Archive for 2016
August 5, 2016
MYSTERIOUS PURPLE SEA ORB: “Confirming it’s a new species will take considerable months.”
ANOTHER UNFORCED ERROR: Trump backs off false Iran video claim.
ISIS CAPTURES 3,000 IRAQI CIVILIANS: The article uses the term “human shields.” That’s the hideous tactic ISIS is employing. I’ve written about it several times — here’s an essay from early June. This StrategyPage report from November 2015 includes a gruesome example where Islamic State fighters were
…putting hundreds of Shia (Arabs) into steel cages and moving them around by truck to where an air strike was anticipated. ISIL put pictures of these caged human shields and in general dared the United States to hit a target protected by caged Shia. In the past the American ROE and ISIL use of human shields meant that the most important ISIL facilities were untouched by the bombing campaign. It also meant that numerous trucks carrying material for ISIL (like oil for export) were untouched lest a civilian driver be killed…
ROE = Rules of Engagement. The StrategyPage post provides a clear, detailed explanation.
CLAIM: In endorsing Clinton, ex-CIA chief says Putin made Trump his ‘unwitting agent’
And Clinton, with Wikileaks holding her emails and acting as a Kremlin front, isn’t?
IN THE MAIL: From Paul Clayton, Van Ripplewink: You Can’t Go Home Again.
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TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 1184.
ANALYSIS: TRUE. ObamaCare Is Failing Exactly The Way Critics Said It Would.
The only part of ObamaCare which has “worked” (fiscal responsibility be damned!) is the massive Medicaid expansion — and that could have been accomplished without ruining millions of private plans and all the other resulting messes.
DEFEAT HAS A HUNDRED FATHERS: Trump’s Enablers Will Be Responsible for His Epic Defeat in November.
BLUE MODEL BLUES: Actuarial Establishment Tries to Suppress Explosive Paper on Public Pensions.
America’s slow-motion public pension train-wreck (by some estimates, the shortfall currently exceeds $3 trillion) has been kept in motion for years by deeply dishonest accounting practices employed by state and local governments, which presume unrealistically that pension funds can consistently earn white-hot annual returns approaching eight percent. So it’s disappointing, but not particularly surprising, that the actuarial establishment moved to suppress a report pointing this out. . . .
There are powerful interests that don’t want public pensions to be governed by the same kinds of accounting principles used in the private sector because… well, because if they were, public pensions would go from seriously underfunded to catastrophically underfunded.
Union officials and state legislators (in both parties) seem to believe that it makes more sense to allow public pension funds to play “let’s pretend” with public money. To be sure, the sudden imposition of a tougher standards would cripple business as usual in many state and local governments, so there can and should be some reasonable accommodations made to allow the adjustment to take place in a less disruptive fashion. Governing by catastrophe is almost never a good idea, and a series of small and incremental changes is usually (though not always) a better way to manage public affairs.
In the long run, shifting to a more portable system of public pensions—defined contribution, rather than defined-benefit—wouldn’t just help save states and municipalities from fiscal ruin. It would also do much to improve the performance of the civil service. The current system creates a jobs-for-life mentality in public employment because workers need to stay at their positions for decades to collect the full value of their pensions. Somebody who was a good teacher at 30 but wants to leave and should leave at 40 is currently trapped. Also, one of the reasons the unions fight quality evaluations so fiercely is that the loss of job and pension is so much more draconian than simply losing a job.
The report from dissident actuaries might have helped push state and local pension systems down a more sustainable path. And the conduct of American actuarial leaders—disbanding a reputable task force that had prepared a report that the bureaucracies didn’t like, and then hinting at legal action if the report is published—is irresponsible at best and corrupt at worst. Is it any wonder that Americans are fed up with experts and the institutions they manage?
No, it’s no wonder.
TURKEY’S COUP: Was it only three weeks ago? I wrote two weeks ago that President Erdogan had gone too far. Well, he’s gone even further.
DENIAL: Hillary’s campaign denies FBI, IRS investigations into Clinton Foundation.
“There’s no basis to believe that. I have no knowledge of that,” Brian Fallon said Wednesday evening during an appearance on Fox News.
“There’s no evidence to that effect,” he added, calling reports about the investigation “baseless.”
FBI Director James Comey dodged questions last month about whether a reported probe of the Clinton Foundation had concluded with the investigation into Clinton’s private emails, which closed on July 6 without yielding criminal charges for anyone involved.
“You can’t read anything at all into Director Comey’s inability to answer that question,” Fallon said.
You can’t?
FIGHTING ISIS IN LIBYA: US air support in battle for Sirte.
ROGER SIMON: ‘Mental Health Issues’ No Excuse for Islamic Terrorism.
With a cameo appearance from Sigmund and the Sharia Monster.
QUESTION ASKED: If it wasn’t a ransom payment, why did Obama keep it secret?
THE COUNTRY’S IN THE VERY BEST OF HANDS: FBI Undercover Officer Hunting Homegrown Terrorists Was at Cartoon Contest During Shooting. “On Thursday a federal court in Ohio unsealed the affidavit of an FBI agent that chronicles the chase of a homegrown, ISIS-supporting terrorist cell during the lead-up to an armed attack on a Muhammad cartoon contest in Garland. The documents show that an FBI agent was in touch with one shooter on social media and had discussed the attack before it happened with an alleged plotter who helped set the attack in motion last year.”
UPDATE: FBI Agent Apparently Egged on ‘Draw Muhammad’ Shooter.
MCRIB EVERLASTING. So when I practiced law, I supposedly had a “tertiary area of expertise” in food & drug law. For a junior associate, all expertise is really tertiary, but one of my first projects was to call state food regulators and ask if it was okay to sell a sandwich that wasn’t slow-cooked over a hickory fire, and didn’t contain any actual rib bones, as a barbecued rib sandwich. And yes, it was the McRib.
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UH-OH: Clinton pauses ads in Virginia in sign of confidence.
Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign has left Virginia off its upcoming battleground-state television ad buy beginning next week — the second state to be dropped in recent weeks as Clinton holds a significant lead over Donald Trump nationally and in key states.
The campaign’s new television ad buy, which begins next Tuesday, consists of Florida, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio and Pennsylvania. The reservations, which could easily be amended in the future, run through Labor Day.
The second state Clinton doesn’t feel any need to advertise in is Colorado.
EUGENE VOLOKH: DePaul’s Double Thug Problem. “The first problem: DePaul seems to think that speakers and audiences on its campus are in peril from thugs. The second, and more serious, problem: DePaul is responding by giving in to the (presumed) thugs.
PROCUREMENT: Operational Assessment of the F-35A.
It’s late and it cost too much, but it’s finally getting there:
The F-35A Lightning II’s sensors, stealth, and overall capability have been defended by the government and industry, while pundits and politicians have concentrated on developmental issues, cost overruns, and maneuverability limitations. The F-35A is a generational leap beyond other multirole fighters, and thanks to concurrent development, its technology will be the freshest ever fielded. Its performance in an air-to-surface (attack) mode has been well accepted, but many have questioned the Lightning II’s performance in aerial combat. Only the pilots who have flown the fighter actually know how well the Air Force version of the F-35 can perform, and the 31 who were surveyed for this paper expressed a high degree of confidence in this extraordinary fighter.
My father-in-law flew F-4s over Vietnam and F-16s over Europe and the Middle East says there’s “no question” which plane he’d prefer to fly today.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Student informs school he was being falsely accused, school investigates him.
An Augustana University student is suing his school after being expelled following an accusation of campus sexual assault.
The student says in his lawsuit that he initially told the school that a fellow student had been falsely telling people he had raped her. He “asked the school to intervene.” Instead, the school went to the accuser and suggested she go to the police. The accuser did so and on Aug. 4, 2015, the accused student was arrested and charged with sexual assault. (The full filing in the U.S. District Court for the District of South Dakota can be found by subscribers to Pacer.)
Just 24 hours after the accused presented evidence that showed he couldn’t possibly have committed the rape as described, the charges were dismissed, according to the lawsuit. Most notably, the accused had lost his feet in a car accident and couldn’t physically have committed the rape. He also mentioned that this particular accuser had previously falsely accused other Augustana students of rape, including an ex-boyfriend.
The day after the accused student was arrested, the accuser filed a complaint with the school. Augustana immediately suspended the accused student. Even though police dismissed the charges, the school continued with its investigation and adjudicated the accusation on Oct. 8, 2015.
Colleges should face heavy damages for this.
CHANGE: South Africa’s Ruling Party Suffering Biggest Electoral Blow.
With 95 percent of votes counted Friday in municipal elections, South Africa’s ruling party appears to be headed for its biggest electoral blow since it won power at the end of apartheid 22 years ago.
The results remained too close to call in the country’s largest city, Johannesburg, and the Tshwane metropolitan area around the capital, Pretoria. The opposition Democratic Alliance was challenging the African National Congress in both municipalities. Neither party appeared to be winning a majority in those two cities that would allow it to govern alone, raising the possibility of coalition governments.
Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa told reporters it was too early to analyze the election results, saying it would be like reading “somebody’s tombstone before they die.”
The ANC lost a key municipality named after its star, Nelson Mandela Bay, to the Democratic Alliance. The DA already runs the city of Cape Town, the only major South African city where blacks are not in the majority, and has been pushing hard to win supporters in other regions.
The ANC has become as corrupt and as crazy as any other corrupt and crazy Third World party. It’s good to see South African voters push back.