The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

The ObamaCare ‘Death Spiral’ Debate

Posted on | January 18, 2014 | 26 Comments

ObamaCare is exactly the kind of policy failure its opponents predicted, although it has also failed in a few unpredicted ways. The only way anyone can call ObamaCare a “success” is in a political sense, i.e., it helped re-elect Obama. We might also say ObamaCare is a “success” in the sense that its unmistakable failure will likely be leveraged as an argument for a single-pay government takeover of health care in some future Democrat administration, but we have not yet reached that point. Where we are now is Ezra Klein and other liberals trying to pretend that ObamaCare’s failure is not yet certain:

Ezra Klein is back in line. The Journolist founder, who now runs Wonkblog for the Washington Post, took some flak from other left-liberal journalists last year when he acknowledged that the ObamaCare exchanges had serious technical flaws. But now, as we move into Phase 3 of the ObamaCare failure — the unraveling of its economic assumptions — Klein and his wonkblogger staff are in full denial.

James Taranto’s recounting of the arguments is amusing, with Ezra Klein in the role of the Monty Python pet shop owner who insists that the Norwegian Blue is merely “pining for the fjords.”

 


Category: Barack Obama, Health Care

Mexican Murder Suspect Is Finally Deported After 13-Year U.S. Crime Spree

Posted on | January 18, 2014 | 30 Comments

Mexican criminal Fabian Godinez-Oseguera deported by ICE.

This case “ought to make your blood boil,” indeed: Fabian Godinez-Oseguera was wanted on a warrant in Mexico for a 2000 murder. He fled to the United States and — despite multiple felony convictions here and having been repeatedly deported to Mexico — was still running around loose in Washington State until 2011:

A former Bremerton man has been transferred to the custody of the Mexican Attorney General’s Office to face murder charges there from 2000.
Fabian Godinez-Oseguera has been deported to Mexico four times in the past. Each time, he returned to Kitsap County, where his wife and children reside.
Kitsap County Sheriff’s spokesman Scott Wilson said Godinez-Oseguera has had many interactions with local law enforcement, using a variety of aliases. He was arrested in 2006 by Bremerton Police under the name Francisco Ramos Campos for outstanding warrants ranging from marijuana possession to DUI to unlawful possession of a firearm.
According to Andrew Munoz, public affairs officer for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Godinez-Oseguera is a documented gang member who has been involved in methamphetamine trafficking. He was remanded from Kitsap County Jail in October 2011 to the custody of ICE. He was presented for federal prosecution and sentenced. After serving a 13-month sentence at the NW Detention Center for Civil Immigration, ICE officers have now turned him over to Mexican authorities.

Let’s recap: A drug dealer and gang member wanted for murder in Mexico repeatedly returned to the United States “where his wife and children reside” and evaded apprehension for his crimes by “using a variety of aliases.” If that’s not enough to make your blood boil, how about this Obama administration press release?

A former Seattle-area man was deported by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Enforcement and Removal Operation (ERO) Thursday to Mexico where he faces homicide charges.
Fabian Godinez-Oseguera, 37, also known as “El Güero Loco,” was turned over to Mexican authorities at the U.S.-Mexico border at El Paso, Texas.  . . .
“Criminals who seek to escape responsibility for their actions by fleeing to the United States will find no sanctuary in our communities,” said Nathalie Asher, field office director for ERO Seattle.

Three words: Bull. Fucking. Shit.

Foreign criminals are provided sanctuary in many U.S. communities. Michelle Malkin has written extensively about “sanctuary cities” like New York, San Francisco and Seattle that have an official policy of deliberate non-cooperation with immigration enforcement.

Has anyone ever heard Obama — or any member of his administration or any Democrat member of Congress — say a single critical word about these “sanctuary cities” that make an open mockery of our nation’s immigration laws? Of course not. They’re all liars.

They should be ashamed of themselves, but if they had any sense of shame, they wouldn’t be Democrats, would they?

(Hat-tip: Larwyn at Doug Ross.)

 

Category: Crime, Immigration, Mexico

Federal Court Upholds Bloggers’ Rights

Posted on | January 18, 2014 | 22 Comments

Eugene Volokh cites a ruling yesterday by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in the case of Obsidian Finance Group v. Cox:

The protections of the First Amendment do not turn on whether the defendant was a trained journalist, formally affiliated with traditional news entities, engaged in conflict-of-interest disclosure, went beyond just assembling others’ writings, or tried to get both sides of a story. As the Supreme Court has accurately warned, a First Amendment distinction between the institutional press and other speakers is unworkable: “With the advent of the Internet and the decline of print and broadcast media … the line between the media and others who wish to comment on political and social issues becomes far more blurred.” Citizens United, 558 U.S. at 352. In defamation cases, the public-figure status of a plaintiff and the public importance of the statement at issue — not the identity of the speaker — provide the First Amendment touchstones.

This is obviously relevant to the Maryland lawsuit Kimberlin v. Walker, et al., as well as to the federal lawsuit that my co-defendant John Hoge has dubbed Kimberlin v. the Universe, et al.

It’s interesting that the Ninth Circuit cited the Citizens United case, which figured prominently as a casus belli for the anti-Clarence Thomas campaign of Kimberlin’s Velvet Revolution.

It’s also interesting that in neither his state nor federal lawsuits against bloggers does Brett Kimberlin mention his role in founding Velvet Revolution which, the last time I checked, was located at the same Bethesda street address — i.e., Kimberlin’s mother’s basement — listed on Kimberlin’s legal filings in both cases.

 

BomberSuesBloggers.com




 


Category: Blogging, Constitution, The Kimberlin Files

Scientists Decide Americans Are Too Stupid to Understand Global Warming

Posted on | January 17, 2014 | 129 Comments

The science is settled!

New polling data show the American public is growing increasingly skeptical of an asserted climate crisis. Alarmists have responded by claiming Americans are not smart enough to make proper decisions on climate policy.
The Yale University Project on Climate Change Communication and the George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication released a survey showing only 15 percent of Americans are “very worried” about global warming, compared to 23 percent who believe global warming is not happening at all. A plurality of Americans — 38 percent — believe global warming is happening but are only “somewhat worried” about it. . . .
Survey author Edward Maibach bemoaned the results and claimed Americans do not understand global warming issues.
“Our findings show that the public’s understanding of global warming’s reality, causes, and risks has not improved and has, in at least one important respect, gone in the wrong direction over the past year,” said Maibach.

This explains everything. Once there is an Official Scientific Consensus, only stupid Americans remain skeptical.

 


Category: Global Warming

Psychiatrist Arrested With Crack Cocaine and a Dead Man Buried in His Backyard

Posted on | January 17, 2014 | 23 Comments

Allegedly, I hasten to add:

The body of a 31-year-old man who went missing in October was buried behind the home of a psychiatrist affiliated with the University of Rochester Medical Center. Police say Dr. William Lewek, 62, confessed to hiding Matthew Straton‘s body “in his backyard under a patio chair and a pile of dirt, grass and other debris,” the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle reported Friday.
Police did not say how Straton died, and Lewek was not immediately charged with homicide after the missing man’s badly decomposed corpse was found behind the home on Rochester’s Rowley Street. Lewek was charged with tampering with physical evidence, a felony, and an arrest affidavit said Lewek admitted moving Straton’s body from a third-floor bedroom of the home and burying it in the backyard.
Lewek also faces a felony charge of possessing a controlled substance after police say they found 17 small bags of crack cocaine “packaged for street sale” hidden in a shoe in Lewek’s house.
Lewek’s psychiatric practice dealt with drug addiction and his patients said he treated them at the Rowley Street address. “I asked the policeman, I said I’ve got an appointment and he said not today,” said Carol Lovel . . .

Read the whole thing at Viral Read. No need to jump to any conclusions here, but if you’ve been seeing the same psychiatrist for 14 years and still need treatment, maybe you should get another shrink.

UPDATE: There are at least two mysteries here:

  1. Why would a psychiatrist be holding crack cocaine “packaged for street sale”?
    and
  2. How did Straton meet up with Lewek?

It’s best not to engage in speculation — the full story will be reported in due time — but outside the Rochester court where Lewek was arraigned today, Straton’s mother told a reporter that “her son hurt his back a few years ago, and became addicted to pain killers.” However, the mother had never heard of Dr. Lewek until her son’s body was found in the psychiatrist’s backyard.

Pretty easy to guess how these puzzle pieces fit together, but as I say, we can wait until the full story is reported.

 

Category: Crime

In The Mailbox, 01.17.14

Posted on | January 17, 2014 | 5 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho


Up late working on the book, which is now in the hands of Little Miss Attila for proofing.


OVER THE TRANSOM
Blackmailers Don’t Shoot: Tim Donnelly Likes Guns And Has A Smokin’ Wife
Dead Republican Party: Views You Can Use
Michelle Malkin: John Kerry, Jihad Coddler
Twitchy: “Fist Bump!” Dana Loesch To Go National With Radio Syndication


RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Power: Senator Tom Coburn To Retire With Two Years Left In Term
American Thinker: Paul Krugman, Vanquished
Blackfive: Does Information Really Want To Be Free?
The Necropolitan Sentinel: Obamacare Watch – NY Demographics
Don Surber: Daily Scoreboard, January 16
Jammie Wearing Fools: Obamacare Small Business Plan – Higher Premiums, Less Coverage, And More Paperwork
JustOneMinute: The Evolution Of A Drone Assassin And Super-Surveiller
Pat Dollard: High-Level NSA Official Says Metadata Illegally Used To Prosecute Average Citizens For Everything From Drug Dealing To Tax Evasion
Protein Wisdom: Obama As A Media Creation
Shot In The Dark: What Used To Be Vices Could One Day Be Entitlements
The Jawa Report: DOJ Says Will No Longer “Profile” Muslims
The Lonely Conservative: Are Republicans Throwing In The Towel On Obamacare?
This Ain’t Hell: Ayotte – COLA Cuts Hit Widows Too
Megan McArdle: Read This Before You Apply To Grad School


Deadline to submit links for this weekend’s FMJRA is tomorrow at noon.
DO IT.


Category: Linkagery

Earth Heals, Oceans Recede, So Now It’s Time to Trust President Obama, Right?

Posted on | January 17, 2014 | 14 Comments

“Obama: Anatomy of a World Leader,” by Alex Gray (detail)

“I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.”
— Barack Obama, June 3, 2008

Credibility is one of those things like virginity that you either have or you don’t, and President Obama lost his long ago:

President Obama will require intelligence agencies to obtain permission from a secret court before tapping into a vast trove of telephone data, but he will leave the data in the hands of the government for now, an administration official said.

After watching Obama’s speech today, I trust him as much as I ever did, which is say, I don’t trust him at all.

 


Category: Barack Obama

Mister Popularity, Edward Snowden

Posted on | January 17, 2014 | 69 Comments

Benny Johnson reports at BuzzFeed:

As the American intelligence community struggles to contain the public damage done by the former National Security Agency contractor’s revelations of mass domestic spying, intelligence operators have continued to seethe in very personal terms against the 30 year-old leaker.
“In a world where I would not be restricted from killing an American, I personally would go and kill him myself,” a current NSA analyst told BuzzFeed. “A lot of people share this sentiment.”
“I would love to put a bullet in his head,” one Pentagon official, a former special forces officer, said bluntly. “I do not take pleasure in taking another human beings life, having to do it in uniform, but he is single handedly the greatest traitor in American history.” . . .
“His name is cursed every day over here,” a defense contractor told BuzzFeed, speaking from an overseas Intelligence collections base. “Most everyone I talk to says he needs to be tried and hung, forget the trial and just hang him.”

What Snowden did is no less criminal than what Bradley Manning did, and Manning’s serving 35 years in federal prison.

 

Category: Crime
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