PrairiePundit

Daily Mail: U.S. air force's new $350BILLION stealth jet is beaten in a dogfight by a plane from the 1970s The U.S. military's new F-35 stealth jet was outperformed by the F-16 model in a dogfight over the Pacific Ocean, despite the fact it has already cost the military more than a trillion dollars to create. The F-16 was designed as a fighter by John Boyd who was the best fighter pilot of his era.  It was designed to defeat the Soviet era planes and it still has superior maneuverability.  It is not as stealthy as the F-35, but is apparently more maneuverable.  I suspect the F-22 might give the F-16 a better fight.

Telegraph: Special report: How NHS helpline refuses to send out ambulances A friend's son experienced this when he fell ill to the point he was immobile while working in London.  When his wife called for an ambulance to take him to the hospital, they told her to put him in a cab.  She explained that he was too sick to walk and they eventually relented.  But it is nothing like the emergency services available even in remote parts of Texas.

Reuters: Islamic State insurgents threatened on Tuesday to turn the Gaza Strip into another of their Middle East fiefdoms, accusing Hamas, the organization that rules the Palestinian territory, of being insufficiently stringent about religious enforcement. "We will uproot the state of the Jews (Israel) and you and Fatah, and all of the secularists are nothing and you will be over-run by our creeping multitudes," said a masked Islamic State member in the message addressed to the "tyrants of Hamas".The video statement, issued from an Islamic State stronghold in Syria, was a rare public challenge to Hamas, which has been cracking down on jihadis in Gaza who oppose its truces with Israel and reconciliation with the U.S.-backed rival Palestinian faction Fatah. "The rule of sharia (Islamic law) will be implemented in Gaza, in spite of you. We swear that what is happening in the Levant today, and in particular the Yarmouk camp, will happen in Gaza," he sai...

Reuters: Donald Trump files a $500 million lawsuit against Univision The report does not describe the case, but I assume it is a breach of contract suit.  There may also be liable claims for a comparison of trump to the man charged with mass murder in South Carolina.  His lawyers may get even busier if he pursues a breach of contract claim against NBC which likewise canceled an agreement to televise the beauty pageant.

Washington Times: The Obama administration still hasn’t fully rescinded the 2,000 three-year amnesties it wrongly issued four months ago in violation of a court order, government lawyers recently admitted in court, spurring a stern response from the judge who said the matter must be cleaned up by the end of July — or else. It’s the latest black eye for President Obama’s amnesty policy and the immigration agency charged with carrying it out. The agency bungled the rollout, issuing three-year amnesties even while assuring the judge it had stopped all action hours after a Feb. 16 injunction. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the agency responsible for overseeing the amnesty, said it’s trying to round up all of the permits, sending out two-year amnesties and pleading with the illegal immigrants to return the three-year cards. But they are having trouble getting some of the lucky recipients to send them back. ... The administration will not say how many have been returned or wh...

Reuters: U.S. exports of ultra-light crude, also known as condensate, have doubled since the start of the year, with most shipments headed to Europe, according to traders familiar with the deals and data from an energy consultant. The United States exported between 120,000 and 140,000 barrels per day (bpd) of condensate last month, according to traders and ClipperData, which tracks ships and terminal loadings, up from about 60,000 bpd at the start of the year. The condensate is lightly processed through stabilizers due to rules banning crude exports in the United States, now the world's third-largest oil producer. The rise comes as more companies look to take advantage of the ability to ship the oil overseas, including to places like the Netherlands, France, South Korea and Brazil. "One of the main surprises is that the majority of the exports have been to Europe rather than anywhere else, when we thought the concentration would be to Asian markets," said A...

James Taranto: The New York Times’s Michael Schmidt has been doing some excellent reporting on the Hillary Clinton email scandal, but one has to wonder if his editors are holding him back. Buried on page A14 of today’s paper is a story that begins as follows: Hillary Rodham Clinton told reporters last month that the memos about Libya she received while secretary of state from Sidney Blumenthal, a longtime adviser whom the Obama administration had barred her from hiring, had been “unsolicited.” But email records that Mrs. Clinton, according to officials briefed on the matter, apparently failed to turn over to the State Department last fall show that she repeatedly encouraged Mr. Blumenthal to “keep ’em coming,” as she said in an August 2012 reply to a memo from him, which she called “another keeper.” All or part of 15 Libya-related emails she sent to Mr. Blumenthal were missing from the trove of 30,000 that Mrs. Clinton provided to the State Department last year, as well as f...

Victor Davis Hanson: Progressive Mass Hysteria What the left has done is bark to the point of hysteria at anyone who opposes their weird agenda from gay marriage to Confederate flags.  They seem to have a penchant for punishing the innocent when they get on one of these jags.  That is what their gun control agenda is about as well as their flag control agenda.

Sober Look: ... Is it working? So far the results have been less than what the Saudis had hoped for. After a bounce from the lows, crude oil has been trading in a relatively tight range, with WTI futures fluctuating around $60/bbl. How is this price stability possible when the common wisdom was that oil prices below $70/bbl will force most US producers to close shop and North American production would collapse? After all we've seen a spectacular decline in active oil rig count. The answer has less to do with rigs that have been taken offline and more with the technology that remains. After the inefficient rigs have been shut, US rig count is starting to stabilize. ... From multi-well padding (multiple wells in a single location) to superior drill bits, technology is helping to keep production levels high. Well completion costs and the speed of drilling have improved to levels many thought were not possible. With the inefficient rigs mothballed, the remaining capacity is qu...

Ray Takeyh: How Barack Obama’s nuke deal will fund Iran’s imperialism Obama is trying to sell this deal on the false premise that Iran will spend this money on its economy rather than fund its terror network.  That ignores Iran's clear objectives.  It is seeking regional domination and will spend what it gets on that goal.  If it achieves it , Iran will then turn its objectives toward destroying the West including the US and Obama will have allowed Iran to build the weapons to pursue that goal.

Washington Post: From unmanned fighters to orbital lasers, how the U.S. and China could fight a war A new novel by Washington think tankers uses real-world technologies to explore the future of warfare. China will try to take away the US technical advantages by destroying satellites and other means of intelligence.  It will also try to destroy the carrier fleet that would be brought to bear against Chinese aggression.   I suspect that their cyber war will also advance far beyond its current theft of trade secrets and data.  It is less clear what the US would do in response although it will probably have defensive satellite capabilities.  Long range drones will allow carriers to loiter out of range of most of China's carrier killer missiles.

NY Times: Court Lets Some Charities Avoid Rules on Birth Control Coverage An order bars the Obama administration from enforcing the rules against some religious groups until the Supreme Court decides whether to hear an appeal. This suggest the court is willing to protect those whose religious beliefs are such that they do not want to participate in objectionable practices like abortions and gay marriage.  There have already been some attacks by liberals on the free exercise of religion on these issues.

NY Times: Trillions Spent, but Financial Crises Like Greece’s Persist Beyond Greece and Puerto Rico, heavy borrowing is also bogging down the globally significant economies of Brazil, Turkey, Italy and China. Paul Krugman who writes a column for the NY Times has been a proponent of deficit spending and has urged the same disastrous course on the US.   He has opposed all attempts to reign in spending by Congress.  What these governments are exposing is the failure of liberalism.

Washington Free Beacon: The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that racist intent is not necessary to prove accusations of racism in housing. The court ruled 5-4 in an opinion written by Justice Anthony Kennedy, a Republican appointee, that the disparate impact doctrine could be applied to the Fair Housing Act. The case rested on whether Texas officials could be found liable for building low income housing in minority-centric areas rather than wealthier suburbs where the population is more likely to be white. Kennedy ruled that plaintiffs could use demographic tests to prove that housing project locations are inherently racist. “[FHA] permits plaintiffs to counteract unconscious prejudices and disguised animus that escape easy classification as disparate treatment,” Kennedy ruled . Amy Wax, a University of Pennsylvania law professor and disparate impact expert, said that the ruling could end up hurting the poor residents it is intended to help. If disparate impact is used to determine whet...

Wall Street Journal: For a glimpse of the promise and problems of turning the electric grid green, there’s no better place to look than Hawaii. With 21% of its power now coming from renewable sources like wind turbines and solar panels, Hawaii has become a laboratory for those intent on reinventing the grid. A new law mandates that renewables supply all of the state’s electricity by 2045. But Hawaii’s grid is already running into problems with its heavy helping of rooftop solar and other carbon-free renewables. Among them: sudden swings in the output of solar and wind, which force the state’s main utility to scramble to try to keep the overall supply of power steady. State officials concede that there are problems. “But we’re highly optimistic we’re going to work through these issues and become energy self-reliant,” says Mark Glick, head of the Hawaii State Energy Office. “We don’t lack confidence at all.” Though Hawaii’s effort is attracting attention around the globe, its electric ...

Daily Signal: The United States is experiencing its highest level of terrorist activity since Sept. 11, 2001, according to a Heritage Foundation report published last week advocating Congress to take the U.S. terrorism threat “much more seriously.” The report detailed the FBI’s arrest of a 19-year-old in North Carolina for conspiring with the Islamic State, the terrorist group better known as ISIS, to attack public venues in an attempt to kill hundreds of Americans. The case is the 71st publicly known terrorist plot in the United States since 9/11. Michael Sullivan told an undercover agent assigned to conspire with him for information that he planned the attack to support ISIS, showcasing the group’s ability to permeate borders beyond the Middle East through its extremist ideology. The report notes Sullivan’s terrorist plot as the ninth in the U.S. this year, all of which involved individuals inspired by ISIS. ... If the enemy is on the run as Obama claimed, he is running toward th...

Washington Free Beacon: Officials with the Department of State threatened to call security Monday on a Washington Free Beacon reporter who was attempting to report on a briefing held by senior Obama administration figures in Vienna on the eve of an expected nuclear agreement with Iran. Two State Department officials booted the Free Beacon from a room where Wendy Sherman, the undersecretary of state for political affairs, was talking to reporters, despite the Free Beacon’s being credentialed by the Austrian government for the ongoing Iranian nuclear talks. Western observers present in Vienna for the talks linked the State Department’s behavior to jitters over media coverage revealing a still growing list of concessions being made to Iran by the Obama administration. Melissa Turley, a State Department official, approached a Free Beacon reporter and demanded that he leave the room. “You’re not registered with the U.S. press,” Turley said after being informed that the Free Beacon was...

Daily Mail: EXCLUSIVE - Sunbed killer's link to Britain: Tunisia massacre gunman was inspired by fanatic who ran global terror cell in London There could be links between Seifeddine Rezgui and terrorists in Britain His mentor Saifallah Ben Hassine was himself a disciple of Abu Qatada Survivors of attack that cost 38 lives insisted they saw second gunman Police and Army prepared for counter-terrorism training exercise today The EU has made it virtually impossible for the UK to deport these preachers of hate and in some cases requires the government to subsidize them because of their inhuman human rights requirements.

AP/Fuel Fix: New York formalizes ban on fracking, ending seven-year review The determination of the anti energy left to ruin the economy of areas of the state where shale gas exist is unreasonable and ridiculous.

Fuel Fix: While the U.S. Supreme Court dealt a blow against a landmark rule for regulating emissions from power plants, several of the largest Texas power companies said the ruling will have a minimal impact. Many companies have already spent the money to retrofit or shut down the coal-fired power plants that were most affected. Other Texas power companies rely more on natural gas or nuclear power and actually supported the Environmental Protection Agency rule that went into effect in April. The court ruled in a 5-4 split Monday that the EPA did not properly account for industry costs in its rule to regulate the emissions of mercury and air toxics, or MATS. Houston-based Dynegy already spent about $2 billion to comply with MATS and other air regulations, and the company was not planning to retire any plants, spokesman Micah Hirschfield said. Likewise, Houston-based NRG Energy acted has already added the necessary equipment to comply with state and federal laws, said David Knox, an NR...

Kerry Jackson: Group That Protects Nazis Thinks Christians Are The Problem BTW, they also defend the KKK and will probably defend the Confederate battle flag.

Christian Science Monitor: Democrats believe they have a winning agenda heading into the 2016 presidential election. And for the first time, the “base” of their party – unmarried women, people of color, and young voters – represents a majority of voting-eligible citizens, according to survey data released Monday. Among Republicans, 67 percent reported the highest level of interest in the 2016 elections – rating it a 10 on a scale of 1 to 10 – compared with 52 percent of Democrats. Among the so-called rising American electorate (unmarried women, minorities, and Millennials), only 48 percent responded with a 10. But none of that matters if Democrats don’t turn out. As of now, 16 months before Election Day, that’s the challenge for them: The Democratic Party faces a big enthusiasm gap with the Republicans, according to a poll sponsored by Democracy Corps and Women’s Voices Women Vote Action Fund. “Even though they’re giving the Democrats big numbers, their lack of enthusiasm is grounde...

Medium: Two years ago, the U.S. Air Force annoyed the other military branches, Congress and the general public when it announced a plan to quickly retire its roughly 300 A-10 Warthog attack jets — rugged tank-killers that have flown down-and-dirty close air support, or CAS, for American ground troops since the 1991 Gulf War. The Air Force’s rationale for dumping the A-10s keeps shifting. Now government auditors have poked holes in the flyboys’ latest justification — that the branch must drop the ungainly Warthogs in order to free up maintainers for the slowly-growing fleet of pricey F-35 stealth fighters. Amid public outcry and skepticism from the Army, Congress rejected the Air Force’s A-10 “divestiture” scheme in the 2014 and 2015 budgets — and seems likely to do the same in 2016. The flying branch has tried out different tactics to penetrate this solid wall of opposition. First, the Air Force claimed it couldn’t afford the billion dollars or so a year it costs to keep the A-10s in...

Roll Call: ... “Arizona citizens can continue to participate in voter registration drives without worrying about not having proof of citizenship documents,” Shirley Sandelands, of the League of Women Voters of Arizona, said in a statement Monday. The case, Kobach, et al. v. Election Assistance Commission, et al., was about whether Arizona and Kansas could require voters to prove their citizenship when registering to vote with the so-called “federal form.” Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach led the suit against the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, which was an appeal of a lower court decision. Both Kansas and Arizona have state laws that require applicants to prove their citizenship when applying to vote with state forms (for state or federal elections). But the U.S. EAC denied the states’ requests to have their citizenship laws applied when would-be voters use the standardized federal form. The Supreme Court had already ruled in 2013 that state proof-of-citizenship laws...

Fox News: New documents released by a federal court show President Obama called then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on the night of the 2012 Benghazi attack -- but the contents are being withheld by the State Department. It had previously been disclosed that Clinton and Obama spoke the night of the terror attacks. But the documents offer additional information about the timing of the call -- after the initial attack on the U.S. consulate, but before the second wave where mortars hit the nearby CIA annex and killed former Navy SEALs Ty Woods and Glen Doherty. The contents of the call, however, are being withheld, not because the information is classified but because the administration claims they represent internal deliberations about the 2012 terror assault. The claim comes as Clinton also faces accusations that she withheld Benghazi-related emails from her private server in the trove of emails handed over to the State Department. The contents of the call were only shared with Ob...

Washington Times: Former CIA Deputy Director Michael Morell said Monday that the federal alert about a possible terror attack in the U.S. during the Fourth of July weekend was “nothing routine.” “These kind of warnings go out routinely but there is nothing routine about this particular one to me. This one really resonates with me,” Mr. Morell said on “CBS This Morning.” “I wouldn’t be surprised if we’re sitting here a week from today talking about an attack over the weekend in the United States,” he said. “That’s how serious this is.” The Department of Homeland Security and FBI issued a bulletin Friday putting local law enforcement agencies across the country on heightened alert for an attack during the holiday weekend, though no specific or credible threat was identified. The alert followed a spate of terror attacks that hit Kuwait, Tunisia and France. ... The US is suffering the potential consequences of Obama's flawed polices in Iraq and elsewhere in what used to be a war o...

NY Times: Justices Block Obama Plan to Limit Power Plant Toxins The ruling stops in its tracks one of the administration’s most ambitious initiatives for controlling toxic emissions. The costs far outweighed any potential benefit.  It was another example of overreach by a rogue agency.

NY Times: Libya Emails Seem to Contradict Clinton on Adviser’s Role Hillary Rodham Clinton said last month that memos she had received from Sidney Blumenthal had been “unsolicited,” but new records suggest she had prompted him to write more. She is not as good as Bill when it comes to misleading statements.  She keeps getting caught.  "Slick Hilly"she is not.  She must have thought she had destroyed this email evidence too.

Rowan Scarborough: The Islamic State terrorist army is snatching up the latest off-the-shelf encrypted applications to hide their military planning, with fighters publicly thanking former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden for tipping them on U.S. spying tactics. The West’s fertile tech laboratories have unwittingly become the Islamic State’s research and development arm for free messaging software. It uses the apps to recruit followers, defeat the U.S.-led coalition and expand conquests in Iraq and Syria. The Islamic State’s mastery of secure communications is an especially important advance because its commanders do their attack planning — and then execution — via the Internet and smartphones. The Islamic State, also known as ISIL and ISIS, has set up cybercommand posts. It recently published photos it said showed commanders orchestrating a suicide bombing and relaying information from the Internet by cellphone to the attackers. ... These programs and apps should...

Daily Beast: Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is planning a military intervention into northern Syria to prevent Syrian Kurds from forming their own state there, despite concerns among his own generals and possible criticism from Washington and other NATO allies, according to reports in both pro- and anti-government media. In a speech last Friday, Erdogan vowed that Turkey would not accept a move by Syrian Kurds to set up their own state in Syria following gains by Kurdish fighters  against the so-called Islamic State, or ISIS, in recent weeks. “I am saying this to the whole world: We will never allow the establishment of a state on our southern border in the north of Syria,” Erdogan said. “We will continue our fight in that respect whatever the cost may be.” He accused Syrian Kurds of ethnic cleansing in Syrian areas under their control. Following the speech, several news outlets reported that the president and Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu had decided to send the Turkis...

NY Times: Governor Says Puerto Rico’s Debts Are ‘Not Payable’ Gov. Alejandro García Padilla, saying he needs to pull the island out of a “death spiral,” has concluded that the commonwealth cannot pay its roughly $72 billion in debts. Both demonstrate the end game when liberal spending policies lead to running out of other people's money.  Illinois is another state that has spent itself into dysfunction.  These are examples of where unrestrained Democrat policies lead.  It is where Obama has been trying to take the US.  Senate Democrats are threatening to shutdown the government if they can't spend more on their vote buying schemes.

Jonah Goldberg: Liberals Are Playing a Racial Shell Game You may be a liberal if you think it is OK for Elizabeth Warren to claim to be an Indian, but you think Bobby Jindal is not Indian despite his DNA.  At its heart their argument represents anger toward Jindal and Nikki Haley because they have embraced the American culture and became successful instead of the liberal grievance and victim culture.

MRCTV: After discussing the three ISIS terrorist attacks on Friday on Sunday's "This Week with George Stephanopoulos" with Rep. Peter King (R-NY) and ABC's Pierre Thomas, host Stephanopoulos raised a NY Times article which suggested that white supremacists are a bigger threat to Americans than ISIS terrorists. The dour-faced King adamantly disagreed with the liberal Times, “Every murder is horrible, but there is no comparison between these white supremacists and an internationally coordinated movement, That's The New York Times at its worst.” As the former chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security and present chairman of the House Counterterrorism and Intelligence subcommittee, Rep. King certainly knows what he is talking about when it comes to both threats. King started the segment with a warning about ISIS: There's great concern. I would say there's probably more concern now than at any time since September 11th. And as you said, the...

Independent Institute: ... ... In three countries governed by various types of left-wing populism—Venezuela, Nicaragua, El Salvador—support for the market is between 10 and 15 points higher than in Latin American societies governed by non-populist rulers. The lesson here is that the best cure against populism is actually experiencing its consequences. ... People in Chile with a more free market approach are much better off.   Argentina remains a hopeless basket case.

Houston Chronicle: Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on Sunday told county clerks in the Lone Star State their religious beliefs could enable them to flout the U.S. Supreme Court's historic ruling legalizing same-sex marriage, while adding some may face litigation for refusing to issue licenses to gay couples. "It is important to note that any clerk who wishes to defend their religious objections and who chooses not to issue licenses may well face litigation and/or a fine," Paxton said in a statement accompanying an opinion released Sunday. "But, numerous lawyers stand ready to assist clerks defending their religious beliefs, in many cases on a pro-bono basis, and I will do everything I can from this office to be a public voice for those standing in defense of their rights." READ PAXTON'S OPINION HERE The opinion - which Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick requested last week - comes just two days after the high court in an historic ruling struck down gay marria...

BBC: Iranian nuclear talks are set to go on beyond Tuesday's formal deadline for a deal, a senior US official says. The admission came as Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif prepared to fly back to Tehran from Vienna, Austria, where talks are taking place. Observers said Mr Zarif probably needed to seek guidance over a stumbling block in negotiations - how much access Tehran will grant to nuclear monitors. ... There continues to be no consequence for Iran's dilatory tactics.  Kerry and Obama want this bad deal too badly to stop.

Fox News: The United States supported the secret supply of weapons to Libyan rebels while Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State according to federal court documents obtained by Fox News. In a sworn declaration to the District Court of Arizona May 5th 2015, a career CIA officer David Manners said, "It was then, and remains now, my opinion that the United States did participate, directly or indirectly, in the supply of weapons to the Libyan Transitional National Council." The timing matters because in the Spring of 2011 the Libyan opposition was not formally recognized, and the direct supply of arms was not authorized. At that time, the CIA Director was David Petraeus. ( DAVID MANNERS DOCUMENT HERE ) Manners testified before a grand jury investigating American defense contractor Marc Turi who faces trial this September on two counts that he allegedly violated the arms control export act by making false statements. Turi and his company Turi Defense Group are at the center o...

Right Wing News: Justice Clarence Thomas Says the NBA Shows the Problem With Court’s Fair Housing Race Case Justice Thomas nails it.  In fact the decision he criticizes is inexplicable.

Daily Caller: A public university in Texas is paying its newly-appointed vice president of diversity and inclusion a sweet salary that is more than any governor in any state makes . The taxpayer-funded school is the University of North Texas, reports Campus Reform . The lavishly-paid state employee is Joanne Woodard. She will receive $205,000 annually for performing her administrative duties. Woodard’s annual salary of $205,000 is $17,083 per month. It is $3,943 per week. The salary puts Woodard squarely in the top one percent of all incomes nationally . Questionable spending decisions have plagued the University of North Texas recently. Last June, an audit ordered by then-Gov. Rick Perry of the public universities across Texas discovered that officials at North Texas had misspent $83.5 million in public funding over the course of 10 years, according to The Dallas Morning News . The state’s auditors determined that the free-spending officials at the school spent most of the $80.6 mil...

NY Times: Greece Will Close Banks to Stem Flood of Withdrawals Greece will keep its banks and stock market closed on Monday and place restrictions on the withdrawal and transfer of money, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said on Sunday, as Athens tries to avert a financial collapse. The home of the democratic process mange to vote for an unrealistic government that tried to avoid payment of the debt run up by previous governments who spent irresponsibly and failed to collect taxes owed.  The government appears to be floundering around and huffing and puffing but it looks like it will blow its own house down.

IBD: ... Dubbed the "Warthog" because of its decidedly un-sleek profile, the A-10 has been found to be useful in another capacity in Iraq — attacking IS forces that don't want to be on the business end of the Warthog's 30 mm cannon as it flies low and slow over the battlefield. As Iraqi News reported last week after an A-10 sortie against IS forces near Mosul: "The aircraft sparked panic in the ranks of ISIS and bombing its elements in spaces close to the ground." Such strikes also prove the value of such a low-maintenance aircraft built to take the punishment expected in close air support. "Elements of the terrorist organization targeted the aircraft with 4 Strella missiles, but that did not cause it any damage, prompting the remaining elements of the organization to leave the bodies of the dead and carry the wounded to escape," according to the Iraqi report. This is not surprising, since the A-10 can almost hover over a battlefield as it...

BBC: Argentina judge orders asset seizure of Falklands oil firms This is why sane businesses should avoid investments in Argentina as long as the current government of thieves is in place.   The government of Argentina continues to push a bogus claim of ownership of the Falklands and is trying to seize the assets of companies lawfully doing business there.

Fox News: ' FAILED TO BE HONEST' Calls grow for probe of Clinton's private server   Why should she be trusted on this issue when she has already been shown to be untruthful?

NY Times: Conservative Lawmakers and Faith Groups Seek Exemptions After Same-Sex Ruling The governors of Texas and Louisiana were among those calling for stronger legal protections for individuals, businesses and religious-affiliated institutions that object to same-sex marriage. Liberals attacks on religious faith have only accelerated under the Obama administration.   From Obamacare's attempt to force people to violate their conscience on abortion to the attempts by some jurisdictions to punish and put out of business those who do not want to participate in a gay wedding their is an ongoing attack on faith by the secular progressive left.  It that continues this country is likely to see a huge backlash against these attacks and the dicta in Justice Kennedy's gay marriage ruling may not be enough to stop the attacks.

NY Times: The Next Fight for Gay Rights: Bias in Jobs and Housing Exhilarated by the Supreme Court’s endorsement of same-sex marriage, gay rights advocates have turned their sights on what they see as the next big battle: antidiscrimination laws. I jsut have not seen any discrimination against gays in the work place.  I was general counsel at a regional investment banking firm where the head to the personnel  department was gay, and he brought in several gays for jobs there.  I was later general counsel for a franchising company with nearly a thousand stores in 47 states and there was no prohibition in selling franchises to gays.  While it is possible it is a problem in some jobs, I just have not seen it or even heard of it.  As for housing in the Houston area, the gays tended to congregate in the Montrose section of Houston in an older neighborhood near downtown.  It is still seen as a desirable neighborhood for both straights and gays. The mainst...

Guardian/Observer: Police have encouraged the public to attend events as normal after it was reported that an Armed Forces Day parade had been targeted by Islamic State (Isis). An intended suicide bombing of a parade in south London on Saturday would have targeted soldiers from the same unit as murdered soldier Lee Rigby , according to The Sun. The plot to explode a pressure-cooker bomb – to kill soldiers and bystanders on the route – was revealed after one of its leaders in Syria unwittingly recruited an undercover investigator from the newspaper to carry it out, the report said. It is alleged that a figure in Isis, whom it named as Junaid Hussain from Birmingham, told the investigator: “It will be big. We will hit the kuffar(unbelievers) hard InshAllah. Hit their soldiers in their own land. InshAllah. Soldiers that served in Iraq and Afganistan will be present. Jump in the crowd and detonate the bomb. “They think they can kill Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan then come back to the U...

Sunday Telegraph: Up to 23 Brits dead in the worst terrorist attack on British people since 7/7 The 7/7 attacks were when terrorist set off bombs in the London subway system and also attacked a bus.  I would never have expected Tunisia to be a tourist destination but there they were.

BBC: France beheading attack: Suspect sent selfie with head The man's name is  Yassin Salhi, which sounds suspiciously like he is a Muslim.  It is not a popular name with Presbyterians or Mormons.

AFP: Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said Saturday that Iraqi forces made an "unauthorised" withdrawal from Ramadi last month, leading to the Islamic State group's takeover of the Anbar provincial capital. "The withdrawal of the forces from Ramadi was unauthorised -- the orders were the opposite. The forces had to resist, and if they had resisted, we would not have lost Ramadi," Abadi said in televised remarks. Ramadi fell to the jihadist group in mid-May after government forces had held out against militants there for more than a year. It was Baghdad's worst setback in months after its forces had retaken significant territory in two provinces north of the capital. Abadi's remarks came a week after a senior officer in the US-led coalition against IS said the withdrawal was militarily unnecessary. "Ramadi was lost because the Iraqi commander in Ramadi elected to withdraw. In other words, if he had elected to stay, he would still be there today,...

Josh Rogin and Eli Lake: The FBI has been rounding up more potential "lone wolf" terrorists, Congressional leaders and the Justice Department say, in response to the perception of a mounting threat of domestic attacks inspired by the Islamic State. Since the thwarted attack on a "Draw Muhammad" conference in Garland, Texas, on May 3, the Justice Department has announced the arrests of 10 individuals it says were inspired by and supporting the Islamic State. The lawmakers say there have been more arrests that have not yet been announced. They say the FBI has shifted its approach toward arrests rather than keeping suspects under surveillance, and is also targeting individuals thought to be planning attacks in the U.S., unlike the bureau's past focus on volunteers preparing to join ISIS's fight abroad. ... This is another example of the disastrous consequences of Obama decision to withdraw all troops from Iraq which gave ISIL the opening it needed to regener...

Andrew Malcolm: POTUS: ObamaCare is working 'better than we expected' He must have had real low expectations for this mess.

AFP: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that Turkey will never allow the establishment of a Kurdish state in Syria after major gains by Kurdish fighters. "I say to the international community that whatever price must be paid, we will never allow the establishment of a new state on our southern frontier in the north of Syria," Erdogan was quoted by Turkish media as telling guests at a dinner to break the Ramadan fast.In a strong-worded warning late on Friday, Erdogan accused the Kurds of ethnically cleaning other communities from land they have taken after pushing back Islamic State forces from the Turkish border. He accused Kurdish forces of "changing the demographic structure" of several areas close to the Turkish border, which also have Arab and Turkmen populations. Turkey has fought a 31-year insurgency in the south east of the country by the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which Ankara claims is closely linked to the main Syrian Kurdish People...

Andrew McCarthy: But this Court is not a legislature.” Chief Justice John Roberts actually published that sentence in his same-sex marriage dissent on Friday . . . a mere 24 hours after his maestro’s performance in the Supreme Court’s legislative rewrite of the Affordable Care Act — formerly known as “Obamacare,” but now etched in memory as “SCOTUScare,” thanks to Justice Antonin Scalia’s withering dissent. Roberts’s denial that the Court legislates is astonishing in its cynicism: In saving SCOTUScare, the chief justice not only usurped Congress’s law-writing role with gusto; he claimed the powers, first, to divine legislative purpose from its contradictory expression in legislative language, and, then, to manufacture legislative ambiguity as the pretext for twisting the language to serve the contrived purpose. It takes a Clintonian quantum of cheek to pull that off one day and, on the next, to inveigh against the very thought of it. ... It takes a special Supreme Court justic...

Rich Lowry: It’s telling that the South Carolina governor who called for the removal of the Confederate battle flag from the grounds of the state Capitol is a woman, an Indian­American — and a Republican. The rush to efface the Confederate symbol from the South in the wake of the Charleston shootings, with Gov. Nikki Haley among the leaders, is a lagging indicator. The region has been transformed over the past 50 years, from an institutionally racist backwater to a part of the American mainstream more alluring to African­-Americans than less dynamic parts of the country. Dylann Roof is many things: a racist and a terrorist, pathetic and hellishly cruel. But he is not a representative Son of the South. The left has nonetheless been channeling a less tasteful version of former White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel’s old dictum: Never let a hideous massacre go to waste. It has pointed fingers at the GOP’s Southern strategy and at the South more generally, distorting the part...

Washington Post: Critics find hotels’ hidden fees to be inhospitable WONKBLOG | But chains argue they need to use fee structures to keep their room prices competitive in searches. Their argument for the hidden fees fits the description of fraud.  If people will not buy your product or service if they know the total price, you are defrauding them when you have hidden costs.   If they were selling securities they would be in clear violation of disclosure rules.

NY Times: Legal Challenges Remain for Health Law Lawsuits from House Republicans, who say the law spends billions of dollars without the necessary appropriations from Congress, and faith groups challenge the law’s rule on providing contraceptives. Despite the legal gymnastics used to save the bad law from its sorry draftsmanship, the fight against it goes on.  It is one election away from being repealed.  It remains one of the most hated laws ever.  It has helped a few at the expense of the millions who have lost their coverage or seen their costs go through the roof for insurance that has completely unrealistic deductibles making it virtually worthless unless they get run over by a bus. The fight against faith groups it typical of the war against religion being waged by liberals who don't seem to have any concept of freedom of religion when it comes to imposing their polices.  Look for that fight to grow with the Supreme Court ruling on gay marriage, where g...

Science Alert: Australian researchers have come up with a non-invasive ultrasound technology that clears the brain of neurotoxic amyloid plaques - structures that are responsible for memory loss and a decline in cognitive function in Alzheimer’s patients. If a person has Alzheimer’s disease, it’s usually the result of a build-up of two types of lesions - amyloid plaques, and neurofibrillary tangles. Amyloid plaques sit between the neurons and end up as dense clusters of beta-amyloid molecules, a sticky type of protein that clumps together and forms plaques. Neurofibrillary tangles are found inside the neurons of the brain, and they’re caused by defective tau proteins that clump up into a thick, insoluble mass. This causes tiny filaments called microtubules to get all twisted, which disrupts the transportation of essential materials such as nutrients and organelles along them, just like when you twist up the vacuum cleaner tube. As we don’t have any kind of vaccine or preventative m...

Reuters: Islamic State fighters have launched simultaneous attacks against Syrian government and Kurdish militia forces, moving back onto the offensive after losing ground in recent days to Kurdish-led forces near the capital of their "caliphate." Islamic State sought to retake the initiative with incursions into the Kurdish-held town of Kobani at the Turkish border and government-held areas of Hasaka city in the northeast. In a separate offensive in the multi-sided Syrian civil war, an alliance of rebels in the south of the country also launched an attack with the aim of driving government forces from the city of Deraa. ... The attack on Kobani appears to be mainly a mass murder suicidal assault that has resulted in over a hundred non combatant murders but no recapture of territory;  The killers are surrounded and contained.  The fighting in Deraa demonstrates just how little control the government and groups like ISIL have in Syria. Update:   The BBC reports ...

Business Insider: The Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS)’s affiliate in Libya lost control of its eastern stronghold of Derna after tensions with a local Islamist militia escalated into violent conflict on June 9, 2015. Gunmen from ISIS allegedly assassinated Abu Salim Martyrs Brigade (ASMB) leader Nasser al-Aker, who was a senior member of the al-Qaeda-associated Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG). The Mujahedeen Shura Council of Derna (MSC Derna), an umbrella group controlled by ASMB, released a statement declaring jihad on ISIS in Derna soon after the assassination. Clashes erupted across the city. Anti-ISIS forces cleared ISIS from central Derna and captured ISIS’s headquarters on June 13, despite ISIS’s defensive deployment of multiple SVBIEDs. ISIS now holds no territory inside the city. Social media reports from activists within Derna indicate strong local animosity towards ISIS. Derna’s residents organized demonstrations against ISIS on June 11 and 12, and accord...

Fuel Fix: Foreign investors are helping fuel the U.S. petrochemical renaissance, as overseas companies scramble to take advantage of the surge of cheap domestic natural gas, according to a new industry analysis. Twelve of the 25 companies proposing to build or expand ethane crackers in the United States are international firms, underscoring the competitive advantage the U.S. continues to reap from the shale boom, according to Petrochemical Update, which analyzes construction trends for the petrochemical industry. Foreign interest in the U.S. petrochemical industry spiked after advances in horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing unleashed a wave of natural gas. Prices collapsed, quickly transforming the U.S. from one of the world’s highest-cost chemical and plastics producers to the world’s second cheapest producer behind the Middle East, Petrochemical Update said. Three of the six ethane crackers already under construction are under development by foreign companies, including Ta...

Guardian: Kurdish forces are closing in on Islamic State fighters in the town of Kobani in Syria, after the militants slaughtered at least 154 people in one of their biggest massacres of civilians in the country’s civil war. A Kurdish spokesman told the Guardian that the militants were pinned in three locations in the embattled town near the Turkish border, including a field hospital. More than 100 hostages are being held by Isis fighters or are trapped due to the crossfire. The spokesman said intermittent clashes were ongoing but the militants were completely surrounded. “Daesh (Isis) is carrying out a collective suicide attack, not to control Kobani or occupy it, but to kill the largest possible number of civilians,” said Redur Xelil, the spokesman of the People’s Protection Units (YPG), the main Syrian Kurdish militia. Xelil said the number of people killed, which includes many women and children, is likely to rise as some of the dead are inside buildings inaccessible to the YPG...

CNN/Money: Donald Trump 's fight with Univision is heating up. On Friday he published an anchor's personal phone number, called for the resignation of a top executive and banned all of the channel's executives from using Trump's golf course in Miami. "Under no circumstances is any officer or representative of Univision allowed to use Trump National Doral, Miami," the letter read. .... Univision fired back on Friday, sending out a memo to its employees that they "should not stay at Trump properties while on company business or hold events/activities there." The war began after Trump made offensive statements about Mexicans, including calling them "rapists," while announcing he was running for president. In response, Univision, the largest Spanish language network in the country, broke off its deal to air the Miss USA Pageant, which is partially owned by Trump. Trump also lashed out at Univision President Alberto Ciurana who apologized to ...

John-Henry Westen: Same-Sex Marriage Won’t Bring Us Peace The last ten years of same-sex marriage laws in Canada and other nations shows redefining marriage undermines freedom of speech and conscience, parent rights, and good home lives for children. Much of the motivations for the ruling is based on a false premise, and despite the dicta in the opinion Americans are already losing freedom of association in states that have already allowed gay marriage.