1.) Nevadans want Harry Reid to stop porking them — “Republicans are betting that Nevada’s angry electorate — infused with many tea party insurgents eager to vote for Angle — is not nearly as receptive to the old-fashioned politics of pork as it was when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid easily won re-election six years ago,” reports the AP. To whit: Ads highlighting all the money Reid has stolen from other states and given to people who voted for him in Nevada are not helping him at all in the polls. According to a flack for the DCCC, “Nobody in this environment is going to tout, ‘Look at me spending.’” How unfortunate for Reid that no one told him not to talk about his Robin Hood act! Or maybe they did, and Reid just didn’t care? After all, Utah’s Mike Lee calls pork spending–Reid’s favorite thing ever!–“the political lubricant that keeps this big machine going and keeps it growing.”
2.) Bill Clinton spurts wisdom on blue dres–er, um, state — “Whenever you make an important decision when you are mad, there is an 80 percent chance you will make the wrong decision,” Bill Clinton told a Pennsylvania crowd yesterday, without mentioning that the same goes for any decision one makes with an intern sitting on one’s lap. After shaming a crowd of Democratic voters for being angry about their district’s high unemployment level, Clinton taught them the correct way to view an election. “Every Republican in the country wants this to be a referendum on your being mad, or disappointed or frustrated. Well, there’s plenty to be mad about, plenty to be anxious about,” Clinton said. “But an election is an employment decision. It is not a referendum. It’s a choice.” While it’s possible for an election to be all three of those things, this time, it is not. “There is always a gap between the time when you do things that will help and the time people can feel it,” Clinton said of policies that have failed to improve the lives of anyone but a handful of lobbyists. “This election is occurring in the gap. So if the other side would just get you to quit thinking and just vote your frustrations, it’s a referendum on your feelings … and you’ll make a mistake.”
3.) Window of opportunities for Dems to stifle political speech closing — With regards to the Disclose Act, writes The Daily Caller’s Jonathan Strong, “insiders say it’s difficult to foresee what the mood in Washington will be after Republicans make major gains on Nov. 2. Will Democrats be fearful of flaunting the public’s repudiation at the polls? Or will Democrats, with wounds fresh from thousands of negative television ads, come back determined to slay the outside money beast?” As Strong points out, expediency is part of the game. Or was. Dems used Disclose to attack outside GOP groups whose members apparently still care about winning elections, and to try and staunch GOP donations. California Republican Rep. Dan Lungren has suggested a compromise for authoritarian Dems and cash-happy cons. “Lungren’s view,” writes Strong, “is to loosen restrictions on donations to candidates, while increasing transparency so voters can follow the money.”
4.) Community colleges screwed by stimubucks — SURPRISE: The healing hands of the ARRA have actually given leprosy to another sector of the economy. According to Inside Higher Ed, “An annual survey of state directors of community colleges, released Wednesday, reveals that only 11 states have plans for how to balance their budgets once federal stimulus dollars are gone. Accordingly, officials in 21 states predict that the end of the stimulus funding will result in operating budget cuts for higher education this fiscal year.” So not only are shovel-ready projects a myth, but now another faction under the banner of Municipal Workers 4Ever is bitching that life will be hard again when the free money goes away.
5.) Department of Education turns bullying into a Civil Rights Issue — A short string of unconnected post-bullying suicides has inspired the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights to begin meddling with America’s schools in a whole new way. According to a memo from the OCR, the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the ADA, and Title IX all apply to hiding a web cam in the room you share at Rutgers with a gay guy who sometimes fools around with other gay guys while you are away. This is an unacceptable violation of human rights, says the OCR, and “school districts may violate these civil rights statutes and the Department’s implementing regulations when peer harassment based on race, color, national origin, sex, or disability is sufficiently serious that it creates a hostile environment and such harassment is encouraged, tolerated, not adequately addressed, or ignored by school employees.”
6.) GOP begins jockeying for things — “With polls suggesting Republicans have a strong chance of claiming a majority in the House next week, veteran Republicans who hope to be Appropriations Committee chairman are campaigning for limits on earmarks, among other issues,” reports the Wall Street Journal. Rep Jeff Flake, a true fiscal conservative, is not holding his breath. “It’s going to have to move from being the favor factory to some kind of slaughterhouse,” he told the Journal. Can we get an Amen?