News of the Week for October 19^th, 2014

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

 

Election 2014

 

New Hampshire: Polling points to GOP gains in state Legislature
Half a dozen state Senate districts are the battleground for control of New Hampshire’s upper chamber this November while in the House of Representatives, polling indicates Republicans are likely to take back the majority they lost in 2012.

New York: Dems, GOP battle for control of state Senate
New York’s Senate Democrats have regrouped from the squabbling and disarray that left them out of power four years ago.

Republican Gardner Buries the War on Women in Colorado Senate Race
GOP Rep. Cory Gardner is taking the lead over Democrat Sen. Mark Udall in a hot mid-term race in the purple state of Colorado. Ellen Carmichael explains what Republicans can learn from Gardner’s strategic campaign over at the Federalist. As it turns out, the lessons revolve around the Right’s tendency to play defense in the face of the Left’s only real weapon of choice, character assassination

Adam Laxalt Prosecuted Terrorists in Iraq. Gets Accused of Paper Pushing by His Opponent.
Adam Laxalt is running for Attorney General of Nevada. On Friday night, he debated his Democrat opponent, Ross Miller. You can see the whole debate here, but the most unbelievable moment comes at the 38:30 mark.

Oregon’s 1st Lady admits planning illegal marijuana grow
Less than a week after admitting she illegally married an Ethiopian immigrant in 1997, Oregon’s first lady confessed to planning an illegal marijuana operation with another man that same year.

Cracks Appear in Harry Reid’s North Carolina Firewall
North Carolina senator Kay Hagan’s admission that she skipped a hearing about the Islamic State to attend a campaign fundraiser threatens to waste the $42 million that Democrats have spent in this race to protect her candidacy and their Senate majority.

Libertarian Senate Candidate Dies in Iowa Plane Crash
A libertarian running for U.S. Senate in Iowa died Monday night in a plane crash near Dubuque Regional Airport.

Real Clear Politics: GOP in position to take a big majority in Senate
It’s just a snapshot in time but, with just three weeks to go before voters head to the polls to cast their ballots in the midterm elections, Republicans may be in the best position to take control of the Senate than at any point in the 2014 election cycle.

Memo Reveals Liberal Billionaire’s Efforts to Suppress the Vote
Left-wing billionaire Tom Steyer is the single largest donor to outside spending groups in the 2014 election cycle. He’s contributed more than $42 million thus far, which is almost as much as the top 33 Republican-leaning donors combined.

Appeals court reinstates Texas voter ID law
A federal appeals court on Tuesday reinstated Texas’ tough voter ID law for the November election, which the U.S. Justice Department had condemned as the state’s latest means of suppressing minority voter turnout.

Trouble Looms for Obama, Democrats with Election Day 2014 Approaching
Barack Obama and his political party are heading into the midterm elections in trouble. The president’s 40 percent job approval rating in a new ABC News/Washington Post poll is the lowest of his career – and the Democratic Party’s popularity is its weakest in polling back 30 years, with more than half of Americans seeing the party unfavorably for the first time.

The GOP Establishment’s Senate Closer: Rand Paul
Seeking to unify the Right behind GOP Senate candidates, the Chamber of Commerce is airing TV ads featuring Rand Paul in states with Libertarian candidates on the ballot.

Andrea Mitchell Doesn’t Believe Greg Abbott is Really Handicapped
In her role as host on the all progressive all the time MSNBC, Andrea Mitchell hosted Wendy Davis on her Tuesday program to give her one more shot at explaining the Wheelchair Ad which has been panned by Democrats an Republicans alike.

Main source disputes Deadspin story of Cory Gardner’s football career
As far as October surprises go, this one could have been a doozy: A sports blog questioned whether U.S. Senate hopeful Cory Gardner ever played high school football, as he has claimed, but photographs and interviews with townsfolk debunk the report.

Charlie Crist, Troll
So in case you missed it last night, at the beginning of the Charlie Crist/Rick Scott debate, one of the most bizarre moments in recent political history unfolded when Florida Governor Rick Scott refused to take the stage because of controversy over a fan. Here is video of Fangate in all its cringing, awkward glory.

Can the California GOP craft a winning campaign strategy?
As California’s Republican Party contemplates its way out of the political wilderness, most of the public debate has focused on questions of ideology: Can social conservatives stomach moderation on issues such as abortion or gay marriage in exchange for election victories?

Hispanic Voters Are Reagan Voters!
That’s the message of this hard-hitting new anti-Mark Udall ad in Colorado, which is lighting up the internet this morning. The ad, produced by Conservative War Chest, is playing in both Spanish and English. It is aggressive, to put it mildly; it will be fun to hear the Democrats squawk about it over the days to come. The ad represents the most meaningful effort I have seen to take seriously the idea that most Hispanic voters have conservative, not liberal, values, and should be voting Republican.

Wargaming the 2014 Midterms
With three weeks to go, stuff just got real.

Tuck Versus Torlakson for State Superintendent Is a Struggle for Democrats’ Hearts
You might wonder why you should care about the Nov. 4 California State Superintendent of Public Instruction race. There’s a good chance you didn’t wonder, ever. But the heart of the Democratic Party is up for grabs, making this a bit of a big deal.

Hispanics seem to be souring on Obama Democrats
It’s looking like a tough offyear election for Democrats, with their Senate majority at serious risk and their chances of gaining House seats down toward zero.

David Perdue and a Georgia Runoff
A few weeks ago, Republican Senate candidate David Perdue had a Senate win within his reach with no runoff. Now, it seems the best he can hope for is an overtime victory. Reporters nationally, since the 1970’s, have warned of a demographic tide building, making it more difficult for Republicans to win. Pollsters, statisticians, and others claim that is happening now in Georgia. That is not actually true, despite how much so many invested in the “demographics as destiny” meme want it to be so.

Supreme Court allows Texas Voter ID law
Massive victory for Voter ID.

 

Obama Scandals

 

Leaked DHS Document: 167,000 Convicted Criminal Aliens At Large In US
Deportations from the interior of the United States declined 34 percent this year from last, according to a new report from the Center for Immigration Studies, derived largely from an internal Department of Homeland Security document.

Eric Holder’s Top Deputy Resigns Amid Revelation Fast and Furious Guns Used in Phoenix Crime
The top deputy to Attorney General Eric Holder announced his resignation on Thursday amid revelations that Operation Fast and Furious scandal guns were used to harm Americans in Phoenix in 2013, a development top congressional Republicans say President Obama’s administration sought to cover up.

Flashback: Then-NYC Health Commissioner Thomas Frieden Announces Rat Control Program; How’s That Working Out?
What with his name all over the news these days thanks to the Ebola mess, let’s have a look back at how the bumbling Thomas Frieden made his chops. Surely America will be relieved that he was a lieutenant in Michael Bloomberg’s oppressive New York nanny state. We found this item rather interesting from back in 2003.

Gun Rights

 

Federal court in Idaho strikes down ban on possessing guns for self-defense on Army Corps of Engineers property
From Morris v. Army Corps Engineers (D. Idaho Oct. 10, 2014)

5 Year Old Who Drew A Gun In Crayon Forced To Sign No-Suicide Contract With School
When I was in middle-school, Mortal Kombat was released on home video game consoles. Because my friends and I loved the game so much, we used to draw pictures of the characters doing seriously horrible things to one another. As in, rectal-based spine-retrieval type of stuff. It was fun and it was funny…and if we did that today, I have to assume we all would have ended up arrested and in some kind of psychiatric facility.

10 Year Old Girl Seeks To Become Gun Rights ‘Inspiration’
Meet Shyanne Roberts, a 10-year-old competitive shooter who is out to prove something: Children with guns don’t always mean disaster.

Hide the Decline

Environment &
“Green Energy”

 

More Problems for the Deep Ocean Warming Theory
New study from NASA last week: NASA Study Finds Earth’s Ocean Abyss Has Not Warmed

Emails show ‘cozy’ ties between EPA, environmental group over power-plant rules, senator says
Newly released emails detail what Republicans say are “cozy” ties between the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and a top environmental advocacy group, raising questions about the group’s influence — and participation — in the Obama administration’s so-called “War on Coal.”

Today’s Climate Comics: Hide Your Cat
Within a mere nine years, global warning could produce temperature spikes so elevated as to generate massive cat mortality?

Watch Green Energy Protesters FAIL to Inflate Anti-Coal Balloon With Solar Power!
This is wonderful… these are the kind of idiots who want to be in charge of YOUR family’s energy supply, not to mention the economy of the world, and they can’t even figure out how to inflate a friggin’ protest balloon with their solar power!

The Global Warming Statistical Meltdown
At the recent United Nations Climate Summit, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon warned that “Without significant cuts in emissions by all countries, and in key sectors, the window of opportunity to stay within less than 2 degrees [of warming] will soon close forever.” Actually, this window of opportunity may remain open for quite some time. A growing body of evidence suggests that the climate is less sensitive to increases in carbon-dioxide emissions than policy makers generally assume—and that the need for reductions in such emissions is less urgent.

Obamacare

Government in Healthcare

 

Obamacare is in hiding until after the election: Column
How our government is obscuring facts about your health insurance until after the election.

Rand Paul mocks the NIH for ‘Origami condom’
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) took aim Wednesday at the National Institutes of Health for blaming the agency’s slow response to the Ebola outbreak on budget cuts.

Ebola and the Failure of the Administrative State
When it comes to Ebola, it’s becoming clear that government “everywhere putting its hands to new undertakings” isn’t working out all that well.

Obama’s New Ebola ‘Czar’ Does Not Have Medical, Health Care Background
President Barack Obama on Friday turned to a trusted adviser to lead the nation’s Ebola response as efforts to clamp down on any possible route of infection from three Texas cases expanded, reaching a cruise ship at sea and multiple airline flights.

$39,643,352 Worth of NIH Funding That Could Have Gone to the Ebola Vaccine
Agency spends millions on Origami condoms, fat lesbians, texting drunks

 

War & Terror

 

Mideast crisis widens as Turkey bombs Kurdish militants
War against Islamic State militants in Syria and Iraq threatened on Tuesday to unravel the delicate peace in neighbouring Turkey after the Turkish air force bombed Kurdish fighters furious over Ankara’s refusal to help protect their kin in Syria.

China Military Buildup Shifts Balance of Power in Asia in Beijing’s Favor
Congressional report warns the danger of U.S.-China conflict is rising

Nine Days in the Caliphate: A Yazidi Woman’s Ordeal as an Islamic State Captive
When Islamic State fighters conquered the border region between Iraq and Syria, the Yazidi village of Kocho also fell into their hands. Twenty-year-old Nadia was among dozens of young women who were abducted and abused. This is the story of her ordeal.

Kurdish Female Soldier Gains Internet Fame for Allegedly Killing More than 100 ISIS Jihadis
A woman known as “Rehana” has become a hero across the internet as news spread that the Kobani soldier has reportedly killed more than 100 Islamic State terrorists single-handedly.

National

 

Navajo Nation President Watches Redskins Game with Dan Snyder
Dan Snyder watched his Redskins play the Cardinals on Sunday alongside Ben Shelly, president of the Navajo Nation, and his wife Martha. Snyder’s team lost the game on the field as they won a public-relations victory in the visiting owner’s box.

With their mark on Earth, humans may name era, too
People are changing Earth so much, warming and polluting it, that many scientists are turning to a new way to describe the time we live in. They’re calling it the Anthropocene — the age of humans.

Marriage rates hit new, all-time low
New data shows more young people are waiting to marry – and there’s no shortage of opinions on why that’s happening.

Loathsome de Blasio Booed at Columbus Day Parade: “He’s horrible”
We surprised he didn’t have his boss Al Sharpton marching with him.

Houston Mayor Subpoenas Pastors’ Sermons for Opposing ‘Anti-Discrimination’ Ordinance
The mayor’s office of the city of Houston, Texas is abusing its power.

GamerGate: Part I: Sex, Lies, and Gender Games
A controversy over videogames has become a battle in a larger culture war.

Teddy Bears and Anti-White Ethnic Studies
As one brave teacher described the ethnic studies program he was part of: “The basic theme of the curriculum was that Mexican-Americans were and continue to be victims of a racist American society driven by the interests of middle and upper-class whites.”
These programs are problem enough already, and now a legitimate educational subject is being pushed aside in favor of ethnic separatism. So much for assimilation, so much for educational standards, and so much for diversity: 98% of the students in El Rancho school district are Hispanic.

Houston Mayor Backs Off From Subpoenas to Pastors
Houston Mayor Annise Parker has backed down from the subpoenas the City of Houston issued to several area pastors, Breitbart Texas has learned.

UCLA’s New Cover Girl: Guess Which Far Leftist It Is!
Look whose photo graces the campus of UCLA, meant to be an inspiration to incoming students. The woman in the photo is standing above the slogan: “We Question.” On the right-hand side, in small letters, students are informed that they are “the optimists.”

Ex-L.A. Councilman Alarcon Latest to Be Jailed For Lying About Residency
On Tuesday, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge George G. Lomeli became the latest participant in California’s criminal justice system to send a strong message to elected officials in California that it is against the law to reside outside of the district you were elected to represent, and that the consequences of doing so will be harsh, and permanent.

Students at Women’s College Reject Transgender Student Govt Candidate for Being a ‘White Male’
The complicated world of gender re-assignment and racism has bitten the politically correct campus at the all female Wellesley College, as a student born female but choosing to become a man has been denied a spot in student government for being a “white male.”

Peek Inside The Ebola Transport Jet
For a virus that is not airborne, the authorities sure take a lot of precautions to make sure it doesn’t enter the common airspace. Well, maybe not when infected nurses fly commercial, but certainly when doctors transport Ebola patients from point A to point B on the world as can be seen in the following documentary of the Ebola transport jet that is used for such purposes.

Government Has Nightmarish Products in Development to Monitor Our Eating and Activity
Not even Winston Smith was asked to put up with this

Ferguson Witness: Mike Brown’s Hands Were Not Raised When Shot
Brown advanced on Wilson despite orders to stop, even after being shot

#GamerGate: an un-PC rebellion
Gamers are not happy with the right-on activists ruining their hobby.

Joe Biden’s Son Failed Drug Test 16 Months Ago, Discharged From Navy in February, Media All Over It
Look, we all know the drill by now. Just imagine if Hunter Biden’s last name was Bush, or Palin, and we can safely assume this would have been news some time ago.

Census Bureau: California still has highest U.S. poverty rate
California continues to have – by far – the nation’s highest level of poverty under an alternative method devised by the Census Bureau that takes into account both broader measures of income and the cost of living.

Hillary Clinton Flying Monkey Signs Deface Brentwood Ahead of Fundraiser
The conservatives’ answer to Shepard Fairey is also working on a fake website designed to mock Clinton and the Democratic Party

Saturn’s Death Star Moon Is Hiding Something
An ocean under the surface, perhaps?

Leaked TPP IP Chapter Would Lead To Much Greater Online Surveillance… Because Hollywood Still Hates The Internet
We already wrote a big piece about the latest leaked copy of the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement text. However, there were a few additional areas in the leaked text that deserve further scrutiny, so we’ll be having a few more posts. One significant concern is how the TPP is likely to lead to much greater surveillance by ISPs on your online surfing habits — all in the name of “copyright” of course

The #GamerGate Hate Hoax
Anita Sarkeesian (@femfreq) and Brianna Wu (@Spacekatgal) are feminist critics of the videogame industry who seem to be trying to cash in on the fact that they are feminist critics of the videogame industry.

New #Ferguson: “forensic evidence … lent credence to Officer Wilson’s version of events”
NY Times reports: “Officer Wilson appeared for four hours before a St. Louis County grand jury” to tell his side of story.

Christian Student Groups “Derecognized” at California Public Universities
“We engage in education, not discrimination.”

Fed Up With Govt Misconduct, Federal Judge Takes Nuclear Option
Federal Prosecutor Alleges Boss Pressured Him To Engage in ‘Unethical Conduct’; Judge Calls Abuses ‘Egregious,’ ‘Pervasive,” and “Reprehensible”

The government wants to study ‘social pollution’ on Twitter
If you take to Twitter to express your views on a hot-button issue, does the government have an interest in deciding whether you are spreading “misinformation’’? If you tweet your support for a candidate in the November elections, should taxpayer money be used to monitor your speech and evaluate your “partisanship’’?

In Idaho, Christian Pastors Ordered to Perform Gay Marriages. You Will Be Made to Care.
It is one of the tenets of the current movement toward gay marriage. They get to get married, Christians are forced to provide goods and services if they demand it, but — and this is the key caveat of it all — but Christian ministers will not be forced to wed gays because of their religious concerns.

Idaho City Threatens to Jail Ministers for Not Performing Gay Weddings
Officials in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, are threatening an elderly couple who run a wedding chapel with jail time unless they perform wedding ceremonies for gay couples.

Supreme Court May Yet Blunt Obama’s ‘Disparate Impact’ Weapon
Race-Baiting: The Obama regime has used a dubious discrimination theory to shake down home and car lenders for $1.1 billion and counting. Finally, the high court may step in to stop this witch hunt.

Economy & Taxes

 

Sweden close to being cashless society
Four out of five purchases in Sweden are paid electronically or by debit card and with the development of cheaper technology the trend is moving towards a fully cash free society, according to a new report.

Property makes Australians the world’s richest, says Credit Suisse
Thanks to their houses, Australians are the richest people in the world, according to the investment bank Credit Suisse.

NLRB deals another blow to small business
President Obama’s National Labor Relations Board recently announced that due to complaints against a McDonald’s franchise, it will expand its definition of employer to make one company an employer of another company’s employees.

 

International

 

Labour boycotts talks on having English votes for English laws, sparking claims Miliband is ‘not interested in fairness’
David Cameron condemns Labour for walking out on negotiations

Rotherham child sex abuse files “go missing from council archive”

Rare Iron Age chariot pieces found by archaeologists
Fittings from an Iron Age chariot has been discovered by archaeologists from the School of Archaeology and Ancient History at the University of Leicester in England.

Company Rejects, Maligns Applicant for Her Christian Beliefs and Education
“We embrace diversity, and the right of people to sleep with or marry whoever they want.”

Germany: Holy War Erupts in Hamburg
Parts of downtown Hamburg, the second-largest city in Germany, resembled a war zone after hundreds of supporters of the jihadist group Islamic State [IS] engaged in bloody street clashes with ethnic Kurds.

Who Will Be Miss Hitler 2014?
Who is the most beautiful anti-Semitic of them all? A Russian pro-Hitler online group wants to find out

‘More Child Abuse Cases to Come to Light’ Says Top UK Police Officer
It is likely that more child-abuse cases like the recent Rotherham grooming scandal will come to light, one of the most senior police officers in the UK has claimed.

 

Opinion

 

Obama and Commodus
The Roman Emperor Commodus turned away from a fight against barbarians along the frontier to take up more rewarding domestic pursuits. It didn’t work out so well for the Emperor.

Is Burke The Right Role Model For American Conservatives?
Part 1 of an interview with Yuval Levin.

How Did Thomas Paine Go From Revolutionary To Welfare Statist?
Part 2 of an interview with Yuval Levin.

The Hong Kong question: The United States cannot remain neutral
Nearly three weeks of anti-Beijing demonstrations in Hong Kong apparently have stalled out. But only in the short term. Make no mistake, despite the seemingly successful strategy of Chinese and Hong Kong authorities to exhaust and divide the largely student-led protesters, we are nonetheless witnessing one of the 21st century’s most decisive confrontations.

Christians Can’t Accept Houston’s Intimidation Tactics Without Protest
Support for legalizing same-sex marriage dropped from 54 percent to 49 percent since February, according to a Pew Research Center poll. Analysts said they had no idea why or if it was just a random blip. I joked on Twitter that my April article “Rise of the Same-Sex Marriage Dissidents” probably was the cause.

The Thirty Years’ War
What this country needs is a war of attrition against the welfare state and entrenched incompetency.

The decline and fall of marriage
For a pleasant surprise today, this article has nothing to do with gay marriage. (You may now all breath a sigh of relief.) No, today we’re talking about an entirely different approach to the subject which may tie in to the distressing decline in successful, productive marriages in America. Writing in an opinion piece for CNN, Pepper Schwartz, a professor of sociology at the University of Washington, documents why more and more women are remaining single in the United States today. And she lists a variety of reasons as to why that’s just a peachy idea.

I have no idea what #GamerGate is
Did I miss something?

Sweden – Ship of fools
The shape of things to come on planet “progressive”.

Fundamental Concepts: The Tragedy of the Commons
This one is not going to be very long, because it’s an easy one. Tragedy of the Commons is the name given to a theory that if a group of people share a resource, it will eventually be plundered and rendered useless. Overfishing of the Grand Banks is a commonly cited example. Selfish people will overuse the resource, ruining it for everybody. This concept is the basis for a good deal of leftist political thought, it is the reason that they want to put government in charge of everything. They are right, up to a point, but as usual they miss the mark completely in an attempt to bring everything under the thumb of government.

George Orwell, Heather MacDonald and “Yes Means Yes”
1984 Remains Relevant in 2014.

Ten Things the Ebola Crisis Tells Us About the Obola Administration
What a shock: faced with a crisis that could demolish the Democrats in the coming midterm elections and permanently cripple his post-election plans to continue “fundamental transformation,” President Obama has done the only thing he knows how to do — seek a political solution to get him past Nov. 4, in the hopes that he can fool the American public one last time.

Anti-Heterosexual #Feminism
My #GamerGate coverage had only just begun when @streever — who obviously doesn’t know me from Adam’s housecat — made the mistake of disputing my authority to describe feminism as “anti-male and anti-heterosexual.” This is not necessarily @streever‘s fault.

The #GamerGate White Knight Syndrome
The troll @streever jumped into my Twitter timeline Friday to challenge my assertion that “Feminism is anti-male, anti-heterosexual and — most importantly — ANTI-FREEDOM.” This inspired me to reiterate the basic theme of the “Sex Trouble” series, by way of demonstrating its relevance to the #GamerGate controversy.

Supporting GamerGate Does Not Make You a Bully
When reports came out last weekend of developer Brianna Wu receiving death threats over Twitter, the gaming media renewed its attacks on the GamerGate movement labeling it a hate group trying to drive women from the gaming industry. When Anita Sarkeesian canceled a planned speech at Utah State University over anonymous death threats, the backlash against GamerGate built to a roar in stories across the national mainstream press.

Equating Conservatism With Hate Speech on Campus
If liberals can classify conservatism as hate speech, they can ban it on campus. This report from Hans Bader at the Examiner is cause for concern.

Tantrum-throwing babies are in charge of New York
Watch out for the Day-Care Duo. In Albany, there is Andrew — engaging and gracious when he gets his way; surly, suspicious and menacing when he doesn’t. At City Hall, there is Bill — also quick with a smile, yet pigheaded, quick to anger and sadly slow to learn.