Sunday, March 9, 2014

op ed review 3/9



THIS WEEK’S NEWS
President Obama is planning to break the law, once again, in an effort to protect vulnerable Democrats in the Senate. According to news reports, “the White House will announce a new directive allowing insurers to continue offering health plans that do not meet Obamacare’s minimum coverage requirements.” In the absence of this “directive,” health insurance companies would have to cancel millions of health policies just a few weeks before November’s congressional elections. Obama’s edict would theoretically forestall, until after those crucial midterms, a tsunami of voter outrage that would inevitably drown the reelection prospects of many Democrats.

Iranian general says Obama’s threats are ‘the joke of the year’ Masoud Jazayeri says the ‘low-IQ’ president’s ‘all options are on the table’ remarks are a farce…“We are embroiled in a global conflict, and the supposed “leader of the free world” is taking photo ops at a grade school, making statements about the invasion of Ukraine on a kids’ rug.”
http://www.timesofisrael.com/iranian-general-obamas-threats-are-the-joke-of-the-year/#ixzz2v6S05aXX
Here’s what he’s talking about:  “Obama’s Latest Photo Op Shows Why The Global Community Doesn’t Take Him Seriously”
“Wounded Warrior Blasts Obama for Lack of Leadership in Fiercely Worded Open Letter”
The liberal Washington Post editorializes:  “President Obama’s foreign policy is based on fantasy”
“As World Order Implodes, Obama Promises to Act... Against Israel”

Poll shows Republicans in a stronger position than Democrats in the states with Senate races this fall and more than holding their own in the battle for control of the House.
ABC News is ignoring the results of their own poll. The morning show didn’t mention the poll, instead devoted an astonishing 18 minutes to promoting the new season of Dancing With the Stars.

RNC data operatives will build a list of the millions of Americans who have lost insurance policies due to Obamacare in order to help their candidates win over these voters at the ballot box in 2014 and 2016.

Charles G. and David H. Koch, the billionaire brothers who are perhaps the best-known patrons of conservative Republican politics, are bespectacled and in their 70s. They look genial enough. But Democrats are embarking on a broad effort that aims to unmask and portray them, instead, as a pair of villains bent on wrecking progressive politics. “Democrats will use Internet ads and videos, as well as social media, to tie Republican Senate candidates to the policies and actions of the Koch brothers.”

The new health insurance marketplaces appear to be making little headway in signing up Americans who lack insurance, Obamacare’s central goal, according to a pair of new surveys.
“When Democrats were making the case for ObamaCare, they insisted that the primary problem they were trying to solve was covering the "47 million uninsured." But when asked for metrics on how ObamaCare is solving that problem, we get this from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services: "That's not a data point we are really collecting in any sort of systematic way." In other words, they're not even bothering to check up on how the law is meeting its purpose.”

One in Three Americans Say They’ve Been Personally Hurt by Obamacare
Costs of ObamaCare bungles start to add up, with Maryland first at about $30.5M
“As New Orleans gears up for Mardi Gras Day, at least two parade floats mock the disastrous rollout of Obamacare.”

California Rep. Darrell Issa adjourned a divisive House Oversight hearing Wednesday after IRS official Lois Lerner pleaded the Fifth Amendment and refused to answer his questions.
Lois Lerner stays silent to protect someone outside the IRS.  It isn´t hard to figure out why Lerner´s lips are sealed. First, she knows the House of Representatives can cite her for contempt of Congress, but Attorney General Eric Holder would decide whether she is prosecuted on that charge. Lerner need not worry since President Obama has

Senate blocks Obama nominee who defended cop-killer...
“The first state has passed a resolution to convene a constitutional convention and right the balance between the federal and state governments.”

One of the pillars of liberal social engineering is the belief that subsidies permitting poor people to move into nicer neighborhoods helps improve their life prospects. The multi-billion dollar Section 8 rent voucher program is premised on this notion, providing taxpayer funding for poor people to rent apartments in buildings and neighborhoods that house wealthier people…..But a new large study funded by the federal government has discovered that moving poor boys into richer neighborhoods is so disruptive that its effects are like those of PTSD….

Saturday, the Republican National Committee (RNC) released a statement in honor of Women’s History Month in which they highlighted women trailblazers, mentioning some prominent women in the Republican Party. Conspicuously absent, however, was former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin

Gay and lesbian troops perform in drag on American military base
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THIS WEEK’S FEATURED COLUMN
Washington Examiner  2/28

A three-judge panel of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals may have been on solid legal ground when they agreed that school officials in Morgan Hill, Calif., could bar students from wearing U.S. flag T-shirts on Cinco de Mayo to prevent ethnic violence from students of Mexican ancestry, but their decision raises troubling concerns about threatening such violence as a means of suppressing free expression.

A 1969 Supreme Court case, Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, affirmed school officials' authority to restrict the free expression of students if that expression would cause “material and substantial disruption of school activities or invasion of the rights of other students.” Thursday's opinion by Judge M. Margaret McKeown, a Clinton nominee, notes that officials at Live Oak High School had reasonable fear of such disruption.

But the court's ruling amounts in practice to an endorsement of the "heckler's veto" -- using violence, or the threat of it, to suppress speech. And by acting to suppress the First Amendment rights of the students who chose to display their own country's flag, school officials missed an important opportunity to teach valuable lessons about freedom, community and, above all, tolerance.

According to the facts of the case cited in the Ninth Circuit's decision, students of Mexican heritage made profane threats against other students wearing U.S. flags on Cinco de Mayo in 2009, and referred to the display of the U.S. flag as "racist." The threats of violence the following year that led to students being barred from wearing such apparel stemmed from that perception as well.

Why didn't school officials challenge that false perception? Isn't it their job to teach facts -- including the fact that the flag of the United States belongs to all Americans of all ethnicities? Perhaps the school should schedule a visit from one of the many Mexican-American service members who have fought under their nation's flag in Iraq and Afghanistan over the past 12 and a half years so the students can hear what it means to them.

And further, why didn't school officials take action against those making the threats? Violent suppression of free speech is not just intolerant, it's bullying. Isn't ending bullying supposed to be a major focus of educators these days?

As Eugene Volokh, a University of California, Los Angeles law professor and nationally recognized expert on the First Amendment, noted in a blog post on the case, "[B]ehavior that gets rewarded gets repeated. The school taught its students a simple lesson: If you dislike speech and want it suppressed, then you can get what you want by threatening violence against the speakers. The school will cave in, the speakers will be shut up, and you and your ideology will win. When thuggery pays, the result is more thuggery. Is that the education we want our students to be getting?"

That's a question both the court and the local school district needs to answer, and quickly. If they don't, education will become a distant memory in public schools.

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FROM OTHER COLUMNS
“In the ivory tower inhabited by the great intellects of the Obama administration … no problem is too big to be thought or talked or surrendered away. If Russia won’t change its perspective, we will simply cut our military more to convince them we mean well; if the Palestinians or Iranians don’t change their perspectives, we will force Israel to negotiate with them in order to prove our goodwill. Meanwhile, our enemies laugh. And they should. The global battlefield is no place for the Kennedy School political science grad students who inhabit our White House and believe that a well-aimed, snooty barb is a substitute for a muscular foreign policy presence.”
                 -Ben Shapiro

“According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, between 1976 and 2011, there were 279,384 black murder victims. Contrast this with the fact that black fatalities during the Korean War (3,075), Vietnam War (7,243) and wars since 1980 (about 8,200) total about 18,500. Young black males have a greater chance of reaching maturity on the battlefields than on the streets of Philadelphia, Chicago, Detroit, Oakland, Newark and other cities. Black political power and massive city budgets have done absolutely nothing to ameliorate this problem of black insecurity. … The black family managed to survive several centuries of slavery and generations of the harshest racism and Jim Crow, to ultimately become destroyed by the welfare state.”
               -Walter Williams

“‘I will … create new jobs …’ Politicians always say that, but this president says it especially often. Do voters not know that government has no money of its own, so when politicians ‘create’ jobs, they take money from the private sector, the only group that creates real jobs? I emphasize ‘real’ because, of course, politicians can create jobs by funding companies like Solyndra, hiring more staff or paying people to dig holes and fill them up. But those jobs don’t last or create real wealth. Politicians can’t create real employment by taxing people and giving the money to others.”
               -John Stossel
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LEFTIST WATCH
Money — it’s the root of all evil. Behind every great fortune lies a great crime. Or at least an unfair advantage. That’s the gist of the liberals’ creed and justification for their war on wealth. The other half of their view holds that the poor are innocent victims of life’s rigged game. Their narrative of evil winners and noble losers clears the way for self-heroic redeemers. They will deliver social justice by meting out punishment and spreading the wealth around. Their virtue entitles them to power. It sounds like a comic-book view of life, but it’s the reality of liberalism today.

In the early morning of February 26, after hours of debate, the UCLA student government rejected a motion to divest their funds from Israel, despite a concerted campaign by anti-Israel activists on campus. Immediately after the vote, one of the anti-Israel activists on the panel burst into tears and started screaming and whining incomprehensibly, and in general throwing a tantrum worthy of a frustrated two year old.

First Lady To Obamacare Counselors: ‘You Are Doing God’s Work’

Have you heard the news? Condoleezza Rice lacks “moral authority.” She fails to meet the standards of “exemplary citizenship” and she does not have what it takes to “inspire” graduating college seniors. That crazy thinking comes from the New Brunswick Faculty Council of Rutgers University. They voted last week to ask university leadership to cancel Rice’s invitation to be this year’s Commencement Speaker and receive an honorary degree. Yes, apparently the first African-American woman to serve as National Security Adviser and the nation’s Secretary of State doesn’t have what it takes to be honored by Rutgers.
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ISLAM
Under threat, Syria's Christians sign accord with Islamists.  Their options were 1) convert to Islam, 2) pay a $500/year tax, or 3) die.
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GLOBALONEY
Americans support the idea of constructing the Keystone XL oil pipeline between Canada and the United States by a nearly 3 to 1 margin, with 65 percent saying it should be approved and 22 percent opposed, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.
Police arrested hundreds of people who strapped themselves to the White House fence on Sunday to protest the proposed Keystone XL oil pipeline. The protesters were mostly college students.

Washington, D.C. may have the highest number of certified green buildings in the country, but research by  Environmental Policy Alliance suggests it might not be doing much good. The free-market group analyzed the first round of energy usage data released by city officials Friday and found that large, privately-owned buildings that received the green energy certification Leadership in Energy Design (LEED) actually use more energy than buildings that didn’t receive this green stamp of approval.

ABC, CBS Exclude Scientists Critical of Global Warming for More Than 1,300 Days -ABC, CBS and NBC's lengthy omission of scientists critical of global warming alarmism propped up the myth of a scientific consensus, despite the fact that many scientists and thousands of peer-reviewed studies disagree. - See more at: http://cnsnews.com/mrctv-blog/sean-long/cold-shoulder-abc-cbs-exclude-scientists-critical-global-warming-more-1300-days#sthash.zlba8lpn.dpuf

Baltimore-Washington International Airport broke a 141-year-old record low temperature, reaching 4 degrees.
http://www.myfoxdc.com/story/24877346/another-blast-of-arctic-air-follows-latest-snow#ixzz2v6RnoCyy ____________________________________________________________________________

CPAC
Conservative firebrand Ted Cruz launches CPAC with crowd-pleasing demand to abolish the IRS
U.S. Sen. Tim Scott upped his national profile by getting one of the lead-off speaking slots at the CPAC conference.  "Parents, and not bureaucrats in Washington, should decide the path of their child´s education," Scott said. "They should be free to choose home schooling, public schools, charter schools, parochial schools," he said. "Because when the parents have the choice, the kids have a chance."
The first CPAC convened in Washington 41 years ago drawing a little more than 100 conservative activists from around the country who found themselves enthralled by a keynote address delivered by California’s Republican governor, Ronald Reagan. Since then, CPAC has grown to draw as many as 10,000 or 11,000 conservatives from every corner of the country and from perhaps a dozen or so foreign countries.
Sen. Rand Paul demolished his competition in the 2014 Washington Times/CPAC presidential preference straw poll on Saturday, winning 31 percent of the vote — nearly three times the total of second-place Sen. Ted Cruz.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/mar/8/rand-paul-wins-2014-cpac-straw-poll-ted-cruz-finis/#ixzz2vTWNX6yZ
Sarah Palin says that Russian President Vladimir Putin is a man known for wrestling bears while President Barack Obama is known for “wearing mom jeans.”
Palin Re-Writes Dr. Seuss: 'I Do Not Like This Uncle Sam, I Do Not Like His Health Care Scam'
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ARTICLES
Vladimir Putin isn’t the Easter Bunny. On the other hand, he isn’t Joseph Stalin. It takes a truly fevered imagination to see Russian forces in the Crimea as a prelude to Russian tanks rolling across Europe toward Berlin and Paris. Putin is a power player who cares more about Russia’s national interests, and Russian minorities in his near abroad, than in that mythical force known as world opinion. Would that America had a president who cared more about our interests than in promoting globalism and the left’s social agenda.

Another nightmare for doctors, courtesy of the federal government.   Ever considered suicide by jellyfish? Have you ended up in the hospital after being injured during the forced landing of your spacecraft? Or been hurt when you were sucked into the engine of an airplane or when your horse-drawn carriage collided with a trolley.  But should any of these unfortunate injuries befall you after October 1, 2014, your doctor, courtesy of the federal government, will have a code to record it.

Barone:  Don’t write those tea party obituaries just yet

If Jeb Bush runs for the Republican presidential nomination, he may face pushback from the tea party — and not just for the reasons you might expect. With Chris Christie faltering, the former Florida governor is reportedly calling major donors to discuss a possible presidential run. But tea party leaders, both nationally and in Florida, tell The Daily Caller that Bush would have trouble getting their support because of his strong backing of Common Core. The Common Core State Standards Initiative defines itself as “a state-led effort that established a single set of clear educational standards for kindergarten through 12th grade in

“Why Russia No Longer Fears the West”

Anatomy of a Feckless Presidency
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NOTEWORTHY WEBSITES
The Ten Most Abusive Obama Executive Actions

These incredible photographs show a huge tank graveyard in the Ukraine - home to hundreds of the abandoned vehicles which the country may desperately need if tensions with Russia continue to escalate.

Various maps of the Ukraine:
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WISE WORDS
“Unnecessary laws are not good laws, but traps for money."
            -Thomas Hobbes



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