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November 2013

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 01, 2013 12 Comments
Earlier this week three were unconfirmed reports of a very large explosion near the Syrian city of Latakia. There was relatively little media coverage to start, almost all from Israeli newspapers citing social media accounts. As in all these cases, Israeli officials were silent as to whodunit.  That's the dance that takes place to avoid a major war. Israel destroys game-changing weapons on their way to Hezbollah, Syria pretends it's not sure what happened, and everyone goes along with a major confrontation.  So long as Israel doesn't try to shift the balance of power within Syria and focuses on weapons headed to Hezbollah, Assad is under limited pressure to react. But not for the first time anonymous U.S. officials have told multiple U.S. media outlets that Israel was behind it. Which raises the question, why the leaks?

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 01, 2013 22 Comments
They own all of our Obamacare problems, completely. CNN reports, Senate Democrats supported rule that led to insurance cancellations:
Senate Democrats voted unanimously three years ago to support the Obamacare rule that is largely responsible for some of the health insurance cancellation letters that are going out. In September 2010, Senate Republicans brought a resolution to the floor to block implementation of the grandfather rule, warning that it would result in canceled policies and violate President Barack Obama’s promise that people could keep their insurance if they liked it. “The District of Columbia is an island surrounded by reality. Only in the District of Columbia could you get away with telling the people if you like what you have you can keep it, and then pass regulations six months later that do just the opposite and figure that people are going to ignore it. But common sense is eventually going to prevail in this town and common sense is going to have to prevail on this piece of legislation as well,” Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley said at the time. “The administration's own regulations prove this is not the case. Under the grandfathering regulation, according to the White House's own economic impact analysis, as many as 69 percent of businesses will lose their grandfathered status by 2013 and be forced to buy government-approved plans,” the Iowa Republican said. On a party line vote, Democrats killed the resolution, which could come back to haunt vulnerable Democrats up for re-election this year.
These vulnerable Senate Dems who are up for reelection in 2014 helped kill the grandfathering fix: Mary Landrieu, Jeanne Shaheen, Mark Pryor, Kay Hagan and Mark Begich.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 01, 2013 19 Comments
The IRS Scandal is alive and kicking.  Although it is being drowned out of media attention by the Obamacare and Benghazi scandals. Two important revelations this week related to the targeting of conservative and Tea Party groups. First, Lois Lerner has been caught feeding confidential tax information to the Federal Election Commissions, including the infamous questionaires.  Via Judicial Watch, which obtained the documents, IRS’ Lerner Disclosed Confidential Information about Tax Status of Conservative Groups to FEC:
Judicial Watch announced today that it has obtained email exchanges between former Internal Revenue Services (IRS) Director of Exempt Organizations Lois Lerner and enforcement attorneys at the Federal Election Commission (FEC) indicating that the IRS provided detailed, confidential information concerning the tax exempt application status and returns of conservative groups to the FEC in violation of federal law. Included with the email exchanges were IRS questionnaires to a conservative group that contained questions of a hostile nature.... The bulk of the records obtained by Judicial Watch consist of extensive materials from the IRS’ files sent from Lerner to the FEC containing detailed, confidential information about the organizations. These include annual tax returns (Forms 990) and request for exempt recognition forms (Form 1024), Articles of Organization and other corporate documents, and correspondence between the nonprofit organizations and the IRS. Under Section 6103 of the Internal Revenue Code, it is a felony for an IRS official to disclose either “return information” or “taxpayer return information,” even to another government agency.
Earlier in the week Eliana Johnson at National review detailed the results of IRS leaks about the National Organization for Marriage to its political opponent, the pro-gay marriage Human Rights Campaitn.  Most outrageous is how the the law protects the identify of the illegal leaker.  Investigation IDs IRS Leaker:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 01, 2013 23 Comments
Hey, remember Cash for Clunkers? We sure do, we wrote about it frequently and predicted negative unintended consequences: Seth Mandel at Commentary Magazine has an update, Speaking of Failed Big-Government Programs…:
The ongoing debacle that is the administration’s rollout of ObamaCare has reignited debate about technocracy and big-government liberalism. But Democrats who worry that their mode of coercive politics will be discredited by ObamaCare should be thankful it took this long. A very well-timed reminder of this arrived yesterday from the Brookings Institution. Scholars at the left-leaning think tank analyzed the so-called “Cash for Clunkers” program, the 2009 “stimulus” program intended to get cleaner cars on the road by providing cash vouchers for those who trade in older gas guzzlers and buy newer, more efficient cars. The administration patted itself on the back when the program ran out of money, apparently pleasantly surprised that people took free money during an economic downturn. But Brookings confirms that this was, of course, a terrible program. Here are their major findings:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 01, 2013 16 Comments

Hi, Prof. J: Spied this sticker at the local community college (have actually seen the same car on more than one occasion). Not sure where the driver is coming from, but I share the sentiment with regards to Obama. "Zero" disgusts me so much,...

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