Day: November 20, 2014

About Bill Cosby

He’s a budding social conservative, accused of the “horrific act” that is rape. But keep in mind:

Politically speaking, the Bill Cosby scandal may be more than what it seems. If he is guilty, Bill Cosby represents only what we will be permitted to see by the people who manufacture image.

He will be tossed out of a circle of protection that exists in Hollywood and ultimately lends sanctuary to rapists and pedophiles and fornicators and polluters and tax evaders and drug users and pornographers and on and on and on throughout the entertainment industry.

That circle of protection exists to obscure the sludge and debauchery that is the epitome of modern celebrity from the disapproving eyes of what progressives deem socially conservative hypocrites who preach morality.

From Irene F. Starkehaus at Illinois Review.

Is President Tired-of-Waiting supposed to enforce or make laws?

Depends on what you mean by “make,” says Barack the Magnificent.

The defenders of the president hold that he has a wide discretion in how to enforce the law. They are correct, but that does not settle the question. There must be a point at which the president exercises too much discretion. Otherwise we make nonsense out of the president’s constitutional obligation to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed.” This expression must mean that the president is to try to be faithful to what the law intends, not to whatever he happens to think is for the best.

From Catholic Vote, which further observes:

Liberals ought to be as concerned about this as conservatives are. They should consider the precedent that it sets, and how it might be used by a future president whose policy preferences are very different from President Obama’s. If the president’s immigration order is to stand, then what will stop, say, a Republican president from issuing an executive order deferring enforcement of whatever provisions of the health care law he or she thinks are too burdensome? It would be the exact same thing.

Food for thought here, a sort of Kaopectate of the mind.

The dimensions of the Rauner victory: historic and convincing

From Matt Custardo, his North Shore campaign field manager:

Historic: It was “the first time the president’s governor lost a re-election since 1892.”

Rauner “won by 5% in a state President Obama won by 25% — a 30 point swing.”

Quinn “outspent Rauner on advertising in the final 3 months of the campaign.”

A day and two days before the polls opened, “[Expert forecaster] Nate Silver predicted a Rauner loss. Public Policy Polling . . . said Rauner would lose by 2%,” toppling conventional wisdom that a Republican had to be ahead at that point.

Convincing: Rauner bested Bill Brady and Mark Kirk, winning “moderates outright (52-45%) . . . independents by more than two to one (64% to 29%) . . . a larger share of Democrats . . . class voters by a larger margin (55-44%) . . . ”

He bested Brady, winning “both Republicans (93%) and conservatives (81%) by larger margins.”

He “closed the gap with 18-29 year old voters to single digits.”

So much for (simply) buying the election, as Mark Brown and other commentators said beforehand.

The Justice Department becomes a schoolyard bully in Wisconsin — Geo. Will in WaPo

War on non-govt institutions goes apace:

It is as remarkable as it is repulsive, the ingenuity with which the Obama administration uses the regulatory state’s intricacies to advance progressivism’s project of breaking nongovernmental institutions to government’s saddle.

Eager to sacrifice low-income children to please teachers unions, the Justice Department wants to destroy Wisconsin’s school choice program. Feigning concern about access for disabled children, the department aims to handicap all disadvantaged children by denying their parents access to school choices of the sort affluent government lawyers enjoy.

I’m all right, Jack, say affluent govt lawyers.