Saturday morning roundup

Andrew McCarthy at NRO says never mind talking about pulling US funding from the UN. What needs to be done is kick it out of its headquarters on the East River.


David Harsanyi at The Federalist reminds us that a cornerstone of Dem scaremongering regarding repeal of the "A"CA is the taunt, "Yeah? What are you gonna replace it with?"  Well, "replacement" is kind of an odd word to use (unless your point is to scaremonger).

Now, if by “plan,” [the NYT's Nicholas] Kristof is using the contemporary Left’s definition, meaning a expensive, constricting federal regulatory scheme that forces Americans to participate through a series of mandates, then one hopes Republicans never have a “plan.” If the word “plan” still means “a proposal for doing or achieving something,” the GOP have many.

The rest of Harsanyi's piece turns to what those who have always opposed the "A"CA have indeed been proposing.

It is worth reiterating that the replacement plan doesn’t have to be conceptually or functionally similar to Obamacare, no matter how often the Paul Krugmans of the world demand it. The comprehensiveness and rigidity of Obamacare are things to avoid. So replacement plans can be passed piecemeal.

For instance, the GOP can start by overturning the “nondiscrimination rule” that assaults religious freedom. They can get rid of the individual mandate. They can cut funding to abortion mills. They can deregulate to bring down costs and grant waivers that allow states to innovate in ways previously closed to them. Democrats demanded change overnight. The GOP doesn’t have to do the same. 

Wolf Howling, guest posting at Bookworm Room,  looks at the full range of leftist reaction to the Chicago incident in which an autistic white 18-year-old was held hostage, tortured and taunted by four black people, and how it encapsulates the excuse-making impulse that keeps any of our cultural ills from getting healed.

John Hinderaker at Power Line says that while the report crafted by the FBI, CIA and NSA doesn't provide any evidence whatsoever that Russia hacked the DNC email system, it does provide an important overview of Russian involvement in disruptive movements in the US, from such recent phenomena as Occupy Wall Street to Soviet-era utilization of "intelligence officers, influence agents, forgeries and press placements" to bad-mouth pro-freedom, pro West US political figures. The current situation is a prime example of the Left seizing the opportunity to mouth the right words - Russia is a wily adversary tireless in its efforts to take the US down a peg - but those words ringing hollow given their blatant ignoring of the problem in question having gone on for decades.