Stunning ignorance on display from Senator Barbara Boxer over Oklahoma tornado outbreak

Reblogged from Watts Up With That?:

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Via POLITICO’s Morning Energy – May 21, 2013:

Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif. – Chair of Senate Environment & Public Works Committee) took to the Senate floor and invoked the Oklahoma tornadoes in her speech on global warming.

“This is climate change. We were warned about extreme weather. Not just hot weather. But extreme weather. When I had my hearings, when I had the gavel years ago.

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"Stunning ignorance" and "Barbara Boxer" are, of course, redundant. She really is dumber than a box of rocks. And what an embarrassment for California... that we keep inflicting on ourselves. :/

Raytheon Moving California HQ to Texas

Reblogged from California Briefing:

Looks like Texas has poached at least one California-based company out of the Golden State.

Raytheon, a major defense contractor and manufacturer, announced Thursday that it is moving one of its businesses' headquarters, currently located in El Segundo, California, to McKinney, Texas.

The business, Raytheon's Space and Airborne Systems, is worth $6 billion, and is reportedly bringing about 170 jobs to the Lone Star State.

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And California, one of the most self-destructively governed states in the Union, loses another company, its jobs, and its tax revenues. Really, if I didn't live here, it would be fascinating to watch an "economic super-power state" drive itself off the cliff chasing Thelma and Louise. Thank you, Jerry Brown and the legislative Democrats.

Leading from behind will lose us Iraq

This is potentially very bad:

After a week of violence in Iraq in which more than 170 Iraqis, including tribesmen, soldiers, and policemen have been killed in clashes during Sunni protests in Salahuddin province, the Awakening is preparing to take up arms against the Iraqi government. On April 24, Sheikh Ahmed Abu Risha, the head of the Awakening, said in an interview with Al Jazeera that “from Fallujah to Al Qaim” the tribes are coordinating and “united” to battle the government if need be.

For those who don’t recall, the “Anbar Awakening” was an alliance of mostly Sunni tribes in western Iraq, which aligned itself with the US military starting around 2006 after having had enough of the atrocities committed against them by al Qaeda in Iraq. (1) To say they were crucial to our victory during the surge would be no less than the truth.  Without the Awakening, we don’t benefit from pacified areas that allow us to concentrate against al Qaeda and the Shiite militias, and we don’t have the eyes and ears of locals who know the situation on the ground far better than we do.

In return, we acted as interlocutors between the local tribes and the new, mostly Shiite national government, mediating the frictions caused by, literally, centuries of bad blood between the two sects. In the politics of Iraq, our military was essential to keeping the peace the surge won, not just because of our military power, but because we were the only group both sides trusted. If an American officer said something would get done, it would get done — and done honestly. It is almost impossible to put a value on the worth of that trust.

But now, with the Americans gone after Obama’s half-hearted, bungling efforts to negotiate a status of forces agreement, all that is in danger of falling apart as the groups revert to old habits and the Syrian civil war draws them in:

Without military forces in country, the US has been unable to support the Iraqi government in its counterterrorism campaign against al Qaeda in Iraq, or to serve as a buffer and broker between Iraq’s ethnic groups. The US has also diplomatically abandoned the Sunni tribes in Anbar and other provinces, despite promises to remain engaged with the Awakening after the pivotal alliance that drastically improved Iraq’s security from 2006 to 2008.

(…)

Without US forces, al Qaeda in Iraq gained the time and space to regroup and rebuild, and has established a potent fighting force inside Syria as the Al Nusrah Front (al Qaeda’s affiliate there). Continued access to the tribes would have pressed the advantage against a previously decimated al Qaeda in Iraq and could have given the US a foothold to support non-Salafi jihadist rebels inside Syria as well (the tribes in western Iraq extend into Syria).

I said when we liberated Iraq that we had to be prepared to be there for 50 years, using our soldiers and our diplomacy as a shield while Iraq developed the habits of constitutional government and a healthy civil society, much like we did with South Korea. It wasn’t guaranteed to work, but I believe it had a good chance. Now we may never know, however, for if the tribes do revolt and the Syrian civil war does spread into Iraq –with inevitable Iranian involvement– then Barack Obama’s “Diffidence Doctrine” will have succeeded in taking all the blood and treasure we spent there and flushing it down a toilet.

Excuse me while I go find a wall to bang my head against.

Footnote:
(1) Such as killing their children, then hiding explosives under the bodies so the parents would be killed when they tried to recover their children’s corpses. If any group ever needed killing…

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

Boston Marathon bombing: terrorism on the cheap, financed by us?

I wrote yesterday about questions regarding the Tsarnaev brothers’ financial resources and how they could afford what at first glance appeared to be a comfortable lifestyle and prepare their atrocities without some outside support.

Well, it appears they had some help: the taxpayers of Massachusetts.

Marathon bombings mastermind Tamerlan Tsarnaev was living on taxpayer-funded state welfare benefits even as he was delving deep into the world of radical anti-American Islamism, the Herald has learned.

State officials confirmed last night that Tsarnaev, slain in a raging gun battle with police last Friday, was receiving benefits along with his wife, Katherine Russell Tsarnaev, and their 3-year-old daughter. The state’s Executive Office of Health and Human Services said those benefits ended in 2012 when the couple stopped meeting income eligibility limits. Russell Tsarnaev’s attorney has claimed Katherine — who had converted to Islam — was working up to 80 hours a week as a home health aide while Tsarnaev stayed at home.

In addition, both of Tsarnaev’s parents received benefits, and accused brother bombers Dzhokhar and Tamerlan were recipients through their parents when they were younger, according to the state.

The news raises questions over whether Tsarnaev financed his radicalization on taxpayer money.

Gee, ya think?

Meanwhile, his younger brother financed his “lifestyle” not only through scholarships, but also, per The Globe, dealing drugs:

Tsarnaev’s younger brother never seemed strapped for cash, according to people who knew him at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth where he was a sophomore. But Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was a scholarship student who earned spending money by selling marijuana, say three people who bought drugs from the 19-year-old.

None of this was enough to finance the “lifestyles of the rich and terroristic,” but the globe goes on to point out just how little it would take to carry out the Marathon attacks:

If the brothers had outside financial or technical support for their deadly attack on the Marathon, it certainly isn’t reflected in their lifestyle or their weapons. The picture that is emerging is more like terrorism on a budget, consistent with reports that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev told interrogators from his hospital bed that he and his brother acted alone.

“There is no barrier here to two men doing this on their own,” said Brian Michael Jenkins, a Rand Corp. adviser who focuses on terrorism. “You could easily do this for under $100 per bomb. . . . This is an investment even someone with modest means can make.”

So, it looks more and more like these walking, talking pustules did this on their own… with help from the older brother’s exploited wife, sponging off family, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and the potheads of Cambridge.

I hope the younger brother remembers to thank them at his execution.

To paraphrase what Lenin said about capitalists, “We’re going to give them the money to build the bombs to kill us.” And it reminds me of Britain, though they’re much further down the path of subsidizing their own destroyers.

Way back in 1838, Abraham Lincoln made a speech at the Young Men’s Lyceum in which he made an observation I think fitting for this situation:

“At what point shall we expect the approach of danger? By what means shall we fortify against it?– Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant, to step the Ocean, and crush us at a blow? Never!–All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Buonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years.

At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.”

Only we seem to be paying for assisted suicide.

PS: Back to the question of outside assistance, the Tsarnaevs seemed to greatly admire a radical Lebanese-Australian imam, Sheik Feiz Mohammed, and the elder brother is reported to have met with another jihadist imam while visiting Dagestan. This makes me suspect their situation is similar to that of the traitorous Major Hassan and his al Qaeda imam, Anwar al-Awlaki: they received theological support and encouragement from these preachers, but were left to come up with their own attacks. Still, I’d like to know where they tested their bombs, if they did.

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

Defining madness: Obama administration encouraging sub-prime mortgages

Isn’t this how we got into the current mess?

The Obama administration is engaged in a broad push to make more home loans available to people with weaker credit, an effort that officials say will help power the economic recovery but that skeptics say could open the door to the risky lending that caused the housing crash in the first place.

President Obama’s economic advisers and outside experts say the nation’s much-celebrated housing rebound is leaving too many people behind, including young people looking to buy their first homes and individuals with credit records weakened by the recession.

In response, administration officials say they are working to get banks to lend to a wider range of borrowers by taking advantage of taxpayer-backed programs — including those offered by the Federal Housing Administration — that insure home loans against default.

Housing officials are urging the Justice Department to provide assurances to banks, which have become increasingly cautious, that they will not face legal or financial recriminations if they make loans to riskier borrowers who meet government standards but later default.

Officials are also encouraging lenders to use more subjective judgment in determining whether to offer a loan and are seeking to make it easier for people who owe more than their properties are worth to refinance at today’s low interest rates, among other steps.

Obama pledged in his State of the Union address to do more to make sure more Americans can enjoy the benefits of the housing recovery, but critics say encouraging banks to lend as broadly as the administration hopes will sow the seeds of another housing disaster and endanger taxpayer dollars.

Quick summary for those to whom this might look familiar, but not recall why: In the late 80s and early 90s, urban community organizing groups such as ACORN, particularly in the Chicago area (1), pressured banks from below to give easy credit to borrowers with bad credit or low incomes so they could buy homes.Because many were minority buyers, the groups would charge “racism” and levy bogus accusations of discriminatory “red lining” when banks (sensibly) resisted. These leftist groups found allies in progressive Washington Democrats, particularly the Clinton administration’s Department of Housing and Urban Development headed by Secretary Andrew Cuomo, now New York’s governor.

To complement the interest group pressure from below, HUD put “carrot and stick” pressure on the banks from above: the stick was the threat of anti-discrimination lawsuits and the blocking of mergers that required government approval. The carrot was the willingness to have Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac buy these risky loans from the banks, then bundle them and sell them into the securities market backed by the full faith and credit of the US government, and therefore us.

This went on into the 2000s, with Democrats (2) fighting tooth and claw against any effort to fix the growing problem and rein-in these bad, dangerous, monstrously stupid practices. Finally the asset bubble collapsed in 2007-08, people lost their homes, banks collapsed, nearly a trillion taxpayer dollars were burned trying to stem the tide, and the world was thrown into a severe recession. All because of government engineering of the marketplace.

And now Obama wants to do it all again, because this time will be different? (3)

Madness!

Via Dan Mitchell, who has excellent explanations of why this kind of intervention is wrong, harmful, and doomed to failure.

Footnotes:
(1) Gee, whom do we know who came from there, and who, as a young lawyer, was an attorney for these same groups? Hmm…
(2) Yes, I know Republicans tried to take advantage of this, too. Home ownership was a big part of their “ownership society” spiel. But at least they saw the potential danger and tried to avert it, unlike the Democrats. Oh, and let’s not forget the Democrats’ corruption, either.
(3) Actually, to distract from the fact that his housing policies since coming to office have been miserable failures.

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

You’re welcome, America: California’s high-speed rail will need a federal bailout

“Train wreck”

I just knew it would come to this:

When California finishes tapping out the taxpayers in its state to pay for its nonsensical high speed rail, it will ask the taxpayers of other states to chip in, according to a new Government Accountability Office report requested by House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-CA). The GAO report found that the federal government will have to give California an astonishing $38.7 billion in order for the state to complete the idiotic project, footing more than half of the total cost.

Not that California will ever see much, if any, of that money; with Republicans controlling the House and the public increasingly concerned over ludicrous levels of federal spending (and borrowing), there’s going to be heavy pressure not to give Sacramento a dime.

And I call that a good thing.

My fellow Californians passed Prop 1A in a fit of bong-born enthusiasm in 2008, but, since then, public opinion has soured to the point that a majority would just cancel it, largely due to skyrocketing costs. Here are five good reasons this boondoggle should be tossed in dumpster, including the fact that rider numbers –and thus the ticket sales needed to pay off the debt we’re incurring– will never match projections.

(Which is surprising. You’d think millions would flock to ride that opening stretch from Bakersfield to Madera.)

Thankfully, Representative McCarthy and his Republican colleagues are working to block any federal aid to this folly. It’s sad when a federal representative has to work against his state government, but, in this case, call it “tough love.” If Governor Brown and the dreamland progressives in the legislature can’t see the need to kill this lunatic project, someone will have to do it for them. Sadly, my guess is this will only happen after we’ve taken on tons more debt pursuing it.

Why is the left so obsessed with fixed rail? Or does “progressive” really mean “the future as seen from the 1930s?”

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

This is why California can’t have nice things: taxing email

“Shakedown”

Not yet, but a Berkeley (natch) city councilor thinks it’s a grand idea:

Gordon Wozniak, a Berkeley city councilman, proposed taxing email messages during a recent city council meeting in an effort to reduce the spread of “spam,” or unwanted emails.

Wozniak also said an email tax could raise money to keep the U.S. Postal Service functioning.

“There should be something like a bit tax … [it] could be a cent per gigabit and they would make, probably, billions of dollars a year,” he said.

First question for Mr. Wozniak: are you taxing the senders or the recipients? If the former, how do you plan to get Nigerian scammers and Chinese porn spammers to comply? If the latter, then how…. Wait, I know: “It’s for the good of the community.”

Can you imagine how fast businesses would leave California if email messages (or data transfer) were to be taxed? Hint: hard to believe, but even faster than they are, now. And what about people who rely on email for their small or micro-businesses, or their hobbies? The Internet has been a fabulous engine for wealth creation, so naturally progressive Luddites want to kill it through taxation.

And what is it with the leftist obsession with preserving dying institutions? The Postal Service is collapsing, in large part due to the efficiency and convenience of email. It can’t compete, so let it go and let other, better services take its place. Just like their obsession with railroads, “progressives” boldly look to the past, when the future is staring them in the face. And because the future frightens them, their reaction is to tax it to prevent it.

Meanwhile, a suggestion to Councilman Wozniak: If spam email so annoys you, stop whining and get a service or software with a good spam filter.

And keep your grasping paws off my wallet.

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

(Video) Canaries in the Coal Mine

Call this a follow up to my worries that Cyprus is a warning and this morning’s post about America being in danger of becoming Europe.

In this latest “Afterburner,” Bill Whittle warns us that, with the European Union lurching from fiscal crisis to fiscal crisis, and with the US headed by an administration enamored of many of the same foolish policies as the Europeans, the members of the EU are serving as “canaries in the coal mine:”

Prediction is a fool’s game, so I won’t guess what’s going to happen, but I’d feel much more comfortable if this man were in charge.

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

Britain’s Green chickens are coming home to roost, as will ours, soon

Christopher Booker in last Saturday’s Telegraph: “It’s payback time…”

As the snow of the coldest March since 1963 continues to fall, we learn that we have barely 48 hours’ worth of stored gas left to keep us warm, and that the head of our second-largest electricity company, SSE, has warned that our generating capacity has fallen so low that we can expect power cuts to begin at any time. It seems the perfect storm is upon us.

The grotesque mishandling of Britain’s energy policy by the politicians of all parties, as they chase their childish chimeras of CO2-induced global warming and windmills, has been arguably the greatest act of political irresponsibility in our history.

Three more events last week brought home again just what a mad bubble of make-believe these people are living in. Under the EU’s Large Combustion Plants Directive, we lost two more major coal-fired power stations, Didcot A and Cockenzie, capable of contributing no less than a tenth to our average electricity demands. We saw a French state-owned company, EDF, being given planning permission to spend £14?billion on two new nuclear reactors in Somerset, but which it says it will only build, for completion in 10 years’ time, if it is guaranteed a subsidy that will double the price of its electricity. Then, hidden in the small print of the Budget, were new figures for the fast-escalating tax the Government introduces next week on every ton of CO2 emitted by fossil-fuel-powered stations, which will soon be adding billions of pounds more to our electricity bills every year.

Be sure to read the rest. Not only is the government in London heavily subsidizing uneconomic wind farms and granting needless subsidies in tribute to get nuclear plants built, but they’re doing all they can to drive coal plants out of business, even though coal plants are necessary as backup for those times when the wind doesn’t blow. Hence the warnings about blackouts in the dead of winter. Britain is looking at a new Dark Ages, one wholly of its own doing.

And before we cluck our tongues at our cousins’ folly, this is just the future Obama and the environmentalist movement would lead us to:

Booker is right that Britain’s energy policy is insanity. But what can we say about a nation –us– that sits atop almost unimaginably immense energy resources, enough to restore the cheap energy needed for prosperity and make us nearly energy independent, and yet fights tooth and nail  against developing it in the name of battling a problem that does not exist?

Madness!

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

Obama By-Passes Gas

Reblogged from Watts Up With That?:

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Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach

President Obama continues his Global War on Cheap Energy™, this time under the guise of avoiding "spikes" in gasoline (petrol) prices.  He wants to pass gas without regrets and move post-haste to electricity and biofuels, although both are more expensive than gasoline and diesel for road and rail transport. According to the Associated Press, in a speech at the Argonne National Laboratories Obama said:

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This administration's energy policy is giving me gas, but not the right kind. It amazes me that so many voted for him, when his policies are so clearly harmful. Such is the power of wishful thinking, I guess.

#GunControl – Colorado ammo magazine maker promises to leave state if bill passes

Here’s another development in the slowly growing manufacturers’ backlash against states that pass repressive bills that violate the Second Amendment. If the Democrat-controlled state government in Denver follows New York’s lead, ammunition magazine-maker Magpul has promised to take its jobs and tax revenues elsewhere (via Michelle Malkin):

Colorado’s largest and most profitable manufacturer of high-capacity ammunition magazines has vowed to leave the state if lawmakers pass a measure banning the devices — a move officials with the company say could cost hundreds of jobs and upward of $85 million in potential spending this year.

Magpul’s threat has Democratic lawmakers scrambling to strike a balance that remains true to their goal of limiting the number of rounds a magazine can hold without frightening off businesses.

“If we’re able to stay in Colorado and manufacture a product, but law-abiding citizens of the state were unable to purchase the product, customers around the state and the nation would boycott us for remaining here,” said Doug Smith, Magpul’s chief operating officer. “Staying here would hurt our business.”

…in addition to a wide array of gun-magazine products, the privately-held Magpul makes many other products, including cases for mobile phones and tactical sights for firearms. This year, the company says it expects to spend upward of $85 million in Colorado alone on employee payroll, manufacturing subcontractors, suppliers and service providers.

Smith said much of Magpul’s business comes from out-of-state sales, contracts with the U.S. military, and with local and national law enforcement.

(Emphases added)

Read the rest of Malkin’s article for further details. To summarize, Colorado has taken the first steps toward enacting legislation that would, among other things, limit magazine capacity and ban concealed weapons from state colleges. It is a step toward creating, as in California, a de facto ban via repressive regulation.

Colorado’s proposed law, similar to New York’s, would do nothing but economically harm the state, punish law-abiding citizens, make a futile gesture toward “doing something, anything,” and denying the right of self-defense to people attending or working at their state colleges, in spite of all evidence that armed defenders save lives. (See also…) One wonders whether the state’s Democratic leaders care more about gestures that make them look good in the press, rather than about potentially effective measures, such as dealing with poor state of mental health care in this country. Or even about their citizens’ jobs.

In other words, Colorado Democrats, don’t be stuck on stupid.  Concentrate on the shooter, not the tool he uses.

PS: For the education of Colorado’s leaders, here are five facts about guns and gun violence.

Correction: That’s what I get for typing too fast. Magpul makes magazines, not ammunition. Fixed in the title and first paragraph.

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

Rather than Helping the Poor, Higher Tax Rates Redistribute Rich People

Reblogged from International Liberty:

Daniel Hannan is a member of the European Parliament from England. He is one of the few economically sensible people in that body, as demonstrated in these short clips of him speaking about tax competition and deriding the European Commission's corrupt racket.

And as you can see from his latest article in the UK-based Telegraph, he's also very wise on issues of…

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Rather than come up with sensible tax policy, the progressive politician's answer to people relocating to more tax-friendly climates is likely to be something desperate and clutching -- such as an "exit tax." You laugh, but some activists in California have already tried.

Irony alert: Eyes finally open, liberals hope for military coup in Egypt

From Andy McCarthy’s post at NRO’s “The Corner” blog on commentators rising calls for the Egyptian military to intervene as that country starts to fall apart:

Here’s the really interesting part: The [Egyptian] Left does not have the numbers needed to defeat the Islamists at the ballot box. That is why the latter have won election after election, usually by overwhelming numbers, thus putting Islamists firmly in charge of the government and ensuring passage of the sharia constitution. So what has finally happened: the Left-leaning press in the West is suddenly discovering that maybe popular elections do not equal democracy after all. Maybe there really is something to the notion that democracy is not merely a procedural means by which majorities achieve power; maybe democracy, as us Islamophobes have been contending all along, really is a culture that is committed to equality and respect for such minority rights as freedom of conscience and speech.

The liberal left’s obsession with procedure, seeing elections as synonymous with democracy, is a good portion of what lead to the folly of the Obama administration’s support for democratic-in-name-only “Arab Spring” revolutions in the Sunni Arab world. Instead we cut the legs out from under a friendly but authoritarian regime in Egypt, in the process doing untold damage to 30 years of American policy in the region, and we removed a cruel, crazy, but nevertheless harmless to us dictator in Libya, creating chaos in North Africa. (c.f., Mali)

But, at least, they’d have elections, so all would be good. Majority rule, and all that.

Except that the majority is turning out to be the very groups most hostile to the democracy we hold dear.

And now that their Wilsonian unicorn dreams have turned into nightmarish reality, they want a military coup.

Welcome to the waking world, kiddies.

PS: Longtime readers will recall that I supported the liberation of Iraq under George W. Bush, including the effort to help democratic, constitutional government to take root there. I still think it was worth trying –for reasons local to Iraq, I felt it was the one country in the Arab world in which this might work– but, thanks to the Obama administration’s precipitous and premature bug-out from Iraq, my opinion of that country’s democratic future has become much bleaker.

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

Illinois' credit rating downgraded; state drops to worst in the nation

Reblogged from WGN-TV:

A warning came Saturday morning from state treasurer Dan Rutherford (R) IL State Treasurer. The Standard and Poor’s downgrade from A to A-minus puts Illinois last on the list-- and means a higher cost to borrow money.

On Wednesday, the state will issue $500 million in new bonds to pay for roads and other transportation projects. Rutherford says the credit downgrade will cost taxpayers an additional $95 million in interest,

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Danggit, Illinois has passed us in California again in the race to financial suicide! Sacramento Democrats, you have absolute control of the legislature, and your duty is clear. I have faith you can take us all the way. (But will you respect us in the morning?)

Obamacare guts the pay of yet more of its strongest supporters

“But at least we won the election! Obama!!”

We’ve seen this before: state and community colleges cutting the hours of its part-time faculty to avoid the increased financial burdens of Obamacare. Well, to paraphrase Ronald Reagan, here we go again:

In Ohio, instructor Robert Balla faces a new cap on the number of hours he can teach at Stark State College. In a Dec. 6 letter, the North Canton school told him that “in order to avoid penalties under the Affordable Care Act… employees with part-time or adjunct status will not be assigned more than an average of 29 hours per week.”

Mr. Balla, a 41-year-old father of two, had taught seven English composition classes last semester, split between Stark State and two other area schools. This semester, his course load at Stark State is down to one instead of two as a result of the school’s new limit on hours, cutting his salary by about a total of $2,000.

Stark State’s move came as a blow to Mr. Balla, who said he earns about $40,000 a year and cannot afford health insurance.

“I think it goes against the spirit of the [health-care] law,” Mr. Balla said. “In education, we’re working for the public good, we are public employees at a public institution; we should be the first ones to uphold the law, to set the example.”

Cry me a river, Robert. Stark State is upholding the law — to the letter. Obamacare, which you evidently support, redefined full-time as as average of 30 or more hours per week and, with the expansion in required coverage, greatly increased the college’s financial burden. It’s not their fault that progressive, statist Democrats, in their rush to ram an unpopular, unwanted bill down the throats of Americans, created perverse incentives that your employers found irresistible. You had your chance to reverse this last November, but, I’m willing to bet, you chose Hope and Change, instead.

You got what you voted for, dude.

Be sure to read the rest of WR Mead’s article for a good discussion of the exploitation of part-time academics in higher education. I’ve done the grad school gig myself, and what he describes is all too common. For being towers of liberal sanctimony, universities and colleges are some of the worst exploiters of labor.

via Bryan Preston, whom I quote: “Hahahahahahahahahahahaha.”

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

To no one’s surprise except Obama voters, another business cuts employee hours to pay for Obamacare

“But at least we won the election! Obama!!”

This time it’s a Wendy’s franchise in Omaha:

A fast-food chain is slashing employee hours so franchise owners don’t have to pay health benefits. Around 100 local Wendy’s workers have learned their hours are being cut. A spokesperson says a new health care law is to blame.

“Thirty-six to 37 hours a week.” That’s how many hours T.J. Growbeck works at the 84th and Giles Wendy’s restaurant. The money he earns helps him pay for the basics, but that’s not the case for all his co-workers. “There are some people doing it trying to get by.”

The company has announced that all non-management positions will have their hours reduced to 28 a week. Gary Burdette, Vice President of Operations for the local franchise, says the cuts are coming because the new Affordable Health Care Act requires employers to offer health insurance to employees working 32-38 hours a week. Under the current law they are not considered full time and that as a small business owner, he can’t afford to stay in operation and pay for everyone’s health insurance.

I won’t even bother to say something snarky about affected workers who may have voted for Obama (though, being Nebraska, I suspect there were few). I’ll just refer you to other posts under “Elections Have Consequences.”

But, once again, we see economically illiterate people (h/t Jim Hoft) hooting like monkeys at a business for responding rationally to changes in their costs to do business. Say it after me: “Health care is a cost, it is never free.”

If you make a business pay more to conduct business, as ObamaCare does, it has to recoup those costs somehow, or go out of business. (And yes, Lefties, not making profit to the owner’s satisfaction is a legitimate reason to go out of business. He’s not running a charity.) It can pass the cost on to the customer, or it can cut costs. One way to do so is to cut staff hours to avoid the ridiculously low definition of “full-time” written into ObamaCare.

As far as I’m concerned, this businessman did exactly the right thing in light of the burdens laid on him by progressive statists in D.C. And you can bet you’re going to see a lot more of this as the effects of ObamaCare spread.

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

Rep. Jose Serrano reintroduces bill to repeal presidential term limit

Reblogged from Twitchy:

We're still a couple of weeks from the inauguration, but Rep. Jose Serrano (D-N.Y.) is already looking forward to 2016 and beyond. The congressman yesterday reintroduced a bill to repeal the 22nd amendment establishing term limits for the president.

https://twitter.com/Gabby_Hoffman/status/287735951751520256

https://twitter.com/NMarsala/status/287736141912887296

https://twitter.com/stilloldduck/status/287736287711084545

Even before that, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee would have to bring the bill to the floor for a vote.

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Um... no. Just, no. If you want a "President for Life," Rep. Serrano, Venezuela may be more your style.

In the EU, you may not say water fights dehydration

Caution. May not cure thirst.

Yes, you read that right:

Drinking water does not ease dehydration, the European Union has ruled – and anyone who disagrees faces two years in prison.

The decision – after three years of discussions – results from an attempt by two German academics to test EU advertising rules which set down when companies can claim their products reduce the risk of disease.

The academics asked for a ruling on a convoluted statement which, in short, claimed that water could reduce dehydration.

Dehydration is defined as a shortage of water in the body – but the European Food Standards Authority decided the statement could not be allowed.

The ruling, announced after a conference of 21 EU-appointed scientists in Parma and which means that bottled water companies cannot claim their product stops people’s bodies drying out, was given final approval this week by European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso.

Yesterday, Tory MEP Roger Helmer said: ‘This is stupidity writ large. The euro is burning, the EU is falling apart and yet here they are worrying about the obvious qualities of water. If ever there were an episode which demonstrates the folly of the great European project, then this is it.’

As the trapped-within-the-EU friend who alerted me to this pointed out:

Just wait, in four or five years you have the same stupidity.

Hey, with our EPA and Obamacare now being implemented… less than a year, tops. Obama’s that good. 

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

More on California’s epic self-inflicted failure

Fairness

It’s okay. It’s all in the name of fairness:

California residents already contend with one of the most progressive tax codes in the country. Not only does California have high marginal rates, those high rates kick in at relatively modest income levels. California’s middle class residents earning $48,000 a year, for example, pay a state tax rate of 9.3%. Millionaires in 47 other states don’t even pay that high of a marginal rate. However, one of the state tax code’s greatest flaws is it’s over-reliance on upper income households and the revenue volatility it creates, and that is a problem that Prop. 30 would further exacerbate.

As of 2010, the state relied upon 144,000 households, 1 percent of taxpayers, for 50 percent of total state income tax… [With Proposition 30's passage,] the top 10 percent of earners would be responsible for over 80% of the projected income generated – a fact that Gov. Brown and other advocates of the bill readily acknowledge.

I think I know how the lookout on the Titanic must have felt.

One of the weirdnesses (among many) I’ve noticed on the Left is the assumption that tax compliance is static, that, no matter how high you set the rates, you’ll draw in the expected revenue. That idea is, of course, a crock.

Tax behavior instead is dynamic: raise the rates too high, and rationally self-interested taxpayers will do whatever is legal to avoid them, including moving out of the jurisdiction.

Businesses are already leaving California at a rapid pace. Once Prop 30 really kicks in –with its backdated taxes– businesses and the so-called rich will truly head for the border.

But that’s okay; the left has already figured out the answer — we’ll just charge them exit taxes!

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

Benghazi Consulate Massacre: Embassy told by State, “Stop pestering us!”

Oh, this just gets better and better. Not only did State pull security teams (note: plural) from Libya over a period of months, but, according to an interview of LTC Wood by CBS’ Sharyl Attkisson (1), State finally told them to quit asking, and don’t you dare go to the Department of Defense:

ATTKISSON: Do you feel like there was a disconnect between what you saw on the ground and what the State Dept. folks thought was going on in Libya?

WOOD: There was certainly no disconnect in our transfer of information to them. They were getting the information on the situation on the ground. We sent it up through State Dept. cables and I sent it up to the military side on the D.O.D. side. So, there was awareness of what the situation in Libya was about.

ATTKISSON: How did you get the word that your team would not be allowed to stay?

WOOD: We knew that was coming through the cables and the draft cables that were going back and forth. The requests were being modified to say ‘don’t even request for D.O.D. support’.

ATTKISSON: So State Dept. was telling the folks on the ground in Libya ‘don’t continue to ask for this help’?

WOOD: Correct.

The Right Scoop has the whole interview. Be sure to watch it.

This is a bureaucratic snafu of monumental proportions, one that eventually cost lives. It looks like the knowledge of the people on the scene was disregarded in favor of a small-footprint, diplomatically-correct approach of relying on local security. And no one in the higher reaches of the bureaucracy and the political appointees above them wanted to hear any dissent.

The hearings at the House Oversight Committee tomorrow should be quite a show.

via Ace

RELATED: Did Libyan tribal politics leave the consulate without adequate protection? It seems two local militia leaders were upset we were backing a candidate they didn’t like for prime minister, so they threatened to pick up their guns and go home:

The brinksmanship is detailed in a cable approved by Ambassador Chris Stevens and sent on the day he died in the attack, the worst assault on a U.S. diplomatic mission since the 1979 hostage crisis in Iran. The dispatch, which was marked “sensitive” but not “classified,” contained a number of other updates on the chaotic situation on the ground in post-Gaddafi Libya.

The cable, reviewed by The Daily Beast, recounts how the two militia leaders, Wissam bin Ahmed and Muhammad al-Gharabi, accused the United States of supporting Mahmoud Jibril, the head of the Libyan transitional government, to be the country’s first elected prime minister. Jibril’s centrist National Forces Alliance won the popular vote in Libyan elections in July, but he lost the prime minister vote in the country’s Parliament on Sept. 12 by 94 to 92. Had he won, bin Ahmed and al-Gharabi warned they “would not continue to guarantee security in Benghazi, a critical function they asserted they were currently providing,” the cable reads. The man who beat Jibril, Mustafa Abushagur, lost a vote of no-confidence Sunday, throwing Libyan politics back into further uncertainty.

The threat from the militias underscores the dangers of relying on local Libyan forces for security in the run-up to the 9/11 military-style assault.  The U.S. consulate in Benghazi employed a militia called the “February 17 Martyrs Brigade” for security of the four-building compound. In addition, there were five Americans serving as diplomatic security and a group of former special operations forces that acted as a quick reaction force on the day of the 9/11 attack. Members of the militias led by bin-Ahmed and al-Gharabi overlapped with the February 17 militia, the cable says.

This underscores the folly of not listening to our people in Libya, who knew the fractious, fragile state of politics there, and instead insisting on sticking to the preconceived notion of relying on Libyan militias. As this cable and the rest of the article by Eli lake shows, the plan had serious flaws, to say the least.

Flaws that got Americans killed.

Footnote:
(1) Between this and her work on Operation Fast and Furious, Attkisson is rapidly becoming one of my favorite MSM reporters.

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)