Video: The curious case of Mrs. Doubtimfired continues « Hot Air

Video: The curious case of Mrs. Doubtimfired continues « Hot Air: "Stretton has disappeared since the case went viral, as CNN notes, and that brings us to the moral of this cautionary tale — be sure to do some research before hiring a live-in nanny. Had the Bracamontes dug a little deeper into Stretton’s past, they would have discovered this:

CNN discovered that Stretton is on the California’s Vexatious Litigant List, a list of people who continually bring legal action, regardless of merit, against others with the sole intention of harassment. CNN found dozens of lawsuits filed by Stretton in California over the years.

“Bottom line, seriously do some research first,” the CNN host advises. Indeed."



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Obama: I guess I’m going to have to fix our immigration system on my own « Hot Air

Obama: I guess I’m going to have to fix our immigration system on my own « Hot Air: "Last I checked, he was planning to ask Congress to change a few Bush-era rules so that he can expedite deportations of young illegals to Central America. It makes sense that he’d be a stickler for legislative authority on that; invoking executive authority to beef up the border is precisely the opposite of what his base wants him to do. And yet … here he is, invoking executive authority to beef up the border. Hmmm."



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A kinder, gentler turn to the gender wars? Column

A kinder, gentler turn to the gender wars? Column: "With men and women both talking and listening, it gave me some hope that perhaps we'll see something new, and better, in the politics of gender. Will this spirit be able to overcome the politicized divisiveness that marks today's gender discussion? If enough men and women of good will come together, it just might."



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MN governor cheers relocation of major corporation HQ to … Ireland « Hot Air

MN governor cheers relocation of major corporation HQ to … Ireland « Hot Air: "Two different Republican contenders for governor, Marty Seifert and Scott Honour, both blasted Dayton’s support for the move. Honour called it a “slap in the face,” and evidence that “tax and regulatory policies are chasing away Minnesota’s best companies.” Seifert blamed both ObamaCare — which has a tax on medical devices — and Dayton’s economic policies for the decision, calling it “a sad day” for Minnesota’s economy.

Honour’s probably the closest to the truth. If Medtronic is indeed going to add 1,000 jobs, it’s not because they’re transferring the corporate flag to Ireland, but either regardless or in spite of the move. ObamaCare might have an impact on hiring at Medtronic that’s outsized from other sectors, but moving the corporate HQ to Ireland won’t change that. The medical device tax applies to their products no matter where they’re headquartered.

What prompted Medtronic to move? Bloomberg’s Leonid Bershidsky lays the blame on federal tax and regulatory policies, and says the move does do damage to the Minnesota and US economy. If the US would fix its corporate tax policies, Bershidsky argues, we’d see a lot less of this rational response to the perverse incentives set up by the current system. Instead, the US seems ready to make the situation worse."



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Vox concedes IRS involved in ‘scandal,’ is wrong about most everything else « Hot Air

Vox concedes IRS involved in ‘scandal,’ is wrong about most everything else « Hot Air: "There is no mention of the implausible vanishing emails, no reference to leaked communications which indicate that Rep. Elijah Cummings’s (D-MD) office had coordinated with the IRS, no mention of the fact that the IRS may have violated federal tax law when it forwarded confidential taxpayer information to the FBI in an effort to explore the potential to bring criminal charges against some nonprofit groups.

It is unlikely that this manner of apparently voluntary misconduct would have been avoided had Congress simply increased the IRS’s funding before 2010.

The post is just another vehicle to claim that this or the other federal agency needs more funding. It’s a familiar pattern. That is not, however, to suggest that there is no value to this Vox post. It is essential, if only because it freely and without qualification refers to the IRS scandal a “scandal.” Baby steps."



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Obama's double asterisks on IRS: Column

Obama's double asterisks on IRS: Column: "I guess it's time to award President Obama a second asterisk. When charges came out that the IRS targeted Tea Party groups for harassment, the Wall Street Journal's James Taranto started calling Obama "President Asterisk." His point was that this illicit assistance tainted the election, the way an athlete's use of illegal performance-enhancers results in an asterisk on any records he sets.

Now it may be time for another asterisk. As Congress investigates the IRS chicanery, the IRS has responded to a request for emails to and from Lois Lerner, who spearheaded the Tea Party harassment, by saying, basically, that the dog ate its homework. Or, rather, the IRS claims, somewhat dubiously, that "a hard drive crash" on Lerner's computer led to the loss of emails to outside entities "such as the White House, Treasury, Department of Justice, FEC, or Democrat offices." You know, the very people she's accused of coordinating her harassment with."



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Vox Explains: Israel Is The Worst

Vox Explains: Israel Is The Worst: "Vox, a site that purportedly exists to explain the world to us, is plowing old ground. The idea that the powerful are culpable might be logically flawed, but Israel’s critics have used it for decades. It can be found in The Nation circa 1985, or a Ron Paul newsletter circa 1992, or now on the Vox landing page. Of course, the idea that Vox has the capability to explain an issue as complex as the Israel-Arab conflict in a few thousand words or that it can render judgment is laughable. The reasoning used to try and accomplish the feat, though, is just as disturbing as its always been."



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John Stossel: Here Comes Tomorrow

John Stossel: Here Comes Tomorrow: "James Miller, author of "Singularity Rising," says that a future with little hard work left for humans sounds like "an economic utopia." He says that trying to prevent progress by machines would be as destructive as if we'd outlawed the rise of cars, buses and modern trains. But Miller does fear the computer revolution will be different: "The analogy would be: 100 years ago, we breed super intelligent horses. That would have permanently destroyed a lot of jobs."
I'm more optimistic. As with so many innovations in the past, I'll bet that handing off tasks to machines will make our lives better by freeing us up to focus on activities that we enjoy more. Robots will make our future better.
If they don't kill us."



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Chris Matthews scolds Ronan Farrow: Liberals need to stop looking down on tea partiers « Hot Air

Chris Matthews scolds Ronan Farrow: Liberals need to stop looking down on tea partiers « Hot Air: "“Well, first of all, I don’t think you can assume that the liberals are smarter than the conservative professors,” Matthews shot back. “I think that’s crazy talk, and it’s exactly the kind of attitude conservatives can’t stand.”

“This looking down our noses at tea party people has got to stop,” Matthews added. “They have a message, they’re as American as any liberal is, and they’re really angry of the failure of the system.”

“We can’t control the deficit, we can’t control the debt, we can’t control the border,” the Hardball host railed. “What is government good at?”"



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The U.S. Department of Interior: Putting animals before people, one scandalously rejected infrastructure project at a time « Hot Air

The U.S. Department of Interior: Putting animals before people, one scandalously rejected infrastructure project at a time « Hot Air: "So… Jewell wants to protect the “favorite nesting beds” of some birds, which, by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service‘s own definition, “breed over an extensive range in Alaska, Arctic Canada and Russia”? That’s certainly interesting. Let’s compare that to the King Cove residents’ justification for wanting to build a road through this apparently treasured wildlife refuge in the middle of a state that is basically one giant wildlife refuge itself.

King Cove only has a small medicine clinic that can’t handle major medical emergencies, and they only have one airstrip that can’t handle jets or takeoffs and landings at night or in poor weather. The weather is often poor in King Cove, Alaska, meaning that with all of the wind and fog, medical evacuations for sick and/or injured residents are basically impossible. King Cove would like to build this 11-mile road to connect them to another town with a better airstrip, which Congress has approved and for which they have offered a more than fair 60,000 acres of land in return, but the U.S. Department of Interior keeps denying their request and wants them to “come up with alternatives to building a road.” So far, they have already tried boat as well as hovercraft connections between the two towns, to no avail.

Yes, this is real life."



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NYC Council to Walmart: Stop sending your “dangerous dollars” to our city’s charities « Hot Air

NYC Council to Walmart: Stop sending your “dangerous dollars” to our city’s charities « Hot Air: "OK, so… prohibiting whatever your definition of “bad jobs” happens to be (and those 8,000 average applicants apparently disagree), is better than not offering those jobs at all? Not to mention offering gobs of savings in consumer goods to low-income city residents? And who cares if Walmart is trying is indeed trying to spread some goodwill with some of the city’s movers and shakers? Let ‘em! The unions shutting out the competition of free market for their own entirely selfish ends will keep fighting back just as hard."



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288,000 Californians vote for indicted arms trafficker « Hot Air

288,000 Californians vote for indicted arms trafficker « Hot Air: "State Senator Leland Yee, whom I hope you remember made international headlines when he was indicted on arms trafficking and corruption charges last March, had been a candidate for secretary of state. He dropped out of the race after his arrest, but it was too late to remove his name from the printed ballots.

Yesterday, Yee received almost 288,000 votes — 10% of the total and good enough for third place in the primary. He finished ahead of five other candidates.

A tip of the hat to San Jose State University political scientist Larry Gerston, who was remarkably insightful about how this could happen.

“There will be some people who will vote for Yee because they do not know what is going on,” he said."



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National Journal Boehner Burn Book : “Mad at Obama? Blame Republicans” « Hot Air

National Journal Boehner Burn Book : “Mad at Obama? Blame Republicans” « Hot Air: "If I may, let me offer another plausible inflection point for cooperation in Washington, D.C. Unlike James Oliphant, I do not wholly blame the Democrats’ unpopular, unrelenting, procedurally unconventional, and at times unscrupulous passage of the Affordable Care Act for every problem in Congress and the country, ever. I guess that would make me a reporter at a national straight-news outlet of some prestige. I am not that. Instead, I am a mere ideological hack who allows for the possibility that there are many reasons— systemic, Constitutionally designed, personality driven, and yes, particular to Obama’s failures and overreaches—that Congress isn’t passing his every whim as soon as it passes his lips. (It is, by the way, passing things, but those things are conveniently left out of assessments of the state of the country which rely on unrelenting Republican obstructionism as their mustachioed villain.)"



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Best of the Web Today: 'Suck It Up and Salute' - WSJ

Best of the Web Today: 'Suck It Up and Salute' - WSJ: "The left's blinkered view of military culture is perhaps best summarized by Elias Isquith, a young writer for Salon.com, who yesterday explained the backlash against the Bergdahl deal as follows: "When a member of the military fails to adhere to the far right's rigid formula of what a soldier should be (nationalistic, religious, obedient; conservative) right-wingers . . . come down on them [sic] like a ton of bricks." He cited one example in addition to Bergdahl: John Kerry.

Isquith seems to imply that servicemen are fungible, each entitled to equal respect regardless of conduct. But the bitter criticism of Kerry in 2004 and Bergdahl today would carry no force if it came from mere "right-wingers." It comes, instead, from servicemen and veterans who see the two men as having behaved dishonorably. Once again the left is being undone by its failure to comprehend the centrality of honor to military culture."



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Study: Hurricanes with Female Names More Deadly Because No One Respects Them | Mediaite

Study: Hurricanes with Female Names More Deadly Because No One Respects Them | Mediaite: "Or maybe this is not a problem at all and those who incorrectly judge a storm’s lethality by its name are yielding to a Darwinian process of natural selection.

Food for thought."



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Rage, Rhetoric, and Reform | National Review Online

Rage, Rhetoric, and Reform | National Review Online: "Amanda Marcotte, a world-champion misser of points, demanded to know: “How are you harmed by other people being allowed to self-determine gender?” Framing the question in Millsian harm-principle terms would present a perfectly reasonable challenge to a libertarian such as myself if, for example, I were calling for the government to ban sex-reassignment surgery or related hormone therapies. A reader at all familiar with my work would know that waiting on me to call on the government to ban much of anything short of violence or theft is a rather long-term assignment. I have not called for so-called sex-reassignment procedures to be banned, neither in this most recent article or in my earlier and more detailed argument about the matter of Bradley Manning. Perhaps it has not occurred to Miss Marcotte that my concern about a program of genital amputation in the service of a metaphysical theory stems not from any harm I expect to suffer myself but from harm that I do not wish to see visited upon other people. In this I am hardly alone."



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Best of the Web Today: The Mismeasure of Management - WSJ

Best of the Web Today: The Mismeasure of Management - WSJ: "That said, what Borger delicately calls "the IRS controversy" was not a case of inept management but of the corrupt use of government power. Its purpose was the suppression of Obama's political opponents. To the extent that it accomplished this aim, Obama's re-election looks even less like a triumph of effective management.

Peggy Noonan, who has touched on this theme before, describes the president's problem as a "failure to understand that government isn't magic." That appears to be literally accurate. Politico's Carrie Budoff Brown and Jennifer Epstein report that Obama has resorted to apotropaic rituals. It started, they write, "last fall in the midst of the biggest humiliation of Barack Obama's presidency, the failure of the health care website.""



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