Kay Bailey Hutchison will not be running for reelection. Why?
Instead of putting my seat into a special election, I felt it was my duty to use my experience to fight the massive spending that has increased our national debt; the government takeover of our health care system; and the growth of the federal bureaucracy, which threatens our economy.
Hey, if she’s worried about spending, I know a line item at NASA that could be profitably cut. It starts and ends with an “S.”
First, other than the clear warning Hitler was giving the world about his genocidal anti-Semitism, the important takeaway from Mein Kampf isn’t its ideological coherence, but its author’s obsession with revolutionary change. (Depending on your translation) The word “fascist” appears twice in Mein Kampf, and “Fascism” only once, while “revolution,” “rebellion,” “overthrowing,” and the like festoon nearly every page. His chief obsession (other than the Jews) is with the revolutionary “idea,” the notion that the masses can be galvanized and commanded through a radical new way of thinking. “The appearance of a new and great idea was the secret of success in the French Revolution. The Russian Revolution owes its triumph to an idea. And it was only the idea that enabled [Italian] Fascism triumphantly to subject a whole nation to a process of complete renovation.”
Which brings me to the second point. Mein Kampf is not in any serious way the opposite or parallel “right-wing” work to the “left-wing” Communist Manifesto. The two works are very different in style, intent, audience and, yes, ideology etc., but they do share a commitment to revolutionary change. All of these people insisting that it is some grand contradiction to admire both books don’t know much about one or the other. And to the extent Loughner read these books (which, again, I doubt), it is entirely plausible that he would like both of them. This is a kid who thought the entire metaphysical system was a con job in need of being torn down (David Brooks was very good on this point the other day, by the way). On that sort of thing, Hitler and Marx saw eye to eye. What shouldn’t need to be said is that neither Mein Kampf nor the Communist Manifesto are prominent Tea Party tracts.
But the smears and rewriting of history will continue.
His irrational partisan antics are going to make it harder for the prosecution.
This deranged. Notorious admitted-Bush-hater Jonathan Chait is defending her.
NASA has told Congress that the Nelson rocket can’t be done within the schedule or budget. The GAO will back them up. This rocket is dead on arrival.
[Update a while later]
What’s happening here is that NASA is telling the truth because they think it will ultimately kill this legislated monstrosity, which they don’t want to build (at least at HQ). In the Shuttle days, they went along with an underfunded program because they feared that otherwise they’d have nothing (in terms of staying in the human spaceflight business). Today, they realize the the way forward is fixed-price contracts for services, not government rockets.
…is a setup. Whenever the unelite and uneducated, but credentialed government class tells us that it’s time for a “national conversation,” they mean “shut up and listen to us.”
Will the Senate do it?
I think there’s a good chance. There are a lot of Democrats up for reelection next year who aren’t going to be willing to fight it. The question is whether or not the president will be willing to risk a veto. Especially if it may get overridden.
A view though the looking glass of modern politics.
A history lesson for modern pampered lily-livered politicians.
[Update a while later]
Sarah Palin responds to the vicious calumny. And no, she doesn’t “apologize.” Good for her.
[Another update]
Want to see a violent political culture? Go back to the sixties:
In a very real way the media were the secret sharers of the radical left. As a young media member and novelist, I knew this well. The most radical of us were acting out our hidden dreams for the rest. We condemned them occasionally and ritually, but rarely vehemently. The Weather Underground and even later the execrable Symbionese Liberation Army were never treated in the press with quite the opprobrium they now reserve for the tea party movement. As Baudelaire put it, “Mon semblable, mon frère.” The worst of the radical left were just like the rest of us, but with a little extra edge.
They weren’t anti-war — they were just on the other side.
And so many were disappointed, including Jackie Kennedy, when the assassin was determined to be a communist sympathizer. So much so, in fact, that many of them remain in denial about it today, as evidenced by all the conspiracy theories.
[Update a while later]
Good point: “If you really believed political rhetoric caused Jared Loughner’s killing spree, you wouldn’t dare to say it.”