Tag: national journal

Let me FIFY, National Journal: “Why Don’t White DEMOCRATS Elect Minority Reps to Congress?”

Titles like that annoy me. Essentially since when this is the first paragraph:

It’s an enduring contrast in Congress: Minority legislators are much less likely to represent districts where whites constitute a majority of the population than whites are to hold districts where racial minorities comprise the majority.

…and this is the ninth paragraph:

The evidence suggests[*] it may[**] be easier for minority Republicans to attract support from white voters than it is for minority Democrats. Only 14 of the 88 minority members in the House are Republicans. But they are eight of the 15 minority House members holding majority white seats. They especially have an edge in districts that are at least 70 percent white. Of those eight seats held by minority Republicans, six are in districts that are 70 percent or more white.

Continue reading Let me FIFY, National Journal: “Why Don’t White DEMOCRATS Elect Minority Reps to Congress?”

National Journal: Dang, but those Democrats are incredibly in lockstep!

Not that the National Journal would put it in such a fashion. And, fair warning: this is from ten months ago.  But it’s still pretty funny.

So The National Journal did a list of the 15 most liberal Senators, the 15 most conservative Senators, the 15 most liberal Representatives, and the 15 most conservative Representatives.  All of this based on 2013 rankings (remember, this is from February of 2014): as to who they were… well, I don’t really care, and maybe neither should you.  The inadvertent thing here is the funny thing.

Basically, if you look at the lists you’ll discover a godawful number of ties among liberal Democrats.  As in, there was a seven-way tie for “Most liberal Representative.” Followed by a six-way tie for 8th place, and a two-way tie for 14th. Liberal Senators were almost as bad: three-way tie for 1st, seven-way tie for 5th, three-way tie for 13th, the rest singletons. Meanwhile, over on the GOP side… one tie for 8th place on the House list, fifteen singletons on the Senate one.  Feel free to bring this up the next time somebody complains about how much the GOP hates dissent; at least our legislators can be distinguished from each other by their voting records… Continue reading National Journal: Dang, but those Democrats are incredibly in lockstep!

Quote of the Day, …I Do Not Think That This Is Helping edition.

Look, I understand that you have to work with what you’re given.  But if you think that this is a good counter-argument to Ted Cruz (accurately!) pointing out that pro-abortion protesters were chanting “Hail, Satan”…

Lucien Greaves, communications director of the Satanic Temple, says Cruz’s comments oversimplify the issue by trying to inject religion into the abortion debate. Although pro-abortion-rights protesters did indeed chant “Hail Satan” at a rally outside the Texas Capitol, it was to combat antiabortion protesters who were singing “Amazing Grace.”

…Well.

Yeah.

Allrighty, then. Continue reading Quote of the Day, …I Do Not Think That This Is Helping edition.

Quote of the Day, The National Journal Goes The Other Kind Of Blue edition.

Such language!  Tut, tut:

For the crisis to be lifted, credibility has to be restored. In 2008, I remember Obama telling town-hall audience after town-hall audience the hallmark of his politics would be candor. Said Obama: “What we need from the next president is somebody who will not just tell you what they think you want to hear but will tell you what you need to hear.”

What the public needs to hear is that insurance plans change, and that, in some cases, Americans won’t be able to keep the plan Obama promised they could keep. What the public needs to hear is how few people have enrolled on the federal health care website and what the administration will do to increase enrollment. What the public needs to hear is that website privacy, compromised by the poor initial design, is locked down. What the public needs to hear is something as declarative, direct, and memorable as this.

Obama has to eat those words. It won’t be easy. And the president is off to a bad start.

“In politics, when you have to eat shit, you don’t nibble,” said Democratic strategist Chris Kofinis.

Continue reading Quote of the Day, The National Journal Goes The Other Kind Of Blue edition.

QotD, the National Journal Gets Stuff Just Plain WRONG Abut the March For Life edition.

Point of order:

Despite the odd staging, it’s hard not to be touched by Wednesday’s [MLK] gathering on the National Mall—not only because of the divine moment it commemorates but also because it is solemn and stirring when tens of thousands of Americans abandon their malls and office parks to ask for an extension of political rights. (In that way, at least, the March for Life is just as poignant.)

…the March for Life does not bring in ‘tens of thousands of Americans.’  It brings in hundreds of thousands of Americans. Every year.  Without fail.

(H/T: Hot Air Headlines)

Moe Lane

PS: Note that this is not particularly relevant to Wednesday’s MLK celebration; then again, neither was that passive-aggressive sneer (“In that way, at least?” Some people simply can’t help themselves, apparently) at March for Life, so there you go.

Quote of the Day, IF YOU ARE SINGLE AND MAKE MORE THAN $20K #OBAMACARE WILL COST YOU MONEY edition.

Do I have your attention?

Good. The National Journal is hitting the panic button:

Whether the quality of care in the new market is comparable to private offerings remains to be seen. But one thing is clear: The cost of care in the new market doesn’t stack up. A single wage earner must make less than $20,000 to see his or her current premiums drop or stay the same under Obamacare, an independent review by National Journal found. That’s equivalent to approximately 34 percent of all single workers in the U.S. seeing any benefit in the new system. For those seeking family-of-four coverage under the ACA, about 43 percent will see cost savings. Families must earn less than or equal to $62,300, or they, too, will be looking at a bigger bill.

Those numbers include the generous tax subsidies designed to make the new system more attractive to consumers.

Continue reading Quote of the Day, IF YOU ARE SINGLE AND MAKE MORE THAN $20K #OBAMACARE WILL COST YOU MONEY edition.

The National Journal mistakes patience for despair.

There’s a lot to push back on in this National Journal piece (short version: Ron Fournier doesn’t like the Republican party that much, but he still thinks that Barack Obama sucks at leadership), but I want to drill down on this:

Obama could still do great things. But not if he and his advisers underestimate a president’s powers, and don’t know how to exploit them. Not if his sympathizers give Obama cover by minimizing his influence. Cover to fail. Not if the president himself is outwardly and boundlessly dismissive of his critics, telling The New York Times, “I’m not concerned about their opinions.”

To say the situation is intractable seems akin to waving a white flag over a polarized capital: Republicans suck. We can’t deal with them. Let’s quit.

I’m afraid they have quit—all of them, on both sides. At the White House and in Congress, most Democrats and Republicans have abandoned hope of fixing the nation’s problems.

Continue reading The National Journal mistakes patience for despair.

#rsrh National Journal author Ron Fournier’s Designated Racist alleges character assassination.

Who is surprised?

Yesterday, National Journal published a piece by Ron Fournier titled “Why (and How) Romney is Playing the Race Card.” Fournier’s story repurposes an old interview with two white Michigan voters in order to reveal the supposed racial subtext in their language. But Benson Brundage, one of the two men mentioned in the story, accuses Fournier of mischaracterizing the discussion and putting words in his mouth that he neither said nor meant.

Me, neither.  Possibly the worst thing here is that allegedly Fournier recycled material from an October 2011 interview to make it look like Brundage was commenting on Romney’s (Summer 2012) welfare ad.  That’s something that Fournier needs to explain, because while it’s probably not nice to do that to anybody it’s certainly not nice to do that to people who presumably can’t fight back.  In other words… time to revisit the list: after all, many of them apply to any conservative in the Media’s crosshairs. ESPECIALLY #1. Continue reading #rsrh National Journal author Ron Fournier’s Designated Racist alleges character assassination.

National Journal reporting tie on partisan identification.

(Via Ace of Spades) All tied up at 42/42.  The important paragraph is below:

Democrats still outnumbered Republicans in terms of party identification in this poll by 6 points, 45 percent to 39 percent. Democrats also favored their own party’s congressional candidates 83 percent to 7 percent. But voters who call themselves independents gave GOP candidates the edge by 14 points, 38 percent to 24 percent. And self-identified Republicans supported their own party’s candidates 85 percent to 3 percent.

That is a meltdown, from the Democrats’ point of view: unlike Ace, I’m willing to buy that this represents a desire to swing the pendulum back.  Either that, or they just want to see some ruthlessness directed constructively for a change.  The kind we’re getting now seems sort of counter-productive.

Crossposted to RedState.