Wheelchair bound wounded vet jeered, heckled, and laughed at by university students

The civil tone of the left: A wheelchair-bound, wounded veteran was jeered, heckled, and laughed at by Columbia University students. Key quote:

“Racist!” some students yelled at Anthony Maschek, a Columbia freshman and former Army staff sergeant awarded the Purple Heart after being shot 11 times in a firefight in northern Iraq in February 2008. Others hissed and booed the veteran.

Maschek, 28, had bravely stepped up to the mike Tuesday at the meeting to issue an impassioned challenge to fellow students on their perceptions of the military. “It doesn’t matter how you feel about the war. It doesn’t matter how you feel about fighting,” said Maschek. “There are bad men out there plotting to kill you.”

The memoir of a substitute teacher during a teachers strike

The memoir of a substitute teacher during a teachers strike. Key quote:

After the first week the phone calls in the evening began. After the first call, I had to not allow my children to answer the phone, as when the first call came, my seven year old answered and she heard an earful of cursing and threats that put her into tears. From that point on, we did not answer the phone in the evening unless I designated my husband to the task.

Update in Wisconsin

Hotair has this nice summary of today’s madness in Wisconsin. Key quote:

Speaker Jeff Fitzgerald said he decided to adjourn the Assembly this evening because Gov. Scott Walker called minutes before lawmakers took the floor to tell him to get his caucus members and staff out of the building because their safety could no longer be assured.

Federal judge lowers the boom on the Obama administration on drilling permits

The law is for everyone: A federal judge has lowered the boom on the Obama administration over its refusal to issue permits for drilling oil in the Gulf of Mexico. Key quote:

In issuing the directive to the government, Feldman, who sits on the District Court for the Eastern District of Louisian, noted that “it is undisputed that before the Deepwater Horizon disaster, permits were processed, on average, in two weeks’ time. In stark contrast, the five permits at issue have been pending from four to some nine months.”

To be a Republican lawmaker in Wisconsin means facing threats of violence

To be a Republican lawmaker in Wisconsin means facing threats of violence. Key quote:

[Republican state senator Randy] Hopper has received threatening phone calls and e-mails. These are threats of a physical nature. “We are working with law enforcement in my district. They are watching my home and my business.” Other Republicans have had their homes and businesses threatened, too. The unionists have demonstrated outside those homes and businesses.

A menacing old phrase comes to mind (and has been used by others, in talking about events in Wisconsin): We know where you live. [emphasis in original]

Healthcare Reform Law Requires New IRS Army Of 1,054

Repeal the damn bill! The IRS announced today that it will require over a thousand new agents and $359 million more money to implement Obamacare in 2012. Key quote:

The detailed IRS budget documents spell out exactly what most of the new workforce will be doing. For example, some 81 will be tasked just to handle the tax reporting of 25,000 tanning salons. They face a new 10 percent excise tax on indoor tanning services. Another 76 will be assigned to make sure businesses engaged in making and imported drugs pay their new fee which is expected to deliver $2.8 billion to the Treasury in 2012 and 2013. The new healthcare corps will also require new facilities and computers.

Austrian Court fines speaker for describing Islam accurately

Bad news for freedom: An Austrian court today convicted Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff for speaking out against Islam. Key quote:

It seems the case turned on the judge’s reasoning that her statement that Islam’s prophet Mohammed was a “pedophile” was defamatory since his child bride Aisha (age six at the time of marriage and nine at the time it was consummated) remained his wife when she turned 18.

More details at Gates of Vienna.

Cutting the Full $100 Billion

Keep this momentum going! The House Republican leadership was forced this week to increase its proposed budget cuts to $100 billion because of tea party movement pressure, both in the House and back at home. Key quote from this New York Times report:

The reversal was the most concrete demonstration yet that the wave of fiscal conservatives who catapulted Republicans into the House majority is reshaping the political and policy calculations being made by the party leadership.

Are Health-Care Waivers Unconstitutional?

Are the more than 700 waivers to Obamacare that the Obama administration has handed out unconstitutional? The final paragraph sums it up well:

Waivers can be used for good purposes. But since the time of Matthew Paris [around 1251], they have been recognized as a power above the law — a power used by government to co-opt powerful constituencies by freeing them from the law. Like old English kings, the current administration is claiming such a power to decide that some people do not have to follow the law. This is dangerous, above the law, and unauthorized by the Constitution.

The bigotry among social psychologists

The bigotry among social psychologists. Key quote:

Dr. Haidt (pronounced height) told the audience [at the Society for Personality and Social Psychology’s conference] that he had been corresponding with a couple of non-liberal graduate students in social psychology whose experiences reminded him of closeted gay students in the 1980s. He quoted — anonymously — from their e-mails describing how they hid their feelings when colleagues made political small talk and jokes predicated on the assumption that everyone was a liberal.

“I consider myself very middle-of-the-road politically: a social liberal but fiscal conservative. Nonetheless, I avoid the topic of politics around work,” one student wrote. “Given what I’ve read of the literature, I am certain any research I conducted in political psychology would provide contrary findings and, therefore, go unpublished. Although I think I could make a substantial contribution to the knowledge base, and would be excited to do so, I will not.”

Bernanke headlines a day of grim warnings about the nation’s fiscal standing

Fed chairman Bernanke issued a grim warning yesterday about the federal government’s overwhelming debt. Key quote:

The national debt is currently about 60 percent of the economy, or Gross Domestic Product, [Bernanke] said, adding that it is projected to reach 90 percent of GDP by 2020 and 150 percent of GDP by 2030. But Bernanke’s citation of $9.5 trillion in national debt didn’t include the $4.6 trillion owed by the government to trust funds for things such as Social Security and Medicare, which have paid out cash to the Treasury in exchange for promisory notes. The full national debt – when both forms of debt are included – is already just under 100 percent of GDP, which is currently around $14.6 trillion.

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