Bulbs of Doom

Click to embiggen

(Camera: iPhone 4.)

Video: GOP launches new, er, “Young Guns” ad

Branding.

A few days old but worth watching. Here’s the thing: I like the overarching “rebranding” concept, and I really like the idea of showcasing the GOP’s younger stars (Paul Ryan especially). But there’s a certain wisdom in the second clip below (via Mediaite) about not giving yourself your own nickname. My appreciation for Ryan’s seriousness [...]

View the video »

Video: A huge Republican wave comparable to 1994 is coming, says … Evan Bayh

Waterloo.

Alternate headline: “Lame-duck Blue Dog free to admit what every other Democrat already knows.” The good stuff comes at the beginning, but if you give up before the end, you’ll miss him talking about what a horrible political miscalculation ObamaCare was. Yes, after 60 years of trying, they finally got a foot in the door [...]

View the video »

Gallup: Why likely-voter models may be undercounting Republicans

Enthused.

We’re entering the period of the election cycle where pollsters start switching to likely-voter models to enhance the predictive value of their surveys — but that’s more of an art rather than a science.  Pollsters try to adjust for the various and unique ebbs and flows in each cycle, but usually that means adjusting existing [...]

Read this post »

Great news: Left-wing president turns into tax-cutting conservative just before midterms

Change.

Why not? Policy-wise, he’s tried Keynesianism, and politically, there are no other options for wooing back a few independents to the Democratic side before November. The left will forgive him if it helps to preserve the congressional majority in the Senate, and since the majority in the House is a lost cause, he’d probably be [...]

Read this post »

NTU: Dems planning to hike taxes on oil, energy companies

Bit by bit.

During the presidential campaign, Barack Obama repeatedly vowed to force American companies to pay taxes on overseas earnings, rather than take a tax credit for taxes paid by its international operations.  Eventually the White House backed down from that plan after heavy criticism from business leaders made it clear that multinationals would simply move their [...]

Read this post »

Sarah Palin Word Salad Watch

On Sean Hannity’s show yesterday, Sarah Palin uncorked a gloriously incoherent tirade against reporters who aren’t engorged and throbbing:

I hear there’s some pretty ugly stuff right now coming out and what we predict, we always see a pattern. We’ve got some victories under the belt. Things are, things are going well, and then, then there is that public slam of us. So, we always expect what’s coming. I don’t read some of it because I know that those that are impotent and limp and gutless, and then they go on, they’re anonymous, their sources that are anonymous, and impotent, limp and gutless reporters take anonymous sources and cite them as being factual references. You know, it just slays me because it’s so absolutely clear what the state of yellow journalism is today that they would take these anonymous sources as fact. So, when a story especially is filled with those and we know it’s bogus and we’re not going to read it.

Confirmed: Pretty much everyone offended by Vanity Fair hit piece on Palin

Bipartisan!

So here’s where we’re at. Yesterday the piece dropped, and immediately even left-leaning reporters like Ben Smith and Dave Weigel started challenging it. Today Smith came back with another reason to question its accuracy; meanwhile, lefty feminists (including KP, whose criticism of Vanity Fair almost but not quite atones for her recent “Republicans are racist” [...]

Read this post »

Hugh Hewitt: "The GOP’s Need for Speed"

My new Townhall column is up, and those who regret not being able to comment here, can do so there..

ADL Director Foxman: Anti-Mosque Rally on 9/11 is ‘Un-American’

Adam Serwer talked to Anti-Defamation League director Abe Foxman about the planned September 11 protest against the Park51 Islamic community center in lower Manhattan; we criticized Foxman for his earlier statements, but on the issue of Pamela Geller and her allies (such as Dutch demagogue Geert Wilders) he seems to have regained his balance: ADL’S Abe Foxman denounces anti-mosque rally as ‘un-American’.

On the rally:

I would agree with [Where to Turn], this is not a place for political demonstrations, for advocacy, especially on 9/11. This is a place for memory, for families to be together, to memorialize their loved ones, [to have] a moment of reflection and introspection. For people with political agendas to use the place and the moment for their own interests and their own platforms is desecrating the memory and very sad. Especially if some of the families of the victims are asking, their view should be taken seriously and respected.

Foxman had some harsh words regarding the presence of Wilders, as well as for conservative blogger Pamela Geller and her group Stop Islamization of America, which is organizing the protest:

[Wilders] is a bigot, he’s an anti-Muslim bigot, and one of the demonstrations being called for is being headed by someone who has an anti-Muslim agenda, often under the guise of fighting ‘radical Islam.’ The group vilifies Islamic faith and is engaged in [claiming] there’s a conspiracy to destroy American values, which is nonsense. The organizer in fact has stated that part of her agenda is to help garner support for Wilders, who is a bigot, who has a long record of anti-Muslim bigotry.

Don Ross and Jimmy Wahlsteen, ‘It’s Your Favourite’

Music of the street: Don Ross and Jimmy Wahlsteen play “It’s Your Favourite” from Jimmy’s album 181st Songs. (iTunes Store.)

[Video]

Bibi and Abu Mazen Shake, Agree to Talk

Benjamin Netanyahu and Mahmoud Abbas met today at the State Department, shook hands, and managed to agree on something: to have some more talks.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will meet again on Sept. 14 and 15 in the Middle East, likely at the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheik, with an eye toward forging the outline of a pact. They will also meet roughly every two weeks after that.

UPDATE at 9/2/10 1:03:01 pm:

The White House has posted embeddable video of the press conference, with President Obama, President Mubarak of Egypt, King Abdullah of Jordan, Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel, and Palestinian Authority President Abbas.

The Israeli-Palestinian talks — why the first hurdle ought to be insurmountable

Paul

As Middle East talks commence here in Washington, President Obama is no doubt pressing Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu to renew the West Bank building freeze that is set to expire on September 26. Indeed, Eli Lake of the Washington Times calls Netanyahu’s agreement to this condition the key to the talks. And with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas threatening to leave the negotiations in the absence of a renewal of the construction moratorium, it’s difficult to disagree with Lake.

So, once again, the “peace talks” amount, essentially, to extracting a concession from Israel.

As Lake points out, however, one problem with Netanyahu making this particular concession is that it might well bring down his government. That’s because key elements of Netanyahu’s coalition have insisted that the constructive freeze end. Nor is it an anomaly that Israeli politics are constraining Netanyahu. A poll taken in July showed that a majority of Israelis favored an end to the freeze. And in the aftermath of the recent slaughter of Israelis by Palestinians on the West Bank, a new poll shows that two-thirds of Israelis want the freeze lifted.

It is fair to ask, what would Netanyahu receive in exchange for flouting Israeli public opinion and risking the collapse of his government?

Netanyahu would, I assume, gain the willingness of Abbas to remain at the table. But Abbas staying at the table just means he will seek more concessions. If pushed hard enough by Obama, Abbas might make some nice sounding utterances. Conceivably, these utterances might eventually take the form of promises. But even on the off-chance that the promises are sincere, Abbas will not be able to make good on them because, to a considerable extent, Hamas is the ruler on the ground. This doesn’t sound like much of a pay-off for Netanyahu.

At a more concrete level, the extension of the moratorium might prevent the outbreak of violence by Palestinians come the end of September. But, given Israel’s position of strength, there is little point in negotiating with a party whose demands for concessions are backed up by the threat of violence whenever the concession in question is withheld.

Finally, acceding to this concession might win Netanyahu the gratitude of President Obama. If so, the benefits to the Prime Minister, whom Obama plainly holds in contempt, and to Israel will endure for perhaps a month, or until Obama makes his next set of demands. Whichever comes first.

In short, Netanyahu should just say no. However, I agree with Lake’s suggestion that he instead might very well try to find some middle ground position — such as extending the freeze informally — that will keep his coalition together while pacifying Obama, or at least giving the U.S. president a fig leaf.

Tech Note: Twitter OAuth Test

So, without telling anybody, Twitter suddenly changed their remote login system to use OAuth instead of Basic Authentication, and my code to do Twitter updates automatically when I post to LGF stopped working.

What? They did tell everyone, repeatedly, that they were going to change it? Oh. OK, my bad.

Anyway, the purpose of this post is to test my new OAuth-based Twitter code. It could also be looked at as an open thread, if this stuff is Greek to you.

If you should ever need to know how to access Twitter from a PHP script, here’s a blog article I found very helpful: Posting from an RSS feed to twitter using OAuth.

Another Oil Platform Explodes in the Gulf

Another oil drilling platform has exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, but luckily no workers were killed. The latest reports say that officials don’t know whether oil is leaking from the well; but it was not producing oil and gas at the time of the explosion.

The good news: this platform is in relatively shallow water (340 feet), so if there is a leak it will be much easier to plug.

Hugh Hewitt: Time Calls Obama "Mr. Unpopular." White House Re Obama Popularity: "It Was Sort of Fake."

From Mike Allen’s Playbook this AM:
TIME magazine dubs Obama “MR. UNPOPULAR”-Michael Scherer: “White House aides explain this change as a largely inevitable reflection of the cycles of ?history. Midterms are almost…