News of the Week for June 29^th, 2014

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

 

Election 2014

 

Democrats Put Cochran Over the Top
You have to hand it to the GOP establishment. When their interests are threatened, they pull out all the stops. They demonstrated that in dragging GOP senator Thad Cochran across the finish line in tonight’s runoff in Mississippi.

McDaniel Has A Legal Path To Victory, Says Consultant
Sen. Thad Cochran’s second-round primary victory may be nullified if Chris McDaniel’s team can show the margin of victory was less than the number of people who wrongly voted in both Democratic and GOP primaries.

McDaniel Supporters Barred From Reviewing Voter Rolls in Four Mississippi Counties
The Chris McDaniel campaign identified multiple Mississippi counties in which enough improper ballots were cast that a legal challenge to the outcome of the election is warranted.

 

Obama Scandals

 

IRS failed to tell federal court of lost Lois Lerner emails
Internal Revenue Service officials will have to explain to a federal judge July 10 why the tax agency didn’t inform the court that Lois Lerner’s emails had been lost.

Meet Emmet Sullivan, IRS Judge Who Once Sicced a Special Prosecutor on DOJ
Lerner, Holder, Obama: Are You Packing Your Bags?

Lois Lerner Mistakenly Received an Email to Senator Chuck Grassley Inviting Him to Speak at an Event.
She Immediately Asked If She Should Refer Him For an Audit.

Issa Threatens EPA With Contempt as Team Obama Celebrates Its Climate Anniversary
Oversight chairman says agency has failed to comply with a subpoena.

IRS Admits Wrongdoing, to Pay $50,000 in Leaking of Marriage Group’s Tax Return
Two years after activists for same-sex marriage obtained the confidential tax return and donor list of a national group opposed to redefining marriage, the Internal Revenue Service has admitted wrongdoing and agreed to settle the resulting lawsuit.

The IRS Had a Contract With an Email Backup Company
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) said it can’t provide emails sent between 2009 and 2011 that were requested by congressional investigators because of hard drive crashes.

IRS CANCELLED Contract with Email-Storage Firm Weeks After Lerner’s Computer Crash
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) cancelled its longtime relationship with an email-storage contractor just weeks after ex-IRS official Lois Lerner’s computer crashed and shortly before other IRS officials’ computers allegedly crashed.

IRS cancelled email backup contract just weeks after Lois Lerner’s computer ‘crashed’
Nothing suspicious here, at least to Democrats and mainstream media types. But it would be interesting to see the paperwork leading to this contract termination, since the IRS is required by law to backup its communications.

Gun Rights

 

Gun Safety PSA Features Sex Toys to Show Danger of Kids Finding Unlocked Guns
On June 26, the non-profit group Evolve launched a new gun safety PSA aimed at stressing parental responsibility by focusing on how kids play with whatever they find–be that a gun or a sex toy.

Hide the Decline

Environment &
“Green Energy”

 

CO2 Good; Climate Change Bunk; Greens are Raging Extremists, says Greenpeace Co-Founder
“Climate change” is a theory for which there is “no scientific proof at all” says the co-founder of Greenpeace. And the green movement has become a “combination of extreme political ideology and religious fundamentalism rolled into one.”

Australian PM introduces bill to repeal carbon tax
Prime Minister Tony Abbott reintroduced legislation to the Australian Parliament on Monday that would repeal a carbon tax that the nation’s worst greenhouse gas polluters have to pay.

The scandal of fiddled global warming data
The US has actually been cooling since the Thirties, the hottest decade on record

A climate change poster: Scientists seem to go especially wrong when they all agree about something
A new poster tackling the fatuous statement that scientists agree with the theory that anthropogenic climate change threatens the world.

On Display in Colorado: America’s Unique Advantage in the Shale Boom
The battle over hydraulic fracturing in Colorado is a demonstration of a unique advantage that the U.S. has in exploiting its shale resources. A number of the state’s cities have enacted moratoriums on fracking, citing environmental concerns over the controversial drilling process. But for many property owners, whose land rights also include ownership of underground hydrocarbons, these bans are an unwelcome barrier between them and a potentially life-changing payday.

Sorry, Bald Eagles: Wind Farms Are Allowed to Kill You Now
If you and I kill a Bald Eagle or disturb its nest, the consequences can be severe. Under the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act, the felony killing of a Bald Eagle is punished by a fine of $250,000 and prison time. The authorities are taking the killing seriously. Well, sort of. As it turns out, not everyone is equal under the do-not-kill-Bald-Eagles law. If you happen to be a favored industry like say, a wind farm, you could get a get-out-of-jail-free card after killing up to five Bald Eagles if you request a permit and the fed grants it.

Antarctica sets new record for sea ice area
The sea ice surrounding Antarctica, which, as I reported in my book, has been steadily increasing throughout the period of satellite measurement that began in 1979, has hit a new all-time record high for areal coverage.

The scientific method is at work on the USHCN temperature data set
Sometimes, you can believe you are entirely right while simultaneously believing that you’ve done due diligence. That’s what confirmation bias is all about. In this case, a whole bunch of people, including me, got a severe case of it.

Obamacare

Government in Healthcare

 

Obamacare’s Prognosis Grows Dimmer
A nightmare for Affordable Care Act supporters has been the possibility that only the sick would be left to purchase insurance through its exchanges, driving premiums up and insurers out. While the law’s boosters have been quick to dismiss the possibility that such a so-called death spiral could occur, data published in the Wall Street Journal suggest that this chain of events may not be so far-fetched after all.

Your Doctor Knows You’re Killing Yourself. The Data Brokers Told Her
You may soon get a call from your doctor if you’ve let your gym membership lapse, made a habit of picking up candy bars at the check-out counter or begin shopping at plus-sized stores.

 

War & Terror

 

The Truth about the Vietnam War
Did the United States win or lose the Vietnam War? We are taught that it was a resounding loss for America, one that proves that intervening in the affairs of other nations is usually misguided. The truth is that our military won the war, but our politicians lost it. The Communists in North Vietnam actually signed a peace treaty, effectively surrendering. But the U.S. Congress didn’t hold up its end of the bargain. In just five minutes, learn the truth about who really lost the Vietnam War.

June is Gilbert Month
Who is Gilbert? You may be sorry you asked. Gilbert is GLBT: Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgendered. And we just learnt that June is Gilbert Month in the US Army, where everyone must attend mandatory Gilbert Indoctrination, display their rainbow flags, and learn of the great contributions of Gilbert Soldiers.

The memo.

Polish minister says US ties worthless
A Polish magazine said Sunday it has obtained recordings of a conversation in which Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski says the country’s strong alliance with the U.S. “isn’t worth anything” and is “even harmful because it creates a false sense of security.”

Mexican Military Chopper Crosses Into US, Shoots At Border Agents
Border Patrol agents in Arizona were reportedly fired upon by a Mexican military helicopter that traveled across the border.

National

 

Advocates of splitting California into six states gathering signatures
Advocates for Six Californias, a plan to split the Golden State into a half dozen separate states, are holding a petition drive this weekend to get their plan on the ballot in 2016.

“The Dread Signal of Armageddon”
Today is the 100th anniversary of Gavrilo Princep’s assassination of the Archduke Francis Fertinand and his consort in Sarajevo, what Churchill called “the dread signal of Armageddon.”

Supremes Rule Against Obama Administration and NLRB in Recess-Appointments Case
Three of the Obama administration’s appointments to the National Labor Relations Board, for some time, were invalid, the Supreme Court ruled today, because they bypassed the Senate as “recess appointments” while the Senate actually was in session.

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: I Don’t Like White Men, I Want Them to Be a Lost Species
Controversial columnist Yasmin Alibhai-Brown is accused of making a series of racist remarks against white people, even going as far as to say she wants them to be a “lost species”. According to Rod Liddle, when asked in a TV interview what she thought of white people, she responded: “I don’t like them. I want them to be a lost species in a hundred years.”

Supreme Court bans warrantless cell phone searches
Major ruling updates privacy laws for 21st century

The Distance Between Mars and Venus: Measuring Global Sex Differences in Personality
Sex differences in personality are believed to be comparatively small. However, research in this area has suffered from significant methodological limitations. We advance a set of guidelines for overcoming those limitations: (a) measure personality with a higher resolution than that afforded by the Big Five; (b) estimate sex differences on latent factors; and (c) assess global sex differences with multivariate effect sizes. We then apply these guidelines to a large, representative adult sample, and obtain what is presently the best estimate of global sex differences in personality.

Last month, the Nanaimo city council voted to ban Christians from using publicly funded facilities.
On May 5, city politicians in Nanaimo, BC, voted 8 to 1 to ban a conference that was scheduled for their city’s convention centre just four days later. City councillors condemned one of the event ‘s sponsors as “hateful,” mentioned it in the same breath as the Nigerian terrorist group Boko Haram, and said the decision to ban the event from public property was no different than if they had voted to ban an organized crime ring, too.

Students demand mandatory transgender class to right the wrongs of colonial America
A group calling itself “Whose Diversity” has created a list of demands which are designed to eradicate “structural inequality” at the University of Minnesota
Demands include having two faculty of color “engaging in critical race and ethnic studies” in each department, creation of display celebrating “histories of activism initiated by marginalized communities.”

Illegal Sterilization of Female Inmates Raises Rights Questions
144 sterilizations performed on female California inmates from 2005 to 2013 have been under review by the State Auditor, and many have been found suspect due to lack of consent or possible coercion in a resulting audit report. Documentation reviewed by California’s State Auditor determined that at least a quarter of the 144 procedures from 2005 to 2013 were performed without lawful consent.

Miss. tea party leader Mayfield dead of apparent suicide
Sources have confirmed that attorney Mark Mayfield has died of an apparent suicide.

Howard Baker Jr. embodied the ‘great conciliator’
Former Senate Majority Leader Howard Henry Baker Jr. passed away Thursday at his home in Huntsville, Ala., following complications from a stroke he suffered last week. He was 88 years old.

Immigration activists to occupy House
Immigration activists plan to occupy House office buildings on Friday to protest GOP positions on illegal immigration.

Iowa GOP replaces state party chairman
The Iowa GOP central committee voted Saturday to fire the state party chairman and replace him with a fixture of the establishment.

Economy & Taxes

 

QI GDP revised sharply downward to -2.9%; Flashback: Remember when ObamaCare saved us from contraction?
Remember when the Obama administration considered a GDP contraction of 1% in the first quarter just a hiccup, mainly caused by weather? Good times, good times. That itself was a rather sharp downward revision from the advance estimate of 0.1%, but that was just a mere stumble compared to the plunge in the final revision. The Commerce Department now states that GDP fell at an annualized rate of -2.9% in the first quarter, the worst in more than five years

Obama: Hey, You Know Who Has This Economics & Workers’ Rights Thing All Figured Out? France Does, That’s Who
Before launching into his idea of making the capitalist America more like the socialist France, Obama offered this Obamaism — one of his patented Fun Facts that perfectly illustrates the political agenda he’s agitating for, which is as emotionally potent as it is kinetically deceptive.

Making a Federal Case Out of Three Small Fish?
Why are federal prosecutors using the Sarbanes-Oxley law, a corporate governance law passed in the wake of the Enron scandal, to target a Florida fisherman over three missing fish?

 

International

 

White working-class pupils fall behind ‘because they’re turned off by lessons on other cultures’: Researchers warn multicultural curriculum risks marginalisation
White working-class pupils becoming marginalised by multicultural curriculums, report says
Problem compounded by growing up in ‘a small world ‘with low parental expectations

One in seven BBC presenters and actors to be black, Asian or ethnic minority under new Lord Hall pledge
BBC pledge to improve diversity will see one in seven of its presenters and actors being black, Asian or from an ethnic minority

Tower Hamlets: Arrest over ‘car boot full’ of voting forms
Police in Tower Hamlets found a “car boot [trunk] full of postal vote applications” after stopping the vehicle in a routine search.

Ibrahim flees to US embassy in Khartoum
The saga of Meriam Yahia Ibrahim took a welcome turn overnight. With death threats coming from her brother and others, the young Christian mother whom Sudan released this week from a death sentence fled to the US embassy in Khartoum, which has provided her refuge until Sudan allows her to leave the country

Named persons: spies in the family home
The Scottish government’s plan to provide every child with a ‘state guardian’ is downright scary.

EU signs trade pact with Ukraine, threatens sanctions on Russia
The European Union signed an historic free-trade pact with Ukraine on Friday and warned it could impose more sanctions on Moscow unless pro-Russian rebels act to wind down the crisis in the east of the country by Monday.

Stop shops sorting toys by gender, says equalities minister
Putting toys in boys’ and girls’ aisles may discourage girls from science and engineering careers, says Jenny Wilmott

Pope says communists are closet Christians
Pope Francis, whose criticisms of unbridled capitalism have prompted some to label him a Marxist, said in an interview published on Sunday that communists had stolen the flag of Christianity.

 

Opinion

 

Marxist Gender Theory: Sexual Minorities of the World Unite!
Sherry Wolf (@SherryTalksBack) has described herself as a “a lesbian Marxist who came of age in the neo-Cold War, AIDS-ravaged 1980s,” and has been praised by a fan as a “fire-breathing, Marxist dyke.” The real mystery is why she doesn’t have a Cabinet position in the Obama administration. We don’t have video or a transcript of the speech she gave Friday at the Socialism 2014 conference in Chicago, but we can quote Sherry Wolf at length, from her 2009 book, Sexuality and Socialism: History, Politics and Theory of LGBT Liberation

The requirements of civilization
Our media has not made Americans as familiar as we should be with the plight of Meriam Ibrahim, a Christian woman sentenced to death by the Sudanese government for “apostasy.” Her “crime” was being Christian even though her largely unseen father was Muslim. According to the Sudanese legal system, this nullified her marriage to American Daniel Wani, making her guilty of additional “crimes” due to the activities that resulted in the birth of her 2-year-old child… who got tossed into a dungeon right alongside her. Ibrahim gave birth to another child while literally chained to a wall. That’s the only reason she isn’t dead yet – the wise and compassionate judges decided that sharia law meant she had to be kept alive until she was finished nursing the new baby, at which point the whipping and hanging could commence.

Are Manosphere Women like Male Modern Feminists?
How similar are they? It’s hard for me to tell, as I’ve only been inside one of the movements/blogospheres. But for what it’s worth, here’s my experience.

Cloward-Piven Everywhere
And barely time to think.

Wealth as an end and wealth as means to an end
The left has a habit of framing “inequality” (their current social-justice hobbyhorse) in economic terms, which is fortunate because it makes debunking their nonsense easier. The left’s fundamental bit of chicanery lies in their failure to define “inequality” in any rigorous way. This is very intentional, for it allows them to frame inequality however they please — generally in the usual race/gender/class terms and using money as a yardstick.

Shut Up, Have a Cheeseburger
So you say you want the best solution?

The Voodoo Sciences rise
The Wall Street Journal today has a very interesting opinion piece by Nicholas Wade, a long time science writer, who was once one of the editorial writers for the AAAS’s Science; in other words, he was once one of the spokespersons for Big Science. He was also once a science opinion writer for the New York Times. His establishment credentials are utterly solid, and he was on the side of Big Science in most controversies.

YOU are a rapist; yes YOU!
Cathy Young has an excellent column in Reason.com about a bill in California that would require universities in that state to use an “affirmative consent” standard for evaluating sexual assault complaints in the campus disciplinary system for complaints involving students. Two obvious questions arise: (1) Why just on campus? If this is a good idea, why not make it part the tort system? If that’s too drastic, let’s start, with say, members of the California legislature. For internal disciplinary purposes, their sexual activity should be governed by the same standard they want to impose on students. What plausible grounds could they have for rejecting application of a standard they would impose on students to themselves? (2) If we’re limiting things to campus, why just students? Why should students be judged under this standard, but not faculty and administrators? It’s hardly unheard of for professors, administrators, and even law school deans to engage in sexual relationships of dubious morality. The answer is that it’s not a good idea, and it’s a product of the current moral panic over the hookup culture.

Problems with collective action: Column
The VA scandal is another government example of the failure to follow a collective mission

Why Does the Left Hate Native American Names?
The Left is apparently on the warpath to expunge all references to Native American peoples from our lexicon. And it’s not just the Washington Redskins, Cleveland Indians and other sports franchises under threat of this ethnic cleansing of our language.

The Eternal Dictator
The ruthless exercise of power by strongmen and generalissimos is the natural state of human affairs.

Power Precedes Politics
Column: What liberal internationalists don’t understand

Tranarchy: Gender Theory = Insanity
Sarah Brown (@AuntySarah) is a mentally ill transsexual who was a member of the city council in Cambridge, England. Last year, the Guardian published an article about Brown’ “polyamorous” domestic arrangement with Brown’s ex-wife and another transsexual.

Obama is no LBJ, but 2014 is no 1964
It has become a familiar lament, and a panel on CBS’s Face the Nation on Sunday reproduced it perfectly: Why does President Barack Obama seem so ill-equipped to meet the challenges of the moment.