Blog Heap of Links for the day 28 June 2014

Since they began their blitz just over a fortnight ago, Sunni insurgents in Iraq have destroyed half of the Iraqi army and inflicted $10 billion in losses, a senior Iraqi defense official said. [War News Updates editor comments: "These loses are staggering and mind-boggling .... and I suspect that the real numbers are probably higher."]

Petitioners, organized by the National Associations of State Boards of Education (NASBE), recently filed a lawsuit arguing that the repeal of Common Core is unconstitutional under Oklahoma state law. The plaintiffs take issue with a provision in House Bill 3399 allowing the state legislature to be involved in drafting new standards to replace Common Core….

The political strategist for the re-election campaign of New Mexico’s Gov. Susana Martinez (R) reportedly confronted on Saturday a group of pro-life demonstrators in Albuquerque by lashing out, “You are all pieces of shit!”

According to my best reading of a notice the FAA announced on Monday, things like the US $154 Husban X4 quadcopter are no longer toys—they are true drone aircraft in the FAA's eyes and cannot be flown without a certificate of authorization or special airworthiness certificate.

Huh?

Up to now, the FAA has been distinguishing model aircraft from small drones (or small unmanned aerial systems, to use the FAA’s preferred terminology) according to whether they are flown for recreation or for commercial purposes.

Senate Democrats are steadily pushing forward with what they hope will become the 28th Amendment to the United States Constitution. The proposed amendment would give Congress authority to regulate every dollar raised, and every dollar spent, by every federal campaign and candidate in the country. It would give state legislatures the power to do the same with state races. [How does the Fed make State Law??]

Framed by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid as a response to campaign spending by the conservative billionaire Koch brothers…

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R, TX) [offers $1,000,000 for Lerner's emails]: "We know those emails are out there, we know they can be found. We just need the people to help find them. This is a way to work around the attorney general to achieve justice," he continued, accusing Holder of helping hide the truth and calling for his resignation. "The attorney general can't say attorney general forever. We will get justice."

Two years after activists for same-sex marriage obtained the confidential tax return and donor list of a national group opposed to redefining marriage, the Internal Revenue Service has admitted wrongdoing and agreed to settle the resulting lawsuit. The Daily Signal has learned that, under a consent judgment today, the IRS agreed to pay $50,000 in damages to the National Organization for Marriage. [Will the guilty parties be paying that $50,000, or will it just come from Tax Money? Just guess.]

Ahmed Abu Khatallah, the man the U.S. accuses of being the ringleader in the deadly 2012 attack on the American diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, pleaded not guilty Saturday during a brief appearance in federal court in Washington. [Another Obama-created nightmare of jurisprudence, compounding upon an Obama-created nightmare of ambassadorial death. The term is clusterfuck.]

The World’s Most Dangerous Community Organizer spoke to a handpicked contingent of bored, phone-gazing millennials on Thursday. "…I’m like a caged bear and every once in a while I break loose.…” In the deep recesses of his narcissistic mind comparing himself to a caged bear connotes a fearsome creature, but to the rest of us poor schmoes all we envision is a pitiful creature relegated to wearing silly ruffles riding a ridiculously undersized tricycle….

Republican congressional candidate Lenar Whitney released a video Friday calling global warming "the greatest deception in the history of mankind." Calling Al Gore and other liberal politicians pushing global warming "delusional," Whitney reminds viewers that "The earth has done nothing but get colder each year since the film's release." Whitney then goes on to cite a litany of other scientific facts to rebut and mock global warming believers, including President Obama, whom she calls "foolish" for blaming his lousy economy on warming. [Watch on YouTube]

Andrew Lampart found he couldn't access the National Rifle Association's website while on campus at Connecticut's Nonnewaug High School. But he could go to pro-gun control sites just fine. Investigating further, he found the state Republican Party's website was blocked, but not that of the Democratic Party. Anti-abortion websites were blocked, but not those of pro-choice groups. Christian websites, including that of the Vatican, were blocked, but not Islamic websites.

There is more land devoted to opium production that ever before, in large part because more acres are being used as poppy fields in Afghanistan, according to a U.N. report released Thursday. … Myanmar is also ramping up opium production… [and yet:] The report found that drug use “is stable” across the world…

A US Navy Harrier pilot has landed his aircraft on a stool after a landing gear failure. The incident took place on the USS Bataan earlier this month. [Cackling talking-heads news report video at link]

The Richmond County, Georgia, school system has agreed to pay $1,000 and legal expenses to a mother who was barred from her child's elementary school after she posted a photo of her state weapon carry license on Facebook. … She says [police] questioned her not only about her carry permit but about the fact she is in the Army. [But of course the Richmond County or Georgia State taxpayers will be paying that $1000, not the people who should be made to pay it.]

Beginning in September, Google plans to block firearm, ammunition, and gun accessory ads.

In conversations with attendees, and from the stage as Former Governor Sarah Palin, Sen. Rick Santorum, and Rep. Allen West addressed the crowd of about 500, the anger about Cochran's controversial electoral tactics was palpable. …

West: “That was a disgrace. That was not standing on principal that’s not standing up for what you believe in, that was just a career politician that just wants to go back to Washington D.C. That was despicable, it’s immoral and it’s disgusting.”

Palin: “Well shoot, our own party was proving this last week, to potentially manipulate and exterminate the integrity of a primary election.”

Santorum: “America’s bigger than that, it’s not about one battle its about fighting for what you believes is what is right for the country and staying engaged, we’re not allowed to get discouraged.”

West: “This is not our last stand it is our greatest stand. Plant the flag. Make a stand."

In a new interview with NBC, former President Bill Clinton has now joined wife Hillary Clinton in claiming that they were "dead broke" when they left the White House in 2001.

Former Secretary Hillary Clinton admitted that she probably made a mistake when she suggested that she and Bill Clinton were “dead broke” after leaving the White House. “But you know my inartful use of those few words doesn’t change who I am, what I’ve stood for my entire life what I stand for today.” [Yes, that's true.]

“Well you have to be a little bit crazy to run for president, let me just put it like that,” [Hillary] Clinton laughed… [Video at link]

[Her] "life of service… [is] a very hard job, and it’s a job that, you know, you have to be totally consumed by, and that’s kind of the definition of being a little bit crazy, I think…."