Nov. 6 (Bloomberg) — President Barack Obama’s decision to seek authorization for the battle against Islamic State extremists will test the ability of a divided Congress to agree on a war strategy for Iraq and Syria.
After insisting for months that he has all the authority he needs to launch the airstrikes already under way against the radical Sunni group, Obama reversed course and called for a new authorization for the use of military force a day after his party lost control of the Senate.
I’m sure the timing of this move is completely fortuitous.
Researches achieved brain-to-brain communication where one person was able to control the movements of another person’s hand by simply thinking about it.
The study — published yesterday by The University of Washington — involved three pairs of participants working together to play a computer game. Each duo was comprised of a “sender†and a corresponding “receiver,†who sat in a room a half mile away.
In the experiment, each sender was placed in front of a computer game that involved firing a cannon and intercepting rockets to protect a city. The senders, however, were unable to physically interact with the game. They could only defend the city by thinking about moving their hands to fire the cannons and intercept the rockets. Meanwhile, the corresponding receivers sat in a distant, dark room with no ability to see the game and their right hands positioned over touchpads that controlled the game.
The senders were hooked to EEG machines that read brain activity, and their partners wore caps equipped with technology to stimulate the part of the brain that controls hand movements. When the senders thought about moving their hands to shoot the cannon, their partners’ brains received the message to do so via signals sent from their partners’ brains to theirs over the Internet.
Accuracy among the pairs varied from 25 to 83 percent, but the researchers found that most misses were caused by senders failing to accurately execute the “fire†command, not by failure on the receivers’ ends.
Something like this has been going on in Chicago for decades. Why I’d guess in a couple of hundred precincts around the city the precinct captain’s brain was controlling voters’ hands.
George Will outlines what I think is a very possible battleplan for the incoming Congress. It consists of enacting the following:
Abolish the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (empowered by Dodd-Frank)
Get rid of the Independent Payment Advisory Board empowered by the PPACA
Repeal the PPACA’s tax on medical devices
Authorize construction of the Keystone XL pipeline
Mandate completion of the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste storage facility
Enact the REINS act
I wasn’t familiar with that last. Here’s how he describes it:
It would require that any regulation with at least a $100 million annual impact on the economy — there are approximately 200 of them in the pipeline — be approved without amendments by a joint resolution of Congress and signed by the president. “In effect,†writes the Hudson Institute’s Christopher DeMuth, “major agency rules would become legislative proposals with fast-track privileges.†By requiring legislative complicity in especially heavy federal burdens, REINS is an ingredient in the recipe for resuscitating Congress, which has been far too eager to cede legislative responsibilities to the executive branch.
I don’t see nearly enough about strengthening the economy in that list but my impression is that most of those have bipartisan support and considerable popular support. The actual list could be a lot worse and probably will be.
I may as well throw my oar in on why the Republicans did so well yesterday. I think there are basically three reasons. First, better candidates. Here in Illinois is a perfect example. Even Pat Quinn’s supporters wouldn’t characterize him as the best of all possible candidates. We didn’t have a general repudiation of the Democratic Party and the president remains pretty popular here in Illinois. And Rauner didn’t run a great campaign although he did wage a more cheerful one. More people thought Rauner would make a good governor than thought Quinn should remain governor. Simple as that.
Second, local conditions. In the states that mattered the president is a lot less popular than he is in California, New York, or Illinois. Running against him was a good strategy in those states and the president stepped in it in his insistence on nationalizing the election.
Third, the Democrats have taken their eyes off the ball. It’s still the economy, stupid. It’s the issue that matters most to most people. It’s the most important issue among women. It’s the most important issue among Hispanics. The heavily Wall Street oriented recovery isn’t cutting it for most people. Focusing their attention on healthcare reform, immigration, access to birth control, or anything other than the economy was a strategic error.
You may be able to eke out a victory in a general election by cobbling together voters from marginalized groups using wedge issues but that doesn’t work nearly as well in a midterm when voters in those groups don’t show up at the polls.
I’m sure the new Republican Congressional leadership will be claiming a mandate within moments. I hear that Rand Paul has already proclaimed the midterms a referendum on Hillary Clinton which is battlespace preparation if I’ve ever heard one.
Not only do I think that this election gave the Congressional Republicans a mandate I think it’s given one to President Obama, too: to work together on the people’s business.
The voters have spoken. Not that I think that either side wants to listen.
Here’s a wild idea. Maybe the enormous blitz of campaign advertising actually inhibits voting. People become so tired of the whole thing that can’t even be bothered to vote. Talk about voter suppression!
I stayed up late last night—all the way to 10:00pm. At that point many of the important races had not been decided. I awoke to something which while still not technically a wave was pretty close to it, especially from the point of view of the Senate. I think that USA Today’s presentation of the data is a good one.
Several races surprised me. I didn’t see that horserace in Virginia coming and I suspect that the Democratic Senate re-election committee didn’t, either. As of this moment Warner is holding on by a hair. It’s definitely recount territory.
For the Senate elections to my mind the real story is how were so many polls so wrong? There were many races that were supposed to be closer that weren’t really close at all (Kentucky, Georgia, Kansas). What was going on there? Was the desire for a horserace story so overwhelming?
Multimillionaire Republican Bruce Rauner proclaimed victory and “a new direction†as Illinois’ next governor Tuesday night, even as Democratic incumbent Pat Quinn refused to concede defeat.
“This is a historic time in Illinois,†Rauner told cheering supporters. “The voters have spoken. The voters have asked for divided government for the first time in many years.â€
But a defiant Quinn declared, “I don’t believe in throwing in the towel†with votes uncounted.
“We will never, ever yield to a result until all the votes are in,†Quinn said, suggesting a complete count could take days
As I read the Illinois recount laws the results won’t be within the margin for a legitimate challenge and a judge would be wrong in granting a statewide recount but I wouldn’t be at all surprised if there were court challenges and there was a recount. I’m having a flashback to 2000 except without the reasonable doubt.
It’s possible that Chicago’s turnout will be below the turnout for the 2010 midterm elections In 2010 the turnout was 36.9%. As of 6:00pm, just an hour before the polls closed, turnout was 33.5%. I’m surprised it was that high.
Dick Durbin is being projected as winning his re-election bid which is completely unsurprising.
The Watcher’s Council has announced its 
