For Us, Truly Unbelievable

For those of us that did our jobs within the rules, it's truly galling to see the pigs that are a little more equal than others violating the laws they held us accountable to.  But of course, they are more equal than we are ...

"To work around the closed, classified systems, which are accessible only by secure desktop workstations whose hard drives must be removed and stored overnight in a safe, Clinton’s staff would have simply retyped classified information from the systems into the non-classified system or taken a screen shot of the classified document, Fournier said. “Either way, it’s totally illegal.”

"FBI agents are zeroing in on three of Clinton’s top department aides. Most of the Clinton emails deemed classified by intelligence agency reviewers were sent to her by her chief of staff Cheryl Mills or deputy chiefs Huma Abedin and Jake Sullivan.

‘It takes a very conscious effort to move a classified email or cable from the classified systems over to the unsecured open system and then send it to Hillary Clinton’s personal email account.’

 - Raymond Fournier, veteran Diplomatic Security Service special agent

In one email, Clinton pressured Sullivan to declassify cabled remarks by a foreign leader.

“Just email it,” Clinton snapped, to which Sullivan replied: “Trust me, I share your exasperation. But until ops converts it to the unclassified email system, there is no physical way for me to email it.”

In another recently released email, Clinton instructed Sullivan to convert a classified document into an unclassified email attachment by scanning it into an unsecured computer and sending it to her without any classified markings. “Turn into nonpaper w no identifying heading and send nonsecure,” she ordered."

http://nypost.com/2016/01/24/hillarys-team-copied-intel-off-top-secret-server-to-email/

The HC Alternative: Less Government, More Care

"While America’s health-care system has long needed reform, President Obamaunfortunately made many parts of it worse. His Affordable Care Act is based on more federal spending, regulation and coercion—and Americans are now experiencing the many unhappy consequences. 

These include millions forced out of their previous insurance plans and into new ones with higher costs and more-restricted access to physicians; premiums increasing by double digits, even for the lowest-price silver plans offered in states using the Healthcare.gov website; and insurance companies losing billions of dollars because many healthy, middle-class families want no part of ObamaCare. And those not-for-profit “co-ops” established by the law? More than half have failed."

http://www.wsj.com/articles/instead-of-obamacare-giving-health-care-power-to-the-people-1453502774

Outrage. Even Mine Is Waning

"And this comes as President Obama’s own former defense secretary, Robert Gates, admitted, “the odds are pretty high” that her home server was accessed by one or more hostile foreign governments.

"Governments like China or Iran — or Russia, notwithstanding the famous “reset” button Hillary gave to Vladimir Putin.

"Meanwhile, ex-Attorney General Michael Mukasey writes in The Wall Street Journal that it’s now “nearly impossible to draw any conclusion other than that she knew enough to support a [criminal] conviction at the least for mishandling classified information.”

"But will she ever even be charged?"

http://nypost.com/2016/01/22/the-shoes-are-raining-down-in-hillarys-e-mail-mess/

They Are Plenty Smart at Being Politicians

Brilliant.

The whole article.

"Facing additional headwinds were the long-planned D.C. stores, and not just due to the regulatory hurdles and lobbying fees the company endured before being permitted to enter the market. Since then, a ballot measure seeks to boost the local minimum wage to $15 from $11.50, and the city has proposed legislation to mandate minimum hours for part-time workers and impose new family- and medical-leave requirements.

So Wal-Mart told city officials that the stores couldn’t be profitable and it was nixing them. 

To the politicians who serve as gatekeepers to opportunity, which first requires erecting obstacles to opportunity, the company has become unfit for citizenship in their republic of rent-seeking. “I’m blood mad,” Mayor Muriel E. Bowser told a news conference. “This is devastating and disrespectful to the residents of the East End of the District of Columbia,” former Mayor Vincent Gray told the Washington Post.

The proverbial Martian would wonder why politicians are surprised by a shortage of jobs for their constituents, when they continually promote policies that drive jobs away."

http://www.wsj.com/articles/bad-days-for-wal-mart-americans-1453247631

The Experiment of Federalism

Connecticut has the second-highest property tax in the nation, ranking 49th out of 50. The Tax Foundation ranks Connecticut 42nd out of 50 in terms of tax climate (Massachusetts ranks 24th), and second highest in terms of state and local income-tax collections per person.

Massachusetts? It dropped its corporate tax to 8 percent from 9.5 percent and has a flat income tax of 5.15 percent. Connecticut, on the other hand, jacked its corporate tax to 9 percent from 7.5 percent and its top income-tax rate to 6.99 percent from 5 percent.

These are sizeable differences in favor of Massachusetts. Taxes don't matter?

And the dirty little secret is that the pension and health-care benefits of the government unions -- which dominate Democratic state politics -- are roughly 50 percent unfunded. This spells many future tax hikes. GE's Immelt knows it.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2016/01/16/taxes_chased_ge_out_of_connecticut_129345.html

A great test case - burden the citizens with a union for government workers that extracts punitive benefits from the citizens they "serve", which forces tax increases, and then watch and see what happens.  Growth?  Innovation?  High paying jobs?  Figure the odds.

If You Want the Truth ...

...don't look to governments.

https://theintercept.com/2016/01/15/the-u-s-radically-changes-its-story-of-the-boats-in-iranian-waters-to-an-even-more-suspicious-version/

High Speed Rail to PC Crazy Town

It's in the NRO meaning it is likely to be factually accurate, but still, unbelievable.  Is this was the future of a de-masculinized, government dominated and speech limited society falls to - inability to establish basic standards of individual safety?  This is a third world problem in the "first world".

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/429746/mass-sexual-assault-europe-us-still-denial