News of the Week for June 15^th, 2014

• Election 2014
• Obama Scandals
• Gun Rights
• Hide the Decline
• Obamacare
• War & Terror
• National News
• Economy & Taxes
• International News
• Opinion

 

Election 2014

 

Poll: Tea Party’s McDaniel Takes Slight Lead Over Thad Cochran Heading Into Runoff
Tea Party-backed State Sen. Chris McDaniel has taken a slight lead — within the margin of error — in a new poll from Chism Strategies over 42-year incumbent Sen. Thad Cochran (R-MS).

GOP Leadership in ‘Chaos’ After Eric Cantor’s Loss
“We’re absolutely stunned.”

After Eric Cantor ‘earthquake,’ stunned House GOP seeks direction
“Earthquake. The members are completely shocked,” was the reaction of one House Republican lawmaker after Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s out-of-the-blue loss to challenger Dave Brat Tuesday night. Trying to grasp the import of what happened, Republicans settled into two schools of thought.

Chaos erupts at Cantor election night headquarters after his departure
As if the political drama were not powerful enough, chaos erupted at election night headquarters shortly after House Majority Leader Eric Cantor conceded his stunning defeat to tea party-backed conservative David Brat.

Lamar Alexander, Thad Cochran Brace for Falls After Cantor Crumbles
Titans of the Washington GOP establishment are bracing for more potential defeats after grassroots-fueled conservative economics professor Dave Brat crushed House Majority Leader Eric Cantor by double digits on Tuesday. The top two GOP establishment icons grassroots conservatives are targeting next are Sens. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee and Thad Cochran of Mississippi.

The Top 8 Consequences of Cantor’s Defeat
On Tuesday night, one of the most stunning upsets in Congressional primary history took place, with House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) losing his primary to economics professor Dave Brat. Brat campaigned on the platform that Cantor was a backer of amnesty legislation; heavy conservative media coverage of the thousands of illegal immigrant youths pouring across our inundated southern border contributed to a sense of urgency.

Nevada Democrats pick ‘None of these candidates’ for governor
More Democratic primary voters cast ballots for “None of these candidates” than for any actual ones in Tuesday’s nominating contest for governor in Nevada, a testament to a weak field looking to challenge popular Gov. Brian Sandoval (R) and a unique Nevada election law that allows voters the none-of-the-above option.

Rep. Eric Cantor to step down as majority leader July 31
The Republican House majority leader announced Wednesday he would step down as House majority leader at the end of July, following his stunning primary loss Tuesday night to little-known Tea Party challenger David Brat.

Interesting – and, for Democrats, faintly alarming – results in Maine-02.
In ME-02 incumbent Democrat Mike Michaud is, of course, running for governor of Maine: so his seat is now open. And after last night’s results, I think that it may end up being considered more competitive than Lean Democratic.

Gov. Brian Sandoval (R, Nevada) takes a big step forward in toppling Harry Reid in 2016.
Let me set the scene: Brian Sandoval is the (popular) governor of Nevada, and he’s going to win re-election in November. Yes, yes, there’s always the chance of scandal and/or unforeseen circumstances – but last night the Democrats’ top vote-getter in their gubernatorial primary was None of the above*.

Eric Cantor will not pursue a write-in candidacy. People should say ‘Thank you.’ #va07
Because you have to positively reinforce, too.

The Scott Brown inevitability story isn’t quite as solid as thought
There’s been an interesting, but largely overlooked development in the New Hampshire GOP Senate primary race this week. One of the candidates, Karen Testerman, has dropped out of the race and tossed her support to former Senator Bob Smith, issuing the following statement.

Can anyone explain the election anomaly in Congressional District 4’s Republican primary? Jun12 by Thomas Mitchell
In more than four decades of covering elections across four different states, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen anything quite like the results Tuesday evening in the Republican primary for Congressional District 4.

 

Obama Scandals

 

VA in Connecticut avoids wait-time scandal but insects plague OR for 8 years; gives big raises
Federal healthcare facilities for veterans in Connecticut are facing their own problems, separate from an ongoing national wait-time scandal, with longstanding concerns over “intrusion of insects” in operating rooms and other cleanliness issues.

VA says more than 57,000 patients are waiting for first visit
The Department of Veterans Affairs on Monday shed light on the depth of the VA scheduling scandal and substantiated claims that rank-and-file employees were directed to manipulate records.

100,000 veterans face long waits to see VA doctors
Some 100,000 veterans across the country are waiting long periods to see doctors, according to an internal Department of Veterans Affairs audit released Monday.

Did The IRS Really Lose Lois Lerner’s Emails? Let a Special Prosecutor Find Them
Obama needs to address this ‘phony scandal’ and the public trust with real transparency.

Lois Lerner’s Emails Are to Obama as the Missing Watergate Audio Was to Nixon
Lois Lerner’s emails are gone. Her hard drive crashed and the IRS wants us to believe a scenario that they would never believe if it happened to you. They claim her emails are not salvageable. There is no backup apparently.

Gun Rights

 

California Gun Law Would Turn Everyone Into Social Workers
Assembly Bill 1014 has probably been sitting in some California Democrat’s desk for years, waiting for a tragedy in need of exploitation. Predictably, the murders in Isla Vista have Sacramento politicians giddy to pass new laws regulating lawful behavior, and to do so they want to give everyone the power to legally judge the mental state of everyone else.

Police: Armed Civilian Who Confronted Las Vegas Attackers Is a ‘Hero’
When Jerad and Amanda Miller arrived at Wal-Mart after killing two police officers at CiCi’s Pizza, they were confronted by concealed carry permit holder Joseph Robert Wilcox, whom police describe as a “hero.”

Hide the Decline

Environment &
“Green Energy”

 

Tony Abbott seeks alliance to thwart President Obama on climate change policy
Tony Abbott is seeking a conservative alliance among “like-minded” countries, aiming to dismantle global moves to introduce carbon pricing, and undermine a push by US President Barack Obama to push the case for action through forums such as the G20.

Golden rice now, everything else is noise
Golden Rice is a genetically engineered crop created by borrowing the carotene-making gene from corn and placing that gene into rice, which does not produce carotene (at least not in the parts of the rice plant that we eat). Our bodies convert carotene into vitamin A and then use that vitamin A in the development of bones and eyesight.

New study suggests a temperature drop of up to 1°C by 2020 due to low solar activity
From the HockeySchtick: A paper published today in the Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics finds long solar cycles predict lower temperatures during the following solar cycle. A lag of 11 years [the average solar cycle length] is found to provide maximum correlation between solar cycle length and temperature. On the basis of the long sunspot cycle of the last solar cycle 23, the authors predict an average temperature decrease of 1C over the current solar cycle 24 from 2009-2020 for certain locations.

Stunning admission – and a new excuse for ‘the pause’ – ‘lousy data’
“The Models didn’t have the skill we thought they had…”

Obamacare

Government in Healthcare

 

VA scandal offers a glimpse into disaster promised by Obamacare
While the resignation of Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki was a step in the right direction, it did not solve the obviously systemic problems negatively affecting America’s veterans and their families.

 

War & Terror

 

Insurgents seize Iraqi city of Mosul as troops flee
Insurgents seized control early Tuesday of most of the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, including the provincial government headquarters, offering a powerful demonstration of the mounting threat posed by extremists to Iraq’s teetering stability.

Iraq in Chaos
Iraqi city of Mosul falls to jihadists

Iranian Revolutionary Guards Deployed to Iraq
The WSJ is reporting that Iran has deployed two battalions of the Quds force, the elite, international branch of its paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, to Iraq to back up the mostly Shiite government in Baghdad

Iraq parliament fails to reach quorum for emergency session
Iraq’s parliament failed to reach a quorum Thursday, officials said, preventing it from voting on a request to announce a state of emergency to deal with a major jihadist offensive.

Insurgents in northern Iraq seize key cities, advance toward Baghdad
Insurgents inspired by al-Qaeda rapidly pressed toward Baghdad on Wednesday, confronting little resistance from Iraq’s collapsing security forces and expanding an arc of control that now includes a wide swath of the country.

Iranian Revolutionary Guards Deployed to Iraq
The WSJ is reporting that Iran has deployed two battalions of the Quds force, the elite, international branch of its paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, to Iraq to back up the mostly Shiite government in Baghdad

Iraq parliament fails to reach quorum for emergency session
Iraq’s parliament failed to reach a quorum Thursday, officials said, preventing it from voting on a request to announce a state of emergency to deal with a major jihadist offensive.

Insurgents in northern Iraq seize key cities, advance toward Baghdad
Insurgents inspired by al-Qaeda rapidly pressed toward Baghdad on Wednesday, confronting little resistance from Iraq’s collapsing security forces and expanding an arc of control that now includes a wide swath of the country.

An ‘Islamic State’ Is Born
In a stunning and deeply significant development, the fighters of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) organization this week captured the city of Mosul. They then moved on to take Tikrit unopposed and according to reports yesterday were headed toward the capital, Baghdad.

National

 

Virginia Democrat Senator Phillip Puckett resigns
State Sen. Phillip P. Puckett- D-Russell has resigned his seat, leaving Democrats one vote shy of the majority they need to control the chamber.

Cloward-Piven at the border
Back in the Sixties, Marxists Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven came up with a great strategy for overloading and collapsing democratic welfare states, paving the way for socialist tyranny. Basically, the idea was to hit the system with a tidal wave of demands it couldn’t refuse, and couldn’t possibly fulfill. The Left would then insist that the moral argument for the system remained intact, so the only way to meet those impossible demands was to scrap every vestige of Constitutional restraint and republican self-government, instituting a totalitarian system that in theory would forcibly restructure society to promote “fairness” and give all those government dependents what they “deserve.”

Cheeseboarding
FDA announced it will not permit American cheesemakers to age cheese on wooden boards

How Bill Gates pulled off the swift Common Core revolution
The pair of education advocates had a big idea, a new approach to transform every public-school classroom in America. By early 2008, many of the nation’s top politicians and education leaders had lined up in support.

Texas Gov. Perry: ‘We Need California to Be the Golden Bear Again’
BEVERLY HILLS — Rick Perry makes “no apologies,” he says, for his efforts to recruit California businesses to his state. He is proud that Texas has surpassed California as the top exporter of technology, and proud of the low-tax, low-regulation model that sets his state apart. Yet he is not rooting for California to fail–far from it. “We need California to be the Golden Bear again,” he told Breitbart News in an exclusive interview Sunday.

Baker Forced Into Sensitivity Training After Refusing to Make Gay Wedding Cake
A family owned bakery has been ordered to make wedding cakes for gay couples and guarantee that its staff be given comprehensive training on Colorado’s anti-discrimination laws after the state’s Civil Rights Commission determined the Christian baker violated the law by refusing to bake a wedding cake for a same-sex couple.

Brown University Student Speaks Out on What It’s Like to Be Accused of Rape
In April, Daniel Kopin was publicly accused of sexually assaulting his classmate. For the first time, he tells his side of the story.

Mexican officials say jailed Marine could avoid long prison term by blaming PTSD
Mexican officials apparently are floating the possibility that jailed Marine Andrew Tahmooressi could avoid a lengthy prison term, if — and only if — he blames the entire episode on post-traumatic stress disorder.

Obama’s Assault on Suburbs Stymied
Earlier today the House of Representatives approved an amendment offered by Arizona Congressman Paul Gosar prohibiting the Department of Housing and Urban Development from implementing President Obama’s rule on “Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing” (AFFH).

Welcome to the Jungle
How PC run amok ruined anthropology and led to a researcher being accused of genocide for challenging the orthodoxy.

Delawyering traditional marriage supporters
The tradition of lawyers representing politically unpopular clients and positions has been lost in the process.

Government union wants ‘Duck Dynasty’ fans fired
A union representing federal employees at Eglin Air Force base in Florida is demanding that two senior management officials be removed from their posts because they put decals on their personal trucks supporting Duck Dynasty star Phil Robertson.

Rand Paul: Secure the Border
I am for immigration reform because I am against allowing 12 million more illegal immigrants into our country. If we do nothing, 12 million more illegal immigrants will come. We must be in favor of reform—smart reform that starts with border security.

What does Planned Parenthood teach kids about torture sex and other dangerous sexual practices?
In Episode 1, Live Action goes undercover in a Planned Parenthood in Indianapolis, IN.

Rep. Marlin Stutzman Running for House Majority Whip
Thrown off whip team last year for opposition to Farm Bill

Texas Gov. Rick Perry Compares Homosexuality To Alcoholism In San Francisco Appearance
Texas Gov. Rick Perry raised eyebrows during his appearance at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco Wednesday night, when he compared homosexuality to alcoholism.

Jeb Hensarling drops out of majority leader race, Kevin McCarthy locking up votes; Update: Next Congress?
Reminds me a tiny bit of the run-up to the 2012 primaries, when we heard lots of rhetoric from people like Mitch Daniels and Chris Christie about how important the election was to the country’s future, just … not so important that they’d upset their own lives by running in it.

Donald Sterling hires 4 private investigators to dig up dirt on NBA heads, owners
A person with knowledge of Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling’s legal strategy says his team of lawyers has hired four private investigation firms to dig up dirt on the NBA’s former and current commissioners and its 29 owners.

Mother Charged with Imprisoning Kids in ‘Horror Story’ Room…While She Smoked Weed Every Day
Inside an unassuming house in Tacoma, Washington, police made a horrific discovery behind a locked door: three small boys, ages 2, 3 and 6, naked and living in feces and urine.

It Looks Like Chelsea Clinton Made $26,724 For Each Minute She Appeared On NBC
On Friday morning, Politico published on the previously unknown and “closely held” details of former First Daughter Chelsea Clinton’s contract with NBC News. According to the story, Clinton was given an annual salary of $600,000 when she joined NBC News as a “special correspondent” in November 2011. Based on these figures, Clinton has earned about $26,724 for each minute she subsequently appeared on air.

Adam Carolla Rips “Ambush” Interview With NPR Host: “Speech Is Free Unless You Disagree With Them”
Adam Carolla talks about a taped appearance on Brian Lehrer’s show on New York City’s public radio station WNYC where the host ambushed him and attempted to paint him as a racist. Lehrer played an audio clip of comedian Jo Koy cracking jokes about Asians. Carolla noted that it wasn’t he himself making the jokes, it was Koy, who at the time was making a guest appearance on Carolla’s popular podcast. At this point, Carolla said, he knew it was an ambush interview.

New evidence for oceans of water deep in the Earth
Water bound in mantle rock alters our view of the Earth’s composition

Supreme Court has 17 cases to decide by June’s end
It’s crunch time at the Supreme Court, where the justices are racing to issue opinions in 17 cases over the next two weeks.

Economy & Taxes

 

Obamacare subsidies could hurt at tax time
Most Americans are well aware that if they don’t have health insurance they’ll be subject to a tax penalty under the Affordable Care Act. What many don’t know is that if they’ve enrolled in an Obamacare exchange plan with a government subsidy, they could also find themselves on the hook to Uncle Sam next spring.

Detroit bankruptcy deal would limit pension cuts
A tentative agreement between the city of Detroit and its largest union would limit pension cuts to 4.5 percent instead of the 27 percent cuts proposed in the bankrupt city’s reorganization plan.

 

International

 

UK Cabinet Minister Spoke Urdu Throughout Residents Meeting, English Speakers Complain
Britain’s first female Muslim Cabinet Minister, Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, has come under fire for exclusively speaking in Urdu during a local meeting that was supposed to encourage people to become part of the political process.

15-month-old girl sacrificed to unearth hidden treasure
A 15-month old girl was recently sacrificed with a desire to unearth hidden treasure at the nearby Firozabad fort, and seven persons including her father have been arrested in connection with the crime, a top police official today said.

Glastonbury: Animal rights activists launch petition to ban Metallica
Festival goers attempt to stop Metallica headlining Glastonbury due to frontman’s association with bear-hunting

Gay Danish couples win right to marry in church
Homosexual couples in Denmark have won the right to get married in any church they choose, even though nearly one third of the country’s priests have said they will refuse to carry out the ceremonies.

Toronto Disctrict School Board Partnering With The Communist Party Of China
The following letter was dropped at homes across Toronto today.

 

Opinion

 

Watch What You Say, The New Liberal Power Elite Won’t Tolerate Dissent
The new liberal ruling elite, a mix of academics and cultural powerbrokers, is like the old clerical orders—wielding it’s wealth and power to enforce “truths” and punish dissenters.

Fisking the Guardian’s Village Idiot: Part 1
Damian Walter is that dude over at the Guardian who made shit up about me before. That time he put words in my mouth, said that I warned writers not to write about gay characters if they want to remain commercial, and he even put it in quotes as if it was my actual words. That isn’t even close to what I said, or what I’ve actually done, and doesn’t match up with my real life actions, writing, or even the philosophies of other authors I’ve promoted, but hey, whatever.

Fisking the Guardian’s Village Idiot, Part 2
As I was writing up that last fisk, some sane people were commenting on the Guardian article. Because Damien’s responses were so idiotic, this Fisk turned into a two parter, with this section being more of an explanation of my personal philosophies for dealing with morons and bullies. In the comments it was pointed out that pretty much everything Damien said related to me was a lie and Damien smells funny (okay, I added that last part). Here is what Damien had to say in his defense:

Arguing with Social Justice Warriors Is Pointless
Someone made the mistake of pointing out that not all white people are the reincarnations of Adolph Hitler on the UCSB Microaggressions Facebook page. Here is the predictable result.

Fighting back against the left’s plans for how we should live
President Obama has big plans for how we should live. We’ve written about these plans — which fall under the label “regionalism” — here, here, and elsewhere. In essence, Obama seeks to fulfill the left’s longtime dream of redistributing money from the suburbs to the cities and inner-ring suburbs, and imposing racial and income balance in every neighborhood.

The Fruits of Progressivism
It’s academia’s turn to be broken to government’s saddle.

Watch What You Say, The New Liberal Power Elite Won’t Tolerate Dissent
In ways not seen since at least the McCarthy era, Americans are finding themselves increasingly constrained by a rising class—what I call the progressive Clerisy—that accepts no dissent from its basic tenets. Like the First Estate in pre-revolutionary France, the Clerisy increasingly exercises its power to constrain dissenting views, whether on politics, social attitudes or science.

Catholics Against Capitalism
They try to fulfill the Lord’s command to feed His sheep — with rhetoric.

Watch What You Say
Another despicable effort to chill political speech

Stop Controlling Kids and Teach Them Judgment
Children need to know not only what challenges they will face, but how to rise to them.

The Walton Family: The New Koch Brothers?
Yahoo! Finance had an article recently about Walmart’s pay practices versus its payments or distributions to shareholders.

The Campaign to Silence the Business Community
Last month, a Wall Street Journal editorial noted that proposals offered at shareholder meetings “intended to pressure companies not to spend money on politics are falling flat with investors.”

Rewriting the First Amendment
Democrats are pushing a proposal to throttle the political speech of their opponents.

Homeless Spikes Are Not Social Cleansing, Just Compassionate City Hygiene
There’s no vagrancy where I live, but, if there were, I think I too would be tempted to install the “anti-homeless spikes” that have prompted such earnest pearl-clutching in the last few days. Personally, I don’t see what’s wrong with protecting the integrity of private property, despite what the fulminating spinsters of the Left-wing press might claim.

Barack Obama’s YOLO presidency
In the Washington Free Beacon, Matthew Continetti has a column called Dialing it in which demonstrates a lackadaisical attitude on the part of Obama that makes Clinton look frenetic.

George Will responds to senators on his sexual assault column
I have received your letter of June 12, and I am puzzled. You say my statistics “fly in the face of everything we know about this issue.” You do not mention which statistics, but those I used come from the Obama administration, and from simple arithmetic involving publicly available reports on campus sexual assaults.

Women of Iraq and Kurdistan Rule 5
Too bad the Iraqi Army turns and runs from the I.S.I.S. Don’t they know what they are fighting for? Do they really want the women of Iraq to all look like this? When they can look like these women below?

Change the ‘none of these candidates’ ballot rule Jun11 by Thomas Mitchell
It is high time Nevada change that silly “None of these candidates” rule. No, not removing that as a ballot option, but abide by the voters’ choice when it wins, as it did in Tuesday’s Democratic primary for governor. Instead of allowing Bob Goodman to be on the ballot in November as the Democrat’s nominee, there should be no Democrat, because that is what the voters decided. None got 30 percent of the vote to Goodman’s 25 percent. Or the Democrats could hold a convention and pick a nominee.

Conundrum: Use Hillary and Liz’s class warfare tactics against them?
They are the types of money grubbers they accuse Republicans of being.

‘Statistical Voodoo and Elastic Definitions’
Such is the substance of the campus rape “epidemic,” as I explained Wednesday (“Sticks and Stones May Break My Bones, But George Will’s Column Raped Me”) in rejecting the claim that skepticism toward feminist rhetoric is morally equivalent to rape.

Everyone Say It Loudly: We Need Men
Here’s to the strong, silent types who nevertheless feel deeply inside.

So Now People Need Reasons to Have Children?
Bearing children doesn’t need to be justified by an exhaustive search for ‘adequate’ reasons.