Displaying posts published in

December 2015

Facing Investigations, DOJ Claims the Right to Avoid Investigations By Hans von Spakovsky and John-Michael Seibler

Attorney General Loretta Lynch has no intention of reversing the Justice Department’s defiance of the Inspector General Act. She made that clear during a House Judiciary oversight hearing last month. Indeed, her own Office of Legal Counsel has issued a badly flawed opinion that insists DOJ and FBI officials can, at their discretion, withhold information from the Justice Department’s inspector general — the individual tasked by Congress with investigating those very same officials.

This is an all too “transparent” continuation of the administration’s habit of trying to hide what the government is doing from Congress, the public, the media, and those who are supposed to be policing the executive branch.

Congress created the federal Inspector General (IG) system in the 1970s to combat problems of “waste, fraud, and abuse within designated federal departments and agencies.” Then-President Jimmy Carter said the IGs would be “the most important new tools in the fight against fraud,” and that “their ultimate responsibility is not to any individual but to the public interest.”

Only with independence and absolute access to internal information can the IGs fulfill their intended purpose. And the IG Act of 1978 could not be clearer.

Climate science misrepresented By Jim Whiting

The Earth will do exactly as it pleases.
“Shakespeare made a reckless ruler pull down his kingdom on his head, [and we are adding] a hundred and twenty excess parts per million of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere.”

But it is generally acknowledged that it’s horrifyingly ignorant to think that we can dial in a nice climate by turning the CO2 adjustment knob. Indeed, the current and projected CO2 levels are at the very low end of the range for the last 600 million years. Global temperature is also at the low end of that range. More recently, we are at the low end of the temperature decline since the Holocene Optimum 8,000 years ago. Backing up, the Eemian age 120,000 years ago was much warmer, and sea levels were 6 meters higher, and CO2 was around 280 ppm.

What is obvious is that the Earth will do exactly as it pleases, and we have no ability to predict that or, consequently, to control it. We can influence it, usually but not always for the worse. Furthermore, we have no idea if the current 15°C is the optimum climate. Higher temperatures over the last 200,000 years have been associated with improvements in human welfare. There has been no tipping point, not even at the P-T Extinction Event 250 million years ago, when the temperature briefly blipped past the previous 22°C lid (in effect for hundreds of millions of years) to at least 28°C. More interestingly, there has been no tipping point on the downside, when Snowball Earth increased the albedo so drastically.

Paul Ryan: Democrats’ beard By David L. Hunter

With enabling Republican chumps acting precisely with the fiscal abandon of Democrats, what’s the difference? Who needs any of them?

In Paul Ryan’s acceptance speech as new House speaker, he said: “But let’s be frank: the House is broken. We are not solving problems. We are adding to them. And I am not interested in laying blame. We are not settling scores. We are wiping the slate clean.” In light of his budget-busting deal, what has he done other than become the very problem he castigates?

No doubt, the average American had hoped that statement signaled new leadership, but what it has resulted in is predictable crybaby Boehner-like capitulation. Same as the former speaker’s political expediency, another budget deal has been struck, with Democrats forestalling the threat of a government shutdown and debt default until September of 2017. At the time, Mr. Boehner claimed he was “cleaning the barn,” but what has Mr. Ryan done other than step in it with both feet while simultaneously kicking the can down the road? The old Washington adage of “the more things change, the more they stay the same” is in full holiday display.

Mr. Ryan’s Washington-insider “clean slate” double-speak was cheap political theater – lip service given and just as quickly forgotten. Likewise is his already tiresome clichéd excuses like “we played the cards that we were dealt with as best as we possibly could.” Mumbling such platitudes, Mr. Ryan’s floor-averted eyes and new, impressive peach fuzz lay bare what he is: a feckless political poser. He looks like an errant teenager caught speeding and wrecking the American public’s new Porsche. That Porsche is our faith, dashed once again, in our elected representatives to act like responsible adults with the country’s purse strings.

Saudi millionaire cleared of rape charges after he accidently fell into woman: By Ed Straker!!!!!

For my male readers, can I ask you a question? Have you ever, purely by accident, fallen inside a woman? I ask because this is what seemed to have happened to Saudi millionaire Ehsan Abdulaziz, who was accused of raping a woman. He was cleared of all charges when he made it clear that he accidently fell inside of her.

A Saudi millionaire has been cleared of raping a teenager after claiming he might have accidentally penetrated the 18-year-old when he tripped and fell.

Property developer Ehsan Abdulaziz, 46, was accused of forcing himself on the young woman as she slept off a night of drinking on the sofa in his plush flat in Maida Vale, west London.

He had already had sex with her 24-year-old friend and said he might have fallen on top of the teenager while his penis was poking out the top of his underwear.

Married father-of-one Mr Abdulaziz was cleared of one count of rape following a trial at Southwark Crown Court. …

Global Tyranny Just Getting Warmed Up By Daren Jonescu

“What was once unthinkable is now unstoppable,” boasted U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. More ominous words were never spoken.

Ban was congratulating himself and nearly two hundred of his global elite cohorts on their achievement in signing the Paris Agreement on climate change. In classic progressive style, however, his pep rally sloganeering was also a none-too-subtle threat, à la “Forward.” For as the Agreement makes perfectly clear, the “what” that was once unthinkable, but is now seemingly unstoppable, is the world’s drunken march into international neo-Marxism, aka global tyranny.

The great revolution of political progressivism was its creation of an intermediary mechanism, the administrative state, to filter the relation between the oppressors and the oppressed. The regulatory bureaucracy depersonalizes tyranny, diluting its real meaning with legalistic paperwork and soporific incrementalism. The bureaucratic labyrinth, with its officious, abstract, uncommunicative language, is the perfect guardian for the craven greed and power lust that occupy the offices on the top floor but dare not show their true faces in a “democratic” society.

Rwanda Joins African Trend in Term-Limits Referendum- Paul Kagame the latest African head of state to decide he isn’t quite finished By Heidi Vogt see note please

With the exception of Namibia and Botswana, post colonial Africa, once hailed as the “emerging Continent” is now submerged in tyranny, poverty, human rights abuses, and spreading Islamic jihad… ….rsk

NAIROBI, Kenya—Rwandan voters are expected on Friday to approve a constitutional amendment that would allow President Paul Kagame to stay in office for nearly two more decades, the latest bid by an African leader to push beyond established term limits.

Mr. Kagame has effectively ruled Rwanda since his rebel force ended the country’s 1994 genocide. The current constitution says his presidential tenure that began in 2000 must end in 2017. Though he hasn’t said outright that he will run again, he has said that the country should follow the will of the people. State media routinely trumpet his popularity.

He is far from alone. Across Africa, constitutions are being revised and elections delayed as a number of heads of state decide they aren’t quite done yet.

“This is the biggest challenge that we have across the continent: the challenge of saying, ‘Yes it’s time for this one to move on,’” said Yolande Bouka, a researcher with South Africa’s Institute for Security Studies whose coverage includes Rwanda, Burundi and Congo.

After Nigerian elections in April that saw an incumbent accept defeat for the first time in the country’s history, many activists hoped that Africa’s largest economy would usher in a new era of democracy on a continent infamous for rigged elections and lifetime presidents.

Clinton Views on Charter Schools, Teacher Evaluations Upset Some Democrats Some donors are balking, worried that her recent comments toe the line of teacher unions By Laura Meckler

WASHINGTON—Democrats backing the effort to overhaul American education have become increasingly concerned that presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton isn’t committed to their cause, and some donors are holding back support for her campaign.

Their worries stem from skeptical comments she has made about charter schools and teacher evaluations, as well as her close relationship with teachers’ unions, who are critical of both.

“There are a lot of deep-pocketed donors who are concerned, and they’re going to hang onto their checkbooks until there is more clarity,” said Whitney Tilson, managing partner of Kase Capital, who has given more than $150,000 to Democrats in recent years. He hasn’t donated any money to Mrs. Clinton or the super PAC supporting her this year “primarily because of this issue.”

Another major Democratic donor, Eli Broad, refused requests for contributions from another friendly super PAC, and only changed his mind after personal reassurances from former President Bill Clinton and campaign chairman John Podesta that Mrs. Clinton will support charter schools.

Putin Says Trump Is Front-Runner in U.S. Presidential Race Russian president welcomes Donald Trump’s calls for Washington to improve relations with Moscow By Paul Sonne

MOSCOW—Russian President Vladimir Putin described Donald Trump as the “absolute front-runner” in the U.S. presidential campaign and a colorful and talented person, cheering the American real estate mogul’s calls to improve U.S.-Russian relations.

Mr. Putin made the comments Thursday after his annual news conference, during which he vowed to work with any leader U.S. voters elect. Afterward, the Russian president praised Mr. Trump, even as he cautioned it wasn’t Russia’s place to judge American candidates.

“He’s a very colorful and talented person, without a doubt,” Mr. Putin said, according to Russian news agencies. “It’s not for us to judge his merits, that’s a task for the American voters, but he’s the absolute front-runner we see today in the presidential race.”

Republican candidates have split over the way the U.S. should approach Mr. Putin, an increasingly important figure in foreign affairs as the conflict in Syria dominates headlines. Mr. Trump has broken with his main competitors, including Senators Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, who have called for the U.S. to take a firmer stance against Mr. Putin. The real estate mogul has proposed a rapprochement with the Kremlin and vowed to get along well with the Russian president.

Mideast Christians Deserve U.S. Refuge Hunted by ISIS, afraid to enter refugee camps, they are undercounted and desperate for help. By Abraham Cooper By Yitzchok Adlerstein

Donald Trump’s bizarre proposal to bar all Muslim immigrants from the U.S. has overshadowed a more legitimate concern regarding religion and immigration: Middle East Christians who are desperate to escape the genocidal campaign against them by Islamic State.

Islamist terror attacks like the ones in Paris and San Bernardino, Calif., have underlined the need for more and better vetting of refugees from the Middle East who seek safety in the U.S. But with tens of thousands pushing at the gate, who should to get first preference?

In our view, as rabbis, any immediate admissions should focus on providing a haven for the remnants of historic Christian communities of the Middle East. Christians in Iraq and Syria have been suffering longer than other groups, and are fleeing not just for safety but because they have been targeted for extinction. In a region strewn with desperate people, their situation is even more dire. Christians (and Yazidis, ethnic Kurds who follow a pre-Islamic religion) have long been targeted by Muslim groups—not only Islamic State, or ISIS—for ethnic cleansing. Churches have been burned, priests arrested.

The Obama Secrets Regime Republicans ban the IRS from private email. But why not all federal employees?By Kimberley A. Strassel

Some scandals come on fast, and some creep up on Washington. The slow-rolling outrage of 2015—Obama administration secrecy—received a small correction in this week’s omnibus budget bill, but it deserves far more attention. It’s time for the federal government to come back on the grid.

A steady drip of news has shown that for seven years now, the highest (and lowest) echelons of the Obama administration have conducted the people’s business in secret, via private email addresses and other hidden electronic means. They’ve been doing so in contravention of department guidelines, executive orders and statutes that require record-keeping and public accountability. Since those rules are well known and understood, it has to be assumed that they’ve been doing it purposely, to hide their actions.

The New York Times on Thursday revealed the latest email-hider: Defense Secretary Ash Carter. Mr. Carter was confirmed in February, and from the start used a private account to correspond with aides about everything from legislation to media appearances. He may well have discussed far more serious, classified matters, but we don’t know. That’s because we must rely on Mr. Carter’s word that he turned all his work correspondence over to the Defense Department. Just as we must trust that Hillary Clinton didn’t delete anything official from the private server she used as secretary of state.