An uptick in Republican support for a pathway to citizenship could be statistical noise. And even if it is real, it could reverse itself. Some political science research suggests that anti-immigrant attitudes increase when immigration is in the news.
But there are reasons to think that immigration, over all, has become less of a hot-button issue. A Pew study found that the number of illegal immigrants living in the United States has dropped since the 2007 push for change. Another Pew survey found that only 44 percent of Republicans see dealing with immigration as a top priority. That’s down from previous peaks of 69 percent in 2007 and 61 percent in 2011.
Earlier this week on Letterman, Chris Christie laughed off jokes about his weight:
Connie Mariano, a former White House physician, recently worried that Christie’s weight puts him at risk of a heart attack or stroke should he become president. Paul Campos notes that a recent study “found that people as heavy as Christie have a 29% increase in mortality risk, compared to otherwise similar people of normal weight.” But age is a bigger factor:
In January of 2017 Christie will be 54, while the current Democratic frontrunner for her party’s presidential nomination, Hillary Clinton, will be 69. … All other things being equal, government actuarial tables reveal that the odds that a 69-year-old woman will die between January of 2017 and January of 2021 are 115% higher than the odds a 54-year-old man will die during that four-year time period. In other words, age poses almost exactly four times greater a mortality risk to Hillary Clinton than weight does to Chris Christie, in regard to the chances that either would die during their first presidential term.
[I]t might be helpful to realize that as president, Christie would have medical care second to none. He’d have a doctor with him at all times. His diet would be monitored rigorously. The chances that he’d stick to an exercise plan and a medication regimen designed to mitigate the effects of his obesity are high. And that would reduce the likelihood of any sudden problems.
You probably heard the story about the Applebee’s server who was fired for posting a receipt on which pastor Alois Bell had crossed out an added gratuity and wrote, “I give God 10%. Why do you get 18?” Brian Palmer zooms out:
Long before Alois Bell stiffed her server on religious grounds, American waiters complained about the Sunday afternoon crowd leaving Bible quotes in lieu of cash tips. A 2012 study by Cornell University tipping expert Michael Lynn showed that Jews and people with no religion tip better than self-identified Christians. (To be fair, the overwhelming majority of Christians tip between 15 and 20 percent, just lower in the range than nonbelievers and Jews.) This phenomenon is difficult to explain, but it’s possible that Christians think their devotion to the next life exempts them from such social niceties as tipping in this one. That confidence in their ultimate salvation may also diminish their sense of financial obligation to God. Perhaps churches need to modify their appeal to something like “faith alone, plus 10 percent.”
Half of the sequestration would apply to the military budget, an area where most cuts would probably enhance rather than damage future growth. Reducing the defense budget by about $55 billion a year, the sum at stake, would most likely mean fewer engineers and scientists inventing weaponry and more of them producing for consumers.
Ryan Avent agrees that defense spending “isn’t great stimulus” and thinks the key question is “whether the cuts can go through at acceptable economic cost”:
Where the payroll-tax cut could quite reasonably be expected to lapse as the economy improves (before it improves enough, as it happens), we can’t count on defence cuts being back on the table in a few years. Taking that into consideration alongside the Fed’s recent actions I’m not at all convinced that the sequester hitting would be a net negative for America. It’s not the policy I’d choose. But that is basically never a realistic possibility.
According to the American Veterinary Medicine Association, “controlled studies have not identified this breed group as disproportionately dangerous.” The American Temperance Testing Society (ATTS) puts thousands of dogs – purebreds and spayed and neutered mixed-breeds – through their paces each year. The dogs are tested for skittishness, aggression and their ability to differentiate between threatening and non-threatening humans. Among all of the breeds ATTS tested – over 30,000 dogs through May 2011 — 83 percent passed the test. How did pit bulls do? They showed an above average temperament, with 86 percent making the grade. Pit bulls are the second most tolerant breed tested by ATTS, after only golden retreivers.
Pit bulls do not have special “locking jaws” – that’s pure mythology. They don’t demonstrate some sort of special shaking action when they bite – all dogs display similar biting behavior. Pit bulls do not exert an unusual amount of bite-force for their size. Multiple studies have found that bite force correlates to body-weight, and tests of three breeds conducted by National Geographic found that the American pit bull terrier exerted less bite-force than German shepherds or Rottweilers.
Marin Cogan admits that she has a hard time telling politicians apart:
It’s possible that I’m the world’s worst congressional reporter. But it’s not just me. Nearly every reporter I got to know in my two years covering the Capitol has some cringe-worthy story of confusing the identity of a member of Congress. It’s easy to understand why it happens. Every couple of years, our schizophrenic electorate reshuffles the deck, casting out some of the middle to older aged white men who still overwhelmingly dominate the ranks of our Congress for a new class of middle to older aged white men (with some notable exceptions).
A new tumblr features images of cards sent to Newtown in the wake of the Sandy Hook tragedy. Newtown resident Ross McDonald explains:
Walk into the Newtown town hall and you see bin after bin of cards and letters—some 500,000 at least, more arriving every day. They line both sides of the long main hall, and fill up the branching halls and offices. Posters, paintings, quilts, and flags cover the walls. There are banners from students at Columbine and Virginia Tech; there are letters from school kids across America and from people as far away as France and Australia. And there are boxes of Kleenex on every table for those who read them. …
We already have thousands of images, we’re gathering more, and we’ll be publishing batches every day until we run out. We have approached town officials about creating an extensive digital archive; it is my hope that we might also find a physical home for all these letters. Because the wisdom they express should not be lost to history.
Dexter Filkins recalls the drone strike civilian victims he has interviewed. His view of the drone war more generally:
[I]f there is one overriding factor in America’s secret wars—especially in its drone campaign—it’s that the U.S. is operating in an information black hole. Our ignorance is not total, but our information is nowhere near adequate. When an employee of the C.I.A. fires a missile from an unmanned drone into a compound along the Afghan-Pakistani border, he almost certainly doesn’t know for sure whom he’s shooting at. Most drone strikes in Pakistan, as an American official explained to me during my visit there in 2011, are what are known as “signature strikes.” That is, the C.I.A. is shooting at a target that matches a pattern of behavior that they’ve deemed suspicious. Often, they get it right and they kill the bad guys. Sometimes, they get it wrong.
Rove wants the GOP to nominate candidates who can, you know, win:
In order to accomplish Rove’s goal, Jonathan Bernstein suggests that GOP elites elevate “real issues that have immediate material effects on large primary electorates, as opposed to purely symbolic issues”:
The drawback to relying on symbolic issues is that sane candidates are at a disadvantage. After all, they tend to be constrained by reality, and so they’re less likely to outbid the nuts when it comes to who loves the flag the most or who hates the “Ground Zero Mosque” the most; they’re more likely to slip up and admit that all candidates are patriotic or that not every Muslim community center is necessarily part of a jihadist plot. If the debate is on real policies with real consequences, however, reality-based conservatives are playing on ground that favors them.
Kornacki wonders whether Rove’s plan will backfire:
[W]hile it’s possible the Conservative Victory Fund could save the GOP a few seats in 2014, there’s also the potential that its existence will only strengthen the right’s resolve to fight the party establishment – and to help the very candidates it’s designed to stop.
The Dish 