The Tuesday edition of the Morning Jolt features a look at some of the potential primary challengers to South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham, Congress waking up and objecting to Obama’s effort to arm the Syrian rebels, and then this hot topic in the nation’s capital . . . 

A Brief Defense of This Town From This Town

I’m eager to read Mark Leibovitch’s This Town: Two Parties and a Funeral — Plus, Plenty of Valet Parking! — in America’s Gilded Capital. The reviews make it sound like an utterly delicious dissection of the clubby, incestuous ways of Washington D.C.’s most powerful figures. As the Washington Post review summarized, “His tour through Washington only feeds the worst suspicions anyone can have about the place — a land driven by insecurity, hypocrisy and cable hits, where friendships are transactional, blind-copying is rampant and acts of public service appear largely accidental.”

But as I see reviewers tripping over themselves to salute the book as the Necronomicon of Washington Insiders, I’m left wondering who, exactly, is still surprised by a description of powerful D.C. officials being ambitious and eager to trade favors and jockeying for status . . . and how, exactly, one would cultivate a culture significantly different from this in the capital city of a democratic republic.

Isn’t any one-industry town a combination of clubby shared interests and quiet competition for superiority? Certainly Hollywood is. Don’t all the big shots in Silicon Valley run into each other at the same parties, eat at the same restaurants, meet at the same conferences, and so on? I realize J. R. Ewing is a fictional character, but I am to believe that Dallas and Houston don’t have their share of ambitious, sharp-elbowed energy-industry executives competing for the corner office? Aren’t most state capitals the same cultural dynamics as Washington, on a smaller scale? And you’re telling me that Manhattan isn’t just as bad or worse when it comes to giant egos, conspicuous consumption, fierce competition, less-than-genuine social-based friendships, and so on?

Any city with a lot of power (political, economic, cultural) and money is going to attract a lot of folks who want to get a part in it. Some will be brilliant, some will be craven, and a lot will be somewhere in between or both.

The ambition, desire for power, and temptation of lies that Leibovitch describes is more or less the human condition, and I’m skeptical that the culture of today’s Washington is significantly different than a generation ago, when Clark Clifford scoffed that Ronald Reagan was an “amiable dunce” at a party while working for the Bank of Credit and Commerce International, and Sally Quinn enjoyed her era of “five-course dinners a couple of nights a week, with a different wine for each course, served in a power-filled room of politicians, diplomats, White House officials and well-known journalists.” Want to go back further, to the era of Pamela Harriman’s Georgetown parties? The grand gatherings of Marjorie Merriweather Post? There was no golden age when Washington didn’t have folks who wanted to be thought of as the smartest, the most powerful, the most well-connected, the funniest, and so on.

(If you want to find something likeable about those past eras, let’s note that Washington’s role as “Hollywood for ugly people” meant you were less likely to be judged by your appearance. Henry Kissinger said power was the ultimate aphrodisiac, not his rugged good looks or rumbling baritone.)

Anyway, back to This Town. From the Washington Post’s review:

First, there is longtime NBC news reporter Andrea Mitchell — a conflict of interest in human form. Married to former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan, Mitchell has specialized in covering administrations and campaigns that “overlapped considerably with her social and personal habitat,” as Leibovich puts it.

There are those weekend getaways at George Shultz’s home. And dinner with Tipper and Al. And that surprise 50th-birthday party for Condi. And what do you do when you’re reporting on the 2008 financial crisis and many people are pointing at your husband as a chief culprit? NBC tossed up a fig leaf: allowing Mitchell to cover the politics of dealing with the financial crisis, but not the conditions that gave rise to it. Such hair-splitting becomes inevitable, Leibovich writes, because Mitchell trying to avoid conflicts of interest is “like an owl trying to avoid trees.”

I can hear you cheering the public flaying of Mitchell for being too clubby with the officials she covers, but let me ask you this: If Andrea Mitchell had been a college professor or worked in some other non-media jobs, would Greenspan be widely sneered and spat upon and put in public stocks to have rotten fruit hurled at him? Does anybody feel like coverage and public discussion of Alan Greenspan — and the resulting public opinion of him — was/is significantly altered by Mitchell’s role at NBC News? Greenspan’s had his defenders and critics hashing it out in the public square for years. (See here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here…)

I need to read This Town to see if Leibovitch finds Mitchell to be the figure at NBC/MSNBC who most deserves a public dressing down. But don’t her offenses seem mid-level at best? In the end, which is more damaging to journalism — Mitchell’s marriage to Greenspan and friendships with elected officials, or MSNBC determining its market role is to be the Obama administration’s in-house network, showcasing the likes of (at various times) Al Sharpton, Ed Schultz, Keith Olbermann, Lawrence O’Donnell, Melissa Harris-Perry, etc.? How about the hiring of Robert Gibbs and David Axelrod as “political analysts”? How about the president of MSNBC declaring, “we’re not the place for breaking news”?

Ahem. Some of us noticed this a long time ago.

Clubbiness between government officials and those who cover them is a legitimate issue to discuss, but the Greenspan-Mitchell marriage feels like a rather dated issue to find objectionable…

Then there’s this, from the New York Times review . . . 

He opens with an account of the 2008 funeral of the NBC Washington bureau chief and “Meet the Press” host Tim Russert, and as a quarter-century resident now in happy exile, I suppose I should stick to form and mention, hideously, that we — Tim and I — came to Washington at the same time and were friends, although mostly because I had a wife from Buffalo, and he delighted in teasing her about her bowling. The people at this funeral (and as I recall, this was an invitation-only rite) adhered to what Mr. Leibovich calls “the distinctive code of posture at the fancy-pants funeral: head bowed, conspicuously biting his lips, squinting extra hard for the full telegenic grief effect.”

How does Leibovich know they’re mugging grief for the cameras? How does he know this isn’t how these people look when they’re actually grieving?

Then there’s this litany in the Times review:

So, striding self-importantly through these pages are the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid (“harshly judgmental of fat people”); Senator Tom Coburn, an Oklahoma Republican (“a blister on the leadership of both chambers, or sometimes something more dangerous”); Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York (“lens-happy, even by senatorial standards”); the lobbyist and former Mississippi governor Haley Barbour (“looks like a grown version of Spanky from the Little Rascals”); the former House minority leader Richard Gephardt (“whose willingness to reverse long-held positions in the service of paying clients was egregious even by D.C.’s standards”); and the modern super-flack Kurt Bardella (possessed of “a frantic vulnerability and desperation”).

Lest you’ve forgotten, here’s Spanky. Yeah, yeah, “ha ha ha.” We can all see Barbour. He’s fat. Round face. Double chin. A lot of folks have that. Is making fun of Haley Barbour’s appearance . . . edgy? Daring? Some sort of great, witty insight that reveals the ways of American politics?

Finally, there’s this detail in a long excerpt that ran in the New York Times this weekend:

Robert Gibbs announced that he would be leaving as White House press secretary . . . he was a journeyman flack who struck gold with the right patron and wound up talking at the lectern at 1600 Pennsylvania. Gibbs’s time at the White House had been a mixed bag, which included internal West Wing clashes, strained relationships with reporters and a few mishaps that resulted from excessive candor. But he was nonetheless set for life as a professional “former.” That is, a former official who can easily score a seven-figure income as an out-of-office wise man, statesman or hired gun. “Formers” stick to Washington like melted cheese on a gold-plated toaster, and Gibbs would be no exception. He could move seamlessly into the news media (MSNBC) at a time when punditry replaced reporting as journalism’s highest pursuit. (Since leaving the White House in 2011, Gibbs has made about $2 million in paid speeches alone.)

Cue the outrage that Gibbs has made $2 million in paid speaking gigs in about two years. Go ahead. I’ll wait.

Just keep in mind that unless you’re a member of an organization that paid Gibbs his unspecified fee — like the Traffic Club of Pittsburgh, National Ocean Industries Association, Union College, American University in Dubai, Council of Insurance Agents and Brokers, United States Travel Association, Premier Health Alliance, Citigroup Latin America, Saint Xavier University — he didn’t take your money.

Speaking gigs are pretty much the only way a guy like Robert Gibbs is ever going to make a million a year. If you give a man an opportunity to make oodles of money giving speeches . . . he’s going to take it. Tears for Fears didn’t quite have it right; Lots of folks don’t want to rule the world; they just want to live well while somebody else rules the world.

I’m amazed there isn’t more vocal scoffing and eye-rolling when President Obama offers meaningless blather like this:

We’ve got to have the brightest minds to help solve our biggest challenges. And it’s a reminder that in this democracy, we the people recognize that this government belongs to us, and it’s up to each of us and every one of us to make it work better. We can’t just stand on the sidelines. We can’t take comfort in just being cynical. We all have a stake in government success — because the government is us.

Wait, why is it “up to each of us and every one of us” to make the government work better?

I didn’t sign up for that job. You probably didn’t, either. The folks who run the government never seem all that interested in my suggestions about how to get it to work better, anyway.

I’ve got other stuff to do besides making an effort to make the federal government work better. You probably do, too.

I thought he spent most of 2007–08 telling us that he was the one who could get the federal government to work better, and then spent 2012 telling us we had to keep him in that job. Now he’s saying that “better” will require effort from . . . everyone. Apparently none of us are allowed to “stand on the sidelines,” or else the whole thing won’t work.

In fact, Obama says at the beginning, “as anyone knows, dealing with the federal government is not always high-technology and it’s not always user-friendly . . . Currently, when our government asks for bids on a project, it’s usually written in complicated language with complicated requirements that most people don’t understand.” Well, we didn’t write those forms. (Okay, I didn’t write those forms, and you probably didn’t.) Why is he saying we have to fix it?

You’re never going to get “each of us and every one of us” to agree on the best way to make the federal government work better. So if this idea really requires “each of us and every one of us” to pitch in to make it work, maybe we should scrap it. If the federal government really can’t work any better than this without every single American working towards the same goal, maybe we should scrap our current approach, set priorities on what we really need the federal government to do, and leave all the extra stuff to the states, local governments, the private sector, or nonprofits. Because when “everybody” is responsible, no one is responsible.

“The government is us.” No, it isn’t. I don’t work for the government. You may or may not. I may have voted for you, I may not have voted for you, but I don’t become a part of the government by voting. The identity of “government” — i.e., having a role in making and enforcing policy decisions — is quite separate from citizen.

I suppose nobody really listens to this sort of stuff from the president, anyway. This is just the speechwriting equivalent of elevator Muzak, pretty words and phrases strung together to sound good, regardless of whether or not they make sense.

If Obama really wants the federal government to work better, he could fill some of those empty inspector-general positions.

“Mr. President, the NSA domestic-surveillance program reports that there are still some Americans who are standing on the sidelines, refusing to help the federal government work better.”

Hmmm. Does this anecdote reassure you about Terry McAuliffe’s skill with money?

In late 1999, [Haley] Barbour and Tommy Boggs were planning to open a downtown restaurant called the Caucus Room, which The Washington Post described as a “red-meat emporium” that “will serve up power, influence, loopholes, money and all the other ingredients that make American Democracy great.” Seeking investors, Barbour called McAuliffe and asked for $100,000, which he sent over immediately. A while later, Barbour called back, said they were oversubscribed and sent McAuliffe back a check for $50,000. “So I figure I made 50 in the deal,” said McAuliffe, who never saw a penny more.

Hahahahahaha. Er, no, Mr. McAuliffe, you didn’t “make 50 in the deal”; you gave a retired RNC chair and then-lobbyist $50,000 to start a restaurant. That restaurant is still in business; the Caucus Room restaurant changed its name and is now “Social Reform.” Really.

Then again, perhaps it was money well spent for McAuliffe in terms of influence and favors to be returned, down the road a bit. Haley Barbour, of course, went on to become governor of Mississippi . . . where the state Development Authority gave GreenTech $3 million in loan assistance related to the company’s Tunica County plan and provided $2 million to the county to purchase land for the facility. McAuliffe, of course, was chairman of GreenTech Automotive at the time.

Before the July 4 holiday, former representative Bobby Schilling’s comeback bid looked likely; today, it’s official:

Bobby Schilling announced today that he would seek a rematch against incumbent Congresswoman Cheri Bustos for the 17th Congressional District seat. Schilling said that his campaign would focus on fighting for middle class families and their values.

“As a father, husband, employer and laborer, I can tell you that the middle class is falling further behind,” said Schilling. “The people of Illinois deserve a member of Congress who understands their worries and values, and leads by example. To combat unemployment, stagnant wages and rising prices, the middle class is going to need a lot more than just lip-service and rhetoric. We’re going to need a leader from and for the middle class, who puts people ahead of politics and self-promotion.”

Schilling said Illinois families need a representative who understands the plight of the middle class and that incumbent Congresswoman Bustos has been absent on that front.

“The middle class is getting crushed by rising prices, stagnant wages and a government that has forgotten about them,” said Schilling. “Not only are our groceries and gas prices going up, but our health care premiums in Illinois are estimated to rise at least 61% because of Obamacare. Incumbent Congresswoman Bustos has proven during her time in Washington that she doesn’t understand or feel the pain of middle class families. We need a true representative fighting for us in Washington and incumbent Congresswoman Cheri Bustos has refused to act.”

Schilling said that Congresswoman Bustos has failed even basic duties like supporting a federal budget plan to get our country back on the right path.

“We’ve got such a lack of leadership right now, that our incumbent Congresswoman refused to even support a budget,” said Schilling. “Supporting a budget or presenting your own is your basic duty while being a member of Congress. If you can’t support a budget to get our country back on the right track, then you didn’t go to Washington for anything but self-promotion.”

Schilling will embark on a campaign roll out of his announcement and continue on a 14 county “Middle Class Families” listening tour.

From the first Morning Jolt of a busy week:

A Cheney for Senate Bid Turns the New York Times Green with Enzi

I’m sorry, Senator Mike Enzi, but the thought of Democrats’ heads exploding upon hearing the words “Senator Cheney” is spectacularly appealing.

Naturally, the New York Times angle on this — written by Jonathan Martin, formerly of Politico and briefly with NR — is that a Liz Cheney senatorial bid means doom for Republicans:

A young Dick Cheney began his first campaign for the House in this tiny village — population 1,600 — after the state’s sole Congressional seat finally opened up. But nowadays, his daughter Liz does not seem inclined to wait patiently for such an opening.

Ms. Cheney, 46, is showing up everywhere in the state, from chicken dinners to cattle growers’ meetings, sometimes with her parents in tow. She has made it clear that she wants to run for the Senate seat now held by Michael B. Enzi, a soft-spoken Republican and onetime fly-fishing partner of her father.

But for the state GOP, that means doom! Dooooooooom!

Ms. Cheney’s move threatens to start a civil war within the state’s Republican establishment, despite the reverence many hold for her family.

Mr. Enzi, 69, says he is not ready to retire, and many Republicans say he has done nothing to deserve being turned out.

It would bring about “the destruction of the Republican Party of Wyoming if she decides to run and he runs, too,” Alan K. Simpson, a former Republican senator from the state, said in an interview last week. “It’s a disaster — a divisive, ugly situation — and all it does is open the door for the Democrats for 20 years.”

 

Above: The New York Times Graphics Department’s depiction of downtown Jackson Hole after the Republican Ragnarok of an Enzi-Cheney primary.

You may be less than stunned to learn that most conservative bloggers believe that the state and national GOP, the nation, conservatism, and the laws of time and space can indeed survive a Cheney senatorial bid. Why, they almost seem to welcome it.

William Jacobson:

I have nothing against Enzi; I know little about him. But I don’t like the sense of entitlement being shown by Alan Simpson and others.

If Enzi deserves to be reelected, he should earn it. No free rides from now on.

Maybe the Wyoming Republican Party needs a little shaking up.

Run, Liz, Run.

Doug Brady over at Conservatives4Palin:

First, I’d take anything Alan Simpson says with a large grain of salt, and his warning that a Cheney challenge to Enzi would result in the destruction of the Wyoming Republican Party and open the door to a Democrat Senator from the state is ludicrous. Whoever wins the GOP primary — Cheney or Enzi — would be the overwhelming favorite to win the general election. Simpson, who’s most famous for the disastrous Simpson-Mazzoli amnesty bill in 1986, has always been an establishment guy and has always been more interested in getting on the Sunday talk shows than advancing conservatism..

Second, I think Enzi overestimates his conservative support. As you’ll recall, he teamed up with Dick Durbin to co-sponsor a Senate bill which would impose a massive new internet sales tax just four months ago.  Such a cumbersome bureaucratic mess like that would be harmful even in a good economy but, as Stacy noted at the time, it would be particularly disastrous in the Obama economy. There’s no way I can square a vote for what amounts to a national sales tax increase with a “reliably conservative record”.

Kurt Schlichter: “Liz Cheney has the potential to take the GOP in a new direction. Toward success.”

But not quite everyone is on board. At PowerLine, John Hinderaker contends the challenge would be a waste of conservative energy and activism:

I admire Liz Cheney as much as anyone, but I can’t claim to be pleased to learn that she has moved from Washington to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and has told Senator Mike Enzi that she may run against him in next year’s GOP primary. In my view, Republicans (and conservatives) spend much too much time and energy attacking each other, rather than going after the Democrats. That doesn’t mean, of course, that Republicans should never mount primary challenges.

But when do such challenges make sense? If an incumbent Republican is not a conservative (Susan Collins, say) and a more conservative challenger has a good chance of winning the general election, then a primary challenge is in order. But that isn’t the case here: Enzi is a solid conservative with a 93% lifetime American Conservative Union rating (92% in 2012). He recently voted against the Gang of Eight’s immigration bill. Cheney may well be a little more conservative than Enzi, but going after a 90+% conservative is fratricide.

We have primaries for a reason, don’t we? If Cheney’s bid is so ill-considered, Wyoming Republicans (also known as most Wyoming voters) will let her know. Hinderaker concludes, “Cheney is neither significantly more conservative than Enzi nor significantly more electable; her real advantage as a primary candidate is that she is significantly more glamorous. That isn’t enough.”

Yeah, but there’s something to be said for glamour.

Way back in spring 2010, I declared that Republican Bobby Schilling of Illinois could beat incumbent Democratic representative Phil “I don’t care about the Constitution” Hare. Schilling did beat him, rather handily, 52 percent to 42 percent.

Then Illinois’s state legislators set out to redraw the district lines, and Schilling saw his district shift dramatically: It added parts of Rockford and Peoria and lost Quincy, Decatur, and Springfield. Under the tougher lines, and with home-state President Obama at the top of the ticket, Schilling lost, 53 percent to 47 percent, to Democrat Cheri Bustos.

Schilling is apparently close to deciding on whether to run again:

The Rock Island Republican Party hosted a barbeque in Peterson Park. In addition to burgers and brats, there was music and games.

The barbeque was also a chance for people to meet local elected officials. One of the people at the barbeque was former Congressman Bobby Schilling who says he’s leaning toward running for Congress in Illinois’s 17th Congressional District against Democrat Cheri Bustos.

“There are a lot of promises that were made that aren’t being kept. I’ve had a lot of, of course Republicans and I’ve had a lot of Democrats come to me and say, hey you’ve got to take her out in the off year,” said Bobby Schilling.

Schilling says he plans to make an announcement Monday at 4:30.

His comeback bid will be helped if Cheri Bustos says she doesn’t care about the Constitution.

Safe to say gun control will be a big issue in Colorado’s elections in 2014:

Sounding more like he was running for governor, House Minority Leader Mark Waller announced his bid Monday to succeed John Suthers as attorney general.

In his announcement made at the University of Denver School of Law, the Colorado Springs Republican talked about the state’s unemployment rate, federal mandates and the Legislature’s approval of controversial gun measures as part of his reasons for seeking the office.

Waller criticized Democratic legislators for accepting telephone calls while on the House floor from Vice President Joe Biden, who was encouraging them to approve two gun measures that went into effect Monday.

At the time, lawmakers were discussing bills to require background checks on all gun purchases and limit the size of gun magazines.

“It was incredibly disappointing in the Legislature this year to see East Coast politicians drive our agenda,” Waller said.

Waller will face Cynthia Coffman, chief deputy attorney general, in a primary; the winner “will face Democrat Don Quick, who was the Adams County district attorney until term limits prevented him from running again last year.”

Coffman, too, will be running against the state’s newly passed gun-control measures:

In the wake of tragic shootings in Newton [sic], Connecticut and Aurora, Colorado, the General Assembly reacted by passing a trio of bills this session impacting gun purchasers and owners. If I’d had the opportunity as a member of the legislature, I would have voted against all three bills. It is admirable to want to stop future tragedies. However, this package of legislation does nothing to address the causes of such horrifying mass shootings. Simple answers elude us when we fail to recognize the complexity of the questions we should be asking. Law-abiding Coloradans have the right to possess guns for protection of their families as well for hunting and sport. I will do my part as Attorney General to preserve those rights.

Huge Jolt before the Independence Day holiday begins: A key provision of Obamacare is delayed; Obama fiddles as Egypt (and the rest of the Middle East) burns, and then these developments in Kentucky . . . 

Wait, This Is the Democrats’ Great Hope in Kentucky? Her?

Meet Alison Grimes, the woman Democrats are thrilled to have running against Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky:

Even Alison Lundergan Grimes didn’t know what she would announce to the world late Monday afternoon when she arrived at the building she used as the headquarters for her campaign in 2011. Or, at least, she didn’t let on to the more than 100 supporters she called there that she had made a decision about running for the U.S. Senate until the very end of the meeting.

Interviews with more than a half-dozen people who attended the meeting — several of whom asked not to be quoted — yielded descriptions of Grimes’s approach to the announcement as “unorthodox,” “unprecedented,” “fascinating” and, at times, “surreal.”

Instead of telling supporters whether she was running for Senate, Grimes opened it up for them to tell her what they thought. After the first several people spoke, Grimes began calling on others by name to give their takes. After nearly an hour, a consensus emerged: she should run for the party’s nomination to challenge U.S. Senator Mitch McConnell.

She’ll let you know what she’s decided regarding one of the most important decisions in her life . . . after her Committee of 100 gets back to her.

Of course, this sort of surprise, no-decision-until-the-Committee-of-100-speaks approach does have its, er, challenges:

On Tuesday, two very basic, stripped-down websites, grimesforsenate.com and alisonforsenate.com emerged without links to contribute money. It is not yet clear whether Grimes’s campaign controls those sites.

“Basic, stripped down”? That’s being generous. Let me put it this way: When you look like these . . . 

 . . . then no, neither she nor any allied organization owns those URLs, and the person who does is hoping to get a big check for them.

As for yesterday’s announcement, well . . . apparently it wasn’t the real campaign roll-out. That comes later.

The Grimes campaign says Monday’s announcement was not a rollout.

“Yesterday Alison was simply announcing her intentions to run. I’m certain when we do our rollout, you will see that this will be a top tier campaign and we will have the most professional organization in the state,” responded Hurst.

Do-over!

There’s a bizarre music video mocking Grimes from Mitch McConnell’s team. If you want to see her real announcement — before an “Allison Grimes for Secretary of State” banner — you can find it here.

“Boy, is her delivery wooden.” — Pinocchio.

Anyway, the primary argument from optimistic Democrats is that even though they haven’t won a U.S. Senate race in Kentucky since 1992, and even though Obama is phenomenally unpopular there, and even though Mitch McConnell is going to have roughly a bazillion dollars in his campaign account, and even though McConnell’s campaign team has elbows so sharp, they use them to remove staples, and even though turnout will likely be lower and more GOP-friendly in a midterm year, and even though a better Democratic candidate couldn’t beat newcomer Rand Paul in an open seat Senate race four years ago, and . . . er, wait, where was I going with this? Oh yeah, Democrats think they have a solid shot because McConnell’s poll numbers are pretty mediocre.

Of course, there’s this independent state house candidate in Kentucky who’s touting praise of himself from McConnell.

The independent campaign of John-Mark Hack in Central Kentucky’s special state House election came under fire Sunday for sending mailers with flattering comments about Hack by U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and several prominent Democrats.

Republicans and Democrats associated with Hack’s opponents accused him of misleading voters by implying he had endorsements he had not received.

Anyway, if McConnell is this toxically unpopular incumbent, as Democrats believe . . . why does this independent candidate think it helps his odds to remind voters that McConnell likes him?

But credit where it’s due; Grimes can wear a purple hat roughly the size of a minivan way better than McConnell can:

The Joker called. He wants his tablecloth back.

I wonder how many gun-control backers know that the Democrats’ candidate for governor in Virginia, Terry McAuliffe, wanted his party to drop its support of gun control after George W. Bush’s election victory in 2000:

By the middle of 2001, ditching gun control had become conventional wisdom among centrist Democrats. Sen. Zell Miller, D-Ga., said Al Gore had talked about it too much. Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, Gore’s running mate, thought gun control had cost the Democratic ticket “a number of voters who on almost every other issue realized they’d be better off with Al Gore.” Terry McAuliffe, head of the Democratic National Committee, in particular wanted his party to drop the issue.

Hey, Mayors Against Illegal Guns, did you know that? How about you, Organizing for Action? After all, you pledged to oppose every senator who voted against the last gun-control bill, including Democrats Max Baucus of Montana, Mark Begich of Alaska, Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, and Mark Pryor of Arkansas. Why would a gubernatorial candidate like McAuliffe get a pass? Because he says he now supports a renewal of the assault-weapons ban?

So he agrees with you, but not when he thinks it could hurt his party politically, like in 2001. You’re going to go all-out for a politician with that stance?

Elsewhere on NRO, Lee Habeeb defends Paula Deen, contending she faces a media firestorm merely for being “guilty of being Southern.” In yesterday’s Morning Jolt, I noted that there are a couple of aspects of Deen’s deposition that are largely overlooked in the public discussion:

The Deen Scream

A couple of questions and points to keep in mind, entirely separate from whatever you think about Deen’s testimony that she used the n-word when privately discussing her encounter with a bank robber who held a gun to her head, and on other occasions that she characterizes as “a long time ago” . . .

First, why is her use of the n-word perceived as a career-killer, but the allegations that are driving the lawsuit are more or less overlooked in the coverage? Using the n-word is bad but legal; running a workplace where employees are harassed and intimidated violates the law. What started the whole legal battle:

Lisa Jackson said in the lawsuit that her physician encouraged her to quit working at Uncle Bubba’s Seafood and Oyster House because she suffered from panic attacks and other stress from working there. The restaurant is owned by Deen and her brother Bubba Hiers.

Jackson said in the lawsuit that Hiers routinely made inappropriate sexual and racial remarks and that she heard both Hiers and Deen use racial slurs. She also said in the lawsuit she saw Hiers violently shake a black employee and that he fostered an environment of intimidation.

You can read the deposition transcript here. Rod Dreher looks through it and concludes, “For all I know, Paula Deen should be held responsible for tolerating her dumbass brother’s juvenile behavior in the restaurant. But the idea that the woman is now professionally ruined because of this N-word thing and her antiquated Southern romanticism strikes me as unjust.”

Second, Deen’s market value to the Food Network and other employers is not based upon the quality of her food, but really based upon how people think of her — which is why they’re dropping her like a hot deep-fried potato.

You’ve probably felt this way before. You discover a new show or movie, with an actor or actress you come to love. This performer just seems to burst through the screen with a unique charisma, quickly becoming one of your new favorites . . . and then you come across an interview with this new star, and he starts blurting out political ideas that the guy with the boot on his head would find weird. You were prepared for this actor not be like the beloved character, but suddenly the image is shattered: It’s like finding out that the friendly neighbor who moved in next door worships Thor and the Norse gods, and considers old issues of Marvel comics to be infallible religious texts.

But we don’t generally appreciate actors for their political perspectives — their job is to put on the costume, remember their lines, go before the cameras or the audience and perform. On paper, Paula Deen’s personal views on race relations, her vision of a “really Southern Plantation wedding” with black servants that she wanted to throw for her brother, her politics, or any other non-food topic should be irrelevant.

But the Food Network isn’t really in the business of selling food. It’s actually in the business of selling personalities — likable, fun personalities who you would enjoy hanging around with, and who you’re willing to metaphorically invite into your home by tuning in to the channel. The deposition’s revelations greatly complicate the effort to persuade viewers that Deen is just a fun, bubbly Southern lady. Meanwhile, her dedicated fans reject that anything in the deposition could contradict the image they’ve watched and enjoyed on their television screens for the past years.

Third, how much is Deen getting the media hammer dropped upon her for this deposition because she already dodged a PR bullet?

Southern celebrity chef Paula Deen appeared on the Today Show with Al Roker this morning to address rumors that she has been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes.

Deen confirmed, “I was diagnosed three years ago during a regular physical exam with my doctor, that I had type 2 diabetes. I am here today to let the world know that it is not a death sentence. I am working with a very reputable pharmaceutical company. I’m working on a new program called ’Diabetes in a New Light.’ You can go to our website. I’m going to be there for you and help you manage every day of your life with this, because it can be done.”

The chef, who has come under fire in recent years for the unhealthy nature of many of her recipes, also announced that she is working as a paid spokesperson for the drug company Novo Nordisk, which manufactures Victoza — an injectable, non-insulin drug used in the treatment of type 2 diabetes.

Now, this is a free country, and you’re free to become wealthy and famous as a chef preparing buttery, sugary food, and you’re also free to make money endorsing insulin drugs. But that arrangement does appear to give Deen some influence over both supply and demand for that brand of insulin drug, hm? Imagine how we would feel if the owners of the Heart Attack Grill also owned the patents on some heart stents. (Read this summary of customers having cardiac incidents shortly after eating at that establishment.)

Above: Paula Deen, in her studio kitchen, which is adjacent to the National Strategic Butter Reserve.

Finally, before you instinctively respond, ’she’s a Southern white Republican, of course the media is out to get her,’ there’s the little detail that she isn’t one. Why is there this popular perception she’s a conservative or a Republican?

John Nolte: “What we are not seeing is the 2008 video below where Deen physically embraces First Lady Michelle Obama and gushes over how she is reminiscent of Jackie Onassis. . . .  Deen is a Democrat who campaigned for and supported Obama in 2008.”

From the Tuesday edition of the Morning Jolt:

Why Are the News Networks Serving Us Round-the-Clock Coverage of the Zimmerman Trial?

Yesterday morning, I tuned in to Daily Rundown . . . and found most of the show’s opening was consumed by George Zimmerman trial discussion, and soon pre-empted by live trial coverage. I had been scheduled to appear on The Lead with Jake Tapper as part of their roundtable today . . . and was told Monday evening that they’re likely to be pre-empted by live trial coverage this afternoon.

Egypt’s got a widespread, increasingly violent uprising — Turkey and Brazil, too, the death toll in Syria just hit six figures, the Obamacare implementation train wreck continues, and we get nonstop coverage of every witless witness in this case.

Monday, CNN “accidentally” showed viewers defendant George Zimmerman’s Social Security number, which spurred righteous rant from Allahpundit:

. . . the excuse will be that it was an accident, that they were caught by surprise when unredacted personal information was shown in court. Maybe. They know not to air images of the jurors, they know not to air grisly photos of the crime scene, but apparently they don’t know that sometimes police reports with people’s vital info are shown onscreen in court during trials.

Here’s the thing: Even if this shot is accidental, the only reason the proceedings are on TV to begin with is because the media’s obsessed with the idea that Zimmerman committed a racial atrocity and must be punished for it. Trials typically don’t get saturation coverage because the facts are interesting and tragic and there’s a legit dispute as to whether the prosecution’s or defense’s story of what happened is true. They get saturation coverage because there’s an obvious innocent victim/diabolical defendant dynamic that the media’s interested in.

From the beginning, with the Times pushing its “white Hispanic” description of Zimmerman, the press has strained hard to make the Trayvon Martin shooting a passion play about whites treating black life cheaply in modern, post-civil rights America. As terrible as the prosecution’s witnesses have been thus far, there is no scenario — zero — in which most of the press concludes that acquittal on the murder charge is just rather than unjust. Zimmerman must be guilty, morally if not legally. Progress demands it. Against that backdrop, why be surprised that CNN would show his social security number onscreen? The cameras are there because the press has issued its verdict. Intentional or not, this is part of the sentencing phase.

When some future PhD candidate is doing his dissertation on the total collapse of American news gathering and journalism in the twenty-first century, they’ll cite the coverage of this murder a lot. You recall the egregious “editing” of the defendant’s 911 call:

NBC News has completed the internal investigation into the edited tape of George Zimmerman’s 911 call, which was aired on Today. The network admitted an “error” and apologized to viewers.

The edited call was aired on Today, but was aired repeatedly — including during MSNBC segments about the Trayvon Martin case. NBC’s audio made it seem as though Zimmerman voluntarily offered that Martin looked suspicious because he was black. The unedited audio, The Hollywood Reporter notes, “reveals that Zimmerman didn’t mention Martin’s race until the 911 operator asked him, ‘Is he white, black or Hispanic?’”

This March 2012 article from the Poynter Institute for journalism detailed and verified what seemed odd about the initial coverage of the case — i.e., all of the photos of the 17-year-old shooting victim made him look like he wasn’t old enough to go to high school.

Since the shooting of Trayvon Martin became national news, two photos have come to define the emotionally and racially charged narrative.

News organizations initially had just a few photos of Martin to choose from, and just one of George Zimmerman, the neighborhood watchman who shot and killed him. More recent photos have emerged lately, but a month after the shooting, the narrative already has been established.

This is the most recognized image of Trayvon Martin, although it’s several years old. (Associated Press)

“The challenge we have is a lot of folks are getting a very surface view from the photos,” said Orlando Sentinel photo editor Tom Burton. “Photos can be used to get people emotionally involved and we need to be careful. It’s a concern if we had more of a choice, but we are limited by availability.”

The dominant photo of Martin shows him 13 or 14 years old, wearing a red Hollister T-shirt. Other photos, none of them recent, depict a young Martin in a youth football uniform, holding a baby and posing with a snowboard. He is the picture of innocence.

The most common photo of Zimmerman is a 2005 police mugshot. He is 22 in the photo, which was taken after he was arrested for assaulting an officer. (The charges were dropped.) He looks unhappy, if not angry.

The contrast — the two photos are often published side by side — has led to criticism that news media have tilted the story in favor of the 17-year-old victim and against the 28-year-old man who shot him.

“The images used are clearly prejudicial to both men,” said Kenny Irby, Poynter’s senior faculty for visual journalism and diversity. “If those are the repeating images, then we continually reinforce prejudice and negative emotions. We never get to appreciate the life experience or further context of either individual.”

You and I don’t really know what happened that night down in Florida. We may think we know, based on what we have seen and read, but ultimately, the trial is to determine whether a crime was committed. Yet since the shooting garnered national headlines, we have seen Americans on every social network furiously insisting that they knew what had happened, and that Zimmerman is guilty of murder, or that he is guilty of nothing more than deadly self-defense as a dangerous young man viciously attacked him. It’s an unfortunate, deadly circumstance that would seem to have limited ramifications for us, and yet the media treats it as if it is some sort of defining story of the ages, with deep meaning and revelations about the true soul of America.

Like the Paula Deen controversy, this is a he-said, he-said dispute that we’re supposed to line up and take sides over, screaming at each other with absolute certainty about facts that we cannot possibly know.

What’s the point of this coverage, media? What do you hope to illuminate by turning this case into the biggest trial since O. J. Simpson? If Allahpundit’s cynical assessment is wrong, how do the editorial directors of these large journalism institutions explain their coverage?

Oh, there’s President Obama’s job-approval rating, down there.

Hmm.

Bit of a rough patch, Mr. President?

Buyer’s remorse kicking in?

Progressive Democrats are elated that Alison Grimes, the Kentucky secretary of state, will run against Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell in 2014.

I wonder if they realize that the top donors to her 2011 secretary of state bid include the Kentucky Bankers Association, R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., and the Steptoe & Johnson lobbying firm . . . a firm whose clients include the American Gas Association, the Institute of International Bankers, ChemTex International, the Society of Independent Gasoline Marketers of America, Peabody Energy (the largest private-sector coal company in the world) and shale-gas developers.

Eh, they’ve got a narrative that makes them feel good, so I guess they’ll probably stick to it. I suppose her donations from progressives’ least-favorite companies and industries is somehow . . . magically not compromising or something.

UPDATE: The University of Virginia’s Larry Sabato is skeptical that Grimes will grab the momentum: “Crystal Ball holds firm on Likely R rating. McConnell has enormous advantages in strongly anti-Obama Kentucky. Low turnout midterm, too.”

Bryan Smith, a Republican primary challenger to Representative Mike Simpson of Idaho, must be feeling cheery about a splashy debut. Smith raised $147,000 in the second fundraising quarter of 2013, with 96 percent coming from Idaho donors.

In one month, Smith raised more than Simpson’s previous challenger Chick Heileson raised in both his entire 2010 and 2012 races combined. Smith’s campaign website only went up June 26. Smith is the owner of several small businesses in Idaho. Simpson won the 2010 GOP primary with 58 percent of the vote, and the 2012 primary with 69 percent of the vote.

Idaho’s second congressional district scores an R+17 in the Cook Partisan Voting Index, and while Simpson is conservative by national standards, he has irked some conservatives with his votes for TARP, federal projects that some label earmarks, and raising the debt limit. Simpson’s lifetime American Conservative Union rating is 84.5 (out of a possible 100) but his lifetime rating with the Club for Growth is 58 (out of 100). He was one of three House Republicans who voted against an amendment to bar ACORN from receiving federal funds.

According to Open Secrets, Simpson raised a mere $85,850 for this cycle as of March 31, and has $71,827.

Of course, money goes a little further out in Idaho.

Virginia governor Bob McDonnell, whose term ends in January, is ending what once looked like a quite successful term with a terrible morass of ethics allegations, including disturbing reports of receiving expensive gifts from wealthy supporters and the use of the governor’s mansion for a campaign donor’s corporate event.

Gov. Bob McDonnell on Thursday refused to answer questions on whether he knew that an expensive Rolex watch he received from his wife was, in fact, a gift from Star Scientific CEO Jonnie Williams Sr.

Following a radio appearance in Richmond, McDonnell was asked whether he realized that the $6,500 timepiece was a gift from Williams — a McDonnell mega-donor and friend whose dietary supplement, Anatabloc, has been promoted by first lady Maureen McDonnell on at least two occasions.

“I’m not going to comment any further on that,” he responded.

The governor did say that his wife did not work for Star Scientific, even as sources said she has received a number of checks from Williams, in addition to numerous expensive gifts that include thousands in designer clothing purchased during a New York City shopping spree in the spring of 2011.

The answers came during and after the governor’s appearance on WRVA. McDonnell, with barely six months left in office, finds himself entangled in three criminal investigations.

For an opposition party, this would normally be a golden opportunity, a chance to campaign in 2013 on the need to clean up Richmond and end a way-too-cozy relationship between elected officials and wealthy donors.

The problem is that the Democrats’ gubernatorial candidate, Terry McAuliffe, is pretty much the living embodiment of a way-too-cozy relationship between elected officials and wealthy donors.

Back in the mid-1990s, McAuliffe was more or less bragging about it:

His closeness to the first couple and the expanding network of political contacts he has built in the Clinton years have also enhanced an enterprise that Mr. McAuliffe has built more quietly: a web of business deals, from telecommunications to real estate, that the fund-raiser keeps far from the public spotlight. His business confederation, a veritable McAuliffe Inc., has generated tens of millions of dollars, but Mr. McAuliffe keeps his affairs so private that he does not even have a business listing in the Washington telephone directory.

His quietly acquired private fortune is illustrative of changes in the political culture here. Raising money for politicians was once a ticket to an ambassador’s post or other influential job in the government. Other presidential money men have hung shingles as lobbyists, openly trading on their access, or peddled influence as lawyers.

Charting a new course, Mr. McAuliffe has transformed the art of raising money for public figures into the art of raising money for himself, leveraging a personal fortune from his political fund-raising contacts.

Mr. McAuliffe lives in a Virginia suburb of Washington but calls a Florida house-building company his main business. And though he is chairman of the Florida company, he was unable to provide its address in a deposition this year. The aide who handles his frenetic schedule has been working out of Mr. McAuliffe’s obscure title insurance company in Florida.

Although the capital is the central nervous system of both his fund-raising and business dealings, Mr. McAuliffe does not have his own Washington office, so when he is in town he often conducts business at restaurants like the Palm and the Oval Room. In lengthy interviews at both restaurants he shed some light on his private deal-making and its symbiotic relationship with his political fund-raising.

”I’ve met all of my business contacts through politics. It’s all interrelated,” he said. When he meets a new business contact, he went on, ”then I raise money from them.”

Among those political contact/business contacts was the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. That organization gave McAuliffe a deal that is unbelievable . . . in the sense that you cannot believe that there wasn’t some other angle that went undisclosed to the public:

In the late 1990s, some of McAuliffe’s business ventures came under investigation by the U.S. Department of Labor, which filed suit against two labor-union officials, both of them with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers pension fund, for entering into questionable business arrangements with McAuliffe. Both officials later agreed to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in penalties for their actions, and the union itself had to reimburse its pension fund by nearly $5 million.

In one deal, McAuliffe and the fund officials created a partnership to buy a large block of commercial real estate in Florida. McAuliffe put up $100 for the purchase, while the pension fund put up $39 million. Yet McAuliffe got a 50-percent interest in the deal; he eventually walked away with $2.45 million from his original $100 investment. In another instance, the pension fund loaned McAuliffe more than $6 million for a real-estate development, only to find that McAuliffe was unable to make payments for nearly five years. In the end, the pension fund lost some of its money, McAuliffe moved on to his next deal, and fund officials found themselves facing the Labor Department’s questions…

On October 16, 2001, Jack Moore and another official named in the suit agreed to pay six-figure penalties for their role in the McAuliffe ventures, and the electrical workers union was forced to reimburse the pension fund for its officers’ failure to act “with the care, skill, prudence, and diligence . . . that a prudent person acting in a like capacity and familiar with such matters would use.” McAuliffe was not charged with any wrongdoing; his $2.45 million payday, while a violation of common-sense norms of business propriety, did not break any laws.

Just the guy Virginians should entrust the public treasury too, huh?

Ken Cuccinelli’s campaign for governor in Virginia thinks they’ve caught their rival, Democrat Terry McAuliffe, exaggerating his business accomplishments again:

Did Terry McAuliffe Inflate Claims About His Home-Building Company’s Productivity?

In a speech to Loudoun County Democrats on June 1, 2013, Terry McAuliffe claimed that he “built 6,000 homes” during his tenure at American Heritage Homes.
“I’ve been in real estate; I’ve built 6,000 homes.” [Terry McAuliffe, Remarks to Loudoun County Democrats, 6/1/3013 http://youtu.be/OxpA0b6ys7o]

McAuliffe’s official LinkedIn page echoes the 6,000 homes claim.
“Within 5 years, McAuliffe and his team successfully built the company into one of the largest and most successful home building companies. During his tenure as chairman, AHH built over 6,000 homes and created thousands of jobs in the construction business.” [“Terry McAuliffe,” LinkedIn.com]

During his 2009 campaign, McAuliffe touted a different — yet still inflated — figure.
“McAuliffe then claimed that his home-building company built 1,300 homes at its peak, but an adviser later clarified that figure was closer to 800” [Amy Gardner, “McAuliffe's Background Could Prove A Liability,” Washington Post, 5/3/09]

McAuliffe was Chairman of American Heritage Homes for five years, from 1996 to 2001.
“Chairman, American Heritage Homes, 1996-2001.” [“Terry McAuliffe,” LinkedIn.com]

“Terry McAuliffe also served as Chairman of American Heritage Homes — which he acquired when it was a struggling home building company on the verge of bankruptcy.” [“Terry McAuliffe,” LinkedIn.com]

Data from on Florida property records in counties where AHH operated, cross-referenced with deeds in which AHH was listed as the grantor indicate between 4,378 and 5,341 homes were built under McAuliffe’s leadership, depending on the exact dates of his tenure.

Voters may figure 4,400 to 5,400 is close enough to 6,000. However, this is something of a pattern for McAuliffe, and some of his past exaggerations have been considerably bigger:

McAuliffe’s tendency to exaggerate his successes adds to that perception. Describing the apartments he purchased with the union fund, McAuliffe said he “went through every apartment myself, like 1,600 of them, to make sure the toilets worked” — but then added: “Well, I didn’t go through 1,600. But I went through every property exhaustively. Sure I did! I owned them!”

McAuliffe then claimed that his home-building company built 1,300 homes at its peak, but an adviser later clarified that the figure was closer to 800. And at a candidates’ forum in December, in response to Moran’s claim to be the only candidate who had run a business and raised a family in Virginia, McAuliffe boasted of launching five businesses in Virginia.

It turned out that all five are investment partnerships, with no employees, registered to his home address in McLean.

Apparently Terry McAuliffe is just not a details guy.

The front page of the Washington Post declares: “the exposure of hundreds of pages of previously classified NSA documents indicate that public assertions about these programs by senior U.S. officials have also often been misleading, erroneous or simply false.”

Since those of us outside of government have no way to independently verify what we’re told about domestic surveillance programs, every lie makes it tougher to swallow that whole “trust me” line.

The article features a sample of some of that tough congressional oversight and scrutiny that we’re constantly hearing about:

Jane Harman, a former ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said that speaking about secret programs can be a “minefield” for public officials.

“Are people deliberately misleading other people? I suppose it can happen,” Harman said in an interview. Facts can be obscured through “selective declassification that means you put out some pieces but not others,” she said. “But I assume most people are acting in good faith.”

Reassuring to know that the former ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee recognizes that it is theoretically possible for espionage professionals to lie.

I return from vacation with an epic Morning Jolt, if I may say. There’s a look at the massive protesting crowds in Egypt, a dissection of the Paula Deen controversy, three key paragraphs from a particular book you’ve heard a lot about lately, and more pictures and one-liners than usual.

Man, You Europeans Were a Bunch of Suckers for Obama’s 2008 Rhetoric.

Hope and change, baby! Back in 2008, Germans overcome with enthusiasm for the Democratic presidential nominee referred to their own country as “Obamaland.”

Now . . . well, I’ll let this picture from AFP sum it up:

“Stasi 2.0.” Dang, that’s going to leave a mark. Obama’s just lucky that these latest revelations broke after he gave his overhyped Brandenburg speech.

According to Der Spiegel, the NSA has been going through the phones, computers, and who knows what else of European Union officials. If European politicians were any angrier, they would be commenting on Daily Kos. They’re so mad, Islamic Rage Boy is telling them to calm down. Alec Baldwin is imploring them to not lose their temper.

Really, they’re ticked:

Senior European Union officials are outraged by revelations that the US spied on EU representations in Washington and New York. Some have called for a suspension of talks on the trans-Atlantic free trade agreement.

Europeans are furious. Revelations that the US intelligence service National Security Agency (NSA) targeted the European Union and several European countries with its far-reaching spying activities have led to angry reactions from several senior EU and German politicians.

EU and German politicians on Sunday, however, were reacting primarily to the revelations that the US had specifically targeted the 27-member bloc with its surveillance activities. “If these reports are true, then it is abhorrent,” said Luxembourgian Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn. “It would seem that the secret services have gotten out of control. The US should monitor their own secret services rather than their allies.”

Asselborn characterized the operation as a breach of trust. “The US justifies everything as being part of the fight against terrorism. But the EU and its diplomats are not terrorists. We need a guarantee from the very highest level that it stops immediately.”

A guarantee from the president of the United States that we will no longer collect intelligence on officials in EU countries? “Bzzz! Sorry Hans, wrong guess. Would you like to go for Double Jeopardy where the scores can really change?”

If you’re a European diplomat, and you didn’t already assume that your phone calls, e-mails, and files are constantly being targeted by intelligence agencies from all kinds of countries, hostile and friendly and everything in between . . . well then, fire your counterintelligence staff. Welcome to the real world, Hans. If you’re got information worth having, then somebody, somewhere, is trying to get it.

There’s a line of dialogue from Heat: “Assume they got our phones, assume they got our houses, assume they got us, right here, right now as we sit, everything. Assume it all.” It’s good advice for anyone connected with sensitive information, because even if U.S. intelligence agencies never contemplated snooping in those EU diplomats’ files, the Russians, Chinese, and who knows who else did it, and continue to do it, too. You’re only as secure as your countermeasures.

As an American, I’m not particularly bothered by the NSA giving a technological colonoscopy to every electronic gadget used by every European diplomat. That’s just good old-fashioned intelligence-gathering. The U.S. Constitution’s Fourth Amendment doesn’t say Jacques merde about unreasonable searches on foreign officials.

Of course, it doesn’t bother me because I’m not a European diplomat and I never really thought Obama was the embodiment of hope and change. If I had gone to that big rally in Berlin in 2008 and told my constituents that this president really was the polar opposite of George W. Bush in all the ways that mattered to those kumbaya-minded Europeans, well . . . yeah, I’d feel like a fool, too.

Let’s close with a few words from Obama’s speech in Berlin:

Even as we remain vigilant about the threat of terrorism, we must move beyond a mindset of perpetual war. And in America, that means redoubling our efforts to close the prison at Guantanamo. (Applause.) It means tightly controlling our use of new technologies like drones. It means balancing the pursuit of security with the protection of privacy. (Applause.)
 
And I’m confident that that balance can be struck. I’m confident of that, and I’m confident that working with Germany, we can keep each other safe while at the same time maintaining those essential values for which we fought for.
 
Our current programs are bound by the rule of law, and they’re focused on threats to our security — not the communications of ordinary persons.

Congratulations, EU officials. We don’t think you’re ordinary!

No NSA records were used in the research for this BarackObama.com fundraising message; it just feels that way. Jon Carson, executive director of Organizing for Action, wants you to know he and his staff have been checking up on you:

I just got a list of everyone who’s pitching in to build Organizing for Action — and it looks like you’re not part of it.

Here’s the record we have for this exact email address:

    — Organizing for Action member: No
    — Suggested donation today: $5

So here I am, on the Sunday morning of the biggest deadline we’ve faced as a young organization, and I’m asking you, earnestly and directly:

Please chip in $5 or more to build OFA today:

https://donate.barackobama.com/Sunday-Deadline

We have so many big fights we want to take on, and what we do depends on the resources we have at midnight tonight.

I hope you’ll help.

Thanks,

Jon

Jon Carson
Executive Director
Organizing for Action

The e-mail’s subject line: “Is this a mistake?”

“Don’t think we’re not keeping score, brother.” — President Barack Obama, April 2009.

From the last Morning Jolt until July 1:

Oh, Terry.

McAuliffe is at it again, hoping you don’t pay any attention to anything but what he says.

While McAuliffe is viewed by many as an entrepreneur and businessman, the Republican campaign has been quick to point out two of McAuliffe’s ventures, GreenTech and new energy firm Franklin Pellets, have shown sluggish growth.

McAuliffe conceded the businesses haven’t taken off as rapidly as he’d hoped during a visit to nearby Loudoun County on June 14.

“I’ve been involved in starting two very 21st-century innovative businesses. They’re both start-ups. They’re both successful today at different elements in what they’re doing. They take time, maybe they take longer than we’d hope,” he said.

Define “successful.”

An upstart electric car company made the promise of providing hundreds of new jobs in North Mississippi almost one year ago. Taxpayers helped foot the bill to land Greentech Automotive, and now they want a return on their investment.

When a company commits to creating hundreds of jobs, it gets people’s attention.

Now model cars are gone from outside of the plant. The only evidence Action News 5 investigators found of any electric car production were a couple of cars whizzing around the parking lot after our crew started filming.

Based on last year’s announcement this facility should be booming by now.

For months, the Action News 5 Investigators asked to get back inside Greentech to see the operation and the Mid-Southerners hired to fill those promised positions. Greentech Vice President Marianne McInerney denied our requests each time, but share 78 employees worked inside.