Saturday, August 31, 2013

creepiest prayers you're ever going to hear.

There, Des Moines activist Midge Slater delivered one of the creepiest prayers you're ever going to hear.

In attendance were Iowa Democrat gubernatorial candidates Jack Hatch and Tyler Olson.  We can only presume that their grasp on religion is tenuous at best, since they apparently support praying for things like this:

“We give thanks, oh Lord, for the doctors, both current and future, who provide quality abortion care.”

“We pray for increased financial support for low-income women to access contraception, abortion and childcare.”

“Today, we pray for women in developing nations, that they may know the power of self-determination. May they have access to employment, education, birth control and abortion.”

“We pray for women who have been made afraid of their own power by their materialistic religion. May they learn to reject fear and live bravely.”

“Today we pray for the families who have chosen. May they know the blessing of choice.”

Just ...wow.  Obviously, we get that the left loves to mock the faithful and warp Christian beliefs into a derisive weapon, but this is pretty vile stuff.  The fact that two major Democrat candidates were willing to stand there, fold their hands, and bow their heads speaks volumes about how low they're willing to sink.

IRS WAR ON TEA PARTY CONTINUES & NOW INCLUDES VETERANS

IRS WAR ON TEA PARTY CONTINUES & NOW INCLUDES VETERANS
 IRS SCANDAL UPDATE: IRS Draws New Complaint.

The Internal Revenue Service is facing new criticism from Congress after one of the country’s biggest veterans’ organizations said the IRS has recently been too tough in its reviews of the tax-exempt status of individual American Legion posts.

The House Committee on Veterans Affairs this week requested the IRS respond to complaints its inspectors are asking posts to provide discharge papers or service records during reviews of their tax-exempt status, a policy the committee says is “completely unwarranted.” The American Legion said Post 447 in Round Rock, Texas, was fined $12,000 for lack of compliance before finding documents to satisfy inspectors.

Zero out their travel and conference budget.

REMEMBER THE U.S. GOVERNMENT CONSIDERS VETERANS POTENTIAL RIGHT WING TERRORISTS, SO SAYS JANET NAPOLITANO., DIR. OF HOMELAND SECURITY.

WARNING TO ALL STUDENTS!

WARNING TO ALL STUDENTS!

 Andria has an “Honors BA in Social Justice and Peace Studies” and is pursuing a Master’s degree in Gender Studies. So . . . how’s that going?
 “I have a honors BA and I’m defending my MA thesis
in two weeks. I am also apply for jobs and I can
only find stuff in the service industry. I applied
for a Hotel Front Desk Clerk job today.
My degrees mean NOTHING
.
I am at the end of my rope.“
What? Being an advanced student of useless ideology doesn’t result in meaningful employment? That’s just really . . . unfair.

Friday, August 30, 2013

Health Insurance Premiums to Increase 41 Percent Due to Affordable Care Act

Press Release

STATE OF OHIO
DEPARTMENT OF INSURANCE
COMMUNICATIONS OFFICE
 8/1/2013

Health Insurance Premiums to Increase 41 Percent Due to Affordable Care Act


Premiums for Federal Exchange Show Higher Costs for Ohio Consumers and Small Businesses

COLUMBUS — The Ohio Department of Insurance announced today that individual consumers buying health insurance on the federal government's health insurance exchange for Ohio will pay an average of 41 percent more than they did in 2013.

In addition, ODI confirmed previously-released preliminary calculations that insurance companies’ costs to provide individual health coverage will increase by 83 percent.

“Ohio has traditionally had a more competitive health insurance market than other states with a wider range of prices and choices – from simple, high deductible coverage to comprehensive, full service plans,” Lieutenant Governor Mary Taylor said. “That level of diversity is essentially outlawed under Obamacare so Ohio's rates and premiums are going up significantly, and going up more than in other states where prices were already high.”

Premiums Increase 41 Percent:
The Department utilized a National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) report of premiums reported by Ohio companies at the end of 2012 to compare premiums. Individual exchange plan premiums are expected to increase on average by 41 percent in 2014 compared to 2013, while exchange plans for Ohio's small businesses will increase on average by 18 percent.

For individual health insurance plans, a total of 12 companies offering 200 different plans have been approved by the Department for the exchange. Open enrollment for the exchange will begin on October 1, 2013. For small group health insurance plans, 6 companies offering 184 plans have been approved to sell on the exchange.


Health Insurance Premiums to Increase 41 Percent Due to Affordable Care Act

Press Release

STATE OF OHIO
DEPARTMENT OF INSURANCE
COMMUNICATIONS OFFICE
 8/1/2013

Health Insurance Premiums to Increase 41 Percent Due to Affordable Care Act


Premiums for Federal Exchange Show Higher Costs for Ohio Consumers and Small Businesses

COLUMBUS — The Ohio Department of Insurance announced today that individual consumers buying health insurance on the federal government's health insurance exchange for Ohio will pay an average of 41 percent more than they did in 2013.

In addition, ODI confirmed previously-released preliminary calculations that insurance companies’ costs to provide individual health coverage will increase by 83 percent.

“Ohio has traditionally had a more competitive health insurance market than other states with a wider range of prices and choices – from simple, high deductible coverage to comprehensive, full service plans,” Lieutenant Governor Mary Taylor said. “That level of diversity is essentially outlawed under Obamacare so Ohio's rates and premiums are going up significantly, and going up more than in other states where prices were already high.”

Premiums Increase 41 Percent:
The Department utilized a National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) report of premiums reported by Ohio companies at the end of 2012 to compare premiums. Individual exchange plan premiums are expected to increase on average by 41 percent in 2014 compared to 2013, while exchange plans for Ohio's small businesses will increase on average by 18 percent.

For individual health insurance plans, a total of 12 companies offering 200 different plans have been approved by the Department for the exchange. Open enrollment for the exchange will begin on October 1, 2013. For small group health insurance plans, 6 companies offering 184 plans have been approved to sell on the exchange.


Thursday, August 29, 2013

I, Too, Have a Dream JONAH GOLDBERG

A LIBERTARIAN PERSPECTIVE
I, Too, Have a Dream JONAH GOLDBERG
Posted: 28 Aug 2013 07:53 AM PDT
In his Los Angeles Times column, Jonah Goldberg sensibly explains why some of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s ideas – quite appropriately – resonate so beautifully and widely in America, and why some other of King’s ideas – also quite appropriately – do not.
….
“Jobs and justice” seems to be among the most favored slogans these days of those people who today lament the continuing economic struggles of too many black Americans.  But, of course, everyone is in favor of jobs and justice – yet there remain deep disagreements over the precise meaning and over the origins of “justice,” and disagreements as well over the best way to ensure jobs.
Sloganeering of this sort, therefore, achieves little.
So let me offer some policy advice that I sincerely believe would, if followed, eliminate many injustices as well as lead to the creation of more and better jobs for people especially in need of jobs.  I have a dream that one day we will…
(1) … eliminate all minimum-wage legislation.  Government-enforced artificial hikes in employers’ costs of hiring low-skilled workers is a policy exactly the opposite of what is needed to create more and better jobs.
(2) … get government out of education.  Especially at the K-12 level where poor Americans have little school choice – and, hence, where competitive forces are inoperative – poor American children are victimized by Education bureaucrats and teachers’ unions.
(3) … eliminate occupational-licensing legislation.  Let consumers in competitive markets choose which suppliers to patronize without requiring would-be suppliers first to get formal government approval to ply their trades.  Occupational-licensing regulations are typically little more than barriers to entry masquerading as public-safety measures.
(4) … halt forever the “war on drugs.”  Among its other evils, this “war” has become an excuse for law-enforcement officials to target blacks for harassment.
(5) … eliminate rent control.  If rent control is eliminated, residents and would-be residents of cities such as New York and San Francisco will find the supply of low- and moderately priced housing rising – and, after a time, the real cost of renting such housing falling from its current level.
(6) … repeal legislation, such as Obamacare, that indirectly yet surely artificially raises the costs of hiring workers.
(7) … eliminate the welfare state.  Civil-society private arrangements – more creative, more humane, more nuanced in the incentives and constraints they offer to their clients – will emerge to replace the sprawling and impersonal bureaucracies that now are mistakenly believed by too many people to be evidence of society’s compassion.
(8) … stop looking to the state for secular salvation, for doing so succeeds chiefly in empowering demagogues – demagogues whose “plans” and schemes choke off the countless, creative, decentralized experiments that a free people, all equal before the law, inevitably use to make themselves better off and, in the process, to make society more peaceful, civil, and prosperous.
(9) … eliminate affirmative action and other government-sponsored efforts to discriminate on the basis of skin color; let’s make ours a truly color-blind society.
(10) … with our private funds give even more support to the Institute for Justice – an organization that works with amazing effectiveness for ‘jobs and justice.’
I could name other policy moves because almost any policies that make markets freer makes society wealthier and expands opportunities – expands opportunities especially for the poorest amongst us.
For anyone seriously interested in policies that will in fact improve the lot of black Americans, I recommend my GMU Econ colleague Walter Williams’s superb book The State Against Blacks.  Although now 31 years old, this book’s message and counsel remain as valid as ever

Tuesday, August 27, 2013

WELL, BY THEN WE’LL HAVE A WAR TO DISTRACT PEOPLE

INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY: Rogue IRS Shamefully Targets Nation’s Veterans. “If the president wants to get angry about something, how about getting mad about the IRS leaping on the American Legion, requiring individual Legion posts to provide proof of their members’ eligibility, virtually accusing the veterans organization of being a cover for and sanctioning tax fraud? . . . ‘Unconscionable’ is an overused word in describing the abuses of power and the continual overstepping of legal and constitutional boundaries by this administration. But it certainly applies in this case. The American Legion is a nonpartisan, not-for-profit veterans organization chartered and incorporated by Congress in 1919, and now has more than 2.4 million members in 14,000 posts worldwide, according to its website. It has never had to deal with such a requirement until now.” It’s like they want to keep close tabs on veterans for some reason.

Posted at 8:13 am by Glenn Reynolds  
WELL, BY THEN WE’LL HAVE A WAR TO DISTRACT PEOPLE: Treasury tells Congress nation will breach debt ceiling in mid-October.

Posted at 8:11 am by Glenn Reynolds  
VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: Democracy’s Dog Days. “The great lesson of the Obama administration is that the abuses of democratic plebiscites abroad are not contrasted, but amplified by the increasingly lawless American model, when it uses the IRS and the Justice Department to go after political opponents, allows senior officials to lie under oath to the Congress, and fails to execute faithfully those laws passed by the legislative branch. If we are to offer America as a model, then there must be some honesty and transparency about the Benghazi, Associated Press, IRS, and NSA scandals.”

 H.L. Mencken observed 80 years ago, “The bureaucrat begins, perhaps, by doing only what he conceives to be his sworn duty, but unless there are very efficient four-wheel brakes upon him he soon adds a multitude of inventions of his own, all of them born of his professional virtuosity and designed to lather and caress his sense of power.”
And of course the current administration, far from equipping its bureaucrats with such brakes, instead strips them of brakes and installs upon them turbo-charged engines.

students to first lady Michelle Obama: Your food ‘tastes like vomit’

Kentucky students to first lady Michelle Obama: Your food ‘tastes like vomit’
Elementary school teacher swears virus is to blame for porn on laptop
GOP bill to eliminate health-care subsidies for Congress and staff under Obamacare
Students in a rural Kentucky county — and their parents — are the latest to join a growing national chorus of scorn for the healthy school lunches touted by first lady Michelle Obama.
“They say it tastes like vomit,” said Harlan County Public Schools board member Myra Mosley at a contentious board meeting last week, reports The Harlan Daily Enterprise.
The growing body of USDA meal regulations implemented by the Department of Agriculture under the “Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010? has long been a signature issue for the first lady.
Denizens of Harlan County don’t much care, though. Their primary concern at the board meeting was a bevy of complaints that local children are starving at lunch — and for the remainder of the school day — because the food on offer in the cafeteria is crappy and there isn’t nearly enough of it.
“Kids can’t learn when they’re hungry!” parents shouted to the board, according to the Enterprise.
Other gripes involved the new bread, which students don’t want to eat because it’s brown wheat bread, and the new milk, which is skim or one percent fat, not two percent or whole. The cafeteria’s chocolate- and strawberry-flavored milk offerings are now nonfat.
Jack Miniard, the school district’s director of school and community nutrition, was on hand to explain that the federal government now governs both food choices and portion sizes in most American school districts including Harlan County.
Under the National School Lunch Program, Under the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act, participating schools must provide lunches — including free or reduced price lunches — with minimum amounts of fresh fruits, fresh vegetables and whole grains. Also, in what presumably falls outside the hunger-free aspect of the act, there’s a calorie cap: 850 for high school lunches, 700 for middle schools and a mere 650 calories for kids in elementary school.
Students can only have one serving of meat or other protein. However, rich kids can buy a second portion each day on their own dime.
Servings of carbohydrates such as potatoes are limited to just a single serving of three-fourths of a cup per student.
On the plus side, students can eat as many fruits and vegetables as they want.
Across the country, students and parents have expressed dissatisfaction with the federal government’s new food regime. Some wealthier suburban school districts are simply backing out of the National School Lunch Program, though doing so can mean giving up a six-figure annual subsidy for the district. (RELATED: First lady-backed school lunch regs cost school district $100,000)

PUBLIC EDUCATION - HOME OF THE PERVERTS

CONSERVATIVE PROF. HAS AWESOME RESPONSE TO GUY WHO CALLED HIM THE ‘BIGGEST EMBARRASSMENT TO HIGHER EDUCATION IN AMERICA’
Aug. 26, 2013 3:27pm Madeleine Morgenstern
One conservative college professor’s support for traditional marriage was enough for one online commenter to brand him “the biggest embarrassment to higher education in America.”

How the professor responded was pretty fantastic.

Mike Adams professor biggest embarrassment to higher education in America
Professor Mike Adams responded to a commenter who called him “the biggest embarrassment to higher education in America.” (Image via Mike Adams/Facebook)
“While I respect your right to conclude that I am the biggest embarrassment to higher education in America, I think you’re wrong,” Mike Adams, professor of sociology and criminology at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington told “Edward” in an open letter. “In fact, I don’t even think I’m the biggest embarrassment to higher education in the state of North Carolina. But since you’re a liberal and you support ‘choice’ – provided we’re talking about dismembering children and not school vouchers for those who weren’t dismembered – I want to give you some options.”

He then laid out nine examples of truly outrageous antics by other professors, administrators and campus groups in North Carolina to see how he stacks up, including:

1. In the early spring semester of 2013, a women’s studies professor and a psychology professor at Western Carolina University co-sponsored a panel on bondage and S&M. The purpose of the panel was to teach college students how to inflict pain on themselves and others for sexual pleasure. When you called me the biggest embarrassment in higher education, you must not have known about their bondage panel. Maybe you were tied up that evening and couldn’t make it.

2. At UNC Chapel Hill, there is a feminist professor who believes that women can lead happy lives without men. That’s nothing new. But what’s different is that she thinks women can form lifelong domestic partnerships with dogs and that those relationships will actually be fulfilling enough to replace marital relationships with men. I can’t make this stuff up, Ed. I don’t drop acid. Well, at least not since the late 1980s. But I promise this story is real and not an LSD flashback.

3. At Duke University, feminists hired a “sex worker” (read: prostitute) to speak as part of an event called the Sex Workers Art Show. After his speech, the male prostitute pulled down his pants, got down on his knees, and inserted a burning sparkler into his rectum. While it burned, he sang a verse of “the Star Spangled Banner.” I believe that stripping incident was almost as embarrassing as the other one involving the Duke Lacrosse team.

4. A porn star was once paid to give a speech at UNCG. The topic was “safe sodomy.” After her speech, the feminist pornographer sold autographed butt plugs to students in attendance. I’m not sure whether the ink could contribute to rectal cancer. I’m no health expert. But I do know it was pretty darned embarrassing when the media picked up on the story.

Sunday, August 25, 2013

How Obamacare killed amnesty

CONN CARROLL:        How Obamacare killed amnesty
Susan Jones had a good story up at CNS Friday, catching Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius telling a Latino group in Philadelphia Thursday that amnesty was key to them getting access to Obamacare.

“The (Obamacare) bill is crafted in such a way that those who are undocumented will not have access to the tax credits or shopping in the (health insurance) marketplace,” Sebelius said. “That has been limited, which is, frankly, why — another very keen reason why we need comprehensive immigration reform.”

And Sebelius is right. When the Congressional Budget Office released its score of the Schumer-Rubio amnesty bill, it found the legislation would increase Obamacare subsidy spending by $82.3 billion, and Medicaid spending (which Obamacare expands) by $29.3 billion.

Bottom line: the Schumer-Rubio amnesty bill is a huge boost for Obamacare.

And that is not all. When President Obama announced his unilateral lawless delay of Obamacare’s employer mandate, it comepletely undermined every border security promise in the Schumer-Rubio bill.

TAXPAYER-FUNDED ELECTIONEERING:

F.A. Hayek’s 1960 volume, The Constitution of Liberty:
Liberty not only means that the individual has both the opportunity and the burden of choice; it also means that he must bear the consequences of his actions and will receive praise or blame for them.  Liberty and responsibility are inseparable

TAXPAYER-FUNDED ELECTIONEERING: HHS to Award $30,000 in Taxpayer-Funded Cash Prizes for Obamacare Promotion Videos.

Thursday, August 22, 2013

Speaks loudly. No stick

Speaks loudly. No stick. Obama acted stupidly by issuing that warning. Now he’s in a box of his own making.


 F.A. Hayek’s classic 1944 volume, The Road to Serfdom:
But the policies which are now followed everywhere, which hand out the privilege of [income] security, now to this group and now to that, are nevertheless rapidly creating conditions in which the striving for security tends to become stronger than the love of freedom.  The reason for this is that with every grant of security to one group the insecurity of the rest necessarily increases.  If you guarantee to some a fixed part of a variable cake, the share left to the rest is bound to fluctuate proportionally more than the size of the whole.  And the essential element of security which the competitive system offers, the great variety of opportunities, is more and more reduced.

IN 34 STATES AND THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, welfare pays better than a minimum-wage job.

TEA PARTY? WHAT TEA PARTY? I KNOW NOTHING.

TEA PARTY? WHAT TEA PARTY?  I KNOW NOTHING.
ELIANA JOHNSON: Ignoring the Facts on the IRS: House Democrats pretend, unconvincingly, that the agency was neutral toward tea-party groups.

Related: The Hill: House investigators see ‘contradictions’ in IRS official’s testimony. “Top House Republicans are pressing a central figure in the IRS targeting controversy over what they see as inconsistencies in her testimony. Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) and Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) say that other IRS staffers are contradicting Holly Paz’s statements about when agency officials in Washington found out about the scrutiny given to Tea Party groups. The two lawmakers are also asking Paz about her statements that the IRS didn’t really know how to judge how much politics 501(c)(4) groups were involved in.”

Wednesday, August 21, 2013

WELFARE OR WORK - A NO BRAINER

HOPEY-CHANGEY: When Welfare Pays Better Than Work.
Here’s an offer for you: $38,004 per year, tax free.No work required.Apply at your local welfare office.

The federal government funds 126 separate programs targeted towards low-income people, 72 of which provide either cash or in-kind benefits to individuals. (The rest fund community-wide programs for low-income neighborhoods, with no direct benefits to individuals.) State and local governments operate more welfare programs.Of course, no individual or family gets benefits from all 72 programs, but many do get aid from a number of them at any point in time.

Today, the Cato institute is releasing a new study looking at the state-by-state value of welfare for a mother with two children. In the Empire State, a family receiving Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, Medicaid, food stamps, WIC, public housing, utility assistance and free commodities (like milk and cheese) would have a package of benefits worth $38,004, the seventh-highest in the nation.

While that might not sound overly generous, remember that welfare benefits aren’t taxed, while wages are. So someone in New York would have to earn more than $21 per hour to be better off than they would be on welfare.That’s more than the average statewide entry-level salary for a teacher.

Plus, going to work means added costs such as paying for child care, transportation and clothing.Not to mention that, even if it’s not a money-loser, a person moving from welfare to work will see some form of loss — namely, less time for leisure as opposed to work.

Is it any wonder, then, that, despite the work requirements included in the 1996 welfare reform, only 27.6 percent of adult welfare recipients in New York are working in unsubsidized jobs?

When you subsidize things, you get more of them.

Posted at 6:30 pm by Glenn Reynolds

Tuesday, August 20, 2013

Five sentences

Five sentences

California Gov. Ronald Reagan said: “We are approaching the end of our second century.  It has been pointed out that the days of democracy are numbered once the belly takes command of the head.  When the less affluent feel the urge to break a commandment and begin to covet that which their more affluent neighbors possess, they are tempted to use their votes to obtain instant satisfaction.  Then equal opportunity at the starting line becomes the extended guarantee of at least a tie a the finish of the race.  Under the euphemism ‘the greatest good for the greatest number’, we destroy a system which has accomplished just that and move toward the managed economy which strangles freedom and mortgages generations yet to come.”

Can Obama even form five coherent sentences without direction from his Totus?  Reagan not only formed a cogent argument in 5 sentences, he also presented the essences of 5 truths - free markets, a capitalistic economy, limited government, responsible living and individual freedom.

 

Monday, August 19, 2013

When does “1st Bro” become “Big Brother”?

When does “1st Bro” become “Big Brother”?

I WONDER WHY IT’S UNPUBLISHED? Unpublished Congressional Research Service Report: Obama Administration Has Missed Half Of Obamacare’s Legally Imposed Implementation Deadlines. Deadlines are for the little people.

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: Obama Bets Against Human Nature—and Usually Loses. “What is the common denominator to his failed foreign policy initiatives — reset with Russia, a new, kinder gentler Middle East, supposed breakthroughs with China, outreach to Iran, Cuba, and Venezuela — and his domestic catastrophes: Obamacare, deficits, huge debts, or chronic unemployment? In a word, he doesn’t seem to know much about human nature, whether in the concrete or abstract sense. Obama either never held a menial job or ran a business. In lieu of education in the school of hard knocks, he read the wrong, if any seminal, texts at all.” Unlike George Bush, Obama’s not much of a reader. Prefers to watch sports, I understand.

$1.087 TRILLION DEFICIT
HOPEY-CHANGEY: CBO Report: Deficit Was $1.087 Trillion In 2012, All Four Years of Obama’s First Term Saw Deficits In Excess of $1 Trillion.

HEY, THEY’RE JUST BEING ENTRUSTED WITH YOUR PRIVATE INFORMATION: No Background Checks For ObamaCare “Navigators.”

Sunday, August 18, 2013

BARACK OBAMA’S LOST YOUTH

FASTER FASTER!
BARACK OBAMA’S LOST YOUTH: The president’s approval rating is falling faster among young people than any other group. Will Republicans capitalise on it?

BUT HILARY WANT TO BE PRESIDENT, THEREFORE TRUTH IS MALLEABLE
WHEN, OF COURSE, SHE KNEW THAT IT WAS JUST THAT: Hillary Clinton exploded at a congressman two days after Benghazi for suggesting that the attack was the work of terrorists, says GOP Rep.

An Illinois Republican congressman told constituents at a town hall meeting on Wednesday that then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton screamed at a fellow member of Congress two days after a U.S. diplomatic station in Benghazi, Libya was destroyed, merely for saying aloud that the attack was carried out by terrorist groups..

The Obama administration later acknowledged that reality.

But White House officials initially maintained that the deaths of four Americans and the firebomb attack on the State Department mission was the result of a spontaneous protest against a low-budget YouTube film that was critical of the Muslim prophet Muhammad.

‘Two days after this attack,’ said Rep. Adam Kinzinger, ‘we were in a briefing with Hillary Clinton and she screamed at a member of Congress who’d dare suggest that this was a terrorist attack.’

‘Now we find out that while it was happening, they knew it was a terrorist attack. These are answers that we’re going to get to the bottom of.’

Kinzinger’s office told National Review Online that the meeting he referred to was a classified briefing held for all members of Congress.

The congressman appeared on the Fox News Channel on Friday, recalling Clinton ‘basically, in a very loud, angry voice, [saying] “It’s irresponsible to even suggest this is a terror attack. This is a YouTube video. We know that there are protests all over, and we need to be very careful how we’re saying this” — and basically chided this member of Congress.’

At least scapegoated filmmaker Nakoula is now out of jail.








0:23:47 AM] Lauren McLaughlin: Burg-Eltz-Weg 5 81375 München

outsized obsession with minor risks

The Latest from Cafe Hayek
Who’d a-Thunk It?
Posted: 18 Aug 2013 03:50 AM PDT
Obamacare has a depressing effect on ordinary people’s employment prospects.  (HT Bob Murphy)
   
Quotation of the Day…
Posted: 17 Aug 2013 05:06 AM PDT
… is Art Carden’s letter in today’s Wall Street Journal:
Ms. Oster’s essay speaks to modernity’s outsized obsession with minor risks generated by a news cycle that is constantly warning us about monsters under the bed or in the coffee pot. Fretting about trivial risks is itself risky; it leaves us with less time and attention to deal with more substantial concerns.

Saturday, August 17, 2013

Atavism, based on primordial emotions

Atavism, based on primordial emotions
“The Political Order of a Free People,” 1979) of Hayek’s Law, Legislation, and Liberty (original emphasis; footnote excluded):
At present, however, an ever increasing part of the population of the Western World grow up as members of large organizations and thus as strangers to those rules of the market which have made the great open society possible.  To them the market economy is largely incomprehensible; they have never practised the rules on which it rests, and its results seem to them irrational and immoral.  They often see in it merely an arbitrary structure maintained by some sinister power.  In consequence, the long-submerged innate instincts have again surged to the top.  Their demand for a just distribution in which organized power is to be used to allocate to each what he deserves, is thus strictly an atavism, based on primordial emotions.  And it is these widely prevalent feelings to which prophets, moral philosophers and constructivists appeal by their plan for the deliberate creation of a new type of society.
   
MARK STEYN: Idiot Big Brother: The prospect of NSA abuse is now a reality. “The Egypt/Washington industrial-scale wrong number is almost too perfectly poignant a vignette at the end of a week in which hundreds are dead on the streets of Cairo. On the global scene, America has imploded: Its leaders have no grasp of its national interests, never mind any sense of how to achieve them. The assumption that we are in the early stages of ‘the post-American world’ is now shared by everyone from General Sisi to Vladimir Putin. General Sisi, I should add, is Egypt’s new strongman, not Putin’s characterization of Obama. Meanwhile, in contrast to its accelerating irrelevance overseas, at home Washington’s big bloated blundering bureaucratic security state expands daily. It’s easier to crack down on 47 Elm Street than Benghazi.”

WELL, THAT’S COMFORTING: Two Dems Warn NSA Violations Just ‘Tip of a Larger Iceberg.’

THE TRUE ROLL OF OBAMACARE ‘ADVOCATES’

THE TRUE ROLL OF ‘ADVOCATES’
POLITICKING WITH TAXPAYER MONEY: The Hill: Health group’s ObamaCare enrollment drive targets states with GOP governors. “The window to begin enrolling in the law’s new coverage options opens in just 50 days. Enroll America, a prominent nonprofit with close ties to the White House, said it’s focusing on 10 states as it ramps up a massive education campaign that will ultimately cost tens of millions of dollars.”

Enroll America isn’t just a “nonprofit,” it’s the shady “nonprofit” on whose behalf Kathleen Sebelius was shaking down companies she regulates for donations. Now this non partisan nonprofit, on whose behalf a sitting Obama Administration official used her official position to raise money, is targeting Republican governors.

Remember when Democrats were complaining about a “culture of corruption?”

Friday, August 16, 2013

TRUST YOUR LEADERS

TRUST YOUR LEADERS
Related: Administration awards $67M to ‘navigators’ promoting ObamaCare.

Also: Issa Threatens To Subpoena Treasury Records On ObamaCare. “Issa believes Treasury and the IRS are illegally implementing the law’s insurance subsidies.”

Related: Remember when Obama said the NSA wasn’t “actually abusing” its powers? He was wrong. Wrong, lying, whatever.

Plus: “So the NSA has, in fact, been ‘listening in on people’s phone calls.’ . . . The NSA can — and, apparently, did — hide misconduct from the court that’s supposedly supervising its activities.”

TRUST YOUR LEADERS: NSA broke privacy rules thousands of times per year, audit finds.

The National Security Agency has broken privacy rules or overstepped its legal authority thousands of times each year since Congress granted the agency broad new powers in 2008, according to an internal audit and other top-secret documents.

Most of the infractions involve unauthorized surveillance of Americans or foreign intelligence targets in the United States, both of which are restricted by law and executive order. They range from significant violations of law to typographical errors that resulted in unintended interception of U.S. e-mails and telephone calls.
TRUST YOUR LEADERS (CONT’D): Holder and FBI admit lying about data released before election last year.

UPDATE: “So the NSA ‘accidentally’ wiretapped the DC area code in an election year when illegal NSA surveillance was an issue.”




Economic heroism is subtler than other forms of heroism and therefore harder to appreciate.

The Latest from Cafe Hayek
Quotation of the Day…
Posted: 15 Aug 2013 04:39 AM PDT
… is from page seven of Amity Shlaes’s 2013 biography of America’s 30th President, Coolidge:
Economic heroism is subtler than other forms of heroism and therefore harder to appreciate.
Indeed.  A truly heroic politician, for example, is one who refuses to cater to special-interest groups.  Benefits received by special-interest groups are quite visible (for instance, it’s easy to see the benefits to General Motors of the bailout it got in 2009 from Uncle Sam) while the costs of supplying these benefits, even though almost always much larger in total than the benefits themselves, remain mostly invisible.
In the case of the auto bailout, the output and businesses and jobs not created elsewhere because of the resources that were forcibly transferred to G.M. and Chrysler are not seen.  One cannot see what would have existed – but which is never actually created – because of such subsidies.  In addition, compared to the still-employed autoworkers and the new vehicles rolling off of G.M.’s and Chrysler’s assembly lines, the visibility of the weakened incentives of auto executives to get their companies to perform as efficiently as possible are invisible.  Also invisible is the line of causation from ever-greater government intrusion into the economy to the dampening and distortions of commerce caused by such intrusions.
Cowards play to the roaring crowd, and give the crowd what the crowd demands.  Cowards buy their cheap glory and security by coddling what is seen and loved, and by attacking what is seen and despised, without regard to the consequences that such coddling and attacking will have in the future.  In contrast, a true economic hero is someone who, even at great personal cost, appropriately deals with the unseen future – with the unnoticed and unappreciated potentials – no less than with the noticed and looming here and now.
(Calvin Coolidge, by the way, was himself hardly always an heroic politician – although compared to most in that profession so filled with scoundrels, posers, and ego-maniacs, Coolidge was generally quite good.)

Thursday, August 15, 2013

1st IN LINE TO TAKE CREDIT- LAST IN LINE TO TAKE RESPONSIBILITY!

FIRST IN LINE TO TAKE CREDIT- LAST IN LINE TO TAKE RESPONSIBILITY!
GEORGE WILL: Obama’s unconstitutional steps worse than Nixon’s. “President Obama’s increasingly grandiose claims for presidential power are inversely proportional to his shriveling presidency. Desperation fuels arrogance as, barely 200 days into the 1,462 days of his second term, his pantry of excuses for failure is bare, his domestic agenda is nonexistent and his foreign policy of empty rhetorical deadlines and red lines is floundering. And at last week’s news conference he offered inconvenience as a justification for illegality. . . . Serving as props in the scripted charade of White House news conferences, journalists did not ask the pertinent question: ‘Where does the Constitution confer upon presidents the “executive authority” to ignore the separation of powers by revising laws?’ The question could have elicited an Obama rarity: brevity. Because there is no such authority.”

UPDATE: Did Obama Flout the Law by Delaying Obamacare? Yes. Next question?
AS EGYPT BURNS OBAMA GOLFS!
“MAN OF DA PEOPLE:” Fighting for the middle class: Obama golfing, dining with Comcast CEO earns comment from Harry Shearer.

1
SARAH HOYT: OCCUPIED! “I don’t think there has ever been a country like ours, where our elites are deliberately taught – in our best schools – to hate and despise everything that we are, everything that makes us unique. I don’t think there has ever been another country where our elites are taught to be ashamed to call themselves by our national name.”




EQUAL PARTISAN IDIOCY

EQUAL PARTISAN IDIOCY
Economic Ignorance and Political Opportunism: Bipartisan Failures
Posted: 14 Aug 2013 04:17 PM PDT
Here’s a letter to the Republican Governors Association (sponsor of the television ad to which the letter below is a response):
Members, Republican Governors Association
Dear Republican Governors:
At my home in Fairfax, Virginia, this evening I saw your tv commercial criticizing Democratic Virginia gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe.  The torrent of economic stupidity that is your commercial, while insufficient to convince me to support Mr. McAuliffe, is more than sufficient to convince me not to support Ken Cuccinelli, his GOP rival.
The commercial accuses Mr. McAuliffe of hypocrisy because, while he brags about creating jobs as an American businessman, he also once proposed to outsource some jobs for his business to China.
Your criticism of Mr. McAuliffe’s off-shoring of some jobs to China is rank economic idiocy.  Do Republicans not understand that nations gain from foreign trade?  Are you as oblivious as are Democrats to the dangers inherent in unleashing government to protect firms and workers from the forces of global competition?  Is your grasp of economics really so weak that you do not comprehend that a firm that saves money by buying some services from lower-cost foreign suppliers is able not only to supply domestic consumers with lower-priced products but also able to expand its domestic operations on other fronts?
Establishment Republicans boast of being economically informed champions of free markets.  Your commercial, however, is evidence that such a boast is nothing more than a farcical pretense.
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Professor of Economics
and
Martha and Nelson Getchell Chair for the Study of Free Market Capitalism at the Mercatus Center
George Mason University
Fairfax, VA  22030


Jonathan Haidt, of course, would agree.
Social ‘facts’ – including economic reality – are extraordinarily complex phenomena.  There is no such thing as simply observing “the” facts and then coming to some understanding of reality.  All observations, even the simplest, must be filtered through our mental categories in order for us to make sense of them.  And the role of mental categories – priors and implicit burdens of intellectual proof; hypotheses; theories – in deciphering social reality is especially great.
Needless to say (but I’ll say it anyway), everyone is under the strong influence of priors and theories.  Stalinists, Hayekians, Randians, Georgists, market monetarists, Keynesians, “Progressives” – you name it, none of us derives our understanding of reality simply by observing reality.  Therefore, it is especially important in the social sciences to get the theory right

NO ATTENDEES AT OBAMA’S ORGANIZING FOR AMERICA RALLY

NO ATTENDEES AT OBAMA’S ORGANIZING FOR AMERICA RALLY
by TONY LEE  13 Aug 2013

On Tuesday, Organizing for Action (OFA) organized an event in Washington, D.C. to promote President Barack Obama's climate change agenda. Reportedly, no one showed up.
OFA is Obama's policy advocacy group that was formerly his 2012 reelection campaign.
The event was part of the group's "Action August" activities that are seeking to promote policies Obama has indicated he will push for in his second term. OFA kicked off its "Action August" with a pro-Obamacare rally in Virginia that did a tad better--one person showed up to that rally.
The invitation to the Washington, D.C. rally has also been removed from OFA's website.

Wednesday, August 14, 2013

Easy grabbing of other people’s stuff

 Easy grabbing of other people’s stuff

Robin Hanson hypothesizes that talk – even highfalutin’ talk – of inequality is meant to justify the easy grabbing of other people’s stuff.  If Robin is correct, concerns about income or wealth inequality reflect instincts that are quite the opposite of any sentiment that should be called “progressive.”  A slice:
I suggest that most talk about the problems of inequality actually invokes this ancient hypocritical ability to covertly discuss where to find lots of nice easy-to-grab stuff….
But if those few very rich folks had real physical super-powers, we would be a lot more afraid of their simple physical retaliation. They might be very effective at physically resisting our attempts to take their stuff. So somehow, conveniently, we just wouldn’t find that their unequal wealth evoked as much deeply felt important-social-issue-in-need-of-discussing moral concern in us. Because, I hypothesize, in reality those feelings only arise as a cover to excuse our grabbing, when such grabs seem worth the bother.

D.C. CIRCUIT SMACKS OBAMA: “The president may not decline to follow a statutory mandate or prohibition simply because of policy objections.”

Seems like this might apply in quite a few situations.

RELATED STORY:
HOW’S THAT HOPEY-CHANGEY STUFF WORKIN’ OUT FOR YA? (CONT’D): The Administration of the “Least Untruthful Answer.” But honestly, they don’t even live up to that standard.

RELATED STORY:Sen. ROB PORTMAN: Uncovering the full truth about IRS abuse of power. “Big scandals start off as small stories. The controversy engulfing the Internal Revenue Service seems to grow bigger every day. What began as what the Obama administration said was a handful of ‘rogue agents’ in a local Cincinnati office has turned into a scandal that runs all the way to the highest levels of the IRS and maybe beyond. The question every American should be asking is this: Just how far does this story go, and when is President Barack Obama going to do something about it?”

WASHINGTON POST: IRS probing thousands of small businesses, raises eyebrows in Congress. “The Internal Revenue Service has sent letters to thousands of small business owners questioning whether they shorted the coffers this past year, sparking criticism from some lawmakers who believe the agency is bullying mom-and-pop companies.”

FROM NEW LIBERAL BOOKLET:
Don’t assume the facts - and don’t wait for them.

REGARDING THE WEIRD BELIEF THAT POLITICIANS ACT IN YOUR INTEREST

REGARDING THE WEIRD BELIEF THAT POLITICIANS ACT IN YOUR INTEREST
“Better than Plowing”:
“The whole of the Keynesian and post-Keynesian theory of macroeconomic management (including monetarism) depends critically on the presumption that political agents respond to considerations of “public interest” rather than to the incentives imposed upon them by constituents.  Once these agents are modelled as ordinary persons, the whole policy structure crumbles.”
The Collected Works of James M. Buchanan:The Logical Foundations of Constitutional Liberty; specifically, it’s from Jim’s 1986 autobiographical essay

Yet whenever the relevant actors are government officials – say, members of Congress or the Federal Reserve board – suddenly such advice is widely regarded as displays of deep wisdom and great scientific integrity.
This disconnect remains, for me, one of the greatest mysteries of the social sciences.

Favoritism to some, undeserved penalties to many?

ObamaCare defines injustice.  Favoritism to some, undeserved penalties to many?  Some more equal than others?  Yes, how penalties and payments will be allocated under ObamaCare which is not an affordable act, practice the sin of injustice.
As a lighter counterpoint, in World War II, the mighty ship, HMS Hood, burned 1 ton of oil every ½ mile and shot 4 shells at 1600 MPH.  It sunk just like its enemy the Bismark.
What 2 lesson can be learned here? Some animals are more equal than others? Some animals should not be more equal than other? OR, the government should not determine that some people are more equal than others ( and those lessors are supported by their superiors)?      

Tuesday, August 13, 2013

WHERE HAVE ALL THE MISSILES GONE?

WHERE HAVE ALL THE MISSILES GONE?
By AWR HAWKINS  12 Aug 2013

On August 12, Joe DiGenova, attorney for one of the Benghazi whistleblowers, told Washington D.C.'s WMAL that one of the reasons people have remained tight-lipped about Benghazi is because 400 U.S. missiles were "diverted to Libya" and ended up being stolen and falling into "the hands of some very ugly people."
DiGenova represents Benghazi whistleblower Mark Thompson. He told WMAL that he "does not know whether [the missiles] were at the annex, but it is clear the annex was somehow involved in the distribution of those missiles."


IF OBAMA LOST THE ‘KARDASHIANS’ WHAT IS LEFT?
It seems President Obama made a dangerous enemy when he suggested Kim Kardashian and Kanye West were examples of society’s obsession with celebrity. Obama made the comment that “what Kim Kardashian was wearing” is seen now as a “mark of success” in an interview with Amazon’s Kindle Singles.

Matriarch of the Kardashian clan Kris Jenner took personal offense to Obama’s remarks and decided to fight back on her daytime talk show, saying that President’s talk of Kim and Kanye flaunting their wealth is hypocritical.

“I bet the President has some friends with 10,000 square foot houses and that you wouldn’t mind going over there, Mr. President, while you were asking them to have a party for you when you were campaigning for dollars to run for president,” she said.

Jenner also stressed that Obama’s remarks denote a certain amount of anti-capitalist sentiment: ”I was taught, dream big, work hard, and you could have whatever you wanted.”

She also couldn’t let a dig Obama made about the size of Kim’s house go unmentioned.

“Wow, her job affords her to live in a 10,000 square foot house,” she continued. “And I think, if I’m not mistaken, that Mr. President’s job affords him to live in a 55,000 squar


EQUAL JUSTICE FOR SOME

EQUAL JUSTICE FOR SOME
WHEN JUSTICE IS VINDICTIVE: DOJ ‘Elevated Its Charges’ Against Swartz Because Internet Community Rallied on His Behalf.

Eric Holder is worried about his “legacy?” This kind of thing is his legacy. I think we need to rein in prosecutorial power and give them some skin in the game.

ACCOUNTABILITY IN THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION: The man who misled Congress on spying will pick Obama’s intelligence review panel. Kinda like having Eric Holder investigate Eric Holder. It’s just neater that way. . . .

 PHIL ZIMMERMAN: “The surveillance landscape is far worse than it has ever been and I feel like everything we do is now observable. . . . It is going to require some push back in the policy space.”

myiq2xu;
The worst scandal in the past five years is the nonfeasance, misfeasance and malfeasance of the "Fourth Estate". They made all of the Obama scandals possible.

Gerald Molen
Film Producer
 ‘After 50-plus years working in the entertainment business and faithfully paying my taxes like so many other Americans and never once receiving a notice or questions from the IRS, I must admit to being a bit perplexed when I received a notice that there was a question about my taxes. ....
I never thought much more about the matter until a few months ago. Then it struck me like a sledgehammer. I’m also a conservative. I’m pro-life, a Christian, I believe in the constitution, freedom, liberty, the sanctity of marriage and other political views that put me in direct opposition to those in power in Washington. And now, given the IRS’s abuse of power, is it really so paranoid to wonder if we are on a list? And don’t forget: the IRS is the same agency in charge of implementing the Affordable Care Act.           ‘
Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2013/08/12/were-conservative-filmmakers-also-targeted-by-the-irs/#ixzz2b

Saturday, August 10, 2013

PHONEY SCANDALS RESULT IN RESIGNATION & PROMOTION

PHONEY SCANDALS RESULT IN RESIGNATION & PROMOTION

Sixth Senior IRS Official Departs in Wake of Targeting Scandal

A senior Internal Revenue Service official who until recently served as an adviser to embattled official Lois Lerner is leaving the agency, according to an IRS agent with knowledge of the situation.
Light will be replaced by Cindy Thomas, a 35-year IRS veteran who ran the Exempt Organizations office in Cincinnati throughout the 2-year period that conservative groups were targeted. “Cindy brings a strong background in EO Determinations and the history of the organization,” Corbin told employees. “And, since she is located in Cincinnati, she will provide a voice for the process and challenges faced in determinations work.” Thomas’s promotion will not be without controversy, given that, in November of last year, she signed off on the illegal release to the left-leaning ProPublica, of nine pending, confidential applications for tax exemption filed by conservative groups. One of those organizations, the Colorad-based Citizens Awareness Project, yesterday filed a federal lawsuit against the IRS over the release of its application.

CINCINNATI IRS OFFICE HOME ‘ROGUE AGENTS’ GET ONE OF THEM PROMOTED!
HAVE FAITH IN GOVERNMENT

Friday, August 09, 2013

WELL, YES: IRS caressed liberals, harassed conservatives

WELL, YES: IRS caressed liberals, harassed conservatives.
AS OF 8/9/2013 ALL TEA PARTY APPLICATION ARE STILL “REFERRED TO THE SPECIAL POTICAL SECTION” !
According to Team Obama’s “phony scandal” narrative, when the Internal Revenue Service processed 501(c)(3) tax-exemption applications, it equally tormented liberals and conservatives. No big deal, the argument goes. The IRS suffers from even-handed inefficiency rather than an un-American habit of slamming critics of the president of the United States.

Unfortunately for the Obamites, actual facts annihilate their institutional-incompetence defense.

HEY, THERE’S AN ELECTION COMING NEXT YEAR: IRS agent: Tax agency is still targeting Tea Party groups. “In a remarkable admission that is likely to rock the Internal Revenue Service again, testimony released Thursday by House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp reveals that an agent involved in reviewing tax exempt applications from conservative groups told a committee investigator that the agency is still targeting Tea Party groups, three months after the IRS scandal erupted.”
Heads must roll!

0Posted at 8:26 am by Glenn Reynolds


“PHONY SCANDALS?” NOT TO VOTERS.

A Fox News national poll released Thursday finds that 78 percent of voters think the questions over the administration’s handling of the terrorist attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi should be taken seriously. Just 17 percent call it a phony scandal.

The attack, on the anniversary of September 11, killed four Americans — including the U.S. ambassador.

Meanwhile, 69 percent of voters say the National Security Agency’s electronic surveillance of everyday Americans is serious, while 26 percent call that a fake scandal.

By a margin of 59-31 percent, voters are also more likely to view the seizure of reporters’ phone records by the Justice Department as serious rather than phony.

And while the White House sees a Congressional investigation of the IRS targeting of conservative groups as a “distraction,” 59 percent of voters take it seriously. Some 33 percent agree with the administration that it’s fake.

What's the Difference Between a Lawyer and a Prostitute? One Earns Money in Immoral Ways, the Other Charges by the Hour.
"Attorney Guilty of Prostitution Agrees to 3-Year Suspension of Law License"--headline, Aug. 8

Thursday, August 08, 2013

INCITING MORAL PANIC - LIBERAL STYLE

INCITING MORAL PANIC - LIBERAL STYLE
Written by a trio of Democratic political operatives:
.
The document, as Bedard writes, instructs politicians and advocates "to hype high-profile gun incidents like the Florida slaying of Trayvon Martin to win support for new gun control laws." Essentially it's a how-to book on inciting a moral panic.

"The most powerful time to communicate is when concern and emotions are running at their peak," it advises.
.......
The booklet explicitly urges foes of the Second Amendment to abjure rationality in favor of the argumentum ad passiones, or appeal to emotion. "When talking to broader audiences, we want to meet them where they are," the authors advise. "That means emphasizing emotion over policy prescriptions, keeping our facts and our case simple and direct, and avoiding arguments that leave people thinking they don't know enough about the topic to weigh in."

The do's and don'ts are consistent with this advice. "Examples of power language" include: "It breaks my heart that every day in our country (state or city) children wake up worried and frightened about getting shot." "Just imagine the pain that a mother or father feels when their young child is gunned down." "The real outrage--the thing that makes this violence so unforgivable--is that we know how to stop it and we're not getting it done."

TRUST GOVERNMENT?

TRUST GOVERNMENT?
REUTERS: IRS Manual Detailed DEA’s Use Of Hidden Intel Evidence. “Details of a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration program that feeds tips to federal agents and then instructs them to alter the investigative trail were published in a manual used by agents of the Internal Revenue Service for two years. The practice of recreating the investigative trail, highly criticized by former prosecutors and defense lawyers after Reuters reported it this week, is now under review by the Justice Department.”

Wednesday, August 07, 2013

“Did ya sleep tight the night after #Benghazi?”

OUCH: Obama Greeted By Sign Reading “Did ya sleep tight the night after #Benghazi?”

Posted at 10:51 am by Glenn Reynolds  
WAG THE DOG? Obama’s Unprecedented Embassy Closings Smell Fishy. “For one thing, if we’re on the eve of a possible ’9/11 junior,’ what on earth is the president of the U.S. doing going on the Tonight Show for the umpteenth time?”

Related: McClatchy: Broad U.S. terror alert mystifies experts; ‘It’s crazy pants,’ one says.”

Monday, August 05, 2013

It’s always about opportunities for graft.

THE REAL REASON WHY POLITICIANS LIKE LIGHT RAIL:

A transit agency that expands its bus fleet gets the support of the transit operators union. But an agency that builds a rail line gets the support of construction companies, construction unions, banks and bond dealers, railcar manufacturers, electric power companies (if the railcars are electric powered), downtown property owners, and other real estate interests. Rail may be a negative-sum game for the region as a whole, but those concentrated interests stand to gain a lot at a relatively small expense to everyone else.

It’s always about opportunities for graft.

MORE SPYING: Reuters: Exclusive: U.S. directs agents to cover up program used to investigate Americans. And it’s not about stopping terrorists:
A secretive U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration unit is funneling information from intelligence intercepts, wiretaps, informants and a massive database of telephone records to authorities across the nation to help them launch criminal investigations of Americans.

Although these cases rarely involve national security issues, documents reviewed by Reuters show that law enforcement agents have been directed to conceal how such investigations truly begin – not only from defense lawyers but also sometimes from prosecutors and judges.

The undated documents show that federal agents are trained to “recreate” the investigative trail to effectively cover up where the information originated, a practice that some experts say violates a defendant’s Constitutional right to a fair trial. If defendants don’t know how an investigation began, they cannot know to ask to review potential sources of exculpatory evidence – information that could reveal entrapment, mistakes or biased witnesses.

“I have never heard of anything like this at all,” said Nancy Gertner, a Harvard Law School professor who served as a federal judge from 1994 to 2011. Gertner and other legal experts said the program sounds more troubling than recent disclosures that the National Security Agency has been collecting domestic phone records. The NSA effort is geared toward stopping terrorists; the DEA program targets common criminals, primarily drug dealers.

“It is one thing to create special rules for national security,” Gertner said. “Ordinary crime is entirely different. It sounds like they are phonying up investigations.”

It’s like the whole system has become corrupt or something.

IT’S COME TO THIS: AZ Dem Gubernatorial Candidate Darkens Skin for Commercials to Appear Hispanic.

Posted at 7:51 am by Glenn Re

It’s always about opportunities for graft.

THE REAL REASON WHY POLITICIANS LIKE LIGHT RAIL:

A transit agency that expands its bus fleet gets the support of the transit operators union. But an agency that builds a rail line gets the support of construction companies, construction unions, banks and bond dealers, railcar manufacturers, electric power companies (if the railcars are electric powered), downtown property owners, and other real estate interests. Rail may be a negative-sum game for the region as a whole, but those concentrated interests stand to gain a lot at a relatively small expense to everyone else.

It’s always about opportunities for graft.

MORE SPYING: Reuters: Exclusive: U.S. directs agents to cover up program used to investigate Americans. And it’s not about stopping terrorists:
A secretive U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration unit is funneling information from intelligence intercepts, wiretaps, informants and a massive database of telephone records to authorities across the nation to help them launch criminal investigations of Americans.

Although these cases rarely involve national security issues, documents reviewed by Reuters show that law enforcement agents have been directed to conceal how such investigations truly begin – not only from defense lawyers but also sometimes from prosecutors and judges.

The undated documents show that federal agents are trained to “recreate” the investigative trail to effectively cover up where the information originated, a practice that some experts say violates a defendant’s Constitutional right to a fair trial. If defendants don’t know how an investigation began, they cannot know to ask to review potential sources of exculpatory evidence – information that could reveal entrapment, mistakes or biased witnesses.

“I have never heard of anything like this at all,” said Nancy Gertner, a Harvard Law School professor who served as a federal judge from 1994 to 2011. Gertner and other legal experts said the program sounds more troubling than recent disclosures that the National Security Agency has been collecting domestic phone records. The NSA effort is geared toward stopping terrorists; the DEA program targets common criminals, primarily drug dealers.

“It is one thing to create special rules for national security,” Gertner said. “Ordinary crime is entirely different. It sounds like they are phonying up investigations.”

It’s like the whole system has become corrupt or something.

IT’S COME TO THIS: AZ Dem Gubernatorial Candidate Darkens Skin for Commercials to Appear Hispanic.

Posted at 7:51 am by Glenn Re

Sunday, August 04, 2013

GOVERNMENT IS JUST A WORD FOR THE THINGS WE DO TOGETHER

.

GOVERNMENT IS JUST A WORD FOR THE THINGS WE DO TOGETHER: Armed government agents raid animal shelter to euthanize baby deer.  It was like a SWAT team,” shelter employee Ray Schulze said.
Two weeks ago, Schulze was working in the barn at the Society of St. Francis on the Kenosha-Illinois border when a swarm of squad cars arrived and officers unloaded with a search warrant.
“(There were) nine DNR agents and four deputy sheriffs, and they were all armed to the teeth,” Schulze said.



WALTER HUDSON COMMENTS ON “INCLUSIVE PROSPERITY ACT”
Urban legend holds that Willie Sutton told a reporter that he robbed banks “because that’s where the money is.” Not to be outdone, Minnesota Congressman Keith Ellison recently made a similar observation. CNS News reports:


Ellison was discussing his “Inclusive Prosperity Act” measure at the July 25th Progressive Democrats of America roundtable in Washington.

“The bottom line is we’re not broke, there’s plenty of money, it’s just the government doesn’t have it,” Ellison continued, “The government has a right, the government and the people of the United States have a right to run the programs of the United States. Health, welfare, housing – all these things.”

The “Inclusive Prosperity Act” would levy a sales tax on the trading of stocks, bonds and derivatives.

We can induce from Ellison’s comments that he believes the government cannot go broke so long as money remains in the private sector to be taken. In other words, your money does not belong to you. The state allows you to keep what you have and reserves the right to seize it for redistribution.
COMMENTS:

Estragon
Ellison is far from the only dunce in Congress, but the sheer scale of his stupidity is astounding.

Thane36425
The government has no rights. It has duties. Its first and primary duty is to protect the rights of the people. Government does this best by governing least. Government certainly does not have the "right" to plunder some to buy votes from others.

Benito Mussolini would be proud. The Italian dictator who coined the term fascism defined it as a system of government where the state exists for its own sake, subordinating the individual. Like Ellison, Mussolini spoke of the state as though it were a person, elevating its “will” above that of the individual. Ellison ascribes “rights” to the government — to “the people of the United States” — while denying the property right of individuals

Hitler, Churchill or Obama

Hitler, Churchill or Obama

His preternatural eloquence and world-historical sense, as well as a self-belief that bordered on the messianic, had brought to the fore ...  a leader who could frame the global struggle in profoundly moving, almost metaphysical terms.  Of whom was this written?

Who wrote this:  ”Of all the talents bestowed upon men, none is so precious as the gift of oratory.  He who enjoys it wields a power more durable than that of a great king.  He is an independent force on the world.   Abandoned by his party, betrayed by his friends, stripped of his offices, whoever can command this power is still formidable.”

Of whom could these words be said?  Hitler?  Churchill?  Obama?  Hitler - could have been. Of Obama it was said until the mask fell away.   Yes, Churchill - a great leader and statesman described and describing himself.

POLITICIANS AS PICKPOCKETS

POLITICIANS AS PICKPOCKETS
Deirdre McCloskey is right and correct to point out that one of the biggest steps we humans ever took toward being truly civilized was when a sufficient number of us began to regard bourgeois pursuits as virtuous.

Perhaps our next big step toward being even more civilized – a step that has yet to be taken by a minimally sufficient number of people – will be when we come to regard those who lust to hold political power as being ethically indistinguishable from pickpockets, shoplifters, and card sharks. Our civilization will leap forward if and when it finally comes to pass that the young person who announces to his or her family a desire to enter politics is regarded by his or her family in the same way that mom, dad, Aunt Dolly, and Uncle Jimmy today would regard a young person who announces his or her ambition to become a successful house burglar

I share Jonah Goldberg’s opinion of Hillary Clinton.  Why this woman – who, like the typical politician she is, lusts so lasciviously for power – is regarded as fit to hold the power for which she so obviously lusts is a mystery to me.  (Of course, the same is true for nearly every politician – male or female; black, white, or other-colored; straight, gay, or bi; tall, short, or average; fat, skinny, or middlin’; alive, dead, or comatose.  The very fact that someone seeks such power and to be in that sort of spotlight speaks volumes about his or her character – and what is spoken is deeply unflattering.)

ABSOLUTELY: The MSM plan for the GOP & Tea Party: Divide and Conquer.

LIBERTARIAN POPULISM: Actually, arguing that it’s unfair for government workers to make more than taxpayers is probably a good tactic.

GOVERNMENT IS JUST A WORD FOR THE THINGS WE DO TOGETHER: Armed government agents raid animal shelter to euthanize baby deer.  It was like a SWAT team,” shelter employee Ray Schulze said.
Two weeks ago, Schulze was working in the barn at the Society of St. Francis on the Kenosha-Illinois border when a swarm of squad cars arrived and officers unloaded with a search warrant.
“(There were) nine DNR agents and four deputy sheriffs, and they were all armed to the teeth,” Schulze said.

When does free stuff foster dependence?

When does free stuff foster dependence? Chillicothe gave away 68 loaded backpacks the 1st year of its program for ‘needy’ kids. In 2012, they ‘served’ 800 children Call me an iconoclast, but isn’t it the height of the ridiculous to provide free stuff ( school supplies) to children?When do acts of ‘charity’ become enabling?
Parents first should be parents, assuming responsibility for their kids’ needs ( not necessarily wants). School supplies come packaged in multiples. From a list of 21 suggestions ( or requirements) an expenditure of $20.00 should be sufficient for all that is required for 1 ( or more students). Also, I bet some mother already spent a few dollars on a diary ( notebook) for a cherished daughter. I bet some father already spent quality time with a son using many of the hobby items. I bet some parents spend more than $20 for haircuts or shoes and much more than $150 for a TV or cable. I know most children grew up in the past, substituting water for hand sanitizers, hankies for tissues, bags or arms for backpacks, underlining for highlighters, etc.
What do we conclude from public school funding in the billions of dollars insufficient to supply basic requirements? Why are back-to-school requirements so specific?
What should parents do in this situation? Parents, get off the gravy train.
Carolyn McLaughlin
New Holland

Saturday, August 03, 2013

The Quest for Cosmic Justice

The Quest for Cosmic Justice

Thomas Sowell’s excellent 1999 book, The Quest for Cosmic Justice:
“Metaphors about how “society” should “arrange” this or that result evade the institutional reality that someone must be empowered to constrict other people’s freedom – and thus evade the need to weigh whether the expected value of the result being sought, given the chances of achieving it, is greater or less than the expected value of the loss of freedom that this effort entails.”

OUCH: “Sen. Obama warned about Patriot Act abuses. President Obama proved him right.”

BRIDGET JOHNSON: Proposed 28th Amendment Would Make Congress Join Obamacare Exchanges.

Friday, August 02, 2013

LIBERAL TRUTH = LIE

LIBERAL TRUTH = LIE
CHARLIE RANGEL: These tea partiers are the same terrorist white crackers we fought during desegregation.

You mean like Democratic National Committeeman Bull Connor?
Posted at 2:43 pm by Glenn Reynolds

LIBERAL TRUTH = LIE

LIBERAL TRUTH = LIE
CHARLIE RANGEL: These tea partiers are the same terrorist white crackers we fought during desegregation.

You mean like Democratic National Committeeman Bull Connor?
Posted at 2:43 pm by Glenn Reynolds

Thursday, August 01, 2013

A MEDIOCRE LEVEL DOES NOT RING TRUE IN AMERICA

A MEDIOCRE LEVEL DOES NOT RING TRUE IN AMERICA

“IT IS A PIECE OF IDLE SENTIMENTALITY THAT TRUTH, MERELY AS TRUTH, HAS ANY INHERENT POWER DENIED TO ERROR OF PREVAILING AGAINST THE DUNGEON AND THE STAKE.” THIS OBSERVATION BY John Stuart Mill STILL HOLDS TRUE IN 2013 ( as we revisit 1984). TRUTH DOES NOT OUT!

THE FACT THAT LEVELING THE PLAYING FIELD DOES NOT MEAN BRINGING EVERYONE DOWN TO A MEDIOCRE LEVEL DOES NOT RING TRUE IN AMERICA’S PRESENT CULTURE.

DREAM ON FELLOW REVOLUTIONARIES AGAINST THE REPRESSIVE REGIME.