The Real Trigger Behind the Protests in Turkey

Claire Berlinski, at U.S. News, "What's Behind Turkey's Unrest":

ISTANBUL – By now, the media coverage of the upheaval in Turkey has been extensive, but certain points have been insufficiently emphasized.

The story began as a peaceful sit-in in a park near the city's central Taksim Square. It was slated to be demolished and replaced with a shopping mall. The protesters wanted to preserve it, but Ankara disagreed. Riot police raided the protesters at dawn, using unbelievably excessive force – hundreds of people wound up in local hospitals, and the police then proceeded to tear gas the hospitals, too. People lost eyes, suffered severe brain injuries and an opposition party member of parliament who had come to show his support suffered a heart attack. As of today, following demonstrations and clashes with the police around the country, at least two people have been confirmed killed; at least six people have lost their eyes and many more have been terrorized and suffered severe injuries.

Yet the highly excessive use of police force happens quite often in Turkey. It happens so often, in fact, that Turks on Twitter use the hashtag #dailygasreport. But never, in the decade that I've lived here, has this prompted a national reaction. Never has it triggered outrage on this level...

Continue reading.

And also at City Journal, "Erdoğan Over the Edge."

BONUS: At London's Daily Mail, "Horrifying image of 'woman in red' being sprayed with tear gas becomes symbol of Turkish protests."

Controversy Over Huge Mako Shark Caught Off Huntington Beach

At the Los Angeles Times, "Giant shark caught off Southland coast stuns sportfishing world."

You gotta love the response from the idiot environmentalists (with the emphasis on "mental"):

David McGuire, the director of Shark Stewards, a Bay Area nonprofit that advocates for the protection of sharks, said he was shocked.

"It's really something you see more in Florida than in California, where we have more of a conservation ethic," he said. "People should be viewing these sharks as wonderful animals that are important to the ocean and admiring how beautiful they are."

He lamented that so many shows about sharks continue to evoke Jaws-like terror rather than science. "These kind of reality shows are not reality. The reality is we're overfishing sharks, and this macho big-game attitude should be a relic of the past."

Susan Rice to Replace Tom Donilon as National Security Advisor

At WSJ, "Rice to Succeed Donilon as National Security Adviser." And at Memeorandum.

Failing upward.

See, "Ambassador Susan Rice Appeared on Five Sunday Talk Shows on September 16th to Claim Libya Attack Was 'Spontaneous'."

This is the most despicable administration in history.

PREVIOUSLY: "Obama Names Samantha Power as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations."

Obama Names Samantha Power as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations

The contempt for Israel is just astonishing.

At Atlas Shrugs, "Obama names Israel Invading Advocate, Samantha Power, Ambassador to the UN."

Ice Ice Bieber

Hilarious!

Justin Bieber and Vanilla Ice. Just saying. Biebs wears ridiculous outfit to Heat game nyp.st/14eJezz twitter.com/PageSix/status…
— Page Six (@PageSix) June 4, 2013

Final Deadline for Nikke Finke?

I often read her stuff. And I follow her on Twitter.

So this is interesting, at LAT, "Deadline Hollywood editor Nikki Finke's next big story may be her own exit."

Also, "Speculation swirls around Nikki Finke's future at Deadline Hollywood."

Whatever. She's not going away.

Check this piece from 2009 at NYT, "A Hollywood Blogger Feared by Executives."

Apple Faces Limited Ban on Products

In tech news, at WSJ, "Ruling Blocks iPhone Sales: If Upheld, Decision Favoring Samsung Would Halt Sales of Older iPhones, iPads."

Hearings Before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Military Sex Crimes

Looks like it got pretty heated up there yesterday.

At the New York Times, "Joint Chiefs’ Answers on Sex Crimes Dismay Senators."

'Unbecoming' IDF Women

Perhaps "naughty" would be the better adjective.

At London's Daily Mail, "Female Israeli soldiers disciplined for 'unbecoming behaviour' after posing for pictures dressed only in their underwear and combat fatigues."

Also, at Izismile, "Israeli Defense Force Girls Gone Wild." (Via Linkiest.)

National Organization for Marriage John Eastman Testimony Before House Ways and Means Committee

I watched this yesterday.

Check Yid With Lid, "Scandalpalooza Update: Revenge of the Tea Party."

And at Nice Deb, "Video: National Organization for Marriage’s John Eastman RIPS Democrats at IRS Hearing + Proof IRS Leaked Confidential Donor List to Political Rival."

The full published testimony is here.

Chris Christie Calls Special Election to Fill Frank Lautenberg's Senate Seat

Debilitating stupidity.

At National Journal, "Republicans Fuming Over Chris Christie's Senate Decision." (At Memeorandum.)

Plus, a big roundup at Legal Insurrection, "Chris Christie calls for Special Election in October to fill Lautenberg seat."

Obama Political Hacks Using Secret Email Accounts

At Fox News, "Obama officials deny using 'secret' email accounts, though some agencies won't disclose details."

And Michelle on the epic hypocrisy:

Libertarian Populism and Its Limits

See Ross Douthat, at the New York Times (and the links therein).

It's a debate about "reform conservatism," whatever that is. I recall going through this back in 2008 when the Barackalypse was first elected. And this latest iteration too shall pass.

Meanwhile, see the Other McCain for more, "Damn You, Josh Barro!"

@jbarro Hey, I'm not exactly president of the @ewerickson Fan Club, but ... "derpy"? That's all you got, "derpy"? businessinsider.com/erick-erickson…
— Robert Stacy McCain (@rsmccain) June 4, 2013

Yeah, that was a bit much with the "derpy."

And speaking of "derpy," click through for some "derpy" RAWMUSCLEGLUTES at the link:

Wow, I just got my second "Malkin Award" nomination of the year. dish.andrewsullivan.com/2013/06/04/mal… I must be doing something right.
— Robert Stacy McCain (@rsmccain) June 4, 2013

Ethically Loose

Via the Looking Spoon, "The Only Response Needed For Anyone Questioning the 'Ethics' of a Republican Investigating Obama..."

PREVIOUSLY: "Jim Geraghty Destroys David Plouffe With One Tweet."

'He's quite handsome, but there's something about the shape of his features that suggests there's a fat man inside waiting to bust loose...'

That's Ann Althouse, ripping University of New Mexico Psychology Professor Geoffrey Miller, who slammed fat Ph.D. candidates on Twitter for "lacking willpower to do a dissertation."

See, "Fat-Shaming in Academe" (at Memeorandum).

The university's response is here, "UNM Response to Tweet by Professor Geoffrey Miller."

And go straight to the video of Department Chairwoman Jane Ellen Smith. It turns out that Professor Miller is apparently claiming that he's doing research on "provocative tweeting."

I gotta remember that one for next time the idiot progs contact my department!

The Truth About ObamaCare Rate Increases

At WSJ, "ObamaCare Bait and Switch":

Liberals have spent years claiming that "rate shock" under the Affordable Care Act—the 20% to 30% average spike in insurance premiums that every independent analyst projects—is merely the political imagination of Republicans and the insurance industry. So they immediately claimed victory when California reported last month that the plans that will be available on the state's new insurance exchange next year would be cheaper than they are today.

Except now it emerges that California goosed the data to make it appear as if ObamaCare won't send costs aloft as the law's regulations and mandates kick in. It will, by a lot. And now liberals have suddenly switched to arguing that, sure, insurance will be more expensive but the new costs are justified. Needless to say that was not how Democrats sold health-care reform.

California reported that the rates would range from 2% above to 29% below the current market. "This is a home run for consumers in every region of California," said Peter Lee, the director of the state exchange. "These rates are way below the worst-case gloom-and-doom scenarios we have heard."

But Mr. Lee and his fellow regulators were making a false comparison. They weren't looking at California's lightly regulated individual insurance market that functions surprisingly well. They were comparing ObamaCare insurance to the state's current small-business market where regulations similar to ObamaCare have already been imposed.

In other words, California wasn't comparing apples to apples. It wasn't even comparing apples to oranges. It was comparing apples to ostriches. The conservative analyst Avik Roy consulted current rates on the eHealthInsurance website and discovered that the cheapest ObamaCare plan for a typical 25-year-old man is roughly 64% to 117% more expensive than the five cheapest policies sold today. For a 40 year old, it's 73% to 146%. Stanford economist Dan Kessler adds his observations nearby...

Continue reading.

And the Kessler piece is here, "ObamaCare Is Raising Insurance Costs."

Plus, the epic idiot Ezra Klein's been scrambling to cover for this clusterf-k policy. Here's his latest stupidity, "The six ways Obamacare changes insurance premiums."

See that? How it "changes" premiums? Actually, the law is "raising" premiums. And it's raising premiums on young people to subsidize old people and the sick. And so what happened? Young people bailed. At the Los Angeles Times, "Affordable Care Act's challenge: getting young adults enrolled."

Things aren't going so well for this monstrosity. Not well at all.

Prosecutors Seek Life in Prison for Bradley Manning

Screw this guy.

Make sure he gets a fair trial, sure. Other than that, screw him.

At LAT, "Prosecutors look to closely link Bradley Manning and Julian Assange":

FT. MEADE, Md. — Government prosecutors seeking life in prison for Army Pfc. Bradley Manning opened his court-martial Monday closely linking the young, nondescript enlistee from Oklahoma with the outsized Julian Assange, head of the anti-secrecy WikiLeaks website who used his world stage to post hundreds of thousands of Manning’s purloined documents in the largest leak of U.S. classified material in the nation’s history.

Army Cpt. Joe Morrow, prosecuting Manning on 21 charges, including endangering the U.S. and aiding the enemy, said Manning downloaded and sent to WikiLeaks more than 700,000 classified materials after the short, bespectacled Manning and the silver-haired media celebrity Assange quietly exchanged personal contact information and crafted Internet chat logs to expose the deepest secrets in the fight against terrorism and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

That partnership, Morrow and other Army prosecutors alleged, blossomed to one where the unlikely pair discussed their own attempts at secrecy even as Manning methodically flipped documents to Assange and the WikiLeaks editor-in-chief routinely posted the material – including State Department cables, assessments of terror captives, prisoner interrogation videos and U.S. evaluations of foreign allies.

“These were massive, massive downloads,” Morrow said. “Packaged and out the door to WikiLeaks in some instances in a matter of minutes.”

RTWT.

Erdogan's Grip on Power Is Rapidly Weakening

An analysis at Der Spiegel, "Revolt in Turkey":

For a decade, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has had a tight grip on power. But it suddenly looks to be weakening. Thousands have taken to the streets across the country and the threats to Erdogan's rule are many. His reaction has revealed him to be hopelessly disconnected.

The rooftops of Istanbul can be seen in the background and next to them is a gigantic image of Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Turkey's powerful prime minister is watching over the city -- and is also monitoring the work of the political party he controls. At least that seems to be the message of the image, which can be found in a conference room at the headquarters of Erdogan's Justice and Development Party (AKP).

hese days, though, Istanbul is producing images that carry a distinctly different meaning -- images of violent protests against the vagaries of Erdogan's rule. And it is beginning to look as though the prime minister, the most powerful leader Turkey has seen since the days of modern Turkey's founder Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, might be losing control.

As recently as mid-May, Erdogan boasted during an appearance at the Brookings Institute in Washington D.C. of the $29 billion airport his government was planning to build in Istanbul. "Turkey no longer talks about the world," he said. "The world talks about Turkey."

Just two weeks later, he appears to have been right -- just not quite in the way he had anticipated. The world is looking at Turkey and speaking of the violence with which Turkish police are assaulting demonstrators at dozens of marches across the country. Increasingly, Erdogan is looking like an autocratic ruler whose people are no longer willing to tolerate him.

Continue reading.

And at Atlas Shrugs, "TURKISH PM ERDOGAN DESCRIBES CONSTITUTION AS 'A HUGE LIE': 'SOVEREIGNTY BELONGS UNCONDITIONALLY AND ALWAYS TO ALLAH'; 'ONE CANNOT BE A MUSLIM, AND SECULAR'."

IRS Spent $50 million for Conferences Between 2010 and 2012

Here's Greta Van Susteren, "Isn’t this disgusting? IRS spends $50 million in two years on conferences! Conferences to teach each other how to target unfairly?"

And Dana Loesch on Hannity last night:

Hate Cleric Anjem Choudary's Vile Rant Attacking Drummer Lee Rigby

Choudary's a darling of the progressives left.

At the Sun UK, "Lee Rigby will burn in hellfire. But Michael is a nice man."