live sketch series which featured Lindsay Lohan, the folks at American Crossroads (the group Karl Rove is affiliated with) have named Ms. Wasserman-Schultz ‘Debbie Downer,’ and have compiled her greatest hits.

Enjoy:

 

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We’re not used to getting good news from the courts.  But there’s some this week:

The three judges who heard the Obama administration’s legal justification for the individual mandate peppered acting U.S. Solicitor General Neal Katyal with obviously unsympathetic questions about the government’s claim that Congress has the power to order Americans to buy products from private corporations. Katyal, who was assigned the task of defending this proposition by Elena Kagan before she became a Supreme Court justice, produced the familiar administration arguments about the need to force everyone into the system if it is to work.

But the judges did not appear convinced. Chief Judge Joel Dubina pointed out that there is no precedent for the claim that Congress is permitted to impose such a mandate by virtue of the Constitution’s commerce clause: "I can’t find any case like this. If we uphold the individual mandate in this case, are there any limits on Congress’s power left?"

Judge Stanley Marcus was also unequal to the task of finding a precedent for this arrogation of power by the federal government: "I can’t find any case telling a private person they are compelled to purchase a product in the open market…. Is there anything that suggests Congress can do this?"

Judge Frank Hull asked whether Congress could pass a similar law requiring Americans to buy certain types of cars or energy-saving devices to comply with federal energy policy.

Read the whole thing. 

And, says Quin Hilyer, the Supreme Court’s decision in the Hazelton case bodes well for immigration reform:

On Monday, the Supreme Court vacated the Third Circuit’s decision against Hazleton‘s law, and remanded it back to the appeals court to reconsider specifically in light of the Whiting decision. In other words, Hazleton‘s law still stands against landlords who knowingly rent to immigrants, at least for now.

While this is far from the final chapter in the Hazleton case, and while it does not represent a full ruling on its merits by the Supreme Court, it does mean that the Left’s spin is out of control. The high court, if it so wanted, could have remanded the case only for reconsideration of the business-hiring part of Hazleton‘s law, not for reconsideration of the whole law. Instead, it sent the whole case back for review, with specific reference to its Whiting decision.

In the Whiting case, the Supreme Court ruled that the state of Arizona did not exceed its authority in denying business licenses from companies that knowingly employ illegals.

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Much of the news this week has been about the GOP presidential field.

Bill Kristol of the Weekly Standard said former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani will enter the race:

Giuliani made a terrible misjudgment in 2008 (skipping the New Hampshire primary to concentrate on Florida), blew the lead he held in the polls throughout nearly all of 2007, and wound up spending $59 million to win just a single delegate.  He sure seems like yesterday’s news.  But John Guardino of the American Spectator thinks we should give him another look.

Say what you will about Rudy, there’s no disputing the fact that he turned New York City around — from a crime-ridden cesspool of liberalism to America’s safest haven for entrepreneurs the world over. So if Rudy can do for America what he did for New York, well then I and millions of others will rightly say: "Bring it on!"

I think Guardino has a point.  Rudy was my candidate last time around, because he was a helluva mayor in New York City, combining economic conservatism with a law and order approach to crime and strong credentials in national security.  And he handled the most hostile press corps in the nation with ease and aplomb.

I don’t like Rudy’s views on social issues, particularly on abortion and gay marriage.  But he’s made it clear he won’t attempt to impose his personal views on the country.

Michele Bachmann has hired a campaign manager, a pretty sure sign that she intends to enter the race.

Rep. Bachmann is in many ways an impressive woman.  A former tax attorney, she’s been a foster mother for 23 teenagers.  She’s solidly conservative, especially on social issues.  She gives a good speech, and she’s easy on the eyes.

There’s nothing in her four plus years in the House of Representatives for her to be ashamed of.  But there’s also nothing to suggest to anyone but herself that she’s presidential timber. 

Bachmann represents the most conservative district in Minnesota.  But in 2006, she got far fewer votes in her district than did Tim Pawlenty, running for re-election as governor, and Norm Coleman, running for re-election as U.S. senator.  In 2008, she trailed far behind John McCain in each of the counties in her district.  Political parties like to nominate candidates who will lead the ticket, not trail behind it.

I said once that if Michele’s brains were dynamite, she couldn’t blow her nose.  That was hyperbole, but she isn’t the brightest bulb in the chandelier. 

I made the nasty crack after Ms. Bachmann appeared on ABC’s ‘Good Morning America’ program to discuss President Obama’s birth certificate, of which she had made something if an issue.  George Stephanopoulos showed her the short form, said it was the birth certificate.  All righty then, Michele nodded, case closed. 

I don’t mind someone arguing that the short form is just as good as the long form, but if you’re going to make an issue of disclosure of the birth certificate — as Ms. Bachmann did — you ought at least to know that the controversy was about information typically contained on the long form (hospital in which the person was born, attending physician) that is not contained on the short form.

I was reminded Michele is more of a 40 watt than a 100 watt bulb when she hired Ed Rollins as her campaign manager.  Rollins lived up immediately to his reputation as probably the worst — and certainly the most egotistical — GOP campaign operative by trashing Sarah Palin. 

Michele Bachmann’s new top consultant, Ed Rollins, began his tenure with scathing criticism of potential Bachmann rival Sarah Palin.

"Sarah has not been serious over the last couple of years," Rollins told Brian Kilmeade on his radio show, Kilmeade and Friends. "She got the Vice Presidential thing handed to her, she didn’t go to work in the sense of trying to gain more substance, she gave up her governorship."

He suggested that the contrast would favor Bachmann. "Michele Bachmann and others [have] worked hard, she has been a leader of the Tea Party which is a very important element here, she has been an attorney, she has done important things with family values."

Sarah and Michele fish in the same waters.  Bachmann is most unlikely to win the favor of Palinistas by dissing our heroine.  Rollins loves publicity even more than does Bachmann.  He just can’t keep his mouth shut.  I predict a train wreck sooner rather than later.

Speaking of train wrecks, Newt Gingrich’s campaign imploded when most of his senior staff resigned en masse yesterday (6/09).

The entire top echelon of Newt Gingrich’s presidential campaign resigned on Thursday, a stunning mass exodus that left his bid for the Republican nomination in tatters.

Rick Tyler, Gingrich’s spokesman, said that he, campaign manager Rob Johnson and senior strategists had all quit, along with aides in the early primary and caucus states of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina.

Fred Barnes of the Weekly Standard said the aides resigned because Gingrich’s wife, Callista, was elbowing them out.

The last straw for the campaign staff was Gingrich’s decision to go on a two-week cruise in the Mediterranean, from which he returned on Tuesday. His advisers urged him not to go and take so much time from a campaign that was already in trouble. But his wife wanted him to go and she won the argument.

Several of the Gingrich aides had been aides to Texas Gov. Rick Perry in the past.  Their resignations prompted speculation Perry is about to jump into the race.  Bryan Preston, a former executive director of the Texas Republican Party, knows them well:

I think Dave Carney, Rob Johnson, Katon Dawson and the rest of the team that departed the Gingrich campaign en masse yesterday are telling the entire truth when they say that their resignations had nothing to do with a possible Rick Perry run. They didn’t resign so they could go help Perry. They resigned because Gingrich refused to get his act together. They fired him.

But the fact is, now Carney et al are now available, and Perry is a few short days or weeks away from wrapping up the ongoing Texas legislature’s special session. Perry has already said he is thinking seriously about a run. Perry won’t make any announcements before the end of that special session. He wouldn’t have run for president without Dave Carney. Now, that’s one thing he doesn’t have to think about.

Sarah Palin was in the news because as much as they despise her, the news media can’t stop talking about her.

The state of Alaska released today 24,000 emails from her time as governor.  The Washington Post wants moonbats to help sift through them to help them find dirt to use against her:

Over 24,000 e-mail messages to and from former Alaska governor Sarah Palin during her tenure as Alaska‘s governor will be released Friday. That’s a lot of e-mail for us to review so we’re looking for some help from Fix readers to analyze, contextualize, and research those e-mails right alongside Post reporters over the days following the release.

We are limiting this to just 100 spots for people who will work collaboratively in small teams to surface the most important information from the e-mails. Participants can join from anywhere with a computer and an Internet connection.

The New York Times is doing the same thing.

Law professor William Jacobson is incensed.

I get so infuriated when Republicans pile on Sarah Palin not over policy but through personal insult because these people don’t seem to understand that they are joining in a mob which eventually will come around to beat down their own favorite candidate. 

And as of today, it has become even more of a feeding frenzy as the elites of the mainstream media have given up any pretense of neutrality or news reporting, and literally are forming mobs of anti-Palin readers in a joint effort to take her down.

For two and one-half years the mainstream media, entertainment industry, and left-blogosphere have been perfecting how to destroy a Republican presidential nominee, and they have been practicing on Palin.  Those tactics, including the complete fabrication tying Palin to the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords, know no bounds.

The latest tactic employed by two of the most prestigious liberal newspapers, The Washington Post and The New York Times, is to use "crowdsourcing" to enlist a legion of Palin haters to sift through e-mails to be released today by the State of Alaska. 

As described by Jim Treacher at The Daily Caller, NYT, WaPo give up even pretending to be news organizations, "They’re an opposition research arm of the Democratic Party."

Team Sarah is encouraging her supporters to sign up as volunteers with the Post and the Times:

The WaPo’s ombudsman responded to outrage on the right this way:

Sarah Palin and her e-mails are just too darn irresistible….

But then the reality of Palin-mania set in. First of all, it didn’t take long for 100 people to sign up, and far more were waiting in line. The Post was trying to screen volunteers for knowledge, ability and political bias, but quickly got overwhelmed by the volume….

So The Post changed course later in the afternoon. Interactivity Editor Hal Straus said in an interview that upon reflection and in light of the huge interest, The Post would make its crowd call more open.

The updated call-out went up around 6 p.m. with this language: ‘We’ll share your comments with our reporters and may use facts or related material you suggest to annotate the documents displayed on The Post site. We may contact you for further details, by way of your registered e-mail with the Post, unless you specify otherwise in the comments.’

Meanwhile, The Guardian, a left wing British tabloid, reported Margaret Thatcher had snubbed her. Rush Limbaugh doesn’t think so.

The Undefeated, the two hour film on Sarah Palin’s time as governor, will be released nationally July 15.  It must be pretty good, because even the Washington Post gave it a fair review.

Though it wasn’t flashy, Daniel Henninger of the Wall Street Journal thinks former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty had the best week.

Amid a news cycle whose message is "nothing’s working," Mr. Pawlenty delivered a major speech on economic policy whose title could have been: All the Things Barack Obama Has Not Tried to Do to Lift the Economy and Never Will.

Whether Gov. Pawlenty’s prescriptions’dramatically lower individual and corporate taxes, zero taxes on capital gains and dividends, sunset provisions for federal regulations and a growth-rate target of 5%’are provable as solutions is politically beside the point at this moment. As substantive brand differentiation, the Pawlenty speech was a success.

There is, however, a serious policy implication inside the Pawlenty proposals. We are heading toward an election fought over the economy. That’s good because ultimately this means the subject is growth. The one consensus that exists across the political spectrum is that strong economic growth eases many problems, from the entitlement burden to the tragedy of high youth unemployment.

Pawlenty’s speech drew praise from legendary General Electic CEO Jack Welch.  Rep. Joe Wilson, R-SC, endorsed Pawlenty.

This is potentially a big deal.  Wilson represents the most Republican district in South Carolina, and he’s very popular in the state after having shouted ‘You lie!’ at President Obama during his state of the union address.  A Pawlenty win in SC would neutralize the expected Romney win in New Hampshire the week before.

Here’s the speech, if you’re curious.

The large and rising number of GOP candidates for president indicates they think the nomination is worth having.

They should.  Recent Rasmussen polls indicate only 24 percent of likely voters agree with President Obama’s worldview, and they prefer a generic Republican to him, 45 percent to 42 percent.

In a Fox News poll released Wednesday, only 44 percent said Zero deserves re-election.

This far in advance of an election featuring an incumbent president, the ‘deserves re-election’ number is the only one that’s really important.  And in most polls since March, that number has been below 45 percent.

We all know that most journalists are more interested in protecting  Democrats than in reporting the truth.  Don’t fall for the media meme that the Republican presidential field is ‘weak.’

In my opinion, the GOP field is the strongest and deepest in my adult lifetime which – sigh — now covers a lot of elections.  It certainly is stronger than it was in 2008, 1996, and 1988. 

Jack should be back at his post next week.  Have a terrific weekend!