tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-54559832012-01-24T18:45:47.261-06:00Towing the party lion since June 2003.JLTnoreply@blogger.comBlogger54731100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5455983.post-49294211749154893722012-01-24T18:45:00.001-06:002012-01-24T18:45:47.270-06:00

Evangelicals, Ron Paul and WarIs supporting war more important for evangelicals than their social values? Isn’t Ron Paul a social conservative? He opposes abortion, gay marriage and promiscuous sex, he has never been divorced and certainly supports family values, but he believes in limited government. Two of his brothers are ministers. Why then are evangelical leaders now opting for Santorum, and

JLTnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5455983.post-32908902773622425972012-01-22T11:34:00.003-06:002012-01-22T11:38:04.578-06:00

Regulatory Czar wants to use copyright protection mechanisms to shut down rumors and conspiracy theoriesAs Congress considers vastly expanding the power of copyright holders to shut down fair use of their intellectual property, this is a good time to remember the other activities that Obama’s “regulatory czar” Cass Sunstein wants to shut down using the tools of copyright protection. For a couple

JLTnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5455983.post-13094034817586991252012-01-22T11:10:00.001-06:002012-01-22T11:11:50.749-06:00

Doctors Grow Disenchanted With Obamacare’s Costs and Burdens; Health Care Law Arbitrarily Discriminates69% of physicians are “pessimistic about the future of medicine” because of the 2010 healthcare law, notes Dr. Marc Siegel in USA Today. “Just 13% of those surveyed backed the Affordable Care Act.” “When surveyed by” the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions, “83% of doctors said one likely

JLTnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5455983.post-66422219298892515062012-01-22T10:23:00.001-06:002012-01-22T10:25:57.009-06:00

The European Crack-UpA Belgian journalist who interviewed me recently about the European debt crisis asked me whether I believed in the European Project. I replied that I would answer her question—if she would tell me what the European Project actually was. By revealing my doubts, I proved to her that I suffered from the strange kind of mental debility known as Euroskepticism, a condition

JLTnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5455983.post-80952784997258007932012-01-22T10:20:00.002-06:002012-01-22T10:22:51.826-06:00

Schools ‘spy’ on fat kids...Big Brother is joining the battle of the bulge.A group of Long Island students will soon be wearing controversial electronic monitors that allow school officials to track their physical activity around the clock.......But privacy advocates and parents worry that schools are using electronic monitors in phys ed without families’ knowledge or consent.“I didn’t even know

JLTnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5455983.post-2958392953839201592012-01-22T10:13:00.001-06:002012-01-22T10:16:08.713-06:00

Let’s have a proper debate about the welfare state...Having inflicted a triple defeat on the bill last week, by voting 224 to 186 against proposals relating to disability and incapacity allowances, the Lords had won a special place in the hearts of leftists opposed to the Lib-Cons. These unelected lords and ladies are ‘the only decent politicians left’, chirped one commentator. Another described

JLTnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5455983.post-32950948183993534012012-01-22T10:10:00.001-06:002012-01-22T10:11:56.558-06:00

A Look At How Health Reform Is Driving Doctors Out Of Business...According to Parija Kavilanz of CNN Money, physicians blame "shrinking insurance reimbursements, changing regulations, and rising business and drug costs" for their recent financial troubles. As private practices become victims of health care reform and Medicare and Medicaid cuts, many doctors are being forced to shut their doors.

JLTnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5455983.post-35404737719772788842012-01-22T10:08:00.002-06:002012-01-22T10:10:33.204-06:00

10 Reasons The U.S. Is No Longer The Land Of The FreeBelow is today’s column in the Sunday Washington Post. The column addresses how the continued rollbacks on civil liberties in the United States conflicts with the view of the country as the land of the free. If we are going to adopt Chinese legal principles, we should at least have the integrity to adopt one Chinese proverb: “The beginning of

JLTnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5455983.post-2751076522320673922012-01-21T15:00:00.001-06:002012-01-21T15:00:16.614-06:00

From the 1932 Southern Baptist Convention:That we oppose the continued large expenditure by the Government for military and naval equipment; that we oppose military training in the schools and colleges, whether denominational or state; and that we favor full and complete disarmament as rapidly as it can possibly be accomplished, except such armament as may be absolutely necessary for police duty

JLTnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5455983.post-20582375353369909242012-01-21T09:46:00.003-06:002012-01-22T11:37:35.594-06:00

In Keystone XL Rejection, We See Two Americas At War With Each OtherAmerica has two basic economies, and the division increasingly defines its politics. One, concentrated on the coasts and in college towns, focuses on the business of images, digits and transactions. The other, located largely in the southeast, Texas and the Heartland, makes its living in more traditional industries, from

JLTnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5455983.post-74560294166678196502012-01-21T09:43:00.000-06:002012-01-21T09:44:08.900-06:00

Justice Department coordinates suits with ACORN's Project Vote...Readers will also recall that ACORN activists have long been involved in voter registration fraud, either directly or through its Project Vote affiliate. At least 70 ACORN/Project Vote employees have been convicted of voter registration fraud in a dozen states since 2006. According to a 2009 House Committee on Oversight and

JLTnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5455983.post-41699805845017828522012-01-21T09:42:00.001-06:002012-01-21T09:42:45.602-06:00

Secular Theocracy...During the Enlightenment, nationalism became the new civic religion, in which the nation state was not merely a substitute for the church, but a substitute for God, and political religion benefited from being more tangible than supernatural religion in having the physical means of violence necessary to enforce mandatory worship and funding. Nation states provided a new kind of

JLTnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5455983.post-42089119499416090672012-01-21T09:35:00.004-06:002012-01-22T11:37:08.768-06:00

Environmentalism and the Leisure Class...In turning down Keystone, however, the President has uncovered an ugly little secret that has always lurked beneath the surface of environmentalism. Its basic appeal is to the affluent. Despite all the professions of being "liberal" and "against big business," environmentalism's main appeal is that it promises to slow the progress of industrial progress.

JLTnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5455983.post-57253783081998719562012-01-15T12:39:00.002-06:002012-01-15T12:42:37.428-06:00

Peer Reviewed Study: Increased Solar Flux Drove Global Warming During 20th CenturyWhile reviewing the bounty of solar and climate information found at the Global Warming Science site, we found the adjacent chart (this is the 'C3' revised version using annual HadCRUT global temperatures instead of monthly).Clearly, there is a strong relationship between solar activity (magnetic solar flux) and

JLTnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5455983.post-18867609315976298102012-01-15T12:21:00.002-06:002012-01-15T12:24:14.006-06:00

The New Authoritarianism... Today’s progressives cannot be viewed primarily as pragmatic Truman- or Clinton-style majoritarians. Rather, they resemble the medieval clerical class. Their goal is governmental control over everything from what sort of climate science is permissible to how we choose to live our lives. Many of today’s progressives can be as dogmatic in their beliefs as the most

JLTnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5455983.post-68380541312218221902012-01-15T11:59:00.001-06:002012-01-15T11:59:28.261-06:00

Roman Catholic church's paedophile investigator jailed for possessing thousands of child porn imagesA Catholic Church child safety co-ordinator who was in charge of investigating sexual abuse allegations was jailed for 12 months today for internet peadophile offences.......The revelations that the church hired a peadophile in a key child protection role will add to the controversy surrounding the

JLTnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5455983.post-34467410541818856972012-01-15T11:58:00.002-06:002012-01-15T11:59:06.387-06:00

Liberals Love Their DaddyTwelve years ago, I wrote an article entitled “Electing Our Daddy,” which pointed out that every four years Americans go to the polls not just to elect a president bur also to elect a daddy, one who will take watch over them and take care of them, send them to their room when they put bad things in their mouths, force them to share with others, and protect them from the

JLTnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5455983.post-35032981536362331332012-01-08T09:25:00.002-06:002012-01-08T09:28:27.816-06:00

Government: The redistributionist behemothLiberals have a rendezvous with regret. Their largest achievement is today’s redistributionist government. But such government is inherently regressive: It tends to distribute power and money to the strong, including itself.Government becomes big by having big ambitions for supplanting markets as society’s primary allocator of wealth and opportunity.

JLTnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5455983.post-47127539202682272232012-01-07T10:49:00.000-06:002012-01-07T10:50:45.816-06:00

Labor unions primary recipients of Obamacare waiversLabor unions continued to receive the overwhelming majority of waivers from the president’s health care reform law since the Obama administration tightened application rules last summer.Documents released in a classic Friday afternoon news dump show that labor unions representing 543,812 workers received waivers from President Barack Obama‘s

JLTnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5455983.post-66202414721081014262012-01-07T10:28:00.000-06:002012-01-07T10:29:57.138-06:00

Liam Byrne is right – we need 'radical reform' of the initiative-zapping, soul-destroying welfare state...For many well-off Liberal commentators – who, notably, have no interaction with the welfare state, except in the sense that buddies of theirs probably manage huge chunks of it for a fat wage packet – the welfare state is a sacred thing and criticism of it is the equivalent of blasphemy. Yet

JLTnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5455983.post-10960131087533472762012-01-07T10:27:00.000-06:002012-01-07T10:28:19.962-06:00

BofA Must Pay Excess Settlement Funds To Acorn ClonesBank of America (BAC) must turn over excess funds from a record $335 million discrimination fine to community organizing groups. Critics say it's a "political backdoor" to subsidize Democrat-tied Acorn "clones."The unusual mandate is buried in a Justice Department filing last month detailing settlement terms with the nation's largest bank.

JLTnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5455983.post-40598626198928389472012-01-01T12:02:00.001-06:002012-01-01T12:02:40.481-06:00

Ron Paul Had Accurate Conspiracy Theory: CIA Was Tied To Drug Traffickers...Earlier this week, I looked into Paul's claim in the same speech that the war on drugs had racist origins and that the medical community played a role in lobbying for drug prohibitions. That charge was more or less accurate.So is Paul's claim about the CIA and drug trafficking, a connection I explore in the book "This Is

JLTnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5455983.post-43498977666313286742012-01-01T11:54:00.001-06:002012-01-01T11:56:35.641-06:00

Progressives and the Ron Paul fallacies...The thing I loathe most about election season is reflected in the central fallacy that drives progressive discussion the minute “Ron Paul” is mentioned. As soon as his candidacy is discussed, progressives will reflexively point to a slew of positions he holds that are anathema to liberalism and odious in their own right and then say: how can you support

JLTnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5455983.post-59519180446205695582011-12-31T08:55:00.000-06:002011-12-31T08:56:18.927-06:00

Federal judge: Nonpartisan elections are unfair to minorities...A U.S. District Court judge has rejected a challenge to Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965—filled [sic] when the Department of Justice barred the city of Kinston, N.C. from holding nonpartisan elections—reasoning that lack of access to party affiliation would discriminate against minority voters who otherwise wouldn’t know

JLTnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5455983.post-50222227081646303042011-12-31T08:50:00.001-06:002011-12-31T08:50:22.458-06:00

"Black Swan" Fund Creator Explains Why Central Planning Has Doomed Us All...Suppressing fire, creating the illusion of fire protection, leads to the wrong kind of growth, which then invites greater destruction. About 100 years ago, the U.S. Forest Service took a zero-tolerance approach to forest fires, stamping them out at the first blaze. Fast forward to 1988 when a massive wildfire at

JLTnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5455983.post-70104324796121066382011-12-31T08:48:00.002-06:002011-12-31T08:58:22.335-06:00

Why the Left Is Losing the Argument over the Financial Crisis...Our argument is and has been that the financial crisis would not have occurred but for government housing policy implemented principally through Fannie and Freddie and the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Although there were a number of such policies, the most important were the affordable housing requirements first

JLTnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5455983.post-90536012828030543042011-12-31T08:45:00.001-06:002011-12-31T08:47:41.433-06:00

Ron Paul: Drug War In U.S. Has Racist Origins...The reaction of the American government, and its people, to drug use was -- and still is -- a complex mix of factors, involving lobbying by the medical community, pharmaceutical companies, the alcohol industry, temperance advocates, and religious movements. Historically, the argument has played out -- and continues to play out -- amid a backdrop of

JLTnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5455983.post-39944316047064010592011-12-24T12:05:00.001-06:002011-12-24T12:05:46.474-06:00

"Too Big To Fail" just turned the large banks into GSEs (PDF):...Of course, the GSE firms and these LCFIs were not identical in form. The [large complex financial institutions (LCFIs)] had a more diversified product line, were afforded greater flexibility, and increasingly were perceived to have a too-big-to-fail government guarantee -- while the GSEs had a public mission, received a more

JLTnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5455983.post-90733645964599136432011-12-24T12:03:00.001-06:002011-12-24T12:04:56.997-06:00

Apologists For Communist Totalitarianism: I Hate Those Guys...No one questions that Havel, who went to prison twice, was a brave man who had the courage to stand up for his views. Yet the question which needs to be asked is whether his political campaigning made his country, and the world, a better place. Havel’s anti-communist critique contained little if any acknowledgement of the positive

JLTnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5455983.post-40990396025909716302011-12-23T10:58:00.000-06:002011-12-23T10:59:50.490-06:00

...It brings to mind this quotation by Vaclav Havel:The post-totalitarian system touches people at every step, but it does so with its ideological gloves on. This is why life in the system is so thoroughly permeated with hypocrisy and lies: government by bureaucracy is called popular government; the working class is enslaved in the name of the working class; the complete degradation of the

JLTnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5455983.post-1207306529198703652011-12-23T09:54:00.001-06:002011-12-23T09:56:23.670-06:00

Significant Financial Management and Fiscal Challenges Reflected in the U.S. Government's 2011 Financial ReportWASHINGTON (December 23, 2011) - The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) cannot render an opinion on the 2011 consolidated financial statements of the federal government, because of widespread material internal control weaknesses, significant uncertainties, and other

JLTnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5455983.post-17581010060098976102011-12-23T09:38:00.001-06:002011-12-23T09:38:16.097-06:00

NY Judge: Iran, Taliban, Al-Qaida Liable For 9-11Foreign Affairs: Time to Attack IranDOJ to America: we won't reveal the circumstances under which you can be assassinated by us

JLTnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5455983.post-83522553783248459792011-12-23T09:35:00.000-06:002011-12-23T09:37:31.615-06:00

"Black Swan" Fund Creator Explains Why Central Planning Has Doomed Us All...Suppressing fire, creating the illusion of fire protection, leads to the wrong kind of growth, which then invites greater destruction. About 100 years ago, the U.S. Forest Service took a zero-tolerance approach to forest fires, stamping them out at the first blaze. Fast forward to 1988 when a massive wildfire at

JLTnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5455983.post-66902456894498339692011-12-22T16:42:00.001-06:002011-12-22T16:43:33.469-06:00

Scientists mark 1/3 of a century of satellite climate data..."While [this] warming is noticeable in climate terms, it isn't obvious that it represents an impending disaster," says Christy. "The climate models produce some aspects of the weather reasonably well, but they have yet to demonstrate an ability to confidently predict climate change in upper air temperatures."......How much of the

JLTnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5455983.post-62013708322720308882011-12-22T16:40:00.001-06:002011-12-22T16:41:45.370-06:00

Documents: ATF used "Fast and Furious" to make the case for gun regulations...In Fast and Furious, ATF secretly encouraged gun dealers to sell to suspected traffickers for Mexican drug cartels to go after the "big fish." But ATF whistleblowers told CBS News and Congress it was a dangerous practice called "gunwalking," and it put thousands of weapons on the street. Many were used in violent crimes

JLTnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5455983.post-49041042739643576172011-12-22T16:39:00.003-06:002011-12-22T16:39:53.234-06:00

FDR’s Noble Lie...Most historians when pressed on the matter now grudgingly concede that Roosevelt lied when he told the American people that he would never send their boys to fight into foreign wars, but they excuse his treachery as a “noble lie,” a deception perpetrated against the public by the political elite to achieve a supposed greater good....

JLTnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5455983.post-27848698945735065172011-12-22T16:39:00.001-06:002011-12-22T16:39:29.108-06:00

UK police seize computers of skeptic blogger in England...UPDATE: I’ve been in contact with Roger (Tallbloke) and he tells me that he is not a suspect, and that they’ll clone his hard drives and return the computers to him....

JLTnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5455983.post-34358680668861542092011-12-22T12:37:00.001-06:002011-12-22T12:37:09.392-06:00

Wall Street Did It?...But based on the number of toxic loans in the system in 2008, the government was responsible for not just a simple majority, but more than two-thirds. It's quantifiable — 71% to be exact.... And the remaining 29% of private-label junk was mostly attributable to Countrywide Financial, which was under the heel of HUD and its "fair-lending" edicts....Fannie Freddie Lawsuit and

JLTnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5455983.post-12546873095419097422011-12-22T11:00:00.002-06:002011-12-22T11:49:00.377-06:00

To promote the global warming scare, Jane Lubchenco's NOAA continuously changes past temperature records to create fake warming - on a monthly basisClimategate Bombshell: Did U.S. Gov't Help Hide Climate Data?...Making that case in 2009, the then-head of the Research Unit, Dr. Phil Jones, told colleagues repeatedly that the U.S. Department of Energy was funding his data collection -- and that

JLTnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5455983.post-86005608036391141362011-12-22T10:59:00.001-06:002011-12-22T10:59:07.589-06:00

Occupy Group Faults Church, a Onetime Ally...“We need more; you have more,” one protester, Amin Husain, 36, told a Trinity official on Thursday, during an impromptu sidewalk exchange between clergy members and demonstrators. “We are coming to you for sanctuary.”...

JLTnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5455983.post-85581587228690105432011-12-22T10:56:00.002-06:002011-12-22T10:57:12.938-06:00

‘Morning Joe’: ‘The press was in the tank for Obama’ [VIDEO]...Newsweek/Daily Beast editor Tina Brown agreed with Scarborough’s statement, explaining it partly as the establishment media’s fatigue with the whole Clinton “narrative.”“I think a lot of it was about the press wanted a new narrative,” Brown said. “And in the end, Obama’s story of the first black president … trumped the exceptionalism

JLTnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5455983.post-66866560792842594522011-12-22T10:56:00.001-06:002011-12-22T10:56:38.209-06:00

Justice Dept. blames critics for noticing Holder’s race-card playUnder fire for leveling a racially charged attack at his critics, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has neither backed down nor revised his remarks, appearing instead to restate them.In a front page New York Times story on Sunday, Holder alleged that some of his critics — a group he referred to as the “more extreme segment” — are

JLTnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5455983.post-72008233166737839502011-12-22T10:55:00.000-06:002011-12-22T10:56:04.740-06:00

MythBuster Adam Savage: SOPA Could Destroy the Internet as We Know It...Make no mistake: These bills aren't simply unconstitutional, they are anticonstitutional. They would allow for the wholesale elimination of entire websites, domain names, and chunks of the DNS (the underlying structure of the whole Internet), based on nothing more than the "good faith" assertion by a single party that the

JLTnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5455983.post-87327150922034119242011-12-22T10:54:00.001-06:002011-12-22T10:58:24.960-06:00

What Fannie and Freddie Knew...The Beltway story of the crisis claims that Congress's affordable housing mandates had nothing to do with it. But the SEC's lawsuit shows that Fannie degraded its underwriting standards to increase its market share in subprime loans. According to the SEC suit, for instance, in 2006 Fannie Mae adjusted its widely used automated underwriting system, "Desktop

JLTnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5455983.post-46030602496896145912011-12-11T09:05:00.001-06:002011-12-11T09:07:38.094-06:00

Guaranteed to Fail: Fannie, Freddie, and the Debacle of Mortgage Finance (long PDF)...Was the growth in private label MBS the culmination of the dream of the deregulation advocates of the 1980s coming to fruition, albeit two decades later? Or was it the emergence of new government-sponsored enterprises in the form of too-big-to-fail financial institutions? We argue the latter, and, with this

JLTnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5455983.post-18764280311122669012011-12-11T09:02:00.001-06:002011-12-11T09:05:12.327-06:00

U.S. Agents Launder Mexican Profits of Drug CartelsWASHINGTON — Undercover American narcotics agents have laundered or smuggled millions of dollars in drug proceeds as part of Washington’s expanding role in Mexico’s fight against drug cartels, according to current and former federal law enforcement officials.The agents, primarily with the Drug Enforcement Administration, have handled shipments of

JLTnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5455983.post-52556012221796573832011-12-11T09:01:00.001-06:002011-12-11T09:02:25.253-06:00

New e-mails: ATF officials discussed using Fast & Furious to … push gun control...Follow the link and read the e-mails from a participating gun dealer to the ATF asking for a letter affirming that he was only selling these weapons at the agency’s behest. He was worried that the sales were shady and wanted legal cover in case the bureau later turned around and decided that the dealers were “

JLTnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5455983.post-39714341440539093222011-12-11T08:58:00.001-06:002011-12-11T09:00:40.674-06:00

GM Chevrolet Volt: Buyers spooked by electric car fires...It now appears the fire hazard was first discovered back in June, when GM first heard about a fire in a Volt that occurred some three weeks after the vehicle had been crash tested.Yet, almost five months went by before either GM or the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) told dealers and customers about the potential

JLTnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5455983.post-61097194987273795242011-12-04T09:02:00.003-06:002011-12-04T09:02:35.808-06:00

Making the Klan Boring... I’ve long argued that there’s an infuriating tendency among mainstream liberal historians to take two approaches to evils in American history. Sins are always either the result of conservatives doing conservative things or they’re the product of America’s fundamentally bigoted nature. It’s just never, ever, the case that liberalism or progressivism has something to

JLTnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5455983.post-3581271905811801102011-12-04T09:02:00.001-06:002011-12-04T09:02:21.145-06:00

‘Sometimes a police state is a good thing’...That wasn’t enough for the Twittermob, however, who wanted a piece of the action. They instantly expressed their moral fury, passing judgement without pausing for thought. Almost immediately upon seeing the video, people were tweeting it to the cops and naming the potential culprit and the place where she apparently works. Even Labour Party leader Ed

JLTnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5455983.post-20456138861372905662011-12-04T09:01:00.003-06:002011-12-04T09:01:48.298-06:00

Declassified Memo Hinted of 1941 Hawaii Attack...In fact, he compares the missed signals leading up to Japan's attack to 9/11, which government investigations also show that the Clinton and Bush administrations missed clear signals that an attack was coming. "So many mistakes through so many levels of Washington," said Shirley. "Some things never change."...

JLTnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5455983.post-8481454297939892962011-12-04T09:01:00.001-06:002011-12-04T09:01:22.316-06:00

Wikileaks docs reveal that governments use malware for surveillanceThe latest round of documents published by Wikileaks offers a rare glimpse into the world of surveillance products. The collection—which Wikileaks calls the Spy Files—includes confidential brochures and slide presentations that companies use to market intrusive surveillance tools to governments and law enforcement agencies.A

JLTnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5455983.post-20410679656406447572011-12-04T08:59:00.001-06:002011-12-04T09:01:13.081-06:00

Climategate 2.0: A Sequel As Ugly As The Original....Climategate I, the release of a few thousand emails and documents from the CRU in November 2009, revealed that the united-front clubbiness of the leading climate scientists was just a display for public consumption. The science of climate change was not “settled.” There was no consensus about the extent and causes of global warming; in their

JLTnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5455983.post-62679411933492913562011-12-03T09:28:00.000-06:002011-12-03T09:29:00.271-06:00

Wigley writes to Hulme and Jones: "must get rid of von Storch too"PS Re CR, I do not know the best way to handle the specifics of the editoring. Hans von Storch is partly to blame -- he encourages the publication of crap science 'in order to stimulate debate'. One approach is to go direct to the publishers and point out the fact that their journal is perceived as being a medium for disseminating

JLTnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5455983.post-44446046335823640632011-12-03T09:16:00.002-06:002011-12-03T09:28:09.641-06:00

The Great Global Warming FizzleHow do religions die? Generally they don't, which probably explains why there's so little literature on the subject. Zoroastrianism, for instance, lost many of its sacred texts when Alexander sacked Persepolis in 330 B.C., and most Zoroastrians converted to Islam over 1,000 years ago. Yet today old Zoroaster still counts as many as 210,000 followers, including

JLTnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5455983.post-19888384591722778542011-11-28T07:40:00.001-06:002011-11-28T07:40:32.862-06:00

Climategate scientists DID collude with government officials to hide research that didn't fit their apocalyptic global warming...The emails paint a clear picture of scientists selectively using data, and colluding with politicians to misuse scientific information.‘Humphrey’, said to work at Defra, writes: ‘I cannot overstate the HUGE amount of political interest in the project as a message that

JLTnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5455983.post-61288049283148172122011-11-27T20:36:00.001-06:002011-11-27T20:36:08.384-06:00

The tribalistic corruption of peer review – the Chris de Freitas incident...This is most certainly not the case in the emails that follow. There really is no hiding place for the authors, and no ambiguity. The emails will track how annoyance at the publication of a ‘contrary’ article in a journal develops into an attack on the editor, Chris de Freitas, an accomplished scientist. The attack

JLTnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5455983.post-74073499941539941582011-11-27T16:18:00.000-06:002011-11-27T16:19:05.208-06:00

Newsbytes: BBC In Cahoots With Climategate Scientists, prime minister “green guru” publicly doubts climate change...Britain’s leading green activist research centre spent £15,000 on seminars for top BBC executives in an apparent bid to block climate change sceptics from the airwaves, a vast new cache of leaked ‘Climategate’ emails has revealed. The emails – part of a trove of more than 5,200

JLTnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5455983.post-50523604442324172292011-11-27T10:06:00.003-06:002011-11-27T10:11:57.623-06:00

Climategate 2.0: New E-Mails Rock The Global Warming Debate“I have been talking w/ folks in the states about finding an investigative journalist to investigate and expose” skeptical scientist Steve McIntyre, Mann writes in another newly released email.These new emails add weight to Climategate 1.0 emails revealing efforts to politicize the scientific debate. For example, Tom Wigley, a scientist

JLTnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5455983.post-34005163024944705942011-11-27T09:47:00.001-06:002011-11-27T09:47:08.462-06:00

Climategate a ‘catastrophe’ for science?...Scepticism about global warming has spiked dramatically in the past two years. Pew also found that, after appearing on the public’s radar screen in 2007, the climate has become less important to voters with each annual survey. There are a number of possible reasons why. High unemployment makes voters hostile to the regulation of business. Scandals at

JLTnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5455983.post-5664458905707002762011-11-25T07:31:00.001-06:002011-11-25T07:31:32.654-06:00

CO2 may not warm the planet as much as thoughtThe climate may be less sensitive to carbon dioxide than we thought – and temperature rises this century could be smaller than expected. That's the surprise result of a new analysis of the last ice age. However, the finding comes from considering just one climate model, and unless it can be replicated using other models, researchers are dubious that

JLTnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5455983.post-66115015922917994132011-11-23T13:48:00.001-06:002011-11-23T13:50:31.801-06:00

Climategate 2.0: Fresh trove of embarrassing emails...“I can’t overstate the HUGE amount of political interest in the project as a message that the Government can give on climate change to help them tell their story,” a civil servant wrote to Phil Jones in 2009. “They want the story to be a very strong one and don’t want to be made to look foolish.”......In the absence of telltale manmade global

JLTnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5455983.post-63932297024097716352011-11-23T11:35:00.002-06:002011-11-23T11:45:12.713-06:00

University hit by new climate leak ahead of talks...Although their context couldn't be determined, the excerpts appeared to show climate scientists talking in conspiratorial tones about ways to promote their agenda and freeze out those they disagree with. There are several mentions of "the cause" and discussions of ways to shield emails from freedom of information requests....‘Climate-gate’

JLTnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5455983.post-82498474450049929852011-11-23T08:31:00.000-06:002011-11-23T08:32:09.771-06:00

Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac shell out big bonuses...The Federal Housing Finance Agency, which regulates the mortgage giants that are now under government receivership, has approved $12.79 million in bonus pay for the performance of 10 executives at Fannie and Freddie last year despite both companies posting losses in all four quarters, Politico reported.The executives were rewarded with Wall

JLTnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5455983.post-65751153158592407562011-11-23T08:30:00.001-06:002011-11-23T08:30:59.641-06:00

Theologian Attempts Censorship After Losing Public Debate..."Theologian John Haught publicly debated prominent evolutionary scientist and atheist Jerry Coyne at the University of Kentucky back in October. Before the debate, both parties agreed to the debate being video-taped. Coyne is of the opinion that he convincingly won the debate over Haught. But we'll never know, because Haught, with the

JLTnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5455983.post-16589104358040248372011-11-23T08:28:00.001-06:002011-11-23T08:30:08.372-06:00

Making College More Expensive: The Unintended Consequences of Federal Tuition AidAs Congress debates the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act, it should heed Friedrich Hayek’s warning that democracy is “peculiarly liable, if not guided by accepted common principles, to produce over-all results that nobody wanted.” One result of the federal government’s student financial aid programs is

JLTnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5455983.post-29004846903082375232011-11-23T08:27:00.001-06:002011-11-23T08:28:33.858-06:00

Study Sez: Public School Teachers Aren't Underpaid...Workers who switch from non-teaching jobs to teaching jobs receive a wage increase of roughly 9 percent. Teachers who change to non-teaching jobs, on the other hand, see their wages decrease by roughly 3 percent. This is the opposite of what one would expect if teachers were underpaid....

JLTnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5455983.post-42843207490633780842011-11-23T08:25:00.000-06:002011-11-23T08:26:22.438-06:00

Developer with shotgun scared off Oakland riotersOakland developer Phil Tagami is used to working behind the scenes to broker some of the biggest deals in town. Late Wednesday, he was using different persuasive skills - holding a loaded shotgun to scare away rioters trying to get into a downtown building."We had people who attempted to break into our building," the landmark Rotunda Building on

JLTnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5455983.post-76832855529198817472011-11-23T08:22:00.001-06:002011-11-23T08:23:41.709-06:00

Unable to win fair and square, Big Labor pushes 'ambush elections'...Currently, there is about a five-week window between when union organizers petition the NLRB to conduct a secret-ballot election, and when the vote actually happens. That time between announcement and vote allows both sides abundant opportunities to make their case, so workers can cast informed ballots on whether to form a union

JLTnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5455983.post-57236295916989874552011-11-23T08:19:00.000-06:002011-11-23T08:20:24.185-06:00

Bloomberg to OWS: Congress caused the mortgage crisis, not the banks...Lenders faced a nightmare regulatory threat and so began to “bend” their lending standards to demonstrate compliance. Congress helped by authorizing Fannie and Freddie to buy up subprime mortgages at a higher rate in order to incentivize compliance. That opened the floodgates, as Fannie and Freddie essentially ended any risk

JLTnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5455983.post-68343175659806603132011-11-23T08:11:00.002-06:002011-11-23T08:15:31.911-06:00

Smoking-Gun Document Ties Policy To Housing Crisis...At President Clinton's direction, no fewer than 10 federal agencies issued a chilling ultimatum to banks and mortgage lenders to ease credit for lower-income minorities or face investigations for lending discrimination and suffer the related adverse publicity. They also were threatened with denial of access to the all-important secondary

JLTnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5455983.post-31950682624638011432011-11-23T08:09:00.000-06:002011-11-23T08:10:45.787-06:00

Met police using surveillance system to monitor mobile phonesBritain's largest police force is operating covert surveillance technology that can masquerade as a mobile phone network, transmitting a signal that allows authorities to shut off phones remotely, intercept communications and gather data about thousands of users in a targeted area.The surveillance system has been procured by the

JLTnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5455983.post-55283008073032940162011-11-23T08:04:00.001-06:002011-11-23T08:06:12.053-06:00

Surprise! No warming in last 11 years...Despite the fact that the world’s nations continue to spew CO2 with no significant decline (except perhaps in the Great Recession period of 2008-9), the temperature record is remarkably stable. In fact, it looks similar to the period between 1945 and 1970 on the top chart. If global temperature increases really correlated directly to CO2 emissions, we

JLTnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5455983.post-14193340288370879902011-11-23T08:02:00.001-06:002011-11-23T08:04:11.432-06:00

Matt Ridley's Rousing Defense of Climate Change Skepticism...So what’s the problem? The problem is that you can accept all the basic tenets of greenhouse physics and still conclude that the threat of a dangerously large warming is so improbable as to be negligible, while the threat of real harm from climate-mitigation policies is already so high as to be worrying, that the cure is proving far

JLTnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5455983.post-81948631746884319172011-11-23T07:52:00.002-06:002011-11-23T07:58:35.649-06:00

Scientist who said climate change sceptics had been proved wrong accused of hiding truth by colleague...The Washington Post said the BEST study had ‘settled the climate change debate’ and showed that anyone who remained a sceptic was committing a ‘cynical fraud’.But today The Mail on Sunday can reveal that a leading member of Prof Muller’s team has accused him of trying to mislead the public by

JLTnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5455983.post-27502464564652534472011-11-23T07:12:00.002-06:002011-11-23T07:18:06.873-06:00

Uh oh, global warming loons: here comes Climategate II!Breaking news: two years after the Climategate, a further batch of emails has been leaked onto the internet by a person – or persons – unknown. And as before, they show the "scientists" at the heart of the Man-Made Global Warming industry in a most unflattering light. Michael Mann, Phil Jones, Ben Santer, Tom Wigley, Kevin Trenberth, Keith

JLTnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5455983.post-9053420616147907142011-11-23T07:11:00.001-06:002011-11-23T07:11:39.135-06:00

JAMES HANSEN AND THE CORRUPTION OF SCIENCEIt recently came out that James Hansen, one of the two or three most prominent global warming alarmists on whose work the IPCC reports rest, “forgot” to report $1.6 million in outside income, as required by his government contracts. Is that significant? Well, yes: A handful of scientists, including Hansen, have gotten wealthy on climate alarmism. They

JLTnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5455983.post-82782283071399121772011-10-29T10:48:00.000-05:002011-10-29T10:49:08.066-05:00

New Police Drone Near Houston Could Carry Weapons...The Montgomery County Sheriff's Office in Conroe paid $300,000 in federal homeland security grant money and Friday it received the ShadowHawk unmanned helicopter made by Vanguard Defense Industries of Spring.A laptop computer is used to control the 50-pound unmanned chopper, and a game-like console is used to aim and zoom a powerful camera and

JLTnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5455983.post-6924016633966311552011-10-29T10:46:00.000-05:002011-10-29T10:47:33.563-05:00

Officers Jeer at Arraignment of 16 Colleagues in Ticket-Fixing InvestigationA three-year investigation into the police’s habit of fixing traffic and parking tickets in the Bronx ended in the unsealing of indictments on Friday and a stunning display of vitriol by hundreds of off-duty officers, who converged on the courthouse to applaud their accused colleagues and denounce their prosecution....

JLTnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5455983.post-77514045675578908382011-10-29T10:15:00.000-05:002011-10-29T10:16:48.608-05:00

State treasurer of MA absolutely shreds RomneyCare, which “has nearly bankrupted the state” and is surviving solely because of federal aid...Cahill said the law is being sustained only with the help of federal aid, which he suggested that the Obama administration is funneling to Massachusetts to help the president make the case for a similar plan in Congress… “…I would argue that we’re being

JLTnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5455983.post-1266361694830575172011-10-29T10:13:00.001-05:002011-10-29T10:14:59.526-05:00

Why Economic Models Are Always Wrong...Carter had initially used arbitrary parameters in his perfect model to generate perfect data, but now, in order to assess his model in a realistic way, he threw those parameters out and used standard calibration techniques to match his perfect model to his perfect data. It was supposed to be a formality--he assumed, reasonably, that the process would simply

JLTnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5455983.post-22487752910563226842011-10-29T09:34:00.003-05:002011-10-29T09:35:03.844-05:00

The Government is CONSTANTLY Pestering Google For Your Personal Information...Google released its "transparency report" today and America ranks ahead of all other nations when it comes to asking the search giant for your personal info. In fact, U.S. officials ask for three and a half times more data than India the nation that ranks second in government requests for user data. U.S. Government

JLTnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5455983.post-6512792078071165822011-10-29T09:34:00.002-05:002011-10-29T09:34:41.621-05:00

And the below differs from Enron's "we control it but we don't technically own it so its debt isn't our debt" games, the ones proving how corrupt capitalism is, exactly how?Guaranteed to Fail: Fannie, Freddie, and the Debacle of Mortgage Finance (long PDF)...By far, the most important legislation affecting Fannie Mae was its conversion into a private company in 1968. It was primarily for

JLTnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5455983.post-89931710026009242011-10-29T09:33:00.001-05:002011-10-29T09:33:40.126-05:00

2 teachers union lobbyists teach for a day to qualify for hefty pensionsTwo lobbyists with no prior teaching experience were allowed to count their years as union employees toward a state teacher pension once they served a single day of subbing in 2007, a Tribune/WGN-TV investigation has found.......Preckwinkle's one day of subbing qualified him to become a participant in the state teachers

JLTnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5455983.post-38686591239208439642011-10-29T09:32:00.003-05:002011-10-29T09:33:31.230-05:00

Love the divine capitalization of "Authority".WHOOPS! Vatican Lets Slip Plans For One World Government...A supranational Authority of this kind should have a realistic structure and be set up gradually. It should be favourable to the existence of efficient and effective monetary and financial systems; that is, free and stable markets overseen by a suitable legal framework, well-functioning in

JLTnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5455983.post-49985694686914938962011-10-29T09:32:00.001-05:002011-10-29T09:32:39.347-05:00

The Sins of the Flash...That's right — code on a remote computer somewhere decides whether or not random web sites can spy on you. If someone changes that code, accidentally or deliberately, your own computer has just been turned into a bug, without any need for them to attack your machine.From a technical perspective, it's simply wrong for a design to outsource a critical access control decision

JLTnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5455983.post-79487929375823929722011-10-23T11:29:00.001-05:002011-10-23T11:30:44.290-05:00

Godzilla Hedge Fund Fannie Mae Was ‘Guaranteed to Fail’: BooksA number, like a picture, can be worth 1,000 words. In England, 1066 means the Norman Conquest. The world over, 3.14159 screams pi.For Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the figure to remember is 79.9 -- the percent ownership that the U.S. Treasury took in each when it seized control in 2008. If the stakes were 80 percent, the mortgage

JLTnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5455983.post-69590118586008049942011-10-23T11:24:00.000-05:002011-10-23T11:25:25.721-05:00

Fannie Freddie Lawsuit and Risk Arbitrage...To understand how casual Fannie and Freddie were about credit risk, consider the two types of activity they engage in. One, they buy and pool mortgages, issuing securities backed by these pools, a process called securitization. They’ve been doing this longer and on greater scale than anyone else—by comparison Wall Street was a newcomer to the

JLTnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5455983.post-58112327237294345132011-10-23T10:46:00.001-05:002011-10-23T10:48:57.153-05:00

Should Americans Support the Tea Party or Occupy Wall Street?...The subprime crisis was designed in Washington, not New York. The FHA discouraged down payments (those old fashioned “savings”), pushing them from their traditional level of 20% down to 3% - and at the start of 2008 to 0%. Everyone, regardless of whether they can afford it, should own a home! Don’t save; speculate in the hope that

JLTnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5455983.post-10736749774805869692011-10-23T10:21:00.001-05:002011-10-23T10:21:52.044-05:00

The 1 percent: D.C. metro area the wealthiest in the nation...Federal employees whose compensation averages more than $126,000 and the nation’s greatest concentration of lawyers helped Washington edge out San Jose as the wealthiest U.S. metropolitan area, government data show.The U.S. capital has swapped top spots with Silicon Valley, according to recent Census Bureau figures, with the typical

JLTnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5455983.post-79191431429512087662011-10-23T10:20:00.000-05:002011-10-23T10:21:23.634-05:00

Oakland Occupy residents struggle with internal security issues...Many camp residents, however, have celebrated their growing ability to deal with serious conflict on their own terms, and without the help of police or county medical staff members. ...Occupy Baltimore to sex assault victims: We support you in reporting the abuse, but we don’t encourage the involvement of police in our community...

JLTnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5455983.post-70944021047488105922011-10-23T09:58:00.001-05:002011-10-23T10:01:12.993-05:00

Coming clean on 'dirty DUIs' in Contra Costa County...A man who once worked for Butler had blown the whistle. He told authorities Butler arranged for men to be arrested for drunk driving at the behest of their ex-wives and their divorce lawyers — and that entrapment was only one of many alleged misdeeds.Butler, 49, a former police officer, was arrested in February. In addition to setting up at

JLTnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5455983.post-86579121422011081402011-10-23T09:57:00.001-05:002011-10-23T09:57:32.443-05:00

Drug Tests for Buying a Gun?This idea would now seem to be endorsed by the Brady Campaign, as there is a White House petition for it as well. You can see the kind of juice the Brady Campaign has by the numbers appearing there. I’m wondering what other fundamental constitutional right requires you to pee pee in a cup before you can exercise it. It’s certainly interesting to see what new and

JLTnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5455983.post-13034000316893278462011-10-23T09:56:00.002-05:002011-10-23T09:57:06.385-05:00

Celebrated redistributionists discover healthy respect for private property...Occupy Wall Street protesters said yesterday that packs of brazen crooks within their ranks have been robbing their fellow demonstrators blind, making off with pricey cameras, phones and laptops — and even a hefty bundle of donated cash and food.“Stealing is our biggest problem at the moment,” said Nan Terrie, 18, a

JLTnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5455983.post-70580530640570909222011-10-23T09:56:00.001-05:002011-10-23T09:56:30.848-05:00

House subcommittee chair: Is Obama admin. already collecting private health information?The Obama administration adamantly denies it, but rumors are circulating in Washington that his Department of Health and Human Services is already collecting Americans’ private health information, or at least preparing itself to do so.Rep. Denny Rehberg, the chairman of the House appropriations subcommittee on

JLTnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5455983.post-77145168251789402752011-10-23T09:55:00.001-05:002011-10-23T09:55:56.261-05:00

Will Romney hire Obama’s climate-change guru Holdren?...In the development of greenhouse gas policy, Romney Administration officials have elicited input from environmental and economic policy experts. These include John Holden [sic], professor of environmental policy at Harvard University and chair of the National Commission on Energy Policy and Billy Pizer, and economist at Resources for the

JLTnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5455983.post-50799733529856252242011-10-16T15:29:00.000-05:002011-10-16T15:30:29.136-05:00

Drug Tests for Buying a Gun?This idea would now seem to be endorsed by the Brady Campaign, as there is a White House petition for it as well. You can see the kind of juice the Brady Campaign has by the numbers appearing there. I’m wondering what other fundamental constitutional right requires you to pee pee in a cup before you can exercise it. It’s certainly interesting to see what new and

JLTnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5455983.post-44052634997067276972011-10-16T10:10:00.001-05:002011-10-16T10:12:07.150-05:00

Will Romney hire Obama’s climate-change guru Holdren?...In the development of greenhouse gas policy, Romney Administration officials have elicited input from environmental and economic policy experts. These include John Holden [sic], professor of environmental policy at Harvard University and chair of the National Commission on Energy Policy and Billy Pizer, and economist at Resources for the

JLTnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5455983.post-50515871251766028032011-10-16T10:09:00.001-05:002011-10-16T10:10:12.589-05:00

House subcommittee chair: Is Obama admin. already collecting private health information?The Obama administration adamantly denies it, but rumors are circulating in Washington that his Department of Health and Human Services is already collecting Americans’ private health information, or at least preparing itself to do so.Rep. Denny Rehberg, the chairman of the House appropriations subcommittee on

JLTnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5455983.post-41524561601073374062011-10-16T09:48:00.000-05:002011-10-16T09:50:46.319-05:00

Wall Street's Gullible Occupiers...Beginning in 1992, the government required Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to direct a substantial portion of their mortgage financing to borrowers who were at or below the median income in their communities. The original legislative quota was 30%. But the Department of Housing and Urban Development was given authority to adjust it, and through the Bill Clinton and

JLTnoreply@blogger.com