Happy Back to the Future Day -- October 21, 2015. Marco Rubio points out that the Democrats are focusing on the future with . . . Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden. Wait, no Bernie Sanders, Senator? 
Separately, Doc Brown is allegedly going to help Carly Fiorina today. Habemus Oratorum Domum? Can Paul Ryan win the support of the House Freedom Caucus, the Republican Study Committee, and the Tuesday Group? If he can, forget the speakership, let's talk sainthood, because unifying House Republicans counts as his first miracle. Our Alexis Levinson, Eliana Johnson, and Elaina Plott have the scoop. Whether Ryan's proposals will be enough to placate conservatives who have been clamoring for broader institutional reforms that would democratize the House remains to be seen. Issa and Wagner say they did not see any opposition when Ryan concluded his speech, but in a conversation with National Review, Representative Tim Huelskamp, of Kansas, says he and others were "put off" by the "list of unmeetable conditions" Ryan had put forth, specifically his demand to repeal Thomas Jefferson's motion to vacate the chair, which gives representatives the power to oust a sitting Speaker, as they did with Boehner. "It was my understanding that Thomas Jefferson thought that was good for the House," Huelskamp says, "and Paul Ryan thinks he doesn't have to live by that?" Boehner's failure, Huelskamp adds, was in his desire to "consolidate power," and based on Ryan's message, it seems he's interested in doing the same thing. "What Paul Ryan is asking for is even more power and less responsibility." Look, Republicans, in the face of a lawless president, an opposition party that is increasingly openly socialist, a hostile, ruthless, unfair media . . . whomever we choose -- Ryan, Daniel Webster, whomever -- the party's got to unite behind him and start pulling the oars in the same direction. Either we hang together or we hang separately.
One Cheer for the Galactic Empire Daniel Drezner and Ben Domenech dissect the new Star Wars trailer and wonder whether one of the big surprises of the new film is the revelation that the Rebels' victory over the Empire in Return of the Jedi was short-lived, or more inconclusive with time. I'm choosing to interpret the plot hints so far as J.J. Abrams trying to save Star Wars from the morally-inverted mess that George Lucas created with the prequels. Back in 2002, Jonathan Last wrote, "The Case for the Empire," making the case that the original trilogy's villains had a point, at least based upon what we were seeing on screen in the new films. None of us would be making the "hey, the Empire wasn't really so bad" argument after watching Return of the Jedi in 1983. A concept like an "evil empire" was pretty clear both on and off the screen. 
"There were stories about what happened." "It's true. All of it." George Lucas's worldview -- after a few decades of luxurious comfort and marinating in Marin County life -- shaped some spectacularly twisted, morally inside-out storytelling instincts by the time he began the prequels. Even if Last goes too far, we couldn't help but feel a bit of sympathy for the Empire by the end of the prequel trilogy. In The Phantom Menace, we saw that for some unexplained reason, the Old Republic can't send a drone or probe to go and take pictures of a blockade of Naboo to confirm it's actually happening. They send two Jedi, a starship, and a crew; once those two Jedi return days later, the blockade is still considered unproven and nobody thinks to ask, "Hey, whatever happened to that ship and crew we sent with them?" ("Wait, you're saying a bunch of diplomatic personnel get killed in a brutal sneak attack, and nobody ever asks any questions about how it happened or why no one saw it coming? I love this government!" -- Hillary Clinton. ) The Jedi are so spectacularly morally warped that they shrug their shoulders at widespread slavery in Tattooine and are willing to gamble a nine-year-old boy's life in an insanely risky pod race rather than just slicing a wing or two off of slave-owning Watto and taking the T-14 hyperdrive. They'll gamble to free the child from slavery, but not his mother. This isn't nitpicking; these are basic plot points. In Attack of the Clones, we learn the Trade Federation, led by (sigh) Nute Gunray -- real subtle, George -- managed to stay in power even after having their invasion of Naboo repelled; it's post–Gulf War Saddam Hussein. The entire Republic is incapable of enforcing law, keeping the peace, or even recognizing naked territorial aggression, much less stopping it. It doesn't even have anything resembling a military! It's the United Nations, a distant debating society. Palpatine's plot to create a clone army makes a ton of sense, since the Jedi are barely useful as small strike teams, and clearly inadequate to the security needs of the era. Sure, he helps manipulate the Separatists into seeming like a large enough threat to justify the use and continued funding of a clone army. But once the clonetrooper/stormtroopers arrive, the galaxy has a good eighteen years or so of peace and order. (The new animated series, Star Wars: Rebels *, now features old-men clones who said they were decommissioned when the Emperor decreed they had outlasted their usefulness. Does this mean that the stormtroopers in the New Hope-Empire-ROTJ era aren't clones? When Han and Luke take the stormtroopers' armor, neither one feels the need to say, "Hey, what are the odds, these guys are twins!" Also... what did Han & Luke do with the stormtroopers' bodies?) Either way, by the time of Star Wars: A New Hope, the Empire has clearly moved beyond the original vision of an orderly galaxy and has now (1) far more destructive power than it needs (2) is over-reactionary (really? The Empire that has fleets of Star Destroyers feels the need to destroy _all_ of Alderaan to mitigate the Rebel threat? and (3) suffers the competence issues of any large bureaucracy: Military gunners ignore jettisoning escape pods; stormtroopers slaughter Jawas and kill of Aunt Beru and Uncle Owen without finding the droids; TK-421 isn't at his post; his transmitter doesn't work; nobody catches Kenobi or Luke or Leia wandering around the Death Star; no Star Destroyers provide cover for the Death Star on the approach to Yavin; Ozzel blows the sneak attack on Hoth, and finally the Empire has to turn to outside contractors -- Boba Fett and the bounty hunters -- for basic intelligence and counter-terrorism operations. 
Images get stuck in our collective consciousness. * Having sons, and having a good excuse to really be into Star Wars at age 40, is awesome. Please, No Zombie Export-Import Banks This morning, Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce distributed a thank-you letter to the members of the House of Representatives who did not sign Representative Stephen Fincher's discharge petition, which sidestepped the normal legislative process in an attempt to revive the Export-Import Bank. Dear [Member], Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce is strongly opposed to the efforts of 42 Republicans and the vast majority of Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives who banded together and signed a discharge petition to revive the now defunct Export-Import Bank. Earlier this year, the Congress wisely allowed the bank to expire, arguing that the wages of hard working American families should not be put at risk to finance loans for some of the world's most profitable and politically-connected corporations, such as Boeing and GE. American taxpayers are likely to conclude that the Members of Congress who support this blatant example of corporate welfare are not the legislators needed to make the truly tough decisions involving entitlement spending and tax reform. As an organization that supports a free marketplace with open and fair competition for all, we greatly appreciate your decision to not sign the Ex-Im discharge petition. Thank you for standing with the American taxpayers. We urge you to oppose any legislation brought before the U.S. House of Representatives that reauthorizes the Ex-Im Bank. ADDENDA: The Powers That Be at Regnery Publishing keep telling me to NOT promote the book until publication day, October 26. I think the idea is to blitz the world like crazy starting Monday. So if you've been thinking about ordering from Amazon, order it that day. If you're among those who have already ordered, thank you very much. I'll see some of you at the National Review Institute Dinner in Dallas tonight, or the Heritage Foundation luncheon in Washington D.C. tomorrow! | 
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