Ted Cruz Has the Establishment in Panic Mode

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Photo Credit: Doug MillsAs the Senate edged toward a divisive filibuster vote on Chuck Hagel’s nomination to be defense secretary, Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, sat silent and satisfied in the corner of the chamber — his voice lost to laryngitis — as he absorbed what he had wrought in his mere seven weeks of Senate service.

Mr. Hagel, a former senator from Mr. Cruz’s own party, was about to be the victim of the first filibuster of a nominee to lead the Pentagon. The blockade was due in no small part to the very junior senator’s relentless pursuit of speeches, financial records or any other documents with Mr. Hagel’s name on them going back at least five years. Some Republicans praised the work of the brash newcomer, but others joined Democrats in saying that Mr. Cruz had gone too far.

Without naming names, Senator Barbara Boxer, Democrat of California, offered a biting label for the Texan’s accusatory crusade: McCarthyism.

“It was really reminiscent of a different time and place, when you said, ‘I have here in my pocket a speech you made on such and such a date,’ and, of course, nothing was in the pocket,” she said, a reference to Senator Joseph R. McCarthy’s pursuit of Communists in the 1950s. “It was reminiscent of some bad times.”

In just two months, Mr. Cruz, 42, has made his presence felt in an institution where new arrivals are usually not heard from for months, if not years. Besides suggesting that Mr. Hagel might have received compensation from foreign enemies, he has tangled with the mayor of Chicago, challenged the Senate’s third-ranking Democrat on national television, voted against virtually everything before him — including the confirmation of John Kerry as secretary of state — and raised the hackles of colleagues from both parties.

He could not be more pleased. Washington’s new bad boy feels good.

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Taxing the Planet Clean: Boxer, Sanders call for $1.2 Trillion Carbon Tax

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Photo Credit: APSens. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) and Barbara Boxer (D., Calif.) announced they will introduce sweeping new energy regulations, including a carbon tax, during a Thursday press conference.

The proposed legislation would use a tax on carbon emissions to fund “historic investments in energy efficiency and sustainable energy technologies such as wind, solar, geothermal, and biomass,” according to a press release.

“We have the opportunity right now, with the president’s commitment in the State of the Union to make major progress,” Sanders said at the press conference. President Barack Obama called for “meaningful” action on climate change in his State of the Union address Tuesday, and Boxer said her bill was in line with the president’s goals.

“The president is right—we must do more to combat climate change, and Superstorm Sandy was a wake-up call,” Boxer said in a statement. “I strongly support the president’s efforts to move forward with executive actions to address this serious threat.”

Sanders said the bill’s tax—$20 per ton of carbon dioxide above a set limit—would target 2,869 of the country’s biggest carbon emitters, including coalmines, oil refineries, and natural gas processing points.

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Gun Makers Refusing To Sell Arms To Government

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Photo Credit: paljoakimSince New York State enacted its restrictive new gun laws, many manufacturers have sent that state (and others) a message: If local governments are going to severely restrict the ability of citizens to own guns, then these companies will not be selling to law enforcement in those areas.

Among the gun manufacturers sending that message:

Olympic Arms, Inc
La Rue Tactical
EFI, LLC – Extreme Firepower
York Arms
Templar Custom
Cheaper Than Dirt

Olympic Arms posted a press release on the company’s Facebook page earlier this week. Their intentions were quite clear.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Olympic Arms is a staunch believer in and defender of the Constitution of the United States, and with special attention paid to the Bill of Rights that succinctly enumerates the security of our Divinely given Rights. One of those Rights is that to Keep and Bear Arms.

Legislation recently passed in the State of New York outlaws the AR15 and many other firearms, and will make it illegal for the good and free citizens of New York to own a large selection of legal and safe firearms and magazines. We feel as though the passage of this legislation exceeds the authority granted to the government of New York by its citizens, and violates the Constitution of the United States, ignoring such SCOTUS rulings as District of Columbia v. Heller – 554, U.S. 570 of 2008, McDonald v. Chicago – 561 U.S. 3025 of 2010, and specifically the case of United States v. Miller – 307 U.S. 174 of 1939.

Due (to) the passing of this legislation, Olympic Arms would like to announce that the State of New York, any Law Enforcement Departments, Law Enforcement Officers, First Responders within the State of New York, or any New York State government entity or employee of such an entity – will no longer be served as customers.

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$200,000 USDA Training: ‘Pilgrims Were Illegal Aliens’ (+video)

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Photo Credit: cliff1066™The department most associated with Thanksgiving–the U.S. Department of Agriculture–is training workers to refer to the Pilgrims who celebrated the first Thanksgiving as “illegal aliens.”

In a department “cultural sensitivity training” video uncovered and released by the public watchdog group Judicial Watch, a diversity trainer is shown saying: “I want you to say that America was founded by outsiders – say that – who are today’s insiders, who are very nervous about today’s outsiders. I want you to say, ‘The pilgrims were illegal aliens.’ Say, ‘The pilgrims never gave their passports to the Indians.”

Ag Department workers are heard loudly joining in.

The videos posted on Judicial Watch website show diversity instructor Samuel Betances urging USDA workers to think differently about illegals and minorities, who he calls “emerging majorities.”

According to Judicial Watch, “The sensitivity training sessions, described as ‘a huge expense’ by diversity awareness trainer and self-described ‘citizen of the world; Samuel Betances, were held on USDA premises. The diversity event is apparently part of what USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack described in a memo sent to all agency employees as a ‘new era of Civil Rights’ and ‘a broader effort towards cultural transformation at USDA.’ In 2011 and 2012, the USDA paid Betances and his firm nearly $200,000 for their part in the ‘cultural transformation’ program.'”

See video:

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65.4 Million Gun Purchases Since Obama Took Office, 91% More Than Bush’s First-Term Total

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Photo Credit: ElCapitanBSC There have been 65,376,373 background checks completed for Americans purchasing firearms since February of 2009, the first full month of Barack Obama’s presidency.

According to data compiled by the FBI, the number of Americans purchasing guns has skyrocketed since Obama was elected.

In 2009, there were 13,984,953 background checks for Americans buying firearms. If we subtract the 1,212,860 checks completed in the month of January, the total checks for the year under Obama were 12,772,090.

For 2010, background checks totaled 14,320,489. In 2011, checks were 16,336,732, and in 2012, 19,463,832. Background checks for the month of January 2013 were 2,483,230.

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Susan Rice: Clinton ‘Didn’t Want To’ Talk on Sunday Shows After Benghazi (+video)

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photo credit: Donkey HoteySusan Rice, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said she spoke on the Sunday news shows following the terror attack on Benghazi because then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton “didn’t want to.”

“I’ve spent many a Sunday doing the Sunday shows,” she told “The Daily Show” host John Stewart on Thursday. “In this case, Secretary Clinton, who had been asked originally to do it, felt that she didn’t want to, couldn’t do it that week, having been through quite a pretty intense week with the loss of our colleagues in Benghazi, the violence against our embassies all over the Arab and Muslim world, and then also that Friday having to join President Obama in greeting the families of our fallen colleagues and bringing their bodies back.”

Pressed about confusion over the talking points she was given on September 16, which blamed the attack on an allegedly anti-Muslim YouTube video, Rice said the notes she was given was the best information the intelligence staff had then.

“I shared the best information that our intelligence community had at the time, and they provided the talking points that I used,” she said. “They were wrong in one respect, we learned subsequently.”

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The Anti-Stimulus Economists Agree: Unemployment Benefits Hurt Employment Rates

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Photo Credit: APUnemployment insurance and other forms of government benefits act as a disincentive to work, economists across the political spectrum agree.

Three different economic experts testified before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee’s Subcommittee on Economic Growth, Job Creation, and Regulatory Affairs on Thursday afternoon during a heated and contentious hearing. All said that government benefits that kick in during unemployment decrease the economic incentive to pursue work, although they disagreed about the extent of the benefits’ effect.

“The focus of today’s hearing is on the unintended consequences that too often stem from well-intentioned policies,” said Subcommittee Chairman Jim Jordan (R., Ohio) in his opening statement for the hearing, “Unintended Consequences: Is Government Effectively Addressing the Unemployment Crisis?”

Casey Mulligan, an economics professor at the University of Chicago and author of a recent book on the effect that safety net programs have had on employment, argued that the government’s expansion of assistance programs in the wake of the recession actually has made it financially harmful to return to work in some cases.

He called the loss of benefits caused by employment the “job acceptance penalty,” and noted that a high penalty—100 percent of profit in some cases—is associated with low employment rates.

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House Leaders Demand Investigation of Claims NASA Leaked U.S. Space Defense Secrets, Justice Department Quashed Prosecutions

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Congressmen Lamar Smith and Frank Wolf want investigations by the FBI and the Department of Justice Inspector General into charges of improper political interference with prosecution of foreign nationals who allegedly stole U.S. space defense secrets and passed them to China.

“We have been told by sources close to this investigation that the FBI’s case is substantially complete and was referred to the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of California for prosecution, but it has been stalled for more than a year and that an assistant U.S. attorney was reassigned from the case,” Smith and Wolf said in Feb. 8, 2013, letters to FBI Director Robert S. Mueller and DOJ IG Michael Horowitz.

“We are deeply concerned that political pressure may be a factor,” the two congressmen said.

Smith, a Texas Republican, is chairman of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology Committee, while Wolf, a Virginia Republican, heads the panel’s appropriations subcommittee with oversight of the National Aerospace and Space Administration.

The FBI’s targets were foreign nationals working at NASA’s Ames Research Center near San Francisco. The center’s director is retired Air Force Gen. Simon “Pete” Worden.

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Professor Bans Fox News, Claiming It Makes Her Cringe

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Back in the day, teachers often scoffed at using encyclopedias as serious academic references. These days, they reserve their scorn for Wikipedia and — at one public university in West Virginia — Fox News.

A syllabus for a political science course at West Liberty University instructs students that they must filter out two potential research sources, reports WTOV, a nearby NBC affiliate.

According to Fox News, ironically enough, the syllabus says (with grammatical errors preserved for posterity):

DO NOT use

1) The Onion — this is not news this is literally a parody

2) Fox News — The tagline “Fox News” makes me cringe. Please do not subject me to this biased news station. I would almost rather you print off an article from the Onion

No other media or research sources — such as, say, MSNBC — appear to be prohibited.

Stephanie Wolfe, the visiting assistant professor behind the ban, has a one-year contract with the university in West Virginia’s Northern Panhandle. She is replacing another instructor who is on leave.

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Health Care Exchanges And The Two Americas

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Photo Credit: Reuters In the Obamacare era, there are two Americas. Half the states have refused to set up the health insurance exchanges, ignoring a Friday deadline for states to take on core requirements of the law. They’ll hand over the keys to the Obama administration, which will play an outsize and risky role in driving critical health insurance decisions that are typically the province of state governments.

Barring any surprise last minute Friday announcements, in those 25 states — nearly all led by Republican governors — the feds must set up health insurance exchanges. Enrollment starts in October, and on Jan. 1 those online marketplaces are supposed to provide affordable health coverage for millions of Americans.

Republicans who voted against the law and still clamor to repeal Obamacare believe the feds are heading for a nationwide failure.

“I have a hard time understanding how the administration expects to have exchanges up and running by Oct. 1, ” Orrin Hatch, the top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, said Thursday.

For the administration, it’s a dangerous endeavor: the text of President Barack Obama’s health law didn’t envision widespread abdication by the states. There’s not much of a playbook for federal health officials to follow. And if it goes horribly awry, not only will the Obama administration be blamed, the entire health care law could be in trouble.

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