News of the Week for December 21st, 2014
- Obama Scandals
- Gun Rights
- Hide the Decline
- Obamacare
- War & Terror
- National News
- Economy & Taxes
- International News
- Opinion
Obama Scandals
District court declares Obama immigration action unconstitutional
Earlier Tuesday, a federal court in Pennsylvania declared aspects of President Obama’s executive actions on immigration policy unconstitutional.
Obama Provides Economic Lifeline to Cuba
Other Cuban allies, including Venezuela and Russia, in economic crisis
Sixth Circuit: Mental Health Gun Ban Is Unconstitutional
On December 18, a three-judge panel of the Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a ban on gun purchases for anyone who has been “adjudicated as a mental defective or has been committed to a mental institution” violated the Second Amendment rights of a Michigan man who was denied a gun purchase because of a mental institution commitment in 1986.
Obama Apologizes to Castro
Cuban communist leader lectures Obama for 30 minutes.
Castro Thanks U.S. but Affirms Cuba’s Communist Rule
President Raúl Castro declared victory for the Cuban Revolution on Saturday in a wide-ranging speech, thanking President Obama for “a new chapter,” while also reaffirming that restored relations with the United States did not mean the end of Communist rule in Cuba.
Gun Rights
Texas Pushes for Open Carry
Don’t tread on the Second Amendment
SELF-DEFENSE IN OAKLAND: Undercover Cop Pulls Gun On Protesters After Attack
I suspect that many of you saw some of the same disturbing images I did earlier this week of an undercover California Highway Patrol Officer pulling a handgun on a group of Oakland, CA protesters affiliated with the “Ferguson” movement.
Why Gun-Control Advocates Lie about Guns
The facts aren’t on their side.
Fed Govt. Hid Report On Lead Ammo In Condors, Opting Instead For Gun Control Law
The US Fish and Wildlife Service recently double-crossed the National Shooting Sports Foundation, as well as voters. Following a Freedom of Information Act public records request to the Fish and Wildlife agency, the shooting sports foundation obtained emails that prove the federal agency withheld pertinent, official data in its annual report on the California Condor’s lead blood levels, until well after the California state legislature passed a law in 2013 to ban all lead ammunition.
Obama overturns ban preventing criminal Ecuadorean Democratic donor from entering U.S.
This is more than just another of those moments that warily conservatives point to when President Barack Obama or his defenders insist that no administration has operated stricter border controls or pursued more deportations of illegal immigrants. This is criminal.
Shocka! Sydney Terrorist Not A Registered Gun Owner!
AFP admits gun advice to PM was wrong: “The AFP has since confirmed that Mr Monis was not a registered firearms licence holder.”
14-Year-Old Stops Home Invasion – Protecting Grandma Shoots One Thug Dead, The Other Apprehended…
Grandpa had previously taken his grandson to shooting and gun safety class.
Second Amendment and people who had been committed to a mental institution 28 years ago
Under federal law, people who have been involuntarily “committed to a mental institution” — however long ago — are barred from possessing guns. Congress agreed that people with long-past mental problems might now be sane, and thus not especially dangerous, and provided for a means to apply for restoration of gun rights. But then in 1992 Congress ordered ATF not to spend any money applying the restoration program. And while it provided, in 2007, that people could get their rights restored by applying to a state that has a qualifying program for evaluating applicants’ mental fitness, many states have no such program.
Hide the Decline
Environment &
“Green Energy”
Your All-Electric Vehicle May Not Be So Green, Study Says
People who own all-electric cars in places where coal generates the power are actually making the air dirtier, according to a new study. The key is the electricity’s source. If it comes from coal, the electric cars produce 3.6 times more soot and smog deaths than gas, because of the pollution made in generating the electricity, according to the study published Monday by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. They also are significantly worse at heat-trapping carbon dioxide that worsens global warming, it found.
Duneboggle: Chris Christie Literally Creating Malarial Swamps In New Jersey
In a new development in the war at the shore, one of the more widely ridiculed objections to New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s dune-building plan — that dunes cause swamping and prevent drainage — turns out to be less wild than dune supporters claim. This is what the area behind Absecon Island’s dunes looked like after last week’s nor’easter flooded a town that already has Christie-style dunes in place
The EPA is Turning Water on Farms Into a Weapon Against Farmers
We have noted time and again how government – in the name of helping the Little Guy – eviscerates the Little Guy.
$10 billion UN-linked climate change fund wants immunity from prosecution
The Green Climate Fund, (GCF) a United Nations-affiliated piggy-bank intended to finance climate change projects around the world, is determined to win sweeping U.N.-style immunities from prosecutions for its global operations–even though the U.S., its biggest contributor, opposes the idea, and the U.N. itself says its own diplomatic immunities can’t cover the outfit.
Obamacare
Government in Healthcare
Vermont bails on single-payer health care
Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin on Wednesday dropped his plan to enact a single-payer health care system in his state — a plan that had won praise from liberals but never really got much past the framework stage.
War & Terror
Sydney Hostage Siege
A gunman has taken dozens of people hostage in a cafe in Sydney’s financial district.
Sydney siege
Hostages have been seen with their hands pressed against the windows of the cafe, in some photos with a black flag with Arabic writing pressed up against one of its windows.
Hostage drama: Siege at Sydney cafe
Customers and workers were seen with their arms in the air inside the Lindt Chocolat Cafe.
Sydney Hostage Siege
A gunman has taken dozens of people hostage in a cafe in Sydney’s financial district.
Sydney siege
Hostages have been seen with their hands pressed against the windows of the cafe, in some photos with a black flag with Arabic writing pressed up against one of its windows.
Hostage drama: Siege at Sydney cafe
Customers and workers were seen with their arms in the air inside the Lindt Chocolat Cafe.
Sydney gunman named as Man Haron Monis
The armed man at the centre of a siege in Sydney’s Lindt Chocolat Cafe has been named as Man Haron Monis, a self-proclaimed sheikh who is currently on bail for more than 40 sexual and indecent assault charges.
Islamist gunman and 2 hostages dead in Sydney siege
Sydney police say three people have died, including the gunman, during a hostage crisis that ended when officers stormed a downtown cafe.
THREE DEAD IN BLOODY END TO SIEGE: Two hostages dead and Muslim gunman killed as police storm Sydney cafe with assault rifles and stun grenades moments after hostages fled
Police stormed the cafe in central Sydney where a gunman held hostages for more than 16 hours
Martin Place, Sydney siege gunman identified as Man Haron Monis
The man who held more than a dozen people hostage, placing Sydney’s CBD into lockdown is no stranger to the NSW police or the judiciary.
“Known Wolf” Syndrome: Sydney Hostage-Taker Is Yet Another Case
Yet again, it appears political correctness kept the West from preventing the preventable.
Sydney Gunman’s Website Promised Vengeance Against US, Allies on December 14th
Radical Muslim Man Haron Monis, the man who took hostages in a Lindt shop in Sydney for over a dozen hours, promised vengeance on his website yesterday.
#SydneySiege: Jim Geraghty, Iowahawk crush reaction to terrorist’s ISIS flag with shattering idea
As Twitchy…reported, there was at first some confusion over the flag that the terrorist had at the scene. That was cleared up when the savage terrorist asked for an ISIS flag.
#Sydneysiege Muslim Hostage Takers Demand an IS Flag & Live Chat With Aussie PM
It’s all over
Australian PM: ISIS ‘Has Nothing to Do With Any Religion’
Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott declared that ISIS “has nothing to do with any religion” during a press conference on Tuesday.
Victims of Sydney Terrorist Attack Died as Heroes – One Rushed Gunman, Other Protected Pregnant Friend
Islamist terrorism attacked Australia, but as with many episodes of evil, there also moments of human bravery and honor. The two victims of the maggot who caused the siege seemed to have died heroes, as one was killed struggling with the gunman, and the other died protecting her pregnant friend.
Torture Is Unacceptable; But What Is Torture?
It’s extremely difficult to draw the line between interrogation and torture, but also extremely important.
About Half See CIA Interrogation Methods as Justified
Democrats Divided over CIA’s Post-9/11 Interrogation Techniques
Iraq battalion was sole group to stand up to Islamic State’s summer surge
Two entire divisions — more than 30,000 soldiers — along with Mosul’s entire police force disintegrated and fled from Iraq’s second-largest city and the surrounding area in June when faced with the Islamic State’s lightning advance across much of northern Iraq.
Taliban-led attack on Pakistan school leaves 141 dead
An assault led by the Taliban on a Pakistan military-run school Tuesday left 141 people dead, 132 of which were children, officials say, in the worst attack to hit the country in years.
Pakistan School Attack: Taliban Militants Kill More Than 140 in Peshawar
Taliban militants laid siege to a Pakistan school in a brazen hours-long attack on Tuesday, killing more than 130 children in an atrocity condemned by the White House as “heinous” and “horrific.”
Today: Taliban Butchers 130 Schoolchildren; Sets Teacher on Fire In Front of Class
Last Week: Hillary Clinton Claims We Need to “Empathize With” Our Enemies
Peshawar school attack: Taliban’s “revenge” for Malala Yousafzai’s Nobel Peace Prize
The Taliban has killed dozens of children at a Peshawar school in a revenge mission for Pakistani schoolgirl activist Malala Yousafzai being awarded the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize.
Peshawar school attack: Taliban ‘burn teacher alive in front of pupils and behead children’
Taliban terrorists allegedly burned a teacher alive and made the students watch during their attack on a Pakistan school which left over 130 people dead.
Leftists Fret Over Imaginary Anti-Muslim Backlash That Never Happens
We’ll bombard the Islamophobes with hashtags until the succumb.
China Tests ICBM With Multiple Warheads
Clinton-era tech transfer aided multi-warhead program
Iraq: 150 women executed after refusing to marry ISIL militants
At least 150 women who refused to marry militants of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, or ISIL, were executed in the western Iraqi province of Al-Anbar, Iraq’s Ministry of Human Rights said.
How ISIS is selling human organs harvested from living hostages and its own dead soldiers to fund terror across the Middle East
IS is hiring foreign doctors to harvest organs in hospitals in Iraq and Syria
Gunman executes 2 NYPD cops as “revenge” for Garner
Two uniformed NYPD officers were shot dead Saturday afternoon as they sat in their marked police car on a Brooklyn street corner — in what investigators believe was a crazed gunman’s assassination-style mission to avenge Eric Garner and Michael Brown.
NYPD Officers TURN THEIR BACK TO Mayor De Blasio As He Enters Police Press Conference
Police officers turned their backs on Mayor Bill de Blasio as he walked into the police press conference about the two NYPD officers shot and killed execution-style in Brooklyn.
Brooklyn cop killer’s FB page: “Strike terror into the hearts of the enemies of Allah”
QuranquoteBrinsleyIsmaaiyl Brinsley murdered two policemen in Brooklyn today, as they were having lunch. The murders are being reported as revenge for the deaths of Eric Garner and Michael Brown. However, there appears to be more to the story. His Facebook page contains a photo of Qur’an 8:60, which includes the phrase, “Strike terror into the hearts of the enemies of Allah.”
“Revenge” for Garner: Two NYPD Officers Executed in Brooklyn Ambush
The loathing and contempt we feel right now for Bill de Blasio, Al Sharpton and the rest of the vermin who have fostered an anti-police climate of hate is off the charts right now
#illridewithyou Was Even More Fraudulent Than I Thought
When an Islamic terrorist took hostages in a Sydney, Australia cafe this week, the first thing our moral, ethical, and intellectual betters did — before the siege was even over, before two of the hostages were killed — was change the subject.
Anger at The Cop Killer – And The Police
In the Brooklyn neighborhood where two police officers were brutally murdered, not everyone was grieving.
NYPD Shooting Eyewitness: People ‘Clapping and Laughing’ After Killings
Mayor Bill de Blasio said this is ‘not the time for politics’ following the murder of two police officers in Brooklyn on Saturday.
NYPD: Man Attempted to Shoot Cop but Gun Was Empty
Only hours after two New York policemen were ambushed and executed in Brooklyn by a man claiming he wanted revenge for the death of Eric Garner, a man in the Bronx allegedly attempted to murder a third New York policeman. He only failed because his gun didn’t work when he pulled the trigger, police say.
National
White potatoes finally legal for WIC purchase
Eliza Doolittle catches a break
BaQa’—or Is It Humbug? Aliens Attack a Holiday Classic
‘A Klingon Christmas Carol’ Transports Scrooge to Another Planet
‘You are a ‘Teabagger!” Long Island Woman Receives $1.12 Million For False Prosecution
A Long Island federal jury rewarded Nancy Genovese, 58, a mother of three, $1.12 million in compensatory damages after being arrested in 2009 for attempting to photograph a helicopter at a Air National Guard base in the Hamptons. Genovese intended to use the photo on a “Support the Troops” website; she was arrested for trespass and insulted as a “Teabagger.”
Obama Speaks at Fort Dix, Where His Friend Bill Ayers Attempted to Murder Servicemen at a Dance
Yay?
Al Sharpton Leads March in DC as NYC Protesters Chant: “What Do We Want? Dead Cops!”
Joining the families of blacks killed by police, thousands marched toward the capitol and down New York streets on Saturday to protest what they called an epidemic of abuse at the hands of police.
New NLRB Rule Makes Challenging Unionization Harder
Union elections sped up, less time for legal action
NLRB: Workers can use company email to unionize
The National Labor Relations Board ruled Friday that workers have a right to use their employer’s email system for the purposes of union organizing. The ruling reversers a 2007 opinion by the board that employees did not have the right since the system was company property.
Guy Who Made A Living Excusing Black Criminality Just Got Murdered By Two Black Oakland Males
A prominent writer for the Southern Poverty Law Center was gunned down by two black males while hiking in Oakland, reports NBC Bay Area News
Welcome To 2016: Jeb Bush Officially Announces He’s Running (Sort Of)
Oh yeah, Bush 2016 is real and it’s going to be spectacular!
Virginia Dems Who Refused to Compromise on Abortion Clinic Regulations Now Crying Foul
No matter how many common sense pro-life bills Ken Cuccinelli introduced in the Virginia State Senate, he found absolutely no compromise from his Democratic colleagues. Year after year, liberal legislators routinely rejected bills that would have ensured necessary regulations in the state’s abortion clinics. Now, they are left with what they call an ‘extreme’ law named TRAP, the Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers. I spoke to former Attorney General and 2013 Republican gubernatorial candidate Ken Cuccinelli (R-VA) about his experience in the Virginia State Senate, where he says Democrats have no right to cry foul over the current law, when they themselves never offered any middle ground.
No Exam Delay for Oberlin Students ‘Traumatized’ By Grand Jury Decisions
Last week, Robby wrote here about how “students are so coddled by the feelings-protection regime at university campuses that they now believe disheartening national news developments—such as the grand jury decisions in the Michael Brown and Eric Garner cases—entitle them to final exam extensions.” Columbia Law School delayed final exams for students who felt unable to take them in the wake these developments. Students at Harvard and Georgetown began demanding their universities follow suit.
The next big police shooting Grand Jury decision … in Houston
In echoes of Ferguson shooting, police report unarrmed black man put hands to waistband, charged police officer
Prof: ‘Elf on the Shelf’ conditions kids to accept surveillance state
Could there be something more sinister behind the little elf sitting on the shelf who returns to the North Pole each night?
Obama: US re-establishing relations with Cuba
President Barack Obama announced the re-establishment of diplomatic relations and an easing in economic and travel restrictions on Cuba Wednesday, declaring an end to America’s “outdated approach” to the communist island in a historic shift aimed at ending a half-century of Cold War enmity.
Republican wins Arizona House seat after recount
Republicans will have their largest U.S. House majority in 83 years when the new Congress convenes next month after a recount in Arizona gave the final outstanding race to the Republican challenger.
A Christian Asks 13 Gay Bakeries To Bake Him A Pro-Traditional Marriage Cake, And Is Denied Service By All Of Them
Excerpted from Shoebat: “Support Gay Marriage” is one Christian bakery was sued for refusing to put that slogan on a cake for an event to support the gay agenda.
Rubio Challenges Pope Francis: “Take Up the Cause of Freedom”
Senator Marco Rubio (R., Fla.,) suggested that Pope Francis should “take up the cause of freedom” in support of the Cuban people.
Colorado Governor Says You Can’t Educate Children Well Yourself
So condescending
Marquette’s John McAdams suspended after criticizing TA on gay marriage discussion
John McAdams, a Marquette University associate professor, says he is being “treated like a potential terrorist” after being suspended with pay and banned from campus while the university investigates his conduct, presumably because he publicly criticized a teaching assistant for not allowing discussion of gay marriage in an ethics class.
Alan Dershowitz tries to get noted child rapist off the hook in US courts
Back around Halloween we once again narrowly missed a chance to drag confessed pedophile and child rapist Roman Polanski back to the United States to face justice for his monstrous crimes when Poland refused to honor our requests. That was undoubtedly a frustrating experience for many observers, but it won’t hold a candle to how most of us will feel if celebrity attorney Alan Dershowitz has his way. He is seeking to throw the case out entirely so that the known sex offender can freely travel back and forth to America.
Rubio warns Obama on Cuba: Good luck getting an ambassador confirmed or an embassy funded
Exhibit A in why a guy who’s already far too frisky with executive power was thinking of new ways to get around Congress before the Cuba deal was announced.
Pope Francis, Canada brokered Cuba deal
The conclusion of an agreement to normalize diplomatic relations between the US and Cuba has the White House treading cautiously, especially after bipartisan condemnation from Cuban-American Senators Marco Rubio and Bob Menendez. The latter, who chaired the Foreign Relations Committee until yesterday, accused Barack Obama of “vindicat[ing] the brutal behavior of the Cuban government” and of “set[ting] an extremely dangerous precedent.” Menendez is of course a Democrat and ostensibly an ally of the White House on foreign policy.
President Obama Didn’t Tell The Whole Story About Cuba
Reality contradicts President Obama’s rationale for deciding to normalize diplomatic and trade relations with Cuba.
Thanks, Obama: Blacks Falling Behind Under ObamaCare, No Protest Marches Scheduled
Don’t worry, folks, he’ll show his concern in between rounds of golf during his upcoming 17-day Hawaiian vacation.
California Again Named among worst “Judicial Hellholes” in the United States
The 2014-2015 “Judicial Hellholes” report has been released, and California again is ranked among the least-balanced lawsuit jurisdictions in the nation. Why? California incentivizes trial lawyers to file abusive lawsuits against businesses and governments with promises of easy money.
U Michigan Department Chair: We Should ‘Hate Republicans’
A professor explains that studies show the GOP is bad.
Democrat PA Legislators Indicted for Voter ID Bribes
Two Philadelphia-area Democrat state legislators have been indicted for accepting bribes in exchange for opposition to photo voter identification legislation. Pennsylvania state Rep. Ron Waters (D) was charged for allegedly accepting a $8,750 bribe to oppose the voter ID bill. Gifts from Tiffany Jewelry were also offered to the legislators to oppose voter ID bills.
Marquette Philosophy Instructor: “Gay Rights” Can’t Be Discussed in Class Since Any Disagreement Would Offend Gay Students
A student we know was in a philosophy class (“Theory of Ethics”), and the instructor (one Cheryl Abbate) was attempting to apply a philosophical text to modern political controversies. So far so good.
Woman falsely accuses man of rape – but he records it all on video
The latest feminist obsession with rape has reached the point where false accusations are now being thrown around loosely. It has resulted in a negative stigma toward men on college campuses, and destroyed the lives of those falsely accused. Fortunately, one man videotaped his entire encounter with a woman who wrongly accused him, proving her wrong and probably saving him from arrest and prosecution.
CUBA SHELTERS CONVICTED COP-KILLER FROM US JUSTICE
As President Barack Obama announced on Wednesday that his administration had struck a deal to secure the release of Alan Gross, an American aid worker who had been held in captivity in Cuba for five years, in exchange for three of the “Cuban Five” spies, one name was conspicuously absent from the President’s remarks: Assata Shakur, a convicted cop-killer who has been evading extradition in Cuba since escaping prison in 1979.
SEIU Union Thug Arrested for Attacking NYPD Officer During “Mostly Peaceful” Protest
A real stunner seeing a union organizer being arrested for attacking a cop.
NYPD Union Chief Goes Nuclear on Feckless de Blasio: “He is not running the City of New York. He thinks he’s running a f-?-king revolution”
Might be time for a wave of the blue flu. Maybe on New Year’s Eve, just to teach this jerk a lesson.
Transgender Movement Upends Feminism at America’s Women’s Colleges
Well, women’s colleges were established as bastions of women’s empowerment in a sea of patriarchal oppression. But with “gender fluidity” all the rage, some feminists on women’s campuses are getting brushed aside as the newest social victims — the “transgendered” — gain credibility and power across the country.
Oh Boy: Woman Who Started #IllRideWithYou Viral Meme Admits… It Pretty Much Didn’t Happen, and Was Mostly Imagined
After the Sheik killed two people, the media turned to praising Islam and highlighting the plight of Muslims in the West, because that’s what we always do after a Muslim kills people in the West: We praise Islam, and then worry about what hypothetical crimes Westerners may commit against Muslims.
High School: Islamic vocabulary lesson part of Common Core standards
Parents in Farmville, North Carolina want to know why their children were given a Common Core vocabulary assignment in an English class that promoted the Prophet Muhammad and the Islamic faith.
UMich Feminists Harass Muslim Who Wrote Political Correctness Satire
A political conservative and a practicing Muslim at the University of Michigan has become the victim of a campaign of harassment by university feminists who are upset at him for having written for a school newspaper a satirical article slamming political correctness and “trigger warnings.”
Scientists accidentally stop skin aging in mice
Sometimes really cool science can happen quite by accident, as was the case at the University of British Columbia recently when researchers were studying blood vessel deterioration in mice.
UCLA Professor: Without Media Bias the Average US State Would Vote Like Texas or Tennessee (VIdeo)
Dr. Tim Groseclose is the Marvin Hoffenberg Professor of American Politics at UCLA. He has joint appointments in the political science and economics departments and has held previous faculty appointments at Caltech, Stanford University, Ohio State University, Harvard University, and Carnegie Mellon University.
McConnell: I’m on Team Rubio in regard to Cuba
Beginning on Thursday night, a fight erupted on line between Republican Senators Marco Rubio and Rand Paul over the new diplomatic opening to Cuba. Rubio slammed Paul for his ignorance, while Paul bizarrely accused Rubio of “isolationism” for opposing Barack Obama’s policies. Before that battle began in earnest, I spoke with incoming Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in a wide-ranging interview about his plans for the 114th Session of Congress.
Not just tolls: E-Z Pass keeping an eye on speeders
Warning to motorists: Don’t speed in the toll lanes. E-Z Pass is watching.
Dr. Evil Hijacks SNL Cold Open to Bash North Korea
Mike Myers returned to Saturday Night Live tonight as Dr. Evil, hijacking the show’s cold open to rant against North Korea for effectively killing The Interview and giving evil a bad name.
Anti-Scott Walker prosecutorial skullduggery in Wisconsin exposed
A huge political scandal is slowly coming to light in Wisconsin, as information comes to light about the conduct of that state’s Government Accountability Board (GAB) as it persecuted supporters of Governor Scott Walker, who bravely took on the public employee unions of that state. The outrageous tactics used included midnight SWAT team raids on Walker’s political supporters. Ten days ago, I wrote about some of the potential law-breaking and document-alteration engaged in by the prosecutors. But new evidence has just come to light.
Economy & Taxes
A financial joke devised to poke fun at Putin comes true
The Russian ruble is a joke. Rather, the currency’s relentless slide has made it the butt of jokes. Here’s one: What do Vladimir Putin, the oil price, and the ruble’s value against the dollar have in common? They are all 62.
Sorry, Putin. Russia’s economy is doomed
A funny thing happened on the way to Vladimir Putin running strategic laps around the West. Russia’s economy imploded.
“Free Trade” With Cuba Is A Dangerous Fantasy
President Obama announced a radical change in U.S. policy towards Cuba today, and reactions range from the ecstatic to the outraged. According to a White House fact sheet on the topic that was sent to congressional offices on Capitol Hill, the new policy will allow Americans to import up to $400 in Cuban goods, of which up to $100 can be alcohol or tobacco products (like cigars). The new policy will also increase the threshold on remittances — payments sent from people in the U.S. to people in Cuba, most likely family members — from $500 to $2,000.
California Business Needs To Go Small Or Go Home
Here’s the bitter reality for business in much of California: there’s no cavalry riding to rescue you from the state’s regulatory and tax vise. The voters in California have spoken, and with a definitive, distinctive twist, turned against any suggestion of reform and confirmed the continued domination of the state by public employee unions, environmental activists and their crony capitalist allies.
Cuba’s Maximum Wage, Or What Life Is Like When You Follow Gawker’s Economic Policy
Below, Andrew Stuttaford notes Michael Totten’s City Journal article from earlier this year about the tragic realities of life in the Castros’ Cuba. One absurdity Totten mentions: Cuba, years ahead of Gawker, has long had a maximum wage, of late about $20 a month.
International
Denmark claims North Pole via Greenland ridge link
Scientific data shows Greenland’s continental shelf is connected to a ridge beneath the Arctic Ocean, giving Danes a claim to the North Pole and any potential energy resources beneath it, Denmark’s foreign minister said.
Professor of Journalism in Australia Sees “Green” Upside to Islamic Terrorism
Wendy Bacon, global warming crusader and Professor of Journalism at the Australian Centre for Independent Journalism, sees the upside of a gunman with an Islamic flag holding hostages and shutting down central Sydney
IS Militant Seeks Chechen Wife For 15-Year-Old Child Fighter
A Chechen militant who has fought with the Islamic State (IS) group in Kobani has put out a request on social media for help to find a Chechen wife for a teenage Syrian boy also fighting with the group.
Swedish anti-immigration party building support before vote: poll
The anti-immigration Sweden Democrats are more popular than ever, winning over voters from the center right and center left before an early election in March they helped trigger by voting down the government’s budget, a poll showed.
Stockholm syndrome in Sydney
The natural reaction to the hostage taking in Sydney, Australia should be to brush up on the basics of why we’re seeing jihad-style incidents taking place in the West.
India’s ban on Islamic State
Quickly after the arrest of a youth from Maharashtra upon his return from Iraq where he underwent some training as a fighter for Islamic State, and the dramatic arrest thereafter of an engineer in Bengaluru for posting on the microblogging site Twitter material that praised IS and its actions, Home Minister Rajnath Singh has told Parliament that “as a first step”, India has banned the group.
Geert Wilders to face trial for inciting racial hatred after vowing to make sure there were ‘fewer Moroccans’ in Holland
The case centres on comments Wilders made at a March 19 rally
Siege backlash unlikely, yet Facebook shuts down Australian Defence League page
“A Latrobe Valley Muslim leader has expressed confidence the community was unlikely to experience any negative backlash from the Martin Place siege in Sydney earlier this week, where three people died including the lone gunman,” reports the Latrobe Valley Express.
The Horror Of The Sydney Terror Attack Backlash! Muslim Felt Coworker Was Staring At Him!
“While watching the news coverage of the siege at the Lindt Chocolate Cafe from his office, Rashid Ben Zerouk, a computer specialist in Sydney who is Muslim, said he felt a piercing glare from one of his colleagues.
On Cuba, the difference between Barack Obama and John F. Kennedy
With Obama and the Democrats reveling in having handed Fidel Castro everything in exchange for nothing (except a man who is still a committed Marxist after five years in a communist prison), I got to thinking about Pope Francis’s apparently pivotal role in this whole thing.
Castro to Pocket 92% of Worker Salaries from Foreign Companies
Just one day before President Obama announced sweeping changes that would allow potential American investment in Cuba, the Cuban government apparently had begun preparing itself by announcing new measures that would allow Cubans who work for foreign companies to keep only 8% of their salaries.
French police shoot dead knifeman who was shouting Islamic slogans
Investigation under way after man attacks officers in police station in central France
For Blacks in Cuba, the Revolution Hasn’t Begun
CHANGE is the latest news to come out of Cuba, though for Afro-Cubans like myself, this is more dream than reality. Over the last decade, scores of ridiculous prohibitions for Cubans living on the island have been eliminated, among them sleeping at a hotel, buying a cellphone, selling a house or car and traveling abroad. These gestures have been celebrated as signs of openness and reform, though they are really nothing more than efforts to make life more normal. And the reality is that in Cuba, your experience of these changes depends on your skin color.
Czech villagers: Kuwaitis go home!
Residents protest, start petition against sale of land to Kuwaitis for summer colony
Home Office powerless as legal loophole leaves underage child brides free to join husbands in Britain
If the girl is wed lawfully in her homeland then her husband cannot be prosecuted under UK law, Theresa May’s Home Office admitted
Opinion
How A Conservative Insurgent Can Win The 2016 GOP Presidential Nomination
Treating voters as if they are ‘an enlightened and rational people’ might just produce a Republican presidential candidate worthy of the name.
Rep. Tom McClintock: Smart Growth Not So Smart
Value your freedoms on Bill of Rights Day
Today is Bill of Rights Day. The observation, first ordered by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1941, commemorates Dec. 15, 1791, when the first 10 amendments to our Constitution — known as the Bill of Rights — took effect. President Roosevelt ordered the recognition because he saw the Bill of Rights as “the great American charter of personal liberty.” And it’s not difficult to see why.
Nobody Has a Right to an Anti-Gay Wedding Cake, Either
Theodore Shoebat is the answer to the question, “Why should anybody care so much about freedom of association, anyway?” Shoebat and his father, Walid, have a Christian conservative site that features stories with headlines like “The Homosexual Empire,” “America Is Becoming an Agent of Satan (We Are Now Living in Sodom and Gomorrah),” and “America’s Most Embarrassing Muslim Spy and His Terrorist Connections Have Been COVERED UP and are NOW EXPOSED.”
Ph.D.s and Other False Gods
Why the worship of God alone is the basis for a good world.
Nothing Succeeds Like Liberal Secession: Blue America Without Red America Would Be A Basket Case
The July 4, 2019, ceremony marking the final dissolution of the United States of America was quite amicable compared to the anger and bitterness of the preceding five years. The 2014 election results created a map clearly defining “Red America” and “Blue America,” and it sparked a debate, unlike any in the last 150 years, over whether the United States should remain united. For many in the leftist coastal states – their progressivism constrained by the overwhelming Congressional advantage of the conservative interior states – the answer was, “No.”
The Campus as California
Campuses are becoming the haunts of the very wealthy and the poor, with little regard for any in-between — sort of like California.
The Cruz-Lee point of order and why the GOP establishment thinks you are an idiot
In the wake of the passage of CRomnibus –on the strength of GOP votes – the GOP leadership in Congress and the GOP establishment has been working overtime to rough up Texas Senator Ted Cruz and Utah Senator Mike Lee.
The Left’s Lawless Shock Troops
Never big on law and order, anti-police protesters target innocent bridges and tunnels.
Finally: The ‘I Can’t Breathe’ T-shirt You’ve Been Looking For
Mary Jo Kopechne could not be reached for comment
Race trading
I am a proud human being.
Meet Bill Nye, The Anti-Science Guy
I’ve never been a fan of Bill Nye “the Science Guy.” Partly it’s because I’m from a different generation. I grew up with Isaac Asimov and Carl Sagan as my introduction to science, and Nye always struck me as a cheap substitute. I find something condescending in his hyperkinetic manner, as if science couldn’t actually be interesting and exciting in its own right, as if it could only be interesting if the guy trying to explain it to us is bouncing off the walls. It all seems like Science for People with Attention Deficit Disorder. So you get travesties like Bill Nye supposedly explaining evolution using emojis. It’s as dumb as it sounds, which is a shame given how important the theory of evolution is.
Team America: World Pussycat
Major chains pull plug on The Interview.
Time for a Wartime Consigliere
If there was any doubt that the 2016 election was already underway, Jeb Bush has put that fantasy to rest. And the subjects of debate among all the hopefuls were already coming into focus before we had any official entries into the sweepstakes. We’re going to fight over Obama’s executive amnesty in specific and immigration “reform” in general. We’ll argue some more over certain aspects of Obamacare and try to predict what the courts will do. Domestic energy policy will be huge, particularly as it reaches into to many other corners of American life.
How academia’s liberal bias is killing social science
A blockbuster new report includes some unsettling revelations
Vox, derp, and the intellectual stagnation of the left
Talk about an epistemic closure problem
The gift of books, Gulag edition
Thinking about President Obama’s announcement of our new policy toward Cuba, I would like to take the liberty of adding a few books to my holiday list for Power Line readers.
Pope Francis’ Disturbing Cuban Manipulation
On Wednesday, President Barack Obama announced that the United States would be changing its policy toward Cuba, opening a Havana embassy and expanding travel. “Through these changes, we intend to create more opportunities for the American and Cuban people and begin a new chapter among the nations of the Americas,” President Obama explained.
Sailing the “Sea of Misogyny”
At some point in the past decade, “misogyny” replaced “sexism” as the favorite feminist accusation against men, without anybody really noticing the significance of the substitution. Being called a “sexist” never much bothered me, frankly, because what does it really mean?
Thoughts on Cuba
The late William Rusher used to criticize our Cuban embargo because he liked to smoke Cuban cigars, and rightly reasoned, “Well—if we can’t bomb their cities, at least we could burn their crops.” To which I added, if blue jeans helped bring down the Soviet Union, imagine what a boatload of Spandex will do to Castro’s Cuba.
Even Small Towns Are Loading Up On Grenade Launchers
We know Ferguson, Missouri is getting ridiculous amounts of military equipment. But why do small towns in South Dakota need tanks and grenade launchers?
Signposts of a Broken Culture
So, Sony has pulled The Interview—its upcoming comedy about the assassination of Kim Jong Un by James Franco and Seth Rogen—due to threats of violence. A bunch of hackers who appear to be affiliated with North Korea warned of a 9/11-style terrorist attack if the release went forward. Many people (including myself) are not thrilled by the development and have called the studio cowardly for kowtowing to a gout-riddled tinpot dictator with a horrible haircut presiding over “a nation of racist dwarfs.”
Kim Jong-un to Host 87th Annual Oscars
The Revolutionary Artists Committee of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is happy to announce that His Excellency Kim Jong-un will host the 87th annual Academy Awards. This will be the first time a supreme leader of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea has led the ceremony, but it most certainly will not be the last.
Why Liberals
The Revolutionary Artists Committee of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is happy to announce that His Excellency Kim Jong-un will host the 87th annual Academy Awards. This will be the first time a supreme leader of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea has led the ceremony, but it most certainly will not be the last.Really, Really Hate Us
They really, really hate us. George Orwell wrote a morning “Two Minutes Hate” session into the daily life of his dystopia in 1984. One blogger notes that 2,000 of Rachel Maddow’s facebook fans wished that Ted Cruz would fall into an open elevator shaft. What would he have made of the hyperventilating hatred that liberals display against conservatives? Over at National Review, Katherine Timpf reports on a hate manifesto published by the chair of University of Michigan’s Department of Communications. Republicans “crafted a political identity that rests on a complete repudiation of the idea that the opposing party and its followers have any legitimacy at all.” wrote Prof. Susan Douglas. “So now we hate them back,” she explains. “And with good reason.”
Will Diversity Destroy The Left?
Insisting that diversity depends on race and identity instead of class will cost the Left its political power.
Liberalization Hasn’t Worked in Vietnam or China, Won’t Work in Cuba
Economic liberalization has not changed the politics of Vietnam or China, and it’s not going to change much in Cuba, either, says Charles Krauthammer.
Help the Cuban Opposition, Not the CastrosSen. Ted Cruz
Congress should reject President Obama’s latest bad deal
Fundamental Concepts – Quick Hits
I didn’t do one of these today, but in light of the murder of twp NYPD officers, Officers Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos, I thought I’d bring up one quick concept that too many people tend to forget or understandably shy away from.
How Gender Feminism Became the New Creationism
STEM fields are generally not popular among people driven by political ideology, because STEM deals with facts as opposed to humanities which are generally based on confirmation bias and fail to have a coherent method like the scientific method. But one of the scientific fields that is most hated and attacked of them all has to be biology.
Is Nevada GOP snatching defeat from the jaws of victory?
Republican Assembly Speaker-apparent-perhaps-maybe John Hambrick has changed his mind again. First, he ousted arch-conservative Michele Fiore as majority leader and chair of the Taxation Committee, after old allegations about liens placed on her companies by the IRS. Then, without explanation, he reinstated her. Now, after she has tried to explain her situation and say she has negotiated a deal with the IRS, he has ousted her again.
King John’s Premature Ejection
Assembly Speaker-elect John Hambrick advised via press release yesterday that he was removing Republican Assembly Caucus Majority Leader Michele Fiore as Chairman of both the all-important Taxation Committee AND as Majority Leader without consulting with his caucus in advance.
Non-Denial Denials Continue to Fuel Nuke Option Speculation
Much like cockroaches, many politicians prefer to operate in the dark. And they go scurrying for cover when light is shined on them.
