RUTHFULLY YOURS

Republicans wrested control of the U.S. Senate from Democrats last night, setting the stage for potentially dramatic legislative showdowns with President Obama during the final two years of his already-catastrophic presidency.

After a GOP electoral wave wiped out several Democratic senators who supported Obamacare, around 11:15 p.m. Eastern time major media outlets projected Republicans would hold at least 51 seats in the Senate in January. In the approaching 114th Congress both chambers will be under GOP control and in a position to hinder Obama’s agenda if lawmakers so choose. It also clears the way for Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to become the Senate’s first Republican majority leader since Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) left the post at the beginning of 2007.

The first big confrontation between Obama and Congress, a massively unpopular immigration amnesty that could trigger a major constitutional crisis, is already on its way. Several hours before the first polls closed in the East, ABC News reported that White House officials said the president would move forward with an executive order on immigration reform “no matter how big a shellacking Democrats” got Tuesday.

And what a shellacking Democrats received.

In Arkansas challenger Tom Cotton (R) picked off incumbent Mark Pryor (D). In Colorado Cory Gardner (R) defeated incumbent Mark Udall (D).

In Georgia, David Perdue (R) dispatched Michelle Nunn (D). Perdue garnered more than 50 percent of the vote, thereby avoiding a runoff election. The seat is currently held by retiring Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R).

In Iowa Joni Ernst (R) triumphed over Bruce Braley (D), a sitting congressman. The seat is now held by retiring Sen. Tom Harkin (D). In Kansas, incumbent Pat Roberts (R) beat back a fierce challenge from Greg Orman, an Independent with close ties to Democrats.

In the Bluegrass State, incumbent Mitch McConnell (R) easily bested challenger Alison Lundergan Grimes (D), Kentucky’s current secretary of state. Grimes refused in the closing days of the campaign to say if she voted for Obama for president.

In Montana Steve Daines (R) defeated extreme-left candidate Amanda Curtis (D). The seat is now held by John Walsh (D) who was embroiled in a plagiarism scandal.

Incumbent Jeanne Shaheen (D) in New Hampshire fended off a challenge from Scott Brown (R) who represented Massachusetts in the Senate from 2010 to 2013.

North Carolina incumbent Kay Hagan (D) was taken out by Thom Tillis (R). South Carolina’s Tim Scott (R) triumphed over Joyce Dickerson (D) to become the first popularly elected black senator in the South elected since Reconstruction.

In West Virginia U.S. Rep. Shelley Moore Capito (R) beat Natalie Tennant (D) to take the seat of retiring Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D).

As of just after midnight Tuesday night, Republicans had already gained a net seven Senate seats and control of the chamber, with Virginia likely going to a recount, Alaska pending, and a probable runoff win in Louisiana. Already it seems that they’ve gained at least a net of twelve House seats.

Back in May, we felt there could be a Midterm Tsunami. In August we again speculated about it. But how did Republicans pull it off?

Our last national poll, in October, showed that the president had significant disapproval – 56 percent of Americans disapproving of the job he’s doing — which had the potential to drive the election to the Republicans.

Although the Republicans led the generic ballot for Congress at the time by a point, 42–41, among very likely voters it was 46–41, and the undecideds for Congress disapproved of the president by 64 percent. In the last two weeks of October, it appears, these voters nationalized the race, and we finally saw the tsunami.

In the national exit polls from this election day, the president’s disapproval was similar to our poll — approve 44 percent, disapprove 54 percent.

Among the 44 percent who approved of the job the president was doing, Democrats led 88–11. But among the 54 percent who disapproved of the job the president was doing, Republicans led 82–16. The Republican strategy to nationalize congressional races worked.

What didn’t work? The president’s and Democrats’ strategy to run against Congress. Clearly Congress is less popular than the White House: Only 20 percent in exit polls approved of the job that Congress was doing, and 78 percent disapproved.

On the night of his 2012 re-election triumph, following his victory speech, President Obama walked off the stage and made separate phone calls to Nancy Pelosi and House Democratic campaign chairman Steve Israel . He told them he would spend the next two years helping Democrats retake the House in 2014, and he pledged to raise $50 million and devote his 2012 campaign manager Jim Messina to the task.

Two years later we know how that turned out. The Republicans on Tuesday defeated at least four incumbents to take control of the Senate and are adding to their majority in the House. Add the GOP sweep of most of the close races for Governor, including in states Mr. Obama won twice, and the vote is a major repudiation of the President’s governance.

That 2012 episode, reported at the time by the Washington Post, speaks volumes about the reason. Mr. Obama has consistently put liberal policy demands and partisanship above the goals of economic growth and compromise. Far from cementing a Democratic majority, his political posture has helped the GOP make a comeback. The question now is whether he will change enough to salvage his last two years as President.

Former Senior White House Advisor Karl Rove on the likelihood of a Republican Senate majority. Plus, his predictions for House, gubernatorial and state legislative races. Photo: Getty Images

Liberals are busy discounting Tuesday’s results as meaningless, a “Seinfeld” election about nothing, and it’s true that Republicans failed to offer much of a unified policy agenda. Yet the one issue that has been on the ballot everywhere this year is President Obama and his record.

The main common Republican theme has been linking incumbent Democrats to Mr. Obama and his 42% approval rating. In left-leaning Colorado they have moved the polls by charging that Mark Udall had voted with the President “99% of the time,” and in other states it was 96% or 98%. Mr. Udall lost.

Those Democrats in turn studiously avoided appearing with Mr. Obama, much less having him campaign for them, and the Senate challenger in Kentucky famously wouldn’t even say if she’d voted for him. Georgia Democrat Michelle Nunn identified herself explicitly with George H.W. Bush. Mr. Obama was consigned to campaigning in heavily Democratic states, like Maryland.

WASHINGTON—President Barack Obama hoped the midterm elections would help break the capital’s gridlock. Instead, they became a referendum on his presidency.

Voters went to the polls Tuesday deeply frustrated with the political system and handed Republicans a decisive victory. Mr. Obama was a central figure in key races where Republicans criticized his leadership.

Most Democratic Senate candidates refused to appear with Mr. Obama on the campaign trail, trying to distance themselves from an unpopular president. Democrats tried to keep the focus on policies of particular importance in their states.

Mr. Obama campaigned with just one Democrat running for the Senate—at a rally last weekend in Michigan, where his party’s nominee was widely expected to win. Mr. Obama said during the campaign season that while he wasn’t on Tuesday’s ballot, his policies were.
Republicans sought to make their races about both Mr. Obama and his policies. The president’s health-care law was the top issue in pro-Republican television ads run in four of 11 competitive Senate races this cycle, according to an analysis of Kantar Media/CMAG data by the nonpartisan Wesleyan Media Project.

In a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll released this week, 67% of registered voters said they want to see Mr. Obama change the direction he is leading the country “a great deal” or “quite a bit,” while just 42% approved of the job he is doing.

The president now finds himself seeking to rebound with a public that, however they voted Tuesday, is deeply dissatisfied with his leadership.

Other presidents have made significant changes after midterm elections. George W. Bush replaced his defense secretary, Donald Rumsfeld , after Republicans lost control of Congress in 2006 midterm elections that were dominated by deep voter disapproval of the Iraq war.

Obama’s pressure only begins with Iran
In the last few days, it has become clearer that the Obama administration’s ‎obsession over turning Iran into an ally, or at least no longer a foe, is the single ‎highest foreign policy objective for the White House. This new engagement with ‎the Iranians has included cooperation in the current fight with the Islamic State group in Iraq and ‎Syria, and the continuing negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program. The ‎importance of Iran to the administration became more evident when Deputy ‎National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes was caught on tape telling a group of ‎progressive advocates invited to the White House that a nuclear deal with Iran was ‎as big a deal for President Barack Obama in his second term, as passage of Obamacare was for the ‎first term. ‎

‎”Bottom line is, this is the best opportunity we’ve had ‎to resolve the Iranian issue diplomatically, certainly ‎since President Obama came to office, and probably ‎since the beginning of the Iraq war,” Rhodes said. “So ‎no small opportunity, it’s a big deal. This is probably ‎the biggest thing President Obama will do in his ‎second term on foreign policy. This is health care for ‎us, just to put it in context.”‎

The comparison of the Iranian track with the administration’s “all-in” commitment ‎to securing congressional approval for his health care reform legislation, is an ‎ominous sign. Within the administration, some of the savviest voices with long ‎experience in working with Congress, such as then-Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, ‎urged the president not to gamble on a big health care reform package in 2009-‎‎2010. The proposed Affordable Care Act was already drawing enormous political ‎fire from Republicans and the newly formed tea party movement, and major ‎elements of the bill seemed to be unworkable or unduly complex. But the president ‎decided, based it seems on the advice of others more ideologically attuned to his ‎politics (e.g., White House adviser Valerie Jarrett), to “go big,” and to try to be more ‎‎”transformative.” In the end, the legislation passed, but the electoral fallout in 2010 ‎proved a disaster for Democrats in the congressional midterms.

By now, everyone knows of the attacks by Islamists in our midst, against citizens in New York City, Oklahoma City, Ottawa, Ontario, and the planned beheadings by jihadists of citizens in Sydney, Australia. Well, almost everyone. President Obama insists it is simply “workplace violence, or lone wolf violence, or disgruntled and senseless violence.” So to, do many liberals who’ve made multiculturalism their non-thinking idol.

Unknown to most, there was another case of jihad, one the media was able to keep under wraps since it did not have the sensational elements of the ones mentioned above. In West Orange, New Jersey, a lovely middleclass suburb, an American jihadist, Ali Mohamed Brown, shot and killed a promising 19-year-old right on the street corner because, as he boasted to police, he was “looking to find an American to kill in retaliation for Moslem deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan.” The killing took place this past June 25.

Young Brendan Tevlin, beloved in his Irish Catholic community, was murdered precisely because he was American, by a jihadist roaming our suburban streets hunting down Americans. Mohamed called it a “just killing.” Identifying as a Moslem and not as an American, he took “revenge” against his fellow countrymen.

The media hasn’t covered the story, just as they never mentioned the jihadi motives behind the Muhammad/Malvo “Beltway” shooting spree at cars on I-95 a few years ago, the shooting by a jihadist at a Little Rock army recruitment center, the terrorist act in Seattle, the terrorist act in LAX, or, years ago, the terrorist act atop the Empire State Building.

Why the media silence? Contrast this to the recent wall-to-wall Ferguson, Missouri coverage and the relentless conclusions of “racism” heaped on a situation many believe was simply self-defense by a police officer. Yet, we hear nothing from the mainstreamers when it comes to home-grown Islamic killings of Americans, done in the name of Islam.

It has become apparent that the mainstream media does not report on the important news as much as they select news items that affirm their liberal templates, primarily portraying whites in America as racist and hostile to minorities, including Moslems, even though, worldwide, Moslems number 1.4 billion. The Ferguson case fits right into their concocted template of pervasive white-on-black racism, whereas American jihadists acting brutally against fellow Americans does not.

Undisclosed Information About Ebola By Marilyn Penn

Tucked inside the first section of today’s WSJ (11/4) on page 7 is the followng headline: “For Ebola Survivors, Sex Carries Added Risk.” In the article we discover that the virus can live in sexual fluid for as much as 90 days after people are cured of the disease. We learn that Doctors Without Borders warns discharged patients to use condoms and other African clinics give survivors certificates that emphasize NO SEX FOR 90 DAYS in capital letters. Apparently, here in our own country the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention has issued similar warnings. Why has the general public not heard of this? The NYTimes devotes two full pages to a discussion of ebola in its Science Section today – not a mention of this topic; nothing about it on the tv talk and magazine shows.

It never came up when it was revealed that Dr. Spencer had had conjugal relations with his fiancee; it never was discussed when the public reaction to the need for quarantine was compared with the “hysteria” that accompanied the initial reaction to AIDS. It certainly was avoided in coverage of the reaction of state governors to the need for a more rigorous quarantine than suggested by the federal government. President Obama emphasized the need to focus more on honoring the heroic health workers who travel to Africa to fight the disease at its source and cautioned against any reactions not strictly based on science. Yet there is empirical evidence that the ebola virus remains alive and transmittable more than three times longer than has been suggested for safe quarantine. Is it not a proper scientific concern to determine whether this is accurate, and if it is, to make the appropriate changes in our course of treatment and prevention of this disease?

Could it be that the failure to raise this issue was a political decision meant to forestall any association of ebola with AIDS? Whatever the reason, now that this has been openly revealed as an additional source of anxiety, we need a firm and unequivocal statement from the CDC and the president who has already insinuated himself into the proper handling of this disease. NOW.