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Sen. Chuck Schumer is calling for abolishing partisan primaries, saying the current system engenders unhealthy political polarization. “The partisan primary system, which favors more ideologically pure candidates, has contributed to the election of more extreme officeholders and increased political polarization,” the New York Democrat wrote in a New York Times op-ed published Monday evening. “It has become a menace to governing.” Schumer said that partisan primaries embolden “the 10 percent at each of the two extremes of the political spectrum” and pointed to House Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s surprise loss to Dave Brat, a political novice who ran to the...

Word For The Day, Tuesday July 22, 2014 In order that we might all raise the level of discourse and expand our language abilities, here is the daily post of "Word for the Day". cunctation [kuhngk-tey-shuhn] -n delay; tardiness.[1575–85; < Latin cunctātiōn- (stem of cunctātiō ) delay, equivalent to cunctāt ( us ) (past participle of cunctārī to delay) + -iōn- -ion] la pesadilla [pehs-ah-DEE-yah ] -n nightmare El tráfico de las 5:00 es habitualmente una pesadilla. The traffic at 5:00 is usually a nightmare.

On June 30, 2014, I wrote a syndicated column titled, “Terrorist attack via infectious disease?” I postulated that America is being placed in mortal danger as illegal aliens, to which I specifically add the tens of thousands of illegal alien children, are flooding our borders. I wrote: “It is a fact that no one, not government nor anyone else, can begin to quantify the danger we face from disease borne by illegal aliens. Illegals coming from Third World countries are not the rich and well-educated who were able to seek health care in their country of origin. They are the...

Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin rejected overtures from True Blood's producers for a cameo role on the conservative-bashing vampire show. Her instincts proved to be correct after Sunday's HBO episode in which Republican women were once again demeaned when one of the lead characters said in horror, "Oh my God, I'm a Republi-c*nt." Palin told Breitbart News after she heard about the misogynistic episode that she simply wondered, "'True Blood' or true gall?" "The brilliant minds of 'True Blood' were brazen enough to ask me to do a cameo on their show, apparently so they could insult a conservative woman...

Pray For the Peace of Jerusalem Animals In The Bible Bears New International Version (NIV)  32 David said to Saul, “Let no one lose heart on account of this Philistine; your servant will go and fight him.” 33 Saul replied, “You are not able to go out against this Philistine and fight him; you are only a young man, and he has been a warrior from his youth.” 34 But David said to Saul, “Your servant has been keeping his father’s sheep. When a lion or a bear came and carried off a sheep from the flock, 35 I went after it, struck...

Voters and insiders alike are still getting used to August primaries after years of post-Labor Day elections. So while voter turnout is expected to be low on Aug. 12, some top races are getting the attention of insiders because of their political implications and the personalities involved. In total, voters around the state have 40 partisan primary contests to choose from. Because many of them are in very Democratic or Republican-leaning districts, the primaries likely will decide who will next hold the office. Here's a look at some of the top primary contests less than a month out from primary...

Full Title: Right-wing obstruction could have been fought: An ineffective and gutless presidency’s legacy is failure Predicting the future course of American politics is a lively and flourishing vocation. Guessing how future generations will commemorate present-day political events, however, is not nearly as remunerative. In the interest of restoring some balance to this tragic situation, allow me to kick off the speculation about the Obama legacy. How will we assess it? How will the Barack Obama Presidential Library, a much-anticipated museum of the future, cast the great events of our time? In approaching this subject, let us first address the...

Rep. David Jolly (R-Fla.) announced his support for gay marriage Monday, saying that he believes it is "fully appropriate" for a state to recognize both same-sex marriages and "traditional" ones, even though he, as a Christian, believes in the the latter. When asked by The Washington Post whether he supports gay marriage, in light of a Florida judge's decision last week to overturn the state's ban, Jolly said that his personal views on marriage are that it should be limited to one man and one woman. But, he added, states should not be defining the "sanctity" of marriage.

I have a sensitive, inconvenient, and undoubtedly politically incorrect question: Why aren’t there more gay people? I ask because there’s something confusing about our “culture war.” Given the prominence of the issue, you would expect homosexuality to be rampant in America. When asked to estimate how many gay people there are, most people guess that it’s on the order of 20% to 25% of the population. But yet another study has been released by the CDC giving a more scientific estimate, and it finds that almost 97 percent of Americans describe themselves as straight — the actual number who describes...

The one emotion most of us who study Russia never associate with the men of the Kremlin is panic. They’re not the type. They’re more like mobsters, prone to say “we have a problem” rather than to freak out. They think everything has a solution, although sometimes that solution might mean someone has to take nine grams of lead behind the ear. They do not raise their voices—my experience is that most Russian tough-guys are mumblers, not yellers—and they get things done, even if the final outcome might lack a certain, say, elegance. That’s why it’s unusual to see the...

W. Lee Hansen, an economics professor at the University of Wisconsin, has argued for affirmative action in grading. The distribution of grades should be based on race rather than merit according to the professor. One imagines that a certain percentage of minority and female students would be required to get A’s regardless of whether they actually achieved an A grade. It is unclear whether the same is true at the bottom of the grading scale, though considering the purposes behind the professor’s proposal it’s unlikely. This sort of proposal isn’t just racist and sexist against white men. It’s racist and...

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I’ve heard from tons of people regarding yesterday’s  “What’s Your Superpower” post. Some who previously hadn’t realized they possessed superpowers, like HHS. Until they read my blog, HHS had contended they had “no legal authority to exclude the U.S. territories from ObamaCare.” Then (ahem) upon “reflection” HHS: discovered new (super) powers after "a careful review of this situation and the relevant statutory language," that enabled them to 'selectively exempt' American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, Northern Mariana Islands, and Virgin Islands from Obamacare. Most impressive, as up till now only Barry and DOJ were allowed to circumvent the law of the...

Today, the gun world is buzzing with news of a "revolution in silencers." SilencerCo has announced today they will be producing the Salvo 12, the first ever commercially produced shotgun sound suppressor. The official press release reads: “Confirming its place as a trailblazer in the firearms industry, suppressor manufacturer SilencerCo has unveiled the first commercially-viable shotgun silencer ever produced. The company made the announcement today at an exclusive event near its Utah headquarters.” Active content removed Active content removed “The Salvo 12 represents a revolution in silencers, not just an evolution,” said Joshua Waldron, Chief Executive Officer for SilencerCo. “There...

The strongman of the Soviet, er, Russia is getting kind of wimpy. Caught in the act blowing up a civilian airliner, he’s pointing the finger at someone else, and condemning the world’s political calculations, all the while calculating politically. He must watch a lot of MSNBC because this is the type of thing we’ve come to expect from our own weak-willed presidents. Russia, says Putin, did not shoot down that jetliner. Listen to him very carefully. There is no inappropriate Russian relationship with that missile. It was caused by a bunch of bitter Ukrainians who cling to their guns and...

BERLIN — An angry mob gathered on Berlin’s famed Kurfürstendamm avenue Thursday. Draped in Palestinian flags and shaking their fists in rage, they chanted in German, “Jude, Jude feiges Schwein! Komm heraus und kämpf allein!” (“Jew, Jew, cowardly swine, come out and fight on your own!”) Earlier last week in Dortmund and Frankfurt anti-Israel protester chanted, “Hamas Hamas Juden ins gas!” (“Hamas Hamas Jews to the gas!”). On Friday, a 200-strong mob in Essen chimed in, “Scheiss Juden!” (“Jewish shit”) This week, similar mobs gathered in Kassel, Nuremberg, Mainz, and other cities throughout Germany. The crowds are largely young, with...

Efforts to proclaim moral equivalence are not always misguided; sometimes each side is equally at fault or close enough. But these efforts are often misguided and unhelpful -- and sometimes harmful. Throughout my life, there has been an increasing trend to attach moral equivalence to all kinds of disputes and conflicts, such as Israel vs. Hamas, which is the subject of a future column. I assume this is mostly an outgrowth of our culture's descent into moral relativism, but it's also a product of our intellectual laziness. We see it everywhere. It is a common practice in describing marriages gone...

Link only:http://www.clickondetroit.com/consumer/detroit-retirees-vote-in-favor-of-pension-cuts/27081476Many covering this Story at this early Stage can't be posted on FR.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he has stopped talking to US President Barack Obama on the phone, amid growing strains between Ankara and Washington over Syria and the Gaza conflict. Turkey, a fierce opponent of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and an open supporter of armed rebel fighters, felt betrayed when the United States backed away from military action against Damascus in September. "In the past, I was calling him (Obama) directly. Because I can't get the expected results on Syria, our foreign ministers are now talking to each other," Erdogan said in a live interview on pro-government ATV...

"Why do you think President Obama's job rating is falling, even though the economy is recovering?" the interviewer asked. It's a fair question, even though the economy declined 2.9 percent in the first quarter, even though most jobs created in June were part-time, and even though labor force participation remains low. The fact is that the economy is growing, however slowly; jobs are being created, and the unemployment rate is heading down toward what economists consider full employment. And still the president's job rating languishes. What's wrong with the question is an assumption embedded within it, that what voters seek...