Patterico's Pontifications

10/21/2015

Freedom Caucus: “Support” But Not “Endorsement” for Ryan

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 7:21 pm



Is it enough?

A supermajority of the House Freedom Caucus has voted to support Paul Ryan’s bid to become the next Speaker of the House. Paul is a policy entrepreneur who has developed conservative reforms dealing with a wide variety of subjects, and he has promised to be an ideas-focused Speaker who will advance limited government principles and devolve power to the membership. While no consensus exists among members of the House Freedom Caucus regarding Chairman Ryan’s preconditions for serving, we believe that these issues can be resolved within our Conference in due time. We all know that Washington needs to change the way it does business, and we look forward to working with Paul and all our colleagues to enact process reforms that empower individual representatives and restore respect to our institution.

Their internal rules state that they require 80% of their members to agree in order to issue an “endorsement” — which the above is not . . . technically.

It remains to be seen whether Ryan will parse that language finely or not. My guess is, he will not. This will be good enough.

But then, I thought Biden was running.

UPDATE: I think I got one right today:

DNC Caves To #BlackLivesMatter

Filed under: General — Dana @ 6:26 pm



[guest post by Dana]

Given that I’m wearied by that faction of the Republican party these days, I thought it would be a good distraction to look at the crazy happenings on the dark side of the aisle. Because it can always be worse!

Earlier today, Joe Biden gave the world’s longest and most convoluted “no” to the question of whether he would run for the presidency. But there was also another bit of DNC news:

The Democratic National Committee on Wednesday gave its blessing to two of the most prominent activist groups associated with the Black Lives Matter protest movement — the #BlackLivesMatter network and Campaign Zero — to host a presidential town hall focused on issues of racial justice, but stood firm in its stance that there will be no additional debates on the 2016 campaign schedule.

In letters addressed to leaders of the #BlackLivesMatter network and prominent activist DeRay Mckesson, the DNC invited the activist groups to coordinate and host a presidential town hall similar to those currently being planned by other liberal groups including MoveOn.org.

“We believe that your organization would be an ideal host for a presidential candidate forum — where all of the Democratic candidates can showcase their ideas and policy positions that will expand opportunity for all, strengthen the middle class and address racism in America,” wrote Amy K. Dacey, chief executive officer of the DNC, in the letters which were obtained by The Post. “The DNC would be happy to help promote the event.”

An “ideal” host?? Hm… Would this be the same #BlackLivesMatter protest group and supporters that bullied Bernie Sanders into submission, boo’d Martin O’Malley off the stage and shamed Hillary Clinton for claiming all lives matter instead of just black lives?

And would this be the same DeRay McKesson who recently lectured at Yale Divinity School, and whose lecture included a defense of looting?:

The mystifying ideological claim that looting is violent and non-political is one that has been carefully produced by the ruling class because it is precisely the violent maintenance of property which is both the basis and end of their power. Looting is extremely dangerous to the rich (and most white people) because it reveals, with an immediacy that has to be moralized away, that the idea of private property is just that: an idea, a tenuous and contingent structure of consent, backed up by the lethal force of the state. When rioters take territory and loot, they are revealing precisely how, in a space without cops, property relations can be destroyed and things can be had for free.

On a less abstract level there is a practical and tactical benefit to looting. Whenever people worry about looting, there is an implicit sense that the looter must necessarily be acting selfishly, “opportunistically,” and in excess. But why is it bad to grab an opportunity to improve well-being, to make life better, easier, or more comfortable? Or, as Hannah Black put it on Twitter: “Cops exist so people can’t loot ie have nice things for free so idk why it’s so confusing that people loot when they protest against cops” [sic]. Only if you believe that having nice things for free is amoral, if you believe, in short, that the current (white-supremacist, settler-colonialist) regime of property is just, can you believe that looting is amoral in itself.

Modern American police forces evolved out of fugitive slave patrols, working to literally keep property from escaping its owners. The history of the police in America is the history of black people being violently prevented from threatening white people’s property rights. When, in the midst of an anti-police protest movement, people loot, they aren’t acting non-politically, they aren’t distracting from the issue of police violence and domination, nor are they fanning the flames of an always-already racist media discourse. Instead, they are getting straight to the heart of the problem of the police, property, and white supremacy.

And would this be the same #BlackLivesMatter protest group whose members have called for the lynching and hanging of white people and cops??

Why, it’s all a resounding “Yes!”

And there you have it. The modern Democratic party in all its bullied, boot-licking, spineless glory.

Darned if those Republicans aren’t starting to look better every minute.

–Dana

October 21, 2015 at 4:29 p.m.

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 4:29 pm



Biden to Announce Today? – Updated

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 7:23 am



With all his recent shots at Hillary!, it seems pretty clear that he’s going to run. Presumably he wouldn’t wait until Friday to announce — and he’s running out of time, with looming deadlines to qualify for the ballot in several states. I think it’s today or tomorrow.

By the way, he’s now rewriting history on whether he told Obama to launch the Bin Laden raid.

At an event honoring former Vice President Walter Mondale, Biden said he had privately advised the President to pursue the raid on bin Laden’s compound after initially advising a more cautious approach at a Cabinet meeting.

“We walked out of the room and walked upstairs,” Biden said. “I told him my opinion: I thought he should go, but to follow his own instincts.”

The new account is a significant departure from what he said at a Democratic retreat in January 2012.

“Mr. President, my suggestion is, ‘Don’t go,'” Biden said, according to an ABC News report from that time.

Finally! Authen . . . ticity?

UPDATE – Slow Joe ain’t gonna go. When I saw that it was going to be from the White House, and Obama was going to be there, it seemed clear to me that he wasn’t going to announce he was running.  His speech wasn’t a traditional “I am not running” speech. As I saw elsewhere, it seemed more like an “in case of emergency, break glass” speech. 

—–JD


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