Religion banned in shopping mall
Fascism in America: A shopping mall in Georgia has outlawed all prayer, even for those about to eat in their food court.
Tag: policy
An Amtrak train abandons all of its passengers
Government-run transportation: An Amtrak high-speed train left New York City this weekend without its passengers, who were instead waiting to board on a different platform where railroad employees had sent them.
“They literally sent us to the wrong platform, and the conductor took off without any passengers,” Damien Miano, a stranded passenger told The Daily News. “The right hand didn’t know what the left hand was doing. It’s just so bizarre.”
Amtrak might make believe that it is a private company, but it has been a government entity for decades. Like the post office, it has no real incentive to make a profit and operate efficiently since all losses get covered by the federal government.
Coming soon to a hospital near you!
The library that tried to ban conservative news researchers backs down.
Victory for free speech: The University of Arkansas has backed down from its attempt to ban a news research team because it was using that research to publish articles critical of Hillary Clinton.
The University of Arkansas library has backed down from its decision to block the Washington Free Beacon from accessing its special collections archives following a month-long public uproar. The library suspended the Free Beacon’s research privileges in June after the outlet published a story based on audiotapes from university archives that included Hillary Clinton discussing her 1975 defense of a child rapist.
The article clearly documents that the university was working on behalf of Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party, trying to impose the ban for political reasons.
News crew threatened with arrest if they didn’t turn over their footage
Free speech in modern America: A news crew filming was temporarily detained and threatened with arrest on July 24 for filming at a national park.
Watch the video below the fold. The arrogance and ignorance of the Constitution by these officers is appalling.
» Read more
Ukraine tensions disrupt more U.S.-Russian science
It appears that several U.S. scientists have been forced to cancel their appearances at science conferences in Russia because of the increased tension between the U.S. and Russia over Ukraine.
The disruptions seem to be almost random and are not being applied across the board, as the story also notes that many other programs are not being affected at all.
Russian umanned space program pushed back three years
Because of the increased workload imposed on Russia when the U.S. suddenly pulled out of the European ExoMars mission, the Russians have imposed a three year delay on their entire program of unmanned science probes.
Although all previously approved projects still remain on the table, the nation’s series of lunar missions face a domino effect of delays. Russia’s first post-Soviet attempt to land on the surface of the Moon was pushed back from 2016 to 2019. Known as Luna-Glob or Luna-25, the unmanned lunar lander was designed to test landing techniques for future lunar missions. On the political front, the successful landing of the Luna-Glob would be a signal to the international scientific community that Russia is back in the planetary exploration business after the 2011 fiasco of the Phobos-Grunt mission.
This report above is a more nuanced analysis than yesterday’s story about the presentation given by the head of the Russia’s Space Research Institute at Saturday’s science conference in Moscow. Today’s story gives the reasoning for the delays, as explained by the Russians themselves, as well as outlines the entire program more thoroughly.
The story describes a string of planned Russian lunar probes, beginning with Luna-Glob. This program was probably approved by the government when the U.S. decided to return to the Moon in 2004 under George Bush. The Russians don’t seem to be able any longer to be self-starters, but instead need the competition from the U.S. to get them jump-started.
Even so, while the U.S. has already flown most of the unmanned probes to the Moon that were proposed in 2004, the Russian program had not yet gotten off the ground.
Bake sales without the sweets
We’re here to help you: School bake sales will have to stop including baked cakes because of new federal regulations imposed by Michelle Obama’s nutrition program.
Ebola patient arrives in U.S.
Doctors in charge of the specialized isolation unit for treating dangerous infectious diseases are confident that they will be able to treat the infected patients safely without the disease escaping.
I have complete confidence that a well run facility like this, with modern technology, could keep the disease isolated. The key words, however, are “well run.” I pray that this description still applies to Emory University Hospital.
The Putin government moves to take control of Energia
Vitaly Lopota, the president of Russia’s largest space company Energia, was suspended Friday by the company’s board of directors.
The move appears to be part of an effort by Russia’s government to obtain majority control over Energia, of which it owns a 38-percent share. The directors elected Igor Komarov as its new chairman of the board. Komarov is chief of the Russian United Rocket and Space Corporation (URSC), the government-owned company tasked with consolidating Russia’s sprawling space sector.
The government is also conducting a criminal investigation of Lopota, which might be justified but to me nonetheless appears to be a power play designed to both eliminate him from the game as well as make sure everyone else toes the line so that URSC can take complete control.
Netanyahu tells off the Obama administration
In a phone conversation with the U.S. Israeli ambassador, Benjamin Netanyahu bluntly told the Obama administration to never “second-guess me again.”
The sources also say that Netanyahu said something quite similar to US Secretary of State John Kerry, who had tried and failed to broker a ceasefire that would have given Hamas everything it wanted.
See also this article, which notes how the Obama administration has not only antagonized Israel by its bumbling, it has also pissed off the moderate Arab world, which apparently does not support Hamas and has been backing Israel in its effort to neuter it.
Democratic Party law professor made a fool of at House IRS hearings today
A law professor brought before a House committee today by the Democrats to argue against appointing a special prosecutor in the IRS scandal was made to look ridiculous when he couldn’t answer the most basic legal questions in connection with the concept of conflict of interest.
The article describes Congressman Trey Gowdy’s (R-South Carolina) questioning quite well, but you should still watch the video below the fold. It reveals how blindly partisan today’s Democrats have become, willing to defend this IRS harassment of their political opponents under all circumstances, no matter how stupid and corrupt it makes them look.
» Read more
Obamacare increases Florida insurance premiums
Finding out what’s in it: Florida citizens will see massive hikes in their healthcare premiums in 2015 because of Obamacare.
These hikes will also be accompanied by narrower networks and poorer service. Ain’t Obamacare grand?
EPA funnels cash to Democrats
Working for the Democratic Party: A new report finds that the EPA has been directly funneling government funds to Democratic activists in the environmental movement.
Obamacare continues force premiums to skyrocket.
Finding out what’s in it. Premiums continue to rise, and numerous insurance policies continue to be cancelled, all because of Obamacare.
Writing in Forbes, Manhattan Institute health-policy analyst and NRO contributor Avik Roy discovered that in 3,137 of America’s 3,144 counties, Obamacare has hiked 2014 individual-market premiums by an average of 49 percent. Women saw rates increase in 82 percent of U.S. counties, while they rose in 91 percent of counties for men. Although some have benefited from Obamacare’s subsidies, Roy writes, “Those who face higher premiums, higher taxes, or both, appear to outnumber those whom the law has made better off. That alone isn’t a test of the law’s virtue — but it is a measure of the law’s failed promise.”
The article also describes the cancellation of insurance policies in numerous states, despite Obama’s oft-repeated promise that “if you like your plan you can keep your plan. Period.”
The Feds steal cars
Theft by government: Homeland Security agents confiscate forty vehicles because they think they violate the Clean Air Act.
The story has this very interesting tidbit: According to the owner of one vehicle “had spent considerable money ensuring her vehicle would pass inspection laws and that it was in compliance with emission rules.” Nonetheless, the feds showed up at her door and took the vehicle.
Mom arrested for teaching her son independence and self-reliance
Insanity: A mother has been arrested because she let her 7-year-old son walk alone about ten blocks to a neighborhood park.
The boy had a cell phone which he had just used to check in with his mother.
When I was seven I wandered all over my neighborhood in Brooklyn. In fact, when I was 4 to 6 my parents would rent a bungalow in a resort in the Catskills each summer. There, I would wander the countryside every day completely on my own. The resort, called a bungalow colony, was not fancy and did not really have any organized activities for the kids. We were free to explore, and would go miles in all directions into the nearby farm fields and woods. Interestingly, we knew our limits and always stayed within them.
But that was then, when this culture was free and believed in freedom and teaching independence and self-reliance to its young. Now, such ideas are considered evil and must be squelched.
CIA admits it hacked the Senate’s computers
These people should be fired, then imprisoned: The CIA today admitted that illegally hacked into the Senate’s computer system.
Oh wait, I have a better idea! Let’s put them in charge of our healthcare and patrolling the borders and our tax system and space exploration and climate research and any number of other important issues of the day in which we need honesty, ethics, reliability, and competence!
Mangement failures in Obamacare
Finding out what’s not in it: A new GAO report cites epic management incompetence in the Obama administration that caused the disastrous Obamacare website failure.
Among the issues, investigators found that the administration kept changing the contractors’ marching orders for the HealthCare.gov website, creating widespread confusion and adding tens of millions of dollars in costs. Changes were ordered seemingly willy-nilly, including 40 times when government officials did not have the initial authority to incur additional costs.
As a result, the government has spent $840 million on Healthcare.gov and its supporting systems, according to the report.
As I’ve said repeatedly, when you ask the equivalent of the Department of Motor Vehicles to run one-sixth of the U.S. economy, you are guaranteeing this kind of failure. Worse, it is not as if this hasn’t happened before. We have had plenty of experience with failed and bungled government operations in the past four decades. Why do we then demand that we entrust more of our lives to their control?
As Albert Einstein wisely noted, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
New emails reveal Lois Lerner’s hatred of conservatives
Working for the Democratic Party: In newly revealed emails, Lois Lerner refers to Obama’s conservative opponents as “–holes” and “terRorists”.
In that Nov. 9, 2012 email, Lerner further suggests that conservatives will ruin the country: “So we don’t need to worry about alien teRrorists (sic). It’s our own crazies that will take us down,” she wrote.
The evidence also shows that Lerner used her private email account to conduct official IRS business, while also clearly favoring liberal organizations.
I wonder what we would find if those lost emails could turn up?
Congress restores most VA bonuses
After the House voted 421-0 in June to eliminate all bonuses at the Veterans Administration in response to the scandals there, a compromise bill with the Senate has restored most of those bonuses.
The compromise bill announced Monday by the chairmen of the House and Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committees says VA bonuses will be capped at $360 million annually for the next ten years. But that cap is just 10 percent below the $400 million in bonuses the VA has distributed in recent fiscal years, and will allow up to $3.6 billion in bonuses to be awarded over the next decade.
“In each of fiscal years 2015 through 2024, the Secretary of Veterans Affairs shall ensure that the aggregate amount of awards and bonuses paid by the Secretary in a fiscal year… does not exceed $360,000,000,” the bill says. A description of the bill adds that members expect the VA to implement this cap in a way that does not “disproportionately impact lower-wage employees,” although the legislation itself does not include any restriction on how to award the money.
More evidence that our elected officials don’t represent us, but the employees of the government instead.