Tag: government

The Utah legislature is about to pass a law demanding the federal government release to the state almost fifty percent of the state’s federal land.

8:51 pm

Another state vs federal battle: The Utah legislature is about to pass a law demanding the federal government release to the state almost fifty percent of the state’s federal land.

The context here is that, for most western states, the federal government controls almost all of the real estate, and has in recent years increasingly restricted its use to the detriment of local residents. The legal maneuvering here is a push back by the state.

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Explaining the limits of the Congressionally mandated Space Launch System

8:36 pm

Explaining the limits of the Congressionally mandated Space Launch System.

In trying to explain why SLS can never function as a crew ferry for ISS, I think Muncy also illustrates why the whole system makes no sense and is really a complete waste of money. Consider this:

SLS’s first uncrewed test flight would be in December 2017, with the first crewed mission nearly four years later, in late 2021. Even worse, NASA’s plan showed that Orion and SLS would be able to fly only one exploration mission every two (or more) years.

We are spending a lot of money for very little results.

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Play offense

10:25 am

Play offense.

Instead of bowing and scraping to the Islamic supremacists and feebly protesting that we’re not really racists and hatemongers and all the other calumnies and canards they throw at us, we should be taking the fight to them, and standing up and saying, “You are fronting for the most oppressive ideology on the face of the earth. You are fronting for evil. You are carrying water and running interference for the denial of free speech, the denial of the freedom of conscience, the institutionalized oppression of women, the subjugation of non-Muslims, and worse. You’re fronting for stonings, amputations, the murder of apostates, the treatment of women as possessions of men, the madness and senseless violence that we see in this furor over the Quran-burnings, and more. You shout us down on campuses and do everything you can to make sure we are not heard in the public square. And you call us fascists? You are the quintessence of fascism.”

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The U.S. Conference of Catholic bishops is issuing a flyer to be distributed at Masses over the March 3-4 weekend that asks their congregation to voice their opposition to the Obama administration’s contraceptive mandate.

4:20 pm

We’ve only just begun: The U.S. Conference of Catholic bishops is issuing a flyer to be distributed at Masses over the March 3-4 weekend that asks congregations to voice their opposition to the Obama administration’s contraceptive mandate.

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Because of Obamacare, child-only health plans have been discontinued nationwide.

10:25 pm

Repeal it: Because of Obamacare, insurance companies nationwide have stopped offering child-only health plans.

Jared Wolfe, executive director of the Texas Association of Health Plans, said it is not because insurers do not want to cover children. The federal health care overhaul [Obamacare], and in particular the pre-existing condition language, has been interpreted to mean that insurers must write a policy for any child who applies, Mr. Wolfe said. That effectively ensures that only sick children will apply for benefits, he said — an unworkable financial scenario for insurance companies.

This happened in New York state back in the 1990s. The state legislature decided to help everyone by mandating that no insurance company could deny insurance to anyone, no matter how sick they were. The result: there was no point buying insurance until you were sick, which meant there was no way the insurance companies could make any profit at all. Instantly the insurance field shrunk, with many companies (including my own) abandoning the state.

But then, who cares? We live in amazing times, when a President can simply order — on his personal authority and without any basis in law — that insurance companies must provide free contraceptives, without anyone having to pay for their manufacture. Who knew what things were possible before Obama was President?

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For the fourth year in a row, President Obama has defied a law that demands he take action on Medicare.

3:32 pm

The law is such an inconvenient thing: For the fourth year in a row, President Obama has defied a law that demands he take action on Medicare.

This paragraph sums up why Obama has been so negligent:

Why won’t Barack Obama put forth a Medicare proposal? Simple. If he does, Democrats lose the opportunity to demagogue the issue in the run-up to the 2012 election.

The only politicians to propose any reasonable plan to make Medicare solvent have been the Republicans, led by Paul Ryan. I don’t like all the details in Ryan’s plan, but at least he’s proposed something. All Obama and the Democrats have been doing is fiddling while Rome burns, while blaming others for the fire.

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Senate Democrats reject religious exemption in Obamacare.

2:08 pm

Telling us who they really are: The Democrats in the Senate today rejected any religious exemption to anyone who does not wish to pay for someone else’s contraceptives or abortion drugs.

Personally, I have no problem with anyone who wants to use contraceptives or abortion drugs. What I and all free-thinking individuals have a problem with is the idea of the government forcing someone to pay for this, against their religious beliefs.

I guarantee that if this Obamacare requirement does not fall, people will end up choosing jail to honor their personal conscience.

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The Zombie Mohammad judge defends his actions.

5:57 pm

The Zombie Mohammad judge defends his actions.

On the first amendment:

Here’s the thing: It’s a right, it’s not a privilege, it’s a right. With rights come responsibilities. The more that people abuse our rights, the more likely that we’re going to lose them.

So in other words, it’s an abuse of free speech to criticize Mohammad, but perfectly okay to physically attack that person for that criticism.

This judge has got to go.

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Investigators have decided that it was sloppy bookkeeping rather than criminal activity that caused MF Global to illegally misuse and then lose more than a $1 billion of customer funds.

11:04 am

The fix is in: Investigators have decided that it was sloppy bookkeeping rather than criminal activity that caused MF Global to illegally misuse and then lose more than a $1 billion of customer funds.

Regulators and law enforcement officials have spoken to numerous former employees of MF Global since the firm’s demise and continue to review the hundreds of documents before they make their final conclusion. But one employee who hasn’t been interviewed by the criminal investigators is [former Democratic Governor and Senator Jon] Corzine. People close to the probe say they won’t likely depose him unless a criminal probe appears more likely.

How convenient. The man in charge, Corzine, who was also the “go-to” guy for the Obama administration on economic matters, is somehow not questioned.

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“Well, basically, we’re not looking to the Constitution on that aspect of it.”

6:06 pm

More video of that townhall meeting where Congresswoman Kathy Hochul (D-New York) was challenged by her constituents over Obama’s contraceptive mandate. Her answer:

Well, basically, we’re not looking to the Constitution on that aspect of it.

She essentially admits that when it comes to the Democratic Party and the Obama administration, policy will trump the Constitution every time.

At the end of the videotape, when she finds herself literally speechless and unable to respond intelligently to the questions being put to her, she says, “Clearly, more work needs to be done.” I agree. The work that needs to be done is to throw these thugs out of office.

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Massachusett has proposed a 500-plus percent increase in vending machine license fees in order to meet new regulations imposed by Obamacare.

5:53 pm

Finding out what’s in it: Massachusett has proposed a 500-plus percent increase in vending machine license fees in order to meet new regulations imposed by Obamacare.

And this ain’t the end. Day by day for the next three years — as Obamacare slowly takes effect — we are going to find out again and again how completely bad it is. The important thing will be to remember clearly who imposed this idiocy on us.

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Democratic Congresswoman booed at a townhall meeting by her New York constituents over the Obama administration’s contraceptive mandate.

5:40 pm

Tea Party 2: A democratic congresswoman, Kathy Hochul (D-New York), was booed at a townhall meeting by her constituents enraged by the Obama administration’s contraceptive mandate.

One woman in the crowd told Hochul: “This President has lied to us repeatedly when he proclaims support for conscience protection in his infamous speech at Notre Dame as well as in the executive order he signed following passage of the health care law. He is not worthy of your support in this matter.” Another man shouted “It’s an insult to the Catholics in this country to even listen to that gibberish. It is an absolute insult and Catholics deserve better. We were taking care of this country’s sick long before the government got involved in it.”

What we have here is a case where a political party (Obama and the Democrats in Congress) have willingly and consciously stomped on the rights of a large number of American citizens. Because these Democrats happen to also be tone deaf politically, they don’t seem to care. They will find out how much it matters come November.

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Charges have been dropped against New Hampshire man who fired into the ground to stop a burglar.

8:54 am

Charges have been dropped against New Hampshire man who fired into the ground to stop a burglar.

The tragedy here is that the arrest has intimidated him.

I shouldn’t have done that. I should have called the police. That’s what you’re supposed to do. I let emotions take over when rationale should’ve taken over and I went after the guy and I shouldn’t have done that.

I say, bull. The man did nothing wrong. His action caught a serial burglar.

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Fakegate: Global warmists try to hide their decline

7:04 pm

Fakegate: Global warmists try to hide their decline.

Fakegate shows us, with the precision of a scientific experiment, several key truths about the global warming movement. It shows that most warmists, both the scientists and the journalists, will embrace any claim that seems to bolster their cause, without bothering to check the facts or subject them to rigorous investigation. (Anthony Watts notes how few journalists bothered to contact him before reporting the claims about him that are made in the fake memo.) And it shows us that warmists like Gleick have no compunction about falsifying information to promote their agenda, and that many other warmists are willing to serve as accomplices after the fact, excusing Gleick’s fraud on the grounds that he was acting in a “noble cause.” It shows us that “hide the decline” dishonesty is a deeply ingrained part of the corporate culture of the global warming movement.

Gleick wasn’t just an obscure, rogue operator in the climate debate. Before his exposure, his stock in trade was lecturing on “scientific integrity,” and until a few days ago he was the chairman of the American Geophysical Union’s Task Force on Scientific Ethics. So this scandal goes to the very top of the global warming establishment, and it compels honest observers to ask: if the warmists were willing to deceive us on this, what else have they been deceiving us about?

Between Climategate and Fakegate, the warmist establishment now has zero credibility, and we must call all of their claims into question. [emphasis mine]

And in related news, the EPA has scrubbed its grants database of any mention of the grants it had awarded to Peter Gleick and the institute he heads.

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Seven states filed a lawsuit today seeking to overturn Obama’s contraceptive mandate.

6:27 pm

The wave builds: Seven states today filed a joint lawsuit, seeking to overturn Obama’s contraceptive mandate.

“This violation of the [First] Amendment is a threat to every American, regardless of religious faith,” Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning said in a news release. “We will not stand idly by while our constitutionally guaranteed liberties are discarded by an administration that has sworn to uphold them.”

The lawsuit also alleges the “practical effect” of the mandate “will force religious employers to drop health insurance coverage,” in order to avoid violating their religious beliefs.

“Obamacare’s latest mandate tramples the First Amendment’s freedom of religion and compels people of faith to act contrary to their convictions,” Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott said in a news release. “The very first amendment to our Constitution was intended to protect against this sort of government intrusion into our religious convictions.”

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Germany’s $130B Solar Experiment Delays Global Warming by 23 hours!

5:12 pm

Success! Germany’s $130 billion solar power subsidies has delayed global warming by 23 hours!

It gets worse: Because Germany is part of the European Union Emissions Trading System, the actual effect of extra solar panels in Germany leads to no CO2 reductions, because total emissions are already capped. Instead, the Germans simply allow other parts of the EU to emit more CO2. Germany’s solar panels have only made it cheaper for Portugal or Greece to use coal.

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