http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324407504578185482575542960.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_MIDDLESecond South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley named Charleston Rep. Tim Scott to replace Sen. Jim DeMint, who announced this month that he is retiring in January to head the Heritage Foundation, a think tank. Mr. Scott, a Republican first elected to Congress in 2010, was the front-runner for the post, though the GOP governor reportedly […]
The Senate’s only African-American will be a Republican.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323723104578185841646943954.html?mod=opinion_newsreel
Liberals tend to overemphasize racial diversity, especially in politics, but the diversity lobby was notably missing in action Monday after South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley’s announcement that she chose Tim Scott to replace departing Senator Jim DeMint. It is a striking moment nonetheless.A Republican Governor who is the daughter of immigrants from India appointed a Republican who will become the only sitting African-American Senator in the 113th Congress. Mr. Scott, who was born in 1965, the year the Voting Rights Act passed, defeated the son of the late Dixiecrat Strom Thurmond in a GOP primary for a House seat in 2010. The former businessman represents Charleston, where the Confederacy fired the first rounds of the Civil War, and he will be the first black Senator from the Deep South since Reconstruction.Mr. Scott’s appointment requires him to stand for a special election in 2014, though he has a record as a House conservative in sync with Palmetto State values and emerged with the Tea Party. It’s also worth noting that the movement deplored by liberals as retrogressive has done more than anything in years to increase diversity in politics—and not merely of thought. Think Marco Rubio of Florida, Ted Cruz of Texas, Susana Martinez of New Mexico, Brian Sandoval of Nevada, Ms. Haley herself.
The best news is that Senator-designate Scott’s story isn’t about racial grievance and preference. It’s a measure of personal achievement, political conviction and the opportunities available in modern American politics.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323723104578185271857424036.html?mod=opinion_newsreel
“In the mid-1960s, many of the killings would have been prevented because the severely mentally ill would have been confined and cared for in a state institution. But today, while government at most every level has bloated over the past half-century, mental-health treatment has been decimated. According to a study released in July by the Treatment Advocacy Center, the number of state hospital beds in America per capita has plummeted to 1850 levels, or 14.1 beds per 100,000 people.”
Has the rate of random mass shootings in the United States increased? Over the past 30 years, the answer is definitely yes. It is also true that the total U.S. homicide rate has fallen by over half since 1980, and the gun homicide rate has fallen along with it. Today, Americans are safer from violent crime, including gun homicide, than they have been at any time since the mid-1960s.
Mass shootings, defined as four or more fatalities, fluctuate from year to year, but over the past 30 years there has been no long-term increase or decrease. But “random” mass shootings, such as the horrific crimes last Friday in Newtown, Conn., have increased.
Alan Lankford of the University of Alabama analyzed data from a recent New York Police Department study of “active shooters”—criminals who attempted to murder people in a confined area, where there are lots of people, and who chose at least some victims randomly. Counting only the incidents with at least two casualties, there were 179 such crimes between 1966 and 2010. In the 1980s, there were 18. In the 1990s, there were 54. In the 2000s, there were 87.
If you count only such crimes in which five or more victims were killed, there were six in the 1980s and 19 in the 2000s.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324640104578161791213136954.html?KEYWORDS=CLIFFORD+ASNESS The bond market shows that people focus on after-tax cash flows when making investments. There are important questions we need to answer about taxes. How progressive or regressive? How should rates vary on different forms of income? How much of fixing our fiscal problems should come from raising revenue versus cutting spending? I have […]
http://maggiesfarm.anotherdotcom.com/archives/21201-Human-Rights-Organizations-and-Obama-Foreign-Policy.html Human rights abroad are not of real concern to President Obama. This is clearly signaled by the potential nominations of John Kerry and Chuck Hegel to be Secretary of State and Defense, respectively, two men who throughout their careers have buddied up to tyrants and downplayed oppression. None are arguing for direct armed intervention […]
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324907204578185223495090066.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop Prejudice—like cooking, wine-tasting and other consummations—has an olfactory element. When Chuck Hagel, the former GOP senator from Nebraska who is now a front-runner to be the next secretary of Defense, carries on about how “the Jewish lobby intimidates a lot of people up here,” the odor is especially ripe. Ripe because a “Jewish lobby,” […]
http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3503/egypt-islamists-sexual-assault An Arab girl whose honor or chastity has even been questioned automatically becomes a social outcast, regardless of whether or not the accusation was well-founded. “All that happened,” she added, “while the police were watching…A police officer even told a Muslim Brotherhood member, ‘Whatever you wish to do, sir.’” It is a tough time […]
http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3500/islam-growing-religion-britain Hundreds of Britons are converting to Islam every month. Many youngsters in prison are becoming attracted to Islam by the prospect of getting better food and superior treatment. Islam is the fastest-growing religion in England and Wales, according to new census data that the British government says “describes the defining characteristics of the population, […]
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/335794/spring-fever-slim-apparently-arabic-landslide-andrew-c-mccarthy# It is hard to keep a straight face hearing and reading the mainstream media’s accounts of Egypt’s constitutional referendum. Reuters is typical: Yes, the sharia constitution is going to pass, but Islamists achieved only a “slim vote win” which should “embolden” the “opposition” going forward. Cases of spring fever abound in the West, but […]
Last time I checked there is a war against America…an ongoing war against our institutions, our values, our academies, our culture and our faith.
Can it be that the new cabinet will include Chuck Hagel and John Kerry, people who have demonstrated exquisite understanding of America’s enemies with barely concealed disdain for our own endangered institutions and our allies.
And who will become the new “Women’s Issues” Czarina? Jane Fonda?
And if John Kerry is nominated, look who is touted to replace him…
http://times247.com/
Dukakis floated as likely Kerry replacement
The Hill
Monday, December 17, 2012
News
Former Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis, the 1988 Democratic presidential nominee, may be headed back to the political spotlight as he’s considered a likely interim replacement for Sen. John Kerry. Read more…
Read more: http://times247.com/#ixzz2FK7AfpVT
