MARK PULLIAM: The Beguiling Myth of Mass Incarceration. Are we locking up too many people? Maybe. Are we locking up the wrong people? Probably. I think violent criminals should do more time, nonviolent criminals less.
Archive for 2016
September 9, 2016
AT THE CLINTON FOUNDATION ACCESS EQUALS CORRUPTION: Ted Rall’s take on the Clintons’ scheme.
Excerpt:
Clinton’s defenders like to point out that neither she nor her husband draw a salary from their foundation. But that’s a technicality. The Clintons extract millions of dollars in travel expenditures, including luxurious airplane accommodations and hotel suites, from their purported do-gooder outfit. They exploit the foundation as a patronage mill, arranging for it to hire their loyalists at extravagant six-figure salaries. Charity Navigator, the Yelp of non-profits, doesn’t bother to issue a rating for the Clinton foundation due to the pathetically low portion of money ($9 million out of $140 million in 2013) that makes its way to someone who needs it.
More:
…ethics require that someone in Hillary Clinton’s position never, ever take a meeting or correspond by email or offer a job to someone who donated money to her and her husband’s foundation.
Rall’s counter to Donna Brazile’s defense of the Clintons’ corrupt operation is excellent. Read the whole thing.
RELATED: My thoughts a few weeks back on the hybrid Clinton State-Foundation.
STEVEN HAYWARD: Milo Yiannopoulos On A Roll: “This seven-minute interview has some great moments, and clearly has the CNBC studio crew overmatched.”
IN MORE WAYS THAN ONE: Kurt Schlichter: 2016 Is The Year Of The Hack. “So 2016 will go down in history as one of America’s most awful years, a year remembered for Hillary’s hacking cough, for the Russians’ hacking successes, and for the self-inflicted humiliation of the hacks in America’s once-proud institutions. Pray that 2017 is better, because if it’s like 2016, America may not be able to hack it.”
As bad as it seems now, 2016 may turn out to be an average year in retrospect.
21ST CENTURY DEMOCRATS: Bill Clinton Mocks ‘The Coal People’ In West Virginia, Kentucky For Supporting Trump.
On Facebook, Mark Danziger comments: “Way to go, Bill!! You weren’t so tone-deaf before you were rich.”
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Prof spams student emails to recruit for Hillary, blames ‘hack.’
OBAMA POLITICAL APPOINTEE SPENT TAX $$$ ON LUXURY TRAVEL AND HIS PERSONAL OFFICE AND THE COMMERCE DEPT IG WON’T NAME HIM: The linked Fox News article refers to this Commerce Dept IG report. The inspector general responded to a confidential complaint. The IG confirmed the appointee spent way too much money on the office and had a taste for “premium lodging.” The IG determined that “multiple regulatory and policy violations occurred in connection with Political Appointee’s official travel during his first year with the Department, and several people share responsibility for these violations.” (See the pdf, p. 21) The appointee is not named– not named anywhere in the report. The IG determined that the “Political Appointee is not a person lacking the means to pay for luxury accommodations or other premium services out of his own funds…” The appointee has told the IG he will pay back the money. So…First Bet: He’s a wealthy Democrat donor. Second Bet: The Commerce Dept honchos don’t want to embarrass him. Third Bet: If we had a Republican administration in power the mainstream media would be demanding the appointee’s name be released — for the benefit of good government!!! Fox News reports the Cause of Action Institute is on the case and says “American taxpayers have the right to know the name and title of this high-ranking political appointee and whether such wasteful spending could be a more widespread problem at the agency.”
YOU WILL BE MADE TO CARE: Massachusetts Forces LGBT ‘Accommodation’ Rules on Churches.
THE DECLINING RATE OF HOMEOWNERSHIP: Millennials will continue to rent a lot longer. The reasons are complicated but Obama’s non-recovery has to contribute to the malaise. Here’s the study the CNBC article uses as a primary source. Check out its analysis of The Balancer Generation.
GOVERNMENT IS JUST ANOTHER WORD FOR THE THINGS WE CHOOSE TO DO TOGETHER: The government’s idiotic rules on bone-marrow donation may be killing thousands each year.
THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER: State Dept sand bags and slow-walks document requests by Republicans, but it’s quick to respond when Democrats ask. Indeed. It’s part of a calculated –and massive– obstruction of justice operation run by Hillary. Obstruction of justice is the crime that drove Nixon from the White House.
WHY ARE DEMOCRAT-CONTROLLED INDUSTRIES SUCH CESSPITS OF DISCRIMINATION? It’s Tough Being Over 40 in Silicon Valley: Older workers are trying lawsuits, classes, makeovers—even surgery—to keep working.
ZIKA: W.H.O. Clarifies Advice on Sex and Pregnancy in Zika Regions. “A spokeswoman said the agency made the announcement to clear up earlier confusion over whether it was advising women to avoid pregnancy during the epidemic. The W.H.O. is not offering such advice, although, she conceded, officials did appear to have said as much in June. The W.H.O. also suggested that men and women who visit and return from areas with mosquito-borne Zika transmission practice protected sex or abstinence for six months. The advice to wait that long — instead of eight weeks, the previous limit — is based on new evidence about the persistence of the virus in semen.”
This just gets better and better.
SUICIDE VESTS IN MORE TASTEFUL COLORS? Taliban Leader: ‘Train Mujahideen How to Behave Well with People’
OBAMACARE FAILED BECAUSE IT VIOLATED ECONOMICS 101 AND HUMAN NATURE 101: Get ready for the source of this insight: The Chicago Tribune. Remember, not a single Republican in Congress voted for ObamaCare. Violating Economics 101 as well as violating common sense were two reasons the GOP opposed the hideous thing en masse.
More from The Chicago Tribune:
It straitjacketed insurers into providing overly expensive, soup-to-nuts policies. It wasn’t flexible enough so that people could buy as much coverage as they wanted and could afford — not what the government dictated. Many healthy people primarily want catastrophic coverage. Obamacare couldn’t lure them in, couldn’t persuade them to buy on the chance they’d get sick.
Read the whole thing.
RELATED: Harry Reid says “ObamaCare has been terrific” for the country.
AT AMAZON, get the all-new Fire HD8 for $89.99.
NEWS YOU CAN USE: Exercise can cancel out the booze, says study. “Exercising the recommended amount ‘cancels out’ the higher risk of cancer death brought about by drinking, a new study revealed. Similarly, physical activity lessened any greater risk of death resulting from any cause due to alcohol.”
NBC NEWS: Zika Money Is Running Out Across Federal Agencies.
Democrats in Congress are blocking funding in order to make sure Planned Parenthood gets its share of the booty, although NBC News didn’t phrase quite that way.
SIGNS AND PORTENTS: A Russian River Mysteriously Turned Blood Red. And no one’s saying why.
ANOTHER REASON WE SHOULD NEVER HAVE IT: George Soros wants on-line voting. (Hat tip Drudge.) The article notes Soros made this a priority two years ago. Breitbart got the info from a leaked Open Society Foundations’ document. As Glenn says, paper ballots, please.
THAT MEANS IT’S WORKING: Medicaid’s “Improper Payments” Needlessly Costing Taxpayers Billions.
According to the Department of Health and Human Services, the improper payment rate for Medicaid in 2016 will likely hit 11.5%, meaning more than one in ten dollars taxpayers spend on the program are spent wrongfully.
Improper payments have nearly doubled since 2013, undoubtedly driven by Obamacare’s massive expansion of Medicaid to able-bodied, childless, working-age adults that to date has been accepted by 31 states. The federal government’s total growth improper payments – which now top $136 billion – was driven almost entirely by Medicaid.
I’m so old, I remember when President Obama promised his signature law would practically pay for itself by eliminating “hundreds of billions of dollars in waste and fraud.”
That has to be worth at least a Pinocchio or two.
JOE PAPPALARDO: When “Hybrid Warfare” Comes To America.