TAXPROF: The IRS Scandal, Day 507.
Archive for 2014
September 28, 2014
UM: Tom Friedman: Reagan Had It Easier Than Obama. Basically, his point is that Arabs are barbaric savages, unlike communists. Well, the communists were pretty savage, too.
Where I think Reagan did have it easier is that in his day, America still retained a largely functional political class. Now we have a largely dysfunctional one.
UNEXPECTEDLY! Flow Of Money From South Texas Oil Startles Economists.
The economists had predicted just last year that they expected the total economic impact to South Texas to be $89 billion in 2022. Instead, they now estimate that the impact has already reached almost that amount: $87 billion.
What’s making the difference?
Primarily all the jobs from drilling and running pipelines.
“But also because of lots of new manufacturing activity. And a lot of that is being driven by the low cost of natural gas,” said Tunstall.
I mean, who could have seen this coming? Well, maybe Rick Perry.
GOVERNMENT HEALTHCARE: No New VA Patient Schedule System Until 2020.
EXCLUSIVE: Longtime Holder, Obama Friend: Next Attorney General Will Be A Woman.
InstaPundit’s crack reporting team has obtained this exclusive photo of the current frontrunner:
HONG KONG POLICE use tear gas on pro-democracy protesters. “Hong Kong police used tear gas Sunday and warned of further measures as they tried to clear thousands of pro-democracy protesters who had gathered outside government headquarters in a challenge to Beijing over its decision to restrict democratic reforms for the semiautonomous city. . . . The demonstrations — which Beijing called ‘illegal’ — were a rare scene of disorder in the Asian financial hub, and highlighted authorities’ inability to rein in the public discontent over Beijing’s tightening grip on the city. The protesters reject Beijing’s decision last month to rule out open nominations for candidates under proposed guidelines for the first-ever elections for Hong Kong’s leader, promised for 2017.”
MICKEY KAUS: Obama’s A.G. Excuse.
Holder that amnesty: Don’t the coming Attorney General confirmation hearings offer Obama another convenient excuse to put off his unpopular (and arguably unlawful) executive amnesty plans? True, Latino interest groups are expecting something big from the White House, amnesty-wise, before the end of the year. But what if Obama and Biden– “The president’s going to do it, and he’s going to do an awful lot”– are just stringing them along until the mid-term vote? With Senator Sessions trying to make opposition to executive amnesty a litmus test for any A.G. appointee, couldn’t Obama say he doesn’t want his promised amnesty to create an unnecessary obstacle to filling this vital post, etc.? If the A.G. nominee is liberal enough the more established Democratic interest groups and team-playing Dem Congressmen might fall in line. ….
Why would Obama want to put off executive amnesty? So as not to kill the chance of legislative amnesty. Perversely, this logic may seem especially powerful if GOPs win everything in November — now that Jeb Bush and the not-wildly-credible Mario Diaz-Balart are running around boasting that a Republican-controlled Senate could produce an immigration deal. Republican office-holders who may be afraid of knuckling under to the current Dem-produced immigration plan might think they have cover for a GOP-branded plan, even if it amounts to more or less the same thing.
We showed Obama! Instead of his amnesty plan, we passed our own amnesty plan!
SHOULDN’T HE HAVE KILLED HIMSELF AT 75? Gerald Larue Dies at 98; Early Advocate of Right to Die.
ANTI-ANXIETY DRUGS AND ALZHEIMER’S. “The more the cumulative days of use, the higher the risk of later being diagnosed with dementia.”
HOW THE POOR CAN AFFORD TO LIVE IN NEW YORK: “Someone else pays a significant portion of their bills. People who would easily be self-supporting in some less stylish place require substantial subsidies, either from the government or their relatives, or from landlords who have been forced to rent to them at below-market prices. Meanwhile, the price distortions introduced by the subsidies, combined with New York’s byzantine real estate development process, push up prices and force out ever more of the middle class, unless they’re lucky enough to have their hands on a rent-regulated apartment.”
A CUSTOM FROM OVERSEAS THAT WE MIGHT WISH TO IMPORT: Frustrated over lack of justice, Ukrainians throw officials in trash (VIDEO).
DESPERATION BREEDS NASTINESS: From Scott Walker Opponents, Still More Nastiness.
TEACH WOMEN NOT TO RAPE (CONT’D): Switzerland of Ohio School Teacher Arrested on Charges of Sexual Battery of a Minor. “According to Monroe County Prosecuting Attorney James Peters, Brandi Hobbs, a teacher at Swiss Hills Vocational School, was arrested on Friday and charged with the following: one count of sexual battery, two counts of disseminating matter harmful to a juvenile, one count of illegal use of a minor in a matter involving nudity, and one count of pandering of sexual material involving a minor. . . . In an unrelated case, another Swiss Hills teacher remains on leave as a separate investigation continues.”
NEW FRONTIERS IN ASTROTURF: Claim: NEA Linked to Student Walkout Organized by Colorado Teachers Union. “The Jefferson County Education Association (JCEA) teachers’ union plan to use hundreds of students as pawns in their endeavor to exert control over the district’s school board was organized by a specialist funded by the National Education Association (NEA), one of the nation’s largest teachers’ unions.”
September 27, 2014
I THINK THE TOLERANCE POLICE PREFER TO TARGET THEIR DOMESTIC POLITICAL ENEMIES: “If we’re giving no quarter to intolerance, shouldn’t we be starting with the mutilators and the honor killers?”
The thing to remember is that talk of tolerance and diversity is mostly just a political weapon for white people to use against other white people. It’s not about actually helping anyone.
WELL, THIS IS ENCOURAGING: We Screwed Up On Ebola, And Now The Crisis Is Getting Much Worse.
MORTON KELLER: America Stalled. “In recent years American governance has been afflicted by an apparently systemic crisis of overcommitted objectives and declining effectiveness. This is hardly unique to the United States. Mounting welfare costs, debt, recession, and debate over whether austerity or stimulus is the proper remedy flourish in Europe and Japan as well.”
AMY ALKON: Michelle Obama Confuses U.S. With Saudi Arabia.
About the USA, First Lady Michelle Obama said at the United Nations, “We still struggle with … harmful cultural norms that tell women how they are expected to look and act.”
We have these for men, too. They’re called “civilization.” This is the most free country on the planet. Norms here, unlike in Saudi Arabia, do not come with morality police slinking around every corner, looking to throw you in a cage and give you a caning.
I’ve violated “norms” my whole life, like the “get married and have children” norm — along with the “be normal” norm. Sure, there are tradeoffs, but I choose to be as I am, and it’s not a form of persecution when people try to push me to get married or when they look askance for me for being unmarried or working all the time.
Indeed.
STUMBLING SEEMS TO BE ALL THEY DO LATELY: WaPo: Secret Service stumbled after gunman hit White House residence in 2011. “It took the Secret Service five days to realize that shots had hit the White House residence, a discovery that came about only because a housekeeper noticed broken glass and a chunk of cement on the floor.”
BEFORE THE BARBARIANS TOOK OVER: Afghan women in a public library in the 1950s.
That was when Western civilization looked like “the strong horse.”
THEIR WEAKNESS IS THAT THEY’RE DELICIOUS: A Call to Action Against a Predator Fish With an Import Ban, an App and Even Rodeos.
Here are the results of my research into the subject.
AT AMAZON: Top Printer Deals. Browse and save.
NEIL DE GRASSE TYSON’S SELF-BECLOWNING CONTINUES: Neil deGrasse Tyson admits he botched Bush quote.
Tyson claims to be a man of science who follows the evidence where it leads. The evidence here clearly shows Tyson screwed up. Whether knowingly or not, he regularly repeated a false account in order to cast aspersions on another public figure. The only proper thing to do is recant and apologize. That is what a person of integrity does.
More from Mollie Hemingway: Neil DeGrasse Tyson: Just Trust Me On Those Things I Said, OK? “Word to the wise: When rational people strongly suspect you’ve made something up to make yourself look better and to make one of the most recorded people in human history look bad and there’s no evidence of your claim, the onus is actually on you to clear your name.”
Plus: “You can kind of judge how much to trust various media by whether they defend quote fabrication and think fact claims should be verifiable to non-Gnostics or try to go after people who are worried about the quote fabrication. We’ve seen more of the latter than is in any way journalistically defensible, particularly at this stage of the story.”