News of the Week for August 18^th, 2013

• Obama Scandals
• Gun Rights
• Hide the Decline
• Obamacare
• War & Terror
• National News
• Economy & Taxes
• International News
• Opinion

 

Obama Scandals

 

Lerner’s FEC Problem
Did she illegally disclose information to the FEC?

Were 400 Surface-to-Air Missiles Stolen in Benghazi Attack?
Are we still talking about Benghazi? Didn’t Miss Transparency say this was old news? Well, maybe this will jog her memory.

More Fast and Furious Guns Recovered in Mexico
More guns from the disastrous federal gun-walking program known as “Operation Fast and Furious” have been recovered in Mexico

WH Tried to Interfere with WaPo’s NSA Story
The Washington Post’s article detailing the fourth amendment abuses by the NSA got some push back from the administration who attempted to “edit” the article before publication.

Gun Rights

 

If Democrats Like Women, Why Do They Try To Disarm Them?
The Left’s current focus on “stand your ground” laws is intended to obscure the fact that what liberals really want to do is abolish the concept of self-defense; or, at any rate, self-defense with a firearm. That objective was made crystal clear in this exchange between Chris Matthews and Mark Glaze, the executive director of Michael Bloomberg’s anti-gun organization, the deceptively-named Mayors Against Illegal Guns. Matthews asked Glaze whether a man wielding an ax handle should be considered to be “armed” for purposes of self-defense with a firearm

Colorado’s Recall Elections Turn Into a Legal Mess
The good news for conservatives in Colorado’s two recall elections is that they’re still on. The bad news is that recent judicial decisions have made a hash of the rules.

Request for gun permits in Newtown set to double last year’s numbers: police
Police said the Connecticut town — where 26 students and six staffers were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School during gunman Adam Lanza’s massacre — has already had 211 permit requests this year, a number far above the 171 requested in 2012 and the 99 in 2011.

Colorado Senators Suffer Another Legal Setback In Recall Challenge
Supporters of embattled Colorado Senators John Morse and Angela Giron suffered another legal setback this week when District Judge McGahey ruled against mail ballots mandated by HB1303, the recent election reform law championed by Giron and Morse, because it conflicted with the State Constitution.

Hide the Decline

Environment &
“Green Energy”

 

Interior Secretary: I don’t want any climate-change deniers in my department
Buried in a lengthy Washington Post article about President Obama’s environmental policy is an illuminating anecdote about just how debatable the administration views climate change — namely, not at all

Most Geoscientists Reject Global Warming Theory
The argument from authority is the only argument climate alarmists are willing to make these days–when is the last time you saw one of them sharing a podium with a climate realist?–so this survey, reported by James Taylor of Forbes represents a significant nail in the alarmist coffin

Obamacare

Government in Healthcare

 

Reid says Obamacare just a step toward eventual single-payer system
In just about seven weeks, people will be able to start buying Obamacare-approved insurance plans through the new health care exchanges.

Dems using Obamacare as pathway to single-payer
Harry Reid stated on Friday that Obamacare was just a step in the direction of a single-payer health care system

Yet Another White House Obamacare Delay: Out-Of-Pocket Caps Waived Until 2015
First, there was the delay of Obamacare’s Medicare cuts until after the election. Then there was the delay of the law’s employer mandate. Then there was the announcement, buried in the Federal Register, that the administration would delay enforcement of a number of key eligibility requirements for the law’s health insurance subsidies, relying on the “honor system” instead. Now comes word that another costly provision of the health law—its caps on out-of-pocket insurance costs—will be delayed for one more year.

Brain surgeon ‘lied to patient’ about removing her tumour
Medical tribunal hears that woman was told her tumour had been removed when it had not

Obamacare provision: “Forced” home inspections
“Clearly, any family may be visited by federally paid agents for almost any reason.”
According to an Obamacare provision millions of Americans will be targeted.

States raise privacy concerns over health law navigators
Bondi said that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is making it easier for someone to be hired as a so-called navigator, cutting back on background checks and eliminating a fingerprinting requirement, which could make it easier for a person’s private information to fall into the wrong hands.

 

War & Terror

 

Reggie Love: Obama Played Cards During Osama Raid; ‘I Can’t Watch This Entire Thing,’ Obama Said
Reggie Love says he and President Obama played cards during the Osama bin Laden raid, and that the president told him, “I can’t watch this entire thing.”

Air Force Veteran Relieved of Duties for Disagreeing with Homosexuality
A 19-year veteran of the Air Force said he was relieved of his duties after he disagreed with his openly gay commander when she wanted to severely punish an instructor who had expressed religious objections to homosexuality.

National

 

Politico Stealth-Deletes Headline Critical of ObamaCare Event
Without noting what change has been made (there is a generic timestamp about an update), what had been a Sunday headline that correctly noted just how catastrophic a pro-ObamaCare event in Centreville, Virginia, had gone, is now a much more positive headline about how the ObamaCare “message war” has gone local.

Newark Mayor Cory Booker pocketed ‘confidential’ annual payouts from law firm while in office
Cory Booker pocketed “confidential” annual payouts from his former law firm while serving as Newark mayor.

North Carolina governor signs extensive Voter ID law
North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory (R) on Monday signed into law one of the nation’s most wide-ranging Voter ID laws.

Drag Queens Perform at Air Force Base
The Obama Regime has made it clear that Christians are no longer welcome in the US Air Force (e.g., here and here). Drag queens on the other hand…

USDA Wants ‘Campus Ambassadors’ to Talk Peers Out of 3 a.m. Taco Bell
The Agriculture Department is recruiting college campus “ambassadors” to try to wipe the scourge of 3 a.m. Taco Bell from dorms and make students who often live on ramen noodles eat healthier.

So We’ve Got a Little Kid Praying TO Barack Obama Now
Obama’s iconography is still producing a cult around President Fore! with his 41% approval rating and his reset-reset with Russia.

Cory Booker’s Wild Hype-to-Accomplishment Ratio
Cory Booker has the largest hype-to-accomplishment ratio of anybody on the political scene since… well, since a guy who had been in the U.S. Senate for two years decided to run for president.

New York Health Department trying to cover up bedbug problem at its own headquarters
The Health Department is trying to sweep a bedbug problem at its shimmering Long Island City headquarters under the rug, sources told The Post.

Common Core: 3 x 4=11
This remarkable and very brief video clip shows what appears to be a teacher-training session for the controversial Common Core, our new de facto, Obama-imposed national curriculum. In it, the instructor says it’s alright if a student says 3 x 4=11. What matters, the instructor says, is not the right answer, but a good explanation of the “reasoning” behind whatever answer the child chooses to give.

More On Common Core Math
As a follow up to that amazing video in which it’s OK to answer 3 x 4=11, here’s some context. The source of the video is identified here (a community orientation session in Chicago). For more on how “fuzzy math” is encouraged by the Common Core, here’s an explanation at the website of the Indiana protesters who first objected.

Maryland Election Official Ignores Dead Voters on Rolls
Maryland state election official Mary Cramer Wagner has been told about dead voters on Maryland rolls, she just isn’t going to do anything about it. So she tells the Southern Maryland News.

‘Bias’ Against SSM?
A proposed law in San Antonio would set a troubling precedent.

The White House Thinks Terrifying Overreaction to Rodeo Clown Appropriate
A silly controversy surrounding a Missouri rodeo clown’s decision to don a mask of President Barack Obama before taunting bulls to attack him – a traditional practice in American rodeo culture – became frighteningly serious on Wednesday. Rather than push back against the overwrought response from some Obama supporters, offended by the mockery of the president, the White House has tacitly condoned their response. Clown-gate is no longer a laughing matter.

It Isn’t About A Clown: Missouri’s History Of Attacking Dissent
Missouri has a history of persecuting its residents for disagreement with Barack Obama. Clowngate isn’t the first assault against free speech. Let’s review.

The Coming Hillarycult?
The Left may succeed in turning Clinton into a cultural icon in the Obama mold.

Reince Priebus: Romney’s “self-deportation” quote was “racist” and “horrific”
Mitt Romney repeatedly used the term during the Republican primary campaign to talk about how his immigration enforcement policies would lead to unauthorized immigrants leaving the U.S. of their own accord, rather than needing to be deported.

The Five Pillars of Islam — in Kansas
The questions presents themselves: First, why would a school in the middle of the Bible Belt present something like this? Second, will they give the same pride of place to Christianity? Judaism? Mormonism? Zoroastrianism? Third, where is the ACLU? They have been quick to sue over so-called establishment clause issues in school in the past, so why are they not hammering Minneha Core Knowledge Magnet Elementary School for this outrageous promotion of religion?

How Franklin Roosevelt Devastated Black Sharecroppers
In the annals of disastrous liberal economic policies, Franklin Roosevelt’s Agricultural Adjustment Act, which paid landowners not to grow crops, ranks very high. It violated what David Henderson calls “Pillar of Economic Wisdom #9: The only way to increase a nation’s real income is to increase its real output.” Deliberately reducing output, as Roosevelt did on this and other occasions, is profoundly stupid.

Sen. Rand Paul’s summer break includes performing free eye surgery
Squeezed on his summer schedule between meeting with the Paducah Rotary Club and making an appearance at the Kentucky Farm Bureau Country Ham Breakfast, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., will be performing eye surgery on his constituents for free.

Something Evil This Way Comes With Obama’s New Labor Secretary
Thanks to Mitch McConnell and his fellow Senate Republicans giving in to Harry Reid’s “nuclear” threat last month, America’s employers–large and small–and their consultants and attorneys will be shocked when Obama’s new labor secretary Thomas Perez releases the Department of Labor’s proposed “persuader” regulations in November.

#SolidarityIsForWhiteWomen hashtag unleashes bitter intra-feminist racial grievances
Saturday Night Card Game — then they went after #BlackPowerIsForBlackMen and things really got bitter.

The Dems Rally Their Legions of Haters for 2014
This email arrived yesterday from MoveOn, whose communications are generally indistinguishable from those of the Democratic Party. The subject line was “New York Times stunner.”

 

Economy
& Taxes

 

Uber: Capitalism hits the streets
It used to be said that the business of America is business. The rest of the world marveled how the private and public sectors in the United States cooperated to create an ideal environment for the entrepreneurial spirit to thrive. Our nation surpassed Great Britain to become the world’s top industrial power in 1890 and never looked back. The U.S. economy is still the largest in the world thanks to a uniquely American competitive ethic that rewards effort, innovation and risk-taking. Here, unlike anywhere else in the world, anyone could become anything they wanted with hard work and ingenuity. That’s the American Way. That way, however, is under attack as government supplants business as the motivating force in the U.S. economy.

The Top-Secret Tax-Reform Debate
Congress is flirting with the possibility of doing something responsible, simplifying the tax code by eliminating some benefits such as those related to mortgages and property taxes. In the Senate, various grandees of both parties are pitching ideas to finance committee chairman Max Baucus (D., Mont.).

Cisco to Lay Off 4,000 Workers
Cisco plans to lay off 4,000 workers beginning this quarter, the networking giant announced Wednesday. The cuts amount to 5 percent of its workforce.

How The SEIU & Union Front Groups Want To Occupy Your Big Mac
With union bosses once again clamoring that they are ‘in crisis,’ union bosses are looking to expand their membership into areas that have been traditionally immune to unions.

What Corporations Spend Their Cash On
While bullish talking heads are quick to point out that corporate earnings have never been higher, they tend to get very quiet the second corporate cash flow generation is mentioned. The reason is simple: where non-GAAP earnings, much of which are vaporware such as exclusions and other adjustment involving addbacks for “non-recurring” events such as Cisco’s now annual mass termination announcement are indeed at nosebleed levels, actual corporate cash generation is a shadow if its former self which peaked in 2007 and has never been retraced.

 

International

 

Naval Buildup in Asia’s Game of Thrones
India recently passed a major milestone in the development of its blue-water navy: The country’s first nuclear-powered submarine successfully activated its reactor yesterday. As The Hindu reports, the sub—named the Arihant—is the first of four, all of which of the subs will carry K-15 missiles which can be launched from underwater and carry a nuclear warhead and hit targets up to 700 kilometers away.

‘Dying’ Russia’s Birth Rate Is Now Higher Than The United States’
This was not the headline that the Center for Disease Control’s National Center for Health Statistics gave its recent release of provisional fertility data for 2012. However, if you compare the most recent CDC data with Rosstat data on Russian births you see that, for the first time in a very long time, in 2012 Russia’s birth rate actually exceeded that of the United States. This is, to put it mildly, a significant reversal from the not too distant past when the US had a birth rate that was as much as 75% higher than Russia’s. As you can see, the speed and scale of the convergence is impressive

Hours after First Nuclear Sub, India Unveils First Home-Built Aircraft Carrier
India unveiled its first domestically produced aircraft carrier on Monday, just hours after turning on the reactor of the country’s first nuclear-powered submarine. The 850-foot, 37,500-ton INS Vikrant is built of local steel, the ”crowning glory” of India’s navy, a vice admiral said.

South Korea Joins Asia’s Naval Arms Race
Not to be outdone by the neighbors, many of which have launched powerful new naval assets recently, South Korea introduced a brand new “state of the art” submarine, the Kim Jwa-jin. The 1,800-ton vessel, South Korea’s fourth, was christened by President Park Geun-hye, the Defense Minister, and other senior military officials.

The Nile Runs Red
Yesterday’s confrontation between Egypt’s army and the Muslim Brotherhood may only be the beginning.

Egypt’s Coptic Church announces support for army, police
Egypt’s Orthodox Coptic Church announced on Friday its support for the military and security forces in their fight against what it called “groups of armed violence.”

M, F or Blank: ‘Third Gender’ Official in Germany from November
Germany is set to become the first country in Europe to introduce a third, “indeterminate” gender designation on birth certificates. The European Union, which is attempting to coordinate anti-discrimination efforts across member states, is lagging behind on the issue.

 

Opinion

 

Barbarians at the Campus Gates
Why colleges cave to the demands of student activists

Low Wages Can’t Be Solved By Turning Businesses Into Social Service Agencies
Many commentators on the left, labor activists, and sympathetic people of all stripes have bemoaned the stagnation in wages at the bottom of the labor market. Wages in the bottom half of the income distribution have not kept up with inflation since 2006. Workers in the bottom 20% of earners have done even worse than the average for the rest of the bottom half of earners.

Technocrats and Populists: Who Trusts the People?
I appreciate Ezra Klein’s engagement with libertarian populism, and what he views as a fraudulent perspective from the populists on the left and right. But I have a few issues with his analysis. First, I’ve seen nothing from the small cadre of libertarian populist writers out there that suggests life in America’s economy today is a zero sum game, or that bigness alone is the cause of all ills. The problem is not the bigness of the corporate Bigs — it’s that they have partnered with Big Government to insulate themselves from competition, socialize risk, and warp the marketplace in their favor by building “bigger moats”, to use Jamie Dimon’s phrase, around themselves. This exacerbates many existing problems and, in fact, inhibits the kind of economic growth that takes us out of zero-sum politics.

Are We Serious About Education?
Two recent events — one on the east coast and one on the west coast — raise painful questions about whether we are really serious when we say that we want better education for minority children.

There Is Only Gender
You might look at my Caucasian features and wonder why I am claiming to be an African American. I may not be a natural descendent of African American lineage, but I feel black and have thus decided to identify as African American. Since I identify as African American, I am African American, and you must accept me as such. Because I claim my identity as an African American, I demand that the law recognize me as such and afford me all the rights and obligations of that ethnicity.

The Golden Showers State
Now I’m about to write the most goddam patriotic thing ever written in history, so brace yourselves. America is the greatest country in the history of this planet, and if a man (for example) wants to go to a doctor to get pumped full of hormones and have his gennies cut off and replaced with an ersatz vagina, that person is still my fellow American and entitled to the same legal protections as everyone else. If a transgender person is assaulted, the person who carried out the attack should go to jail. At the same time, I have problems of my own, and it’s not my obligation, morally, professionally or otherwise, to worry about the sensitivities of people who actually think that God or nature made some sort of colossal mistake with their bodies. See? That’s tolerance.

11 Liberal Rules for Racism in America
When America was a racist country, Democrats were primarily the ones engaged in racism. However, now that racism has been largely relegated to the fringes of American society (the KKK, the New Black Panthers, the Nation of Islam, La Raza, MEChA, Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, American Nazi Party, etc.), the Democrats are constantly wagging their fingers about it. Of course naturally, given the racist history of the Democrat Party, liberals have managed to rig the rules in order to benefit themselves and hurt their political opponents. That’s a pretty neat albeit despicable trick that they’ve managed to pull off.

Our Postmodern Angst
In our unheroic age, victimhood has replaced valiant struggle.

Taken
Under civil forfeiture, Americans who haven’t been charged with wrongdoing can be stripped of their cash, cars, and even homes. Is that all we’re losing?

John Kerry: Boy Howdy, This Newfangled Internet Machine Sure Makes It Harder to Govern People
He is right, I suppose, and I guess I shouldn’t overread into the remark; and yet I can’t help but think, like any nobleman, he rues the day Guttenberg created his cursed invention and made the commoners less pliable and acquiescent than they had been.

Disagreement as ‘Harassment’? @StephHerold Says Tell the FBI
Talking back to a Queer Feminist is a now evidently a hate crime or something, and Badger Pundit chronicles how my reply to a “reproductive justice” activist made Sara Alcid a heroic martyr in the “War on Women.” Disagreement is hate, because feminism.

Liberals Reverse Survival of the Fittest Through Owl Genocide
Ironically, liberal proponents of Darwinism have worked a miracle of evil by reversing a natural process at the heart of Darwin’s theories: survival of the fittest. Their all-smothering welfare state provides financial incentives for the least fit to produce as many offspring as possible; whereas the taxpayers who finance their counterproductive lives of fecund sloth cannot afford many children and are too busy working to pay their taxes to raise them. Consequently, we are becoming genetically debased: conspicuously less industrious and less intelligent with each generation as we de-evolve into a species resembling an infernal cross between domestic pigs and tapeworms.

Obama’s unconstitutional steps worse than Nixon’s
President Obama’s increasingly grandiose claims for presidential power are inversely proportional to his shriveling presidency. Desperation fuels arrogance as, barely 200 days into the 1,462 days of his second term, his pantry of excuses for failure is bare, his domestic agenda is nonexistent and his foreign policy of empty rhetorical deadlines and red lines is floundering. And at last week’s news conference he offered inconvenience as a justification for illegality.

Be Afraid. The GOP’s Plan To Lose The House
Matthew Continetti has a post up at the Free Beacon entitled Be Afraid: The Democratic plan to take back the House. In it he argues the House GOP majority in danger because the Democrats, led by Obama, are playing for keeps and have already begun their campaig. He’s also worried that conservatives are being complacent in thinking that the electorate will be like 2010’s and not 2008 or 2012’s.

“We Don’t Have 10 Trillion People”
My old partner in crime Ken Green has one of his typically delicious op-eds out today in the Financial Post of Canada, commenting on the viral video “The Story of Stuff” that is all the rage among the green left (but I repeat myself). It’s the usual Malthusianism in fancy dress combined with big corporation conspiracy-paranoia about how corporations are all out to poison us, because somehow it is good for the bottom line to kill off all your customers.

Under Primary Threat? Go Shoot Something
When you’re a Republican incumbent facing a primary challenge, there’s only one thing to do: go shoot something. With lots of press.

Sensitive Clowns: The Erosion of Free Speech
“Controlling what people say is very close to controlling what people think.”

Shale gas is Rearden Metal
Why not? For the same rag-bag of made-up, disingenuous reasons which progressives have used to justify their war on progress since time immemorial: it’s unfair, it uses up scarce resources, it might be dangerous. Rand doesn’t actually use the phrase “the precautionary principle.” But this is exactly what she is describing in the book when various vested interests – the corporatists in bed with big government, the politicised junk-scientists at the Institute of Science (aka, in our world, the National Academy of Sciences or the Royal Society), the unions – try to close down the nascent technology using the flimsiest of excuses.

Look to the governors in 2016
Earlier this week, CNN asked me to write an op-ed on Ted Cruz, and whether he’s a realistic contender for the presidency. My reaction: Of course he is — but probably not in 2016. And for that matter, neither are the Republicans who seem to get the most mention for that position