A victory for free speech: The Supreme Court today ruled that federal limits on how much individuals can spend yearly on politics are unconstitutional.
Climate scientists think the first major El Niño since 1997-1998 is beginning to brew in the Pacific.
The first sign of a brewing El Niño weather pattern came in January, as trade winds that normally blow from the east reversed course near Papua New Guinea. Barrelling back across the tropical Pacific Ocean, they began to push warm water towards South America. Now climate scientists and forecasters are on high alert.
A major El Niño event — a periodic warming of waters in the eastern equatorial Pacific — could boost temperatures and scramble weather worldwide. The most recent major event, in 1997–98, was linked to thousands of deaths and tens of billions of dollars in damage from droughts, fires and floods across several continents. Yet more than 15 years later, forecasting the timing and intensity of El Niño remains tricky, with incremental improvements in climate models threatened by the partial collapse of an ocean-monitoring system that delivers the data to feed those models.
Note the date of the last event, 1997-1998. This was also the last time the world’s global temperature saw an increase. At the time global warming scientists were saying that global warming would increase the number and severity of El Niño events, which in turn would raise havoc with the climate. Instead, we have gone more than a decade and a half without any significant El Niño event, and the global temperature rise has ceased.
Note also that the article focuses on the difficulty scientists have had in predicting El Niño. These are the same global warming scientists who are also certain they can predict the exact temperature rise for the next two hundred years.
Obama declares that “The debate about repealing Obamacare is over.”
Why does the left always want to shut down debate (“The science is settled!” “The debate is over.” “Deniers should be put in prison!”)?
Meanwhile, there is this story: Obamacare takes a life.
The story is heart-rending, and describes how the regulations imposed by Obamacare literally caused this man’s death. As his doctor said, “You can thank Mr. Obama for this.”
But the debates over! What business is it of this doctor or this dead man’s children to complain? The President has spoken. The discussion must now end!
A complete list of the Obama administration’s Obamacare.delays — so far.
As the article quite correctly notes, “Despite all the Obama administration’s talk about Republicans ‘obstructing’ the health-care law, federal officials and Obamacare administrators have done far more damage to Obamacare by delaying some of its most central provisions.”
Worse, the delays have also done significant damage to the rule of law, since under the law the Obama administration had no right to make these delays in the first place.
The three most important words in politics are: “Compared with what?” And I am more than a little sympathetic to conservatives’ complaints about the failures of elected Republicans in Washington, who consistently disappoint us even when they are in the majority. I am also sympathetic to the view that our situation may have deteriorated to the point that even a unified Republican government under the leadership of principled conservatives may not be enough to turn things around. And though I reject the notion that Mitt Romney wasn’t good enough for true-believing conservatives, let’s say, arguendo, that that was the case. Unless you are ready to give up entirely on the notion of advancing conservative principles through the ballot box, you might consider looking at things this way: Even if you do not think that it matters much whether Republicans win, it matters a great deal that Democrats lose.
Maybe you were not that excited that 2012 gave you a choice between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama. I sympathize — I liked Rick Perry. But how is President Romney vs. President Obama a hard choice? How is Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell vs. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid a hard choice? How is Speaker of the House John Boehner vs. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi a hard choice?
It isn’t.
Read it all. He smashes to pieces the reasoning many passionate conservatives use to justify not voting at all when they are presented with a choice between a hard leftwing Democratic and what he calls a “squishy RINO.” By abstaining they help put radical leftwing Democrats in power, a circumstance far worse for the country.
This is not to say that we shouldn’t put hard pressure on the squishies to make them less so, only that when push comes to shove, they are still a better option than a politician who is liberal and not squishy.
According to a new report from the federal government, only 6 percent of the country’s electricity comes from green energy sources.
What strikes me about this figure is that, if I remember right, back in around 2001 or so green energy sources only contributed about 3% of our electrical needs, and Vice President Dick Cheney then made the point that even if we doubled that number it wasn’t going eliminate the need to burn fossil fuels. For that comment Cheney got pilloried by the press and by green activists for being a barbarian who was against saving the planet.
Well, here we are, about a dozen years later, and we have doubled our use of green energy, and Cheney was 100% right, we are still reliant on fossil fuels.
The odious Chuck Schumer and Harry Reid.
And why are they odious? Because they have the nerve to attack a free American citizen for merely disagreeing with them publicly.
“But, senator, can’t we have a disagreement about how charity is funded without calling somebody un-American?” Scarborough countered. He continued to press Schumer to answer his question. “Do you think David Koch is un-American?”
Schumer finally said, “The commercials he runs are not part of the American mainstream. No two people [David Koch and his brother Charles] should have such a huge influence on our politics. That’s not First Amendment … I think the commercials he is running are against the American grain and un-American, yes …. I think what Harry Reid was saying was the actions are un-American. And they are, and they should change.”
I wonder if people quite appreciate how disgusting this all is. Here we have two Democratic senators labeling a private citizen as being “un-American” because that citizen is vocally advocating public policies they disagree with.
Can you imagine the media (and Hollywood) firestorm if Senator Ted Cruz went to the Senate floor and repeatedly accused, say, Jeffrey Katzenberg of being “un-American”–and Mike Lee echoed the charge?
But hey, they’re Democrats, so they must mean well! In fact, they must be so correct that the proper thing to do would be for us to put together a lynch mob and get these un-American Americans. How dare David Koch, or anyone, criticize a Democrat?
We’re here to help you: The U.S Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights has forced a Michigan school to rip down a brand-new set of bleachers for its boys’ baseball team because the new seating is nicer than the girls’ softball bleachers.
The raised seating deck for the boys’ baseball team, which was paid for with money raised by parents, was put in place because fans who’d come to watch games at Plymouth High School in Canton, Mich., were having a hard time seeing the game through the chain-link fence WJBK-TV reported. The parents installed the new bleachers themselves and even added a new scoreboard to the field, the station reported. [emphasis mine]
So, something that cost the school nothing that the parents of the students themselves wanted isn’t good enough because our wonderful federal government didn’t like it. Tear it down!
Bruce Rauner, the Republican running for governor of Illinois, is proudly running as a RINO.
Essentially, he is copying the campaign approach that was used successfully by RINO Senator Mark Kirk.
I do not say this as a criticism. For a Republican to win in the very Democratic enclave of Illinois, he must move to the left. Moreover, a RINO Republican in office in Illinois will still be a step up from a corrupt Democrat. In fact, getting a lot of Democrats fired in that state might actually force some real reform in that party there.
The Republican leadership in the House today held a sham vote to get a spending bill passed.
They did it because they couldn’t get enough votes from both Republicans and Democrats for the bill. So, “Republican leadership worked with their Democratic counterparts to orchestrate the ploy.”
It is stuff like this that makes me sick for our country: bi-partisan corruption.
Government power relies on violence and coercion, regardless of where and when.
The author justly lambasts both the left and the right for playing favorites when it comes to the abuse of power by our federal government.
Back on December 31, 2013, I put up a post about a New York Times article in which it was reported that Americorps volunteers were losing their health insurance plans because of Obamacare, much to their chagrin.
In reading the article, the quote that stood out to me was this one from one volunteer named Sarah Sklaw.
Sarah L. Sklaw, a 22-year-old Vista member from New York City, said: “I really support the Affordable Care Act, and I don’t want to be a naysayer. But it was surprising and frustrating to be told that our health coverage would not meet the law’s standards, especially because the Corporation for National and Community Service told us at orientation in August that we did not need to worry about the issue.”
My reaction? “In other words, she supported Obamacare, partly because she was told “if she liked her health plan, she could keep her health plan. Period.” She has now discovered that this was a lie and is angry. Who wudda thunk it?”
Last week Sarah Sklaw emailed me. She was very unhappy about my post because in her mind I misrepresented her feelings about the situation. This is her email:
» Read more
The timeline of Obamacare delays arbitrarily imposed by the Obama administration.
Practically all of these are illegal, as the law does not give the president the power to make these changes. Also, note the wide gap from July 2, 2013 to November 27, 2013, when no delay orders were issued. It was during this time period that Obama and the Democrats in Congress were refusing to negotiate with Republicans about a variety of proposed Republican delays to the law. The result of this refusal was the shutdown of the government in October. Had the Democrats been willing to negotiate then, these delays would at least have been legal, and there would not have been a shutdown.
The law is such an inconvenient thing: The Obama administration has once again arbitrarily extended the deadline in Obamacare for obtaining health insurance.
This same President, allied with the Democrats in Congress, refused any negotiations in October with Republicans about legally extending the deadline. Then, they were willing to shut the government down. Now, however, they delay things willy-nilly, like petty dictators. It seems childish, petulant, petty, foolish, and not very thoughtful.
But hey, Democrat voters, we gotta support them, through hell or high water, because they care!
Democratic civility: When challenged about his gun control proposals and how they conflict with the second amendment, a Rhode Island state legislator responded “Go f–k yourself.”
Video at the link. Note how gleefully he says it.
Unspeakable: The UK’s nationalized hospital system has routinely been using the fetal remains of dead babies for heating fuel.
The bodies of thousands of aborted and miscarried babies were incinerated as clinical waste, with some even used to heat hospitals, an investigation has found. Ten NHS trusts have admitted burning foetal remains alongside other rubbish while two others used the bodies in ‘waste-to-energy’ plants which generate power for heat.
Last night the Department of Health issued an instant ban on the practice which health minister Dr Dan Poulter branded ‘totally unacceptable.’
At least 15,500 foetal remains were incinerated by 27 NHS trusts over the last two years alone, Channel 4’s Dispatches discovered.
When Jonathan Swift wrote A Modest Proposal in 1729, it was harsh satire. Now we find that, with Great Britain’s nationalized healthcare system, it has become reality. Quite horrifying.
Finding out what’s in it: Four reasons why the cost of heath insurance will go up again next year.
These rate increases in 2015 will be on top of the higher rates people have been forced to pay in 2014 because of the advent of Obamacare. They are also all because of the existence of Obamacare itself.
Aren’t you glad the Democrats and President Obama have been willing to do almost anything to prevent any legal changes to the law?
Fifty states of Obamacare victims.
The video, embedded below the fold, excerpts news stories from all fifty states about the failures of Obamacare. It is short, but worth watching, as it provides a good fast summary of the innumerable stories that have appeared since the law’s failed roll out in October, showing that the failure is not confined to specific areas but is widespread, covers the entire nation, and involves a wide range of issues.
From the link:
Harry Reid thinks that 50 states of Obamacare cancellations, raised premiums, cut workers’ hours, fines and computer headaches are all lies.
Liberal fairness: A Michigan union contract requires a school district to discriminate against Christians and whites.
In a truly fair society, ethnicity, religion, or race would not be considered at all in deciding who to hire. Obviously, that is not what this union wants.
Obamacare worked so well some Senators want to do the same thing for the real estate industry.
Top Senate Banking Committee members released plans this week to wind down mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and replace them with a complicated apparatus disturbingly similar to Obamacare. While the proposal by Senators Tim Johnson (D-SD), the chairman, and Mike Crapo (R-ID), the ranking member, was announced with great fanfare, it simply follows the outlines of another bipartisan bill, offered last year by Sens. Bob Corker (R-TN) and Mark Warner (D-VA). The idea is to get rid of the two government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) that provide mortgage financing today for most American homes and replace them with a system of private lending with securities explicitly backed by the federal government.
In going through contortions to reinvent the housing finance system, the senators have avoided the obvious solution: keep the basic platform that has generally served American homeowners well but reform it to reduce risks. Instead, Johnson and the others have come up with a contraption that resembles the Affordable Care Act in its convolutions and its potential for unintended consequences.
Finding out what’s in it: Health insurance premiums are expected to double or triple in some parts of the country because of Obamacare.
These increases will begin appearing this year, before the November elections, as insurance companies assess the damage the law has done to their businesses.
Fascist thugs: “There were women and children inside our retail establishment when the (ATF) agents came in with guns drawn.”
The ATF raid was also in defiance of a court-ordered temporary restraining order against the ATF, telling them to leave the business alone. But hey, they’re the government, it’s up to them to decide what laws to enforce!
More lies, according to Harry Reid: Some of the country’s best cancer hospitals are excluded from every Obamacare policy.
“There’s no compassion in the Affordable Care Act.”
From a pastor who has discovered at the last moment that the insurance under Obamacare did not cover his life-saving chemo treatments, putting him $50,000 in debt.
But since we know that this pastor is lying, according to Harry Reid, he must be ignored.
And then there’s this liar: Obamacare leaves Las Vegas man owing $407,000 in doctor bills.
What is Harry Reid going to do with all these liars hanging around making up stories about Obamacare?
One liberal pundit proposes that Democrats embrace Obamacare in the coming election campaign.
Here’s a heretical idea. Rather than parsing the individual elements of the law, and trying to persuade voters on an à la carte basis, what about raising the stakes and defending the reform in its entirety as a historic effort to provide affordable health-care coverage to tens of millions of hard-working Americans who otherwise couldn’t afford it? Instead of shying away from the populist and redistributionist essence of the reform, which the White House and many Democrats in Congress have been doing since the start, it’s time to embrace it.
I hope they do it. For one thing, it would be refreshing to see Democrats actually campaigning honestly for once on what they actually believe in! For another, they would get creamed, because their fantasies about how wonderful Obamacare is have nothing to do with the horrible reality being experienced right now by millions of Americans.
A Health and Human Services (HHS) official has resigned in disgust from his job monitoring research misconduct because of his frustration with the federal bureaucracy.
His resignation letter is brutal.
“[M]y role as ORI Director has been the very worst job I have ever had and it occupies up to 65% of my time,” he wrote. ”That part of the job is spent navigating the remarkably dysfunctional HHS bureaucracy to secure resources and, yes, get permission for ORI to serve the research community. I knew coming into this job about the bureaucratic limitations of the federal government, but I had no idea how stifling it would be.” According to Wright, activities that in his capacity as an academic administrator that took a day or two, took weeks and months in the federal government.
He then recounts some examples, such the inability to get approval to spend $35 and the inability to hire someone because there was “a secret priority list.”
But hey, don’t worry, we know that HHS will do so much better running the healthcare industry.
Why conservatives should have no regrets dumping Mitch McConnell as the Republican leader in the Senate.
I have had very mixed feelings about McConnell, and was unsure about whether the campaign to get rid of him made sense, until I read this article. The author is devastating, very effectively noting that even though McConnell has generally been very conservative in his votes as a senator, as a leader he has routinely supported the election of RINOs over conservatives.
As the man who helps steer lobbyist dollars to get candidates elected, you all think McConnell is a solid conservative. [Then] why is he steering dollars and support to men like Charlie Crist, Arlen Specter, Trey Grayson, David Dewhurst, and Bob Bennett? McConnell may be voting the way you all want on the votes that matter to you, but he is clearly and indisputably working to get other men elected whose votes you’d despise in states where more conservative challengers could easily win and have won.
Fortunately, all of McConnell’s candidates above eventually lost, and we got instead Marco Rubio, Pat Toomey, Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, and Mike Lee, names that have very effectively changed the political landscape by tilting it in a conservative direction. In other cases, however, McConnell’s candidates won, and thus we have guys like Jeff Flake, a Republican in name only, producing a profound lack of unity in the Republican party.
Getting rid of McConnell would tilt that landscape even more so in a conservative direction, and might finally give the Republicans the balls to really fight this fight instead of squabbling among themselves.
The House committee investigating the IRS’s political harassment of Obama’s opponents has now unveiled evidence showing that former IRS official Lois Lerner committed perjury in Congressional testimony at least four times.
The evidence also shows that she was aggressively working for the Democratic Party, using her power as an important IRS official to bend the tax laws to attack that party’s political opponents.
According to 2013 FBI statistics, all ten of the nation’s most dangerous cities are run by Democrats.
Could it be gun control? Or maybe the oppressive atmosphere of an over-regulated society? Or the lack of prosperity due to the squelching of freedom? Take your pick.
