These LinkSwarms tend to get pushed back to days when there’s not a big story jumping up and requiring my attention. It seems like the Olympics have created a bit of a news lull
Heartening, but I can’t help but notice that some of the same people appear in this video as the one from that town hall meeting in December. Makes it hard to gauge just how widespread black America’s dissatisfaction with Obama is…
Mainly linking to this story for the amazing photos. As if living in an Ex-Communist country wasn’t bad enough, a winter storm just dumped several feet of ice on them.
“Walking in a Winter Wonderland” takes on quite a different meaning when the weight of the ice brings forests worth of trees crashing to the ground.
Driving doesn’t look like much fun either, though the frozen landscape looks amazingly alien.
Another video (skip ahead a minute to omit getting out of the parking garage):
All this should make you feel better about your current weather….
Another week, another week of bad ObamaCare news.
First off comes the National Small Business Association survey that shows that health care costs for small businesses have doubled since 2009. The “Affordable Care Act” turns out not to be affordable for anyone…
The new CBO report also paints a devastating picture of how ObamaCare will damage our economy through 2024, including:
Another bomb in the CBO report: ObamaCare subsidies are structured in such way that earning $1 more costs an extra $13,572 per year.
And the first CBO-based attack ad is already out (this one aimed at North Carolina’s Sen. Kay Hagan):
Another attack ad targets Florida Rep. Joe Garcia:
And here are some workers finding out that ObamaCare makes their insurance unaffordable:
“The ACA has been an unmitigated disaster since its passage.”
It doesn’t help that the ObamaCare enrollment numbers are grossly inflated.
Things aren’t much better in the state exchanges, either. Covered California 2013: “Sure your doctor is covered!” Covered California 2014: “Suckers!”
She’s not the only one. But it sucks when you have Stage Four cancer and suddenly your doctor is no longer covered:
There is one solution to this problem: Full repeal of ObamaCare.
Too bad there appears to be no limit to the damage (or deaths) Democrats are willing to let happen to avoid that…
“House Speaker John Boehner on Thursday joined the Senate’s top Republican in suggesting an immigration overhaul this year is unlikely, citing a lack of trust among the GOP toward President Obama.”
I’m sure the GOP doesn’t trust Obama, but that summary overlooks another glaring trust issue, namely that the constituents of House Republicans don’t trust GOP reps not to cave on illegal alien amnesty. And they especially don’t trust you, Speaker Boehner.
The Republican establishment and their big business donors have gotten it into their head that illegal alien amnesty is just a swell idea, and widespread and near universal rejection of amnesty by actual voting Americans doesn’t seem to be able to dislodge this idee fixe.
If you ask actual Americans how important immigration reform, it’s not the first, or fifth, or even tenth priority. People are much more concerned with the lack of jobs in the Obama Economy, and how ObamaCare is raising their premiums or ending their coverage entirely.
Want to earn voters trust? Stop trying to sneak in illegal alien amnesty by the backdoor or in smoke-filled rooms. There should be no immigration legislation until Obama is out of office and current laws are enforced. Period.
John Boehner is right. We don’t trust Obama. But we also don’t trust him, or the rest of the Republican establishment, not to sell out their constituents for a pocketful of promises.
Normally I would applaud a member of the Democratic Party supporting Second Amendment rights. But Wendy Davis supporting open carry?
Right. Pull the other one.
After all, this is the same Wendy Davis who voted against concealed carry by authorized CHL holders on college campuses, keeping Texas campuses fictive “gun free zones.” She also tried to do what Austin is trying to do: force gun shows to impose additional background checks on private citizens.
The fact that Davis hasn’t been universally opposed to gun rights may be explained by the fact that she’s a state senator in Texas, one with significant suburban and rural constituents and who only won her last election with 51% of the vote and thus one for which a hard-left gun control position would be a career-ending exercise. It’s also possible that, like Arlen Specter, another former Republican, she may have no fixed political positions whatsoever beyond the belief she should hold political office (or perhaps none beyond support for unlimited abortion).
Davis’ open carry pander is the worst kind of pander for a politician: a ham-handed, ineffective and incompetent one. Since Davis is already running as a liberal darling, and Abbott has already embraced open carry, there’s no chance this move will win her real converts among single-issue Second Amendment supporters, but a very real chance it will alienate her national liberal fundraising base.
Wendy Davis is a credible leader on Second Amendment rights the way Danny DeVito is a credible NBA center.
The last few weeks have not been kind to Wendy Davis.
Since announcing very respectable fundraising totals in early January, it’s been all downhill since then.
First came the revelations of the many falsehoods in her biography, then doubling down on some falsehoods.
Even the lefty Texas Observer said “the Wendy Davis operation is about the worst at media relations that I’ve ever seen. Her team’s mismanagement of the press is damaging her candidacy.” (This will not be a surprise to those reading this blog.)
Also, her decent fundraising numbers appear to have evaporated:
Apples to apples (campaign vs. campaign: Jan. 1-23), Greg Abbott raised $3.1+ million, while Wendy Davis raised $288,674.
— Will Franklin (@WILLisms) February 4, 2014
Greg Abbott has roughly 3x as much cash on hand as Wendy Davis + Battleground Texas + Texas Victory Committee combined.
— Will Franklin (@WILLisms) February 4, 2014
Of course, it doesn’t help her campaign that Davis has expensive tastes.
Everything about her campaign suggests she was woefully unprepared to run a statewide race in Texas.
Via Will Shetterly comes the Social Justice Warrior Argument Generator. You can generate entire blogs or just Tumbler insults! Why go into six figures of debt for a Womyn’s Studies Degree to make your prose unreadable when a computer can do it for you for free?
If you’ve always wanted to auto-generate phrases like “atphobic misogynists like you deserve to die, you white-privileged ableist!!!!” or “you should quit erasing transracial & skoliosensual-identifying polykins, you middle class-elitist fascist!!!!”, now you can!
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If you’re following the story of the decline and fall of Detroit, then this Kevin D. Williamson article over on NRO is a must.
Some nuggets:
Detroit has the highest child-mortality rate of any American city, exceeding that of many parts of what we used to call the Third World. The rate of death before the age of 18 in Detroit is nearly three times New York City’s, and its infant-mortality rate exceeds that of Botswana. The main cause of premature death among the children of Detroit is premature birth — the second is murder. While the city’s murder rate among adults is nothing to be proud of, more horrifying is the fact that between 30 and 40 children are murdered in Detroit in a typical year.
Detroit represents nothing less than progressivism in its final stage of decadence: Worried that unionized public-sector workers are looting your city? Detroit is already bankrupt, unable to provide basic services expected of it — half the streetlights don’t work, transit has been reduced, neighborhoods go unpatrolled. Worried that public-sector unions are ruining your schools? Detroit’s were ruined a generation or more ago, the results of which are everywhere to be seen in the city. Worried that Obamacare is going to ruin our health-care markets? General-practice physicians are hard to find in Detroit, and those willing to accept Medicaid — which covers a great swath of Detroit’s population — are rarer still. Worried about the permissive culture? Four out of five of Detroit’s children are born out of wedlock. Worried that government is making it difficult for businesses to thrive? Many people in Detroit have to travel miles to find a grocery store. This is the endgame of welfare economics: What good is Medicaid if there are no doctors? What good are food stamps where there is no food? What good are “free” schools if you’re so afraid to send your children there that you feel it prudent to arm them first?
Detroit is what Democrats do.
Read the whole thing.
The Kronies has already been blogged by half the rightospehre, but it’s so well done that I wanted to post it here on the off-chance you haven’t watched it yet:
This week’s most prominent example of baseless progressive accusations of racism come from an MSNBC tweet, now deleted, which claimed that the rightwing would hate a Cheerios ad with a biracial family. The tweeter was fired, but it’s just one in a long line of baseless accusations of racism and vitriolic hate from the Augean stables of MSNBC.
But the best part? More Republicans have mixed-race families than Democrats.
Using the logic liberals so often deploy, this “proves” that Democrats are more racist than Republicans.
On the same topic, here’s acerbic, articulate and frequently perceptive British atheist Pat Condell on the subject of progressive racism:
A few money quotes:
“In progressive hands, the word racist has become the verbal equivalent of a chemical weapon, or a dum-dum bullet, used spitefully, disproportionately, as a first resort, and without the slightest justification.”
“It seems to me that the people who constantly invoke skin color for no reason, as progressives do to the point of obsession, are the ones who actually have a problem with it. They see racism everywhere because they’re riddled with it themselves.”
“You see, progressives don’t really believe that non-white people are equal, or are capable of being equal on their own merits.”
Watch the whole thing.