News of the Week for June 21st<\/sup>, 2014<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Franken, Dayton Have Single-Digit Leads <\/a> Cantor will vote for Brat<\/a> \u2018Duck Dynasty\u2019 Relative Running For Congress: \u2018There Is No God\u2019 In Washington<\/a> Controller 2014: 7 Things to Know about John Perez\u2019s slim lead over Betty Yee <\/a> Senate Majority Might Not Be Decided Until December<\/a> <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Emails Show Lois Lerner Fed Confidential Tax Information, Database to FBI For Investigation Ahead of 2010 Midterms<\/a> IRS Has Lost More E-mails . . . <\/a> Why Darrell Issa just asked the IRS to hand over a hard drive<\/a> IRS Contracted With Sonasoft for \u2018Email Archiving Done Right\u2019 Back in 2005<\/a> IRS contracted with email archiving company in 2005<\/a> <\/p>\n Miss USA Stands by Statement that Self-Defense Can Help Prevent Sexual Assault <\/a> <\/p>\n EU Eco Chief Threatens British Press Over Opposition to EU Energy Directives<\/a> \u2018Climate Disruption\u2019 of the past seen in mummy DNA<\/a> <\/p>\n Colorado Christian University Beats Obamacare Contraceptive Mandate<\/a> <\/p>\n <\/p>\n President Obama Wasted American Victory and Lost Iraq: What Now? <\/a> ISIS butchers leave ‘roads lined with decapitated police and soldiers’<\/a> Iraq crisis: Baghdad prepares for the worst as Islamist militants vow to capture the capital <\/a> We\u2019ll fly black flag of jihad over London <\/a> British-Born ISIS Fighters Vow to Bring Jihad Back to Britain<\/a> Iraq: Barack Obama\u2019s self-regarding goodness is bad news for the rest of us<\/a> Afghan election: Taliban ‘removed voters’ fingers’<\/a> Feds: Armed Mexican troops, police regularly jump border to cross into U.S.<\/a> Turkey’s AKP Spokesman: Iraq’s Kurds Have Right to Decide Their Future <\/a> What We\u2019re About To Lose In The Middle East <\/a> <\/p>\n Rolling Stones Song \u201cUnder My Thumb\u201d Declared to Be a Thought Crime<\/a> Former Johns Hopkins Psychiatrist: Transgender Surgery Isn\u2019t the Solution<\/a> Condom Use Drops Among US Teens <\/a> Can Raul Labrador capitalize on grassroots anti-establishment sentiment in GOP?<\/a> Pennsylvania mom of 7 dies in jail over unpaid school-related fines<\/a> A Guide to the Supreme Court\u2019s Remaining Cases <\/a> Liberals Furious over SC Law to Teach the Constitution in Schools<\/a> Supreme Court Decision Day<\/a> Confirmed: Las Vegas Cop Killers Were Members of Far Left #Occupy Movement<\/a> Couple Responsible For Vegas Shooting Spree Recently Lived In Indiana<\/a> Divided 9th Circuit Strikes Down CA Law Requiring Identity of Ballot Measure Proponents on Face of Petition<\/a> Pizza, pizza: $1 million a pie?<\/a> DNC Celebrates Flag Day With The Wrong Flag <\/a> Central American Media Promote Illegal Child Immigrant Tsunami, Give Tips<\/a> U.S. Patent Office cancels trademark registrations for NFL\u2019s Washington Redskins<\/a> Redskins lose trademark, Harry Reid says team will be ‘forced’ to change name<\/a> This Is What the Administration Gets for Aiding and Abetting Human Trafficking <\/a> Obama Met a Giant, Talking Robot Giraffe at the White House Today<\/a> Brian Schweitzer: Eric Cantor Sets Off My ‘Gaydar’<\/a> Kevin McCarthy Elected New Majority Leader <\/a> Steve Scalise Elected New Majority Whip <\/a> A Basic Primer On The Scott Walker Case For Ignorant Reporters <\/a> Marion Zimmer Bradley was a child abuser \u2013 says her own daughter<\/a> Gay, white professor sues historically black university for discrimination<\/a> Ex-Redskins Player Mocks Name Uproar by \u2018Boycotting\u2019 the Chargers<\/a> <\/p>\n A Closer Look at Income Inequality<\/a> Under Dodd-Frank, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Can Now Close Any Business at Any Time for Any Reason<\/a> <\/p>\n <\/p>\n A Europe of Nations <\/a> Demonstrators burn US flag before Americans’ debut<\/a> India Doubles its Forces along Border with China<\/a> China must import more water than the US imports oil<\/a> Concern over possible coup in Lesotho<\/a> Doctors Without Borders: Ebola virus is \u201ctotally out of control\u201d in West Africa<\/a> <\/p>\n <\/p>\n America as Spectator to History <\/a> Global Warming Is Fake, Bradley Manning Is a Dude and Other Assorted Haterisms<\/a> The Invention Of Patriarchy <\/a> Americans Think School Is for Socializing <\/a> War Was Interested in Obama<\/a> Putting the \u2018PC\u2019 in Providence College<\/a> Why Conservatives Might Be Left Out of the Next Wave of Tech<\/a> SBA List v. Driehaus: The Perils of Regulating Political Speech<\/a> Lefty Pundits Distort Unanimous Supreme Court Ruling to Smear Pro-lifers as Liars<\/a> 12 Best Replacement Names For The Washington Redskins <\/a> \u201cRedskins\u201d trademark cancelled by USPTO as \u201cdisparaging\u201d \u2014 Are \u201cNegro\u201d and \u201cColored\u201d next?<\/a> 15 Myths Millennials Accept as Fact<\/a> Cognitive Dissonance and Tech \u2018Diversity\u2019<\/a> Why the Redskins Trademark Ruling Should Terrify You <\/a> The Crumbling Cultural Foundations of American Democracy<\/a> Of the Bureaucrats, by the Bureaucrats, for the Bureaucrats <\/a>![\"\"](\"https:\/\/impeachreno.org\/politicalhat\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/Newsboy.jpg\" "\\"News")
<\/a>
\n<\/p>\n\n
<\/a>Election 2014<\/h1>\n
\nGov. Mark Dayton and Sen. Al Franken survived recounts when they won their first elections to the governor’s office and U.S. Senate. According to our latest KSTP\/SurveyUSA poll, they might have to sweat our close races again in 2014. Franken clings to a six-point lead over his closest Republican challenger Mike McFadden, 48 percent to 42 percent. The poll has a margin of sampling error of +\/- 3.1 percent.<\/p>\n
\nHouse Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said Sunday he will vote for Dave Brat, the man who ended his career in Congress, but stopped short of congratulating him or mentioning his name.<\/p>\n
\nA nephew of \u201cDuck Dynasty\u2019s\u201d Phil Robertson says he is running for the Louisiana congressional seat held by Vance McAllister, who was elected with the TV family\u2019s support and later was wrapped up in scandal when video surfaced showing him kissing a married staffer.<\/p>\n
\nCalifornia\u2019s too close to call race for state controller has gotten even closer. <\/p>\n
\nFor all the money spent on the November elections, control of the Senate might not be decided until a Saturday three weeks before Christmas.<\/p>\n<\/a>Obama Scandals<\/h1>\n
\nBack in April, Judicial Watch released documents showing IRS officials, including former head of tax exempt groups Lois Lerner, discussing the possibility of bringing criminal charges against tea party groups for engaging in “political activity.” In fact, the documents showed Lerner wanted to make an example out of someone with charges in order to chill all of the groups in the tea party movement.<\/p>\n
\nIt\u2019s not just Lois Lerner\u2019s e-mails. The Internal Revenue Service says it can\u2019t produce e-mails from six more employees involved in the targeting of conservative groups, according to two Republicans investigating the scandal.<\/p>\n
\nHouse Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa on Tuesday issued a subpoena to the Internal Revenue Service, ordering the agency to turn over the hard drive they claim is responsible for wiping out two years of critical email communications.<\/p>\n
\nThe IRS first signed a contract with Sonasoft in 2005. And Sonasoft evened bragged about being the backup servers for the IRS in a 2009 tweet.<\/p>\n
\nIs that a smoking gun I smell? It turns out the IRS contracted with a company that provides email backup services starting in 2005. This first came to light in the Twitter feed of moregenr, who noticed that the IRS appears on the client list of email archiving service provider Sonasoft.<\/p>\n<\/a>Gun Rights<\/h1>\n
\nIn a HuffPost Live interview on Thursday, Miss USA Nia Sanchez defended a controversial statement about sexual assault that she had made during the competition. Sanchez had suggested that women should learn self-defense abilities in order to help protect themselves from assault, which some interpreted to mean that women are wholly responsible for preventing violence against themselves. She was criticized extensively on social media, which you can read about in Andrew\u2019s article here. <\/p>\n<\/a>Hide the Decline<\/h1>\n
Environment &
\n“Green Energy”<\/h2>\n
\nThe EU\u2019s energy commissioner has threatened politicians and journalists who campaign against his eco-policies, accusing them of stirring \u201canti-EU sentiment\u201d and warning them that their opposition to his EU energy-savings directives will \u201cnot be taken lightly.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nOne of the favorite boogeyman arguments used in climate alarmism is that climate has been stable for thousands of years, and that our recent industrialized era emissions will result in climate tipping point. However, this study in the Proceeding of the National Academies of Science suggest that climate disruption caused people in the Central Andes to migrate to find a better climate over a thousand years ago.<\/p>\n<\/a>Obamacare<\/h1>\n
Government in Healthcare<\/h2>\n
\nThe Obamacare contraceptive mandate violates the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), a federal judge in Denver ruled in a closely watched case involving Colorado Christian University.<\/p>\n<\/a>War & Terror<\/h1>\n
\nThis is what happens when a president declares an end to a war that wasn\u2019t truly over.<\/p>\n
\nBattle for Baghdad looms as thousands answer Iraqi government’s call to arms and jihadists bear down on capital<\/p>\n
\nIraq is breaking up. The Kurds have taken the northern oil city of Kirkuk that they have long claimed as their capital. Sunni fundamentalist fighters vow to capture Baghdad and the Shia holy cities further south.<\/p>\n
\nBritons who have gone to fight in the Middle East are threatening to bring violent extremism back home<\/p>\n
\nBritons fighting for Al Qaeda splinter group ISIS have vowed to bring Jihad back to Britain and the West when they finish in Syria. The Sunday Times reports that one fighter is a computer hacker from Birmingham who stole Tony Blair’s details, while another is a former private school pupil.<\/p>\n
\nThe would-be Peace President, by failing to grasp strategy the force, will leave a legacy of war<\/p>\n
\nTaliban insurgents cut the index fingers off 11 Afghans who participated in this weekend’s presidential run-off poll, officials say.<\/p>\n
\nMore than 500 armed Mexican troops or police have strayed across the border into the U.S. over the past decade, according to numbers the Homeland Security Department provided to Congress on Tuesday that shed new light on how often the international boundary is violated by official agents.<\/p>\n
\nKurdistan Region\u2014The Kurds of Iraq have the right to decide the future of their land, said Huseyin Celik, a spokesman for Turkey\u2019s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) on Friday.<\/p>\n
\nU.S. negligence may be costing the world a territorial compromise that has worked for decades.<\/p>\n<\/a>National<\/h1>\n
\nBad enough that the Rolling Stones played in Israel despite Pink Floyd\u2019s righteous boycott on behalf of Palestinian terrorists. Now we learn that they are sexists too. A militant moonbat named Lynn Stuart Parramore (no relation to treasonous moonbat luminary Lynne Stuart, so far as I know) screams on AlterNet that she was in Trader Joe\u2019s and was forced to listen to the 1966 Stones hit \u201cUnder My Thumb\u201d \u2014 right there in ultra-liberal New York City, despite the lyrics being a thought crime<\/p>\n
\nDoctor says that medical intervention for transgendered children comes close to child abuse.<\/p>\n
\nThe percentage of sexually active teens who use condoms has declined over the last decade, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.<\/p>\n
\nRep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) looks to have the votes for a bid to replace Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) as Republican House Majority Leader all sewn up. Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX), once McCarthy\u2019s chief rival for the post, has already bowed out. But, as many commentators have already noted, McCarthy\u2019s ascension to leadership in the House would be the ultimate expression by establishment Republicans that they do not understand the moment or the anxieties of average GOP voters.<\/p>\n
\nA growing number of Americans are expressing outrage that a Pennsylvania mother of seven died in jail last weekend while serving a 48-hour sentence over unpaid, school truancy-related fines.<\/p>\n
\nThe First Amendment and executive power are the major themes for this term\u2019s remaining cases. Here is the run-down on the most important cases yet to be decided this term. Monday, June 23, is the Court\u2019s next official decision day, with more decisions likely to be handed down later in the week.<\/p>\n
\nThe Republican controlled legislature in South Carolina recently infuriated liberal groups by insisting that state universities teach students about the U.S. Constitution and other founding documents.<\/p>\n
\nThe Supreme Court released decisions moments ago in Abramski v. United States and Susan B. Anthony List v. Driehaus.<\/p>\n
\nAmanda and Jerad Miller took part in the far left Million Mask March in Indiana.<\/p>\n
\nThe husband and wife who gunned down two Las Vegas police officers and a shopper at a Las Vegas strip mall on Sunday lived in Lafayette, Indiana, before moving to Nevada in January.<\/p>\n
\nThe vote on this point in Chula Vista Citizens for Jobs v. Norris was 2-1. <\/p>\n
\nTHE LANCASTER Avenue Redevelopment Corp. talked a good game when tax dollars were up for grabs.<\/p>\n
\nThe Democratic National Committee wished America a \u201cHappy Flag Day!\u201d by tweeting out a picture of a child holding a flag over the weekend.<\/p>\n
\nInstead of discouraging the wave of illegal child immigrants headed toward the U.S. border, major media outlets in Central America are encouraging the phenomenon in recent news coverage.<\/p>\n
\nThe United States Patent and Trademark Office canceled six federal trademark registrations for the NFL\u2019s Washington Redskins on Wednesday, saying the nickname is \u201cdisparaging to Native Americans\u201d and cannot be trademarked under federal law that prohibits trademark protection on offensive or disparaging language.<\/p>\n
\nIn what some see as the first step to forcing the Washington Redskins football team to change their name, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on Wednesday cancelled six federal trademarks of the team name because it’s \u201cdisparaging\u201d to Native Americans.<\/p>\n
\nThe humanitarian and security crisis being caused by waves of illegal immigrants, many of whom are children, surging across our southern border is no surprise. <\/p>\n
\nThe robotic animal that speaks with a British accent and can carry 30 people is just one oddity in a giraffe-centric news cycle this week.<\/p>\n
\nJust how much can you run your mouth and still run for higher office?<\/p>\n
\nKevin McCarthy of California will rise in the ranks of Republican House leadership after the caucus voted him the next majority leader. The four-term congressman will take over for Eric Cantor of Virginia next month, who lost in a shocking primary defeat last week to upstart Dave Brat.<\/p>\n
\nHouse Republicans picked Steve Scalise of Louisiana as the next majority whip on Thursday, adding what some consider a more conservative voice to current leadership.<\/p>\n
\nI\u2019m going to tell you a true story, and then tell you how the news media is covering it.<\/p>\n
\nEvery so often, the question of a writer\u2019s life versus their work comes up \u2013 specifically, whether the value of the work mitigates, or even has any legitimate connection with, the wrongs they committed, endorsed, or sympathized with in their life. <\/p>\n
\nDr. John Garland’s lawsuit alleges that “a small, powerful group” worked to “destroy” his career, as well as the career of his husband.<\/p>\n
\nFormer Redskins tight end Chris Cooley is getting tired of all the arguing over the team\u2019s name needing to be changed because of its perceived offensiveness. So on his ESPN radio show this week, he mocked the outrage by calling for a boycott of the San Diego Chargers because of global warming and the ozone or something.<\/p>\n<\/a>Economy & Taxes<\/h1>\n
\nEconomic inequality is the big thing these days. Barack Obama has called it the \u201cdefining challenge of our time\u201d and the number of books being published on the subject could fill a small library. Of particular note is a survey by Michael Norton and Dan Ariely of 5,000 Americans asking what they thought wealth inequality should be compared to what it actually is. Norton and Ariely asked which of two distributions the survey participants preferred, either that of the United States or Sweden (without knowing what those distributions represented).<\/p>\n
\n\u201cIt\u2019s a free country,\u201d people used to say. Only the clueless say it anymore. Katie Pavlich reports on yet another reason why<\/p>\n<\/a>International<\/h1>\n
\nIt has fallen on the continent\u2019s minor parties to insist on national sovereignty.<\/p>\n
\nDemonstrators burned a U.S. flag near the stadium in northern Brazil where Vice President Joe Biden planned to attend the U.S. soccer team’s opening World Cup match Monday evening.<\/p>\n
\nIt looks likes one of the global flashpoints I mentioned earlier this year is heating up.<\/p>\n
\nIn one of the most comprehensive studies ever conducted of China\u2019s bubblicious property market, Professor Gan Li at Texas A&M University estimates that there are a whopping 49 million vacant homes in China right now.<\/p>\n
\nThe South African government has reportedly expressed concern over a possible coup in Lesotho, amid reports of increased military presence in Maseru.<\/p>\n
\nThe international volunteer medical organization Doctors Without Borders has issued a chilling warning \u2014 that the deadly Ebola virus is \u201ctotally out of control.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/a>Opinion<\/h1>\n
\nIn 2003, President George W. Bush persuaded Congress and the United Nations to authorize the invasion of Iraq. After Saddam Hussein\u2019s forces were quickly routed, Mr. Bush declared we had an obligation to install a democracy. Our generals agreed to undertake the role of nation-building.<\/p>\n
\nLinkfest!<\/p>\n
\nHomo sapiens have been around for quite a while, though we didn\u2019t start developing the traits that would ultimately give rise to great art, such as Van Halen\u2019s \u201cUnchained,\u201d till about 50,000 years ago. The ride has often been bumpy. Were it not for one man, it would have been bumpier. So on this Father\u2019s Day, we embark on a journey back to the roots of masculinity itself. It is a history of creation, invention, machination, and heteronormativity. First, though, our forebears had to invent heteronormativity.<\/p>\n
\n‘School’ is a tool of socialization primarily wielded by progressives. So why do parents think it’s normal?<\/p>\n
\nLeon Trotsky probably did not quite write the legendary aphorism that \u201cyou may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.\u201d But whoever did, you get the point that no nation can always pick and choose when it wishes to be left alone.<\/p>\n
\nThe other day, I wrote about Harry Stein\u2019s new comic novel Will Tripp: Pissed Off Attorney at Law. It\u2019s an hilarious send-up of the rancid PC establishment that rules the roost at most American colleges and universities. It is, like David Lodge\u2019s Small World or Randall Jarrell\u2019s Pictures from an Institution, intended as a species of satire. But as I noted in an update to that piece, the absurdist realities of contemporary academia make it very difficult to distinguish reliably between satire and the reality being satirized. Give it a try: Which of the following biographical sketches is satire, which is business as usual?<\/p>\n
\nOnly 4 percent of consistently conservative Americans want to live in cities, but urban environments are where the tech action is. <\/p>\n
\nMore speech, not less.<\/p>\n
\nYesterday, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that pro-life organization Susan B. Anthony List should be allowed to challenge in court an Ohio state law that criminalizes making false statements in an election campaign. The law, which subjects individuals and groups to costly litigation, fines, and even jail time if they can’t defend their political speech to bureaucrats and judges, was used in 2010 to intimidate billboard owners into rejecting the pro-life group’s election advertising. The question of whether \u201csomebody should be able to get into federal court,\u201d in the words of Justice Kagan at oral argument, united both the left and right wings of the high Court given the obvious and repellent injury to free speech rights. <\/p>\n
\nIn case you were wondering whether the Obama administration could possibly find another federal agency to weaponize against its opponents, wonder no longer. The U.S Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) just canceled the trademark for the Washington Redskins, claiming that the team\u2019s name is disparaging to Native Americans.<\/p>\n
\nSo when do challenges to United Negro College Fund and NAACP trademarks start?<\/p>\n
\nLast week an everyday group of anti-gun nuts called Everytown published data that claimed there have been 74 school shootings since Sandy Hook. Most of us went, \u201cNo there haven\u2019t,\u201d because we\u2019ve only read about a few.<\/p>\n
\nAnother day, another tech company lambasted for its lack of diversity. Here\u2019s the headline and the lede of CNET\u2019s writeup of Yahoo\u2019s release of statistics about its workforce<\/p>\n
\nAnyone deemed politically incorrect is now outside the protection of the law.<\/p>\n
\nDemocracy rests on a complex set of values\u2014and many of those values are fading.<\/p>\n
\nThe naked self-interest of the government-worker class<\/p>\n