Insane SECDEF to open all combat jobs to women: So when will 18-year old girls be required to register for the draft?

After all, fair is fair. Women will never be equal to men until they are liable to the draft just like men.

Story here:

"Defense Secretary Ash Carter will order the military to open all combat jobs to women, and is giving the armed services until Jan. 1 to submit plans to make the historic change, the Associated Press has learned."

Hillary retells the lie about trying to join the Marines in 1975, Glenn Kessler doesn't do the math

From WaPo, here:

“He looks at me and goes, ‘Um, how old are you. And I said, ‘Well I am 26, I will be 27.’ And he goes, ‘Well, that is kind of old for us.’ And then he says to me, and this is what gets me, ‘Maybe the dogs will take you,’ meaning the Army.” –Former secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton, speaking at a breakfast, Manchester, N.H., Nov. 10, 2015

One Clinton story that has often been greeted with skepticism is her claim, first made in 1994, that she once tried to join the Marines in 1975. On the campaign trail, she brought up the story again [... above].

Can this story be confirmed?

For the reasons given Kessler gives the claim two Pinocchios out of four for truthfulness, "subject to change if more information becomes available."

More information?

When Hillary got married to Bill Clinton October 11, 1975 ("Let's see, what should I do, quit both my jobs at the University of Arkansas and my private law practice and join the Marines, or get married to Bill Clinton?"), she was two weeks from her 28th birthday, not her 27th.

She wasn't 26, going on 27, as she claimed this week.

Not only that, a recruiter from the era went on the record years ago stating the military was desperate for bodies at the time, taking people up to age 35, and that the Marines never made quota until the Iranian hostage crisis of 1979.

Add two Pinocchios, and the whole damn woodshop.

h/t Chris Plante

Libertarian Paul Ryan, disgusting traitor, advances immigration bill to bypass cap on guest workers in order to employ Obama's illegal hordes

From the story here:

'The cap exemption on the H-2B expired in 2007. At the time, it doubled the number but it could as much as quadruple, legislative sources told WND. This is the same way the total number of existing H-1B visa workers got so much higher than the annual inflow. The H-2B visa program, though referred to as a “seasonal” guest worker program it is not an agricultural guest worker program. “These are explicitly non-farm jobs, often for lower-skilled work but also middle class jobs,” the source told WND. “Of course, because we don’t have a visa-tracking system and the president is not enforcing over-stay rules, it increases another avenue to add to the illegal population.”'

WaPo Gen Xer drinks climate Kool-Aid, attacks Baby Boomers for causing global warming and running up the $18 trillion debt

spotted headed to Mt. Rushmore

Here:

"Boomers soaked up a lot of economic opportunity without bothering to preserve much for the generations to come. They burned a lot of cheap fossil fuels, filled the atmosphere with heat-trapping gases, and will probably never pay the costs of averting catastrophic climate change or helping their grandchildren adapt to a warmer world. They took control of Washington at the turn of the millennium, and they used it to rack up a lot of federal debt, even before the Great Recession hit."

Substitute "liberals" everytime you see "boomers" in the essay and it makes a lot more sense than attacking your parents per se. Instead the author prefers to commit Maoism in "Baby boomers are what’s wrong with America’s economy". 

Meanwhile, exporting good jobs and importing cheap labor were artifacts of the 1960s revolution, advanced by people who were fellow travelers under FDR. The height of the baby boom generation was what, aged 10 in 1967? 

In the end, Jim Tankersley can't add and subtract, but what his father gave him for Christmas in 2012 for his patricidal thesis says it all:

"After I first outlined this argument to my father in 2012, he gifted me an actual lump of coal for Christmas."

Well done, Dad! The earth remains full of coal, especially American earth, ensuring energy independence as far as the eye can see, as well as oil and natural gas and . . . thorium! If only we'll use it. 

It makes more sense to rely on these going forward because they remain so plentiful, employing technologies to make them harmless to human health, invented by smart people from every generation.

But if a Maunder Minimum ensues in 2030, we might not care as much about the health as the warmth.

Rush Limbaugh: 94 million not in labor force are ALL on welfare, ALL have an EBT card, ALL getting food stamps, ALL getting disability

Today, here, with the right's version of The Big Lie:

"We don't have 5% unemployment. We've got 20% unemployment.  Bob, we have 94 million Americans not working, not in the labor force.  They're all on welfare, Bob, one way or another.  You are talking about vandals basically coming in and ripping you off at the laundromat.  Half of this country is on welfare, Bob. That's another reason why people aren't talking about it.  Half the country that votes is on welfare, and they vote for Santa Claus, Bob. And to them, you're Santa Claus.  And you're...

"I can understand exactly why you want to sell the business and get out of there.  It's probably being stolen from you.  Customers in there get harassed by people that want to commit vandalism or crime in there.  I have total understanding, relatability, sympathy for what you're going through.  But we've succeeded in letting so many people... Bob, 94 million Americans not working, and they all have an EBT card. They're all getting food stamps. They're all getting some form -- many of them -- of disability."

As usual Paul Krugman is full of crap about Republicans and jobs

Here:

"[P]rivate-sector employment is eight million higher than it was when Barack Obama took office, twice the job gains achieved under his predecessor before the recession struck."

When Barack Obama took office, W-2 employment stood at 155.4 million, and promptly fell 4.5 million. At the end of 2014 it stands at 158.2 million, 2.8 million higher than at the end of 2008, not 8 million higher.

At the same point in his presidency, George W. Bush had added 5.8 million W-2 jobs, and 7.3 million by the end of it.

Big mistake: Donald Trump says he's 100% in favor of ethanol

The Donald, quoted here on September 22nd:

'Trump said that he supports the RFS at Iowa’s Faith and Freedom Forum, “I am totally in favor of ethanol, 100 percent.” This is the first time Trump gave his stance on the topic publicly.'

So far this only amounts to Trump supporting the current Renewable Fuel Standard signed into law by George W. Bush in 2005, but that's still bad policy. Ethanol is inefficient as a fuel, bad for engines and does zero to reduce carbon emissions. It diverts corn from animal feed, driving up the cost of food supplies from beef, pork and poultry, and from corn added to other products. Ethanol also makes it more lucrative to put more and more land into corn production than would otherwise be the case, potentially stressing the environment.

Arguably Ben Carson's success in Iowa over Trump in part has to do with Carson's pledge to push for 30% ethanol fuel blends, a tripling of the current standard.

The crony capitalism involved with ethanol is YUGE, making Iowa more important politically than it otherwise would be were it not for federal gasoline dictates:

"Iowa produces nearly one-third of the nation’s ethanol and nearly half of Iowa’s corn goes into ethanol production, according to the Iowa Corn Growers Association.

"Iowa’s renewable fuels industry, which includes biodiesel production, supports 47,000 jobs and accounts for $5 billion of the state’s gross domestic product, according to the Iowa Renewable Fuels Association."

That's about 3.2% of 2014 Iowa GDP.

Nebraska estimates Iowa production capacity at 25% of the nation's capability, ahead of Nebraska in second at 13%. Illinois, Minnesota, Indiana and South Dakota round out the top six, who all exceed the 1 billion gallon level of capacity per year. At 10.8 billion gallons of available capacity, the top six states produce almost as much as they can at 10.6 billion gallons, over 70% of total national production.

A number of the current crop of Republicans running for president is more or less opposed to ethanol:

"Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, Carly Fiorina, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, former New York Gov. George Pataki and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio have all expressed interest in eliminating or phasing out the ethanol mandate that requires a certain percentage of ethanol in transportation fuel."

Trump's position may reflect a conviction that he generally needs to be supportive of ethanol in these states to win them in the general election even though it appears Carson has outbid him in the primary season.

Rush Limbaugh thinks the 46 million on food stamps are the U-3 "counted" unemployed, many of whom actually can and do work

Yesterday, here:

"Today, there are 46 million Americans unemployed, and 94 million not working. Now, these 46 million people, these are the counted unemployed. This is the U-3 number. The counted unemployed represent 14% of the population."

Limbaugh somehow gets this convoluted mess from here, which he cites but which clearly states the 46 million are those on food stamps, not the U-3 "counted" unemployed:

"The reason you don’t see huge lines of people waiting in soup lines during this Greater Depression is because the government has figured out how to disguise suffering through modern technology. During the height of the Great Depression in 1933, there were 12.8 million Americans unemployed. These were the men pictured in the soup lines. Today, there are 46 million Americans in an electronic soup kitchen line, as their food is distributed through EBT cards (with that angel of mercy JP Morgan reaping billions in profits by processing the transactions). These 46 million people represent 14% of the U.S. population." 

In the latest Employment Situation Summary from the Bureau of Labor Statistics for September, those actually counted as unemployed are listed at 7.915 million (2.5% of the population) and the not counted as unemployed at 1.9 million:

"In September, the unemployment rate held at 5.1 percent, and the number of unemployed persons (7.9 million) changed little. Over the year, the unemployment rate and the number of unemployed persons were down by 0.8 percentage point and 1.3 million, respectively. (See table A-1.) . . . In September, 1.9 million persons were marginally attached to the labor force, down by 305,000 from a year earlier. (The data are not seasonally adjusted.) These individuals were not in the labor force, wanted and were available for work, and had looked for a job sometime in the prior 12 months. They were not counted as unemployed because they had not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey. (See table A-16.)"

U-3 is not a number in millions as Limbaugh says but a rate, the percentage of the labor force which is unemployed (7.915 million / 156.715 million), namely 5.1%.

Limbaugh doesn't understand that lots of employed people get food stamps. Individuals grossing up to $15,312 annually can still qualify for assistance.

Almost 49 million individuals made up to but not more than $15,000 annually in 2014.

The unemployed in Sept. 2015 numbered 7.9 million

U-3 is a percentage

Conservative news sarcasm alert: 97% of those 94.6 million not in the labor force aren't lazy bums after all

They're the 92 million who are in high school, college, and graduate school full-time, or who are raising the kids at home, or are disabled, or are over 65 years of age, retired and drawing Social Security.

Just 3% don't fit into any of those categories, or about 2.8 million people, that's it.

These are the  truly "marginally attached" who aren't counted as unemployed.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics says about them:

"These individuals were not in the labor force, wanted and were available for work, and had looked for a job sometime in the prior 12 months. They were not counted as unemployed because they had not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey."

The BLS estimates they number 1.9 million in September. This analysis puts them about a million higher than that. Both can't be right but the margin of error is only 1%.

The government's estimate is close enough, I'd say.

Conservative news sarcasm alert: 2% of those 94.6 million lazy bums not in the labor force who eat but don't work pursue graduate degrees full-time

Conservative news sarcasm alert: 13% of those 94.6 million lazy bums not in the labor force who eat but don't work stay home to raise the kids

10.4 million mothers and 2 million fathers stayed home to raise kids in 2012

Conservative news sarcasm alert: 11.5% of those 94.6 million lazy bums not in the labor force who eat but don't work are disabled working-age people

Conservative news sarcasm alert: 12% of those 94.6 million lazy bums not in the labor force who eat but don't work are in college full-time

Conservative news sarcasm alert: 13% of those 94.6 million lazy bums not in the labor force who eat but don't work are high school sophomores, juniors and seniors

Conservative news sarcasm alert: 46% of those 94.6 million lazy bums not in the labor force who eat but don't work are over 65 drawing Social Security

The anatomy of an ideologue: Right winger Ace of Spades is a manipulative hope peddler, just like Obama

But dumber than Obama because he comes right out and admits it, here:

One of the things that political movements offer its [sic] adherents, similar to religious movements, is hope. The fecklessness, failures, and flat-out betrayals of the current GOP leadership has [sic] destroyed all hope in the GOP. And a political movement without hope is not a political movement at all; it is simply an advocacy organization for getting a very small number of people cush jobs in the federal government. If there is to be any hope permitted to the rank and file of the Republican Party, then we need big changes that permit us the illusion and fantasy of hope, without which we are nothing at all, just dejected former Republican voters. ... Hope requires a change -- Kevin McCarthy, Steve Scalise, and Cathy McMorris-Rogers are no change at all; they are simply John Boehner's less accomplished inferior employees. ... And if you want to entice the alienated back into the fold, you have to at least let us dream of the possibility of actual change. That requires allowing us hope -- and not simply doubling-down on the current crop of failures and fainthearts we are obligated, sourly, to call our "leadership." Hope is a silly illusion, but it is a necessary, sustaining silly illusion.

Textbook George W. Bush that, trying to fight ideology with a better ideology, except the right doesn't have a better ideology. Better ideology is an oxymoron because you can't just bottle up and export what it took 500 years to develop on these shores and expect it to work elsewhere, or even here the same way it used to. Nor can you tell your fellow Americans that the people they are happy to keep reelecting don't represent them when they do and hope to succeed in getting them to follow you instead. We had the government we deserve and 30 malcontents just got rid of our leader who gave us $3.25 trillion reasons to be pretty happy with him.

I predict the president who was reduced to playing the tyrant to get his way as John Boehner gently strung him along will act more boldly now that he's gone and Republicans are in disarray and are about to crack up. Obama has nothing left to lose.

Charles C. W. Cooke embraces the impotence of contemporary conservatism faced with Donald Trump

Where else but in National Review here, the locus of conservatism as ineffectual cult and ideology, which finds it impossible to revolt against anything except for the rebels:

As it happens, Trump’s critics do grasp the appeal [of revolt]. What they do not do, however, is act upon it in this manner. The temptation to deliver a bloody nose to one’s ideological enemies is a human and comprehensible one, by no means limited in its allure to the disgruntled part of the Republican primary electorate. But temptation and reasonable conduct are two separate things entirely, and they should always be treated as such. Can one understand the instinct that is on display? Sure. Can one look beneath the surface and do anything other than despair? I’m afraid not. Such as they are, the explanations provided by Trump’s discordant choir are entirely risible and easily dismantled. Great, you’re annoyed! But then what?

He's obviously proud of it. In 1776 he'd be called a royalist.

Was taking up arms against England "reasonable conduct"? Only a Catholic sensibility could fail to grasp the point. "But then what?" Well, a long war of several years, full of privations and without guaranty of success, followed by another long period of several years preparing for and culminating in a constitutional convention, during which local and colonial institutions were strong enough to support the absence of a centralized framework. The same is still true today, if only the locals more frequently told the federal courts to go to hell, as the Kentucky county clerk recently did.

By definition, an ideology ought to have some ideas in it which form a system, and should be, when all is said and done, unrealistic. That pretty much describes American conservatism since forever: unable to roll back anything, including the income tax, direct election of Senators, universal suffrage, the Federal Reserve Act, the Reapportionment Act of 1929, Social Security, Medicare, the minimum wage, Obamacare, and the enormous regulatory code, and unable to permanently refound the country on any constitutional principles, say, of limited government or separation of powers. Conservatism has a massive record of zero achievement while liberalism's untruths keep marching on like tanks in Tiananmen Square.

Trump's camp, meanwhile, thinks three modest things: the way to make America great again is to restore law and order by starting with enforcing its borders and putting an end to illegal immigration, to bring jobs back to Americans by reforming the tax code, developing energy independence, cutting wasteful spending and punishing unpatriotic corporations who profit from exporting jobs, and to rebuild the military to protect freedom at home and for our friends and allies abroad.

It takes near religious nuttery to call the proponent of these measures "a self-interested narcissist and serial heretic whose entirely inchoate political platform bends cynically to the demands of the moment."

To understand Trump, it takes a village . . . of Protestants.

Rush Limbaugh expresses astonishment that Germany will accept 500,000 refugees annually

Limbaugh said in the last half hour that he looked into it and discovered Germany's birthrate is so low they're happy to have the refugees as future workers.

How long will it take this doofus to figure out that our declining labor force is the result of retirees who aren't being replaced because our birthrates were also too low for too long?

The Baby Boom between 1946 and 1966 produced 83.1 million births. Unfortunately Baby Boomers produced just 72.6 million births from 1967 to 1987, a shortfall of 10.5 million or 12.6%.

What it means is there are 500,000 fewer replacements every year on average for retiring Baby Boomers, about 85% of whom more or less survive to retirement age.

Trump comes out swinging with illegal immigration policy paper

Here.

Grab your box of Depends. The Donald means business.

Some highlights:

• Triple the number of ICE officers
• Implement nationwide e-verify
• Mandatory deportation of all criminal aliens
• No more catch and release
• Cut-off federal funds to sanctuary cities
• Criminalize visa overstays
• Deploy ICE with local police in gang raids
• End birthright citizenship
• Increase prevailing wage requirements for H-1B visas to stem the tide of foreign hires at US workers' expense
• Immigrants must prove they are self-supporting
• Terminate the jobs program for foreign youth
• Suspend issuance of green cards to foreign workers until employment improves for citizens
• Make Mexico pay for the wall, or impound remittances derived from illegal wages ($22 billion in 2013) and increase fees on temporary visas of Mexican CEOs and diplomats, on all border crossing cards, on NAFTA worker visas and at all ports of entry from Mexico
• Generally restore the rule of law and order by actually enforcing existing laws

The whopper of the day is from Jennifer Rubin: "The last thing Roger Ailes and company want is to see Trump disappear"

Jennifer Rubin in a piece of agitprop in WaPo here, the same person who told us last December that traditional conservatives, not libertarians, would have the upper hand in the GOP primary.

They do, so far, and boy is she unhappy about it.

Borders, law and order, respect for American power abroad and jobs for American citizens at home are the front-runner's winning themes.

Which is why libertarians, "a small percent of the electorate", are trying to destroy Donald Trump.