Archive for 2016

ANALYSIS: TRUE. Climate Change Is Not a Valid Reason to Avoid Having Children.

But still, “There is nothing more bacchanalian than a kid’s birthday party” the global-warming obsessed San Francisco Chronicle has long warned us — and if any newspaper has seen the limits of bacchanalian excess, it’s one based in San Francisco, so they must be correct, right?

JUST FINISHED CHRISTOPHER NUTTALL’S A Learning Experience and enjoyed it. He’s really pumping out a lot of good books.

FAKE FRONT SHOWS GLOBE’S A JOKE, the Boston Herald’s Howie Carr writes:

Somehow, the Globe seems to think that deporting illegal aliens is a frightening thought to most Americans. It wouldn’t be the first time they’ve misread the public sentiment.

You could of course lay out similar front pages about other candidates. Here would be my splash headline for Hillary: “DOCUMENTS SHOW CLINTON LIED ABOUT …” Fill in the blank: Benghazi, being under fire in Tuzla, why she set up her private server, wanting to join the Marines, how she was against gay marriage before she was for gay marriage, how she was against putting illegals on Obamacare before she was for putting illegals on Obamacare, etc.

How about some headlines for Bernie Sanders:

Read the whole thing.

Related: “When thinking about the Boston Globe faux-edition attacking Donald Trump, remember that if a conservative non-profit organization—let’s hypothetically call them something like ‘Citizens United’—published the same thing, liberals would want it to be illegal,” Steve Hayward adds at Power Line.

LAYERS AND LAYERS OF FACT CHECKERS AND EDITORS: Politico Has No Idea What the Hobby Lobby Decision Was Even About: “But of course, Thrush only ever said the Hobby Lobby case ‘raised questions,’ so technically all three versions were accurate. Unfortunately, the questions raised are more along the lines of ‘Why on earth did Politico think Hobby Lobby was about denying gay people medicine?’”

Earlier:  Glenn Thrush calls Hillary’s homebrew email system ‘badass.’

VOTING WITH YOUR FEET: Minnesota’s Great Wealth Migration:

Three years ago next month, a long-time Twin Cities CEO joined about 20 other Minnesota business leaders to meet privately with Gov. Mark Dayton in downtown Minneapolis. The governor talked about the state’s business climate and his priorities, and then the format opened up into a Q&A session…“I brought up that people are leaving—people who have a fair bit of assets and the ability and wherewithal to leave—and what worries me is that when they do, they’re not going to come back because they learn they can live in really nice places and not pay our state income tax,” says the CEO, who heads a near-century old business with 600 employees and $200 million in annual revenue. “His response was, ‘Well, people are free to live wherever they want to.’ So his answer was he doesn’t care if they leave.”

The CEO moved to Naples, Fla., while keeping his company’s headquarters—and its 250 employees—in the Twin Cities. He says he would have stayed had he felt more welcome. “It’s one of those things I said to Mark: ‘If you can just make it a little more fair for entrepreneurs and business owners, many of us would say, “That’s OK, I can deal with it.” But it doesn’t seem like you want to keep us here.’ Minnesota now has an anti-success feeling.”

In January, this same individual ran into Florida Gov. Rick Scott while attending a dinner. “I said hello, introduced myself and my wife, and said, ‘We are among your newest residents,’ ” he recalls. “He said, ‘Welcome to Florida,’ adding, ‘You know, I really need to send your governor a thank-you note for all the people moving from Minnesota to Florida.’ And at the end of our conversation, he added, ‘If there’s anything I can ever do for you, please let me know.’ I was in complete shock.”

In a 2012 Afterburner video titled “Going Out of Business,” Bill Whittle described a nearly identical response from then-Gov. Rick Perry, when XCOR began its move from the failing, massively regulated state of California for Texas. “You know how many times Arnold Schwarzenegger or Jerry Brown came to visit XCOR?” Whittle holds up his right hand forming a zero:

JOHN SCHINDLER: Amid Shocking Chinese Spy Case, Our Navy Can No Longer Be Trusted.

The redacted indictment does not reveal how Mr. Lin came in contact with Chinese intelligence, though his being charged with cavorting with prostitutes offers tantalizing hints, while it makes clear that a good deal of intent was involved. He is accused of not revealing unauthorized foreign contacts to navy officials, as holders of high-level security clearances are required to do, while the mention of unreported foreign trips reveals that Mr. Lin was meeting with Chinese handlers outside the United States. Such clandestine meetings are standard for high-value spies who may be too risky to meet with on American soil.

We know nothing yet about what Mr. Lin told Beijing, but the unusual degree of secrecy surrounding this case, with the lieutenant commander stashed in the brig for months without press notification, indicates that the navy thinks the damage must be severe indeed. Worse, it is impossible to write the Lin debacle off as some sort of ugly aberration, as navy leadership will want to do. In truth, it’s been evident for several years that the U.S. Navy has lost control of its own security, a development with worrisome ramifications far beyond our navy.

Read the whole thing.

FREE SPEECH IS NO LAUGHING MATTER (EXCEPT IN THIS NEW COMEDY DOCUMENTARY) – Check out my interview with Nick Gillespie, Editor in Chief of Reason.com and Reason TV, about the latest free speech controversies on campus (including the recent speaker disinvitation at Williams College and protests over “Trump 2016” chalkings at Emory University), and the upcoming release of the FIRE-supported documentary Can We Take a Joke?.

If you’re from the Philadelphia area, please sign up ASAP for a free advance screening of the film at the National Constitution Center this Wednesday, April 13 at 8:30 p.m. If you (or any friends) are interested in attending, just RSVP to Haley Hudler at . Here is the Facebook event page for more info.

It’s about a serious topic but, I swear, it’s actually funny. Though, keep in mind, it would be R-Rated under the MPAA, so you might not want to bring your toddlers.

Watch the full Reason TV video below, and read more over at The Torch.

 

BLUE MODEL BLUES: It’s Not Just Puerto Rico.

Puerto Rico’s rolling bankruptcy crisis is just a taste of the fiscal storm that lies ahead if American state and local governments can’t find a way to bring their own gaping pension shortfalls under control. For decades, rapacious public sector unions and craven politicians on the mainland have also been also been propping unsustainable state employee retirement systems, and—crucially—using accounting tricks to dupe the public and conceal the magnitude of their unfunded obligations. Congress’s proposed relief package for Puerto Rico would require the island to be more forthright about its pension costs going forward, but it would allow state and local governments to continue downplaying the size of their debts….

The resistance to honest accounting is apparently coming not from Congressional Democrats, but from Republican state legislators eager to keep their pension Ponzi schemes in place—a reminder that corrupt blue model practices are thoroughly bipartisan. Hopefully Congressional Republicans will have the good sense to reverse course and require state and local governments to come clean as well.

Meanwhile, state Attorneys General who want to punish “climate deniers” may want to ponder the personal consequences of criminalizing political lies. Because who lies more about politics: Corporations? Or politicians?

WHEN THE STATE SEES CITIZENS AS PREY: Why I refuse to send people to jail for failure to pay fines. Most of these fines — as well as the “penalties” for late payments, bogus “court costs,” etc. — are just a way to milk people, mostly poor, for revenue. Fine amounts should be limited, and revenues from municipal fines should go to a state fund, to remove the incentive to use them as a randomly-imposed tax.

Related: Beth A. Colgan: Reviving the Excessive Fines Clause.

PERENNIAL HEADLINE SINCE 2009: Terrible Things Are Happening, writes Michael Ledeen; and while the headline can apply to just about everything Obama touches or interacts with, in this case, the terrible things happening are in Iran:

The Iranians are in a hurry to cash in during the final months of the Obama presidency, and the White House will apparently pay most any price to be able to claim it “made peace” with Tehran.

So don’t be surprised when terrible things happen.

Read the whole thing.