Tag: politics

The Astros remove a picture of a Colt revolver from their original baseball jerseys.

4:11 pm

Stupidity: The baseball Astros have been forced by league officials to remove the picture of a Colt revolver from their original baseball jerseys.

[Major League Baseball] gave the okay to the uniform, which the Astros will wear to kick off a season of throwbacks commemorating the 50th anniversary of the club. It nixed the pistol on the uniform in an era when guns are a sensitive issue, according to an Astros official.

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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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A new poll show that Obamacare continues to be a major political problem for Obama.

9:37 am

Surprise, surprise! A new poll shows that Obamacare continues to be a major political problem for Obama, and Romney.

In the poll, Obama lags the two leading Republican rivals in the 12 states likely to determine the outcome of a close race in November:

  • Former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum tops Obama 50%-45% in the swing states. Nationwide, Santorum’s lead narrows to 49%-46%.
  • Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney edges Obama 48%-46% in the swing states. Nationwide, they are tied at 47% each.

Romney also has a health care problem: Among Republicans and Republican-leaning independents in the battleground states, 27% say they are less likely to support him because he signed a Massachusetts law that required residents to have coverage. Just 7% say it makes them more likely to back him.

At least Romney has made it clear he intends to repeal Obamacare, which should help him in the election should he overcome the Republican hostility to RomneyCare and become the Republican candidate. For Obama, however, there is no escape. Obamacare is his problem, and his alone, and he is likely going to go down in flames because of it more than anything else.

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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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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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The Great Gibson Guitar Raid … Months later, still no charges

3:24 pm

The abuse of power: Months after its raid and confiscation of a half a million dollars worth of property from Gibson Guitars, the Obama Justice Department has still not filed any charges.

Reason.tv recently checked in with Gibson CEO Henry Juszkiewicz to see how the case has progressed. Turns out, the DOJ has filed no charges. That means Gibson hasn’t had its day in court to defend itself — and the government still has all that confiscated property.

Are we beginning to sense a pattern here with this administration and how it treats the citizens of the United States?

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Fifteen questions the press would ask Barack Obama if he were a Republican

1:36 pm

Fifteen questions the press would ask Barack Obama if he were a Republican.

I especially like the last three:

13) Why should the American people reelect you when your 10 year budget saddles America with more debt than all previous Presidents combined?

14) Your stimulus bill cost more in real dollars than the moon landing and the interstate highway system combined. Many prominent economists have concluded the stimulus plan was a total failure. What do we have to show for all of that money spent?

15) Members of your administration promised that the trillion dollar stimulus would keep unemployment under 8 percent. Instead, we’ve had 35+ months of 8% and above unemployment. Doesn’t that mean we wasted a trillion dollars on nothing?

These, as well as the other 12 questions, are all perfectly reasonable and are exactly the kinds of questions any good journalist would be itching to ask any elected official with the disastrous track record that Barack Obama has. Unfortunately, we don’t have very many good journalists in the White House press corp or on the major television/cable networks. Instead, what we have are “former” Democratic Party operatives like George Stephanopoulos, disguised as journalists whose only goal is to make Republicans look bad so that Democrats can get elected.

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A federal judge has struck down a Washington state law that required pharmacists to sell contraceptives

9:14 am

A federal judge has struck down a Washington state law that required pharmacists to sell contraceptives.

In his 48-page opinion, [the judge] noted that Washington permitted pharmacy owners to decide they won’t stock certain medications for any number of “secular reasons” – because they drugs are expensive, for example, or inconvenient to dispense, or because they simply don’t fit into the store’s business plan. Yet the rule did not allow pharmacists to assert a religious reason for keeping certain drugs off their shelves. “A pharmacy is permitted to refuse to stock oxycodone because it fears robbery, but the same pharmacy cannot refuse to stock Plan B because it objects on religious grounds,” the judge wrote. “Why are these reasons treated differently under the rules?” The judge also accused the state of enforcing the mandate selectively, noting that regulators had not opened cases against the many Catholic-affiliated pharmacies in the state that also refuse to dispense Plan B.

I would not be at all surprised if we find that Obama’s contraceptive mandate carries with it the same type of selective enforcement.

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A fourteen year old girl has been swamped with death threats after testifying before the Maryland state legislature in opposition to gay marriage.

1:39 pm

Leftwing civility: A fourteen year old girl has been swamped with death threats after testifying before the Maryland state legislature in opposition to gay marriage. A handful of examples:

  • “And now everyone knows her name, so hopefully she will feel what its like to be harassed and bullied…” reads a comment posted on LGBTNation.com
  • From YouTube: “My god I hate people like this. Most (not all) Americans are [expletive] retards. If I ever see this girl, I will kill her. That’s a promise.”
  • Other entries: “Her parents should be exterminated.”
  • “The [sic] is why abortion must stay legal – to prevent little bigots like this from being Born…”
  • “Kill this child and his [sic] parent, for my 11 birthday would be a wonderful gift, thanks.”

The issue here is not gay marriage, but the threatening, hateful behavior of too many of those who support it. She speaks out in disagreement, and the response isn’t to debate the point but to try to shut her up, in any way possible.

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Obama’s war on religious liberty

8:21 am

Obama’s war on religious liberty.

I would simply say that this is a war on liberty. You take away someone’s freedom to pray or practice their religion as they wish, you also take away their liberty. And if you can take their liberty, you can take anyone’s. For those who like the idea of forcing every insurance company and private institution to provide contraceptives, remember, if this administration gains that power, future administrations will have that power as well. And there is no guarantee that those future administrations will impose policies you agree with. To paraphase an old quote, “First they came for the Catholics, and I did nothing, because I wasn’t a Catholic…”

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A new study in China has found that electric cars are more harmful to public health per kilometer traveled than conventional vehicles.

2:20 pm

Surprise, surprise! A new study in China has found that electric cars are more harmful to public health per kilometer traveled than conventional vehicles.

The problem here isn’t the effort to develop electric cars in the hope they can reduce pollution. The problem is that our government is imposing its preference, prior to anyone finding out if this technology can actually do the job.

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Catholic, Lutheran, Baptist and Jewish leaders all testified at a Congressional hearing today that they would go to prison rather than obey the Obamacare mandates being imposed by the Obama administration.

2:05 pm

Catholic, Lutheran, Baptist and Jewish leaders all testified at a Congressional hearing today that they would go to prison rather than obey the Obamacare mandates being imposed by the Obama administration. Key reaction from one Congressman:

“Well, just so everybody understands what is going to happen: These guys are either going to go to jail because they won’t violate their religious beliefs, or the hospitals and the schools are going to close, which means governemnt is going to get bigger, because they’re going to have to fill the void that is left when you guys quit doing it. And maybe that’s what [the Obama administration] wanted all along.”

When did we become a nation where government officials can order anyone to do anything, even if that order contradicts a person’s personal religious beliefs? And if you are a Democrat and don’t mind Obama’s orders because you agree with them, just remember that the Democrats are not going to be in power forever. Do you want a conservative Republican to have that same power?

In a free society, no politician should ever have such power. It is essential that everyone stand up against this attack on freedom. And it is even more important that these thugs be removed from office as soon as possible.

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The manslaughter trial of six scientists and one government official continued yesterday in Italy over their reassurances to the public prior to a deadly earthquake in 2009.

1:53 pm

The manslaughter trial of six scientists and one government official continued yesterday in Italy over their reassurances to the public prior to a deadly earthquake in 2009.

Guido Bertolaso, former head of the Department of Civil Protection and De Bernardinis’s direct superior, had not been indicted and was originally expected to appear as a witness. But a few weeks ago a wiretap revealed that he had apparently set up the meeting to convey a reassuring message, regardless of the scientists’ opinion. He also seemed to be the source of the “discharge of energy” statement. He thus found himself under investigation and, at the beginning of the hearing, he was officially notified that he too may soon be formally indicted for manslaughter.

Bertolaso was asked by the prosecutor to explain that telephone conversation. He defended himself by saying that by defining the meeting as a “media move”, he was not trying to downplay risks but rather to put some order into the contradictory information that was reaching the citizens in those days. In particular, he referred to Giampaolo Giuliani — a laboratory technician and amateur seismologist who was alarming the population with claims that a major shock was coming — and to a newspaper article that had misquoted some Civil Protection experts and stated that the shocks would soon be over. The meeting, he said, was meant to make clear that both were wrong and that no deterministic prediction could be made. [emphasis mine]

This increasingly appears to be another case of science being corrupted by politics.

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Obama administration has decided that volunteering will work to forgive a student loan, as long as that volunteer work is not for a religious organization

8:52 am

Obama administration has decided that volunteering will work to forgive a student loan — as per the law that Congress passed — as long as that volunteer work is not for a religious organization.

Congress created the loan forgiveness program in 2007 to encourage graduates to enter the public service field. In exchange for that service, the remaining balance of student loans would be considered repaid after 120 full payments.

To qualify for the loan forgiveness, one must now work for a federal, state or local government agency or organization, including public water, bridge or housing districts, or nonprofit organizations designated as tax exempt by the Internal Revenue Service.

More and more, it is obvious that this administration and those who support it are hostile to religion (except for Islam), hostile to freedom, and focused on gathering all power and control to the federal government.

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Detroit: the triumph of progressive public policy.

10:21 am

Detroit: the triumph of progressive public policy.

Imagine a city where all the major economic planks of the statist or “progressive” platform have been enacted:

  • A “living wage” ordinance, far above the federal minimum wage, for all public employees and private contractors.
  • A school system that spends significantly more per pupil than the national average.
  • A powerful school employee union that militantly defends the exceptional pay, benefits and job security it has won for its members.
  • Other government employee unions that do the same for their members.
  • A tax system that aggressively redistributes income from businesses and the wealthy to the poor and to government bureaucracies.

Would this be a shining city on a hill, exciting the admiration of all? We don’t have to guess, because there is such a city right here in our state: Detroit.

Read the above article and then compare it to this essay: A thought experiment: Imagining the Republican majority in the House in complete control of Washington.

The contrasts are most illuminating.

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The volume of U.S. air traffic hit a ten year low last year.

10:11 am

The volume of U.S. air traffic hit a ten year low last year.

Though the state of the economy has a lot to do with this, another factor are the millions of travelers like myself who now choose to drive rather than fly to avoid TSA abuse and unreasonable baggage fees. The airlines themselves have to got stop doing things that hurt their customers and instead back those customers to the hilt, even if it means challenging the federal government’s efforts to control air travel.

And in a related story: TSA screeners force a woman to go through the body scanner three times after telling her she had a “cute” figure.

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Great Scott

10:33 pm

Great Scott.

Meanwhile, the results of the changes began coming in. In Milwaukee, the reforms saved some $11 million, an embarrassing windfall for Democratic mayor Tom Barrett, who had predicted that the city’s structural deficit would “explode.” Localities across the state have seen similar savings. There is no disputing the central fact of Walker’s tenure as governor: His reforms are working.

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A thought experiment: Imagining the Republican majority in the House ran things in Washington.

9:13 am

A thought experiment: Imagining the Republican majority in the House in complete control of Washington.

This is not an altogether quixotic exercise. A thorough review of roll-call votes cast since the 2010 electoral upheaval allows us to approximate the world view that guides the 243-member House Republican caucus. … It would: repeal Obamacare; place a firm limit on how much in taxes Washington can take from our paychecks; require federal bureaucracies to think before they regulate; restore considerable authority and decision-making power to state governments; and alter the structural DNA of two of the Big Three entitlement programs — Medicare and Medicaid. (Fundamental overhaul of Social Security, it seems, will have to wait.).

In a nutshell, the GOP House agenda would place the federal government on a fiscally sustainable path without eviscerating national security. America would reclaim its status as one of the freest and most opportunity-laden economies in the world. There would be real and enforceable limits on the power of the federal government. And our ability to defend America’s interests around the world would be robust and enduring.

Read the whole thing, especially if you have doubts about what a Republican Congress and President might do. Even if you disagree with many conservative goals, nothing described here is unreasonable, and all of it seems necessary, considering the bankrupt state of the federal government.

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The reaction from religious organizations to Obama’s proposed heathcare rule compromise:

4:45 pm

The reaction from religious organizations to Obama’s proposed heathcare rule compromise has not been good.

It is an attempt to deal with a matter of religious conviction with an accounting gimmick,

And this:

“The President’s statement today is an insulting affront illustrating a basic lack of understanding that this issue will not be solved by sleight-of-hand word games.

Similarly, the insurance companies have their own objections.

What must be noted is that the language of Obamacare is so flawed that it basically puts us in a situation where one man, Barack Obama, can simply dictate policy hither and yon, based merely on political expediency. Such a situation makes this a country ruled by the opinions of men rather than by the rule of carefully worded law.

The sooner we repeal this horrible legislation the better.

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