HOT5 Daily 10/29/2010

1. "Obama on the Daily Show: How the Political Class Thinks" They'll do the thinking and deciding for us, because they know better.

Representative Sample: Elected officials aren’t supposed to vote for what is right in their minds alone. What seems right in the halls of power amidst meetings with tax-eater special interests and arm-twisting White House political hacks is quite likely not what’s right for the people elected officials are supposed to represent. This sort of backwards thinking, internalized even by the President, is exactly why the American electorate is upset with the political status quo.

2. "The GOP will take back the House. But can they stay in power?" Good question.

Representative Sample: The real issue for the GOP will be in the transition from opposition party, a much easier job, to that of being in-charge and actually having to govern. The new Republican speaker–probably John Boehner–and his party will have to find a way to not get voted out of power in 2012. The GOP has been talking about cuts, both in taxes and government spending, but now they’ll have to deliver.

3. "Why Is Osama bin Laden Going After the French?" Reasons and speculation.

Representative Sample: Bin Laden's remarks demonstrate this conflation, equating France's military involvement in Afghanistan with restrictions on Muslim religious expression in public, France's strong business and political interests in Africa, support for local regimes, and recent (if limited) armed intervention in Mali.

4. "Control" For those interested in military history/theory/strategy.

Representative Sample: The primary aim of the strategist in the conduct of war is some selected degree of control of the enemy for the strategist’s own purpose; this is achieved by control of the pattern of war; and this control of the pattern of war is had by manipulation of the center of gravity of war to the advantage of the strategist and the disadvantage of the opponent.

5. "Liberal Learning Process" Short but good.

Representative Sample: So back in Bill Clinton’s first term, the Democrats tried to create government health care which caused huge anger which led to Republicans gaining both the House and Senate in 1994. Democrats decided their problem was that they didn’t successfully pass health care

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