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 »
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 »
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 »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 »
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 »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.
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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 »
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 »
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.
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