Another Blow

Posted on 10 April 2014 by eehines

…in the Progressives’ war on diversity, this one struck against the concept of free speech.

Brandeis University in Massachusetts announced Tuesday that it had withdrawn the planned awarding of an honorary degree to Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a staunch critic of Islam and its treatment of women….

Their “rationale?”

She is a compelling public figure and advocate for women’s rights, and we respect and appreciate her work to protect and defend the rights of women and girls throughout the world. That said, we cannot overlook certain of her past statements that are inconsistent with Brandeis University’s core values.

This is a preview of Another Blow. Read the full post (232 words, estimated 56 secs reading time)

Hotel Maryland

Posted on 10 April 2014 by eehines

You can check in, but you can’t check out.

Netflix’ show, House of Cards, is about cut-throat politics at its worst, it’s hugely successful, and it’s filmed in Maryland. And therein lies the rub.

The show’s producers, Media Rights Capital, now want a larger set of tax credits, given that success. If they can’t get an increase, MRC says it’ll move its filming location to another state where it can get a better deal for its proven product. Fair enough. The filming produces income for the state’s economy and for the state, even with the current credit structure, and that success is expected to continue.

This is a preview of Hotel Maryland. Read the full post (328 words, estimated 1:19 mins reading time)

Another 2nd Amendment Threat from DoJ

Posted on 9 April 2014 by eehines

All for the very best of intentions, of course.

This time Attorney General Eric Holder wants to use bracelets that must be worn by lawful gun users as a means of electronically tying the firearm to its lawful owner.

I think that one of the things that we learned when we were trying to get passed those common sense reforms last year, Vice President Biden and I had a meeting with a group of technology people and we talked about how guns can be made more safe.

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Disarming While Our Enemies Grow Stronger and Get More Aggressive

Posted on 9 April 2014 by eehines

The Pentagon said Tuesday it would sharply cut the number of US submarine and bomber-launched nuclear weapons, and preserve most of the nation’s land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles to comply with the New START treaty with Russia.

Never mind that the subs and bombers lend an enormous flexibility of response that’s utterly lacking in the missile force. Never mind, also, that the submarine force is the most survivable (so far) of our nuclear forces.

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Helping the Low Wage Worker

Posted on 8 April 2014 by eehines

There are lots of sources for this help; I’m only going to talk about how government can help (yes, we can and should help the least among us, and yes, Conservatives, government does have a role, if limited: there are things government can do, even here, better than the private sector). The trick here is to prevent government mission creep and an ever-increasing government role—a difficulty that in itself makes a powerful, and not entirely illegitimate, argument against any government role at all.

This is a preview of Helping the Low Wage Worker. Read the full post (902 words, estimated 3:36 mins reading time)

Spending on Education

Posted on 8 April 2014 by eehines

…and education results turn out to be wholly independent of each other—that is, spending more and more hasn’t produced better and better outcomes for our students—it hasn’t had any effect at all. It’s been a waste of our tax dollars. This is clearly indicated by Cato Institute‘s Andrew Coulson’s report State Education Trends: Academic Performance and Spending over the Past 40 Years. What Coulson found is illustrated by this statement early in the report:

The state-by-state results of this investigation are reported in the subsections that follow, but the overall picture can be summarized in a single value: 0.075. That is the correlation between the spending and academic performance changes of the past 40 years, for all 50 states.

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The Progressives’ War on Freedom and Diversity

Posted on 7 April 2014 by eehines

The forced resignation of (ex-)Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich over a viewpoint he held of which Progressives disapproved—in the name of diversity of opinion, yet.

(Ex-)Harvard President Larry Summers, forced out because he disapproved of a rap album that was liked by Progressives, and because he suggested the under-representation of women in science and engineering might be due to differences in aptitude—Progressives insist that equality includes identical capacity.

Mark Steyn, National Review, and the Competitive Enterprise Institute sued for defamation by Michael Mann for ridiculing Mann’s hockey stick and for disparaging the anthropogenic “aspect” of Global Warming—Progressives consider this settled science so much they even tout the efficacy of lying in support of it.

This is a preview of The Progressives’ War on Freedom and Diversity. Read the full post (435 words, estimated 1:44 mins reading time)

Ukrainian Independence

Posted on 7 April 2014 by eehines

Ukraine’s overwhelming vote for independence from Russia in 1991, including those oblasts in the southeast where Ukrainians of Russian ethnicity live and the Crimea oblast, whose population is majority Ukrainians of Russian ethnicity, has been confirmed by a March 2014 Gallup poll, a poll that covered all of Ukraine, including occupied Crimea.

Ukrainians of all backgrounds and from every corner of the country reject Vladimir Putin’s decision to send Russian troops to Ukraine to protect Russian-speaking Ukrainians, with 81% of those surveyed expressing opposition to the move and 13% in favor.

And note especially:

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Calibrated?

Posted on 6 April 2014 by eehines

Secretary of State John Kerry says he’s going to reevaluate US’ participation in the “peace” talks between Israel and the Palestinians. With his centerpiece diplomatic effort failing as sadly laughably as his failure vis-à-vis Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and subsequent occupation of a major part of it, Kerry now says this about his “peace” talks:

We are going to evaluate very carefully exactly where this is and where it might possibly be able to go….

And, with this administration’s insistence on the amorality of moral equivalence, Kerry added this:

This is a preview of Calibrated?. Read the full post (139 words, estimated 33 secs reading time)

Jobs Mandates

Posted on 5 April 2014 by eehines

Nearby is a post concerning the jobs impact of Obamacare costs being imposed on employers. Two other labor costs being considered for imposition by our Know Better, Progressive administration are minimum wage increases, and now an increase in the “minimum” wage of salaried managers.

Never mind what such a thing would do to productive company cultures:

…making more people eligible for overtime pay could remove the inherent incentive for lower-level managers to hustle to earn a promotion.

This is a preview of Jobs Mandates. Read the full post (281 words, estimated 1:07 mins reading time)

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