Tech at Night: CISPA to be amended, Patent Trolls attack, Fighting for Spectrum

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  April 9th at 02:00 AM  | 

While it’s true that cybersecurity can be cover for bad proposals, it is true that foreign organized criminal and state-backed attacks are hitting American government and business interests online every day. They’re even stealing large sums of money on a regular basis. This is why we need to address the issue in a serious way. If these attacks were going on at sea, it would be an act of war. Because it’s online, nothing happens? Come on.

Amending CISPA in order to try to get it to pass might be a good idea. If anarchists and other left-libs don’t like it, then it may yet be a good bill after the changes.

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EXCLUSIVE: McConnell to Filibuster Reid Gun Control Bill

By: Ben Howe (Diary)  |  April 8th at 05:09 PM  | 

Senator Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has confirmed he will filibuster new gun control legislation, spokesman Brian McGuire confirmed for me today. While nobody knows yet what Senator Reid’s plan is for the gun bill, if he chooses to file cloture on the motion to proceed to the Reid Bill (S. 649), Senator McConnell will oppose cloture on proceeding to that bill. The future of the | Read More »

Children of the collective

By: John Hayward  |  April 8th at 03:54 PM  | 

William Jacobson at Legal Insurrection juxtaposes two recent incidents to conclude there is “something wrong in the water” over at MSNBC.  First, the left-wing network offered an extremely creepy segment in which host Krystal Ball coaxed her 5-year-old daughter into offering a politically correct “from the mouths of babes” endorsement of gay marriage.  Among the many things wrong with this segment, it was necessary for | Read More »

Court Defies HHS on Plan B

By: Breeanne Howe (Diary)  |  April 8th at 02:10 PM  | 

To be to the left of President Obama on the issue of abortion seemed an impossible task, until Friday’s ruling by Federal Judge Edward Korman.  Defying Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, with whom the president sided on the issue, Korman ruled that the FDA may not stand in the way of the emergency contraceptive, Plan B, being sold over-the-counter with no restrictions on age. | Read More »

All Your Kids Are Belong to Us

By: Erick Erickson (Diary)  |  April 8th at 12:04 PM  | 

This is profoundly unbelievable. Professor Melissa Harris-Perry of Tulane and MSNBC fame wants us to start treating children as property of the state. In an MSNBC promo spot — a promo spot for a supposed news channel — Melissa Harris-Perry says: “We have never invested as much in public education as we should have because we’ve always had a private notion of children, your kid | Read More »

About That RNC Declaration of War on Conservative Grassroots

By: Erick Erickson (Diary)  |  April 8th at 11:06 AM  | 

A whole lot of people have sent me this Breitbart story asking for my comment on it. I’m not exactly known for being friendly with the establishment these days and it comports with everything I think about them. I’m not surprised by it at all. But a bunch of people who attended the meeting are defending Mike Shields. They tell me he was mischaracterized. They | Read More »

The Passing of The Iron Lady and the Threat of Bitcoin

By: Brad Jackson (Diary)  |  April 8th at 10:00 AM  | 

On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson and Ben Domenech are joined by Francis Cianfrocca to discuss the passing of Margaret Thatcher, her role in history and the governmental threat of Bitcoin.

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She Did Not Go Wobbly

By: Erick Erickson (Diary)  |  April 8th at 09:29 AM  | 

It is sad news to learn as the sun rises today that Margaret Thatcher has passed away. She was the first politician I ever met. As a kid, I had the opportunity to, in passing, meet her. She was charming. History brought us Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, and John Paul II at the same time to battle communism. She was the last of the three | Read More »

RIP, Margaret Thatcher.

By: Moe Lane (Diary)  |  April 8th at 09:00 AM  | 

The Right Honorable Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, Order of the Garter, Order of Merit, Privy Counselor, Fellow of the Royal Society, has passed away from a stroke at the age of 87. She was the first female Prime Minister of Great Britain, serving from 1979 to 1990, and is widely considered to be the greatest one since Winston Churchill. Her husband passed away in | Read More »

Filibuster Reid Gun Control Bill Now

By: Daniel Horowitz (Diary)  |  April 8th at 06:40 AM  | 

When you are in the minority in the Senate, there is one thing you can do to stop unconstitutional legislation from getting started.  You filibuster the motion to proceed with debate.  We are all painfully aware that once the amendment process gets rolling, too many GOP senators are enticed into cutting a deal.  Momentum builds for passage of the underlying bill, and Republicans feel the | Read More »

Selective Blindness

By: patrickmillsaps (Diary)  |  April 7th at 11:04 PM  | 

I have a beautiful wife and three daughters (ages 7, 7 & 8).  I love my family but with four women in my house, I have perfected the art of tuning out certain conversations.  Dresses, shopping, “mean girls,” My Little Ponies, and the like, are generally the last words I will hear before I start hearing Charlie Brown’s teacher’s voice.  I’m not proud of it, | Read More »

Barack Obama blames US Navy for increased North Korean tensions.

By: Moe Lane (Diary)  |  April 7th at 09:30 AM  | 

Ever notice that this administration is only lightning-fast when it comes to shifting blame when things don’t work out perfectly?  They practically left a vapor trail in their zeal to anonymously accuse the US military of being responsible for our tense situation with North Korea: So, it’s the Navy’s fault that the U.S.-North Korea spat has gone so far? That’s the apparent message from senior | Read More »

Union Bosses Should Imagine A World Without Obama’s NLRB

By: LaborUnionReport (Diary)  |  April 6th at 11:00 AM  | 

“If the workers surrender control over working relations to legislative and administrative agents, they put their industrial liberty at the disposal of state agents.”
Samuel Gompers,
President of the American Federation of Labor, 1915

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Washington Post: Mark Begich (D) is terrified of the NRA.

By: Moe Lane (Diary)  |  April 6th at 10:30 AM  | 

Well, that’s what the WaPo wanted to say: Sen Mark Begich declared a “sea change” in the politics of gun control immediately after the school shooting in Newtown, Conn., telling his local newspaper that he would not hesitate to buck the powerful National Rifle Association. But in the months since, the gun rights group has made itself impossible for the Alaska Democrat, and many other | Read More »

Tech at Night: Cybersecurity matters thanks to China, even if the Anonymous gang is a bunch of idiots.

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  April 5th at 10:15 PM  | 

I have a charity event I’m participating in tomorrow (I’m the one doing The Legend of Zelda and Zelda II), and I’d like to have slept for it, so this may be briefer than usual.

Looks like a push for real patent reform is brewing. After the lawyer- but not innovation-friendly America Invents Act was signed by Barack Obama, we’ve been left with a need to fix the actual problems with the US patent system. the i2Coalition and Google are backing anti-Patent Trolling ideas. There’s got to be a way to continue to reward small-time inventors without allowing the fakes to abuse the system.

Do Americans have a duty to diminish the security of their communications to ease government spying? Some seem to think so, as we’re reminded of in the flap over Apple’s iMessage being more secure in its encryption than government would like. Let me remind you though that any back door that government can exploit, China and Anonymous can, too.

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