Month: August 2014

Hong Kong learns that you can’t trust Commies.

Hot Air has the summary:

Before 1997, the city of Hong Kong had been a British colony for 156 years. The reintroduction of that bustling capitalist city into communist China was always thought to be a risky proposition. It was China’s Deng Xiaoping who crafted a policy known as “One Country, Two Systems” in the 1980s, which was aimed at assuaging concerns in Hong Kong that their way of life would persist even after the Union Jack was lowered and the flag of the People’s Republic was raised in its place.

Well, the reintegration process has finally begun and Beijing has determined that the semi-autonomous province will no longer have its own politics as well as its own economic system. The Chinese government rejected calls from democracy activists aimed at allowing Hong Kong residents to directly elect their own leadership. Beijing would be vetting any prospective candidate to first determine their suitability for office.

Continue reading Hong Kong learns that you can’t trust Commies.

Barack Obama, Mary Burke (D-CAND, Wisconsin-GOV) indignantly object to news report that latter is hiding from former.

Watch national and Wisconsin Democrats backpedal, backpedal, backpedal…

In addition to a Milwaukee visit on Monday, President Barack Obama will return to Wisconsin before Nov. 4 to campaign for Democratic candidate for governor Mary Burke, a party spokesman said Thursday.

The announcement made to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel came swiftly after Republicans criticized Burke for saying she couldn’t appear with Obama during his Labor Day visit to Milwaukee because it was an official stop, not a campaign event.

Burke’s campaign had strenuously objected to the GOP claims she was ducking the president because of his lackluster approval rating…

…because while it’s certainly true that the President has a lackluster approval rating, and that Mary Burke kind of hates the idea of being in the same photo frame as Barack Obama these days, well, Obama still does have supporters.  And if Mary Burke insults their hero too much but being too honest about him, then Mary Burke is going to have even more electoral problems than she has right now.  The dance is, as they say, delicate. Continue reading Barack Obama, Mary Burke (D-CAND, Wisconsin-GOV) indignantly object to news report that latter is hiding from former.

At-Risk Senate Seats, 08/31/2014 edition (Includes DOOM calls).

Here is my latest At-Risk races… and there are DOOM calls. Hey, it’s Labor Day Weekend. Time to start in on that.

Alaska Mark Begich High Risk
Arkansas Mark Pryor High Risk
Colorado Mark Udall Serious Risk
Iowa Retiring High Risk
Louisiana Mary Landrieu High Risk
Michigan Retiring Some Risk
Minnesota Al Franken Low Risk
Montana Retiring DOOM
New Hampshire Jeanne Shaheen Some Risk
New Mexico Tom Udall Off list
North Carolina Kay Hagan High Risk
Oregon Jeff Merkley Low Risk
South Dakota Retiring DOOM
Virginia Mark Warner Low Risk
West Virginia Retiring DOOM

Continue reading At-Risk Senate Seats, 08/31/2014 edition (Includes DOOM calls).

UKIP hoping to get first seat with resignation/defection of MP Douglas Carswell..

Come, I will conceal nothing from you: I don’t follow British politics all that much.  But this sounds pretty significant:

Tory Douglas Carswell has defected to UKIP and quit as MP for Clacton, saying he will contest the subsequent by-election for Nigel Farage’s party.

If he wins the support of voters he will be the first elected UK Independence Party MP in the Commons.

More here and here. Typically, when British MPs switch parties they apparently do it without having by-elections, which apparently drives British voters nuts. As it should. Douglas Carswell is either very confident that he can win, or he’s acting on principle. Or, I suppose, both.

A lot of people worrying about Central Europe right now.

I’ve had my, ah, difference of opinions with Anne Applebaum, but she sounds damned worried here:

Over and over again — throughout the entirety of my adult life, or so it feels — I have been shown Polish photographs from the beautiful summer of 1939: The children playing in the sunshine, the fashionable women on Krakow streets. I have even seen a picture of a family wedding that took place in June 1939, in the garden of a Polish country house I now own. All of these pictures convey a sense of doom, for we know what happened next.September 1939 brought invasion from both east and west, occupation, chaos, destruction, genocide. Most of the people who attended that June wedding were soon dead or in exile. None of them ever returned to the house.

In retrospect, all of them now look naive. Instead of celebrating weddings, they should have dropped everything, mobilized, prepared for total war while it was still possible. And now I have to ask: Should Ukrainians, in the summer of 2014, do the same? Should central Europeans join them?

Continue reading A lot of people worrying about Central Europe right now.