Tag: politics

Another law, another squelched dream

9:28 am

Surprise, surprise! Virgin Galactic space tourists could be grounded by federal regulations.

Virgin Galactic submitted an application to the FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation in late August 2013, says Attenborough. The office, which goes by the acronym AST, has six months to review the application, meaning an approval may come as early as February. Industry experts, however, say that may be an overly optimistic projection. “An application will inevitably be approved, but it definitely remains uncertain exactly when it will happen,” says Dirk Gibson, an associate professor of communication at the University of New Mexico and author of multiple books on space tourism. “This is extremely dangerous and unchartered territory. It’s space travel. AST has to be very prudent,” he says. “They don’t want to endanger the space-farers or the public, and they can’t let the industry get started and then have a Titanic-like scenario that puts an end to it all in the eyes of the public.” [emphasis mine]

As I predicted ten years ago, the 2004 revision to the Commercial Space Act puts bureaucrats in charge of the exploration of space by private citizens, a fact that can have no good consequences.
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“You can literally just open up your browser, go to this, and extract all this information without actually having to hack the website itself.”

11:49 am

“You can literally just open up your browser, go to this, and extract all this information without actually having to hack the website itself.”

Guess which website. And guess what personal and confidential information he is extracting.

Aren’t you glad the Democrats and Barack Obama built it for you?

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A comparison between reality and the predictions of global warming scientists from 1988 reveals an epic fail.

9:32 am

The uncertainty of science: A comparison between reality and the predictions of global warming scientists from 1988 reveals an epic fail.

Look especially at the charts at the link. While carbon dioxide emissions increased at a higher rate than predicted, the global temperature — predicted to increase from 2 to 5 degrees Fahrenheit — has instead remained completely flat.

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A cancer patient discovers at the last minute that she can’t keep her doctor or get treatment, because of Obamacare.

9:18 am

Repeal the damn law! A cancer patient discovers that she can’t keep her doctor or even get treatment, because of Obamacare.

I realize I am a racist and a terrorist for repeatedly demanding that Obamacare get repealed, but unlike the Democrats and President Obama — who are willing to defend this law under all conditions — I don’t like it when innocent people die because of some stupid regulations imposed on them by self-righteous elites who really don’t know what they are doing.

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An interview with Scott Walker.

10:22 am

An interview with Scott Walker.

Lots of interesting information about the Wisconsin governor, who so far looks to me to be the best candidate, from either party, for President in 2016. The key paragraphs, however, are those that describe the violent threats made against himself, his wife, and his children by his Democratic and union opponents.

The protestors would shout me down; they would shout down lawmakers at events. They would not allow people to speak. It eventually got to the point where I and even some of our Senate Republicans in particular got death threats. I got threats against me probably a stack high from the ground. As I point out in my book “Unintimidated,” we had one of the most egregious ones, one that I got right before I went into a press conference. It was directed actually at my wife, pointing out that a governor had never been assassinated before in Wisconsin, but that she should start paying attention and that they not only were going to target me, but maybe they’d start thinking about my kids. It talked about where my kids went to school at the time, it talked about where my wife works, where my father-in-law lives, and where my parents were at. There was another one that talked about threatening to gut my wife like a deer. My kids were targeted on Facebook. There were just all sorts of horrible things.

Ain’t it nice how Obama came out so strongly to condemn this ugliness in Wisconsin when it occurred? You say he didn’t? I am shocked, shocked!

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Higher premiums, less generous coverage, and more paperwork!

9:34 am

Obamacare for small businesses: Higher premiums, less generous coverage, and more paperwork!

As the writer at the link adds, “What’s not to like?”

Aren’t you glad the Democrats have stood firm for this law, through thick and thin, even forcing a government shutdown to prevent even a minor change to it? And doesn’t it warm your heart that there are rumors that the Republican leadership is considering backing off its push to have the law repealed?

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“If guns cause more violence, where’s the exploding crime rate?”

9:29 am

“If guns cause more violence, where’s the exploding crime rate?”

The gun control lobby has been claiming for years that the more guns in private hands, the more gun violence we’ll see; the perennial hyperventilation is given to fears of a kind of Wild West America of lawless anarchy, wherein every gun owner is prepared to shoot from the hip at the first sign of danger.

Well. Last year the Department of Justice released a report revealing that firearm homicides declined nearly 40% between 1993 and 2011, and nonfatal firearm injuries declined nearly 70% within the same time period. Every year since 2002 has seen a rise in the number of NICS background checks performed, yet in 2011 the firearm homicide rate was lower than it was in 2002; in fact, all firearm violence, both fatal and nonfatal, was lower the former year than the latter.

You cannot negotiate the facts. They are what they are.

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The man who was forced by police to undergo multiple invasive surgeries after a traffic stop — and billed for the abuse after nothing illegal was found – has won a $1.6 million legal settlement with New Mexico local authorities.

9:16 am

Pushback: The man who was forced by police to undergo multiple invasive surgeries after a traffic stop — and billed for the abuse after nothing illegal was found –- has won a $1.6 million legal settlement with New Mexico local authorities.

He is also suing the hospital involved. I hope he wins millions more.

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“I think it was a sham from the beginning.”

11:22 pm

“I think it was a sham from the beginning.”

And what might that sham be? If your first thought is of the Obama administration’s investigation into the IRS scandal, you’d be right on the money!

The Obama administration closed the investigation without interviewing any of the victims of the harassment by the IRS.

Meanwhile, the administration as well as the Democrats in Congress are working hard to codify that harassment, so that the IRS can continue to work for the Democratic Party through the 2014 election.

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The operators of campgrounds in the national forests are suing the Obama administration, saying it had no right to force them to close down during last October’s government shutdown.

1:38 pm

The operators of campgrounds in the national forests are suing the Obama administration, saying it had no right to force them to close down during last October’s government shutdown.

The suit, which was filed in October, claims that the campgrounds and recreation areas should have been allowed to remain open because they don’t rely upon the federal government for funding and that private staff could have safely managed the sites. The group says the Forest Service carried out what it described as politically driven orders from the Obama administration, costing businesses hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost revenue.

There’s also this revealing quote from the article:

Ms Reese said she cannot understand why her members had to close up shop for much of the shutdown but other private operators on forest land — including several resorts — got a reprieve. “The frustrating part is that the campgrounds were closed, just the camp grounds, and not resorts or marinas,” she said.

Gee, isn’t this an example of the Obama administration abusing its power to hurt innocent citizens because it can’t get what it wants? And isn’t it kinda similar to what was done by Chris Christie’s underlings in New Jersey that has the mainstream press going into a wild-eye snit? I wonder, for what reason could the press have so little interest in this similar example of government abuse-of-power?

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In a House hearing today, cybersecurity experts once again warned that the Obamacare website is not secure, and that the Obama administration is doing nothing to fix it.

11:42 am

In a House hearing today, cybersecurity experts once again warned that the Obamacare website is not secure, and that the Obama administration is doing nothing to fix it.

“The site is fundamentally flawed in ways that make it dangerous to people who use it,” Kevin Johnson, one of the experts who reviewed Kennedy’s findings, told Reuters. Johnson said one of the most troubling issues was that a hacker could upload malicious code to the site, then attack other HealthCare.gov users. “You can take control of their computers,” said Johnson, chief executive officer of a firm known as Secure Ideas. [emphasis mine]

But hey, not to worry. If it’s the Spanish language version you won’t understand anything anyway!

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UN climate chief this week declared that communism is the best way to fight global warming.

11:36 am

Honesty! The UN climate chief this week declared that communism is the best way to fight global warming.

United Nations climate chief Christiana Figueres said that democracy is a poor political system for fighting global warming. Communist China, she says, is the best model. China may be the world’s top emitter of carbon dioxide and struggling with major pollution problems of their own, but the country is “doing it right” when it comes to fighting global warming says Figueres. “They actually want to breathe air that they don’t have to look at,” she said. “They’re not doing this because they want to save the planet. They’re doing it because it’s in their national interest.”

Putting aside the minor detail that communist states have routinely had the worst environmental record — “ghastly” as the article above accurately notes — this statement by Figueres is remarkably refreshing in that might be the first time an environmentalist has admitted the movement’s true agenda. They don’t want to save the environment, they want to gain power and then use it to squelch everyone else’s freedom.

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NASA’s first test flight of both the Orion capsule and the heavy-lift SLS rocket in 2017 might be delayed because of design problems with the European-built service module.

9:29 am

I am shocked, shocked! NASA’s first test flight of both the Orion capsule and the heavy-lift SLS rocket in 2017 might be delayed because of design problems with the European-built service module.

Overweight and struggling with design delays, the European-built service module for the Orion crew exploration vehicle may not be ready for a much-anticipated test flight by the end of 2017. The preliminary design review for the Orion spacecraft’s critical engine and power element is now on track for May after a six-month delay to contend with weight issues, according to Thomas Reiter, director of the European Space Agency’s human spaceflight and operations programs.

I am willing to bet that SpaceX will put astronauts in space on Dragonrider before this unmanned SLS flight occurs.

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The Obama administration now harasses the military chaplain who sued them because of their actions during the government shutdown.

1:36 pm

The Obama administration now harasses the military chaplain who sued them because of their actions during the government shutdown.

Father Ray Leonard, the Catholic Navy Chaplain who sued the Department of Defense and the Navy after he was barred from celebrating Mass at Kings Bay Naval Submarine Base in Georgia during the recent the Government shutdown, is now the target of Government retaliation even though the Department of Justice indicated the day after the lawsuit was filed that he could resume his duties as a Navy Chaplain.

The retaliation involves repeated Government assertions that the employment contract under which Father Leonard was working is no longer “valid”, demands that he must sign a new contract containing several pages of onerous new terms if he wants to be paid and refusals to pay for services he had already performed.

I probably have posted an example of this kind of harassment by the Obama administration against innocent citizens about once per day for the past year. And as I said earlier today, the abuse of power by this Democratic administration makes Chris Christie look like a amateur.

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Jimmy Kimmel savages Obamacare and ignorant young who support it.

10:05 am

Jimmy Kimmel savages Obamacare and ignorant young who support it.

Read and watch it all. Quite entertaining, in a painful sort of way.

The article also notes that while young people should surely be criticized for their blind faith in Obama and the Democrats, the media is as much to blame.

Without question, if America’s media had behaved responsibly in 2009 and 2010, the calls and emails to Congress opposing this legislation would have been so voluminous it never would have passed.

But instead, with the exception of the conservative outlets, America’s media were 100 percent behind this legislation, aiding and abetting the President and his Party to enact something that virtually all late night comics agree is a total joke.

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Why the sequester had to die.

9:43 am

Why the sequester had to die.

It worked.

It did not work perfectly, and it did not balance the budget or put us on course for a balanced budget. But it did play a critical role in nudging the deficit away from “catastrophic existential threat” territory and toward “terrifying money-suck.” It did this in part by forcing Republicans to accept cuts in military spending, which they are not normally much inclined to do. (It goes without saying that the Democrats are categorically hostile to spending reductions.) Because we cannot rely for very long upon the better angels of congressional nature, these statutory limits are always destined to be short-lived, which should be of some concern to us: Experience shows that when Congress agrees to a budget-control deal, the first thing it does is begin looking for opportunities to undermine that deal.

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A House investigation has found that the Obama administration acted to make the sequestration cuts as “painful as possible” for rural schools.

11:27 pm

A House investigation has found that the Obama administration acted to make the sequestration cuts as “painful as possible” for rural schools.

I have made no excuses for Chris Christie and the abuse his underlings heaped out in New Jersey against innocent citizens. It was wrong, and it makes me much less likely to support Christie in future campaigns. At the same time, it is also important to note that this one event pales in comparison to the number of similar abuse-of-power stories I’ve noted coming from the Obama administration. When it comes to improperly using the power of government to hurt innocent citizens, Obama and his underlings make Christie look like an amateur.

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The House is about to vote on a trillion dollar spending bill that no one has really read.

7:41 pm

This sums it up: The House is about to vote on a trillion dollar spending bill that no one has really read.

It might include some specific cuts, but in general this budget plan is a surrender to more spending.

The only real solution to this madness, however, really rests with the voters. The spenders in both parties have to be fired, and the only way to do that is to fire them. Sadly, I see no sign of that happening in the hardcore Democratic states such as New York, California, and Illinois, to name just a few. There, the voters are so partisan that they’d rather die than vote for a Republican. And die they will.

Among Republican voters at least there is pressure from the right to spend less. To make it effective, however, the voters still have to do some firing, as far too many Republicans elected officials are willing to go along to get along.

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A federal court has thrown out the net neutrality rules imposed by Obama’s FCC appointees, stating that the commission had overstepped its authority.

10:22 am

The law is such an inconvenient thing: A federal court has thrown out the net neutrality rules imposed by Obama’s FCC appointees, stating that the commission had overstepped its authority.

Have you noticed how the left always comes up for these meaningless terms — “net neutrality”, “single payer”, etc — any time they want to expand their power over our lives?

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Another innocent patient, having lost his insurance due to Obamacare, is now threatened with death.

9:06 am

Finding out what’s not in it: Another innocent patient, having lost his insurance due to Obamacare, is now threatened with death.

I cannot be more accurate. Read the story. The man is not getting treated because his policy was cancelled because of Obamacare.

Thank you Obama and the Democrats. I am so glad you care.

And there’s this horrible story of a disabled family now out of luck: “We did not put ourselves in this situation,” she told The Daily Caller. “The government put us in this situation.”

And we have only just begun. Stay tuned from more horror stories as Obamacare spreads its wings over the entire healthcare industry this year.

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“Over the weekend, it seems as though the national media finally figured out what most ObamaCare critics have predicted all along.”

12:43 pm

“Over the weekend, it seems as though the national media finally figured out what most ObamaCare critics have predicted all along.”

And what did these giants of intellectual thought finally figure out? They discovered, as conservatives have been trying to explain for four goddamn years, that Obamacare is a insane mess, it doesn’t work, it is raising costs, it is preventing people from getting health insurance, and it should never have been passed in the first place.

What a shock!

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The Spanish language Obamacare website is unreadable to Spanish speakers.

9:27 am

Incompetence beyond belief: The Spanish language Obamacare website is unreadable to Spanish speakers.

The site, CuidadoDeSalud.gov, launched more than two months late. A Web page with Spanish instructions linked users to an English form. And the translations were so clunky and full of grammatical mistakes that critics say they must have been computer-generated — the name of the site itself can literally be read “for the caution of health.”

“When you get into the details of the plans, it’s not all written in Spanish. It’s written in Spanglish, so we end up having to translate it for them,” said Adrian Madriz, a health care navigator who helps with enrollment in Miami. [emphasis mine]

I normal expect the government to do a poor job in most things, but this level of idiocy astonishes even me. For example,

As for the language, Plaza, the New Mexico professor, said a recent examination by her research students concluded that the translations were done “by a computer-generated process” and came across as awkward.

“There are problems with the verbs and word order that make sentences hard to understand,” said Plaza, who helped develop an audio version to help residents in New Mexico sign up. “Sometimes,” she added, “it’s just the terms they use.”

The website translates “premium” into “prima,” but that Spanish word is more commonly used to mean a female cousin, Plaza said. A more accurate translation, she said, would be “cuotas,” ”couta mensual” or “costo annual.”

It is a good thing the Democrats have demanded Obamacare go into effect right away, as they are also the ones in charge of implementing it.

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Seven months after the IRS scandal broke, the FBI has finally contacted some of the conservative groups that were harassed by the tax agency.

10:13 am

Seven months after the IRS scandal broke, the FBI has finally contacted some of the conservative groups that were harassed by the tax agency.

“After seven months of no contact from federal investigators, a small number of our clients recently received a request for an interview from the FBI,” said Jay Sekulow, chief counsel for the American Center for Law & Justice, which represents more than three dozen groups.

He said the clients were evaluating FBI’s request but were troubled by the revelation of Ms. Bosserman’s political leanings. “This development creates a serious conflict of interest and raises more questions and doubts about the Obama administration’s promise to get to the bottom of what happened,” he said.

The last paragraph refers to the fact that Barbara Bosserman, the person named by Obama to lead the FBI investigation, is also a big time donor to Obama’s campaign. The conservative groups have very legitimate reasons not to want to talk to the FBI under these circumstances, as anything they say might instead be used against them by this very partisan use of government power.

We must once again contrast how Obama has dealt with this admitted misuse of government power with that of Chris Christie. Tells us a great deal about Obama, doesn’t it?

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One health insurance company has now announced that the mix of old/sick and young/healthy buying insurance under Obamacare is far worse than expected.

10:01 am

Repeal the damn law! One health insurance company has now announced that the mix of old/sick and young/healthy buying insurance under Obamacare is far worse than expected.

In other words, the only way the company can make a profit is to raise its premiums so high — in order to pay for the costs of its mostly sick customer base — that no one will be able to afford to buy the insurance.

But then, none of this is a surprise to conservatives. You can’t outlaw Adam Smith’s laws of economics, as Obamacare tries to do. All that will happen is that you will distort the market enough to destroy any businesses in it. Just ask anyone who lived in the communist bloc in the 20th century.

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