Mitt Romney, the 'Say Anything' Pol of the Republican Party

Considering the Republican Party itself, members of it should view the 2012 results with relief. Not only were Romney's promises about what he would do about China easily more economically crippling than anything President Obama proposed, it should also be said that Obama's re-election was the best thing that ever happened to the freedom movement. Indeed, the electorate got to see up close the horrors of big government in the form of Obamacare's implementation, and the long-term result will be a more skeptical electorate about politicians who define themselves through promises made with the money of others.

http://www.realclearmarkets.com/articles/2014/05/13/mitt_romney_the_say_anything_pol_of_the_republican_party_101048.html

A la George Will - it it axiomatic that anyone running for the job is too mentally ill to be qualified,and if anyone was willing to take the job but not willing to do what is required to get it (lie cheat or steal) - we wouldn't vote for them.

Climate McCarthyism: The Scandal Grows

http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-London/2014/05/16/Climate-McCarthyism-the-scandal-grows

The paper, which Prof Bengtsson wrote with four co-authors, suggested that climate is probably less sensitive to greenhouse gases than is admitted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and that more research needs to be done to "reduce the underlying uncertainty". However, when submitted for publication in the leading journal Environmental Research Letters, the paper failed the peer-review process and was rejected.
One of the peer-reviewers reportedly wrote:

'It is harmful as it opens the door for oversimplified claims of "errors" and worse from the climate sceptics media side.'

This, Prof Bengtsson told the Times, was "utterly unacceptable" and "an indication of how science is gradually being influenced by political views."
He added:

'The problem we now have in the climate community is that some scientists are mixing up their scientific role with that of a climate activist.'

In truth, to anyone familiar with the Climategate emails there will be nothing surprising or unusual in this incident or this claim. As the emails leaked in 2009 made abundantly clear, the organised suppression of sceptical papers in learned journals by the alarmist establishment has long been rife within the field of climate science.

Science influenced by politicians with funding ... yawn.  Duh.  Of course.

Will: LBJ ’s Legacy

sobering statistics

http://bostonherald.com/news_opinion/opinion/op_ed/2014/05/will_lbj_s_legacy_civil_rights_wins_great_tragedy

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In 1964, 76 percent of Americans trusted government to do the right thing "just about always or most of the time." Today, 19 percent do. The former number is one reason Johnson did so much; the latter is one consequence of his doing so.

Barry Goldwater, Johnson's 1964 opponent, assumed that Americans would vote to have a third president in 14 months. It was a landslide defeat. After voters rebuked FDR in 1938 for attempting to "pack" the Supreme Court, Republicans and Southern Democrats prevented any liberal legislating majority in Congress until 1965. That year, however, when 68 senators and 295 representatives were Democrats, Johnson was unfettered.
http://lubbockonline.com/editorial-columnists/2014-05-21/will-lbjs-great-society-failed-america-several-areas#.U4MrhV7oa8U

Breaking: The “97 Percent Climate Consensus” Canard | Power Line

Pause here and note that it is odd to see that some folks apparently haven't gotten the memo that you're not supposed to call it "global warming"—"climate change" is the term of art now.  Anyway, to continue, read this slowly and carefully:

Among abstracts expressing a position on AGW, 97.1% endorsed the consensus position that humans are causing global warming. In a second phase of this study, we invited authors to rate their own papers. Compared to abstract ratings, a smaller percentage of self-rated papers expressed no position on AGW (35.5%). Among self-rated papers expressing a position on AGW, 97.2% endorsed the consensus.

Let's translate: Among the one-third of papers that "endorse" the "consensus," there is near unanimity.  In other words, among people who agree with the consensus, nearly all of them agree with the consensus.  Again—the only mystery here is that the number isn't 100 percent.  Perhaps this would have been too embarrassing to report, like a North Korean election.  For this exercise all climate scientists may as well be called named Kim Jong Il.

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2014/05/breaking-the-97-percent-climate-consensus-canard.php

I can't even guess why we're talking about consensus as regards the scientific method, the two should never meet.

"Open Carry" vice "Stupid"

Here's some breaking news for you "OCIYF!" people:

YOU HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO SECOND AMENDMENT RIGHT TO CARRY A FIREARM INTO A PRIVATELY OWNED BUSINESS.

None. Zero. Zilch. Zip.

The Second Amendment forbids the Federal government—and since McDonald also the individual state governments—from infringing on the right of the people to keep and bear arms. Key word: government.

The Second Amendment does nothing whatever to constrain the rights of private property owners to determine for themselves whether to allow the carry of guns—concealed or open—on their property.

To put it even more simply, when you are on someone else's property you are there as an invited guest. You stay at their pleasure, and under their rules, rules that only they are entitled to define. Make your host unhappy for any reason whatever and they are entirely within their rights to order you to leave. Refuse to comply and you've become a criminal guilty of trespass.

http://legalinsurrection.com/2014/05/op-ed-open-carry-activists-score-yet-another-own-goal/

I'm Better Than You ... Except at Finding People to Hire

Abuses at the VA have been a problem for years. As a candidate in 2007, Obama claimed that 400,000 veterans were “stuck on a waiting list,” and he promised “a new sense of urgency” to “make sure that our disabled vets receive the benefits they deserve.” But that urgency never materialized. In a letter to Obama a year ago, the chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee detailed some of the “serious and significant patient care issues” in the VA system, imploring him to address the worsening problems before more veterans died. Yet nothing happened.  The president showed no interest in the matter, and seemed to have no grasp of the scandal’s magnitude, until he learned about it on the news.

Obama came to the White House with a carefully cultivated image for almost preternatural competence — an image no one esteemed more highly than he did. “I’m a better speechwriter than my speechwriters,”he had told his campaign staff. “I know more about policies on any particular issue than my policy directors. And I’ll tell you right now that . . . I’m a better political director than my political director.”
http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2014/05/24/obama-fails-show-his-vaunted-competence/E8bvCUAcK2n4pHkI0We47J/story.html

Of course, many top dogs feel this way, but in his case - what would make him want to say that?  Needed to puff up his competence?  Needed to chastise the pretenders?  Weird.  It could be argued that it was incompetence on display to speak thusly about his competence.  It also may make a case for a leader who cannot pick good subordinates.

In any event, he could be as competent as he believes and still be made to look a food by the gargantuan, too big too succeed leviathan that is the federal government.

An easy prediction - every president will be made to look like a fool in the same way.

The VA issue is tragic.  Much like medicare/medicaid, each president promises to fight fraud waste and abuse, but the rate of these continues at something like 10-40% every time someone checks.

Competence?  People, we are talking about the federal government, they ain't got time for dat.

Hoaxes and Myths

The meat industry is one of the top contributors to climate change, directly and indirectly producing about 14.5 percent of the world’s anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, and global meat consumption is on the rise. People generally like eating meat—when poor people start making more money, they almost invariably start buying more meat. As the population grows and eats more animal products, the consequences for climate change, pollution, and land use could be catastrophic.
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/feed_the_world/2014/05/meat_eating_and_climate_change_vegetarians_impact_on_the_economy_antibiotics.html

Dear Ms. Uninformed Writer:

You have attacked an innocent straw man.  It is industrial food production that goggles up oil and spits it out as carbon, not animals per se.  A grassfed animal is carbon negative, since the animal feeds the grasses and the grasses goggle up carbon in copious amounts.  So, if your argument is against using oil to make fertilizer and grow crops which are then fed to animals - OK, that's a bad part of industrial food production, and one that may in fact use more oil and make more carbon that other forms of industrial food production.  It would be just lovely if you could be that clear about what you mean.

However, it is yet to be proved, and in all likelihood will never be proved, that carbon emissions have a significant role in climate change.  Thus, your entire point is just another ill informed political advocacy based on ignorance.