Tag Archives: John H. Hinderaker

Circular Logic

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John Hinderaker at Power Line Blog posted an article today about the cancelled 2017 Arctic expedition of the University of Manitoba.

The article reports:

The University of Manitoba has canceled its 2017 Arctic expedition because there is too much ice to execute the mission safely. The U of M headlines: “Large Canadian Arctic climate change study cancelled due to climate change.”

So too much ice is the result of climate change? I thought we were concerned about global warming. Generally speaking, global warming does not result in more ice.

After explaining how the extreme ice conditions made the expedition impossible, the University of Manitoba explains:

This experience, and climate change conditions currently affecting Churchill, Man., clearly illustrates that Canada is ill prepared to deal with the realities of climate change.

Someone needs to explain to these scientists that the climate has been changing constantly (and cyclically) since earth began. I refuse to believe climate predictions from people who have been consistently wrong for more than forty years. Does anyone remember ‘the coming ice age‘ headlines of the seventies?

 

 

 

 

Lies Scientists Tell In Order To Get Grant Money

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Yesterday John Hinderaker at Power Line posted an article about the lies being told by scientists pushing the Global Warming agenda. I am not a scientific type, so I don’t understand exactly how this works, but even in my nonscientific state, I can understand that inventing numbers in reporting temperatures will change the results. The source of the article at Power Line is an article at wattsupwiththat.com, probably the best climate site on the internet.

The article reports:

This article at Watts Up With That? adds incrementally to that picture. John Goetz analyzes the U.S. temperature data that finds its way into “official” tabulations. This is particularly important because, while the U.S. represents only 6.6% of the total land area of Earth, we account for close to half of the data relied on by the Global Historical Climatology Network. This is a big topic, and you should study the Goetz article in its entirety if you have time. I am still digesting it.

But a few highlights are obvious. First, Goetz finds that approximately 92% (or even more, depending on how you calculate it) of US surface temperature data consists of estimated or altered values. Very little raw data finds its way into the warmists’ climate models–which, of course, is the way they want it. Second, the adjustments that are made to the U.S. data consistently skew the numbers as we have described many times before–they try to make the present look warmer, compared with the past.

It’s all about the money.

The article at Power Line reports:

Why do the alarmists, lavishly funded by the world’s governments, persistently alter the data before they feed it into their computer programs? Because the raw data won’t get them where they are trying to go, to keep the money flowing. This is what you see if you just plot the temperatures that were recorded on thermometers here in the U.S. No warming:

uscrn-trend-plot-from-ncdc-data

It’s bad enough that politicians routinely lie to the public, but it really bothers me when scientists do it.

How Media Bias Works

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There have been a number of videos posted on Facebook of people attempting to list the accomplishments of Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State. There have also been numerous articles, jokes, etc. This is something of a problem for her presidential campaign, and CNN has done its part to solve the problem.

John Hinderaker at Power Line posted an article yesterday about a CNN op-ed by Eleni Kounalakis. The article praised the accomplishments of Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State.

These are some of the articles glowing accounts of Secretary of State Clinton’s accomplishments:

As a diplomat, she wielded the star power of one of the world’s most well-known female leaders. And finally, she had the right kind of work ethic, the right brand of wonkiness, to be embraced quickly by her 70,000 new employees at the State Department.
***
For three and a half years at my post in Budapest, I started my mornings reading Clinton’s daily schedule. Hillary Clinton traveled to more countries than any other secretary in the history of the department, logging nearly a million miles and visiting 112 nations. She visited countries that hadn’t had a U.S. secretary of state visit for up to five decades (Laos) or ever (Togo). After all, America can never have enough friends.

The article decribes Mrs. Kounalakis as follows:

Eleni Kounalakis was United States ambassador to Hungary from 2010 to 2013. She is the author of “Madam Ambassador, Three Years of Diplomacy, Dinner and Democracy in Budapest,” published by The New Press. She is a senior adviser to the Albright Stonebridge Group.

That’s fine. Sounds good. However, the Dartmouth Alumni Magazine tells us a little bit more:

Although a case could be made that she, like many ambassadors before her, was tapped only because of her political activism—and the more than $1 million she helped raise as head of Greek-Americans for Hillary Clinton—Tsakopoulos Kounalakis brings to her post professional and personal experience well suited to navigating the challenges her new job presents.

As Ambassador Ken Yalowitz, director of Dartmouth’s Dickey Center and a 36-year State Department veteran, points out, “Although ambassadors will always have their respect, foreign service professionals have a general concern when a political appointee is named. But political appointees can be exceptional diplomats—well qualified, highly motivated. Often they can accomplish things because of their access to people a career foreign service officer might not be able to reach.”

Indeed, in addition to other political activism such as serving four times as delegate to the Democratic National Convention from California, Tsakopoulos Kounalakis has meditated with the Dalai Lama and been honored by the Greek Orthodox Church for her interfaith work mediating forums with the World Council of Religions for Peace. She has also served on the California State World Trade Commission.

Does anyone actually believe that the CNN op-ed piece was objective?

 

No Wonder They Are Concerned

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When something happens once, you can overlook it. When it happens twice, you begin to wonder. There have been some recent events that would cause me to wonder if I lived in Israel. We all know that most of the Middle Eastern countries have at one time or another threatened to wipe Israel off the map. Lately, that has been limited to one or two countries and a few terrorist organizations. Right now one of the real oddities in the Middle East is the alliances in the Middle East that are being formed in light of the possibility of the Iranian treaty being approved. I never thought I would see Israel and Saudi Arabia or Israel and Egypt cooperating, but it is happening.

Now back to wiping Israel off the map. John Hinderaker at Power Line posted an article today about a globe being sold in a discount store in the United Kingdom. Palestine is shown on the globe, but Israel is not. Also, last week on Air France, the maps the passengers looked at during the flight showed Cyprus, Lebanon, the West Bank, Gaza–but no Israel. The Air France maps have been corrected. The company that manufactures the globe is looking into the situation to see if a correction is necessary.

I am reminded of the disappearing people in the picture in the movie “Back to the Future.” If I lived in Israel, I would wonder. I can’t imaging how America would react if someone started selling globes showing Texas as part of Mexico. (I can image how Texas would react, I just can’t imagine how America would react!)

Hopefully This Bad Behavior Will Not Be Successful And Thus Will Not Be Repeated

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John Hinderaker at Power Line posted an article today about the continuing Democrat party attacks on Charles and David Koch. The article reminds us that “It is rare for the Democratic Party to send out a fundraising email that fails to invoke the specter of the “Koch brothers,” who are treated essentially as bogeymen.”

The article reports:

This is unprecedented in our history. Never before has a political party based a campaign on demonizing individual, private citizens who hold opposing beliefs and who exercise their First Amendment right to participate in the political process. In my view, it would be a very bad thing if attacks like those the Democrats have made against Charles and David Koch–which, frankly, border on the insane–were to become the norm.

Charles and David Koch are American citizens who have been very successful in business and are exercising their right to free speech. To attack them for their wealth and involvement in politics is an example of class envy at its worst. Hopefully the attack will not be successful and will not be repeated in future campaigns. The politics of pitting one American against another in the way the Democrats have done is very unattractive.

The Pictures Tell The Story

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As President Obama goes around the country praising the economic growth in America, there is another side of the story.

Yesterday, John Hinderaker at Power Line posted the following charts:

Screen Shot 2014-10-02 at 3.41.36 PM

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The charts are taken from a booklet put out by the Republicans on the Senate Budget Committee. The booklet includes another chart which explains the low unemployment numbers that were released today–the workforce has significantly decreased. If the unemployment rate reflected the number of workers that have left the work force, the number would be considerably higher.

workforceparticipationratePlease follow the link above to the booklet to see the eleven charts that explain what is happening to the American economy and to the Middle Class in America.

What Are Our Children Learning?

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I have posted a few articles on Common Core and on the AP U. S. History course for high school students. There are some real questions as to what the curricula associated with these standards and programs is actually teaching, but now we have strange curriculum showing up in other areas.

Yesterday John Hinderaker at Power Line posted an article quoting Minnesota teachers on how their schools teach literature classes.

The article included the following description of how Edina High School in Edina, Minnesota teaches literature classes:

Acceptance and inter-cultural understanding can be fostered through the use of powerful texts, discussion, analysis, and exploration in the classroom. An English curriculum grounded in social justice rests on a belief based in equity—that each person should have access to resources regardless of race, gender, ability, age, socio-economic status, or sexual orientation.

Why is our educational system trying to divide Americans instead of focusing on the things we have in common that made this country great?

The article includes a comment from Woodbury High School:

At Woodbury High School, the [literature] course is primarily structured chronologically. Social, economic, cultural and political frameworks of the readings are sometimes explored explicitly through eight critical lenses: feminist, deconstruction, new criticism, new historical/biographical, reader response, post-colonial, psychological and Marxist theory. Students apply critical literary elements such as figurative language, symbolism, and motif to find author’s intent.

What about teaching them the uniqueness of the U.S. Constitution instead?

John Hinderaker sums it up:

This is mis-education, worse than not attending school at all. Any child of normal intelligence would gain more from staying up late at night and reading books with a flashlight under the covers than from being subjected to such cant. For many students, such palpable bullshit is likely to ruin literature forever.

After the Constitutional Convention in 1787, people gathered outside Independence Hall in order to learn what had been created. A website called ourrepubliconline.com reports:

A Mrs. Powel of Philadelphia asked Benjamin Franklin, “Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?” With no hesitation whatsoever, Franklin responded, “A republic, if you can keep it.”

Unless we do a better job of educating our children, we won’t be able to keep it.

A Scandal Under The Radar

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John Hinderaker at Power Line has posted a number of articles about the use of the Washington Post by the Democrat party to attack the Koch brothers about the Keystone Pipeline. Never mind that the Koch brothers have no connection to the Pipeline or that building it would not help their business, the Washington Post still reported supposed connections as fact. I haven’t written about the scandal because it is complicated and hard to detail in a concise manner. However, John Hinderaker appeared on Fox News and explained it beautifully.

The video is posted on YouTube:

This is an example of why many Americans, including myself, do not trust the mainstream media.

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My Heartfelt Sympathies For The Families Involved

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My heart goes out to the families and friends of those who were on Flight 370. It just seems as if there is an awful lot we just don’t know.

John Hinderaker at Power Line posted an article today that throws a whole new light on the mystery. It seems that the two Rolls Royce engines on the airplane automatically transmitted data to Rolls Royce, on the ground, at 30 minute intervals.

The article reports:

It has now been revealed by American investigators that, according to Rolls Royce, the engines’ transmissions continued for four hours after the airplane disappeared. The pilot(s) or hijackers could have, and apparently did, turn off the plane’s transponder, but they couldn’t turn off, and likely didn’t even know about, the automatic transmission of data from the engines to Rolls Royce.

In four hours, depending on air speed, the plane could have flown just about anywhere–even, potentially, to Pakistan. While the mystery remains impenetrable for the time being, it is no longer a safe assumption that the airplane crashed at all. No one, presumably, would hijack or divert an airplane, fly it for four hours undetected, only to ultimately crash it into the sea. Not on purpose, anyway.

Somewhere there is a deserted airfield with a very large plane sitting on it. However, even that explanation makes no sense. I have no answers–only prayers for friends and family members of those aboard the plane.

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Pictures vs. Words

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Yesterday John Hinderaker at Power Line posted an article quoting a leak to the Washington Post on President Obama’s proposed budget. The Washington Post reported: “With 2015 budget request, Obama will call for an end to era of austerity:”

It has always been my belief that a picture is worth a thousand words. From Yahoo.com:

federalspending

Where is the austerity?

However, there is more to the problem.

John Hinderaker reminds us:

But wait! Democrats and Republicans agreed on discretionary spending levels that supposedly were binding for a decade to come in the Budget Control Act, which included the sequester. Just a few months ago, the Ryan-Murray compromise modified the sequester and increased discretionary spending. That bipartisan agreement was supposed to put spending debates to rest for at least the next couple of years. Now, apparently, the Obama administration intends to throw all prior agreements into the trash can, and demand still higher spending.

This illustrates a point that I have made over and over: all budget agreements that purport to achieve savings over a long period of time, usually a decade, are a farce. The savings always come in the “out years,” but the out years never arrive. Once you get past the current fiscal year, budget agreements are not worth the paper they are printed on. For Republicans to agree to more spending today in exchange for hypothetical cuts in later years is folly–those cuts will never come.

Leadership in both political parties do not desire to cut federal spending. Their debate is only over which party will control the massive spending. That is why it is imperative that we change the establishment leadership of the Republican party. The Republicans used to be the party of small government, there is hope that they can be again. The Democrats have always supported big government. The only solution to this problem is new leadership in the Republican party.

 

 

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As 2013 Draws To A Close

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John Hinderaker posted an article at Power Line today that included the following graph:

screenhunter_437-dec-19-17-16

The graph is from a website called Real Science. The article at Real Science states that 2013 will go down as one of the coldest years in history since 1895. The graph shows the average temperatures recorded at all NOAA USHCN stations from 1895 to the present.

The article at Real Science mentions the following:

NOAA will reporting something very different, because they subtract up to 1.7 degrees from older temperatures. Essentially all reported US warming is due to a hockey stick of temperature adjustments, which makes the past appear to be much colder than what the thermometers measured at the time. (They of course do not mention this in their press releases.)

I don’t know if the earth is warming or cooling. What I do know is that man is not important enough in the grand scheme of things to significantly impact the earth’s climate. Those who are shrieking that we are all going to die unless we give money to dictators in underdeveloped countries are really not primarily concerned about the planet. They have other priorities. I would like to  mention that most of the civilized countries in the world  have taken steps to curb pollution of all kinds. The idea of penalizing countries for being civilized is someone’s very bad idea for redistributing wealth worldwide. The way to prosper poorer countries is to give them freedom and property rights, but somehow that never gets mentioned by the global warming crowd.

 

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Does The Debt Matter?

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The chart below was posted at zerohedge.com on Thursday:

Debt-vs-GDP-101713

The article cites what it considers the most disturbing sentence uttered during the debt ceiling debate/government shut down, that should raise some concerns by both political parties:

“We must increase our debt limit so that we can pay our bills.”

When you think about it, that is an amazing statement.

John Hinderaker at Power Line made the following observation yesterday:

The declining deficit is due to the election of a Republican House in 2010, which led to the sequester, and to tax increases. But in historical perspective, a $650 billion deficit is nothing to celebrate: the U.S. has never run a deficit anywhere near that big in any fiscal year when Barack Obama was not president. Don’t be fooled by Democrats who try to attribute FY 2009 to George Bush. The Democratic Congress didn’t pass spending bills covering the vast majority of FY 2009 spending until Obama was safely in office, and FY 2009 includes the Obama/Pelosi/Reid “stimulus” spending, with which George Bush, obviously, had nothing to do. The largest deficit of the George W. Bush years was $459 billion, in FY 2008, the year when financial markets collapsed. The largest deficit of the Clinton years was $255 billion; of the George H.W. Bush years, $290 billion; and of the Reagan administration, $221 billion.

As Americans, we need to be concerned about the deficit. Until we get the deficit under control, it acts as a ticking time bomb that will eventually destroy the American economy. We need to elect people who will bring spending under control. If we do not do that, then we are responsible for our own demise.

 

 

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Some Ideas On How To Respond To The Mall Attack In Nairobi

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John Hinderaker at Power Line posted an article yesterday about what the police and soldiers are discovering as they enter the shopping mall in Nairobi where terrorists attacked and took hostages. The details are gruesome, and I am not going to post them here. If you are interested in exactly what was done to the hostages, please follow the link above. I will say, however, that it was well outside the bounds of civilized behavior.

Mr. Hinderaker has a few suggestions as to how to deal with al Shabab:

What lessons can be learned for the future? I would suggest three. First, al Shabab should be destroyed. It would make sense for an international force to invade Somalia and hunt down all members of that group. Second, with hindsight, Kenyan authorities waited too long to take definitive action to kill the terrorists. They allowed the siege to stretch out over four days. That may have made sense on the assumption that they were dealing with a “normal” hostage situation, but in the future, terrorists should not be allowed to work their evil deeds for so long. Third, far more civilians need to be armed. The Nairobi attack was carried out, authorities say, by only around 15 terrorists. There were hundreds of innocent people in the mall at that time. Unfortunately, hardly any of them were armed. If only 100 of the shoppers had been carrying firearms, the terrorists–notwithstanding their heavier weaponry, including hand grenades–likely could have been stopped, or at least kept at bay until soldiers arrived.

At some point we have to realize that groups such as al Shabab have no place in civilized society. Their total lack of respect for human life is like a cancer on the world. It has to be stopped totally.

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An Interesting Perspective On Immigration Reform

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Yesterday John Hinderaker at Power Line posted an article about the economic impact the current proposals regarding immigration reform will have on the incomes of Americans.

This week in his weekly address, President Obama stated the following:

The Senate’s plan would also provide a big boost to our recovery. And on Wednesday, we released a report detailing exactly how big a boost that would be.

The report is based on the findings of independent, nonpartisan economists and experts who concluded that, if the Senate’s plan becomes law, our economy will be 5% larger in two decades compared to the status quo. That’s $1.4 trillion added to our economy just by fixing our immigration system.

Here in America, we’ve always been a nation of immigrants. That’s what’s kept our workforce dynamic, our businesses on the cutting edge, and our economy the strongest in the world. But under the current system, too many smart, hardworking immigrants are prevented from contributing to that success.

John Hinderaker points out:

And who might those supposedly “independent, nonpartisan economists and experts” be? When you check out the actual report, here is who they are:

President’s National Economic Council, Domestic Policy Council, Office of Management and Budget, and the Council of Economic Advisers.

In other words, extensions of the office of the president. His appointees–high level flacks.

That’s the first problem with that statement. The second problem is explained by a Power Line reader with amazing math skills who sent a note to Power Line which definitely disputed that claim.

The reader reports:

The claim is that aggregate GDP will be 5% higher in 20 years than otherwise, equal to $1.4 trillion in constant dollars. By simple algebra that means they are assuming a status quo future GDP of $28 trillion and therefore an immigration-enhanced GDP of $29.4 trillion. But wait! What about GDP per capita, the only meaningful measure of economic growth for the populace? Well…population will increase from today’s 315 million to about 378 million under the current immigration and population levels, and to about 410 million with the new immigration regime, conservatively estimated. [Ed.: That is a VERY conservative estimate.] Simple arithmetic demonstrates that future GDP per capita without the new immigration levels is $74,000, whereas with increased immigration it is $71,700.

…Their plan is simply to import scores of millions of unskilled 3rd world immigrants, covered by a fig leaf of a few hundred thousand high skilled STEM workers, 90% of whom we can easily do without, in order to create “economic growth” — in the aggregate — by a massive population expansion from the outside–but not growth that will benefit existing native born Americans at all. And that is not counting the inevitable economic drawbacks of this grotesque giantism — overcrowding, land use issues, infrastructure deterioration, and environmental degradation, to name a few.

The ability of some of our elected leaders to lie in order to further whatever agenda they have is amazing to me. I would love to see our immigration policies reformed–they are awful. However, the current changes proposed by the Senate are not the answer. The incremental proposals coming from the House of Representatives might better solve our current problems.

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The Remaining Questions About Benghazi

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Benghazi does not seem to be going away. Yesterday John Hinderaker at Power Line reported that 700 retired special operations military personnel have signed a letter to members of the House of Representatives, asking them to investigate the Benghazi debacle. This is the link to the letter.

The concern of the former special ops personnel is that the American policy of leaving no one behind was not followed during the attack. The Ambassador and three other people were essentially abandoned by the American government that was supposed to protect them.

The letter states:

A longstanding American ethos was breached during the terrorist attack in Benghazi. America failed to provide adequate security to personnel deployed into harm’s way and then failed to respond when they were viciously attacked. Clearly, this is unacceptable and requires accountability. America has always held to the notion that no American will be left behind and that every effort will be made to respond when US personnel are threatened. Given our backgrounds, we are concerned that this sends a very negative message to future military and diplomatic personnel who may be deployed into dangerous environments.  That message is that they will be left to their own devices when attacked.  That is an unacceptable message.

The letter asks that the House Select Committee ask the Obama Administration sixteen questions that have not yet been answered and demand answers to those questions. The families of those Americans killed in the attack deserve at least that much.

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Faux Science

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John Hinderaker at Power Line posted an article yesterday about some recent facts that have come out regarding global warming. It seems that we have been misled.

The chart below is from the article. It shows the difference between the made-up numbers and the scientific numbers:

The article explains how geologist Shaun Marcott had created his graph by changing the dates of reported temperatures to get the results he wanted.

The article quotes the Financial Post:

Stephen McIntyre of climateaudit.org began examining the details of the Marcott et al. work, and by March 16 he had made a remarkable discovery. The 73 proxies were all collected by previous researchers, of which 31 are derived from alkenones, an organic compound produced by phytoplankton that settles in layers on ocean floors, and has chemical properties that correlate to temperature. …

According to the scientists who originally published the alkenone series, the core tops varied in age from nearly the present to over a thousand years ago. Fewer than 10 of the original proxies had values for the 20th century. Had Marcott et al. used the end dates as calculated by the specialists who compiled the original data, there would have been no 20th-century uptick in their graph, as indeed was the case in Marcott’s PhD thesis. But Marcott et al. redated a number of core tops, changing the mix of proxies that contribute to the closing value, and this created the uptick at the end of their graph. Far from being a feature of the proxy data, it was an artifact of arbitrarily redating the underlying cores.

The earth routinely goes through climate cycles. As of yet, scientists do not totally understand these cycles. However, I believe that the scientific method calls for a study of the facts in order to reach a conclusion–not altering the facts to reach a desired conclusion.

Just for the record, I am not for pollution. I think we have a responsibility as residents of earth to keep things as clean as possible. I do think, however, that we have to balance the well being of the residents of earth with the price of progress. The current environmental movement may desire a clean planet, but they have lost their sense of balance.

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Broken Hockey Sticks

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This is one of those articles I occasionally write where I know nothing about the subject. I am not a scientist, but I do have a fairly effective truth alarm. The source of this story is reliable, and I trust the judgment of the author.

John Hinderaker at Power Line posted an article today about the latest global warming panic. A group of climate alarmists headed by geologist Shaun Marcott has tried to resurrect Michael Mann’s discredited hockey stick and has.sounded the alarm that the temperature of the oceans is rising at an alarming rate.

The article at Power Line reports:

Now Steve McIntyre, who was principally responsible for showing that Mann’s original hockey stick was a fraud, has gone over Marcott’s data on the key proxies he uses for 20th century temperatures, ocean cores. McIntyre found that Marcott and his colleagues used previously published ocean core data, but have altered the dates represented by the cores, in some cases by as much as 1,000 years.

Statistics are amazing things, and by making minor changes in them, you can get them to tell any story you choose to tell.

This is the graph from the article:

I will make no attempt to explain the graph, but strongly suggest that you follow the link to the Power Line article to read John Hinderaker’s explanation. Mr. Hinderaker also relies on my favorite site for any real information on climate change, wattsupwiththat.

The bottom line here is simple. The numbers are being fudged. The obvious questions are, “Who is fudging the numbers?” and “Why are the numbers being fudged?” What do the scientific community and the politicians gain by convincing us we are doomed unless we listen to them and do exactly what they say (I think I just answered my own question)? Do we really want to give that kind of control to anyone? I would be a whole lot more impressed by their insistence that we listen to them if they were practicing what they preach. Has anyone calculated Al Gore or Barack Obama’s carbon footprints lately?

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Avoiding Even The Obvious Budget Cuts

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John Hinderaker at Power Line posted an article today about the proposed Democrat budget plan and its relationship to welfare spending. The Obama Administration has already cut the work requirement in order to collect welfare, now they refusing to support another very obvious cost-cutting measure.

The article reports:

Jeff Sessions offered an amendment that addressed the Obama administration’s outrageous policy of advertising the easy availability of food stamps in foreign countries. This is how Sessions described the amendment:

Contrary to sound policy, the United States is spending money advertising food stamp benefits in foreign consulates. This amendment would prohibit any funds from being spent on this controversial promotion campaign.

Federal law has long prohibited immigration to the U.S. by anyone who is likely to become a public charge. Instead of enforcing this law, the Obama administration has willfully violated it by encouraging immigration to the U.S. by Mexicans and others, precisely because they will become public charges and thereby contribute to the expansion of the welfare system. The administration’s promotion of the food stamp program to foreign nationals is part of this effort.

Why in the world are we advertising American food stamp programs in foreign countries? It seems to me that if we wanted to control immigration (legal or illegal) offering free food or money would not be the way to do it. America needs immigrants, but we need legal immigrants who will contribute to society rather than expect to be supported by hard-working taxpayers.

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Proposed Minnesota Law Proposes Gun Confiscation

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John Hinderaker at Power Line posted a story yesterday about a proposed law in the Minnesota legislature that does call for confiscation of guns.

The article reports:

H.F. 241 relates to “assault weapons.” It defines “assault weapons” in more or less the usual way; I haven’t compared it line by line to Dianne Feinstein’s federal legislation, but the definition is similar if not identical. “Assault weapons” include all semiautomatic rifles that have a pistol grip or a hole in the stock through which you can put your thumb; any “protruding grip that can be held by the nontrigger hand;” a folding or telescopic stock; or a barrel shroud. So, what is it about a hole in the stock, a “protruding grip,” a folding stock and so on that explains why such weapons should be singled out for banning by the state? Nothing. These features have nothing to do with lethality and bear no rational relation to any legitimate governmental purpose.

…Under the Democrats’ legislation, no one can buy or possess an “assault weapon” in Minnesota. If you already own one as of February 1, you can keep it. But you have to register it, and give the state permission to inspect your home–which is the only place you can keep the “assault weapon”–to make sure you are storing it properly, and undergo annual background checks. You can’t sell the firearm or give it away, and when you die, your heirs are required to either destroy it or “surrender the weapon to a law enforcement agency for destruction.” So the statute represents a ban, followed by confiscation.

President Obama will be in Minnesota today supposedly to support this proposal. As I have said before, I am not personally a gun owner, although many members of my family are; however, I support the right of people to own guns, and I worry when the government talks about taking them away–for any reason.

This law (although hopefully it has no chance of passing) is frightening. It is frightening because the legislators think they can bring it up without fear of being voted out of office. The musket was the assault weapon of its day, and it was not banned in the Constitution. I think the founding fathers knew what they were doing.

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The Problem With Arithmetic

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The problem with arithmetic is that if you always use the same numbers you always get the same answers. You can’t change the answer (solution) without changing the numbers. It’s just too rigid! Unfortunately, America is about to fall victim to the rigidness of arithmetic. It won’t be obvious until after it happens, but it is coming.

John Hinderaker at Power Line posted an article yesterday about the arithmetic involved in solving America’s financial problems. He points out that what is happening in America is also happening around the world.

The article states:

American voters accepted Obama’s claim that no change is necessary, that $16 trillion of debt is nothing to worry about. In France, voters put socialists into office, vowing not to give an inch on government benefits, ever. In Spain, Greece, and elsewhere around the world, politicians promise their constituents that nothing has to change, more money can be found somewhere. They are all lying.

The article cites an article by Janet Daley that appeared in the U.K. Telegraph on Saturday. The opening paragraph of the article asks:

Was 2012 the year when the democratic world lost its grip on reality? Must we assume now that no party that speaks the truth about the economic future has a chance of winning power in a national election? With the results of presidential contests in the United States and France as evidence, this would seem to be the only possible conclusion. Any political leader prepared to deceive the electorate into believing that government spending, and the vast system of services that it provides, can go on as before – or that they will be able to resume as soon as this momentary emergency is over – was propelled into office virtually by acclamation.

After France raised the taxes on millionaires, the millionaires began leaving the country. As California continues to raise its taxes on ‘the rich,’ the exodus of the wealthy from that state continues. After Maryland raised taxes on millionaires, the number of millionaires in the state declined, and state tax revenue declined. There is a lesson here, and America needs to learn it.

The article in the Telegraph points out:

Barack Obama knows that a tax rise of those proportions in the US would be politically suicidal, so he proposes a much more modest increase – an income tax rate of around 40 per cent on the highest earners sounds very modest indeed to British ears. But that is precisely the problem. If a tax rise is modest enough to be politically acceptable to much of the electorate, it will not produce anything like enough to finance the universal American entitlement programmes, social security and Medicare, into a future with an ageing population. There is no way that “taxing the rich” – that irresistibly glib Left-wing solution to everything – can make present and projected levels of government spending affordable. That is why Britain and almost all the countries of the EU have redefined the word “rich” to mean those who are earning scarcely twice the average wage, and pulled more and more middle-income people into high tax bands. Not only are there vastly more of them but they are far more likely to stand still and be fleeced, because they do not have the mobility of the truly rich.

As the debate on the fiscal cliff continues, we need to keep our perspective on exactly what is going on.

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When It Doesn’t Pay To Work

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John HInderaker at Power Line posted the following chart yesterday:

The chart was originally from the Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare.

The Congressional Budget Office has a similar chart:

The article at Power Line includes another chart from the Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare:

Before you believe the lie that federal spending cannot be cut, please study these charts.

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The Cost Of Security Leaks–From The People Who Understand

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John Hinderaker at Power Line posted the video “Dishonorable Disclosure” yesterday. It deals with the consequences of the security leaks coming from the Obama Administration. The video is about twenty minutes long and is riveting. This is the story from the people who live it. Please watch the video and share it with your friends.

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I Love Irony

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Yesterday John Hinderaker at Power Line posted the following:

Please note that the media will not be allowed in to the NAACP Convention to hear Attorney General Eric Holder speak unless they present a “government-issued photo I.D.” (such as a driver’s license) as well as valid media credentials.

Ok, let me get this right–media credentials are not enough to get in to hear Attorney General Eric Holder speak–you also need a government-issued photo I.D. in addition to your credentials. All those of us who want honest elections are asking for is one form of I.D. in order to vote–not two–and Eric Holder is fighting that. Does anyone else see the irony?

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Why You Need To Read Between The Lines

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John Hinderaker at Power Line posted an article today about some of the fund raising methods currently being used by the Democrat party. Fund raising for Democrats is not going as well as hoped, so they are trying to kick up the numbers before an FEC fundraising deadline Monday at midnight.

The article reports that Debbie Wasserman-Schultz sent out a fund raising email that included this message:

This week, the Senate voted overwhelmingly to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act. Here’s how the vote went: Sixty-eight in favor, thirty-one against.

Each of the 31 senators who voted against it were Republican men.

Every time these guys get the chance to put women’s health before politics, they fail to.

That just sounds so unfair (those evil Republicans are at it again)–until you begin to look at the details:

The Democrats’ Senate version of the bill adds 10,000 U-visas annually, but the Democrats refused to include any protections against immigration fraud in the issuance of such visas. The bill extends the criminal jurisdiction of Indian tribal courts to cover non-Indians; this has to be unconstitutional. And the Democrats’ bill includes hundreds of millions of dollars for grant programs, but the Democrats rejected all audit and oversight provisions, even though a Department of Justice investigation found that in the past, some grantees have misused more than 90% of the money they received through VAWA.

During the political silly season, nothing is what it appears to be. The bill is headed back to the House of Representatives where the extra things added in will probably be taken out. At that point we will see who is willing to support a bill that actually addresses the issue of violence against women.

 

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I Love The Irony Of This

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John Hinderaker at Power LIne posted a story yesterday that I love. A reporter for PJTV went undercover to the Washington offices of the people who are protesting voter identification laws. I couldn’t figure out how to embed the video, but here is the link, PJTV. The video illustrates that the groups who are protesting photo identification requirements for voters all require photo identification to get past the receptionist. I love irony.

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