Archive for 2013
December 5, 2013
AMNESTY INCORPORATED: DHS Hires Activist Immigration Lawyers. Personnel is policy.
JAMES TARANTO: The Time Thief: Obama steals past the Nov. 30 deadline.
NBC’s Michael O’Brien had some fun yesterday paraphrasing President Obama’s latest infliction on the ears of America: “Obama said his signature health care reform law is going nowhere as long as he’s in office.”
“Going nowhere” could mean either “here to stay” or “unable to progress.” A look at the text of the president’s remarks makes clear, as if you have any doubt, that he means it in the former sense: “We’re not repealing it as long as I’m president, and I want everybody to be clear about that. . . . We’re not going to walk away from it.” I’m not a crook. I did not have sexual relations with that woman.
At least in the very short term, he appears to be right. National Journal reports that although “House Democrats are hardly ready to pop the champagne for HealthCare.gov . . . tensions eased Tuesday after White House officials briefed them on the site’s progress.” Party leaders “said they were ‘pleased’ with improvements in the site’s user experience, and declared that they were back on offense over the Affordable Care Act.”
The Nov. 30 deadline was followed by a spate of news stories, editorials and columns attesting that the “website”–which, of course, is only the tip of the iceberg that is ObamaCare’s computer system–had been “fixed,” or at least “improved.” The former is plainly not true; even the latter, highly dubious.
Charles Ornstein of ProPublica.org watched “a glowing news conference” Sunday, and on Monday “decided to log . . . and take the Web site for a test drive.” It wasn’t going anywhere: Ornstein experienced “long delays loading pages, an endless circle of tasks (some already completed) and ultimately an error message.” He supplies screen shots and a transcript of a live-chat help session that goes on for nine minutes before a customer-service rep called “Kassie” tells him to try back later. When he does, “I couldn’t even log on.”
It’s Potemkin villages all the way down.
IRS SCANDAL UPDATE: FBI Hiding Docs In IRS Tea Party Investigation, Pols Say.
YET INEQUALITY HAS VASTLY INCREASED DURING HIS TIME IN OFFICE, AS A DIRECT RESULT OF HIS POLICIES: Obama: ‘Profoundly unequal’ economy a ‘fundamental threat.’ And even this news report kind of gets at that:
Obama’s speech came as the president has seen his approval ratings drop with the disastrous rollout of ObamaCare.
A CBS News poll released last month showed six in 10 adults disapprove of the president’s handling of the economy. Some 69 percent say the president has not made real progress toward fixing economic problems. And despite a booming stock market, unemployment remains high, at 7.3 percent.
Unemployment would be even higher were it not for the millions of people who have left the workforce. The percentage rate of people in the workforce has fallen since the recession that was in full force at the beginning of Obama’s presidency.
Republicans argue ObamaCare and regulations issued by the administration are holding back the economy further, hurting people at various income levels.
Bailouts for Wall Street and tax increases for ordinary Americans don’t boost income equality.
A MARTIN BASHIR HIGHLIGHTS REEL.
MICKEY KAUS: ObamaCare Needs A DooHickey.
MOLON LABE: CNN Poll: Opposition to Gun Control Up 23 Percent Since January. “Demographically speaking, the drop in support for stricter gun laws is mostly based on where people live, with a 10-point decline in the Midwest and a 15-point drop in urban areas having a lot to do with the overall decline nationally.”
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: The Student Loan Debacle. “Here, in a nutshell, is the human toll of the student-loan mess: it is forcing many recent grads to defer marriage and having children; it is hobbling many prospective entrepreneurs that our economy badly needs and may well delay the retirement of new grads by 11 or 12 years.”
COMPETENCE: Inspector General: IRS Is Seven Years Past Statutory Deadline for Providing Online Account Access to Taxpayers. Legal deadlines are for the little people.
FAST FOOD STRIKES: Nick Gillespie: Big Labor’s Big Mac Attack.
In what is probably the least inspired labor action since the great Detroit Symphony Orchestra Picket Line of 2011, groups such as the Service Employees International Union, Fast Food Forward, and Fight for 15 are calling for nation-wide wage strikes targeting McDonald’s, Burger King, Arby’s, and other latter-day Dickensian workhouses. On Thursday, protesters in over 100 cities will stand outside of fast-food joints and call for doubling the wages of burger flippers and fry-vat operators from $7.25 an hour (the current federal minimum) to at least $15.
Regardless of how much solidarity or sympathy you might feel about the people who assemble your Triple Steak Stack or your Cheesy Gordita Crunch, this sort of demand is economic fantasy at its most delusional and counterproductive. Doubling the wages of low-skilled workers during a period of prolonged joblessness is a surefire way not just to swell the ranks of the reserve army of the unemployed but to increase automation at your local Taco Bell. . . . The push to hike fast-food wages is indicative not of a brutal new economy but of a labor movement that is not only disconnected from reality but also almost completely devoid of vision.
I, for one, welcome our new robot burger-flippers.
MIKE BLOOMBERG’S GROUP OF ELECTED ANTI-GUN FELONS: Which Is More Illegal, The Guns, Or The Mayors?
HOW’S THAT “SMART DIPLOMACY” WORKIN’ OUT FOR YA? (CONT’D): Poll: Public says America’s world leadership has tumbled to 40-year low. “A new Pew Research Center poll found that 53 percent of people believe that the U.S. is playing a less important role as a world leader than a decade ago, the highest figure since 1974. Worse: 70 percent said that the U.S. is respected less than in the past, almost matching the high reached under former President George W. Bush, whose foreign policy Obama pledged to reverse.” Give it another year. . . .
December 4, 2013
21ST CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: How To Have Sex In Communal Living Spaces.
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NEWS YOU CAN USE: Alternatives To Marriage.