Archive for 2016
October 18, 2016
NEWS FROM THE VENEZUELAN SOCIALIST WORKERS’ PARADISE: With hospitals suffering a catastrophic lack of supplies, the country’s babies are dying at a rate higher than Syria’s.
Infant mortality is rising fast here, at a time when it is falling in almost every other part of the world, in one of the most alarming signals that Venezuela’s social and state structures are unraveling.
“I think it represents a very serious social problem, where the basic functions of governance are breaking down,” said Janet Currie, an economist and expert on infant mortality at Princeton University.
Venezuela’s overall infant mortality rate—defined as deaths within the first year of life—is currently 18.6 per 1,000 live births, according to the most recent government statistics. That is well beyond the upper range of 15.4 Unicef estimates for war-torn Syria.
Lots of bad luck going around there — unexpectedly.
THINK OF THEM AS DEMOCRATIC OPERATIVES WITH BYLINES AND YOU WON’T GO FAR WRONG: What media bias? Journalists overwhelmingly donated to Hillary Clinton.
Late Sunday evening, Washington Post reporter Chris Cillizza tweeted: “Let me say for the billionth time: Reporters don’t root for a side. Period.”
It was a hilariously ill-timed tweet, because Monday morning the Center for Public Integrity released its 2016 campaign analysis showing journalists giving hundreds of thousands of dollars to Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.
Of the 430 people CPI identified as “journalists, reporters, news editors or television news anchors — as well as other donors known to be working in journalism,” 96 percent gave money to Clinton, according to federal campaign finance filings. Those 430 journalists gave $382,000 to Clinton and just $14,000 to GOP nominee Donald Trump. CPI identified just 50 journalists who gave to Trump (meaning 380 gave to Clinton.)
CPI noted that the law only obligates candidates to disclose the names of donors giving more than $200 in a single election cycle, meaning many more members of the media could have donated to either campaign, but in smaller amounts.
Cillizza followed up his earlier tweet by commenting on the CPI report: “Well this is super depressing. NO idea why any journalist would donate $ to politicians.”
CPI noted that even as many newsrooms have policies against donating to politicians (the New York Times is more vague, strongly suggesting that such donations would compromise the paper’s integrity), their reporters donated.
This isn’t an age of Trump thing among journalists, either. In 2012, every major media outlet donated heavily to President Obama compared to Mitt Romney (yes, even Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, which owns Fox News). The story was the same in 2008.
It’s a political monoculture, and that’s one reason for the rise of Trump.
DAN MARKEL UPDATE: More Details Emerge Linking Adelson Family To Dan Markel’s Murder.
TENNESSEE GOVERNOR BILL HASLAM OPPOSES TRUMP, but he’s pretty much the only significant Tennessee Republican taking that position.
Meanwhile, there’s speculation about Bob Corker as Haslam’s successor. I’ve interviewed Corker a couple of times and he’s a smart guy, but it’s hard for me to see that. Then again, I didn’t see Trump as the GOP nominee two years ago, either, so what do I know?
CONGRESSMEN BURGESS, PRICE, ROE: Our diagnosis as doctors — ObamaCare is about to collapse.
Back in 2010 just before ObamaCare became law, President Obama’s Department of Health and Human Services forecast there would be 24.8 million individuals in the exchanges by 2016. The actual figure at the end of 2016 according to Avalere Health will be 10.1 million.
In short, the exchanges are failing. The plans available are too expensive and come with too few choices. Younger, healthier individuals have little interest in paying exorbitant premiums for insurance plans that come with $5,000 deductibles. The result has been an unbalanced insurance pool where insurers must charge ever-increasing premiums to continue offering coverage.
Predictably, as the risk pools worsen, premiums skyrocket and insurers withdraw.
That means it’s working.
GRIM MILESTONE WATCH: 1,000 more people shot in Chicago compared with same time last year.
Chicago’s last Republican mayor left office the same year that the Empire State Building opened in Manhattan. Why are Democrat monopoly cities such cesspits of murder and violence?
WHEN THEY GO LOW, WE GO HIGH: White House spokesman: Trump ‘snorted his way through’ debates.
You stay classy, Josh Earnest.
TWITCHY: WikiLeaks-BUSTED Politico journo doubles down with this lame denial.
According to Glenn Thrush, it isn’t always nice to make Twitchy.
A POSSIBLE GAME-CHANGER FOR TRUMP: Has the Hillary Hack Happened?
Noah Rothman reports:
According to documents released by the FBI on Monday, it is possible that classified information on Clinton’s server was compromised by longtime family associate Sidney Blumenthal and that information could have found its way onto a Romanian server.
“The search uncovered hundreds of files that the witness believed to be from Sidney Blumenthal’s server on a server in Romania,” reported LawNewz’s Chris White, citing FBI documents. “These files included Microsoft Word, Excel, and other documents, but no emails. Blumenthal’s email account was breached by the Romanian hacker Guccifer.” The hacker “Guccifer” is believed by the U.S. intelligence community to be a construct created by Russian military intelligence.
According to the source who spoke with the FBI, the documents housed on a foreign server contained one “sensitive” file listing the names of potentially active Islamist insurgents in Libya. The FBI’s source said the email did not originate on Blumenthal’s end and “contained a reference to an IP address range that included the IP address of Clinton’s server.”
It would be poetic justice if it was Sidney Blumenthal, who has done more than almost anyone to enable the Clintons, ended up being the one to inadvertently bring down Hillary.
THAT’S FUNNY, BECAUSE THE WIKILEAKS DOCUMENTS DEMONSTRATE THAT THE PRIMARY WAS: Clinton campaign fires back: ‘The system is not rigged.’
IT’S ALL SMOKE AND MIRRORS: Self-described “hack” pre-cleared his politico story with Clinton Campaign. [Updated.]
I MIGHT BE IN THE MIDDLE OF ONE OF THESE: Those friends who disappear.
AIN’T WE LUCKY WE DON’T HAVE A COWBOY IN THE WHITE HOUSE? And that these things are kept secret. US prepped for massive cyber assault on Russia.
IN THE EMAIL AND ON SALE FROM DECLAN FINN: For All Their Wars Are Merry: An Examination of Irish Rebel Songs.
GEE, I CAN’T IMAGINE WAY GIVEN THEIR EVEN-HANDED COVERAGE: (Yes, I AM rolling my eyes.) The press always got booed at Trump rallies. But now the aggression is menacing.
THE GREATEST CAUSE OF POVERTY IS NOT LOW WAGES BUT UNEMPLOYMENT: Sorry, Bernie, Few Full-Time Workers Live in Poverty.
IN THE EMAIL FROM AMANDA S. GREEN: Witchfire Burning (Eerie Side of the Tracks Book 1).
I WOULDN’T DOUBT IT, THOUGH I WAS ALARMED ENOUGH AT HIS CANDIDACY BEING A THING: How the Washington Post killed Bernie Sanders’ candidacy.
October 17, 2016
DEALS ON COSTUMES, CANDY, AND MORE in the Amazon Halloween Shop.
REASON TV INTERVIEWS ABBY SCHACHTER, author of No Child Left Alone: Getting the Government Out of Parenting.
WASHINGTON POST: Hillary Clinton’s email problems just came roaring back. “According to emails released by the FBI, Undersecretary of State Patrick Kennedy asked the FBI to ease up on classification decisions in exchange for allowing more FBI agents in countries where they were not permitted to go. The words ‘quid pro quo’ were used to describe the proposed exchange by the FBI official.”
Related: FBI Agents Say Comey ‘Stood In The Way’ Of Clinton Email Investigation.
OF COURSE IT WAS. NOW WHAT FRAUD ARE THEY WORKING IN THE CURRENT ELECTION? Jim Treacher: Lefties Finally Admit: ‘Binders Full Of Women’ Panic Was Fraudulent. Remember, every GOP nominee is literally Hitler every four years. Then they get de-Hitlerized later so they can be contrasted to the horribleness of the current GOP nominee.