Crisis Management

Swingers
The president also faces pressure from some members of his own party who argue that the economic benefits of the pipeline are too important to ignore. Last month, 17 Democratic senators signed on to an amendment backing construction of the pipeline. Included in the group were seven senators from conservative or swing states who face re-election in 2014. (NYT, 4/4/2013)

Republicans who favor gay marriage, Democrats who want to build the Keystone pipeline. We have talked about this in the past - and recently - for important reasons. Many people bemoan the lack of bipartisanship in Washington. Perhaps there is more than we are led to believe. The culprit is - as always - the Legitimate Media which will rarely tell us when a Democrat politician is pro-life, but will always detail a "brave" Republican's conversion to gun control or another Liberal position. 


Percentages
Even as he spoke at the second fund-raiser, about 100 opponents of the pipeline protested outside, waving signs and chanting, “What do we want from our president? No pipeline for the one percent!” and “When I say pipeline you say kill! Pipeline! Kill!” (NYT, 4/4/2013)

The peaceful protesters (kill! kill! kill!) have now apparently concluded that the Keystone pipeline is a 1%er issue. Because it will bring cheap gas to all Americans and create blue collar jobs? 

We tease Liberals unrelentingly, we admit it. But we refrain - we really do - from flat-out name-calling. Today we slip up. 

These people are morons. 


Missing Piece
There was something missing from President Obama's Wednesday speech in Denver about gun violence. He focused almost exclusively on passing gun-control laws, and not at all on one of the nation's biggest promoters of violence: the entertainment industry.

The president's campaign against gun violence has produced a stale debate marked by lots of speeches with little achieved. A more creative chief executive would have used this moment to widen the discussion by drawing attention to the increasingly graphic violence so pervasive in television shows, movies and videogames. Mr. Obama is particularly well positioned to challenge Hollywood because of his special relationship with the media world's elites. They might be more likely to heed criticism coming from Mr. Obama than from any other president or member of Congress. (Campbell Brown, Wall Street Journal, 4/3/2013)

Yesterday we noted that Connecticut passed new gun restrictions while sending a call for a study of other factors in mass killings to a committee. Where it will disappear. 

Today we were delighted to read Brown's outstanding article calling out the President on his failure to focus on entertainment violence. Well done!


Merely
The mere presence of men making money is an insufficient explanation for the persistence of poverty. You have to look elsewhere. (Daniel Henninger, Wall Street Journal, 4/3/2013)

Best line from an excellent Henninger piece on capitalism. Note to the redistributionists: capitalism good, corruption bad.