REGRETS: Hillary deeply disturbed that Supreme Court upheld statute signed into law by her husband. So there’s this, DOMA, and Don’t-Ask-Don’t-Tell. . . .
Archive for 2014
July 1, 2014
SPYING AND SECRECY: Exclusive: A review of the Blackphone, the Android for the paranoid.
NANOTECHNOLOGY UPDATE: These Nanoparticles Could Clot Your Blood Faster—And Save Your Life.
SORRY ABOUT THAT: Newspaper Retracts 2008 Obama Endorsement. “The unsigned editorial goes on to list many of Obama’s abject failures: the NSA spying on Americans, the crippling of the coal industry with no viable alternatives, snatching defeat from the jaws of victory in Iraq, trading five terrorists for an America-hating deserter, the VA scandal, Obamacare… If you’ve been paying attention at all these past 5 years, you know the list. And you know it’s nobody’s fault but Obama’s.”
The wave of enthusiasm for an inexperienced ideologue with backing from the corrupt Chicago machine was a species of mass hysteria. It’s nice to see it wearing off, and reality being confronted.
Related: The Obama Era and the Collapse of Trust in Our Governing Institutions. “This deep, durable unhappiness with government, and the longing of the public to once again believe in it, was something that Barack Obama brilliantly tapped into during his campaign for the presidency. The centerpiece of his run was not a particular policy; it was the promise to elevate our political debates and restore government to a respected place in our national life. Yet here we are, in the sixth year of the Obama presidency, with the level of confidence in his presidency (29 percent) lower than at a comparable point for any of his predecessors and the ratings for the legislative and judicial branches at or near their lowest points to date. . . . (To remind yourself of the stratospheric expectations set by Mr. Obama, I’d urge you to watch this short clip of Obama in 2008.)”
PEW POLL SAYS AMERICANS PAYING MORE ATTENTION TO THE IRS SCANDAL THAN TO THE WORLD CUP: WaPo: Americans care more about Lois Lerner’s hard drive than Luis Suarez’s bite marks. Good.
FOR THE FOURTH OF JULY, an Outer Banks hurricane? If I were on the East Coast, I’d be paying close attention to this over the next couple of days.
RICHARD EPSTEIN: Supreme Court Gets Abortion Picketing Wrong.
IN THE MAIL: From Larry Correia, Monster Hunter Nemesis.
Also, today only on Amazon: 40% or More Off Select Nerf Blasters, Super Soakers, and Sports Toys. Summer fun!
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Americans Think We Have the World’s Best Colleges. We Don’t.
TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 418.
CHANGE: So Now There Are 750 American Troops In Iraq? Relax, they’re just “advisers.”
HARSHING THE NARRATIVE: The Supreme Court Isn’t Waging a War on Women in Hobby Lobby.
Responses to the Supreme Court’s ruling in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby are a study in contradictions. It’s “a landmark victory for religious liberty” that gives bosses “license to harm their female employees in the name of religion.” A “struggle for the First Amendment has been vindicated,” while the law is being “used as a sword to thwart anti-discrimination laws.” All the rhetoric sets up the same dichotomy: religious liberty vs. women’s reproductive rights. How did two kinds of freedom come to be seen as mutually exclusive?
The lefties have really gone crazy on this one. I love all the hate-tweets to ScotusBlog under the false impression that it’s an official Supreme Court blog. . . .
YEAH, THAT’S PRETTY MUCH BY DESIGN: “Rape Culture” Theory Ensnares Innocent Men.
EVERYTHING WE KNOW ABOUT Facebook’s Secret Mood Manipulation Experiment.
AT AMAZON, Soak Up Summer Savings.
IRS SCANDAL UPDATE: Arizona Republic: Let’s Label Lerner Guilty, Just Like The IRS Does To Us.
When I filed my taxes, I was targeted for an audit due to my casualty loss. When I told the wonderful agent at the IRS that all my records (along with most other possessions) had been lost in the hurricane, the sympathetic, caring agent opened up three years for audit. They then computed what they thought I should owe for the three years and demanded payment. As my records were destroyed, I had no way to fight them.
The IRS’ officials rules are that they are right unless I can prove different. In other words, guilty until proven innocent. Why, then, cannot former IRS administrator Lois Lerner be held to the same standards? Guilty until the IRS provides the proof of innocence.
Rules are for the little people.
CONN CARROLL: The Case For Libertarian Populism.
RICHARD MINITER: Obama’s Secret Neo-Con Agenda.
Obama may be non-interventionist in the Middle East, but he’s acting increasingly like a neo-con in Africa.
President Barack Obama has repeatedly said that he is against “boots on the ground” in Iraq, robustly ruled out airstrikes, and reluctantly dispatched some 300 advisers into that war-torn land. As Iraq crisis worsens, the president demands a primarily political solution—even as Islamist forces surge to the Baghdad suburbs.
In Africa, that same president is, fortunately, far more active. Elite U.S. Army units are killing and capturing terrorists in North Africa (including the so-called Butcher of Benghazi). Hundreds of other counter-terrorism trainers are helping African nations (Libya, Niger, Mauritania, and Mali) to field commando teams to combat Islamist forces in Africa, which have Islamist ideologies nearly indistinguishable from the predators devouring Iraq.
Read the whole thing.
PRIORITIES: Senate Democrats Ponder End-Run Around Hobby Lobby Decision. Well, they could repeal the cause of the decision, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act that was sponsored by so many Democrats in the 1990s. . . .