Friday, January 31, 2014

Giving Pie To Me

Moonbattery » Spreading the Wealth: "Assuming Teller baked the pie, while Penn busied himself watching daytime television between trips to the polls to vote for Democrats, this would summarize our current economic system:"

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Thursday, January 30, 2014

Time For Congress To Disband Then...

George F. Will: Four words in the ACA could spell its doom - The Washington Post: "If courts, perhaps ultimately including the Supreme Court, disallow the IRS’s “interpretation” of the law, the ACA will not function as intended in 34 states with 65 percent of the nation’s population. If courts allow the IRS’s demarche, they will validate this:

By dispensing subsidies through federal exchanges, the IRS will spend tax revenues without congressional authorization. And by enforcing the employer mandate in states that have only federal exchanges, it will collect taxes — remember, Chief Justice John Roberts saved the ACA by declaring that the penalty enforcing the mandate is really just a tax on the act of not purchasing insurance — without congressional authorization.

If the IRS can do neither, it cannot impose penalties on employers who fail to offer ACA-approved insurance to employees.

If the IRS can do both, Congress can disband because it has become peripheral to American governance."

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Wednesday, January 29, 2014

The Tea Truth

Mike Lee's State of the Union response was amazing | The Daily Caller: "3. FINALLY offered a populist Republican explanation of economic inequality

“This inequality crisis presents itself in three principal forms: immobility among the poor, who are being trapped in poverty by big-government programs; insecurity in the middle class, where families are struggling just to get by and can’t seem to get ahead; and cronyist privilege at the top, where political and economic insiders twist the immense power of the federal government to profit at the expense of everyone else.

… [Inequality is] guaranteeing insurance companies taxpayer bailouts if Obamacare cuts into their profits.

Inequality is blocking thousands of middle-class jobs in the energy industry as a favor to partisan donors and radical environmental activists.

… But where does this new inequality come from? From government — every time it takes rights and opportunities away from the American people and gives them instead to politicians, bureaucrats and special interests.”"

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Opocalypse Approaching

Articles: Obama Has Made it Impossible for Israel to Strike Iran: "I called a hardheaded realist, a Harvard trained PhD who has been watching the Middle East professionally for decades, to ask him about Obama's Iran deal.  This is what he told me. It's done.  Iran will get a bomb. They want a bomb and they will not be denied unless somebody stops them.  Obama does not want to stop them.  He does not want a friendly regime in Iran.  He wants Iran as a counterforce to America and Israel.  Obama is not a Muslim, but he is a radical.  He sees the U.S. and Israel as imperialistic and oppressive.  He doesn't like the U.S. military.  He'd cut it to nothing if he could get away with it. We'll have to pull our troops and our aircraft carriers out of the Persian Gulf.  We'll lose our ability to protect Middle Eastern oil.  The Gulf Arabs will have to cooperate with Iran.  So will Europe; they depend on that oil."
No, that's not a mis-spelling in the title.

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Tuesday, January 28, 2014

The Naked Emporer O The Whores

Instapundit » Blog Archive » JIM GERAGHTY: The State of the Union: The Self-Congratulatory Blowout of the Governing Class. Re…: "JIM GERAGHTY: The State of the Union: The Self-Congratulatory Blowout of the Governing Class.

Related: Kevin Williamson: Great Caesar’s Ghost. “It’s the most nauseating display in American public life — and I write that as someone who has just returned from a pornographers’ convention.”

UPDATE: From the comments: “A naked emperor addressing a parliament of whores.”

Posted by Glenn Reynolds at 6:40 pm"
Perfect.

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Sunday, January 26, 2014

Everything Else Is A Smokescreen

Mussolini’s Idea of the State and Its American Defenders - Llewellyn H. Rockwell Jr. - Mises Daily: "If some of the superstitions of fascism have made their way into American life, it could be because both fascism and whatever it is that America has become share a superstition in common — namely, the state itself. The state has been cloaked in all manner of flattering but obfuscating rhetoric. The state looks after the general welfare, provides economic stability, protects us from the bad guys, prevents inequality, and binds us together in a common cause greater than ourselves.

It’s time we viewed the state for what it really is: a mechanism by which rulers enrich themselves at the expense of the ruled. Everything else is a smokescreen."

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Progressive Kristallnacht Coming?

Progressive Kristallnacht Coming? — Letters to the Editor - WSJ.com: "Regarding your editorial "Censors on Campus" (Jan. 18): Writing from the epicenter of progressive thought, San Francisco, I would call attention to the parallels of fascist Nazi Germany to its war on its "one percent," namely its Jews, to the progressive war on the American one percent, namely the "rich."

From the Occupy movement to the demonization of the rich embedded in virtually every word of our local newspaper, the San Francisco Chronicle, I perceive a rising tide of hatred of the successful one percent. There is outraged public reaction to the Google buses carrying technology workers from the city to the peninsula high-tech companies which employ them. We have outrage over the rising real-estate prices which these "techno geeks" can pay. We have, for example, libelous and cruel attacks in the Chronicle on our number-one celebrity, the author Danielle Steel, alleging that she is a "snob" despite the millions she has spent on our city's homeless and mentally ill over the past decades.

This is a very dangerous drift in our American thinking. Kristallnacht was unthinkable in 1930; is its descendent "progressive" radicalism unthinkable now?

Tom Perkins

San Francisco

Mr. Perkins is a founder of Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers
Tom Perkins and his KPCB is beyond legendary in the annals of successful Silicon Valley VC firms and the lefties are squealing like stuck pigs from this one. Whoo boy.

It hits just a little too close to uncovering that the American progressives of early last century were cited by Hitler for their support and role modeling with their obsession with eugenics a hundred years ago ... that continues to this day in the U.S. but has been "re-branded" as "woman's choice" and "the war against poverty".  (Speaking of re-branding and manipulating the masses, surely you've read Edward Bernays and Gustave Le Bon?)

The only bone I have to pick with Mr. Perkins is that one of the most powerful parts of our "capitalist" class -- can you say the Fed and the banks that own it? -- are in fact fascists that would fit right in to Hitler's regime as their German counterparts did at the time. And Mr. Perkins -- notwithstanding all the impressive things his firm has done -- is probably far too attached to their "free money" to separate it publicly from the real 1% he probably means in his heart of hearts: the successful creators and entrepreneurs.

So the latter continue to take the shafts and arrows rightly destined for the former and repeatedly end up going down on a ship they want no part of.  Just as it's always been:
Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded — here and there, now and then — are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty. This is known as "bad luck. --Lazarus Long" --Robert Heinlein

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Saturday, January 25, 2014

Useful Idiots Update: Love in the Time of Obama

Love in the Time of Obama | Washington Free Beacon: "“The game is rigged,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) famously told the 2012 Democratic National Convention. What an odd situation in which we find ourselves, where the most influential figures in politics, media, culture, and the academy, the leaders of institutions from the presidency to the Senate to multinational corporations to globally recognized universities, spend most of their time discussing inequalities of income and opportunity, identifying, blaming, and attacking the mysterious and nefarious figures behind whatever the social problem of the day might be. This is the way the clique that runs America justifies the inequalities endemic to “meritocracy,” the way it masks the flaws of a power structure that generates Brown-educated cable hosts and personal chefs who open ballparks with a phone call. This is how a new American aristocracy comes into being, one as entitled and clueless as its predecessors, but without the awareness of itself as a class.

“It’s going to be fascinating to see where both of them go,” Obama aide Melody Barnes tells Weisberg. I know exactly where both of them will be going. Straight to the top, Melody. Straight to the top."
I started by quoting the grand finale so you didn't miss it. But its glorious-ness can only be understood after you've RTWT. And this is definitely a RTWT. Here's how it opens:
The first time he saw her from a distance. She was a reporter, observing his workplace from the outside. He was struck by her good looks, her energy. He mentioned her to a friend, who told him she was out of his league. But he persisted. His friend brought him to a party where he found an opportunity to strike up a conversation with her. One thing led to another. He took her to drinks. She mentioned she liked baseball, rooted for the Washington Nationals. They had that in common. So for their next date he took her to play catch. In Nationals Park. When it was closed to the public.
And how can I resist adding this from the middle?:
Click may be a good word for the show, but “clique” is a better one for the world described in Vogue. On the first read the Weisberg piece is notable for its status details: the little things, the style of life of bobo liberals that drives conservatives crazy. I am referring here to the meal Weisberg shares with the couple in Kass’s sure-to-be-expensive Logan Circle townhouse: “butterflied roast chicken with tarragon and preserved lemons, faro risotto with wild mushrooms and leeks, and a green salad with buttermilk dressing” served with a Barbaresco made by friends in Italy. I am referring to Kass’s “hand-forged Carter Cutlery knives, which are produced by a Japanese-trained bladesmith in Oregon.” To the Hermès coat, Nili Lotan sweater, 7 for All Mankind jeans, Hunter + Rag & Bone boots, M Missoni dress, and Prada flats that Wagner wears at various moments in the piece. To the names checked by Weisberg to establish the fact that Wagner is with it, au courant, hip, cutting edge: This Town author Mark Leibovich, Ezra Klein, Jonathan Franzen, Frank Ocean, the Tanlines, and New York restaurants Blue Hill, Carbone, Franny’s, and Vinegar Hill House.

I am referring to the cringe-inducing moments of false modesty. Wagner complains, “Every trip to the high-end knife shop in D.C.’s Union Market ‘costs us about $500.’” Weisberg reports, “Friends describe Kass as reserved,” despite the celebrity chef’s multiple television credits. Weisberg writes, “Their ideal Saturday night is dinner with friends—not a red-carpet event,” and then, in the very next sentence, notes, “In October, they attended the News and Documentary Emmys, at which Wagner was nominated, but sneaked in a side door to avoid the cameras.” Wagner describes her horror when she broke a heel on the way to a job interview with George Clooney (she got the job).
This is your ruling (idiot) class. And as you can tell, they surely spend all their time thinking of fixing the "inequality problem".  That's why it's improved so greatly in all the major cities which have nearly all been run by people just like this for the last 50 years.

Matthew Continetti has done an excellent job on this piece.  If freedom lovers could get stuff like this into the average voter's hands we might have a chance at persuasion.

These people are all "bystanders" to the carnage that is their own handiwork.  And Obama foremost among them -- hence the constant barrage of bad things about his administration that he just read about in the papers today!  (Well, it's actually not true of Obama himself but I'll avoid distraction from my main point.)

But more pieces like this probably won't actually turn the tide since the average low-information voter lives vicariously off of Vogue (and mostly less crafted celebrity oriented) pieces in this vein -- they're really already in on the game if only in a subconscious way.  They will put Continetti's piece down once it gets uncomfortable at the end -- probably before -- as they might re-learn a bit too much about themselves.  But they will lap up the Vogue piece he dissects itself.

And the LIV's have been conditioned inexorably not to learn what floats just below their surface... or learn much of anything for that matter.

It's not cool.  Crimethink in fact even if they've never heard that word before... which was exactly George Orwell's point...

And Aldous Huxley has some additional comments about how our current rulers achieve and maintain control:


Watch at least first minute if you want to understand how we have our current president.  That interview was in 1958.  No wonder the rulers do all they can to keep him dead and buried.

Frankly, I'm amazed that "Brave New World" is even ranked as high as #325 on Amazon.  That must represent a nascent soma shortage I suspect that Obamacare's crony cash for the pharma industry is meant to head off...

UPDATE: And here's the COTD from a commenter on the Vogue piece:
by ThirteenthLetter

Good God, what awful, entitled people. Everything they have, they've gained from being in the same tiny, incestuous circle. Didn't we have a revolution a few centuries back to get away from people like this?

Posted 1/24/2014 7:45:07pm

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A Reminder

Instapundit » Blog Archive » JOHN FUND ON PREVENTING VOTER FRAUD: We were reminded just this week of problems associated with …: "JOHN FUND ON PREVENTING VOTER FRAUD:
We were reminded just this week of problems associated with absentee ballots. Guerrilla videographer James O’Keefe released an undercover video of a meeting of Battleground Texas, a leftist group working to elect Wendy Davis, the Democratic candidate for Texas governor. The video shows the Davis supporters ignoring questions about whether forging a signature on a relative’s absentee ballot was legal. “People do that all the time,” said Lisa Wortham, pretending to cover her ears. Wortham is an attorney and a deputy voter registrar working with the group. A volunteer from the group adds her opinion: “I don’t think that’s legal, I’ll do like Lisa did — I didn’t hear you say that.” Other Battleground Texas workers agree but jokingly cover their ears and also pretend not to hear.
Democrats, as matter of electoral strategy, rely on a lot of voter fraud, so it’s best for them to pretend it doesn’t exist, and to loudly scream racism when people point out that it does.

Posted by Glenn Reynolds at 10:40 am"

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Thursday, January 23, 2014

Coinkydink

Ace of Spades HQ: "Okay I checked the blog rule book and it turns out that speaking in tongues and handling serpents within the comments are not specifically prohibited. So there you go.

Coincidence: Hollywood's only conservative group is getting close IRS nonprofit scrutiny

Another Coincidence: James O'Keefe Group Being Audited by NY. Again.

Yet Another Coincidence: Dinesh D'Souza Indicted For Election Fraud

Still Another Coincidence: IRS Proposes New 501(c)(4) Rules That Just Happen to Cover Most Tea Party Groups

Judge Strikes Down Wisconsin's 'John Doe' Subpoenas

Secret investigations targeted coincidentally at most prominent conservative groups in WI who can only now legally talk about their harassment. If you want to see what American fascism would look like, well this is it."

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COTD: Stomping Out Charity

Where Have All the Uninsured Gone? - Bloomberg: PBDD HRGuru an hour ago −
Your observations are spot on. I've been in private practice medicine for 30 years and there were ways of helping people who couldn't pay. The hospitals and county would come up with private/public partnerships (long before we even knew that's what they were!) to take care of people, including writing off charity care. I myself was one of those doctors who supervised a free clinic on the days I was on call. It worked, probably much better than whatever we're going to end up with.

But it doesn't play into the grand glorious scheme of those who support centralized planning. Too many moving parts at a local level, I guess. Also, too much of that good old Christian charity. Can't have people helping people out in their own community, person-to-person without a big government entity ensuring it's "fair".

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Tuesday, January 21, 2014

If You Think You're Ready

Heart-Pounding Video Takes You Inside the Cockpit of One of the World’s Fastest Jets | Video | TheBlaze.com: "If you think you’re ready, strap in, keep your arms and feet inside your cubicle, and press play."

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My Selfie-Quote For Today

"Only a delta would believe someone whose chief skill is teleprompter reading has prestige." --Me

What two classic works have I synthesized this from?  Follow the links and do your own research...

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Monday, January 20, 2014

4 Minutes

Security Expert Hacks Obamacare Website In 4 Minutes; Accesses 70,000 Records | Zero Hedge: "The hits just keep on coming for ObamaCare. It was less than two weeks ago that I highlighted the potential premium rate death spiral that ObamaCare faces due to the fact that only old and sick people are signing up for the program. Now it seems there are further security related concerns plaguing the site, as cyber-security expert David Kennedy recently claimed that “gaining access to 70,000 personal records of Obamacare enrollees via HealthCare.gov took about 4 minutes.”

It’s actually hard to be this incompetent if you tried."

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Martin Luther King, Jr. and the IRS

TaxProf Blog: Martin Luther King, Jr. and the IRS: "In honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day:  Tallahassee Democrat, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the IRS:
This past year, much ado was made about the so-called “IRS-Gate” and concerns that the Obama administration may have used the agency to target Tea Party and other right wing groups. ... [W]hat often is not stated during the Martin Luther King Holiday weekend is that King, early in his leadership of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), was routinely subjected to IRS audits of his individual accounts, SCLC accounts as well as accounts of his lawyers, first starting during the administration of President Dwight Eisenhower and continuing through the Kennedy administration. ..."
Plus ca change...

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Ruin Her Career?

Wow: Greta drops a bomb about White House trying “very hard” to get Fox not to report on Benghazi | Young Conservatives: "[M]y friend told me that my colleague Jennifer Griffin, who was aggressively reporting on Benghazi, was wrong and that, as a favor to me, my friend in the Administration was telling me so that I could tell Jennifer so that she did not ruin her career. My friend was telling me to tell Jennifer to stop her reporting. Ruin her career?

In 20 plus years, I have never received a call to try and shut down a colleague – not that I even could – this was a first."
RTWT. You knew it was happening. You just didn't have proof until now...

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Twice, Not Three Times

Obama’s NSA reforms won’t protect Americans’ privacy « Hot Air Headlines: "Even though President Obama assures us “the United States is not spying on ordinary people,” this statement does not jibe with any of his suggested reforms. Plus, we’ve heard these types of assurances before.

Obama saying that his new policy will only examine private information “two steps” removed from the target, as opposed to the current policy of three steps, is no comfort at all. The president might as well be saying we’re only going to abuse the Fourth Amendment twice, not three times."
Thank you Rand.  Yeah, Obama has the solution here all right. As long as the problem is to maintain his power to suppress political opponents.

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Thank You Ben

Dr. Ben Carson Says More About MLK Day With 25 Words Than the Huffington Post Says With 800 | Independent Journal Review: "One thing I love about Dr. Ben Carson is that he can say a lot in just a few words. Take a look at what he tweeted this morning:
As we celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. let us pay more attention to the content of one’s character than the color of one’s skin.— Dr. Ben Carson (@RealBenCarson) January 20, 2014"
You could take a thimble full of Ben's brain and have more compute power than all the white libs in the world combined. So there, I'm racist against whites!

If only racism had anything to do with the disaster we now face. It only does in the sense of being just another cynical tool for the ruling class to manipulate the deltas of all appearances...

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No CCWs Allowed?

From the Files of Police Squad: No CCWs Allowed?: "I was going to lead yesterday's gun thread with this story, but after I posted my Lone Survivor review, the gun thread became a casualty of honey-do list prioritization.

You probably know the basics by now: a Florida resident and CCW holder named John Filippidis was traveling down I-95 on the way home from New Jersey, when he was pulled over and his car was rifled through by Maryland law enforcement officers looking for the gun in his safe in Florida."
... And how did they know to expect him to have a gun you ask? Why, in a fashion very similar to what happened in the 1930's in Nazi Germany. Only more intrusive and efficient:
Maryland State has a network of technical security databases which access the databases of all other states who comply and coordinate with them. For states who do not willfully comply, or those who are not set up to align technically, Maryland mines data from various LEO systems.

Maryland has a rather innocuous sounding name for the intelligence hub which contains this data, it’s called Maryland Coordination and Analysis Center.

The intelligence analysis hub has access to, and contains, Florida’s CCW list (among other identification systems) and mines the state’s database systems for vehicle plate numbers of the holders. These license plate numbers are then stored in a cross referencing database within the Maryland Coordination and Analysis Center.
The addition of the middle of the night raids should be starting soon I suspect.  The CCW holders will be first to be disarmed of course...

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Du'O (Part 89,592,735)

Only 11% of ObamaCare signups previously uninsured? « Hot Air: "After the disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov, the administration hired Accenture as the new lead contractor. The deal is estimated to be worth $90 million and is now in the hands of the poster boy for global labor arbitrage and offshore tax havens.

Accenture has 80,000 Indian workers, 35,000 in the Philippines and only 40,000 in the United States. Over 40 percent of their worth comes from outsourcing. In all probability, the tech jobs awarded under this contract and paid for with US tax dollars are going abroad.
“In all probability” doesn’t mean “confirmed.” This is conjecture, but conjecture based on numbers. Besides, this is the very thing for which Team Obama attacked Mitt Romney in 2012, is it not?"
And RTWT of course.

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Sunday, January 19, 2014

It's Potemkin Villages All The Way Down

Instapundit » Blog Archive » CANADIAN INDIAN CHIEFS getting money from Tides Foundation for opposing oil sands development? A …: "JANUARY 19, 2014

CANADIAN INDIAN CHIEFS getting money from Tides Foundation for opposing oil sands development?
A left-wing lobby group in San Francisco wired $55,000 to the bank account of an Indian chief in Northern Alberta, paying him to oppose the oilsands.

And sure enough, that chief – Allan Adam, from the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation – earned his money. Last weekend, he flew to Toronto to sit on a stage next to Neil Young, the folk singer who was in town to demonize Canada’s oil industry.
I wonder if they’re getting Saudi money, too?

Posted by Glenn Reynolds at 1:56 pm"

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Saturday, January 18, 2014

ClimateCare

Why Don’t We Merge These Disasters and Call It “ClimateCare”? | Power Line: "So let’s tally this up: we have a health care policy and a climate policy both falling short of “ambitions.”  And for the exact same reason: reality just won’t conform to the will of liberalism.  Darn reality anyway.  Why don’t we just combine climate and health care policy into one big hairy policy, with a single “czar”?   Oh, wait, we already have that: It’s called the “Obama Administration.”"

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Because He Thinks They're The Good Guys

Records Prove Muslim Brotherhood Delegates Skipped Airport Inspections: "Newly released records confirm a 2012 Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT) report that the State Department cleared the way for a visiting delegation of Muslim Brotherhood officials to enter the country without undergoing routine inspection by U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents."

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Redacting The First..N: The New Bill "O" Rights

Obama Moves to Weaponize IRS…Again | TheBlaze.com: "The new regulations would unconstitutionally compel a 90-day blackout period during election years in which conservative 501(c)(4) organizations – such as tea-party, pro-life and pro-family groups – would be banned from mentioning the name of any candidate for office, or even the name of any political party.

Here’s the kicker: As you may have guessed, liberal lobbying groups like labor unions and trade associations are deliberately exempted. And based on its partisan track record, don’t expect this president’s IRS to lift a finger to scrutinize liberal 501(c)(4)s. Over at a Obama’s “Organizing for America,” the left-wing political propaganda will, no doubt, flow unabated."
RTWT. Look at the previous post for the context of this title and why I believe we now have the nearly fully redacted Bill of Rights put forth in the comments on Twitchy rather than Paul's version. Please explain to me what I'm missing.

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If You Like Your Privacy You Can Keep It...

Check out Rand Paul’s ‘CliffsNotes version of Obama’s NSA reforms’ [pic] | Twitchy:

Rand Paul is headed in the right direction. But as was pointed out in the comments, he's still a bit behind the reality:

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Friday, January 17, 2014

Americans Share Their Thoughts on Joe Biden

Americans Share Their Thoughts on Joe Biden - YouTube: "Americans Share Their Thoughts on Joe Biden"

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Thursday, January 16, 2014

The Fearful Future

Belmont Club » The Fearful Future: "The Left is and has always been a regressive ideology which relies in “progressive taxation” to pursue a 19th century dream. Marx couldn’t even imagine that dream. He lived a world where have two or three suits of clothes was a big deal. If you look about your home and consider which of the plethora of consumer items was invented under socialism it would be a very short list. In product innovation, America produced Bill Gates and Steve Jobs and thousands of others. Socialism brought forth Mikhail Kalashnikov.

In the coming years the political call will go out to stop the world and return to some imaginary New Deal Paradise. But can we ever return to the past?  Yes of course we can the Left will say. And they will say it on their Tablets without realizing the irony. But to those who wish to return to the garden and are without innovative sin, let him cast the first smartphone."
RTWT.

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Brutal

Jimmy Kimmel launches savage, pointed attack against young people’s ignorant support for Obamacare: "I knew that late night talk show hosts were finally starting to see Obama and Obamacare as target-rich environments, but this one still surprised me:"

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Holy Buckets

Random stuff and Open Thread: "Texas. Rep. Scott Turner definitely shows signs of being a rising star in the GOP.  I’m just not going to give my heart away immediately.  It’s been broken too many times.  I will however keep my eye on him and hope for the best:"

If there was a teleprompter on that stage, by way of introduction he would have smashed it and smiled a big grin. Wow. WTWT.

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Wednesday, January 15, 2014

Nasty A**holes Update

PJ Media » Probe Finds White House Wanted to Make Sequestration as ‘Painful as Possible’ for Rural Schools: "WASHINGTON — A House Natural Resources Committee investigation has found that President Obama’s Office of Management and Budget ordered that sequestration cuts be applied retroactively to funding for rural schools over the opposition of the Agriculture Department.

The committee’s report released today, “A Less Secure Future for Rural Schools: An Investigation into the Obama Administration’s Questionable Application of the Sequester to the Secure Rural Schools Program,” detailed how last February the USDA had determined 2013 sequestration wouldn’t apply to 2012 funds that had already been distributed in the program. The White House stepped in and overruled the USDA, though both agencies haven’t turned over numerous subpoenaed documents that could reveal more behind the decision."

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Tuesday, January 14, 2014

If The Death Panels Didn't Save Money Then Lefty's Would REALLY Like Them

Instapundit » Blog Archive » OLD AND TIRED: Death Panels are a paranoid fantasy of Sarah Palin’s. New and hot: Death Panels …: "OLD AND TIRED: Death Panels are a paranoid fantasy of Sarah Palin’s.

New and hot: Death Panels are grrrreeeaaatttt! Ex-NY Times Editor Keller to Cancer Patient: ‘Going Gently’ Saves Money.

UPDATE: “Soylent Green Liberals.”

Posted by Glenn Reynolds at 10:59 pm"

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Sunday, January 12, 2014

Illinois versus Oklahoma

Illinois versus Oklahoma: "Guess what… Oklahoma did it anyway.

Just this month, the state has voted and passed a law that ALL drivers’ license exams will be printed in English, and only English, and no other language. They have been called racist for doing this, but the fact is that ALL of the road signs are in English only. If you want to drive in Oklahoma, you must read and write English. Really simple. By the way, the Liberals don’t like any of this either

Guess what… who cares… Oklahoma is doing it anyway."
RTWT.

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On Being Ruled By A Prison Population

Ace of Spades HQ: "In the prison thread of a couple of days ago, longtime moron 'Seamus Muldoon' recommended the book Inside the Criminal Mind by Stanton Samenow, who, Seamus says, "is not a big fan of rehabilitation", and argues that is very difficult to get a criminal to change the basic way of thinking that makes them who they are:
The evolution of the criminal mind starts with learning patterns of manipulation early in life that enable him to negotiate the real world without consequences. The thought process becomes twisted into a sense of entitlement and distorted "self logic" and a belief that the rules others live by don't apply to him. At some point, the budding criminal makes a conscious decision to behave the way he does, as opposed to being shaped by outside forces
This lines up pretty much with the observations of ex-prison chaplain Peter Grant, in his book Walls, Wire, Bars and Souls I mentioned on a book thread of two or three months ago. Grant says that true, long-lasting rehabilitations are few and far between: possible, but not very likely. In his book, he talks about his one successful case, and it took months and months of therapy and prayer to get the guy to understand some real basic truths, namely, that 1. what he did was wrong and 2. it's nobody's fault but his. Normal people learn this sort of thing early on, in childhood, but with some, the crucial lessons never seem to sink in.

So take a whole carload of these near-sociopaths (and actual sociopaths), all of whom are extraordinarily self-fixated, amoral experts at manipulation, put them in close quarters for an extended period of time, and the results are horrific. This is why prisons are dangerous, scary places, and why the recidivism rates are sky high."
Wait ... what? Can someone explain to me the difference in psyche between a prison population and our rulers in Mordor on the Potomac?

I have many times argued that the solution to the survival of the country is to build a guarded fence around D.C. ... with the barbed wire and guard towers facing inwards.

UPDATE: Of course I had to publish before I included Mark Twain: "It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress. - Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar". There is nothing new under the sun -- it's just that the evidence keeps getting deeper and deeper to the point of literally drowning us.

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COTD: Ezra's Whoops!

A health industry expert on ‘the fundamental problem with Obamacare’: "TheWhiz
6:40 AM MST
The points in this analysis, though understated, point to devastating results for the ACA: (1) it is product-driven, not market-driven, which leads to consumer rejection; (2) the mechanism for countering lack of demand (mandate) will be eliminated; (3) leading to unsustainable risk pools--both in terms of quantity and mix. Risk corridors may keep things afloat for a while, but the only realistic solutions are to attempt cost controls (change the product, narrow networks, regulate prices for medical services) by overriding the statute and increasing government funding. Interesting that you, a supporter of the ACA, have pointed this out to us so clearly."

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Saturday, January 11, 2014

Useful Idiots (Part 8,934,731)

Minimum Wage: Might As Well Check in With Milton | Power Line: "John took notice here last week of how once upon a time even the New York Times understood that mandating a minimum wage that was above what the bottom end of the labor market would bear was economically unsound and hurt the very people it was designed most to help–though that seems to be a defining feature of a lot of government policy these days.  But then the Times caught a case of Krugmania and changed its mind.  (Maybe this will be covered by Obamacare?)

What the heck—we may as well check in with Milton Friedman on this, who explains it with his typical lucidity and brevity in this thee minute clip from the 1970s:"
Click through and WTWT.

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Recovery Time?

Dollar stores are now getting too expensive for many Americans - Quartz: "Family Dollar CEO Howard Levine had this to say on the subject:
For the last several quarters, we’ve discussed the economic challenges our customers are facing. Over the last two years, I think we’ve seen a growing bifurcation in households. Higher-income households who have benefited from market gains, better employment opportunities, or improvements in the housing markets have become more comfortable and confident in their financial situation. But our core lower-income customers have faced high unemployment levels, higher payroll taxes, and more recently reductions in government-assistance programs. All of these factors have resulted in incremental financial pressure and reduction in overall spend in the market.
Translation? As poor Americans come under more and more pressure, more and more of Family Dollar’s revenue is tied to low-margin sales of necessities like food. (Sales were strongest during the first fiscal quarter in Family Dollar’s “consumables” category, especially in areas like frozen food.)

The fact that so many Americans are being forced to curtail spending at the cheapest discount retailers should give anybody cheering the US recovery something to think about."
Whoops! Put that story on page F34 please.

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Speaking O The Praetorian Guard...

Thank Labor Force Dropouts, Not New Jobs, For Lower Unemployment Rate: "Here’s what the unemployment rate would look like if the labor force participation rate — basically the number of people in the economy working or looking for work — had remained constant since June of 2009:"
... you won't find this at least anywhere a casual reader would be able to find it in WaPoNYeT. And the reason you can never find out what Nazism was really all about from the NYeT is partially explained here.

Because if you knew that you would know about this little quote: "How fortunate for governments that the people they administer don’t think. - Adolf Hitler". And we couldn't have the proles reading things like that now could we?  If it happened too often they might forget to take their soma long enough to remember where they put their pitchforks...

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Our Native Criminal Class -- Not Just The Politicians Any More

Instapundit » Blog Archive » SENATOR MARK UDALL’S EFFORTS TO COOK OBAMACARE BOOKS IN COLORADO: “It is a small story of great int…: "SENATOR MARK UDALL’S EFFORTS TO COOK OBAMACARE BOOKS IN COLORADO: “It is a small story of great interest.” Plus, help from the courtier press: “Shepherd’s Complete Colorado story strongly suggests that Udall hit pay dirt with the Denver Post. It appears that Udall found the Post to be more compliant than the folks at the Colorado Division of Insurance. The Post coughed up this story by Michael Booth right on cue, on November 15, putting those troubling cancellation numbers ‘in context.’”

Posted by Glenn Reynolds at 8:57 am"

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Thursday, January 9, 2014

A Reminder: He Was Shocked To Find Out About This On The Evening News

Ace of Spades HQ: "In the internal email, Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service official Charles Brown said he asked if he could try to spread out the sequester cuts in his region to minimize the impact, and he said he was told not to do anything that would lessen the dire impacts Congress had been warned of.

“We have gone on record with a notification to Congress and whoever else that ‘APHIS would eliminate assistance to producers in 24 states in managing wildlife damage to the aquaculture industry, unless they provide funding to cover the costs.’ So it is our opinion that however you manage that reduction, you need to make sure you are not contradicting what we said the impact would be,” Mr. Brown, in the internal email, said his superiors told him.
So there you have someone telling a superior, "I can lessen the impact of the sequester cuts," and his superior answering: "No, we've represented they would be painful; do not change anything to mitigate that pain and undermine our political message."

But that's okay. Because, Democrats."
Shocked, I tell ya.

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Sunday, January 5, 2014

TARP To Infinity And Then Some -- Crimethink Edition

TARP Was Bad, but the Looming Obamacare Bailout for Corrupt Insurance Companies Could Be Worse | International Liberty: "Or, from the perspective of the big banks, they got a very good return on their campaign contributions (read Kevin Williamson if you want to get upset about this disgusting form of cronyism).

Well, as Yogi Berra might say, it’s deja vu all over again.

Except now the fat cats lining up at the Treasury door are the big health insurance corporate titans. They got in bed with the White House to push Obamacare and now they’re worried about losing money now that it’s becoming more apparent that the American version of government-run healthcare doesn’t work any better than the British version."
The insurance companies are just another cog in the corrupt Fed/ financial "industry". The "press" will simply not report on the bailouts and therefore they won't exist to the deltas and hence no problems with Dem reign to infinity.  And the R's are happy to let them go on as long as their snouts get a corner of the trough of course.  Can you say one party rule?

If you think the "press" will report the bailouts, did you notice how quickly the AP spying scandal disappeared?  I wonder why?

In fact, the way for the 'press' to obscure the bailouts is already pre-canned for them -- the Obamacare law already calls it "risk corridors"! And if you call it something else then that's crimethink of course...

"Hello, NSA?  This is Barack and here's what I want to know about my political opponents today...  Oh, and none of my flock in the 'press' have been doing any crimethink, have they?"

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Designed Dependency

Instapundit » Blog Archive » OUCH: “34%: The unemployment rate for Americans ages 16-17. The unemployment rate for teenage Hisp…: "OUCH: “34%: The unemployment rate for Americans ages 16-17. The unemployment rate for teenage Hispanic Americans is 48%, and the rate for teenage Black Americans is 60%.”

Posted by Glenn Reynolds at 8:47 am"

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COTD: Du'O!

NSA won’t say whether it spies on Congress – CNN Political Ticker - CNN.com Blogs: "NVRAT
Obama being tied closely to the NSA Spying you can bet you last buck he and the DNC is spying on not only congress but every body they associate with. They (DNC) are looking for anything they believe they can use against them in future elections to attack them personally and politically. Have you ever wondered how they suddenly found out about affairs some generals were having and used the information to fire and disgrace them when they became to popular and might run against them for office and how suddenly some Republicans have capitulated and joined with Obama and his crime syndicate? Lets not be naive here. Politics is a nasty cut throat business and Obama with his Chicago cronies "know how and endless taxpayer money" would do anything to maintain power.

January 5, 2014 10:27 am at 10:27 am |"

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Saturday, January 4, 2014

Did We Also Forget To Mention Walter Duranty?

The New York Times’ dirty history regarding the Holocaust: "She’s a high school senior, but damn! if she doesn’t give a stunningly good talk about the way in which the New York Times, despite knowing about the Holocaust, not only downplayed it, but effectively kept American policy away from helping Europe’s besieged Jewish population:"

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Friday, January 3, 2014

1984^3 -- Drop (out Jeep) Everything And WTWT

30c3: To Protect And Infect, Part 2 - YouTube: "30c3: To Protect And Infect, Part 2"

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Gangs

Putting Gun Death Statistics in Perspective - Gangs Remain Key Unaddressed Problem in Gun Debate: "To hear gun control advocates speak, one would be led to believe that gun violence is a widespread problem whereby the mere existence of a gun is as much a problem as the person who intends to wield it. But the reality is that gun homicides are overwhelmingly tied to gang violence. In fact, a staggering 80% of gun homicides are gang-related. According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC), gang homicides accounted for roughly 8,900 of 11,100 gun murders in both 2010 and 2011. That means that there were just 2,200 non gang-related firearm murders in both years in a country of over 300 million people and 250 million guns."
UPDATE: Expressed another way:
Debunking the "Four Cities" Murder Myth: "As with many myths, there is a kernel of truth in the underlying idea.  If you remove the subcultures from the United States that do not originate in Europe, and have no significant numbers in Europe (African American and American Hispanics) the murder rate for the United States falls into the middle of European murder rates.

  ©2013 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice is included."
UPDATE #2: And:
America Doesn’t Have a Gun Problem, It Has a Gang Problem | FrontPage Magazine: "America’s horrific murder rate is a result of the transformation of major American cities into Sierra Leone, Somalia, Rwanda and El Salvador. Our murder rate now largely consists of criminals killing criminals.

As David Kennedy, the head of the Center for Crime Prevention and Control, put it, “The majority of homicide victims have extensive criminal histories. This is simply the way that the world of criminal homicide works. It’s a fact.”"

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Thursday, January 2, 2014

Youch

A Few Thoughts on Cryptographic Engineering: RSA warns developers not to use RSA products: "In today's news of the weird, RSA (a division of EMC) has recommended that developers desist from using the (allegedly) 'backdoored' Dual_EC_DRBG random number generator -- which happens to be the default in RSA's BSafe cryptographic toolkit. Youch.

In case you're missing the story here, Dual_EC_DRBG (which I wrote about yesterday) is the random number generator voted most likely to be backdoored by the NSA. The story here is that -- despite many valid concerns about this generator -- RSA went ahead and made it the default generator used for all cryptography in its flagship cryptography library. The implications for RSA and RSA-based products are staggering. In the worst case a modestly bad but by no means worst case, the NSA may be able to intercept SSL/TLS connections made by products implemented with BSafe. "

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