May 2013
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Because We All Need a Little Humor →
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Moderating a Wing Nut →
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Lest We Forget . . . →
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Apple's Tax Saga Shows Why We Need to Get Rid of... →
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Good Question →
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Seven Tools for Thinking →
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For Fans of Obamacare, This News Qualifies as... →
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Metastasis of the IRS Scandal →
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Moving Again
It seems like only yesterday that I located all of my blogging at Tumblr. I like the platform, and would prefer to do all of my blogging on it, but unfortunately, Tumblr doesn’t play nice with Chrome when I want to do long-form blogging. This presents a problem, as Chrome is by far the best browser on my computer.
The solution I have settled on is to continue to have an active presence on...
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"Democracy" in Iran
This is what
passes for it. Color me unimpressed:
Iran’s constitutional watchdog on Tuesday banned former
president and opposition-backed Akbar
Hashemi Rafsanjani from next month’s elections, a move expected to
undermine the credibility of the poll.
The Guardian Council, which vets all potential candidates for
loyalty to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader, and the regime,
also banned...
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Savage Responses to a Natural Disaster
So yesterday, a tornado ripped through Moore, Oklahoma, killing “at least 91 people,” with “20 of them children.” To say that this is horrifying is to understate matters.
The calamity led blogger and public policy professor Michael O’Hare to write this post at the “Reality-Based Community” (try not to laugh). In its entirety, the original post read as follows:
Oklahoma is an oil state....
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The Latest on the IRS Scandal
Once again, I want to mention that I am really sick of writing about this issue. But it deserves the maximum amount of attention possible.
First off, it would appear that the Obama administration knew that the IRS was targeting conservative groups for extra scrutiny back in the 2012 campaign:
There were new questions Saturday night concerning if anyone in the White House was aware of the...
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Revolting
Up until recently, I have had the distinct pleasure of never having heard of E.W. Jackson. Too bad my lucky streak couldn’t continue.
The title of this blog post describes what I think of Jackson and his “thoughts.” I’ll go ahead and add that if people like Jackson become the face of the Republican party, then people like me will go find another party to associate with....
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Oh, Look. ANOTHER Scandal.
If this story doesn’t end up impacting the 2016 presidential election, then I am going to call shenanigans on the political process. And you should too:
The State Department, under Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton, created an arrangement for her longtime aide and confidante Huma Abedin to work for private clients as a consultant while serving as a top adviser in the department.
Ms. Abedin...
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The Public Train Wreck that Is the IRS Scandal
Just when you think you have seen it all …
We’ll start by noting yet more evidence that the IRS’s audits of political groups was entirely inequitable in nature:
When the Barack H. Obama Foundation sought tax-exempt status to raise money for good works in Kenya, the Internal Revenue Service provided quick help.
The IRS approved charitable status for the foundation, which was...
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More Scandals (Spying on the AP Edition)
Yes, I would like to write about things other than governmental malfeasance. But we go to blog with the administration we have, not the administration we wish to have.
So, let’s discuss the AP spying scandal. In general, the story revolves around the fact that Eric Holder had a very bad day yesterday:
As his Justice Department faces bipartisan outrage for , Attorney Gen. Eric Holder says...
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More Scandals (Benghazi Edition)
Remember when we were told by all and sundry that Benghazi was a nothing-to-see-here-move-along type of scandal? Yeah, that was funny:
Four days after the 9/11 anniversary attacks in Benghazi, Libya, the U.S. intelligence community knew very little about who did it, how it happened, and whether it was planned or not, according to 100 pages of internal emails released Wednesday afternoon by the...
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I Wrote Too Soon on the IRS Scandal Today
Because now, even more information has come out.
Start with the fact that we have yet another resignation:
President Obama on Thursday appointed senior budget adviser Daniel Werfel as the acting commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service, as that agency manages a scandal stemming from its targeting of conservative groups. The appointment is effective May 22.
More changes in the IRS...
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The IRS Scandal Gets Worse and Worse
I have a lot to write about.
I’ll start with the fact that the president has asked for the resignation of Steven Miller, the acting director of the IRS. There was a lot of tough talk from the president about how the IRS’s actions were supposedly inexcusable and intolerable, but note that the IRS makes it very difficult to actually bring it to account for any abuses it engages in:
...
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“From his many writings about his own experiences, we know that he was determined...”
– What Goethe teaches us about a healthy relationship with money (via explore-blog)
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Find Friends and Find Them Quickly
Because loneliness might be lethal:
… Just as we once knew that infectious diseases killed, but didn’t know that germs spread them, we’ve known intuitively that loneliness hastens death, but haven’t been able to explain how. Psychobiologists can now show that loneliness sends misleading hormonal signals, rejiggers the molecules on genes that govern behavior, and wrenches a slew of other...
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Police Misconduct on Steroids
I support law enforcement and in general, I think that police officers do dangerous work very well and very professionally. But this is an outrage:
When Maria Melendez emerged from Kern Medical Center in Bakersfield, Calif., just before midnight last Tuesday, she said, she heard screams that have kept her awake at night for an entire week.
A half-dozen Kern County sheriff’s deputies were across...
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How Warp Speed Could Become a Reality
All you ever wanted to know.
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Dale Carpenter on Marriage Equality in Minnesota
Very much worth reading:
This is a moment to celebrate for those of us who believe that gay families can and should be protected through marriage, and do not see any evidence or reason to believe opposite-sex marriages will be hurt in the process. Nobody’s freedoms have been taken away. But some of my friends, including a couple who’ve been together for 26 years, will finally be able to...
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Sneaky. And Wrong.
Cities and counties in Florida are getting more money in their coffers. Want to know how? I’ll tell you; they are shortening yellow light intervals so that more drivers are made to run red lights, and fined as a consequence.
If this doesn’t offend you, then I don’t know what to say.
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Jon Stewart on the Obama Scandals
You’re best off watching this at home—it is somewhat not safe for work (thought most of the naughty words have been bleeped out).
The Daily Show with Jon Stewart Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Indecision Political Humor,The Daily Show on Facebook
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Inequitable Treatment: IRS Style
Behold the consequences of targeting one group of 501(c)(4)s, while another group is completely left alone:
In February 2010, the Champaign Tea Party in Illinois received approval of its tax-exempt status from the IRS in 90 days, no questions asked.
That was the month before the Internal Revenue Service started singling out Tea Party groups for special treatment. There wouldn’t be another...
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Surprising Precisely No One
Media Matters (which is very definitely on the port side of the partisan divide) has come up with talking points to defend the Obama administration’s decision to spy on Associated Press reporters. Because apparently, Obamaphilia is more important than protecting privacy, the work of journalists, and First Amendment freedoms in general.
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IRS Scandal Commentary: Separating the Wheat from...
There is a lot of nonsense being written on the IRS scandal—see here for nonsense from a reliably ridiculous source—but Professor Rick Hasen (who actually knows something about election and campaign finance law) has no problem whatsoever calling the IRS’s actions “terrible”:
Let’s not make excuses for the IRS. The agency shouldn’t have subjected conservative groups...
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Scandal Watch
Given all of the new developments that seem to be occurring regarding Obama administration scandals, it’s a safe bet that five minutes after this blog post gets published, it will be out of date. But at least we can record the state of the administration’s scandals for the moment … until we discover, of course, that things are a lot worse than we thought they might be.
First...
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THIS Is a Free Market?
Certain people in North Carolina desperately need to read some Mandeville, Smith, Hayek and (Milton) Friedman:
From the state that brought you the nation’s first ban on climate science comes another legislative gem: a bill that would prohibit automakers from selling their cars in the state.
The proposal, which the Raleigh News & Observer reports was unanimously approved by the state’s...
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The Internet Is a Wonderful Place
There are reviews of prisons on Yelp. Yes, you read that right.
(Via Sasha Volokh.)
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The More One Delves into the IRS Scandal, the...
Apparently, teaching the Constitution, being “worried about government spending, debt or taxes,” and wanting to “make America a better place to live” was sufficient to get one targeted by the IRS.
Consider the following recent comment from President Obama:
Unfortunately, you’ve grown up hearing voices that incessantly warn of government as nothing more than some...
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An Open Letter
TO: Stephen Hawking
FROM: Pejman Yousefzadeh
RE: Hypocrisy
Dear Professor Hawking:
So, when are your principles going to lead you to get rid of that Intel Core i7 chip?
The whole world wonders.
Yours truly,
Pejman Yousefzadeh
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Concurring with David Pogue
I too endorse Feedly. I should add that its iPhone application is excellent—yet another reason to make the switch now that Google Reader is (sadly) going the way of the dinosaur.
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More Evidence that the IRS Needs to Be...
Seriously:
Senior Internal Revenue Service officials knew agents were targeting tea party groups as early as 2011, according to a draft of an inspector general’s report obtained by The Associated Press that seemingly contradicts public statements by the IRS commissioner.
The IRS apologized Friday for what it acknowledged was “inappropriate” targeting of conservative political...
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Clive Crook on Paul Krugman and Brad DeLong
Crook has taken their measure:
Brad DeLong has commented on my beef with Paul Krugman. I’m reluctant to engage, to be honest, because his post exemplifies the intemperance I’m addressing. Once an admirer, I gave up on his commentary a long time ago. You get a sense of the problem from his post about me. He illustrates it with a picture of a clown. He also wants me fired. “Bloomberg has some...
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Now Playing Politics: The Internal Revenue Service
Just imagine what the media response would have been if liberal groups got targeted like this during the Bush administration:
The Internal Revenue Service on Friday apologized for targeting groups with “tea party” or “patriot” in their names, confirming long-standing accusations by some conservatives that their applications for tax-exempt status were being improperly delayed and scrutinized.
...
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Remember Benghazi?
The New Yorker is not generally known as a right-wing rag—it is very much an Obamaphile publication, in fact—but even it can’t deny that there was something very wrong with the Obama administration’s response to the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi:
On Friday, ABC News’s Jonathan Karl revealed the details of the editing process for the C.I.A.’s talking points...
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“… Suffice it to say the Left hates the Koch brothers. The New York Times...”
– Jonah Goldberg 