News of the Week for December 15^th, 2013

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

 

Obama Scandals

 

Issa to Sebelius on Healthcare.gov Probe: Failing to Turn Over Info is Criminal Obstruction of Justice
In a letter sent late Wednesday, Chairman of the House Oversight Committee Darrell Issa reminded Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius that obstructing a congressional investigation is a crime.

Gun Rights

 

ATF uses rogue tactics in storefront stings across nation
ATF agents befriended mentally disabled people to drum up business and later arrested them in at least four cities in addition to Milwaukee. In Wichita, Kan., ATF agents referred to a man with a low IQ as “slow-headed” before deciding to secretly use him as a key cog in their sting. And agents in Albuquerque, N.M., gave a brain-damaged drug addict with little knowledge of weapons a “tutorial” on machine guns, hoping he could find them one.

Rhode Island recall: Gun-rights battle could backfire on town leaders
Four members of the Exeter, R.I., town council wanted the state to handle concealed-carry permits. Not only did they fail, but gun rights residents have now put them up for a recall election.

How the ATF Manufactures Crime
A Milwaukee Journal Sentinel investigation exposes the agency’s shameful tactics.

Colleges can’t ban guns, rules Florida court in major 2nd Amendment victory
The Florida appeals court ruling that the University of North Florida was violating state law when it prohibited a woman from storing a gun in her vehicle while she attended class will spill over to cities and counties statewide, an attorney said Wednesday.

Denver Post scrubs ‘socialist’ from profile of Arapahoe shooter
Several people noted a curious edit to the Denver Post’s profile of Arapahoe High School shooter Karl Pierson Friday. As Bearing Arms reports, the Denver Post originally reported that a classmate in Pierson’s economics class described Pierson as “a very opinionated Socialist.” Curiously, the story was updated to send the word socialist down the memory hole, and Pierson was merely described as “very opinionated.”

The Denver Post Explains Their Edit
As you know, a classmate described the Arapahoe shooter as “a very opinionated Socialist.”

Hide the Decline

Environment &
“Green Energy”

 

Snow closes roads in Israel, is a source of wonder in Egypt
Snow coated domes and minarets Friday as a record Middle East storm compounded the suffering of Syrian refugees, sent the Israeli army scrambling to dig out stranded motorists and gave Egyptians a rare glimpse of snow in their capital.

Obamacare

Government in Healthcare

 

Covered California gave consumers’ contact info to agents
California’s health exchange has provided insurance agents with names and contact information for tens of thousands of people who went online to check out coverage but didn’t ask to be contacted.

Nevada ‘Protects’ Consumers by Refusing to Disclose Whether Navigators Are Felons
Nevada’s Division of Insurance has claimed that by withholding information about navigators’ criminal records, it is acting in the best interest of consumers and public safety.

Those Unattainable Invincibles
MoveOn.org worries about adverse selection.

Euphoria of Obamacare becomes nightmare of higher premiums and deductibles
From a distance of three and a half years, the events of March 23, 2010, the day President Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act into law, seem like something from another world.

Juking the ObamaCare Stats
HHS won’t disclose the enrollment data that really matter

Washington State Obamacare exchange raids enrollees’ bank accounts.
Heck of a job there, Governor Jay Inslee (Democrat). Heck of a job.

Drafting Docs
Look for doctors to be conscripted to treat Medicare and Medicaid patients.

Congressmen Want to Bring Obama to Court for Not Faithfully Executing Laws
30 members support the House Resolution calling for civil action.

Today’s #ObamacareFail News Roundup
Keeping up with the serial failures of Obamacare is getting to be a full time job. Well, at least someone’s getting a full time job out of this catastrophe. CBS News reports reports what everyone with a lick of common sense already knows (but that would rule out the White House and most of Congress): Obamacare is having a chilling effect on hiring

Obamacare and the Widening Gyre
As many writers have been noting, particularly over the past week. the Obama Administration is getting more and more desperate in trying to make Obamacare work, or at least to avoid complete disaster. They are tossing aside enacted laws, published regulations, and their own computer systems to find some way to avoid the hard collision between what the ACA says and what is happening in real life. This was all predictable and predicted — not just over the past 2 1/2 months, but over the past four years.

Thousands of HealthCare.gov sign-ups didn’t make it to insurers
Enrollment records for close to 15,000 HealthCare.gov shoppers were not initially transmitted to the insurance plans they selected, according to a preliminary federal estimate released Saturday.

Reports of erroneous WA health exchange debits
For the second week in a row, the Washington Healthplanfinder website is down, and it’s causing problems for people who are dealing with billing issues. Some of them say the website is mistakenly debiting their accounts.

 

War & Terror

 

Afghanistan agrees on regional security pact with Iran
Concerned about the presence of foreign forces in the region, Iran and Afghanistan have decided to sign a joint cooperation agreement to boost “regional security” amid American efforts to force the Afghan president to seal a security pact with Washington.

The End of History Ends
For the first time since the Cold War, the United States is going to have to adopt a coherent Eurasian strategy that integrates European, Middle Eastern, South Asian and East Asian policy into a comprehensive design.

Chinese Naval Vessel Tries to Force U.S. Warship to Stop in International Waters
Landing ship sailed dangerously close to U.S. guided missile cruiser

National

 

Ex-San Diego Mayor Bob Filner sentenced for sexual harassment
The disgraced pol, who resigned earlier this year after multiple women accused him of harassment, got three months of home confinement and three years of probation.

10-year old Johnny Jones suspended for shooting imaginary arrow
How about these nut case zero-tolerance school officials be reduced to imaginary jobs?

Jury Quickly Convicts Woman In False Rape Trial
A Michigan woman accused of lying for years about having cancer was convicted Thursday in a separate case of falsely accusing two men of rape.

Throwing the Book at Yale Republicans
Selectively applying rules, school officials tried to squash Republican campaign efforts.

Ted Cruz Coloring Book Hits the Shelves
Ted Cruz’s 21-hour speech on the Senate floor gained him national headlines, but it also earned him a coloring book. “Cruz to the Future” features moments from the Texas senator’s first year in Congress, as well as highlights his stances on issues such as gun control.

An Education in College Justice
Under pressure from the Obama administration, a university tramples the rights of the accused.

It’s Tea Party Versus Republican Establishment in Georgia
A deal for hundreds of millions of dollars in public money to draw the Atlanta Braves north of their downtown home is pitting conservative tea party activists against the elected and civic leaders in the staunch Republican county, with opponents saying the use of public money to help a private business is not what American capitalism should be about.

Stockman Challenges Cornyn in Texas US Senate Race
In a last-minute surprise late Monday, U.S. Rep. Steve Stockman filed paperwork to challenge fellow Texas Republican and powerful incumbent John Cornyn for the U.S. Senate next year.

L.A. County Sheriff’s Officials Arrested in FBI Sting
Sixteen officials with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department were arrested on Monday in part of a two year federal investigation into allegations of abuse and corruption at Men’s Central Jail.

Obama Takes Control of DC Court of Appeals
Watch the other hand. While the herd is distracted by showy hagiographies of a former communist terrorist and the fiery crashing and burning of ObamaCare, Comrade Obama is quietly pressing the advantage his henchman Harry Reid acquired for him by discarding the centuries-old right of the minority party to filibuster judicial appointments.

White College Student Accused of Racism by Black Prof. Speaks Out
This is an update to a previous report.

Black Supremacist Finally Out at DHS
Four months after he was revealed to be a militant black supremacist, Ayo Kimathi is no longer on the government payroll.

10-Year-Old Suspended For Shooting ‘Imaginary Bow and Arrow’ at Classmate
Ten-year old Johnny Jones was suspended from school after pretending “to shoot an imaginary bow and arrow at his classmate.”

Homo-Punk Ackley ‘No Longer Official Spokesman’ for Girl Scouts
The ex-front man of a ‘homo-punk’ band has been removed as the official Girl Scouts spokesman after outraged mothers complained.

David Brooks Joins Tom Friedman In Calling For Authoritarian Government
Tom Friedman has long been an admirer of China’s version of democracy, which is to not have a democracy.

Senate Democrats Hold Midnight Vote to Confirm Radical Left-Wing Judge
Senate Democrats have taken advantage of the nuclear option to confirm one of President Obama’s most extreme judicial nominees.

Federal judge declares Utah polygamy law unconstitutional
District court ruling finds key parts of Utah polygamy laws unconstitutional.

Who Funds the Far Left? You’ll Be Surprised
The Center for American Progress is a left-wing organization that is closely associated with the Obama administration. Its principal product is a web site called Think Progress. Think Progress is part of the internet cesspool that modern liberalism has become. Written by hack left-wing bloggers, it is bitterly hostile to free enterprise. It is a low-rent site that traffics in the most absurd smears and conspiracy theories. Many have wondered for some years who finances far-left web sites like Think Progress. As of today, we know at least part of the answer, as CAP released its corporate donor list for the first time.

Fla. Teacher Accused of Feeding Autistic Boy Hot-Sauce Laced Crayons Rehired
A Florida elementary school teacher who was fired for feeding an autistic child hot sauce soaked crayons is being re-instated on the orders of a judge who rejected the school district’s appeal to keep her out of the classroom.

Sriracha shortage? California holds the hot sauce, and foodies are fuming.
Sriracha shipments have been put on hold by California health regulators in order to inspect a new manufacturing process of the popular hot chili sauce. Foodies, chefs, and businesses are all fired up.

On Second Thought …
Facebook wants to know why you didn’t publish that status update you started writing.

Why Are Huffington Post’s ‘Gay Voices’ Columnists Fixated on Underage Sex?
A week ago, a Huffington Post columnist argued that it was homophobic to criticize gay men who use Internet sex sites to meet teenage partners. You might shrug that off as an anomaly, if you didn’t realize that in May, Huffington Post was enthusiastically aboard the “Free Kate” bandwagon to legalize sex with 14-year-olds in Florida.

Surprising LA Times Verdict: “Expressive” Businesses Should Not Be Forced to Serve Gays
Los Angeles is a hub of diversity, which is perhaps why the L.A. Times showed such a deep understanding of individual liberty in Thursday’s editorial. The team tackled the gay rights question, “can discrimination be legal?”

Teamsters allege right-to-work laws are ‘slavery’
Michigan labor unions are understandably upset over the Wolverine State’s adoption of a right-to-work law and are fighting it in every way they can. Detroit-based Teamsters Local 214 has gone so far as to argue that it violates anti-slavery laws. Yes, anti-slavery.

My reverse racism made me convict white ‘killer’
Retired Brooklyn Supreme Court Judge Frank Barbaro wants a white man he convicted in 1999 of killing a black man to be freed — claiming Wednesday he based the verdict on his own reverse racism. The 86-year-old former jurist convicted Donald Kagan, now 39, of fatally shooting Wavell Wint, 22, during a struggle over Kagan’s chain outside an East New York movie theater in 1998.

 

Economy
& Taxes

 

37 Reasons Why “The Economic Recovery Of 2013” Is A Giant Lie
“If you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it.” Sadly, that appears to be the approach that the Obama administration and the mainstream media are taking with the U.S. economy. They seem to believe that if they just keep telling the American people over and over that things are getting better, eventually the American people will believe that it is actually true.

Ryan Deal Limits Senate GOP’s Power to Block Tax Increases
Senate Republicans scrubbing the Ryan-Murray budget deal have come across a little-noticed provision that will limit the GOP’s ability to block tax increases in future years.

 

International

 

Protesters in Kiev Topple Lenin Statue as Rallies Grow
Protesters in Kiev, the capital of Ukraine, toppled the city’s main statue of Lenin on Sunday and then pounded it into chips with a sledgehammer as a crowd chanted and cheered. The destruction of the statue was a cathartic moment in the biggest day of demonstrations so far against President Viktor F. Yanukovich’s turn away from Europe.

Riot Police Begin Breaking Up Ukrainian Protests
Today, police began clearing out the camps of protesters who’ve been on the streets of Kiev for three weeks’ worth of demonstrations against the Ukrainian government and President Viktor Yanukovych. When Yanukovych announced last month that he would not sign a free-trade deal with the European Union, hinting at a shift toward a stronger relationship with Russia, hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians rushed into Kiev’s Independence Square to protest the decision.

Locked up for EIGHT hours for telling Nelson Mandela joke
A SHOP boss was arrested and quizzed by police for eight hours for cracking Nelson Mandela jokes on the internet.

Indian Court Reinstates Law Banning Gay Sex
Supreme Court Rejects 2009 Ruling by Delhi High Court.

Ukrainian riot police withdraw after overnight move on demonstrators
Battalions of Ukrainian riot police withdrew on Wednesday from a protest camp after moving against demonstrators overnight in the authorities’ biggest attempt yet to reclaim streets after weeks of protests against President Viktor Yanukovich.

Toronto Public Schools Fundraising For A Documentary On Tranny Activist Teacher Lee Hicks
Remember Lee Hicks? He/she was the TDSB teacher who dragged his/her Grade 3 class to an anti-oil protest. Later, it was discovered that he/she had published a curriculum guide for classroom use, which encouraged kindergarten students to crossdress. He/she puts up crossdressing posters on his/her classroom wall and sells these posters to other teachers. He/she has even got his/her Grade 1 class to draw pictures of boys crossdressing.

Italy hit by wave of Pitchfork protests as austerity unites disparate groups
Demonstrations point to frustration with traditional politics, with minister warning parliament of a country in ‘spiral of rebellion’

Man arrested in Pakistan for reading Qur’an
A 72-year-old British doctor is in prison in Pakistan for “posing as a Muslim”, charges that reveal an escalating ideological fight that often spills over into violence.

 

Opinion

 

The Double Assault on Religious Freedom
Present religious-liberty concerns associated with same-sex marriage come in two forms.

The Importance of Self-Limited Government
The regime of a free and equal people

What’s the Matter With Alabama?
A student editor grovels after another cartoon kerfuffle

No, Conservatives Aren’t Always On The Wrong Side Of History
Michael Tomasky’s risible view of history

Protecting Email Privacy is First Step to Ending Unconstitutional Mass Surveillance
You’ve heard of the NSA’s numerous — and likely unconstitutional — mass surveillance programs, but they’re not the only way government is invading your digital privacy. There’s a law on the books that law enforcement agencies, from the IRS to the ATF, have used to justify reading American’s emails and other online communications without having to convince a judge to issue a warrant.

Paul Ryan Plays Us For Chumps
In the wake of the government shutdown I wrote a post called Obamacare and the “Governing” Trap.

When do we finally stop the harassment of little boys by school administrators?
6-Year old boy suspended for kissing girl on cheek.

The DLC Precedent
In 1989, William Galston and Elaine Kamarck wrote an influential essay on how the Democratic party, having lost five of six presidential elections, could revive itself. The liberal journal Democracy recently asked them to revisit the essay–they conclude that it holds up pretty well, Democrats having largely applied its message–and draw what lessons they can for the Republicans, who have now lost the popular vote five of six times.

Criminalizing Heterosexuality
Item No. 1: A little six year old boy in Colorado — which is lately giving Florida a run for its money as America’s nutjob state — has been suspended from school and labeled a sexual harasser for the sexcrime of kissing a little girl on the cheek.

The Monster In The Mirror: Dark Enlightenment On Why People Hate The West
The West’s Decadence and Contempt for Life Makes Others Willing Blow Themselves Up Just to Kill Us.

The Legislature’s First Job Is Not to Legislate
One way for Congress to “do something.”

Potheads Hurt Their Cause by What They Say
Nothing makes a drug addict happier than free drugs, and potheads are unique among addicts in thinking that their addiction is actually a good thing. The average junkie, alcoholic or crackhead knows that his life sucks. Chronic marijuana use has the interesting effect of making people think that a shitty life is just peachy.

On raising boys
On my Facebook page today, two of my friends put up links with advice for parents raising sons. One link came from an ultra liberal friend and the other link came from a solidly conservative friend. There is a vast chasm between the two sites when it comes the types of men each post is trying to create. I therefore thought it would be interesting to offer the two sets of advice side by side. Please note that I’ve only included the headings. You should visit both sites to see the specifics behind each heading. (My comments, which I hope clarify the more cryptic headlines, are in parentheses.)

What Future for Whites in South Africa?
I followed Western mass media with bemused interest after it was announced that Nelson Mandela, South Africa’s first black President from 1994 to 1999, had died on December 5, 2013. It wasn’t unexpected, since the man was 95 years old and had been ill for years. I never hated Mandela, but the lavish praise he received from Scandinavia to Alaska went far beyond what was rational or fact-based.

Family Values as a Math Problem
While reading Professor William Jacobson’s take on the Utah polygamy decision, I noticed that in the comments, someone had linked a Census Bureau report that included this odd sentence