…is out of control. Excerpts from a new book by Radley Balko.
[Mid-morning update]
Some questions for the Virginia Alcohol Control board. As Glenn notes, pointing a gun on someone with no expectation of danger is an assault. The students should sue.
Category Archives: Media Criticism
If You Don’t Work, You Die
Thoughts from Sarah Hoyt on incentives.
ObamaCare
The ACA, to put it gently, is already on shaky ground. Just last week, for example, the LA Times reported that UnitedHealth, the nation’s largest insurer, is dropping out of California’s individual market. Similarly, Blue Cross Blue Shield will not participate in the exchanges in Iowa and South Dakota in 2014. And the WSJ puts the delay of the employer mandate in its discouraging context. Along with the Supreme Court ruling that invalidated the Medicaid expansion (28 states haven’t yet agreed to expand) and the refusal by many states (over 30) to set up their own health exchanges, the delay is the third major challenge to the central goal of the law: expanding access to insurance.
“You’ve got three body blows toward expansion of coverage,” said Paul Keckley, executive director of the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions, a research unit of Deloitte LLP. “It’s three punches in a row.”
Ultimately, this will be decided in sixteen months. Without RomneyCare to muddy the waters, it will be a much better issue for Republicans.
Elections Are Not Democracy
Yes. “Elections are necessary but not sufficient for a democratic republic. You also need limits on state power, and civil society. Frankly, what’s most impressive to me is how resilient and robust Egyptian civil society has been in the face of the Muslim Brotherhood’s clear effort to establish an Iran-style theocracy.”
I’d also add that a republic (which per Franklin’s famous statement after the convention, we have, or at least had until the last few decades) is not a democracy, either.
Austan Goolsby
What did he know, and how did he know it?
The IRS scandal continues to not “fizzle out.”
That “World Record” Temperature
Anthony Watts has some questions for the folks in Death Valley.
I hope he’s not holding his breath waiting for answers.
Also, somewhat related: (document thief and fabricator) Peter Gleick: Super Geenius.
Massachussets, Cradle Of Liberty
…is apparently where liberty went to die.
Nothing’s changed since the seventeenth century there, really. It’s just a new form of puritanism and witch huntery.
That Dumb Cowboy Bush
It’s sure a good thing we got rid of him.
[[Update a while later]
Who lost the Middle East? The wrecking crew in the White House.
[Another update a few minutes later]
Who are the good guys in the Middle East?
Prospects for liberal democracy there have never been bright, except for the one exception of Israel, which was formed by transplants from elsewhere.
Also, related: “Dismiss the Egyptian people, and elect a new one.”
Peak-Oil Blogging
…has peaked.
Now, let’s hope the same happens to climate-hysteria sites.
The Lawless Rolling Train Wreck That Is ObamaCare
The Affordable Care Act’s Section 1513 states in black-letter law that “(d) Effective Date.—The amendments made by this section shall apply to months beginning after December 31, 2013.” It does not say the Administration can impose the mandate whenever it feels it is politically convenient.
This selective enforcement of laws has become an Administration habit. From immigration (the Dream Act by fiat) to easing welfare reform’s work requirements to selective waivers for No Child Left Behind, the Obama Administration routinely suspends enforcement of or unilaterally rewrites via regulation the laws it dislikes. Now it is doing it again on health care, without any consultation from, much less the approval of, Congress. President Obama probably figures business and Republicans won’t object because they don’t like the law anyway.
Probably. But it’s a mess, and it’s only going to get worse.