'Secret dealing'? Emails show cozy relationship between EPA, environmental groups
Newly disclosed emails suggest senior policy officials at the Environmental Protection Agency and environmental groups are working closely to kill the Keystone XL pipeline, critics say.
"These damning emails make it clear that the Obama administration has been actively trying to stop this important project for years," Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., who has long advocated for the Canada-to-Texas pipeline's construction, said in a statement to Fox News.
The emails were obtained under a Freedom of Information Act request by the Energy and Environment Legal Institute. In one communication, Lena Moffit of the Sierra Club wrote to three senior policy staffers at the EPA, including Michael Goo, who was then the associate administrator for policy.
"Thanks so much for taking the time to meet with us on Keystone XL yesterday," she wrote. "Let me know if I can be helpful in any way -- particularly in further identifying those opportunities for EPA to engage that don't involve 'throwing your body across the tracks,' as Michael put it."
EELI senior legal fellow Chris Horner told Fox News that as a government agency, EPA couldn't be seen as overtly trying to kill Keystone, but was reaching out to environmental groups for other ideas on how to do it.
"On its face," Horner told Fox News, "it smacks of classic secret dealing and an uncomfortably close working relationship and one that is known to these parties, but quite plainly not advertised to the public." ...
Sunday, January 26, 2014
Dems Discuss ‘Income Inequality’ at Grammys, Posh St. Regis.
...Democrats have made the issue of “income inequality” the cornerstone of their platform going into the November elections. In less than two months, the House Democrats will discuss this and other issues at the swanky and posh St. Regis hotel in Manhattan. Rooms start at $695 a night if you would like to join them.
Of course, you can’t simply show up at the DCCC’s “Issues Conference.” According to the email invitation, “[t]his annual Issues Conference is open to 2014 DCCC Business and Labor Council Platinum Members and to our 2014 Chairman’s Council Members.” I’m not certain what it takes to be a “plantinum member,” but I imagine it takes the kind of money that doesn’t blink at a $695 hotel room. Helpfully, the DCCC says you can contact them to determine one’s “eligibility.”
For those fortunate enough to attend, “the St. Regis New York has unveiled a bold new era of glamour at Manhattan’s best address,” according to the hotel’s website. Recently renovated, the hotel says the redesign’s “fresh and sophisticated approach has married original design elements, such as the crystal Waterford chandeliers and elegant crown moldings, with beautiful, large-format photographic artwork, vibrant-hued fabrics and stunning beveled mirrors.” ...
...Democrats have made the issue of “income inequality” the cornerstone of their platform going into the November elections. In less than two months, the House Democrats will discuss this and other issues at the swanky and posh St. Regis hotel in Manhattan. Rooms start at $695 a night if you would like to join them.
Of course, you can’t simply show up at the DCCC’s “Issues Conference.” According to the email invitation, “[t]his annual Issues Conference is open to 2014 DCCC Business and Labor Council Platinum Members and to our 2014 Chairman’s Council Members.” I’m not certain what it takes to be a “plantinum member,” but I imagine it takes the kind of money that doesn’t blink at a $695 hotel room. Helpfully, the DCCC says you can contact them to determine one’s “eligibility.”
For those fortunate enough to attend, “the St. Regis New York has unveiled a bold new era of glamour at Manhattan’s best address,” according to the hotel’s website. Recently renovated, the hotel says the redesign’s “fresh and sophisticated approach has married original design elements, such as the crystal Waterford chandeliers and elegant crown moldings, with beautiful, large-format photographic artwork, vibrant-hued fabrics and stunning beveled mirrors.” ...
Nordic welfare state being cut down to size
...In the wake of a banking crisis in the early nineties, Stockholm scrapped housing subsidies, reformed the pension system and slashed the healthcare budget.
A voucher-based system that allows for-profit schools to compete with state schools was introduced, and has drawn attention from right-wing politicians elsewhere, including Britain's Conservative Party.
In 2006, conservative Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt's government accelerated the pace of reform, tightening the criteria for unemployment benefits and sick pay while lowering taxes.
Income tax in Sweden is now lower than in France, Belgium and Denmark, and public spending as a share of GDP has declined from a record 71.0 percent in 1993 to 53.3 percent last year.
Once the darling of progressives, Sweden has become a model for free-market-leaning thinkers including British weekly The Economist, which last year hailed the scaled-down Nordic model as "the next supermodel."...
...In the wake of a banking crisis in the early nineties, Stockholm scrapped housing subsidies, reformed the pension system and slashed the healthcare budget.
A voucher-based system that allows for-profit schools to compete with state schools was introduced, and has drawn attention from right-wing politicians elsewhere, including Britain's Conservative Party.
In 2006, conservative Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt's government accelerated the pace of reform, tightening the criteria for unemployment benefits and sick pay while lowering taxes.
Income tax in Sweden is now lower than in France, Belgium and Denmark, and public spending as a share of GDP has declined from a record 71.0 percent in 1993 to 53.3 percent last year.
Once the darling of progressives, Sweden has become a model for free-market-leaning thinkers including British weekly The Economist, which last year hailed the scaled-down Nordic model as "the next supermodel."...
The Root of Obama’s Imperious Presidency
...Unfortunately, Obama’s temperament will now have serious consequences for the nation. We’ll be in a constant state of Constitutional subversion for the next three years as Obama issues edicts and bullies the private sector into doing his bidding. At any point, with some particularly outlandish act, he can kick things up to a major Constitutional crisis. It’s a sad thing to see.
I have no love for politicians. But the Founders designed this system for politicians, who must schmooze and battle their way toward getting something done – or preventing something from being done – all while watching their political asses back home.
It’s not pretty. But it’s a lot better than having the nation run by a cabal of philosopher-kings who think they know what’s best for us.
...Unfortunately, Obama’s temperament will now have serious consequences for the nation. We’ll be in a constant state of Constitutional subversion for the next three years as Obama issues edicts and bullies the private sector into doing his bidding. At any point, with some particularly outlandish act, he can kick things up to a major Constitutional crisis. It’s a sad thing to see.
I have no love for politicians. But the Founders designed this system for politicians, who must schmooze and battle their way toward getting something done – or preventing something from being done – all while watching their political asses back home.
It’s not pretty. But it’s a lot better than having the nation run by a cabal of philosopher-kings who think they know what’s best for us.
Newspaper conglomerate considers building massive database of gun owners
A U.S. newspaper conglomerate has considered building state-by-state databases of people who have the right to carry concealed firearms.
Civitas Media, which owns 88 newspapers in 12 states and more than 100 total publications, is planning to use public records requests to build their databases, according to an internal Civitas email obtained by the Buckeye Firearms Association in Ohio.
Civitas director of content Jim Lawitz emailed content directors, managers, and producers in a January 19 email, saying that exploring the “explosion” of conceal and carry permits in the U.S. will be one of the company’s short-term objectives.
“We are launching two enterprise projects across our newsrooms this month. The first will deal with the creeping influence of heroin in our communities. The deadly drug has quietly taken over, reaching across all age groups and eclipsing meth as the recreational drug of choice,” Lawitz began.
“The second project examines the explosion of ‘conceal and carry’ gun permits across the U.S. Through public records act requests, we will attempt to build state-by-state databases that list those who have the right to carry a concealed weapon,” Lawitz wrote in the email....
A U.S. newspaper conglomerate has considered building state-by-state databases of people who have the right to carry concealed firearms.
Civitas Media, which owns 88 newspapers in 12 states and more than 100 total publications, is planning to use public records requests to build their databases, according to an internal Civitas email obtained by the Buckeye Firearms Association in Ohio.
Civitas director of content Jim Lawitz emailed content directors, managers, and producers in a January 19 email, saying that exploring the “explosion” of conceal and carry permits in the U.S. will be one of the company’s short-term objectives.
“We are launching two enterprise projects across our newsrooms this month. The first will deal with the creeping influence of heroin in our communities. The deadly drug has quietly taken over, reaching across all age groups and eclipsing meth as the recreational drug of choice,” Lawitz began.
“The second project examines the explosion of ‘conceal and carry’ gun permits across the U.S. Through public records act requests, we will attempt to build state-by-state databases that list those who have the right to carry a concealed weapon,” Lawitz wrote in the email....
Kansas Judge Demands Sperm Donor Pay Child Support
In a blow to private contracts and to individual liberty, a judge in the state of Kansas has demanded that sperm donor William Marotta pay child support. Marotta donated sperm to a lesbian couple who determined after they had the baby that they could no longer support the child. The state of Kansas decided to make an example out of Marotta in a case that illustrates how the American judicial system treats men as if they are little more than cash machines.
Shawnee County District Court Judge Mary Mattivi argued that Marotta cannot waive his parental rights because he did not use a licensed physician to perform the insemination....
In a blow to private contracts and to individual liberty, a judge in the state of Kansas has demanded that sperm donor William Marotta pay child support. Marotta donated sperm to a lesbian couple who determined after they had the baby that they could no longer support the child. The state of Kansas decided to make an example out of Marotta in a case that illustrates how the American judicial system treats men as if they are little more than cash machines.
Shawnee County District Court Judge Mary Mattivi argued that Marotta cannot waive his parental rights because he did not use a licensed physician to perform the insemination....
Wisconsin “John Doe” target goes on offense, threatens federal suit
...Eric O’Keefe, who has been identified in media reports as a target of a secret “John Doe” investigation in Wisconsin, today demanded that state prosecutors end their action against him or face a federal civil rights action. O’Keefe is director of the Wisconsin Club for Growth, which was also targeted for alleged unlawful “coordination” with Governor Scott Walker’s campaign for fiscal reforms.
“This investigation is political payback by elected prosecutors against conservative activists for their political successes in Wisconsin,” stated O’Keefe. “They are violating the constitutional rights of private citizens and must be held accountable.”
In a letter to the prosecutors, O’Keefe’s lawyer, Washington attorney David B. Rivkin, states that the probe has no basis in Wisconsin law and violates Mr. O’Keefe’s First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and association. The prosecutors’ legal reasoning, the letter states, “is unsupportable as a matter of law and crystal clear evidence of bad faith.”
“I am confident that any federal court that reviews the facts will see your investigation for what it is, put a stop to it, and hold you publicly accountable,” the letter states.
The letter demands that Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm and the other prosecutors close the investigation immediately, publicly exonerate Mr. O’Keefe and the Club, and dissolve the gag order that bars discussion of the proceeding. Despite the gag order, the investigation has been widely reported in the media, apparently due to leaks to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel from the prosecutors’ offices, Rivkin’s letter states....
...Eric O’Keefe, who has been identified in media reports as a target of a secret “John Doe” investigation in Wisconsin, today demanded that state prosecutors end their action against him or face a federal civil rights action. O’Keefe is director of the Wisconsin Club for Growth, which was also targeted for alleged unlawful “coordination” with Governor Scott Walker’s campaign for fiscal reforms.
“This investigation is political payback by elected prosecutors against conservative activists for their political successes in Wisconsin,” stated O’Keefe. “They are violating the constitutional rights of private citizens and must be held accountable.”
In a letter to the prosecutors, O’Keefe’s lawyer, Washington attorney David B. Rivkin, states that the probe has no basis in Wisconsin law and violates Mr. O’Keefe’s First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and association. The prosecutors’ legal reasoning, the letter states, “is unsupportable as a matter of law and crystal clear evidence of bad faith.”
“I am confident that any federal court that reviews the facts will see your investigation for what it is, put a stop to it, and hold you publicly accountable,” the letter states.
The letter demands that Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm and the other prosecutors close the investigation immediately, publicly exonerate Mr. O’Keefe and the Club, and dissolve the gag order that bars discussion of the proceeding. Despite the gag order, the investigation has been widely reported in the media, apparently due to leaks to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel from the prosecutors’ offices, Rivkin’s letter states....
Aetna CEO: We might have to pull out of ObamaCare because it’s not attracting uninsured
... Aetna CEO Mark Bertolini told CNBC on Wednesday that Obamacare has failed to attract the uninsured, and he offered a scenario in which the insurance company could be forced to pull out of program.
The company will be submitting Obamacare rates for 2015 on May 15.
“Are they going to be double-digit [increases] or are we going to get beat up because they’re double-digit or are we just going to have to pull out of the program?” Bertolini asked in a “Squawk Box” interview from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “Those questions can’t be answered until we see the population we have today. And we really don’t have a good view on that.”
He said that so far, Obamacare has just shifted people who were insured in the individual market to the public exchanges where they could get a better deal on a subsidy for coverage. “We see only 11 percent of the population is actually people that were firmly uninsured that are now insured. So [it] didn’t really eat into the uninsured population.”
For Obamacare to work better, it needs more flexibility and choice of insurance programs, Bertolini said. “We need to make it a lot more simpler for people. There needs to be more choice. When you get more choice, you make it more of a market and you get more people in the program.” ...
... Aetna CEO Mark Bertolini told CNBC on Wednesday that Obamacare has failed to attract the uninsured, and he offered a scenario in which the insurance company could be forced to pull out of program.
The company will be submitting Obamacare rates for 2015 on May 15.
“Are they going to be double-digit [increases] or are we going to get beat up because they’re double-digit or are we just going to have to pull out of the program?” Bertolini asked in a “Squawk Box” interview from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “Those questions can’t be answered until we see the population we have today. And we really don’t have a good view on that.”
He said that so far, Obamacare has just shifted people who were insured in the individual market to the public exchanges where they could get a better deal on a subsidy for coverage. “We see only 11 percent of the population is actually people that were firmly uninsured that are now insured. So [it] didn’t really eat into the uninsured population.”
For Obamacare to work better, it needs more flexibility and choice of insurance programs, Bertolini said. “We need to make it a lot more simpler for people. There needs to be more choice. When you get more choice, you make it more of a market and you get more people in the program.” ...
Angry Geithner once warned S&P about U.S. downgrade - filing
Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner angrily warned the chairman of Standard & Poor's parent that the rating agency would be held accountable for its 2011 decision to strip the United States of its coveted "triple-A" rating, a new court filing shows.
Harold McGraw, the chairman of McGraw-Hill Financial Inc , made the statement in a declaration filed by S&P on Monday, as it defends against the government's $5 billion fraud lawsuit over its rating practices prior to the 2008 financial crisis.
McGraw said he returned a call from Geithner on Aug. 8, 2011, three days after S&P cut the U.S. credit rating to "AA-plus," and that Geithner told him "you are accountable" for an alleged "huge error" in S&P's work.
"He said that 'you have done an enormous disservice to yourselves and to your country,'" and that S&P's conduct would be "looked at very carefully," McGraw said. "Such behavior could not occur, he said, without a response from the government."...
Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner angrily warned the chairman of Standard & Poor's parent that the rating agency would be held accountable for its 2011 decision to strip the United States of its coveted "triple-A" rating, a new court filing shows.
Harold McGraw, the chairman of McGraw-Hill Financial Inc , made the statement in a declaration filed by S&P on Monday, as it defends against the government's $5 billion fraud lawsuit over its rating practices prior to the 2008 financial crisis.
McGraw said he returned a call from Geithner on Aug. 8, 2011, three days after S&P cut the U.S. credit rating to "AA-plus," and that Geithner told him "you are accountable" for an alleged "huge error" in S&P's work.
"He said that 'you have done an enormous disservice to yourselves and to your country,'" and that S&P's conduct would be "looked at very carefully," McGraw said. "Such behavior could not occur, he said, without a response from the government."...
Settled Science: New paper finds effect of man on climate is "highly uncertain"
A new paper published in Science finds "the radiative forcing (that is, the perturbation to Earth's energy budget) caused by human activities is highly uncertain, making it difficult to predict the extent of global warming."
One of several reasons for this high uncertainty is the complexity of determining the cooling effects of aerosols, which reflect sunlight back to space, and can also seed cloud formation. According to the authors, "Aerosols counteract part of the warming effects of greenhouse gases, mostly by increasing the amount of sunlight reflected back to space. However, the ways in which aerosols affect climate through their interaction with clouds are complex and incompletely captured by climate models." "Recent advances have led to a more detailed understanding of aerosol-cloud interactions and their effects on climate, but further progress is hampered by limited observational capabilities and coarse-resolution climate models."
The huge uncertainties with respect to clouds, aerosols, solar amplification mechanisms, ocean oscillations, and natural variability all make a mockery of the IPCC claim of increased confidence as its climate models increasingly diverge from temperature observations....
A new paper published in Science finds "the radiative forcing (that is, the perturbation to Earth's energy budget) caused by human activities is highly uncertain, making it difficult to predict the extent of global warming."
One of several reasons for this high uncertainty is the complexity of determining the cooling effects of aerosols, which reflect sunlight back to space, and can also seed cloud formation. According to the authors, "Aerosols counteract part of the warming effects of greenhouse gases, mostly by increasing the amount of sunlight reflected back to space. However, the ways in which aerosols affect climate through their interaction with clouds are complex and incompletely captured by climate models." "Recent advances have led to a more detailed understanding of aerosol-cloud interactions and their effects on climate, but further progress is hampered by limited observational capabilities and coarse-resolution climate models."
The huge uncertainties with respect to clouds, aerosols, solar amplification mechanisms, ocean oscillations, and natural variability all make a mockery of the IPCC claim of increased confidence as its climate models increasingly diverge from temperature observations....
The ‘Pause’ of Global Warming Risks Destroying The Reputation Of Science
Global temperatures have not risen for 17 years. The pause now threatens to expose how much scientists sold their souls for cash and fame, warns emeritus professor Garth Paltridge, former chief research scientist with the CSIRO Division of Atmospheric Research.
…there has been no significant warming over the most recent fifteen or so years…
In the light of all this, we have at least to consider the possibility that the scientific establishment behind the global warming issue has been drawn into the trap of seriously overstating the climate problem … in its effort to promote the cause. It is a particularly nasty trap in the context of science, because it risks destroying, perhaps for centuries to come, the unique and hard-won reputation for honesty which is the basis of society’s respect for scientific endeavour…
The trap was set in the late 1970s or thereabouts when the environmental movement first realised that doing something about global warming would play to quite a number of its social agendas. At much the same time, it became accepted wisdom around the corridors of power that government-funded scientists (that is, most scientists) should be required to obtain a goodly fraction of their funds and salaries from external sources—external anyway to their own particular organisation.
The scientists in environmental research laboratories, since they are not normally linked to any particular private industry, were forced to seek funds from other government departments. In turn this forced them to accept the need for advocacy and for the manipulation of public opinion. For that sort of activity, an arm’s-length association with the environmental movement would be a union made in heaven…
Global temperatures have not risen for 17 years. The pause now threatens to expose how much scientists sold their souls for cash and fame, warns emeritus professor Garth Paltridge, former chief research scientist with the CSIRO Division of Atmospheric Research.
…there has been no significant warming over the most recent fifteen or so years…
In the light of all this, we have at least to consider the possibility that the scientific establishment behind the global warming issue has been drawn into the trap of seriously overstating the climate problem … in its effort to promote the cause. It is a particularly nasty trap in the context of science, because it risks destroying, perhaps for centuries to come, the unique and hard-won reputation for honesty which is the basis of society’s respect for scientific endeavour…
The trap was set in the late 1970s or thereabouts when the environmental movement first realised that doing something about global warming would play to quite a number of its social agendas. At much the same time, it became accepted wisdom around the corridors of power that government-funded scientists (that is, most scientists) should be required to obtain a goodly fraction of their funds and salaries from external sources—external anyway to their own particular organisation.
The scientists in environmental research laboratories, since they are not normally linked to any particular private industry, were forced to seek funds from other government departments. In turn this forced them to accept the need for advocacy and for the manipulation of public opinion. For that sort of activity, an arm’s-length association with the environmental movement would be a union made in heaven…
No indictment for cop who killed innocent, unarmed man after shooting him 10 times
A grand jury decided not to indict the North Caorlina police officer who shot and killed Jonathan Ferrell–a 24-year-old black man who had just been in a car crash, had committed no crime and was unarmed.
Randall Kerrick, an officer with the Charlotte police force, killed Ferrell when he discovered the disoriented man on a nearby front porch. The homeowner evidently believed Ferrell–a former college football player–was trying to break into the house. In reality, he had just survived a car crash, and was asking for help.
Ferrell ran toward Kerrick when he saw him, prompting the officer to shoot him 10 times. An autopsy revealed that Ferrell may have already been on his knees by the time Kerrick started firing....
A grand jury decided not to indict the North Caorlina police officer who shot and killed Jonathan Ferrell–a 24-year-old black man who had just been in a car crash, had committed no crime and was unarmed.
Randall Kerrick, an officer with the Charlotte police force, killed Ferrell when he discovered the disoriented man on a nearby front porch. The homeowner evidently believed Ferrell–a former college football player–was trying to break into the house. In reality, he had just survived a car crash, and was asking for help.
Ferrell ran toward Kerrick when he saw him, prompting the officer to shoot him 10 times. An autopsy revealed that Ferrell may have already been on his knees by the time Kerrick started firing....
Comments on proposed IRS rule targeting the Tea Party reflect fear, anger
...In fact, it is believed that this rule has been "reverse engineered" in such a way to specifically target common activities among Tea Party groups and recategorize them as “candidate-related political activity,” as reported by Kimberley A. Strassel of the Wall Street Journal.
Tea Party activities oftentimes include issue advocacy, candidate forums and voter registration drives, but Strassel reported that the rule would effectively...
...Strassel wrote that this rule was so important to Democrats during the negotiations for the new 1.1 trillion dollar spending bill, that they ceded their “wish list” in order to keep it....
Schumer Calls for Using IRS to Curtail Tea Party Activities
...Arguing that Tea Party groups have a financial advantage after the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision, Schumer said the Obama administration should bypass Congress and institute new campaign finance rules through the IRS.
“It is clear that we will not pass anything legislatively as long as the House of Representatives is in Republican control, but there are many things that can be done administratively by the IRS and other government agencies—we must redouble those efforts immediately,” Schumer said.
“One of the great advantages the Tea Party has is the huge holes in our campaign finance laws created [by] the ill advised decision [Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission],” Schumer said. “Obviously the Tea Party elites gained extraordinary influence by being able to funnel millions of dollars into campaigns with ads that distort the truth and attack government.”
The Obama administration proposed new IRS restrictions on campaign related activity by tax-exempt groups last November. The rules would crack down on “candidate-related political activity,” which includes advocacy “for a clearly identified political candidate or candidates of a political party” and communications that are “made within 60 days of a general election (or within 30 days of a primary election) and clearly identify a candidate or political party.”
Last May, the IRS admitted to singling out Tea Party groups for increased scrutiny when they applied for tax-exempt status. The scandal forced the resignations of IRS Commissioner Steven Miller and director of Tax Exempt Organizations Lois Lerner.
Schumer was one of several Democratic senators who sent a letter in 2012 calling on the IRS to investigate tax-exempt groups for allegedly engaging in political campaign activity....
Surprise: Hollywood’s only conservative group is getting close IRS nonprofit scrutiny
...Those people said that the application had been under review for roughly two years, and had at one point included a demand — which was not met — for enhanced access to the group’s security-protected website, which would have revealed member names. Tax experts said that an organization’s membership list is information that would not typically be required. The I.R.S. already had access to the site’s basic levels, a request it considers routine for applications for 501(c)(3) nonprofit status....
...In fact, it is believed that this rule has been "reverse engineered" in such a way to specifically target common activities among Tea Party groups and recategorize them as “candidate-related political activity,” as reported by Kimberley A. Strassel of the Wall Street Journal.
Tea Party activities oftentimes include issue advocacy, candidate forums and voter registration drives, but Strassel reported that the rule would effectively...
...Strassel wrote that this rule was so important to Democrats during the negotiations for the new 1.1 trillion dollar spending bill, that they ceded their “wish list” in order to keep it....
Schumer Calls for Using IRS to Curtail Tea Party Activities
...Arguing that Tea Party groups have a financial advantage after the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision, Schumer said the Obama administration should bypass Congress and institute new campaign finance rules through the IRS.
“It is clear that we will not pass anything legislatively as long as the House of Representatives is in Republican control, but there are many things that can be done administratively by the IRS and other government agencies—we must redouble those efforts immediately,” Schumer said.
“One of the great advantages the Tea Party has is the huge holes in our campaign finance laws created [by] the ill advised decision [Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission],” Schumer said. “Obviously the Tea Party elites gained extraordinary influence by being able to funnel millions of dollars into campaigns with ads that distort the truth and attack government.”
The Obama administration proposed new IRS restrictions on campaign related activity by tax-exempt groups last November. The rules would crack down on “candidate-related political activity,” which includes advocacy “for a clearly identified political candidate or candidates of a political party” and communications that are “made within 60 days of a general election (or within 30 days of a primary election) and clearly identify a candidate or political party.”
Last May, the IRS admitted to singling out Tea Party groups for increased scrutiny when they applied for tax-exempt status. The scandal forced the resignations of IRS Commissioner Steven Miller and director of Tax Exempt Organizations Lois Lerner.
Schumer was one of several Democratic senators who sent a letter in 2012 calling on the IRS to investigate tax-exempt groups for allegedly engaging in political campaign activity....
Surprise: Hollywood’s only conservative group is getting close IRS nonprofit scrutiny
...Those people said that the application had been under review for roughly two years, and had at one point included a demand — which was not met — for enhanced access to the group’s security-protected website, which would have revealed member names. Tax experts said that an organization’s membership list is information that would not typically be required. The I.R.S. already had access to the site’s basic levels, a request it considers routine for applications for 501(c)(3) nonprofit status....
Obama's finest speeches do not excite. They do not inform. They don't even really inspire. They elevate. They enmesh you in a grander moment, as if history has stopped flowing passively by, and, just for an instant, contracted around you, made you aware of its presence, and your role in it. He is not the Word made flesh, but the triumph of word over flesh, over color, over despair. The other great leaders I've heard guide us towards a better politics, but Obama is, at his best, able to call us back to our highest selves, to the place where America exists as a glittering ideal, and where we, its honored inhabitants, seem capable of achieving it, and thus of sharing in its meaning and transcendence.
-- Ezra Klein, January of 2008
NYT Blog: Women Are Dreaming of Having Sex With Obama
...Many women — not too surprisingly — were dreaming about sex with the president. In these dreams, the women replaced Michelle with greater or lesser guilt or, in the case of a 62-year-old woman in North Florida, whose dream was reported to me by her daughter, found a fully above-board solution: “Michelle had divorced Barack because he had become ‘too much of a star.’ He then married my mother, who was oh so proud to be the first lady,” the daughter wrote me. There was some daydreaming too, much of it a collective fantasy about the still-hot Obama marriage. “Barack and Michelle Obama look like they have sex. They look like they like having sex,” a Los Angeles woman wrote to me, summing up the comments of many. “Often. With each other. These days when the sexless marriage is such a big celebrity in America (and when first couples are icons of rigid propriety), that’s one interesting mental drama.”...
-- Ezra Klein, January of 2008
NYT Blog: Women Are Dreaming of Having Sex With Obama
...Many women — not too surprisingly — were dreaming about sex with the president. In these dreams, the women replaced Michelle with greater or lesser guilt or, in the case of a 62-year-old woman in North Florida, whose dream was reported to me by her daughter, found a fully above-board solution: “Michelle had divorced Barack because he had become ‘too much of a star.’ He then married my mother, who was oh so proud to be the first lady,” the daughter wrote me. There was some daydreaming too, much of it a collective fantasy about the still-hot Obama marriage. “Barack and Michelle Obama look like they have sex. They look like they like having sex,” a Los Angeles woman wrote to me, summing up the comments of many. “Often. With each other. These days when the sexless marriage is such a big celebrity in America (and when first couples are icons of rigid propriety), that’s one interesting mental drama.”...
Obama to bypass Congress in 2014, rule by agency decree
...He’ll largely ignore GOP legislators, except to push GOP leaders to accept an amnesty for at least 12 million Democrat-leaning illegal immigrants, according to several White House officials who outlined the strategy to the Washington Post.
“Washington veterans have been brought into the West Wing to emphasize an executive style of governing that aims to sidestep Congress more often,” said the approving Washington Post article.
The new plan “is to bring all of the government alive in a way we have never been very good at,” said another official.
“We’ll be doing that as aggressively as possible…. and if we succeed, that is a big presidency,” a senior administration official told the Post.
Obama’s goals are more ambitious than what he had expected to get from the GOP after his 2012 reelection, an official said.
“Even in the best case — if the [GOP’s] fever had broken and the clouds had parted — we still would have only gotten maybe 40 percent of what we wanted,” said the official, who echoed Obama’s frequent description of the GOP’s conservative beliefs as the incoherent ravings of a sick patient.
The new “pen and phone” strategy appears to be a more aggressive version of the post 2010 “We Can’t Wait” strategy, in which Obama ha repeatedly promised to implement progressive policies when the GOP-led Congress refused to pass them....
...He’ll largely ignore GOP legislators, except to push GOP leaders to accept an amnesty for at least 12 million Democrat-leaning illegal immigrants, according to several White House officials who outlined the strategy to the Washington Post.
“Washington veterans have been brought into the West Wing to emphasize an executive style of governing that aims to sidestep Congress more often,” said the approving Washington Post article.
The new plan “is to bring all of the government alive in a way we have never been very good at,” said another official.
“We’ll be doing that as aggressively as possible…. and if we succeed, that is a big presidency,” a senior administration official told the Post.
Obama’s goals are more ambitious than what he had expected to get from the GOP after his 2012 reelection, an official said.
“Even in the best case — if the [GOP’s] fever had broken and the clouds had parted — we still would have only gotten maybe 40 percent of what we wanted,” said the official, who echoed Obama’s frequent description of the GOP’s conservative beliefs as the incoherent ravings of a sick patient.
The new “pen and phone” strategy appears to be a more aggressive version of the post 2010 “We Can’t Wait” strategy, in which Obama ha repeatedly promised to implement progressive policies when the GOP-led Congress refused to pass them....
Mexican Citizens Topple Cartels And Are Rewarded With Government Retaliation
...Joel Gutierrez, a militia member of the Michoacan region, says residents were “sick of the cartel kidnapping, murdering and stealing.”
“That’s why we took up arms,” says Gutierrez, 19. “The local and state police did nothing to protect us.”
The militia men have been patrolling their towns and inspecting cars at checkpoints like this one for nearly a year. All that time, federal police did little to stop them, and at times seemed to encourage the movement.
But that tacit approval appeared to end last weekend, when the number of the militias mushroomed and surrounded Apatzingan, a town of 100,000 people and the Knights Templar’s stronghold. A major battle between the militias and the cartel seemed imminent.
The federal government sent in thousands of police and troops to disarm the civilian patrols. A deadly confrontation ensued. Federal soldiers fired into a crowd of civilian militia supporters, killing two....
...Joel Gutierrez, a militia member of the Michoacan region, says residents were “sick of the cartel kidnapping, murdering and stealing.”
“That’s why we took up arms,” says Gutierrez, 19. “The local and state police did nothing to protect us.”
The militia men have been patrolling their towns and inspecting cars at checkpoints like this one for nearly a year. All that time, federal police did little to stop them, and at times seemed to encourage the movement.
But that tacit approval appeared to end last weekend, when the number of the militias mushroomed and surrounded Apatzingan, a town of 100,000 people and the Knights Templar’s stronghold. A major battle between the militias and the cartel seemed imminent.
The federal government sent in thousands of police and troops to disarm the civilian patrols. A deadly confrontation ensued. Federal soldiers fired into a crowd of civilian militia supporters, killing two....
Supreme Court to Hear Case on Forced Unionization
...The state claims that the caregivers are government employees since patients receive taxpayer dollars through Medicaid and Medicare. But the issue is more complicated than who is signing the checks, according to lawyers for the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation (NRTWLDF), which is spearheading the challenge.
“The Illinois law only defines them as employees in terms of unionization and no other rights at all,” said NRTWLDF lawyer Bill Messenger. “This is a scheme for compulsory lobbying.”
The caregivers do not receive liability insurance coverage or retirement benefits that other government workers are entitled to, according to Messenger. If the court holds that state governments can force any secondary beneficiary of taxpayer dollars in the union, “vast swaths of the population” would end up paying union dues.
“All doctors or nurses who care for Medicare patients would have to join a union by that logic,” Messenger said. “What unions are looking at is trying to attach themselves to any kind of government funding.”...
...The state claims that the caregivers are government employees since patients receive taxpayer dollars through Medicaid and Medicare. But the issue is more complicated than who is signing the checks, according to lawyers for the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation (NRTWLDF), which is spearheading the challenge.
“The Illinois law only defines them as employees in terms of unionization and no other rights at all,” said NRTWLDF lawyer Bill Messenger. “This is a scheme for compulsory lobbying.”
The caregivers do not receive liability insurance coverage or retirement benefits that other government workers are entitled to, according to Messenger. If the court holds that state governments can force any secondary beneficiary of taxpayer dollars in the union, “vast swaths of the population” would end up paying union dues.
“All doctors or nurses who care for Medicare patients would have to join a union by that logic,” Messenger said. “What unions are looking at is trying to attach themselves to any kind of government funding.”...
The Left’s War on the Free Press
As anyone who has been paying attention knows, the left isn’t terribly fond of the free press because the free press makes the narrative harder to control. That’s why you end up with “thought leaders” like Paul Krugman bemoaning the fact that his preferred narrative is “up for argument.”*
Krugman’s lament is benign in comparison to a pair of other complaints aired this weekend. Remember the story published by Grantland and written by Caleb Hannan that I highlighted? Hannan and his editors were faced with a tough choice: publish a story about someone who was caught lying about her past and then killed herself, or spike it.** They chose to run it. Outrage ensued. Not because their facts were wrong or there was anything untruthful in the piece. But because the person who was caught lying about her past committed suicide.
That there was some level of angst is unsurprising: In this, the era of perpetual outrage, everyone’s always angry about something. No, what was disconcerting is that there were people calling for the imprisonment of a journalist for committing the crime of reporting....
As anyone who has been paying attention knows, the left isn’t terribly fond of the free press because the free press makes the narrative harder to control. That’s why you end up with “thought leaders” like Paul Krugman bemoaning the fact that his preferred narrative is “up for argument.”*
Krugman’s lament is benign in comparison to a pair of other complaints aired this weekend. Remember the story published by Grantland and written by Caleb Hannan that I highlighted? Hannan and his editors were faced with a tough choice: publish a story about someone who was caught lying about her past and then killed herself, or spike it.** They chose to run it. Outrage ensued. Not because their facts were wrong or there was anything untruthful in the piece. But because the person who was caught lying about her past committed suicide.
That there was some level of angst is unsurprising: In this, the era of perpetual outrage, everyone’s always angry about something. No, what was disconcerting is that there were people calling for the imprisonment of a journalist for committing the crime of reporting....
Why we should subsidise hipster novelists' housing
...There is an economic rationalist argument against subsiding housing for artists. After all, these people have made a choice to be in a low-paying high-risk (in terms of success) industry. Why should people who have to clean hospital wards subsidise the housing of some hipster novelist? But without writers living in the city, we also risk missing out on that city’s stories being captured on the page. Who hasn’t read a contemporary novel set in Melbourne or Sydney (not that there are many of them) and thrilled with recognition at the places re-imagined, dense with other people’s interior lives? It’s how empathy develops....
...There is an economic rationalist argument against subsiding housing for artists. After all, these people have made a choice to be in a low-paying high-risk (in terms of success) industry. Why should people who have to clean hospital wards subsidise the housing of some hipster novelist? But without writers living in the city, we also risk missing out on that city’s stories being captured on the page. Who hasn’t read a contemporary novel set in Melbourne or Sydney (not that there are many of them) and thrilled with recognition at the places re-imagined, dense with other people’s interior lives? It’s how empathy develops....
Swedes buy insurance to skip long health queues
More than half a million Swedes now have private health insurance, showed a new review from industry organization Swedish Insurance (Svensk Försäkring). In eight out of ten cases, the person's employer had offered them the private insurance deal.
"It's quicker to get a colleague back to work if you have an operation in two weeks' time rather than having to wait for a year," privately insured Anna Norlander told Sveriges Radio on Friday. "It's terrible that I, as a young person, don't feel I can trust the health care system to take care of me."
The insurance plan guarantees that she can see a specialist within four working days, and get a time for surgery, if needed, within 15....
Historic Law to Un-insure People, Then Insure Some of Them and Claim a Victory for Social Justice
...Early signals suggest the majority of the 2.2 million people who sought to enroll in private insurance through new marketplaces through Dec. 28 were previously covered elsewhere, raising questions about how swiftly this part of the health overhaul will be able to make a significant dent in the number of uninsured.
Insurers, brokers and consultants estimate at least two-thirds of those consumers previously bought their own coverage or were enrolled in employer-backed plans....
...Only 11% of consumers who bought new coverage under the law were previously uninsured, according to a McKinsey & Co. survey of consumers thought to be eligible for the health-law marketplaces. The result is based on a sampling of 4,563 consumers performed between November and January, of whom 389 had enrolled in new insurance....
More than half a million Swedes now have private health insurance, showed a new review from industry organization Swedish Insurance (Svensk Försäkring). In eight out of ten cases, the person's employer had offered them the private insurance deal.
"It's quicker to get a colleague back to work if you have an operation in two weeks' time rather than having to wait for a year," privately insured Anna Norlander told Sveriges Radio on Friday. "It's terrible that I, as a young person, don't feel I can trust the health care system to take care of me."
The insurance plan guarantees that she can see a specialist within four working days, and get a time for surgery, if needed, within 15....
Historic Law to Un-insure People, Then Insure Some of Them and Claim a Victory for Social Justice
...Early signals suggest the majority of the 2.2 million people who sought to enroll in private insurance through new marketplaces through Dec. 28 were previously covered elsewhere, raising questions about how swiftly this part of the health overhaul will be able to make a significant dent in the number of uninsured.
Insurers, brokers and consultants estimate at least two-thirds of those consumers previously bought their own coverage or were enrolled in employer-backed plans....
...Only 11% of consumers who bought new coverage under the law were previously uninsured, according to a McKinsey & Co. survey of consumers thought to be eligible for the health-law marketplaces. The result is based on a sampling of 4,563 consumers performed between November and January, of whom 389 had enrolled in new insurance....
Ninth Circuit to Hear Challenge to Obamacare’s “Platonic Guardians” January 28
...IPAB is an agency created by Obamacare to regulate Medicare reimbursement rates. This group of bureaucrats is required by the statute to promulgate “recommendations” as to how to reduce Medicare costs—except that those “recommendations” go into effect automatically, without Congressional or Presidential approval. On the contrary, the law specifically forbids Congress or the President from altering these “recommendations” (except in one limited sense: Congress can replace those “recommendations” with new ones, so long as they achieve the same reductions as the originals.) And Obamacare even attempts to make IPAB immune to repeal. It allows Congress to abolish the agency only by passing a joint resolution during a narrow one-month window in 2017—and that resolution must receive the most extreme supermajority ever required in American law. Courts are prohibited from reviewing IPAB’s actions, also. In short, IPAB is an autonomous lawmaking body that operates without Presidential, Congressional, or Judicial checks or balances.*
Given its extreme degree of independence from popular control, it’s not surprising that opponents of the law labeled IPAB a “death panel.” The law’s defenders called that an exaggeration because the law expressly forbids IPAB from “rationing care.” But the law also doesn’t define what “rationing care” means—and since IPAB’s actions are immune from judicial review, it’s hard to see how courts could stop it from doing so. And cutting the Medicare reimbursement rate for some procedure or other to $0, as IPAB is free to do, would certainly qualify as rationing care. The statutory ban on rationing is simply not enforceable....
...IPAB is an agency created by Obamacare to regulate Medicare reimbursement rates. This group of bureaucrats is required by the statute to promulgate “recommendations” as to how to reduce Medicare costs—except that those “recommendations” go into effect automatically, without Congressional or Presidential approval. On the contrary, the law specifically forbids Congress or the President from altering these “recommendations” (except in one limited sense: Congress can replace those “recommendations” with new ones, so long as they achieve the same reductions as the originals.) And Obamacare even attempts to make IPAB immune to repeal. It allows Congress to abolish the agency only by passing a joint resolution during a narrow one-month window in 2017—and that resolution must receive the most extreme supermajority ever required in American law. Courts are prohibited from reviewing IPAB’s actions, also. In short, IPAB is an autonomous lawmaking body that operates without Presidential, Congressional, or Judicial checks or balances.*
Given its extreme degree of independence from popular control, it’s not surprising that opponents of the law labeled IPAB a “death panel.” The law’s defenders called that an exaggeration because the law expressly forbids IPAB from “rationing care.” But the law also doesn’t define what “rationing care” means—and since IPAB’s actions are immune from judicial review, it’s hard to see how courts could stop it from doing so. And cutting the Medicare reimbursement rate for some procedure or other to $0, as IPAB is free to do, would certainly qualify as rationing care. The statutory ban on rationing is simply not enforceable....
N.S.A. Able to Foil Basic Safeguards of Privacy on Web
... “In the future, superpowers will be made or broken based on the strength of their cryptanalytic programs,” a 2007 document said. “It is the price of admission for the U.S. to maintain unrestricted access to and use of cyberspace.”
The full extent of the N.S.A.’s decoding capabilities is known only to a limited group of top analysts from the so-called Five Eyes: the N.S.A. and its counterparts in Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Only they are cleared for the Bullrun program, the successor to one called Manassas — both names of an American Civil War battle. A parallel GCHQ counterencryption program is called Edgehill, named for the first battle of the English Civil War of the 17th century.
Unlike some classified information that can be parceled out on a strict “need to know” basis, one document makes clear that with Bullrun, “there will be NO ‘need to know.’ ” ...
... “In the future, superpowers will be made or broken based on the strength of their cryptanalytic programs,” a 2007 document said. “It is the price of admission for the U.S. to maintain unrestricted access to and use of cyberspace.”
The full extent of the N.S.A.’s decoding capabilities is known only to a limited group of top analysts from the so-called Five Eyes: the N.S.A. and its counterparts in Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Only they are cleared for the Bullrun program, the successor to one called Manassas — both names of an American Civil War battle. A parallel GCHQ counterencryption program is called Edgehill, named for the first battle of the English Civil War of the 17th century.
Unlike some classified information that can be parceled out on a strict “need to know” basis, one document makes clear that with Bullrun, “there will be NO ‘need to know.’ ” ...
Sunday, January 19, 2014
As Wendy Davis touts life story in race for governor, key facts blurred
...While they dated, Wendy Davis enrolled at Texas Christian University on an academic scholarship and a Pell Grant. After they married, when she was 24, they moved into a historic home in the Mistletoe Heights neighborhood of Fort Worth.
Jeff Davis paid for her final two years at TCU. “It was community resources. We paid for it together,” Wendy Davis said.
When she was accepted to Harvard Law School, Jeff Davis cashed in his 401(k) account and eventually took out a loan to pay for her final year there....
...Over time, the Davises’ marriage was strained. In November 2003, Wendy Davis moved out.
Jeff Davis said that was right around the time the final payment on their Harvard Law School loan was due. “It was ironic,” he said. “I made the last payment, and it was the next day she left.”...
Wendy Davis’s Thin Skin
...Following an unsuccessful bid for a seat on the Fort Worth city council in 1996, Davis sued the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, along with parent companies ABC and Disney, for libel, alleging that the paper’s coverage of her campaign had been biased and “demonizing,” caused harm to her physical and mental health, and infringed on her “right to pursue public offices in the past and in the future.” Davis demanded “significant exemplary damages” in return.
The suit, which was roundly dismissed on three separate occasions after Davis appealed all the way to the Texas Supreme Court, centered on a series of “libelous and defamatory” articles about her candidacy, which, she alleged, were authored “with an intent to inflict emotional distress” and to deny her rights under the First Amendment....
...Davis’s lawsuit argued that the editorial, and others like it, “was meant to injure [her] reputation . . . and thereby expose her to public hatred, contempt and ridicule.” It also criticized the Star-Telegram for failing to report on the allegations against Hirt detailed in the flier; Davis’s campaign had provided information on the allegations to the paper.
The complaint itself was light on subtlety and nuance, arguing that the paper’s conduct “was extreme and outrageous in character, and so extreme in degree, as to go beyond all possible bounds of decency, as to be regarded as atrocious and utterly intolerable in a civilized community.” As a result of the paper’s actions, Davis alleged, she had “suffered and is continuing to suffer damages to her mental health, her physical health, her right to pursue public offices in the past and in the future, and to her legal career” and deserved financial compensation.
The suit was essentially laughed out of court. It was quickly dismissed by a district-court judge, who sustained all of the defendants’ objections, largely on the grounds that Davis had failed to present legitimate evidence to support her libel claim. It was unanimously rejected by an appellate court three years later and ultimately by the Texas Supreme Court. The defense appears to have had a relatively easy job arguing that Davis was challenging a newspaper’s right to express an opinion she disagreed with, a challenge that obviously ran afoul of the First Amendment....
...While they dated, Wendy Davis enrolled at Texas Christian University on an academic scholarship and a Pell Grant. After they married, when she was 24, they moved into a historic home in the Mistletoe Heights neighborhood of Fort Worth.
Jeff Davis paid for her final two years at TCU. “It was community resources. We paid for it together,” Wendy Davis said.
When she was accepted to Harvard Law School, Jeff Davis cashed in his 401(k) account and eventually took out a loan to pay for her final year there....
...Over time, the Davises’ marriage was strained. In November 2003, Wendy Davis moved out.
Jeff Davis said that was right around the time the final payment on their Harvard Law School loan was due. “It was ironic,” he said. “I made the last payment, and it was the next day she left.”...
Wendy Davis’s Thin Skin
...Following an unsuccessful bid for a seat on the Fort Worth city council in 1996, Davis sued the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, along with parent companies ABC and Disney, for libel, alleging that the paper’s coverage of her campaign had been biased and “demonizing,” caused harm to her physical and mental health, and infringed on her “right to pursue public offices in the past and in the future.” Davis demanded “significant exemplary damages” in return.
The suit, which was roundly dismissed on three separate occasions after Davis appealed all the way to the Texas Supreme Court, centered on a series of “libelous and defamatory” articles about her candidacy, which, she alleged, were authored “with an intent to inflict emotional distress” and to deny her rights under the First Amendment....
...Davis’s lawsuit argued that the editorial, and others like it, “was meant to injure [her] reputation . . . and thereby expose her to public hatred, contempt and ridicule.” It also criticized the Star-Telegram for failing to report on the allegations against Hirt detailed in the flier; Davis’s campaign had provided information on the allegations to the paper.
The complaint itself was light on subtlety and nuance, arguing that the paper’s conduct “was extreme and outrageous in character, and so extreme in degree, as to go beyond all possible bounds of decency, as to be regarded as atrocious and utterly intolerable in a civilized community.” As a result of the paper’s actions, Davis alleged, she had “suffered and is continuing to suffer damages to her mental health, her physical health, her right to pursue public offices in the past and in the future, and to her legal career” and deserved financial compensation.
The suit was essentially laughed out of court. It was quickly dismissed by a district-court judge, who sustained all of the defendants’ objections, largely on the grounds that Davis had failed to present legitimate evidence to support her libel claim. It was unanimously rejected by an appellate court three years later and ultimately by the Texas Supreme Court. The defense appears to have had a relatively easy job arguing that Davis was challenging a newspaper’s right to express an opinion she disagreed with, a challenge that obviously ran afoul of the First Amendment....
Southport, NC cop shoots tased and restrained 90-pound HS student after allegedly stating, “we don’t have time for this.”
...Wilsey said his family called the police to help with his schizophrenic son Keith Vidal who had a small screwdriver in his hand. Officers used at Taser on Vidal and then shot him, according to Wilsey.
Wilsey said officers came into their home after they called for backup help when Vidal was having a schizophrenic incident.
Wilsey said officers had his son down on the ground after the teen was tased a few times and an officer said, “we don’t have time for this.” That’s when Wilsey says the officer shot in between the officers holding the teen down, killing his son....
...Wilsey said his family called the police to help with his schizophrenic son Keith Vidal who had a small screwdriver in his hand. Officers used at Taser on Vidal and then shot him, according to Wilsey.
Wilsey said officers came into their home after they called for backup help when Vidal was having a schizophrenic incident.
Wilsey said officers had his son down on the ground after the teen was tased a few times and an officer said, “we don’t have time for this.” That’s when Wilsey says the officer shot in between the officers holding the teen down, killing his son....
NSA Connection Has Attendees Fleeing Encryption Company's Conference
The National Security Agency continues to wield its commercial kiss of death, causing business to flee from American firms that have, inadvertently or deliberately, been involved in the snooping. Last month, Boeing lost a multi-billion dollar contract with Brazil over the NSA's shenanigans. More billions in European business are at risk for U.S. companies feared as direct conduits to the spies. And now attendees are dropping out of the cybersecurity-oriented RSA Conference after sponsoring company, RSA Security LLC, was revealed to have accepted millions of dollars in return for building a backdoor into its encryption software....
...Other prominent cybersecurity figures have followed suit, seeking to punish the company and, no doubt, wishing to distance themselves from the black hole of ethical choices and commercial opportunities that surrounds the intersection of the NSA with anything. Expressing the sentiments of the cybersecurity community regarding RSA's actions, Carr said, "I can't imagine a worse action, short of a company's CEO getting involved in child porn."...
How the NSA Almost Killed the Internet
...The tech companies quickly issued denials that they had granted the US government direct access to their customers’ data. But that stance was complicated by the fact that they did participate—often unwillingly—in a government program that required them to share data when a secret court ordered them to do so. Google and its counterparts couldn’t talk about all the details, in part because they were legally barred from full disclosure and in part because they didn’t know all the details about how the program actually worked. And so their responses were seen less as full-throated denials than mealy-mouthed contrivances.
They hardly had the time to figure out how to frame their responses to Gellman’s account before President Obama weighed in. While implicitly confirming the program (and condemning the leak), he said, “With respect to the Internet and emails, this does not apply to US citizens and does not apply to people living in the United States.” This may have soothed some members of the public, but it was no help to the tech industry. The majority of Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, and Yahoo customers are not citizens of the US. Now those customers, as well as foreign regulatory agencies like those in the European Union, were being led to believe that using US-based services meant giving their data directly to the NSA....
...Not just revenue was at stake. So were ideals that have sustained the tech world since the Internet exploded from a Department of Defense project into an interconnected global web that spurred promises of a new era of comity. The Snowden leaks called into question the Internet’s role as a symbol of free speech and empowerment. If the net were seen as a means of widespread surveillance, the resulting paranoia might affect the way people used it. Nations outraged at US intelligence-gathering practices used the disclosures to justify a push to require data generated in their countries to remain there, where it could not easily be hoovered by American spies. Implementing such a scheme could balkanize the web, destroying its open essence and dramatically raising the cost of doing business....
The National Security Agency continues to wield its commercial kiss of death, causing business to flee from American firms that have, inadvertently or deliberately, been involved in the snooping. Last month, Boeing lost a multi-billion dollar contract with Brazil over the NSA's shenanigans. More billions in European business are at risk for U.S. companies feared as direct conduits to the spies. And now attendees are dropping out of the cybersecurity-oriented RSA Conference after sponsoring company, RSA Security LLC, was revealed to have accepted millions of dollars in return for building a backdoor into its encryption software....
...Other prominent cybersecurity figures have followed suit, seeking to punish the company and, no doubt, wishing to distance themselves from the black hole of ethical choices and commercial opportunities that surrounds the intersection of the NSA with anything. Expressing the sentiments of the cybersecurity community regarding RSA's actions, Carr said, "I can't imagine a worse action, short of a company's CEO getting involved in child porn."...
How the NSA Almost Killed the Internet
...The tech companies quickly issued denials that they had granted the US government direct access to their customers’ data. But that stance was complicated by the fact that they did participate—often unwillingly—in a government program that required them to share data when a secret court ordered them to do so. Google and its counterparts couldn’t talk about all the details, in part because they were legally barred from full disclosure and in part because they didn’t know all the details about how the program actually worked. And so their responses were seen less as full-throated denials than mealy-mouthed contrivances.
They hardly had the time to figure out how to frame their responses to Gellman’s account before President Obama weighed in. While implicitly confirming the program (and condemning the leak), he said, “With respect to the Internet and emails, this does not apply to US citizens and does not apply to people living in the United States.” This may have soothed some members of the public, but it was no help to the tech industry. The majority of Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, and Yahoo customers are not citizens of the US. Now those customers, as well as foreign regulatory agencies like those in the European Union, were being led to believe that using US-based services meant giving their data directly to the NSA....
...Not just revenue was at stake. So were ideals that have sustained the tech world since the Internet exploded from a Department of Defense project into an interconnected global web that spurred promises of a new era of comity. The Snowden leaks called into question the Internet’s role as a symbol of free speech and empowerment. If the net were seen as a means of widespread surveillance, the resulting paranoia might affect the way people used it. Nations outraged at US intelligence-gathering practices used the disclosures to justify a push to require data generated in their countries to remain there, where it could not easily be hoovered by American spies. Implementing such a scheme could balkanize the web, destroying its open essence and dramatically raising the cost of doing business....
What Catastrophe?
...Where Lindzen hasn’t remained is in the mainstream of his discipline. By the 1980s, global warming was becoming a major political issue. Already, Lindzen was having doubts about the more catastrophic predictions being made. The public rollout of the “alarmist” case, he notes, “was immediately accompanied by an issue of Newsweek declaring all scientists agreed. And that was the beginning of a ‘consensus’ argument. Already by ’88 the New York Times had literally a global warming beat.” Lindzen wasn’t buying it. Nonetheless, he remained in the good graces of mainstream climate science, and in the early 1990s, he was invited to join the IPCC, a U.N.-backed multinational consortium of scientists charged with synthesizing and analyzing the current state of the world’s climate science. Lindzen accepted, and he ended up as a contributor to the 1995 report and the lead author of Chapter 7 (“Physical Climate Processes and Feedbacks”) of the 2001 report. Since then, however, he’s grown increasingly distant from prevalent (he would say “hysterical”) climate science, and he is voluminously on record disputing the predictions of catastrophe. ...
...Lindzen doesn’t deny that the climate has changed or that the planet has warmed. “We all agree that temperature has increased since 1800,” he tells me. There’s a caveat, though: It’s increased by “a very small amount. We’re talking about tenths of a degree [Celsius]. We all agree that CO2 is a greenhouse gas. All other things kept equal, [there has been] some warming. As a result, there’s hardly anyone serious who says that man has no role. And in many ways, those have never been the questions. The questions have always been, as they ought to be in science, how much?”
Lindzen says not much at all—and he contends that the “alarmists” vastly overstate the Earth’s climate sensitivity. Judging by where we are now, he appears to have a point; so far, 150 years of burning fossil fuels in large quantities has had a relatively minimal effect on the climate. By some measurements, there is now more CO2 in the atmosphere than there has been at any time in the past 15 million years. Yet since the advent of the Industrial Revolution, the average global temperature has risen by, at most, 1 degree Celsius, or 1.6 degrees Fahrenheit...
...A need to generate fear, in Lindzen’s telling, is what’s driving the apocalyptic rhetoric heard from many climate scientists and their media allies. “The idea was, to engage the public you needed an event . . . not just a Sputnik—a drought, a storm, a sand demon. You know, something you could latch onto. [Climate scientists] carefully arranged a congressional hearing. And they arranged for [James] Hansen [author of Storms of My Grandchildren, and one of the leading global warming “alarmists”] to come and say something vague that would somehow relate a heat wave or a drought to global warming.” (This theme, by the way, is developed to characteristic extremes in the late Michael Crichton’s entertaining 2004 novel State of Fear, in which environmental activists engineer a series of fake “natural” disasters to sow fear over global warming.)
Lindzen also says that the “consensus”—the oft-heard contention that “virtually all” climate scientists believe in catastrophic, anthropogenic global warming—is overblown, primarily for structural reasons. “When you have an issue that is somewhat bogus, the opposition is always scattered and without resources,” he explains. “But the environmental movement is highly organized. There are hundreds of NGOs. To coordinate these hundreds, they quickly organized the Climate Action Network, the central body on climate. There would be, I think, actual meetings to tell them what the party line is for the year, and so on.” Skeptics, on the other hand, are more scattered across disciplines and continents. As such, they have a much harder time getting their message across...
...Where Lindzen hasn’t remained is in the mainstream of his discipline. By the 1980s, global warming was becoming a major political issue. Already, Lindzen was having doubts about the more catastrophic predictions being made. The public rollout of the “alarmist” case, he notes, “was immediately accompanied by an issue of Newsweek declaring all scientists agreed. And that was the beginning of a ‘consensus’ argument. Already by ’88 the New York Times had literally a global warming beat.” Lindzen wasn’t buying it. Nonetheless, he remained in the good graces of mainstream climate science, and in the early 1990s, he was invited to join the IPCC, a U.N.-backed multinational consortium of scientists charged with synthesizing and analyzing the current state of the world’s climate science. Lindzen accepted, and he ended up as a contributor to the 1995 report and the lead author of Chapter 7 (“Physical Climate Processes and Feedbacks”) of the 2001 report. Since then, however, he’s grown increasingly distant from prevalent (he would say “hysterical”) climate science, and he is voluminously on record disputing the predictions of catastrophe. ...
...Lindzen doesn’t deny that the climate has changed or that the planet has warmed. “We all agree that temperature has increased since 1800,” he tells me. There’s a caveat, though: It’s increased by “a very small amount. We’re talking about tenths of a degree [Celsius]. We all agree that CO2 is a greenhouse gas. All other things kept equal, [there has been] some warming. As a result, there’s hardly anyone serious who says that man has no role. And in many ways, those have never been the questions. The questions have always been, as they ought to be in science, how much?”
Lindzen says not much at all—and he contends that the “alarmists” vastly overstate the Earth’s climate sensitivity. Judging by where we are now, he appears to have a point; so far, 150 years of burning fossil fuels in large quantities has had a relatively minimal effect on the climate. By some measurements, there is now more CO2 in the atmosphere than there has been at any time in the past 15 million years. Yet since the advent of the Industrial Revolution, the average global temperature has risen by, at most, 1 degree Celsius, or 1.6 degrees Fahrenheit...
...A need to generate fear, in Lindzen’s telling, is what’s driving the apocalyptic rhetoric heard from many climate scientists and their media allies. “The idea was, to engage the public you needed an event . . . not just a Sputnik—a drought, a storm, a sand demon. You know, something you could latch onto. [Climate scientists] carefully arranged a congressional hearing. And they arranged for [James] Hansen [author of Storms of My Grandchildren, and one of the leading global warming “alarmists”] to come and say something vague that would somehow relate a heat wave or a drought to global warming.” (This theme, by the way, is developed to characteristic extremes in the late Michael Crichton’s entertaining 2004 novel State of Fear, in which environmental activists engineer a series of fake “natural” disasters to sow fear over global warming.)
Lindzen also says that the “consensus”—the oft-heard contention that “virtually all” climate scientists believe in catastrophic, anthropogenic global warming—is overblown, primarily for structural reasons. “When you have an issue that is somewhat bogus, the opposition is always scattered and without resources,” he explains. “But the environmental movement is highly organized. There are hundreds of NGOs. To coordinate these hundreds, they quickly organized the Climate Action Network, the central body on climate. There would be, I think, actual meetings to tell them what the party line is for the year, and so on.” Skeptics, on the other hand, are more scattered across disciplines and continents. As such, they have a much harder time getting their message across...
New: The FBI's Ugly Past Reminds Us Not to Trust the Government.
...Which brings us to a major new book about the history of the FBI and its attempts not simply to keep tabs on various activist groups in the 1960s and ’70s but to pit those same groups against themselves. No one should be dreading the release of Betty Medsger’s The Burglary more than Barack Obama. It underscores what the paranoids and cranks among us have always known to be true: The national-security state is never operated for the benefit of citizens, but instead proceeds directly from the weird obsessions and pathologies of the people who run it.
The Burglary details the events and people surrounding the 1971 break-in of an FBI office in Media, Pa. The thieves, happy to link themselves to National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden in The New York Times, made off with tens of thousands of documents that led to the exposure of the bureau’s foul Counterintelligence Program (COINTELPRO). ...
...By focusing attention on the FBI’s institutional insanity—check out the 119-page file on the agency’s failed 1964 investigation into the lyrics of “Louie, Louie” if you dare—Medsger’s The Burglary is simply the latest piece of evidence that something has long been rotten in the broadly defined intelligence community. Indeed, a major takeaway from the critically acclaimed hit move American Hustle is that the post-Hoover FBI spent more time inducing criminal activity than it did preventing it. Tim Weiner’s widely praised 2012 history of the FBI, Enemies, didn’t skimp on criticism of J. Edgar Hoover but painted his successors, especially Louis Freeh, as arguably more incompetent and misdirected. (Weiner’s praise for former director Robert Mueller, who stepped down last September, for holding firm against George W. Bush’s request for essentially unlimited domestic surveillance is less comforting in the wake of Edward Snowden.)
The Burglary makes its appearance at a time when trust in government is near a record low, with just 19 percent of Americans surveyed telling Gallup that they trust government “to do what’s right” just about always or most of time.
Who can blame us? Barack Obama pledged to create the most transparent administration ever but has broken his own vows about appointing lobbyists and mega-donors and lied about the basics of his health-care reform law. His “secret kill list,”, a highly controversial if not plainly unconstitutional measure by which he claimed the right to unilaterally dispatch individuals he concluded were threats to the U.S., shook the faith of even his most gah-gah supporters....
...Which brings us to a major new book about the history of the FBI and its attempts not simply to keep tabs on various activist groups in the 1960s and ’70s but to pit those same groups against themselves. No one should be dreading the release of Betty Medsger’s The Burglary more than Barack Obama. It underscores what the paranoids and cranks among us have always known to be true: The national-security state is never operated for the benefit of citizens, but instead proceeds directly from the weird obsessions and pathologies of the people who run it.
The Burglary details the events and people surrounding the 1971 break-in of an FBI office in Media, Pa. The thieves, happy to link themselves to National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden in The New York Times, made off with tens of thousands of documents that led to the exposure of the bureau’s foul Counterintelligence Program (COINTELPRO). ...
...By focusing attention on the FBI’s institutional insanity—check out the 119-page file on the agency’s failed 1964 investigation into the lyrics of “Louie, Louie” if you dare—Medsger’s The Burglary is simply the latest piece of evidence that something has long been rotten in the broadly defined intelligence community. Indeed, a major takeaway from the critically acclaimed hit move American Hustle is that the post-Hoover FBI spent more time inducing criminal activity than it did preventing it. Tim Weiner’s widely praised 2012 history of the FBI, Enemies, didn’t skimp on criticism of J. Edgar Hoover but painted his successors, especially Louis Freeh, as arguably more incompetent and misdirected. (Weiner’s praise for former director Robert Mueller, who stepped down last September, for holding firm against George W. Bush’s request for essentially unlimited domestic surveillance is less comforting in the wake of Edward Snowden.)
The Burglary makes its appearance at a time when trust in government is near a record low, with just 19 percent of Americans surveyed telling Gallup that they trust government “to do what’s right” just about always or most of time.
Who can blame us? Barack Obama pledged to create the most transparent administration ever but has broken his own vows about appointing lobbyists and mega-donors and lied about the basics of his health-care reform law. His “secret kill list,”, a highly controversial if not plainly unconstitutional measure by which he claimed the right to unilaterally dispatch individuals he concluded were threats to the U.S., shook the faith of even his most gah-gah supporters....
Police not guilty in Kelly Thomas death; DA won't try 3rd officer
...Prosecutors said the video captured a real-time homicide with the officers beating a homeless man, even as he called out for help. Defense attorneys said it showed two policeman trying to restrain a violent suspect who possessed abnormal strength.
The coroner's office determined that Thomas died of brain damage from lack of oxygen caused by chest compression and other injuries sustained during his struggle with police....
Experts: Video Played Role in Officers' Acquittal
... The verdict shocked supporters of the family of Kelly Thomas who were confident of a conviction because the footage shows six officers piling on Thomas, kneeing him and punching him as he cries out for his father and begs for air.
Ron Thomas has said his son was diagnosed with schizophrenia and didn't understand the officers' commands....
... Ramos grew frustrated with Thomas, who wouldn't give his name, said he didn't speak English and didn't follow orders to sit with his hands on his knees.
Ramos snapped on plastic gloves, made two fists and then held them in front of Thomas' face as he said, "Now see my fists? They're getting ready to (expletive) you up."...
...Prosecutors said the video captured a real-time homicide with the officers beating a homeless man, even as he called out for help. Defense attorneys said it showed two policeman trying to restrain a violent suspect who possessed abnormal strength.
The coroner's office determined that Thomas died of brain damage from lack of oxygen caused by chest compression and other injuries sustained during his struggle with police....
Experts: Video Played Role in Officers' Acquittal
... The verdict shocked supporters of the family of Kelly Thomas who were confident of a conviction because the footage shows six officers piling on Thomas, kneeing him and punching him as he cries out for his father and begs for air.
Ron Thomas has said his son was diagnosed with schizophrenia and didn't understand the officers' commands....
... Ramos grew frustrated with Thomas, who wouldn't give his name, said he didn't speak English and didn't follow orders to sit with his hands on his knees.
Ramos snapped on plastic gloves, made two fists and then held them in front of Thomas' face as he said, "Now see my fists? They're getting ready to (expletive) you up."...
A petty rant: Republicans are the real lying liars on Obamacare
...But let’s say it was a sinister deception undertaken by a man who believed he had to lie for the greater good. Why was he being so defensive?
Part of it can be attributed to the Democrats’ elephantine memory of Bill Clinton’s failed attempt to overhaul the healthcare system. It turns out that the biggest obstacle facing anyone trying to reform the healthcare system is that you can’t do it without creating some amount of disruption, and most people in the country have insurance they’re pretty happy with. So Obama wanted to minimize not just the disruption but the fear of disruption itself. A fair critique of Obamacare is that it leaves too many of the worst parts of the old system in place, but that’s no consolation if you took Obama at his word.
Another part of the story, though, is that he was responding to an incredible amount of bullshit.
And this is where I want to be petty.
Noble lies have in many ways defined the debate over the Affordable Care Act,...
...This raises an interesting philosophical question about the moral differences between lies told in the service of creating something, lies told in the service of trying (but failing) to prevent it, and lies told in support of alternatives that will never come to pass. It also bears mention that people are experiencing and reacting to the real consequences of Obamacare, and it’s natural that there’s more clamor about the law itself than about the false but abstract claims opponents have made about it.
But as far as political credibility is concerned the distinction is moot. These are all just lies, even if each is rooted in the fact that people have different and contentious views of the greater good....
...But let’s say it was a sinister deception undertaken by a man who believed he had to lie for the greater good. Why was he being so defensive?
Part of it can be attributed to the Democrats’ elephantine memory of Bill Clinton’s failed attempt to overhaul the healthcare system. It turns out that the biggest obstacle facing anyone trying to reform the healthcare system is that you can’t do it without creating some amount of disruption, and most people in the country have insurance they’re pretty happy with. So Obama wanted to minimize not just the disruption but the fear of disruption itself. A fair critique of Obamacare is that it leaves too many of the worst parts of the old system in place, but that’s no consolation if you took Obama at his word.
Another part of the story, though, is that he was responding to an incredible amount of bullshit.
And this is where I want to be petty.
Noble lies have in many ways defined the debate over the Affordable Care Act,...
...This raises an interesting philosophical question about the moral differences between lies told in the service of creating something, lies told in the service of trying (but failing) to prevent it, and lies told in support of alternatives that will never come to pass. It also bears mention that people are experiencing and reacting to the real consequences of Obamacare, and it’s natural that there’s more clamor about the law itself than about the false but abstract claims opponents have made about it.
But as far as political credibility is concerned the distinction is moot. These are all just lies, even if each is rooted in the fact that people have different and contentious views of the greater good....
Political, Economic Power Grow More Concentrated
...But President Obama and his Democratic allies chose to work with many powerful interests, notably pharmaceutical companies and health insurers, who are in position to capitalize on this bizarre and, in many ways, inexplicably complicated, health care “reform.”
Other cautionary tales of overcentralization of federal power abound. Recent scandals like NSA eavesdropping and IRS political targeting, would have offended progressive defenders of civil liberties. However, with a favorite Democrat in the Oval Office, and conservatives the primary victims of abuse, their response has been far more muted than if, say, Mitt Romney was president....
...This confluence of large government and big business can be seen in the flow of funds to the Center for American Progress, the Obama-friendly think tank whose head, John Podesta, was just named the president's latest chief of staff. The center's primary funders include a who's who of big corporations, including Apple, AT&T, Bank of America, BMW of North America, Citigroup, Coca-Cola, Discovery, GE, Facebook, Google, Goldman Sachs, PepsiCo, PG&E, the Motion Picture Association of America, Samsung, Time Warner, T-Mobile, Toyota, Visa, Wal-Mart and Wells Fargo.
These donations reflect a growing lurch of bigger businesses toward the corporatist Democrats; this is particularly true in such fields as media, telecommunications, high technology and health care, where looming environmental and labor reforms are perceived as less a threat than among smaller firms....
...As is increasingly the case, any attempt to push back against centralization elicits a torrent of name-calling. Objecting to a more expansive federal government, suggests some, smacks of “neo-Confederate” ideology, a charge particularly loaded when the agglomeration of power in Washington is being led by our first African-American president.
These assaults mask a more dangerous reality: a dismissal of democracy and embrace of authoritarian solutions. Former Obama budget adviser Peter Orszag and the New York Times' Thomas Friedman have argued that power should shift from contentious, ideologically diverse elected bodies – subject to pressure from the lower orders – toward credentialed “experts” operating in Washington, Brussels or the United Nations. These worthies regard popular will as lacking in scientific judgment and societal wisdom....
...But President Obama and his Democratic allies chose to work with many powerful interests, notably pharmaceutical companies and health insurers, who are in position to capitalize on this bizarre and, in many ways, inexplicably complicated, health care “reform.”
Other cautionary tales of overcentralization of federal power abound. Recent scandals like NSA eavesdropping and IRS political targeting, would have offended progressive defenders of civil liberties. However, with a favorite Democrat in the Oval Office, and conservatives the primary victims of abuse, their response has been far more muted than if, say, Mitt Romney was president....
...This confluence of large government and big business can be seen in the flow of funds to the Center for American Progress, the Obama-friendly think tank whose head, John Podesta, was just named the president's latest chief of staff. The center's primary funders include a who's who of big corporations, including Apple, AT&T, Bank of America, BMW of North America, Citigroup, Coca-Cola, Discovery, GE, Facebook, Google, Goldman Sachs, PepsiCo, PG&E, the Motion Picture Association of America, Samsung, Time Warner, T-Mobile, Toyota, Visa, Wal-Mart and Wells Fargo.
These donations reflect a growing lurch of bigger businesses toward the corporatist Democrats; this is particularly true in such fields as media, telecommunications, high technology and health care, where looming environmental and labor reforms are perceived as less a threat than among smaller firms....
...As is increasingly the case, any attempt to push back against centralization elicits a torrent of name-calling. Objecting to a more expansive federal government, suggests some, smacks of “neo-Confederate” ideology, a charge particularly loaded when the agglomeration of power in Washington is being led by our first African-American president.
These assaults mask a more dangerous reality: a dismissal of democracy and embrace of authoritarian solutions. Former Obama budget adviser Peter Orszag and the New York Times' Thomas Friedman have argued that power should shift from contentious, ideologically diverse elected bodies – subject to pressure from the lower orders – toward credentialed “experts” operating in Washington, Brussels or the United Nations. These worthies regard popular will as lacking in scientific judgment and societal wisdom....
Privacy breaches in VA health records wound veterans
...A two-month Tribune-Review investigation found VA workers or contractors committed 14,215 privacy violations at 167 facilities from 2010 through May 31, victimizing at least 101,018 veterans and 551 VA employees. Photos of the anatomy of some were posted on social media; stolen IDs of others were used to make fraudulent credit cards.
“It's hard to argue against the notion that VA holds the dubious distinction of being the largest violator of the nation's health privacy laws,” said Deven McGraw, director of the Washington-based Health Privacy Project of the nonprofit Center for Democracy and Technology. “Protecting the privacy of every American is important, but you would think that we would be very careful when it came to our veterans. They sure earned it.” ...
...A two-month Tribune-Review investigation found VA workers or contractors committed 14,215 privacy violations at 167 facilities from 2010 through May 31, victimizing at least 101,018 veterans and 551 VA employees. Photos of the anatomy of some were posted on social media; stolen IDs of others were used to make fraudulent credit cards.
“It's hard to argue against the notion that VA holds the dubious distinction of being the largest violator of the nation's health privacy laws,” said Deven McGraw, director of the Washington-based Health Privacy Project of the nonprofit Center for Democracy and Technology. “Protecting the privacy of every American is important, but you would think that we would be very careful when it came to our veterans. They sure earned it.” ...
New York Times, Washington Post Finally Report What Everyone Else Has Known for At Least Six Months: Obamacare Has Thrown Insurance Into Chaos, and This is All Just a Prelude to the Next Big Batch of Cancellations
...In addition to the difficulties many face in proving they have coverage, patients are also having a hard time figuring out whether particular doctors are affiliated with their health insurance plan. Doctors themselves often do not know if they are in the network of providers for plans sold on the exchange.
But interviews with doctors, hospital executives, pharmacists and newly insured people around the country suggest that the biggest challenge so far has been verifying coverage. A surge of enrollments in late December, just before the deadline for coverage to take effect, created backlogs at many state and federal exchanges and insurance companies in processing applications. As a result, many of those who enrolled have yet to receive an insurance card, policy number or bill.
Many are also having trouble reaching exchanges and insurance companies to confirm their enrollment or pay their first month’s premium. Doctors’ offices and pharmacies, too, are spending hours on the phone trying to verify patients’ coverage, sometimes to no avail....
...When millions of health-insurance plans were canceled last fall, the Obama administration tried to be reassuring, saying the terminations affected only the small minority of Americans who bought individual policies.
But according to industry analysts, insurers and state regulators, the disruption will be far greater, potentially affecting millions of people who receive insurance through small employers by the end of 2014.
While some cancellation notices already have gone out, insurers say the bulk of the letters will be sent in October, shortly before the next open-enrollment period begins. The timing — right before the midterm elections — could be difficult for Democrats who are already fending off Republican attacks about the Affordable Care Act and its troubled rollout.
Some of the small-business cancellations are occurring because the policies don’t meet the law’s basic coverage requirements. But many are related only indirectly to the law; insurers are trying to move customers to new plans designed to offset the financial and administrative risks associated with the health-care overhaul. As part of that, they are consolidating their plan offerings to maximize profits and streamline how they manage them....
...In addition to the difficulties many face in proving they have coverage, patients are also having a hard time figuring out whether particular doctors are affiliated with their health insurance plan. Doctors themselves often do not know if they are in the network of providers for plans sold on the exchange.
But interviews with doctors, hospital executives, pharmacists and newly insured people around the country suggest that the biggest challenge so far has been verifying coverage. A surge of enrollments in late December, just before the deadline for coverage to take effect, created backlogs at many state and federal exchanges and insurance companies in processing applications. As a result, many of those who enrolled have yet to receive an insurance card, policy number or bill.
Many are also having trouble reaching exchanges and insurance companies to confirm their enrollment or pay their first month’s premium. Doctors’ offices and pharmacies, too, are spending hours on the phone trying to verify patients’ coverage, sometimes to no avail....
...When millions of health-insurance plans were canceled last fall, the Obama administration tried to be reassuring, saying the terminations affected only the small minority of Americans who bought individual policies.
But according to industry analysts, insurers and state regulators, the disruption will be far greater, potentially affecting millions of people who receive insurance through small employers by the end of 2014.
While some cancellation notices already have gone out, insurers say the bulk of the letters will be sent in October, shortly before the next open-enrollment period begins. The timing — right before the midterm elections — could be difficult for Democrats who are already fending off Republican attacks about the Affordable Care Act and its troubled rollout.
Some of the small-business cancellations are occurring because the policies don’t meet the law’s basic coverage requirements. But many are related only indirectly to the law; insurers are trying to move customers to new plans designed to offset the financial and administrative risks associated with the health-care overhaul. As part of that, they are consolidating their plan offerings to maximize profits and streamline how they manage them....
The Fall of France
...The Huguenots, nearly a million strong before 1685, were thought of as the worker bees of France. They left without money, but took with them their many and various skills. They left France with a noticeable brain drain.
Since the arrival of Socialist President François Hollande in 2012, income tax and social security contributions in France have skyrocketed. The top tax rate is 75 percent, and a great many pay in excess of 70 percent.
As a result, there has been a frantic bolt for the border by the very people who create economic growth – business leaders, innovators, creative thinkers, and top executives. They are all leaving France to develop their talents elsewhere.
And it’s a tragedy for such a historically rich country. As they say, the problem with the French is they have no word for entrepreneur. Where is the Richard Branson of France? Where is the Bill Gates?
“Do you see that man in the corner? I’m going to kill him. He’s ruined my life!”
This angry outburst came from a lawyer friend who is leaving France to move to Britain to escape the 70 percent tax he pays. He says he is working like a dog for nothing – to hand out money to the profligate state. The man he was pointing to, in a swanky Japanese restaurant in the Sixth Arrondissement, is Pierre Moscovici, the much-loathed minister of finance. Moscovici was looking very happy with himself. Does he realize Rome is burning? ...
...The Huguenots, nearly a million strong before 1685, were thought of as the worker bees of France. They left without money, but took with them their many and various skills. They left France with a noticeable brain drain.
Since the arrival of Socialist President François Hollande in 2012, income tax and social security contributions in France have skyrocketed. The top tax rate is 75 percent, and a great many pay in excess of 70 percent.
As a result, there has been a frantic bolt for the border by the very people who create economic growth – business leaders, innovators, creative thinkers, and top executives. They are all leaving France to develop their talents elsewhere.
And it’s a tragedy for such a historically rich country. As they say, the problem with the French is they have no word for entrepreneur. Where is the Richard Branson of France? Where is the Bill Gates?
“Do you see that man in the corner? I’m going to kill him. He’s ruined my life!”
This angry outburst came from a lawyer friend who is leaving France to move to Britain to escape the 70 percent tax he pays. He says he is working like a dog for nothing – to hand out money to the profligate state. The man he was pointing to, in a swanky Japanese restaurant in the Sixth Arrondissement, is Pierre Moscovici, the much-loathed minister of finance. Moscovici was looking very happy with himself. Does he realize Rome is burning? ...
Obamacare Doc Reveals ‘Drop Dead’ Date for Back End Fixes
...The document said officials realized in December that the need to bring on Accenture was so urgent that there was no time to go through the “full and open competition process” before awarding them with a $91 million contract.
“There is limited time to build this functionality and failure to deliver…by mid-March 2014 will result in financial harm to the government,” the document says.
“If this functionality is not complete by mid-March 2014, the government could make erroneous payments to providers and insurers,” it continues. “Additionally, without a Financial Management platform that accounts for enrollments and associated program costs that integrates with the existing CMS Accounting platform, the entire healthcare reform program is jeopardized.”...
Report: Tens of thousands fled socialized Canadian medicine in 2013
Every year thousands of Canadian have no choice but to seek medical care outside of the country’s single-payer health care system, according a report from a Canadian free-market think tank.
In 2013, nearly 42,000 Canucks left their homeland to avoid long wait times and inferior care that plagues their centralized health system.
The report from the free-market Fraser Institute found that 41,838 Canadians became “medical tourists” in 2013 and sought care outside of their hockey-loving country. While there were slightly fewer people fleeing the Canadian health system in 2013 than the previous year, the number leaving still amounts to nearly one percent of medical patients in Canada....
The Obamacare We Don’t Deserve
...As for the kids, Zack couldn’t swing it. He had to sign them up for a highly subsidized public plan offered by the state. “Under Obamacare, I went from being a successful, self-sustaining small businessman,” Zack told me, disdainfully, “to now signing my kids up as dependents of the state.”
He asked if I’d seen Michael Moore’s latest op-ed in the New York Times. “I loved the title,” he said, “‘The Obamacare We Deserve.’ Here you have a liberal writer saying ‘Of course Obamacare is a failure.’ And the reason it’s a failure is that it still has some corporations involved. What we really need is a single-payer Canada-like plan.”
Zack wasn’t buying this at all. He still has relatives in Canada and knowledge of the workings of the country’s health care system. One elderly relation badly needs a hip replacement and has been waiting for the Maple syrup-paced Canadian hospitals to deliver.
“He’ll get a replacement at some point, when they get around to it,” Zack told me. “He’s on the list. That’s what they say up there. ‘You’re on the list.’”
Lacking any good thing to say, I changed the subject, mocking the op-ed writer’s orotundity (“there’s fat and then there’s MICHAEL MOORE”), and telling an unrelated story.
But it seems striking and perverse to me now that the Obama administration considers Zack’s story a success story.
Zack and family had their plan cancelled in the initial wave of seven million or so voided policies. These were folks who purchased their plans on the individual insurance market. The vast majority of cancelees do not have new plans to fill this government-caused, and government outlawed, gap....
...The document said officials realized in December that the need to bring on Accenture was so urgent that there was no time to go through the “full and open competition process” before awarding them with a $91 million contract.
“There is limited time to build this functionality and failure to deliver…by mid-March 2014 will result in financial harm to the government,” the document says.
“If this functionality is not complete by mid-March 2014, the government could make erroneous payments to providers and insurers,” it continues. “Additionally, without a Financial Management platform that accounts for enrollments and associated program costs that integrates with the existing CMS Accounting platform, the entire healthcare reform program is jeopardized.”...
Report: Tens of thousands fled socialized Canadian medicine in 2013
Every year thousands of Canadian have no choice but to seek medical care outside of the country’s single-payer health care system, according a report from a Canadian free-market think tank.
In 2013, nearly 42,000 Canucks left their homeland to avoid long wait times and inferior care that plagues their centralized health system.
The report from the free-market Fraser Institute found that 41,838 Canadians became “medical tourists” in 2013 and sought care outside of their hockey-loving country. While there were slightly fewer people fleeing the Canadian health system in 2013 than the previous year, the number leaving still amounts to nearly one percent of medical patients in Canada....
The Obamacare We Don’t Deserve
...As for the kids, Zack couldn’t swing it. He had to sign them up for a highly subsidized public plan offered by the state. “Under Obamacare, I went from being a successful, self-sustaining small businessman,” Zack told me, disdainfully, “to now signing my kids up as dependents of the state.”
He asked if I’d seen Michael Moore’s latest op-ed in the New York Times. “I loved the title,” he said, “‘The Obamacare We Deserve.’ Here you have a liberal writer saying ‘Of course Obamacare is a failure.’ And the reason it’s a failure is that it still has some corporations involved. What we really need is a single-payer Canada-like plan.”
Zack wasn’t buying this at all. He still has relatives in Canada and knowledge of the workings of the country’s health care system. One elderly relation badly needs a hip replacement and has been waiting for the Maple syrup-paced Canadian hospitals to deliver.
“He’ll get a replacement at some point, when they get around to it,” Zack told me. “He’s on the list. That’s what they say up there. ‘You’re on the list.’”
Lacking any good thing to say, I changed the subject, mocking the op-ed writer’s orotundity (“there’s fat and then there’s MICHAEL MOORE”), and telling an unrelated story.
But it seems striking and perverse to me now that the Obama administration considers Zack’s story a success story.
Zack and family had their plan cancelled in the initial wave of seven million or so voided policies. These were folks who purchased their plans on the individual insurance market. The vast majority of cancelees do not have new plans to fill this government-caused, and government outlawed, gap....
MILLER: Movie mogul says new Streep film to make NRA ‘wish they weren’t alive’
...The movie mogul said his vision was to scare people away from firearms. He foresees moviegoers to leave thinking, “Gun stocks — I don’t want to be involved in that stuff. It’s going to be like crash and burn.”
The chairman of the Weinstein Co. (formerly Miramax) is one of President Obama’s biggest fundraisers. He brought in more than $500,000 from his Hollywood friends for the president’s re-election campaign and the Democratic National Committee in 2012.
The 5 million members of the NRA are law-abiding Americans who are active in preserving the right to protect themselves and their families.
Mr. Weinstein thinks guns are necessary for self-defense, but only in other countries, during genocides and if the weapon is not personally owned. ...
...The movie mogul said his vision was to scare people away from firearms. He foresees moviegoers to leave thinking, “Gun stocks — I don’t want to be involved in that stuff. It’s going to be like crash and burn.”
The chairman of the Weinstein Co. (formerly Miramax) is one of President Obama’s biggest fundraisers. He brought in more than $500,000 from his Hollywood friends for the president’s re-election campaign and the Democratic National Committee in 2012.
The 5 million members of the NRA are law-abiding Americans who are active in preserving the right to protect themselves and their families.
Mr. Weinstein thinks guns are necessary for self-defense, but only in other countries, during genocides and if the weapon is not personally owned. ...
CONFIRMED: The DEA Struck A Deal With Mexico's Most Notorious Drug Cartel
An investigation by El Universal found that between the years 2000 and 2012, the U.S. government had an arrangement with Mexico's Sinaloa drug cartel that allowed the organization to smuggle billions of dollars of drugs while Sinaloa provided information on rival cartels.
Sinaloa, led by Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, supplies 80% of the drugs entering the Chicago area and has a presence in cities across the U.S.
There have long been allegations that Guzman, considered to be "the world’s most powerful drug trafficker," coordinates with American authorities.
But the El Universal investigation is the first to publish court documents that include corroborating testimony from a DEA agent and a Justice Department official. ...
Emails Show Extensive Collaboration Between EPA, Environmentalist Orgs
Internal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) emails show extensive collaboration between top agency officials and leading environmentalist groups, including overt efforts to coordinate messaging and pressure the fossil fuel industry.
The emails, obtained by the Energy and Environment Legal Institute (EELI) through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, could fuel an ongoing controversy over EPA policies that critics say are biased against traditional sources of energy.
Emails show EPA used official events to help environmentalist groups gather signatures for petitions on agency rulemaking, incorporated advance copies of letters drafted by those groups into official statements, and worked with environmentalists to publicly pressure executives of at least one energy company.
Nancy Grantham, director of public affairs for EPA Region 1, which covers New England, asked an organizer for the Sierra Club’s New Hampshire chapter to share the group’s agenda so EPA could adjust its messaging accordingly in an email dated March 12, 2012....
An investigation by El Universal found that between the years 2000 and 2012, the U.S. government had an arrangement with Mexico's Sinaloa drug cartel that allowed the organization to smuggle billions of dollars of drugs while Sinaloa provided information on rival cartels.
Sinaloa, led by Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, supplies 80% of the drugs entering the Chicago area and has a presence in cities across the U.S.
There have long been allegations that Guzman, considered to be "the world’s most powerful drug trafficker," coordinates with American authorities.
But the El Universal investigation is the first to publish court documents that include corroborating testimony from a DEA agent and a Justice Department official. ...
Emails Show Extensive Collaboration Between EPA, Environmentalist Orgs
Internal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) emails show extensive collaboration between top agency officials and leading environmentalist groups, including overt efforts to coordinate messaging and pressure the fossil fuel industry.
The emails, obtained by the Energy and Environment Legal Institute (EELI) through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, could fuel an ongoing controversy over EPA policies that critics say are biased against traditional sources of energy.
Emails show EPA used official events to help environmentalist groups gather signatures for petitions on agency rulemaking, incorporated advance copies of letters drafted by those groups into official statements, and worked with environmentalists to publicly pressure executives of at least one energy company.
Nancy Grantham, director of public affairs for EPA Region 1, which covers New England, asked an organizer for the Sierra Club’s New Hampshire chapter to share the group’s agenda so EPA could adjust its messaging accordingly in an email dated March 12, 2012....
Within Minutes of Benghazi Attack, Barack Obama Was Informed By Top Military Men It Was a "Terrorist Attack" and not a Spontaneous Protest or Exercise in Freeform Film Criticism
...Minutes after the American consulate in Benghazi came under assault on Sept. 11, 2012, the nation's top civilian and uniformed defense officials -- headed for a previously scheduled Oval Office session with President Obama -- were informed that the event was a "terrorist attack," declassified documents show. The new evidence raises the question of why the top military men, one of whom was a member of the president's Cabinet, allowed him and other senior Obama administration officials to press a false narrative of the Benghazi attacks for two weeks afterward. ...
...Numerous aides to the president and then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton repeatedly told the public in the weeks following the murder of Ambassador Stevens and three other Americans that night -- as Obama's hotly contested bid for re-election was entering its final stretch -- that there was no evidence the killings were the result of a premeditated terrorist attack, but rather were the result of a protest gone awry. ...
...Minutes after the American consulate in Benghazi came under assault on Sept. 11, 2012, the nation's top civilian and uniformed defense officials -- headed for a previously scheduled Oval Office session with President Obama -- were informed that the event was a "terrorist attack," declassified documents show. The new evidence raises the question of why the top military men, one of whom was a member of the president's Cabinet, allowed him and other senior Obama administration officials to press a false narrative of the Benghazi attacks for two weeks afterward. ...
...Numerous aides to the president and then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton repeatedly told the public in the weeks following the murder of Ambassador Stevens and three other Americans that night -- as Obama's hotly contested bid for re-election was entering its final stretch -- that there was no evidence the killings were the result of a premeditated terrorist attack, but rather were the result of a protest gone awry. ...
Creepy: Germany Seeks to Take Away Family's Well-Educated, Socially Well-Adjusted Children for Crime of Homeschooling Them; Obama Administration Sues to Help Germany Do So
...The Romeike family was granted asylum in the United States because the German government was intent on wresting away the children and putting the parents in cages for the crime of homeschooling their children, which is verboten in Germany, a legacy of the country’s totalitarian past. The Obama administration, which in other notable areas of immigration law has enacted a policy of “discretion” regarding deportations, took the Romeike family to court to have its asylum protections revoked, and succeeded in doing so. The family has appealed to the Supreme Court, which has ordered the Obama administration to respond to the Romeikes’ petition, but the administration has so far refused to do so.
As the Romeikes’ story unfolds, another German family is being held in the country against their will, also for the crime of homeschooling their children — or intending to do so, at least. The Wunderlich family had their children kidnapped by the German government — the agents of which came crashing through their door with battering rams — as retaliation for their homeschooling. They complied with the government’s demands regarding their children’s education and, understandably enough, began the process of relocating to France, where attitudes toward family life are more civilized. The Germans responded by refusing to reinstate their custody of their children, with a judge determining that the desire to homeschool presents an “endangerment” to the children.
That is the environment into which the Obama administration intends to send the Romeike family....
...Was there anything wrong with the children? Nope. The judge — whose name, by the way, is Marcus Malkmus, in case you have a voodoo doll handy or wish to burn him in effigy — the judge admitted that the children were 1) academically proficient and 2) well adjusted socially.
He just didn’t like homeschooling.
Why? Pay attention now: this takes us deep into the heart of a leftist: because he feared that “the children would grow up in a parallel society without having learned to be integrated or to have a dialogue with those who think differently and facing them in the sense of practicing tolerance.”
The invocation of “tolerance” is especially cute, don’t you think?...
...The Romeike family was granted asylum in the United States because the German government was intent on wresting away the children and putting the parents in cages for the crime of homeschooling their children, which is verboten in Germany, a legacy of the country’s totalitarian past. The Obama administration, which in other notable areas of immigration law has enacted a policy of “discretion” regarding deportations, took the Romeike family to court to have its asylum protections revoked, and succeeded in doing so. The family has appealed to the Supreme Court, which has ordered the Obama administration to respond to the Romeikes’ petition, but the administration has so far refused to do so.
As the Romeikes’ story unfolds, another German family is being held in the country against their will, also for the crime of homeschooling their children — or intending to do so, at least. The Wunderlich family had their children kidnapped by the German government — the agents of which came crashing through their door with battering rams — as retaliation for their homeschooling. They complied with the government’s demands regarding their children’s education and, understandably enough, began the process of relocating to France, where attitudes toward family life are more civilized. The Germans responded by refusing to reinstate their custody of their children, with a judge determining that the desire to homeschool presents an “endangerment” to the children.
That is the environment into which the Obama administration intends to send the Romeike family....
...Was there anything wrong with the children? Nope. The judge — whose name, by the way, is Marcus Malkmus, in case you have a voodoo doll handy or wish to burn him in effigy — the judge admitted that the children were 1) academically proficient and 2) well adjusted socially.
He just didn’t like homeschooling.
Why? Pay attention now: this takes us deep into the heart of a leftist: because he feared that “the children would grow up in a parallel society without having learned to be integrated or to have a dialogue with those who think differently and facing them in the sense of practicing tolerance.”
The invocation of “tolerance” is especially cute, don’t you think?...
Ford Exec: 'We Know Everyone Who Breaks The Law' Thanks To Our GPS In Your Car
Because of the GPS units installed in Ford vehicles, Ford knows when many of its drivers are speeding, and where they are while they're doing it.
Farley has since retracted his statements.
Farley was trying to describe how much data Ford has on its customers, and illustrate the fact that the company uses very little of it in order to avoid raising privacy concerns: "We know everyone who breaks the law, we know when you're doing it. We have GPS in your car, so we know what you're doing. By the way, we don't supply that data to anyone," he told attendees....
Because of the GPS units installed in Ford vehicles, Ford knows when many of its drivers are speeding, and where they are while they're doing it.
Farley has since retracted his statements.
Farley was trying to describe how much data Ford has on its customers, and illustrate the fact that the company uses very little of it in order to avoid raising privacy concerns: "We know everyone who breaks the law, we know when you're doing it. We have GPS in your car, so we know what you're doing. By the way, we don't supply that data to anyone," he told attendees....
Robert Rector: How The War On Poverty Was Lost.
On Jan. 8, 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson used his State of the Union address to announce an ambitious government undertaking. “This administration today, here and now,” he thundered, “declares unconditional war on poverty in America.”
Fifty years later, we’re losing that war. Fifteen percent of Americans still live in poverty, according to the official census poverty report for 2012, unchanged since the mid-1960s. Liberals argue that we aren’t spending enough money on poverty-fighting programs, but that’s not the problem. In reality, we’re losing the war on poverty because we have forgotten the original goal, as LBJ stated it half a century ago: “to give our fellow citizens a fair chance to develop their own capacities.”
The federal government currently runs more than 80 means-tested welfare programs that provide cash, food, housing, medical care and targeted social services to poor and low-income Americans. . . . If converted to cash, current means-tested spending is five times the amount needed to eliminate all official poverty in the U.S.
Millionaire Obama: I Hate Income Inequality
Back from his $4 million Hawaii vacation, President Barack Obama seems poised to sound the populist trumpet in an effort to turn the page on 2013’s disastrous Obamacare rollout....
CNN panel makes up facts to defend Obama from Gates criticism
...“I guess that’s something that struck me about the criticism of Obama for being committed to getting the troops out of Afghanistan,” Toobin, a CNN legal analyst, added. “First of all, Obama — as Andrew just said — promised to get us out of Afghanistan.”
In reality, President Obama did not campaign in 2008 on getting out of Afghanistan. He campaigned on getting out of Iraq and increasing troops in Afghanistan to defeat al Qaida and the Taliban....
DeBlasio’s Horse-Drawn Carriage Ban: Is It Really About Campaign Cash?
...The bad guy in this drama, according to the carriage drivers, is Steve Nislick, chief executive officer of a New Jersey-based real-estate development company, Edison Properties. The company "employs legions of lobbyists to influence city decisions on real estate and zoning in its favor," journalist Michael Gross reported in 2009, pointing out that two of Edison's businesses "have multiple locations in the same Far West Midtown neighborhood as the stables where the Central Park horses are housed." An anti-carriage pamphlet Nislick circulated in 2008 made this interesting observation: “Currently, the stables consist of 64,000 square feet of valuable real estate on lots that could accomodate up to 150,000 square feet of development. These lots could be sold for new development.”
Gross asked the obvious question: "What are the odds that good neighbor Nislick, the out-of-state real estate developer, simply covets those valuable, underdeveloped New York lots -- and has teamed up with ambitious pols to use the emotions of animal rights activists as fuel for their own agendas?" Nislick founded a 501(c)4 group called New Yorkers for Clean, Livable and Safe Streets (NYCLASS) that spent big money to elect de Blasio mayor, as Chris Bragg of Crain's New York Business reported in October:...
On Jan. 8, 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson used his State of the Union address to announce an ambitious government undertaking. “This administration today, here and now,” he thundered, “declares unconditional war on poverty in America.”
Fifty years later, we’re losing that war. Fifteen percent of Americans still live in poverty, according to the official census poverty report for 2012, unchanged since the mid-1960s. Liberals argue that we aren’t spending enough money on poverty-fighting programs, but that’s not the problem. In reality, we’re losing the war on poverty because we have forgotten the original goal, as LBJ stated it half a century ago: “to give our fellow citizens a fair chance to develop their own capacities.”
The federal government currently runs more than 80 means-tested welfare programs that provide cash, food, housing, medical care and targeted social services to poor and low-income Americans. . . . If converted to cash, current means-tested spending is five times the amount needed to eliminate all official poverty in the U.S.
Millionaire Obama: I Hate Income Inequality
Back from his $4 million Hawaii vacation, President Barack Obama seems poised to sound the populist trumpet in an effort to turn the page on 2013’s disastrous Obamacare rollout....
CNN panel makes up facts to defend Obama from Gates criticism
...“I guess that’s something that struck me about the criticism of Obama for being committed to getting the troops out of Afghanistan,” Toobin, a CNN legal analyst, added. “First of all, Obama — as Andrew just said — promised to get us out of Afghanistan.”
In reality, President Obama did not campaign in 2008 on getting out of Afghanistan. He campaigned on getting out of Iraq and increasing troops in Afghanistan to defeat al Qaida and the Taliban....
DeBlasio’s Horse-Drawn Carriage Ban: Is It Really About Campaign Cash?
...The bad guy in this drama, according to the carriage drivers, is Steve Nislick, chief executive officer of a New Jersey-based real-estate development company, Edison Properties. The company "employs legions of lobbyists to influence city decisions on real estate and zoning in its favor," journalist Michael Gross reported in 2009, pointing out that two of Edison's businesses "have multiple locations in the same Far West Midtown neighborhood as the stables where the Central Park horses are housed." An anti-carriage pamphlet Nislick circulated in 2008 made this interesting observation: “Currently, the stables consist of 64,000 square feet of valuable real estate on lots that could accomodate up to 150,000 square feet of development. These lots could be sold for new development.”
Gross asked the obvious question: "What are the odds that good neighbor Nislick, the out-of-state real estate developer, simply covets those valuable, underdeveloped New York lots -- and has teamed up with ambitious pols to use the emotions of animal rights activists as fuel for their own agendas?" Nislick founded a 501(c)4 group called New Yorkers for Clean, Livable and Safe Streets (NYCLASS) that spent big money to elect de Blasio mayor, as Chris Bragg of Crain's New York Business reported in October:...
Economist Richard Vedder: Federal student loans ‘fuel academic arms race’
As combined student loan debts balloon to over $1 trillion, one economist believes enough is enough — the “tremendously explosive” student loan programs offered by the federal government need to go.
Ohio University economist and chair of Center for College Affordability and Productive Richard Vedder recommends that President Barack Obama and Congress work together to dismantle or greatly shrink the student loan programs that let young Americans rack up debt.
“I would go so far as to say that I think the federal government is more the problem rather than the solution,” Vedder told the Carolina Journal Radio during a Friday interview. “A lot of our problems… come from these tremendously explosive student loan programs and grant programs that the federal government provides.” (RELATED: Federal student sharks prey on cancer patients filing for bankruptcy)
Giving 18-year-olds fresh from high school with no financial skills free reign to borrow hundreds of thousands of dollars may not be the best course forward, Vedder said. Colleges flush with easy money spend it on administrative pay and luxury fitness centers, increasing tuition all the while....
As combined student loan debts balloon to over $1 trillion, one economist believes enough is enough — the “tremendously explosive” student loan programs offered by the federal government need to go.
Ohio University economist and chair of Center for College Affordability and Productive Richard Vedder recommends that President Barack Obama and Congress work together to dismantle or greatly shrink the student loan programs that let young Americans rack up debt.
“I would go so far as to say that I think the federal government is more the problem rather than the solution,” Vedder told the Carolina Journal Radio during a Friday interview. “A lot of our problems… come from these tremendously explosive student loan programs and grant programs that the federal government provides.” (RELATED: Federal student sharks prey on cancer patients filing for bankruptcy)
Giving 18-year-olds fresh from high school with no financial skills free reign to borrow hundreds of thousands of dollars may not be the best course forward, Vedder said. Colleges flush with easy money spend it on administrative pay and luxury fitness centers, increasing tuition all the while....
IRS Targeting and 2014
President Obama and Democrats have been at great pains to insist they knew nothing about IRS targeting of conservative 501(c)(4) nonprofits before the 2012 election. They've been at even greater pains this week to ensure that the same conservative groups are silenced in the 2014 midterms.
That's the big, dirty secret of the omnibus negotiations. As one of the only bills destined to pass this year, the omnibus was—behind the scenes—a flurry of horse trading. One of the biggest fights was over GOP efforts to include language to stop the IRS from instituting a new round of 501(c)(4) targeting. The White House is so counting on the tax agency to muzzle its political opponents that it willingly sacrificed any manner of its own priorities to keep the muzzle in place. ...
...The fight was sparked by a new rule that the Treasury Department and the IRS introduced during the hush of Thanksgiving recess, ostensibly to "improve" the law governing nonprofits. What the rule in fact does is recategorize as "political" all manner of educational activities that 501(c)(4) social-welfare organizations currently engage in.
It's IRS targeting all over again, only this time by administration design and with the raw political goal—as House Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp (R., Mich.) notes—of putting "tea party groups out of business."...
...Yet my sources say that throughout the negotiations Democrats went all in on keeping the IRS rule, even though it meant losing their own priorities. In the final hours before the omnibus was introduced Monday night, the administration made a last push for IMF money. Asked to negotiate that demand in the context of new IRS language, it refused.
That's a lot to sacrifice for a rule that the administration has barely noted in public, and that then-acting IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel claimed last fall when it was introduced is simply about providing "clarity" to nonprofits. It only makes sense in a purely political context. The president's approval ratings are in the toilet, the economy is in idle, the ObamaCare debate rages on, and the White House has a Senate majority to preserve. With one little IRS rule it can shut up hundreds of groups that pose a direct threat by restricting their ability to speak freely in an election season about spending or ObamaCare or jobs. And it gets away with it by positioning this new targeting as a fix for the first round.
This week's Democratic rally-round further highlights the intensely political nature of their IRS rule. It was quietly dropped in the runup to the holiday season, to minimize the likelihood of an organized protest during its comment period. That 90-day comment period meantime ends on Feb. 27, positioning the administration to shut down conservative groups early in this election cycle.
Mr. Camp's committee has meanwhile noted that Treasury appears to have reverse-engineered the carefully tailored rule—combing through the list of previously targeted tea party groups, compiling a list of their main activities and then restricting those functions....
...Treasury is also going to great lengths to keep secret the process behind its rule. Cleta Mitchell, an attorney who represents targeted tea party groups, in early December filed a Freedom of Information Act request with Treasury and the IRS, demanding documents or correspondence with the White House or outside groups in the formulation of this rule. By law, the government has 30 days to respond. Treasury sent a letter to Ms. Mitchell this week saying it wouldn't have her documents until April—after the rule's comment period closes. It added that if she didn't like it, she can "file suit." The IRS has yet to respond...
Obama’s phony IRS investigation
President Obama dismissed the IRS’ harassment of conservative groups as a “phony scandal,” so it’s little wonder his administration has conducted a phony investigation into it.
Why else would they appoint Barbara Bosserman — a partisan lawyer who gave thousands of dollars to Obama and the Democratic National Committee — to lead the DOJ investigation? Bosserman’s appointment is highly unusual. She hails from the civil rights division, not the criminal division. At the House Oversight Committee’s hearing yesterday, the DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz admitted that in his 12 years at DOJ under 3 different presidents, he did not ever recall the civil rights division investigating tax law matters.
So why did the Obama administration choose this lawyer from the civil rights division over all the criminal division attorneys to lead the IRS investigation? Maybe it’s because the civil rights division in the Obama Justice Department is a hotbed of liberal partisans — as evidenced by the president’s recent appointment of a lawyer for convicted cop killer and left wing cause célèbre Mumia Abu Jamal as the head of said division.
Appointing Bosserman is a violation of Justice Department guidelines, which state that no employee shall participate in a criminal investigation if it would “create the appearance of a conflict of interest likely to affect the public perception of the integrity of the investigation.” Having a political donor to the president investigate the IRS’s harassment of the president’s political opponents does creates at the very least “the appearance of a conflict of interest.”...
President Obama and Democrats have been at great pains to insist they knew nothing about IRS targeting of conservative 501(c)(4) nonprofits before the 2012 election. They've been at even greater pains this week to ensure that the same conservative groups are silenced in the 2014 midterms.
That's the big, dirty secret of the omnibus negotiations. As one of the only bills destined to pass this year, the omnibus was—behind the scenes—a flurry of horse trading. One of the biggest fights was over GOP efforts to include language to stop the IRS from instituting a new round of 501(c)(4) targeting. The White House is so counting on the tax agency to muzzle its political opponents that it willingly sacrificed any manner of its own priorities to keep the muzzle in place. ...
...The fight was sparked by a new rule that the Treasury Department and the IRS introduced during the hush of Thanksgiving recess, ostensibly to "improve" the law governing nonprofits. What the rule in fact does is recategorize as "political" all manner of educational activities that 501(c)(4) social-welfare organizations currently engage in.
It's IRS targeting all over again, only this time by administration design and with the raw political goal—as House Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp (R., Mich.) notes—of putting "tea party groups out of business."...
...Yet my sources say that throughout the negotiations Democrats went all in on keeping the IRS rule, even though it meant losing their own priorities. In the final hours before the omnibus was introduced Monday night, the administration made a last push for IMF money. Asked to negotiate that demand in the context of new IRS language, it refused.
That's a lot to sacrifice for a rule that the administration has barely noted in public, and that then-acting IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel claimed last fall when it was introduced is simply about providing "clarity" to nonprofits. It only makes sense in a purely political context. The president's approval ratings are in the toilet, the economy is in idle, the ObamaCare debate rages on, and the White House has a Senate majority to preserve. With one little IRS rule it can shut up hundreds of groups that pose a direct threat by restricting their ability to speak freely in an election season about spending or ObamaCare or jobs. And it gets away with it by positioning this new targeting as a fix for the first round.
This week's Democratic rally-round further highlights the intensely political nature of their IRS rule. It was quietly dropped in the runup to the holiday season, to minimize the likelihood of an organized protest during its comment period. That 90-day comment period meantime ends on Feb. 27, positioning the administration to shut down conservative groups early in this election cycle.
Mr. Camp's committee has meanwhile noted that Treasury appears to have reverse-engineered the carefully tailored rule—combing through the list of previously targeted tea party groups, compiling a list of their main activities and then restricting those functions....
...Treasury is also going to great lengths to keep secret the process behind its rule. Cleta Mitchell, an attorney who represents targeted tea party groups, in early December filed a Freedom of Information Act request with Treasury and the IRS, demanding documents or correspondence with the White House or outside groups in the formulation of this rule. By law, the government has 30 days to respond. Treasury sent a letter to Ms. Mitchell this week saying it wouldn't have her documents until April—after the rule's comment period closes. It added that if she didn't like it, she can "file suit." The IRS has yet to respond...
Obama’s phony IRS investigation
President Obama dismissed the IRS’ harassment of conservative groups as a “phony scandal,” so it’s little wonder his administration has conducted a phony investigation into it.
Why else would they appoint Barbara Bosserman — a partisan lawyer who gave thousands of dollars to Obama and the Democratic National Committee — to lead the DOJ investigation? Bosserman’s appointment is highly unusual. She hails from the civil rights division, not the criminal division. At the House Oversight Committee’s hearing yesterday, the DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz admitted that in his 12 years at DOJ under 3 different presidents, he did not ever recall the civil rights division investigating tax law matters.
So why did the Obama administration choose this lawyer from the civil rights division over all the criminal division attorneys to lead the IRS investigation? Maybe it’s because the civil rights division in the Obama Justice Department is a hotbed of liberal partisans — as evidenced by the president’s recent appointment of a lawyer for convicted cop killer and left wing cause célèbre Mumia Abu Jamal as the head of said division.
Appointing Bosserman is a violation of Justice Department guidelines, which state that no employee shall participate in a criminal investigation if it would “create the appearance of a conflict of interest likely to affect the public perception of the integrity of the investigation.” Having a political donor to the president investigate the IRS’s harassment of the president’s political opponents does creates at the very least “the appearance of a conflict of interest.”...
Free Speech Quackery
...Similarly, when the New York Times Co. expends corporate resources to argue against the free-speech rights of corporations, it is guilty of hypocrisy but not censorship. And Swanson changes the subject when she brings up morals clauses; firing someone for "behavior" is different from firing him for speech.
As for Jindal's statement that "this is a free country and everyone is entitled to express their views," the only thing wrong with it is the antecedent-pronoun disagreement. The First Amendment does entitle everyone to express his views. That is true of all the parties to the "Duck Dynasty" controversy, including GLAAD, the gay-rights organization that denounced Robertson, and A&E, the network that responded by "suspending" him (a decision it later reversed in the face of viewer disapproval)....
...Thus, implicit in the claim that A&E was within its legal rights in suspending Robertson--which it was, in our view--is a recognition that corporations and not just individuals have the right to free speech. We remember when the left didn't believe in the First Amendment.
...Similarly, when the New York Times Co. expends corporate resources to argue against the free-speech rights of corporations, it is guilty of hypocrisy but not censorship. And Swanson changes the subject when she brings up morals clauses; firing someone for "behavior" is different from firing him for speech.
As for Jindal's statement that "this is a free country and everyone is entitled to express their views," the only thing wrong with it is the antecedent-pronoun disagreement. The First Amendment does entitle everyone to express his views. That is true of all the parties to the "Duck Dynasty" controversy, including GLAAD, the gay-rights organization that denounced Robertson, and A&E, the network that responded by "suspending" him (a decision it later reversed in the face of viewer disapproval)....
...Thus, implicit in the claim that A&E was within its legal rights in suspending Robertson--which it was, in our view--is a recognition that corporations and not just individuals have the right to free speech. We remember when the left didn't believe in the First Amendment.
Federal Court: No, Obamacare Doesn't Forbid Subsidies to Those Who Buy Insurance on the Federal Exchanges
... Nevertheless, a district court decided that "duly-enacted law" is a pretty flexible thing and that it's all close enough for government work.
I hope this will be reviewed by the Supreme Court, eventually. It requires, IIRC, four votes for the court to grant certiorari (discretionary review, granted at the whim of the court). One might imagine we'll have four votes for that, as four men voted to strike down Obamacare.
However, we could lose some of those votes: Kennedy could, hypothetically, have felt that the first Obamacare challenge was strong enough to merit striking the law, but might feel this latest challenge is too weak for that, and pass on granting cert. And all it takes for this ruling to stand is the appeals court and then the Supreme Court to simply decline to review it.
... Nevertheless, a district court decided that "duly-enacted law" is a pretty flexible thing and that it's all close enough for government work.
I hope this will be reviewed by the Supreme Court, eventually. It requires, IIRC, four votes for the court to grant certiorari (discretionary review, granted at the whim of the court). One might imagine we'll have four votes for that, as four men voted to strike down Obamacare.
However, we could lose some of those votes: Kennedy could, hypothetically, have felt that the first Obamacare challenge was strong enough to merit striking the law, but might feel this latest challenge is too weak for that, and pass on granting cert. And all it takes for this ruling to stand is the appeals court and then the Supreme Court to simply decline to review it.
Sunday, January 05, 2014
It’s official: Obamacare debuts with more canceled plans than enrollments
...More than 4.7 million Americans had their health insurance canceled as a result of any of the thousand-plus-page law’s new rules, The Associated Press reports, but the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) confirmed Tuesday that between federal and state exchanges, just two million Americans have signed up for Obamacare coverage. (RELATED: Obama administration announces net loss of at least 3 million insurance plans)...
Funny money: How student loan profits make Obamacare look good
...“The change in student loans was part of Obamacare — and why was it part of Obamacare?” McCluskey said in an exclusive interview with The Daily Caller. “So that the profit they were supposedly making from the student loans could then be plugged into how much money would come from Obamacare, so it didn’t look like it cost as much.”
In the last days of Obamacare’s formulation, the projections had student loans folded into them to make them not seem so expensive.
“At the last minute, they said, ‘Look, let’s take what was then called the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act, make it part of healthcare and then we can make the budget numbers come out right… [W]e will take these projected profits from the student loans, and we will say that’s part of Obamacare.’”...
...More than 4.7 million Americans had their health insurance canceled as a result of any of the thousand-plus-page law’s new rules, The Associated Press reports, but the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) confirmed Tuesday that between federal and state exchanges, just two million Americans have signed up for Obamacare coverage. (RELATED: Obama administration announces net loss of at least 3 million insurance plans)...
Funny money: How student loan profits make Obamacare look good
...“The change in student loans was part of Obamacare — and why was it part of Obamacare?” McCluskey said in an exclusive interview with The Daily Caller. “So that the profit they were supposedly making from the student loans could then be plugged into how much money would come from Obamacare, so it didn’t look like it cost as much.”
In the last days of Obamacare’s formulation, the projections had student loans folded into them to make them not seem so expensive.
“At the last minute, they said, ‘Look, let’s take what was then called the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act, make it part of healthcare and then we can make the budget numbers come out right… [W]e will take these projected profits from the student loans, and we will say that’s part of Obamacare.’”...
Prosecutor Corrupt or Foolish? Defends Transcript Fabrication as a Joke
A Kern County judge has thrown out all child molestation charges against a defendant who was facing 16 years in prison because the prosecutor in the case added sentences to a transcript that indicated the defendant had admitted guilt when he hadn’t.
Deputy District Attorney Robert Murray has been placed on paid administrative leave since the Kern County Public Defender’s Office brought attention to the fact that he made changes to a transcript he sent to defense counsel in the case of Efrain Velasco-Palacios. Velasco-Palacios was charged with five counts of lewd or lascivious acts with a child under 14 years....
A Kern County judge has thrown out all child molestation charges against a defendant who was facing 16 years in prison because the prosecutor in the case added sentences to a transcript that indicated the defendant had admitted guilt when he hadn’t.
Deputy District Attorney Robert Murray has been placed on paid administrative leave since the Kern County Public Defender’s Office brought attention to the fact that he made changes to a transcript he sent to defense counsel in the case of Efrain Velasco-Palacios. Velasco-Palacios was charged with five counts of lewd or lascivious acts with a child under 14 years....
New Oregon Data: Expanding Medicaid Increases Usage Of Emergency Rooms, Undermining Central Rationale For Obamacare
...Just like the “if you like your plan, you can keep your plan” promise, the promise that Obamacare would make health care less expensive by expanding coverage was always a crock. Nationally, it’s estimated that we spend about $50 billion a year on uncompensated care for the uninsured. But Obamacare spends $250 billion a year of taxpayer money on covering the uninsured. Only in Washington is spending $250 billion to address a $50 billion problem considered “savings.”
In Massachusetts, under Romneycare, the math worked out in a similar way. The Bay State spent $661 million on uncompensated care in the year before Romneycare went into effect; by the 2009 fiscal year, that figure had decreased to $414 million: a savings of $247 million. But in 2011, the cost of the state’s insurance subsidy program was $830 million, and that doesn’t even count the tab paid by the federal government for the state’s expansion of Medicaid.
Did emergency-room usage in Massachusetts decline because of all this extra money? The opposite. ER visits actually rose by 7 percent between 2005 and 2007, and the state’s costs for caring for ER patients rose 17 percent between 2007 and 2009.
And one of the big holes in the myth of uninsured “free riders” is that the uninsured only account for 15 percent of the population, 14 percent of total ER visits, and 12 percent of aggregate ER expenditures, according to a study by the Kaiser Family Foundation. Medicaid beneficiaries, by contrast, accounted for 9 percent of the population, 15 percent of visits, and 9 percent of expenses....
...Just like the “if you like your plan, you can keep your plan” promise, the promise that Obamacare would make health care less expensive by expanding coverage was always a crock. Nationally, it’s estimated that we spend about $50 billion a year on uncompensated care for the uninsured. But Obamacare spends $250 billion a year of taxpayer money on covering the uninsured. Only in Washington is spending $250 billion to address a $50 billion problem considered “savings.”
In Massachusetts, under Romneycare, the math worked out in a similar way. The Bay State spent $661 million on uncompensated care in the year before Romneycare went into effect; by the 2009 fiscal year, that figure had decreased to $414 million: a savings of $247 million. But in 2011, the cost of the state’s insurance subsidy program was $830 million, and that doesn’t even count the tab paid by the federal government for the state’s expansion of Medicaid.
Did emergency-room usage in Massachusetts decline because of all this extra money? The opposite. ER visits actually rose by 7 percent between 2005 and 2007, and the state’s costs for caring for ER patients rose 17 percent between 2007 and 2009.
And one of the big holes in the myth of uninsured “free riders” is that the uninsured only account for 15 percent of the population, 14 percent of total ER visits, and 12 percent of aggregate ER expenditures, according to a study by the Kaiser Family Foundation. Medicaid beneficiaries, by contrast, accounted for 9 percent of the population, 15 percent of visits, and 9 percent of expenses....
The NY Times Looks In the Wrong Place for Corrupt Academics
...But the main point I want to make is somewhat different. The Times and other left-wing commentators are quick to assume that any connections between academics and private enterprise are somehow suspect. But how about the government? Every sentient being knows that the federal government, in today’s world, is just another interest group–the biggest, most powerful, and often most sinister interest group of them all. How about academics who take grant money from the government? Are they not tainted and corrupt?
The obvious examples are the global warming alarmists who have received billions of dollars in subsidies from the U.S. government. Climate alarmists are swimming in cash because they produce “research,” which is often merely a bad joke, that supports the federal government’s desire to assert more power over the American economy and your own life-style. Will the Times do an expose on, say, Michael Mann? Will they send a FOIA request to Penn State and scrutinize Mann’s emails? Will they draw an invidious connection between government money and the conclusions that climate alarmists conveniently assert, even though they are scientifically absurd? Will David Kocieniewski author an article in the Times titled, “Academics Who Defend Federal Government Reap Reward?”...
...But the main point I want to make is somewhat different. The Times and other left-wing commentators are quick to assume that any connections between academics and private enterprise are somehow suspect. But how about the government? Every sentient being knows that the federal government, in today’s world, is just another interest group–the biggest, most powerful, and often most sinister interest group of them all. How about academics who take grant money from the government? Are they not tainted and corrupt?
The obvious examples are the global warming alarmists who have received billions of dollars in subsidies from the U.S. government. Climate alarmists are swimming in cash because they produce “research,” which is often merely a bad joke, that supports the federal government’s desire to assert more power over the American economy and your own life-style. Will the Times do an expose on, say, Michael Mann? Will they send a FOIA request to Penn State and scrutinize Mann’s emails? Will they draw an invidious connection between government money and the conclusions that climate alarmists conveniently assert, even though they are scientifically absurd? Will David Kocieniewski author an article in the Times titled, “Academics Who Defend Federal Government Reap Reward?”...
Massachusetts, the model for Obamacare, has highest health costs in the United States
...Massachusetts, whose health care reform program was used as a template for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, had the highest per capita health spending in the U.S. in 2009. According to the commission's report, the state spent $9,278 per person on health care in 2009, which was 36 percent higher than the national average of $6,815, and 11.2 percent more than the next-highest state, New York, which spent $8,341....
...Massachusetts, whose health care reform program was used as a template for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, had the highest per capita health spending in the U.S. in 2009. According to the commission's report, the state spent $9,278 per person on health care in 2009, which was 36 percent higher than the national average of $6,815, and 11.2 percent more than the next-highest state, New York, which spent $8,341....
Steven Greenhut on Excessive Public Pay
“The art of government is to make two-thirds of the nation pay all it possibly can pay for the benefit of the other third,” mused Voltaire. Even that cynical French Enlightenment writer couldn’t imagine what would transpire one day in California, where a portion of the mere 15.3 percent of the public that works for government has gotten the rest of the public to pay for an eye-popping level of compensation.
The latest data — revealed in a December update to the controller’s “Government Compensation in California” Web site — provides fodder for outrage. There’s a fire battalion chief in a small Bay Area suburb receiving a one-year total compensation package that costs $494,000 and city managers in modest-sized burbs (Temecula, Menifee, Carlsbad, Buena Park, Fountain Valley) receiving pay-and-benefit packages of nearly a half-million bucks and more in 2012.
We see a list of employees in fiscally troubled cities — Stockton, San Bernardino, Vallejo — with total earnings in the $200,000 to $300,000 range. ...
“The art of government is to make two-thirds of the nation pay all it possibly can pay for the benefit of the other third,” mused Voltaire. Even that cynical French Enlightenment writer couldn’t imagine what would transpire one day in California, where a portion of the mere 15.3 percent of the public that works for government has gotten the rest of the public to pay for an eye-popping level of compensation.
The latest data — revealed in a December update to the controller’s “Government Compensation in California” Web site — provides fodder for outrage. There’s a fire battalion chief in a small Bay Area suburb receiving a one-year total compensation package that costs $494,000 and city managers in modest-sized burbs (Temecula, Menifee, Carlsbad, Buena Park, Fountain Valley) receiving pay-and-benefit packages of nearly a half-million bucks and more in 2012.
We see a list of employees in fiscally troubled cities — Stockton, San Bernardino, Vallejo — with total earnings in the $200,000 to $300,000 range. ...
Global warming scientists forced to admit defeat... because of too much ice: Stranded Antarctic ship's crew will be rescued by helicopter
They went in search evidence of the world’s melting ice caps, but instead a team of climate scientists have been forced to abandon their mission … because the Antarctic ice is thicker than usual at this time of year.
The scientists have been stuck aboard the stricken MV Akademik Schokalskiy since Christmas Day, with repeated sea rescue attempts being abandoned as icebreaking ships failed to reach them.
Now that effort has been ditched, with experts admitting the ice is just too thick. Instead the crew have built an icy helipad, with plans afoot to rescue the 74-strong team by helicopter....
They went in search evidence of the world’s melting ice caps, but instead a team of climate scientists have been forced to abandon their mission … because the Antarctic ice is thicker than usual at this time of year.
The scientists have been stuck aboard the stricken MV Akademik Schokalskiy since Christmas Day, with repeated sea rescue attempts being abandoned as icebreaking ships failed to reach them.
Now that effort has been ditched, with experts admitting the ice is just too thick. Instead the crew have built an icy helipad, with plans afoot to rescue the 74-strong team by helicopter....
Camille Paglia: A Feminist Defense of Masculine Virtues
'What you're seeing is how a civilization commits suicide," says Camille Paglia. This self-described "notorious Amazon feminist" isn't telling anyone to Lean In or asking Why Women Still Can't Have It All. No, her indictment may be as surprising as it is wide-ranging: The military is out of fashion, Americans undervalue manual labor, schools neuter male students, opinion makers deny the biological differences between men and women, and sexiness is dead. And that's just 20 minutes of our three-hour conversation....
...Ms. Paglia observes this phenomenon up close with her 11-year-old son, Lucien, whom she is raising with her ex-partner, Alison Maddex, an artist and public-school teacher who lives 2 miles away. She sees the tacit elevation of "female values"—such as sensitivity, socialization and cooperation—as the main aim of teachers, rather than fostering creative energy and teaching hard geographical and historical facts.
By her lights, things only get worse in higher education. "This PC gender politics thing—the way gender is being taught in the universities—in a very anti-male way, it's all about neutralization of maleness." The result: Upper-middle-class men who are "intimidated" and "can't say anything. . . . They understand the agenda." In other words: They avoid goring certain sacred cows by "never telling the truth to women" about sex, and by keeping "raunchy" thoughts and sexual fantasies to themselves and their laptops.
Politically correct, inadequate education, along with the decline of America's brawny industrial base, leaves many men with "no models of manhood," she says. "Masculinity is just becoming something that is imitated from the movies. There's nothing left. There's no room for anything manly right now." The only place you can hear what men really feel these days, she claims, is on sports radio. No surprise, she is an avid listener. The energy and enthusiasm "inspires me as a writer," she says, adding: "If we had to go to war," the callers "are the men that would save the nation."...
'What you're seeing is how a civilization commits suicide," says Camille Paglia. This self-described "notorious Amazon feminist" isn't telling anyone to Lean In or asking Why Women Still Can't Have It All. No, her indictment may be as surprising as it is wide-ranging: The military is out of fashion, Americans undervalue manual labor, schools neuter male students, opinion makers deny the biological differences between men and women, and sexiness is dead. And that's just 20 minutes of our three-hour conversation....
...Ms. Paglia observes this phenomenon up close with her 11-year-old son, Lucien, whom she is raising with her ex-partner, Alison Maddex, an artist and public-school teacher who lives 2 miles away. She sees the tacit elevation of "female values"—such as sensitivity, socialization and cooperation—as the main aim of teachers, rather than fostering creative energy and teaching hard geographical and historical facts.
By her lights, things only get worse in higher education. "This PC gender politics thing—the way gender is being taught in the universities—in a very anti-male way, it's all about neutralization of maleness." The result: Upper-middle-class men who are "intimidated" and "can't say anything. . . . They understand the agenda." In other words: They avoid goring certain sacred cows by "never telling the truth to women" about sex, and by keeping "raunchy" thoughts and sexual fantasies to themselves and their laptops.
Politically correct, inadequate education, along with the decline of America's brawny industrial base, leaves many men with "no models of manhood," she says. "Masculinity is just becoming something that is imitated from the movies. There's nothing left. There's no room for anything manly right now." The only place you can hear what men really feel these days, she claims, is on sports radio. No surprise, she is an avid listener. The energy and enthusiasm "inspires me as a writer," she says, adding: "If we had to go to war," the callers "are the men that would save the nation."...
Lack aid? Many counties have only pricey plans
More than half of the counties in 34 states using the federal health insurance exchange lack even a bronze plan that's affordable — by the government's own definition — for 40-year-old couples who make just a little too much for financial assistance, a USA TODAY analysis shows.
Many of these counties are in rural, less populous areas that already had limited choice and pricey plans, but many others are heavily populated, such as Bergen County, N.J., and Philadelphia and Milwaukee counties.
More than a third don't offer an affordable plan in the four tiers of coverage known as bronze, silver, gold or platinum for people buying individual plans who are 50 or older and ineligible for subsidies....
More than half of the counties in 34 states using the federal health insurance exchange lack even a bronze plan that's affordable — by the government's own definition — for 40-year-old couples who make just a little too much for financial assistance, a USA TODAY analysis shows.
Many of these counties are in rural, less populous areas that already had limited choice and pricey plans, but many others are heavily populated, such as Bergen County, N.J., and Philadelphia and Milwaukee counties.
More than a third don't offer an affordable plan in the four tiers of coverage known as bronze, silver, gold or platinum for people buying individual plans who are 50 or older and ineligible for subsidies....
Burn the Fucking System to the Ground
...What neither side seems to realize is that the system is not reformable. There are multiple classes of people, but it boils down to the connected, and the not connected. Just as in pre-Revolutionary France, there is a very strict class hierarchy, and the very idea that we are equal before the law is a laughable nonsequitr.
Jamal the $5 weed slinger, Shaneekwa the hair braider, and Loudmouth Bob in the 7-11 parking lot are at the bottom of the hierarchy. They can, literally, be killed with impunity … as long as the dash cam isn't running. And, hell, half the time they can be killed even if the dash cam is running. This isn't hyperbole, mother-fucker. This is literal. Question me and I'll throw 400 cites and 20 youtube clips at you.
Next up from Shaneekwa and Loudmouth Bob are us regular peons. We can have our balls squeezed at the airport, our rectums explored at the roadside, our cars searched because the cops got permission from a dog (I owe some Reason intern a drink for that one), our telephones tapped (because terrorism!), our bank accounts investigated (because FinCEN! and no expectation of privacy!). We don't own the house we live in, not if someone of a higher social class wants it. We don't own our own financial lives, because the education accreditation / student loan industry / legal triumvirate have declared that we can never escape – even through bankruptcy – our $200,000 debt that a bunch of adults convinced a can't-tell-his-ass-from-a-hole-in-the-ground 18 year old that (a) he was smart enough to make his own decisions, and (b) college is a time to explore your interests and broaden yourself). And if there's a "national security emergency" (defined as two idiots with a pressure cooker), then the constitution is suspended, martial law is declared, and people are hauled out of their homes....
...A step up from the teachers and firefighters are the cops: all the same advantages of nobility of the previous group, but a few more in addition: the de facto power to murder someone as long as not too many cameras are rolling. The de facto power to confiscate cameras in case the murder wasn't well planned. A right to keep and bear arms that far exceeds that of the serf class: 50 state concealed carry for life, not just just for actual cops, but even for retired cops.
At the same level of privilege as cops, but slightly off to one side is different class of nobility: the judiciary and the prosecutors. Judges and prosecutors can't execute citizens in an alley, a parking lot, or their own homes ("he had a knife! …and I don't care what the lying video says."), but they can sentence people to decades in jail for things that any clear-minded reading of the Constitution and the 9th and 10th amendments make clear are not with in the purview of the government. They have effectively infinite resources. They orchestrate perp walks. They selectively leak information to shame defendants. They buy testimony from other defendants by promising them immunity. By exercising their discretion they make sure that the bad people are prosecuted while the good people (i.e. members of their own clan) are not....
...It is corrupt, corrupt, corrupt. From Ted Kennedy who killed a woman and yet is toasted as a "lion of liberalism", to George Bush who did his share of party drugs (and my share, and your share, and your share…) while young yet let other youngsters rot in jail for the exact same excesses instead of waving his royal wand of pardoning, to thousand of well-paid NSA employees who put the Stasi to shame in their ruthless destruction of our rights, to the Silicon Valley CEOs who buy vacation houses with the money they make forging and selling chains to Fort Meade, to every single bastard at RSA who had a hand in taking the thirty pieces of silver, to the three star generals who routinely screw subordinates and get away with it (even as sergeants are given dishonorable discharges for the same thing), to the MIT cops and Massachusetts prosecutor who drove Aaron Swartz to suicide, to every drug court judge who sends 22 year olds to jail for pot…while high on Quaalude and vodka because she's got some fucking personal tragedy and no one understands her pain, to every cop who's anally raped a citizen under color of law, to every other cop who's intentionally triggered a "drug" dog because the guy looked guilty, to every politician who goes on moral crusades while barebacking prostitutes and money laundering the payments, to every teacher who retired at age 60 on 80% salary, to every cop who has 50 state concealed carry even while the serfs are disarmed, to every politician, judge, or editorial-writer who has ever used the phrase "first amendment zone" non-ironically: this is how the system is designed to work....
...What neither side seems to realize is that the system is not reformable. There are multiple classes of people, but it boils down to the connected, and the not connected. Just as in pre-Revolutionary France, there is a very strict class hierarchy, and the very idea that we are equal before the law is a laughable nonsequitr.
Jamal the $5 weed slinger, Shaneekwa the hair braider, and Loudmouth Bob in the 7-11 parking lot are at the bottom of the hierarchy. They can, literally, be killed with impunity … as long as the dash cam isn't running. And, hell, half the time they can be killed even if the dash cam is running. This isn't hyperbole, mother-fucker. This is literal. Question me and I'll throw 400 cites and 20 youtube clips at you.
Next up from Shaneekwa and Loudmouth Bob are us regular peons. We can have our balls squeezed at the airport, our rectums explored at the roadside, our cars searched because the cops got permission from a dog (I owe some Reason intern a drink for that one), our telephones tapped (because terrorism!), our bank accounts investigated (because FinCEN! and no expectation of privacy!). We don't own the house we live in, not if someone of a higher social class wants it. We don't own our own financial lives, because the education accreditation / student loan industry / legal triumvirate have declared that we can never escape – even through bankruptcy – our $200,000 debt that a bunch of adults convinced a can't-tell-his-ass-from-a-hole-in-the-ground 18 year old that (a) he was smart enough to make his own decisions, and (b) college is a time to explore your interests and broaden yourself). And if there's a "national security emergency" (defined as two idiots with a pressure cooker), then the constitution is suspended, martial law is declared, and people are hauled out of their homes....
...A step up from the teachers and firefighters are the cops: all the same advantages of nobility of the previous group, but a few more in addition: the de facto power to murder someone as long as not too many cameras are rolling. The de facto power to confiscate cameras in case the murder wasn't well planned. A right to keep and bear arms that far exceeds that of the serf class: 50 state concealed carry for life, not just just for actual cops, but even for retired cops.
At the same level of privilege as cops, but slightly off to one side is different class of nobility: the judiciary and the prosecutors. Judges and prosecutors can't execute citizens in an alley, a parking lot, or their own homes ("he had a knife! …and I don't care what the lying video says."), but they can sentence people to decades in jail for things that any clear-minded reading of the Constitution and the 9th and 10th amendments make clear are not with in the purview of the government. They have effectively infinite resources. They orchestrate perp walks. They selectively leak information to shame defendants. They buy testimony from other defendants by promising them immunity. By exercising their discretion they make sure that the bad people are prosecuted while the good people (i.e. members of their own clan) are not....
...It is corrupt, corrupt, corrupt. From Ted Kennedy who killed a woman and yet is toasted as a "lion of liberalism", to George Bush who did his share of party drugs (and my share, and your share, and your share…) while young yet let other youngsters rot in jail for the exact same excesses instead of waving his royal wand of pardoning, to thousand of well-paid NSA employees who put the Stasi to shame in their ruthless destruction of our rights, to the Silicon Valley CEOs who buy vacation houses with the money they make forging and selling chains to Fort Meade, to every single bastard at RSA who had a hand in taking the thirty pieces of silver, to the three star generals who routinely screw subordinates and get away with it (even as sergeants are given dishonorable discharges for the same thing), to the MIT cops and Massachusetts prosecutor who drove Aaron Swartz to suicide, to every drug court judge who sends 22 year olds to jail for pot…while high on Quaalude and vodka because she's got some fucking personal tragedy and no one understands her pain, to every cop who's anally raped a citizen under color of law, to every other cop who's intentionally triggered a "drug" dog because the guy looked guilty, to every politician who goes on moral crusades while barebacking prostitutes and money laundering the payments, to every teacher who retired at age 60 on 80% salary, to every cop who has 50 state concealed carry even while the serfs are disarmed, to every politician, judge, or editorial-writer who has ever used the phrase "first amendment zone" non-ironically: this is how the system is designed to work....
Eleven attorneys general slam Obama healthcare fixes as illegal
...The attorneys general specifically criticize President Obama's executive action that allowed insurance companies to keep offering health plans that had been canceled for not meeting ObamaCare's more rigorous standards....
...Republicans have often criticized the administration for making changes to the law after the fact. Other switches included the decision to delay the employer insurance mandate for a year, something many lawmakers said should have required a congressional vote.
Obama changed the law to allow insurance companies to allow canceled plans after coming under criticism when millions of people found out their plans were no longer being offered despite Obama's repeated promise that under ObamaCare, people would be able to keep their insurance plans if they liked them....
...The attorneys general specifically criticize President Obama's executive action that allowed insurance companies to keep offering health plans that had been canceled for not meeting ObamaCare's more rigorous standards....
...Republicans have often criticized the administration for making changes to the law after the fact. Other switches included the decision to delay the employer insurance mandate for a year, something many lawmakers said should have required a congressional vote.
Obama changed the law to allow insurance companies to allow canceled plans after coming under criticism when millions of people found out their plans were no longer being offered despite Obama's repeated promise that under ObamaCare, people would be able to keep their insurance plans if they liked them....
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)