Big Ethanol’s @TheOilyBird Gets Dewormed
This lame Oily Bird is nothing but a PR shill for the ethanol industry as it clings to its Renewable Fuel Standard.
Read More »Thank you, @GovernorPerry
Governor Perry vetoed SB 346, the legislation designed to force political groups to reveal their donors to the Texas legislature. The measure, pushed by Republicans at the same time the IRS stories have been breaking, was concocted by a number of squishy Republicans who wanted to shut down conservative groups that had been forcing the squishes to move right. The squishes figured if they knew | Read More »
Tech at Night (Well, Sunday Morning): Do not let them ban 3D printing. Vitter takes on Obamaphone and a Democrat donor profiting from it.
By my records this is the 382nd edition of Tech at Night. This is however the one that was prepared on my 35th birthday (though sorry, I didn’t get it written until Sunday morning).
If they try to ban 3D printers in the name of gun control, remember that they’re killing children if they do it. 3D printing is an important technology and the fascists must not be allowed to use gun control to gut it. But they will try. Just watch.
Oh look, fugitive at large in New Zealand (and I mean large) Kim Dotcom has become a patent troll. Remember: he’s a convicted felon and fraudster, having stolen money and embezzled money. He ran a large copyright infringement ring, which he now has restarted in New Zealand, having paid off the government through promises of ‘investment’ to avoid being deported despite indictments in the US and convictions in Germany and Hong Kong.
Anyone who buys a ‘patent’ from him should himself be investigated for money laundering.
Read More »Snatching Defeat from the Jaws of Victory
It seemed like the one thousandth call I’d taken from a Tea Party activist attempting our well-known strategy of putting our people in voting seats in our local county and state parties. This activist and his Tea Party cohort had actually had far more success than he fully realized. In a well known county in Colorado, they had put several Tea Party members in | Read More »
Reuters: Eric Holder signed off on the raid of reporter James Rosen’s email account.
Such a bald statement from Reuters about the Department of Justice’s targeting of Fox News reporter James Rosen: “The Justice Department said on Friday that officials up to Attorney General Eric Holder vetted a decision to search an email account belonging to a Fox News reporter whose report on North Korea prompted a leak investigation” (Bolding mine). But there are three things that we can | Read More »
The social triangle
Three great forces shape a society: culture, politics, and economics. Each of them influences the other. The late Andrew Breitbart famously observed that politics are “downstream” of culture. In other words, culture shapes political expectations. People tend to vote in favor of issues and candidates that enjoy cultural approval. Political commentators often refer to the “Overton window,” which covers the range of “acceptable” positions candidates | Read More »
Biden Slips and Reveals True Aim of Government “Studies”
At a recent meeting at the White House between Biden and faith-based leaders Billy Graham’s son Franklin proposed the idea of taxing violence and funneling proceeds to “help victims.” To which Biden replied that there was “no reason why they couldn’t do that.” Now the unconstitutionality of this has sparked no small amount outrage among those who value the First Amendment. But what he says next should alarm them even more. Biden continued by saying, “They really need a good scientific study, which they’ve done on things like smoking.”
Read More »China Is Shocked By The Death of a 2-Year Old. Why?
That kid got run over twice and those people just did nothing! We should denounce the People’s Republic of China. They are evil. They are malignant. They are materialists who have no value for human life what so ever. They could totally care less about someone else’s kids. Or not unless hypocrisy is the bow vice makes to virtue. You see, the PRC is an | Read More »
Congress should rein in the Export-Import Bank
Another sign of the blatant cronyism involving the Export-Import Bank emerged this week.
First Solar, a solar panel manufacturer, is by most standards a failing company. It suffered a net loss of $39 million in 2011, and an even greater loss of nearly $100 million in 2012. The company threw away $215 million at one point on solar panels that ended up failing at high temperatures. (A solar panel that can’t withstand heat?)
But First Solar has political connections within the Obama Administration. And it also has a trump card: First Solar is a member of the “Business Alliance,” a secret clique of corporate donors to the Center for American Progress (CAP). CAP, in turn, lobbied Capitol Hill for First Solar, without disclosing the financial support it receives from the flailing solar energy company:
Read More »The Resurrection of Jerry Brown
On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson and Ben Domenech are joined by Ben Boychuk to discuss the political resurgence of California Governor Jerry Brown, why he has become so popular and how he has, at least for a year, balanced California’s budget.
Read More »Progressives Blame WA Bridge Collapse On GOP
Yes, they did. (Thankfully there were no fatalities from the bridge collapse and my prayers are with the inured.) Washington Department of Transportation blamed an oversized load. But back to the leftist narrative. Facts are fun: – $8.4 billion dollars in stimulus awarded to Washington for 3,723 jobs created at an astronomical cost of $2,256,244.96 per job. - Here is the jobs list for WSdot. Perhaps I’ve | Read More »
I Have No Problem With the Boy Scouts’ Decision
The Boy Scouts of America have decided to keep the ban on gay scout leaders, but allow gay young men to participate in scouting. The vote was not even close. More than 60% voted to end the ban. I have no problem with this. While I would have voted against it, if a majority of scouts want that, that is fine with me. Their institution | Read More »
Tags: Boy Scouts
Left Blames NLRB Delays For Teamster Rep Losing Home Without Asking: Where Was His Union?
As opposed to helping their own union representative keep his home, union bosses and their lapdogs on the Left are more inclined to make someone like Marcus Hedger into a poster child to push their political puppets into action. Read More »
The decline and fall of the Obama-media industrial complex.
I read this piece by Ed Morrissey… Remember when the Obama administration had a relaxed and fruitful relationship with the media? [snip] Less than a month later, the party is over. It’s been raided by the Department of Justice, and the media suddenly seems a lot less interested in making the president the celebrity-in-chief, and a lot more focused on demanding accountability — now that | Read More »
Tags: Barack Obama Media, scandals
Peggy Noonan, Nate Silver & Punditry
Nate Silver kicked up a minor fuss last Friday with yet another NY Times column deriding the Wall Street Journal’s Peggy Noonan. There’s less than meets the eye to the specifics of this particular dustup, but what’s interesting is Silver’s ongoing critique of Noonan and what it says about both of them. For today, I’ll focus here mainly on Noonan. Assume A Can Opener Noonan’s | Read More »
Welfare, opportunity, and assimilation
Every participant in the immigration debate agrees on the importance of assimilation. (In public, anyway. Privately, I suspect some of the open-borders folks could not care less about it, or are actively hostile to it. But everyone says they hope immigrants assimilate and become fully invested, patriotic American citizens.) What is the best way to encourage assimilation? It’s not an individual process that can be applied to specific | Read More »
Securing Our Borders With Open Borders
Every sane person in the country aka most people outside of the DC beltway, is asking the million dollar question of the immigration debate: why don’t we just implement the enforcement measures that actually work before risking another wave of illegal immigration by granting amnesty now? The issue would largely dissipate if they would merely begin enforcing the laws on the books. But when you | Read More »
CFBP, Protect Us From State Lotteries
The recently formed Consumer Protection Bureau (CFBP) has regulations concerning disclosures on bank teller machines, Loan Originator Compensation Requirements, and credit card fees, among many others. Isn’t it about time that those purchasing lottery tickets had the same protections?! By God! I recently filed the following complaint with CFPB here (its the only complaint category that seems to apply) on behalf of those who buy | Read More »
After The Gold Rush II – Kentucky Coal and Japanese Stocks
If you have based your hope for prosperity on what Globalization Guru Thomas Friedman referred to as The Electronic Herd, this morning you probably feel like one of the pigs that Christ sent over the cliff when he exorcised “Legion.” For today, at least, there is no hiding from the stupid. The Nikkei 225 crashed and burned yesterday and Business Insider describesjust what traders in American Equities markets woke up to this morning.
Markets around the world are deep in the red. England’s FTSE is down. 1.7%. France’s CAC 40 is down 2.3%. Germany’s DAX is down 2.4%. Spain’s IBEX is down 1.4%. Italy’s FTSE MIB is down 2.5%. In the U.S., the S&P 500 is down 0.8%. This follows sell-offs across Asia. Japan’s Nikkei fell by a stunning 7.3%.
I’m sure the parrots at CNBC Squawk Box are remarkably charming this fine and wonderful morning. And Jim Cramer has probably exploded and totally made a mess all over the set at “Mad Money.” However, you can get the same level of news content and far more entertainment by watching this Alien’s clip linked here. What staggers the mind is that all of this is caused by US Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke dropping hints that he might choose to reduce the rate at which he hands out free money to banking institutions via QE.
Read More »Tags: ALEC Center, Ben Bernanke, Godzilla, Kentucky Coal, keystone pipeline, Nikkei 225, QE, The Fed
Congressman Jeb Hensarling on the Scandals at the IRS and DOJ
On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson and Ben Domenech are joined by Congressman Jeb Hensarling to discuss the TEA Party targeting at the IRS, what it says about this administration, and spying at the DOJ.
Read More »Tech at Night: Keep government from micromanaging, to prevent the next ECPA mess.
Unnecessary legislation watch: House Democrats (and a Republican) want to meddle in the matter of employer access to Facebook. Sure, a lot of people aren’t smart about Facebook, but that’s no good reason to expand government here. Let’s not micromanage. We just went over this with ECPA.
How can we trust new government regulations of Cybersecurity, Obama-style, when heavily regulated utilities are doing so poorly? That’s why we need a light touch, low on regulation, CISPA-style.
Read More »Tags: amazon, Anonymous, Barack Obama, CISPA, copyright, Cybersecurity, ECPA, Facebook, GSA, Regulation, Tech at Night
A Timeline of Islamic Expansion In The Dark Ages
Let me put down here some facts that are worth returning to from time to time, as arguments over the history of Islam and Islamism are back in the news with today’s beheading in London. In debates over the history of tension between Muslims and Christians, the Crusades are often cited, out of their historical context, as the original cause of such clashes, as if | Read More »
Barack Obama finally cops to ordering a drone strike on an American citizen…
The New York Times baldly says why (bolding mine): “One day before President Obama is due to deliver a major speech on national security, his administration on Wednesday formally acknowledged that the United States had killed four American citizens in drone strikes in Yemen and Pakistan.” Best to have that finally on the record before said speech, eh? – Particularly since the administration needs to tread | Read More »
Why Jindal is Right To Reject Medicaid Expansion
Right now, the Louisiana Legislature is considering legislation to force Governor Jindal to accept the Medicaid expansion portion of Obamacare, and some Republican legislators are supporting it. While I may not agree with our governor 100 percent of the time, Gov. Jindal is 100 percent right in rejecting the expansion. Over time, the Medicaid expansion will impose a greater financial burden on Louisiana’s state government, | Read More »
“Immigration Reform” and Political Parlance
The best way to win a political argument is by manipulating the rhetoric used to describe the two sides in a debate. The Democrats and the Chuck Schumer Republicans have done a marvelous job hijacking the term “reform” and deriding those who oppose their bill to grant mass amnesty, double record immigration levels, and hamper future enforcement, as anti “immigration reform.” They have repeated the | Read More »
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