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Archive for 2014
January 31, 2014
JON STEWART ASKS NANCY PELOSI WHY PARTY OF BIG GOVERNMENT CAN’T MAKE BIG GOVERNMENT WORK, Nancy Pelosi Has No Idea. Plus:
When Stewart raised the possibility that the revolving door between government and the world of corporate lobbying might partly be to blame for government’s inability to implement its programs competently, Pelosi said Congress really didn’t have that problem.
“The revolving door is not so much Congress as the executive branch,” she said to a disbelieving host.
Well, then, she should be happy to get behind my revolving-door surtax.
ROGER SIMON: A Modest Proposal For Immigration Reform. “Illegal immigrants, assuming they have lived here for a decent period of time and have not committed a felony, can have amnesty, but they can NEVER be allowed to vote. They can do anything else that is legal, but if they want to vote — or run for office or practice law in our country, as just happened in California — they must return home and go through the normal immigrant application process, however long that may take until they have citizenship.”
JAMES TARANTO: The Accidental Navigator: It takes a lot to get health insurance in Maryland.
The Washington Post entertainingly debunks an ObamaCare “success story” proffered by Rep. Donna Edwards of Maryland. “Thanks to the ACA, Ms. [Lorita] Waltz was able to sign up for a quality plan that meets her health care needs and fits into her family’s budget,” Edwards announced in a press release. Edwards invited Waltz as her guest to the State of the Union address because, the lawmaker told the Post, “I’m just really excited about our health-care system.”
But this turns out to be more of a rescue than a success story. Way back in October, Waltz’s husband had tried and failed to log in to the Maryland exchange. “He would periodically try to log in without success, but given that the family has coverage until the end of January, Waltz said they were not worried,” the Post reports. This being the last week in January, they finally got worried.
The family was too late to avoid a lapse in coverage–they’ll “go without insurance in February”–but Waltz is pleased with the outcome: “Today, we had success,” she told the Post in a Tuesday interview at Edwards’s office.
One has to wonder if Edwards’s touting this as an ObamaCare success story isn’t meant as a bit of a humblebrag. After all, the story speaks well of Edwards, who comes across as a diligent practitioner of constituent service. But if Waltz’s experience is typical–if large numbers of consumers are still unable to buy insurance without the intervention of their congressman’s and governor’s office–it suggests ObamaCare is deeply troubled if not failing.
Well, a complicated system that requires a congressman’s help to navigate ensures you’ll appreciate your congressman. So, a success!
ASHE SCHOW: Popular anti-fracking study discredited by Colorado health department.
“With regard to this particular study, people should not rush to judgment.”
Why? Because the study didn’t distinguish between active wells and inactive wells. It also did not distinguish between vertical, horizontal, oil or natural gas wells.
“This makes it difficult to draw conclusions on the actual exposure people may have had,” Wolk said.
Further, the researchers never considered outside factors that may have resulted in birth defects, such as drinking or smoking.
“Without considering the effect of these personal risk factors, as well as the role of genetic factors, it is very difficult to draw conclusions from this study,” Wolk said.
Oddly, the study in question showed a decreased risk of pre-term birth among women who lived closer to wells, which should have raised questions about its findings from the beginning.
Support fracking. For the children! What, you got something against healthy babies?
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Highly Educated, Highly Indebted: The Lives of Today’s 27-Year-Olds, In Charts.
RAND PAUL speaks out to college students.
SPYING: Obama Picks Rogers To Lead NSA. “It’s official: President Obama will nominate Vice Adm. Michael Rogers to lead the National Security Agency and U.S. Cyber Command. . . . If confirmed, Rogers would be thrown into the middle of the fight over the NSA’s surveillance programs; Obama has proposed reforms to rein in the collection of records of Americans’ phone calls and other measures that would require congressional action.”
NATIONAL JOURNAL: Obama’s Love of Elites: The president struck a populist note in his speech, but it’s hard to tell he believes it when you look at his administration. “A National Journal survey last year of 250 decision-makers in the Obama administration found that no fewer than 40 percent of them held Ivy League degrees. Moreover, just one-quarter of those officials held graduate degrees from a public university. In fact, more Obama administration officials secured advanced degrees from Oxford—you know, in England—than from any American public school. And more than 60 either attended Harvard as an undergrad or a grad student. . . . You’re more likely to find someone who grew up overseas working in the top ranks in the administration than someone who grew up in Texas.”
So much for “a cabinet that looks like America.”
January 30, 2014
TED CRUZ: House GOP Immigration Plan Is “Amnesty.”
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SELECTIVE PROSECUTION: Alan Dershowitz Rises To The Defense of Dinesh D’Souza. And he’s not the only one:
The Justice Department’s tactics remind Dershowitz of the words of Stalin’s secret police chief, Lavrentiy Beria, who said, “Show me the man and I’ll find you the crime.”
“This is an outrageous prosecution and is certainly a misuse of resources,” charged Dershowitz. “It raises the question of why he is being selected for prosecution among the many, many people who commit similar crimes.
“This sounds to me like it is coming from higher places. It is hard for me to believe this did not come out of Washington or at least get the approval of those in Washington.”
Here is what Joseph diGenova, former US attorney and a partner at diGenova and Toensing, has to say: “What strikes me as unusual is that it involves a single donation made by an individual with no criminal record. It seems to me that a misdemeanor makes much more sense than a felony charge.”
As I note in Ham Sandwich Nation: Due Process When Everything Is A Crime, guilt or innocence is the least important issue in cases of prosecutorial targeting, because everyone is guilty of something.
STUDY: TESTOSTERONE SUPPLEMENTATION RAISES HEART ATTACK RISK, but only in men over 65, or with previous heart disease.
MICKEY KAUS ON THE LATEST IMMIGRATION “REFORM” PROPOSAL: This is the best scam they can come up with? “So how were Boehner & Co going to sell “legal status first” plan as an ‘enforcement first plan?’ Now we know: By pretending that legal status isn’t legal status. That’s something that not even the famously deceptive Senate Gang of 8 tried. . . . Really, this is the best they could come up with? I’m beginning to worry about the lack of ingenuity among America’s skilled legislative con artists. Maybe we need to import some better ones from abroad — a sort of ‘guest lobbyist’ program. (H-1K visas.)”
UPDATE: A reader in the comments suggests that those unhappy with this should be supporting one of Boehner’s primary challengers.
REAPING THE WHIRLWIND: “The New York Senate has passed legislation that would bar public or private colleges in state from using state funds to fund groups that support academic boycotts, The Albany Times-Union reported. The bill is designed to take a stand against the American Studies Association, which has voted to back a boycott of Israeli universities. Many defenders of academic freedom — including those who have said that the American Studies Association move amounts to an attack on academic freedom — have criticized the New York bill.”
A BRIEF HISTORY OF MIND-BENDING IDEAS ABOUT BLACK HOLES.
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ANTI-SEMITIC? ANTI-MUSLIM? BOTH? NEITHER? Banning Circumcision in Scandinavia.
I BLOGGED ABOUT THIS QUITE A WHILE AGO: Soylent gets tested, scores a surprisingly wholesome nutritional label.
NEWS YOU CAN USE: Meet The Woman With The Longest Legs In New York City. And beating out the Russians. Take that, Vladimir!
BETTER MEDICINE through engineering?
IN FORBES, George Leef has a nice review of my book, The New School: How the Information Age Will Save American Education from Itself.