MORE SCANDALS: New Secret Service scandal centers on strippers, prostitutes in El Salvador. “Although our source says he told the agents it was a ‘really bad idea’ to take the strippers back to their hotel rooms, several agents bragged that they ‘did this all the time’ and ‘not to worry about it.'”
Archive for 2012
April 26, 2012
CHANGE: Americans Increasingly In Favor of Gay Marriage, Gun Rights.
So when I said, back in 2004, that “Personally, I’d be delighted to live in a country where happily married gay couples had closets full of assault weapons,” I was just ahead of the curve!
BITTER: NYT’s Mark Bittman comes to Madison to talk about food and greenness… and insults Scott Walker. “What exactly is ‘rightfully ours’ here? Bittman isn’t a Wisconsin voter, and Wisconsin voters elected Scott Walker (and the Republican legislature, which keeps forwarding him signable bills). But there’s some governmental role he wants, to make corporations ‘behave’? What’s the misbehavior — selling food that people choose to buy? What discipline does he have in mind?” Anything his little totalitarian soul can dream up. Plus, correcting his deficient arithmetical skills.
From the comments: “It must be hard living in a free country when your fantasies revolve around controlling other people’s behavior.”
THE STATEMENT ISN’T THE ISSUE — IT’S WHAT IT REVEALED: EPA official apologizes for ‘crucify’ the oil and gas producers comments. The “apology” doesn’t change that.
CHANGE: Liberal Media Mock Obama for Faux Campaign. “High-profile Washington reporters engaged in a line of questioning on Twitter today that seems to indicate that even staunch supporters of the president think that the use of taxpayer funds for campaign trips is getting out of hand.”
CORRUPTION IN L.A. GOVERNMENT? Ex-appraiser says he cut values in hopes of donations to assessor. “A former county appraiser who secretly and improperly slashed tens of millions of dollars from the taxable values of Westside properties in late 2010 said he did it in the hope that wealthy homeowners receiving the reductions would contribute money to Los Angeles County Assessor John Noguez.”
And now: Raids in 2 states expand corruption probe of L.A. County assessor. “Boxes of evidence are taken from the home of Assessor John Noguez, who is the focus of an influence-peddling probe. The Phoenix-area home of a campaign donor who has secured large tax reductions for clients is also raided.”
Background here.
MORE RESULTS FROM OUR POLITICO-MEDIA LEADERS’ CAMPAIGN OF RACIAL INCITEMENT: 2 charged in Oak Park beating motivated by Trayvon Martin killing, official says. How many people might have been spared if the press had reported accurately, and non-sensationally, and had avoided deliberate falshehood in covering this case?
Given the irresponsibility — and downright evil — displayed by our political and media “elites” in this matter, why should we trust their judgment on, well, anything?
TOM MAGUIRE ON what is, and isn’t, news.
NO, YOU CEASE AND DESIST. Also you’re ugly, and your momma dresses you funny.
AT AMAZON, up to 70% off on watches.
Also, today only: Optoma Playtime LED Gaming Projector with HDMI, $159.99.
LEGAL EDUCATION UPDATE: Former Law Dean Nancy Rapoport: ‘I Expect Some Law Schools to Close.’
DENIAL: White House Attempts to Put Scandal in the Past. “The Obama administration looked Wednesday to minimize the Colombia prostitution scandal engulfing the Secret Service and the Defense Department as a few bad apples even as some lawmakers expressed new frustrations with the level of information they are getting.”
Nothing to see here. Move along. And ignore this story.
GSA SCANDAL UPDATE: Old Troubles Dog GSA Official. “Jeff Neely, the embattled General Services Administration official at the center of a scandal over a lavish Las Vegas conference, was reprimanded in 2011 for appearing in a campaign ad for Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii), documents obtained by Roll Call show. The U.S. Office of Special Counsel said Neely’s participation in the ad for Inouye’s 2010 re-election campaign violated the Hatch Act, but it did not discipline him beyond a warning.”
Laws are for the little people — and you get an extra pass when you break them on behalf of a senior incumbent Democratic Senator.
KAY HYMOWITZ: Why Women Make Less Than Men. “In studies from the U.S. to Sweden, pay discrimination can’t explain the disparity. Women earn less because they work fewer hours.”
THE 2008 OBAMA YOUTH: Where are they now?
IT’S CRUCIFIXION FOR YOU! The EPA’s Dirty War On Conventional Energy.
INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY: Democrats Have Nothing to Offer But Fear Itself.
Asked why the Senate hasn’t produced a budget in three years, the head of the Democratic Party instead stoked fear about the “Romney-Ryan budget that ends Medicare as we know it.” FDR, call your office.
‘The Romney/Ryan budget is painful for Americans,” head Debbie Wasserman Schultz said on that same Fox News program.
Her comments are tame compared with what other Democrats have said, including President Obama, who called Rep. Paul Ryan’s budget “thinly veiled social Darwinism” that would “impose a radical vision on our country” and that is “antithetical to our entire history.”
So what do Democrats have to offer instead? Nothing.
The Senate hasn’t produced a budget since 2009 and refuses to this year, which means that once again the red-ink hemorrhaging federal government will be operating without any spending guidelines. Obama’s budget plan was so ludicrous that not one House Democrat would vote for it. . . .
Instead, they reflexively attack the Republicans who are actually proposing fixes, calling them terrorists and hostage-takers who are waging war on women, want to throw seniors off the cliff and savage the poor.
Today’s Democrats, in short, have just one public policy proposal — scare voters into re-electing them.
That’s going to be hard.
#NARRATIVEFAIL: Zimmerman Raised With Black Children, Is Black Himself. “That sound you hear is the press frantically trying to figure out how to update their ethnic style guides — is Zimmerman now a ‘black white Hispanic?’ Or do we use the Obama standard (ever heard our historic POTUS called a ‘black white?’ no you have not), in which case I guess Zimmerman is just… black.”
BACKLASH: University of Florida Backpedaling from Plans to Abolish Computer Science Department. “Following what he called an “overwhelming negative response” to the proposal, University of Florida President Bernie Machen announced Wednesday that a plan for cuts to the computer and information science and engineering department was being set aside and that an alternative was being developed.” I got some insider emails saying that this was about internal politics, with budget issues just an excuse. Maybe that’s right.
NOT ME, ALAS: The $430,000 Law Professor.
April 25, 2012
THEY FUCK YOU UP, YOUR MUM AND DAD. I wonder, though, what Philip Larkin would make of this.
JOHN HINDERAKER: A Bad Day In Court for the Obama Administration.