Month: February 2015
News/Politics 2-14-15
What’s interesting in the news this weekend?
Open Thread Weekend
Our Daily Thread 2+13=15
Good Morning!
It’s Friday!!!
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On this day in 1542 Catherine Howard was executed for adultery. She was the fifth wife of England’s King Henry VIII.
In 1880 Thomas Edison observed what became known as the Edison Effect for the first time.
In 1914 The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (known as ASCAP) was formed in New York City. The society was founded to protect the copyrighted musical compositions of its members.
And in 1971 South Vietnamese troops invaded Laos. They were backed by U.S. air and artillery support.
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Quote of the Day
“My ambition in high school was to be a high school coach and teacher, and that’s still what I do: teach.”
Mike Krzyzewski
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Today is Tennessee Ernie Ford’s birthday. The kid next to him cracks me up. 🙂
And we have some Monkees, for Peter Tork’s birthday. From TMCP Tv
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Anyone have a QoD?
Prayer Requests 2-13-15
It’s Friday, so don’t forget to pray for Mumsee, Mike, and the young folks at The Nest.
Anyone else care to share something?
Psalm 60
¹O God, thou hast cast us off, thou hast scattered us, thou hast been displeased; O turn thyself to us again.
2 Thou hast made the earth to tremble; thou hast broken it: heal the breaches thereof; for it shaketh.
3 Thou hast shewed thy people hard things: thou hast made us to drink the wine of astonishment.
4 Thou hast given a banner to them that fear thee, that it may be displayed because of the truth. Selah.
5 That thy beloved may be delivered; save with thy right hand, and hear me.
6 God hath spoken in his holiness; I will rejoice, I will divide Shechem, and mete out the valley of Succoth.
7 Gilead is mine, and Manasseh is mine; Ephraim also is the strength of mine head; Judah is my lawgiver;
8 Moab is my washpot; over Edom will I cast out my shoe: Philistia, triumph thou because of me.
9 Who will bring me into the strong city? who will lead me into Edom?
10 Wilt not thou, O God, which hadst cast us off? and thou, O God, which didst not go out with our armies?
11 Give us help from trouble: for vain is the help of man.
12 Through God we shall do valiantly: for he it is that shall tread down our enemies.
News/Politics 2-13-15
What’s interesting in the news today?
1. Not shocking.
From TheWashingtonTimes “President Obama’s temporary deportation amnesty will make it easier for illegal immigrants to improperly register and vote in elections, state elections officials testified to Congress on Thursday, saying that the driver’s licenses and Social Security numbers they will be granted create a major voting loophole.
While stressing that it remains illegal for noncitizens to vote, secretaries of state from Ohio and Kansas said they won’t have the tools to sniff out illegal immigrants who register anyway, ignoring stiff penalties to fill out the registration forms that are easily available at shopping malls, motor vehicle bureaus and in curbside registration drives.
Anyone registering to vote attests that he or she is a citizen, but Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted said mass registration drives often aren’t able to give due attention to that part, and so illegal immigrants will still get through.”
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2. Green scam update.
From TheFreeBeacon “Despite billions spent in investments over decades, solar energy will only make up 0.6 percent of total electricity generation in the United States, according to a report released by the Taxpayers Protection Alliance (TPA).
“In spite of government’s best efforts to encourage innovation by solar energy companies and encourage Americans to rely more heavily on solar electricity, solar power continues to be a losing proposition,” the report said. “American taxpayers spent an average of $39 billion a year over the past 5 years financing grants, subsidizing tax credits, guaranteeing loans, bailing out failed solar energy boondoggles and otherwise underwriting every idea under the sun to make solar energy cheaper and more popular. But none of it has worked.”
Government support for the solar industry is vast, with at least 345 different federal initiatives that spread across 20 agencies, the report noted. The Pentagon has the highest number of solar programs, with 63, followed by the Interior Department, which oversees 37 programs. The Energy Department only manages 34 solar programs.
“This report is only the first step in asking the important questions about solar subsidies,” said David Williams, the president of the TPA. “Taxpayers need to know the truth about where their dollars are being spent.””
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3. Is Scott Walker the most conservative candidate since Goldwater?
From MotherJones “For those of us who are sort of fascinated by the rise of Scott Walker as a Republican presidential contender, here’s an interesting chart from Jason McDaniel, a political science professor at San Francisco State University. It shows the relative conservative-ness of GOP presidential nominees in the past six contested elections, and it demonstrates what an outlier Walker would be if he won next year’s primary: he’d be the first candidate since Ronald Reagan who’s more conservative than the average of the Republican field. And by McDaniel’s measure,1 he’d actually be the most conservative recent nominee, period—even more right-wing than Reagan:
Walker is well to the right end of the conservative spectrum, residing in the ideological neighborhood of Ted Cruz and Rand Paul….It is not a stretch to argue that if nominated, Walker would be the most conservative Republican nominee since Barry Goldwater in 1964.
….In contrast, Jeb Bush’s ideological position closely resembles previous Republican nominees. Bush most closely resembles John McCain in 2008….In Scott Walker versus Jeb Bush, party elites and primary voters are presented with clearly contrasting visions of the future direction of the Republican party….If the recent history of Republican nomination contests is any guide, the party is likely to decide that Scott Walker is too ideologically extreme to be the Republican nominee in 2016.”
They make him sound so scary, most likely out of fear.
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4. Tricare is in trouble.
From StarsAndStripes “The military’s Tricare health insurance is a broken system that is now in a “death spiral” and must be replaced, a congressional review commission told the House on Wednesday.
The insurance has been veering toward less choice and access since it was created and now falls far behind other networks in its number of providers and ability to incorporate new types of medical care, members of the Military Retirement and Compensation Modernization Commission testified before an Armed Services subcommittee.
The testimony is the beginning of hearings on Capitol Hill so lawmakers can consider legislation to overhaul the health coverage, troop retirement system and other compensation that the Pentagon says is growing too expensive to sustain. The Senate has also planned a series of subcommittee hearings to weigh a number of the commission recommendations, including a complete restructuring of 20-year military retirement system.”
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5. Do secular family values even exist?
From TheFederalist “Recent assertions in the Los Angeles Times that secular family values result in better-adjusted children than believers rest on three fallacies.”
“The dominant feature of the Christian religion is belief in Jesus Christ. The dominant feature of Buddhism is the promise of nirvana. The dominant feature of atheism, as best I can tell, is crippling insecurity.
Why does Richard Dawkins speak with such vitriol about how Christianity has nothing of value to offer humanity? Maybe because Christianity produced the Sistine Chapel and he feels insecure that atheism’s greatest artistic achievement is a string of anti-religious memes posted on Reddit. Why did Stephen Fry, the towering embodiment of modern British gentlemanliness, turn a bit grinchy recently and say that he’d lambast God for being a terrible jerkface on the Day of Judgment? I bet it’s because he feels insecure about not being able to find the goodness of God in creation’s tapestry of suffering while those of faith can. And why did Phil Zuckerman recently write a Los Angeles Times op-ed insisting that non-believing, non-church going parents are just as good, if not better, at raising well-adjusted children as the Jesus freaks? Probably because he’s maybe just a wee-bit terrified that this isn’t true.
Though his essay strikes a commendably irenic tone, rare for the average atheist manifesto, as far as the substance of his argument is concerned, Zuckerman has hardly furnished his fellow atheists with a proton pack capable of busting the ghostly feeling of parental inadequacy. To say that his analysis of data concerning religion-less families reaches unjustified conclusions is an understatement. It’s a bit more accurate to say that Zuckerman handles these statistics with more comically awkward stretching than Danny DeVito trying to put a fitted sheet on a king-size bed. So how does he fail to prove the sufficiency of godless parenting with this data? Let me count the ways.”
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Our Daily Thread 2-12-15
Good Morning!
And Happy Birthday to Kare!
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On this day in 1870, in the Utah Territory, women gained the right to vote.
In 1892 President Lincoln’s birthday was declared to be a national holiday.
In 1907 a collision of the steamer Larchmont and a schooler resulted in the death of more than 300 people. The incident occurred off New England’s Block Island.
And in 1940 Mutual Radio presented the first broadcast of the radio play “The Adventures of Superman.”
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Quote of the Day
“The best thing about the future is that it comes one day at a time.”
Abraham Lincoln
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Today is Michael McDonald’s birthday.
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Anyone have a QoD?
Did you finish shopping for your sweetie yet?
Prayer Requests 2-12-15
It’s Thursday, so don’t forget to pray for the folks in PNG.
Anyone else?
Psalm 59
¹Deliver me from mine enemies, O my God: defend me from them that rise up against me.
2 Deliver me from the workers of iniquity, and save me from bloody men.
3 For, lo, they lie in wait for my soul: the mighty are gathered against me; not for my transgression, nor for my sin, O Lord.
4 They run and prepare themselves without my fault: awake to help me, and behold.
5 Thou therefore, O Lord God of hosts, the God of Israel, awake to visit all the heathen: be not merciful to any wicked transgressors. Selah.
6 They return at evening: they make a noise like a dog, and go round about the city.
7 Behold, they belch out with their mouth: swords are in their lips: for who, say they, doth hear?
8 But thou, O Lord, shalt laugh at them; thou shalt have all the heathen in derision.
9 Because of his strength will I wait upon thee: for God is my defence.
10 The God of my mercy shall prevent me: God shall let me see my desire upon mine enemies.
11 Slay them not, lest my people forget: scatter them by thy power; and bring them down, O Lord our shield.
12 For the sin of their mouth and the words of their lips let them even be taken in their pride: and for cursing and lying which they speak.
13 Consume them in wrath, consume them, that they may not be: and let them know that God ruleth in Jacob unto the ends of the earth. Selah.
14 And at evening let them return; and let them make a noise like a dog, and go round about the city.
15 Let them wander up and down for meat, and grudge if they be not satisfied.
16 But I will sing of thy power; yea, I will sing aloud of thy mercy in the morning: for thou hast been my defence and refuge in the day of my trouble.
17 Unto thee, O my strength, will I sing: for God is my defence, and the God of my mercy.
News/Politics 2-12-15
What’s interesting in the news today?
1. Well at least they apologized for taking their money for no legitimate reason…. 🙄
From USNews “Pressured by Congress, the IRS said Wednesday it is changing its policies and apologizing for seizing banks accounts from otherwise law-abiding business owners simply because they structured bank transactions to avoid federal reporting requirements.
Their alleged crime: routinely making bank deposits of less than $10,000. That allowed the business owners to avoid reporting requirements designed to catch drug dealers and money launderers.
IRS Commissioner John Koskinen told Congress that the IRS is changing policies to prevent the seizures, as long as the money came from legal means.
“To anyone who is not treated fairly under the code, I apologize,” Koskinen told the House Ways and Means oversight subcommittee. “Taxpayers have to be comfortable that they will be treated fairly.”
By law, bank transactions above $10,000 must be reported to the IRS. It’s a felony, called “structuring,” to manage transactions to avoid the reporting requirement, even if the money is legally earned. In some cases, the IRS seized and held bank accounts for years without bringing charges.”
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2. And just what kind of online political speech would they like to regulate? You already know the answer.
From CNSNews “The Federal Election Commission (FEC) is holding a hearing today to receive public feedback on whether it should create new rules regulating political speech, including political speech on the Internet that one commissioner warned could affect blogs, YouTube videos and even websites like the Drudge Report.
The hearing is a response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in McCutcheon v. FEC last year, which struck down the FEC’s previous cap on aggregate campaign contributions from a single donor in an election cycle.”
“This time around, organizations like the Electronic Frontier Foundation have warned that some Democrats on the commission would like to impose much more burdensome regulations that could serve as the equivalent of spending caps in restricting political speech.”
“The commission has seen proposals to regulate even issue advocacy referencing federal candidates that is disseminated on the Internet,” Goodman told CNSNews.com.
“That could reach YouTube videos, blogs, and websites like [the] Drudge Report,” he warned.”
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3. Here comes Amnesty 2.0.
From TheWashingtonTimes “The government expects so many applications for President Obama’s new deportation amnesty that it’s seeking a contractor just to open the new mail and enter the forms into the system, with plans to operate two shifts from 6 a.m. to 11:30 p.m. every workday to keep up with the anticipated workload.
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the agency charged with approving the applications, expects more than 800,000 applications in just the first two and a half months, or a 70 percent surge compared to last year’s total intake for the entire agency. Over the first 18 or so months, the agency will process more than 4 million pieces of mail related to the larger part of the new amnesty, according to contracting documents.
All applications must be opened in the presence of two workers, one with “secret” security clearance, in order to maintain integrity of the applications, and mail may need to be X-rayed for security reasons, the documents show.”
“But one former USCIS executive testified to Congress last week that the agency is going to be overwhelmed by the volume of applications and the truncated approval process.
“It’s going to be hard to tell how much fraud there is,” said Luke Bellocchi, a former deputy ombudsman for USCIS, as he testified to the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee last week.”
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4. Don’t you hate it when cheating adults ruin it for the kids?
From MSNNews “A Little League team that captured the attention of the nation and the hearts of its hometown was stripped of its national title Wednesday after an investigation revealed that team officials had falsified boundaries so they could add ineligible players to the roster.
Only last summer, the all-black Jackie Robinson West team was the toast of Chicago and was honored with trips to San Francisco and to the White House.
But the sport’s governing body, Little League International, announced that team officials had changed the boundaries that determine where players must live. And after learning that their scheme had been exposed, they scrambled to convince surrounding leagues to go along with what they had done.
“This is so heartbreaking,” said Stephen D. Keener, the Little League International president and CEO. “It is a sad day for a bunch of kids who we have come to really like … who did nothing wrong.” But “we cannot tolerate the actions of some of the adults involved here.”
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Our Daily Thread 2-11-15
Good Morning!
Today’s header photo is from Janice.
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On this day in 1752 The Pennsylvania Hospital opened as the very first hospital in America.
In 1878 the first U.S. bicycle club, Boston Bicycle Club, was formed.
In 1937 General Motors agreed to recognize the United Automobile Workers Union, which ended the current sit-down strike against them.
In 1975 Margaret Thatcher became the first woman to head a major party in Britain when she was elected leader of the Conservative Party.
And in 1979, nine days after the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini returned to Iran, (after 15 years in exile) power was seized by his followers.
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Quote of the Day
“Yes, it’s true, I’ve been called the Laurence Olivier of spoofs. I guess that would make Laurence Olivier the Leslie Nielsen of Shakespeare.”
Leslie Nielsen
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Today is Peter Arnold Heise’s birthday.
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Wandering Views 