National

Michael Hanlon claims that the “true age of innovation – I’ll call it the Golden Quarter – ran from approximately 1945 to 1971,” during which time just about everything that “defines the modern world either came about, or had its seeds sown,” from the pill to computers to civil rights. One reason he believes we’ve stagnated? Our increasing risk aversion...

Andrew Sullivan calls bullshit on something that we have heard from coward Wall Street Democrats like Chuck Schumer:

I’ve heard this a million times now and I simply don’t understand it. In terms of chronology, Obama did put the economy first. With TARP and the stimulus and the auto-bailout, the key measures to shore up a flat-lining economy were taken in short order. You could plausibly argue, I think, that in retrospect, Obama should have gone bigger, and produced a much more ambitious stimulus. But, as someone who observed this close-up and in real time, the odds of that actually happening were close to zero. And if it had happened, the stimulus would have been even less popular – and more easily demagogued – than it actually was. The problem was not the timing or the seriousness of the response; it was the seriousness of the problem. When an economy has a near-death experience, on top of huge public and private debt, the recovery will tend to be exactly what this recovery was: long, sad at first, and later … well, we don’t know yet, do we?

Sens. Tom Coburn and Mary Landrieu gave their farewell addresses on the Senate floor Thursday and were praised by colleagues. Coburn gave an emotional address about the power of individual senators and the importance of compromise and oversight. He praised Sen. Tom Carper, who chairs the Senate Homeland Security Committee where Coburn is ranking member. “He has been a phenomenal chairman. … We do not agree on everything, but the one thing we agreed on was that we were going to work together to solve problems.” Carper returned the praise, citing the movement of cyber bills and others as a testament to his work. “Legislation is moving through this body and through the House this week — it is pretty amazing, — to strengthen our cyber defenses,” Carper said.

No comment.

A woman charged with shooting and killing her ex-husband and stepdaughter has strong connections to groups advocating for expanding open carry gun laws in Texas. Veronica Dunnachie was arrested and charged with shooting and killing her ex-husband and step daughter. Dunnachie's Facebook page includes photos of her engaged in open carry firearm advocacy activities.

Lower gas prices and their continued fall seems to indicate that President Obama will have a much better 2015 than 2014, or so the Wall Street Journal thinks.

Low oil prices now appear likely to be with us deep into next year, at least, and they are shaping up as a win-win for the president. It’s hard to imagine a single development that carries so many upsides and so few downsides. The domestic economic benefits are obvious; more intriguing but less obvious are the ways low oil prices benefit American strategy around the world.

Perhaps the cowardly Democrats in the General Assembly can use this opportunity to fix our damn roads now. Now, someone said this upon signing the UN Convention on Torture:

“The United States participated actively and effectively in the negotiation of [this] Convention. It marks a significant step in the development during this century of international measures against torture and other inhuman treatment or punishment. Ratification of the Convention by the United States will clearly express United States opposition to torture, an abhorrent practice unfortunately still prevalent in the world today. The core provisions of the Convention establish a regime for international cooperation in the criminal prosecution of torturers relying on so-called ‘universal jurisdiction.’ Each State Party is required either to prosecute torturers who are found in its territory or to extradite them to other countries for prosecution.”

That someone was President Ronald Reagan. He says that each state party, i.e. each nation that has entered into the UN Convention Treaty on Torture, is required to either prosecute torturers or extradite them to other countries for prosecution. Thus, President Ronald Reagan has called for the prosecution of President Bush and Vice President Cheney, and if we don't do it, some other more exceptional nation than the United States must.

Tom Carper spent a lot of time campaigning form Mary Landrieu. Has his hard work purchased any goodwill? I doubt it. My bet is that Carper was duped, but that appears to be his thing.

“Senate Democrats plan to squeeze every last drop out of their majority, threatening to extend the lame duck to approve key nominees of President Barack Obama before turning over Senate control to Republicans in January. If they hold their caucus together, Democrats can unilaterally prevail and approve Vivek Murthy to be surgeon general, Sarah Saldana to lead Immigrations and Customs Enforcement and Carolyn Colvin to be Social Security administrator, as well as nine judicial nominees … Democrats may need all their members to stick around to win tough votes, including Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.), who lost her seat on Saturday and has missed all of this week’s votes so far.”

Because the Keystone XL pipeline failed to pass, and because contraception is now the same thing as abortion in the deranged minds of Republicans, House GOPers pushed to attach a provision to the government funding bill that would let some employers opt out of covering contraception for employees. Senator for Life, Tom Carper took this move as a positive step toward Republican "reciprocity" and a demonstration of the GOP's willingness to be bipartisan.