Health Insurance rates to rise? Say it ain't so.....

Health insurance companies around the country are seeking rate increases of 20 percent to 40 percent or more, saying their new customers under the Affordable Care Act turned out to be sicker than expected. Federal officials say they are determined to see that the requests are scaled back.


Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans — market leaders in many states — are seeking rate increases that average 23 percent in Illinois, 25 percent in North Carolina, 31 percent in Oklahoma, 36 percent in Tennessee and 54 percent in Minnesota, according to documents posted online by the federal government and state insurance commissioners and interviews with insurance executives.


NYT


Now, who could have foreseen that this would happen? I mean, after "getting to keep our Doctors"......we've been led to believe that the federal government requiring citizens to purchase a private commodity, wouldn't engender any adverse conditions........


/sarc

Never Again.....

My visit to Dachau the weekend after the 70th anniversary of it's Liberation by Allied Forces.

Bernie Sanders, 2nd Amendment Advocate?

An article penned at Slate, takes presidential candidate [and admitted Socialist] to task for supporting common sense 2nd Amendment protections. Yes, that’s right…..I used the same framing that the gun control camp uses: “common sense”. Since the term has no defined metric, no meaning beyond personal bias….it’s just as applicable if the gun rights camp were to employ it. I won’t be continuing to use it…..as it’s a lazy tactic lost on the gun control cabal, but the point is made.

What’s interesting beyond the fact that Sanders doesn’t buy into the empty gun control narrative, writ large anyway……is that Slate uses this article to rail against a 2005 piece of legislation that they would not support were it directed against any other lawful industry. That legislation is the “Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA)”. This bill protects firearm manufacturers against lawsuits and punitive damages stemming from the criminal use of its products.

The PLCAA was the No. 1 legislative priority of the National Rifle Association for years, because it shields gun makers and dealers from most liability when their firearms are used criminally. It is one of the most noxious pieces of pro-gun legislation ever passed. And Bernie Sanders voted for it.

This, apparently, is a bad thing. The author attempts to bolster his disdain for this protection by citing invented examples of other industries that he sees as analogous.

But the act’s primary purpose is as simple as it is cold-blooded. Every state imposes liability on manufacturers who are negligent in their production and sale of products. If I crash my Prius because its accelerator malfunctions, I can sue Toyota for negligently manufacturing a faulty pedal. If my child dismembers himself with a blender at Sears, I can sue Sears for negligently leaving that blender within a child’s reach.

The glaring hole in his assertion however, is that he cites negligent faults in the product themselves, or negligence on the part of the intermediary, the retailer. He thinks you, the reader, are too stupid to see the difference. Firearms manufactures are protected….as are other industries…..from tort liability in cases where a person takes a lawful, and lawfully procured item…and uses it in a criminal act. If the author were correct, or had journalistic integrity, he would assert that because Sears left a blender within reach of a child…one could sue the manufacturer of the blender. But since cannot, he concoct a fantasy where he would have you believe that the firearm industry has been granted special protections, because…….eeevill NRA.

To recap, gun control supporters such as this author, would advocate for punitive liability judgements against the manufacturer of a non-defective lawful item, lawfully distributed to a lawful retailer, [presumably] lawfully sold to an appropriate consumer........but only if the item is a firearm. A legal product. Wow.

That idiocy aside…..I might actually watch a debate between Sanders and Clinton, if gun control is on the agenda. No, Sanders is not a champion for individual liberty, writ large….he’s a collectivist….but he’s an interesting cat.

Justice and the Race Card

Justice is supposed to be blind, but throughout our history it has not always been so.

Gregory Wallace and another man burst into the Kentucky home of Jordan and Tommy Gray and robbed them and their three-year-old daughter at gunpoint. But at Wallace's sentencing hearing Judge Olu Stevens singled out the Grays, not Wallace, for criticism. Wallace and his partner are black, and the Grays noted in their impact statement their daughter still reacts in fear to black men. Stevens said those remarks offended him and accused the parents of fostering racist behavior in their daughter. He sentenced Wallace to five years probation.

Reason

The judge stated that his remarks regarding race played no role in his sentencing decision, but were the roles reversed, would that argument have traction in the public eye?

On Religious Liberty

The news is rife with stories of opposition to various issues of morality and legality...but none more so than marriage equality/gay marriage/whatever you desire to label it.


The crux of opposition centers around judicial rulings that state prohibitions on gay marriage are unconstitutional. The opposition claims that these rulings override the 'will of the people'...and inn many cases, based on elections and initiatives, they do. On the surface.


However, this premise rests on the notion that 'the people' are Constitutionally empowered to create or retain law based solely on a majority opinion of religious morality....regardless of secular value.


So my question, to any and all, is this: does the American polity, nationwide or at the state level, retain the Constitutional power to create or retain law that prohibits an action of the minority, yet is legal for the majority....and where the basis for such a prohibition contains no public safety risk or burden upon said majority?

"Hands Up, Don't.......Whoops"

The news has been leaked to the New York Times: the Department of Justice has concluded its federal investigation into the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and it has reached substantially the same conclusions as the local grand jury that chose not to press charges against police officer Darren Wilson.


Let’s reiterate that. Eric Holder’s Justice Department has looked at the case and decided that the evidence indicates Officer Wilson was justified in shooting Michael Brown. - The Federalist Blog


Don't expect to see much news coverage of this decision, but like the Trayvon Martin case....but you can expect it to live on as a legally erroneous pop culture meme......

A clear case for civil disobedience

The city of Houston has issued subpoenas demanding a group of pastors turn over any sermons dealing with homosexuality, gender identity or Annise Parker, the city’s first openly lesbian mayor. And those ministers who fail to comply could be held in contempt of court. 

The subpoenas are just the latest twist in an ongoing saga over the Houston’s new non-discrimination ordinance. The law, among other things, would allow men to use the ladies room and vice versa.  The city council approved the law in June. 

The Houston Chronicle reported opponents of the ordinance launched a petition drive that generated more than 50,000 signatures – far more than the 17,269 needed to put a referendum on the ballot. 

However, the city threw out the petition in August over alleged irregularities.
After opponents of the bathroom bill filed a lawsuit the city’s attorneys responded by issuing the subpoenas against the pastors. 

The pastors were not part of the lawsuit. However, they were part of a coalition of some 400 Houston-area churches that opposed the ordinance. The churches represent a number of faith groups – from Southern Baptist to non-denominational.

Link

If the Mayor wants access to what a Preacher says to his flock, she should attend said Church. The State has no right, enumerated or implied, to dictate the surrender of transcripts from any entity, barring the investigation of a criminal act. Since this action is being undertaken by the State, this is a clear case of the violation of 1st Amendment rights....and the Pastors in question should rise up as one voice and refuse this edict. Or in an ironic twist, tell her that the sermons are all on a failed hard drive, sorry.

Now, there are reports that either initial reports may have been incorrectly attributed to the Mayor's Office, or there is a comprehensive effort to cover her ass.

Mayor Parker agrees with those who are concerned about the city legal department’s subpoenas for pastor’s sermons.  The subpoenas were issued by pro bono attorneys helping the city prepare for the trial regarding the petition to repeal the new Houston Equal Rights Ordinance (HERO) in January.  Neither the mayor nor City Attorney David Feldman were aware the subpoenas had been issued until yesterday.  Both agree the original documents were overly broad.  The city will move to narrow the scope during an upcoming court hearing.  Feldman says the focus should be only on communications related to the HERO petition process.

Link

And so it begins......? Act II

Liberia said on Friday it was banning journalists from Ebola clinics, defying media rights campaigners who have warned panicked African governments against "muzzling" reporters. 

Government spokesman Isaac Jackson made the announcement as he was questioned on a radio phone-in show about reporters being barred from covering a strike at a Monrovia Ebola treatment unit (ETU). 

"Journalists are no longer allowed to enter ETUs. These journalists enter the ETUs and cross red lines," Jackson, the deputy information minister, told listeners to commercial station Sky FM.

Link

Act I is the CDC telling us all that we have nothing to fear, while they lay a smokescreen of ineffectual mitigation measures at US airports.

Act II is journalists being denied coverage of the situation, as noted above.

What does Act III bring? Not sure, but it doesn't bode well. Thus far, the events have seemed to be the opening chapters of every Apocalyptic book and movie.....

Luckily, I at least have a canary in a coal mine. I live not far from a Continuity of Government location. Serials of helicopters headed to that facility triggers the family action plan. I'll put my tin foil away for now....but I'm keeping it close by.

On Religious Liberty and the Constitution

The separation of church and state doesn’t mean “the government cannot favor religion over non-religion,” Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia argued during a speech at Colorado Christian University on Wednesday, according to The Washington Times. 

Defending his strict adherence to the plain text of the Constitution, Scalia knocked secular qualms over the role of religion in the public sphere as “utterly absurd,” arguing that the Constitution is only obligated to protect freedom of religion -- not freedom from it. 

“I think the main fight is to dissuade Americans from what the secularists are trying to persuade them to be true: that the separation of church and state means that the government cannot favor religion over non-religion,” the Reagan-appointed jurist told the crowd of about 400 people. 

“We do Him [God] honor in our pledge of allegiance, in all our public ceremonies,” the conservative Catholic justice continued. “There’s nothing wrong with that. It is in the best of American traditions, and don’t let anybody tell you otherwise. I think we have to fight that tendency of the secularists to impose it on all of us through the Constitution.”

Link

Wow. That piece of rank ignorance came from a Supreme Court Justice. Probably a good case for injecting the label "activist Judge". The Constitution is absolutely required to protect the religious liberty of the citizen; but nowhere in our founding documents is found the enumerated power of the government to either endorse or favor religious belief.

This latest missive ties in to what I've been saying for years.....the American people have the inherent right to worship the faith of their choosing, or none at all....and this natural right is protected by the Constitution. This is not to say that violations of religious liberty do not occasionally occur, and we must remain vigilant to ensure that these abuses do no occur, and are not condoned by government. But most of the current crusades are not directed at protecting liberty, but advocating for just what Scalia proposes......government endorsement of religious belief. Or more accurately, the religious belief of those conducting the aforementioned advocating.

Case in point...public school prayer. Some believe that removing organized prayer during school hours was a violation of their religious liberty. But this was not the case. Any student or teacher may pray to their chosen deity at anytime time during the school day, provided that it does not distract from the activities or curriculum. Those who believe they have been wronged aren't advocating for the ability to pray in school [as opposed to before or after]...they desire public and government acknowledgment of their beliefs. They desire an institutionalization of their belief in an omnipotent [and invisible] creator.

Government has no mandate, anywhere, to weigh in on the validity of any religious belief. Scalia argues that the Constitution does not prohibit government from acting on this vote of validity...but he is quite obviously confused [or promoting an agenda. i.e activism]. The Constitution, by definition, enumerates the powers of the government. The vaunted document does not comprise of a list of "don't's"....it is a list of "do's". Scalia in this regard, represents how this nation and society have fallen away from adherence to our guiding laws, and into the arms of political expediency and agendas.

An astute commenter at the linked piece puts it succinctly:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or restricting the free exercise thereof." 

Any public law or policy that "favors religion over non-religion" clearly violates the First Amendment.

The important point to note is in the wording of the 1st Amendment, where if it were to state "respecting the establishment of religion", then Scalia might have a point. In that case, favoring religious belief would not be the establishment of a government sponsored religion. But as it states "respecting an establishment of religion", this quite clearly refers to religious belief. This states that the government does not possess the power to create law that favors the religious over the secular.

And that's what the debate really bills down to. Some of the faithful, are not seeking religious liberty, because they already possess that. They can already exercise their natural right to worship in accordance with their faith without regulation or restriction from the government [generally speaking, and I think there is too much of this regulation to begin with]. They desire for government to codify in law, their religious belief system, at the expense of or detriment to, those who do not follow their faith or any faith at all.

Given the corrupt and corruptible nature of government, I'm at a loss as to why they would desire their faith to be bedfellows with the State. Doing so only dilutes and degrades both. I'm also perplexed as to why [predominately] Christians would favor establishing legal precedence for other belief systems....giving the bedwetting and hand-wringing over Islam.

Hey GOP: If ISIL/ISIS is such a threat to the homeland......

Do something about it. Stop your bedwetting petulant tantrums and conduct a roll call vote to declare war. Use your Constitutional powers or just quit....just go the fuck home.

The Great Government Scam

"The American people have to demand that folks in Washington do their job. Do something. That's my big motto for Congress right now: Just do something.” - President Obama

This is the problem with our society and our perception of government. The perception that it exists not to safeguard our natural rights and protect the individual liberty of Americans..….but to “do something”.

With scant exception, the legislation passed from the City Council to the halls of Congress….regulates, restricts and taxes the citizen. Yet we allow an enlarging paradigm where our various instruments of governance are seen as weak, ineffectual or downright obstructionist, when they fail to maintain a steady pace of the regulating, restricting and taxing of all facets of our daily lives. Our media decries a “lame duck Congress”….even as they enable the two party duopoly that exists only to perpetuate itself.

For eons upon eons, mankind has built their own homes, birthed their children at home, schooled their children at home, drank unpasteurized milk, buried their kin in the back field….and generally gotten on quite well without the oppressive amount of licensing, code, regulation and taxation that we endure today.

Sadly, most citizens meekly accept the ever-increasing scope of intrusion and restriction of our daily activities and pursuits….because we are fed a happy meal of government endorsed pablum that reminds us that government is good. Always. And more government is by default…better. Now, I’m not an anarchist by any stretch [though no doubt many Democrats and Republicans would tar me with such a label], but this perception will be the downfall of any semblance of liberty we still have. Not liberal ideology….not conservative ideology….government ideology. And both major parties bow to this.

NRO: Barney Fife meets Delta Force

Historians looking back at this period in America’s development will consider it to be profoundly odd that at the exact moment when violent crime hit a 50-year low, the nation’s police departments began to gear up as if the country were expecting invasion — and, on occasion, to behave as if one were underway. The ACLU reported recently that SWAT teams in the United States conduct around 45,000 raids each year, only 7 percent of which have anything whatsoever to do with the hostage situations with which those teams were assembled to contend. Paramilitary operations, the ACLU concluded, are “happening in about 124 homes every day — or more likely every night” — and four in five of those are performed in order that authorities might “search homes, usually for drugs.” Such raids routinely involve “armored personnel carriers,” “military equipment like battering rams,” and “flashbang grenades.” 

Were the military being used in such a manner, we would be rightly outraged. Why not here? Certainly this is not a legal matter. The principle of posse comitatus draws a valuable distinction between the national armed forces and parochial law enforcement, and one that all free people should greatly cherish. Still, it seems plain that the potential threat posed by a domestic standing army is not entirely blunted just because its units are controlled locally. To add the prefix “para” to a problem is not to make it go away, nor do legal distinctions change the nature of power. Over the past two decades, the federal government has happily sent weapons of war to local law enforcement, with nary a squeak from anyone involved with either political party. Are we comfortable with this? 

The Right’s silence on the issue is vexing indeed, the admirable attempts of a few libertarians notwithstanding. Here, conservatives seem to be conflicted between their rightful predilection for law and order — an instinct that is based upon an accurate comprehension of human nature and an acknowledgment of the existence of evil — and a well-developed and wholly sensible fear of state power, predicated upon precisely the same thing. As of now, the former is rather dramatically winning out, leading conservatives to indulge — or at least tacitly to permit — excuses that they typically reject elsewhere. Much as the teachers’ unions invariably attempt to justify their “anything goes” contracts by pointing to the ends that they ostensibly serve (“Well you do want schools for the children or don’t you? Sign here”), the increasingly muscular behavior of local police departments is often shrugged off as a by-product of the need to fight crime. This, if left unchecked, is a recipe for precisely the sort of carte blanche that conservatives claim to fear.

Veterans man the barricades in DC.....

...and relocate them to the front lines; in front of the White House.

I should have gone to DC today.

The Downfall of the United States started here

Government workers in the city of Seattle have been advised that the terms "citizen" and "brown bag" are potentially offensive and may no longer be used in official documents and discussions.

KOMO-TV reports that the city's Office of Civil Rights instructed city workers in a recent internal memo to avoid using the words because some may find them offensive.

"Luckily, we've got options," Elliott Bronstein of the Office for Civil Rights wrote in the memo obtained by the station. "For 'citizens,' how about 'residents?'"

Bronstein told KIRO Radio the word "citizen" should be avoided because many people who live in Seattle are residents, not citizens.

"They are legal residents of the United States and they are residents of Seattle. They pay taxes and if we use a term like citizens in common use, then it doesn't include a lot of folks," Bronstein said.

Link

I'm beyond words. It's part of the master Statist plan. If you're no longer a CITIZEN, but rather a RESIDENT.....you cannot rely on the protections enshrined in the Constitution. RESIDENTS have no such rights....only CITIZENS do.

Your Representatives lie to you....Part V....and then tell you you're going to be dead anyway

This time brought to you by Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colo:

"What's the efficacy of banning these magazine clips? I will tell you, these are ammunition, they're bullets, so the people who have those now, they're going to shoot them," she said.

She went on to say that "the number of these high capacity magazines is going to decrease dramatically over time because the bullets will be shot and there won't be any more available."

The comment drew laughter from those in attendance.

Link

DeGette also had this to say to a constituent:

The audio was not very clear, but the man can be heard talking about being at a disadvantage when facing an armed criminal.

“The good news for you, you live in Denver. The Denver PD would be there within minutes," she said to laughter.

"You’d probably be dead anyway," she added, smirking.

Link

Welcome to the 15th century, North Carolina **UPDATED**

Your legislators have decided that they need not abide by the 1st Amendment, respecting the establishment of religion.

The North Carolina General Assembly asserts that the Constitution of the United States of America does not prohibit states or their subsidiaries from making laws respecting an establishment of religion.

The North Carolina General Assembly does not recognize federal court rulings which prohibit and otherwise regulate the State of North Carolina, its public schools, or any political subdivisions of the State from making laws respecting an establishment of religion.

Bill

North Carolina of course, still maintains the unenforceable Sec. 8.  Disqualifications for office:

The following persons shall be disqualified for office:

First, any person who shall deny the being of Almighty God.

**UPDATE**

North Carolina House Speaker Thom Tillis' office said Thursday that a resolution asserting North Carolina has the power to set an official state religion is dead, and won't go any further.

Link

The Department of Everything

Sen Tom Coburn, R-OK released his long awaited report on areas within the defense budget that can - and should - be cut. These are 'non-defense' areas where the Department of Defense is either duplicating efforts taking place in other areas of government, or simply has efforts under it's purview, that can, and should be handled by other departments, if at all.

The five missions examined by this report—research and development, education, alternative energy, grocery stores, and support and supply services—could be or already are being better delivered by more appropriate federal agencies or departments, civilian federal employees, or even the private sector. Some of these functions have been performed by the military for decades. Others, such as the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Program, are more recent expansions to the Pentagon’s role and mission.

Three questions were asked when reviewing each of the programs and agencies profiled in this report:
                                                      
- Does the mission of this program or agency directly relate to the mission of the Department of Defense?

 - Does another federal agency or government or private entity already provide the services provided by this program or agency?

- Could these resources be better targeted towards higher priority defense needs, such as taking care of troops on the front lines or reducing our $16 trillion national debt?

The five areas examined in this report are by no means an exhaustive list of non-defense spending programs at the DOD. These areas are merely a starting point for reviewing Pentagon spending that is unnecessary, duplicative, wasteful, or simply not related to defense. Department of Everything identifies more than $67.9 billion in budget options to protect the nation against the rising tide of the red menace while enhancing the Pentagon’s focus on its true mission, which is our nations defense.

Link

After skimming through the report, I really haven't found much to disagree with. I think the DoD should remain one of the primary entities to conduct critical R&D.

I'm fully on board with the elimination of on-post schools and commissaries....I would even add to that the elimination of Post and Base Exchanges....but in all cases, only where those installations were remote enough for off post shopping to be prohibitive.

I'm not sure how much Congressional play these proposals will get, but it's a thought provoking read if you're both a fiscal Conservative and interested in military policy.

My new favorite Pundit

To be sure, I'll not be agreeing with everything she writes, but I was taken this morning by Katie Kieffer's stunning beauty and her Memorial Day post on her website:

Let’s make foreign policy like it’s 2000. I think we will support our troops and vets by revisiting the foreign policy that former President Bush expressed in 2000. Otherwise, we will send brave hearts into vain battles.

In October, 2000, George W. Bush debated Al Gore on C-SPAN. He said:

“I think one way for us to end up being viewed as the ugly American is for us to go around the world saying: 

‘We do it this way, so should you.’ … It really depends upon how our nation conducts itself on foreign policy; if we’re an arrogant nation they’ll resent us; if we’re a humble nation, but strong, they’ll welcome us. …Somalia started out as a humanitarian mission then changed into a nation-building mission and that’s where the mission went wrong; the mission was changed, and, as a result, our nation paid a price and so I don’t think our troops ought to be used for what’s called nation-building. …If we don’t stop extending our troops all around the world and [conducting] nation-building missions, then we are going to have a serious problem coming down the road and I’m going to prevent that.”

As we know, Bush did not fulfill his 2000 foreign policy goals. I think he was right to enter Afghanistan and route the Taliban immediately after the 9/11 attacks. Unfortunately, he overextended our stay and his executive reach. Today, Bush’s successor, President Obama, is proof that Bush was right in 2000. For, Obama’s efforts to ramp up Bush’s post-2000 expansionism are failing.

This month, Obama gathered his NATO partners in Chicago and signed an agreement that hands major combat operations over to Afghan security forces by the summer of 2013. (So much for consulting Congress and the Constitution.)

Nearly 11 years of war and $642 billion dollars are the temporal and monetary costs to U.S. taxpayers for the War in Afghanistan. No metric, however, quantifies the cost of elongated war to U.S. troops and veterans.

Obama should never have sent an additional 33,000 troops to risk their lives in this hopeless region in 2010. This month, bipartisan leaders of the congressional intelligence committee reported that the Taliban has become stronger since Obama’s troop surge. And, American troops are increasingly dying at the hands of our allies. Since 2007, around 80 Americans have died at the hands of our Afghan “partners.”

Obama should bring the troops home now—not in the summer of 2013. He can better utilize our troops on the U.S.-Mexico border where drug cartel violence threatens American ranchers, farmers and the U.S. food supply.

By keeping our troops and resources abroad, Obama is perpetuating a situation where current and former armed forces deal with suicidal depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

And I would be remiss if I didn't share the smoking goodness that is Katie.

I hope this post is formatted well, as I cannot preview. The filters on my domain at work block my blog due to "Adult Content".

?????

God help them if they ever pull this on my daughters or myself.....

A father is demanding answers from police after he was arrested because his four-year-old daughter drew a picture of a handgun in class. 

Jessie Sansone, 26, arrived to Forest Hills public school in Waterloo, Ontario to pick up his daughter, Neaveh, when he was hauled to a station and strip-searched. 

No charges were filed, however, a voluntary search of the family home uncovered no more than a plastic toy gun.

Waterloo Regional Police Inspector Kevin Thaler told TheRecord.com a staff member at the school issued a complaint that 'a firearm was in a residence and children had access to it.'

According to the website, school officials were concerned not only about the drawing, which depicted a man holding a gun, but of the girl's remarks when quizzed by a teacher about who the man was.

'That’s my daddy’s. He uses it to shoot bad guys and monsters,' she was quoted as saying. 

Mr Sansone told the website he was called into the principal's office when he arrived to pick up Neaveh and her two siblings last Wednesday. 

Three officers were present, and he was handcuffed and taken into custody for possession of a firearm.
Mr Sansone while in custody was asked to remove his clothing for a strip search for 'officer safety', according to Thaler. 

He was given a blanket and told he would appear before a judge the next morning. But after several hours, he was released without charges.

It was not until then he was told about the picture his daughter had drawn, and how it led to his arrest. After Mr Sansone's release, he gave police permission to search his home, where all they found, according to Ms Squires, was a clear plastic toy gun.

Only in Canada, eh? I hope so.....

Defining the Surge rhetoric

If you follow the story of the Iraq Surge, and it's aftermath, you quickly realize that there is an official story...one dutifully endorsed by the media. A story where the increase of US forces quelled the insurgency. A similar meme exists where Obama somehow 'lost the peace'....but I digress.

Doug Ollivant of the New America Foundation penned a piece last summer regrading this 'new orthodoxy', that I somehow missed until now; but found thanks to Musings on Iraq. He lays a fair amount of blame at the feet of President Obama for institutional ambiguity on Iraq and Afghanistan, while laying out a pretty solid counter-argument to the generally accepted dogma of how the violence in Iraq decreased, somewhat.


Countering the New Orthodoxy: Reinterpreting Counterinsurgency in Iraq