News of the Week (June 8th, 2014)

Posted on June 8, 2014 by The Political Hat

 

News of the Week for June 8th, 2014


 

Election 2014

 

Songhai “Sunny” Armstead’s Racial Appeal for Votes — Brought to You in a Format that Gail Copeland Will Not Be Able to Scrub from the Internet
I have said for some time that we have been trying to get the full remarks of Songhai “Sunny” Armstead hosted here on the site. Armstead, you will recall, is the judicial candidate here in Los Angeles who made a blatantly racial pitch to a black church congregation — asking them to vote for her because she is black.

LA Weekly Cover: Republican as Klansman
L.A. Weekly, the ubiquitous guide to popular culture and urban style in Los Angeles, features a Republican wearing a Ku Klux Klan outfit as part of the illustration to its cover story this week on the GOP’s candidates for governor in the June 3 primary. The cover art depicts an elephant in a tug-of war between a portly, cigar-smoking team on one side, and a crew of conservative caricatures on the other, including the KKK figure.

Rove’s Crossroads Jumps into GOP Primary, Attacks Moderate Republican
American Crossroads, the super PAC founded by Karl Rove, is launching a new TV ad today that throws everything but the kitchen sink* at moderate, pro-choice Republican Matt Doheny, the businessman running againt conservative Elise Stefanik in New York’s 21st congressional district.

Cochran, McDaniel Head Toward Runoff in Mississippi
In Mississippi, the tea party might get a new lease on 2014.

Hog-Castrating, Harley Davidson-Riding Joni Ernst Wins Iowa Senate Primary
Joni Ernst, the hog-castrating, Harley Davidson-riding Iowa state senator who burst onto the national scene with a series of provocative television ads, clinched the Republican nomination for Iowa’s Senate seat in a decisive victory over a crowded field of opponents.

Wargaming the U.S. Senate
Would Harry Reid make an excellent Senate minority leader? Indeed he would.

Democrats Are Spending Heavily to Influence the Colorado GOP Governors’ Race
This morning, Colorado Republicans awoke to some disturbing news: Through a group called Protect Colorado Values, Democrats are spending serious money on TV ads in an effort to steer the outcome of the GOP gubernatorial primary. Their objective? Ensure that vulnerable incumbent Democratic governor John Hickenlooper faces Tom Tancredo, not Bob Beauprez, in November.

Three McDaniel Supporters Found Locked Inside Courthouse On Election Night
Three supporters of state Sen. Chris McDaniel were found locked inside a courthouse in Hinds County, Mississippi, well after midnight on election night.

Male Democratic Senate candidate uses a ‘chick’ in ad against female opponent
Rep. Bruce Braley, D-Iowa, featured a chick in his new Senate campaign ad against GOP opponent Joni Ernst.

Sandra Fluke Is on the Ballot in Los Angeles
Mother of God this place is full of simpletons. I was so busy paying attention to the district where I live that I missed this until last night.

Controller 2014: GOP’s Evans overtakes Perez for 2nd spot – but 1 million votes left to count
Republican candidate David Evans has overtaken Assemblyman John A. Perez for the second spot in the race for state controller –as of Friday morning.

Cook Political Report shifts California-26 from Lean D to Toss-up.
This is fallout from last Tuesday’s California primary: freshman Democrat Julia Brownley got 46% of the vote to Republican Jeff Gorell‘s 44%. What should probably worry Brownley more is that the combined total percentage of Republican votes was over 50%.

The Biggest Non-Story in Tuesday’s Elections? Mississippi Voter ID Implemented With No Problems
It wasn’t the biggest story following Tuesday’s elections in various states, but it was the biggest and most-ignored non-story.

 

Obama Scandals

 

VA scandal exposes greedy socialism
Phony lists and dead patients wouldn’t fly in a free-market health care system.

Gun Rights

 

The Democratic Assault on the First Amendment
Congress has too much power already; it should not have the power to silence citizens.

Gun Control Won’t Work, But Ammo Control Could
It’s only a matter of time before 3D printers render gun control obsolete, and ammunition control becomes the anti-gun lobby’s focus.

Boxer, Feinstein, Capps Introduce Firearm Confiscation Legislation
Senators Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), together with Representative Lois Capps (D-CA-Santa Barbara), are pushing legislation to allow families to petition a court to bar a “dangerous” individual from buying a gun and confiscate any guns said individual owns.

Another Stupid Facebook Gun Control Meme

Hide the Decline

Environment &
“Green Energy”

 

Obama to Coal States: Drop Dead
Gerald Ford never said “drop dead” to New York City when it pleaded with Washington for a bailout at the nadir of its profligate liberalism back in the mid-1970s, but that didn’t stop the NY Daily News from running the famous headline. (Ford was of course quite correct in resisting a bailout.) I wonder if any newspaper or media organization will take the same poetic license with Obama’s new greenhouse gas emission rules being issued today, as such a headline would be completely accurate.

James O’Keefe Targets Susan Sarandon, Hollywood Environmentalists in New Sting Video
The actress, “Gasland” filmmaker Josh Fox and MSNBC’s Chris Hayes are among those attacked by the controversial journalist in a new clip.

Obamacare

Government in Healthcare

 

Did Government’s Experiment on Preemies Hide Risks?
Just 24 weeks into her pregnancy, Sharrissa Cook gave birth to a critically ill baby boy. Dreshan weighed in at a fragile 1 pound, 11 ounces. He lay motionless in the incubator, connected to tubes and monitors in the neonatal intensive care unit at the University of Alabama at Birmingham Hospital.

 

War & Terror

 

Pentagon wrestles with bogus climate warnings as funds shifted to green agenda
Ten years ago, the Pentagon paid for a climate study that put forth many scary scenarios.

Our Future Is 1979
Obama’s foreign-policy weakness encourages our enemies and disheartens our allies.

Why Team Obama Was Blindsided by the Bergdahl Backlash
The president and Ms. Rice seem to think that the crime of desertion in wartime is kind of like skipping class.

Taliban Commander: More Kidnappings to Come After Bergdahl DealAryn Baker
A Taliban commander close to the negotiations over the release of U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl told TIME Thursday that the deal made to secure Bergdahl’s release has made it more appealing for fighters to capture American soldiers and other high-value targets.

Obama administration official Brandon Friedman floats ‘psychopaths’ smear of Bergdahl’s platoon mates
You’ve got to read this to believe it all. Obama administration Brandon Friedman of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development public affairs office (and formerly an official at the Department of Veterans Affairs) took to Twitter to launch another attack trial balloon on the troops on the ground who’ve been blowing the whistle on Bowe Bergdahl’s abandonment of post.

Vodafone reveals existence of secret wires that allow state surveillance
Wires allow agencies to listen to or record live conversations, in what privacy campaigners are calling a ‘nightmare scenario’

D-Day Interpretive Dance Caps Off Month of Disrespect for Vets
If you weren’t sure that the Western world’s supposed admiration for the sacrifices of military veterans was just lip service, you were privy to a rather definitive confirmation of that fact in the past four weeks.

Pensioner who hid medals and absconded from care home found at D-Day celebrations in France
The 89-year old was reported missing from his Hove care home but actually sneaked onboard a coach for a final reunion with his D-Day comrades across the Channel

China May Build ‘Artificial Island’ in South China Sea
The island would be used as a military base to enforce a South China Sea air-defense identification zone.

D-Day interpretive dance

National

 

Bakery Will Stop Making Wedding Cakes After Losing Discrimination Case
The owner of a bakery in Lakewood said he will no longer sell wedding cakes after the Colorado Civil Rights Commission ruled he did discriminate against a gay couple when he refused to sell them a cake.

Apple’s newest product: Complexity
The company promises a frustration-free experience. Today’s reality doesn’t match up.

Michigan Teacher Suspended for Teaching About Blackface in History Lesson
Despite support by parents and students – both black and white – a Michigan middle school teacher has been placed on “administrative leave” for teaching that in the 1800s and early 1900s some white entertainers performed in blackface.

A liberal’s tenuous grip on cause and effect
The front page of the morning’s Austin American-Statesman includes (behind the subscriber wall) an article about surging property taxes in Austin, and the “irate homeowners” now confronting their new appraisals. Let’s consider the first such homeowner, quoted without any suggestion of irony

Ted Cruz: Senate Dems’ Restrictions on Free Speech Should Apply to the New York Times
With Senate Democrats pushing a constitutional amendment that would allow Congress to regulate campaign spending, Senator Ted Cruz countered by proposing a bill that would require media corporations to abide by any of the Democratic restrictions on political speech passed pursuant to the amendment.

Jane Fonda Invited to Speak at UCLA, Vietnam Vets Outraged
Jane Fonda has been invited to give the commencement address to UCLA’s School of Theater, Film, and Television this month, angering California Vietnam veterans.

Merrill Lynch manager became janitor after mistaken ID in child sex probe
A Long Island man says he went from being a Merrill Lynch manager to a shattered school janitor after the feds — in a terrible case of mistaken identity — arrested him at work and threatened to ship him off to Mexico to face charges that he had sex with minors.

CA Bill Demands Verbal or Written Consent for Sex on College Campuses
A newly amended bill from a California lawmaker would require college students to stop in the heat of passion and establish verbal or written consent before having sex anywhere on campus, reports L.A. Weekly.

New Massachusetts bill will force divorcing couples to get court approval before sleeping together
State Sen. Richard Ross has proposed legislation S787 in Massachusetts
If passed, divorcing couples can’t have sex or share a romantic dinner

No You Can’t Keep Your Plan And Yes You Have To Pay For Other People’s Abortions
How can a government claim to derive its powers “from the consent of the governed” when it deliberately deceives the people whose consent it supposedly requires? The case of a Connecticut family forced to pay a fee to be used to fund others’ elective surgical abortions or face fines under Obamacare is the latest demonstration that the law is a Rube Goldberg machine of impenetrable statutory language designed to confuse.

Scenes from the Front Lines: PC at Chicago
I’ve received a remarkable and detailed report from the front lines from an undergraduate student about how the culture of political correctness infects even the University of Chicago, which I had hitherto thought to have resisted much of this.

This Is Maureen Dowd’s Brain on Drugs
Spinster columnist Maureen Dowd flew to Colorado to eat marijuana candy so she could write about it and warn all you kids against doing the same stupid thing. She did her drug of choice alone, in a hotel room in a place far from home, which is kind of sad. But that’s a junkie’s life.

Charges detail Waukesha pre-teens’ attempt to kill classmate
Geyser and Weier are being held on $500,000 bail each. The pre-teens attempted murder, they told police, to pay homage to a fictional character who they believed was real after reading about him on a website devoted to horror stories.

Anti-Semitism Erupts at Chicago Public School with ‘Jew Incinerator’ Game
The mother of a Jewish Chicago Public Schools (CPS) student tried for weeks to get the CPS to address the anti-Semitic bullying being perpetrated against her eighth grader, but little was done until the parent contacted local media. The bullying got so bad that kids had joined an online game with a team called the “Jew Incinerators.”

Pro-Abortion Vandal Hangs “Aborted Baby Jesus Dolls” Throughout Hobby Lobby Store
Pro-choice propaganda artist Ron English is very controversial. His artwork, described as very disturbing, often focuses on abortion.

School awards ceremony featured swearing, sex toys
A Bellingham High School drama teacher has issued a formal apology after her awards ceremony devolved into an evening of profanity, jokes about a priest having sex with kids, and a box of sex toys.

For a Respected Prosecutor, An Unpardonable Failure
Evidence of a convicted murderer’s possible innocence sat buried in a case file for more than two decades. Now, a prosecutor in Brooklyn will have to answer for the mistake.

Univ. of Chicago students offended by gay activist’s “transphobic slur”
LGBTQ students at the University of Chicago are circulating a petition objecting to slurs gay rights activist Dan Savage used during a exchange at the school’s Institute of Politics event last week. They said they were made to “feel uncomfortable” by a “transphobic slur” used during Savage’s presentation.

Koch Brothers Give $25 Million to United Negro College Fund
In a move that is sure to confound–and enrage–the left, the Koch brothers have donated $25 million to the United Negro College Fund (UNCF), the foremost source of financial support to African-American students.

‘Hanoi Jane’ Street Art Targets Jane Fonda Ahead of UCLA Commencement Speech
In anticipation of Jane Fonda’s commencement speech on June 13 at UCLA’s school of Theater, Film and Television, posters by street artist Sabo depicting the actress-turned-activist as “Hanoi Jane” have started appearing around Westwood and surrounding areas.

Good grades, good home gets college student profiled as rapist, claims lawsuit
Being a valedictorian from a “good family” helped get a California student blamed for an alleged rape by a bizarre, college tribunal that critics claim is part of an overzealous culture of blaming men for hookups that go awry, according to a lawsuit.

Obama Chomps On Gum During D-Day Anniversary Event…Update: France Not Happy
Would it kill this guy to show some respect?

The Death And Decay Of Detroit In Real Time, As Seen From The Streets
With the stock market hitting record highs day after day, it is easy to move on and forget that one of American’s once premier cities, Detroit, has been bankrupt for nearly a year. But out of mind doesn’t mean out of sight, especially now that Google has launched its street view Time Machine, which provides for 7 years worth of street images, capturing the time shift of the tumultuous period period starting in 2007. One blogger who decided to take this time lapse data and apply it to the city of Detroit is GooBing Detroit who, as the following time-lapse photos demonstrate, has captured Detoit’s unprecedented slow-motion collapse into death and decay in what is the closest we have to “real time.”

Border Patrol checkpoints stir public backlash
For the past seven years, anyone driving out of this small town on either of the main roads north has had to pass through a “temporary” Border Patrol checkpoint. Agents also rove along the local roads, frequently stopping vehicles.

Economy & Taxes

 

ECB imposes negative interest rate
The European Central Bank has introduced a raft of measures aimed at stimulating the eurozone economy, including negative interest rates and cheap long-term loans to banks.

The Most Startling Chart of the Obama Era
Adjusted for seasonality, the labor force participation rate (LFR) has never increased — not once — under Obama! Normalized by month, the LFR has been on a non-stop ride to progressive Utopia (i.e., full unemployment).

One Ton Gold Shipment Into Hong Kong Revealed To Contain Just Worthless Metal
Two years ago, stories of fake tungsten-filled gold coins and bars began to spread; it appears, between the shortage of physical gold (after Asian central bank buying) and the increase in smuggling (courtesy of India’s controls among others) that gold fraud is back on the rise. As SCMP reports, a mainland China businessman, Zhao Jingjun, discovered that HK$270 million of 998kg of gold bars he bought in Ghana had been swapped for non-precious metal bars. What is perhaps even more worrisome, given the probe into commodity-financing deals and the rehypothecation evaporation; these gold bars were shipped to a Chinese warehouse before Zhao was able to confirm the fraud.

 

International

 

Spanish king to abdicate in favor of son
Spain’s King Juan Carlos, who led Spain’s transition from dictatorship to democracy but faced royal scandals amid the nation’s near financial meltdown, will abdicate so his son can become the country’s next monarch, Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy told the country Monday in an announcement broadcast nationwide.

The Bidding For The 2022 Olympics Is A Disaster Because Everyone Figured Out That Hosting Is A Total Waste
Researchers have known for years that hosting large sporting events like the Olympics always costs more than expected and always yields less revenue and useful long-term infrastructure than estimated. Now voters and politicians in democratically elected countries are starting to realize the same thing.

Former Georgian PM: Putin Attempting to Keep Post-Soviet States in “Constant Chaos”
In an exclusive interview with Breitbart News, former Georgian Prime Minister and representative to NATO Ambassador ?Grigol Mgaloblishvili warns that neither the invasion of Georgia in 2008, ?nor the situation in Ukraine today, ?are isolated incidents and that Russia intends to cripple much of Eastern Europe to maintain it in a state of “constant chaos” that it can control the region.?

Kuwait’s Emir makes landmark visit to Iran
Kuwait’s Emir Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad Al-Sabah on Sunday began a landmark visit to Tehran aimed at mending fences between Iran and the monarchies in the Gulf.

Ronald Reagan Is Alive in India
Narendra Modi won an overwhelming victory in the Indian election. He avoided or minimized contentious issues, like Hindu nationalism. The Republicans can learn a lot by following a similar strategy on religion. Modi’s campaign emphasized growth, a better future, and a program for achieving improved living standards for everyone. He charged the current government with “tax terrorism” because it repeatedly changed India’s tax rates and tax law. That created uncertainty, an enemy of business investment and economic growth.

No sexist speech, please, we’re Belgian
New anti-sexism laws in Belgium deal a blow to free expression.

Venezuela’s latest economic shortage — drinking water
In order to combat what we are meant to believe is the work of malicious Venezuelan businesses owners hoarding-and-speculating with basic goods and services in order to wage an “economic war” against the regime of Nicolas Maduro — not to mention the murky yet ever-present conspiratorial capitalist forces interfering from abroad — the Venezuelan government announced last month that they would begin rationing water and electricity in order to cope with what they assured residents was merely a temporary problem.

Police probe into ‘whites not welcome’ graffiti outside London primary school
Message found on path leading to Prince of Wales Primary School, in Enfield

Poll: Brazilians growing oddly dissatisfied with their leftist government, slowing economy
As I mentioned the other day, Brazilians have been growing increasingly dissatisfied over the past couple of years as they’ve started to wonder how it is that their government is managing to spend billions upon billions on (straggling and still incomplete) infrastructure, transportation, renovation, and stadium projects, but so many of their fellow citizens are trapped in poverty without access to adequate hospitals or schools.

Neitzsche Club Not Made Stronger By University College, London
A college in the United Kingdom has banned a student organization devoted to the 19th-century philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche

Argentina appoints new secretary of ‘national thought’
Cristina Kirchner appoints ‘national thought’ secretary, promoting criticism of the fascist overtones of the post

Russian leadership backs restoration of Stalingrad name
Russia’s deputy prime minister called on Saturday for the name Stalingrad to be restored to the city that was the site of a key World War II battle against the Nazis.

Sydney drag queens fight trans-gender warrior Indiana Kelly Edwards over right to use the word tranny
THERE’S nothing quite like a drag queen with a bouffant blonde mane and a pink faux Chanel suit to brighten up a quiet suburban pub.

 

Opinion

 

Are you ready for the govt war on booze?
Everything old is new again in the era of expanding government regulations, so why limit yourself to only trying new things? Let’s dredge up some golden oldies and take them out for a fresh spin.

White People Be Playing the Race Card
I’m old enough to remember when only black people called black people “Uncle Tom.” Democrats, however, long expanded the category of who can play the race card and on whom. Call them equal opportunity race-card players.

Rage, Rhetoric, and Reform
Some of you will have noticed that my observations on the subject of transgenderism/transsexualism have not been met with universal approval, especially among transsexuals. No surprise there.

The Mismeasure of Management
The perils of progressivism run deeper than Obama.

The New Regressives
Today’s liberalism is about as liberal as the Hellenistic world was Hellenic — a glossy veneer over a rotten core.

The Evil League of Evil is Given Pious Advice
A certain Mr Damien Walter whose books I have never read (perhaps because he has written none) makes bold to advise me how to conduct my professional career as a science fiction author. The comments are somewhere hereabouts.

Speaking of Men Who Have Had Their Testicles Removed
To be honest, I was not aware that the Chicago Sun-Times was in the habit of republishing my National Review pieces. Given the recently revealed gutlessness of that newspaper’s editors and management, I’d like to request that they never run another.

Homofascism Should Be Crushed
This blog is — was, shall remain — a friend to gay people. I hope it’s a friend to any person who wants to do whatever gives him joy and hurts no one else.

Obama The President That Richard Nixon Always Wanted To Be
Well, unfortunately our system is changing, and it’s changing without a debate. Or even a discussion about what we’re going to do in the future when we have a three branch system, a tripartite system but one branch is so dominant. What’s emerging is an imperial presidency, an uber presidency as I’ve called it, where the president can act unilaterally. This is only the latest example of that.

Immigrants Escaping Tyranny Find It May Have Followed
Today’s Fightin Words podcast: A Russian immigrant, noting a slide of American politics toward the horrors his family escaped, decides to run for office.

The 2014 Election: Why I Was & Still Am Against The Top 2/Open Primary
The results are almost all in – and the 2014 primary results are exactly why I fought against Prop 14 when I was Chairman of the California Republican Party. The new format pits just the Top 2 finishers in each race on the Fall ballot. As a result, voters will have less choices and hear less discussion because of the Top 2 format – with no discernable gain.

America’s Medieval Universities
Today’s campus is more reactionary than the objects of its frequent vituperation.

Dialing It In
Column: The Obama post-presidency has already begun

5 Tips for How to Run a Political Campaign from California’s June 3 primary
Here are five tips for how to run a political campaign, based on the outcome of the June 3rd primary in California.

BAMN! The Fight over Prop. 209
Proposition 209 – the California ballot initiative to prohibit discrimination and preferential treatment on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin – has been a source of controversy in California since its passage in 1996. The primary opponent of 209 is an aptly named organization – the Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, Integration and Immigrant Rights and Fight for Equality By Any Means Necessary (BAMN). Yes, that is the true name!

When everyone shuts up, we will have reached the “safe space”
Silence like a cancer grows.

New Cyber-Bullying Law may end up bullying free speech
In 2010, some cruel remarks on Facebook led to the arrest of Marquan Mackey-Meggs who attended Cohoes High School in New York state’s Albany County. His arrest resulted from a new cyber-bullying law. Now, in the year 2014, civil libertarians are concerned that application of this law could eventually lead to other kinds of arrests that go far beyond bullying.

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