The New York Times' Benghazi Whitewash

I concluded with a link to the Weekly Standard's Stephen Hayes and Thomas Joscelyn at my earlier entry: "New York Times Report Claims 'No Evidence' of al-Qaeda Role in Benghazi Consulate Attack."

And now Joscelyn has posted a rebuttal, "The New York Times Whitewashes Benghazi."

Basically, the Times report omits key actors who had links to the international al-Qaeda franchise. Or, as Joscelyn puts it:

In his Times piece and during an appearance on NBC’s Meet the Press, [the Times' David] Kirkpatrick claims that the Benghazi attackers were purely “local” actors.

This is simply not true – as evidenced by the Jamal network’s involvement and other pieces of evidence.

There's more push-back at Memeorandum. I expect we'll be talking about this for some time, and perhaps the New York Times will eventually disown its own reporting.

Irony: Climate Change Expedition Stuck in Record-Thick Ice in Antarctica

The ice is supposed to be melting down there, yet they crew is stuck in record ice.

At NewsBusters, "MSM Glosses Over Irony of Global Warming Scientists Trapped in Antarctic Ice."

Also at Instapundit, "WAIT, ISN’T IT SUMMER DOWN THERE? China icebreaker fails to reach stuck Antarctic ship."

New York Times Report Claims 'No Evidence' of al-Qaeda Role in Benghazi Consulate Attack

Look, at this point, who can believe anything on this story? It's a scandal of epic proportions. No one would be better positioned to disprove an al-Qaeda role in Benghazi than the White House, yet it's been a cover-up ever since.

And certainly the New York Times has a vested interest in rehabilitating the Democrats in time for the 2016 election. Who benefits? Hillary Clinton of course.

At Twitchy, "New York Times finds no Al Qaeda link to Benghazi terror attack; ‘fueled in large part’ by video."

.@nytimes investigation of Benghazi would seem to neutralize Hillary Clinton problem, vindicate Rice talking points. http://t.co/kAMBtxIa82
— Jill Lawrence (@JillDLawrence) December 28, 2013

I read the report. It's supposed to be so "complicated" you see. It's impossible for the rubes to understand. But read it for yourself. Pure convenience. A story-line cooked perfectly for a political party on the ropes and about to go down hard. Meanwhile, so much remains unanswered. See the Weekly Standard, for just a start, "Questions They Won’t Answer."

Unreal: UFC's Anderson Silva Breaks Leg

Here's the GIF, "Anderson Silva gruesome leg injury GIF." (Via Larry Brown Sports.)

Video: "Anderson Silva Breaks Leg vs Chris Weidman UFC 168 - *GRAPHIC*."

Hat Tip: Doug Ross.

Three Ominous Signs for #Democrats Heading Into 2014

From Sean Sullivan, at WaPo:

With just days until the 2014 midterm election year is officially upon us, there are fresh signs of trouble for congressional Democrats.

A trio of findings spells bad news for Democrats in a new CNN/ORC International poll released Thursday: The generic ballot test has broken sharply toward Republicans, voter enthusiasm for Democrats is lower than it is on the GOP side, and President Obama is shaping up as an albatross for candidates who support him.

Let’s take a closer look at each one starting with the generic ballot test...

It's gonna be a bloodbath.

Continue reading.

PREVIOUSLY: "Democrats on Losing Side of 13-Point Polling Swing Since October."

'Military-Style' Raid on California Power Station Spooks U.S.

From Shane Harris, at Foreign Policy, "The Attack on Coyote Creek":

When U.S. officials warn about "attacks" on electric power facilities these days, the first thing that comes to mind is probably a computer hacker trying to shut the lights off in a city with malware. But a more traditional attack on a power station in California has U.S. officials puzzled and worried about the physical security of the the electrical grid--from attackers who come in with guns blazing.

Around 1:00 AM on April 16, at least one individual (possibly two) entered two different manholes at the PG&E Metcalf power substation, southeast of San Jose, and cut fiber cables in the area around the substation. That knocked out some local 911 services, landline service to the substation, and cell phone service in the area, a senior U.S. intelligence official told Foreign Policy. The intruder(s) then fired more than 100 rounds from what two officials described as a high-powered rifle at several transformers in the facility. Ten transformers were damaged in one area of the facility, and three transformer banks -- or groups of transformers -- were hit in another, according to a PG&E spokesman.

Cooling oil then leaked from a transformer bank, causing the transformers to overheat and shut down. State regulators urged customers in the area to conserve energy over the following days, but there was no long-term damage reported at the facility and there were no major power outages. There were no injuries reported. That was the good news. The bad news is that officials don't know who the shooter(s) were, and most importantly, whether further attacks are planned.

"Initially, the attack was being treated as vandalism and handled by local law enforcement," the senior intelligence official said. "However, investigators have been quoted in the press expressing opinions that there are indications that the timing of the attacks and target selection indicate a higher level of planning and sophistication."

Well, it's no doubt another crazed left-winger rising up against "the system," although you don't hear about this stuff that much. Doesn't fit the regressive narrative.

Chromebooks' Success Punches Microsoft in the Gut

My wife bought me a Chromebookfor Christmas.

I've been using my son's Macbook for the last year, and we didn't want to put out $1,000 for another one, so she picked up one of these inexpensive laptopsand it's working pretty well.

At Computer World:

Chromebooks had a very good year, according to retailer Amazon.com and industry analysts.

And that's bad news for Microsoft.

The pared-down laptops powered by Google's browser-based Chrome OS have surfaced this year as a threat to "Wintel," the Microsoft-Intel oligarchy that has dominated the personal-computer space for decades with Windows machines.

On Thursday, Amazon.com called out a pair of Chromebooks -- one from Samsung, the other from Acer -- as two of the three best-selling notebooks during the U.S. holiday season. The third: Asus' Transformer Book, a Windows 8.1 "2-in-1" device that transforms from a 10.1-in. tablet to a keyboard-equipped laptop.

As of late Thursday, the trio retained their lock on the top three places on Amazon's best-selling-laptop list in the order of Acer, Samsung and Asus. Another Acer Chromebook, one that sports 32GB of on-board storage space -- double the 16GB of Acer's lower-priced model -- held the No. 7 spot on the retailer's top 10.

Chromebooks' holiday success at Amazon was duplicated elsewhere during the year, according to the NPD Group, which tracked U.S. PC sales to commercial buyers such as businesses, schools, government and other organizations.

By NPD's tallies, Chromebooks accounted for 21% of all U.S. commercial notebook sales in 2013 through November, and 10% of all computers and tablets. Both shares were up massively from 2012; last year, Chromebooks accounted for an almost-invisible two-tenths of one percent of all computer and tablet sales.

Stephen Baker of NPD pointed out what others had said previously: Chromebooks have capitalized on Microsoft's stumble with Windows 8. "Tepid Windows PC sales allowed brands with a focus on alternative form factors or operating systems, like Apple and Samsung, to capture significant share of a market traditionally dominated by Windows devices," Baker said in a Monday statement.

Part of the attraction of Chromebooks is their low prices: The systems forgo high-resolution displays, rely on inexpensive graphics chipsets, include paltry amounts of RAM -- often just 2GB -- and get by with little local storage. And their operating system, Chrome OS, doesn't cost computer makers a dime.

Mine's just for blogging. There's no Microsoft software on a Chromebook, for example, a word processing program. Folks can use Google docs for free. But if you're planning to do major creative computing work, you'll need another device.

In any case, more at the link (via Techmeme).

Greenwald and Snowdon Promise More Stories to Come

Seems to me this story's peaked, but Greenwald's milking it for every penny he can get. And Snowden? Well, not so much, the sucker.

At Wired, "Glenn Greenwald: ‘A Lot’ More NSA Documents to Come."

BONUS: From Robert Stacy McCain, "If He’s Lost Lawrence O’Donnell … Edward Snowden’s status as progressive hero is over ...":

Edward Snowden never fooled me: From the get-go, I recognized this allegedly heroic “whistleblower” as another deluded anti-America traitor like Bradley — eh, Chelsea – Manning or perhaps even an outright paranoid kook like Barrett Brown. (Both Snowden and Brown are high-school dropouts, coincidentally or not.)

Manning, Brown, Snowden and, for that matter, Michael Hastings, all exhibited the symptomatic effects of a psychological complex we might call Post-Republican Anti-War Syndrome.

The tensions and frustrations of the Bush era — beginning with the disputed election of 2000, continued by the 9/11 attacks and on through the “War on Terror” and the invasion of Iraq — simply overwhelmed the fragile minds of some vulnerable people, and the election of Obama was insufficient to cure their madness. (Alabama moonbat blogger Roger Shuler is a textbook case.)

The anti-war movement of the Bush era summoned forth an army of kooks. It gave them a sense of purpose and focus for their alienated rage. When Bush (and “Bush’s war,” as the Left habitually called Iraq) went away, the malcontents and nutjobs were incapable of adjusting to the post-Bush reality because, in point of fact, they had never been very well-adjusted to begin with.

Hey, whatever happened to Cindy Sheehan?

Continue reading.

Top Political Quotes of 2013

At MRC, "Year-End Awards: The Best Notable Quotables of 2013."

Hat Tip: Doug Ross, "Please Congratulate Thomas Friedman of the New York Times for His Dumbest Quote o' the Year Award."

And a superfluous video from Right Sighthings:

@GLAAD Rages Against Phil Robertson's Return to Duck Dynasty

Sucks to be a GLAAD sperm butt-bag.

At Big Hollywood:

At first, the gay advocacy group GLAAD successfully urged A&E network to punish Duck Dynasty star Phil Robertson for comments about homosexuals he made in GQ. But now that the network has relented and returned the elder Robertson to his reality show, the advocacy group is not very happy at all.

"Phil Robertson should look African American and gay people in the eyes and hear about the hurtful impact of praising Jim Crow laws and comparing gay people to terrorists," GLAAD said in a statement to the press. "If dialogue with Phil is not part of next steps then A&E has chosen profits over African American and gay people—especially its employees and viewers."

The cable network initially placed Duck Dynasty's Phil Robertson on "indefinite suspension" for paraphrasing the Bible's listing of sins, one of which was the act of homosexuality. GLAAD immediately claimed that Robertson should be fired for "some of the vilest and most extreme statements uttered against LGBT people." The group also said that his comments were "littered with outdated stereotypes and blatant misinformation."

After the suspension, the gay advocacy group celebrated A&E's decision to punish the reality show patriarch, saying, "By taking quick action and removing Robertson from future filming, A&E has sent a strong message that discrimination is neither a Christian nor an American value."

It is interesting that GLAAD put Robertson's comments about African Americans first in its own statement about his comments on homosexuals. One might think that GLAAD feels it lost the battle on that issue and needed the cover of "racism" to add heft to its complaints.

Still, the statement takes Robertson's comments out of context and mischaracterizes them.

Robertson made no such claim that Jim Crow laws did not harm African Americans, nor did he "compare" homosexuals to terrorists.
In the end, the A&E network put itself in an untenable position with its hasty decision to place Robertson on "indefinite suspension."

More from Charles Hoskinson, at the Washington Examiner, "Who are the losers in the ‘Duck Dynasty’ flap?" (via Memeorandum).

Weekend Interview, Camille Paglia: A Feminist Defense of Masculine Virtues

This is great.

At the Wall Street Journal:

Ms. Paglia argues that the softening of modern American society begins as early as kindergarten. "Primary-school education is a crock, basically. It's oppressive to anyone with physical energy, especially guys," she says, pointing to the most obvious example: the way many schools have cut recess. "They're making a toxic environment for boys. Primary education does everything in its power to turn boys into neuters."

She is not the first to make this argument, as Ms. Paglia readily notes. Fellow feminist Christina Hoff Sommers has written about the "war against boys" for more than a decade. The notion was once met with derision, but now data back it up: Almost one in five high-school-age boys has been diagnosed with ADHD, boys get worse grades than girls and are less likely to go to college.

Ms. Paglia observes this phenomenon up close with her 11-year-old son, Lucien, whom she is raising with her ex-partner, Alison Maddex, an artist and public-school teacher who lives 2 miles away. She sees the tacit elevation of "female values"—such as sensitivity, socialization and cooperation—as the main aim of teachers, rather than fostering creative energy and teaching hard geographical and historical facts.

By her lights, things only get worse in higher education. "This PC gender politics thing—the way gender is being taught in the universities—in a very anti-male way, it's all about neutralization of maleness." The result: Upper-middle-class men who are "intimidated" and "can't say anything. . . . They understand the agenda." In other words: They avoid goring certain sacred cows by "never telling the truth to women" about sex, and by keeping "raunchy" thoughts and sexual fantasies to themselves and their laptops.

Politically correct, inadequate education, along with the decline of America's brawny industrial base, leaves many men with "no models of manhood," she says. "Masculinity is just becoming something that is imitated from the movies. There's nothing left. There's no room for anything manly right now." The only place you can hear what men really feel these days, she claims, is on sports radio. No surprise, she is an avid listener. The energy and enthusiasm "inspires me as a writer," she says, adding: "If we had to go to war," the callers "are the men that would save the nation."

Regressive leftism, all the way down.

Continue reading.

Today's Parallels with World War One's International Politics

An interesting commentary, at the Economist, "The first world war:Look back with angst":

Humanity can learn from its mistakes, as shown by the response to the economic crisis, which was shaped by a determination to avoid the mistakes that led to the Depression. The memory of the horrors unleashed a century ago makes leaders less likely to stumble into war today. So does the explosive power of a modern conflagration: the threat of a nuclear holocaust is a powerful brake on the reckless escalation that dispatched a generation of young men into the trenches.

Yet the parallels remain troubling. The United States is Britain, the superpower on the wane, unable to guarantee global security. Its main trading partner, China, plays the part of Germany, a new economic power bristling with nationalist indignation and building up its armed forces rapidly. Modern Japan is France, an ally of the retreating hegemon and a declining regional power. The parallels are not exact—China lacks the Kaiser’s territorial ambitions and America’s defence budget is far more impressive than imperial Britain’s—but they are close enough for the world to be on its guard.

Which, by and large, it is not. The most troubling similarity between 1914 and now is complacency. Businesspeople today are like businesspeople then: too busy making money to notice the serpents flickering at the bottom of their trading screens. Politicians are playing with nationalism just as they did 100 years ago. China’s leaders whip up Japanophobia, using it as cover for economic reforms, while Shinzo Abe stirs Japanese nationalism for similar reasons. India may next year elect Narendra Modi, a Hindu nationalist who refuses to atone for a pogrom against Muslims in the state he runs and who would have his finger on the button of a potential nuclear conflict with his Muslim neighbours in Pakistan. Vladimir Putin has been content to watch Syria rip itself apart. And the European Union, which came together in reaction to the bloodshed of the 20th century, is looking more fractious and riven by incipient nationalism than at any point since its formation.

Continue reading.

I think the U.S. is a far more dominant country than most people admit, and thus this idea of China playing the role of Germany (and it's bid for European dominance in the early 20th century) is a stretch to me. And the key technology today is nuclear weapons, which will prevent a great power war even if China catches up to the U.S. (which will be decades if not centuries from now).

An interesting piece, in any case.

GLAAD's Fascist Totalitarianism

After five years of blogging and activism on the homosexual rights issue I'm to the point where I throw my hands up sometimes in disbelief. Virtually the entire "gay rights" agenda is predicated on lies, but worse, most of the mainstream political establishment swallows them without the least bit of shame. It's disgusting. As I wrote years ago, homosexual marriage is not a civil right. A homosexual's preference that his behavior, which is a matter of choice and not biology, be considered a right is not just obscene but a crime against language. But those who many identify as "low information voters" simply have no clue, they have no knowledge of history or natural law or traditional morality. So, they suck up whatever lies the left peddles, and then they mindlessly sign up with the regressive left's totalitarian campaign to silence all disagreement and dissent.

Thus it's hard to disagree with the idiot Josh Marshall, at Talking Points Memo, when he argues that the left's depraved push for butt-ream acceptance is like the fall of the Berlin Wall. It's a done deal now, "It's Over" (via Memeorandum).

Frankly, it won't matter if it's "all over" or not. Last June's two rulings at the Supreme Court marked the national shift as far as I'm concerned. The left's corruption and lies in the Proposition 8 case were legion, but never came up on appeal to the high court. A majority of California's voters were swept aside like a spilled salt shaker. County clerks were marrying homosexuals that night, although the 9th Circuit was obligated to a weeks-long implementation delay under normal court procedures. None of it mattered. The law doesn't matter. Leftists literally leverage it to their desires as the go.

When the Duck Dynasty controversy broke last week it was just another event in the long line of criminalizing free thought by the left. Wilson Cruz, GLAAD's spokesman, summed it up when he issued the homosexual fatwa, "The country is changing and even the state in which Mr. Robertson lives is changing and he needs to get in line" (seen here at this Bill O'Reilly segment, at the one-minute mark). Wilson uttered those words with such a mien of contempt that I can see him now organizing a firing squad in front of all of those hold-out patriots who dare not toe the line to the left's fascism.

And it's truly fascism that drives this movement. I had no idea that GLAAD keeps an enemy's list for media distribution, which the organization uses to keep dissenting opinions from reaching mainstream news outlets. It's right here at the GLAAD homepage, "Commentator Accountability Project." Robert Oscar Lopez explains how it works, at the American Thinker, "Life on GLAAD's Blacklist," and note especially the conclusion:

GLAAD is hoping that the current surge of anger over Phil Robertson will begin and end with Duck Dynasty, and then the rest of us who have been erased and whose lives have been destroyed by this totalitarian organization can be out of the way again. Broom, meet rug -- sweep the human waste underneath, march on to the next court case, and proclaim victory.

There's only one way that GLAAD will come out of this kerfuffle unscathed -- if you, the conservatives of America, let them. Please don't. This is much bigger than one reality show.

Lopez concludes as if it's not actually all over, that conservative America will in fact turn back the tide of leftist indecency and totalitarianism.

I'm not so sure, for the reasons that I've outlined above. The cultural rot is carving down much deeper than the issue of homosexual rights. It's down to the very question of what counts as morality and truth. And thus it's down to the question of whether America will for long remain a nation under God. And I guess therein lies kernel of hope, for in the end all of us answer to a higher truth, because make no mistake we've reached high pitch in the battle of good versus evil. Around the world countries are refusing to make that stand against evil, and thus evil continues its march of triumph. Just look at the British government's official response to the murder of Drummer Lee Rigby and you know it's a long way before people decide to say enough is enough. Right now it's moral rot all the way down. Something's gotta break at a visceral level before it turns around. Maybe GLAAD's jihad against Duck Dynasty will be it. If not, folks better watch what they say before Wilson Cruz lines them up and shouts "fire!"

And now, perhaps some related hope at Twitchy, "Report: ‘A&E caves,’ Phil Robertson will be back on ‘Duck Dynasty’."

Deadly Bombing Rocks Beirut Near Parliament Building

At Telegraph UK, "Aide to Lebanese Prime Minister dies in Beirut car bomb."

And at the Los Angeles Times, "Huge Beirut blast kills 6 including former ambassador to U.S."

It Sucks to Be Mary Landrieu

I wrote about Senator Landrieu almost two months ago: "Running Scared: Mary Landrieu Introduces 'Keeping the Affordable Care Act Promise Act'."

Well, despite all the goo-goo ga-ga Democrat talk about how the party's congressional candidates will be proudly running on an ObamaCare platform next November, clearly Landrieu's not circling the same orbit as the Democrat Beltway psychos.

At LAT, "Louisiana's Mary Landrieu adopts risky strategy in bid to keep Senate seat":

METAIRIE, La. — In the months before Congress passed the president's healthcare law, Sen. Mary L. Landrieu faced a deluge: The office phones rang off the hook, the mail was heavy and a few restive constituents — well aware of the cameras — showed up at her events urging her to vote against it.

The three-term Louisiana Democrat was one of the final holdouts, but ultimately she backed the bill. And now in this red state — where President Obama lost by 18 percentage points in 2012 — her opponents intend to make her pay the price.

As her poll numbers have plunged during the bumpy Obamacare rollout, Landrieu has rushed to contain the damage. When about 90,000 health insurance plans were canceled in her state because they did not meet the new law's requirements, she swiftly introduced a legislative fix and bucked the White House by enlisting other Senate Democrats to support it before the president announced his own adjustment.

She has distanced herself from the program's failures, sometimes by flinging darts in Obama's direction: "What I've said to the president is: 'You told them that they could keep it,'" she said of the canceled insurance plans in a news clip featured in her defiant new campaign ad. "I'm fixing it … and I've urged the president to fix it."

Landrieu is one of a small group of vulnerable Senate Democrats with the bad luck to be running in hotly contested races under the substantial shadow of Obamacare. The central question for Landrieu is a variation on what faces all of those incumbents: whether her rebukes of the president, and her intensive focus on local issues like flood insurance, will be enough to maintain her edge in suburban areas like Metairie, where she has built a winning coalition in her previous races by attracting Republican votes.

Landrieu's strategy is not without risk. While distancing herself from the law she must also avoid alienating black voters, whose solid support has been a key element in each of her narrow Senate wins. Complicating matters is Louisiana's complex "jungle" election system: She will not face voters until November, when to avoid a runoff she must vanquish two Republican opponents by winning more than 50% of the vote. Her current poll numbers show her well below that threshold.

Interviews with voters here suggest that Landrieu's biggest challenge is rebuilding her brand as a populist, and one who is less partisan than most Democrats on Capitol Hill. The secret sauce in each of her Senate races, political operatives here say, is the discipline she has shown in running essentially a governor's race, rather a Senate race — casting herself as a fighter for Louisiana on local issues that often carry greater weight with her state's voters than Washington's ideological battles.

Standing with the president on the healthcare law shattered that image for voters like Todd Stremlau, a Metairie Republican who said he had voted for her in the past because he believed she was independent, strong on national defense and influential on Louisiana issues because of her family name. (Her father, Maurice Edwin "Moon" Landrieu, was mayor of New Orleans, a post now held by her brother Mitch.)

With the healthcare law, "she should have known what was coming," said Stremlau, who was grocery shopping with his young daughter in this swing territory near the shore of Lake Pontchartrain. "She made a big mistake by toeing the line on the Democratic side for the healthcare law."

Democrat Zack Braud, a drugstore manager from LaPlace who has also voted for Landrieu in the past, said she had not been vigilant enough in overseeing the dispersal of federal funds after Hurricane Katrina. "They got all kinds of money from the government to do the levees and they haven't been done," Braud said, citing one example.

"Average," he replied when asked to rate Landrieu's performance.

Keep reading.

LAPD's Don Thompson Rescues Trapped Driver in Burning Car on 405 Freeway

Others also ran to help as well, but Officer Thompson, who was off-duty, was first to try and get the man out. I read this story on Christmas Day. Thompson cut the man's seat belt with a utility knife he carries, and he himself became overcome by flames and smoke as he was pulling the man to safety. That is heroism.

At LAT, "Off-duty officer likely saved life of motorist on 405, official says."

Video from ABC News, "Off-Duty Officer Rescues Man From Burning Car."

The Cross the Left Can’t Bear

At Michelle Malkin's, "Cruciphobia at Mt. Soledad":

Consider this: Taylor Swift wasn’t even born yet when the fight over the Mount Soledad cross began. How much longer will it drag on? Disgruntled atheists first filed suit over the memorial at a veterans park in San Diego in the summer of 1989. The fringe grievance-mongers have clung bitterly to their litigious activities for nearly a quarter-century. It’s time to let go and bring peace to the city.

The historic 43-foot cross (29 feet tall on a 14-foot base) has stood atop Mount Soledad on public land since 1954. The Mount Soledad Memorial Association erected the monument to commemorate the sacrifice of American soldiers who died in the Korean War, World War I and World War II. The cross has long carried meaning for the city’s residents far beyond religious symbolism. “It’s a symbol of coming of age and of remembrance,” Pastor Mark Slomka of the Mount Soledad Presbyterian Church said years ago when the case erupted. The San Diego Union-Tribune editorial board explained that the cross is “much like the Mission San Diego de Alcala and the cross at Presidio Park, both of which also are rooted in Christianity but have come to signify the birth of San Diego.” I first started covering the case as an editorial writer at the Los Angeles Daily News in the early 1990s. A federal judge initially ruled that the landmark cross’s presence violated the California constitution’s church-state separation principles. The city of San Diego put the issue before voters, who overwhelmingly approved a practical solution in 2005: Sell the cross and the park to the veterans group for use in a national war memorial.

A pragmatic, tolerant resolution with 76 percent of voters’ support? Heavens, no! The extreme secularists couldn’t have that. They sued and sued and sued and sued. By 2007, the state Supreme Court — affirmed by a state appellate court — had rejected the atheists’ campaign. The courts affirmed the constitutionality of the San Diego referendum (Proposition A) and the sale of the cross to the Mount Soledad Memorial Association. The American Civil Liberties Union intervened to suppress and “de-publish” the ruling as a way to prevent its use in future litigation. They lost.

Lawyers for the Thomas More Law Center, which represented filed a friend of the court brief on behalf of the memorial association, were relieved: “This decision protects the will of the people and their desire to preserve a historical veterans memorial for future generations.” They’ve fought hard to remind America that the Founding Fathers fought for freedom of religion, not freedom from religion. [Correction: The memorial association is represented by the Liberty Institute. More info here.]

But still the cross-hunters press on. Fast-forward to Christmas week 2013. U.S. District Court Judge Larry Burns, who earlier had ruled in support of the cross, was forced to rule that it must come down in 90 days in the wake of a liberal 9th Circuit Court of Appeals decision overturning his prior decision. In anticipation of new appeals, Burns stayed the order. All eyes are on the U.S. Supreme Court, which refused to hear the case last summer...

Continue reading.

And at the San Diego Union Tribune, "Soledad cross backers appeal."

I never cease to be astounded by the everlasting hatred of the secular left.

Barbara Branden Dies: Her Biography of Ayn Rand Sparked Rift in Objectivist Movement

A fascinating obituary.

At the New York Times, "Barbara Branden, Biographer of Ayn Rand, Dies at 84."

Retailers Miss Christmas Delivery Deadlines Amid Surge of Online Shopping

I saw initial reports on this yesterday, and now here's WSJ, "Late Surge in Web Buying Blindsides UPS, RetailersSome Christmas Packages Aren't Delivered."

Via Robert Stacy McCain, who's got a recommendation for Thomas Sowell, The Vision of the Anointed, "...the best single-volume analysis of liberalism ever written and could cure the delusions of any liberal who reads it (assuming that the liberal is intelligent enough to understand it, admittedly a large assumption)."

Yep, #ObamaCare's 'Cementing in Place,' Which is Why Everyone's Planning for the Law's Unraveling

You gotta love the subliminal messaging at the New York Times, "As Health Law Cements Its Place, G.O.P. Ponders How to Attack."

That's clever headlining, especially how it implies that Republicans will have a hard time replacing ObamaCare once it's all "cemented in place." The piece even quotes Republicans who stress that any reform must account for those now covered by the ACA. At least Republicans care about people not losing their coverage. And as for that "cemented in" part, you'll have to ask the president himself, who treats little of the law as permanently settled. (See WSJ, "Flurry of Tweaks to Affordable Care Act Leaves Insurers Rattled," and "Health-Insurance Deadlines Keep Slipping.")

And interestingly, Phillip Longman and Paul Hewitt, at the far-left Washington Monthly, are looking well beyond ObamaCare with little expectation that the law will restrain healthcare costs. The authors double-down on government fail, however, saying that federal regulators should simply come in and set prices for the entire national healthcare system! See, "After Obamacare."

I don't know what's going to happen with the law, but I'm intrigued with the recent finding at the Reason-Rupe Poll, "Americans Want to Go Back to Previous Health Care System..."

Frankly, polls show that Americans think anything's better than ClusterCare.

But the left doesn't have a way forward. It's a holding pattern for the White House now, with the left hoping the bad news fades away in time to minimize Democrat midterm losses next November. And 2016's still a long ways off.

Meanwhile, some form of market-based reform's needed to get the healthcare system back on track towards quality and affordability. I think this piece by John Cochrane at WSJ is one of the best on this I've seen, "What to Do When ObamaCare Unravels":

The U.S. health-care market is dysfunctional. Obscure prices and $500 Band-Aids are legendary. The reason is simple: Health care and health insurance are strongly protected from competition. There are explicit barriers to entry, for example the laws in many states that require a "certificate of need" before one can build a new hospital. Regulatory compliance costs, approvals, nonprofit status, restrictions on foreign doctors and nurses, limits on medical residencies, and many more barriers keep prices up and competitors out. Hospitals whose main clients are uncompetitive insurers and the government cannot innovate and provide efficient cash service.

We need to permit the Southwest Airlines, LUV 0.00%  Wal-Mart, WMT +0.49% Amazon.com AMZN -0.22%  and Apples of the world to bring to health care the same dramatic improvements in price, quality, variety, technology and efficiency that they brought to air travel, retail and electronics. We'll know we are there when prices are on hospital websites, cash customers get discounts, and new hospitals and insurers swamp your inbox with attractive offers and great service.

The Affordable Care Act bets instead that more regulation, price controls, effectiveness panels, and "accountable care" organizations will force efficiency, innovation, quality and service from the top down. Has this ever worked? Did we get smartphones by government pressure on the 1960s AT&T T +0.60%  phone monopoly? Did effectiveness panels force United Airlines and American Airlines to cut costs, and push TWA and Pan Am out of business? Did the post office invent FedEx, FDX +0.92%  UPS and email? How about public schools or the last 20 or more health-care "cost control" ideas?

Only deregulation can unleash competition. And only disruptive competition, where new businesses drive out old ones, will bring efficiency, lower costs and innovation.

Health insurance should be individual, portable across jobs, states and providers; lifelong and guaranteed-renewable, meaning you have the right to continue with no unexpected increase in premiums if you get sick. Insurance should protect wealth against large, unforeseen, necessary expenses, rather than be a wildly inefficient payment plan for routine expenses.

RTWT.