Rand Paul’s War

He works the phones and the media to make the case for not intervening in Syria. 

It’s 9:15 on Tuesday night and Capitol Hill is quiet as Senator Rand Paul emerges from Fox News’s studio near Union Station. His face is slightly smeared with powder from his appearance minutes earlier onHannity, and Sergio Gor, a political aide, is trailing him. Paul walks quickly to the street, heading toward his nearby apartment. It’s been a long day for him, starting with a flight from Kentucky and followed by a packed afternoon at the Foreign Relations Committee. He’s eager to get to his place, rest up, and get ready for a busy week of debate.

But then Paul spots a group of his Senate staffers in the shadows, relaxing in the outdoor lounge at Johnny’s Half Shell, a seafood restaurant housed on the first floor of Fox News’s building. They signal him to come over. Paul glances at Gor, smiles, and hops smoothly over the small fence. The bartender looks on disapprovingly. His advisers chuckle; they’re impressed with their boss’s athleticism, and one raises a glass to toast him.

For the next 30 minutes, Paul sits with them, nursing a beer and sharing the latest stories about his opposition to military action in Syria. At first, there’s talk of his testy exchange with Secretary of State John Kerry at a hearing, then whispered updates about Republicans’ growing unease. Paul never says it explicitly, but it’s clear from his upbeat manner how much he relishes this fight. Of course he’s troubled by the prospect of war and he’s realistic about his chances of stopping one, but he’s enthused by how the GOP is shifting away from the foreign policy of the George W. Bush era.

Via: National Review Online

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It's Official: Alec Baldwin to Host Talk Show on MSNBC

The actor and will anchor a 10 p.m. program on Fridays beginning in October.

Alec Baldwin has finalized a deal to host a weekly night-time talk show on MSNBC. The program - Up Late with Alec Baldwin will bow in October and have Baldwin taking on current events and culture.

The announcement came Thursday from MSNBC president Phil Griffin.

"I've been talking with Alec for a while and can't wait to bring his personality and eclectic interests to MSNBC," said Griffin. "He's got such passion for ideas and what's going on in the world -  he's going to be a great addition to our line-up."

Baldwin has been honing his interviewing skills on his WNYW podcast Here's the Thing, where he's questioned everyone from Chris Rock and Lena Dunham to New York Times editor Jill Abramsonand PETA's Dan Mathews.   He's made no secret of his desire to host a TV talk show. He told THR in an interview earlier this year that a lifelong dream was to be a 60 Minutes correspondent. 

"That show would be the pinnacle of the marriage between my political beliefs, my political curiosity and wanting to communicate to people on camera to a broader audience," he told THR during an interview last spring.

And he had preliminary discussions with NBC executives to host a late-night show on the network. The former 30 Rock star has an overall deal at NBC.

But his left-leaning politics are an organic fit for MSNBC, which has been making changes to its primetime and early prime lineup with he addition of Chris Hayes at 8 p.m. and Ed Schultz at 5 p.m.

Via: The Hollywood Reporter

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UNC student leaders accuse conservative women of being ‘non-intellectuals’

The student government at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has dealt a final blow to the College Republicans’ budgetary plans, effectively barring the group from bringing two well-known conservative women to campus — and insulting those women in the process.

Last week, the student government finance committee slashed the College Republicans’ funding allocation from $8,000 to $3,000. The cut meant that students would not be able to bring conservative speakers Katie Pavlich and Ann McElhinny to campus, so they appealed the decision to the full Student Congress.

College Republican chairman Peter McClelland argued that the funding was important in order to maintain a semblance of intellectual diversity on the liberal campus. UNC Students have few chances to be exposed to conservative speakers and ideas, he said. Besides, at least  two liberal organizations — a socialist club and a feminist magazine — received more funding than the College Republicans. (RELATED: University guts budget for College Republicans, gives extra cash to feminist group)

But the Student Congress was unmoved by these arguments, and voted 21-1 to allocate only $3,000 to the club earlier this week.

During the debate over the issue, several student government leaders insulted Pavlich and McElhinny, whom they deemed “non-intellectual,” “non-academic” and “unreliable.”

McElhinny is a well-known environmental reporter and investigative journalist who has received accolades for her documentary, “Frack Nation.”

Pavlich is a Fox News contributor and author of The New York Times bestseller, “Fast and Furious: Barack Obama’s Bloodiest Scandal and Its Shameless Cover-Up.”

But these credentials did not impress the UNC Student Congress.

Via: The Daily Caller

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Obamacare Health Insurance Exchange Website Still Plagued By Technical Glitches

WHAT A SHOCKER!!!

NEW YORK, Sept 5 (Reuters) - Technical glitches still plague the display of new healthcare plans to be offered to millions of uninsured Americans starting in 26 days, including how medical charges and deductibles are listed, industry officials say.

Health insurers planning to sell policies to people who are currently uninsured, under President Barack Obama's healthcare reform, say they expect the problems will be remedied by Oct. 1, when consumers will be able to buy health insurance from state exchanges. On Wednesday, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), the lead Obamacare agency, said it was on schedule to sign final agreements with insurers between Sept. 9 and Sept. 11, allowing them to sell specific policies on the exchanges.

"Our timeline remains the same," said CMS in a statement, "and we are working to ensure that any issues are resolved before open enrollment."

Although the signing of agreements with insurers is a mere two days behind the original schedule, it led to speculation that there were serious technical snags. Late last week a conference call between the government's information technology contractors and insurance industry representatives revealed some of those problems, which centered on how information about health plans, such as charges for medical claims and deductibles, was displayed on a "preview" website, according to people with knowledge of the call.

An official from Florida Blue, a large insurer, was concerned that a health policy it plans to sell on the state's exchange would mislead customers: The preview website showed no charge at all for some medical services, rather than no charge after a deductible is met.

Via: Huffington Post Politics

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Big-Government Foster Care

Residents of Los Angeles County, reeling from allegations of gross incompetence and probable negligence by Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS), have been blessed with the creation of a blue ribbon commission, set up by county supervisors.  The allegations arose after social workers and supervisors failed to prevent the torture and murder of a young child in Palmdale, despite ample evidence that the child was in great danger.

DCFS director Browning moved to immediately fire four employees associated with this tragedy.  Seeking to fire employees so quickly is in itself is a kind of reform, since union rules, including a ridiculous appeal process, make it almost impossible to fire a social worker for mere incompetence.  Similar incompetence once resulted in a two-week suspension.  Just ask Rocio La Voie.

Ms. La Voie received a ten-day suspension for actions not so different from the incoherence exhibited by the four employees associated with the horror in Palmdale.  Indeed, Ms. La Voie believed that her original suspension was too harsh, and appealed it!

Mr. Browning has his hands full with recalcitrant unions, a much too high percentage of impossible-to-fire employees, and politicians who have gotten it wrong, decade after decade.  During the past 15 years, the number of children in foster care has decreased from a top of over 65,000 to a little over 21,000 today.  Yet the budget for DCFS is within about 10% of what it was, when foster care placements were at a peak.  By any measure, this large reduction in foster care placements, while maintaining a similar budget, should have resulted in significant savings, as well as a huge improvement in overall care for our abused and neglected children.  Yet there has been no savings, and by all accounts, no improvement in overall care.  

Via: American Thinker

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Get excited for more “farm bill” drama, coming soon to Congress

Earlier this summer, we watched the unexpectedly high-drama saga of the “farm bill” play out in Congress, and when lawmakers reconvene next week, it’s going to be a major action item that the leadership will want to wrap up before the current legislation expires at the end of September — even as the looming budget battle and the Syria debacle will probably occupy a lot of attention.

Here’s your refresher course on the pending status of the new legislation, as succinct as I can make it: The “farm bill” has traditionally contained both “agriculture policy,” ahem, and the outline for the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (i.e., food stamps) — the deliberately omnibus design usually helps to ensure the passage of both urban and rural interests’ favored programs and protect the status quo. The budget for food stamps has more than doubled in just five years, but the Senate passed a renewed version of the farm bill that made only the most miniscule, practically nonexistent spending cuts possible to the food stamps program (read: an oh-so-brave and far-sighted $400 million/year out of an annual budget of now almost $80 billion). The House then took their turn at crafting matching legislation, and came up with a version that dared to make the wildly draconian cut of $2 billion a year, gasp, to food stamps. The White House immediately shot the idea down, but the issue suddenly and dramatically became moot when the House itself rejected the omnibus package with bipartisan opposition. Out of nowhere, lawmakers where suddenly talking about divorcing “agriculture policy” and food stamps into two more transparent bills, and for one brief, shining moment, it looked like we might get both some serious and reasonable cuts to both food stamps and the egregious corporate welfare divvied out to theagriculture sector and their many lobbies… But then, House Republicans voted through the agriculture portion as a single bill without really reforming our market-distorting and pork-tossing agricultural programs much at all, and we’re still waiting for the House version of a bill for the food stamp program.

Via: Hot Air

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13 Relevant Reports at AP's National Site Fail to Quote Obama's 'I Didn't Set a Red Line' Statement

Yesterday in Stockholm at the G20 summit, President Barack Obama said the following in regards to the use of chemical weapons in warfare: "I didn't set a red line. The world set a red line." For years, the press obsessed over the alleged untruthfulness of President George W. Bush's "16 words" ("The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa") in his 2003 State of the Union address. Today, the Associated Press won't even directly quote the first six of Obama's.

Regardless of whether one thinks that Obama's statement is an attempt to abdicate personal responsibility for his original "red line" (i.e., in the sand) statement a year ago or an assertion that his year-ago statement merely affirmed what the rest of the world believes, it's news, and should be presented to the nation's readers and viewers in quotes. But not at the Associated Press, aka the Administration's Press, which is barely recognizing the existence of the "red line" at all.

Here are relevant passages from an AP report on yesterday's war resolution committee vote in the U.S. Senate currently time-stamped early this morning by Donna Cassata with the help of eight other AP reporters:

DIVIDED VOTE FORESHADOWS OBAMA CHALLENGE ON SYRIA

... Speaking in Sweden on Wednesday, Obama left open the possibility he would order retaliation for the deadly chemical weapons attack even if Congress withheld its approval. "

I always preserve the right and responsibility to act on behalf of America's national security," he told a news conference. In a challenge to lawmakers back home, he said Congress' credibility was on the line, not his own, despite saying a year ago that the use of chemical weapons would cross a "red line."

The Senate panel's vote marked the first formal response in Congress, four days after Obama unexpectedly put off an anticipated cruise missile strike against Syria and instead asked lawmakers to unite behind such a plan.

Via: Newbusters 

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Michelle Malkin: Obama Has ‘Pathological’ Need to Take Other’s Credit and Spread His Blame

Conservative columnist Michelle Malkinappeared on Fox & Friends on Thursday to share her thoughts on President Barack Obama’s ongoing push to generate support in Congress for a strike on Syria. After the president told reporters in Sweden on Wednesday that it was not his “red line” but the world’s that was at stake in Syria, Malkin diagnosed the president with a “pathological” need to pass the buck. 

“He looks nervous,” Malkin observed. “And he should look nervous.”

“After coming off of throwing the U.S. and an entire branch of government, our Congress, under the bus on a world stage, there really isn’t much left for him in terms of ground to stand on,” she continued. “A lot of people wish he wouldn’t come back after that performance.”

RELATED: Dem Senator Tells Rachel Maddow Why He Voted No on Syria Resolution

“He really is a pathological buck-passer,” Malkin asserted.

Gretchen Carlson asked if Obama was trying to put Congress “on notice” and warn them that they will own the still likely attack in Syria whether they vote for it or not, so they may as well go on record in support of this venture.

“I don’t know what the heck that was, Gretchen,” Malkin replied. “We all know from government 101 that politicians are supposed to take credit and defuse blame, but the massive amount of appropriation of credit for other people’s successes compared to the congenital redistribution of blame for his own failures really is remarkable.”

Watch the clip below via Fox News Channel:

Via: Mediaite.com

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Parents who home-school question Common Core's reach

There are few things 9-year-old Rhett Ricardo relishes more than curling up on his family’s living room couch and delving into a novel, like “Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea” – his imagination whirling as he reads the fantastical plot about a mysterious sea monster and a submarine, his mother says.

But Jill Finnerty Ricardo, of Dade City, Fla., who home-schools her three oldest children, has concerns about what is known as the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) – a national assessment standard adopted in 45 states that, among other objectives, seeks to balance out a perceived literature-heavy English curriculum with more non-fiction reading and writing, particularly informational text..  

While the new standards, which purport to emphasize critical thinking and problem solving, are meant for public schools only, opponents say they will affect all children – including those who are home-schooled, especially when it comes to taking state standardized tests that are aligned with the Common Core.

“We home-school our kids to make sure we can support and encourage their individual interests, gifts and talents,” said 42-year-old Finnerty Ricardo, who holds degrees in marketing, public relations and biology.  

Via: Fox News

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