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MY USA TODAY COLUMN: Forget “Income Inequality” — Obama Can’t Solve The Jobs Problem.
FIRST AUBURN, NOW THIS: James Taranto: What’s the Matter With Alabama? A student editor grovels after another cartoon kerfuffle.
For the University of Alabama’s football team, the Nov. 30 season finale against intrastate archrival Auburn ended almost as disastrously as ObamaCare began (and as it has continued). After leading 21-14 at the half, the Crimson Tide gave up a touchdown to the Tigers in the third quarter. Each team scored again during the fourth, leaving the score tied, 28-28, with seconds remaining in regulation.
Alabama was driving, but it looked as though the clock had run out. It turned out, however, that Alabama’s T.J. Yeldon had managed to get out of bounds with a single tick left. Rather than take a knee and go to overtime, Alabama decided to try a long field goal–which missed and was returned for 109 yards and a touchdown by Auburn’s Chris Davis. Final score: Auburn 34, Alabama 28.
Auburn went on to play in this past weekend’s Southeastern Conference championship, in which the Tigers defeated the Tigers, 59-42–possibly the most confusing pigskin matchup since the 1976 Grey Cup.
This isn’t a sports column, but there’s a reason we opened with a nine-day-old play-by-play. Back in Tuscaloosa, the Alabama loss led to a kerfuffle last week involving the student newspaper, the perplexingly named Crimson White. Its cartoonist drew a strip, published Thursday, depicting the final play under the title “This Is What Happens in OBAMA’S AMERICA.” The last two words were in massive letters, drawn in horror-movie style, with what was supposed to look like blood dripping from them.
Later that day, editor Mazie Bryant posted “A Statement From the Editor-in-Chief” in which she explained that “the cartoon was meant as satire . . . as a lighthearted look at some of the more absurd explanations given for Alabama’s collapse at the end of the Iron Bowl game against Auburn last Saturday.”
Only in Obama’s America could something so obvious have eluded anyone. “Unfortunately,” Bryant noted, the cartoon “has been perceived by many readers as having racist intentions.”
That’s because — and I want to be clear here — those readers are idiots. Naturally, some of them were also college administrators. But as Taranto goes on to demonstrate, not all college administrators are idiots. Which, these days, seems like news. . . .
DEMS REALLY DON’T WANT TO TALK ABOUT THIS: Ann Kuster refuses to answer or discuss Benghazi at town hall.
Rep. Ann Kuster, D-N.H., refused to answer questions about the Benghazi terrorist attack that killed four Americans on the grounds that the Libyan city isn’t in the Middle East.
“I’m certainly not here to talk about it, we’re here to talk about the Middle East,” Kuster replied at an event in her district when asked if she would comment on the attack, according to a video of the event. She had just dismissed a written question asking what she thought about a House bill introduced by Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va., who wants to House and Senate to establish a special congressional committee investigating the Benghazi attack. . . .
“No one has been held accountable for the intelligence failures leading up to the attack,” Wolf said in a November press release. “No one has said what the CIA was doing in Benghazi. None of the terrorists have been brought to justice. It has been 14 months since the attack and, as a recent bipartisan poll showed, 63 percent of the American people believe the Obama administration is covering up the facts on what happened that night.”
An event staffer intervened while Kuster stood silent. “There are a lot of different ideas and a lot of different opinions here,” he said. “So, we’re going to stick to the format of answering questions [on the postcards] rather than get into a discussion that goes on.”
People should ask about this — and about the IRS scandals — at every opportunity between now and November. I mean, it’s not like the press will. . . .
BUT THE IMPORTANT THING IS, A BUNCH OF DEMOCRAT-VOTING UNION MEMBERS WERE KEPT HAPPY: U.S. Sells Off Last of Its General Motors Stock, at $10.5 Billion Loss. “What might have happened to that money, those resources, those skills, those people, if they had not been diverted by government action? No one knows, or will ever know, and the government would prefer you not think about it.”
RON BAILEY: The FDA Stifles the Advance of Modern Molecular Medicine.
Based on Peter Huber’s new book, The Cure in the Code: How 20th Century Law Is Undermining 21st Century Medicine.
ANDREW KLAVAN: Did The Pope Speak Unwisely? “Hey, the guy’s still a rookie.”
WAIT, LET ME GUESS — WAS THE PROFESSIONAL FIREFIGHTERS’ UNION A BIG OBAMA SUPPORTER? ‘A public safety disaster’: Obamacare could force THOUSANDS of volunteer fire departments to close.
BY BLAMING REPUBLICANS? Roll Call: How Democrats Plan to Cut Food Stamps Without Enraging Their Base.
For Democrats especially, any talk about cutting billions from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program is uncomfortable and certain to create internal strife. But negotiators on the farm bill believe they’ve found a way to make about $8 billion in savings from the program palatable for most Democrats.
The key is eliminating a loophole that enables states to help some low-income residents with nominal subsidies to pay for their heating in the winter in order to trigger much higher food stamp benefits. Some states, such as New York, will make a $1 Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program payment to low-income people in order to automatically qualify them for the maximum federal food stamps Standard Utility Allowance for 12 months.
According to a source tracking the farm bill talks, the Congressional Budget Office has estimated that raising the minimum energy subsidy states would be required to make to $20 would be enough to disincentivize states from utilizing the loophole, potentially saving the government $8 billion over 10 years.
Though most Democrats would prefer the maximum benefits to be paid out — they often point to a Moody’s study that estimates that each dollar the federal government spends on food stamps generates $1.70 of economic activity — finding savings by eliminating a loophole is more politically palatable for them than the deeper cuts proposed by the House.
How about this idea: No food stamps for anyone with a BMI over 30. That should cut things significantly, and nobody will be starving as a result . . . .
NEWS FROM THE STUPID PARTY: The Hill: GOP bills would ban in-flight calls. “Republicans in the House and Senate are preparing legislation that would ban airlines from allowing cellphone calls during flights. The push from Rep. Bill Shuster (R-Pa.) and Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) comes as the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) prepares to move ahead with lifting the prohibition on in-flight cellphone calls.”
Two points: (1) Phones don’t work at altitude unless the airlines add equipment to let them work; and (2) Let the market, that is, those airlines, set the policy. So much for the GOP’s small-government brand, not that either Lamar! or Shuster were ever much good for that.
The oil and natural-gas industry probably won’t ever get a thank-you card from President Obama, but he has a few big reasons to be grateful for the fossil-fuel boom.
America’s vast resources of oil and natural gas have enabled Obama to move forward on aggressive policies, including tougher environmental rules and Iranian oil sanctions, which he would not have been able to do nearly as effectively without them.
The International Energy Agency predicts the U.S. will surpass Saudi Arabia as the world’s biggest oil-producer in 2015; and, by the end of this year, the Energy Information Administration says we’ll surpass Russia as the biggest natural-gas producer.
“I’ve joked before that for the last 30 years, our national energy policy has been implicitly predicated on a low-cost, trustable supply of natural gas,” said Jason Grumet, president of the Bipartisan Policy Center, who advised Obama in his transition to the presidency in 2008. “It is incredibly fortunate that it showed up in time.”
As I’ve noted elsewhere, this is a case of the America that works rescuing the one that doesn’t.
SURE. JUST MAKE ALL THE MALE ACTION HEROES GIRLS. Need A New Indiana Jones? Let’s Try Jennifer Lawrence.
THIS IS WHAT A FEMINIST looks like.
NEW YORK TIMES OP-ED: “I have always disliked being a man.” A world of cultural explanations, there. . . .
And here’s the result.
MARITAL ADVICE: Your Wife Isn’t, And Shouldn’t Be, Your Boss.
FOOD: Bacon Explosion: The BBQ Sausage Recipe Of All Recipes. “Now that your pork is well seasoned, it’s time to add more pork.”
21ST CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: Your L.L. Bean Boyfriend.
MY USA TODAY COLUMN: Forget “Income Inequality” — Obama Can’t Solve The Jobs Problem.
SO I GOT THE ADVANCE COPIES OF MY NEW BOOK THIS WEEKEND. It officially comes out on January 7. Pre-orders much appreciated, as that’ll encourage Amazon to keep more in stock. I’d account it a personal favor if you’d order a copy! (Bumped).
Here’s a picture of the jacket (click to enlarge):
NOBEL PEACE PRIZE UPDATE: American Military Aircraft Sent To Intervene in Central African Republic.
PETER INGEMI: Did The WaPo’s Greg Sargent Give Away The Game?
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