US drops in press freedom

The US dropped to 46th in the world in press freedom on World Press Freedom Index 2014, a considerable drop during the reign of our current president.

The index is based on seven criteria: the level of abuses, the extent of pluralism, media independence, the environment and self-censorship,
the legislative framework, transparency and infrastructure. What happened?

Breitbart News

Investigative journalist James Risen believes the Index rightly shows the drop in American journalists’ freedoms due to crackdowns on reporters and whistleblowers and the efforts of the Obama administration and the National Security Agency to limit the amount of information America has concerning the “War on Terror” and other subjects. 

“I think 2013 will go down in history as the worst year for press freedom in the United States modern history,” James Risen said. 

Risen, who has reported for the New York Times since 1998, said he has personally felt some of the backlash of the guarded Obama administration and has seen some of his colleagues suffer repercussions as well.
Rather than pursue journalists, the Obama administration has focused on their sources—the two most scrutinized whistleblowers being Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden. 

“We have an administration that came in claiming that it was going to be the most transparent in history when in fact it is one of the most secretive in history, and certainly the most aggressive anti-press administration in modern American history,” Risen said

Did President Obama claim his would be the most transparent administration? Read his words at The White House.

The graphic: from Reporters Without Borders (RSF in French). Click to enlarge; it's very large.

Americans succeed by failing - Megan McArdle

Megan McArdle says we Americans succeed by failing because we learn from failure and go and try again. She is a 30-ish business journalist who I have found to be a very worthy read over the past ten years. (Must be over 30.) This is her first book.

Read the review at Townhall

The best way ahead is to admit mistakes quickly, understand that you may well fail, but you can usually rebound and punish rule-breaking promptly and consistently but lightly. 

This book about people who fail is also a book about how a nation succeeds. The "American Bourgeois Synthesis," McArdle writes, is good but not perfect, promoting entrepreneurship but over-penalizing some mistakes. 

Americans -- and America -- can succeed, but only if people learn from their failures.

IRS commissioner apologizes - Obama says no corruption

President Obama said there is "not even a smidgen of corruption in the IRS" to Bill O'Reilly on Sunday.

Today IRS Commissioner John Koskinen apologized for the IRS targeting conservative organizations, as we heard about in the spring of 2013. He said it is/was intolerable and will not happen now or in the future. 

Who should we believe? A senior IRS official, Lois Lerner fell back on the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution to avoid answering questions. Washington Post  That sure has the smell of corruption.

Breitbart News

Attorney Cleta Mitchell is representing several of the groups that were denied or greatly delayed. She testified to Congress yesterday about the abuse they endured. And the lack of action by the Obama administration.

Breitbart again

School gun-ban signs show... a GUN!

The sign announcing the ban on guns shows a gun. Violation! School administrators in Southland school district in Illinois are concerned people will be disturbed by the picture.

Some schools have expelled a student for a sign showing a gun. Will they treat the responsible administrator with the same punishment a student would get? (I admit I stretched it a bit. I don't know that THIS school district expels students for pictures, but some have done it.)

Chicago Sun Times

SOS Kerry threatens boycott against Israel

John Kerry, our Secretary of State, threatened Israel that an international boycott would take place unless Israel accepts his peace deal. It includes Israel giving up territory and allowing the expanded Palestinian state to have its capital in Jerusalem.

This is a bald threat. If it were a caution between friends he would have given it behind closed doors. He made the threat at a security conference in Munich, Germany.

Israel National News

One more federal jobs program

Rep. Susan Del Bene, new Congresswoman from Medina, Wa, has a big win. Another federal jobs program.

How many are there now? Who can count them? Find them? Mitt Romney said in 2012 that there are 49 that report to 8 different agencies. And even Politifact claimed his statement to be “Mostly True.” His error? Trivial. They found 47 programs in 9 agencies. How do they overlap?

She requested a $30 million program to train food-stamp recipients for work in the “Farm Bill” that passed the US House of Representatives last weeks. In a surprise of the legislative process she got 7 times more - $200 million. She based her request on a program Washington has called Washington State Basic Food Employment and Training (BFE&T). It’s for SNAP (food stamp) recipients, but only for those not participating in Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) WorkFirst work program. Services are provided through community or technical colleges and/or community based organizations (CBO). And furthermore… It gets complicated, of course.

BFE&T’s homepage claims that over a 2-year period 72% got jobs with a median pay of $11.00 per hour. That sounds good to me. But why do we need yet another federal jobs program? Why? Because it would take time and effort to dig through the existing 47 to find which one is a close-enough fit.

Since Del Bene's is a federal program much of its benefits will go to middle class people who get paid to put on poorly focused classes and other services that the needy find hard to get access to.

Seattle Times

Retiring Demo can now tell the truth about Obamacare

Rep. Jim Moran of Virginia is known as a man who would always tell his opinion.… Now it appears he gave it when he was allowed to.

He voted for Obamacare. But now that he is retiring he is telling the truth - it is broken. He is quoted by Washington Times:

“I’m afraid that the millennials, if you will,” Mr. Moran tells Washington’s WAMU-FM radio, “are less likely to sign up. I think they feel more independent. I think they feel a little more invulnerable than prior generations. But I don’t think we’re going to get enough young people signing up to make this bill work as it was intended to, financially.” 

His analysis is spot on, but that’s small consolation. “I just don’t know how we’re going to [fix] it, frankly,” says Mr. Moran. “If we had a solution, I’d be telling the president right now.” Now he tells us.

Where was bold Moran in 2009, 10, 11, 12 and 13?

Obamacare was sold on the number of uninsured. But few uninsured are signing up. (The Healthcare Blog) And hundreds of thousands have had their insurance cancelled already with more coming later this year. Most of the sign ups are those who were cancelled running for some sort of cover(age). It is not doing what President Obama promised.

Wearing Seahawks blue and green

Boeing is serious about "wearing" Seattle Seahawks blue and green. They painted a 747-8 Freighter in blue and green and gave it a huge 12 on the tail.

Found at Flight Global.

It is also in rotation on their home page. Boeing

Click to enlarge

Are we snow wimps?

Are we snow wimps in Seattle and King County, Washington? Do we panic at one inch of snow? Well, two? Yes. A guy who calls himself atrubetskoy got the data on school closings. How many inches does it take to close school. He colors every county accordingly. We aren’t in the wimpiest category. No, in the second one - one to 3 inches. And we are the most northerly county in that category. Of course. Our marine climate: the salt water warms the winter and cools the summer.

Seattle Times

More from the creator at Reddit

And the map fans gather to share their work at MapPorn at Reddit

Graphic from atrubetskoy at the Reddit link above. Click to enlarge.

Thin defense of government coercion by Sen. Patty Murray

Our Senator Patty Murray came to the defense of government coercion in companies that provide health-care to their employees.

Obamacare requires companies to provide contraceptives - birth control - to their employees. Hobby Lobby’s owners say they cannot comply with Obama’s law because they would violate their consciences to do so. Sec. of HHS Sibelius is suing Hobby Lobby. The case will be decided by the Supreme Court. SCOTUSblog

Murray says Hobby Lobby wants to deny health care to their employees. Wrong. Hobby Lobby is not denying them health care, but is refusing to pay for one thing - contraception. They cannot stop an employee from stopping at Walgreens and buying a contraceptive or getting a prescription from her doctor. Murray says:

“Allowing a woman’s boss to call the shots about her access to birth control should be inconceivable to all Americans in this day and age, and takes us back to a place in history when women had no voice or choice,” according to Murray’s prepared remarks.

Honorable Senator Murray, hello? There is a difference between the employer not paying for something and denying it to the employee. They just don’t want to pay for it. Clearly you just can’t allow a difference of opinion. You have to force your choice on everyone.

Seattle Times 

Obama has his pen and his phone

Obama has his pen and his phone. And he will use them!

Cartoon from branco@reagan.com. (Yes. That's an email address.) Click to enlarge.

Visualize travel times

Technical leaders are building trial tools to visualize travel times by transit. Getting and formatting the data is much of the challenge. At U Colorado someone (don’t know who) has the tool and data together for Seattle, San Francisco, Denver and Boulder, Colorado.

Click on Seattle on this map. Geoss at U Colorado

New York City has a trial tool.

Via Flowing Data.

The graphic: My screen capture at Geoss U Colorado. Click to enlarge.

Amazing Boeing 777 model built from manila file folders

A guy in India built a Boeing 777-300ER entirely from manila file folders?  You won’t believe the work he did. Everything is done in great detail - structural ribs, seats, lavatories, engines built with every fan blade, wheels and landing gear, cargo hold. (It looks like he is not finished with the painting.) Amazing.

It is 1/60 scale, so the fuselage is about 4 feet long.

Model 777 Project on Flickr

Photos (c)  Luca Iaconi-Stewart

.

Virtual paintout

Virtual painting? Painters find scenes on Google Earth’s street view. Then they base a painting on the “virtual scene.” They get together - virtually - to post their paintings at

Virtual Paintout

Many of the painters include a link to the location. Right now they have lots of paintings of Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

Graphics: Painting of Arnold's Lobster truck in Eastham, MA, on Cape Cod and the original GE street view it was based on. This is the link to the GE street view: LINK. But I can't link to the painting. Currently you can search the painter's name - Eileen Black - at the Virtual Paintout main page.

Europe is easing climate goals

The European Commission is easing up on climate goals. They have not rescinded their goals. But they are stopping tracking each country. The goals are total for all members. But if you don’t track each one individually, they know there is no visibility and the pressure is off.

Der Spiegel “Green fade out"

Furthermore, the EC is going easy on regulations on fracking. No stringent controls. Only minimum health and environmental standards. I am sure they have heard the worst-case fears. Maybe they looked at the science before this decision.

Senators censor NBC

Four Democrat US Senators have taken action to censor NBC. During the broadcast of the Golden Globes on Sunday actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus was seen in the broadcast "smoking" an e-cigarette.

Senators Dick Durban, Sherrod Brown, Richard Blumenthal and Edward Markey wrote to NBC to "take action to ensure that future broadcasts" don't make light of the health risks associated with tobacco. Uh… there is no tobacco in an e-cigarette.

US News on NBC News

Censorship is often misidentified. This is the real thing. Censorship is not editors deciding not to print something. It is the government making prior restraint of speech. That is, to prevent the speech from occurring by government force, as the four brave senators tried to do in their letter.

PJ Media has extended text of the letter.

Welcome Ben Shapiro to Seattle

We welcome Ben Shapiro to the Seattle airwaves - on KTTH AM 770, weekdays 3 to 6 PM. And streamed over the internet.

Ben gained national fame when he calmly took apart Piers Morgan on live CNN in January, 2013, over motivations of people after the Sandy Hook massive shooting. See Ben’s previous column at Townhall.

When you read more about young Shapiro you will see he has a remarkable track record of books and media appearances. MyNorthwest.com Also his own web site.

Democrats block restoring military pensions

Senate Democrats voted for illegal immigrants and against military retirees. Yes. They voted FOR ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS Thursday.

People who are in the US illegally were paid $4.2 billion - that’s $4,200 million - in Additional Child Tax Credit (ACTC). Why pay them? Ask Sen. Patty Murray. Ending that ridiculous loophole can restore the cut to military retirees. An audit by the Treasury Inspector General found that the credit was being claimed and paid for children not in the country! And it encourages more illegal entries. Yes.

Senator Kelly Ayotte (R, NH) proposed an amendment #2603 (or S. 1869) which would favor our military retirees over the illegals. Senator Marie Cantwell voted for the illegals.

Senator Barbara Boxer lead the opposition.

Free Beacon

Inslee unilateral low-carbon requirement would raise gas $1 per gallon

Governor Inslee is serious about carbon. He plans to unilaterally begin a carbon cap and trade system and low-carbon gasoline. Really? When asked to deny it he won’t. He promised other governors he would do this. Washington State Wire Of course, he won’t break his promise to his peers. His promise to the voters about taxes? Oh, the voters! He says it’s not a tax.

The cost: Inslee's new standards requiring low-carbon gasoline would raise the price by $1.00 to $1.20 per gallon. He doesn’t see why that would bother anyone.

“I find that very surprising,” he said when told of the lawmakers’ concerns. “We’ve had dozens of meetings over many months about these things, and not once has anyone come to me and said we have to make a choice between people getting to work every day and failing to deal with the problem of climate change.” Olympia Report

The legislature is trying to get a transportation package together and is talking about a gas tax increase of 10.5 cents per gallon. They know the voters will object to that. But Inslee is sure it will be worth pay $1.20 per gallon to end global warming, I mean, climate change. Not that it will make a difference in the whole world. But he wants to lead by example.

He can’t imagine a problem for his big dream.

Does the governor have the authority to do such a huge change all by himself?

See also Washington State Wire.

Gut Obamacare - Obama is doing it - then what?

Jennifer Rubin at Wash Post

Testing.

If you knew who was behind closing Gitmo

Who wants to close the US Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba?

Fox News

On Saturday, January 11, a coalition of "Close-Gitmo" forces is expected to march on Washington to commemorate the 12th anniversary of detention and interrogation operations. Though the march from the White House to the National Museum of American History is purportedly about advancing "human rights" and "stopping torture," a closer look at the key participants reveals a more troubling, some might say hidden, agenda.

If more Americans knew who is behind this campaign, there would be nationwide outrage.
While everyone is for “human rights” and “stopping torture,” Americans should not be fooled by these false flags meant to damage U.S. power and prestige.

Just dig a little deeper into who has been driving the anti-Gitmo disinformation campaign these past 12 years, and we discover an international, fervently anti-American, far-left coalition attacking the nation through a savvy propaganda effort.  

Walmart health plan cheaper and offers more than Obamacare

Surprise! No? Walmart's health plan is cheaper and offers more than Obamacare.

Washington Examiner

Walmart furnished employee benefit information to the Examiner. Neither Obamacare advocate Families USA nor the United Food and Commercial Workers, which backs anti-Walmart campaigns, responded to Examiner requests for comment. 

Walmart offers its employees two standard plans, a Health Reimbursement Account and an alternative it calls "HRA High" that costs more out of employees' pockets but has lower deductibles. Blue Cross Blue Shield manages both plans nationally. 

Also offered is a Health Savings Account plan that includes high deductibles but allows tax-free dollars to be used for coverage. 

For a monthly premium as low as roughly $40, an individual who is a Walmart HRA plan enrollee can obtain full-service coverage through a Blue Cross Blue Shield preferred provider organization. A family can get coverage for about $160 per month.
Unlike Obamacare, there are no income eligibility requirements. Age and gender do not alter premium rates. The company plan is the same for all of Walmart's 1.1 million enrolled employees and their dependents, from its cashiers to its CEO. 

A Journal of the American Medical Association analysis from September showed that unsubsidized Obamacare enrollees will face monthly premiums that are five to nine times higher than Walmart premiums.

Method: Independent insurance agents affiliated with the National Association of Health Underwriters and health policy experts compared the two at the request of the Examiner.

Go to the article for an excellent graphic.

UW leads in arctic warming study

The University of Washington will now lead the US outside of Alaska in arctic research - and global warming? Seattle Times says it well "Arctic 101: UW degree to prep students for a melting world” UW has formed a new Future of Ice program, which will offer an Arctic Studies minor.

Is Australian Professor of Climate Change Chris Turney to be on the faculty? His Spirit of Mawson expedition was researching climate change and the loss of sea ice in Antarctica. Well, that was their stated intent. (Turney is known to be a warming scienist by his being a “carbon entrepreneur” according to The Australian registration required) But they found the increase of sea ice. Actually, the sea ice found them and made their host ship stuck in the ice.

Now their ship and the Chinese ice breaker sent to rescue them are waiting to be rescued by (ta ta!) the United States of America’s Polar Star icebreaker.

More details on the Spirit of Mawson - Clarice Feldman at American Thinker.

Antarctic - least ice melt ever recorded

Register UK

Scientists at the British Antarctic Survey say that the melting of the Pine Island Glacier ice shelf in Antarctica has suddenly slowed right down in the last few years, confirming earlier research which suggested that the shelf's melt does not result from human-driven global warming.

The Pine Island Glacier in West Antarctica and its associated sea ice shelf is closely watched: this is because unlike most of the sea ice around the austral continent, its melt rate has seemed to be accelerating quickly since scientists first began seriously studying it in the 1990s.

Many researchers had suggested that this was due to human-driven global warming, which appeared to be taking place rapidly at that time (though it has since gone on hold for 15 years or so, a circumstance which science is still assimilating).

However back in 2009 the British Antarctic Survey sent its Autosub robot probe under the shelf (famously powered by some 5,000 ordinary alkaline D-cell batteries on each trip beneath the ice, getting through no less than four tonnes of them during the research). The Autosub survey revealed that a previously unknown marine ridge lay below the shelf, over which the icepack had for millennia been forced to grind its way en route to the ocean. However in relatively recent times the ice had finally so ground down the ridge that the sea could flow in between shelf and ridge, freeing the ice to move much faster and warming it too.

As we reported at the time, this caused BAS boffins to suggest that the observed accelerating ice flow and melt seen since the '90s was actually a result of the ridge's erosion and sea ingress, rather than global warming.

Now, the latest BAS research has revealed that rather than accelerating, "oceanic melting of the ice shelf into which the glacier flows decreased by 50 per cent between 2010 and 2012".

The BAS goes on to explain:

Observations made in January 2012, and reported now in [hefty boffinry mag] Science, show that ocean melting of the glacier was the lowest ever recorded. The top of the thermocline (the layer separating cold surface water and warm deep waters) was found to be about 250 metres deeper compared with any other year for which measurements exist.

This lowered thermocline reduces the amount of heat flowing over the ridge. High resolution simulations of the ocean circulation in the ice shelf cavity demonstrate that the ridge blocks the deepest ocean waters from reaching the thickest ice ...

In January 2012 the dramatic cooling of the ocean around the glacier is believed to be due to an increase in easterly winds caused by a strong La Ninã event in the tropical Pacific Ocean.

Dr Pierre Dutrieux of the BAS adds, bluntly:

"We found ocean melting of the glacier was the lowest ever recorded, and less than half of that observed in 2010. This enormous, and unexpected, variability contradicts the widespread view that a simple and steady ocean warming in the region is eroding the West Antarctic Ice Sheet."

The Science paper can be read by subscribers to the journal here. The BAS announcement of the results can be read here. Readers unfamiliar with the rules of the climate game should note that the term "climate variability" as used in those documents means for this purpose "climate effects not caused by humans".

Obama versus the Constitution #4 Privileges for Congress

Congress put itself under the same law causing misery to so many of us. Right? Up to a point.

Exemption of Congress from Obamacare.

A little-known part of Obamacare requires Congressmen and their staff to get insurance through the new healthcare exchanges, rather than a taxpayer-funded program. In the quiet of August, President Obama directed the Office of Personnel Management to interpret the law to maintain the generous congressional benefits.

Senator Vitter introduced a bill to end Congress's exemption. Then senators started shouting. The didn't want to show their faces on a vote to retain their privileges. So Obama told the OPM to reverse its ruling on the clear wording of the law to favor Congress. As John Fund reports at National Review online:

Under behind-the-scenes pressure from members of Congress in both parties, President Obama used the quiet of the August recess to personally order the Office of Personnel Management, which supervises federal employment issues, to interpret the law so as to retain the generous congressional benefits.

OPM had previously balked at issuing such a ruling. Even without OPM, Congress could have voted to restore the subsidies or ordered a salary raise to compensate for the loss of benefits, but that would have been a messy, public process, which everyone wanted to avoid.

Congress finding a way to exempt itself from laws it passes? In the dark? Who is surprised?

Via Ilya Shapiro at Forbes

Obama versus the Constitution #5 IRS violating Obamacare

The list of Obama's administration's violations of Obamacare is long. He doesn't even follow his own law!!

After Obamacare became law there were complaints. From his allies. So he said - Eh. Do whatever, to the IRS.

Expansion of the employer mandate penalty through IRS regulation. Or call it "IRS violation."

Obamacare grants tax credits to people whose employers don’t provide coverage if they buy a plan “through an Exchange established by the State”—and then fines employers for each employee receiving such a subsidy. No tax credits are authorized for residents of states where the exchanges are established by the federal government, as an incentive for states to create exchanges themselves. Because so few (16) states did, however, the IRS issued a rule ignoring that plain text and allowed subsidies (and commensurate fines) for plans coming from “a State Exchange, regional Exchange, subsidiary Exchange, and federally-facilitated Exchange.”

The IRS was following its boss. He probably didn't have to tell them to violate his own Obamacare law.

Ilya Shapiro at Forbes

Government waste - new C27J planes go directly to bone yard

The Air Force didn't want any more Alenia C27J aircraft. Ohio congressmen and senators forced the purchase into the budget. So the Air Force has to take them.

The new aircraft will go directly to desert storage near Tucson, Arizona.

Military.com

Obama violating the Constitution #6

President Obama claims he and his White House have nothing to do with it. But the tracks lead there. #6

Political profiling by the IRS

After seeing a rise in the number of applications for tax-exempt status, the IRS in 2010 compiled a “be on the lookout” (“BOLO”) list to identify organizations engaged in political activities. The list included words such as “Tea Party,” “Patriots,” and “Israel”; subjects such as government spending, debt, or taxes; and activities such as criticizing the government, educating about the Constitution, or challenging Obamacare. The targeting continued through May of this year.

Arvik Roy at Forbes

IRS employees didn't just "watch" the applications of these organizations. They blocked them. The IRS repeatedly asked for more data. Then again. USA Today

the Internal Revenue Service held up their applications for tax exemptions, harassed them with questions and leaked their donor lists to political opponents.

The questioning included requests for copies of Facebook postings, the content of prayers, political beliefs of members, résumés of board members and dealings with the media.

That was the testimony of six conservative groups to the House Ways and Means Committee,

Was it a coincidence that the IRS took so long on their filings that many just gave up? Gave up so they weren't involved in the 2012 election cycle. A coincidence? Hot Air

The Senate investigated. Hot Air

Cincinatti wash blamed, but tracks led to IRS headquarters in DC. ABC News

And recently: Obama responded to the IRS abuse of taxpayers by… adding more regulations for IRS employees to abuse. Mary Katherine Ham at Hot Air

Did Obama sign up for Obamacare?

President Obama says he signed up for Obamacare. Just because he said he did, you thought he really did? This time watch the magician:

Mark Thiessen's summary:

In other words, the president signed up for Obamacare coverage he does not intend to use,

- skipped the disastrous Web site he forced millions of Americans to navigate,

- had someone else do the paperwork for him,

- chose the cheapest possible plan to avoid the premiums he is imposing on others and

- waited until the last possible moment to decide whether he wanted to cough up $400 a month as a symbolic show of solidarity.

Washington Post

Obama ignoring the Constitution #7 Supreme Court arguments

President Obama's Justice Department under Eric Holder violating the US Constitution. #7

Outlandish Supreme Court arguments.

Between January 2012 and June 2013, the Supreme Court unanimously rejected the Justice Department’s extreme positions 9 times. The cases ranged from criminal procedure to property rights, religious liberty to immigration, securities regulation to tax law.

They had nothing in common other than the government’s view that federal power is virtually unlimited. As a comparison, in the entire Bush and Clinton presidencies, the government suffered 15 and 23 unanimous rulings, respectively over eight years.

For example

Requiring that the attorneys staffing a case have the same racial breakdown as the group petitioning. Legal Insurrection

Avik Roy at Forbes

Obama ignoring the Constitution #8 Appointments

President Obama swore to uphold the Constitution. Does he know what he promised? He taught Constitutional law at U Chicago, so of course he does. Then why does he continue to violate it? #8

Recess appointments.

Last year, President Obama appointed three members of the National Labor Relations Board, as well as the head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, during what he considered to be a Senate recess. But the Senate was still holding “pro forma” sessions every three days—a technique developed by Sen. Harry Reid to thwart Bush recess appointments. (Meanwhile, the Dodd-Frank Act, which created the CFPB, provides that authority remains with the Treasury Secretary until a director is “confirmed by the Senate.”) In January, the D.C. Circuit held the NLRB appointments to be unconstitutional, which ruling White House spokesman Jay Carney said only applied to “one court, one case, one company.”

Is the language not clear? The president is allowed to make recess appointments when the Senate is not in session. Honorable Harry Reid came up with a way to block President Bush from making appointments by arranging to have one senator present every three days to hold a pro forma session. That is, "Come to order," "Adjourn." So the Republicans did the same thing. No president, not even President Obama, can make a recess appointment dying a Harry-Reid pro-forma session of Congress.

Another violation of President Obama's oath of office.

Ilya Shapiro at Forbes

Obama ignoring the Constitution #9

Continuing with Obama's violations of the US Constitution: Number 9:

Assault on free speech and due process on college campuses.

Responding to complaints about the University of Montana’s handling of sexual assault claims, the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights, in conjunction with the Justice Department, sent the university a letter intended as a national “blueprint” for tackling sexual harassment. The letter urges a crackdown on “unwelcome” speech and requires complaints to be heard in quasi-judicial procedures that deny legal representation, encourage punishment before trial, and convict based on a mere “more likely than not” standard.

Due process and being presumed innocent until proven guilty are parts of the bedrock of our legal system. But President Obama's Attorney General Eric Holder instructs colleges to deny legal representation to the accused and conviction on the very low standard of "more likely than not," while our standard is "beyond a reasonable doubt." See also the 14th Amendment. The Free Dictionary

Ilya Shapiro at Forbes.

Sea turtles hatching every day

During our recent sojourn in Cabo San Lucas, BCS, Mexico, we saw baby sea turtles hatch almost every day! In our past five visits we have seen two mass hatches and the march to the sea. LINK But this trip surpassed all five previous ones.

On our first morning's sunrise walk we saw a group of people standing on the upper beach at the Solmar Beach Resort - the original Solmar resort. Sure enough a nest of eggs had hatched. A typical nest contains 85 to 110 eggs. They usually hatch just before sunrise. Resort employees (security employees are trained to watch for and handle the turtle hachings) gathered the hatchling turtles and stored them for release late. They choose a time when airborne predators are least likely to attack - sunrise or sunset. So we returned at sunset for the release. But, unfortunately the resort policy changed. In past years we were allowed to each take one turtle and launch him/her. Each one had a name! But this year they put up yellow police tape and wouldn't let us be involved.

The next day we saw a mass hatch at Playa Grande a couple hundred yards down the beach. Both these resorts face the Pacific Ocean; most Los Cabos resorts - both Cabo San Lucas and San Jose del Cabo - face the Sea of Cortez.

Another day there was no mass hatch, but we saw wandering tracks on the beach. Speaking to a woman nearby she said she had picked up five wandering babies and launched them in the sea. LOOKING FOR A PHOTO

The fourth of our first five days there we again saw wandering tracks. This time a resort employee was there. He looked around, then where the tracks were densest he put on gloves (¿Porque tienes guantes?) He dug in the sand and about 8 inches down found a turtle. It didn't move at first, but then he did. Hatches in unknown spots usually don't happen because when the mothers lay the eggs the resort marks where they are. And usually they move them to a common area to avoid disturbance.


One year we saw an adult sea turtle cross the very wide beach to the buildings. But we didn't check to see if it was a mother laying eggs; probably was.

Photos: My photos. First two are 2011 at Solmar Beach Resort, Cabo San Lucas, BCS, Mexico. The rest are at Playa Grande in 2013. Adult is Playa Grande in 2010.

Ten days of Obama violating the US Constitution

Has President Barak Obama violated the US Constitution? Yes!! Let's count the ways.

I am going to focus one violation of the Constitution by President Obama per day for ten days. There are certainly more. Number 10:

Mini-DREAM Act. Congress has shamelessly failed to pass any sort of immigration reform, including for the most sympathetic victims of the current non-system, young people who were brought into the country illegally as children. Nonetheless, President Obama, contradicting his own previous statements claiming to lack authority, directed the Department of Homeland Security to issue work and residence permits to the so-called Dreamers. The executive branch undoubtedly has discretion regarding enforcement priorities, but granting de facto green cards goes beyond a decision to defer deportation in certain cases.

From: Cato's Ilya Shapiro at Forbes

Via Allah at Hot Air.

Don't bail out Obamacare

Obama has created a mess; everyone can see the evidence. Thursday he even added a hardship waiver for those who suffer the hardship of their insurance being cancelled by Obamacare! Get it? The hardship caused by Obamacare.

What's coming? Not next week, but coming. A bail out will be "needed." A bail out of insurance companies due to the crisis created by Obamacare.

Say no. Just say "no bail outs."

CNS News re Charles Krauthammer

Government waste in 2013

Senator Tom Coburn (R, OK) provides a helpful focus on wasteful spending in the US government. He just released his annual Wastebook.

Wastebook (PDF)

At Politico a few top examples:

… 3. $17.5 million in brothel tax exemptions: Coburn says that through the tax code, $17.5 million has gone to brothels in Nevada that have claimed tax exemptions for everything from breast implants to “free passes” that were deemed part of promotional costs and eligible for deductions by the IRS.

4. $50 million “Google searches”: Coburn attributes $50 million to National Technical Information Services, an agency that charges for reports that often can be found for free through a Google search. Coburn calls NTIS, which is part of the Department of Commerce, antiquated, as it was created at a time when information wasn’t as readily available. He noted that about 74 percent of its reports had information available in public sources. Additionally, a CD-ROM for which the agency charges $79 contains information that is also available for free on the Internet.

… 7. $285,000 for rock ’n’ roll : For the first time, the federal government’s “trade arm” funded the music industry as the American Association of Independent Music received $284,300 this year from the International Trade Administration. The funding allowed 12 music label executives — joined by one government official — to travel to Rio to promote music in foreign markets. Coburn, calling it the “the Indie Rock Music Execs World Tour,” says the group also had a side trip to Sugarloaf Mountain.

8. $10,000 “Pole” dancing: Through a $10,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, a group called PowerUP Project features the linemen and electrical technicians of an Austin, Texas, power company who engage in performance art in a choreographed “ninety minute dance with bucket trucks, cranes and field trucks, and a set of 20 utility poles, all set before a live audience.”

North Korea slave-camp escapee asks Dennis Rodman

The only person to escape from a maximum-security slave labor camp in North Korea asks Dennis Rodman to think about the slaves suffering today.

Shin Dong-hyuk was born in Camp 14 in 1982. He knew nothing of life outside the camp - and of torture and killing on whim inside - until a high-level detainee was assigned to work with him. Shin's offense wash his father's brother escaping North Korea 25 years before he was born. The detainee told him of life outside and planned for both to escape. The electric wire surrounding the camp is designed, not to turn one back, but to kill. And it did kill the other detainee, but Shin climbed through over his body and got to China, then South Korea, then the US. His story is told in Escape from Camp 14 by Blaine Harden.

Today Shin asks Dennis Rodman to look up Camp 14 on his phone to see it does exists. And to think about the slaves being starved and tortured there while he is partying with the dictator and his chosen few.

Seattle Times

Watch the pension crisis unfold

Unfunded pension liabilities have Puerto Rico near the edge and Detroit going over. Illinois is close and California has liabilities.

Fox News has a new news center bringing all the pension news into one place.

Fox: Pension Crisis: The gathering storm

(This is not a popcorn eating for policy nerds. It is one way to raise awareness on a problem we find easy to forget.)

But the tyrant gave us a great price - Ukraine

Ukraine, a former "republic" in the USSR, has been on the edge between the opportunities and risks of close relations with Europe versus the bear hug of Russia's emerging new empire.

Ukraine's President Yanukovich chose Russia. But huge crowds have been filling the streets in protest. So President-ex-President Vladimir Putin answered the charge of favoritism by granting favors. He announced this week a huge discount on natural gas with assured supply and loans of several billion $. Along with the benefits in energy and finance they got the overlordship of V Putin. He will treat Ukraine with all the respect given to every Soviet republic from 1918 to 1991 and the East Europe vassals from 1945 to 1989. That is none at all.

When you ride the tiger you go very fast. But you can't get off. You don't dare try.

Walter Russell Meade

China - smog has benefits

Everyone is so negative about smog. It is unhealthy and especially risky for kids, the elderly and those with asthma. It sometimes slows traffic and now is delaying flights in China. The American Interest

But look on the bright side. It protects a city from missile attack. And who doesn't need that? Reuters

In online commentaries on Monday, state broadcaster CCTV and the widely read tabloid the Global Times, published by the Communist Party's official People's Daily, both tried to put a positive spin on China's smog problem.

Those are official sites of the government of China. But the claim has since been removed.

WA Obamacare debits accounts early

Washington's Obamacare system debited peoples bank accounts early. Would you like an $835 payment to hit two weeks early? Gov. Jay Inslees team did it.

KGW

Progress? Yes

There has never been a better time to be alive than now. By most measures everyone is better off than ten years ago. Than 100 years ago.

Cato has a new web site following the trends.

Human Progress

How many times did Obama promise?

"If you like your healthcare plan you will be able to keep your healthcare plan. Period."

Watching the cancellations climb into the millions - and more next year - that statement has been proven false. A lie. How many time did President Obama or his White House spokespeople say it?

PolitiFact has collected 37 instances from June, 2009 to September 26, 2013. 

PolitiFact

Hat tip to Powerline Blog

Halperin says Palin was right about Obamacare

Senior political analyst Mark Halperin this week found "death panels" in Obamacare. Ex-Governor Sarah Palin showed him the way.

The mainstream media erupted when Gov. Sarah Palin said Obamacare contained committees that decide who gets resources for their health care. On Facebook [don't have a link] she said:

[G]overnment health care will not reduce the cost; it will simply refuse to pay the cost. And who will suffer the most when they ration care? The sick, the elderly, and the disabled, of course. The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s “death panel” so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their “level of productivity in society,” whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil.  

Monday Halperin on the Steve Malzburg show said death panels are there. There were built in. Newsmax

The Affordable Care Act contains provisions for "death panels," which decide which critically ill patients receive care and which don't, says Mark Halperin, senior political analyst for Time magazine.

"It's built into the plan. It's not like a guess or like a judgment. That's going to be part of how costs are controlled," Halperin told "The Steve Malzberg Show" on Newsmax TV

And he is not negative about them at all.

"We do need to do some of that in this country, because we can't afford to spend so much on end-of-life care. A very high percentage of our healthcare spending is for a very small number of people at the last stages of their life," he said Monday.

"I'm not saying the system shouldn't allow that, but there's too much cost. There're judgments have to be made."

Halperin, coauthor of the bestselling book "Double Down: Game Change 2012," said the U.S. media was not effective in reporting about the effects of the Affordable Care Act on Americans.

Hat tip: Kristin Tate

Killing the Thanksgiving Day holiday

I won't do Christmas shopping at any store/chain that opens on Thanksgiving Day. Here are the retailers present in the NW that I know of so far:

Macy's

J C Penney

Target Corp

Best Buy Co Inc

Toys R Us

KMart

Wal-Mart

Source: Reuters

The good guys known so far

Home Depot - I saw a lot of good stocking stuffers there.

Apple

Nordstrom

Costco

Patagonia

Quote of the day

I will get serious about Thanksgiving later. But first words from George Will yesterday in the Washington Post:

Human remains found beneath a Leicester parking lot were confirmed to be those of Richard III, missing for most of the 528 years since he lost the Battle of Bosworth. He remains buried beneath the bad reputation acquired at the hands of the Tudors’ talented PR specialist, William Shakespeare.

He has some interesting examples of the public display of stupidity in the same column:
A CNN anchor wondered if an asteroid that passed by Earth on Feb. 15 was “an effect of, perhaps, global warming.”

And:
The Bank of England is putting Jane Austen on a new 10-pound note because without a woman on some notes, British currency would “not command respect and legitimacy.” Queen Elizabeth II is on all notes.

Oregon Obamacare portal not live until March 31

Oregon's Obamacare portal will not go live until March 31. March 31! Six months late!

Cover Oregon will process applications manually until that date. Now its defenders might say: But people will be able to apply online. That might be; I can't tell from this article. But that is just the initial data collection. The process will be carried out manually until then.

And, as of Nov. 21, Oregon remains the only state that has not enrolled one person. Not one!

Oregon Live

Busy airports of the future

Gizmodo shows six airports that will be among the world's largest in the future. The first three are new airports, what we call "from greenfields."

• Al Maktoum airport in Dubai one of the United Arab Emirates
• 
  
• Beijing Daxing - Beijing's third airport
• 
  
• Hamad Airport in Doha, Qatar
• 
  
• Abu Dhabi airport's Midfield Terminal. A new terminal, not a new airport, but it is planned to handle 20 to 40 million passengers per year.
• 
  
• Bao'an airport's International Terminal 3 - This Pearl River airport serves Hong Kong and Shenzhen
• 
  
• Incheon, Korea - not new. This is really a list of five, not six.

Photo: Bao'an Terminal 3. Click to enlarge.

This week's Blame-the-Republicans award for creativity

Why did the press not report that the development of Obamacare was in trouble for the whole three and a half years from bill passage until October 1, 2013? There were signs all over that there were problems. But the press did little. The Republicans were complaining about it. And the press's called that obstructionism by poor losers. Not that they might be right.

Enter Times Magazine editor-at-large Mark Halperin. He admits the press didn't do their job, but blames Mitt Romney. Mitt Romney? Breitbart

To his credit, Halperin didn’t dodge the fact that the media failed to do its job. He did, though, rather bizarrely blame Mitt Romney and Republicans for it. [quoting him talking to Laura Ingraham]

Laura, there is no doubt that the press failed to scrutinize this program at the time of passage and during the context of the president’s re-election. Any reporter who would argue otherwise would be putting their head in the sand. As we write in “Double Down,” the problem for the Republicans in the re-election context was you nominated, Republicans nominated Mitt Romney, a guy who was not very well positioned, to say the least, to make the case against Obamacare because he passed the healthcare plan in Massachusetts. …

Barack Obama knew he wasn’t going to run for re-election defending the program. Part of the flaws of the way the media works. If the candidates aren’t talking about it gets less coverage. No doubt a disservice was done to the country and to liberals. It didn’t get scrutiny on passage and then again when the president was running for re-election. Our cover story in the magazine lays all this out just how deep the president’s predicament is now politically and substantively.

One wonders how many moons Halperin can see from his planet.

Romney did hit on ObamaCare, once during the most high-profile of all presidential election events -- a presidential debate. But he was immediately pummeled by elite media fact-checkers.

In fact, the media played whack-a-mole with Romney, repeatedly hitting him again and again and again whenever he dared criticize ObamaCare. By loudly screaming liar! every time he brought it up, the media intentionally turned ObamaCare into a liability for Romney to run on. And you can bet that was the plan.

According to Halperin, just how many times did Romney have to bring up ObamaCare in order for the media to do its job? Was he just one mention away? Two? Four?

Regardless, the biggest election of the last three years without Romney's name on the ticket was Republican Scott Brown's January 2010 Senate win in Massachusetts; a startling upset caused almost completely by the public's growing concern over ObamaCare.

Still, the media did not scrutinize.

It is also nonsense that Republicans as a whole didn't make an election issue of ObamaCare. Dozens of Republican lawmakers ran on ObamaCare in 2010. Their victories were historic.

Still, the media chose not to scrutinize.

But there is just no excuse -- other than bias -- for the media not scrutinizing ObamaCare as it was being proposed, written, and passed. Still, throughout all of that, including a grueling legislative process, the media refused to investigate the legislation or to take New Media's reporting seriously.

In many cases, over the last few years, the media pushed back against ObamaCare critics as motivated by race...

If the press can't blame the Republicans they might have to do some investigative reporting and … that's work. So their assignment is to find a way, any way, to blame the Republicans for every shortcoming of President Obama and his well paid, underperforming government minions.

I thought Mark Halperin (confused with highly accomplished novelist Mark Helprin*) was one of the more reliable mainstream journalists. But everyone has to suspect every word he writes after they read this creative fiction.

* Mark Helprin is an ivy-league educated American who has served in the Israel military. His novels, Winter's Tale, A Soldier of the Great War and others are very highly regarded.

Obama changes the dictionary

Words can't mean the same when applied to Obamacare. You didn't hear what you thought you heard. "Who are you going to believe - me or your own ears?"

Victor Davis Hanson at National Review

The Obama administration once gave us “man-caused disasters” for acts of terrorism and “workplace violence” for the Fort Hood shootings. Now it has trumped those past linguistic contortions by changing words to mask the Obamacare disaster.

The president and his advisers apparently knew long ago that millions of the insured would face cancellations or premium hikes once Obamacare was fully implemented. Yet to get the 906-page bill passed, they had to convince the public of the very opposite scenario. So they repeated ironclad guarantees that no one would lose their coverage or doctors — “period!”

Now the administration explains the deception by going after both the ethics of the insurers and the intelligence of the previously insured. That task required language to be altered. The newly canceled health plans are suddenly rebranded by the administration as “subpar.” Only in autumn 2013 is the supposedly unaware public told that, years ago, “bad apple” insurance companies sold them “substandard” plans.

According to Obama, millions of Americans were once ignorant or uninformed, and thus will soon be pleased about their cancellations: “So the majority of folks will end up being better off. Of course, because the website’s not working right, they don’t necessarily know it.”

Congressional aids complain loudly about Obamacare

Congressional aids are complaining loudly about Obamacare. But… This is different… It's one thing to mess up everyone else. But this is going to cost ME, a well paid senior staff member. Hypocrites!

Not all Congressional staff was put under Obamacare - slimy people - but some were. And though it levels most people. But older people do spend more on health care and Obamacare does allow charging more - up to 3 times more.

Politico

… older congressional staffs may leave their jobs because of the change to their health insurance.

Under the Affordable Care Act, and federal regulations, many congressional staffers — designated as “official” aides — were forced to move out of the old heavily subsidized Federal Employees Health Benefits program and into the District of Columbia’s health insurance marketplace exchange. Others designated as “unofficial” were allowed to stay in the FEHB program. Managers had to choose whether aides were “official” or “unofficial” by Oct. 31, and Ta said that wasn’t enough time to make an informed decision about who would benefit and who would lose out by going into the new system.

Obama says he is not stupid

No one else suggested he was. But he did. Notice he is not saying he is not stupid, but just his degree of it.

Hyperliberal Mediaite

“You know, I’m accused of a lot of things but I don’t think I’m stupid enough to go around saying this is going to be like shopping on Amazon or Travelocity a week before the website opens if I thought that it wasn’t going to work,” the president continued.

As they dig deeper he looks worse. Not him, you say, but the people who he appointed to represent him.

While the president may have been telling the truth – that he was not “informed directly” that the ACA exchanges web portal would not function on its October 1 launch date – recently uncovered details of the ACA website’s design and construction phase indicate that members of his cabinet were.

A report which surfaced in the Washington Post as a result of the work done by congressional investigators shows officials with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and Department of Health and Human Services, including Sec. Kathleen Sebelius, were informed of the scale of the problems plaguing the website’s construction as early as April.

The president’s credibility has already been gravely, possibly irreparably, damaged by the unraveling of his oft-repeated promise that anyone with health insurance would be able to keep those plans if they liked them. It has already been shown that the president was informed as early as February of 2010 that the law would, indeed, force people off their current plans. But a report which surfaced on Monday night indicated that the president’s own Justice Department authored a brief in October showed that most of the country’s insured will have to seek new plans.

They knew his promise was not a promise, but a non truth.

Obama Labor Department falsified unemployment data before 2012 election

President Obama's Labor Department falsified unemployment data before 2012 election. And they knew it. An employee was caught entering false data, then management continued the practice.

So a false improvement of unemployment was publicized at a very convenient time for President Obama.

New York Post

Just two years before the presidential election, the Census Bureau had caught an employee fabricating data that went into the unemployment report, which is one of the most closely watched measures of the economy.

And a knowledgeable source says the deception went beyond that one employee — that it escalated at the time President Obama was seeking reelection in 2012 and continues today.

“He’s not the only one,” said the source, who asked to remain anonymous for now but is willing to talk with the Labor Department and Congress if asked.

The Census employee caught faking the results is Julius Buckmon, according to confidential Census documents obtained by The Post. Buckmon told me in an interview this past weekend that he was told to make up information by higher-ups at Census.

Update:
Congressman Darrel Issa (R, CA) is asking questions of the director of Census Bureau. He is asking about the person reported to have begun the fudging. And who he worked for and what they did. Good.

Green policy trap

Bjorn Lomborg of Copenhagen is still evaluating green policies - their benefits and their costs. He doesn't oppose reducing CO2. He just asks "what will you get per dollar spent?" And often the answer is very little. Like 10 cents on the dollar.

Project Syndicate

… Consider the European Union’s 20-20 policy, which targets a 20% reduction in CO2 emissions below 1990 levels by 2020. It is important to examine this approach, not only because the EU is pursuing the world’s largest and most ambitious climate policy, but also because other climate policies suffer from similar shortcomings.

The most cost-efficient way to achieve the 20% target would be to operate a single, EU-wide carbon-market, which would cost the EU about $96 billion annually by 2020. But the benefits to the entire world would be much lower. Indeed, the only peer-reviewed overview of EU climate policy estimates that it can avoid climate-related damage of about $10 billion per year. So, for every dollar spent, the EU stands to avoid about ten cents of damage.

Who wants a payoff of 1 for 10 invested? Actually when he rounds up more costs the payoff is 0.5 for 10 invested. He is encouraging everyone to take a hard look and find more cost-effective ways.

Graphic from ecobase21.net. 

Ethanol mandate causing environmental damage

I haven't been hearing the greenies talking about the damage caused by the huge increase in acreage of corn, due to the mandated use of ethanol.

Daily Caller quoting AP

… Yet the federal government’s biofuel mandate, the Renewable Fuel Standard, has raised corn prices and incentivized farmers to grow corn on environmentally fragile land once set aside for conservation. The AP reports that 5 million acres of conservation land has been put into service since President Obama took office.

Furthermore, the AP identified more than 1.2 million acres of valuable “virgin land” in Nebraska and the Dakotas alone that has been plowed into corn and soybean fields since 2006 — the year after the RFS was first signed into law.

More corn means more nitrogen fertilizer. This type of fertilizer is toxic when it seeps into drinking water and has been known to cause “blue baby” syndrome in children. Communities across the Midwest are feeling the effects of increased fertilizer use.

Nitrogen fertilizer use shot up by one billion pounds between 2005 and 2010, and the AP estimates that another billion pounds of fertilizer have been used for corn production since then. Nitrates travel down rivers and into the Gulf of Mexico where they boost algae growth, which consume huge amounts of oxygen when they die, making the sea zone unlivable for other creatures.

“On the one hand, the government is mandating ethanol use,” said Larry McKinney, the executive director of the Harte Institute at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi, “and it is unfortunately coming at the expense of the Gulf of Mexico.”

The Des Moines Water Works supplies drinking water to 500,000 people and is used to high nitrate levels in their water. DMWW gets its drinking water from one of two rivers — when nitrate levels are too high in one, they pull from the other. However, this year nitrate levels were high in both rivers, and workers with massive machinery had to work around the clock for three months over the summer to clean the water. ...

McDermott says Republican bill is socialism

My Congressman Jim McDermott is on the front line in Congress today. During the floor vote on Rep. Upton's You Can Keep Your Healthcare Act H.R. 3350, McDermott spotted socialism at work and stood up to call it out.

McDermott:

"… I can't believe what I'm hearing."

"I thought the Republicans believed in the free enterprise system," he continued. "This is socialism. This is government saying to insurance companies, you must sell a policy to somebody next year that you sold to them this year. When did we shift on the Republican side to the Congress telling an insurance company who they have to sell a policy to or what's in the policy?"

Did big Jim read the bill? Liberal Talking Points Memo says the bill allows, but does not require, insurance companies to continue offering policies that do not meet ObamaCare's new restrictions. How is that forcing the companies? See H.R. 3350.

And McDermott praised Gov. Inslee and Washington Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler for denying the people of Washington the choice that President Obama promised over and over: “if you like your health-care plan, you will be able to keep your health-care plan, period.” And it looks to me they will be able to stick us with higher-cost Obama insurance because H.R. 3350 allows, but does not require, companies to continue the policies and state insurance commissioners are involved in what insurance is offered in their state. Daily Caller Sound Politics

Mayor forces unions on preschools

Mayor McGinn is forcing preschool operators - not to unionize - but to sign an agreement with the unions. He says he is not forcing them to have contract negotiations with the unions which do not represent their employees. But just sign a "teacher stabilization agreement." A what?

The unions will certainly arrive at the talks energized by the strength of their position with the mayor behind them. What if the preschool doesn't agree with the union's prewritten agreement? Well, they have to sign.

The stabilization agreement will be one that "lays out the framework for organizing the workplace and ensures that day-care centers stay open in the event of a strike or other labor action."

Forced unionization. On what basis? The contract under which they serve the City? Not the old one, but with the new one - yes.

If having a union were good for the employees they would ask for it. The whole process: Union gets employees to sign request cards. Have an election. Did the unions and employees do this? No.

This is a power play by the lame duck. "A spokesman for Mayor McGinn said there wasn't any political motivation." They claim to be only interested in quality teachers and stability. Sure.

There is one ray of hope. Councilman Tim Burgess is asking if it's legal. Assuming nonpolitical Mayor McGinn is constrained by the law.

Seattle Times

Kerry's lousy Iran deal in one slide

Sec. of State John F Kerry is bragging about how he got Iran to make an agreement with ut. But some people say it's not much of a deal.

Senator Kirk of Illinois put it together. Iran gets to continue developing nuclear weapons. The rest of the world gets nothing except a piece of paper with a signature that John F Kerry can wave around.

Via Breitbart. See Senator Kirk.

The graphic - from Senator Kirk. Click to enlarge.

Apparent fraud by ObamaCare Navigators

Obama hires people to help the public sign up for ObamaCare. Would he imagine being nonpolitical in hiring? Obama political?

What is happening - The Navigators are telling people to lie on their applications. And they are acting like employees of the Democrat Party. Indeed, some say they are working for Democrats. How do we know? Video!

Video by James O'Keefe. He sends actors with hidden video cameras to ask for help. They admit to wrong-doing. What do the helpers do? Tell them to lie.

John Fund reports at National Review with video.

… The events of O’Keefe’s video of a Texas navigator site run by the National Urban League are a familiar sight to viewers of his past efforts exposing Medicaid and voter fraud. Government-paid workers supposedly trained to uphold the law advise clients on how to lie on government forms, evade legal requirements, and ignore proper procedures.

“You lie because your premiums will be higher,” one navigator advises an investigator for O’Keefe’s Project Veritas, who tells the worker he sometimes smokes. “Don’t tell them that. Don’t tell ’em.

O'Keefe's Project Veritas

ObamaCore

I haven't studied the new "federal but not centralized" Common Core standards for K-12 - no pre-K to 12 - education, but it doesn't seem aligned to my values.

I have an idea how to push its defenders like Jeb Bush back. Label it ObamaCommonCore, no make it ObamaCore.

UK NHS failed central computer system

Glitches in a web site? The history of governments building computer systems to take care of everything is littered with failures. The failures not only cost a lot, but also take the time of key people, disrupt normal operations and delay the start of the less ambitious replacement that succeeds.

King County Washington has suffered a few, as I recall.

In the UK the National Health System decided to simplify work life by centralizing much patient information. After years of effort and $1 billion spent they decided to DEcentralize records.

Independent UK

Farm cash for billionaires

Why give cash to billionaire Paul Allen? You thought checks for farmers were to help struggling families to keep their farms. Paul Allen, Charles Schwab and other billionaires are supported by you and me.

Seattle Times
The federal government paid $11.3 million in taxpayer-funded farm subsidies from 1995 to 2012 to 50 billionaires or businesses in which they have some form of ownership, according to a report released Thursday by the Environmental Working Group, a Washington-based research organization.

The billionaires who received the subsidies or owned companies that did include Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen; investment titan Charles Schwab; and S. Truett Cathy, owner of Chick-fil-A. The billionaires who got the subsidies have a collective net worth of $316 billion, according to Forbes magazine.

Four pinocchios for Obama insurance promise

“That means that no matter how we reform health care, we will keep this promise to the American people: If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor, period. If you like your health-care plan, you’ll be able to keep your health-care plan, period. No one will take it away, no matter what.”

– President Obama, speech to the American Medical Association, June 15, 2009 (as the health-care law was being written.)

“And if you like your insurance plan, you will keep it. No one will be able to take that away from you. It hasn’t happened yet. It won’t happen in the future.”

– Obama, remarks in Portland, April 1, 2010, after the health-care law was signed into law.

Now they are saying he said something different. But we see here what he said. Many times. Both before and after the law was passed in March, 2010, as we see above.

Four pinocchios - Washington Post's Glenn Kessler digs in and gives Obama his most damaging rating. Washington Post Obama would not have gotten such a bad rating if he had said it only before the law was passed. But he continued after it was passed and the regulations were going into place that would force massive cancellations.

Preparing Kathleen Sibelius for the job she already has

Tennessee state senator Brian Kelsey (R) presented the invaluable book "Websites for Dummies" to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sibelius. She needed it in 2010. Better get started.

Photo found at  American Thinker.

People ran from their cars on storm-pounded 520 bridge

The wind storm in Western Washington was so strong that people ran from their cars on the 520 bridge, Watch the video. Being taken from a video cam mounted on the windshield it doesn't give the big picture. But it does show people out of their cars on the bridge, some walking and some running!

KING TV

Godlike Productions also has raw video from a WS DOT camera showing why people would not/could not drive across. Fuzzy, but stunning. GodlikeProductions

In Lake Forest Park our power went out at 10 am and back on a 10 pm. Our home is near very busy Highway 522. Fortunately the state provided the traffic light nearest us with emergency power, so traffic was able to flow. But seeing our neighborhood shopping mall completely black was stunning.

Seattle City Light has a real-time map showing the areas of outage. Seattle Light. Sunday morning there are "only" 2099 homes and businesses without power. Too bad it doesn't have a historical archive. Yesterday there were huge areas of red.

Obamacare - Disdain for the peasants

Obamacare roll out:

1. Incompetent website
2. We remember Pres. Obama promised "If you like your health insurance you will able to keep it. Period." As we see hundreds of thousands cancelled. If he was telling the truth then why isn't he working now to fulfill it?
3. What are they trying to hide? It's ugly. Read Manhattan Comtrarian

Especially the list of ten required services in EVERY plan. See the original at HealthCare.gov

Yes. You have to be insured for pediatric oral care - that's dental care for children - even if you have none or your sons/daughters are grown.