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 »
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 »
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 »
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 »
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 »
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 »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.
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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 »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 »
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 »
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 »
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 »
Dear Department of Justice Attorneys: Working for the Department of Justice has to be a rewarding experience for an attorney. Your country is your client. But now, you find yourself working for an Attorney General who puts the president’s political aspirations above truth. Understanding that you have nothing to do with who your boss is, I feel its my obligation, as a fellow member of | Read More »
It seems that Google is constantly falling afoul of conservatives, consumers, pundits, regulators and really everyone else on earth (except for the Obama campaign) for its privacy-infringing tendencies. It got hammered for “alleged” spying in the Safarigate scandal, where it wound up agreeing to a record-breaking $22.5 million fine in connection with charges it surreptitiously tracked Apple Safari users who Google had said could opt | Read More »
Four years ago, comedian and Fox News contributor Steven Crowder issued his first Qur’an Challenge video wherein he explored who Muhammad was and if the Muslim religion really was the “religion of peace.” He asked viewers to let him know if he was misinterpreting the Qur’an and/or if anything had changed in the religion since the book was first written. The video was a hit | Read More »
First Bill Jefferson, now Martha Shoffner. Cash-filled pie boxes are a recurring theme among corrupt Democrats.
Read More »Since August or September of 480BC, Western Culture has been well aware of the power multiplier that comes with establishing and holding a choke point. When King Leonidas of Sparta held a vast army of Persians at bay for several days with a smaller force at Thermopylae; the world then knew that chokepoints were strategic fulcrums from whence power could be leveraged far beyond its initial limits. The economic analog to such a chokepoint is the monopoly. The government permit power is just such a chokepoint generating function to empower the state beyond its circumscribed constitutional limits.
When the government controls activity via permit, they are able to do several things that go far beyond their enumerated Constitutional powers. They can pick winners and losers. They can dictate the size and scope of activities without having to depend on the approval of courts or legislators. An agency wielding permit power can skim a surplus off the top through fees that go beyond the cost of providing inspection and certification related to the permit. Like a gang of brigands controlling a bridge, a regulating agency can use the permit power to dictate who gets to pass, how much traffic traverses the road and how much in bribes have to be paid in order to get across the river
Read More »On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson is joined by Kristina Ribali to discuss her work with The Blaze and their Mercury One charity to help victims of the devastating tornado in Moore, Oklahoma earlier this week, the 24 hour telethon they are having tomorrow on The Blaze Radio and how you can contribute to their relief efforts.
Read More »If I were granted one wish about the state of today’s politics it would be for the Democrats to be saddled with their own version of John McCain. Once again, McCain is working to score points for Democrats and undermine Cruz/Paul and Lee – the “Wacko Birds” – in their attempt to prevent a free debt ceiling increase. Back in January, Republicans and conservatives got | Read More »
This was just too much. Lerner’s attorney offers this excuse as to why she’s pleading the 5th: Lerner ‘has not committed any crime or made any misrepresentation,’ Taylor’s letter read, ‘but under the circumstances she has no choice but to take this course.’ He is asking the oversight committee to excuse Lerner from testifying, claiming that calling her in a congressional hearing would ‘have no | Read More »
According to The Hill, there is new legislation coming down the pipe that aims to protect women from being lied to about their health care. Democrats in the House and Senate are looking to stop what they say are deceptive advertising practices by anti-abortion health clinics that imply they offer abortion services, but instead encourage birth and promote adoption. The legislation is aimed at crisis | Read More »
Serfdom is making a big comeback these days. It never really went out of style, of course, but it’s remarkable how many people are now willing to submit to government authority without question, or without much in the way of expectations. Shoddy performance, from fiscal insolvency to a moribund economy, is no cause for outrage among the modern serfs. They accept the “New Normal” without | Read More »
It looks like Mitch McConnell’s pass from Chuck Schumer to publicly remain silent on the amnesty bill has expired. While McConnell has come out of the witness protection program to attack the ‘low-hanging fruit’ IRS scandal with alacrity, he has remained silent on the most profound threat to our Republic – the Schumer immigration reform bill. How can the sitting GOP leader remain silent on | Read More »
As you know, there is a lot going on in the press these days — with the IRS targeting conservatives, federal officials scandalously obtaining the phone records of AP journalists and the killing of four Americans by terrorists at the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, to name a few. Another key concern is immigration and immigration reform. Joining me this week on PowerTalk to sort | Read More »
Well. Isn’t this a thing: Sharyl Attkisson, the Emmy-award winning CBS News investigative reporter, says that her personal and work computers have been compromised and are under investigation. “I can confirm that an intrusion of my computers has been under some investigation on my end for some months but I’m not prepared to make an allegation against a specific entity today as I’ve been patient and | Read More »
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