“When the president does it, that means that it is not illegal”

Forward! 16 Comments

Commentary;

The Commissioner of Internal Revenue is a managerial position, not a policy-making one, although his input on the practical realities of tax collection and how the IRS is structured might well be very useful if the President was planning a big push on tax reform. But no such push has been forthcoming. Obama’s sole interest in the tax code has been to raise rates on high earners. So what was the commissioner doing going to the White House more than once a week on average?

More – Washington launches four different investigations into IRS scandal

The Sound Of Settled Science

Climate Cult 34 Comments

To the Horror of Global Warming Alarmists, Global Cooling Is Here;

At first the current stall out of global warming was due to the ocean cycles turning back to cold. But something much more ominous has developed over this period. Sunspots run in 11 year short term cycles, with longer cyclical trends of 90 and even 200 years. The number of sunspots declined substantially in the last 11 year cycle, after flattening out over the previous 20 years. But in the current cycle, sunspot activity has collapsed.

The Complicated Politics of Class

The Tolerant Left 36 Comments

Captain Obvious, reporting for Maisonneuve;

As Doug slyly pointed out in his Global interview, lots of journalists have done cocaine. Some do it casually but regularly, at parties. This might affect their ability to do their socially important job of reporting the news; cocaine is addictive and impairs the user’s sound judgment. But Rob Ford allegedly did crack–the grotesque sibling of powder cocaine, containing baking soda and smoked out of a glass pipe. How low.
Nor does Rob’s drinking problem conform to genteel conventions. Rob doesn’t overdo it with the pre-dinner martinis and then down a couple bottles of cabernet sauvignon before desert, like a John Cheever character. No, instead, we might imagine him buying mickeys of Russian Prince vodka and drinking them when he’s alone. (According to a story in the Toronto Star, staffers were concerned about his drinking but rarely saw him drinking.) Would this behavior shock the city’s sensibilities just as much if he added a little vermouth?

Via

O’er the land of the Swede

Uncategorized 37 Comments

If you Google-translate other Swedish language reports in internet-based newspaper Fria Tider (“Free Times“) you’ll realize that this is not satire:

…while the Stockholm riots keep spreading and intensifying, Swedish police have adopted a tactic of non-interference. “Our ambition is really to do as little as possible,” Stockholm Chief of Police Mats Löfving explained to the Swedish newspaper Expressen on Tuesday.
“We go to the crime scenes, but when we get there we stand and wait,” elaborated Lars Byström, the media relations officer of the Stockholm Police Department. “If we see a burning car, we let it burn if there is no risk of the fire spreading to other cars or buildings nearby. By doing so we minimize the risk of having rocks thrown at us.”

h/t

“When the president does it, that means that it is not illegal”

Forward! 30 Comments

We said so at the time: Now The Gibson Guitar Raids Make Sense

In one raid, the feds hauled away ebony fingerboards, alleging they violated Madagascar law. Gibson responded by obtaining the sworn word of the African island’s government that no law had been broken.
In another raid, the feds found materials imported from India, claiming they too moved across the globe in violation of Indian law. Gibson’s response was that the feds had simply misinterpreted Indian law.
Interestingly, one of Gibson’s leading competitors is C.F. Martin & Co. According to C.F. Martin’s catalog, several of their guitars contain “East Indian Rosewood,” which is the exact same wood in at least 10 of Gibson’s guitars. So why were they not also raided and their inventory of foreign wood seized?
Grossly underreported at the time was the fact that Gibson’s chief executive, Henry Juszkiewicz, contributed to Republican politicians. Recent donations have included $2,000 to Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., and $1,500 to Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn.

Breitbart.com;

Kimberly Strassel has a must-read column at the Wall Street Journal today that explains the context in which the IRS scandal emerged–not just during the Obama administration’s attempt to quash the Tea Party, but in Obama’s efforts to shut down all opposition, both Republican and Democratic, in the 2008 campaign.

The story of Catherine Engelbrecht;

…a nice woman, a citizen, an American. She and her husband live in Richmond, Texas. They have a small manufacturing business. In the past few years she became interested in public policy and founded two groups, King Street Patriots and True the Vote.
In July 2010 she sent applications to the IRS for tax-exempt status. What followed was not the harassment, intrusiveness and delay we’re now used to hearing of. The U.S. government came down on her with full force.

Michael Barone: More than all past presidents, Obama uses 1917 Espionage Act to go after reporters
It’s like a pattern, or something.

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