News of the Week for July 20th<\/sup>, 2014<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n McDaniel’s Lawyer: We Have Enough Evidence To Launch Official Election Challenge<\/a> Washington Post: So our election model is pretty accurate and it predicts the GOP takes the Senate — but what the hell do we know?<\/a> Can Anti-Corporatist Populism Save the GOP\u2019s Electoral Fortunes? <\/a> The Pink Elephant in the Room: Eyes on Gay Republican Candidates<\/a> <\/p>\n <\/p>\n WaPo Fact Checker: Democrats Lying Through Their Teeth On Hobby Lobby Ruling<\/a> Lois Lerner\u2019s Former FEC Colleague Has Emails Go Missing Too<\/a> Obama executive actions seen as threat to Constitution<\/a> The Veterans Administration Can’t Be Fixed<\/a> The Obama Administration Will Seize Land from the Lakota Sioux if They aren\u2019t Stopped<\/a> <\/p>\n Guess What Detroit\u2019s Police Chief Credits For Crime Decline<\/a> Gun Madness at the State Line <\/a> Dem Bill Would Outlaw Firearm Brands On Kid\u2019s Clothing And Colorful Guns <\/a> <\/p>\n Australia votes to repeal carbon tax<\/a> On Global Warming, Follow the Money<\/a> EPA Says It Can Garnish Your Wages Without a Court Order<\/a> People who claim to worry about climate change use more electricity<\/a> Mann v. National Review Update <\/a> Carbon Tax Torn Asunder Down Under<\/a> <\/p>\n Obamacare Isn’t What’s Slowing Costs<\/a> Glenn Reynolds on the hidden cost of national health care<\/a> <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Malaysian Plane ‘Shot Down’ With 295 On Board <\/a> A map that says it all about the Middle East<\/a><\/p>\n The Doctrine of Proportionality<\/a> <\/p>\n Hundreds of birds poisoned and killed at Bush Airport <\/a> Fox’s Bob Beckel to address ‘Chinamen’ remark amid calls for termination<\/a> Inside Brandeis University’s Faculty Listserv<\/a> Mom Arrested for Letting 9-year-old Loose at Playground<\/a> Federal officer fires weapon in altercation at pro-Israel rally<\/a> WHO warns HIV ‘exploding’ among gay men, urges preventive drugs<\/a> SMALL LIFELESS, DEAD CHILDREN Found \u201cWashed Up Along Riverbank\u201d of Rio Grande<\/a> Is California Latino Legislative Caucus breaking the law by denying GOP lawmaker membership?<\/a> WA ACLU Trolls to Destroy Religious Liberty <\/a> Are You Ready for Six Californias? Plan to Split State Gains Momentum<\/a> Marion Zimmer Bradley\u2019s Son Describes Abuse by Feminist Pagan Fiction Author<\/a> Berkeley Finally Achieves Complete Utopia<\/a> Father freed after a decade in jail as daughter admits she lied about him raping her when she was 11 as she was ‘disappointed in him’<\/a> Agent in Orlando never heard of “District of Columbia.” Demanded passport because he didn’t believe DC drivers license was from US<\/a> Garcetti Convening With Nonprofits To Shelter Undocumented Children In LA<\/a> Four Cases of Life-Threatening Plague Found in Colorado <\/a> Parents Threaten to Sue School After Son is Accused of Racism<\/a> College Exhibits Nude Photos of Female Students, for \u2018Empowerment\u2019<\/a> CBS Reveals ‘Two and a Half Men’ Stars Will Adopt Baby as Gay Couple This Season <\/a> Progressives Cheer: Sterilizing Poor People Is Totally Awesome!<\/a> Netherlands held liable for the Srebrenica massacre<\/a> New Head of LADOT Has Never Lived in LA<\/a> CA Atty General Convenes Group to Provide Lawyers for Illegals<\/a> Fauxcahontas and the eleven commandments of progressivism<\/a> University of Wisconsin Faculty Votes to Apportion Grades by Race <\/a> Water Your Lawn, Pay $500; Don\u2019t Water Your Lawn, Pay $500<\/a> <\/p>\n We\u2019re in the third biggest stock bubble in U.S. history <\/a> <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 20 missiles found in UN-run school in Gaza<\/a> Four-winged flying dinosaur unearthed in China<\/a> Europe is dying, says France’s leading demographer, and Britain would be better off with the Anglosphere <\/a> Escaped Christian Schoolgirl Admits Being Raped 15 Times a Day by Boko Haram Islamists<\/a> Anti-Israel protesters attack Paris synagogue <\/a> Christians in Iraq: What should they do? <\/a> Venezuela’s airport ‘breathing’ tax <\/a> Dutch Fury As MH17 Bodies ‘Dragged Around’ <\/a> Christians lie and wives must have sex or go to hell, Trojan Horse pupils told <\/a> <\/p>\n <\/p>\n When more diversity means less real diversity<\/a> Homosexuality, incest, and the death of sexual taboos<\/a> Philosophy and Feminism <\/a> Conservatives Won\u2019t Win Millennials With Political Consumerism <\/a> What Libertarianism Isn’t<\/a> Sex Trouble: Radical Feminism and the Long Shadow of the \u2018Lavender Menace\u2019<\/a> Harry Jaffa on the Famous \u201cExtremism\u201d Speech<\/a> Is Sen. Elizabeth Warren a Mere Hack or an Out and Out Sociopath?<\/a> Vargas\u2019s Gun: A Thought Experiment<\/a> College Presidents are the New Captains of the Titanic<\/a> OUT: Cult of Obama \/\/ IN: Cult of Warren<\/a> EXPLAINER: If You Don\u2019t Pay Your Bills, You Don\u2019t Get Stuff<\/a> Welcome To The Pink Police State: Regime Change In America <\/a> Christina Sommers: Author, Who Stole Feminism?<\/a> The coming progressive schism<\/a>![\"\"](\"https:\/\/impeachreno.org\/politicalhat\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/Newsboy.jpg\" "\\"News")
<\/a>
\n<\/p>\n\n
<\/a>Election 2014<\/h1>\n
\nThe lawyer for state Sen. Chris McDaniel announced at a press conference on Wednesday afternoon in Jackson, MS, that he has enough evidence to file for an official challenge of the election results, and will do so in the coming days.<\/p>\n
\nThe Washington Post covers the nation’s most important elections with the help of Election Lab, a statistical model built by three political scientists.<\/p>\n
\nA Republican Party that taps sentiment against government-business collusion can get its groove back.<\/p>\n
\nIs the political viability of gay GOP candidates another sign of libertarian influence on the party?<\/p>\n<\/a>Obama Scandals<\/h1>\n
\nHe claims they don\u2019t give out Pinocchios for lying about Supreme Court cases. In this instance they\u2019d need a new scale to measure the outrageous lies, or as Glenn Kessler says, misspeaking. Can we just call lies what they are?<\/p>\n
\nThe Federal Election Commission recycled the computer hard drive of April Sands \u2014 a former co-worker of Lois Lerner\u2019s \u2014 hindering an investigation into Sands\u2019 partisan political activities, according to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.<\/p>\n
\nRepublicans file lawsuit in attempt to rein in president<\/p>\n
\nChrissakes the nurses in this hospital retaliated against a whistleblower surgeon by REFUSING HER ORDERS IN THE OR<\/p>\n
\nThe only barrier standing in the way of another shameful broken treaty with our Native Americans is the U.S. Congress.<\/p>\n<\/a>Gun Rights<\/h1>\n
\nThe chief of Detroit police credited legally armed residents for a substantial decrease in crime in a city that desperately needs it.<\/p>\n
\nWhy do states treat ordinary citizens as gun criminals?<\/p>\n
\nA Democrat sponsored gun control bill would drastically curtail any efforts to \u201cmarket guns to children,\u201d according to supporters. The Children\u2019s Firearm Marketing Safety Act would make it illegal for groups like the NRA and firearms manufacturers to showcase their brand on child-sized hats and clothing, among a host of other new regulations which has Second Amendment advocates organizing opposition to the proposed legislation.<\/p>\n<\/a>Hide the Decline<\/h1>\n
Environment &
\n“Green Energy”<\/h2>\n
\nAustralia’s Senate has voted to repeal the carbon tax, a levy on the biggest polluters passed by the previous Labor government.<\/p>\n
\nThere is a real irony in the Left\u2019s repeated insinuation that climate realists must be funded, somehow, by the oil industry. In truth, there is plenty of money being distributed to climate scientists, but just about all of it comes from governments, and all government money goes to alarmists who promote government power. <\/p>\n
\nBefore the July 4th holiday, EPA quietly announced in the Federal Register that it wants to begin garnishing wages for those who owe the agency a debt, say a fine for a contested regulatory violation. The agency wants to be able to \u201ccollect delinquent non-tax debts owed the United States without first obtaining a court order,\u201d [emphasis mine]. A debtor could have as much as 15% of their disposable pay taken from their paycheck.<\/p>\n
\nPeople who say they are concerned about climate change use more electricity than those who say the issue is ‘too far away to worry about’, government-commissioned study finds<\/p>\n
\nI wanted to update our many friends as to the legal whereabouts of Mann v. National Review. The D.C. Court of Appeals has now issued a briefing schedule, with briefing set to be complete by September 24, and oral argument on our Anti-SLAPP motion to dismiss Mann\u2019s complaint to be heard some time in November.<\/p>\n
\nDid you hear that last night? The sound of a million green activists crying out in terror? Australia just abolished its tax on carbon on a 39 to 32 vote. Prime Minister Tony Abbott campaigned on this repeal, and after two years of debate, he can now claim victory on the issue.<\/p>\n<\/a>Obamacare<\/h1>\n
Government in Healthcare<\/h2>\n
\nHealth-care cost growth is slowing, and the Congressional Budget Office expects this to continue. Is this good news?<\/p>\n
\nLots of people are beginning to question the cost of President Barack Obama’s healthcare “reform” plans, and with good reason. (Just compare the original projections for Medicare with what it wound up costing in reality).<\/p>\n<\/a>War & Terror<\/h1>\n
\nA number of Britons are feared dead after a plane thought to have been flying in or near an unsafe zone came down over Ukraine.<\/p>\n
\nProportionality in international law is not about equality of death or civilian suffering, or even about [equality of] firepower. Proportionality weighs the necessity of a military action against suffering that the action might cause to enemy civilians in the vicinity.<\/p>\n<\/a>National<\/h1>\n
\nHundreds of birds were poisoned and killed at Bush Intercontinental Airport this past weekend as part of a \u201cbird abatement project\u201d that animal rights groups call cruel and inhumane.<\/p>\n
\nFox News co-host Bob Beckel will address his controversial use of the word “Chinamen” on Monday’s broadcast of “The Five,” a network spokesperson told POLITICO.<\/p>\n
\nAccording to its mission statement, Brandeis University was founded to \u201cembody its highest ethical and cultural values and to express its gratitude to the United States through the traditional Jewish commitment to education.\u201d The school pledges that its faculty will \u201cbring newly minted knowledge straight from the field or lab to the graduate and undergraduate classrooms.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nI\u2019m sure you see the problem already. Apparently Ms. Harrell couldn\u2019t afford a helicopter drone with live video to her smartphone, so her nine-year-old daughter ran the risk of having fun outdoors without parental witness.<\/p>\n
\nA federal officer attempting to break up an altercation during a pro-Israel demonstration Sunday at the federal building in Westwood fired a single shot but no one was harmed, Los Angeles County sheriff’s officials said.<\/p>\n
\nHIV infections are rising among gay men in many parts of the world, the World Health Organization warned Friday, urging all men who have sex with men to take antiretroviral drugs to prevent infection.<\/p>\n
\nWinter reports that several dead children have been discovered \u201cwashed up along the riverbank\u201d of the Rio Grande, but fails to note that there have been no reports by the Obama administration on this.<\/p>\n
\nWhen Republican Rocky Ch\u00e1vez was first elected to the California Assembly and took office in December 2012, he said that he inquired about joining the California Latino Legislative Caucus, a congressional group comprised of Democrats.<\/p>\n
\nFor reasons unknown to me, I received a notice from the ACLU of Washington seeking people who have been denied \u201crights\u201d to medical care, e.g., abortion, contraception, and assisted suicide\u2013based on religious objections. <\/p>\n
\nA long-shot effort to break California into six separate states got a boost on Monday, when the billionaire venture capitalist behind the proposal said he had gathered enough signatures to place it on the ballot in two years.<\/p>\n
\nMoira Greyland said her mother first molested her at age 3 and the last time when Moira was 12, describing the chaos of her childhood home (\u201cout of control drugs, orgies, and constant flow of people in and out\u201d) with a mother who was \u201ccruel and violent.\u201d Now Moira\u2019s brother Mark is speaking out about Bradley\u2019s abuse<\/p>\n
\nI checked, wondering if this story was some kind of Onion-like parody site. (Look: the Los Angeles Times is something of a joke these days; who\u2019s to say they didn\u2019t decide to jump the shark overnight?) Nope; it appears to be on the level.<\/p>\n
\nA 23-year-old woman has told police she lied about her father raping her when she was 11 – accusations that put him behind bars for nine years.<\/p>\n
\nYou probably learned the 50 United States in elementary school— but don’t forget about the nation’s capital. An Orlando Transportation Safety Administration agent apparently needed a geography refresher after refusing to let a D.C. man through a security checkpoint last weekend because he didn’t recognize his District of Columbia driver’s license as a valid form of identification.<\/p>\n
\nLos Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti has convened with nonprofit groups to shelter undocumented immigrant children in L.A. while they await court hearings on whether they can remain in the United States.<\/p>\n
\nThree more plague cases were found in Colorado, a week after the first infection of the deadliest form of the disease was reported in the state in a decade.<\/p>\n
\nAn outstanding athlete and student at Marshalltown High School has been suspended from playing three football games in the fall because his parents say the school misinterpreted a symbol of school pride \u2014 as a symbol of white pride.<\/p>\n
\nNude photos of female students were on display at one of our nation\u2019s most prestigious colleges.<\/p>\n
\nThe coming TV season beginning in September will be the final one for CBS’s long-time hit “Two and a Half Men,” and it will certainly go out with a bang. CBS Entertainment chairman Nina Tassler told reporters that in season twelve Walden (Ashton Kutcher) and Alan (Jon Cryer) will be getting married so they can adopt a baby as a gay couple. And if that isn’t a big enough twist, the characters are and will remain straight.<\/p>\n
\nLong-acting reversible contraception (LARC) was the primary weapon to prevent poor people \u2014 mainly black and Latino teenage girls \u2014 from reproducing in the Colorado Family Planning Initiative (CFPI). Funded by a \u201cconfidential private donor\u201d and operated through the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment\u2019s Title X Family Planning Program, CFPI not only paid for LARC \u2014 contraceptive implants and intra-uterine devices (IUDs) \u2014 but also paid up to $675 for each vasectomy and $2,600 for each tubal ligation (female sterilization) performed in Colorado\u2019s Title X clinics since 2009.<\/p>\n
\nOne of the iconic photos of the ill-considered UN effort during the G\u00f6tterd\u00e4mmerung of Yugoslavia\u2019s dissolution is that of Dutch Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Karremans sharing a drink with Serb commander, psychopath and war criminal Ratko Mladic after the surrender of Dutchbat, or the Dutch peacekeeping battalion at Srebrenica on July 11, 1995. Even as this photograph was taken, Serbs had begun the massacre of the first of what would eventually total over 8700 men, women, and children.<\/p>\n
\nSeleta Reynolds, 38, the new general manager of the Los Angeles Department of Transportation (LADOT) starting August 11, has never lived in Los Angeles. <\/p>\n
\nCalifornia’s Attorney General Kamala Harris is looking to provide illegal immigrants who are flooding across the border with lawyers, which will ensure they get better treatment than Americans who are not guaranteed representation in civil cases.<\/p>\n
\nIn a speech today to the Nutroots Nation, held befittingly in dystopic liberal paradise of downtown Detroit, non-candidate and American Indian princess Elizabeth Warren brought down the house. The theme of her speech were the economic issues that Democrats should run on in 2016. The National Journal calls them the eleven commandments of progressivism<\/p>\n
\nEarlier this year, the University of Wisconsin\u2013Madison faculty senate adopted a new Framework for Diversity and Inclusive Excellence, which, according to the campus\u2019s Board of Regents, \u201cplaces the mission of diversity at the center of institutional life so that it becomes a core organizing principle.\u201d Nothing new under the sun there.<\/p>\n
\nCalifornians are in quite a pickle over the drought that’s been making the golden state a crispy brown since late last year. And now, different levels of government are guaranteeing to make the crisis even more difficult.<\/p>\n<\/a>Economy & Taxes<\/h1>\n
\nHere\u2019s a quick question for you. What do the following years have in common: 1853, 1906, 1929, 1969, 1999
\nThose were the peaks of the five massive, generational stock-market bubbles in U.S. history.<\/p>\n<\/a>International<\/h1>\n
\nUNRWA apologizes to Israel, condemns a \u2018flagrant violation of the inviolability of its premises\u2019 and promises investigation; Israel calls on UN to \u2018act strongly\u2019<\/p>\n
\nNewly discovered Changyuraptor yangi lived 125m years ago and was like ‘a big turkey with a really long tail’<\/p>\n
\nOne of this blog’s constant themes is that Britain is shackled to a corpse: the EU is the only trade bloc on the planet that is not growing economically.<\/p>\n
\nA video released by Islamist militants Boko Haram in May claimed to show around 100 girls kidnapped from a Nigerian Christian school. The group\u2019s leader, Abubakar Shekau, said the girls would be held until all imprisoned Islamic militants had been freed.<\/p>\n
\nAt least three Jews were taken to hospital as a result of the clashes the erupted; synagogue briefly besieged.<\/p>\n
\nApart from praying and lamenting, is there anything else that concerned outsiders, such as the Western churches, should be doing to help Christians and other religious minorities in northern Iraq? That is a real question, not least because Iraqi Christian leaders are in a quandary themselves.<\/p>\n
\nThe biggest international airport in Venezuela is charging a fee for the right to inhale clean air – and social media users are not happy.<\/p>\n
\nThe Netherlands expresses anger as the country grieves for its 192 nationals killed by “murderers” when the plane was shot down.<\/p>\n
\nInquiry commissioned by Birmingham City Council reveals details of religious extremism in 13 schools<\/p>\n<\/a>Opinion<\/h1>\n
\nA fascinating footnote to Barry Goldwater\u2019s 1964 acceptance speech, about which I wrote about here, was the Arizona conservative\u2019s insistence on the importance of \u201cdiversity.\u201d Goldwater used the word six times in his 30-plus minute address.<\/p>\n
\nAn Australian judge is currently being criticized for what many social conservatives would call a statement of the obvious. Judge Garry Nielson was presiding in a locally notorious trial involving rape and incest. There is a lot to criticize in Judge Neilson\u2019s findings, at least to American eyes, but what has him in trouble \u2014 and could cost him his job \u2014 is not his lenient treatment of the rapist, the girl\u2019s uncle who was already in sexual relationship with the victim\u2019s mother, his own sister.<\/p>\n
\nDefending a critique of the politicization of academic philosophy<\/p>\n
\nA new poll depicts a politically confused Millennial generation that favors whatever cocktail of big- and small-government that gets them the most stuff.<\/p>\n
\nAt my first real journalism job, I started off covering personal finance. Not having the first clue about financial topics going in, I ended up asking patient sources a lot of questions like, “So tell me who should consider an REIT\u2014and also what are they?”<\/p>\n
\nNo one can honestly discuss feminism without addressing the enduring question, \u201cWhich feminism are you talking about?\u201d From its inception as the Women\u2019s Liberation movement of the 1960s and \u201970s, modern feminism has been fractured by schisms that its would-be mainstream leaders have sought to conceal from the larger public.<\/p>\n
\nPaul noted yesterday the 50th anniversary of Barry Goldwater\u2019s famous\u2014or infamous\u2014convention speech in 1964. Has there ever been another convention speech before or since that is as well recalled for a single line? Only William Jennings Bryan\u2019s \u201cCross of Gold\u201d speech comes close.<\/p>\n
\nSen. Elizabeth Warren now says that last year\u2019s government shutdown was about birth control.<\/p>\n
\nIn my conversations with Vargas\u2019s defenders, the standard response to this criticism has been that the injustice of the situation has forced him to break these other laws: in other words, that because the federal government will not give him the requisite documentation, he has little choice but to take liberties in other areas. Okay. In which case, my questions are these: 1) How far does this principle remain in tact, and 2) At what point does it lose the Left\u2019s support? My suspicion is that the answers to both inquiries are: \u201cUp until the point at which progressives encounter behavior that they dislike.\u201d <\/p>\n
\nHigher education hit the iceberg of reality quite a while ago, but as Benjamin Ginsberg of Minding the Campus points out below, many of the captains are still unaware of the situation.<\/p>\n
\nWarren has even created a list of \u201cprogressive commandments.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nApparently there\u2019s a big debate going on right now in Detroit about people not paying their water bills. Some believe that you should be able to not pay your water bill and continue to receive water. Others believe that you should only be able to receive water if you pay your water bill.<\/p>\n
\nPart 1 of a series: Americans are giving up political liberty in the name of health and safety, and in exchange for more interpersonal freedom.<\/p>\n
\nChristina Sommers isn’t what most of us would call a “typical” feminist; in fact, she shudders at the very notion. Rather than focus on the perceived “oppression” of American women, she instead champions the notion that in fact, we’re among the most privileged people on earth.<\/p>\n
\nThere\u2019s big trouble in little Progressivetown, folks. That\u2019s trouble with a capital T, which rhymes with We, as in We (meaning Daily KOS) won\u2019t be going to Netroots Nation next year because it\u2019s being held in Arizona.<\/p>\n