Tuesday, April 15, 2014

DEFIANCE: New York Protesters Shred Gun Registration Forms

If we were counting everyone defying New York's unconstitutional "SAFE Act", we could call this the 'Million Shredder March":

Citizens in Buffalo, refusing to comply with the SAFE Act by registering their so-called ‘assault weapons’, gathered today on the deadline for SAFE Act registrations and SHREDDED their gun registration forms...


They had planned to burn them, but since open burning isn’t legal in Buffalo, they decided to shred them instead, just as our elected officials are shredding the Constitution. Their hope is to send a message to Cuomo that they will not comply with this unconstitutional law.

WIVB has some background on this lawless mess:

Larwyn's Linx: If You Liked the President’s Lies, You Can Keep the Person Who Signed off on Them

Send us tips! Bloggers: install a Larwyn's Linx widget. Get real-time news, 24/7, at BadBlue.

Nation

If You Liked the President's Lies, You Can Keep Who Approved Them: Ed Driscoll
DCCC chair: 'Significant extent' of Republicans are racist: Joel Gehrke
Sen. Harry Reid on Nevada cattle dispute: 'It's not over': WZ

Reviving The Constitution Part 3: Federal "Property.": Liberty's Torch
Victory! Social Security suspends stale-debt collection program: Overlawyered
Sen. Ted Cruz: ‘Impeach Eric Holder’: TPNN

Statistical Frauds: Thomas Sowell
Up to One Million New Yorkers Refuse to Register Their Guns!: Bob Owens
Scott Brown, Eric Holder and Barack Obama: AmmoLand

Economy

Obamacare Sticker Shock Happening Across the Country: WFB
Maryland grocery careful not to expand beyond 49 full-time employees: ConIntel
Harvard Professor Predicts Up To Half Of US Universities May Fail In 15 Years: ZH

Do liberals really think an 80% top tax rate wouldn’t hurt the US economy?: AEI
'Tax Man' Obama has sought 442 tax increases: Paul Bedard
Liberal Republicans Push Severance Tax With Sophistry: MediaTrackers

Scandal Central

The Border Conspiracy: Tatler
Child Sex Trafficking in Washington DC is a $100 Million Industry: AmJrnl
How Obama's Justice Department Selectively Blocks Mergers By Republican CEOs: Forbes

Climate & Energy

Union Leader to Keystone XL Opponents in Congress: "Enough is Enough!": Sean Hackbarth
“I don’t even want to be here. Do you think my grandfather’s proud of me?": Cold Fury
Global warming news: April freeze threatens Midwestern orchards: Marathon

Media

I Went To The Bundy Ranch Protest This Week-end and Liked What I Saw: RWN
The Atlantic Calls Out Obama for Race-Baiting in Voter ID Debate: TR
Obama Honors Victims of Kansas JCC Attacks at Breakfast With Anti-Semite Al Sharpton: JWF

On the Bundy Ranch confrontation: Overlawyered
So What To Make Of the BLM In Nevada?: Karl Denninger
Exclusive: Sources Inside BLM and Police Say Feds Planning A Raid On Bundy Home: Ben Swann

Bundy vs. Buddy: iOTW
The Real Meaning of Soviet Agitprop in Jay Carney’s Kitchen: Oleg Atbashian
Kathleen Sebelius: Scapegoat: RWN

World

Russian attack warplane taunts US Navy ship in Black Sea : Scoop
Russia Tests Multi-Warhead ICBM : WFB
Ukraine struggles as east slips out of its control: Stripes

The Roots of CAIR’s Intimidation Campaign : Andrew C. McCarthy
Robert Spencer warns of “civil conflict on a massive scale” in America: Scoop
Al Qaeda weapons ship docks in Aden: Long War Journal

What the Left Did Last Week: Dennis Prager
Brandeis Faculty Letter Pressured President to Drop Hirsi Ali: TR
Is India about to elect its Reagan?: DC

Sci-Tech (courtesy BadBlue Tech News)

Hunger Gains: A New Idea of Why Eating Less Increases Life Span: Annie Sneed
Whether it's bikes or bytes, teens are teens: LAT
A weird black ring appeared in the sky in England and then disappeared: Gizmodo

Cornucopia

Gone But Not Forgiven: Hopenchange Cartoons
Watch road-raging driver almost eat a lead sandwich: BPR
Remy kills it with new Tax Day spoof of Pharrell’s ‘Happy’: Watch-Dog

Image: I Went To The Bundy Ranch Protest This Week-end and Liked What I Saw
Today's Larwyn's Linx sponsored by: Video: Does John Boehner Suffer from "Electile Dysfunction"?

QOTD: "The supporters of these [voter ID] laws say, correctly, that they do not discriminate on their face based upon race. That's why the president cannot allow this to become a black-versus-white issue, even though black and Hispanic advocates are rightfully concerned about the impact these laws are having on their communities. The notion that this is a racial issue is only reinforced when he stands with Al Sharpton and tells that audience what it already knows to be true." --The Atlantic

Monday, April 14, 2014

CLIVEN BUNDY: What's really behind the federal government's militaristic takeover of private land?

Guest post by Investor's Business Daily

Land Management: A Chinese solar farm that fries birds is OK, as is redrawing tortoise habitat boundaries to benefit political donors. But an American rancher grazing his cattle brings feds with sniper rifles.

It appears Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy has, at least temporarily, wonhis "range war" with the paramilitary wing of the Bureau of Land Management. Fearing another Waco, BLM has announced it will no longer enforce a court order and stop stealing Bundy's cows, called "trespass cattle" by the feds, accused of grazing free on part of the 84% of Nevada that is federal property.

If the forces deployed in and around the Nevadan's ranch had been deployed to Benghazi, it's likely Glen Doherty, Ty Woods, Sean Smith and Ambassador Christopher Stevens would be alive today. If illegal aliens were grazing on the disputed property, there would not have been federal snipers perched nearby with American citizens in their sights.

The government that has detonated hundreds of nuclear weapons in the Nevada desert claimed a rancher's meandering cattle threatened a protected species.

BLM, one of the myriad federal agencies armed to the teeth these days, would have us believe the 67-year-old rancher is a trespassing bitter clinger who isn't paying his federal grazing fees as his cattle munch on government-owned vegetation and threaten the endangered desert tortoise.

So BLM SWAT teams descended on the ranch west of Mesquite, Nev., where cattle and the tortoise have lived in harmony for over 100 years. BLM claims Bundy owes them grazing fees dating back to 1993; he says his grazing rights predate the BLM. The desert tortoise in fact is so "endangered" in this area that the government is planning to euthanize some of them.

Nevada Sen. Harry Reid may have another reason for getting pesky cattle ranchers like Cliven Bundy out of the way. As Reuters has reported, "(Reid) and his oldest son, Rory, are both involved in an effort by a Chinese energy giant, ENN Energy Group, to build a $5 billion solar farm and panel manufacturing plant in the southern Nevada desert." To mitigate this commercial land use, other land had to be set aside. That land was Bundy's ranch.

The Tiddlywinks Grandmaster

Spotted at American Digest:


Does it strike anyone else as bizarre that the Obama administration expends more energy catching cows on federal land than preventing drug smugglers from entering the U.S. on the southern border?


Hat tip: Daily Timewaster

STUDY: U.S. policy has moved increasingly left over the last 70 years

Matt Grossman is a political scientist at Michigan State University. Last week he published an interesting op-ed in The Washington Post enttitled "U.S. policy has gone liberals’ way for 70 years."

It shreds the establishment Republicans' claims that moderate, centrist positions are a path to electoral victory. The reason?

Conservatives in Congress are the prime suspects in Washington’s dysfunction. Veteran congressional watchdogs Norman Ornstein and Thomas Mann called the previous session the “worst Congress ever,” and they did not hold back in assigning blame: “The Republicans are the problem,” they said. After a fruitless government shutdown last fall, even House Speaker John Boehner lashed out at conservative groups and passed bills over the opposition of his caucus.

In response, conservatives make two simple claims: Most policies under debate are liberal, and Republican leaders sacrifice conservative principles when they compromise. History shows they are right on both counts.


The reason: the progressive left has framed the debate and the playing field for decades leaving the GOP to play non-stop defense.

...Of the 509 most significant domestic policies passed by Congress, only one in five were conservative, in that they contracted the scope of government funding, regulation or responsibility. More than 60 percent were liberal: They clearly expanded government. The others offered a mix of liberal or conservative components or took no clear ideological direction. When significant policy change occurs in the executive branch, it is even less likely to be conservative; only 10 percent of the executive orders and agency rules that policy historians cited were conservative.

Even labeling as conservative policy government expansions in pursuit of conservative goals, such as traditional values or tougher sentencing,
makes little difference in this conclusion; few significant policy changes fall into this category, though we hear about them often in campaigns...


In other words, when Congress acts it is almost invariably expanding government, not constraining it.

There is a good reason why conservatives are often charged with obstruction. When government is more active, it is usually moving policy to the left. When Congress has doubled its normal productivity, many more liberal laws pass but not necessarily more conservative laws. There was only one session of Congress, the two years after the Republican takeover in 1994, that was both active and conservative, but it did not last. Under President Ronald Reagan, the executive branch made more conservative policy changes only during the first two years of his presidency. Productive policymaking means more domestic spending, more business regulation and wider government responsibility.

...The view that normal legislating and bipartisan compromises lead to expanded government is no tea party illusion; it is an accurate reading of the past 70 years.

...the federal government has continually expanded its role in education, civil rights, the environment and health care — and Republican presidents have played large roles in this. Nixon entrenched the Great Society and oversaw the environmental revolution. Reagan was less active domestically but signed more government expansions than contractions. President George H.W. Bush brought us landmarks such as the Americans with Disabilities Act, and his son brought us No Child Left Behind and a new Medicare entitlement.

This history does not bother some Republicans, who see opportunities to fashion new ideas and bargain in pursuit of conservative objectives. But even past policymaking designed to promote markets, safeguard morality and protect the homeland usually expanded government. If contraction is the goal, a positive policy agenda is unlikely to succeed.... The arc of the policy universe is long, but it bends toward liberalism. Conservatives can slow the growth of government but an enduring shift in policy direction would be unprecedented. History shows that a do-nothing Congress is a conservative’s best-case scenario.


All of this tells me that the only way to constrain government is to convene an Article V Convention of the States and to pass amendments similar to those described in The Liberty Amendments.

The federal government seems incapable of controlling itself, so it is incumbent upon the states to do so.


Hat tip: Mark Levin

BUT THEY'RE LOOKING OUT FOR WOMEN, DONTCHA KNOW: Food Stamp Recipients Outnumber Women with Jobs

Any honest accounting of the employment situation in America wouldn't focus on "equal pay".

Instead, it would deal with twin scourges of the Obamaconomy: unemployment and welfare.

People participating in the food stamp program outnumbered the women who worked full-time, year-round in the United States in 2012, according to data from the Department of Agriculture and the Census Bureau.

In the average month of 2012, according to the Department of Agriculture, there were 46,609,000 people participating in the food stamp program (formally known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program). That contrasts with the 44,059,000 women who worked full-time, year-round in 2012, according to the Census Bureau’s report on Income, Poverty and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States.


Since 1969, there have been three years when the number of Americans taking food stamps outnumbered the women who worked full time, year-round. In 1976, there were 18,549,000 food stamps participants, and only 18,372,000 women working full-time. Then, in 2011, there were 44,709,000 food stamp participants and 43,702,000 women who worked full-time. (The Census Bureau has not published data for the number of women who worked full-time, year-round in 1974.)

In other words this phenomenon hasn't occurred since 1976 and yet it has occurred twice in a row with Barack Obama as president. And he's going for the trifecta.

As Mark Levin is fond of saying, the welfare state is both expanding and collapsing at the same time.

The chart above illustrates the conundrum we face unless Democrats are forcibly booted from office in November.


Hat tip: BadBlue News

Larwyn's Linx: There is Nothing New Under the Sun. Know Your History

Send us tips! Bloggers: install a Larwyn's Linx widget. Get real-time news, 24/7, at BadBlue.

Nation

There is Nothing New Under the Sun. Know Your History.: Ann Barnhardt
Meet KC Shooter Frazier Glenn Miller, Jr.: Ed Driscoll
Illegal Aliens Take the Place of 5,000 Florida College Students: MagNote

Engelbrecht Pens Blazing Letter to Grandstanding Democrats: IJR
After Boehner, Cantor and McCarthy Are Not Options: Erick Erickson
Glitch-filled to the End: Wynton Hall

90% of NY Gun Owners Refusing SAFE Act Registration?: Clash
A Message From Your Wannabe Rulers: WRSA
We are the Freedom Fighters: Christian Mercenary

Obama, Holder stoke racial tensions to cover for failed policies: Times
The Politics of Personal Distraction: RWN
Where is the feminist anger at Brandeis?: Jeff Jacoby

Economy

Chicago Teachers Union to Mayor Rahm: Improving failed schools is racist: DC
Government Can't Say No: RWN
Persistent pay gap could result from greater male risk tolerance: Mark J. Perry

Scandal Central

For Attorney General Eric Holder, Justice is for Democrats only: NY Post
7 Questions You’re Probably Asking Right Now About the Nevada Rancher Situation: Blaze
Chilling Truth: The Siege of the Bundy Ranch Reaches into the White House: Sara Noble

Climate & Energy

Solar Power and Cows…: Battlefield USA
Earth to Lovejoy: 0.9 C° in a century is not ‘huge’: Monckton
UN report urges global cooperation to halt climate change: The Week

Media

Chris Muir On The Red Storm Rising: Camp o' the Saints
Bob Schieffer ignores reports of Rep. Cummings’ role in IRS scandal; Citizens eulogize journalism: Twitchy
Nothing To See Here: ABC, CBS, And NBC's Sunday Shows Ignore Latest In IRS Scandal: MRC

Bloodthirsty Leftists Go Absolutely Psycho Over Cliven Bundy Resistance to Federal Power: AmPower
As Hillary Clinton Rakes In Cash Syracuse Newspaper Gives Her Free Advertising: LoneCon
Gun Control Capital of the World: 36 shot in Chicago in 36 hours: Trib

Beyond Clive Bundy: The Real Range War and Why We’re Losing: MOTUS
The Goldwater Legacy: Blogmocracy
Media: Hillary Shoe-Thrower ‘Frightening’; Bush Shoe-Thrower A ‘Folk Hero’: Kyle Drennen

World

A Secret Fight over Russia in the Obama Administration: Bill Kristol
Marine General Ready for Battle against China: Military
Ukraine crisis: UN meeting told Russia is massing 40,000 troops on the border: Telegraph

Canada: Nine Months in Jail for Blasphemy Against Islam: Gates of Vienna
French Protest Against Austerity and Prime Minister Valls: Mish
Are Millions of Africans about to Swarm into a More Open Europe?: VDARE

Sci-Tech (courtesy BadBlue Tech News)

Tufte’s Feynman sculptures come to Fermilab: Symmetry
Tests Confirm Heartbleed Bug Can Expose Server's Private Key: CIO
Malaysia Airlines Flight 370: Search for Missing Jet Enters New Phase: WSJ

Cornucopia

Ricky, Bo, Mo, Joe, Val and Ahmad. A Good Time Was Had.: MOTUS
Dreamy new Sigur Rós single premieres on 'Game of Thrones': Verge
It's time to build a real Jurassic Park: The Week

Image: A Message From Your Wannabe Rulers
Today's Larwyn's Linx sponsored by: Conservative J.D. Winteregg for Congress: Fire John Boehner

QOTD: "Fitting as it was to find Eric Holder speaking in front of a “No Justice” sign, his whining about how poorly he’s been treated compared to other attorneys general, and therefore that there must be some racism involved, is pathetic, even by his lowly standards. (Imagine complaining about “divisive” tactics while sitting next to Al Sharpton!)

...back in January 2009, when I was trying to convince people that Holder should not be confirmed because he was unfit to be attorney general and would prove to be a disaster, I asked how he would have fared under the Democrats’ Gonzales standard — the “if he’s not dishonest, he’s incompetent” test — on the basis of which they ran Alberto Gonzales out of town. It’s still a question worth asking. If the Gonzales standard had been applied to Holder, he would not have gotten the job, much less kept it as long as he has." --Andrew C. McCarthy

Sunday, April 13, 2014

GOOD NEWS: New Head of HHS Was Responsible for Making Outrageous Government Shutdown Decisions

Guest post by Marguerite Bowling

President Obama’s pick to head the Department of Health and Human Services led the federal government’s response during last year’s “shutdown”—which included officials erecting barricades around open-air monuments.

Sylvia Mathews Burwell—who was deputy chief of staff to President Bill Clinton, among other roles—currently serves as Obama’s director of the Office of Management and Budget.

Obama formally announced today that he will nominate Burwell to replace outgoing HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, whose resignation went public yesterday.

“When the government was forced to shut down last October…Sylvia was a rock, a steady hand,” Obama said in a Rose Garden ceremony this morning. He repeatedly praised Sebelius for her leadership and noted that Burwell’s “prudent manager” skills would be needed for the “tough challenges” of running the nation’s health agency.

The government largely closed down after Congress failed to enact a continuing budget resolution providing funds for fiscal year 2014. During the 16-day shutdown, 800,000 federal workers were furloughed, the National Zoo’s “panda cam” went dark, and the National Park Service set up barriers to open-air monuments, citing security concerns.

Sebelius, widely blamed for the botched rollout of the Affordable Care Act’s online health exchanges and other mishaps, said HHS was making “tremendous progress” to implement the health law known as Obamacare.

"The most beautiful animal you’ve never seen"

RR Helm writing at Deep Sea News:

When I first saw a sea sapphire I thought I was hallucinating. The day had been anything but normal, but this part will always stand out. I’d spent the afternoon on a small dingy off the coast of Durban, South Africa. It was muggy, and I’d been working for hours–-throwing a small net out, and pulling in tiny hauls of plankton that I’d then collect in jars. As I looked through one jar, the boat rocking up and down, I saw for an instant a bright blue flash. Gone. Then again in a different place. An incredible shade of blue. Maybe I’d been in the sun too long? Maybe I was seeing things? It wasn’t until I got back to the lab that I discovered the true beauty and mystery of these radiant flashes...


The small creature I’d found was a Sapphirina copepod, or as I like to call it, a sea sapphire. Copepods are the rice of the sea, tiny shrimp-like animals at the base of the ocean food chain. And like rice, they are generally not known for their charisma. Sea sapphires are an exception. Though they are often small, a few millimeters, they are stunningly beautiful...

...The secret to the sea sapphire’s shine is in microscopic layers of crystal plates inside their cells. In the case of blue sea sapphires, these crystal layers are separated by only about four ten thousandths of a millimeter; about the same distance as a wavelength of blue light. When blue light bounces off these crystal layers, it is perfectly preserved and reflected. But for other colors of light, these small differences in distance interfere, causing the colors to cancel out. So while white light is composed of all colors, only blue light is reflected back. This type of coloration is known as structural coloration, and though resembling a gem in hue, a sea sapphire’s color has more in common with an oil sheen than a pigmented jewel. Combine this nifty trick with the sea sapphire’s impressively transparent body, and you have an animal as radiant as a star in one moment, and invisible in the next...

I think I saw something like this once in Lake Erie, but it could have been some trash wrapped in aluminum foil.


Hat tip: BadBlue Tech News

REIGN OF ERROR: Kathleen Sebelius a Poster-Child for the Disaster That is Obamacare

Guest post by Investor's Business Daily

Health Overhaul: The midwife of ObamaCare exits stage left, leaving behind wreckage that once was the finest health care system in the world, less affordable health insurance and patients unable to find doctors and hospitals.

Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of Health and Human Services — referred to in the increasingly un-Affordable Care Act's iconic use of the phrase "the Secretary shall determine," which appears in ObamaCare's guiding document no fewer than 1,005 times — has determined that it's time to go.

Or rather it's been determined for her by a White House in whose parallel universe ObamaCare's current alleged enrollment numbers represent an imagined triumph of a law illegally and unconstitutionally altered on the fly to meet number-goals she once denied having set and deadlines that became movable goal posts.

In fact, she had become the poster child for the ObamaCare disaster and, politically, had to go.

She was a clueless administrator who, in a famous interview with Jon Stewart on "The Daily Show," couldn't explain why businesses were getting a delay in their ObamaCare mandate to provide insurance to their employees while individuals were not getting a delay in their ObamaCare mandate to purchase health care or face a penalty.

The correct answer was politics. It was bad enough that some 6 million people were already losing their insurance, including stage 4 cancer patients. To proceed with the business mandate would have produced a tidal wave of cancellations in advance of a critical election.

It was just one of some 37 politically motivated changes to the law that the president was not constitutionally authorized to make.

Larwyn's Linx: Top Ten Questions To Ask A Liberal

Send us tips! Bloggers: install a Larwyn's Linx widget. Get real-time news, 24/7, at BadBlue.

Nation

Top Ten Questions To Ask A Liberal: Brian Anderson
Truce Reached in Bundy Ranch Battle with BLM: WatchdogWire
We the People Converging on Nevada force BLM into Retreat: CFP

It's Not the Time to Go Wobbly: Abort Obamacare: R.S. McCain
Washington Post Op-Ed: You Didn’t Pay For That (And She’s Right): Foundry
A single Battle, nothing more...: III Percent

House Rep: If Eric Holder Were a “Regular Citizen,” He’d Be In Jail : RWN
President Barack Obama and the 'noble lie': Christian Schneider
Colorado Sheriff: You Can’t Make Me Enforce Gun Control: ConTrib

Economy

Vermont. Or, ‘Why Obamacare will not lead to single-payer.’: Moe Lane
Paycheck Fairness fraud: USA Today
Puerto Rico bond crisis leaves boxing champ Trinidad ruined: Reuters

Scandal Central

Obama Deliberately Collapsing Our Law Enforcement System: Sara Noble
Former Judge: Congress Should Impeach Eric Holder: ConTrib
Bundy Standoff May Have Ended, But the War is Far From Over: Billboard

Climate & Energy

EPA’s War On Coal Puts US At Risk Of Brownouts And Blackouts: RWN
BLM Also a Problem for Texans: 'Nox & Friends
Creepy Sculptures Show As What Happens “If We Ignore Climate Change”: Cove

Media

Dana Milbank Is Incoherent On Marriage: Federalist
In Nevada, and Everywhere Else in America, Guns Speak Louder Than Words…: DC Clothesline
Six reasons why I’m glad John Paul Stevens is no longer an active judge: DTG

Three Pictures in Washingtonian that Make Jay Carney Look Ridiculous: Noah Rothman
Epic: Kids everywhere are using social media to fight Michelle Obama’s school lunches: YC
Krauthammer On Sebelius: She's Clearly a Liability to the Obama Administration: Scoop

Marathon bombing survivor leaves NBC set in tears; calls Meet the Press ‘cowardice, dishonorable’: BPR
New York Court Struggles To Find Jurors Who Don’t Hate The Occupy Movement: Glob
IRS going after decades-old debts from children of debtors ‘unbelievable,’ says Megyn Kelly: BPR

World

Islamic Radicals Mount Influence Operation On Louisiana Leges: Christopher Holton
Ukraine’s Debt And Putin’s Upper Hand: James S. Henry
Forgetting freedom on Passover: Caroline Glick

Exclusive: Key General Splits With Obama Over Ukraine: Eli Lake
Ukraine Crisis: Deadly Clashes Break Out in Slovyansk: WSJ
Tennessee: School enforces sharia, bans town hall on…sharia law: Creeping

Sci-Tech (courtesy BadBlue Tech News)

How Google is transforming power and politics: WaPo
IRS tastes its own medicine, will pay Microsoft millions for Windows XP support: Engadget
Say Goodbye To Microsoft: John Kirk

Cornucopia

If we thought of life as a gift: American Digest
This Proves Racing Flat-Out In Single-Seaters Makes You An Athlete: Car Throttle
Pacquiao beats Bradley by decision in rematch: KABC

Image: Former GOP Rep. Joe Walsh arrives in Nevada with questions as Bundy Ranch standoff ends
Today's Larwyn's Linx sponsored by: Conservative J.D. Winteregg for Congress: Fire John Boehner

QOTD: "I compared Fort Hood and Pearl Harbor as enemy attacks on US military bases. They're different in one key respect, of course: These days a sclerotic republic can't even convict a confessed killer in less time than it took to win the Second World War. Pearl Harbor to the Japanese surrender: three years, eight months, eight days. Fort Hood to the opening of Hasan's trial: three years, nine months, one day.

...It is striking to me that a country responsible for over 40 per cent of the planet's military spending apparently has no money to treat its returning warriors with a modicum of dignity. That it should do the same to men and women gunned down by a traitor who set off every alarm bell and was still allowed to proceed to that table at Fort Hood is an absolute disgrace." --Mark Steyn

Saturday, April 12, 2014

HATRED & DIVISION: The Democrat Platform, Illustrated

Another @BiffSpackle science-dropper:


Feel free to copy and spread around.

Word needs to get out to the drones.


Hat tip: Mark Levin.

HARRY REID SURRENDERS: Military wing of Bureau of Land Management Says It Will Leave Bundy Alone

Caleb Howe reports that the Harry Reid-controlled Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has raised the white flag and will cease its paramilitary operation against the Bundy family.

Fox News is reporting that the Nevada standoff between the Bureau of Land Management and the Bundy Ranch has come to an end. The feds are pulling out because it has become too dangerous for their employees and the public. In other words, the Bundys win...


Fox reports that 400 of 900 cattle have already been rounded up, but the operation is now ended before it was completed. This means that the intervention of the activists and supporters who have camped out near the disputed area was successful. The crowd, claiming that victory, cheered loudly as the sheriff announced the end of the operation.

The BLM is controlled by one of Harry Reid's cronies.

Given Reid's long history of troubling, sleazy deals, all of the attention on the Senate Majority Leader (thank you, Dana Loesch) seems to have paid off.

It's all but certain that Reid was behind this land grab and I would bet that a close investigation would reveal more crony deals of the sort for which he's infamous. Maybe someday we'll have a real media -- actual journalists and not partisan hacks -- who will investigate this sort of government-run-amok madness.


Hat tip: BadBlue News

Larwyn's Linx: Ted Cruz: Attorney General Holder must be impeached if Lois Lerner isn’t indicted

Send us tips! Bloggers: install a Larwyn's Linx widget. Get real-time news, 24/7, at BadBlue.

Nation

Ted Cruz: Holder must be impeached if Lerner isn’t indicted: BPR
Obama, Holder both whine about treatment to Al Sharpton: Ace
Chilling: Cliven Bundy, Surrounded by a Military-Style Army: Sara Noble

Democratic Budget Exposes New Obamacare Lie: Phil Kerpen
Dems need to hate the Koch brothers: LI
The Unforgivable Sin: Sebelius Caused `Lasting Damage to Obama Legacy': TR

The Real Story Behind The Bundy Ranch Harassment: Dana Loesch
Cruz: ‘Scared Senate Democrats Demanded Sebelius’ Head’: FNI
House Conservatives Plot to Oust Boehner, Put Scare Into Cantor: Tim Alberta

BREAKING: 90% of NY Gun Owners Refuse to Register Guns: ConTrib
Sebelius’s farewell speech derails because … it’s missing a page: Hot Air
Nancy Pelosi: Matt Helm with osteoporosis: Ace

My Foolproof Plan to Stop Common Core and Amnesty: ConHQ
Sebelius’s Dangerous Legacy of Incompetence and Deception: Jonathan Tobin
The Democrats’ Fake Problems : Jim Geraghty

Scandal Central

The Definition Of, “Not A Smidgen,” Revealed, When Democrats Shriek Witch Hunt: Blogmocracy
The IRS Scandal Comes Into Focus: Kimberley Strassel
Obama Refuses To Meet With Survivor From 2009 Ft. Hood Terror Attack: WZ

White House Denies ’09 Fort Hood Victim's Request for Meeting With Obama: ABC
Federal judge slams Holder for ‘unprecedented instruction’ he had ‘no authority to establish’: Caroline May
Senator Harry Reid: cattle rustler for Communist China: James Simpson

Climate & Energy

White House Goes Squishy On Keystone XL Deadline: RWN
Desperate to Sell Volts, Government Motors Cuts Cost by Putting in Even Weaker Batteries: MB
Are Baked Beans Bad For “Climate Change”?: RWN

Media

NY Times issues a huge correction, ruins an entire afternoon of MSNBC programming: ConIntel
Stephen Halbrook's Masterful History of Nazi Gun Control Measures: PJM
Video: Democrat’s “War on Fox News” turns into hilarious rout: Hot Air

Dana Loesch: If Bundy Cows Were Illegal Aliens They’d Get EBT Cards and Obama Phones: GWP
Multiple Reports Of Cell Towers Near Bundy Ranch Being Shut Down: WZ
59% of GOP Voters Say Republicans in Congress Out of Touch with Party’s Base: Rasmussen

Obama's press secretary decorates home with Soviet propaganda: The Week
Obama Tells Us What The Real Voter Fraud Is: Cove
Don’t Go There, Buddy!: MOTUS

World

Putin Declares All-Out Cold War on America: Kim Zigfeld
The Wretched Jelly-Spined Nothing Eunuchs of Brandeis: Mark Steyn
Breaking: White House denies visa to Iranian hostage-taker: Hot Air

CAIR Attacked Ayaan Hirsi Ali Because They are Islamic Supremacists with Links to Terrorists: PJM
Want proof they won't stop with your guns?: LI
Degrees of Separation: Mark Steyn

Sci-Tech (courtesy BadBlue Tech News)

Public Sites Affected by Heartbleed: Mashable
NSA Said to Exploit Heartbleed Bug for Intelligence for Years: Bloomberg
Why Gamification Matters: Samuel Greengard

Cornucopia

New Michelle Rolling Stone Cover: iOTW
Alleged Bus Bully Learns the Hard Way : Blaze
#BundyRanch: Western Rifle Shooters

Image: White House Denies ’09 Fort Hood Victim's Request for Meeting With Obama
Today's Larwyn's Linx sponsored by: Conservative J.D. Winteregg for Congress: Fire John Boehner

QOTD: "Vladimir V. Putin’s Russia has declared all-out cold war on the United States, and is threatening a hot conflagration in Ukraine as well. In response, Barack H. Obama is dithering, poking his head ever deeper into the sands of cowardice, and leading America down the same dead-end street followed by James E. Carter.

On April 10th, the Putin regime shut down the Voice of America radio broadcasts in Russia, calling them “mere spam in our frequencies,” and it evicted the American Councils, which is responsible for organizing student exchanges between the USA and Russia. The same day, it was revealed that the Kremlin had willfully withheld critical information about the Boston Marathon bombers from U.S. security forces, in other words playing an important role in helping the bombings to go forward. We learned that Russia had been ritualistically violating its nuclear arms treaty obligations, and Russia announced as well that it intended to flout U.S. sanctions against the terrorist rogue regime in Iran...

...Yet Obama continues to bite his fingernails and watch as Putin gorges himself on Eastern Europe. A big part of the reason, of course, is that he’s afraid Americans will start remembering his “reset” policy, where he lectured Republicans about having misunderstood Russia and assured us that if treated with proper respect Russia would be a valuable partner in international affairs." --Kim Zigfeld

Friday, April 11, 2014

The 5 Most Beautiful Cars on Sale Today

Car and Driver listed its top 10, but I thought only five made the cut. They're not cheap, to be sure, but a man can dream, can't he? Unless Obama created a Bureau of Dream Management and is now regulating that too.

Audi R8


The aging, soon-to-be-replaced R8 among today’s most beautiful cars? Probably controversial. But the R8 remains every bit the design icon it was when it debuted nearly a decade ago. It’s telling that the car still looks like nothing else out there, with a semi-rounded surface theme that would probably look ridiculous on anything else. Paired with Audi’s delicate headlights and taillights, simple grillework, and that roofline, though, it makes for a gorgeous retiree.

WELL, WELL, WELL: Dingy Harry Reid Behind Feds' Land Grab Attacks on Rancher in Sleazy Payback Deal

Guest post by James Simpson

This week, the Bureau of Land Management has been attempting to confiscate the cattle of Cliven Bundy, the last rancher in Nevada's Clark County. On Wednesday, BLM agents confronted the Bundy family and supporters, using attack dogs, tasers and stun guns. Bundy's son was tased and his daughter thrown to the ground. Three others were injured. Bundy supporters eventually drove the BLM off, but not before they had taken some cattle.

The BLM claims the cattle are "tresspassing" on land designated for the endangered desert tortoise. This designation is a red flag that something else is going on. Desert tortoises have co-existed with cattle for over 100 years and the cattle offer no threat.

Sure enough, as Dana Loesch reports today in a great piece of investigative journalism, Senator Harry Reid, known as "Cleanface" by the Nevada mob, and named by Judicial Watch as one of Washington's "Ten Most Wanted Corrupt Politicians," has been using the BLM to seize rangeland on behalf of campaign contributors. One of Reid's former senior advisors, Neil Kornze, was recently appointed to lead the BLM, but he has worked there since 2011, and been de facto leader for at least a year. According to Loesch, Reid even ordered BLM to alter boundaries of tortoise habitat to allow top contributor, Harvey Whittemore, to develop the land. Yet another compassionate Democrat concerned for the environment. Good old Cleanface.

All other ranchers have been driven out of the county, but Bundy refuses to bend. The BLM claims Bundy owes them grazing fees dating back to 1993, however, he says his grazing rights predate the BLM, his family has used the land since the 1800s and those rights should have been grandfathered in. Contrary to BLM's accusations, Bundy has been paying grazing fees, but to the governmental entity he believes has true title to the land: Clark County, Nevada. Loesch relates:

The Gut-Wrenching Charts Obama Doesn't Want You to See

Guest post by Amy Payne

Talking about Obamacare’s effects is one thing; seeing hard data is another.

Heritage’s newly updated Obamacare in Pictures has 15 charts that show the law’s effects on Americans—from canceled insurance policies to new taxes, Medicare cuts, reduced choice for plans, and more.

Here’s a quick look at just three of these charts and how Obamacare is hitting three groups.

YOUNG PEOPLE

Obamacare says you can stay on your parents’ health insurance until you turn 26. This chart looks at what happens after that—if you don’t have employer-sponsored insurance and you have to get insured through Obamacare. If you’re trying to save for a car or house—or just paying rent to have your own place—seeing your premiums double is quite a blow.

MARK LEVIN: My one-time hero Hank Aaron has proven himself a disgraceful, Democrat race-baiter

Mark Levin, 4/9/14

Lots going on today, most of it sucks. Most of it involves the government, most of it involves malcontents and miscreants. But one thing you've probably heard about today, and I was stunned by this, frankly, was Hank Aaron. I have a valuable Hank Aaron card. I collect valuable baseball cards. I've got some Babe Ruth cards, some Ty Cobb cards, I've got, oh I can't remember them all. But some really good stuff. And I've got a great Hank Aaron card, and I'll be getting rid of that at the next sports card event. Because I want nothing to do with this man going forward. He's disgraced himself. And here in the Washington Times, citing the USA Today piece, "Baseball legend Hank Aaron, 80, acknowledged race relations have changed since his threat-filled days chasing Babe Ruth’s home run record — but said modern tormentors still exist wearing suits and ties instead of KKK hoods."

“We can talk about baseball. Talk about politics. Sure this country has a black president, but when you look at a black president, President Obama is left with his foot stuck in the mud from all of the Republicans with the way he’s treated,” he told USA Today.
So, you see: All Republicans treat Obama this way, all Republicans who oppose Obama, oppose him because they're racists. That's the only logical conclusion you could draw from an ignorant statement like this. So half the country, or half or some large percentage of the country, who doesn't agree with Obama on the issues, that wants to see Obamacare repealed, that is extremely troubled with how this guy's running up the debt on their children and grandchildren, that wants the border secured so their communities can be safe and economically viable, that wants a rational foreign policy, you're all racists, according to Hank Aaron...

I guess those of us who disagree with you and disagree with Obama, or disagree with leftists anywhere, well, we're the new Klansmen you see. Just because we wear ties and starched shirts -- neither which I wear often, by the way. We're just like the Klan. This is a disgrace, this man has disgraced himself. As I said, I don't care how many homeruns he hit, I don't care what his name is, and I'm going to get rid of that card as fast as I can because I don't want it anywhere in my house. Awful.


For more Mark Levin, visit MarkLevinShow.com

Larwyn's Linx: Sen. Manchin (D-WV) Says Obama's Hateful Rhetoric Helped Kill Equal Pay Bill

Send us tips! Bloggers: install a Larwyn's Linx widget. Get real-time news, 24/7, at BadBlue.

Nation

Sen. Manchin (D-WV): Obama's Hateful Rhetoric Helped Kill Equal Pay Bill: TR
Oversight committee votes to hold Lois Lerner in contempt of Congress: DC
Meet the 2016 Republican Nominee: Daren Jonescu

Catherine Engelbrecht hammers Elijah Cummings over new emails: Scoop
Obama’s Politicized, Lawless Executive Branch: David Limbaugh
Pat Roberts: did he ever live in Kansas?: Milton Wolf

35 "Acts of Love": Breitbart
Holder has Rare Moment of Honesty: Hannity
Open Letter from Rep. Matt Shea: SSI

Economy

Common Core Lesson Teaches that America is a Racist Nation: TPNN
The US Consumer Is So Strong, Family Dollar Is Closing 370 Stores: ZH
LA Commission Studies Pension Crisis, Recommends New Commission: Mish

Scandal Central

1,576,263 veterans and their claims are “…NOT RELEVANT…”!!!: VetWarriors
Revolution Now In Nevada – What You Can Do To Fight Back: Susan Duclos
Holder’s Gun Tracking Proposal is De Facto Gun Registration: FreePost

Sessions: Immigration Laws Have Collapsed and it's Deliberate: Nice Deb
Dem. Elijah Cummings tries to defend coordination with IRS effort to target True the Vote: BPR
Coalition of Western Legislators, Sheriffs, Veterans Stand Vigil in Support of Embattled Rancher: SSI

Media

Obamacare: Still Very Unpopular, and No Prog "Unskewing" of the Polls Can Change That: Ace
Klein, Krugman offer biased views of confirmation bias: Jonah Goldberg
Thought police on patrol: Krauthammer

“‘Dan Snyder is trying to buy the right to be racist.’ – Jesse Ventura”: Protein Wisdom
My Back Pages: Ed Driscoll
Casinos shudder over possible federal requirement to divulge source of high rollers’ gambling funds: RJ

Sharyl Attkisson: CBS Moved On From 'Fast and Furious'--'Barely Begun to Scratch the Surface': NB
Leftist Academia Publishes “Guide” For Journalists: How to Whitewash Islam In Reporting: WZ
Colbert’s Act Won’t Work On The Late Show: Glob

World

The Legacy of Obama’s Illegal Alien Aunt: Michelle Malkin
Army goes to war with National Guard, seizes Apache attack helicopters: Times
Putin Sends Letter to 18 Countries Threatening to Cut Supply of Gas: Mish

Sci-Tech (courtesy BadBlue Tech News)

CNNx Empowering Digital, Second Screen Viewers to Customize Experience: LostRemote
From quark soup to ordinary matter: Karen McNulty, Symmetry
Good News: Windows XP Alive & Well in ICS/SCADA Networks: Dark Reading

Cornucopia

Up to 5,000 Armed Militia Members Will Be Arriving in Bunkerville, Nevada Today: SHTFplan
Michelle’s Exciting New Exercise Program: Ladies, Get Your Guns!: MOTUS
Great Depression II: David Zuniga

Image: At least 9 dead as bus, truck crash in California
Today's Larwyn's Linx sponsored by: Matt Bevin for Senate -- Help Fire Mitch McConnell

QOTD: "As defenders of Brendan Eich’s defenestration from Mozilla are right to note, the government didn’t force him out. The company merely exercised its rights in a free society. The same goes for Brandeis University, which rescinded Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s invitation for an honorary degree because she’s considered politically incorrect for her criticism of Islam.

But the liberal tribe seems to champion such freedoms only when they line up with its own worldview. You can have all the freedom and autonomy you want, so long as it yields progressive ends. But if you don’t want to bake a wedding cake for a gay wedding, or if you’re a nun who doesn’t want to pay for something you don’t need and are morally opposed to, that’s too bad. The right to be wrong, in liberals’ eyes, is a right only liberals should have, even if, like Paul Krugman, you never need to exercise it. And, all too often, when you are wrong, that’s when liberals bring out their hammers." --Jonah Goldberg

Thursday, April 10, 2014

Obama Budget Lays Groundwork for Universal Gun Registration... and Eventual Confiscation

Guest post by GOA

Last Friday, Attorney General Eric Holder testified before a House appropriations subcommittee on behalf of his department's proposed budget for FY2015.

Apparently, Holder didn't think anyone would read his written submission, because he all-but-admitted that Obama intends to implement a Universal Gun Registry by executive fiat.

He also asked Congress to help fund so-called “smart gun” technology, which would prevent a gun from firing unless the shooter is wearing an accompanying bracelet or ring.

“Smart guns” are a dumb idea

Given that “smart gun” technology only works about 80 percent of the time -- according to the New Jersey Institute of Technology -- gun owners almost universally consider this a “dumb” idea.

Even police have rejected the “dumb gun” approach for themselves.

Currently, there are no such guns on the market in the United States. One gun store did briefly offer an Armatix .22 caliber earlier this year, but public outrage forced them to pull the handgun from the shelves.

Holder pushes a Universal Gun Registry

This year’s Obama budget shows how the administration is trying to quietly create the infrastructure for a universal gun registry.

In proposed “Program Increases” for the FBI, Holder has this to say: