News of the Week for August 30^th, 2014

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

 

Election 2014

 

Mary Landrieu Draws a Prominent Democrat Challenger
The Hayride comes some dire news for embattled incumbent Mary Landrieu (D-LA), as she has drawn a challenger from the left who may siphon away some of her more reliable voters

Will gun control sink Connecticut’s Democratic governor?
Statewide elections, gubernatorial elections especially, turn on a number of issues; the local economy, transportation matters, sales and property taxes, scandals and controversies, and sometimes social issues. More often than not, a combination of these contentious matters leads to an incumbent party losing or retaining a governor’s mansion. In Connecticut, where incumbent Democratic Gov. Dannel Malloy seeks reelection, one issue has come to dominate the race: gun control. And it might be that issue which sinks Malloy.

Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) Has No Home In Louisiana, Claims She Lives With Mommy And Daddy
At 58 years old, married with three kids, Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA) claims her primary residence is the tiny home above which is owned and lived in by her parents. That is what it says on her voter registration. The senator and her husband do own and live in a stately, $2.5 million brick mansion in Washington DC

MT-Sen: Things aren’t going well for Dem Nominee Amanda Curtis
The Montana Senate race has been perhaps the most interesting contest thus far in the 2014 Senate election cycle. Original nominee, and sitting interim Senator, John Walsh was busted for plagiarism on a 14 page (!) Master’s thesis*. Sensing that this might be a liability on the campaign trail, he was replaced with single term Montana State Representative Amanda Curtis. She’s already come under fire for some rather unfortunate statements from her days as a vlogger. As if that wasn’t enough of a signal that she might not be ready for prime time, it appears that she has trouble with interviews as well.

Rep. Annie Kuster (D, New Hampshire-02) can’t find an actual Republican supporter?
Meet Robin Partello. And who is she? Well, she was someone who was featured as a Republican offering praise for Annie Kuster in a recent campaign ad for New Hampshire’s Second District.

GOP Ahead in Massachusetts Governor’s Race
Another solidly blue New England state seems to have a competitive gubernatorial race on its hands: A hypothetical match-up poll gives Republican Charlie Baker a slight edge over leading Democratic attorney general Martha Coakley.

More non-existent voter fraud tuns up in Virginia
Hans A. von Spakovsky, writing at the corner, brings us more news of something which is supposed to be an imaginary problem. Hans was previously a member of the board of elections in Fairfax County, Virginia, and has logged some hours of direct experience with voter fraud.

Prediction: Major voter turnout for midterm elections
Congress’ approval is at an all-time low, the inevitable result of years of partisan bickering and mismanagement, and this will likely result in higher voter turnout for this year’s midterm elections, according to Gallup.

Supporting Common Core Cost One Arizona Pol a Primary Victory Last Night
A nationwide debate is raging over Common Core, a set of federally supported standards for teaching English and math at the state level. But critics call them a cookie-cutter approach that overemphasizes testing, invades privacy, and can be easily manipulated.

A Game of “Top This” With Democrat Amanda Curtis
Comedy Talent In The Montana Senate Race

 

Obama Scandals

 

DOJ Admits Lois Lerner’s E-mails Exist
A Justice Department official admitted that former IRS official Lois Lerner’s apparently missing e-mails actually exist on a backup server, but the government doesn’t plan to retrieve them.

Will IRS’s Strategy of Destroying Evidence Pay Off?
If the latest revelations about the IRS are correct, then its officials have approached the abuse-of-power scandal with a clear strategy, pretty much from the beginning.

Bank Admits Choking Off 3 Legal Enterprises at Government Behest
SunTrust Bank is cutting ties with three types of legal businesses in the latest evidence of the Obama administration’s secretive crusade against “objectionable” enterprises.

IRS ordered Lerner’s blackberry destroyed after her computer crashed
The New York Observer reports that, according to an IRS court filing, the IRS destroyed Lois Lerner’s Blackberry after it knew her computer had crashed and after a Congressional inquiry was well underway. An IRS official declared under the penalty of perjury that the destroyed Blackberry would have contained the same emails (both sent and received) as Lois Lerner’s hard drive.

Gun Rights

 

Federal Court Invalidates California’s Ten-Day Gun Waiting Period as Unconstitutional For Those Who Already Own Weapons
The plaintiffs brought the case against the state of California claiming that the 10-day waiting period burdened the right to bear arms without accomplishing any important state goal in the case of people who already owned guns.

The 10 most practically significant — yet potentially legally vulnerable — restrictions on availability of guns for self-defense
There are many gun control laws in the United States, and people have lots of constitutional arguments for or against them. But which of those laws actually (1) substantially interfere, as a practical matter, with self-defense, and yet are (2) practically vulnerable? Bans on so-called assault weapons, for instance, strike me as unwise, but they don’t themselves practically interfere with self-defense in a substantial way: people remain free to have guns that are just as effective for self-defense. Bans on gun possession by people who have recent violent felony convictions do practically affect lots of people, but they will pretty clearly be upheld, given the language on the subject in D.C. v. Heller.

Federal judge strikes down Baton Rouge gun ordinance
A city-parish ordinance that prohibits residents from keeping firearms in their parked cars while they’re inside establishments that sell alcohol is unconstitutional and can no longer be enforced, a federal judge ruled Monday.

Hide the Decline

Environment &
“Green Energy”

 

Glacier-like hazards found on Ben Nevis
Hazards common in arctic and alpine areas but described as “extremely unusual” in the UK during the summer have been found on Ben Nevis.

Australian Bureau of Meteorology accused of Criminally Adjusted Global Warming
The Australian Bureau of Meteorology has been caught red-handed manipulating temperature data to show “global warming” where none actually exists.

Obama Pursuing Climate Accord in Lieu of Treaty
The Obama administration is working to forge a sweeping international climate change agreement to compel nations to cut their planet-warming fossil fuel emissions, but without ratification from Congress.

Obamacare

Government in Healthcare

 

Another ObamaCare website suffers delays, glitches ahead of launch date
Another federal government-run website created under ObamaCare is suffering the same symptoms as the troubled federal health care exchange — grappling with delays, data problems and other hiccups as the deadline to take it public nears.

 

War & Terror

 

Russian armored columns said to capture key Ukrainian towns
Russian soldiers, tanks and heavy artillery began rolling into southeastern Ukraine in earnest Thursday, the Ukrainian government said, as well-armed detachments captured key towns, burned buildings and sent the underequipped Ukrainian forces into full retreat — a show of military force that the United States now considers an invasion in all but name.

Survivor of ISIS children’s camp reveals how young boys are whipped and made to watch men being crucified and women stoned to death
‘They ordered us to come to [watch] heads cut off, lashings or stonings’

Rape Jihad: Inside ISIS’ Harem for Captured Non-Muslim Women
Islamic apologists spent the last few decades insisting that Islamic laws involving the rape of female prisoners were invented by “Islamophobes”. And even if they weren’t, surely no modern Muslim Jihadist force would implement them.

Putin: You’re next, Kazakhstan
When Russian President Vladimir Putin began referring to portions of Ukraine by their Tsarist-era name, Novorossiya, Russia hands expressed alarm.

What Could Terrorists Do to Vegas?
Al-Qaeda again urges an attack on a symbol of American decadence.

National

 

Mississippi man beaten after he’s warned restaurant wasn’t safe for whites, witness says
West Point police said a man received life-threatening injuries in what they are investigating as an aggravated assault at a restaurant.

How the College Board Politicized U.S. History
The College Board, the private company that produces the SAT test and the various Advanced Placement (AP) exams, has kicked off a national controversy by issuing a new and unprecedentedly detailed “Framework” for its AP U.S. History exam. This Framework will effectively force American high schools to teach U.S. history from a leftist perspective. The College Board disclaims political intent, insisting that the new Framework provides a “balanced” guide that merely helps to streamline the AP U.S. History course while enhancing teacher flexibility. Not only the Framework itself, but the history of its development suggests that a balanced presentation of the American story was not the College Board’s goal.

A Disturbing Pattern: Eight Times that Democrats Used Court Shenanigans Against Republicans They Couldn’t Beat at the Ballot Box
The indictment of Texas Gov. Rick Perry on August 15, 2014 has drawn criticism from pundits, politicians and papers all over the country. Some Democrats have disavowed the indictment, going as far as to claim that launching courtroom attacks against their opponents in the GOP is just not how Democrats operate.

Cornel West: Obama a ‘Counterfeit’
‘We Ended Up With A Brown-Faced Clinton. Another Opportunist.’

Rick Perry seeks writ of habeas corpus barring prosecution
Alleges that prosecution is unconstitutional infringement of speech and violates separation of powers.

One in Three Adults Think Libertarian Means the Opposite of What Libertarian Means
Pew Research has released numbers today on the topic of libertarians. The numbers are not current– the survey was conducted April 29-May 27, 2014 among a panel of 3,243 adults but they provide an insight into an alarming misunderstanding of political ideology.

Feds Creating Database to Track ‘Hate Speech’ on Twitter
$1 Million study focuses on internet memes, ‘misinformation’ in political campaigns

Polygamy effectively decriminalized in Utah as judge strikes down ban in victory for husband and his FOUR wives who appear in TV show ‘Sister Wives’
Judge rules banning cohabitation violated religious freedom of the Browns

Ninth Circuit considers Guam’s racially discriminatory plebiscite registraton law
The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit heard oral argument yesterday in the case of Davis v. Guam. The hearing occurred in Guam, the first time the Ninth Circuit has sat there since 2002.

LGBT Movement’s “New Morality”: Making Gay Okay
Author Robert Reilly’s latest book, “Making Gay Okay: How Rationalizing Homosexual Behavior is Changing Everything,” dissects the homosexual movement’s strategy of indoctrinating Americans on the pros (but not cons) of LGBT behavior.

Pizza parlor’s church discount gives atheists indigestion
Steven Rose loves Jesus and pepperoni pizza. But when the Searcy, Arkansas restaurateur decided to mix church and cheese it gave a group of out-of-town atheists a bad case of indigestion.

CNN audio: Is this the moment Michael Brown was shot?
They haven’t verified that the recording is what it claims to be, but with competition for this story among the media so ferocious, go figure that they’d choose to put it on the air and worry about authenticity later. As of last night, the FBI was investigating; between the guy’s IP and the fact that the video file is presumably timestamped, I assume they’ll be able to verify or debunk it quickly. It could be a prank — the man who recorded it seems to be, er, “enjoying” a video chat while it happened — but what he’s caught saying is tame. If you were going to prank CNN by getting them to air something sexually explicit in the name of reporting news, you’d be more explicit than this, no?

Harry and the hookers
Taking a break from the news on terrorism, racism and racist terrorism, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was back home in Nevada this week and stopped by the Asian Chamber of Commerce in Las Vegas. During the Q&A session, Harry took a question on a perennial topic in Nevada… the oldest profession.

Sanders weighs Clinton challenge
Sen. Bernie Sanders (Vt.) is gearing up for a presidential primary challenge against Hillary Clinton and hopes to capitalize on Democratic concerns over Clinton’s coziness with Wall Street banks.

Ferguson-like attack in Utah escapes media notice; race bias seen
Discrepancy in attention given to Ferguson’s Michael Brown, Utah’s Dillon Taylor fuels resentment

L.A. Unified halts contract for iPads
L.A. schools Supt. John Deasy suspended future use of a contract with Apple on Monday that was to provide iPads to all students in the nation’s second-largest school system amid mounting scrutiny of the $1-billion-plus effort.

Most Democrats support prosecution of Rick Perry
Democrats overwhelmingly support the prosecution of Rick Perry, but independents do not

Naked man damaged cars, kicked officer at hemp festival
A naked man had to be sedated at a hemp festival in southern Oregon after police said he damaged cars, started fights and kicked an officer.

As Police Get More Militarized, Bill In Congress Would Make Owning Body Armor Punishable By Up To 10 Years In Prison
We’ve been writing an awful lot lately about the militarization of police, but apparently some in Congress want to make sure that the American public can’t protect themselves from a militarized police. Rep. Mike Honda (currently facing a reasonably strong challenger for election this fall) has introduced a bizarre bill that would make it a crime for civilians to buy or own body armor. The bill HR 5344 is unlikely to go anywhere, but violating the bill, if it did become law, would be punishable with up to ten years in prison. Yes, TEN years. For merely owning body armor.

Georgia professor bans students from saying ‘bless you’ in class

Professor Leon Gardner promises to take up to 15 percent of a student’s final grade if they disrupt his class.
The professor warns that “[e]specially egregious behavior could result in expulsion from the class, withdrawal from the course, and disciplinary action from the college.”

Economy & Taxes

 

The Subsidy Show
Colbert, Fallon and the crony capitalism of the creative class

Japan’s recovery slow after sales-tax hike
Japan’s consumer prices kept rising in July, with the inflation rate steady, but consumers and businesses were slow to shake off the hangover from the sales-tax increase in April.

French PM Resigns Over Economy
French President Francois Hollande dissolved the government on Monday after an open feud in his Cabinet over the country’s stagnant economy.

IMF chief charged with ‘negligence’ over graft case
IMF chief Christine Lagarde, one of the world’s most powerful women, announced Wednesday she had been charged with “negligence” over a multi-million-euro graft case relating to her time as French finance minister.

 

International

 

Ukrainian president dissolves parliament and announces early elections in October
Ukraine’s president on Monday dissolved parliament and called for early elections in October as his country continues to battle a pro-Russian insurgency in its eastern regions.

Tory MP Douglas Carswell defects to Ukip
FURIOUS David Cameron today blasted Tory MP Douglas Carswell for defecting to Ukip.

Argentine Peso Slides as Officials Say Currency Is Under Attack
Argentina’s peso slumped to a record low in the parallel market, deepening its slide since last month’s default and prompting government officials to say holdout creditors are behind a speculative attack.

Rotherham sex abuse victim: I told police names of 250 men who raped me but they did NOTHING
As a virgin teenager in Rotherham, Emma was gang-raped by Asian gangs – and even suffered a mock execution

Offer sex education to all children from age of seven, Lib Dems say
David Laws, the Liberal Democrat schools minister, says all primary and secondary schools should be required to offer sex education

REPORT: 1400+ Children Abused, Raped, or Threatened by ‘Mostly Pakistani Perpetrators’ in UK Town
A new report has revealed that over 1400 children have been abused under the nose of bureaucrats at Rotherham Borough Council, the same local authority that stopped UKIP members adopting kids in 2012.

Djibouti President Unharmed After Shooting Leaves Three Injured
Djiboutian President Ismael Omar Guelleh was unharmed in a shooting at the Horn of Africa country’s main airport in the capital that left three people wounded, Foreign Minister Mahamoud Ali Youssouf said.

Rotherham child abuse: Cases in other towns
Child sexual exploitation is happening in a “number of towns” in different parts of the country, according to the author of a damning report into abuse in Rotherham.

Ukraine Says Russian Forces Lead Major New Offensive in East
Tanks, artillery and infantry have crossed from Russia into an unbreached part of eastern Ukraine in recent days, attacking Ukrainian forces and causing panic and wholesale retreat not only in this small border town but a wide swath of territory, in what Ukrainian and Western military officials described on Wednesday as a stealth invasion.

 

Opinion

 

What Happens When the Patriarchy Is Smashed?
This Weekend, feminists held one of their infamous “Slut Walks” in Chicago where they engaged in unhinged man-bashing while walking around dressed like trashy skanks… because that (along with demanding that other people pay for their contraception) is what Modern Feminism has been reduced to. (And of this the Feminists are very, very proud.)

Ferguson Postmortem
The backstory of Ferguson was that out of the millions of arrests each year only about 100 African-American suspects are shot fatally by white police. And yet we were falsely and ad nauseam told that Michael Brown was proof of an epidemic. There may well be an epidemic of blacks killing blacks, of African-Americans engaging in the knock-out game against non-blacks or flash-mobbing stores. But as far as rare interracial gun violence goes, in 2014 it is more commonly black on white. Ferguson is an anomaly that did not warrant hundreds of reporters who gladly skipped the real dramas of a world on the verge of blowing apart as it had in 1939.

Sex Trouble: Feminism, Mental Illness and the Pathetic Daughters of Misfortune
If you want to understand feminism, begin by studying abnormal psychology. Perhaps no fact about the Women’s Liberation movement of the 1960s and ’70s is more significant than this: Shulamith Firestone, a pioneering leader of so called “Second Wave” feminism who co-founded the radical feminist group Redstockings, was a paranoid schizophrenic who died alone at age 67, having spent decades on public assistance because of her mental illness.

It’s Actually Time For A Constitutional Moment
Libertarians and conservatives must join hands to protect the Constitution, or lose it.

Is The Left Approaching a Kool-Aid Moment?
We noted here the other day (“Propping Up Obama”) the agony of the left over Obama’s miserable performance of late. But there are other signs that leftism is falling apart just about everywhere.

You Will Be Made to Care
Vanderbilt University has decided student groups on campus cannot determine their own leadership. Consequently, a muslim can run the Christian group, a global warming skeptic can run the Earth First group, a Republican can run the College Democrats, etc. You get the idea.

The turned back
I will tell you something about courage and cowardice. I will speak primarily about men, because I am a man, and because the evil that grieves me was glimpsed by men, and these men turned away their eyes.
News accounts from England reveal that over 1,400 children in the borough of Rotherham were systematically brutalized over the past decade. The authors of this damning report indicate that the actual number is likely much higher. The report also details gang rapes of 11 year-olds. Children doused in gasoline and threatened with matches. A “grooming” process that entails addicting children to drugs. Children murdered, others missing.

The ‘We Can’t Wait’ Clause
Obama seems to believe the Constitution must have room for his agenda.

Vladimir Putin: The Return of the CommuNazi
In August 1939 — 75 years ago this week — Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin signed the Hitler-Stalin Pact. In the wake of the Russo-German alliance, newspaper wits coined the term “ComunNazi.” Communist-Nazi. Yes, “red” and “brown” entwined as the dictatorships they are.

Race: A Conservative View
The recent events in Ferguson, Missouri, ought to cause us to pause and reflect on the issue of race in America. It seems like after every incident similar to what is happening in that St. Louis suburb, we hear calls from our friends on the Left for a “national conversation on race”. It is a conversation we have needed to have for decades, and it is unfortunate that there has been little serious study of race from a conservative point of view, outside of perhaps Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams, and Shelby Steele. To a large degree, discussing how conservatives see race has largely been confined to those on the Left who are, essentially, on the outside looking in, and who might be trying to fit their observations to their own agendas. I am writing this essay in an attempt to spell out how the conservative sees race. It is my attempt to give us something to look back upon when that fabled national conversation finally happens.

Rasmussen Poll: Most Think DOJ Motivated by Politics
America is finally waking up.

Blacks Must Confront Reality
Though racial discrimination exists, it is nowhere near the barrier it once was. The relevant question is: How much of what we see today can be explained by racial discrimination? This is an important question because if we conclude that racial discrimination is the major cause of black problems when it isn’t, then effective solutions will be elusive forever. To begin to get a handle on the answer, let’s pull up a few historical facts about black Americans.

Left Running Out of People to Tax
Margaret Thatcher once quipped that the problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money. For the past several decades, American politics largely has been based on giving things to a great many people, paid by other, usually far fewer, people. That scheme can only last so long. The building media and political firestorms over “tax inversions” is the latest sign that a giant tax hangover is coming to spoil the left’s party.

Outing Christians
Yesterday I noted the letter from Pliny the Younger to Emperor Trajan in 112 AD. Pliny had begun arresting and torturing Christians for the crime of, among other things, obeying the law.

How To Get A 3000% Return On Your Investment: Invest In Politicians
Over at the Free Beacon (it’s “beacon” not “bacon”, settle down) Lachlan Markay takes a look at how the “private” Space X operation has turned a few thousand dollars in campaign donations and $300,000 or so in lobbying fees into tens of millions of dollars in subsidies for a proposed spaceport in south Texas.

Obama explains to the very rich
At a fundraiser in the home of an occasional Obama golf partner and former president of UBS Investment Bank, Obama spoke before an audience paying $15,000 a couple to bask in his aura.

Video Guide to new California Affirmative Consent Law
Parody may be law soon in California.