Not sure where my erstwhile podcasting partner Dave in Texas is, but here's some cheerleaderage for you.

I'm a Dawg, and as much as it pains me to say this, "War Eagle!" (one night only - for the conference stats and to make that last-minute, heartbreaking loss to you guys sting a little less) more...

Posted by: andy at 05:11 PM | Comments (496)
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Charles C.W. Cooke explains the ruling.

The new case expands on the previous holdings, Heller, which recognized the Second Amendment as creating and protecting an individual right, and MacDonald, applying that right not just to the federal government but to the states.

Today’s case, which was issued by a district court not the Supreme Court, takes this idea a little further, building on 2011’s Ezell v. Chicago, in which a blanket ban on firing ranges was deemed illegal. As in Ezell, the court argued today that there can be no meaningful right to keep and bear arms if one is unable to buy and to use them: for law-abiding citizens to enjoy it, the court decided, the right ”must also include the right to acquire a firearm.” (Italics mine.)

Ezell’s basic standard was that if activity is inextricable from the basic purpose of the Second Amendment (and activities such as practicing shooting, buying a gun, etc. are), then the court must apply to it what has been termed “almost-strict-scrutiny.” That is, it must take into account that ”a severe burden on the core Second Amendment right of armed self-defense [requires] an extremely strong public-interest justification and a close fit between the government’s means and its end.” In Illinois today, the court found that the government’s action did not meet this test...

You'll have to click on the link for more, including key portions of the decision.

Or... You can read additional stuff at Hot Air. The Judge is actually an Obama appointee. But he doesn't sound like one. Below, he responds to the governments' contention that draconian anti-gun laws restrict criminals' ability to secure guns.

Indeed.

Posted by: Ace at 04:14 PM | Comments (323)
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It's not complete. Of course it's not. It comes with Bruce Wayne, Batman, and Alfred.

You still have to buy the Joker and other crap separately. I can't imagine what the Batmobile will cost. Another $300, at least?

So okay, it's absurd. I grant you that.

But...

Take a look at the action figures children's dollies themselves. They look like... actual people, like Christian Bale, Michael Caine, and Heath Ledger.

This is a doll

"But can you move their eyes?" you exclaim, excitedly.

Yes you can. And it's creepy.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 03:05 PM | Comments (505)
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He's specificlly suing over one of the many lawless "interpretations' of the law -- the special, illegal treatment that Congressmen and their staffs are receiving.

But who knows. Maybe we can get this rolling into a general suit about the illegal Enabling Act we call Obamacare.

Only members of Congress and their staff, when they lose their employee sponsored care, will have the ability to have their employers make a tax advantage contribution to their healthcare plan. That's the special treatment. That's completely unfair and completely unjust."

"The law as it has been written is being ignored," explained Johnson.

"This is the law of the land. If members of Congress and the administration don't like the law of the land, they should come to Congress to change the law of the land. They should not change it by presidential decree or presidential fiat."

In addition to basic fairness, Sen. Johnson said the lawsuit has the intention of "providing a long overdue check on presidential power."

Hear, hear.

Posted by: Ace at 08:55 AM | Comments (239)
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That's racist.

"I talked to a former Obama White House person, just before Christmas, when Obama was sort of adrift, figuring out what to do, his poll numbers were pretty low. And he said, 'Look, the president needs to find an issue to campaign on. This is what he's good at. He's really good at campaigning. Maybe not governing,' according to this Democrat," Hamby said this morning on CNN.

You had me at "Maybe not governing."

Video at the link.

Obama, like many of the overpromoted, underachieving members of his class, is a glittering mediocrity.

It might seem ridiculous to psychoanalyze the President based upon his television viewing, but then again, the New York Times did exactly that, divining, in each of Obama's predictable choices, a Heroic Narrative of a searching intellect.

Well, Matthew Continetti is willing to play the game too. And his takeaway is that Obama has a mind notable primarily for how mundane it is.

In “Obama’s TV Picks — Anything Edgy, With Hints of Reality,” Shear reports that the president, whose “life in the Oval Office” is marked by “war, terrorism, economic struggle,” and “mass shootings,” has a taste, “in his few quiet moments,” not for situation comedy but for drama. He indulges this taste by watching copious amounts of television.

...

Shear clearly had a thesis in mind when he sat down to write. His article is an argument in search of evidence. He seems to think ObamaÂ’s taste in television reveals a tragic sense of life, a Niebuhrian realism that informs the administrationÂ’s domestic and international agenda. Shows that undermine this idea, such as sports and comedies, are downplayed. Dramas with antiheroes, violence, conspiracies, and sex are emphasized.

....

OneÂ’s favorite movies, television shows, books, and music may not provide deep insights into oneÂ’s psychology or politics or point of view, but they do specify the consumer profile under which one falls.... [Obama's television viewing choices] are utterly typical of the American educated class.

Obama's favorite shows are as pedestrian and predictable as you can imagine. Progressive favorite Parks & Recreation, Mad Men, The Wire, Breaking Bad, Boardwalk Empire, Homeland, Game of Thrones. It's the exact same list that every member of the New Class would proudly declared to "love" (after first prefacing the statement with "I never watch television, but...").

Most of them are on cable or premium channels, where people who think they're intellectual can watch TV without worrying about being a couch potato. (Remember, it's not TV -- it's HBO.)

They're also mostly variations on soap operas, but disguised with some violence and sex so as to be distinct from the Guiding Light.

Most of these shows appeal most strongly to women.

Homeland, Game of Thrones, House of Cards — these are the latest distractions of the well-schooled echelon of society that toils in high positions in finance, academia, media, and the bureaucracy, that binge-watches fashionable shows with determination and marathon-runner stamina, that discusses over dinner recent articles in the New York Times Magazine or The New Yorker, that laments rising inequality during vacations in tropical locales. To watch such programs is not a sign of critical acumen but of social status. The audience of these cable dramas is wealthy not only in dollars but also in cultural currency: in the ability to detect and adapt to the rise and fall of reputations, to restate the latest critical judgments, to fashion one’s subjective tastes into a coherent and ideological whole. That Barack Obama watches the same television shows as a reader of the New York Times must add an extra thrill, a dash of self-importance, to the experience of being a couch potato. Obama is so much cooler than Republican presidents, after all.

...

Anyone who can make it through the piece should conclude that the president is neither a Communist nor a Muslim but a conventional and rather unexciting Bobo, a middle-aged parent of two who unwinds, in between golf and games of pickup basketball, in the accustomed manner of his caste. Ironic, isnÂ’t it: A man whose senses of ego and ambition are continually inflated by his rivals, his supporters, and himself is just another member of a comfortable and confused elite, enjoying television on his large, high-definition set, watching movies in his private screening room, and eating fine cuisine in the most fashionable restaurants while brooding over the prospect of American decline.

I have never known a man in all of history to be so frequently and passionately hailed as a genius, with such an utter lack of any evidence to support such a claim.

Posted by: Ace at 03:13 PM | Comments (253)
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@morgenr and @verumserum did the work here that the media refused to do: They documented Obamacare's architects and boosters bragging that Obamacare was a Trojan Horse for single payer.

Obamacare was modified since @verumserum and @morgenr exposed this not-so-secret plan; Joe Liberman, representing insurance capital of the US Connecticut, demanded the public option removed from Obamacare to secure his vote.

The Public Option was the Trojan Horse by which the American insurance industry would be destroyed.

That specific provision was removed from Obamacare 1.0, and the law was patched up with bailing wire and duct tape to create the monstrosity we now know as Obamacare 2.0.

But Obamacare 2.0 is destroying the insurance industry well enough, isn't it?

I’m old enough to remember when it was a sign of utmost wingnuttery to suggest that ObamaCare was but phase one in a government takeover of health care, but three years later, now that the law’s momentarily out of political danger, we’ve got HHS ordering insurance companies every other week to change their business practices willy nilly and lefty pundits babbling excitedly about how this is all really just a stepping stone to bigger and better statist interventions. (Some liberals will object that the wingnuttery lies in believing that liberals designed the law to fail. Fair enough — although Scheiber’s own language is revealing, describing O-Care at one point as “a deceptively sneaky way” to get single-payer and saying of GOP efforts to play up the law’s problems that “Republicans are in some sense playing into the trap Obamacare laid for them.”) This, not “if you like your plan,” is the real Big Lie of O-Care. This is where we’re at we’re six days into full implementation.

There is really no need to speak of this as if it's a conspiracy. Politicians have secret back up plans all the time.

For example: Reagan said that his tax cuts would not increase the deficit. He said that lower tax rates would lead to higher growth, and thus increased tax revenue (and on that he was right) and that this, coupled with lower government spending, would lead to balanced budgets. On this last point -- the bit about lower government spending -- he was wrong.

Now, the net effect was this: We grew the deficit substantially during the Reagan Years. (But we hadn't seen nothin' yet, as Obama would teach us.)

So my point is this: Reagan had a Plan A and Plan B. Plan A he talked about a lot: If Reaganomics worked as he envisioned, and if he managed to shrink government as he hoped, Plan A would be a stable, or even falling, budget deficit.

Here's the Plan B he didn't talk about: If he failed to reduce the deficit, he still wasn't giving up on those lowered tax rates. Plan B was that, should the deficit fail to fall, then he'd keep Reaganomics in place and let the deficit rise.

One doesn't have to posit a "conspiracy theory" on the left, or in Obama's White House, to see a similar Announced Plan A/Hidden Plan B scheme at work. No, they probably did not intend for to create such a huge embarrassment and such an unpopular law.

But they also knew that what they were doing probably would not work.

They hoped for Announced Plan A to work. Just as Reagan hoped Announced Plan A -- lower tax rates, lower deficits -- would come to pass.

But they do have a Hidden Plan B should Announced Plan A not quite work out.

Posted by: Ace at 12:31 PM | Comments (280)
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Oh yeah.

I was thinking about this lately, during the holiday season, and the old saw about the most suicides taking place after the Christmas/New Years holidays.

It really is a sad time of year, isn't it? It's cold as hell. The sun is the sky the fewest hours of the day. (Well, close enough: it's appearing a little more each day now that we've passed the solstice.)

The snow is no longer pretty and magical; instead, it's dirty gray soot-flecked slush and packed ice on the curbs and in the drive way. There's not much to look forward to, except the distant hope of spring.

It's a very empty time, isn't it? It's a time to just get through, to just bull through.

If you're feeling down on Monday, know this -- you're not alone.

Monday, January 6, 2014, is what some psychological researchers call "Blue Monday."

...

"Blue Monday," which is said to be the most miserable day of the year, was originally calculated to be at the end of the month.

But researchers analyzed tweets over the past few years and found that Monday, January 6, 2014 is the day the most people feel sad and guilty.

I can see that-- right now we're in the beginning of the Big Suck. It gnaws at you as it wears on. But today is the start of it.

So here's my personal plan for beating the Blue Months:

1. Work on self-improvement. It feels good to accomplish goals. Quit smoking (right now I'm in smoke-much-less mode) and start walking again. Start the language lessons up again.

2. Get as much ultraviolet light as I can. Seasonal Affective Disorder -- depression and lethargy, mainly -- is believed to be caused by the lack of ultraviolet sunlight during the winter months. So today I'm going outside to look indirectly towards the sun (glasses off) and see if I can get some light-based therapy going.

Another fix is a Light Box, a gadget that pumps out ultraviolet light that you can put on your desk or your night-stand.

I bought the Philips GoLight BLU a while back but haven't used it in a year. I'm putting it back on my desk to start that treatment again. I will say that it does seem to help. It wakes you up. (Daylight is a natural stimulant; the body reads daylight as Active Time and pumps out alertness hormones in response.) This could be a placebo effect, of course.

Oh, and I need to start taking Vitamin D again. Vitamin D is produced by the skin in reaction to sunlight, and when there's no sun, not much is produced. So back to the pills.

What about you guys? January got you down?

Oh and by the way: the "excessively high temperatures" we're experiencing are already causing widespread public harm, say the Warmites.

Posted by: Ace at 01:33 PM | Comments (308)
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Via @theh2, a truly terrible crime. And that crime is premeditated murder.

VidalÂ’s Father contacted the Boiling Springs Lakes Police Department around 1 pm Sunday to try to get help putting Vidal in the car, so he could be taken to a mental evaluation. Vidal was abrasive and did not want to go. and picked up a small electronics screwdriver.

Two Officers responded to the scene and started negotiating with Vidal. After about 10 mins the situation started defusing itself with Vidal becoming more rational. At that very moment an Officer From another Town Entered the residence and instructed the officers to stop talking and tase Vidal.

As Vidal tried to flee into the bathroom adjacent to where he was standing the two officers simultaneously shot him with their tasers. As Vidal Collapsed backwards on to the floor the two officers jumped on top of the 5ft 3 100 lb Vidal to restrain him.

As Vidal’s Father tried to step in and grab the screw driver The Southport Police Officer that had instructed the other officers to use their tasers, moved between the father and the pile of people on the floor and said ” We don’t have time for this” and shot Vidal once in the chest as the other two Officers held him on the floor. Vidal’s father then grabbed the officer as he was lining himself up for another shot.

A small electronics screwdriver -- hardly bigger than an eyeglass screwdriver.

Posted by: Ace at 08:00 AM | Comments (471)
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A Utah court declared -- surprise, surprise -- that gay marriage was now an enshrined right in the Constitution. Nobody's quite certain when this Secret Amendment was passed, but, given the fact the the US system of government is now based on White House statements made during press conferences, it was probably when the doltish Vice President declared that he was "absolutely comfortable" with same sex marriage.

So let it be decreed.

Now the Supreme Court has halted gay marriage in Utah, at least until an appellate court has rendered its own decision.

During the 17 days of the holding, many gay Utahns got married. (I read the number 900+ somewhere but I can't find it now.) Their actual status is now in doubt.

"Clearly, the stay should have been granted with the original District Court decision in order to have avoided the uncertainty created by this unprecedented change," Gov. Gary Herbert said.

Now the state is trying to determine whether the marriages that have already taken place are still valid, Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes said. He said he didn't know when they'd make a determination, saying they don't want to rush an important legal decision.

"This is precisely the uncertainty we were hoping to avoid by requesting the stay," Reyes said. "It's unfortunate that many Utah citizens have been put into this legal limbo."

It was indeed arrogant for the courts to refuse a stay on such a major ruling, on the say-so of only a district court judge.

And how will the appellate court, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals based in Denver, rule? Well, they sort of already ruled -- three times.

Sotomayor is assigned to the 10th Circuit Court, which rejected UtahÂ’s request for a stay three times.

So that's where their heads are at: They refused to issue a stay, a delay in the execution of the ruling, three times.

Posted by: Ace at 02:25 PM | Comments (288)
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The economy supposedly posted growth of 4.1% last quarter. If that's true, why is the economy still so sickly?

While there's little sense that the U.S. economy is headed for another downturn, most forecasters expect further improvement in 2014 will be gradual. Unless and until the job market improves substantially, and higher wages drive a convincing pickup in consumer spending and demand, the lingering damage to confidence will likely keep the weakest economic recovery in memory plodding along at a frustratingly slow pace.

...

"The economy is continuing to make progress, but it also has much farther to travel before conditions can be judged normal," Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke told reporters in his final news conference as head of the 100-year-old institution.

...

That sluggish job growth goes a long way to explaining why—for millions of Americans—the Great Recession never ended. While the "official" unemployment rate has fallen steadily since the summer of 2009, the improvement in the data has come largely from the ongoing wave of jobless people who have given up looking for work.

Many of them—like Mary Villalba, 65, of Centennial, Colo.—fear they may never find a job as good as the one they lost to the recession.

Mother Jones (!) punctures the idea that the economy is Just Fine with charts.

Former Obama economic advisor Larry Summers notes that this "recovery" does not resemble prior ones.

Last month I argued that the U.S. and global economies may be in a period of secular stagnation in which sluggish growth and output, and employment levels well below potential, might coincide for some time to come with problematically low real interest rates. Since the start of this century, annual growth in U.S. gross domestic product has averaged less than 1.8 percent. The economy is now operating nearly 10 percent, or more than $1.6 trillion, below what the Congressional Budget Office judged to be its potential path as recently as 2007. And all this is in the face of negative real interest rates for more than five years and extraordinarily easy monetary policies.

Even some forecasters who have had the wisdom to remain pessimistic about growth prospects the past few years are coming around to more optimistic views of 2014, at least in the United States. This is encouraging but should be qualified with the recognition that even on optimistic forecasts, output and employment stand to remain well below previous trends for many years. More troubling, even with the high degree of slack in the economy and with wage and price inflation slowing, there are signs of eroding credit standards and inflated asset values. If the United States were to enjoy several years of healthy growth under anything like current credit conditions, there is every reason to expect a return to the kind of problems of bubbles and excess lending seen in 2005 to 2007 long before output and employment returned to normal trend growth or inflation picked up again.

He outlines three responses: Supply side economic policy, Fed easy-money monetary policy, and a progressive demand-side policy. He winds up championing the third. Obama advisor arguing for more Obamanomics, go figure.

But here's what he says about the second strategy, the Fed's helicoptering money into the economy:

...

The second strategy, which has dominated U.S. policy in recent years, is lowering relevant interest rates and capital costs as much as possible and relying on regulatory policies to ensure financial stability. No doubt the economy is far healthier now than it would have been in the absence of these measures. But a growth strategy that relies on interest rates significantly below growth rates for long periods virtually ensures the emergence of substantial financial bubbles and dangerous buildups in leverage. The idea that regulation can allow the growth benefits of easy credit to come without cost is a chimera.

Artificially juicing the economy with money we don't have results in artificially raising prices for things. Thus creating a bubble. And we may be back to creating a second housing bubble. I guess we're creating a second housing bubble because the first one was so awesome.

IN November, housing starts were up 23 percent, and there was cheering all around. But the crowd would quiet down if it realized that another housing bubble had begun to grow.

The writer notes that a bubble can be detected when the rate of growth of prices for buying property greatly exceed the rate of growth of rents that can be charged for that property. After all, the actual income one hopes to generate from property is based on its rental value; if the property's value is going up at double the rate of rents, then that increase in price is due to speculation about the property's future value. And that's the sign of a bubble.

Today, after the financial crisis, the recession and the slow recovery, the bubble is beginning to grow again. Between 2011 and the third quarter of 2013, housing prices grew by 5.83 percent, again exceeding the increase in rental costs, which was 2 percent.
...

Both this bubble and the last one were caused by the governmentÂ’s housing policies, which made it possible for many people to purchase homes with very little or no money down.

...

Today, the same forces are operating. The Federal Housing Administration is requiring down payments of just 3.5 percent. Fannie and Freddie are requiring a mere 5 percent. According to the American Enterprise Institute’s National Mortgage Risk Index data set for Oct. 2013, about half of those getting mortgages to buy homes — not to refinance — put 5 percent or less down. When anyone suggests that down payments should be raised to the once traditional 10 or 20 percent, the outcry in Congress and from brokers and homebuilders is deafening.

So here we go again.

By the way: Lawrence Summers referred to "secular stagnation" in the economy. Here's a quick definition from Wikipedia.

During the Great Depression, private capital investment fell because of excess capacity and lack of good investment opportunities. Secular stagnation theory blamed inadequate capital investment for hindering full deployment of labor and other economic resources.

I'm not an economist, but it sure sounds if Larry Summers is right, he should be arguing for methods of increasing capital investment. And that means incentivizing it, or, rather, not disincentivizing it as much as we do presently.

And that means we should do the exact opposite of what Obama is doing, not more of the same.

Thanks to @rdbrewer4 for most of the links in this post.

Posted by: Ace at 11:25 AM | Comments (301)
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