The Corner | National Review Online

The Corner | National Review Online: "The IRS will not meet the deadline (today) for responding to a series a questions from the Senate Finance Committee regarding the agency’s targeting of conservative political groups. In a joint statement, committee chairman Max Baucus (D., Mont.) and ranking member Orrin Hatch (R., Utah) said it was “disappointing that the IRS failed to produce any of the documents requested by the Committee,” and noted the irony and hypocrisy of the nation’s tax-collecting agency refusing to meet a deadline for producing requested information."

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The Corner | National Review Online

The Corner | National Review Online: "The IRS will not meet the deadline (today) for responding to a series a questions from the Senate Finance Committee regarding the agency’s targeting of conservative political groups. In a joint statement, committee chairman Max Baucus (D., Mont.) and ranking member Orrin Hatch (R., Utah) said it was “disappointing that the IRS failed to produce any of the documents requested by the Committee,” and noted the irony and hypocrisy of the nation’s tax-collecting agency refusing to meet a deadline for producing requested information."

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Dating Miracles Can Happen | Acculturated

Dating Miracles Can Happen | Acculturated: "A few years ago a 31 year old University of Warwick tutor named Peter Backus had all but given up hope on ever finding a girlfriend and published an essay on the topic that received worldwide attention. This is because Peter used a scientific equation to predict the chance he would ever meet a girl that was a good fit for him.

His variables were this: population size, fraction that were women, fraction who lived in London, fraction who were age appropriate (24-34), fraction who were university educated and attractive, and length of time he was alive to make a meeting possible. Using this simple equation (which did not include many other things like does she find him attractive) he deduced that on a given night out in London there was a 1 in 285,000 chance of him meeting someone who met his criteria. Gulp. But here is the good news. Two years after publishing this essay Peter did meet someone and a story come out last week that they were now set to marry."

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I like the first comment:

"Try a church. It’s the way it used to be done only two centuries ago."

Two centuries ago. Is that when people stopped going to church?

The Corner | National Review Online

The Corner | National Review Online: "Nearly 50 students at the University of Colorado at Boulder have signed a large, colorful “Thank You” card to the IRS for stonewalling conservative groups’ efforts to obtain nonprofit status.

“Yes – I’ll sign it – because I think it’s a fake scandal and it makes sense to prosecute the 501cs, or whatever it is,” said one male student as he signed the card, which was essentially a poster board with the words “Thank You IRS!” in bright, block lettering."

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A Limited Defense of Eric Holder

The Corner | National Review Online: "There is no excuse for Eric Holder, said Charles Krauthammer on Special Report. “Either he lied to Congress or he lied to a judge.”

“Their defense is, ‘It was a ruse. We didn’t really want to prosecute him,’” Krauthammer explained, “which is probably true, because it’s never been successfully done.”"

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I usually swear by Charles Krauthammer. But in this case, I dissent--mostly because the law professors at the Volokh Conspiracy say its totally normal and legal for a prosecutor to name a person as co-conspirator so he can proceed with an investigation when that person has technically violated the law, even if the prosecutor has no intention of indicting.

Snooping on Journalists is Bad, Unless . . .

JustOneMinute: "The NY Times provides context for Obama by reviewing the recent history of leak investigations. Without, of course, any mention of the Plame debacle, since that was a sincere effort to invent a scandal and bring down the Administration, with reporters jailed as collateral damage."

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When I initially compared the Plame investigation to the Rosen leak investigation, my thought was: here's an example where the press is actually holding the Obama administration to a higher standard. Obama is only reading journalists emails, and everyone is upset. Bush not only investigated journalist, but put them in jail, with no outrage.

But then I remembered that all of the jailing of journalists was done by a special prosecutor who was trying to jail Bush administration officials.

So really the moral of the story is: snooping on journalists is bad; jailing journalists to try and bring down an obscure Bush administration official for lying to investigators about disclosing the identity of a non-covert CIA bureaucrat is okay.

Count on It: Power Will Be Abused

Count on It: Power Will Be Abused: "When, as appears to be the case here, government officials turn out to be mere humans at monitoring the vast legions of government workers under their charge, it is indeed appropriate to blame and to criticize those officials. It is appropriate to blame and to criticize them not for their being human but, instead, for their promising the impossible — namely, for their promising to exercise the superhuman abilities that alone can ensure that government agencies behave with at least as much efficiency and integrity as the great majority of private firms routinely display."

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Ed Driscoll » Obama and the IRS: Worse Than Watergate

Ed Driscoll » Obama and the IRS: Worse Than Watergate: "As we wrote Friday, this will be a scandal like Watergate if it turns out that the IRS was acting under orders from Barack Obama or Valerie Jarrett. If the White House’s conduct turns out to be unimpeachable, then it is something far worse: a sign that the government itself has become a threat to the Constitution."

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#Protip: Behringer Sucks

Years ago I bought a Behringer FCA202 interface for recording. It has always been hard to get the thing to  communicate with my computers, but in the past, after half-an-hour of fidgeting, I could get it to work.

But not this time. A couple of weeks ago, I burned over two hours trying to get the interface to communicate with my computer without success. It was really puzzling, too, as it has worked with this laptop in the past. Well, I finally figured out that when my laptops hard drive was replaced by our office tech guy, he upgraded my copy of Windows to the 64 bit version. But Behringer had not written a 64 bit driver, and has no intention of doing so. So now my FCA202, for which I paid about $100.00, is a useless paperweight.

Lame. Behringer is lame.

The Corner | National Review Online

The Corner | National Review Online: "With the Vietnam Memorial in the background, former secretary of state Colin Powell sat down with Al Hunt on Bloomberg TV’s Political Capital to discuss the state of the American military (“terrific”), Syria (“caution” necessary), Benghazi (“I don’t care about the talking points”), and President Obama’s second term. About the last, Powell said the commander-in-chief is doing “reasonably well,” given the improving economy. Powell wished the president success on immigration reform and lamented the president’s failure on background checks for gun purchases."

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This should tell you all you need to know about Colin Powell.

EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty

EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty: "I recently read an article in the Washington Times about a classic case of crony statism. The article concerned Coca-Cola's lobbying effort to ensure that soft drinks remain a qualified purchase under the food stamp program. Approximately $4 billion of the annual $80 billion food stamp program goes to buy soft drinks. Since the Democrats are enthused abut the growth rate of food stamps and the Republicans enjoy the support of big business, the irrationality continues.
Of course, soft drinks are not the worst use of food stamps. At the independent grocery store near where I live in downtown D.C., there is an active market to buy and sell food stamps. Apparently some food stamp recipients sell their stamps to get money to buy illegal drugs. Of course, we then arrest them for using drugs. After they have been imprisoned, they cannot get a job and need welfare and food stamps--a great plan. When government attempts to fill the role better served by private, voluntary institutions (in this case, charity), the outcome is never good."

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To the Slaughter | National Review Online

To the Slaughter | National Review Online: "And so television viewers were treated to the spectacle of a young man, speaking in the vowels of south London, chatting calmly with his “fellow Britons” about his geopolitical grievances and apologizing to the ladies present for any discomfort his beheading of Drummer Rigby might have caused them, all while drenched in blood and still wielding his cleaver.

If you’re thinking of getting steamed over all that, don’t. Simon Jenkins, the former editor of the Times of London, cautioned against “mass hysteria” over “mundane acts of violence.”"

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The Corner | National Review Online

The Corner | National Review Online: "If we cared seriously about marriage’s role in regulating childbearing, we would not be disrupting this norm on behalf of the maybe one-half of one percent of the population (and that is generous) who wants to enter this institution.  It cannot remain the same institution, as many gay marriage scholars have acknowledged, any more than a boy’s school can admit girls and remain a boy’s school."

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George Orwell, "Politics and the English Language," 1946

George Orwell, "Politics and the English Language," 1946: "A man may take to drink because he feels himself to be a failure, and then fail all the more completely because he drinks. It is rather the same thing that is happening to the English language. It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts. "

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Fluoridation fails in Portland by 20-point margin

Fluoridation fails in Portland by 20-point margin: "For any avid readers who have read our coverage of the fluoride wars, we now have results on the latest battle: Portland has rejected fluoridated water by a 20-point margin, with 60 percent of voters against and 40 percent in favor.

This was, according to the Oregonian, the fourth time the city has voted against fluoridation since 1956. The vote makes Portland one of the largest American cities not to fluoridate its water supply, second only to San Jose. Over-under on when we’ll have a Portlandia episode on the subject? I’m guessing next season."

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So much for the left being pro-science. There are reasons a person could reject fluoridation other than the fact that its a chemical. But that's not what I observed in this campaign. Or in the left's resistance to vaccines.

The Volokh Conspiracy » Judging People by their Unpopular Views

The Volokh Conspiracy » Judging People by their Unpopular Views: "There is a lot of truth to Bryan’s argument. For example, modern Americans deserve little credit for being opposed to slavery, because almost everyone holds that view today. By contrast, William Lloyd Garrison deserves great credit for being an antislavery activist back when it was extremely unpopular in the 1830s. I would, however, extend Bryan’s argument to separate out moral and epistemic virtue."

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This reminds me of a thought I had while watching "42," the movie about Jackie Robinson. I generally liked the movie. Obviously it's a great story about overcoming the race barrier, something everyone today supports. I, however, thought there was something a little unseemly in the way the movie encouraged the audience to morally condemn the racists who supported segregation in sports. While the movie condemned the people of the era for their knee-jerk racist objection to a black man playing baseball with whites, it seemed to me to ironically encourage the sort of knee-jerk judgment of the practitioners of racism by caricaturing them as sinister bigots, even though they represented a large portion of the population at that time.

I expect that in 50 years we will be watching movies that portray people who oppose same sex marriage as cloddish bigots who spent their days sneering at gays.

Dr. Helen » How Should a Man Handle a “Silencing Tool?”

Dr. Helen » How Should a Man Handle a “Silencing Tool?”: "Even worse is when some poor man dares to make suggestions about how women can go about reducing the likelihood of being raped. The only acceptable answer to this, it seems, is that men need to stop raping. If one were to point out that A) I have a right not to have my house burglarized, but that B ) I lock my door anyway… yup… rape apologist, rape culture."

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Cafe Hayek — where orders emerge

Cafe Hayek — where orders emerge: "Second, I deny that behavioral economics strengthens the case for government regulation.  Indeed, I believe that it weakens that case.  Because the regulators have the same psychological foibles as the regulatees – yet face far less direct feedback on their decisions than do those whom they regulate – turning more decision-making power over to government increases the frequency of human error and amplifies its ill-effects.  Markets keep those errors less numerous and their effects more confined."

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I was in a conversation recently where the conversant was defending mayor Bloomberg's restriction on soda size. The conversation went something like this (paraphrased heavily):

me: " People should be free to engage in activities, even stupid activities, when the consequences of those activities affect only themselves. Drinking big sodas is exactly that kind of activity. If you don't believe that people should be free to drink big sodas you don't believe in freedom. There is no activity where the consequences of the individual's decision are more thoroughly internalized to the individual."

her: "I agree that people should be free, but I don't believe people are rational. You argue from the premise that people are perfectly rational. They are not; they act in impulsive ways that hurt themselves. Government regulation corrects for this irrationality." (I think her implicit argument was that drinking big sodas was an irrational activity because it hurt the drinker, and government is correcting the irrational behavior in this case.)

me: "I agree people sometimes act irrationally. But why should we believe that the people in government are any more rational? they, after all, are people, too.

her: " . . ."

We went through this twice. I'd like to say I made some progress, but I don't think so, and she changed the subject.

Abuse of Reasons

Abuse of Reasons: "Gordon Crovitz reports that Pres. Obama’s “longtime adviser David Axelrod last week blamed a too-big government for the scandals: ‘Part of being president is that there’s so much beneath you that you can’t know because the government is so vast’”"

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The Corner | National Review Online

The Corner | National Review Online: "I consider myself to be rather cynical about the government and its motives, but I’m just not cynical enough. Nor am I cyncial enough about the MSM. I continue to be amazed at the IRS’s brazen falsehoods, and I continue to be amazed that “elite” press outlets swallow that spin whole. From the beginning the IRS knew that we at the ACLJ (my represents 27 tea-party groups) and others involved in the dispute had documents in our possession conclusively demonstrating that the controversy wasn’t limited to Cincinnati, nor was it confined to low-level employees. They knew the true numbers of tax-exemption applications. Yet they lied anyway."

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About That Dissertation | National Review Online

About That Dissertation | National Review Online: "So what is actually in the dissertation? The dissertation shows that recent immigrants score lower than U.S.-born whites on many different types of IQ tests. Using statistical analysis, it suggests that the test-score differential is due primarily to a real cognitive gap rather than to culture or language bias. It analyzes how this cognitive gap could affect socioeconomic assimilation, and it concludes by exploring how IQ selection might be incorporated, as one factor among many, into immigration policy."

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NYT buries lede … in the lede! | The Daily Caller

NYT buries lede … in the lede! | The Daily Caller: "Maybe I’m missing something, but how does this squelch the scandal? An IRS “manager” told the lower level agents to give extra scrutiny to Tea Party groups. What more do you need? Smoking gun, hiding in plain sight. Who was this manager person, and did someone higher up direct him to give that “directive”? The NYT‘s piece’ proceeds to mostly ignore these questions. But wherever the chain of command stops–that’s where you can look for politicization, no?"

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Obama DOJ formally accuses journalist in leak case of committing crimes | Glenn Greenwald | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

Obama DOJ formally accuses journalist in leak case of committing crimes | Glenn Greenwald | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk: "It is now well known that the Obama justice department has prosecuted more government leakers under the 1917 Espionage Act than all prior administrations combined - in fact, double the number of all such prior prosecutions. But as last week's controversy over the DOJ's pursuit of the phone records of AP reporters illustrated, this obsessive fixation in defense of secrecy also targets, and severely damages, journalists specifically and the newsgathering process in general."

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Loneliness and Suicide - NYTimes.com

Loneliness and Suicide - NYTimes.com: "This trend is striking without necessarily being surprising. As the University of Virginia sociologist Brad Wilcox pointed out recently, there’s a strong link between suicide and weakened social ties: people — and especially men — become more likely to kill themselves “when they get disconnected from society’s core institutions (e.g., marriage, religion) or when their economic prospects take a dive (e.g., unemployment).” That’s exactly what we’ve seen happen lately among the middle-aged male population, whose suicide rates have climbed the fastest: a retreat from family obligations, from civic and religious participation, and from full-time paying work."

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Schieffer to Obama Advisor: ‘Why Are You Here? Why Isn’t the White House Chief of Staff Here?’ | NewsBusters

Schieffer to Obama Advisor: ‘Why Are You Here? Why Isn’t the White House Chief of Staff Here?’ | NewsBusters: "But Mr. Pfeiffer, and I don't mean to be argumentative here, but the President is in charge of the executive branch of the government. It’s my, I'll just make this as an assertion: when the executive branch does things right, there doesn't seem to be any hesitancy of the White House to take credit for that. When Osama bin Laden was killed, the President didn't waste any time getting out there and telling people about it."

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The Unbroken Window

The Unbroken Window: "My hope is to have (help? develop?) students who don’t take words at face value; who are not ruled solely by emotion; who understand how to make an argument (or at least know that they should try to); who think hard about why they believe what they believe and do not believe; who are good to others; and so much more. I leave you with one of my thoughts from Hayek that have impacted me in my journey through life. And please don’t mistake this for an idolizing of Hayek. I certainly admire and respect him, but that’s where it has to end.

Godpseed to you.

Freedom granted only when it is known beforehand that its effects will be beneficial is not freedom. "

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The Autocrat Accountants | National Review Online

The Autocrat Accountants | National Review Online: "Oddly enough, in recent days the most compelling testimony for this view of government has come from the president himself, who insists with a straight face that he had no idea that the Internal Revenue Service had spent two years targeting his political enemies until he “learned about it from the same news reports that I think most people learned about this.” Like you, all he knows is what he reads in the papers. Which is odd, because his Justice Department is bugging those same papers, so you’d think he’d at least get a bit of a heads-up."

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Center City Job Fair For Ex-Offenders Is Canceled After 3,000 Show Up « CBS Philly

Center City Job Fair For Ex-Offenders Is Canceled After 3,000 Show Up « CBS Philly: "The City of Philadelphia shut down a career fair for ex-offenders today after an unexpected crowd of thousands showed up, résumés in hand.

There were lots of disppointed [sic] job seekers and potential employers this morning."

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This makes me very sad. I have been feeling much more sympathy for convicts recently.

Report: IRS Deliberately Chose Not to Fess Up to Scandal Before Election | The Weekly Standard

Report: IRS Deliberately Chose Not to Fess Up to Scandal Before Election | The Weekly Standard: "The IRS commissioner "has known for at least a year that this was going on," said Myers, "and that this had happened. And did he share any of that information with the White House? But even more importantly, Congress is going to ask him, why did you mislead us for an entire year? Members of Congress were saying conservatives are being targeted. What's going on here? The IRS denied it. Then when -- after these officials are briefed by the IG that this is going on, they don't disclose it."

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George Will: Obama’s tapped-out trust - The Washington Post

George Will: Obama’s tapped-out trust - The Washington Post: "Leaving aside the seriousness of lawlessness, and the corruption of our civic culture by the professionally pious, this past week has been amusing. There was the spectacle of advocates of an ever-larger regulatory government expressing shock about such government’s large capacity for misbehavior. And, entertainingly, the answer to the question “Will Barack Obama’s scandals derail his second-term agenda?” was a question: What agenda?"

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Michael Barone: In defense of Jason Richwine and Charles Murray | WashingtonExaminer.com

Michael Barone: In defense of Jason Richwine and Charles Murray | WashingtonExaminer.com: "On the Economist blog a writer identified as W.W. defends the stigmatization of Richwine. He states blandly that “racism has always been predicated on falsification hypotheses about racial inferiority.” I think this is just plain wrong factually: Many people have hated Jews and Asians on the grounds that they tend to be unfairly superior in certain respects, including intelligence. But there’s something more wrong with this line of thinking. It assumes that if ordinary people get the idea that one group on average scores worse on intelligence tests then they will conclude that it’s justified to discriminate against all members of the group. Ordinary people — or at least ordinary Americans — know better than that. They have learned, from school, from work, from everyday life, that there is wider variation with each measured group than between measured groups. Some members of a racially or ethnically defined group that on average scores low on IQ tests score far above average. And some members of a group that on average scores high will score far below average. Ordinary people understand that it is irrational to discriminate according to race or religion or ethnic group, and that it is rational to judge individuals on their own merits. "

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IRS Official in Charge During Tea Party Targeting Now Runs Health Care Office - ABC News

IRS Official in Charge During Tea Party Targeting Now Runs Health Care Office - ABC News: "The Internal Revenue Service official in charge of the tax-exempt organizations at the time when the unit targeted tea party groups now runs the IRS office responsible for the health care legislation.

Sarah Hall Ingram served as commissioner of the office responsible for tax-exempt organizations between 2009 and 2012. But Ingram has since left that part of the IRS and is now the director of the IRS’ Affordable Care Act office, the IRS confirmed to ABC News today."

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Obama is the Ultimate Ad Hominem President « Commentary Magazine

Obama is the Ultimate Ad Hominem President « Commentary Magazine: "My thinking was when we beat them in 2012 that might break the fever, and it’s not quite broken yet. But I am persistent. And I am staying at it. And I genuinely believe there are Republicans out there who would like to work with us but they’re fearful of their base and they’re concerned about what Rush Limbaugh might say about them…

As a consequence we get the kind of gridlock that makes people cynical about government. My intentions over the next 3 ½ years are to govern."

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Again, if your theory of government is (1) government should be doing all these great things but (2) the opposition keeps stopping government from accomplishing them, then the logical conclusion is you don't think that there should be any opposition. In other words, you don't believe in democracy.

George Will: IRS scandal carries echoes of Watergate - The Washington Post

George Will: IRS scandal carries echoes of Watergate - The Washington Post: "Liberals, whose unvarying agenda is enlargement of government, suggest, with no sense of cognitive dissonance, that this IRS scandal is nothing more sinister than typical government incompetence. Five days before the IRS story broke, Obama, sermonizing 109 miles northeast of Cincinnati, warned Ohio State graduates about “creeping cynicism” and “voices” that “warn that tyranny is . . . around the corner.” Well."

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George Will: IRS scandal carries echoes of Watergate - The Washington Post

George Will: IRS scandal carries echoes of Watergate - The Washington Post: "Liberals, whose unvarying agenda is enlargement of government, suggest, with no sense of cognitive dissonance, that this IRS scandal is nothing more sinister than typical government incompetence. Five days before the IRS story broke, Obama, sermonizing 109 miles northeast of Cincinnati, warned Ohio State graduates about “creeping cynicism” and “voices” that “warn that tyranny is . . . around the corner.” Well."

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George Will: IRS scandal carries echoes of Watergate - The Washington Post

George Will: IRS scandal carries echoes of Watergate - The Washington Post: "his administration aggressively hawked the fiction that the Benghazi attack was just an excessively boisterous movie review. "

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Agree or disagree, George Will is always worth reading, if only for lines like this.

George Will: IRS scandal carries echoes of Watergate - The Washington Post

George Will: IRS scandal carries echoes of Watergate - The Washington Post: "“He has, acting personally and through his subordinates and agents, endeavored to . . . cause, in violation of the constitutional rights of citizens, income tax audits or other income tax investigations to be initiated or conducted in a discriminatory manner.”

— Article II, Section 1, Articles of Impeachment against Richard M. Nixon, adopted by the House Judiciary Committee, July 29, 1974"

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The Corner | National Review Online

The Corner | National Review Online: "“I think the Benghazi scandal starts with the Republicans looking in the mirror,” she said. Echoing a phrase from Snow White, she asked, ”‘Mirror, mirror, who’s the fairest of them all.’ They ought to ask, ‘Mirror, mirror, who cut the funding for diplomatic security across this world for Americans?’”"

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So, according to Boxer, something did go wrong in Benghazi. There is a there, there.

How Not to Cherry-Pick the Results of the Oregon Study (Ultrawonkish) - The Daily Beast

How Not to Cherry-Pick the Results of the Oregon Study (Ultrawonkish) - The Daily Beast: "About 90,000 people applied for the health insurance lottery (though selection was done at the household level). About 35,000 people won the lottery, and thus had the right to submit an application, but only about 60% of these lottery winners actually sent the application back. This ought to tell any common sense person a lot about the revealed preference for how much the uninsured value the coverage on offer."

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The Corner | National Review Online

The Corner | National Review Online: "MULLANE: The barbarity of abortion and its cold, mechanized destruction of human life when that life is at its most helpless. You know, assistant DA Ed Cameron put a Planned Parenthood abortion doctor on the stand to compare and contrast a “good” abortion clinic to the hell hole Gosnell was running. Cameron asks him, doctor, how many abortions have you performed in 30 years in practice? Without missing a beat the doctor said, “40,000.” It’s a stunning number. Think of the lives vanished by one man. And the national media yawn."

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Debate on report on immigration leads to scrutiny of Harvard dissertation | Inside Higher Ed

Debate on report on immigration leads to scrutiny of Harvard dissertation | Inside Higher Ed: ""Let us be clear that we believe in academic freedom as it is crucial to the functioning of a university. However, we also believe that putting forth claims of racial superiority based on inherent genetic advantage to be on par with those who have used pseudo-science throughout history to justify state-based hate," the letter says. "

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Heritage Was Wrong | National Review Online

Heritage Was Wrong | National Review Online: "To make reaching firm conclusions even more difficult, much of the debate takes place at an incredibly technical level, with experts arguing back and forth about physiological differences between races and complex patterns in the IQ data. Even James Flynn, the scientist who documented the fact that IQs are increasing over time and who believes there is no genetic component to racial gaps, recently told the New York Times: “Take it from me, the evidence is highly complicated. . . . The best we can say is that it is more probable that the IQ gap between black and white is entirely environmental in origin.”"

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The Corner | National Review Online

The Corner | National Review Online: "As Andrew’s post explains, President Obama is the latest Democrat to whine that the Benghazi scandal is “political.” I’m wondering exactly how, without politics, you get political accountability – which Democrats are quite fond of when terrible things happen while Republicans are in power. The president went on to complain that we “dishonor” the Americans officials who were killed by “extremists” (i.e., jihadists) “when we turn things like this into a political circus.” Well no, we dishonor them when we fail to get a full accounting of the events and decisions that resulted in their killing — things like exactly what the president was doing, minute by minute, during the many hours that Americans in Benghazi were under siege, and what actions — if any — he took to come to their rescue. "

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Soledad O'Brien: 'OK, white person, this is a conversation you clearly are uncomfortable with' | WashingtonExaminer.com

Soledad O'Brien: 'OK, white person, this is a conversation you clearly are uncomfortable with' | WashingtonExaminer.com: ""People would sometimes, when I give speeches, stand up and say, 'You know I think your black America documentaries (are) divisive. I think like, you know, listen, we shouldn't think of ourselves as African-American. We're Americans and everybody should stop separating themselves out," she said in a new video from the Institute of Politics.

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She continued: "First of all it's only white people who ever said that--if we could just see beyond race. If only people didn't see race, it would be such a better place and you are responsible for bringing up these icky race issues Solidad, you should just let sleeping dogs lie."

O'Brien added: "I was like, again, OK white person, this is a conversation you clearly are uncomfortable with and I have no problem seeing race and I think we should talk about race.""

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» Weekend Wrap-up of Benghazi Coverage – Notable Quotes - Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion

» Weekend Wrap-up of Benghazi Coverage – Notable Quotes - Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion: "When the Benghazi talking points were being reviewed and revised by other agencies after the September 2012 attack, former CIA Director David Petraeus indicated that the revised talking points were “essentially useless.”"

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The Unbroken Window

The Unbroken Window: "If I had to boil down what matters to me most in thinking about the quality of person I strive to be, and the quality of person I hope to see in this world, it is this. “What do you do when no one is watching?” It’s a murky question, I know. And by no means am I proud of everything I’ve done when no one is watching. But I try to live even my privatest of private moments in my life as if someone were on my shoulder, someone whom I respected, evaluating my thoughts and actions (yes, we may invoke god or God here or something else that is more politically correct). I’ve disappointed this spectator too many times for me to die a happy person about how I’ve lived my life (we don’t get second chances on some things, alas), but I’m afraid that I know very few people who can pass even crude versions of the Door Test from a Bronx Tale. This brings me both sadness and optimism for I hope obvious reasons. "

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The Unbroken Window

The Unbroken Window: "Folks want to unbundle cable in order for them to stop paying for what they don’t watch (that, by the way, is probably not correct). Coyote makes a great analogy. Many people who support cable unbundling don’t undersstand that mandated health insurance coverages resemble the same thing. Nice."

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The Benghazi Lie | National Review Online

The Benghazi Lie | National Review Online: "That’s why career diplomat Gregory Hicks’s testimony was so damning — not so much for the new facts as for what those facts revealed about the leaders of this republic. In this space in January, I noted that Hillary Clinton had denied ever seeing Ambassador Stevens’s warnings about deteriorating security in Libya on the grounds that “1.43 million cables come to my office” — and she can’t be expected to see all of them, or any. Once Ambassador Stevens was in his flag-draped coffin listening to her eulogy for him at Andrews Air Force Base, he was her bestest friend in the world — it was all “Chris this” and “Chris that,” as if they’d known each other since third grade. But up till that point he was just one of 1.43 million close personal friends of Hillary trying in vain to get her ear."

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Exclusive: Benghazi Talking Points Underwent 12 Revisions, Scrubbed of Terror Reference - ABC News

Exclusive: Benghazi Talking Points Underwent 12 Revisions, Scrubbed of Terror Reference - ABC News: "White House emails reviewed by ABC News suggest the edits were made with extensive input from the State Department.  The edits included requests from the State Department that references to the Al Qaeda-affiliated group Ansar al-Sharia be deleted as well references to CIA warnings about terrorist threats in Benghazi in the months preceding the attack.

That would appear to directly contradict what White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said about the talking points in November.

“Those talking points originated from the intelligence community.  They reflect the IC’s best assessments of what they thought had happened,” Carney told reporters at the White House press briefing on November 28, 2012.  “The White House and the State Department have made clear that the single adjustment that was made to those talking points by either of those two institutions were changing the word ‘consulate’ to ‘diplomatic facility’ because ‘consulate’ was inaccurate.”"

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» Why is Daily Kos so afraid of some speech competition from the Koch Brothers? - Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion

» Why is Daily Kos so afraid of some speech competition from the Koch Brothers? - Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion: "Really, what is Kos so afraid of?

Isn’t having NBC, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, PBS, Huffington Post / AOL, Yahoo, Google, The NY Times, The Washington Post, Hollywood, the music industry, almost all of Higher Ed, Silicon Valley, and almost every major media outlet on your side enough?"

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The Corner | National Review Online

The Corner | National Review Online: "I will not cede more power to the state. I will not willingly cede more power to anyone, not to the state, not to General Motors, not to the CIO. I will hoard my power like a miser, resisting every effort to drain it away from me. I will then use my power, as I see fit. I mean to live my life an obedient man, but obedient to God, subservient to the wisdom of my ancestors; never to the authority of political truths arrived at yesterday at the voting booth. That is a program of sorts, is it not? It is certainly program enough to keep conservatives busy, and liberals at bay. And the nation free.

"

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That's WFB.

Boehner Calls on Obama to Release State Dept. Benghazi E-mails | National Review Online

Boehner Calls on Obama to Release State Dept. Benghazi E-mails | National Review Online: "“Last I remember, the president said that he — and I’ll quote — ‘would be happy to cooperate with Congress in any way the Congress wants,’” Boehner said. “Well, this is his chance to show his cooperation, so that we can get to the truth of what happened in Benghazi.”"

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Official Offers Account From Libya of Benghazi Attack - NYTimes.com

Official Offers Account From Libya of Benghazi Attack - NYTimes.com: "But within days, Mr. Hicks said, after raising questions about the account of what had happened in Benghazi offered in television interviews by Susan E. Rice, the United Nations ambassador, he felt a distinct chill from State Department superiors. “The sense I got was that I needed to stop the line of questioning,” said Mr. Hicks, who has been a Foreign Service officer for 22 years.

He was soon given a scathing review of his management style, he said, and was later “effectively demoted” to desk officer at headquarters, in what he believes was retaliation for speaking up."

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The Corner | National Review Online

The Corner | National Review Online: "Tapper shared in Smith’s frustration. “I guess what I find so amazing — I don’t find it surprising that you haven’t gotten answers, because I haven’t either and I’ve been reporting on this since September,” Tapper told her."

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The PJ Tatler » Benghazi Hearings Live Blog

The PJ Tatler » Benghazi Hearings Live Blog: "Hicks and military commander in Libya “wanted to go and bring our people home” from Benghazi. They were ordered not to go."

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Special ops halted from responding to Benghazi attacks, U.S. diplomat says - The Washington Post

Special ops halted from responding to Benghazi attacks, U.S. diplomat says - The Washington Post: "Special Ops halted from responding to Benghazi attacks, U.S. diplomat says

By Ernesto Londoño, Published: May 6

As the weakly protected U.S. diplomatic compound in eastern Libya came under attack the night of Sept. 11, 2012, the deputy head of the embassy in Tripoli 600 miles away sought in vain to get the Pentagon to scramble fighter jets over Benghazi in a show of force that he said might have averted a second attack on a nearby CIA complex.

Hours later, according to excerpts of the account by the U.S. diplomat, Gregory Hicks, American officials in the Libyan capital sought permission to deploy four U.S. Special Operations troops to Benghazi aboard a Libyan military aircraft early the next morning. The troops were told to stand down."

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Roger L. Simon » Benghazi Continued: Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion

Roger L. Simon » Benghazi Continued: Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion: "That CBS’ Face the Nation host Bob Schieffer, of all people, nodded in agreement when Rep. Darrell Issa asserted on Schieffer’s Sunday morning show that the administration had engaged in a cover-up regarding Benghazi is a huge sign that this scandal is finally being taken seriously by the most traditional establishment liberal media.


This is bad news for such über-establishment figures as Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, but they are politicians who come and, alas eventually, though it seems to take forever, go."

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Former Deputy Chief of Mission in Libya: U.S. military assets were told to stand down – The Lead with Jake Tapper - CNN.com Blogs

Former Deputy Chief of Mission in Libya: U.S. military assets were told to stand down – The Lead with Jake Tapper - CNN.com Blogs: "In an interview with congressional investigators, the former top diplomat in Libya expressed concern that more could have been done by the military on the night of September 11, 2012 and morning of September 12, 2012, to protect those being attacked at the U.S. compound and annex in Benghazi, Libya. Specifically, he wondered why the military did not send a plane as a show of force into Libyan airspace, and why four U.S. Special Operations soldiers were not permitted to travel to Benghazi on a Libyan plane the morning of September 12."

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Factual Free-Market Fairness | Bleeding Heart Libertarians

Factual Free-Market Fairness | Bleeding Heart Libertarians: "No.  The master narrative of High Liberalism is mistaken factually.  Externalities do not imply that a government can do better.  Publicity does better than inspectors in restraining the alleged desire of businesspeople to poison their customers.  Efficiency is not the chief merit of a market economy: innovation is.  Rules arose in merchant courts and Quaker fixed prices long before governments started enforcing them."

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The Corner | National Review Online

The Corner | National Review Online: "Unfortunately, you’ve grown up hearing voices that incessantly warn of government as nothing more than some separate, sinister entity that’s at the root of all our problems; some of these same voices also doing their best to gum up the works. They’ll warn that tyranny is always lurking just around the corner. You should reject these voices. Because what they suggest is that our brave and creative and unique experiment in self-rule is somehow just a sham with which we can’t be trusted.

We have never been a people who place all of our faith in government to solve our problems; we shouldn’t want to. But we don’t think the government is the source of all our problems, either. Because we understand that this democracy is ours. And as citizens, we understand that it’s not about what America can do for us; it’s about what can be done by us, together, through the hard and frustrating but absolutely necessary work of self-government. And, Class of 2013, you have to be involved in that process.

The founders trusted us with this awesome authority. We should trust ourselves with it, too."

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This speech implicitly hits on two premises underlie modern liberalism that when put together  logically lead to hostility to democracy.

Premise One: our democratic government can and should do a lot of things well--things beyond even the scope of what we are currently doing.

Premise Two: when government does a bad job, it is because anti-government forces have thwarted what otherwise could have been accomplished. Government's failures should be blamed on those people who were not on board with accomplishing the task.

When you put the two together, you start to understand why Thomas Friedman is always extolling the virtues of China's lack of democracy. Their government can get things done because they don't have messy election and democracy to deal with.

If you believe that (1) government should do more, and (2) it's efforts to do so are frequently thwarted by democratic opposition, you eventually must conclude that (3) democracy is not a the best form of government to get done what needs to be done.

Diplomat: U.S. Special Forces told "you can't go" to Benghazi during attacks - CBS News

Diplomat: U.S. Special Forces told "you can't go" to Benghazi during attacks - CBS News: "The deputy of slain U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens has told congressional investigators that a team of Special Forces prepared to fly from Tripoli to Benghazi during the Sept. 11, 2012 attacks was forbidden from doing so by U.S. Special Operations Command South Africa.

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The Unbroken Window

The Unbroken Window: "Of course, leave it to Chait to simply ignore that fact, again, that the U.S. at all levels spends almost $6.5 trillion on government, This is more than the entire GDP of China. If the welfare state is “stingy” (an awkward use of words, no?) it ain’t because the money ain’t there. I’m sure it’s all recalcitrant Republicans’ fault. So let’s review. We spend more than the entire country of China generates. Yet our roads are falling apart. Our public schools in the cities are failing. Our welfare state is stingy. Our military veterans cannot get needed services. The National Parks budget is stretched to the max. And so on. Does anyone else see the problem here?"

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Official: We knew Benghazi was a terrorist attack "from the get-go" - CBS News

Official: We knew Benghazi was a terrorist attack "from the get-go" - CBS News: "(CBS News) "Everybody in the mission" in Benghazi, Libya, thought the attack on a U.S. consulate there last Sept. 11 was an act of terror "from the get-go," according to excerpts of an interview investigators conducted with the No. 2 official in Libya at the time, obtained by CBS News' "Face the Nation."

"I think everybody in the mission thought it was a terrorist attack from the beginning," Greg Hicks, a 22-year foreign service diplomat who was the highest-ranking U.S. official in Libya after the strike, told investigators under authority of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Hicks, the former U.S. Embassy Tripoli deputy chief of mission, was not in Benghazi at the time of the attack, which killed Chris Stevens - then the U.S. ambassador to Libya - and three other Americans."

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The Unbroken Window

The Unbroken Window: "We are told that melting glaciers AND an expanded volume of ocean due to its warming (for fun, go check out the actual data on this and examine what the actual consensus is on these predictions and past increases) are going to be something like two-feet over the course of this century at the high end of the IPCC range and closer to a half-foot on the low end. Of course, folks are suggesting these are too-low, and that when the Antarctic ice sheet drops into the oceans, the 30 foot sea level rise would doom us. But let’s take 2 feet.  Now, understand that I am conflating topics here, but we are being told that an increase in sea levels of 2 feet is going to be catastrophic, when most cities experience triple that rise each and every day."

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CNN: Al-Qaeda operatives part of Benghazi attack « Hot Air

CNN: Al-Qaeda operatives part of Benghazi attack « Hot Air: "Several Yemeni men belonging to al Qaeda took part in the terrorist attack on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi last September, according to several sources who have spoken with CNN.

One senior U.S. law enforcement official told CNN that “three or four members of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula,” or AQAP, took part in the attack.

Another source briefed on the Benghazi investigation said Western intelligence services suspect the men may have been sent by the group specifically to carry out the attack. But it’s not been ruled out that they were already in the city and participated as the opportunity arose. …

If the AQAP members were dispatched to Benghazi, it would be further evidence of a new level of co-operation among jihadist groups throughout the Middle East and North Africa, counterterrorism analysts say."

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A few remarks on the Oregon Medicaid study

A few remarks on the Oregon Medicaid study: "Now that the clinical results have started to come in, it’s time for liberal media types like myself to eat some humble pie. Today’s New England Journal article presents a set of findings showing that Medicaid had no effect on a set of conditions where you would expect proper health management to make a difference. There are effective treatment protocols for hypertension, cholesterol, and diabetes, yet insurance status had no effect on blood pressure, cholesterol levels, or glycated hemoglobin (a measure of diabetic blood sugar control)."

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The Euphemism Imperative | National Review Online

The Euphemism Imperative | National Review Online: "Before that crowd, he might have gotten rousing applause, but talking in such honest terms would have been a gross faux pas. The unwritten rule when the Left discusses abortion is that it shouldn’t be called “abortion,” but always “health” or, more specifically “reproductive health” — although abortion is the opposite of reproduction and, for one party involved, the opposite of health."

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The Euphemism Imperative | National Review Online

The Euphemism Imperative | National Review Online: "The right to abortion is the sneakiest, most shamefaced of all American rights. It hides behind evasion and euphemism and cant.

So President Obama sang a hymn of praise to Planned Parenthood at the organization’s annual conference without mentioning what makes it so distinctive and controversial. He said its core principle is “that women should be allowed to make their own decisions about their own health.” He excoriated opponents involved “in an orchestrated and historic effort to roll back basic rights when it comes to women’s health.”"

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Obamacare faces new legal challenge: Its 'tax' still violates the Constitution - CSMonitor.com

Obamacare faces new legal challenge: Its 'tax' still violates the Constitution - CSMonitor.com: "The Supreme Court has never addressed whether the Senate can evade the Origination Clause by hollowing out a House bill and substituting its own tax. “If any act violates the Origination Clause, it would seem to be the Affordable Care Act,” Randy Barnett, a Georgetown University Law School professor and leading constitutional critic of Obamacare, has written."

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BIOCOSM-The New Scientific Theory of Evolution: Intelligent Life Is the Architect of the Universe.

BIOCOSM-The New Scientific Theory of Evolution: Intelligent Life Is the Architect of the Universe.: "Why is the universe bio-friendly? Bioastronomy, once an intriguing and speculative sideline, has become a major focus for cosmologists. James N. Gardner presents a startling hypothesis for how our apparently bio-friendly universe began and what its ultimate destiny will be. Originally presented in peer-reviewed scientific journals, his radical “Selfish Biocosm” hypothesis proposes that life and intelligence have not emerged in a series of Darwinian accidents but are essentially hardwired into the cycle of cosmic creation, evolution, death, and rebirth. He argues that the destiny of highly evolved intelligence (perhaps our distant progeny) is to infuse the entire universe with life, eventually to accomplish the ultimate feat of cosmic reproduction by spawning one or more “baby universes,” which will themselves be endowed with life generating properties. "

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