NEXT YOU'LL BE TELLING ME THAT REPUBLICANS HAVE RICH DONORS TOO!

Today it seems as if the publication of Peter Schweizer's Clinton Cash has had an unintended consequence -- instead of just dwelling on the ways Bill and Hillary Clinton collect money, we seem to be examining payouts to Republicans as well.

On the front page of The New York Times, there's this story about Scott Walker:

More than any of his potential rivals for the White House, Mr. Walker, 47, is a product of a loose network of conservative donors, think tanks and talk radio hosts who have spent years preparing the road for a politician who could successfully present their arguments for small government to a broader constituency.

It isn't just the Koch Brothers -- it's also the deep-pocketed Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, whose president, David Grebe, became a Walker mentor back in the 1980s, and then served as Walker's campaign manager when he ran for governor. Walker was also promoted by Wisconsin radio talker Charlie Sykes, whose wife is director of community programs at the Bradley Foundation.

The story appears online under the headline "Behind Scott Walker, a Longstanding Conservative Alliance Against Unions," but the print headline is much more pointed: "Conservatives and Their Cash Lined Up Early Behind Walker."

Meanwhile, over at NPR, we're told today about the links between Republican presidential candidates and their sugar daddies:

... almost every candidate wants a billionaire, or billionaires, close at hand to refuel a superPAC.

Cruz is no different. His operation has a superPAC basically dedicated to hedge fund billionaire Robert Mercer, in addition to three other superPACs. Together, they've reportedly raised $37 million.

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio has Miami businessman Norman Braman on board. Braman said this of Rubio back in March, on Fox News: "I just believe in him. I've known him for eight years. And I'm not alone. We're gonna raise the money."

And Rick Santorum still has Idaho entrepreneur Foster Friess, who traveled with the candidate in 2012, simultaneously consulting with him and funding his superPAC....

Not all of the candidates have friends like Friess. One is Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul. It was thought that Paul's libertarian stances would appeal to Silicon Valley entrepreneurs. But things haven't worked out that way. Paul has struggled to find a billionaire to call his own.

But ... but ... Hillary Clinton! She's the bought-and-paid-for candidate, right? Well, in fact:

On her first day campaigning in Iowa, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton pledged to fix the political money system "and get unaccountable money out of it once and for all, even if that takes a constitutional amendment."

But Clinton's operation is struggling to drum up wealthy liberals to support its own superPAC.

But she and her husband do have a uniquely corrupt cash pipeline involving payments for speeches, right? Well, as Politico notes today, that's also true of a certain presidential aspirant's brother:

As critics over the years have chided Bill Clinton and also his wife for the industriousness with which they have pursued opportunities to get paid a lot of money in this manner, [George W.] Bush, too, has ... given at least 200 paid speeches and probably many more [since 2009], typically pocketing $100,000 to $175,000 per appearance. The part-time work, which rarely requires more than an hour on stage, has earned him tens of millions of dollars.

Relative to the Clintons, though, he’s attracted considerably less attention, almost always doing his paid public speaking in private, in convention centers and hotel ballrooms, resorts and casinos, from Canada to Asia, from New York to Miami, from all over Texas to Las Vegas a bunch, playing his part in what has become a lucrative staple of the modern post-presidency.

He has talked to the National Grocers Association and the National Association for Home Care and Hospice and the National Association of Chain Drug Stores. He’s talked to global wealth management firms and multinational energy companies. He has talked to motivational seminars and boat builders and something called the Work Truck Show. He has talked to the chambers of commerce in San Diego and Wichita.

“Evil is real,” he said at the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor in Belton, Texas.

“Bowling is fun,” he said at a get-together for the Bowling Proprietors’ Association of America in Orlando.

“History will ultimately judge whether I made the right decisions or not,” he said at a gathering put on by the Advertising Specialty Institute in Dallas.

He listed for the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs in a talk at Tulsa’s Hyatt hotel the three best things his father ever gave him -- “being raised in West Texas, no money and unconditional love” -- and then got back into a motorcade of a couple SUVs and cop cars and flew home on a private plane.

Is it possible that in the 2016 campaign we'll seriously discuss the overall problem of money in politics, rather than just the Clintons' money-raising techniques?

I'd like to think so, but I have my doubts. All of these stories appear in media outlets aimed at upmarket audiences and/or political insiders. I don't know if this subject will filter down to the mainstream news ordinary Americans consume -- except as it concerns the Clintons. Democrat-haters can force a discussion of the Clintons' finances. I fear that no one is sufficiently motivated to put the overall problem of money in politics on the national agenda.

But it's good to see even this much discussion of it. Maybe there'll be a lot more.

****

UPDATE: Never mind -- on this subject, discussion of the Clintons trumps everything.

VOTER FRAUD: THE SOCIALLY ACCEPTABLE CONSPIRACY THEORY

On Face the Nation this morning, Chris Christie and CBS's John Dickerson discussed voter fraud:

[Christie] went after Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, who last week accused him and other Republican governors of trying to depress turnout at the polls among young and minority voters.

"In New Jersey, we have early voting that are available to people. I don't want to expand it and increase the opportunities for fraud. And maybe that's what Mrs. Clinton wants to do," he said.

There were so many opportunities for Dickerson to ask a strong follow-up here, or several follow-ups. He could have asked: Governor, are you saying that early voting leads directly to voter fraud? In which case, why aren't you trying to eliminate it in your state? Or are you saying that you have just the right number of days of early voting in your state in order to prevent voter fraud, but if you had any more, suddenly there'd be voter fraud? In which case, what's the magic formula? At what point does early voting inevitably lead to voter fraud? Are you aware of any cases of voter fraud that have arisen in your state as a result of early voting? Are you aware of any voter fraud in your state at all?

Dickerson doesn't ask any of that. He does ask, referring to Hillary Clinton, "She says it's fearmongering, this idea that there's a lot of election fraud going on." Christie replies, "Yeah, well, she's never been to New Jersey, I guess."

Meaning what? If she knew my state, she'd know what a fraud-ridden hellhole it is? Is he actually bragging about the level of voter fraud in New Jersey?

Shouldn't Dickerson have asked him to elaborate on this? Shouldn't he have tried to make the factual point that voter fraud essentially doesn't exist in this country, rather than treating the nonexistence of voter fraud as Hillary Clinton's opinion?

No, that's not how it works. The Republican Party is all in on the notion of widespread voter fraud, so the mainstream media allows it to be discussed as if skeptics are just expressing an opinion rather than reporting a fact. In the view of the mainstream press, it's perfectly OK for Christie to assert that the mythical voter-fraud problem is real and to make the utterly unsubstantiated assertion that too much early voting leads to voter fraud. You can't challenge these assertions as utterly contrary to the facts -- it would be considered biased and rude.

(Video via Huffington Post.)

BELTWAY MEDIA FRETS OVER HILLARY CLINTON'S UNWILLINGNESS TO BLOW OFF HER OWN PARTY'S VOTERS

According to Jonathan Martin and Maggie Haberman of The New York Times, Hillary Clinton's campaign is upsetting Very Serious People by not pursuing the bipartisanship unicorn:

Hillary Rodham Clinton appears to be dispensing with the nationwide electoral strategy that won her husband two terms in the White House and brought white working-class voters and great stretches of what is now red-state America back to Democrats.

Instead, she is poised to retrace Barack Obama’s far narrower path to the presidency: a campaign focused more on mobilizing supporters in the Great Lakes states and in parts of the West and South than on persuading undecided voters.

So wait -- in addition to (presumably) the Northeast and the West Coast, she's going to look for votes in not only the Great Lakes states but "parts of the West and South"? So where exactly is she withdrawing from the fray? The Marshall Islands? Guam?

And Bill Clinton "brought white working-class voters and great stretches of what is now red-state America back to Democrats"? Martin and Haberman do recall that Clinton didn't win a majority of the popular vote in either 1992 or 1996, right? Yes, that was because of Ross Perot's presence on the ballot in both years -- but Martin and Haberman also know that the Democrats lost both houses of Congress for twelve years starting in the first midterms of the Clinton presidency, right? And that Al Gore couldn't quite win the presidency running as Clinton's vice president in 2000? Sure, Clinton had high job approval ratings by the end of his term, but that was because of the perceived state of the country more than the method of his campaigns. His popularity didn't lead to real, sustained gains for Democrats among white voters.

... This early in the campaign, however, forgoing a determined outreach effort to all 50 states, or even most of them, could mean missing out on the kind of spirited conversation that can be a unifying feature of a presidential election. And it could leave Mrs. Clinton, if she wins, with the same difficulties Mr. Obama has faced in governing with a Republican-controlled Congress.

Stop -- you're killing me.

It is categorically impossible for a Democratic presidential candidate to campaign in a way that is nationally "unifying," simply because of what Charlie Pierce calls "the prion disease that has eaten its way into the brain of the Republican party and caused the party to become demented." That GOP surrender to dementia was well under way in Bill Clinton's time -- apparently Martin and Haberman have forgotten that his outreach didn't prevent Republicans from insisting that he was a collegiate Soviet agent and an adult tool of the Chinese, as well as a domestic-policy socialist, while his wife was a totalitarian who wanted to take all the babies and have them raised by collectives of Maoist lesbians.

Martin and Haberman think it's Team Clinton's style of campaigning that "could leave [her], if she wins, with the same difficulties Mr. Obama has faced in governing with a Republican-controlled Congress"? She's going to have those difficulties no matter what. The GOP never accepted the legitimacy of the Bill Clinton or Barack Obama presidencies. Hers won't be deemed legitimate either, even if she wins 49 states (whereas George W. Bush's popular-vote loss was treated as no impediment to his "mandate" on taxes and, later, war).

And what is the radical agenda that Hillary is pursuing, instead of making nice in a centrist way, according to Martin and Haberman?

By emphatically staking out liberal positions on gay rights, immigration, criminal justice, voting rights and pay equity for women, Mrs. Clinton is showing core Democratic constituencies that she intends to give them a reason to support her.

Americans support gay marriage by a 60%-37% margin, and 58% want the Supreme Court to legalize gay marriage nationwide -- and Hillary's is a "liberal position"? There's 72% support for legalization of undocumented immigrants -- and her position on immigration is too left-wing? And when I Google "bipartisan support for criminal justice reform," one of the first hits is a post with precisely that title from, um, FreedomWorks -- but Clinton's out of the mainstream? Oh, please.

(And please don't tell me that supporting pay equity for women is a radical-left position. As for voting rights, it's only the GOP's skill at Overton window shifting that's made helping people vote controversial.)

****

Meanwhile, how does the Republican field get covered? Here's a current Times story about Scott Walker, who's well on his way to winning the Iowa caucuses:

[Walker's] support in Iowa, as elsewhere, traces to his reputation for winning conservative fights against state employee unions in 2011 and Democrats who mounted a recall effort against him in 2012....

So far, Mr. Walker has had an unusual ability to draw support from both the social conservatives and the business-oriented wing of the party.

The social conservatives embrace his signing of bills as governor to defund Planned Parenthood, and his strong expression that prayer is central to his life. Business conservatives admire that he cut taxes and dealt crippling blows to unions.

Oh, so when Scott Walker runs as a naked ideologue, that's portrayed as nothing more than a winning strategy. There's no hand-wringing whatsoever about the possibility hat his unwillingness to tack to the center would prevent him from healing the nation's wounds as president.

Representing what your party's voters want: It's OK if you're a Republican -- and only if you're a Republican.

*****

UPDATE: Here's much more on the awfulness of this article from Erik Loomis at Lawyers, Guns & Money.

LET'S HAVE A WAR -- WITH MEXICO

This story has the right flipping out:

A U.S. Customs and Border Protection helicopter was forced to make an emergency landing in Texas after it was struck by gunfire from the Mexican side of the border Friday.

Laredo Police were called by border patrol, who said "one of their helicopters had received gunfire," said police spokesman Joe Baeza.

The helicopter was flying over an area notorious for illegal border crossings and narcotics smuggling.

"Our helicopter actually landed in Laredo and there were no injuries," the U.S. Customs and Border Protection said....

The readers of John Hawkins' Right Wing News want to go to war with Mexico:

Make NO mistake about it this IS a war. The US MUST win! Impeach 0 Enforce the laws. Deport ALL ILLEGALS

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Go take them out with gun ships why we playing with these assholes !

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Pull the Visa cards and stop funding Mexico and no trade deals and stop all trucks coming across the border from Mexico and deport , deport , deport all of them

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First thing is shut down the borders. Second, get rid of the two Isis camps that are on the Mexican side and third if Mexico wants to help the cartels and Isis then we need to bust mexicos ass!!!

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YOU SCREAM DEPORT; WELL LESS SELF DEPORT DONT HIRE DONT RENT DONT SCHOOL THEM, DONT BUY FR THEM, DONT CATRER THEM,
BOYCOTT BUSINESES THAT HIRE THEM, DONT DONT DONT GUESS WHAT.

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Stop giving to them completely!!!

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I understand there's a really nice shooting range (Americans only) in Texas just over the border, facing South.

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you know thats not a bad idea open up shooting ranges right on the border facing mexico. Put up a good high cardboard burm with multiple targets and let homeland security furnish ammo being the ammo thats old and needs to be destroyed so they say

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Any American that goes to Mexico and spends a dime shud be ashamed.

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tart using armed helos and shoot first not later

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Who are we afraid of? How many episodes do we have to endure of Mexico violating our air space, firing on our border agents and disrespecting our Country before we take offensive action?
Go old school and set up several catapults along the Rio Grande and start launching illegal mexicans back at them. A ninety mile per hour wet-back could probably take out their gun positions!

****

When r U.S. citizens going to stop being so dormant and start taking things into our own hands and to put an end to all of this shit. We are not employees of the government and have NO rules of engagement to follow. If the Feds won't do anything Why aren't we ???????

****

Some do; for example the Arian brotherhood is know for camping at the border and waiting for movement and no I'm not a racist however I do support them and others on the issue of protecting our border.

Oh, but a left-wing college student said something nasty about a professor somewhere, so we're the real extremists.

IS "THE COMING DEMOCRATIC PANIC" ANYTHING LIKE THE DEMOCRATIC NON-PANIC OF 2012?

The Weekly Standard's Fred Barnes writes:

When a CNN poll last week showed Hillary Clinton leading Rand Paul by a single percentage point (48-47) and only three points ahead of Marco Rubio (49-46) and Scott Walker (49-46), it was mildly shocking. In April, her lead over the three Republican presidential candidates had been in double digits: Paul (58-39), Rubio (55-41), and Walker (59-37).

But wait. If the next CNN survey shows Clinton actually behind one or two or three of the GOP candidates, it won’t be just shocking. It will send Democrats into a near-panic over the possibility of losing the White House in 2016, even with their preferred candidate, Clinton, as nominee.

Really? Why?

I went back to the Real Clear Politics collection of Obama-Romney polls from the 2012 race. While the vast majority of them showed Obama in the lead, sometimes by double digits, 63 of the polls showed Romney in the lead, from as early as April 2010 to as late as a few days before the election. There was concern about this -- but panic? Maybe on the part of, say, Andrew Sullivan after the first Obama-Romney debate. But not from most Obama backers.

Hillary Clinton has had an extraordinary run of polls in head-to-head matchups. The polls are tightening in response to a run of bad press -- but why is that unexpected? Republicans, all the "clown car" talk notwithstanding, have a lot of credible candidates. She's running to succeed a member of her own party whose own poll numbers are less than spectacular. Under those circumstances, maybe it's Republicans who should be panicking because their three front-runners, Bush, Walker, and Rubio, trail Clinton by 5.2, 6.8, and 4.2 points, respectively, based on the most recent polls. Why aren't they doing better?

*****

Deep in the Barnes piece, there's this ridiculous paragraph:

Given all this, two more problems have dropped in the lap of Clinton’s campaign. One is the increased attention her Democratic opponents are getting. Democratic voters are suddenly interested in hearing their pitches. And former New York City mayor Mike Bloomberg has popped up as a possible entrant in the Democratic race against Clinton.

Regarding the first part: Democratic voters have always been open to hearing from alternatives to Clinton, as an April 2015 poll noted:

In a Bloomberg Politics national poll published Friday, 72 percent of Democrats and Independents said it would be good for the Democratic Party if Hillary Clinton faced off in a primary against a “serious” challenger.

We're capable of keeping it civil -- even in 2008 we managed that, a few unrepresentative grudge-holders notwithstanding.

But then after that: Mike Bloomberg? Seriously?

Yes, I do see his name being floated -- by fat cats and by the New York Post. Linette Lopez of Business Insider says the fat cats really want him in the race:

Wall Street wants Michael Bloomberg to run for president, but the billionaire isn't budging.

At the Yale CEO Summit this week, the talk was of "drafting Bloomberg" however possible....

Rumblings about a Bloomberg run are especially strong at several bulge bracket banks, including Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

Yeh, that's what the average Democratic voter wants: a candidate who's even more tied to Wall Street than Hillary Clinton.

The other source for this rumor is former reasonable Daily News columnist turned wingnut New York Post attack dog/concern troll Michael Goodwin, who (in typical Post fashion) invokes a lot of unnamed Democrats as he describes an allegedly burgeoning Bloomberg-for-president movement. When you read about unnamed Democrats in the Post, trust me, you're being lied to:

New York Dems friendly to Bloomberg have approached him to gauge his interest. Their argument is that Clinton’s vulnerability with general-election voters, especially independents, could result in a Republican president. They also believed Bloomberg could be interested because, as one of them told me,“Mike can’t stand Hillary.”

One visitor to the former mayor came away cautiously optimistic after a 30-minute meeting, noting that Bloomberg didn’t throw him out of the office or start fiddling with his smartphone.

“That means he wasn’t bored and was listening,” said another man who talked to the three-term mayor. They were also encouraged that Bloomberg said something to the effect that it would be “no problem” for him to drop his unaffiliated registration and become a Democrat again.

Goodwin eventually gives the game away:

It’s far from certain that Bloomberg will run, but I can envision a scenario where he floats a trial balloon to see how people react. I’m saving him the trouble because I hope he gives the idea serious consideration.

Translation: This is Bloomberg's trial balloon. Bloomberg's people have approached Goodwin about floating it, and Goodwin, always eager to make mischief for the Democrats, is happy to oblige. But Bloomberg, as he has in the past, will refrain from running unless he thinks the public will greet him with hosannas. I'm sure he's polling that now. I suspect the hosannas won't be there.

*****

One final point about Hillary Clinton: Both Fred Barnes and Michael Goodwin invoke her low numbers on the "honest and trustworthy" question in a recent CNN poll. But as Yastreblyansky noted in my commemts last week,

In January 2001 Bill Clinton was worse on "Do you generally think Bill Clinton is honest and trustworthy?", 58% no to 39% yes, but his job approval was a phenomenal 65% to 31%. I think pundits misread what voters mean when they answer "no" to the honest-and-trustworthy question.

True -- voters don't expect politicians to be all that honest. Hillary Clinton is vulnerable on this, but don't assume it's a dealbreaker for most of the public -- otherwise she wouldn't still be beating her rivals.

IN THE GRIEVANCE PRIMARY, MARCO RUBIO WON THE DAY

Factor out the pro-Establishment types who are telling pollsters they back Jeb Bush and the contest for the Republican presidential nomination is basically a grievance Olympics. Scott Walker became the early front-runner because he tells a story of being attacked by "union thugs" and other evil liberals who forced him into a recall elections just because he believes in crushing organized labor. It's been hard for other candidates to top Walker on that -- the demonstrations, the threats, the recall election -- and some candidates keep forgetting that defining themselves as liberalism's victims is the prime directive. (Rand Paul keeps losing the plot and attacking Republicans, the dumb cluck.)

Marco Rubio has had some trouble competing in the greivance contest, but he got a huge boost today when The New York Timed ran this story:

According to a search of the Miami-Dade and Duval County court dockets, the Rubios have been cited for numerous infractions over the years for incidents that included speeding, driving through red lights and careless driving. A review of records dating back to 1997 shows that the couple had a combined 17 citations: Mr. Rubio with four and his wife with 13. On four separate occasions they agreed to attend remedial driving school after a violation.

This is trivial. This would not be a dealbreaker for any normal American voter, of any political affiliation, if it were revealed about the voter's preferred candidate. It's a ridiculous non-story.

And then the Washington Free Beacon presented evidence that the story was spoon-fed to the Times by opposition researchers from the Clinton-linked PAC American Bridge:

Records show that each of the citations mentioned by the New York Times were pulled in person by American Bridge operatives on May 26, 2015.

Take for example the time Rubio was pulled over in 1997. “Mr. Rubio’s troubles behind the wheel predate his days in politics,” wrote the New York Times. “In 1997, when he was cited for careless driving by a Florida Highway Patrol officer, he was fined and took voluntary driving classes.”

A look at the docket for that infraction on Miami-Dade County’s website shows that American Bridge was in Miami to pull records on that case at 11:42 a.m. on May 26....

The Times denied that American Bridge was its source, although the paper said that "others were looking at the same thing" at roughly the same time as its reporters.

So, At least for the moment, Marco Rubio is the most aggrieved candidate in the field. That's excellent for him.

Is his team milking this? Oh, yes:

Once thought The New York Times was Hillary's press shop. Oh wait, that's true. #RubioCrimeSpree pic.twitter.com/Fq4u0PIfzY

— Team Marco (@TeamMarco) June 5, 2015

(Yes, that's right: The Times, which ran one of the first stories sourced to Peter Schweizer's Clinton Cash and which employs Maureen Dowd, is "Hillary's press shop," according to the Rubio campaign.)

Given the nature of right-wingers, Rubio can milk this forever. The right won't forget this next week, or next month, or next year. Pretty much for the rest of his political life, Rubio will be able to dismiss any coverage he doesn't like from the "liberal media" by saying, "Maybe they'll look into my traffic tickets next." If he wins the nomination, wins the presidential election, and wins reelection, I think he'll still be able to milk that grievance eight or nine years from now, because right-wingers never let a grievance go.

If Rubio's lucky, some survey firm will be polling the GOP presidential race this weekend. If so, I think this will be worth five points to him in the polls -- at least until someone else in the field can find an even greater grievance to complain about. For now, though, this was a huge win for him.

*****

And why was a pro-Clinton PAC even looking at this information? How dangerous was it likely to be?

Remember, the last Republican president and vice president won two terms despite being known to have had drunk driving arrests:

Gov. George W. Bush, who has for years referred vaguely to his "irresponsible youth," acknowledged yesterday that he pleaded guilty in 1976 to driving under the influence of alcohol when he was 30 years old and visiting Maine.

"I'm not proud of that," Bush said at a hurriedly called press conference in Chicago, where he was campaigning. He also questioned the timing of the revelation five days before the election.

Several hours after the story broke, a spokeswoman for Bush's running mate, Dick Cheney, 59, said Cheney also had two driving-while-intoxicated offenses when he was in his early 20s, in 1962 and 1963.

And Bloomberg's Sahil Kapur notes that auto infractions came up in the 2008 campaign:

In March 2007, the Associated Press published an article reporting that Democrat Barack Obama had dished out $375 two weeks before launching his campaign to pay for 15 outstanding parking tickets and late fees.

Drunk-driving arrests strike me as a legitimate issue. The violations Obama and the Rubios were guilty of, not so much.

And please note the date of that Obama story: March 2007. I don't believe Republican opposition researchers would have been trying to dig up dirt at that time on a guy who was seen as a weaker Democratic candidate than Hillary Clinton -- besides, they surely thought he was a long shot to win the nomination. My guess is that that came from Hillary Clinton's oppo team, too.

Come on, Team Clinton. It didn't work then. Why would you expect it to work now?

ON HILLARY CLINTON'S VOTING RIGHTS PROPOSALS, CHRIS CHRISTIE HAS THE MOST FREEPTASTIC RESPONSE

In response to Hillary Clinton's criticism of voter ID laws, Rick Perry indirectly attacked the poor, though I'm sure his target audience didn't see it that way:

Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) on Friday defended the bill he signed in 2011 requiring voters to present a photo ID after Hillary Clinton jabbed numerous Republican presidential candidates, including Perry, for working "against voting rights."

... On "Fox and Friends" Friday morning, Perry said he thinks "it makes sense to have a photo ID to be able to vote." And he brought up the requirement to present a photo ID in order to fly on commercial airplanes numerous times while defending his voter ID law.

"When I got on the airline to come up here yesterday, I had to show my photo I.D. Now, Hillary Clinton may not to have had to show an ID to get on a airplane in a long time..." he said.

"She’s on a private jet," Brian Kilmeade, one of the "Fox and Friends" co-hosts, jumped in to say....

As Daily Kos's Kerry Eleveld writes, "Rick Perry apparently thinks only people who can fly should be able to vote." The way I' put it is that Rick Perry apparently thinks only people who do fly, or can afford to fly, should be able to vote. In 2003, a Department of Transportation survey noted that

About one out of five adult US residents (18 percent) reported that they had never flown on a commercial airline. Compared to flyers, non-flyers were much more likely to

• report having a disability or health impairment
• be under 25 years of age
• have no more than a high school education
• have a yearly household income of less than $30,000 .

Many poor and disabled people (and, increasingly, young people) don't have driver's licenses at all. I guess Rick Perry thinks they shouldn't vote. (And I imagine a lot of right-wingers agree with him.)

That was a pretty good response to Clinton's voting proposals for someone trying to win wingnut votes. This one, from possible presidential candidate John Kasich on Fox News, was not quite as snarky:

“If she wants to sue somebody, let them sue New York. We have 27 days of voting. In New York the only voting that occurs is on Election Day. What is she talking about? ...”

Kasich said this though (a) Hillary Clinton has never been an elected or appointed official in New York's state government and (b) New York State lacks early voting because of near-total opposition from Republican state legislators. Still, what Kasich said will probably sound perfectly reasonable to the Republican rank-and-file.

But Chris Christie's response to Clinton's call for automatic voter registration hit that all-important Free Republic note:

“Secretary Clinton doesn't know the first thing about voting rights in New Jersey or in the other states that she attacked,” Christie said. “My sense is that she just wants an opportunity to commit greater acts of voter fraud around the country.”

Proposals for automatic voter registration have been floated before -- for instance, by Eric Holder -- and the automatic response at wingnut gathering places such as Free Republic is that it's an open invitation to fraud. It's rarely explained how this will happen -- on the right, it's just a given, just as it's a given that all non-military government programs are wasteful and all undocumented immigrants are societal parasites.

So even though Christie din't make a tightly reasoned argument, he beats Perry and Kasich. The right believes voter fraud is rife, and that Democrats steal elections routinely. If that's the case, I'm not sure why Democrats didn't do more thievery in, say, 2010 and 2014 -- but that's not even question worth asking on the right. To the right, Democrats are the voter fraud party, and Christie wisely went straight for that talking point. If he wants to get back into contention, maybe he should run an entire presidential campaign based on opposition to nonexistent voter fraud.

FIORINA IS NO MORE DELUSIONAL THAN MOST OF THE GOP FIELD

Liz Mair, who worked on Carly Fiorina's California Senate campaign, argues at the Daily Beast that it's sexist and unfair to say that Fiorina is really running for vice president:

Political devotees and insiders all seem convinced that Carly Fiorina is only running for vice president. Big-donor types say it. Consultants say it. Members of the media say it. Grassroots activists say it. Republicans of all stripes, and all kinds of people who cover them and opine on them, say it.

And they’re all wrong.

The widespread idea that Carly has set her sights on the VP slot is both irritating and eyebrow raising, especially when it’s voiced by women’s-advancement-oriented female devotees of the word “feminism.”

... in countless conversations about her and the field at large, I have yet to hear a single person say of any male candidate that they are “only running for vice president.”

Really? Here's a segment from Lawrence O'Donnell's MSNBC show titled "Is Rubio Really Running for Vice President?" Here's Hot Air's Allahpundit theorizing that John Kasich "is really eyeing the VP slot by talking up his presidential odds." Here's a Blue Nation Review post titled "Is Martin O'Malley Running to Be Vice President?" Here's an opinion column at Pennsylvania's Lancaster Online titled "Santorum for Vice President? That Just Might Be His Goal."

But it's true that Fiorina seems to get this more than most. Fox's Chris Wallace asked her if she's running for VP. So did Katie Couric of Yahoo News. Paul Mirengoff at Power Line wrote a post titled "Carly Fiorina to Run for President and Pusue the Vice Presidency." The Nation's Michelle Goldberg wrote "Carly Fiorina Is Running to Be 2016’s Sarah Palin.'

I agree with Mair: It's sexist to argue that Fiorina's delusions are any different from those of Bobby Jindal, George Pataki, or anyone else who's running despite being, like her, at 1% or 2% at the polls.

But that doesn't mean she's a plausible nominee. Mair insists that she is plausible, in part for this reason:

... more than any other actual or prospective candidate, she is focusing her energy and her firepower on the woman everyone expects to be the actual Democratic nominee -- Hillary Clinton....

Carly is the only Republican consistently, day in and day out, showing that she can take the fight to Hillary, which of course will be one of the nominee’s central tasks.

Yes, but Fiorina doesn't seem to be doing anything else. She doesn't seem to want to be president of the United States -- it looks as if she wants to be President of HillarySucksistan.

My first impression of her campaign wasn't that it was a campaign for president or vice president -- it was that, as a candidate, she's like the one female member of a rich accused rapist's defense dream team, the attorney whose principal role is to do a really vicious cross-examination of the victim, because that would come of as sexist if a man did it.

That seems to be what Republican insiders see as useful in her campaign. Fiorina may have bigger ambitions -- but she's campaigning as if she's no more than a role-player. Does she have a vision larger than "Hillary is the Antichrist"? If so, we never see it. Then again, I don't know what the hell Jeb Bush's vision is, except "It's my turn now." So she's just as implausible a president as he is, and just as implausible as most of the males in the field.

THE GUY WHO PERFORMS RICK PERRY'S CAMPAIGN SONG LOVES HIS COUNTRY -- BUT WHICH COUNTRY IS THAT?

In my last post, I told you about Rick Perry's campaign song, a rewritten version of Colt Ford's "Answer to No One" with new Perry-centric lyrics:



In the lyrics of the original song, Ford says, "I'm a flag flyin' bible totin' son of a gun." But what flag is Ford flying? As TheHatist wrote in the comments to the last post,

I also imagine that this guy owns more than one southern flag, which means he loves America so much he wants to leave it, just as soon as he's done celebrating his right to own people as property, as long as they are dark enough. Just after he appropriates more of their culture.

That was a pretty good guess. Here's a photo of Ford:



Without squinting, I can tell that the message next to the upper Stars and Bars is KISS MY REBEL ASS. (It's a lot clearer here.) But what's below it?

I'd say it's this:



So, yeah, this guy doesn't merely wear the Stars and Bars as a matter of "Southern pride" -- he regards the army of the Confederacy as a bulwark against "terrorists," i.e., Union forces.

Well, Rick Perry has been known to talk casually about Texas secession, so I guess this is appropriate.

PERRY CAMPAIGN SONG: IT'S FINE IF YOU SCREW ME ECONOMICALLY AS LONG AS YOU LET ME KEEP MULTIPLE FIREARMS

Rick Perry, who announced his presidential candidacy today, may be struggling at the polls, but his campaign song is apparently going viral:

Rick Perry announced he was running for the Republican presidential nomination on Thursday, and his custom campaign song was a hit online.

“Rick Perry supporter, let’s protect our border,” an artist rapped in the song as the former Texas governor took the stage in an airport hangar near Dallas. “To hell with anyone who don’t believe in the USA, Rick Perry all the way.”

As BuzzFeed reported earlier, the song appears to be an adaptation of the song “Answer to No One” by artist Colt Ford....

Perhaps predictably, Twitter loved it....

Well, certainly political pros on Twitter loved it, or at least one reporter and one ex-congressman turned radio talk show host:

The song being played at Rick Perry's announcement/my new anthem: Colt Ford "Answer To No One" feat. JJ Lawhorn https://t.co/Yv1DFE9RTu

— Hunter Schwarz (@hunterschwarz) June 4, 2015

This was Perry's opening theme and it's very, very Texas https://t.co/PJ2S0JUaFG

— Joe Walsh (@WalshFreedom) June 4, 2015

The tweets above contain the original version of the song, without the special Rick Perry lyrics. Here are some of the original lyrics (via CowboyLyrics.com):

Let me tell you a little story 'bout how I was raised
Every day work, every day pray
God, family, friends, yeah everybody's friends
A winner never quits, and a quitter never wins
Helps folks in need, don't fall for greed....

"Don't fall for greed"? Okay, Joe Walsh said this song is "very, very Texas" -- but, um, isn't the entire state built on greed? Don't Texans actually believe greed is good?

The chorus begins:

won't back up, I don't back down
I've been raised up to stand my ground
Take my job but not my guns
Tax my check till I ain't got none

So it's cool to put you on the unemployment line if you still have weaponry. Yeah, you've taken a deep drink of the right-wing Kool-Aid.

Oh, and I like the "Tax my check till I ain't got none" bit, given the fact that Texas has the third most regressive tax system in America:

The New York Times recently reported on the latest data from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) on how income relates to the share paid in state and local taxes....

In Texas, the ... top 1 percent only pay, on average, 2.9 percent of their income in state and local taxes -- one of the lowest rates in the nation. Meanwhile, the lowest 20 percent of earners pay an average of 12.5 percent of their income in state and local taxes -- one of the highest rates in the nation. That comes out to a tax burden for low-income earners that’s roughly 4.3 times as high as for the top 1 percent....

The fact that such inequality exists in Texas’s tax system is no surprise. Because Texas has no income tax, the tax burden falls on consumption-related taxes. And consumption takes up a much greater share of the low-income family’s budget than the wealthier family’s.

The song has multiple gun references, like this:

Shotgun toter, republican voter
Hank Junior supporter, let's protect our border

(You know, if you prefer Hank Junior to Hank Senior, there's part of your problem right there.)

And this:

Give me my right to vote
My right to tote
the weapon of my choice
Don't censor my voice

Of course, Mr. Ford learned to rap from black people, and the right to vote is being taken away from many black people in Texas by the state's voter ID law, which was signed by Rick Perry.

And no, Colt Ford isn't the artist's real name. His real name is Jason Farris Brown, and he's a 44-year-old former professional golfer. I guess he'll get a career boost until Perry drops out after Iowa, or after Perry's poll numbers eliminate him from the first GOP debate. So enjoy it while you can, Colt.

(And see the follow-up post for more about Colt Ford's national loyalties.)

WE DO SOMETIMES LIKE TO BE PETTY TYRANTS AT GRADUATIONS IN AMERICA

My last post was about a four people who were issued arrest warrants in Senatobia, Mississippi, for cheering at a high school graduation. Now I learn from The New York Times that this has happened before in America:

Indeed, the Senatobia authorities are not the first in the United States to pursue charges in the wake of an outburst at a graduation ceremony, but such prosecutions are rare (there were news accounts, for example, of one in South Carolina in 2012).

Yup:

Shannon Cooper cheered as her daughter walked across the stage to get her diploma from South Florence High School Saturday night, but just minutes later, Shannon was handcuffed and arrested....

Florence police charged Shannon with disorderly conduct.

She said officers walked her across the Florence Civic Center, where the graduation ceremony was being held, in full view of everyone, including her daughter, Iesha Cooper, 18.

That was in 2012. Also in 2012, there was this:

The Ohio student who was denied his diploma because his family cheered excessively at Mount Healthy High School commencement is trying to resolve the hold-up without fulfilling the school district's disciplinary measure.

Anthony Cornist has rejected Mt. Healthy City School District's requirement that he complete 20 hours of community service to obtain his diploma, according to a letter sent Wednesday from attorney Erik W. Laursen to school superintendent Lori Handler.

If you're wondering, in this case, the student was black and the school superintendent was white. But in the South Carolina case, both the arrested mother and the police chief who defended the arrest were African-American.

And then this happened to a white student in Oklahoma, also in 2012:

A straight-A student in Oklahoma was denied her high school diploma this week after she used the word "hell" in her graduation speech.

Prague High School valedictorian Kaitlin Nootbaar found inspiration from the movie "Eclipse: The Twilight Saga" during her May speech, alluding to instances where people ask new graduates what they want to do with their lives. "How the hell do I know?" she told her classmates, according to KFOR in Oklahoma City. "I've changed my mind so many times."

The comment received laughter and applause from the audience and Nootbaar didn't think anything was wrong until she and her father David went to pick up her real certificate last week. When she arrived at the school, her principal said, "Your diploma is right here but you're not getting it. Close the door we have a problem," according to KFOR....

David Nootbaar said the principal told Kaitlin that she would have to write an apology for using the word before she could receive her diploma....

Kaitlin, who will soon be heading to college on a full scholarship, told KFOR that she did not plan on writing an apology to the school -- a choice her family supports.

Well, at least she wasn't arrested, right?

FREEPERS ENDORSE ARREST WARRANTS FOR FAMILY THAT CHEERED AT HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATION

So this happened:

Four people were charged with disturbing the peace after cheering too loudly at a high school graduation ceremony in Senatobia, Miss., Memphis television station WREG reported on Tuesday.

Police at Northwest Mississippi Community College, where the ceremony was held, told WREG that Senatobia Municipal School District Superintendent Jay Foster, told attendees at the ceremony to refrain from cheering and applause until the end of the ceremony.

Four people, including Ursula Miller and Henry Walker ..., both of whom are black, were asked to leave the ceremony after cheering on the graduates....

When Lanarcia Walker graduated, Miller yelled out her niece's name.

"When she went across the stage I just called her name out. ‘Lakaydra’. Just like that," Miller told WREG....

A few days after the ceremony, those asked to leave for cheering were served with arrest warrants.

Foster ..., who is white, pressed disturbing the peace charges against the attendees by filing an affidavit with the county Justice Court, which issued arrest warrants...

Does that strike you as harsh? Uncalled for? Appalling?

Over at Free Republic, it strikes most commenters as perfectly reasonable:

Besides all the queers coming out at Graduation, we now have this.

Is it too much to ask that Graduation Ceremonies be held with dignity and decency?

****

“I can understand they can escort me out of the graduation, but to say they are going to put me in jail for it,” Miller said. “What else are they allowed to do?”

Actually Mr.Miller, it would behoove you to understand
what ELSE you aren’t allowed to do.

When questioning authority leads to arrest,
you know things have gone too far.

****

Exuberance is fine but there is a certain type of person who in a public place has no idea how to shut their mouth or be quiet.

In the middle of a quiet movie, and certainly at a graduation.

****

Easy solution: pass out the diplomas in order of GPA; highest to lowest, that will guarantee these people will be last.

And yes if you're wondering whether the Freepers go there, well, of course they do:

Another “guess the demographic.” What’s the statistic- 10% of the population? And about 9% aren’t fit for civil society. I’m getting jaded in my old age.

****

Mmmmm Lakaydra that right there describes the demographic! They have a problem! When I walk in a restaurant I turn around and walk out if the demographic is the same! For some reason they have to be loud and annoying in any setting.

****

Went to my sons college graduation last month and sat in front of several girls who cheered loudly for every black girl graduate. They were so loud I was deaf in one year for a day and it was very painful. Although arrest is too overboard, I would have been pleased if there was an intervention.

****

Certain groups of people think that they don’t have to obey whitey’s rules.

A few people actually notice that this is the heavy hand of government they claim to hate ("Cheering an authoritarian state is an activity you should reserve for a socialist website"), but they're in the minority so far. Ladies and gentlemen, your modern conservative movement.

MAYBE THE GOP CANDIDATES ARE JUST AS SELF-DELUDING AS THEIR VOTER BASE

Kevin Drum has ranked all of this year's Republican presidential aspirants and has concluded that only two, Jeb Bush and Scott Walker, qualify as "legitimate candidates with a real shot at the nomination." The rest he defines as "vanity candidates -- 0% chance of winning" (Paul, Carson, Fiorina, Huckabee, Santorum, Pataki, Graham, Kasich) or as candidates whose chances are "not quite 0%, could maybe catch on if something really lucky happens" (Jindal, Cruz, Rubio, Christie, Perry).

My list would be very different (Rubio as a contender; Christie, Jindal, and Perry in the 0% category) -- but I share his bafflement:

There just aren't very many candidates who have a serious chance at winning the nomination. So why are so many running? When guys like Dennis Kucinich or Ron Paul ran, I understood why. They just wanted a chance to present their views to a national audience. But that can't be what's motivating everyone on this list. So what is it? What is it that's somehow convinced so many obvious losers that they actually have a shot at becoming the next president of the United States?

Let me rephrase that just a bit: What is it that's somehow convinced so many obvious Republican losers that they actually have a shot at becoming the next president of the United States?

He's right that it's not "a chance to present their views to a national audience" -- after all, nearly all of them have exactly the same views on everything. So what's driving them?

You'll say it's in order to position themselves for future right-wing grifting opportunities -- but is George Pataki, to pick one example, really going to position himself effectively for a Regnery book deal or weekly appearances on Fox? And weren't Carson and Huckabee already pretty much at peak grift before they threw their hats into the ring? Haven't they actually forgone grifting in order to run?

If you want to know why a lot of hopeless Republicans are running, maybe you should consider why Republican base voters turn out in state and local elections, why the Tea Party happened, and even why right-wing zillionaires regularly compare themselves to the victims of Nazi and communist persecution.

The reason: the mythologizing power of right-wing media.

FoxNews, talk radio, and the right-wing Internet have persuaded conservatives -- and I think this includes many mid-list Republican politicians -- that we're living in apocalyptic times, facing perils so dangerous that we'll succumb unless a new breed of heroes rises up. The right-wing media says this to its audience all the time, and frequently adds an additional message: What we need are heroes just like you.

We see how this affects the rank-and-file: They strut around in Colonial garb and wave "Don't Tread on Me" flags, when they're not imagining themselves as the Greeks at Thermopylae taunting the Persians with chants of "Molon labe!" ("Come and take them!") -- usually in reference to their guns.

We know that ordinary Republican schmucks think they're heroes of the political movies that play in their heads. We know that a lot of billionaires think they're Hitler's victims. Why wouldn't this message be received the same way by Carson and Huckabee and Cruz and the rest? Where do we think these folks get their news anyway? I bet it's not from NPR.

I think Fox and Limbaugh and Breitbart (and, let's face it, the novels of Ayn Rand) have these people convinced that they're going down in the history books as the brave warriors who fought the Stalinist tyranny of Obamacare or IRS scrutiny of political groups seeking non-profit status. Yes, even George Pataki.

TELL ME THIS IS JUST A BIZARRE COINCIDENCE

(Possibly not my smartest post ever.)

We're informed that the FBI killed a terrorism suspect yesterday in the Roslindale section of Boston after the suspect brandished a knife:

A man under surveillance by antiterrorism investigators was shot and killed Tuesday by an F.B.I. agent and a Boston police officer after he waved a long black knife at them and refused to back down, officials said.

The man, Usaama Rahim, 26, was approached by officers outside a CVS pharmacy in the city’s Roslindale neighborhood around 7 a.m. Officials said he confronted them with a military-style knife and the two officers opened fire.

The Boston police commissioner, William Evans, said the officers asked Mr. Rahim several times to drop his weapon, and they felt endangered as he approached. “Unfortunately, we had to take his life.” Mr. Evans said the encounter had been captured on video, which he said, showed the officers retreating before opening fire....

However, this account -- that Rahim pulled a knife after being approached by officers whose weapons were still holstered -- has been disputed:

In a post on Facebook, Ibrahim Rahim, an imam from California, identified the dead man as his brother. He said his brother had been waiting for a bus when “he was confronted by three Boston Police officers and subsequently shot in the back three times.”

“He was on his cellphone with my dear father during the confrontation needing a witness,” he wrote on Facebook. “His last words to my father who heard the shots were: ‘I can’t breathe!’”

I bring this up because there was another recent case based in the Boston area, a case seemingly linked to terrorism, in which a Boston-based FBI agent shot and killed a suspect who, we were initially told, suddenly pulled a knife on several law enforcement officials.

That suspect was Ibragim Todashev, who was being questioned in connection with a murder that may have been committed by Tamerlan Tsarnaev a couple of years before the Boston Marathon bombing. We were subsequently told that, no, Todashev didn't pull a knife exactly, although the story kept changing, as The Atlantic's Dashiell Bennett noted in 2013:

Law enforcement officials are still trying to explain how a supposedly peaceful interview with an important witness in the Boston bombing case turned into a deadly shooting, but as usual, every new attempt to explain the death of Ibragim Todashev only raises more troubling questions.

After originally accusing the suspect and potential murderous accomplice of Boston bomber Tamleran Tsarnaev of attacking an FBI agent with a knife, and then walking back that claim entirely, an new anonymous source says Todashev, may have injured the agent with a table and a metal pole. Or maybe not.

Here's the way the attack was described in The New York Times. Everyone seems to agree that after several hours of interrogation, Todashev was prepared to confess to an unsolved murder that he and Tamerlan Tsarnaev were connected to. Then thing get a lot less clear:

At that moment, Mr. Todashev picked up the table and threw it at the agent, knocking him to the ground. While trying to stand up, the agent, who suffered a wound to his face from the table that required stitches, drew his gun and saw Mr. Todashev running at him with a metal pole, according to the official, adding that it might have been a broomstick.

So not only has the story changed again, it has now changed twice in the same sentence. The weapon has no gone from nothing to a knife, back to nothing to a table to a metal pole to a broomstick.

I'm not arguing that there's a connection between these two cases. I just wonder if "he came at us with a knife" is the go-to explanation for shootings by FBI agents, or at least Boston-based ones.

In the current case, many news reports are accompanied by a photo of a scary-looking knife.

Usaama Rahim allegedly wielded large, military knife before he was shot, killed in Roslindale http://t.co/Bjm5RLXBYE pic.twitter.com/nPLvfsbRTC

— The Boston Globe (@BostonGlobe) June 3, 2015

Though that doesn't prove that Rahim actually waved it at the officers.

It would be nice to see the video the FBI talks about. I wonder if it will ever be released.

The fact that the Todashev story seems really hinky doesn't mean that the Rahim story is inaccurate. I'm just pointing out the similarities.

****

UPDATE: The Boston Globe reports:

The surveillance video of the fatal shooting of Usaama Rahim by members of an anti-terror task force shows that he was not shot in the back and was not on his cellphone, contrary to an account posted on Facebook by his brother, a community leader said Wednesday after reviewing it with law enforcement officials.

“What the video does reveal to us, very clearly, is that the individual was not on the cellphone. The individual was not shot in the back. And the information reported by others that that was the case was inaccurate," said Darnell Williams, president of the Urban League....

Abdullah Faaruuq of the Mosque for the Praising of Allah said the video was “inconclusive" and that it was not clear to him that Rahim was armed with a knife, as authorities allege, at the moment he was shot.

However, Faaruuq agreed that it was clear that Rahim was not shot in the back and that officers were backing up.

“It wasn’t at a bus stop and he wasn’t shot in the back,” he said.

“However, we couldn’t see clearly at all exactly to answer the question whether he was brandishing a knife or not. It was like 1/20th of the overall frame. It was very far away. So we can’t be clear as to what transpired," he said.

(Hat tip: Never Ben Better in comments.)

WHY RICK SANTORUM'S LATEST IGNORANT PRONOUNCEMENT IS EVEN MORE IGNORANT THAN YOU REALIZE

At Raw Story, David Edwards reports:

Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum said this week that he was a “huge fan” of Pope Francis but that the pontiff should stop buying into the global warming debate and, instead, “leave the science to the scientists.”

During a Monday interview with WPHT, host Dom Giordano noted that Pope Francis was expected to urge lawmakers to take action on climate change when he visits the U.S. later this year....

“The church has gotten it wrong a few times on science, and I think that we probably are better off leaving science to the scientists,” the candidate insisted.

Does Santorum not realize that the pope actually is "leaving science to the scientists" -- including the eighty credentialed members of the Vatican's own Pontifical Academy of Sciences, under whose aegis last year's statement on "Sustainable Humanity, Sustainable Nature: Our Responsibility" was issued?

As Christopher Dickey has written:

The academy, which in various forms dates back to the early 17th century, is today avowedly “non-sectarian” and includes among its 80 members many non-Catholics, non-Christians and, it is fair to say, some non-believers, not to mention some of the most famous scientists and social scientists in the world. Over the years, scores of the academy’s members have won Nobel Prizes, including the awards for chemistry, physics, medicine and economics.

Here's part of the C.V. of the Academy's president:



How many folks like this are there on Santorum's staff? How many Nobelists?

I'm not a believer anymore, but I respect the Catholic Church's approach to science -- for example, while the church argues for divine creation, it unhesitatingly accepts evolution (unlike Santorum).

Christopher Dickey quotes the Academy's chancellor, Bishop Marcelo Sánchez Sorondo, as follows:

“If we don't accept science, we don't accept reason,” says Sánchez, “and reason was created by God."

I wish Rick Santorum felt the same way.

THE COMING GENERATIONAL BATTLE AT THE POLLS MAY NOT PLAY OUT AS EXPECTED

A new CNN poll has some less-than-spectacular Hillary Clinton numbers. I'll leave it to others to discuss the meaning of all that, though I'll point out that Clinton still has a commanding lead in the Democratic primary race and still beats every Republican challenger CNN polled her against.

But here's something that caught my eye: A lot of observers are wondering whether this will be a generational election, with an older, twentieth-century-rooted Democrat, Hillary Clinton, running against a much younger Republican, possibly Marco Rubio. How does that particular matchup play out now, according to CNN? Specifically, how do voters at either end of the age curve respond to the matchup?

Let's go to the numbers:



Overall, Clinton beats Rubio by 3 -- yes, he'd be a strong challenger against her. But among younger voters, the young guy loses to the older woman by 20 points. Among older voters, the young guy wins by 7.

I've pointed out that Rubio seems surprisingly popular among the elderly (something Hot Air's Allahpundit has also noticed) -- but Hillary Clinton's appeal to younger voters seems clear across the board in the CNN poll. With 18-34-year-old voters, she beats Jeb Bush by a whopping 67%-28% margin, beats Scott Walker 60%-37%, beats Ted Cruz (who's also quite young) 61%-33%, and even beats Rand Paul 55%-43% (despite his dudebro appeal). What's more , 18-34-year-old voters think Clinton represents the future rather than the past by a 64%-33% margin. (Senior citizens say she represents the past, 56%-40%.)

So, yes, this could be a generation battle -- with the older candidate winning the young and the younger candidate doing better among the old. That could be worrisome for Clinton -- older people are more likely to vote. But if she loses in 2016, it's not going to be because the young think she's a has-been.

PREDICTION: MEGYN KELLY'S DUGGAR INTERVIEW WILL DWELL ON "THE WAR ON CHRISTIANITY"

Remember that gushing New York Times Magaine profile of Fox's Megyn Kelly? The article that defined the term "Megyn moment"?

For those unfamiliar with the phenomenon, a Megyn moment, as I have taken to calling it, is when you, a Fox guest -- maybe a regular guest or even an official contributor -- are pursuing a line of argument that seems perfectly congruent with the Fox worldview, only to have Kelly seize on some part of it and call it out as nonsense, maybe even turn it back on you. You don’t always know when, how or even if the Megyn moment will happen; Kelly’s political sensibility and choice of subjects are generally in keeping with that of the network at large. But you always have to be ready for it, no matter who you are.

"But you always have to be ready for it, no matter who you are." Well, apparently that's not true for everyone:

Fox News’ Megyn Kelly warned viewers Monday night that her upcoming, exclusive sit-down with Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar might not be as “tough” as the hosts of The View and others have predicted it will be.

“I’ll take that reputation as a tough but fair journalist,” Kelly said. “However, this isn’t going to be a cross-examination of a family. It’s going to be an interview. I want to hear their story. And I think America wants to hear their story now.”

More:

“Nothing is off limits,” Kelly said of the Wednesday night interview. But, she added, “I don’t plan on getting into the specific details about what was done, because my understanding is the victims don’t want to discuss that either.”

Well, Megyn, if you're already telegraphing that you "don’t plan on getting into the specific details," then you've clearly put something "off limits" -- namely, "the specific details."

So what are Kelly and the Duggars going to talk about? I mean, besides the assertion Kelly made last nightthat reporters covering the story have been mean to Republicans?

KELLY: ... And what’s been remarkable to me as, I admit, somebody who doesn’t watch this show, is to see how many in the media have handled it. From jumping to “They’re the worst, the house of horrors, this family’s sick, sick, sick” to people like this woman on CNN trying to make this the problem of the Republican presidential field.

... Bill Clinton was accused of rape! He has been accused by several women of sexually assaulting them! But the fact that a presidential candidate has posed with some random member of the family that’s going through this issue is somehow a problem for the GOPers?

I assume a lot of the interview is going to be about the "war on Christianity." It's a favorite topic of Kelly's:

Fox News host Megyn Kelly believes President Barack Obama's recent comments about the "less-than-loving expressions by Christians" could have a chilling effect on those who want to speak out against ongoing religious persecution of their religious brethren.

"I mean, the question is whether those comments do real damage not just to morale among Christians about what their own president thinks of them, but… that they feel he won't stand up for Christians who are under threat," Kelly said last night on "The Kelly File" ...

Kelly was reacting to off-script comments made by Obama to an audience at Tuesday's Easter Prayer Breakfast in which he reflected upon his own faith....

It's a subject she's previously raised when another Christian family was allegedly victimized by the heathens who run reality TV:

On May 6, Right Wing Watch reported that David Benham, who along with his brother Jason was slated to star in a fixer-upper reality show called Flip It Forward, had an extensive record of anti-choice, anti-gay, and anti-Muslim activism. David Benham ... has ... compared the anti-gay marriage fight to the struggle against Nazi Germany.... he has declared that "Islam takes life and enslaves it" and protested in front of mosques while shouting "Jesus Hates Muslims."

Faced with a public outcry, HGTV announced on May 7 that it had "decided not to move forward" with Flip It Forward.

During the May 8 edition of The Kelly File, Kelly ... suggested that ... the Benhams were being punished because, unlike gay people, Christians' rights aren't as "protected and recognized in this country":

KELLY: If HGTV had a couple of hosts who are about to launch a TV show and it came out that they were gay and then they pulled the plug on them because they're gay, the backlash would be enormous in this country, and that's because gay rights are more and more protected and recognized in this country. Christian beliefs and Christian rights, not so much.

And, last December, Kelly posed this question the Reverend Franklin Graham during a "war on Christmas" segment:

What are we to make now, today, of a world in which you've got the in-your-face sexuality of public figures like Miley Cyrus, the sex-tape stardom of people like Kim Kardsahian, this culture where we have, you know, certain songs with the filthy lyrics that are put in our face on the Grammys when we watch with our children, this sort of gangsta fashion where they're doing sort of gun signs as some way of communicating with their fellow human beings, you know, folks in this country -- and yet a Christmas tree, a nativity scene, is too offensive?

Yes, I think we're going to hear more about the parlous state of the godless world than about Josh Duggar's sexual offenses.

AT FOX, IT'S AS IF THE LAST SIXTY YEARS NEVER HAPPENED

So this happened on Fox Business today:

A segment on Fox Business’ Cavuto repeatedly mocked Caitlyn Jenner, who debuted her new identity Monday on the cover of Vanity Fair, and misidentified her with male pronouns.

Neil Cavuto introduced the segment by asking in an exaggerated voice, “What the hell is going on?!?” The reporter, Dagen Mcdowell then proceeded to incorrectly use the pronouns “him” and “his” to refer to Caitlyn seven times.

Cavuto makes a joke of wanting to end the segment quickly, “Look at the time...” He then introduces his next guest, Charles Payne, as “Charlene Payne” to uproarious laughter. Watch:

Cavuto wraps of the discussion by suggesting the Vanity Fair cover was a sign of the end of American civilization. “Rome, final days. But that’s fine,” he concludes.

I watch this and I think, "Is gender reassignment really such a foreign concept to the Fox audience? It's not as if Jenner is the first person to ever undergo this transition. This sort of thing has been taking place since Christine Jorgensen in the early 1950s."

Yes, but back then, when most Fox viewers were young, the story of Christine Jorgenson was a big joke:

"EX-G.I. BECOMES BLONDE BEAUTY: OPERATIONS TRANSFORM BRONX YOUTH." So said the front page of New York's Daily News on December 1, 1952. Modern science had reached such sophistication that Danish doctors could now turn a man into a woman! At least, that was the gist of the initial news coverage, before Jorgensen returned home to America from Denmark.

Within weeks, comedians like Jack Benny were doing "Denmark jokes" about gender-reassignment surgery.....

For the next two decades, comedians just had to mention Denmark to get a laugh. In a 1954 telecast of The Jack Benny Show ... Benny and guest Bob Hope play hunters in an African jungle. They have shot a beast that is half tiger and half leopard. "He must have gone to a veterinarian in Denmark," Benny quips. Hope ad libs, "No wonder he had his hand on his hip when I shot him." A look of shock crosses Benny's face. He loses his concentration and cracks up. Just as Benny regains his composure, Hope says, "Oh look! He has his claws manicured," and Benny loses it again.

Here's the clip, cued up to that moment:



At Fox, I guess, being transgendered is still hilarious, because at Fox it's still 1954.

REAL POINT OF WALL STREET JOURNAL ARTICLE ON DICK CHENEY IS HOW AWESOME DICK CHENEY IS

The Wall Street Journal's Patrick O'Connor has just published a story about Dick Cheney that seems intended solely to persuade readers that Dick Cheney remains a tremendously important figure. It's not a work of journalism -- it's basically a Cheney press kit:

... The former vice president is looking to make a splash on the national stage with a new book to be published in September and a group he and his daughter Liz launched to advance their views.

The effort is sure to play directly into the 2016 presidential debate, in which national-security policy is already a point of difference between the Republican candidates, many of whom are looking to turn the page on George W. Bush’s administration.

... By weighing in, Mr. Cheney is bound to make himself a flash point in the 2016 debate....

He is? Really? I mean, he might, I suppose -- the article quotes him attacking Rand Paul, and if Paul gains traction, Cheney might have some influence as a critic. And the right always enjoys hearing from Cheney when he's bashing President Obama, Hillary Clinton, or other Democrats.

But why is o"connor certain that Cheney will be "a flash point in the 2016 debate"? As Salon's Simon Maloy notes, the party is already so Cheneyesque, Rand Paul perhaps excepted, that Cheney himself is all but irrelevant:

What, exactly, is Cheney bringing to the table that isn’t already there? Given that the cause of neoconservatism is still broadly accepted among the 2016 Republicans, Cheney’s main contribution is his name and glowering visage, neither of which are especially popular outside the realm of conservative activism. One could argue that the smarter play for Cheney, in terms of promoting his ideology, is to just sit back and let the candidates keep doing it for him and not let his reputation become a factor. But that’s just not how he operates. He’s determined to fight for the hearts and minds of people who still love him and already think like him.

Either Cheney thinks Paul will hijack the party or he's feeling irrelevant in his old age and can't bear the thought. He's plugging his forthcoming book three months before it hits the stands for one reason or the other.

O'Connor assures us thatCheney's still important!

Mr. Cheney already exerts quiet influence over his party, making semiregular trips to the Capitol to address House Republicans and advising some GOP White House hopefuls. He wouldn’t discuss those conversations. Two of his top foreign-policy aides have signed on with Jeb Bush. And he is headlining donor events all over the country for the Republican National Committee.

And stalwart in the face of criticism!

Never one to obsess about his public standing, Mr. Cheney remains an unapologetic advocate for American military strength.

And prescient!

... with the Middle East engulfed in violence and Mr. Putin threatening Eastern Europe, Americans are increasingly anxious about national security. And while much of the country remains leery about future military engagements, surveys show a growing appetite for the U.S. to be more active on the world stage.

And fearless!

In Casper, Mr. Cheney wandered into the arena without security.

And grandfatherly!

He also has become something of a regular on the Wyoming high-school rodeo circuit, ferrying his 13-year-old granddaughter, Gracie Perry, to competitions, in what has become a weekend ritual for both. She competes in barrel racing, in which riders race horses around three barrels, and pole-bending, a slight variation.

Mr. Cheney drives his black Ford 350 Super Duty truck, with a horse trailer hitched to the back, often logging hundreds of miles between events. Because the events typically last all weekend, the pair often sleeps in the trailer -- Mr. Cheney on a mattress over the cab, and Gracie on an adjoining couch.

There's a Sunset Boulevard quality to this Journal profile -- but there's a Sunset Boulevard quality to most of Cheney's incessant rabble-rousing. It seems as if he can't bear the thought that we no longer yearn for his gentle yet manly reassurance that we'll be safe from the night terrors. It's sad, really.

WHY BETSY McCAUGHEY IS SIDING WITH A HATEMONGER

Serially dishonest right-wing healthcare propagandist Betsy McCaughey has an op-ed in The New York Times today defending Pam Geller's right to foist hate speech on public transit systems:

Don’t Censor My Commute

SUBWAY platforms and bus shelters have become the newest targets of political correctness.

The mass transit agencies in Washington, New York and Philadelphia have all moved to ban political advertising, in response to the American Freedom Defense Initiative, a group known for criticizing Islam.

In Philadelphia, a federal judge in March ordered the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority to accept a bus ad from the group that shows a 1941 meeting of Adolf Hitler and a Palestinian Arab nationalist leader, Haj Amin al-Husseini, with the line: “Islamic Jew-Hatred: It’s in the Quran.” On Thursday, after the ads came down, the agency banned future advertising “expressing or advocating an opinion, position or viewpoint about economic, political, religious, historical or social issues.”

That same day, the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority suspended all “issue-oriented” advertising through the end of the year, after the anti-Islam group tried to place an ad attacking the Prophet Muhammad.

Officials aren’t calling it censorship, though that’s exactly what they’re doing. The wording of the rules the Metropolitan Transportation Authority approved in April -- banning political speech, including that aimed at “the action, inaction, prospective action or policies of a governmental entity” -- makes the danger obvious.

Pam Geller is being denied one set of platforms for her message. She's hardly being silenced. She has her blog. She has three books in print. She makes frequent in-person appearances all over America and overseas. She has, as far as I can see, a standing invitation to appear on Fox News at any time. She's not being rendered an unperson and thrown in the gulag.

Here was a recent Geller ad proposal:

'Draw Muhammad' winner submitted for DC ads

The winning cartoon from the “Draw Muhammad” event that led to a shooting in Texas earlier this month has been submitted to run as an advertisement on Washington, D.C., public transportation.

Pamela Geller, the president of the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI) wrote on Breitbart.com that she has submitted the cartoon as an ad to run on Metro buses, as well as at the Foggy Bottom, Capitol South, Bethesda, L’Enfant Plaza and Shady Grove Metro stations.

Look, I agree that Americans have the legal right to draw Muhammad cartoons. In principle, Americans should not be deprived of that right by those who would intimidate them.

The reality is that there a number of people are likely to react angrily, and quite possibly violently, to public displays of Muhammad cartoons, especially from those who've made no secret of hating Islam. Our government should be able to prevent harm to the public in these cases -- but it can't. And don't kid yourself: I don't care how macho your favorite Republican presidential candidate is, he or she won't be able to ensure your safety in this situation either. This is an ongoing struggle -- it won't resolve itself for a while.

Under these circumstances, do we want Pam Geller to paint targets on D.C. commuters? Does she get to volunteer them for that? If there's a reasonable policy change that still leaves Geller free to write and speak, I favor it.

(And if Betsy McCaughey wants such ads on trains and buses, I'd like to ask her: If you knew that a Muhammad cartoon posted by Pam Geller's organization were on the vehicle you took to and from work every day, would you personally continue commuting that way? Or would you try to find alternate means of transportation?)

McCaughey backs Geller in this op-ed -- and her reasons aren't hard to grasp:

These policies amount to a status-quo protection plan, allowing political speech by the government while denying everyone else the right to protest. For example, New York State would be permitted to run ads claiming that the state is business-friendly, but an individual or group could be blocked from placing ads claiming that state taxes are too high.

Well, there you are. Wingnut-welfare recipient McCaughey wants public transit systems to remain open to anti-government propaganda from the sorts of deep-pocketed right-wingers who've often employed her.

I understand her point (and, clearly, this would also permit political ads I'd agree with on public transit) -- but I see no harm in excluding all political transit ads if it's done without playing favorites. In fact, I'd be happy to see a public-transit ban on the sort of pro-government propaganda McCaughey describes. Such messages can be (and certainly are) delivered via many other outlets, as are the messages of the sorts of people McCaughey has worked for.

Of course, when McCaughey writes this, I can't help thinking that she'd use the term "political speech by the government" to describe ads encouraging commuters to sign up their kids for school breakfast programs -- or encouraging them to sign up their families for insurance coverage on the state or federal healthcare exchange.

If the restrictions on the Geller ads are upheld by the courts, I can imagine that McCaughey and her allies might want to litigate against ads merely noting the availability of existing government programs. And giving the current courts, I imagine such a case could easily succeed.