Well ok – Josh McDaniels Staying With The Patriots | The Daily Caller
What is going on?
Seems like this creates a credibility problem next time he looks for a head coaching job. Of course, if his next head coaching job is with New England, I guess the problem is solved.
Let me start with the right answer, NO – Are We Free to Discuss America’s Real Problems? – Imprimis
Law Professor Amy Wax’s December lecture at Hillsdale College in December of 2017.
Democracy thrives on talk and debate, and it is not for the faint of heart. I read things every day in the media and hear things every day at my job that I find exasperating and insulting, including falsehoods and half-truths about people who are my friends. Offense and upset go with the territory; they are part and parcel of an open society. We should be teaching our young people to get used to these things, but instead we are teaching them the opposite.
Disliking, avoiding, and shunning people who don’t share our politics is not good for our country. We live together, and we need to solve our problems together. It is also always possible that people we disagree with have something to offer, something to contribute, something to teach us. We ignore this at our peril. As Heather Mac Donald wrote in National Review on August 29: “What if the progressive analysis of inequality is wrong . . . and a cultural analysis is closest to the truth? If confronting the need to change behavior is punishable ‘hate speech,’ then it is hard to see how the country can resolve its social problems.” In other words, we are at risk of being led astray by received opinion.
The American way is to conduct free and open debate in a civil manner. We should return to doing that on our college campuses and in our society at large.
The above is the conclusion, you need to read the body of the speech. It’s both expected and depressing.
New Mexico is stoopid – New Mexico considers forcing students to apply for college
The problem I have is not everyone is college material and that includes many of the people who go to college today. Or College’s are busy providing education that should be done elsewhere. Or, most likely they are going to the wrong College.
Where did this idea come from? Appears to be a combination of two things….
The measure was drafted with the aim of reversing declines in college enrollment across the state, which fell nearly 14% from 155,065 enrolled students in 2010 to 133,830 in 2016.
and…
The New Mexico bill is modeled after a similar requirement that Gentry said was put in place for high school students in San Marcos, Texas, more than a decade ago. And last year in Chicago, Mayor Rahm Emanuel made post-high school plans a graduation requirement – saying students had to either have plans to enter the military, take part in a “gap year” program, get a job offer or apprenticeship, or have an acceptance letter from a college.
No mention is made of whether the San Marcos experiment has been particularly successful.
My opinion is this is a bill that’s easy for lawmakers to pass but isn’t well thought out. It’s a feel good bill that puts the government where it shouldn’t be. Also, what’s the penalty? You don’t get a HS diploma. This seems really stoopid.
You’ve got to be kidding /sarc – More Faking of the Surface Temperature Record | Power Line
We have written many times about the fact that the Earth’s surface temperature record has been so badly corrupted that it is impossible to say whether claims like ‘2017 was the third-warmest year since thermometers became common in the late 19th century’ are true. Temperature records are under the control of agencies like NOAA, which in turn are run by people whose careers are heavily invested in the catastrophic anthropogenic global warming theory.
As an example, the exceptionally cold winter in New York State of 2013/2014 is compared to the compared to the 1942/43 winter. Specifically January 2014 to January 1943. In Division 10 of New York states, the 1943 winter was 0.9F warmer than 2014 according to NOAA.
Comparing actual temperature records, the 1943 winter was 2.7F warmer than 2014. How can this happen?
Somehow, NOAA adjusted past data DOWN 1.8F. And there appears to be one outlier 2014 temperature which would make the NOAA temperature adjustment 3.3F. And the source article make clear that there is a good case for a false reading at that location (Syracuse Hancock International Airport, at least in 2014).
Here’s a link to the source article from the blog Not a Lot of People Know That: New York’s Temperature Record Massively Altered By NOAA.
That’s a lot of temperature adjustment.
What next? Volcanos?
So Boulder – More cities trying to sue energy companies over “damages” from climate change
Those companies may have drilled for the oil, refined it and put it into barrels. But you people in the cities have been burning it with abandon for as long as it’s been available and you’re still burning it today if you use electricity or heat anything with natural gas. Shouldn’t you really be taking yourselves to court?
This is laughingly pathetic. If these “green weenies” have their way, the middle class and the poor will be buying their electricity with government subsidies, similar to healthcare.gov because the cost of energy will be too damn high.
David Crosby on Trump, New Songs and a Possible CSNY Reunion | Hollywood Reporter
The interview starts out asking Crosby about a song he wrote for the move Little Pink House which is about the Kelo decision. Interestingly enough, I 100% support Crosby regarding the Kelo decision. Using eminent domain for the advantage of private business is a disgrace. And he is right that Trump has used Eminent Domain in just that way, but so has the New York Times. However, let’s look at how the Supreme Court voted:
Affirming:
John Paul Stephens, Anthony Kennedy, David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer
Kennedy is considered a swing voter with the other affirming justices considered liberal.
Dissenting:
Sandra Day O’Conner, Chief Justince William Rehnquist, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas
So the decision is not a one done by an evil conservative court.
So at best the Kelo case is a strawman for Crosby to express his displeasure for Trump. And he is displeased…
He has used it. What a wretched person. The worst kind of landlord; and a racist. He’s done a lot of really bad stuff.
CSN&Y was my favorite band group in high school and I kept up with their music for quite some time. In my “Friday” post from last week, which will become a regular feature, I even featured 2 songs by CS&N/CSN&Y.
Would I see a reunion tour, not a chance. If they re-unite will it be a rip-roaring success? I feel certain it will. They will be a focal point for all the liberal/progressive anger, just like our late night entertainers, Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Fallon, Stephen Colbert, etc.
All I gotta say is: “This is how you get more Trump.”
So UnBoulder – Weld County poised to see another record year in oil production | GreeleyTribune.com
“Weld County is the only county, certainly the only major Front Range county, that’s been able to drop the mill levy in the last 15 years, and it is attributable to oil and gas.
Drill baby drill.
Faster please – Bill would require full transparency in health care pricing | Western Colorado | gjsentinel.com
Instead, his idea is to force providers and insurance companies to publicly post what they plan to charge for any procedure or medical service before anyone pays anything, just like a grocery store or gas station. Doing so would force providers and insurers to establish more reasonable prices because everyone would know what each is charging.
“This is not another nod to the concept of consumerism or patients being able to shop around for services. We don’t need that,” Silverstein said. “Ninety-five percent of this is about changing the behavior of a marketplace. Markets do not really work on consumers shopping around. They really work on competitors being able to see each other’s prices.”
His nonprofit group has several proposed measures for this fall’s ballot calling on those providers to reveal their pricing, physicians to disclose what insurance plans they accept, and make those insurance companies show their members how hospital payments and patient reimbursement rates are calculated.
Silverstein said doing so is the best way to control the spiraling cost of health care coverage nationwide without having to impose caps on medical pricing.
“Patients just want to be able to trust the system,” he said. “No law in the country has ever even contemplated requiring transparency for the health insurance carriers. It’s always been about the providers. You can’t get to a transparent, functional system without imposing real transparency on the negotiated contract of health insurance carriers.”
There was a recently passed pricing transparency bill but it only applied to non-insurance (direct pay) pricing, which is a very small percentage of the population. This would be a much larger step.
Donny Deutsch calls for Revolution – WATCH: Unhinged MSNBC Guest Calls for Revolution Against Trump… » Louder With Crowder
What release of classified information? I’m so confused. Read the memo and let me know what classified information was released. That’s a “nothingburger.”
Rod Rosenstein has not been fired.
Seems like this is all cover for Rosenstein to keep his job.
So Donny has his finger on the trigger. He seems certain that Rosenstein is going to be fired. I’m very skeptical that will happen.
Does the President have too much power? Which President, how did it happen? When did Congress give away their power?
This is how you get more Trump.
C’mon Boulderites, open those wallets – The DNC is reportedly ‘dead broke.’ The RNC has nearly $40 million.
Piers Morgan? – ‘American people turning against Trump-hating celebrities’ | Daily Mail Online
The stats don’t lie. Within minutes of President Trump’s first State of the Union speech, CBS News revealed their YouGov poll approval ratings on it.
Unsurprisingly, 97% of Republican speech watchers liked it.
More surprisingly, 72% of Independents liked it.
Staggeringly, 43% of Democrats liked it.
Overall, CBS reported that 75% of Americans approved of the speech.
For such a seriously divisive and polarising President, who is currently languishing with just 39% personal approval ratings, these were sensationally good results.
Well let’s get to the celebrities…
Contrast this reaction with the instant and so tediously predictable blind rage spewed by the world’s liberal celebrities on social media before, during and after the address.
From my own unofficial poll – i.e. my own eyes on Twitter – I’d say 99% of them were so furious at the speech they could barely think straight.
‘I was told darkness could not exist in the light,’ tweeted Sarah Silverman. ‘But here it is, for everyone to not see.’
Jim Carrey tweeted an illustration of sharks across a map of America, then another of a weeping Abraham Lincoln and the caption: ‘It’s my party and I’ll cry if I want to.’
Andy Lassner, producer of the insufferably smug The Ellen Show sneered: ‘Good luck ‘Saturday Night Live’ on trying to make this any more f***ing ridiculous than it already is.’
Jeffrey Wright raged: ‘Can’t even watch this vile, deceitful fraud and his bizarre cult of self-interested sycophants.’
Patton Oswalt seethed: ‘I’m gonna fact check this speech: whatever he just said was bullsh*t.’
Jessica Chastain urged people not to watch the speech at all.
Billy Eichner fumed: ‘The President is a lying, incompetent, racist, misogynist sack of sh*t.’
And George Takei spouted: ‘I’m not watching some frothing orange gorilla read off a teleprompter.’
On and on it went, with these stars and many more assuming America agreed with them.
But it turned out the vast majority of Americans DIDN’T agree with them, which suggests they’re no longer listening to what celebrities say about politics or Donald Trump.
And it only gets better. Celebrities are too stoopid to figure out they are living in an echo chamber. For practical purposes I’ve stopped going to movies, I’m just not interested in supporting their elite, self-indulgent thinking and even worse, preaching. I still watch football, but not nearly as much and I’ll find other things to do if the game isn’t competitive. Much less patience in sticking around to see if the team can make a comeback. In other words, the NFL has much less “stickiness” for me as a viewer. I’m betting I’m not alone.
Added, from the comments…
From commenter Crush…
I’ve generally been one to overlook politics if the product was good. I think only a couple of the musicians I like would be anywhere near my ideological camp, same goes for movie stars, but the product was good so I didn’t care. (I’m also one of those rare birds that actually pays for content rather than just download illegal copies.) But, the constant, hysterical, and often woefully ignorant comments coming from these jokers is getting harder to ignore.
When I watch a movie, I want to be able to suspend my disbelief and submerge myself in the world it creates, but that gets harder ever day when a goober on the screen keeps calling me a Nazi because I am not a full-on leftist.
I think Crush has/had more patience than I did.
From commenter Rogue noting how Twitter puts the Celebs out of touch points of view on full display….
I’m starting to change my mind about Twitter. Getting to see, up close and personal, just how unhinged and unAmerican the Hollywood crowd really is, is disturbing, of course, but it’s important that we see it.
These people are either from another planet, are mentally ill, or are a reflection of the “creative” mindset.
So…Go Twitter!
Circular logic – Isikoff Stunned That His Carter Page Article was Used to Justify Spy Warrant | The Daily Caller
The revelation, which was made in a memo released by the House Intelligence Committee on Friday, “stuns me,” Isikoff said in an episode of his podcast, “Skullduggery.”
The four-page memo alleges that the DOJ and FBI submitted inaccurate and incomplete information in a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant against Page. The spy warrant was granted on Oct. 21, 2016.
One “essential” part of the application was the uncorroborated Steele dossier, according to the memo. And an article that Isikoff wrote for Yahoo! News on Sept. 23, 2016 that was based directly on the dossier was “cited extensively” in the application.
Isikoff was shocked, he said, because his very article was based on information that came from Christopher Steele, the former British spy who wrote the dossier. He said it was “a bit beyond me” that the FBI would use his article in the FISA application. (RELATED: Spy Warrant Relied On Dossier And News Stories Planted By Fusion GPS)
“Obviously the information that I got from Christopher Steele was information the FBI already had,” he said, noting that Steele began sharing information from his dossier in July 2016. (emphasis added)
Isikoff acknowledged the potential problem with the DOJ and FBI citing his article to support the FISA against Page.
“It’s self-referential,” he said of the article and its reliance on the dossier.
It truly seems as if the top brass at the FBI are qualified because they stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night. My apologies to HIE.
Mind boggling – The Fragile Generation | Zero Hedge
You need to read the whole thing, it’s almost impossible to excerpt anything as there’s so much good material. That said, Boulder is mentioned so I’ll go with that…
At times, it seems like our culture is conjuring dangers out of thin air, just to have something new to worry about. Thus, the Boulder Public Library in Colorado recently forbade anyone under 12 to enter without an adult, because “children may encounter hazards such as stairs, elevators, doors, furniture, electrical equipment, or other library patrons.” Ah, yes, kids and library furniture. Always a lethal combo.
Happily, the library backed off that rule, perhaps thanks to merciless mocking in the media. But saner minds don’t always prevail. At Mesa Elementary School, which also happens to be in Boulder, students got a list of the items they could not bring to the science fair. These included “chemicals,” “plants in soil,” and “organisms (living or dead).” And we wonder why American children score so low on international tests.
We have truly raised a generation of snowflakes. As I said above, read the whole thing.
We’re talking Communism – Nothing to Celebrate | City Journal
But someone needs to talk with the baby boomers…
A recent YouGov survey found that 19 percent of millennials hold favorable views of Communism, compared with only 4 percent of baby boomers. (emphasis added) In its “Red Century” series, the New York Times celebrates Communism’s supposed progressive virtues. “For all its flaws,” said one writer, “the Communist revolution taught Chinese women to dream big.”
There’s the death toll thing…
One of Communism’s “flaws” is its death toll, which runs in the tens of millions. Political persecutions like those of Joseph Stalin in the Soviet Union are well known. But many have forgotten the deaths, intended and unintended, from mass starvation. During the twentieth century, approximately 70 million people perished from famine. That most famine deaths happened in Communist regimes is no accident: centrally planned food-procurement systems often fail, leading to food shortages and privation.
Author Pierre Yared concludes…
Anyone celebrating Communism on its hundredth anniversary should be honest about its deadly track record, rooted in a set of failed ideas—such as abandoning free markets and relying on government bureaucrats to distribute resources, thus making entire societies vulnerable to the effects of even small human errors. Between 1959 and 1961, those errors cost 30 million Chinese lives.
There’s a lot more, so follow the link and educate yourself.
And we are experiencing the failure of the Socialism experiment right before our eyes in Venezuela. Below are some links for your continued education:
h/t to Instapundit for the above links.
Dance Saudi’s dance – Saudi Arabia investigates couple dancing viral video | Daily Mail Online
The authorities in Saudi Arabia have ordered the arrest of a couple filmed dancing in the street in a video that went viral for violating the conservative kingdom’s strict religious rules.
Sure hope they can’t figure out who they are.
To add a little levity, from the Grateful Dead…
Shocked face – Ahead of Super Bowl, Poll Shows NFL Is Losing Its Core Audience – WSJ
Adults who report following the NFL closely have dropped 9% since 2014, the poll finds. Just 51% of men aged 18 to 49 say they follow the NFL closely, down from 75% four years ago.
I haven’t stopped watching as it’s something the wife unit and I enjoy doing together. That said, my level of interest is way down, although I’m not in the target audience either so it most likely doesn’t matter.
James, a legend in his own mind, Comey proves the opposite: PATHETIC! Crapweasel James Comey just lost his LAST SHRED of credibility over FISA memo
John Hinderaker analyzes the Intelligence Committee memo – What the House Intelligence Committee Memo Says | Power Line
This bullet point stands out to me but no doubt you may find others of interest.
DOJ and FBI failed to mention in their FISA application that it was based on opposition research paid for by the Clinton campaign and the DNC, even though this apparently was known to the FBI. The application apparently tried to mislead the FISA court by saying that Steele “was working for a named U.S. person”–the memo doesn’t tell us who that person was–but not disclosing Fusion GPS or Glenn Simpson, let alone Hillary Clinton and the DNC. This appears to be a deliberate deception of the court.
Hinderaker concludes…
The Intelligence Committee memo obviously outlines a major scandal that indicts principal figures in the FBI, including James Comey, Andrew McCabe, and Sally Yates and Rod Rosenstein, unless the latter two officials were unaware of the fraud that was being perpetrated on the federal court. Whether some of those involved should go to prison would require a careful examination of relevant federal statutes.
The memo leaves much unsaid. The timing is unclear, at least to me. It sounds as though the FBI continued to renew its FISA warrant long after it had terminated its relationship with Steele and knew, or should have known, that his information was bogus. Why? Did the FBI tell the FISA court in these renewal applications that it had terminated its relationship with Steele, or that it had been unable to corroborate his claims? Presumably not.
Also, we don’t know what was done with the information that was collected about Carter Page–and, of course, about anyone with whom he communicated. This is where the enormous number of “unmasking” requests by Obama officials like Susan Rice come in. Did the Obama administration use the ill-gotten FISA warrants to spy, not only on Carter Page, but on others who had some relationship with Trump, or even Trump himself? Did the Obama administration pass information obtained from improper surveillance on to the Clinton campaign, or leak it to the press after the election?
The Intelligence Committee memo is a major step forward, but we have not yet gotten to the bottom of what happened in the heavily-politicized Department of Justice and FBI.
Read the whole thing.
Also, it’s now quite clear that the Democratic smokescreen about the damage our intelligence agencies would suffer from the release of the memo is just that.
Democrats, a word of warning, this is how you get more Trump.
Read the whole thing – The Nunes memo has been released – Axios
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