News of the Week for February 23rd<\/sup>, 2014<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n South Carolina Is About To Get Interesting<\/a> How Likely Are Democrats to Lose the Senate?<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Bloomberg’s latest stats on school gun violence ignore reality<\/a> Growth chart of right to carry<\/a> Want fewer guns on California streets? Open carry may be the answer. <\/a> <\/p>\n Blackburn to Obama: Stop funding green firms that benefit Chinese investors<\/a> Another dubious linkage to \u2018climate change\u2019: Modeled increase in Arctic Cyclones<\/a> The Official Forecast of the U.S. Government Never Saw This Winter Coming<\/a> Steyn countersues Mann for 10 millon dollars<\/a> <\/p>\n Republicans open investigations into ObamaCare\u2019s disaster sites<\/a> ObamaCare tax cost 33,000 jobs, medical trade group says<\/a> Nevada\u2019s Health Exchange Director to Resign <\/a> <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Slaying of South Korean tourists signals turn in Egypt\u2019s Islamist insurgency<\/a> U.S. Combat Exercises in Thailand Seen as Warning to China<\/a> ‘Star Wars’ at sea: Navy ready to deploy laser system this summer<\/a> <\/p>\n Common Core Curriculum Now Has Critics on the Left<\/a> Kathleen Willey: ‘Hillary is the war on women’<\/a> Obama Is Now Underwater\u2026in Minnesota<\/a> This is Child Abuse, Progressive Style<\/a> University textbook claims Reagan was sexist, conservatives view people as incapable of ‘charity,’ ‘lazy’<\/a> Texas Begins Crackdown On Unsafe Abortion Clinics<\/a> Darrell Issa in New Hampshire, Prompting Speculation<\/a> Girl Scouts Threaten Legal Action Against Critical Pro-Life Groups<\/a> South Texas Vote Buyer Convicted in Federal Court<\/a> Report: Family Dog Shot by Police for Barking at Officer <\/a> Union chief \u2018bitterly disappointed\u2019 with Obamacare reaches out to GOP leader<\/a> 600 year old mystery manuscript decoded by University of Bedfordshire professor<\/a> California Cattle Leave for Texas<\/a> Debate at Cal State L.A. over ethnic studies requirement heats up<\/a> O\u2019Keefe Busts Illegal Voter Scheme to \u2018Turn Texas Blue\u2019<\/a> Report: Farmers\u2019 Almanac more accurate than government climate scientists<\/a> State Sen. Ronald Calderon, brother indicted in corruption scandal <\/a> Baltimore’s people of the woods: Inside the hidden homeless camps made of milk crates, wooden doors and tarps on the outskirts of town<\/a> NYC: More Black Babies Killed by Abortion Than Born <\/a> #WarOnWomen: \u2018Obamacare bully\u2019 Rep. Gary Peters tries to silence mom battling cancer <\/a> Food prices soar as incomes stand still<\/a> Did the Fannie and Freddie Bailout Involve Securities Fraud? <\/a> Stimulus Signed 5 Yrs Ago Today, Still Waiting For Recovery <\/a> The U.S. Middle Class Is Turning Proletarian <\/a> Bipartisan Bills Want Olympic Medals to be Tax-Exempt<\/a> Coming soon to New York: Mandatory state-run parenting classes?<\/a> <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Clegg and Farage are squaring up for a saloon-bar brawl<\/a> Media largely ignores violent Venezuela crackdown on opposition<\/a> Lace underwear ban irks Kazakh women<\/a> The day Venezuela died<\/a> Pakistan warns Iran not to send in troops after guards kidnapped<\/a> Disgraced Illinois Democrat Arrested on Child Porn Charges in Zimbabwe<\/a> Ukraine: Deadly clashes around parliament in Kiev<\/a> Dead Chicken Sex Aficionados Horse Whipped By Cossacks <\/a> Ukraine: Executive committee of Lviv region’s council decides to take power in region in its hands<\/a> Lefty Meltdown Leads Latin Revival<\/a> Nice Try, Venezuela, But Your Censorship Backfired<\/a> Ukraine parliament votes to remove president<\/a> “Genderbread” Person Being Used At Ontario Teachers’ Federation Retreat<\/a><\/p>\n OISE Hosting Talk On “Indigenous Perspectives On Decolonizing Education” <\/a> <\/p>\n <\/a> Transgender kids: Have we gone too far? <\/a> Good Samaritan Backfire<\/a> President\u2019s Day: George Washington\u2019s Republican Virtue<\/a> NY Times perpetuates myth of Andrew Breitbart\u2019s misleading Shirley Sherrod video<\/a> What Is \u2018Homophobia\u2019 Anyway?<\/a> Sympathy for the European Devil<\/a> Passive Microaggression<\/a> It’s Happening Again. Communism Fails.<\/a> Fake Homophobia & The Noble Lie: The New \u201cFake But Accurate\u201d<\/a> Three Ukrainian lessons for the United States<\/a> “Social Justice,” a nonsensical concept<\/a> Lessons of World War I <\/a> One Election Away from Losing Our Freedom<\/a> Yes, Jesus Would Bake A Cake for a Gay Person<\/a>![\"\"](\"https:\/\/impeachreno.org\/politicalhat\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/Newsboy.jpg\" "\\"News")
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<\/a>Election 2014<\/h1>\n
\nOut of all the Republican primaries taking place across the country, there is only one that I have taken an active interest in seeing a particular outcome. Senator Lindsey Graham has given voters a litany of reasons to doubt his loyalty to the ideals of small government conservatism. But really it boils down to this: why should we have to have a \u201cgood enough\u201d Senator in a state like South Carolina in the first place?<\/p>\n<\/a>Gun Rights<\/h1>\n
\nAre schools and colleges dangerous places, with lots of gun violence?<\/p>\n
\nAs of 1986, slightly less than 10% of the U.S. population lived in states where there were objective and fair procedures for the issuance of concealed handgun carry permits. About a third of the population lived in states where there was not even a process to apply for a permit. The majority of the population lived in states where issuance in permits was highly discretionary, and many issuing authorities refused to issue to ordinary law-abiding citizens.<\/p>\n
\nLetting people tote their guns around on their hips sounds dangerous. But think again.<\/p>\n<\/a>Hide the Decline<\/h1>\n
Environment &
\n“Green Energy”<\/h2>\n
\nThe Chinese auto conglomerate Wanxiang Group has bought electric automaker Fisker Automotive, marking the second time they snatched up a failed green firm that received taxpayer dollars.<\/p>\n
\nI don\u2019t put much merit in this study especially when we see statements like \u201cstatistically significant, though minor, increase in extreme Arctic cyclone frequency\u201d because we really haven\u2019t had good observational capability until the satellite era to check their model output against back to 1850. Recent improved observation would have more effect than anything, but that isn\u2019t even a factor in this case, it\u2019s a model simulation. <\/p>\n
\nSurprised by how tough this winter has been? You\u2019re in good company: Last fall the Climate Prediction Center of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicted that temperatures would be above normal from November through January across much of the Lower 48 states. <\/p>\n
\nMark Steyn has decided to countersue Michael Mann for $10 million.<\/p>\n<\/a>Obamacare<\/h1>\n
Government in Healthcare<\/h2>\n
\nRepublicans are launching investigations into three state-run ObamaCare exchanges that are failing disastrously.<\/p>\n
\nA new ObamaCare tax on medical devices has already resulted in the loss of about 33,000 jobs in the industry, according to a prominent health-care trade association.<\/p>\n
\nNevada\u2019s insurance exchange director, Jon Hager, announced his resignation Thursday, days after he had described \u201ca difficult month\u201d for the online insurance portal set up under the federal health care law.<\/p>\n<\/a>War & Terror<\/h1>\n
\nAn explosion ripped through a bus carrying South Korean tourists in Egypt\u2019s Sinai Peninsula on Sunday and killed three people, the deadliest attack on vacationers here in years, signaling a potential escalation in the fight by Islamist militants against the Egyptian government.<\/p>\n
\nOver the past weekend the U.S. “dropped a crack airborne task force into central Thailand” as part of what many see as a clear message to Beijing regarding China’s behavior toward its neighbors.<\/p>\n
\nUS Navy ready to deploy laser system this summer; rail guns aren’t far behind<\/p>\n<\/a>National<\/h1>\n
\nThe Common Core has been applauded by education leaders and promoted by the Obama administration as a way to replace a hodgepodge of state standards with one set of rigorous learning goals. Though 45 states and the District of Columbia have signed on to them since 2010, resistance came quickly, mostly from right-leaning states, where some leaders and political action groups have protested what they see as a federal takeover of local classrooms.<\/p>\n
\n‘Just pack your bags. You’ve had your 15 minutes’<\/p>\n
\nHaving worked politics and punditry in Texas for a few years now, Battleground Texas amuses me. They believe that they can turn red Texas blue just by waiting around on demographics. They believe that policy doesn\u2019t really matter, and that their longstanding disagreement with the majority of Texans on a range of issues won\u2019t really halt their inevitable path to power.<\/p>\n
\nMommyish writer Marly Pierre-Louis writes that before her baby was even born, she and her partner intended to \u201cgender bend the hell out of it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nInsinuates Reagan was sexist, failed to appoint women to positions of power.
\nMandated reading claims wealthy people “find that having a social class of poor people is useful,” it “allows them to look down on classes below them.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nLate last week, the Texas Medical Board suspended the medical license of Dr. Theodore Herring after discovering he had continued performing illegal abortions under new law. Texas\u2019 new abortion safety law – aimed at improving women\u2019s healthcare – requires that doctors have hospital admitting privileges within thirty miles in the case of procedural complications.<\/p>\n
\nCongressman Darrell Issa (R-CA), Chairman of the House Oversight Committee, is spending part of the congressional recess wooing fellow Republicans in New Hampshire this week, prompting some to wonder if Issa is laying out the foundations of a presidential run in 2016.<\/p>\n
\nThe Girl Scouts of the USA has sent threatening letters to at least two small pro-life groups that have been critical of Girl Scout collaborations with Planned Parenthood and other abortion advocacy groups.<\/p>\n
\nEvidence of voter fraud continues to emerge in Texas as a federal judge sentenced Donna resident Rebecca Gonzales for one count of election fraud in a 2012 local school board race. Gonzales was one of three campaign workers or \u201cpolitiqueras\u201d originally arrested by the FBI in December 2013 after a targeted investigation.<\/p>\n
\nAs Charles Cooke wrote in November, a surprising number of dogs are shot by police officers. Unfortunately, Delilah, a three- to four-year-old Boxer, can be added to that list.<\/p>\n
\nThe head of the national hotel workers union that says it is \u201cbitterly disappointed\u201d with the Affordable Care Act met on Tuesday with the Senate Republican leader who is a leading foe of the law.<\/p>\n
\nStephen Bax, Professor of Applied Linguistics, has just become the first professional linguist to crack the code of the Voynich manuscript using an analytical approach.<\/p>\n
\nHow bad is the California drought? So bad that California ranchers are selling their cattle to Texas ranchers–even though Texas, too, is going through a major dry spell. It is the latest migration from California to Texas–and another sign that California’s southwestern rivals are managing the drought conditions more successfully.<\/p>\n
\nA debate at Cal State L.A. over an ethnic studies requirement turned heated Tuesday as several students tried to shout down faculty members who responded by chanting “Let her speak, let her speak.”<\/p>\n
\nIn an apparent violation of state law, Battleground Texas officials are exploiting legally protected information to turn voters out to the polls as part of the Democratic party’s quest to paint the Lone Star State blue, a new undercover video from James O’Keefe reveals.<\/p>\n
\nThis exceptionally cold and snowy winter has shown that government climate scientists were dead wrong when it came to predicting just how cold this winter would be, while the 197-year old Farmers\u2019 Almanac predicted this winter would be \u201cbitterly cold\u201d.<\/p>\n
\nState Sen. Ronald S. Calderon and his brother, Tom, have been indicted on public corruption charges, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office confirmed Friday.<\/p>\n
\nPhotographer Ben Marcin’s series ‘The Camps’ captures makeshift settlements near railway lines, gas stations, Walmarts and bridges
\nHe said many of Baltimore’s homeless feel safer in the woods than in shelters
\nWhile most homes are made from tarps, some more elaborate constructions use milk crates and wooden doors<\/p>\n
\nIn 2012, there were more black babies killed by abortion (31,328) in New York City than were born there (24,758), and the black children killed comprised 42.4% of the total number of abortions in the Big Apple, according to a report by the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.<\/p>\n
\nAh, yes, the always charming Left. How does Rep. Gary Peters sleep at night?<\/p>\n<\/a>Economy & Taxes<\/h1>\n
\nWriter Jen Singer, the mother of two teenage boys, wrestles with her grocery list every week to keep the household budget from getting away from her.<\/p>\n
\nThe U.S. Treasury decided that private shareholders in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would receive no future profits from the firms \u2014 but it neglected to mention that crucial fact to investors.<\/p>\n
\nOn February 17th, 2009 President Obama signed the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act into law (AKA the Stimulus).<\/p>\n
\nThe biggest issue facing the American economy, and our political system, is the gradual descent of the middle class into proletarian status. This process, which has been going on intermittently since the 1970s, has worsened considerably over the past five years, and threatens to turn this century into one marked by downward mobility.<\/p>\n
\nBoth chambers of Congress have introduced legislation to keep 2014 Olympic medalists and beyond from having to pay taxes on their newly acquired metals.<\/p>\n
\nVia Ace. \u201cNot only would parents have to attend\u201d if they want their kid to pass sixth grade, notes Walter Olson at Cato, \u201cbut for good measure the bill would require employers to bestow a paid day off each year for employees who are parents to do so.\u201d Sounds good to some New Yorkers, as you\u2019re about to see.<\/p>\n<\/a>International<\/h1>\n
\nIf David Cameron saw Nigel Farage coming down the street, he\u2019d dive into the traffic to avoid him.<\/p>\n
\nMarco Rubio tries to put spotlight on the conflict<\/p>\n
\nNews of an upcoming ban on lace underwear by former Soviet Union countries has compelled some women in Kazakhstan to take to the street, who say that wearing the garments is \u201ca personal choice.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nHugo Chavez is dead, but his legacy lives on.<\/p>\n
\nPakistan warned Iran on Tuesday not to send troops across the two countries’ shared border to retrieve five kidnapped Iranian border guards, an incident that threatens to exacerbate regional and sectarian tensions.<\/p>\n
\nHe’s already a convicted rapist after being booted from Congress for sleeping with a minor back in the 1990’s. Considering he’s a Democrat, it’s also ironic he\u2019s being charged with violating immigration laws.<\/p>\n
\nViolent clashes have erupted during anti-government protests in Ukraine’s capital, Kiev, with at least nine people, including two policemen, dead.<\/p>\n
\nDead Chicken Sex Aficionados Pussy Riot<\/p>\n
\nThe executive committee of the Lviv region’s council, the People’s Rada, is assuming full responsibility for the fate of the region and citizens, the Lviv region’s council said in a statement.<\/p>\n
\nAre we about to witness a big power shift in Latin America?<\/p>\n
\nBeginning last week, massive student-led protests all but shut down several of Venezuela’s major cities, including the capital. There have been at least five deaths and scores of injuries and arrests, coming to a head on Wednesday night when armed, pro-government militias (the so called “colectivos”) descended on demonstrators in the nation’s bloodiest act of repression in recent history. But, taken in context, the protests are tragically unremarkable in Venezuela. After all, opposition minded university students involved in the first protests against the Ch\u00e1vez regime would today be in their mid to late thirties. And there have since been a great many others: each wave had goals, each worked hard, and still the socialist revolution soldiers on….<\/p>\n
\nUkraine’s parliament voted Saturday to remove President Viktor Yanukovych from office, according to multiple reports. The move comes hours after the embattled leader fled the capital city of Kiev as protesters seized the president’s office.<\/p>\n
\nMeanwhile an OISE lesson plan for grades 7-12 “business studies” courses tells students to re-design the Chicago Blackhawks logo because it is racist.<\/p>\n<\/a>Opinion<\/h1>\n
\nVictor Davis Hanson: Let\u2019s Save California Now!<\/p>\n
\nWhat happens when your son tells you he\u2019s really a girl?<\/p>\n
\nor How I Ended Up in Solitary After Calling 911 for Help <\/p>\n
\nIn his first inaugural address as president of the United States, George Washington said, \u201cThe sacred fire of liberty and destiny of the republican model of government are justly considered, perhaps, as deeply, as finally, staked on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nAs we approach the second anniversary of Andrew Breitbart\u2019s death, we need to keep fighting the smear against him regarding the Shirley Sherrod tape.<\/p>\n
\nHomophobic until proven tolerant, it seems like we’re all bigots unless we sanction and celebrate homosexuality.<\/p>\n
\nI know that conservatives are supposed to hold high the banner of Western Civilization, but I have an arm cramp at the moment.<\/p>\n
\nClaiming microaggression is a way to control others.<\/p>\n
\nCommunism* is nothing more than an organized crime ring run by the state. It just extorts, parasitizes, and kills everything it touches, and then fails. Always. Always, and again. Punitive redistribution absolutely requires the creation of a brutal tyranny to carry it out.<\/p>\n
\nGive credit to the American left: they have impeccably mastered the art of being utterly shameless.<\/p>\n
\nThe United States is not Ukraine, so, I hope, we don\u2019t find ourselves living in interesting times.<\/p>\n
\nThe estimable Peter Wehner writes a defense of \u201csocial justice.\u201d But does the concept make sense?<\/p>\n
\nMuch of what we think we know is false; what really happened matters desperately to us today.<\/p>\n
\nPutin’s little fingers in the Ukraine, Cuban agents in Venezuela and the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt all remind us how uniquely vulnerable democracy is totalitarianism. In the United States, cities aren’t burning and streets aren’t filling up with bloodied bodies, but the government of phone and pen also shows us that we are always one election away from losing our freedom.<\/p>\n
\nJesus Christ would absolutely bake a cake for a gay person. He\u2019d bake a cake for a straight person. He\u2019d bake a cake for a girl, a boy, a person who isn\u2019t sure what they are, a black person, a white person \u2014 Jesus would bake that cake if it, in some way large or small, drew that person closer to Him.<\/p>\n