Brian Wise says Blocking Uber’s innovation is not the American way

“Saving Uber isn’t just about one company, but giving all innovative products that aim to respond to market demand a fair chance to thrive without unjust government interference. At a time when an explosion of technology is changing the marketplace virtually every day, we either innovate or we fall victim to a debilitating self-restraint that means less productivity and a lower quality of life for everyone.”

The trade licensing issue fits in here as well. Nevada is especially pernicious in its assault on small business in the many license requirements for low skill vocational activities. These are supposedly to ‘protect the public’ but that was in a day before you could easily check up on companies and individuals regarding their service capabilities and customer satisfaction.

Bruce Thornton thinks it is Sloppy Thinking About ‘Torture’ and explains why. Intentions matter. So does the actual law. Feelings can get in the way but due care needs to be taken so that they don’t mislead.

“Contrary to Noonan and McCain, and despite the dishonest rhetoric from our resentful allies, rivals, and enemies, the Senate report does not diminish America as a “force for good in the world,” a beacon of freedom, tolerance, and opportunity. That is why the U.S. is the emigrant’s favorite destination, why the U.S. is the go-to power for those countries in need when stricken by natural disasters or violent aggressors, and why the basic attitude of most of the world’s peoples is “Yankee go home, and take me with you.” The United States is in fact the “city on the hill,” the only world power in history that has used its power more for good than for ill. To think that reports of interrogation techniques used to save lives challenge the reality of American exceptionalism bespeaks a lack of confidence and faith not in our perfection, but in the fundamental goodness of America and its aims despite our occasional imperfections.”

What is not put on table in regards to intent is the intent behind the Senate report release. Those who put out the report are not very clear in regards to their motives and that tends to feed suspiciond. Arguing with ‘feel good’ rather than reason and fact don’t help much, either.

Persistence has its value but it really needs a bit of intellectual integrity to avoid damaging results. The Democrats are still trying to recover from their turn-around in 2003 in regards to the war on terror. The latest is a partisan political (the Senate is in a lame duck session of a Democratic Party majority) effort to excuse the mess. Jed Babbin, a former deputy undersecretary of defense in the George H.W. Bush administration, describes some of the problems in Feinstein’s tortured report — “It’s a political condemnation of CIA that thwarts interrogation of terrorists.”

“The “torture” report released Tuesday by California Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s Senate Select Committee on Intelligence is the latest attempt to prove that the George W. Bush administration’s “enhanced interrogation techniques” used on a small number of terrorist prisoners amounted to torture and that the CIA lied to congress about them. It is a political condemnation of CIA conduct meant to erect another barrier to effective interrogation of terrorists, and it is wrong in its statement of the law.”

One of the issues is the attempt to redefine torture. A U.N. convention in 1994 prohibited it but was so vague that statute was needed to define it. The interpretation of that statute is what the left is trying to distort. On the right, the conclusion is that the techniques we use in training military personnel that do not produce lasting mental or physical harm. Another issue is the idea that the enhanced interrogation techniques did not produce useful intelligence. That is disputed by those who used information gained to stop attacks are even to find OBL.

The war on the NSA, the CIA, and other components of the U.S. spy community by the Left is damaging both in terms of ability to protect and in terms of international relationships with long term allies. 

Then there’s the current riot season. This also appears to be an attempt by leftist organizers to leverage current events with false propaganda in order to develop anti-capitalism protests and foment social unrest. 

The assault is in full force on several fronts. 

What separated the United States from a Peru or Nigeria or Mexico or Laos or Russia was the sanctity of the law, or the idea that from the highest elected officials to the least influential citizen, all were obligated to follow, according to their stations, the law. Under Obama, that sacred idea has been eroded. We live in a world of illegal immigration and amnesties, Ferguson mythologies, and alphabet government scandals, presided over by a president who not only does not tell the truth, but also seems to be saying to the public, “I say whatever I want, so get over it.”

when the law is a drag by Victor Davis Hanson.

Carl Rowan goes on a rant about the real heroes of Furguson. The inconvenient heroism of Witness No. 10 — “Eric Holder could learn respect for the law from a Brown shooting bystander”.

“Then we learned that some true heroes had chosen to rise up and tell the truth (supported by the forensics) about the shooting. Several community members, apparently all black, stepped forward to state clearly that Brown had charged at the policeman. He had not tried to surrender as some witnesses had falsely said. These people, such as Witness No. 10, chose to tell the truth about what they saw when doing so made them subject to social scorn and physical danger. They are true American patriots who will never get so much as a nod of appreciation from Mr. Holder or the useful idiots, black and white, who can’t accept the truth and who applaud while race hustlers like Al Sharpton compare Brown to slain civil rights workers Michael Schwerner, James Chaney and Andrew Goodman.”

There’s more: “facts caught up with the craven politicians who were trading on rumor and demagoguery” … “When a city is set on fire by looting criminals, I expect to see a furious attorney general declare that the full weight of the federal government will be brought to bear on the rioters” … “They have tried on the cloak of victimhood and found it to be very comfortable” …

obviously not happy. good rant. worth reading carefully.

The various scandals about misuse of the IRS by the administration have not yet died. Congress may not have been able to pry loose IRS records and correspondence but private lawsuits are showing fruit as a result of court orders. John Hinderaker has a good summary about how the IRS scandal rears its head.

What does this tell us? 1) Based on Mr. Goolsbee’s comments several years ago, there is every reason to believe that Barack Obama’s White House has illegally received confidential taxpayer information from the IRS. 2) Confronted by a lawsuit, the Obama administration, instead of responding forthrightly, has danced around the issue for years and erected every possible procedural barrier. 3) When finally brought to heel by a court, the administration asks for a ridiculously long period of time to produce a tiny number of documents on its own investigation of criminal behavior by the IRS and the White House.”
…
“This particular story is farce, not tragedy. It will wend its absurd way through the court system for years to come, probably arriving at no conclusion until the scofflaw Obama administration is safely out of office. In the meantime, federal criminal laws governing the privacy of IRS data, like the criminal laws generally, are a source of hilarity among Democrats. Democrat cronies sip Scotch and light cigars–I hope not with $100 bills–laughing at the rest of us who work to pay the taxes that support them in the luxury to which they have happily become accustomed. I have always thought that the term “ruling class” was ridiculous as applied to the United States, but the Obama administration is causing me to re-think that view.

How many members of the Nixon administration ultimately went to jail? I think no more than five or ten. The Obama administration has violated criminal statutes with an abandon that Nixon and his minions never dreamed of. An accounting remains; I think there are a considerable number of Obama minions and cronies who should be behind bars.”

The real question is about why the administration has been able to get away with it – at least so far. That question is also gaining some attention as well.

The topic was the creation of religious excuses for laws prohibiting self defense but the same points can be made about other hot issues that tear our society apart. See the post Christianity and Family Defense on the SurvivalBlog.com:

“To misapply scripture taken out of context is the number one reason most of our churches today are apostate.”
…
“let’s look at another concept– fairness vs righteousness. When a man fights another man, we tend to think that it should be a “fair” fight. If it’s a fist fight, there should be no knives. If it’s a knife fight, there should be no guns, and so forth. However, that is not how God looks at it. We should not fight unless the cause is righteous. Righteousness is the standard that God and godly men use to determine if we should even be involved in a fight.”
…
“Those that are too afraid to do what is righteous and right have a special place reserved for them in hell.”
…
“If you want to learn more about this concept, the first resource is, of course, the Bible. From the beginning to the end, it is filled with stories of God and God’s people righteously using aggression and violence to protect themselves and those who can’t protect themselves. It is also filled with stories of those who inappropriately used violence and aggression to further their own desires and the punishment that God reserves for such abuses.”

The Bible does not tell us to lie down and let evil be. Remember the hymn Onward Christian Soldiers? “The hymn’s theme is taken from references in the New Testament to the Christian being a soldier for Christ (wikipedia).” Christianity is not all passive and submissive. 

A book review by Ken Allard, a retired Army colonel, military analyst, and author on national-security issues is for the ‘not wooried, yet’ crowd. For him, it was deja vu all over again. The book is Stonewalled: My Fight for Truth Against the Forces of Obstruction, Intimidation, and Harassment in Obama’s Washington (Amazon affiliate link) by Sharyl Attkisson.

“Full disclosure first: I was one of those military analysts regularly seen on network television until a 2008 New York Times expose accused us of succumbing to improper influences by the Rumsfeld Pentagon. Because congressional Democrats howled for our heads, it took three years, four federal investigations and more than $2 million in tax dollars before The Times report was discredited and we were exonerated.

“Ironically, we were accused of precisely the same pattern of government-media corruption at the heart of Sharyl Attkisson’s new blockbuster,”
…
“Mrs. Attkisson’s phones and computers began acting strangely. As she prepared to confront Ambassador Thomas Pickering about his Benghazi report, “Suddenly the data in my computer file begins wiping at hyperspeed before my very eyes. Deleted line by line a split second: it’s gone, gone, gone.” While they might have been remaking the movie “Enemy of the State,” an exhaustive forensics analysis of Mrs. Attkisson’s iMac found evidence of classified documents planted deep in her hard drive; systematic intrusions allowing remote control of her personal files; most damning of all, “a backdoor link to an ISP address for a government computer.” It was slam-dunk confirmation of a deliberately planned government penetration, all predictably denied by Eric Holder Jr.’s Justice Department.”
…
“The differences between my 2008 experience and what Sharyl Attkisson reveals in this marvelous book: Intelligence has become more intrusive, the media more ideological and the government incomparably more powerful — and all seem determined to squelch either people or issues that get in their way. Just ask Dinesh D’Souza.”

Something’s not right here. Is anybody listening?

“Imagine mixing a little Marxism, a generous portion of Islamism, and throwing in bits and pieces of class envy, class warfare, and a compromised version of Christianity that Jesus Christ would fail to recognize, stir it all together with a generous portion of anger and hate thrown in, and you’ve got Black Nationalism.”
…
“A political ruling elite lusting for a global order are setting us against each other. They are trying to create crisis, and racism is the easiest tool at their disposal. Generations of Americans have been trained to believe falsehoods, and to war against each other without really knowing the reason why. We are told that only white people can be racist, and all of them probably are. If someone has been handed a lousy hand in life, it’s not their fault, it’s the fault of somebody else. We have been taught we are all victims of one kind or another. Slavery, stringent laws, big corporations, our parents, Christianity, the republicans, and a whole slew of historical figures that used their wealth to get power and their power to get wealth, we are told, are the cause of all of the woes of society. . . but government will make it all better. Government will tell you how to act, where to live, what to eat, and provide a minimum mediocrity of a life through welfare services, food stamps, and a housing program. You may be miserable under the government’s programs, but everyone will be equal—equally miserable. Nobody will be able to be a greedy business owner. Government will take care of all of those things. All the government asks in return is that you raise your children in their institutions with their curriculums and their version of morality, lay down any arms you may have to protect yourself and only allow the government to be armed (it is for your protection, of course), and give the reigning political party your undying loyalty every election because if you don’t, your subsistence from them will be cut off by the heartless republicans”

[Douglas V. Gibbs: Ferguson, Missouri, and Black Nationalism]

Then there’s Randall Hoven on Black People Getting Shot Left and Right’.

“Who cares about cosmic inflation during the first seconds of the universe’s existence when black people are getting shot left and right by police officers and vigilantes?” That is what Chanda Hsu Prescod-Weinstein, a postdoctoral fellow in physics at MIT, thought to herself upon hearing the news from Ferguson.

Are black people getting shot left and right by police officers and vigilantes?”
…
“Even if the police were lying in every single case of the 410 “justifiable homicides” in 2012, then police were responsible for 3% of the murders in 2012. Who was responsible for the other 97%? Vigilantes?”
…
“Of the 2,648 black victims in those cases, 2,412 of them (91%) were murdered by other blacks. (Also, blacks killed 431 whites and whites killed 193 blacks.)

Feel free to peruse the FBI numbers yourself.”

But no, even an MIT physics postdoc has drunk the kool-aid and reality (facts) don’t matter.

worried, yet?

John Hinderaker presents the detail on the partisan attack on free speech and gutting the First Amendment so as to be able to further efforts to criminalize political opposition.

On Thursday, Harry Reid brought SJ Res 19, to repeal the heart of the First Amendment, to the Senate floor for a vote. The result must be considered stunning by all Americans who value their freedoms. Every Senate Democrat–every one, a 54-vote majority–voted for First Amendment repeal.
…
To my knowledge, not a single Democrat, either inside or outside of the Senate, has spoken up in opposition to that party’s war on free speech.

Worried, yet?

It started with a misplaced telephone call. That revealed the collusion to obstruct investigation. Arnold Ahlert describes The Obama DOJ’s Subversion of the IRS Investigation

It’s going to be an uphill climb for Democrats. In a Fox poll taken in June, a whopping 76 percent of Americans, including 90 percent of Republicans, 74 percent of independents and 63 percent of Democrats said they believed that Lois Lerner’s emails were “deliberately destroyed” by the IRS. The gaffe committed by Fallon would be amusing were it not for the reality that it is yet another indication of the endemic corruption that infests the Obama administration, their Democrat colleagues and a willfully somnambulant mainstream media. All of them seemingly prefer to run interference for one of the most powerful agencies in government, than allow the truth, no matter how inconvenient, to come out.

It will take the people to demonstrate that this corruption must end and the people are, at present, rather weak in opposing such behavior.

Paul Mirengoff takes a look at the McDonnel case and the matter of criminalizing politics. This is after the battle criminalize Governor Walker.

But how does one distinguish these offenses from the common situation in which individuals, companies, and unions give money to candidates substantial amounts of money in the hope that they will favor them in some fashion? In theory, the distinction turns on whether the recipient accepts the donation with the understanding that he or she will perform official acts in exchange.

The problem, as professor Bellin observes, is that a jury is permitted to infer such an understanding from circumstantial evidence. If the jury thinks it sees “knowing winks and nods” (these words actually appear in the jury instructions in McDonnell’s case), it can render a verdict that will send the public official to prison for a long time.

The “knowing winds and nods” standard, if one can even call it one, leaves prosecutors with enormous discretion to go after public officials they dislike for personnel reasons or want to injure for political purposes. The ridiculous, politically-motivated attempts to portray Governors Rick Perry and Scott Walker as criminals demonstrates that prosecutors will take advantage of this opening.

Such prosecutions are being used as political weapons by unscrupulous ideologues but is also a part and parcel of that ideology the presumes guilt in certain classes.

Sundance: It Begins Again – “Justice For Mike Brown” Attacks – Springfield Missouri Black Mob Attack White Couple

In the course of researching the Trayvon Martin case we uncovered an almost immediate pattern of racial violence which occurred as a direct result of the inflammatory race-baiting spotlighted by the grievance industry and the national media. Throughout 2012 and 2013 we found dozens of these attacks – 14 immediately after the verdict. … On August 20th 2014 the pattern begins again

The problem is that Martin and Brown are rather odd choices for hero and the act of self defense is a rather odd one to impugn. Such oddities don’t seem to impair those seeking rationalization for racial violence stoked by resentment and envy — and propaganda. 

Race isn’t the only centerpoint. Consider Snowden. He is hailed as a hero in some circles yet many are beginning to realize his treason has had a big impact on Islamic terrorists efforts in covering their tracks.

Then there’s the assault on cops as if to foist responsibility for criminal behavior on them. The DOJ isn’t helping much, either.

Kudlow describes a shakedown of epic proportions and how it is being used for political gain.

the solution is not to call them names. Or question their patriotism. Or attack “rich people” and “fat-cat bankers.” Or tell America, “You didn’t build it.” The solution is to reform the corporate tax code by slashing the rate to 20 percent. Or better yet, abolish the corporate tax altogether. The biggest winners, by the way, would be wage earners.

So what does all this have to do with billion-dollar bank penalties? Everything. The timing is more than coincidental.
…
And now, in the saddest of ironies, the Obama administration is again loosening credit standards for “affordable” home purchases and expanding Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. This is incredibly stupid. The same mistakes are being made.

But it’s all part of Mr. Obama’s election-year strategy. Blame it all on the big boys. Pull out the class-envy cards. Rekindle divisive resentments and anger.

Follow the money. Where’s it go? Then examine the tactics. Then examine the implications and what actually happens. 

The people that end up bearing the burden are not those subject to political assault and that is another dishonesty that needs to be properly addressed.

The violence in Ferguson didn’t begin when a police officer shot Michael Brown. It began when a 300 lb thug robbed the Ferguson Market and abused a clerk. The release of the video showing the obese criminal assaulting the clerk led to a terrified statement from the store manager that he had not called the police and had nothing to do with the release of the video.

“They kill us if they think we are responsible,” he said.

But that’s not all the story. Hands Up, Don’t Loot also gets into the issue of the militarization of the police visible in the response to riots using a new urban myth as an excuse for the summer games.

All systems and people are flawed, but our law enforcement and military are reactive. When we don’t talk about what they are reacting to, then there is nothing meaningful to say.

We have SWAT teams because of race riots and urban guerrilla warfare. Without Watts, the Black Panthers and the SLA, the police militarization would probably never have existed.

The militarization of the police was a response to left-wing violence and terror.

and, no, both sides are not the same. “The root cause isn’t poverty. It’s not racism. It’s the left.”

The myth building is detailed in another comment about how the Ferguson Lie Comes undone

This is a long list of things that were supposed to be true one day but were false the next. But by far, the biggest and the fattest lie to come out of Ferguson is the idea repeated from every news channel that somehow black people are victims of relentless violence at the hands of white people.

And that explains everything.

That is a Big, Fat falsehood.

and the ‘victim’ hagiography also has its problems. Michael Brown: A Criminal and a Thug explains.

As the media-sanctioned rioting, bloodshed and looting continue in Ferguson, Missouri, evidence is emerging that police shooting victim Michael Brown wasn’t the upstanding citizen that many on the Left have claimed him to be.
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Through it all, the Left is out in force in Ferguson, trying to make a bad situation worse.
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Evidence is now available that shows that Brown tried to wrest a gun away from a policeman and that he was ordered to freeze before he charged Darren Wilson and was shot.
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Before the shooting incident last weekend, Brown used violence and the threat of more violence to steal.
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the more we learn about the nature of the crime and of Brown’s character, the clearer it is to see who should really be on trial: The likes of Al Sharpton and the race-hate industry, whose lies are fueling a vicious war against civil society in Ferguson.
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And they’ll keep digging until they find evidence that vindicates the mob and the left-wing media and the community organizers from Chicago who have descended on Ferguson in order to make an example of the innocent people who live there.

They’ve got a cause. It may be poorly based because it is based on a lie but that only means they have to lie harder and work the propaganda more, that’s all.

Massachusetts is working on legislation that allows police chiefs the power over citizen’s second amendment rights;. It’s all in the name of safety, of course. “We seek not to be the safest state in the nation, but strive to make our communities the safest in the world,” said House Speaker Robert DeLeo.

A key factor here is that the evidence clearly contradicts DeLeo’s assertion but that has never bothered those who want to control rights to self defense. The desire to control others’ live runs deep and that means efforts are in denial of reality, persistent, and often pernicious.

Note that the effort is to let government authority, the police chiefs, exercize control rather than private citizens. This distrust of individuals and faith in the government is endemic in the philosophy that drives these sorts of efforts. In light of current scandals, one really has to wonder why.

“The problem with the death penalty in America is that liberals have taken a system that worked, broke it and then claimed the system is so broken it must be abolished. This is sort of like Barack Obama’s approach to immigration.” -PHILLIPS: The myth of botched executions

First you go after any method except one (lethal injection) then you go after the materials (the drugs) needed to implement that one. Then you hyperventilate on the result to try to impugn the whole idea on everything except its merits or any semblance of honest debate.

“The real outrage with executions is not that a convicted murderer like Joseph Wood may have suffered some discomfort. According to the State of Arizona he was sedated the whole time so he would not have felt anything.

The real outrage is that it takes 23 years for a sentence to be executed.”

23 years of litigation all on the taxpayer dime not to mention the costs of imprisonment.

RAHN: Government corruption on the rampage

“The Obama administration is arguably the most corrupt administration in U.S. history. Corruption destroys civil society and economic growth by undermining the rule of law and protection of private property.”
…
“The Justice Department is involved in a $100 billion shakedown racket against the big banks. The banks are heavily regulated and can easily be destroyed by government officials.”
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“The Constitution is quite specific in that revenue measures are to begin in the House of Representatives and go through a congressional appropriation process. Yet the Justice Department and others have been able to greatly expand their budgets outside the legislative process by obtaining financial “settlements” from the private sector, through threats, intimidation and asset forfeiture. Bank settlements with the Justice Department now total something near $100 billion. This is corruption on a massive scale. Again, banks have little alternative but to settle with the Justice Department in order to stay in business. John Allison, president of the Cato Institute and former CEO of the 10th-largest bank holding company in the United States, BB&T, has noted that many laws contradict each other, such as the Patriot Act and many of the financial-privacy laws and rules, thus making it impossible for a bank to be in compliance with both. Then the Justice Department comes in and says if you pay us X billion dollars, we will not prosecute you.”

Banks, of course, are big, profit making, corporations and that, by modern ideological popular standards, makes them intrinsically evil. That means that many think the sort of thin Rahn notes is entirely a good thing. 

worried yet?

Why is impeachment off the table?

“Democrats, forced to defend Obama’s numerous impeachable offenses, would be placed in the uncomfortable position of defending their own actions (or inaction) and their party’s policies and methods – which would, by extension, also be on trial. (ObamaCare is a perfect example on all counts.)

“And while the Democrat-media complex insists that the GOP shouldn’t want impeachment – in reality, neither should the complex, since the process would call attention to its own integrity and validity. Obama is the “media’s president.” They created him, protected him – and they own him. As the song goes, “it’s too late to turn back now.”
…
“Until conservatives can successfully convince the people that the office of the presidency is more special than the person who occupies it, and that our constitution is more important than party politics – every single American, not just Republicans in the upcoming elections, will lose. And what is lost, should Obama continue on this destructive path of fundamental transformation, may never be regained.”

Cindy Simpson takes on Impeachment: The Red Line and the Last Straw. The point is that as long as people accept assertions like the AG’s latest race-baiting and excuse and overlook criminal behavior, remedies such as impeachment are not likely to go anywhere. One only has to look at the partisan divide in Congressional oversight committees where Democrats present a solid block even going so far as to sympathize with witnesses and proclaim sorrow that they have had to be dragged through such a process to see how the political will is not there.

The political will goes back to the electorate and as long as the voters do not hold their representatives accountable to standards of integrity and validity, accountability in office will remain off the table. As long as the electorate gives credence to the excuses, the blaming, and the bald assertions that fly in the face of reality, accountability in office will remain off the table and talk of impeachment will be ridiculed and scoffed as it is now.

scary. BRUCE: Feds plot to steal your paycheck. “The EPA takes its cue from rogue president on wage-garnishment scheme.”

Government bureaucrats gone rogue?