KIM DAVIS

Wow.  An article advocating burning the Christian, Kim Davis, because of her stand on homosexual marriage.  Michael Brendan Dougherty, This Week. "Burn Kim Davis."

Any normal punishment rewards her with the comfort of solidarity from right-wing Christians, or her own sense of moral self-approval. Therefore the only way to avoid granting her such "martyrdom" is to actually martyr her. That's the really perverse thing about Christians who make a spectacle like this. The only way the state can really punish them is to inform them that their suffering is meaningless and proving that God doesn't exist by sending them to the darkness of oblivion in torment. Justice Kennedy has issued his theological bull; let Kentucky officials in defiance of it be put on a pyre.

When the smoke settles there will be no GoFundMe campaign, save perhaps for a small carbon offset.

Brian Beutler.  The New Republic.  "Throw Kentucky Clerk Kim in Jail.  She must be severely punished for denying marriage licenses to gay couples."

There are surely other religious clerks in the South and elsewhere who’d love to get away with discriminating against gays and lesbians, in defiance of the country's highest court. The only way to assure this doesn’t happen is to jail Kim Davis until she agrees to issue the licenses, resigns, or is removed from office.

AFFORDABLE CARE ACT

The charges of those opposing Obamacare have finally been proven.  The architect, Jonathan Gruber, admits that language was used to mislead about the costs and impact of the law.Watch the video.

Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage. And, basically, call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever, but basically that was really very very critical to get the thing to pass. And, you know, it’s the second best argument. I wish Mark was right we could make this transparent but I would rather have this law than not.”

OBAMA ADMINISTRATION GOES AFTER LEAKERS

From BoingBoing:  "Obama Administration Has Secured 526 Months of Jail Time for Leakers."

Up until Obama's "most transparent administration", and throughout the entire history of the USA, national security leakers had received a total of 24 months of jail time. There are many more cases pending.

From the Daily Signal:  "19 Times the Government Withheld Documents It Didn't Want You to See."

This is not a particularly transparent administration. 

SPANISH FLU & EBOLA

An interesting comparison of how the government responded to the great flu epidemic after World War I and how it is responding to Ebola.

But playing "national security" progressive politics with public health can bring outright disaster. When the United States entered World War I, Woodrow Wilson played the national-security card early and often. The war effort became an excuse for everything from jailing political opponents to spying on everyday Americans. But, when the president used a global war as an excuse to preempt sound public-health policy, he reaped a global catastrophe.

OBAMA CREDITS BUSH-CHENEY?

From The Weekly Standard.

President Barack Obama said last night at a Democratic fundraiser in Rhode Island that the terrorism from ISIS "doesn’t immediately threaten the homeland." The reason? The security measures taken by President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, according to Obama.

First the president said the situation in the Middle East is "scary," according to a transcript of the event released by the White House.

"I don’t have to tell you, anybody who has been watching TV this summer, it seems like it is just wave after wave ofupheaval, most of it surrounding the Middle East. You’re seeing a change in the order in the Middle East. But the old order is having a tough time holding together and the new order has yet to be born, and in the interim, it’s scary."

Then he told the Democratic donors not to worry because measures put in place by Bush and Cheney "make us ... pretty safe."

But he obviously doesn't mention Bush or Cheney in his speech.

DEMOCRATS USE COURTS TO STOP REPUBLICANS

With the court indictment against Governor Perry (R, TX), Bryan Preston examines 8 cases where the Democrats tried to use the courts to hurt Republican chances in an election.  Most were frivolous, but obviously the Republican faced an image problem as a result and in some cases lost an election.

ISIS BANNER WAVED IN FERGUSON, MISSOURI

From Gateway Pundit.  It happened during a CNN broadcast.

FRACKING CAMPAIGN IN COLORADO

There are a number of very clever ads produced by those supporting fracking in Colorado.

FALSE CAMPAIGN AD DIRTY TRICKS

How can any candidate protect themselves from dirty tricks?  In this case some Democrat women got together to broadcast radio ads that a Republican Senatorial candidate in Mississippi was linked to the KKK.

Asked why she felt the need to get involved in runoff campaign and run ads with hard-hitting language that suggested McDaniel and the Tea Party were racists who would return Mississippi to the state’s ugly segregationist past, Harris said: “One being, [McDaniel saying he] wouldn’t stoop so low for asking for a Democratic vote. And the way politics is going, it seemed liked something we needed to do.”

McDaniel lost.

And in Kentucky Democrats are attacking Senator McConnell's wife for not being "Kentuckian" enough--she is Asian.

CHICAGO POLITICS IN D.C.

From the Washington Examiner with the HuffPost as its source.  All this talk about Democrats opposing big business is just "smoke and mirrors" for its constituents.  They want to use Wall Street money just as badly as Republicans do.  And if they can control the bureaucracy and big business see themselves as being in a very powerful political position.

Congressional battles over the Export-Import Bank and terrorism insurance are an opportunity for Democrats to win back corporate elites who abandoned the party after the passage of the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reforms, according to one of that law's primary architects, former Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.).

"I think this is finally starting to get to the business community now," he told HuffPost during a July interview. "Part of this was the real significance of the defeat of [then-House Majority Leader] Eric Cantor. Eric Cantor was one of [Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd] Blankfein's best friends in government. His wife used to work [at Goldman] and they were personally friendly -- of course, a great recipient of money. And then Cantor loses and nowKevin McCarthy shifts his position on the Export-Import Bank."

STRONG WORDS FROM BARNEY FRANK

Barney Frank was an ultra-liberal, homosexual Democrat congressman from Massachusetts who has called Obama a liar for what he said about the roll out of Obamacare.  Frank was always outspoken, but this surely will not help the Democrat cause.

President Barack Obama made a major political mistake by lying about the details of his health care plan, according to former House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.).

"The rollout was so bad, and I was appalled -- I don't understand how the president could have sat there and not been checking on that on a weekly basis," Frank told HuffPost during a July interview. "But frankly, he should never have said as much as he did, that if you like your current health care plan, you can keep it. That wasn't true. And you shouldn't lie to people. And they just lied to people."

REPUBLICAN FAILURE

I am with Larry Kudlow on this -- Republicans seem to have no thoughtful alternatives to Obama and the Democrats. Republicans need to develop a vision or agenda and they certainly have not done so up to this point.  They have no message or solutions to communicate to voters.

And here's what I see as a big part of the problem: Instead of putting forth a clear growth message — like a new Contract with America — congressional Republicans this week voted for a lawsuit challenging President Obama's abuse of executive power.

Now, suing the president is different from impeaching the president. But is it so different in the public's eye? And don't most people think this lawsuit will go nowhere? And isn't this just a big distraction from key issues, like the economy, tax reform, regulatory rollbacks, immigration reform, and rewriting  Obamacare?

IMMIGRATION POLICY

From ABC News -- a confrontation between Nancy Pelosi and a Republican congressman on the House floor.  He accused her and the Obama administration of not doing anything with the border crisis in 2008 and 2009 when Democrats controlled the House.

In an unusual breach of decorum, even for the divided Congress, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi chased Rep. Tom Marino across the House floor, taking offense at comments by the Pennsylvania Republican during debate on the border funding bill Friday night.

“We don’t have law and order,” Marino began as he wrapped up his comments on the border supplemental. “My colleagues on the other side don’t want to do anything about it.”

“You know something that I find quite interesting about the other side? Under the leadership of the former Speaker [Pelosi], and under the leadership of their former leader [Rep. Steny Hoyer], when in 2009 and 2010, they had the House, the Senate and the White House, and they knew this problem existed,” he continued. “They didn’t have the strength to go after it back then. But now are trying to make a political issue out of it now.”

Off-mic, Pelosi then approached Marino, crossing the aisle in view of cameras, and apparently challenged Marino’s assertion that Democrats did not do anything about the issue when they had majority control.

“Yes it is true,” Marino replied directly to Pelosi, who was House speaker in those years. “I did the research on it. You might want to try it. You might want to try it, Madam Leader. Do the research on it. Do the research. I did it. That’s one thing that you don’t do.”

IRS TO MONITOR CHURCHES

From Investor's Daily.  I wonder if they will target liberal churches or just conservative churches?

A lawsuit filed by the Wisconsin-based Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) asserted that the Internal Revenue Service ignored complaints about churches' violating their tax-exempt status by routinely promoting political issues, legislation and candidates from the pulpit.

The FFRF has temporarily withdrawn its suit in return for the IRS's agreement to monitor sermons and homilies for proscribed speech that the foundation believes includes things like condemnation of gay marriage and criticism of ObamaCare for its contraceptive mandate.

The irony of this agreement is that it's being enforced by the same Tax Exempt and Government Entities Division of the IRS that was once headed by Lois "Fifth Amendment" Lerner and that openly targeted Tea Party and other conservative groups.

Among the questions that the IRS asked of those targeted groups was the content of their prayers.

OBAMACARE WEBSITE

It is hard to believe that it has already cost taxpayers $840 million to develop a website that doesn't work well!

The Government Accountability Office says cost overruns went hand-in-hand with the management failures that led to the disastrous launch of HealthCare.gov and the 36 state insurance exchanges it serves.

GAO's report, prepared for a House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing Thursday, details a long series of management, oversight, and contracting problems that plagued the entire process, from risky contracting practices in 2011 through the botched launch last October.

THE PROBLEM WITH BUREAUCRACIES AND CRONY CAPITALISM

Michael Barone goes back into the 17th century (using an historical work of Hugh Trevor-Roper) to show what happens when we have "parasitic bureaucracies and crony capitalism.  The point is that the U.S. is acting like the no-growth states of the 17th century.

“Pare down the parasitic fringe” of government. “Favor a gospel of work” instead of aristocratic entitlement. “Rationalize finance” and “reverse the Parkinson’s law of bureaucracy.”

All that sounds like rhetoric from the Tea Party or reform conservatives who assail what they call crony capitalism.

But it's not a contemporary criticism. Those are phrases from a long essay, written more than half a century ago, by the British historian H. R. Trevor-Roper, entitled “The General Crisis of the Seventeenth Century.”

After 1660 the nation-states that pared back bureaucracies and allowed room for such trading cities to operate -- England, Holland and, for a while, France -- flourished, while Spain, Italy and Germany mostly languished.

PAUL RYAN ON HELPING PEOPLE IN POVERTY

Representative Paul Ryan (R, WI) has an interesting proposal to help people in poverty. . .give them what they need based on individual needs.

He described the case of a 24-year-old single mother of two with a high school education, two years of retail work experience and dreams of one day being a teacher. Instead of relying on food stamps, housing vouchers and welfare checks, she could go to a social services provider, sit down with a case manager to develop an "opportunity plan" to meet her goals, targeting money where it is needed most.

Makes a lot of sense to me.

MAKING DECISIONS IN THE WHITE HOUSE

John Fund has written an article about Democrats holding office avoiding President Obama at fundraisers because of his presumed unpopularity.  Criticism is rising in Democrat circles regarding his leadership and his "detached" presidency.

What struck me most was a quote from Bob Beckel, a strong Democrat presence on Fox News.  When I have listened to him he has never said a negative word about the president or Democrats, but Fund quotes him as saying:

Bob Beckel, a former Democratic campaign consultant, said on Fox News this week that he spoke with a Democrat “intimately involved in [Obama’s] campaigns, both of them.” The message was sobering: “He said you have to know what it’s like to get through [presidential counselor] Valerie Jarrett and Michelle Obama, and I think that’s a tough deal for anybody on a staff to do. . . . [Obama] lives in a zone that nobody else goes to.”

So if you want to get through to the president you have to go through Valerie Jarrett or Michelle Obama!  But this does become an increasing concern with the multiple international crises the United States is facing.  Who and how are decisions being made?

One presidential historian says that if the president’s bizarre behavior deepens, people will start making jokes comparing Obama to President Woodrow Wilson, who was debilitated by illness during his last two years in office, with decisions increasingly made by his aides and his wife, Edith. “The comparisons of course wouldn’t be fair, but they don’t have to be to have elements of truth to them.”

CONSERVATIVES LEARN FROM RADICAL LEFT

An interesting thesis--the 1960s have returned:  many conservatives and the Tea Party have learned from the tactics used by Saul Alinsky and Occupy Wall Street to let their voices be heard.

In 2012, the conservative site Townhall.com ran an essay arguing that conservatives should see Saul Alinsky's famous how-to guide Rules for Radicals not as a reason to mock their opponents, but as a useful guide for their own protest. Listing Alinsky's 13 rules for shifting the balance of power between the Haves and Have-Nots (which Alinsky framed in economic terms), the site's John Hawkins suggested that conservatives "learn from what he wrote and give the Left a taste of its own medicine."

If this is true, expect more confrontations between Left and Right.

HURRICANE KATRINA vs. HURRICANE SANDY

Responding to hurricanes:  You heard a lot about how George W. Bush botched Katrina aid in New Orleans, but you don't hear the same criticisms raised about Washington's failure to deal with hurricane Sandy.

When the storm hit in 2012, damaging around 200,000 homes in New York and New Jersey, President Obama said, “My message to the federal government: No bureaucracy, no red tape.”

But seventeen months later, the reality has been vastly different, according a new WSJ piece. Of the 15,000 New York residents who have applied for relief, only 352 have received it; of the 11,500 eligible New Jersey residents, only 2,032 have been able to start rebuilding or repairing their homes.