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In 1955 Air Force General Curtis LeMay, Commander of the Strategic Air Command, built the service’s first base hobby shop in Offutt, NE. His vision was to provide a facility with tools, material, and resources to allow Airmen the opportunity to repair, modify, or completely rebuild their personal automobiles. The first hobby shop was an overwhelming success and soon become popular among all ranks, including LeMay himself. Auto hobby shops soon proliferated across all SAC bases and eventually, along with their sibling wood hobby shops, to most American military bases around the globe. Many of these workshops eventually formalized their training, so service members could achieve recognized certifications for their efforts.

These hobby shops were widely viewed as constructive outlets for military personnel to learn interesting, practical skills and to make positive use of off-duty time by tapping into, or fostering, their inherent desire to “tinker” with things. By the late 1990s they began to lose their appeal and many were closed for financial reasons. The causes for their demise is unclear, whether because cars simply became too complex for the “shade tree mechanic” to repair or as a reflection of American society, where servicemen and women would rather pay someone else to do work they no longer wanted to do themselves.

I do not believe the inherent desire to tinker with things, or using individual experimentation as a learning tool, has gone away. It may, however, be occurring today in new forms. Because the cost of technology continues to decline, it has created an environment where sophisticated tools and devices are now at the fingertips of the average citizen, a condition commonly referred to as the democratization of science and technology.

For the past several years the White House has been championing the “Maker Movement” to stimulate innovation across America. Cottage industries in coding, drones, electronics, robotics, and 3D printing are sprouting up across the country in reflection of and to support this renewed interest. It is clear that the naval services are tapping into the resurgence of the tinkerer as well.

The first naval “Fab Lab” was created in Norfolk in 2015. This joint venture with DARPA and MIT provided sophisticated manufacturing equipment, materials, and world class training to Sailors in the fleet. The fundamental premise for this project was that by putting tools and capabilities into the hands of Sailors closest to our operational problems, they would develop new and innovative solutions. Since its inception, for example, LT Todd Coursey has achieved significant results, expanding interest and demonstrating the utility of this capability across the fleet. His outstanding efforts at Norfolk were recognized by the White House and Secretary Mabus. SECNAV’s Task Force Innovation has funded additional Fab Labs and over the next two years additional facilities, some of them mobile, will be operational at Navy and Marine Corps bases around the globe.

An extension of the FAB LAB concept is the Expeditionary Manufacturing Mobile Test Bed (EXMAN) project led by the Marines and SPAWAR. EXMAN offers the ability to digitally manufacture parts in the field, often at a reduced cost and in much less time. This past week EXMAN was successfully demonstrated to General Neller, a strong advocate of fielding these new facilities with the operational forces. This capability has the potential to fundamentally change how we do battlefield logistics, by making items instead of buying, storing and shipping them across the world.

3D manufacturing is not the only field where the tinkerer movement is making its military comeback. The Naval Postgraduate School built its Robo Dojo to allow students and visiting Sailors and Marines the opportunity to tinker with robots and control systems. In the future it is likely we will see coding bootcamps springing up on naval bases as well. These fora provide the opportunity for Sailors and Marines to learn basic coding skills and eventually build smart phone apps or virtual games. Ideally, all of these complementary capabilities will be connected in an integrated ecosystem, properly resourced and supported by senior leaders, and available everywhere.

These emerging capabilities fundamentally draw upon LeMay’s vision – provide the resources, tools and safe spaces to our people and allow them to cultivate their talents and creativity. We have no idea of the great things they will achieve when allowed to tinker with their own bold ideas, such as STGC Ben Lebron.

The Chief had a vision for a new decision aid to improve ASW operations on the USS Fitzgerald. After finding a JO who taught him some coding skills, Chief LeBron designed the Single Leg Bearing Range program, for which he subsequently won a 2015 SECNAV Innovation Award. His software substantially improves ASW sonar solutions by more than half.(SECNAV granted Chief Lebron a waiver to enroll in the NPS Master’s ASW distance learning program in addition to his formal award.)

The military has long practiced such problem solving. In an examination of culture’s impact on military innovation, Dima Adamsky notes the cultural difference between the US and Soviet militaries during the Cold War. One significant contrast was their approaches to technological adaptation. The Soviets would develop concepts and strategy for use ahead of delivering a technology, whereas the US military usually had the technology and then often took a decade to figure out how to turn it into an operational advantage. We may be experiencing the same phenomenon here with the maker movement.

As mentioned, today’s democratization of science and technology is enabling this tinkering resurgence to occur – not only for us, but for our adversaries. Recently, scholars CAPT Mark Hagerott (ret) and Col TX Hammes (ret), outlined their thoughtful visions of the future operating environment, where naval forces will have to contend with the challenges posed by a new reality of destructive, technology-based capabilities operated in very decentralized and unpredictable ways by our adversaries. The naval services must lead this wave, adjusting our strategy not only to counter these decentralized threats, but to use the skills of our creative workforce to create an operational advantage over our adversaries.

We are entering an era where the operational environment will be characterized by complexity, uncertainty, and unpredictability; to succeed, our naval forces must respond in kind. Simply relying on exquisite weapon systems and massed fire power will be insufficient. One way to overcome this challenge is to fully exploit the ingenuity and talents of our Sailors and Marines. The burgeoning naval tinkering movement is just one step in creating a fundamentally important operational capability that is already resident in the naval services. Failing to harness our tinkerers, and recognize their work, will be to the nation’s detriment.

Retired U.S. Army Lt. Col. Ralph Peters called President Obama “a total pussy” during a live interview Monday for what he views as his impotent response to the threat of Islamic extremist terrorism.

Peters, a Fox News military analyst, appeared on Stuart Varney’s Fox Business program to respond to Obama’s Sunday night Oval Office address on the threat of terrorism, a speech that was widely panned. Peters, a fierce critic of Obama’s national security policies, was visibly angry as he blasted the speech.

Peters said he was taken aback by Obama’s continued references to Americans not giving into their fears.

“Mr. President, we’re not afraid! We’re angry! We’re pissed off! We’re furious!” Peters said. “We want you to react. We want you to do something. You’re afraid! I mean, this guy is such a total pussy, it’s stunning! We, the American people, who he does not know in any intimate sort of manner, we want action. We want action against Islamic State.”

Peters went on to say that Obama had done more damage to American police departments than to the Islamic State and had restrained the U.S. military.

“This is a president who doesn’t want to hurt our enemies,” Peters said. “This is a president who cares more about thugs in Guantanamo or thugs in Ferguson, Missouri, than he does about law-abiding American citizens and their right to live in safety and peace.”

Varney tried to cut in a couple times after Peters used the foul language.

“I can tell you are super angry, and I asked you what your reaction was, but I’ve got to call you … you can’t use language like that on the program, OK?” Varney said.

Peters muttered, “I’m sorry.”

Later on, Varney again admonished Peters for using “very strong language about the President of the United States,” and Peters again apologized.

“Yes, Stuart, I do apologize for giving into my anger … but I feel the American people understand where I’m coming from on this,” Peters said. “My choice of words was incorrect, but my sentiment, I think, is shared by many.”

The clip was first noted by Media Matters for America, a left-wing media watchdog. We appreciate them flagging this important piece of commentary.

The post Ralph Peters Calls Obama a ‘Total Pussy’ on Live Television appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

The Pennsylvania state Senate passed a bill that would ban the government transfer of public sector worker dues to political organizations on Wednesday.

The Senate voted 26-23 to pass SB 501 after a short debate. The bill’s sponsor, Sen. John Eichelberger (R.) said the vote was a victory for individuals over political interests.

“This is what the majority of union members want and what the public deserves,” Eichelberger said in a release. “It protects members from being forced through the union to fund political candidates or causes they don’t support.”

The bill became known as Mary’s Law, named after Pennsylvania College of Technology professor Mary Trometter who filed suit to stop her local union from directly financing political causes with which she disagreed. Tormetter complained to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) in November after receiving a Pennsylvania State Education Association mailer implying that all teachers supported Democratic candidate Tom Wolf.

“As a family member of an educator, you know they are devoting their career to helping others … Please join Mary in voting for Tom Wolf for Governor on November 4th,” the letter said.

Wolf beat Republican Gov. Tom Corbett by 10 points.

The case drew attention from lawmakers because the government automatically deducts union dues from its workers’ paychecks; some of those funds are eventually used for political advocacy. Union PACs spent nearly $8.5 million in 2014, while the six largest public sector unions reported about $7 million in “political activities and lobbying” expenditures, according to an analysis from the Commonwealth Foundation, a pro-market think tank.

Mary’s Law draws a clearer distinction between money used for representational activities, such as grievance procedures and collective bargaining and political activities. Workers will still have the ability to volunteer dues to political causes, but the government will no longer automatically deduct that portion of the funds.

“Paycheck protection ensures public resources will not be used for politics. Government union leaders should not be able to fund their political agendas on the backs of taxpayers,” foundation vice president of policy analysisNathan Benefield said in an email to the Washington Free Beacon. “This legislation empowers teachers and state workers, giving them a greater voice in their union and control over their own dues dollars.”

Senate President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati (R.) said in a statement that the legislation will promote transparency and avoid the appearance of corruption since the government will no longer have a role in distributing campaign-related money.

“It is crucial that electoral politics and official government business have clear separation and that taxpayer resources are in no way used for campaign purposes,” Scarnati said in a release.

While the Senate vote broke down along party lines, with three Republicans joining Democrats, the bill enjoys broad public support. A September poll from the foundation found that 75 percent of Republicans, 59 percent of Democrats, and 69 percent of Independents support the concept of removing the government from the process.

House Majority Whip Rep. Bryan Cutler (R.) has sponsored similar legislation in the House for years. He told the Free Beacon that the issue first drew his attention when a local teacher complained that she was being forced to sponsor political speech that didn’t represent her beliefs. He said that Wednesday’s vote would help drive the issue in the house.

“It’s necessary because there has to be a clear line between government assets and political money,” he said in a phone interview. “The issue and the idea really sell themselves. I expect a robust debate and look forward to educating my colleagues and the public.”

The House will begin debate on the Senate bill, as well as Cutler’s version, when it reconvenes on Monday.

The post PA Moves to Ban Government Union Political Funding appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

1. Chart of the Day (above). Based on data recently released by the BLS (here and here), the chart above shows the top ten most dangerous US jobs (based on the fatal injury rate per 100,000 workers) and the percent of male workers in those occupations. Compared to the average fatality rate for all workers of 3.3 fatalities per 100,000 workers, the ten occupations above are about 5.5 times (construction) to 33 times more dangerous (logging) than average. Except for “farmers and ranchers” at 76.2% male, men represent more than 90% of the workers in all of the other 9 most dangerous occupations. Probably safe to say that the feminists and gender activists will make an exception for demanding perfect gender equality when it comes to workplace fatalities?

2. Venn Diagram of the Day (above). Are gender differences in average outcomes important or not?

3. Map of the Day (above). The Most Popular Baby Names In Each State Last Year, via Huffington Post.

4. Quotation of the Day, is from Thomas Sowell’s, writing in today’s IBD “Pope Wrongly Blames Capitalism For Ills Of Poor“:

Any serious look at the history of human beings over the millennia shows that the species began in poverty. It is not poverty, but prosperity, that needs explaining. Poverty is automatic, but prosperity requires many things…

…..

A scholar specializing in the study of Latin America said that the official poverty level in the U.S. is the upper middle class in Mexico. The much criticized market economy of the U.S. has done far more for the poor than the ideology of the left.

Pope Francis’ own native Argentina was once among the leading economies of the world, before it was ruined by the kind of ideological notions he is now promoting around the world.

5. Podcast of the Day. There is only one country in the world where it’s legal sell a kidney — Iran. In this EconTalk podcast, Tina Rosenberg of The New York Times talks with host Russ Roberts about the Iranian kidney market–how it works, its strengths and weaknesses, and whether its lessons apply to the United States or elsewhere.

6. Cartoon of the Day (above). With enough government distortions and interventions, you’ll get “socialism on the installment plan.”

7. Quotation of the Day II, from Cuban blogger Yoani Sanchez writing about preparations for the Pope’s visit there today:

Havana preens for the arrival of Pope Francis. The facades along the streets are touched up where the Bishop of Rome will pass by and popular humor has derisively re-baptized the path “The Sacred Way.”

They have not been able to camouflage the people, however, with optimism. The strokes of the painters, rushing to meet their schedule, don’t cover the skin or the worries. From early in the morning, Habaneros go out with their bags hanging from their shoulders looking for food. “Not even the pope coming has put something in the shops,” complains a woman on the corner of Manrique and Salud.

Francis isn’t going to pass by the empty refrigerators in the stores, so the touch up doesn’t include pretending that there is food, or disguising the shortages. Thus we are saved from the cartons of chicken thighs and the powdered milk extended with sand! There are no cosmetics to cover up the economic downtown we are experiencing. The market stands and shelves remain indoors, far from all the pomp of the papal entourage. Our Sacred Way is hollow, purely a stage set, with the crudest props, the least believable.

8. Expect More of This, a Lot More: Ernst & Young Removes College Degree Requirement from Entry Criteria Because There’s ‘No Evidence’ That a University Degree Equals Success. Instead, the company will use online assessments to judge the potential of applicants.

9. There’s Hope for America. A town in Iowa just voted to lower the minimum wage.

10. Video of the Day (or maybe in the tradition of Don Boudreaux’s series of posts titled “Cleaned by Capitalism” this could be part of a new series of posts titled “Saved by Capitalism“). In the video below, and in this article, you’ll learn how a “Young Girl Breathes Easier with Help from a 3D Printed Trachea.”

The post Monday evening links (very late) appeared first on AEI.

When corruption is part of the Washington DC corruption, all departments must be examined and scrubbed from top to bottom. 

from Judicial Watch:

The U.S. government’s $1.6 billion vocational program for at-risk youth was created decades ago to end poverty by offering poor teenagers free job training, but it’s a seriously mismanaged hotbed of violence rife with violent crimes that are routinely covered up by officials in charge.

The crisis appears to have plateaued recently when four youths participating in the program, known as Job Corps, brutally murdered a fellow student in a Miami, Florida job training center. The area’s mainstream newspaper reported that the Job Corps students confessed to luring a 17-year-old to the woods, where he was repeatedly hacked with a machete and forced into a shallow grave as he lay mortally wounded. The sickening details came right out of the police report. Months earlier a murder occurred at a Job Corps facility in St. Louis, Missouri.

The recent crimes are part of a much broader problem within the Job Corps, which serves about 60,000 low-income students ages 16-24 at 125 centers nationwide. The Department of Labor (DOL) administers Job Corps, which has also been plagued with fraud and corruption over the years, and insists it has a strict policy forbidding any kind of violence or illegal drugs. The reality is however, that crime is rampant at local centers around the country and seldom do cases get reported or adequately investigated. Often officials sweep incidents under the rug or downplay them to prevent the offenders from getting booted out of the taxpayer-funded program.

In fact, earlier this year a scathing DOL Inspector General report blasted the agency for failing to take action involving lax enforcement of Job Corps disciplinary policies that had been well documented in previous investigations. The “continuing deficiencies” have allowed “potentially dangerous students in the program,” investigators wrote, further revealing that an astounding 35,021 serious misconduct incidents occurred at 11 centers alone. In many cases serious infractions were not reported or were improperly downgraded to lesser infractions, the agency watchdog found. They include assault, illegal drugs and fighting among the students.

read the rest

As we have said many times on this blog, welfare does not alleviate poverty—it simply makes people comfortable in it.

1. Chart of the Day (above). According to mid-year data recently released by the Brewers Association, there are now 3,739 breweries operating in the US as of June 30, the highest US brewery count since 1874, more than 140 years ago. Compared to the January-June period last year, the number of US breweries has increased by 699, which translates to almost two new breweries opening every day over the last year! Additionally, there are 1,755 new breweries in the planning stage which could push the number of domestic breweries above 5,000 in the next few years. Great stagnation? Not in the beer world, it’s the Golden Age of Beer in America!

2. Who-d a-Thunk It? At the same time capitalist America is experiencing a beer renaissance with an explosion of craft beers, breweries and brew pubs, socialist Venezuela is running out of beer?

3. Markets in Everything. NYC Airbnb is a parked van, no electricity, no bathroom, but with a real bed and a spectacular view of the Manhattan skyline from across the East River in Queens for only $22 per night.

4. Amazing Map of the Day (above). The same number of Americans live in the orange region as in the red region.

5. Chart of the Day II (above). Remember the “mancession,” the term that started being used back in 2008 to describe the disproportionately negative effects of the Great Recession on men compared to women? Well, it hasn’t gotten much media attention lately, but the chart above shows that it’s still very much a reality. Compared to November 2007, the month before the official start of the Great Recession, male employment is only 693,000 jobs (and less than 1%) above the pre-recession level while women have gained more than twice that number of jobs – there are 1,550,000 more women working today than in 2007. The lingering effects of the “mancession” is also reflected in the fact that the unemployment rate for women has been below the rate for men in 103 out of the last 106 months. Perhaps this phenomena explains one reason for the unadjusted gender wage gap — women earn lower wages on average compared to men, but tend to work in industries like education and health care where employment is more stable, especially during economic downturns. In contrast, men gravitate towards industries like construction and manufacturing that pay higher wages, but are much more vulnerable to job losses during a recession and have a slower rebound during a recovery.

6. Table of the Day (above). Some interesting research from the New York Fed (“When Women Earn More Than Men“) shows that for recent college graduates ages 22-27 that there is a “female wage premium” for 15 different majors (circled above) that ranges from 1% (chemical and electrical engineering, and education) to 16% for social services. But by mid-career (ages 35-45) the female wage premiums reverse in all 15 different majors and becomes a male wage premium. The authors offer several explanations for that wage premium reversal:

Another possibility is that pay differences arise for reasons related to raising a family. When we look at the outcomes of young college graduates, this group primarily contains single people without children, while the mid-career group includes a significant number of men and women with children. Women are more likely than men to spend time out of the labor force to bear and raise children. This interruption in a working career reduces the accumulation of work experience and human capital, which has been shown to have a negative influence on earnings.

In addition, some jobs tend to reward long hours and fixed schedules—think surgeons or lawyers. Because raising a family often requires more flexible schedules, those with family responsibilities who have difficulty satisfying time sensitive work demands may face lower wages in these types of jobs. In fact, in jobs where such time demands are largely absent, and more flexibility is possible, the pay gap has been found to be much smaller.

7. Big Trouble for the Saudis and OPEC? In a recent article by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard (“Saudi Arabia may go broke before the US oil industry buckles“) that got a lot of attention on blogs and Twitter, he argues that “It is too late for OPEC to stop the shale revolution. The cartel faces the prospect of surging US output whenever oil prices rise,” here’s some additional commentary:

If the aim was to choke the US shale industry, the Saudis have misjudged badly, just as they misjudged the growing shale threat at every stage for eight years. “It is becoming apparent that non-OPEC producers are not as responsive to low oil prices as had been thought, at least in the short-run,” said the Saudi central bank in its latest stability report.

The problem for the Saudis is that US shale frackers are not high-cost, they are mostly mid-cost. IHS experts think shale companies may be able to shave costs by 45% this year – and not only by switching tactically to high-yielding wells. Advanced pad drilling techniques allow frackers to launch five or ten wells in different directions from the same site. Smart drill-bits with computer chips can seek out cracks in the rock. New dissolvable plugs promise to save $300,000 a well. “We’ve driven down drilling costs by 50%, and we can see another 30% ahead,” said John Hess, head of the Hess Corporation.

We may yet find that the US oil industry has greater staying power than the rickety political edifice behind OPEC. Bank of America says OPEC is now “effectively dissolved.” The cartel might as well shut down its offices in Vienna to save money.

8. Frack Now, Pay Later. Here’s one way the oil industry is responding to low oil prices — Business is so tough for oilfield giants Schlumberger and Halliburton that they have come up with a new sales pitch for crude producers halting work in the worst downturn in years. It amounts to this: “frack now and pay later.”

9. Chart of the Day III (above). Perhaps the “frack now, pay later” offer is having an effect, the number of active oil rigs has increased in five of the last six weeks to the highest level during the first week of August since the last week of April (see chart above)!

10. Video of the Day. Amazing that this tech blew our minds a decade ago — here’s a look back at the cutting edge gadgets, robots, digital watches and ebooks from the early 2000s.

In June of last year, the Seattle city council passed a $15 minimum wage law to be phased in over time, with the first increase to $11 an hour starting on April 1, 2015. What effect will the eventual 58% increase in labor costs have on small businesses, including area restaurants? It’s too soon to tell for sure, but there is already some evidence that the recent minimum wage hike to $11 an hour, along with the pending increase of an additional $4 an hour by 2017 for some businesses, has started having a negative effect on restaurant jobs in the Seattle area. The chart above shows that the Emerald City MSA started experiencing a decline in restaurant employment around the first of the year (when the state minimum wage increased to $9.47 per hour, the highest state minimum wage in the country), and the 1,300 job loss between January and June is the largest decline over that period since 2009 during the Great Recession (data here). The loss of 1,000 restaurant jobs in May following the minimum wage increase in April was the largest one month job decline since a 1,300 drop in January 2009, again during the Great Recession. In contrast to the January-June loss  of restaurant jobs in the Seattle area: a) restaurant employment nationally increased by 130,700 jobs (and by 1.2%) during that same period (data here), b) overall employment in the Seattle MSA increased 1.2% and by 21,800 jobs (data here) and c) non-Seattle MSA restaurant employment in Washington increased 3.2% and by 2,800 jobs (data here).

Perhaps Seattle’s restaurant employment will recover, or perhaps it will continue to suffer from the upcoming full 58% increase in labor costs for the city’s restaurants that will be phased in during the coming years – time will tell. What we know for sure is that there are now 1,300 Seattle area restaurant workers who were employed in January who are no longer employed today, so it looks like the Seattle minimum wage hike is getting off to a pretty bad start.

The post Cartoon of the day appeared first on AEI.

Distancing.

Two forms of disapproval, only one of which has a chance of being effective. The effective one comes from the PGA, producing this surprisingly subdued statement from Trump: Donald Trump issues new statement on the Grand Slam of Golf not being held at his course in LA pic.twitter.com/9OXAY0OEm2 — Ben Jacobs (@Bencjacobs) July 7, 2015 […]

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While the nation is mourning over what happened in Charleston, the Republican leadership in the House of Representatives muscled Obamatrade through by the narrowest of margins.

from Breitbart:

Obamatrade is alive.

One week after the House of Representatives overwhelmingly rejected Obamatrade by voting against a key provision of it — Trade Adjustment Assistance — GOP establishment lawmakers resuscitated Trade Promotion Authority and rammed it through Thursday afternoon. The final talley was 218-208.

The House action is unusual. As Breitbart News reported: “To engage in the complicated procedural chicanery needed to revive the once-dead Obamatrade, bringing its Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) portion back to life, Rep. Paul Ryan needed to gut a previous bill that has passed the House and Senate and then insert Obamatrade into it. It’s actually a very similar process to how Obamacare passed the House.”

Obamatrade will face more hurdles, though.

Because the Senate passed TAA and TPA together, the individual House version will now have to go back to the Senate for approval, where it may face a filibuster. It’s unclear how many senators would support TPA without TAA, a measure to aid workers who lose their jobs because of trade policy.

The Senate isn’t expected to take up TPA until next week, but Majority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell  has expressed confidence it can pass.

Obamatrade is making for unusual partnerships in Washington. Barack Obama is working with McConnell and House Speaker Rep. John Boehner to pass a measure his own party largely rejects.

read the rest

And still nobody is allowed to read the contents of the bill.

The Stephanopoulos story keeps getting worse, especially when compared to the experience of other journalists.

Geraldo Rivera of FOX News claims he was fired by ABC News in 1985 for a paltry $200 donation to a friend who was running for mayor in New Bedford, MA.

It’s amazing what you can learn by following Instapundit’s Twitter feed:

Racism, straight up. https://t.co/ZCI8oQnFqN

— Instapundit.com (@instapundit) May 15, 2015

Here’s the related story from Jessica Chasmar of the Washington Times:

Geraldo on Stephanopoulos apology: ABC fired me over $200 donation

Geraldo Rivera on Friday questioned why he was fired from ABC News 30 years ago for making a $200 political donation to a family friend, while the network appears to be standing firm behind George Stephanopoulos, who apologized Thursday for donating $75,000 to the Clinton Foundation.

“In 1985, after fifteen great years, I was fired by ABC News,” Mr. Rivera wrote in a Facebook post, Mediaite reported. “The official reason for my firing was a non-disclosed $200 donation to a family friend running in a non-partisan mayoral campaign in New Bedford Massachusetts.”

Rivera discussed the issue on FOX and Friends this week:

ABC News is hoping the story will blow over, but other media outlets aren’t playing along.

David Bauder of the Associated Press:

ABC Faces Credibility Crisis Over Stephanopoulos Donations

George Stephanopoulos apologized to viewers Friday for donating $75,000 to the Clinton Foundation and failing to disclose it earlier, as ABC News now finds its chief anchor in a credibility crisis on the eve of a presidential campaign.

Stephanopoulos said on “Good Morning America” that the donations, made in three increments to the foundation started by his one-time boss, former President Bill Clinton, were a mistake…

Network leaders must weigh how the issue will affect public perception of its top on-air political journalist, just as NBC News executives are wondering whether suspended anchor Brian Williams will be believable to viewers following revelations that he embellished details of stories he was involved in.

Schweizer said Friday that Stephanopoulos’ donations “highlight precisely the lack of transparency and cronyism that I report on.”

“It is incomprehensible to me that after George Stephanopoulos went out of his way to state on-air that I wrote speeches for President George W. Bush, Stephanopoulos hid from viewers the fact that he is himself a major Clinton Foundation donor,” Schweizer said.

Who’s smiling now?

Geraldo, that’s who.

Featured image via YouTube.

MEET THE VAGINA VOTERS: The women voting for Hillary because she’s a woman are setting feminism back a hundred years.

“I intend to vote with my vagina.”

Have you ever read a more squirm-inducing sentence than that? It appeared in a pro-Hillary piece in Dame magazine, written by a person with a vagina who intends to vote for Clinton because she also has a vagina.

Let’s leave aside the unfortunate image conjured up by that sentence (“You can hold a pencil with that thing?!”) The bigger problem with such unabashed declarations of “vagina voting” is that they confirm the descent of feminism into the cesspool of identity politics, even biologism, and its abandonment of the idea that women should be valued more for their minds than their anatomy.

Kate Harding, the vagina voter in question, isn’t only going to vote with her vag—she’s also going to tell everyone about it. “I intend to vote with my vagina. Unapologetically. Enthusiastically… And I intend to talk about it,” she wrote in Dame.

She thinks Hillary would be a great president because she “knows what it’s like to menstruate, be pregnant, [and] give birth.”

Well, okay then. You know, if you could show this kind of stuff to the suffragettes of a century ago, I wonder if they’d have just gone home and abandoned the 19th Amendment as a bad idea. I can’t imagine they’d be impressed.

Well it’s about time. The bill hasn’t become law just yet, but it’s much closer. Apparently politicians in Texas finally read the Constitution.

From WFAA:

A bill lifting some of the state’s restrictions on handguns cleared the Texas Senate along a party line vote of 20 to 11 Monday.
Senate Bill 17, from state Sen. Craig Estes, R-Wichita Falls, would let concealed weapons permit holders carry holstered handguns openly. It is the first measure to come to the Senate floor not related to Gov. Greg Abbott’s emergency items
"In other states that have taken this step … it’s been deemed pretty much a non-event," Estes told his colleagues as he introduced the legislation. "We have searched really hard far and wide for problems, and we haven’t found any."

Read the Rest

That’s great that Mr. Estes is searching for potential problems and all, but it’s really irrelevant. The right to carry a weapon is one that we’re born with. The fact that he thinks he needs to grant permission to do so is ludicrous on its face. Be that as it may, it’s nice to see something moving in the right direction for once.

1. Venn Diagram of the Day I. Raising taxes on alcohol and tobacco vs. raising the minimum wage.

2. Incentives Matter. Zappos is using Uber-style surge pricing so that more workers are available during the peak times of the highest call volume.

3. Markets in Everything: Theranos is revolutionizing lab testing by providing low cost, painless blood tests using a tiny finger stick and they provide transparent pricing (see price list here). Walgreens has opened Theranos Wellness Centers in 41 stores in Arizona and California, with plans to open thousands more across America. Since most Americans live within five miles of a Walgreens stores, look for a Theranos Wellness Center at a Walgreens in your neighborhood soon!

4. Quotation of the Day, from Ronald Reagan in 1961:

One of the traditional methods of imposing statism or socialism on a people has been by way of medicine. It’s very easy to disguise a medical program as a humanitarian project, most people are a little reluctant to oppose anything that suggests medical care for people who possibly can’t afford it.

5. Chart of the Day. The three classes of American business (below), from Four-Block World.

6. Who-d a-Thunk It? Dodd-Frank regulations are hitting  smaller US banks the hardest? That’s always the case that regulation favors big incumbent firms over smaller firms or new entrants. Reason? The big firms have the staff, economies of scale and resources to more easily absorb the costs of regulation, as Morgan Frank points out in an email. So we can thank Dodd-Frank for creating a “too-small-to-succeed problem” by disproportionately imposing greater costs on small community banks, who may not have adequate resources to comply with the increased regulatory burden of post-financial crisis regulation.

Morgan Frank by email: “This is one of the most dangerous things going on in the US today — regulatory capture masquerading as consumer protection.”

7. Creative Destruction: The cost of producing professional videos has dropped by 50-60% over the past five years and that’s disrupting the commercial video industry, in a good way, especially for clients. Thanks to lower prices for video gear and intense competition, “it’s now a buyer’s market if you’re a client, where it used to be a seller’s market.”

8. America, Here’s Your Drug War/Koch Justice. Weldon Angelos could have hijacked a plane and spent less time in jail. But due to mandatory sentencing laws, the father of two was sentenced to 55 years in jail for selling pot – a term so long even the judge who gave it to him protested its injustice.The Koch brothers want to help set him free and make him the face of their new campaign for criminal justice reform, according to this article in The Daily Beast. Wait, I thought the Koch brothers were evil…

9. Venn Diagram of the Day II. Campus diversity.

10. Video of the Day. Thomas Sowell explains below that “What the welfare system and other government programs are doing is paying people to fail. In so far as they fail, they receive the money. In so far as they succeed, the money is taken away.”

The post Monday night links appeared first on AEI.

Are you ready for the next major Obama administration scandal?  This one is so big that the New York Times is actually leading the charge in exposing the White House’s criminal corruption.  

Not only is this a highly unethical action for the President of the United States to take, it’s downright illegal. 

from New York Times:

The Obama administration overturned a ban preventing a wealthy, politically connected Ecuadorean woman from entering the United States after her family gave tens of thousands of dollars to Democratic campaigns, according to finance records and government officials.

The woman, Estefanía Isaías, had been barred from coming to the United States after being caught fraudulently obtaining visas for her maids. But the ban was lifted at the request of the State Department under former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton so that Ms. Isaías could work for an Obama fund-raiser with close ties to the administration.

It was one of several favorable decisions the Obama administration made in recent years involving the Isaías family, which the government of Ecuador accuses of buying protection from Washington and living comfortably in Miami off the profits of a looted bank in Ecuador.

The family, which has been investigated by federal law enforcement agencies on suspicion of money laundering and immigration fraud, has made hundreds of thousands of dollars in contributions to American political campaigns in recent years. During that time, it has repeatedly received favorable treatment from the highest levels of the American government, including from New Jersey’s senior senator and the State Department.

read the rest

The New York Times article goes on to detail multiple occurrences of special favors granted by the Obama administration, Hillary Clinton, and Democrat Senator Robert Menendez.

Over at Hot Air, Ed Morrissey summarizes:

In 2012, the Isaías family donated about $100,000 to the Obama campaign’s Victory Fund. María Mercedes, Estefanía Isaías’s mother, donated $30,000 alone to Sen. Menendez’s 2012 campaign for reelection to the U.S. Senate. Menendez later authored another letter to State requesting that the ban on Isaías’s sister’s entry into the United States be lifted as well, despite the fact that she had been accused of smuggling illegal immigrants into America to serve as maids.

“As that letter went out, their mother gave $20,000 more to the Obama Victory Fund,” The Times reported.

That is an absolute bombshell, and one which implicates both the White House, the chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Clinton’s State Department in corruption. And we’re not merely talking about conservative media harping over this objectively unjust use of executive authority. The fact that this sordid tale is breaking in The Times indicates that it is a narrative the mainstream press will be unable to avoid.

read the rest

This kind of back-room dealing is completely commonplace in the Obama administration.  Obama has doled out special favors to all manner of large political donors, rewarding them with everything from cushy jobs as ambassadors to countries they know nothing about to large Federal contracts to further pad their wallets. 

PJ Media’s Bill Whittle outlines his top five conservative principles in the latest edition of Afterburner.

Whittle articulates the nexus of culture, politics, and American values succinctly on a regular basis. Seeing as Republicans just took control of the Senate, it’s a good time to reflect on what we believe, why we believe it, and then proceed in a manner befitting that foundation.

As Whittle says, “Conservatism kicks ass. You really should give it a try.”

Take a look:

Do you agree with his 5 principles? Are there any that you’d change or add?

Follow Kemberlee Kaye on Twitter 

He came from Time.  He went to the White House.  Now he’s at CNN.  The revolving door between the Obama administration and the media is ridiculous.  Oh, but there can’t be any bias in the mainstream media! There just can’t be!

Former White House press secretary Jay Carney has landed at CNN. Carney will join the network as a political commentator starting Wednesday with President Barack Obama’s speech about the Islamic State.

“Jay’s unique experience as both a journalist and a White House press secretary make him an invaluable voice for the network as we cover the final two years of the Obama administration and look ahead to the coming campaigns,” CNN Washington bureau chief Sam Feist said in a statement. “We’re fortunate to have Jay on our air tonight to provide analysis and insight surrounding the president’s address to the nation.”

Carney previously served as Vice President Joe Biden’s communications director. Before that, he worked for Time magazine as Moscow correspondent, White House correspondent and then as Washington bureau chief. 

Just seven years after Al Gore warned that Arctic ice was “falling off a cliff” and that it might “be completely gone” by 2014, it is growing by leaps and bounds.

From the UK Daily Mail:

The speech by former US Vice-President Al Gore was apocalyptic. ‘The North Polar ice cap is falling off a cliff,’ he said. ‘It could be completely gone in summer in as little as seven years. Seven years from now.’

Those comments came in 2007 as Mr Gore accepted the Nobel Peace Prize for his campaigning on climate change.
But seven years after his warning, The Mail on Sunday can reveal that, far from vanishing, the Arctic ice cap has expanded for the second year in succession – with a surge, depending on how you measure it, of between 43 and 63 per cent since 2012.

To put it another way, an area the size of Alaska, America’s biggest state, was open water two years ago, but is again now covered by ice.

The most widely used measurements of Arctic ice extent are the daily satellite readings issued by the US National Snow and Ice Data Center, which is co-funded by Nasa. These reveal that – while the long-term trend still shows a decline – last Monday, August 25, the area of the Arctic Ocean with at least 15 per cent ice cover was 5.62 million square kilometres.

This was the highest level recorded on that date since 2006, and represents an increase of 1.71 million square kilometres over the past two years – an impressive 43 per cent.

Read the Rest

As usual, there will be a litany of excuses from alarmists as to why we should ignore this data. But the fact remains, if Arctic ice can be used as a tool for alarmists to prove that the globe is warming, shouldn’t it also be able to be used to show that it might not be?

For years conventional medicine has told us that high cholesterol levels contribute to heart disease, and as a result, doctors have instructed patients to keep cholesterol levels low – at nearly any cost. Recent scholarship, however, has demonstrated that this all-or-nothing approach to cholesterol and heart disease is short-sighted, and could result in some unintended adverse consequences.

Read more...

Well, well well…if it isn’t yet another Obama administration official with missing emails.  This time, we already know she deleted them herself. 

from Daily Caller:

The administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) deleted some of her emails and may not be able to cooperate with a congressional investigation into the flawed Obamacare rollout, CMS has warned Congress.

Marilyn Tavenner, who was appointed by President Obama to take over CMS within the Department of Health and human Services in 2013 — prior to the Obamacare rollout — deleted some of her emails and did not save hard copies as the Federal Records Act requires her to do, MSNBC reported Thursday.

Though Tavenner’s computer did not crash like ex-IRS official Lois Lerner’s computer allegedly did, Tavenner may be unable to cooperate with House Oversight and Government Reform Committee subpoenas.

read the rest

The next time you hear somebody call President Obama “the most transparent administration in history,” laugh in that person’s face.

This was a deliberate violation of Federal Law, and I cannot fathom why she still has her job.

We reported recently on the fact that Antarctica is experiencing a record amount of ice. Well, you can probably guess what government scientists are blaming it on. That’s right. Global warming.

From the DC:

Government scientists are not only blaming global warming for the centuries-long collapse of western Antarctic ice sheets, but global warming is also being blamed for record levels of sea ice in the South Pole.

Antarctica’s sea ice set another record this week, reaching 815,448 square miles above normal, breaking a record set this past weekend of 800,776 square miles above normal ice coverage.

These two records set within a week of one another shattered the previous ice extent record of 710,428 square miles above average that was set back on December 20, 2007.

But record-breaking ice coverage still worries scientists who argue that it’s being caused by global warming.

“The primary reason for this is the nature of the circulation of the Southern Ocean — water heated in high southern latitudes is carried equatorward, to be replaced by colder waters upwelling from below, which inhibits ice loss,” Mark Serreze, director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center, told author Harold Ambler in an email.

Read the Rest

I know this has been observed before, but seriously, everything is global warming with these people. I would love to see an alarmist asked the following question: “What, if anything, would lead you to question your firmly held belief in global warming?” That question would expose them. If they can’t name something, then you know they’re lying.

It’s global warming whether it’s cold or hot. It’s global warming whether the ice in the poles is increasing or decreasing. It’s global warming when the average temperature of the Earth has been stagnant for nearly 18 years. At some point, one would expect that rational people must begin questioning the narrative.

One of these days someone will compile a list of promises made about Obamacare that turned out to be true.

Will be about as long as the list of Gender Studies professors who believe that what you see is what you get.

Scratch the promise of diminished Emergency Room visits, via USA Today (h/t John Ekdahl), More patients flocking to ERs under Obamacare:

It wasn’t supposed to work this way, but since the Affordable Care Act took effect in January, Norton Hospital has seen its packed emergency room become even more crowded, with about 100 more patients a month.

That 12 percent spike in the number of patients — many of whom aren’t actually facing true emergencies — is spurring the Louisville hospital to convert a waiting room into more exam rooms.

“We’re seeing patients who probably should be seen at our (immediate-care centers),” said Lewis Perkins, the hospital’s vice president of patient care and chief nursing officer. “And we’re seeing this across the system.”

That’s just the opposite of what many people expected under Obamacare, particularly because one of the goals of health reform was to reduce pressure on emergency rooms by expanding Medicaid and giving poor people better access to primary care.

Instead, many hospitals in Kentucky and across the nation are seeing a surge of those newly insured Medicaid patients walking into emergency rooms.

Nationally, nearly half of ER doctors responding to a recent poll by the American College of Emergency Physicians said they’ve seen more visits since Jan. 1, and nearly nine in 10 expect those visits to rise in the next three years. Mike Rust, president of the Kentucky Hospital Association, said members statewide describe the same trend.

Illegal immigrants have been pouring into the United States, and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) suggested he is willing to work with President Barack Obama to give them amnesty. 

Days before what has turned into a contentious June 10 primary against Dave Brat, who has been surging in the polls after centering his campaign on countering amnesty, CBS6 anchor Bill Fitzgerald asked Cantor what the country could do about its illegal immigrants and the children "coming across the border now." 

Cantor first falsely insinuated that he was not for amnesty because he was against passing the Senate's bill without changes. He then pivoted by saying if Obama, who enacted the Deferred Action program that has given some illegal immigrant children temporary amnesty and has threatened to unilaterally ease deportations, could demonstrate trustworthiness on immigration, he could work with him on granting amnesty to illegal immigrant children. 

"But I have told the President there are some things that we can work on together," Cantor said. "We can work on the border security bill together. We can work on things like the Kids." 

Cantor was referring to what has commonly been referred to as his "Kids Act," which, as Breitbart News reported, would grant amnesty to illegal immigrants who were brought to America through "no fault of their own"--like many of the illegal immigrant children who have been pouring into the country in recent weeks. 

Last week, the We Deserve Better independent PAC, which has been trying to set the record straight with a 30-second spot that highlights Cantor's support for amnesty legislation, made exactly the same point. The PAC argued that Cantor and Obama's next big deal will be to give "amnesty and citizenship" to illegal immigrants. 

Federal officials are dumping at least a thousand illegal immigrants in Arizona this weekend, and some of them will then be moved to military bases in Oklahoma, which Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) said threatens America's national security. 

Breitbart Texas first reported that illegal immigrants were overwhelming the system and being warehoused in Texas, forcing the Obama administration to send them to neighboring states. In remarks to Breitbart Texas on Friday, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) said Obama's lawlessness has exacerbated the problem, which is consistent with what immigration officials told the Los Angeles Times months ago. Immigration agents told the Times that "changes in U.S. policy to expand legal residence opportunities in the U.S. for undocumented youth," also account for the "rapid surge" of illegal immigrant children crossing the southern border.  

Cantor, in language that was adopted in the House GOP's immigration principles, has said that "one of the great founding principles of our country was that children would not be punished for the mistakes of their parents." United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) National Council President Kenneth Palinkas mentioned months ago that if that is the case, Congress would have to perpetually grant amnesty to children who would qualify under the Kids Act, attracting even more illegal immigrants to attempt sneaking into America. 

Dave Brat, Cantor's primary opponent, echoed Palinkas's concerns in a Richmond Times-Dispatch op-ed. He wrote that Cantor's belief that one of the country's founding principles is giving citizenship to illegal immigrant DREAMers was "one of the most radical pro-amnesty statements ever delivered by a sitting representative." 

"The central policy issue in this race has become Cantor’s absolute determination to pass an amnesty bill. Cantor is the No. 1 cheerleader in Congress for amnesty," Brat continued. "This is not the Republican way to fix our economy and labor markets."

As Breitbart News has been reporting Cantor has been sending many deceptive anti-amnesty mailers ahead of his June 10 primary after his top ally was ousted from an important GOP chairmanship position last month. Cantor's website also makes no mention of his support for amnesty for illegal immigrant children and citizenship for illegal immigrants who enroll in the military.

Hey remember all those bleak polar bear numbers and predictions that were used get everyone on board the global warming train? Well, it turns out that those numbers weren’t exactly accurate.

From the DC:

This may come as a shocker to some, but scientists are not always right — especially when under intense public pressure for answers.

Researchers with the IUCN Polar Bear Specialist Group (PBSG) recently admitted to experienced zoologist and polar bear specialist Susan Crockford that the estimate given for the total number of polar bars in the Arctic was “simply a qualified guess given to satisfy public demand.”

…PBSG’s admission also comes after academics and government regulators have touted their polar bear population estimates to show that polar bear numbers have grown since the 1960s. PBSG estimates have also been used to show that polar bear populations have stabilized over the last 30 years.

Polar bear populations became the centerpiece of the effort to fight global warming due to claims that melting polar ice caps would cause the bears to become endangered in the near future. Years ago, some scientists predicted the Arctic would be virtually ice free by now.

Polar bears became the first species listed under the Endangered Species Act because they could potentially be harmed by global warming. But some recent studies have found that some polar bear subpopulations have actually flourished in recent years.

“So, the global estimates were… ‘simply a qualified guess given to satisfy public demand’

Read the Rest

It should be noted that this particular estimate seems to have been an innocent underestimate. But it fit the narrative of the alarmists and they went with it.

As I always say, I’m not a scientist, nor am I an expert on global polar bear populations. But when science becomes politicized, it ceases to be science. Remember, real science doesn’t have an agenda.

I got happy a little too soon.  A Federal Judge has decided to completely ignore the rule of law and allow John Conyers back on the ballot in Michigan despite the fact that he didn’t collect enough legitimate signatures to qualify. 

from FNC:

A federal judge put Michigan Rep. John Conyers, one of the longest-serving Democrats in Congress, on the primary ballot Friday hours after state election officials declared him ineligible.

Earlier Friday, Conyers lost his appeal to get on the August primary ballot after state officials found problems with his nominating petitions.

Hours later, Detroit federal Judge Matthew Leitman issued an injunction ordering that Conyers’ name be placed on the ballot.

The first decision, from the Secretary of State’s office, determined that Detroit-area officials were correct in keeping Conyers off the ballot, since he “failed to submit” a minimum of 1,000 signatures to qualify.

Wayne County officials had said there were problems with some people who collected signatures — the circulators weren’t registered to vote or had listed a wrong registration address.
Under Michigan law, that can spoil petitions.

read the rest

Here’s the crazy thing: the same thing happened in Michigan last year to Republican Rep. Thad McCotter.  Did a Federal judge intervene and put him back on the ballot? No way!  This reeks of corruption. 

What’s the point of even having laws if Federal Judges can just decide to ignore them?  So that Republicans can be forced to obey them, of course!

In Oakland, California’s inner city youth are reportedly suffering from a deeper and more complex version of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) called “Hood Disease,” which is affecting 30% of its kids, according to a report by the local CBS affiliate in San Francisco.

For children in parts of Oakland, survival is often a daily struggle. The lives of youth in poverty-stricken neighborhoods is replete with violence. The environment resembles that of a war zone, and trauma is no stranger. But, unlike soldiers, these children never leave their combat zones. And for these emotionally-embattled kids, the way up and out isn’t necessarily through school.

“Take anyone who is experiencing the symptoms of PTSD, and the things we are currently emphasizing in school will fall off their radar. Because frankly it does not matter… if we don’t survive the walk home,” said Jeff Duncan-Andrade Ph.D. of San Francisco State University.

According to a study by the National Institutes of Health, frequent violence dramatically limits academic achievement in neighborhoods with high crime rates and can even lead to a decrease in one’s memory, which has a direct impact on student learning.

Gun violence is reportedly just one stressor that has children in poverty-ridden neighborhoods such as those in Oakland deeply perturbed. In 2013 alone, CBS reported that, of 47 recorded lockdowns, almost all were located in East and West Oakland, and approximately two thirds of murders last year were concentrated in East Oakland.

With so much emotionally-charged violence surrounding them, one teacher at Fremont High School in Oakland points out that, for kids who suffer from “Hood Disease,” almost anything can set them off – even something as small as saying, “please go have a seat.”

Laws mean nothing to Obama, especially ones he signs himself. 

from Washington Examiner:

President Obama on Friday signed into law a bill authored by Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz that would bar an Iranian diplomat from entering the United States, but immediately issued a statement saying he won’t enforce it.

Obama decided to treat the law as mere advice. “Acts of espionage and terrorism against the United States and our allies are unquestionably problems of the utmost gravity, and I share the Congress’s concern that individuals who have engaged in such activity may use the cover of diplomacy to gain access to our Nation,” Obama said in his signing statement.

"Nevertheless, as President [George H.W.] Bush also observed, "curtailing by statute my constitutional discretion to receive or reject ambassadors is neither a permissible nor a practical solution." I shall therefore continue to treat section 407, as originally enacted and as amended by S. 2195, as advisory in circumstances in which it would interfere with the exercise of this discretion."

Obama frequently criticized President George W. Bush for such signing statements during his 2008 campaign. “Congress’s job is to pass legislation,” he said, as The Daily Beast recalled. “The president can veto it or he can sign it.”

read the rest

There is a rule about Obama that the staff of Poor Richard’s News has observed: if he holds any one political position at the moment, some time in the past he held the opposite position.  In this case, the turnaround between flip-flopped positions took only a matter of minutes. 

Only two Republican districts make the list of the top 10 richest House districts, according to an Associated Press analysis.

The Democrats have the top six richest districts; most are in heavily Democratic states such as New York and California.

The AP reports:

Across the country, Democratic House districts have an average per capita income of $27,893. That’s about $1,000 higher than the average income in Republican districts. The difference is relatively small because Democrats also represent a lot of poor districts, putting the average in the middle.

Democrats say the “party of the rich” label is more about policies than constituents.

During the 2012 presidential election, Republican nominee Mitt Romney declared, “We’re not the party of the rich. We’re the party of the people who want to get rich.”

Below are the top 10 richest districts and their representatives compiled by the AP:

1. New York 12, Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D.)

2. California 33, Rep. Henry Waxman (D.)

3. New York 10, Jerry Nadler (D.)

4. California 18, Anna Eshoo (D.)

5. Connecticut 4, Jim Himes (D.)

6. Virginia 8, Jim Moran (D.)

7. New Jersey 7, Leonard Lance (R.)

8. California 12, Nancy Pelosi (D.)

9. New York 3, Steve Israel (D.)

10. Virginia 10, Frank Wolf (R.)