News of the Week (Januardy 19th, 2014)

Posted on January 19, 2014 by The Political Hat

 

News of the Week for January 19th, 2014


 

Obama Scandals

 

Justices skeptical of Obama’s recess appointment claim
Supreme Court justices took a dim view Monday of President Obama’s claim of almost unlimited powers to appoint top government officials, saying he appeared to be breaking with the founders’ vision of separation of powers between the branches of government when he tried an end-run around the Senate in 2012.

Holder Will File No Charges In IRS Harassment of Tea Partiers Matter
Tea Party Lawyer: “This has been a big, bureaucratic, former-Soviet-Union-type investigation, which means that there was no investigation”

Obama On Executive Actions: ‘I’ve Got A Pen And I’ve Got A Phone’
Calling for “all hands on deck” to assist the economy, President Barack Obama is urging his Cabinet to identify ways to keep his administration relevant to people struggling in the up-and-down recovery.

Gun Rights

 

Pro-Gun Lawmakers Eye State-by-State Strategy to Nullify Federal Gun-Control Statutes
Having failed in an earlier effort to bar federal agents from enforcing gun regulations in Missouri, conservative lawmakers are trying a new tack this year: banding together with other like-minded states to defy certain federal laws at the same time.

Harvey Weinstein and Meryl Streep new movie to make NRA ‘wish they weren’t alive’
Producer reveals secret project to Howard Stern

Gawker Got Literally Everything Wrong About Florida’s New Warning Shots Bill
Families Against Mandatory Minimums, not the NRA, helped craft bill

What A 2nd Amendment Supporter Did To An ATF Booth Will Make You Laugh
When you’re the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, and you set up a booth at the largest gun show in the world, you’re gonna have to expect some shenanigans from the gun enthusiast attendees.

Competing Washington gun measures likely headed to 2014 ballot
Washington state voters will likely decide the fate of two competing gun-related measures this November. January 3 marks the deadline by which petition signatures must be submitted to the secretary of state. Supporters of I-594 – a measure which, if approved, would require background checks to be run on every person purchasing a gun in the state, even those doing so via private sales – turned in approximately 95,000 signatures on January 2, adding to the 250,000 submitted in October 2013 and bringing the total to 345,000.[1]
Meanwhile, supporters of I-591 – a measure that would prevent the government from confiscating firearms without due process and implementing background checks unless a federal standard is established – are also expected to bring their total signature count to 345,000 by turning in an additional 5,000 signatures by the deadline. Each measure must have at least 246,372 valid signatures to move forward.

Hide the Decline

Environment &
“Green Energy”

 

Norwegian Bay Freezes Over, Leads to One of the Freakiest Pictures Ever
Here in the States, we had our fun with visual displays of just how cold it is, but Norway might have just taken the cake with a picture someone captured of what happened when a Norwegian bay froze over. Ingolf Kristiansen was taking a walk with his dog around the village of Lovund, Norway when he came upon the following, unbelievable sight.

Climate Theology
A few months ago at a Senate hearing about climate change featuring Roy Spencer, a former NASA scientist who departs from climate orthodoxy, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (a double winner of Power Line’s Green Weenie Award) thought he could discredit Spencer not by arguing science, but by essentially asking Spencer “Are you now or have you ever been a believing Christian?”

UN climate chief declares communism best for fighting global warming
Anyone familiar with the disastrous environmental impact of the communist grip on eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union knows what happens when unaccountable totalitarians hold power. If nothing else, the Chernobyl disaster should give one a clue, a legacy Ukrainians will have to endure for decades more, if not centuries. Apparently, though, one does not become the United Nation’s climate chief by collecting such clues. This week, Christiana Figueres offered a prescription for solving global warming — communism!

71 new papers reported in 2013 demonstrating the Sun controls climate, not man-made CO2
Club du Soleil has compiled a listing of new papers published during 2013 demonstrating that the Sun controls climate, not man-made CO2.

NOAA “state of the climate” report: Contiguous US average temperature plummeted 2.9F in 2013
Hmmm, “the pause” seems to be stronger in the USA. Compare these two years.

Cause of ‘the pause’ in global warming
The absence of global warming for the past 17 years has been well documented. It has become known as “the pause.” and has been characterized as the “biggest mystery in climate science,” but, in fact, it really isn’t a mystery at all, it was predicted in 1999 on the basis of consistent, recurring patterns of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) and Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) and global climate.

Unscientific methodology attempts to refute legitimate challenges to anthropogenic climate change orthodoxy *UPDATED*
I want you to play a little game with me. Imagine that you’re an archivist, going through Nazi-era German documents. While doing that review, you stumble across the following article, published in a reputable Nazi business magazine

Obamacare

Government in Healthcare

 

Spanish-language Obamacare website is written in ‘Spanglish’
It launched two months late, but the rollout of the Spanish version of the federal Obamacare portal has been just as disastrous as its English counterpart’s October debut, according to an Associated Press report.

A health industry expert on ‘the fundamental problem with Obamacare’
Robert Laszewski is president of Health Policy and Strategy Associates, a policy and marketplace consulting firm where he works closely with many in the heath industry as they try to navigate the Affordable Care Act. He’s also the author of the excellent Health Care Policy and Marketplace Review blog, as well as Wonkblog’s 2013 “Pundit of the Year”. We spoke on Wednesday. A lightly edited transcript of our conversation follows.

Get ready for the second wave of ObamaCare market disruptions
Over the weekend, it seems as though the national media finally figured out what most ObamaCare critics have predicted all along. On Friday night, the New York Times covered the mess made by the law’s incompetent implementation with providers and insurers, leaving consumers holding the bag. By Saturday night, the Washington Post had deduced that this was just the entrée. A much bigger wave of disruption will hit when the employer mandates go into effect for 2015 (via Instapundit)

Press sues Nevada agency to get insurance exchange records
The conservative magazine National Review is suing Nevada’s Department of Insurance to obtain records of nearly a dozen Silver State Exchange program workers who might have criminal histories. The Las Vegas Review- Journal has joined the lawsuit.

Dying boy ‘sucked moisture out of wet wipes’ on ‘shambolic’ ward, parents tell inquest
Four-year-old boy died on hospital ward where he was so neglected he resorted to sucking moisture out of wet wipes, inquest is told

 

War & Terror

 

Changes in the Pacific: A Return to the 1930s
China believes it’s now time for its military to reflect its economic power.

Taliban Commander Told 9-Year-Old Sister Suicide Vest Would Kill Other People, Not Her

National

 

Common Core Causing Problems in Connecticut
Feelings towards Common Core are starting to sour at the New Haven Public Schools in Connecticut. From the tests to lack of computer access for poorer students, the teachers have found many problems with the program.

New York Common Core Website Sent Students to Sex Quiz Page
While lawmakers in New York State are considering delaying the Common Core standards initiative because of its disastrous rollout, new problems with the academic standards are now drawing intense criticism.

Voter Fraud: We’ve Got Proof It’s Easy
Undercover agents were able to vote as dead people, but election officials are attacking the agents.

Microsoft: Windows 9 ‘Will Launch In 2015’
The software firm prepares to leave behind the operating system dubbed “confusing” by users, according to a report.

School Punishment According to Race, not Behavior
Sometimes the mind just boggles. The Department of Justice has issued a letter informing schools about federal laws against racial discrimination.

Hagan Trails All GOP Challengers in New Poll
The latest Public Policy Polling survey highlights North Carolina’s Kay Hagan’ vulnerability as a red-state Democrat in this year’s midterms. For the first time, potential Republican candidates lead the first-term incumbent.

Google’s reach expands into your home more via $3.2 billion Nest acquisition
Nest gives Google some design know-how as well as a lot of home energy data. Google’s tentacles are spreading into your home even more.

Frustration Brews as de Blasio Drags Feet on Remaining Appointments
Two weeks after taking office, Mayor Bill de Blasio has yet to fill a long list of top administration positions, leading to frustrations and confusion in some corners about how long holdover staffers are supposed to stay on.

Fox News Reporter Responds to ‘Bigoted’ Slurs about His Interracial Marriage
Adam Housley, a Fox News correspondent out of Los Angeles, lashed out at people who have maded racially insensitive remarks toward him and his wife, calling their comments and views “pathetic.” Housley, who is white, is married to actress Tamera Mowry, who is black.

GOP leader reveals strategy for immigration bill push
The GOP’s leadership will try to persuade GOP legislators to back an immigration plan that includes tighter enforcement, an effective amnesty for 12 million people and more immigrant workers, according to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte.

Jimmy Kimmel Savages ObamaCare and Uninformed Young People Who Support It
As NewsBusters has been reporting for months, late night comics have been tearing the atrocious rollout of ObamaCare apart.

Unconstitutional: Judge rules against Oklahoma’s ban on same-sex marriages
On Tuesday, a U.S. district judge ruled against an Oklahoma law, claiming it is unconstitutional.

19-year-old woman calls cops for help, they smash her face and charge her with assault
A 19-year-old Missouri woman who called the police during a medical emergency now alleges that one of the responding officers slammed her face into the floor–leaving her with bruises and persistent headaches — and then charged her with assault and resisting arrest.

Republican Innis strikes populist theme in CD 4 race
Republican Niger Innis on Wednesday launched his Nevada congressional campaign on a populist note, saying he wants to revive the “American dream” by expanding job opportunities for the poor and middle class and by helping small businesses thrive.

#NV04 Gets Interesting
Niger Innis declared himself a candidate for Congress in Nevada’s 4th District today. Niger faces a GOP primary contest against a good conservative, and I’ve got some issues on his immigration policy, but (a) he’s my friend and (b) his candidacy may raise the profile of this key 2014 House race

First-grader told to stop talking about Bible
The parents of a 6-year-old girl said their daughter was humiliated when a teacher interrupted the child’s one-minute speech and told her to sit down because she’s “not allowed to talk about the Bible in school,” attorneys for the California family allege.

Imagine If You Found a Sex-Ed Poster Asking This Provocative Question at Your Daughter’s Middle School
A poster asking some Kansas middle school students a sexually provocative question has at least one parent up in arms.
“How do people express their sexual feelings,” the poster asks, before listing “touching each other’s genitals,” “anal sex” and “vaginal intercourse,” among other things.

Failing PS 106 Received “A” Grade Under Bloomberg
Principal Marcella Sills of PS 106 in Far Rockaway, Queens reportedly showed up to work on time for the first time in seven years on Monday following a Sunday exposé at the New York Post that made national news.

Cuomo: ‘Extreme conservatives … have no place in the state of New York’
Gov. Andrew Cuomo says the current “schism” in the state Republican party is a smaller version of the split causing so much damage in Washington, D.C., and that “conservative Republicans … have no place in the state of New York, because that’s not who New Yorkers are.”

‘Fosters’ Producer ‘Grateful’ for Negative Attention from Conservative Group
Controversy may grab headlines, but most Hollywood producers would rather score free publicity any number of other ways.

13 House Democrats offer bill demanding government study on Internet hate speech
Thirteen House Democrats have proposed legislation that would require the government to study hate speech on the Internet, mobile phones and television and radio.

Top Ky. Dem: Beating McConnell Will Be Like Defeating Nazis
At an event for Alison Grimes, Kentucky Speaker Stumbo Compares Defeating Sen. McConnell To Liberating Europe From Nazis

Tom Coburn won’t serve rest of Senate term
Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn confirmed Thursday night that he will not serve out his full Senate term and intends to step down after 2014 because of deepening health problems.

Obama to Dems: Boehner will pass immigration reform in 2014
President Obama has told Senate Democrats he expects Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) to pass immigration reform this year, defying predictions the issue is dead for 2014.

Right-Wing Documentaries Left in the Dark at Film Festivals
Programmers skew left, say slighted filmmakers

Bloggers have First Amendment protections, federal court rules
A federal appeals court ruled Friday that bloggers and the public have the same First Amendment protections as journalists when sued for defamation: If the issue is of public concern, plaintiffs have to prove negligence to win damages.

#WhiteWomanPrivilege meets Festivus: The airing of bitter intra-feminist racial grievances
We have noted before the tensions between white liberal feminists and non-white liberal feminists.

Latina Actress Blacklisted for Supporting Republican Candidate
If I had ever heard of Maria Conchita Alonzo before now, I don’t remember it, but I know I’ll never forget her after this: A famed actress is facing backlash in San Francisco’s Latino community, after she voiced support for a conservative candidate for California governor.

Journalist @CalebHannan Exposes Sociopath and Is Accused of Transphobia
On Oct. 18, 2013, MIT-trained aeronautical physicist Dr. Essay Anne Vanderbilt – a former Pentagon contractor who had worked on the Stealth bomber project — committed suicide, which must have been difficult: It’s hard to kill a person you invented.

Smoking increases chances of child being gay in adulthood
A neuroscientist has claimed a woman’s lifestyle during pregnancy is directly linked to the development of their children, influencing whether they may be gay and having an impact on their IQ

 

Economy
& Taxes

 

Baltic Dry Index Crashes 18% In 2 Days
We noted Friday that the much-heralded Baltic Dry Index has seen the worst start to the year in over 30 years. Today it got worse. At 1,395, the the Baltic Dry index, which reflects the daily charter rate for vessels carrying cargoes such as iron ore, coal and grain, is now down 18% in the last 2 days alone (biggest drop in 6 years), back at 4-month lows.

State Fiscal Condition: Ranking the 50 States
New research from Sarah Arnett examines states’ abilities to meet their financial obligations in the face of state budget challenges that have far outlasted the Great Recession. Fiscal simulations by the Government Accountability Office suggest that despite recent gains in tax revenues and pension assets, the long-term outlook for states’ fiscal condition is negative (GAO 2013). These simulations predict that states will have yearly difficulties balancing revenues and expenditures due, in part, to rising health care costs and the cost of funding state and local pensions.

America’s Dwindling Economic Freedom
Regulation, taxes and debt knock the U.S. out of the world’s top 10

Taxpayers Paid Nearly $175M for P*nis Pumps Between 2006 and 2011
Federal government paid more than double the retail price

Half of U.S. Counties Haven’t Recovered From Recession
About half of the nation’s 3,069 county economies are still short of their prerecession economic output, reflecting the uneven economic recovery, according to a new report from the National Association of Counties.

Hitler’s Economics & Why You Should Know A Thing Or Two About Them
Hjalmar Schacht was Hitler’s economic guy. According to Wikipedia, Schacht: ”became a supporter of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party, and served in Hitler’s government as President of the Reichsbank and Minister of Economics. As such, Schacht played a key role in implementing the policies attributed to Hitler.”

Obamacare’s Crony Fascism
The primary difference between communism and fascism is that under communism, the government directly owns and runs the companies that provide the goods and services comprising the economy.

Number of Able-Bodied Adults Without Dependents on Food Stamps Doubles
The number of Able-Bodied Adults Without Dependents (ABAWDs) receiving food stamps zoomed from 1.7 million to 3.9 million between Fiscal Year 2007 and Fiscal Year 2010. In that same period, food stamp recipients in total grew from 26 million to nearly 40 million.

 

International

 

Mexican vigilantes seize cartel bastion
ARMED vigilantes have seized a drug cartel bastion in western Mexico, sparking a shootout between the two groups.

Judge: Homeschooling a ‘concrete endangerment’ to kids
A judge has issued a stunning verdict in a homeschooling case in Germany, ordering that the parents cannot have custody of their children because the family might move to another country and homeschool, posing a “concrete endangerment” to the children.

Hamilton, Ontario mom files human rights complaint, wants school to ban milk, egg products
A Hamilton, Ont., mother has reportedly filed a human rights complaint after she says her daughter’s school did nothing to protect the girl from potentially deadly allergens.

Thai PM stands firm on election, says protests flagging
Thailand’s government stuck to a plan for a February election on Wednesday despite mounting pressure from protesters who have brought parts of Bangkok to a near-standstill, and said it believed support for the leader of the agitation was waning.

Banks robbed, cars taken: South Sudan’s looting spree
The U.N.’s top aid official in South Sudan watched helplessly as armed men in uniform stole a car from an aid group. Thugs took $50,000 of goods from Mercy Corps. Tons of food have been stolen, and $500,000 taken from a bank.

13 dead, 40,000 displaced in floods in Indonesia’s North Sulawesi
Severe floods in northern Indonesia have left at least 13 people dead and driven tens of thousands of others from their homes in recent days, authorities said Thursday.

Critic of France’s Hollande Says It with Dung
A truck dumped a huge pile of manure outside France’s National Assembly on Thursday in a protest against the French political elite.

Outlook for Ukraine is pretty bleak, no matter w

ho prevails
You need to understand Ukrainian history to understand Euromaidan and the turmoil in Ukraine

Male Studies? We don’t need Male Studies. Because reasons.
In what amounts to a heartening trend in the land Down Under, The University of South Australia will be offering a “world first” course in “male studies”, if all goes as planned.

UAE, Iran Reach Accord on Disputed Hormuz Islands
The United Arab Emirates and Iran have reached an agreement on the three disputed islands near the Strait of Hormuz, according to a high level UAE source.

Australian “Overdressed” mother barred from pool for NOT being Muslim!
She told the Mercury she was stopped by a council lifeguard who told her: “I can only let Muslims in the pool in dresses.”

 

Opinion

 

A return to respectability for Know-Nothingism?
If nowhere else, that’s certainly the case at US News and World Report. A week ago, the news magazine published a column from Jamie Stiehm that demonstrated ignorance on many levels — the law, history, Thomas Jefferson’s ideas on the role of government among them. Mostly, though, Stiehm made the assumption that a Supreme Court justice issued a temporary stay in a challenge to the HHS contraception mandate based not on the case nor on law but solely on the basis of her Catholicism, and spun that into a rather paranoid fantasy about Catholic conspiracies to pursue “Vatican hegemony,” implying that Catholics shouldn’t be trusted in public office or even in the public debate solely on the basis of their faith — with exceptions for “good Catholics” like, er, Nancy Pelosi.

ObamaCare & Global Warming Frauds Reveal Progressivism’s Biggest Flaw
“May You Live In Interesting Times” is an old Chinese proverb that often comes to mind these days because America’s Conservatives do indeed live in interesting times.

‘6-year itch’ could fortify GOP grip in the U.S. House
Republicans are likely to keep — and maybe even expand — their majority in the U.S. House in the midterm elections, experts say.

If You Think Communism Is Bad For People, Check Out What It Did To The Environment
And it’s not a coincidence or accident of history

Women Against Feminism

Masculinity Is More Than a Mask
Is it O.K. to tell boys to “be a man”? An upcoming film that is much buzzed about on the web ignores the real differences between the sexes

Word of the Day: ‘Transmisogyny’
Transgender feminist @papierhache reacted to yesterday’s notice exactly as predicted, by claiming victimhood, denouncing me as a bully “with sycophant minions” (that would be you, dear readers), and generally lecturing that I am the pluperfect example of how “people … use social media to orchestrate abusive behavior.”

Even Her Buttocks Feel Guilty (and Other Agonies)
Yes, yes, I know. It’s beneath me. Beneath her too.

Obama Administration Mandates Racism in Schools
The Departments of Education and Justice have teamed up to make the lives of students in tough neighborhoods even tougher. Framed as a measure to combat discrimination against black and Hispanic children, the guidelines issued by the Obama administration about school discipline will actually encourage racial discrimination, undermine the learning environments of classrooms and contribute to an unjust race-consciousness in meting out discipline.

Is a lot of scientific research just… crap?
To be fair, I suppose the use of “crap” in the title might be a bit strong, but if you’re interested in seeing society get the most it can out of scientific research it’s an important question. What set me off on this particular jag this weekend was a very long and well assembled piece by Dr. James Joyner at Outside the Beltway. In it, he analyzes some of the findings in a recent Economist article which looked into the number of published scientific papers which apparently weren’t worth the virtual paper they weren’t printed on.

Conservatives Adopt Progressive Priorities
Progressive constitutional doctrine underwent some interesting changes in the middle of the twentieth century.

Lena Dunham’s Body-Image Problem
Why the efforts of “Girls” to change cultural expectations of women are doomed.

B.A. in Special Snowflake Studies
Instapundit wants to be lenient on Randye Hoder — “it’s not a ‘useless’ degree if in fact it teaches students ‘to think critically and analytically, read widely and write well’” — which means that I’m obliged to play bad cop with this overindulgent mother

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