What’s interesting in the news today?
Open Thread.
President Obama received some sharp criticism from conservative Justices yesterday.
From TheHill
“Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder decided in 2011 that the federal Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional. They quit defending it in the courts, but directed federal agencies to continue to comply with the law.
Conservatives on the Supreme Court criticized that approach Wednesday during oral arguments over whether DOMA is constitutional.”
““I don’t see why he doesn’t have the courage of his convictions,” Chief Justice John Roberts said of Obama’s decision to continue following the law, even though he believes it is unconstitutional.
Justice Antonin Scalia said the legal system appears to be “living in this brave new world” in which the Justice Department can simply opt out of its traditional responsibility to defend federal laws in the courts.”
Just like with gun laws. They cry for more restrictions on guns, yet at the same time complain that enforcing existing ones is racist and harder on minorities. Enforce the laws, it’s not rocket science.
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And speaking of refusing to enforce existing laws…….
From HotAir
“Janet Napolitano: We shouldn’t wait until the border is secure to legalize illegals”
“No worries. She says the border’s already “as secure as it’s ever been,” even though her department has given up trying to measure that. Marco Rubio recently claimed that 10 million new illegals would cross the border over the next decade if there’s no new guest-worker program in place. Maybe Napolitano could quantify border control that way. Are things secure enough now to ensure that only nine million of them would make it? Eight million?”
Of course they don’t want to have to secure it first. They’re not even trying. And they’re releasing criminal illegals already, which is another example of them chosing not to enforce the law.
We also had another example of our not so secure borders yesterday. She was apprehended, but you know she’ll be released. The only question is on which side of the border will she be released on?
“John McCain ✔@SenJohnMcCain
Just witnessed a woman successfully climb an 18-ft bollard fence a few yards from us in #Nogales pic.twitter.com/GnMwEeQwDB“
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This one is disturbing, but sadly not surprising. Given our anything goes culture, consequences like this will continue to worsen. Just like abortion. Meanwhile groups like Planned Parenthood that promote and encourage this free love/if it feels good lifestyle are also the ones who benefit financially from the real life consequences of both.
From CNSNews
“According to new data released by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there were 19.7 million new venereal infections in the United States in 2008, bringing the total number of existing sexually transmitted infections (STIs) in the U.S. at that time to 110,197,000.”
“The STI study referenced by the CDC estimated that 50 percent of the new infections in 2008 occurred among people in the 15-to-24 age bracket. In fact, of the 19,738,800 total new STIs in the United States in 2008, 9,782,650 were among Americans in the 15-to-24 age bracket.”
““CDC’s new estimates show that there are about 20 million new infections in the United States each year, costing the American healthcare system nearly $16 billion in direct medical costs alone,” said a CDC fact sheet.”
20 million new infections a year. Obviously what these groups are teaching in schools isn’t working. I can’t help but think that’s by design.
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Here’s an interesting read from RealClearPolitics.
“The University Utopia”
“Just after November’s election, I posed three paradoxes of American politics, asking why certain demographic groups make up reliable voting blocs for the left, even though the pro-free-market ideas of the right have so much to offer them.
I have begun to revisit these paradoxes. In part one of this series, I laid out the case for why the pro-free-market right needs to reclaim these key demographic groups—young people, racial minorities, and city dwellers—and why I regard these as natural constituencies for the free market whose lockstep voting for the left is a paradox.
In this installment, I take up the first of the paradoxes: Why do the young vote for dependency—when the essence of youth is a quest for independence? My purpose for now is mostly just to solve the paradox, to explain the reason for the apparent contradiction, and to indicate what this implies for how the right should change its message and its sales tactics. When I am done looking at all three paradoxes, I will look in greater depth at an agenda of reform for the political strategy of the right.”
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And we have a couple new ideas for wasteful things govt funds that should be cut, unlike White House tours.
From FoxNews
“A prime example of how slowly the federal government moves is a piece of prime real estate in Washington’s tony Georgetown neighborhood — an old steam-generating plant with a spectacular view of the Potomac waterfront.
The government-owned building was finally sold to a private developer for $19.5 million this month. But it sat there for 10 years — off the market and vacant — while taxpayers footed the bill for its upkeep.
A for-sale sign only went up the day before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform dragged General Services Administration officials into the musty structure for a hearing last summer. Rep. Jeff Denham, R-Calif., berated a bewildered GSA official at that hearing, saying: “You can’t get your job done! I don’t care if it’s a Republican or Democratic administration, the job is not getting done!””
But that’s not even the worst we have today. For that, we go to CNSNews
” The National Science Foundation awarded a grant for $876,752 to the University of Iowa to study whether there is any benefit to sex among New Zealand mud snails and whether that explains why any organism has sex.
The study, first funded in 2011 and continuing until 2015, will study the New Zealand snails to see if it is better that they reproduce sexually or asexually – the snail can do both – hoping to gain insight on why so many organisms practice sexual reproduction.
“Sexual reproduction is more costly than asexual reproduction, yet nearly all organisms reproduce sexually at least some of the time. Why is sexual reproduction so common despite its costs,” the study’s abstract asks.”
A better question to ask is why is govt. waste like this so common despite it’s costs?
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Wandering Views 
The US will quickly become a largely Hispanic country. As my wife says, “They do not kill their children and they marry people of the opposite gender.” Urban whites are turning homosexual in record numbers. Heterosexual urban whites are not having children in signifigant numbers. Blacks will remain as a favored group until Hispanics become a majority. Rural whites will survive. They generally relate well to Hispanics. In thirty years the US will look much like Brazil. Regarding foreign policy, the US will become more closely aligned with Mexico and other Latin American countries.
We should be thankful. Most Hispanics are Christians. Europe has Muslims to its South and will soon become Muslim.
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Yes, the US demographic is changing. I don’t think that’s something to fear.
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Ricky, I’m not sanguine about the Hispanic influence on America. Too many Latinos have become enamored of the welfare state and loose morals. Heather MacDonald in an NRO article writes:
Nadler trots out the hoary “Hispanic social conservatism” argument for unbounded Hispanic immigration. Let’s look at the facts: The Hispanic illegitimacy rate is now 50%, over twice what the black illegitimacy rate was when Daniel Patrick Moynihan sounded his prescient alarm about the black family in 1965. Nadler and other open-borders conservatives should educate themselves about Hispanic family values by spending a moment or two in any heavily Hispanic school. There they will learn that teen pregnancy has been completely normalized, no big deal for girls and a way for boys to become “playas.”
As for the costs of our recent immigration flows, which Nadler thinks are just a bugaboo of misguided conservative whackos, Los Angeles Times columnist George Skelton recently estimated the costs of illegal immigrants in California at $5 billion–a conservative number. The growth in the uninsured is driven overwhelmingly by poor Hispanics. The schools in California–the bellwether for all things immigrant–are overwhelmed with the challenge of bringing Hispanics up to speed academically. Liberal education professors Patricia Gandara and Frances Contreras warn: “With no evidence of an imminent turnaround in the rate at which Latino students are either graduating from high school or obtaining college degrees, it appears that both a regional [to California] and national catastrophe are at hand.” The United States is well on its way to creating a “permanent underclass,” they write in The Latino Education Crisis.
Victor Davis Hanson, also, has a cogent piece on the subject, Mexifornia, Five Years Later, at:
http://www.city-journal.org/html/17_1_mexifornia.html
I understand that some Hispanics including your wife are excellent people, though overall the reality is that along with many blacks they have caved all too easily into the dominance and decadence of the secular left.
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Years ago, someone mentioned that Texas once belonged to Mexico. I said that if Texas belonged to Mexico, San Antonio would look like Monterrey and El Paso would be like Jaurez. And people would be crossing the Red and Sabine rivers looking for jobs.
The difference is not geography, but culture.
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Can I have 875,000.00 dollars, please? The reason the snails choose sexual reproduction is because organisms are hard wired to promote genetic variation. It prevents all sorts of problems…there: now make the check out to IBNO!
Been following the SCOTUS arguments? Makes my head hurt…
Does anyone realize that every culture that has “normalized” homosexuality has declined and failed? I choose not to judge people based on their behavior but do not understand why we are inexorably being driven to legitimize certain behaviors through the government. I do not define myself by sexual preference, why must the LGBT lobby do so?Seems like the original argument was just for legal rights…those were offered through civil unions but that was not enough suddenly…
Don’y bother replying…the questions were more hypothetical than anything else. I really don’t want to start a pointless argument…I am who I am and I believe in permanaent non-situational truth. That includes a non-changing, unevolving God who defined marriage.
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Well since we’re discussing race issues, here’s something I watched this morning from PJTV.
I believe Zo is correct, and while some of his points may be offensive to liberals, they are accurate.
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Sorry In, going to reply. What you complain about in hypothetical, obviously upset terminolgy is about my actual life, which isn’t hypothetical. So if my response is less gracious than it might be, please understand that I am fighting off the urge to be truly ungracious.
A few years ago, I would have been happy with civil unions that recognized legal relationships vis-a-vis the state so that things like estate taxes would not be imposed as if an LGBT person was a stranger to their partner and so that social security survivorship benefits pass and so forth. What happened? Well, your side starting passing state constitutional amendments that barred civil unions from having the legal effect of recognizing relationships. So excuse me, but don’t whine that LGBT people then turned to marriage. Your side has only itself to blame for its own stiff necked refusal to give any ground and for causing people like me to understand that civil unions were a futile, useless thing that your side would never allow to actually work.
How people people define themselves — I don’t define myself by my sexual orientation. I have a spouse. We are a couple. We happen to both be women. I get more definitions and we must be x, y or z from folks like you and your permanent, non-situational “truth”.
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I am neither fearing nor celebrating demographic change. I am simply predicting. Easy year San Antonio looks more like Monterrey and ElPaso more like Juarez. Mexico is rising while we are falling.
I agree with much of what Sails said. I will say that Mexicans come to the US with a great work ethic. We train them (with our government programs) to become tramps and bums.
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Rush made an interesting point. He didn’t use these words, but essentially he said that we lost the argument when we allowed an adjective to be attached to “marriage”. Marriage is a union between a man and a woman. It has always been that way. But modifying it changed the definition.
That has been done before, e.g. “inter racial marriage”.
(Rush never brought that up.)
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Coyote Blue,
So many of those problems you mention are because of the government wanting things that should not be theirs to claim. Social Security benefits? Save your own money instead of the Ponzi scheme of Social Security. Estate taxes? Get rid of them. Taxes were paid on the money once. Who gets retirement benefits when the beneficiary dies? Don’t have benefits, instead have a retirement account that is owned by the person. (See Social Security benefits, estate taxes…)
By the way, have I mentioned that I like your moniker of Coyote Blue?
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CB, In hindsight, I would have preferred a Constitutional Amendment that allowed each state to define marriage and civil unions however they chose, but provided that no state was bound to accept marriages of states with differing standards. In an echo of the 1800s, we would have become a half gay/ half straight country with the border near its historic location. Some will say that no nation could long survive half gay and half straight, and I would agree.
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CB, as I’ve said before I think everyone should get to decided who they leave their stuff and their kids to. I think everyone should get to decide who visit them in the hospital and who makes their medical decision. I also think everyone should get to decide if they want to cater or photograph a gay wedding or make a gay wedding cake or match make for a gay couple or help a gay couple adopt according to their own conscience and religious convictions.
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Mark Perry in a Carpe Diem blog post today has come up with a remarkable set of charts on America’s Energy Revolution at:
http://www.aei-ideas.org/2013/03/year-in-review-americas-amazing-energy-revolution/
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Interesting & encouraging article Sails
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Bob
Congress made social security a part of my retirement package and being a fed, my anuity and 401k are bound by DOMA. So that’s nice and all, but not helpful. If I didn’t love my job, I would move to the private sector where I would a) about triple my pay and b) have benefits for me and my spouse. Ty on the name! Been using it since I started posting online, many years ago now.
Ricky
I instinctively dislike the idea of an ammendment to the Constitution that limits rights. I do think that it should be clear from enumerated powers that marriage belongs to the States and the feds should not be in the business of deciding which state marriage licenses it will or will not recognize.
Kbells,
Totally with you on catering and cakes etc — I don’t understand the people who press others to do photo shoots, catering and so forth when those folks have expressed fundamental issues with what they are catering or photographing.
Chas
Rush is wrong. The issue was lost by insisting that marriage is solely a religious concern. When the State issues licenses and distributes benefits based on status then it is a legal question of the State, not a religious question of the Church.
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But CB it is happening.
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Yes, and I think that’s wrong. There are also Christians out there who actively discriminate against LGBT people that you think is wrong. Should I hold you to account for their actions?
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I’ve commented before on the bad business sense of cutting labour costs and avoiding ACA by going part-time instead of finding savings elsewhere. Cutting labour is an easy simple and lazy way of cutting costs but doesn’t make long term business sense. And this practise is finally catching up to Wal-Mart as opposed to Target and Costco who pay full time workers living wages and benefits.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-03-26/customers-flee-wal-mart-empty-shelves-for-target-costco.html
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Marriage is not entirely a religious concern.
Every culture recognizes marriage is between a man and a woman. Some say, women, but in no culture, or at any time, has a man and a man or a woman and a woman been considered a family.
In godless cultures like communism, this is so.
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Sails, That is great news on oil and gas. Hats off to our oil and gas industry which has overcome a hostile President and Energy Secretary, millions of Al Gore-worshipping tree huggers, expensive regulations and a Matt Damon movie.
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To evaluate the effectiveness of sexual health education, we need to see the change over time. The report referenced here only gives the amount this year. A quick google search produced a study from the CDC in 2009 which states the rate of gonorrhea is at an all time low and the rate of syphilis had stopped increasing among women. Syphilis did increase among gay men and black males. Chlamydia is on the rise but that’s probably due to better detection and awareness. Its still the one STI my students aren’t familiar with. Despite the increases in some areas, the historic low rates in gonorrhea and the overall decline in syphilis is encouraging and does demonstrate some effectiveness.
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CB: I don’t think kBells was holding you to account for the photographer thing. The issue is that discrimination *laws*–which are by and large ridiculous, in my view–are being written and applied too arbitrarily. So private Christians are forced to do privately contracted work for a certain group of people; then those private Christains who own businesses face the prospect of being forced to provide medical coverage to which they object. Our propensity to depend on government to make myriad laws to iron out all inequities in life has given us this huge debacle. It’s entirely unweildy with all kinds of unintended consequences.
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HRW,
For some time now this “education” has been going. And religious and conservative folks have said all along that this would be the results of sex ed that focused on the fun and not so much the consequences. People said it was necessary, that teaching about condoms and pills would help lower std and teen pregnancy, if we would only educate children on such matters. It’s been going on for years, with a steady lowering of standards and the inclusion of some pretty disgusting stuff, and it’s not working out as advertised. It’s a failure, and has been for years. Stop ignoring the obvious. Plenty of time has passed. It failed. Look above at the number of increased cases of all among 15-24 yr olds. You teach kids about things and encourage them to do it, and that is what sex ed from groups like PP does, and this is the consequences. Just as we have been saying for years. You need more time, I don’t. Denial doesn’t help.
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Well stated, SolarPancake. Should we force liberal seamstresses to sew Confederate flags if requested to by customers or face a claim of discrimination against Southerners? I forgot. Southerners are never a protected class.
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AJ — Despite the large numbers you cite, these are historic low rates. STI rates have never been lower. Sometimes I wonder if people read the same stats. STI rates, teen pregnancy rates, abortions, births are all on the downward slide. Something is working.
And if we compare jurisdictions both nationally and internationally we see that those areas with more sex ed have less STIs and teen pregnancy. And pregnancy rates do include those which end in abortion and birth.
Sex ed doesn’t need more time to prove its worth. Its clearly working.
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AJ, gets to the heart of the Sex Ed. movement that, while pretending to help young people, basically promotes the sexual revolution that has done students and society great harm.
Public school Sex Ed. teachers not too subtly promote “safe sex” with no concern for the decadent morality involved. Meanwhile the public schools in America over the past few decades have for the most part lowered rigorous standards and introduced a bunch of fluffy subjects.
The best thing that could happen to the monopoly of public education is at the state level provide vouchers to families that would allow for serious school choice including religious schools of various denominations.
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ricky — I see yesterday you were daydreaming about Poland again. I’ve lived there and you don’t want to go there. While I disagree with Sails in terms of its sophistication (its not entirely provincial) but I agree its language is almost impossible to learn for an adult. And as a member of the EU, it doesn’t have much choice in terms of human rights which include gay rights ie marriage. And like most of eastern Europe, health care is universal and government paid and the welfare state hasn’t changed much since the communist era.
Politically you may enjoy the fact that the two main parties are both center right. The ruling party, Civic Platform, is pro-EU, classical liberal economics, and is similar to Christian Democrat parities of western Europe. The opposition, Law and Justice, is EU-skeptic, nationalist, social conservative, and pro-Catholic. However, the next two parties are anti-clerical and social democrat. You may also feel right at home with the geographic split of the two major parties. The north and west support Civic Platform and the south and east support Law and Justice. Civic Platform keeps trying to “reform” the welfare state but the left, the minor peasant’s party and Law and Justice stop or delay any attempt.
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Sails — too often “school choice” has allowed for government funding of schools that do not pass standards. I have no problem with the state funding independent parent support schools however they must follow the curriculum and need to have standards.
And health education emphasizes abstinence over safe sex; however, it doesn’t exclude the latter.
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“[T]oo often “school choice” has allowed for government funding of schools that do not pass standards.”
I’m never impressed with this counterargument to school choice, vouchers, or (my preference) abolition of government schooling. Hearing that argument, one would think that contrary to those alternatives, *govt* schools are ensured against failing in their (ostensible) mission to teach kids because they have all those standards.
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HRW, Thanks for the info on Poland. I’m planning a trip there in the near future. I’ll put a little Confederate flag on the grave of Heros Von Borcke. From what you and Sails say, I think Krakow sounds like an interesting place to visit. It is near their mountains. The shortage of golf courses does concern me.
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Villages in Poland have been known to fly the Confederate Battleflag.
http://shnv.blogspot.com/2009/11/on-track-of-heros-von-borcke.html
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CB, All I’m saying is that as long as those sort of lawsuits keep happening I will oppose same sex marriage. Otherwise, I do not think everything sinful should be illegal.
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I highly doubt Poles are hoisting a confederate flag to honor a Prussian soldier. The village in the article is in Pomerania which was was German prior to WWII.
Krakow’s a great city. An half hour drive will bring you to Aushwitz. I spent a late December afternoon/evening there … one of the genuinely more creepy and strange moments of my life. East of Krakow is a largely undeveloped hill country — the Polish version of Appalachia I suppose. Great for hiking just don’t try to out drink the locals.
I spent most of my time in the north east — Olsztyn — Mazsury Lakes district. Reminded me of the Muskokas in central Ontario. Small lakes, cottages, and large forests. If I had to live in Poland it would have to be here and nowhere else.
My ex-wife is from near Torun (north-central). Torun still has its medieval walls and old town still intact. Very unusual for a European city especially in Poland. If you like cobblestone streets, medieval architecture, etc its a great place.
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Awesome. Before “the evolution”:
http://townhall.com/tipsheet/guybenson/2013/03/28/video-before-democrats-evolved-on-gay-marriage-n1551828
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Gotta love politicians.
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HRW,
http://www.cdc.gov/std/stats10/trends.htm
“The latest CDC data show troubling trends in three treatable STDs:
•Gonorrhea: While reported rates are at historically low levels, cases increased slightly from last year and more than 300,000 cases were reported in 2010. There are also signs from other CDC surveillance systems that the disease may become resistant to the only available treatment option.
•Chlamydia: Case reports have been increasing steadily over the past 20 years, and in 2010, 1.3 million chlamydia cases were reported. While the increase is due to expanded screening efforts, and not to an actual increase in the number of people with chlamydia, a majority of infections still go undiagnosed. Less than half of sexually active young women are screened annually as recommended by CDC.
•Syphilis: The overall syphilis rate decreased for the first time in a decade, and is down 1.6 percent since 2009. However, the rate among young black men has increased dramatically over the past five years (134 percent). Other CDC data also show a significant increase in syphilis among young black men who have sex with men (MSM), suggesting that new infections among MSM are driving the increase in young black men. The finding is particularly concerning as there has also been a sharp increase in HIV infections among this population.”
More here from ABC. Watch the video.
http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=news/health&id=8993476
“STDs on dramatic rise in the U.S. especially amongst youth”
And see this also, which shows in the younger groups who are getting sex ed now and recently, HIV is also on the rise, although holding steady over all other age groups.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012/11/27/166012216/hiv-infections-rise-among-young-black-men
“The latest data on HIV rates in American teenagers and young adults offer a sobering message.
While the number of new infections in the U.S. is relatively stable — at about 50,000 people each year — HIV is on the rise in young people under 25.
Youths age 13 to 24 made up about a quarter of all new HIV infections in the U.S. during 2010, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported on Tuesday. And more than half of the youths living with HIV don’t even realize they’re infected
The bottom line: 1,000 American teenagers and young adults become infected each month with HIV.”
Not working.
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So, HRW, you teach abstinence but don,t exclude “safe sex” to the average hot panted. adolescent. Give me a break.
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