Tuesday, February 28, 2017
Wilbur Ross confirmed to Commerce by Senate 72-27 last night
And that took almost 40 days with that kind of support because why? Why because Chucky Schumer tried but failed to tar him with a connection to Russia.
Reported here.
Monday, February 27, 2017
Yeah, and I remember when Chris Plante pronounced "Die" in "Die Welt" rhyming with "lie"
Michael Savage is right, "gender" is misused
Gender is an aspect of inflected language, as in gender, number and case. Sex is an aspect of human reproduction, as in male or female. The equation of the two is a phenomenon of contemporary times.
For example, "the dummy" in German is "der Dummkopf".
"Der" signifies it is a masculine noun, singular in number, and nominative as to case.
"Der Dummkopf" functions as the subject in a sentence, for example when Michael says "The dummy says gender when he means sex".
When it is the indirect object in a sentence, it is spelled "dem Dummkopf", in the dative case, as in "Michael said to the dummy . . .. "
Michael Savage talks to many dummies, "den Dummköpfen", who are plural in number and dative in case, who don't understand the difference between gender and sex.
There is no answer to "What is your gender?"
To "Sex?" the answer is either male or female.
And sometimes "Yes".
My hometown is a small town: Libertarians chafe at staying in the same place
Tyler Cowen, here:
Americans traditionally have thought of themselves as the great movers, and indeed that was true in the nineteenth century and even through most of the twentieth. But since the 1980s, Americans have become much less restless in movements across the country, and more people are looking to simply settle down and entrench themselves.
Sunday, February 26, 2017
Repeal the income tax of 1913: It facilitates the massive growth of our enemy the administrative state
After the passage of the income tax in 1913, outlays doubled from $2.9 billion in 1911 to $5.7 billion by 1917, and they keep doubling and doubling and doubling . . ..
In 2016 over 36% of GDP is diverted from the free market and misspent, poorly spent or destroyed. Almost $6.7 trillion . . . phhhhhht.
To kill the beast, stop feeding it.
Laugh of the Day: Over 100 days after death Politico still expects dead person to conduct her own autopsy
"In the absence of a definitive 2016 autopsy report from the Clinton campaign . . .."
I see dead people walking.
Saturday, February 25, 2017
Tom Perez, supported by Obama and Biden, beats Ellison, supported by Sanders, 235-200 to head DNC
But WaPo, in sympathy with the defeated far left Ellison, can't bring itself to report it that way here, making you do the math:
The race was close enough that it required a second round of balloting, with Perez winning 235 of 435 votes cast. With tensions still high as the result was announced, nine Ellison supporters chanted “Party for the people, not big money!” and stormed out of the room.
Liberal insanity in Texas: Girl taking testosterone to become a boy permitted to compete and win girls' state wrestling title
They call her a transgender boy to confuse you.
She advanced through the competitions due to forfeitures by girls who refused to wrestle a girl who gained an unfair advantage from taking drugs.
But the story here doesn't tell you that.
The Chicago Tribune here has the true story which the Fort Worth, Texas Star-Telegram didn't want to tell you:
Mack Beggs, a junior at Euless Trinity High School in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, won a regional championship after two opposing wrestlers forfeited, apparently over concerns that Beggs has an unfair advantage because of testosterone treatments that are part of the transition.
Beggs, who has a 52-0 record, has a first-round match in the state tournament Friday in suburban Houston.
Obama hollowed out the military and SECDEF Mattis wants to keep those responsible in place at DOD
Kimberley Strassel delivers the bad news here:
President Trump promised to rebuild our hollowed-out military, a cause as urgent as any domestic priority. Years of Obama budget cuts and neglect slashed force sizes and provoked a readiness crisis. Over half the Navy’s aircraft are grounded. Of 58 Army brigade combat teams, only three are ready to immediately join a fight. The Air Force is short pilots and aircraft maintenance workers. ...
[Mattis] wanted, for instance, former Obama undersecretary Michèle Flournoy for a top post. He’s looked to recruit from Ms. Flournoy’s liberal-hawk think tank, the Center for New American Security. And he’s pushed for some names who hail from Never Trump backgrounds, including Mary Beth Long, an official in George W. Bush’s Pentagon.
Perhaps only to make a point, Mr. Mattis is blocking some rock-star conservative talent. One is Mira Ricardel, a former Boeing executive and Bush Pentagon alum who helped with the Trump transition. Mr. Mattis continues to nix a long list of names offered by the White House team. ...
The Pentagon today remains in the hands of Obama holdovers who have spent years thwarting congressional requests, minimizing readiness problems, and generally covering for Obama failures. Those holdovers include Deputy Secretary Robert Work, an opponent of reform, and Assistant Secretary for Legislative Affairs Stephen Hedger.
Mr. Hedger helped write an infamous 2016 Pentagon memo outlining how the Obama administration could use a presidential veto of greater defense spending as a “weapon” to get other Obama priorities. Civil servants are also place-warming other key positions. As well-intentioned as many are, it’s unrealistic to expect this crew to march in a new direction after eight years under President Obama.
Mattis isn't a Mad Dog. He's just mad, as in crazy.
Friday, February 24, 2017
Nearly half of Trump's cabinet still not confirmed, a record, because of Congress
Nearly half of Trump's cabinet still not confirmed, a record, because of Congress
There's no urgency felt by the Congress, which has been in recess all week, but you wouldn't know that from the CNBC story, reported here:
More than a month in, nearly half of Trump's Cabinet nominees have yet to be confirmed by the Senate, the longest run for any modern president.
"It's just delay, delay, delay - it's really sad," Trump told a cheering crowd at a Conservative Political Action Committee meeting Friday. "I love setting records. But I hate having a Cabinet meeting and I see all these empty seats. I said, 'Democrats, please, approve our cabinet.'"
Thursday, February 23, 2017
Steve Bannon poses as our new Albert Jay Nock, says Trump's third goal is the deconstruction of the administrative state
Good stuff, except the real enemy is the income tax. Leave the income tax in place and a new behemoth administrative state is just another administration away.
Here.
Wednesday, February 22, 2017
With its new motto "Democracy Dies in Darkness" maybe WaPo should switch all its publishing to Confide
That way its stories would evanesce into the ether and no one would ever be able to blame it again for its partisanship and lying.
Supreme Court ruling in 2011 requiring releases from Calif. prisons to ease overcrowding results in officer slaying on Monday
The story is here.
Justice Antonin Scalia, who dissented here, called it "perhaps the most radical injunction issued by a court in our Nation's history":
Today the Court affirms what is perhaps the most radical injunction issued by a court in our Nation's history: an order requiring California to release the staggering number of 46,000 convicted criminals.
What? Roe v. Wade, which resulted in the deaths of millions of innocents, was less radical? Overturning millennia of marriage law and the statutes of 30 states was less radical? Obliging people to engage in health insurance commerce was not a repudiation of centuries of contract law?
Antonin Scalia was right to dissent in this one, but come on, Solomon he was not.
Tuesday, February 21, 2017
WNBA 98% lesbian, average attendance at a game is 7,655, NBA averages just shy of 18,000
So says WNBA star Candice Wiggins, here, who was
"harassed for being straight". . . “I would say 98 percent of the women in the WNBA are gay women. It was a conformist type of place. There was a whole different set of rules they [the other players] could apply.”
And you thought guys liked watching lesbians.
Trump outraised Obama, and Hillary and Bernie combined, from small donors
From the story here:
Mr. Trump raised about $239 million from small donors during the campaign, compared to $137 million for Mrs. Clinton and about $100 million for Mr. Sanders, according to the report from the Campaign Finance Institute.
Mr. Obama had raised about $219 million from small donors during the 2012 race and about $181 million during the 2008 campaign. Mitt Romney, the 2012 GOP nominee, raised about $58 million from small donors that year.
Monday, February 20, 2017
California has gone from exceptional drought in Feb. 2016 to mostly abnormally dry one year later
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| Calif. exceptional drought 2/16 |
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| Calif. abnormally dry 2/17 |
I don't believe Milo is gay, I think it's all an act and he's just trying to make money like Ru Paul, who isn't a tranny
If Milo is gay, I say release the movie and prove it.
If he does, report back here and tell me what you saw (comments subject to editing) because I won't watch it, even if it becomes the last movie on earth.
Trump's right about the lending slowdown
In the 15 quarters ended 3Q2016, total loans in all sectors have grown by a measly 14.5%.
Compare the 15 quarters ended 3Q1986 when the measure grew by 53%.
The fact of the matter is lending hit the big brick wall in 2007. It has recovered but not to anything like the post-war rate where total credit market debt outstanding doubled every 6 to 11 years. Under Reagan it doubled in 6 years.
Ten years out from 2007, we're currently about $34 trillion behind the outside range with a year to go. We aren't going to make it.
Why that is has to do with the broken housing model more than anything else, and the failure to find anything else to replace it.
With overcapacity everywhere else in the economy, it doesn't seem likely anything will be found to take housing's place, either, except housing.
Maybe someone could revive "A Dodge in every garage and a chicken in every pot"?
Obama certainly failed to understand the central importance of housing to the economy, and Trump talk now of $1 trillion in infrastructure spending is laughably unimaginative, the equivalent of taking a wizz in the ocean.
Infrastructure spending isn't conceivably up to scaling the $34 trillion lending deficit we face.
Students revolt against Moochelle's school lunches throwing away $1 billion worth of food a year
From the story here:
Penn-Trafford High School is among more than 500 schools that have dropped out of the NSLP since strict nutrition regulations were imposed on schools through the Healthy Hunger Free Act championed by former first lady Michelle Obama.
The changes drove down school food sales nationwide for the first time in years and created an estimated $1 billion in additional food waste as students across the country revolted against the rules.
Obama had 950,062 on his deportation list as of May 21, 2016, he just wasn't deporting them
Hm. Imagine that.
From the story here:
The 680 seized in recent sweeps by U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement agents represent just .07 percent of the 950,062 with deportation orders as of May 21, 2016. ... ICE has custody of just 11,006, or 1 percent, of the 950,062 ordered deported.
Dan Alpert is kooky, says economy will go nuts if Trump spends on infrastructure: Let's try cutting spending by $200 billion a year instead
Here:
“If you spend $200 billion in this economy in additional government infrastructure spending, rebuild bridges, airports and railways, especially if it’s well targeted. This economy is going to go crazy. It’s going to do great.”
Outlays in fiscal 2008 were $2.9825 trillion.
Between 2009 and 2016, outlays for the eight years, beyond that level, have come to $4.86 trillion. $200 billion or even $1 trillion isn't going to amount to doodleysquat if nearly $5 trillion has done nothing.
Cut federal spending and lower the tax rates and see what the people do with the money instead.
Laugh of the Day: Over 100 "Day Without Immigrants" protesters fired from their jobs
From the story here:
More than 100 protesters across the country were fired from their jobs after skipping work to take part in last week's "Day Without Immigrants" demonstration. Restaurants and day cares were among the businesses in states like Florida, Tennessee, Oklahoma and New York where bosses fired workers after they didn't show up for work in order to protest. ... At Ben's Kosher Delicatessen Restaurant & Caterers in Long Island, New York, 25 workers were fired Friday when they returned to work, according to Telemundo 47. Police escorted the workers from the restaurant — most of whom were undocumented and have worked there for years.
Obama pollster Cornell Belcher gets one thing right: Hillary failed to hold the Obama coalition
Or as we say, 5.1 million former Obama voters in 39 states from 2008 didn't vote for Hillary in 2016.
Do Belcher's math. He estimates from exit polling data that about 7% of the non-white millennial electorate voted third party, allowing Trump to squeeze in. Hillary's total of 65.85 million popular votes supplemented by the 5.1 million in 39 states who didn't vote for her is 70.95 million, 7% of which is 5 million.
Belcher, who is black, racializes the whole thing from there, complaining that Democrats failed to make the race about race. But obviously these non-white millennials still voted for whites, so it wasn't about race for them either. It was about young progressives being unable to bring themselves to vote for two loathsome candidates, one of whom turned out to be more loathsome to more people than the other.
As they say in the legal profession, hard cases make bad law. Election 2016 was a hard case, and we shouldn't draw the wrong conclusions from it as both Democrats and Republicans still seem to be doing.
Belcher, here in Salon:
Demographics are destiny. What happens to a centrist Democrat quite frankly who can’t hold that Obama coalition? Donald Trump is a president who did not win a plurality of the public. In fact, one of my reports was leaked to the New York Times, saying that millennials were rejecting the binary choice of the lesser of two evils.
When you look at the exit data, you have 8 or 9 percent of younger African-Americans voting third-party. You have 6 or 7 percent of younger Latinos voting third-party. Hillary is almost off Barack Obama’s winning margins by the same percentage of our young people voting third party. So that’s how [Trump] squeaked in.
Again, Trump didn’t expand the Republican tent. He didn’t bring in all these millions upon millions of new Republican voters. This was about Democrats losing, more so than Trump remaking the electorate and winning in some sort of profound and new way. It should not have been a winning percentage, right? ...
When you look at battleground state after battleground state, Hillary was off Obama’s margins by five or six points and Trump was, at best, one or two points up in Michigan or Wisconsin or Florida. Again, it wasn’t like he was four, five points better than Mitt Romney. It was that she was five or six points below what Barack Obama did.
Sunday, February 19, 2017
Rand Paul slams John McCain, says he would have bankrupted the country by now with perpetual war
McCain's in Munich slamming Trump as a dictator. McCain's proving everyday what a horrible president he would have made.
Senator Rand Paul, putting the embarrassing man in his place, here:
“He would bankrupt the nation. We’re very lucky John McCain’s not in charge, because I think we’d be in perpetual war,” Paul added.
Senator Rand Paul, putting the embarrassing man in his place, here:
“He would bankrupt the nation. We’re very lucky John McCain’s not in charge, because I think we’d be in perpetual war,” Paul added.
Nathan Lewis thinks pretty highly of Judy Shelton's book on the gold standard
Here:
Today, the Federal Reserve, with the blessing of Congress, large banks, and many others, has embarked on an open-ended policy of printing money on a daily basis, basically to fund the Federal government's budget deficit although no one may speak such things in name. These situations tend to end badly, and are soon followed -- as was the case with the United States in 1789, immediately after the Continental Dollar hyperinflation of the 1780s -- by a rigorous gold standard system, more along the lines of the other four proposals that Shelton identifies.
The biggest gold standard advocates are those who lived through a hyperinflation. It is easy to forget that the hard money advocates of 1789 -- Hamilton, Jefferson, et. al -- were actually the same people that were printing money to finance Federal budget deficits in the 1780s, in the guise of the Continental Congress. Oops. More recently, people like Ludwig von Mises, who lived through the Austrian hyperinflation of the 1920s, became the biggest gold standard advocates of the 20th century.
Larry Kudlow likes her a lot, too, and had her on his show yesterday. You can listen to the podcast about an hour and twenty in at wabcradio.com: Go to the Saturday schedule and scroll down for the podcast.
Saturday, February 18, 2017
Friday, February 17, 2017
CNBC and WaPo just plain lie: Cost of Air Force One alone under Obama was $577 million
But here's CNBC lying through its teeth, relying on WaPo lying through its teeth, putting the cost at less than 17% of that:
Trump's time in office could cost taxpayers "hundreds of millions of dollars or more," topping the estimated $97 million of travel-related expenses during the Obama administration, the Post reported.
Trump can fly to Mar-a-Lago and back every weekend for 9.2 years before he spends what Obama spent flying everywhere.
Michigan man outs sexual past of libertarian teacher in Texas on Facebook, gets her fired but only because she told on herself
Facebook. Why are you people on there again?
From the story, here:
DISD initially cleared her in an internal investigation last March, when officials first learned of her past. But the district didn’t move to terminate her until last fall. Woodward is active in the Libertarian Party, and a Michigan man took issue with one of her posts and “outed” her on Facebook. She was removed from the classroom after alerting the district about the man's action.
Up for reelection, sexist Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill gets out front early distancing herself from progressives even though she is one
“Many of those people are very impatient with me because they don't think I'm pure. For example, they think I should be voting against all of Trump's nominees and of course I'm judging each nominee on its own merit," she said.
Says the woman who gave her opponent Republican Todd Akin money in order to defeat him.
She's pure all right, pure trouble, deception and lies.
McCaskill gets a D- on immigration reduction from NumbersUSA here, and votes with conservatives in Congress only about 13% of the time, making her . . .
very liberal.
She backed same sex marriage. She backed Hillary Clinton. She might as well represent Connecticut.
Wake up, Missouri, ditch this bitch who thinks men should just shut the hell up.
She backed same sex marriage. She backed Hillary Clinton. She might as well represent Connecticut.
Wake up, Missouri, ditch this bitch who thinks men should just shut the hell up.
Story in the Daily Beast about rift between Obama's OFA and Democrat Party smells like a ruse to me
As in, move along, ignore the OFA, nothing to see here.
I don't think so.
The story here wants us to take seriously the idea that Democrat regulars have a very low opinion of Organizing for America. But every Democrat is cheering that this organization is putting hostile audiences at Republican townhall meetings to protest Trump, support Obamacare, promote immigration at airports, yada yada yada.
Democrat regulars will have to do better than a "leaked email" and some lies told with a wink and a nod.
Now we're talkin': Much of State Dept. 7th floor staff laid off
The Deep State at the State Dept. sent packing.
From the story here:
Much of seventh-floor staff, who work for the Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources and the Counselor offices, were told today that their services were no longer needed. ... Ambassador Kristie Kenney, the Counselor of the State Department and one of the last remaining senior officials, was informed that she will be let go. She is a career foreign service officer who had served as an ambassador under Presidents Obama, Bush and Clinton.
Thursday, February 16, 2017
Newsflash for those of you who think Trump's talk of an inherited mess is silly
You obviously had full-time work under Obama. We didn't for almost eight years, and not even part-time work for five. Our best money-saving work years are now all lost.
You obviously enjoyed the stock market recovery and even continued to invest, but we had to sell assets to preserve them and liquidate some just to survive.
Now we're stuck with non-income producing investments thanks to Ben and Janet and a stock market which is too expensive for a sane person to buy.
You obviously refinanced your mortgage at rock bottom rates, but we couldn't without that full-time job. And now that we can, it's hardly worth the expense thanks to Elizabeth Warren and her CFPB.
Meanwhile the gutters leak, the driveway needs paving, and the snowblower needs an overhaul.
You obviously drive on fresh wheels, but our cars are 10 and 20 years old in 2017. We'll probably keep them another ten because our mechanic is an honest Christian.
You obviously feel entitled to vacations and take them regularly, but we haven't had a real one since the 1990s.
You obviously enjoy dining out at restaurants, but we shop for bargains and cook at home almost every night.
You obviously consume healthcare like you do jet fuel, but we only go to a doctor, dentist, ENT or ophthalmologist when we absolutely have to because it's all out of pocket because of ObamaCare.
At Christmas we mostly give each other necessities, like new shirts socks and underwear, just so we have plenty of things to open to make the holiday seem more festive than it is.
We don't have television service because it's a costly waste of time, but for entertainment we enjoy listenting to Donald Trump on the radio dressing you down.
He's the best thing that's happened to us in years.
Of course Trump had the biggest electoral win since Reagan because no one expected the Hillary defections
Just as America turned its back on incumbent Democrat Jimmy Carter in 1980, so did America to Hillary Clinton, heir apparent, in 2016.
Trump was expected right up to the eve of the election to lose by between two to four points, and did end up losing by two points, except that he won enough states to win in the Electoral College 306-232 before faithless electors had their say.
Trump was expected right up to the eve of the election to lose by between two to four points, and did end up losing by two points, except that he won enough states to win in the Electoral College 306-232 before faithless electors had their say.
The magnitude of that was overwhelming because it was unexpected. We even had people predicting Trump would win the popular vote but end up losing to Hillary in the Electoral College.
It turned out exactly the opposite. Every honest person who stayed up until three in the morning watching it all unfold knows how unexpected was Trump's win in the Electoral College. Everyone on our side expected the worst . . . a decisive Hillary victory.
It turned out exactly the opposite. Every honest person who stayed up until three in the morning watching it all unfold knows how unexpected was Trump's win in the Electoral College. Everyone on our side expected the worst . . . a decisive Hillary victory.
The fact remains: Hillary underperformed Obama 2008 in 39 states because the people disliked her more than they disliked Trump.
And that's quite an accomplishment.
And that's quite an accomplishment.
Wednesday, February 15, 2017
Under pressure from Puritan Democrats, Puzder withdraws nomination to Labor Dept.
From the story here:
Over the last few weeks, Senate Democrats repeatedly hammered the CKE Restaurants executive for his business practices, like the risque advertising employed by fast food chains Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s.
The left takes over American institutions, then a lefty says . . .
"American Institutions Are Pushing Back Against Trump", to give the idea legitimacy.
Peter Beinart, here:
"[Flynn] lost his job because of an independent bureaucracy and a vigorous press."
What a joke. Beinart knows the bureaucracy is in the tank for the left, as is the press.
Repeating otherwise is his function.
Flynn lost his job because he was a Democrat who had the temerity to serve Trump after serving Obama.
ObamaCare Update: Trump policy induces IRS to say leave form 1040 line 61 blank if you want
From the story here:
The IRS was set to require filers to indicate whether they had maintained coverage in 2016 or paid the penalty by filling out line 61 on their form 1040s. Alternatively, they could claim exemption from the mandate by filing a form 8965.
For most filers, filling out line 61 would be mandatory. The IRS would not accept 1040s unless the coverage box was checked, or the shared responsibility payment noted, or the exemption form included. Otherwise they would be labeled "silent returns" and rejected.
Instead, however, filling out that line will be optional.
Earlier this month, the IRS quietly altered its rules to allow the submission of 1040s with nothing on line 61. The IRS says it still maintains the option to follow up with those who elect not to indicate their coverage status, although it's not clear what circumstances might trigger a follow up.
But what would have been a mandatory disclosure will instead be voluntary. Silent returns will no longer be automatically rejected. The change is a direct result of the executive order President Donald Trump issued in January directing the government to provide relief from Obamacare to individuals and insurers, within the boundaries of the law.
Forget "Where's Waldo?" Where's Obama's GDP?
Bush's GDP came to $102.87 trillion through calendar 2008, Bush's spending to $19.16 trillion through fiscal 2008, 18.62% of the total.
Together they averaged federal spending of 20% of GDP in response to 9/11 and the Panic of 2008, but it has gotten us nowhere except in deep kimchi.
Contrast their record with the 16 years before the Income Tax was passed, 1898-1913. It's a good comparison because the Panic of 1907 was a real crisis, in response to which the Congress foolishly introduced the Corporate Tax in 1909, and both the Income Tax and the Federal Reserve in 1913.
Federal spending over the whole prior period through 1913 was just 2.5% of GDP, 8 times less than now, yet GDP increased 142% despite a whopping 11% hit to GDP in 1908. GDP didn't recover from the Panic of 1907 until 1911, but it did so without any increased federal spending.
Fast forward to America's GDP hiccup from 2008 to 2009, which amounted to a measly 2.0% hit to GDP. GDP promptly recovered by 2010, yet all these yokels could deliver us was a total GDP increase of just 80% since the year 2000, 44% less robust than that period 100 years ago, before the advent of the bureaucratic state.
Put more sharply, Obama spent nearly $10 trillion more than Bush to solve a comparatively tiny $300 billion shortfall in GDP, but got nothing for it. Where, pray tell, did all the money go? Where is the GDP?
Put more sharply, Obama spent nearly $10 trillion more than Bush to solve a comparatively tiny $300 billion shortfall in GDP, but got nothing for it. Where, pray tell, did all the money go? Where is the GDP?
The spending excess has left us with a pile of debt which is now costing us $411 billion a year to service, 70% of the current Defense budget, despite the lowest interest rates in history.
At some point those rates will rise, and when they do, you'd better pray we still have a strong enough military to defend ourselves when the people we can no longer pay come a callin'.
There will be blood.
At some point those rates will rise, and when they do, you'd better pray we still have a strong enough military to defend ourselves when the people we can no longer pay come a callin'.
There will be blood.
Tuesday, February 14, 2017
Obama's GDP, $4.31 trillion, Obama's spending in excess of Bush's last year, $4.86 trillion
I don't know how to show a negative $550 billion Nothing Burger, so the regular Nothing Burger will have to do.
You want cheese with that?
Obama's Organizing for Action is behind the anti-Trump riots (used to be Organizing for America and Obama for America)
Paul Sperry, here:
Far from sulking, OFA activists helped organize anti-Trump marches across US cities, some of which turned into riots. After Trump issued a temporary ban on immigration from seven terror-prone Muslim nations, the demonstrators jammed airports, chanting: “No ban, no wall, sanctuary for all!”
Run by old Obama aides and campaign workers, federal tax records show “nonpartisan” OFA marshals 32,525 volunteers nationwide. Registered as a 501(c)(4), it doesn’t have to disclose its donors, but they’ve been generous. OFA has raised more than $40 million in contributions and grants since evolving from Obama’s campaign organization Obama for America in 2013.
Monday, February 13, 2017
Mnuchin confirmed to Treasury 53-47
Puzder to Labor is next.
24 days in and Democrats still won't let Trump form his government.
Hillary would have turned the entire federal judiciary into the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals
Michael Goodwin, here:
The activist judges who based their ruling on their liberal politics instead of the Constitution are the same kind she would appoint to the Supreme Court and all other federal courts if she were in the Oval Office.
Sunday, February 12, 2017
Newsmax' Chris Ruddy "over drinks" with the president, really?
One of President Trump’s longtime friends made a striking move on Sunday: After talking privately with the president over drinks late Friday, Christopher Ruddy publicly argued that Trump should replace his White House chief of staff [Reince Priebus].
Honestly, Trump is his own chief of staff. Priebus is his liason to the Speaker of the House.
Honestly, Trump is his own chief of staff. Priebus is his liason to the Speaker of the House.
Revulsion Election Update: Kansas City Star survey discovers revulsion for Hillary top reason people voted for Trump
Told ya.
Here:
Last week, I asked those who cast their vote for President Donald Trump to explain their choice in their own words. And respondents weren’t shy in the least. I was inundated with thoughtful replies — almost too many to read. It was Wednesday before I could come up for air.
It would be a serious understatement to say readers offered a wide variety of reasoning, but three general schools of thought stood out:
It’s the Clintons, stupid
Ron Gullickson put readers’ No. 1 reason most succinctly: “Let’s be clear. My vote was not a vote for Trump, but it was a vote against (Hillary) Clinton. Shame on both parties.”
Nancy McDowell wrote, “I voted for Donald Trump because I couldn’t stomach the Clintons back in the White House. ..."
Bryan Bauermeister wrote that he voted Trump “because I did not want Hillary Clinton as president of the United States. That’s what it boils down to. …"
Jan Bentley’s reasoning was varied . . . "I did not want to vote for him but the choice was horrid, so I voted against Hillary. Because I want the next Supreme Court justices to be conservatives. Because of Clinton fatigue. The Clintons are far too ethically challenged.”
Mike Henggeler . . . "So why did I want to stop the Clintons so badly? I was born in 1954, raised by staunch Democrat parents and, until a few months ago, was registered as a Democrat (now independent). The Democratic Party of today bears little resemblance to what it used to be. It doesn’t stand for anything except itself and what it thinks it needs to do to win. And right there you have the Clintons, who have shown time and again that they will say anything and steamroll anyone who gets in their way.”
Jean Atwell cited Hillary Clinton’s reaction to her husband’s affairs. “I might have considered Clinton if she hadn’t stayed with a man who publicly humiliated her and her daughter,” she wrote. “She tells women that it is all right to stay with a man if it can possibly get you further in politics.”
Ross Douthat might as well write for The New Republic instead of The New York Times
Here, sounding just like Brian Beutler:
[R]ight now [Trump's] presidency is in danger of being very swiftly Carterized — ending up so unpopular, ineffectual and fractious that even with Congress controlled by its own party, it can’t get anything of substance done. ... [T]he more the Trump White House remains mired in its own melodramas, the more plausible it becomes that the Trump-era House and Senate set a record for risk avoidance and legislative inactivity.
Yeah, 23 days in and he's already a failure because there's no . . . wait for it . . . [infrastructure] spending bill and a tax cut bill, the two great incompatibles which Gallup says most people want.
Isn't The New York Times supposed to be wiser than that, admonishing that you can't have your cake and eat it too? Well, its so-called conservatives at least should be so wise.
The fact of the matter is the Gallup poll result, which is the same as the Douthat wish list, reveals the bipartisan nature of Trump's support. The people who support increased spending and the people who want tax cuts populate two different political parties. Perhaps Douthat has heard of them? Getting them to agree on this stuff is going to take a lot more time than 23 days. It took Barack Obama over four years to come up with his tax cut. Unfortunately for Obama it was Bush's tax cut, not delivered by Dingy Harry and San Fran Nan but by John Boehner at the dawn of 2013. What Harry and Nancy did immediately deliver was jacked up "infrastructure" spending within a month of 44's inauguration, adding a $700 billion increase to Bush 2009 fiscal year spending, making the one time stimulus a permanent part of the budget.
It is the biggest untold scandal since the Fed secretly lent trillions and trillions of dollars to the world at rock bottom prices on questionable collateral during the financial crisis from 2008-2010.
Because Republicans took the House in 2010, that additional $700 billion got no higher, but what do we have to show for it after increasing outlays $700 billion in 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016?
Where's the infrastructure after eight years and $5.6 trillion in increased spending?
Another trillion dollars will accomplish nothing.
Meanwhile Trump is delivering to his base, which is the first thing he must do, rescinding Obama executive orders, undercutting the ObamaCare mandate as Congress prepares its repeal, actually laying the groundwork to build The Wall (infrastructure!), rounding up criminal aliens (the horror) and trying to reduce terrorism threats which exist because of a chaotic immigration system, except the courts the enemy is trying to stop him.
He's also vilifying the media whom we also hate every chance he gets, and now the judiciary, the tag team which advances liberalism against the will of the people who overwhelmingly support Trump 2600 counties to 500 counties for the enemy.
And most of all, he's not being Hillary.
It's been a great 23 days.
Saturday, February 11, 2017
The Courts had and have absolutely no business ruling on the president's travel ban, wrote FDR's former attorney general
Noted here:
Writing for the Supreme Court in 1948 (in Chicago & Southern Air Lines v. Waterman), Justice Robert Jackson — FDR’s former attorney general and the chief prosecutor at Nuremburg — explained that decisions involving foreign policy, including alien threats to national security, are “political, not judicial” in nature. Thus, they are
wholly confided by our Constitution to the political departments of the government, Executive and Legislative. They are delicate, complex, and involve large elements of prophecy. They are and should be undertaken only by those directly responsible to the people whose welfare they advance or imperil. They are decisions of a kind for which the Judiciary has neither aptitude, facilities nor responsibility and have long been held to belong in the domain of political power not subject to judicial intrusion or inquiry.
Democrats put their boot on the neck of Republicans, blame them for not getting up
So Brian Beutler, here in "The Republicans Are Off to a Pitiful Start: They control the government, but their Faustian bargain with Trump has been a miserable failure thus far":
"By this time in 2009, Obama . . .."
"By February 17, he had signed . . .."
"Trump has thus far signed one bill . . .."
Friday, February 10, 2017
Trump to issue new immigration order, defend previous one but not before Supremes
Reported one hour ago, here.
White working class is lazy says the guy who's bustin' the buttons on his shirt
Bill Kristol, here:
Weekly Standard editor-at-large Bill Kristol said Tuesday afternoon that the white working class should be replaced by immigrants as they have become “decadent, lazy” and “spoiled.”
Thursday, February 9, 2017
The New York Sun says Gorsuch lost his bearings too easily in a storm, suggests he ought to be yanked
Huzzah.
Hurry.
Here:
It would not be surprising, though, were Mr. Trump to turn around and yank Judge Gorsuch’s nomination and send up to the Senate a candidate who can keep his or her cool.
Conrad Black warns that judges can evolve unpredictably
I predict Gorsuch will be no different simply because of the way he was quick to grovel before Sen. Blumenthal.
Here:
Once in a life sinecure, judges often evolve unpredictably. President Gerald Ford named John Paul Stevens to the Supreme Court as a conservative, and he eventually became one of the most left-wing judges in the Court’s history, making William O. Douglas seem like “Hanging Judge” Jeffreys in comparison.
Richard Nixon had a similar experience with Harry Blackmun, and John F. Kennedy named Byron White to the high court as a liberal and he proved quite conservative. Judge Robart has metamorphosed into another northwestern liberal, seizing most opportunities to utter rabble-rousing left-wing battle cries.
Byron York: Both sides ignorant, 60 born in the seven countries in Trump's EO were convicted of terror crimes
Here:
Last year the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest released information showing that at least 60 people born in the seven countries had been convicted — not just arrested, but convicted — of terror-related offenses in the United States since Sept. 11, 2001. And that number did not include more recent cases like Abdul Artan, a Somali refugee who wounded 11 people during a machete attack on the campus of Ohio State University last November.
So the talking point wasn't true. And yet at the 9th Circuit oral argument, the judges appeared to believe it was true, and Justice Department lawyer August Flentje didn't know enough to correct them.
Wednesday, February 8, 2017
Stephen Curry thinks he's just oh so precious
About as authentic as 100% polyester.
Story here.
What's next from CNBC, an interview with a food server disgruntled with Trump?
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals is taking so long because they know Trump's right
Coming up with a work around takes time.
Hey Neil Gorsuch, 30 states are pretty demoralized that their laws defining marriage were overturned by a few judges in DC
Neil Gorsuch, who just disqualified himself for not knowing the meaning of abhorrent, should have kept his big fat yap shut, here:
“I told him how abhorrent Donald Trump’s invective and insults are towards the judiciary. And he said to me that he found them ‘disheartening’ and ‘demoralizing’ – his words,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D- Conn.) said in an interview.
Gorsuch “stated very emotionally and strongly his belief in his fellow judges’ integrity and the principle of judicial independence,” he added. “And I made clear to him that that belief requires him to be stronger and more explicit, more public in his views.”
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