Coming less than three months after MS-NBC dumped fellow English commentator Martin Bashir, Piers Morgan is now out at CNN. Morgan’s show, which had replaced Larry King’s upon King’s retirement three years ago, will end soon, probably within a month or so. CNN’s experiment with having a Brit constantly trashing America’s gun culture, along with persistently advocating for more strict gun control laws, did not go well for some reason. The full New York Times story is HERE.
Category Archives: Front Page
Not Even A Smidgeon Of Corruption?
Yeah, right. Cleta Mitchell, a top attorney at Washington, DC law firm Foley & Lardner is on the case, in only two minutes, thirty-four seconds.
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For more, Powerline’s original post on this is HERE.
And a reminder — the deadline for public comment to the IRS on the issue of their proposed rules for treatment of Section 501(c)(4) organizations (which includes most Tea Party groups) is February 27th, so if you haven’t already, please use the boilerplate text to copy and paste an e-mail to the IRS expressing your opposition. Access the page by navigating via the menu bar [ Current Issues / IRS 501(c)(4) Rules ], above. Please, do this soon.
That crashing sound? Oh, that’s the scales falling from the eyes of Howard Stern.
Quoted from a post earlier this month at The Minority Report BLOG, with slight editing:
Sirius Satellite Radio host Howard Stern supports the merger of his network with XM Satelitte Radio and is fuming at Democratic opposition on the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) panel.
After FCC commissioners announced they have reached a deal to approve the merger of Sirius and XM, Stern ranted about Democrats’ ‘gangsterism’ and ‘communism’ and the obstacles to the merger. Stern described a phone conversation he had with his agent, who he described as a “liberal Democrat kind of guy.”
“That’s it! You know what Don, I’ve voted Republican and I’ve voted Democrat. I have vowed I will never vote for a Democrat again. I don’t give a [expletive] – no matter who they are. I don’t care if God becomes a Democrat. I backed Hillary Clinton, I backed Al Gore, I backed John Kerry. I am done with them.”, Stern said.
Stern took it a step even further and called Democrats on the FCC “communists” and referred to their tactics as “gangsterism.”
“The fact [is] that these Democrats on the FCC are communists,” Stern said. “They’re for communism. They don’t want to see companies – this is gangsterism. This is crazy.”
I’m sure that Hillary, in the run-up to the 2016 elections, will feel this defection acutely. NOT!
Back Into The Trenches on Coastal Homeowner Insurance Rates
Almost one month ago, I put up special pages for our readers to use in expressing their opposition to the homeowner’s and flood insurance rate increases being currently proposed by the Rate Bureau in the NC Department of Insurance. I took them down after the deadline for public comment passed, but now Senator Norm Sanderson is encouraging us to do it again, this time with messages sent directly to him.
Everything is explained on the “Homeowner Rates” page, which can be accessed under the “Current Issues” menu topic, above, or simply by clicking HERE. As before, I have included boilerplate text which can be copied and pasted into an e-mail message, and Senator Sanderson’s e-mail address is also provided.
We need to do this within the next week, so take the five minutes and GIT-ER-DONE !!
Renee Ellmers Climbs Aboard The Immigration Reform Choo-Choo
Earlier this week, the News-&-Observer reported on remarks by 
Representative Renee Ellmers before a receptive audience in Cary:
The Dunn Republican is making immigration overhaul a top priority even as it becomes a flashpoint in her re-election campaign and the prospect of a deal appears to fade on Capitol Hill.
“If I can do anything in Washington, I’d like to solve this problem,” the second-term lawmaker told a forum of immigration advocates in Cary.
Ellmers offered a broad outline of a plan that puts the emphasis foremost on securing the nation’s borders, while also including legal status for the roughly 11 million people living in the United States illegally.
It is not the equivalent of citizenship, Ellmers cautioned, but a lesser status that she did not define. To gain legal status, she said, immigrants would have to verify their identity, pay a penalty and admit wrongdoing.
The full article is HERE.
The F-35: Six Versions for the Marine Corps?
Shane McGlaun has a new piece up on Daily Tech about the progress of the F-35 Lightening II Joint Strike Fighter program. In an interesting passage from the full article, HERE, Army Lieutenant General Christopher Bogdan, the officer in charge of the F-35 program at the Pentagon, said:
“I don’t see any scenario where we are walking back away from this program. We’re going to buy a lot of these airplanes.” The 2015 fiscal request from the DOD asks for funds to buy two Navy versions of the F-35, six Marine versions, and 26 Air Force versions.
In a related story, Defense News is reporting HERE that F-18 Hornet purchases by the US Navy are over, with no new orders to Boeing from them or from any foreign governments.
Oh Nooo’s! Comcast will own TWC by year’s end.
Tiffany Kaiser of Daily Tech is reporting that Comcast has purchased Time Warner Cable in a $45-billion stock deal that will be completed by the end of 2014. I hope that this will not mean more increases in our Crystal Coast CATV bills, but I’m betting it will. Full story HERE.
Homosexuality: Getting Closer To An Understanding
For decades, I have occasionally puzzled over the dichotomy posed, in the evolutionary context, by homosexual persistence. As we all learn in high school biology, if the male peacocks with the most spectacular plumage are more successful in attracting female mates, then over time, the male progeny will develop even more spectacular plumage as the gene for this trait becomes more dominant. Conversely, if the females spurn the advances of the male peacocks with puny tailfeather displays, then the genetic trait for puny plumage will gradually become less and less dominant (i.e., more recessive), even to the point of disappearing altogether.
So then, how is it that the human homosexual trait, with its associated reduction in reproductive rates (estimated to be about 22%), persist in the human gene pool? An article from earlier this week by William Kremer in the BBC News Magazine was helpful in shedding some light on this puzzle. An excerpt:
… Since the early 1990s, researchers have shown that homosexuality is more common in brothers and relatives on the same maternal line, and a genetic factor is taken to be the cause. Also relevant – although in no way proof – is research identifying physical differences in the brains of adult straight and gay people, and a dizzying array of homosexual behaviour in animals.
But since gay and lesbian people have fewer children than straight people, a problem arises.
“This is a paradox from an evolutionary perspective,” says Paul Vasey from the University of Lethbridge in Canada. “How can a trait like male homosexuality, which has a genetic component, persist over evolutionary time if the individuals that carry the genes associated with that trait are not reproducing?”
My question, exactly. For more on what the latest research tends to reveal, read the whole thing, HERE.
North Korea’s Proletariat Paradise — NOT !
On Monday, the United Nations Human Rights Council released a new 400-page report on living conditions in North Korea, and AEI political economist Nicholas Eberstadt has a post up on the Wall Street Journal discussing the findings in the report. An excerpt:
The report is a careful but shocking document, the result of a year-long investigation, based on public hearings in Seoul, Tokyo, London and Washington, public testimony from more than 80 witnesses and an additional 240 private interviews. Much of the material is based on firsthand testimony of escapees from this hell on Earth.
“The gravity, scale and nature of these violations . . . does not have any parallel in the contemporary world,” the report says.
The full article is HERE.
Impact of the Civil Action Verdict on Brannon’s campaign
As most readers probably know, the jury in Greg Brannon’s Wake County civil trial came back with a guilty verdict earlier this week. Among the pundits speculating on how the verdict will affect his campaign for the nomination to be the Republican opposition to Senator Kay Hagan this November is WRAL television, who had this to say:
Although not a criminal verdict, Brannon was found responsible for repaying two investors – one a medical school classmate and the other the husband of a patient in his obstetrics practice – the $250,000 plus interest they lost in a technology start-up. Brannon served on the company’s board and actively recruited the two men to invest.
and
In the wake of the judgment, Brannon vowed he would appeal and said that the trial had not treated him fairly. He also said that the jury’s decision would not derail his plans to run for U.S. Senate and that he would officially file the paperwork to get on the ballot later this week. He has already filed papers with the Federal Elections Commission that allow him to raise money and legally conduct a federal campaign.
The full article from WRAL is HERE. And for another perspective, HERE are the views of Brant Clifton, expressed at The Daily Haymaker.
A Hard Right: Ukrainian Opposition Leader Vitaly Klitschko
The press is reporting today that fires are burning in the Ukrainian capital city of Kiev in the second night of violent clashes between police and dissident demonstrators. Among the goals of the dissidents is the resignation of President Viktor Yanukovych, who has ties to and is backed by Russian President Putin. Putin sees the Ukraine, perhaps the richest of the former Soviet satellite nations, as the key to rebuilding what has been called a new mini-Soviet. Vitaly Klitschko has announced that he will run for President of Ukraine next year against Yanukovych. As it happens, Klitschko is a very interesting guy. An excerpt from John Hindraker’s recent article about him on Powerline:
Vitaly Klitschko is one of the more interesting figures in world politics. He first earned fame as a boxer: Vitaly and his younger brother Wladimir have dominated the heavyweight division for the last 15 years, and have played a major role in Europe’s boxing renaissance. Vitaly held one or more heavyweight belts on and off between 1999 and 2013, when he retired to focus exclusively on politics. His record in world title bouts is 15-2. At 6-feet, 7-inches and 240 pounds, Klitschko is an imposing force.
and
Vitaly Klitschko has the second highest knockout ratio in the history of the heavyweight division — second to Rocky Marciano. But Klitschko is much more than a Hall of Fame boxer. The son of a major general in the Soviet Air Force, he is a very smart guy. He has a PhD and is an excellent chess player.
And on top of that, the guy has an 80-inch reach! Here is a video with highlights of Klitschko’s matches in the United States before he retired to engage full-time in Ukrainian politics. He fights in the heavyweight division, of course, and the heavyweights always have the potential for spectacular damage, including knockouts,
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For more on the troubles in Ukraine and the underlying causes, check out THIS article from CNN.
US Naval Institute says China training for War with Japan
I have previously written several posts on China’s increasing aggressiveness in trying to exert dominance over the South China Sea. In THIS short article, Sam LaGrone of the US Naval Institute explains how the recent Chinese military training exercise focus has expanded from invading Taiwan to also include the capture of the Shenkaku Islands, a disputed area that is controlled and claimed by Japan. The article also includes a good map of the disputed area.
ObamaCare to Illegally Bail Out Health Insurers Soon?
The “Risk Corridor” program is a measure written into the Patient Protection & Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare) for the purpose of protecting health insurance providers from the very situation that we see unfolding today. Too small a number of young, healthy people are proving to be stupid enough to enroll in the ACA, so the health insurance companies are not seeing enough revenue from these “invincibles” to fully subsidize the health care costs of the older, less healthy people. The Risk Corridor program was a provision in the law that would provide offsetting payments to the health insurance companies if this happened. However, the ObamaCare law specifically limits this program to the first three years, and therefore expires on December 31, 2016, shortly after the next presidential election.
Now comes word from Susan Ferrechio of the Washington Examiner that:
The Obama Administration may extend beyond 2016 a federal reimbursement program for health insurance companies that lose money by participating in the newly created health care exchanges.
Industry insiders told the Washington Examiner a plan to extend the Affordable Care Act’s “risk corridors” are under discussion, but that administration officials have not made a final decision.
The full article at the Washington Examiner is HERE, and for another more detailed perspective, check out THIS piece from columnist Megan McArdle.
Newport Finalizes Their Tall Structures Ordinance
Earlier this week, on Monday night, the Newport Town Council considered 
new recommendations for strengthening the town’s Tall Structures Ordinance (TSO). The following are the highlights of the modifications that the council members then voted to adopt:
Requiring that the developers of renewable energy facilities apply for a special-use permit from the town before beginning construction of a wind turbine farm or other facility.
Reducing the allowable noise level from 45 down to 35 decibels.
Reducing the maximum allowable height to the uppermost end of a blade tip down to 275 feet from 550 feet.
Doubling the setback from neighboring property lines to 5000 feet from 2500 feet, and establishing a 1000 foot setback from property lines adjacent to the Croatan National Forest.
Requiring a $500K surety bond per wind turbine to ensure that turbines are demolished and removed after they are no longer operable or operating.
Requiring a $50K escrow deposit to help offset the cost to the town of consulting fees or other expenses associated with the process of reviewing and issuing a permit.
Requiring a Property Value Guarantee.
Kudos to the Newport Town Council, and to all who worked to see this process through.
Obama’s Hammer — The Internal Revenue Service
The primary goal for the GOP in 2014 is to achieve electoral control of 
both houses of the United States Congress. The primary goal of the Obama administration is to thwart that ambition, because they know that Republican control of the House and Senate would make President Obama the lamest of lame ducks. Their tactics for the next nine months, therefore, will be to use the leverage of government toward their ends, and to raise continual political distractions in the hope of making right leaning voters and legislators lose their focus on ObamaCare, Benghazi, and the other issues that have the potential to move the electorate.
One of the ways in which the Obama administration is using the leverage of government is to loose the jackals at the IRS onto conservative political advocacy groups, in particular those organized as non-profits under IRS code Section 501(c)(4). One of the more diligent watchdogs working to keep the conservative public informed about this danger is Cleta Mitchell, a partner in the Washington, DC law firm of Foley & Lardner. Ms. Mitchell has represented Tea Party groups in a number of legal confrontations with the IRS in recent years, and she has fully explained the threat in a video. The deadline for public comment to the IRS is February 27th, so please click the link below to view the video in order to fully appreciate the threat that this proposal poses to our liberty, then use the boilerplate text to copy and paste an e-mail to the IRS expressing your opposition. Access the page by clicking HERE, or by navigating via the menu bar [ Issues & Education / IRS 501(c)(4) Rules ], above. Please, do this soon.
Newport Town Board to Vote on TSO Tonight
Because of our recent bad weather and other considerations, the Newport Town Board put off their final vote on their proposed Tall Structures Ordinance revisions until their regular meeting tonight at 5:30pm in the Town Hall. Their last meeting was poorly attended, so interested citizens should make every effort to be at this one. If you have views on the subject but cannot attend, they may be sent via e-mail to the Board’s chairperson. That e-mail address is KDavis83@ec.rr.com.
All, repeat ALL, of the Audited 501(c)(4) Groups were Conservative!
Following is the entire text from the TownHall.com post from earlier this week by Carol Liebau:
Less than two weeks after President Obama insisted that there wasn’t even a “smidgen of corruption” involved in the IRS targeting scandal, it appears that the scope of that scandal is widening.
Dave Camp, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, revealed yesterday that the committee’s investigation had found that it wasn’t only conservative groups applying for 501(c)(4) status that came in for IRS targeting and harassment. Existing 501(c)(4)’s were targeted, as well. In fact, Camp stated,
At Washington, DC’s direction, dozens of groups operating as 501(c)(4)s were flagged for IRS surveillance, including monitoring of the groups’ activities, websites and any other publicly available information. Of these groups, 83% were right-leaning. And of the groups the IRS selected for audit, 100% were right-leaning.
That’s right — “somehow,” every single 501(c)(4) that the IRS selected to endure the time, expense, distraction and stress of an audit just happened to be conservative.
The fact that existing 501(c)(4)’s were targeted along with applicants is important. First, though it isn’t conclusive, it does provide further evidence (as if any were needed!) that the scrutiny endured by conservative 501(c)(4) applicants had less to do with “confusion” over the (c)(4) rules than with efforts at political suppression. Second, it suggests that the targeting was part of a deliberate, widespread agency policy rather than restricted to “bad apples” in just one narrow area.
There are still plenty of documents that haven’t been turned over to investigators yet, and plenty of witnesses who haven’t yet been interviewed. Given how damaging the evidence already is, Democrats eager to defend the IRS and push through formalized rules to suppress (c)(4)’s might be well-advised to hold off until the facts are out — because the scandal is only broadening, and the IRS is looking worse by the day.
80-Year Old Man Shot In His Bed By L.A. Sheriff’s Deputy
This post recounts another bad outcome resulting from law enforcement 
conducting a raid based on a warrant that was obtained through a dubious assertion (of meth cooking, based on “the strong odor of chemicals”) on the part of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.
From a post by reporter Caleb Howe at the online Independent Journal Review, with my editing for brevity:
Deputies approached the house, and what happened next is where things get murky. The deputies said they announced their presence upon entering and were met in the hallway by the 80-year-old man, wielding a gun and stumbling towards them. The deputies later changed the story when the massive bloodstains on Mallory’s mattress indicated to investigators that he’d most likely been in bed at the time of the shooting. Investigators also found that an audio recording of the incident revealed a discrepancy in the deputies’ original narrative.
That discrepancy was the timing of when the instruction to “drop the gun” was given. Upon listening to the recording, the command from shooter Sgt. John Bones appears to have come after he opened fire, fatally shooting Mallory six times.
Mallory never fired a weapon, and no methamphetamine was found in the home.
Mallory was a retiree. An elderly man, hard of hearing, who apparently did not understand who was invading his home armed to the teeth. It was a high tension and very dangerous situation.
And then there is the video below (over seven minutes long, but worth your time), from Reason-TV, which also includes this bit: “When it was all over, Eugene Mallory died of six gunshot wounds from Sgt. John Bones’ MP-5 9mm submachine gun. When a coroner arrived, he found the loaded .22 caliber pistol the two deputies claimed Mallory had pointed at them on the bedside table. Mallory had not fired of a single shot.”
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If you paid attention to the 30-second segment beginning at 4:17, it is obvious that the shooter concocted an outright lie about the circumstances in order to make his action appear more justified. This seems to have become standard operating procedure in some law enforcement jurisdictions.
Ninth Circuit Federal Court Panel Rules in Peruta versus San Diego, a Second Amendment Case
In the wake of the SCOTUS decisions in the Heller and McDonald cases, most federal courts have begun to assess second amendment (2A) cases in two stages. In the first stage, they seek to determine whether the case at hand involves the 2A right. If they decide that it does, they move on to stage two, which is to consider whether the state law (or county law, city law, etc.) under which the defendant was charged effectively destroys the defendant’s 2A right. If they decide that it does (i.e., has the demonstrable effect in practice of making it impossible or inordinately difficult to exercise the right), then the law is struck down as being plainly unconstitutional. Stage three is invoked if the judges decide that the law merely restricts the right rather than destroys it, and then other considerations come into play.
Peruta versus San Diego deals with the California statutes that define the conditions under which California citizens may be granted a permit to carry a handgun. At issue was a provision that requires permit applicants to have a “good cause” for wanting a permit to carry a handgun.
An edited excerpt from constitutional law professor David Kopel’s post earlier this week at the Volokh Conspiracy law blog:
California law … also requires that the applicant have “good cause,” which was interpreted by San Diego County to mean that the applicant is faced with current specific threats. (Not all California counties have this narrow interpretation.) The Ninth Circuit, in a 2-1 opinion written by Judge O’Scannlain, ruled that Peruta was entitled to Summary Judgement, because the “good cause” provision violates the Second Amendment.
The Court ruled that a government may specify what mode of carrying to allow (open or concealed), but a government may not make it impossible for the vast majority of Californians to exercise their Second Amendment right to bear arms.
and
… the “good cause” requirement, as interpreted by San Diego, is a near-total destruction of the right to bear arms. “Heller teaches that a near-total prohibition on keeping arms (Heller) is hardly better than a near-total prohibition on bearing them (this case), and vice versa. Both go too far.”
The ruling was by a three-judge panel, not the full Ninth Circuit Court, and the next step may involve a re-consideration by the full eleven-member court (an en banc review). Beyond that, the case may also be incorporated into a case before the Supreme Court, as there have been conflicting rulings among several Federal district courts on the base issue.
For more, click HERE to get to the Volokh Conspiracy blog, then search for “Peruta” to bring up all of their posts about the case.
Daring Debt-Ceiling Conjecture from a Duke University Professor
The latest potential debt ceiling crisis is now safely in our rear view mirror, having come and gone with a whimper rather than a bang. That’s okay with me, by the way, as some readers will remember that I opposed the defunding strategy that Senator Ted Cruz and his adherents bungled so badly last fall. However, the Congress is addicted to spending more money than our Federal revenue stream will support, so there will be more crises down the road, sure as death and taxes.
Now comes Duke University law professor Steve Schwarcz to postulate a potential new strategy for future Presidents (or maybe even Obama) to use in avoiding a default, a strategy which would bypass Congress altogether. An excerpt from law professor Kenneth Anderson’s post from yesterday at the Volokh Conspiracy about Professor Schwarcz’s idea (BTW, for you non-accountants, the term “monetize” just means taking action to convert an asset, tangible or intangible, into cash):
… although the Executive Branch lacks authority to directly issue Treasury securities above the debt ceiling, it has the power to raise financing by monetizing future tax revenues. In each of the proposed options, a non-governmental special-purpose entity (SPE) would issue securities in amounts needed to repay maturing federal debt. Depending on the option, the SPE would either on-lend the proceeds of its issued securities to the Treasury Department on a non-recourse basis, secured by future tax revenues; or the SPE would use the proceeds of its issued securities to purchase rights to future tax revenues from the Treasury Department. In each case, therefore, future tax revenues would form the basis of repayment to investors.
The full article is HERE.
Those who favor a con-con (Constitutional Convention) do not always appreciate the myriad number of issues that the public might want to see addressed at such a convention, but I am confident that this would be one of them, as it is such a radical and divisive departure from all our previous assumptions about how debt ceiling confrontations might be resolved.
On Valentine’s Day, the Left Loves Them Some Lynne Stewart
In less than an hour, at 6pm today, Valentine’s Day, a fundraiser will be held at St. Peter’s Church in New York City to help fund the medical expenses of activist attorney Lynne Stewart, to whom President Obama granted a compassionate release from prison last New Year’s Eve. I will not attend.
While no one should ever take joy from the suffering of another, I can think of few people who are less deserving of our compassion, and, with the possible exception of Hanoi Jane Fonda and Bernadette Dorne (Mrs. Bill Ayers), more deserving of the title “enemy of the state” than is this disgraced attorney.
If it can be said that rogue lawyer William Kunstler (defender of the Chicago Seven, the Weather Underground, the Black Panthers, the Attica prisoner rioters, and other miscreants) raised a banner in defense of the indefensible, Lynne Stewart took up that banner and waved it with vigor.
For more on why I think this is so, further reading would include THIS article by Powerline’s Scott Johnson, THIS article by Michelle Malkin, and/or THIS article by Pamela Geller.
The Jobs Reports issued near the 2012 Presidential Election
In an article from last November, the business reporter for the New York Post, John Crudele, began this way:
In the home stretch of the 2012 presidential campaign, from August to September, the unemployment rate fell sharply — raising eyebrows from Wall Street to Washington.
The decline — from 8.1 percent in August to 7.8 percent in September — might not have been all it seemed. The numbers, according to a reliable source, were manipulated.
And the Census Bureau, which does the unemployment survey, knew it.
Now that we have a better understanding of what Obama’s IRS is capable of, maybe it is time to look at his Labor Department, and the Census Bureau within it. The full article is HERE.
Strassel at WSJ’s Potomac Watch on Kay Hagan
From the Wall Street Journal piece by Kimberley Strassel, HERE, on our own Senator Kay:
The scientific formula goes like this: Another day + Another ObamaCare disaster = A New Kay Hagan.
Back in 2008, North Carolinians were introduced to Bipartisan Kay, a hope-and-change candidate who argued that Senator Elizabeth Dole was a lackey for a partisan George W. Bush. “It is time for someone to reach across party lines,” explained Bipartisan Kay. “Voting 92% of time with the president . . . doesn’t work here in North Carolina.” She won.
By early 2009, ObamaCare already was working its weird science, producing within a few months the All-In-For-Obama Kay. The freshman senator embraced the president’s partisan bill, provided a crucial Senate vote, promised two dozen times that those who liked their plan could keep it, and explained that the law would create jobs. All-In Kay lasted quite a while. As recently as August she was insisting that there were “a lot of positives” in the Affordable Care Act, and that she’d “be honored” to have President Obama campaign for her re-election in 2014.
Then came the great ObamaCare meltdown of October. Overnight, the North Carolina senator’s office became home to Frustrated (And Not My Fault) Kay.
All in all, a delightful piece, worth reading.
Continuing Examples of Police Power Abuses
I recently posted a piece, with links, expressing my concern over the increased militarization and lawlessness of the civil law enforcement in the United States. I am aware that this has always been a problem, but it is becoming acute, in my view, for two reasons:
First, the increasing militarization tends to cause police officers to view themselves more as soldier/combatants in hostile territory rather than as law enforcement officers (i.e., civil servants) integrated into a community.
Second, the ferocity of police unions in adopting a “my LEO, may he always be right, but my LEO, right or wrong” mentality is one that, all too often, turns a blind eye to justice in the service of blue solidarity.
Following are examples of police power abuse that do nothing but heighten my concern:
Example-A, HERE, is an update on a case arising from the massive California manhunt for accused cop-killer Christopher Dorner in February of 2013, in which two women delivering newspapers in a pickup were inexplicably mistaken for Dorner. The cops, seemingly near hysteria, then fired a total of 103 rounds into the truck. Amazingly, the women were hit by nothing more harmful than flying shards of shattered automobile window glass.
Example-B, HERE, is an update on the case of David Eckert, an innocent New Mexico man who …
was stopped on a minor traffic violation and accused by an officer of holding his buttocks. What followed was a nightmare where officers and doctors subjected Eckert to outrageous abuse as they searched for drugs or contraband in his body. Before the police released him after finding no drugs, he would endure five manual penetrations; three forced defecations before witnesses; and an intrusive surgery under sedation.
Abuses such as these were once thought to occur only in the large metropolitan areas such as New York City, Chicago, Detroit, etc., but they are now gradually being seen with increasing frequency in less urbanized areas. This is yet another example of where our “eternal vigilance” is needed to prevent an erosion of our liberty.
An Analysis of the Party Bias of Political Donors
In a post yesterday, I wrote about Senator Kay Hagan’s agitprop against the Koch Brothers political support for conservative causes and candidates. Today, in an article on Powerline, HERE, Steven Haywood calls attention to the bias in political donations among the top fifteen donors as listed by OpenSecrets, a website maintained by the left-wing Center For Responsive Politics.
Among the big-fifteen, there were three corporate donors, one Democratic PAC, one non-partisan PAC, and ten unions. Curious, I analyzed the figures a bit more to learn the following:
The donations of the three corporate donors and the National Association of Realtors PAC, individually and in total, tended to be divided between Democrats and Republicans about 45% / 45%, give or take 4% either way. This suggests to me that they are mostly just trying to grease both rails on the track without appearing to be overly biased in either direction. I therefore view these as being effectively non-partisan.
Although many donations are made indirectly via PAC’s, of the direct partisan donations (i.e., going to recipients directly identifiable as being Democrats or Republicans, and excluding the non-partisan donations) on this top-fifteen list, 83% were to Democrat recipients versus 17% to Republican recipients.
Of the direct partisan donations to Democrats, 81% came from unions and 19% came from a Democratic PAC (ActBlue).
If the non-partisan donations are removed from the equation, leaving only the donations from the ten unions plus the ActBlue PAC, the overall breakdown reveals that 97% of the partisan donations went to Democrats, and 3% went to Republicans. Of the donations to Democrats from partisan sources, 78% of the money came from the unions, and 22% from the ActBlue PAC.
Among the take-aways from this, in my view:
In spite of the left-wing agitation about corporate political donations (and the SCOTUS decision on the Citizens United case), they are not really much of a factor overall because they are distributed fairly evenly between the two political parties.
Of the partisan donations (i.e., going to recipients directly identifiable as being Democrats or Republicans, and excluding the non-partisan donations), the overwhelming majority (97%) go to the Democrats.
Although left-wing PACs are a factor, of the partisan donations going to Democrats, the bulk of the money continues to come from the unions.
As always, the devil is in the details.
And finally, if any of our members wishes to review my work on this, e-mail me and I will send the Excel spreadsheet.
The Tea Party Patriots Five-Year Anniversary Event in D.C.
From the Tea Party Patriots National Support Team:
Five years ago, faced with auto bailouts, “stimulus” packages, the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), and the utter abandonment of fiscal responsibility from both Republican and Democrat politicians, Americans of every race, creed, gender, age and political affiliation said “enough!” Around the country, we united to stand up to elected officials’ abandonment of the Constitution, government waste, overreach and abuse. On Thursday, February 27, 2014, the Tea Party movement will be five years old and Tea Party Patriots will gather at the Hyatt Capitol Hill in Washington, DC.
We are excited to announce that Senator Mike Lee of Utah is confirmed as keynote speaker for our lunch session and we hope you’ll be able to join us for this special occasion! Register for the event HERE.
Thanks to tremendous grassroots support and amazing volunteers, the Tea Party movement has made significant progress. We will continue to fight for our core values and build on the successes we have experienced together. In 2010’s landslide elections America sent a message to elected officials that citizens are tired of being let down by spend-happy politicians in Washington. While there is still work to be done on challenges like Obamacare and rampant overspending, we can be proud of what we’ve accomplished. With the hard work of the volunteers that have dedicated their time to the movement, the Tea Party has continuously put pressure on Congress to rein in the madness in Washington, DC. This month we will celebrate five years of having an impact and we’ll look forward to the many years of work that we have ahead of us.
Please join us on February 27th to celebrate the Tea Party movement’s five-year anniversary, thank the grassroots and volunteers, reflect on past successes, and pave a path forward to greater effectiveness and success. Tea Party Patriots Co-Founder Jenny Beth Martin will be there with other liberty-loving Americans including Senator Lee, Southwest Metro Tea Party Patriots Co-Founder and Minnesota State Representative Cindy Pugh, Center for Self-Governance President Mark Herr, Washington Blueprint Organizer Woody Herzog, Representative Louie Gohmert (TX), Mansfield Tea Party Founder Marianne Gasiecki, and Representative Steve King (IA).
We look forward to seeing you!
For more information on the event or to reserve your place today, please click HERE! If there is a need to contact the National Support Team by phone, the number is 404/593-0877.
Senator Kay Hagan Beats A Well-Worn Drum
Andrew Stiles has a new piece up at the online National Review, HERE, about Senator Kay Hagan’s efforts to stir up her base before the fall elections in order to add even more shillings to her $6.25-million campaign war chest. An excerpt:
The Democratic senator from North Carolina doesn’t yet know who her Republican opponent will be this year, but in the meantime she seems to be running almost exclusively against Charles and David Koch, the libertarian billionaires whose well-oiled political machine inspires frantic fundraising appeals in the New York Times editorial pages.
“Kochs don’t like me,” Hagan wrote in a January 29 campaign e-mail. “You won’t believe what the Koch brothers are doing now,” a message from last week reads. “Spoiler Alert: The Kochs did it,” she explained on December 19. “The Koch brothers are desperate.” They won’t stop waging their “Koch attacks.” Hagan’s campaign sends out a couple of these per week.
Snowden Used A Web Crawler to Gather Leaked NSA Documents
The New York Times has THIS new article up saying that the facility in Hawaii where Snowden did most of his snooping did not have basic protections against low-tech web-crawler bots if they were introduced within the NSA system, and that he made slight code revisions to a basic crawler bot that then targeted the thousands of documents he subsequently leaked.
From the article, two key bits:
Using “web crawler” software designed to search, index and back up a website, Mr. Snowden “scraped data out of our systems” while he went about his day job, according to a senior intelligence official. “We do not believe this was an individual sitting at a machine and downloading this much material in sequence,” the official said. The process, he added, was “quite automated.”
and, utilizing the passwords he had duped other legitimate users out of as well as his own,
Mr. Snowden appears to have set the parameters for the searches, including which subjects to look for and how deeply to follow links to documents and other data on the NSA’s internal networks. Intelligence officials told a House hearing last week that he accessed roughly 1.7 million files.
Court Decision A Bit Tardy, But Welcome Nevertheless
Excerpts from the article on Loving versus IRS, HERE, authored by law professor Eugene Volokh of the Volokh Conspiracy:
In 2011, responding to concern about the performance of some paid tax-return preparers, the IRS issued new regulations. Among other things, the new regulations require that paid tax-return preparers pass an initial certification exam, pay annual fees, and complete at least 15 hours of continuing education courses each year. The IRS estimates that the new regulations will apply to between 600,000 and 700,000 tax-return preparers.
[snip]
… the Executive Branch never interpreted the statute to authorize regulation of tax-return preparers. But in 2011, the IRS decided that the statute in fact did authorize regulation of tax-return preparers…. We agree with the District Court that the IRS’s statutory authority under Section 330 cannot be stretched so broadly as to encompass authority to regulate tax-return preparers.
[snip]
It might be that allowing the IRS to regulate tax-return preparers more stringently would be wise as a policy matter. But that is a decision for Congress and the President to make if they wish by enacting new legislation…. The IRS may not unilaterally expand its authority through such an expansive, atextual, and ahistorical reading of [the relevant federal statute.]
Treasury, IRS, HHS Conspired to Create an Unauthorized, Half-Trillion Dollar Entitlement within ObamaCare
Michael Cannon at Forbes is reporting on a big revelation in the ongoing investigations (and litigation) over ObamaCare:
In early 2011, Treasury and IRS officials realized they had a problem. They unanimously believed Congress had intended to authorize certain taxes and subsidies in all states, whether or not a state opted to establish a health insurance “exchange” under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. At the same time, agency officials recognized: (1) the PPACA plainly does not allow those taxes and subsidies in non-establishing states; (2) the law’s legislative history offers no support for their theory that Congress intended to allow them in non-establishing states; and (3) Congress had not given the agencies authority to treat non-establishing states the same as establishing states.
Nevertheless, agency officials agreed, again with apparent unanimity, to impose those taxes and dispense those subsidies in states with federal Exchanges, the undisputed plain meaning of the PPACA notwithstanding. Treasury, IRS, and HHS officials simply rewrote the law to create a new, unauthorized entitlement program …
The full article, well worth the time to read, is HERE.