<\/p>\n
News of the Week for Apr. 21st<\/sup>, 2013<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Cuomo Dismisses Gun Owners as \u201cExtreme Fringe Conservatives\u201d<\/a> Obama: “Unimaginable” That Congress Would “Defy” Americans And Not Pass Gun Control<\/a> The \u201cPro-Gun\u201d Provisions of Manchin-Toomey are Actually a Bonanza of Gun Control<\/a> Gov. Cuomo: If I Tell You What\u2019s In My Bill It Won\u2019t Pass \u2014 So I\u2019m Not Gonna Tell You What\u2019s In It!<\/a> How Obama Misread the Politics of Gun Control<\/a> 8th grade student suspended, arrested over gun t-shirt<\/a> Could Obama\u2019s gun-control push cost Democrats the Senate?<\/a> Pro-Obama group will go after Democrats on guns<\/a> A Big Picture Look At \u201cEarth\u2019s Temperature\u201d \u2013 \u201cThe Pause\u201d Update<\/a> Fireworks in the EU Parliament over \u201cthe pause\u201d in global warming<\/a> Another \u201cescalator\u201c<\/a> <\/p>\n Health Actuaries: Obamacare Rates Will Soar<\/a> Baucus warns of ‘huge train wreck’ enacting ObamaCare provisions<\/a> <\/p>\n ‘These runners just finished and now they don’t have legs’: Witnesses recount war zone at end of Boston Marathon as bombs left race course littered with limbs of 25-30 people<\/a> Mass. gov: No unexploded bombs at Boston Marathon<\/a> Boston Marathon Explosions: Revere Apartment Searched<\/a> The Gripping Story of Two Brothers Who Both Lost Legs in Boston Marathon Bombing: \u2018Ma, I\u2019m Hurt Real Bad\u2019<\/a> Explosion at at Boston Marathon (images)<\/a><\/p>\n Deadly poison sent to Sen. Wicker<\/a> Mind-Boggling Details Emerge About Ricin Letter Suspect: \u2018I\u2019m on the Hidden Front Lines of a Secret War\u2019<\/a> Suspected letter bomb sent to German president<\/a> The Mahdist Connection?<\/a><\/p>\n The Mystery of the (Alleged) Bombers’ Voter Registration<\/a> Boston Bomb Suspect’s Dad Tells Him to Surrender, Warns ‘ Hell Will Break Loose’ if Son Dies<\/a> NPR says April \u201cbig\u201d month for right wing terrorism<\/a> <\/p>\n Tea Party fave Joe Miller eyes Alaska Senate race On Politics<\/a> \u201cA Bad Time for Press Freedoms\u201d<\/a> Progressives start push for Elizabeth Warren 2016<\/a> Former prostitute running for mayor in Mississippi<\/a> Eric Holder\u2019s wife co-owns abortion clinic building run by indicted abortionist<\/a> Fertilizer plant explosion near Waco<\/a> Apartment near explosion in West<\/a><\/p>\n EMS Director Says 60 To 70 Dead In West Explosion<\/a> Lightning Strike Ignites Fire At Tank Battery In NE OKC<\/a> Homebuilders Dumping Term ‘Master Bedroom’ For Supposed Racism, Sexism<\/a> BSA membership policy resolution released, will be voted on in May<\/a> San Francisco Police Launch LGBT Safe Zones<\/a> Junior High Girls Beaten by High School Mob in Queens<\/a> <\/p>\n Why a single mom is better off with a $29,000 job and welfare than taking a $69,000 job<\/a> German ‘Wise Men’ push for wealth seizure to fund EMU bail-outs<\/a> The Terrifying Reality of Long-Term Unemployment<\/a> The One Number You Need to Know in O\u2019s Budget<\/a> California City Abandons Sinking Pension Fund<\/a> China\u2019s Local Debt \u201cOut of Control\u201d<\/a> Gosnell Employee: I Saw Ten Babies Breathe Before They Were Killed<\/a> Success for ‘Holistic’ Med School Admissions<\/a> College fires professor who forced students to sign pledge to vote for Obama<\/a> Judith Grossman: A Mother, a Feminist, Aghast <\/a> Chavez protege wins Venezuela election; opposition protests, refuses to concede<\/a> Pakistan’s Musharraf disqualified from election<\/a> Venezuela Faces Turmoil as Maduro Foes Protest Victory Decree<\/a> Venezuela: An Election That Reeks Of Fraud<\/a> Recount Refused in Venezuela <\/a> Venezuela: Maduro bans planned opposition march<\/a> U.N. Committee Says: This Speech Must Lead to a Criminal Prosecution of the Speaker<\/a> Pakistan’s Former Military Ruler, Pervez Musharraf, Arrested<\/a> Venezuela election vote to be audited<\/a> Burma Opposition Leader Says Reforms Depend on Military<\/a> Egypt: Mubarak to Be Moved to Prison<\/a> Italy Will Not Have A President Following PDL Boycott Of Fourth Round Vote<\/a> <\/p>\n The Tea Party Comeback<\/a> Exiled: This Is What Social Justice Looks Like<\/a> Relax, America Still Makes Things<\/a> The Left\u2019s War on Science<\/a> The Paradox Of Absolutism<\/a> Originalism and the Colorblind Constitution<\/a> The Privilege of Not Belonging <\/a>\n
<\/a>Gun Rights<\/h1>\n
\nNot only does he unconstitutionally deny your rights as a gun owner, but he has to make sure to insult you while he\u2019s at it. Way to reach out to the other side, Andy.<\/p>\n
\n“I think we\u2019ve got a good chance of seeing it pass if members of Congress are listening to the American people,” President Obama said in an interview on NBC’s “Today Show” that aired on Tuesday. “The notion that Congress would defy the overwhelming instinct of the American people after what we saw happen in Newtown, I think, is unimaginable.”<\/p>\n
\nThe Toomey-Manchin Amendment which may be offered as soon as Tuesday to Senator Reid\u2019s gun control bill are billed as a \u201ccompromise\u201d which contain a variety of provisions for gun control, and other provisions to enhance gun rights. Some of the latter, however, are not what they seem. They are badly miswritten, and are in fact major advancements for gun control.<\/p>\n
\nI\u2019m not sure whether \u201cwow\u201d or \u201cLOL\u201d is the more appropriate response to this, from New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo.<\/p>\n
\nReality check: Gun-control opponents hold the upper hand politically in 2014.<\/p>\n
\nWhen 8th grade Jared Marcum got dressed for school this morning he says he had no idea that his pro-Second Amendment shirt would initiate what he calls a fight over his First Amendment rights.<\/p>\n
\nSo far, we\u2019ve heard a lot of bluster coming from Barack Obama and his allies on Capitol Hill about how the voters will punish Republicans for opposing a series of gun-control measures that didn\u2019t even keep all the Democrats in the fold. The real problem with \u201cthe audacity of mope,\u201d as National Hotline\u2019s Josh Kraushaar writes today, is that voters may end up punishing Democrats in key 2014 Senate contests.<\/p>\n
\nThe nonprofit advocacy group backing President Obama\u2019s second-term agenda plans to mobilize constituents against the U.S. senators who on Wednesday helped defeat a measure to expand background checks \u2013 including four members of the president\u2019s own party.<\/p>\n<\/a>Hide the Decline<\/h1>\n
Environment &
\n“Green Energy”<\/h2>\n
\nRecently there has been significant attention focused on \u201cThe Pause\u201d in Earth\u2019s warming, the length of \u201cThe Pause\u201d and where \u201cEarth\u2019s Temperature\u201d may go from here, e.g.: \u201cOver the past 15 years air temperatures at the Earth\u2019s surface have been flat while greenhouse-gas emissions have continued to soar.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nIt seems the debate is getting a bit testy in the land of watercress sandwiches and doilies.<\/p>\n
\nSome CAGW proponents argument against the recent stall in the global warming trends with this graph called \u201cescalator\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/a>Obamacare<\/h1>\n
Government in Healthcare<\/h2>\n
\nBut health law supporters are pushing back, noting close ties between the actuaries making the forecasts and an insurance industry that has been complaining about taxes.<\/p>\n
\nSen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) said Wednesday he fears a “train wreck” as the Obama administration implements its signature healthcare law.<\/p>\n<\/a>War & Terror<\/h1>\n
\nUnimaginable horror as victims with missing limbs are transported away
\nSurgeons battling wounds usually only seen in combat
\nDoctor who ran to the scene: ‘It was like a war zone’
\nMassachusetts General Hospital: ‘Several amputations’ performed
\nTen of the victims are feared to have lost limbs
\nTwo brothers each lost a leg, from the knee down in the blast<\/p>\n
\nMassachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick says no unexploded bombs were found at the Boston Marathon. He says the only explosives were the ones that went off Monday.<\/p>\n
\nFederal and local investigators are sifting through evidence and interviewing witnesses, trying to determine who\u2019s responsible for the deadly explosions at the Boston Marathon finish line.<\/p>\n
\nWitnesses of Monday\u2019s Boston Marathon carnage reported seeing many serious leg injuries, including legs being blown off.<\/p>\n
\nA letter addressed to Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) tested positive for ricin on Tuesday, according to U.S. Capitol Police.<\/p>\n
\nPaul Kevin Curtis, 45, of Tupelo, Miss., has been arrested in connection with ricin letters that were sent to both Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) and President Barack Obama,\u201d The New York Times reports. Initial reports listed the suspect as \u201cKenneth Curtis,\u201d however, the Times updated its report with the corrected name.<\/p>\n
\nThe police on Friday detonated a suspected letter bomb sent to the official residence of Germany’s president in Berlin.<\/p>\n
\nThis morning, people are responding in shock at a Buzzfeed report that Djohan and Tamerlan Tsarnaev are registered to vote. People are wondering how this can be if Tsarnaev can be registered to vote if he is not a U.S. citizen.<\/p>\n
\nThe father of suspected Boston Marathon bomber called on his son today to give up peacefully, but warned the U.S. that if his son is killed “all hell will break loose.”<\/p>\n
\nRevealing Politics has posted audio of NPR correspondent Dina Temple-Raston who claims that investigators are leaning towards a domestic terrorism because of the \u201ctiming.\u201d Specifically that April is big for right-wing terrorism because of things like Columbine & Hitler\u2019s birthday.<\/p>\n<\/a>National<\/h1>\n
\nTea Party favorite Joe Miller, who lost a closely watched 2010 election in Alaska, is back for another possible Senate bid next year.<\/p>\n
\nThe Columbia Journalism Review has an interesting interview with James Goodale, former general counsel and vice chairman of The New York Times and author of the forthcoming book Fighting for the Press. Goodale is very critical of the current Administration\u2019s hostility to press freedoms \u2014 \u201cWorse than Nixon\u201d \u2014 and the relative lack of critical response from journalists.<\/p>\n
\nAs noted at the Wiki, the progressive movement has had a twinkle in its eye for an Elizabeth Warren presidential campaign since before she was elected to the Senate, Elizabeth Warren for President in 2016 movement.<\/p>\n
\nDennis Hof, owner of the Bunny Ranch brothel in Nevada, announced on Friday he is offering to join former prostitute Linda Fondren on the campaign trail to support her run for mayor in Vicksburg, Miss.<\/p>\n
\nThanks to pro-lifers Michelle Wolven and Catherine Davis, a small group of us have been on this story for weeks.<\/p>\n
\nCity of West being evacuated<\/p>\n
\nWest EMS Director Dr. George Smith says as many as 60 or 70 people died and at least 100 were injured Wednesday night in a fertilizer plant explosion in West.<\/p>\n
\nA lightning strike ignited a fire at a tank battery near NE 4th and Bryant Ave. In Oklahoma City, Wednesday night.<\/p>\n
\nHomebuilders in Washington D.C. have been dropping the phrase \u201cmaster suite\u201d from their language thanks to its supposed implications of racism and sexism.<\/p>\n
\nThe Boy Scouts of America\u2019s Executive Committee today released its membership policy resolution, which proposes removing the restriction denying membership to youth on the basis of sexual orientation alone and maintaining the current membership policy for all adult leaders of the Boy Scouts of America.<\/p>\n
\nIf the picture alone isn\u2019t enough to convince you that the time has come for a giant asteroid to put an end to this, here\u2019s the story<\/p>\n
\nHispanics of the light-skinned variety may find it advisable to avoid public schools in the rainbow utopia of New York City \u2014 given what happened recently to 8th grade girls attacked by a feral mob in Queens<\/p>\n<\/a>Economy
\n& Taxes<\/h1>\n
\nThe U.S. welfare system sure creates some crazy disincentives to working your way up the ladder. Benefits stacked upon benefits can mean it is financially better, at least in the short term, to stay at a lower-paying jobs rather than taking a higher paying job and losing those benefits. This is called the \u201cwelfare cliff.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nTwo top advisers to German Chancellor Angela Merkel have called for a tax on private wealth and property in eurozone debtor states to force the rich to fund rescue costs, marking a radical new departure for EMU crisis strategy.<\/p>\n
\nIt’s an awful catch-22: employers won’t hire you if you’ve been out of work for more than six months<\/p>\n
\nHere\u2019s the number to keep in mind: $763 billion.
\nIf enacted, Barack Obama\u2019s latest budget would mean that in just ten years, interest payments alone on the national debt would begin pushing the trillion-dollar mark: $763 billion a year by 2023. That may be a rosy estimate: It assumes that interest rates, currently near historic lows, do not rise a great deal over the next ten years as the Treasury continues to pile up new debt. If interest rates do climb a bit higher \u2014 not even to their historical average, but higher than they have been of late \u2014 then those interest payments easily could be more than $1 trillion a year.<\/p>\n
\nCanyon Lake, a small gated city in Southern California, has just announced plans to withdraw from Calpers. The move comes in response to the pension fund\u2019s recent suggestion that cities kick in as much as 50 percent more to the fund to keep benefits secure. Calpers requires a \u201ctermination fee\u201d for any municipality looking to exit, but the city apparently thinks paying that fee now offers a better deal than a future of contribution hikes with Calpers.<\/p>\n
\nBe warned: there is a growing consensus of thoughtful observers, both Chinese and foreign, who think China\u2019s local government debt is dangerously inflated. Joining the chorus this week is Zhang Ke, the head of an important Chinese accounting firm.<\/p>\n
\nThe final prosecution witness against Kermit Gosnell, the abortion doctor on trial for the capital murder of seven babies and one adult patient, was Kareema Cross, a former employee of Gosnell’s. Thursday Cross testified that she saw ten babies breathe before Gosnell killed them.<\/p>\n
\nBoston University has demonstrated the success of “holistic” admissions for medical school, according an analysis published in The New England Journal of Medicine.<\/p>\n
\nBrevard Community College (BCC) has fired a professor after a school investigation concluded she required students to sign a pledge to vote for President Obama in the run-up to the 2012 election.<\/p>\n
\nUnsubstantiated accusations against my son by a former girlfriend landed him before a nightmarish college tribunal.<\/p>\n<\/a>International<\/h1>\n
\nVenezuela concluded its first post-Hugo Chavez presidential election, and it turned out closer than anyone thought. The result, though, was about what most expected, which is that Chavez\u2019 hand-picked successor Nicolas Maduro will run the country for the next six years \u2014 probably. His opponent, Henrique Capriles Radonski, demanded a recount, claiming that electoral fraud had taken place<\/p>\n
\nLawyers say judges have disqualified Pakistan’s former military ruler, Pervez Musharraf, from running in the upcoming parliamentary election.<\/p>\n
\nVenezuelans faced the prospect of extended political instability as the country\u2019s electoral council proclaimed Nicolas Maduro president-elect while opposition supporters marched in the streets to demand a full recount of the April 14 election.<\/p>\n
\nLatin America: Venezuela’s election on Sunday, which saw bus driver Nicolas Maduro declared the winner by a razor-thin margin, reeked of electoral fraud. Kudos to challenger Henrique Capriles for calling it out.<\/p>\n
\nIn his victory speech on Sunday night, Venezuelan president Nichol\u00e1s Maduro promised a recount of the votes in his surprisingly thin 51 to 49 percent defeat of opposition candidate Henrique Capriles. After one of the five members of the National Electoral Council called for a recount, Maduro agreed and told suporters \u201cWe\u2019re going to do it.\u201d He continued \u201cWe\u2019re not afraid. Let the [voting] boxes talk \u2014 that the truth be told.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nVenezuela’s President-elect Nicolas Maduro says he won’t permit a march to protest a presidential election opponents say is illegitimate.<\/p>\n
\nThe German government decided not to prosecute the speaker based on this speech, but the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination has recently stated the contrary, TBB v. Germany (Feb. 26, 2013). Here\u2019s the speech that, according to the Committee, must lead to a criminal prosecution in countries that have ratified the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. (I am pleased to say that the U.S. has not recognized the competence of the Committee to enforce the Convention, though most European countries have; the U.S. has also ratified subject to a specific reservation in favor of the freedom of speech.)<\/p>\n
\nPakistan\u2019s former military ruler Pervez Musharraf was arrested Friday in connection with his unconstitutional dismissal of top judges while he was president.<\/p>\n
\nVenezuela’s electoral body has announced it will carry out a full audit on all the votes cast in Sunday’s disputed presidential poll.<\/p>\n
\nBurma opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi told an audience in Japan that her country’s democratic reforms are not yet irreversible and still depend on the powerful military, which ruled Burma for decades. Political analysts say the speech is another sign the Nobel laureate is trying to balance relations with the military and her party’s political ambitions.<\/p>\n
\nEgypt\u2019s chief prosecutor on Wednesday ordered the transfer of former President Hosni Mubarak from a Cairo military hospital back to prison.<\/p>\n
\nThere had been some hope that the political vacuum in Italy would normalize after the fourth balloting round of presidential voting, in which the candidate agreed upon by both Bersani and Berlusconi, former trade union leader Franco Marini, would be elected with a simple majority, following a failure to elect one in the first three rounds. Marini had been in the lead with 521 votes but short of the two-third majority needed, or 672, to win the vote.<\/p>\n<\/a>Opinion<\/h1>\n
\nThousands of Tea Party activists will gather Monday at rallies across the nation to mark Tax Day, April 15–and to re-ignite a movement that had been written off as dormant by the media and the political classes.<\/p>\n
\nA new book edited by Mary Grabar, the academician who blogs as “the Dissident Prof,” targets the demonization of university conservatives.<\/p>\n
\nWe live in a post-industrial age, defined more by Google than by General Motors. The term “post-industrial society” was first popularized by the sociologist Daniel Bell (1919-2011) in a 1973 book, and the change has generally been a boon. The transition from factory to office has raised living standards, curbed pollution and reduced the number of grueling, often-monotonous jobs. Yet, this largely beneficial transformation suffers in the popular imagination. The vast “service sector,” which now dominates the economy, is seen as inferior, low-paying and even frivolous because it produces nothing tangible.<\/p>\n
\n\u201cWe did not come to ask for mercy from nature,\u201d Ivan Vladimirovich Michurin, the Lysenko of Soviet agriculture, once declared. \u201cWe must wrest it from her.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nYou’ll Get Nothing, And Like It<\/p>\n
\nThe legal literature on the subject of originalism and affirmative action asserts two propositions: that originalism strongly supports the constitutionality of affirmative action and that the two originalist justices \u2013 Justices Scalia and Thomas \u2013 appear to be hypocrites for holding that the Constitution forbids government affirmative action. These claims are made by various leading scholars, including Cass Sunstein and Jed Rubenfeld.<\/p>\n
\nA theory of white racism against whites.<\/p>\n