Larwyn's Linx: Cromnibus: a winter festival of unrestrained spending

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Nation

Cromnibus: a winter festival of unrestrained spending: John Hayward
Scalise On The Benefits Of Cromnibus: HayRide
Republican Budget Deal Spits in the Face of Voter Anger: Leon Wolf

The “Torture Report” and American Values: Max Boot
Awash in a Sea of Progressive Lies : DiploMad
Why release a report on the CIA in wartime?: Cal Thomas

This is Not Complicated: Erick Erickson
"The Bastards are Corrupt": Scoop
Pelosi And Reid Reveal Democrats’ '15 Strategy: Government Shutdown: WZ

States Move Forward With Plan To Alter Constitution: IBD
10th State Set to Nullify Obama’s Gun Control: ConTrib
Torture Focus is Poison Pill for Democrats: Jonathan S. Tobin

Welcome to TotCare: Obama's preschool takeover: Michelle Malkin
The Decline And Fall Of The Arkansas Battleaxe: Bob Mack
South Texas College Prof Compares Tea Party to Nazis: CI

Economy

Duck And Cover——-The Lull Is Breaking, The Storm Is Nigh: David Stockman
Nearly $200,000,000 Spent in Four Months on Illegal Alien Children: Sara Noble
10 reasons the “Free-Market Jesus Paradise” is awesome: LI

Scandal Central

Emails Show IRS’s Lois Lerner Met with DOJ Officials Just Before 2010 Elections: JW
Feinstein's Duplicity: 68 Congressional Members Briefed On Enhanced Interrogation From 2001-2007: Lid
'You're Not Going to Be Deported,' Obama Assures 'Ordinary' Illegal Immigrants: CNS

Media

LI wins FOIA suit over David Gregory gun law non-prosecution: William A. Jacobson
Don't Cry (Too Much) for The New Republic: Lee Smith
Jon Stewart Uses His Own Mistake to Bash Fox News: LI

One Democrat blasts Feinstein for "Torture Report": FAM
Dick Cheney: Torture Report ‘Full Of Crap’: GWP
Epic: Phil Kerpen Shakes Hands With Gruber, Thanks Him for "Helping Us Destroy Sh*tty Law You Passed”: WZ

World

Military on High Alert So Obama, Feinstein Can Blame Bush: Sara Noble
Oh My God: Obama Wants AUMF From Congress, But Won't Say What He Wants In It : Ace
NSA's Auroragold Mining Operation : Richard Adhikari

How the Palestinian Authority Manufactures its Own Martyrs: Daniel Greenfield
Because…Moral Equivalence.: MOTUS
The Treasury Department Is Seeking Survival Kits For Bank Employees: NoisyRm

The Other America: Victor Davis Hanson
Russian Sanctions + Low Oil Prices = Pontential Trouble For The West: Hideout
Will Islamic State wring its hands over torture? Not likely: John Kass

Sci-Tech (courtesy BadBlue Tech News)

Why Is Gillette Struggling to Compete on Social With the Dollar Shave Club? : Jordan Con
Comcast sued for turning private home routers into public hotspots: ExtremeTech
2015 Pocket Pistols Buyer’s Guide: Dennis Adler, Tactical Life

Cornucopia

Torcher: Hopenchange
Dianne Feinstein should keep her head on a swivel: Obiter Dictum
Video: Man Stole Ambulance to Get to Strip Club: PoliceMag

Image: HEY LIBERALS: ISIS Just Threw a Man Off The Roof for Being Gay
Today's Larwyn's Linx sponsored by: BadBlue Tech News

QOTD: "One of the most common and most understandable reactions to the Senate’s “torture report” is that the practices described by Dianne Feinstein’s investigators are contrary to “American values.” On a certain level the assertion is undeniable: torture (and that’s what the “enhanced interrogation techniques” amount to, even if it is not torture as heinous as that routinely practiced by dictatorships) is definitely not an “American value.” But what about incinerating civilians? Is that an “American value”?

The reality is that the U.S. has often done things in the past that, looked at in another light, could be judged as immoral acts or even war crimes. Exhibit A is the strategic bombing of Germany and Japan in World War II which culminated in the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The two atom bombs killed an estimated 190,000 civilians. The non-nuclear bombing of Japan killed at least 330,000 more. That’s more than half a million dead civilians in Japan alone. The toll was not as high in Germany but it was high enough. One bombing raid alone, on Dresden, killed between 25,000 to 40,000 people. The total number of Germans killed in Anglo-American bombing raids has been estimated at over 300,000.

It would be interesting to know what those who now decry the torture of terrorist suspects have to say about the deaths of some 800,000 people, mostly civilians, in these World War II bombing raids. Were Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman, the presidents who ordered these bombing campaigns, war criminals? And if not how can one argue, a so many on the left seem to, that George W. Bush is?" --Max Boot