Democrats they will “rue the day” they stood by while Obama flouted the law
Brandon Bordelon / The Daily Caller
Conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer warned Democrats they will
“rue the day” they failed to even once oppose President Obama’s lawless
disregard for the constitutional separation of powers, noting his
actions establish a precedent a Republican president will one day
exploit.
Thursday, April 24, 2014
Honestly, unless you are a big government liberal, how many people think the federal government should have more power than it already exercises over its citizens?
Former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, 94, thinks the Constitution needs at least six amendments in order to bring the country more in line with what he believes is good for us. He outlines them in his new book, "Six Amendments: How and Why We Should Change the Constitution." It is a revealing look into liberal thinking and the ideological opposite of radio talk show host Mark Levin's book, "The Liberty Amendments: Restoring the American Republic." More about that in a moment.
Stevens elaborated on his book in an interview with USA Today.
One of his priorities would be to change the Second Amendment. As he writes in his book, "...the Second Amendment, which was adopted to protect the states from federal interference with their power to ensure that their militias were "well regulated," has given federal judges the ultimate power to determine the validity of state regulations of both civilian and militia-related uses of arms. That anomalous result can be avoided by adding five words to the text of the Second Amendment to make it unambiguously conform to the original intent of its draftsmen. As so amended, it would read:
'A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms WHEN SERVING IN THE MILITIA shall not be infringed.'"
I doubt Stevens' update would get much traction in Congress.
The Second Amendment was written and ratified precisely because the Founders had personal experience with how a tyrannical government can restrict, even eliminate, liberty if its citizens are not armed for their own and liberty's defense.
Stevens' second proposal would change the Eighth Amendment's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment to include the death penalty, which he has long opposed. The chances of that passing Congress are about the same as his first proposal.
He thinks the First Amendment's free speech clause does not prohibit government from restricting the amount of money spent on political campaigns, contrary to recent majority opinions by the current Supreme Court.
In the Court's 1992 verdict on Planned Parenthood vs. Casey, Stevens wrote, "The social costs of overruling (Roe) at this late date would be enormous. Roe is an integral part of a correct understanding of both the concept of liberty and the basic equality of men and women." "Social costs" was an argument used to oppose British slave traders and Southern emancipation. Only the morally obtuse would argue that the slaughter of 55 million American babies (and counting) would somehow fit the Founders' understanding of liberty and equality.
Stevens' moral compass is out of whack when he favors preserving the lives of convicted murderers, but no protection for the unborn, even after viability up to the moment of birth.
Mark Levin's book is far more in line with the Founder's thinking than is Stevens' approach to the Constitution. Unlike the Founders, Stevens apparently has never seen an area where government should not stick its nose.
Levin wants to place the federal government back within its constitutional boundaries by using a provision in Article 5 that allows two-thirds of state legislatures to call a constitutional convention. His proposal would strictly limit what delegates could do so as to avoid a runaway convention that could damage the Constitution. Levin believes a state-called constitutional convention is the only way to stop the "blob" of the federal government, which, like a B-movie monster, continues to "eat" away at our freedoms and at ever-increasing costs.
Most of Levin's proposed reform amendments return decision-making authority, in key respects, to the state legislatures, limit the power of the Washington ruling class through term limits and state overrides and breathe new life into free-market capitalism and private property rights. This is what we need.
Not more of Stevens' liberal thinking, which unfortunately, his successor, Elena Kagan, seems to replicate. It is another reminder, if one is needed, that elections matter. This November, the balance of power on the Court, the future of the Constitution and possibly the country may be at stake.
Success in the biotech industry is measured incrementally, not in big
steps. It’s a cash-and-time intensive industry where success is
painstaking, rare and, because of Obamacare and other regulatory burdens
from the administration, likely to become even rarer, as the Valeant, Allergan battle shows.According to Plunkett Research, Ltd in 2010 it cost $1.2 billion to develop each and every biologic drug. That’s because while the government currently tracks 124,932 trials for new drug application in 179 foreign countries, only a tiny fraction of those drugs will ever see the marketplace.In the United States, for example, there were only about 114 FDA approvals for new drugs last year.That’s a success rate of 0.091256. If that were a batting average for a baseball player, it would belong to a player who would never see the minor leagues, yet alone the Biggies.
"That means that enormous fortunes are going to be made in the sector," Jonathon Lach, CEO of BlueStar Capital Management, a biotech hedge fund headquartered in Westport, Connecticut told me in 2006. He pointed out, however, that the industry’s staggering failure rate makes some other long-odds stock market sectors look like safe bets in comparison. "Conversely, that means that enormous fortunes will also be lost in the sector."
But under the greatest capital markets in the history of the world, biotechnology has thrived. despite the long odds, because the enormous profit potential has attracted quite a bit of capital over the last 25 years.
That might be changing however.
In wake of the Allergan deal, some worry that it’s an indication that the pipeline of new drug discoveries is drying up.
Allergan is being targeted by investor Bill Ackman and Valeant in a hostile takeover bid.
“Most drugmakers have since seen revenue flatline or even dip as a tidal wave of cheaper generic competition to former blockbuster pills over the past few years wiped out billions of dollars in annual revenue,” says CNBC.
“At the same time, research to develop new medicines to replace lost income is ever more difficult and expensive. Mergers and acquisitions give them additional sources of revenue and new ways to cut costs and become more efficient while they wait for drugs in their research pipeline to win approval.”
25 years ago there were roughly 700 biotech companies. Now, worldwide there are 3853 companies with about half of those concentrated in the United States. U.S. companies account for about 75 percent of all revenues in biotech.
The combination of free markets and efficient capital markets compared to other countries has so far allowed the Unites States to lead the way despite some bumps and bruises along the way. Market crashes, like the ones experienced in 1987 and 2008 make even viable biotech companies with a good pipeline of drugs hard to finance because they always need money.
Research and Development expenditures for new drug application in 2010 totaled $67.4 billion, according to Plunkett, in an industry that generated of about $81 billion in total revenues. That’s because biotech companies typically generate little revenue. Instead the companies rely on the stock markets to fund R&D. Then they usually sell out their discoveries to large pharmaceutical companies once they have successfully brought a drug to market, because biotechs are in the business of new research, not in the business of the distribution of new medicines. But, just like a wildcatter staking an oil claim, the profits are large for investors willing to be patient and work hard.
Lach once told me that investors who were willing to work hard to bring scientific insight into their investment model would necessarily do better than average.
But under Obamacare, and the other regulatory burdens on banking and investment, biotech will have a much harder time. In a quest to drive down costs in healthcare, there will be little tolerance for big profits, big losses or new discoveries in medicine under Obama’s prescription for single payer coverage for the entire universe.
And that could be driving the current merger wave in the industry. While mergers can be a sign of good value out there, in this case, it looks to be a sign of slowing revenues and slowing drug discovery.
Most other countries already operate under a system of nationalized healthcare and restricted capital markets.
According to Indicium Data, LLC, a company that tracks biotechnology capital market trends, of the $6 billion in capital financings that happened worldwide for biotech in 2011 about $4.8 billion was raised in the United States. Twice as many dollars were raised in California and Massachusetts alone compared to the entire rest of the world. Of the 281 financings in biotech that happened worldwide, 211 of them happened in the US in 2011.
Experience from other countries has taught us that investors won’t continue to pour money into medical innovation when the incentive for innovation has disappeared.
Other countries like Australia can’t even raise a dime for biotech companies in capital markets.
It would be shame if the wonder drugs we rely on to help the elderly, the sick and our children stopped working wonders because a parochial and partisan prejudice against profits by liberals was allowed to outweigh the greater good.
Hamas, Abbas’s PLO announce reconciliation agreement
And what are those Hamas policies?
“Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it” — Muslim Brotherhood founder Hassan al-Banna, as quoted in the Hamas Charter
“Killing Jews is worship that draws us close to Allah” — Hamas’s Al Aqsa TV
“Hamas, Abbas’s PLO announce reconciliation agreement,” by Nidal al-Mughrabi, Reuters, April 23:
GAZA (Reuters) – The Gaza-based Islamist group Hamas and President Mahmoud Abbas’s Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) agreed on Wednesday to a unity pact, both sides announced in a joint news conference.
The move, coming after a long line of failed efforts to reconcile after seven years of internal bickering, envisions a unity government within five weeks and national elections six months later.
“This is the good news we tell our people: the era of division is over,” Hamas prime minister Ismail Haniyeh said to loud applause at a Palestinian press conference also attended by representatives of the PLO.
Israel said after the announcement that Abbas had chosen Hamas over peace, and canceled a session of U.S.-brokered talks with the Palestinians that had been scheduled for Wednesday night in Jerusalem.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement released by his office that Abbas “chose Hamas and not peace. Whoever chooses Hamas does not want peace.”
Along with the United States and the European Union, Israel views Hamas as a terrorist organization, and says Abbas’ efforts to unify with the group show he is not serious about extending the troubled negotiations.
The talks, aimed at ending its decades-old conflict with the Palestinians and establishing a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza, are scheduled to end on April 29.
Palestinians have long hoped for a healing of the political rift between the PLO and militant Hamas, which won a Palestinian election in 2006 and seized control of the Gaza Strip from forces loyal to Western-backed Abbas in 2007.
But reconciliation dreams have been dashed repeatedly in the past. Since 2011, Hamas and Fatah have failed to implement an Egyptian-brokered unity deal because of disputes over power-sharing and the handling of the conflict with Israel.
Hamas has battled Israel, which it refuses to recognize, while Abbas’s Fatah party has remained in control of the Palestinian Authority in the occupied West Bank and pursued years of fruitless talks with Israel.
Palestinian foreign minister Riad al-Malki told reporters in the West Bank the unity deal did not interfere with Abbas’s efforts to reach a peace deal with Israel.
“There is also an understanding with Hamas that the president has the mandate to negotiate with Israel on behalf of all the Palestinian people,” al-Malki said.
“When the president reaches an agreement with Israel…(there will be) a referendum where the Palestinian people will decide whether they support such an agreement or not,” he said….
Imams and Dhimmi Clergy Condemn Mention of “Jihad” and “Islamist” at 9/11 Museum Exhibit
By: Pamela Geller / Atlas Shrugs
Last Letters of the 9/11 Muslim Terrorists: “Remind your brothers that this act is for Almighty Allah”The “interfaith panel” of dhimmis and apologists have raised objections to the portrayal of jihad and Islam in a short 7-minute film that is part of the 9/11 Memorial Museum. These seditious idiots were pleased with the photos of Muslims mourning 9/11, but wanted nothing at the Museum that would speak to the motive behind the biggest and bloodiest attack on the homeland in US history. Close to 3,000 of our friends, family, and first responders being slaughtered wasn’t terrible enough. We have to be polite to the slaughterers?
| Deaths by Area of Attack | Deaths |
| World Trade Center | 2,606 |
| Airlines | 246 |
| Pentagon Building | 125 |
| Hijackers | 19 |
| Total number of people who died in the 9/11 attacks | 2,996 |
| Casualties in the World Trade Center and Surrounding Area | Deaths |
| Residents of New York | 1,762 |
| Persons in North Tower (Tower 1) | 1,402 |
| Persons in South Tower (Tower 2) | 614 |
| Residents of New Jersey | 674 |
| Employees of Marsh Inc. | 355 |
| Firefighters | 343 |
| Employees of Aon Corporation | 175 |
| Port Authority police officers | 37 |
| Police officers | 23 |
| Paramedics | 2 |
| 1 firefighter was killed by a man who jumped off the top floors | |
| Casualties on the Airplanes | Deaths |
| American Airlines Flight 11 (North Tower) | 87 |
| United Airlines Flight 175 (South Tower) | 60 |
| American Airlines Flight 77 (Pentagon) | 59 |
| United Flight 93 (Shanksville, PA) | 40 |
| Casualties inside the Pentagon | Deaths |
| Military and civilian deaths | 125 |
If the museum went to the trouble of showing Muslims who mourned 9/11, did the museum also devote space to the Muslims who danced on 9/11 in Queens, New Jersey, Europe and the Middle East? If not, why not?
Dr. Ahmed said. “… when you associate their religion with what they did, then you are automatically including, by association, one and a half billion people who had nothing to do with these actions and who ultimately the U.S. would not want to unnecessarily alienate.”We don’t associate their religion with what they did; the jihadists associate their religion with what they did. How insane is this conversation? The last letters left by the 19 Muslim terrorists said that the attack was in the cause of Islam, and cited Allah 90 times. Is that in the film?
They want jihad and islamist (a ridiculous word) scrubbed from the film.
The last letters from the 911 jihadisInterfaith panels and dialogue go only one way: to submission and appeasement. The imam on the panel resigned in protest. If only imams would resign in protest of the jihadi doctrines that call for holy war and the wholesale slaughter of non-Muslims and secular Muslims. And the non-Muslim “clerics” on the panel who are agitating for Islam stand silent in the face of the genocide of their own people, the Christians who are being slaughtered under Muslim rule in Islamic countries. These “reverends” would be defrocked in a just and rational world. Instead, these organ grinders’ monkeys sit on 9/11 museum panels and attempt to enforce sharia restrictions on the 9/11 story. I have gone up many times against one of these tools, the Rev. Chloe Breyer of the Interfaith Center of New York, during the Ground Zero mosque battle. She fought hard for that victory mosque, and the Islamic supremacists behind that mosquestrosity loved using that witless clown.
Peter B. Gudaitis with the Rev. Chloe Breyer, left, of the Interfaith Center of New York, and the Rev. Ruth Yoder Wenger, of New York Disaster Interfaith Services. They are members of a panel that has raised objections to the film. Credit Damon Winter/The New York Times
Atlas readers know that I have raised strong objections to some of the 9/11 Museum management’s plans — like placing the human remains of over 1,600 victims in the Museum behind a wall, but in this case, they deserve to be applauded. They have refused to black out and edit the parts of this short film that tell the truth.
“Interfaith Panel Denounces a 9/11 Museum Exhibit’s Portrayal of Jihad,” NY Times
Past the towering tridents that survived the World Trade Center collapse, adjacent to a gallery with photographs of the 19 hijackers, a brief film at the soon-to-open National September 11 Memorial Museum will seek to explain to visitors the historical roots of the attacks.
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