Hillary Clinton admits she destroyed the evidence by wiping her server clean

Politico reports the story here, featuring an unflattering photograph of Hillary, reminiscent of Miss Piggy.

Obstruction of justice.

Now Scott Walker wants us to believe "legal status" isn't amnesty

Scott Walker remains soft on illegal immigration.

He doesn't want to punish law-breakers, pure and simple, but instead reward them with "legal status", if not citizenship.

Big deal. Grow a pair, pal.

The New York Times reports here.

Best thing to happen in the US Senate in years: Dingy Harry won't run for reelection in 2016

Don't get injured on the way out the door, Harry.

Free-trade has hollowed out the middle class

So reports Noah Smith, here:

"[T]here is a growing body of research showing that globalization -- and, in particular, the rise of China -- has been the biggest factor hollowing out the American middle class." 

Obama is derelict in his duty, snubs new head of NATO

And the irony is Norway's Stoltenberg hates Israel as much as Obama does. Maybe Stoltenberg is too much of a right wing socialist for Obama.

Reported here by Josh Rogin:

"President Barack Obama has yet to meet with the new head of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and won't see Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg this week, even though he is in Washington for three days.  Stoltenberg’s office requested a meeting with Obama well in advance of the visit, but never heard anything from the White House, two sources close to the NATO chief told me." 

And you thought "Dewey, Cheatham & Howe" was funny

Hillary Clinton and her merry band of secretive aides all used private email to avoid leaving a public trail, contrary to what she claimed

Jake Sullivan

From The New York Times here:

Huma Abedin

"Mrs. Clinton’s top aides at times corresponded with her about State Department matters from their personal email accounts, raising questions about her recent assertions that she made it her practice to email aides at their government addresses so the messages would be preserved, in compliance with federal record-keeping regulations. ...

Philippe Reines

"Mr. Gowdy’s committee is also likely to press Mrs. Clinton on why her advisers occasionally used personal email accounts to communicate with her. At least four of Mrs. Clinton’s closest advisers at the State Department did so, including her chief of staff, Cheryl Mills; senior adviser, Philippe Reines; personal aide, Huma Abedin; and Mr. [Jake] Sullivan."

Cheryl Mills

A pretty good litany of the grievances so far, with 21 months to go

From Michael Goodwin, here:

'First he comes for the banks and health care, uses the IRS to go after critics, politicizes the Justice Department, spies on journalists, tries to curb religious freedom, slashes the military, throws open the borders, doubles the debt and nationalizes the Internet.

'He lies to the public, ignores the Constitution, inflames race relations and urges Latinos to punish Republican “enemies.” He abandons our ­allies, appeases tyrants, coddles ­adversaries and uses the Crusades as an excuse for inaction as Islamist terrorists slaughter their way across the Mideast.'

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Nothing much in there, though, about the housing catastrophe, the jobs debacle, the worst economic growth in the post-war, loss of travel freedoms, the capture of the two political parties by big business, and spying on the public in general, but hey, no one's perfect.

ObamaCare's unequal treatment of Americans under the tax law illustrated

Some people who didn't deserve a tax credit are going to get to keep it anyway because of the government's own incompetence administering the credits. I'm sure this makes people who didn't get a credit feel all warm and fuzzy about ObamaCare.

Seen here:

"The White House has said the error could result in some people receiving a tax credit meant to subsidize health insurance coverage by mistake. 

"On Friday, it said people who received the tax credit and had already filed their taxes based on the incorrect forms would not have to refile and could keep the extra tax credit."

-------------------------------------------------------------

So too bad for you if you haven't already filed your taxes. The corrected form is in the mail and you are obligated to incorporate it in your return.

Former environmental activist takes aim at anthropogenic global warming

AGW gets a dressing down from Greenpeace co-founder Patrick Moore, Ph.D. in ecology, of Rainbow Warrior fame, here:

"[T]he Earth has been warming very gradually for 300 years, since the Little Ice Age ended, long before heavy use of fossil fuels. Prior to the Little Ice Age, during the Medieval Warm Period, Vikings colonized Greenland and Newfoundland, when it was warmer there than today. And during Roman times, it was warmer, long before fossil fuels revolutionized civilization.

"The idea it would be catastrophic if carbon dioxide were to increase and average global temperature were to rise a few degrees is preposterous. ...

"Over the past 150 million years, carbon dioxide had been drawn down steadily (by plants) from about 3,000 parts per million to about 280 parts per million before the Industrial Revolution. If this trend continued, the carbon dioxide level would have become too low to support life on Earth. Human fossil fuel use and clearing land for crops have boosted carbon dioxide from its lowest level in the history of the Earth back to 400 parts per million today.

"At 400 parts per million, all our food crops, forests, and natural ecosystems are still on a starvation diet for carbon dioxide. The optimum level of carbon dioxide for plant growth, given enough water and nutrients, is about 1,500 parts per million, nearly four times higher than today. Greenhouse growers inject carbon-dioxide to increase yields. Farms and forests will produce more if carbon-dioxide keeps rising.

"We have no proof increased carbon dioxide is responsible for the earth’s slight warming over the past 300 years. There has been no significant warming for 18 years while we have emitted 25 per cent of all the carbon dioxide ever emitted. Carbon dioxide is vital for life on Earth and plants would like more of it."

Drudge runs story White House can't spell, as if he can

I've only published the Drudge flubs which amused me at the time, under the label "Drudge". But there have been countless others.

Kimberley Strassel detects a sign of a spine in Mitch McConnell on the Lynch AG appointment

Kim is smart as ever and looking good

From her Wall Street Journal column here:

Mr. McConnell made clear that so long as he didn’t get his trafficking bill, Democrats didn’t get Ms. Lynch. He would devote the rest of this week to the Cornyn-Klobuchar legislation, next week would be about the budget, the week after that would be Easter recess, and so on. Let’s hope Ms. Lynch enjoys Sudoku. No give, no get.

Grover Norquist is full of malarkey: G.H.W. Bush accepted the Profiles in Courage Award for raising taxes!

Seen here.

























Bush 41 might have regretted what he did in 1992, but by 2014 he and his family were all too happy with the strange new respect award from the liberal Kennedy clan.

Hey Rush! Bibi was just kidding about that about-face on a two-state solution!

Quoted here in The New York Times:

Mr. Netanyahu said he had not intended to reverse his endorsement in a 2009 speech at Bar-Ilan University of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but only to say that it was impossible right now. He cited the Palestinian leadership’s refusal to recognize Israel as a Jewish state and its pact with the militant Islamist Hamas movement, as well as the rise of Islamic terrorism across the region.

“I haven’t changed my policy,” Mr. Netanyahu said in an interview with MSNBC, his first since his resounding victory on Tuesday, which handed him a fourth term. “What has changed is the reality.”

“I want a sustainable, peaceful two-state solution, but for that, circumstances have to change,” he said. “I was talking about what is achievable and what is not achievable. To make it achievable, then you have to have real negotiations with people who are committed to peace.”

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The "peace process" is very useful also to Israeli liberals. Even they can make a career of it.

Dick Durbin knows all about the back of the bus: He and 12 other Democrats voted against the first African-American woman Condoleezza Rice for Secretary of State in 2005

The Washington Post reported here at the time:

The Senate voted 85 to 13 to confirm Condoleezza Rice as secretary of state, providing the most negative votes cast against a nominee for that post in 180 years.

Maybe if Dick and Dirty Harry had gotten their shit together last fall Loretta Lynch could already have been confirmed as the first African-American female Attorney General.

From the AP story here:

Lynch was nominated last fall and Democrats are growing increasingly agitated over the holdup in confirming her, although they were in control of the Senate for some of that time. "Loretta Lynch, the first African-American woman nominated to be attorney general, is asked to sit in the back of the bus when it comes to the Senate calendar," Durbin said. "That is unfair. It's unjust. It is beneath the decorum and dignity of the United States Senate."

It's not like Obama didn't have plenty of time to fill the position while Democrats still had control of the Senate. Eric Holder resigned in late September 2014, and Obama didn't nominate Lynch until after Democrats had taken a good thrashing at the polls on November 4th.

What a shock: Big Sis thinks students' protests are crap

That's also what she thought about objections to speed cameras in Arizona, and to surveillance by Homeland Security generally and to naked scanners at airports specifically.

The arrogance is par for the course with liberals.

Video here.

Outgoing US Attorney Ron Machen has stonewalled Lerner contempt case for 10 months, as has Obama

From the story here:

Ronald Machen, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia appointed by President Obama and set to step down next month, has not acted on a contempt of Congress charge for former IRS official Lois Lerner. 

Machen, who announced at the beginning of the week he'd step down April 1 to return to private practice, has not referred Lerner's case to a grand jury. Her contempt citation for not testifying at two hearings has been in Machen's hands since May 2014. ...

The Obama administration has also not publicly released hundreds of documents related to the IRS's targeting of Tea Party groups.

M'bala M'bala of France gets two months in jail, suspended, just for saying he's Charlie Coulibaly

The cartoonist Coco let the terrorists into the offices of Charlie Hebdo.

The story is here.

Condoning terrorism is punishable in France, unless you work for Charlie Hebdo.

Hey Rush! The only people who really believe in a two-state solution are liberals like George W. Bush, right?

From today's Rush Limbaugh show, here:

So you terrorize Israel with bombs from Gaza and bombs from Hamas and bombs from Hezbollah, and then while the peace process is going on you then demand the right of return.  And both of those stratagems are designed to effectively bring about the end of the Jewish state.  The people who believe in this two-state solution, like our caller here from the last hour, the only people who really believe in it are Western liberals such as American liberals, Western European socialist liberals.

Dateline Washington, December 2008, here:

US President George W. Bush summed up eight years of his administration's affairs in the Middle East on Friday, and said he still believed that "the day will come when the map of the Middle East shows a peaceful, secure Israel beside a peaceful and democratic Palestine. I was the first American President to call for a Palestinian state, and building support for the two-state solution has been one of the highest priorities of my Presidency."

Bibi beats Obama by six points

Story here.

The American Conservative is still a conmag

Oh yeah, like "relations" with Iran haven't been poisoned since the time of Jimmy Carter.

Hillary Clinton should be in jail, not running for president

From Ronald D. Rotunda, here:

Whether or not Mrs. Clinton violated a State Department rule, her admitted destruction of more than 30,000 emails sure looks like obstruction of justice—a serious violation of the criminal law. Let’s consider some of the basic, undisputed facts, and then the law.

First, Mrs. Clinton was worried that communicating through email would leave a trail that might be subject to subpoena. “As much as I’ve been investigated and all of that,” she said in 2000, “why would I ever want to do email?” But when she became secretary of state, she didn’t have much choice. So she set up a private server in her house. That way, in the event of an investigation, she could control which emails would be turned over. ...

By her own admission, Mrs. Clinton destroyed more than 30,000 emails once the subpoenas started coming in. She claims that she only destroyed personal records. Team Clinton initially explained that her work emails were separated from her personal emails using keyword searches. Now, after the outcry about how much this method might have missed, Mrs. Clinton is insisting that every email was individually read before the deletion. ...

The law says that no one has to use email, but it is a crime (18 U.S.C. section 1519) to destroy even one message to prevent it from being subpoenaed. Prosecutors charging someone with obstruction don’t even have to establish that any investigation was pending or under way when the deletion took place. As T. Markus Funk explained in a journal article for the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, the prosecutor “need only prove that the defendant shredded the documents, at least in part, to make life more difficult for future investigators, if and when they eventually appear.”

Legal commentators call this “anticipatory obstruction of justice,” and the law punishes it with up to 20 years imprisonment. The burden of proof is light. The Justice Department manual advises that section 1519 makes prosecution much easier because it covers “any matters” or “’in relation to or contemplation of’ any matters.” It adds, “No corrupt persuasion is required.”

The completely daft and utterly ridiculous political news suitable only for a Monday: Lindsey Grahamnesty for president!

The story here about John McCain's closest ally says he's going to explore a run for president for a couple of months.

And just to show old Lindsey hasn't completely cornered the market on tin ears:

"[P]otential rival Rick Perry, the former Texas governor, last week noted he takes advice from Graham on foreign affairs."

The only way I can imagine those three characters together is with Rick Perry holding a bottle in one hand and a six shooter in the other telling those two lovebirds to start dancing.

Where's Vladimir?

From a story about Putin's "disappearance" since the 5th of March, here:

Those keeping track insist Putin has not been seen since March 5.

Regardless of how or when this speculation ends, it tells us much about the political realities of Russia.

This whole thing started after Putin's trip to Kazakhstan was canceled on Wednesday and a Kazakh official told a reporter that the Russian President had fallen ill. Then the Kremlin released a picture of Putin speaking with the leader of the Republic of Karelia. But it turns out that happened on March 4.

On Thursday, Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said the President would miss his regular meeting with the Federal Security Service (FSB). When asked about his boss's health, Peskov said he is "absolutely healthy," his handshake so strong he could "break your hand." To illustrate the point, the Kremlin's Russia Today posted a picture of the mighty President slamming a judo opponent hard against the ground. Peskov says Russia is in the grips of a "spring fever" that is causing people to dream up harebrained scenarios.

Michigan voters want to dump daylight saving time by 1.5:1

 Story here.

Hey Elton John! Tell it to Obama!

"We can’t just let people refuse to follow a law because they don’t like it."

Rand Paul steals Joe Biden's thunder, supports the creation of a Kurdish state

December 1, 2011

Rand Paul, quoted here:

"I think they would fight like hell if we promised them a country. It’s a little easier to say than it is to actually make it happen, because in order to actually draw a new country you’d have to have the complicity of Turkey and probably Iraq a little bit as well. There really is no Syria to be complicit with, but there is just a little piece of Syria—Kobani and in there is predominantly Kurdish. I think if you did that and could get piece peace between the Kurds and the Turks, and then the Turks would actually fight if the Kurds would give up any claim to Turkish territory."

Joe Biden, discussed here in early 2014:

Although Biden denied it at the time [of the 2007 troop surge], his proposal would almost certainly have led to the de facto soft partition of Iraq into three autonomous regions dominated by Shiites, Sunnis, and Kurds. A similar approach in the 1990s patched together Bosnia out of the detritus of the Balkans civil war between Serbs, Croats, and Muslims. In a 2007 op-ed, Biden warned, "If the United States can't put this federalism idea on track, we will have no chance for a political settlement in Iraq and, without that, no chance for leaving Iraq without leaving chaos behind."

George Will confuses self-defense with imitation

Here:

When Fred P. Hochberg, the [Export-Import] bank’s chairman and president, defends it, an old joke comes to mind: A pastor officiating at a man’s funeral asks if anyone in the congregation would like to say something about the deceased. After a long, awkward silence, a voice shouts: “His brother was even worse.” South Korea, Hochberg says, provides “four to five times more export support than we do.” Thus does sound policy get defined down: Others are even worse, supposedly forcing us to emulate them.

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Nice try, George. War is evil, but when we are attacked, that we fight back doesn't mean that we are evil, too.

In this case a paraprosdokian aptly applies: We dispense with so-called free-trade in order to defend free-market principles.

Hillary Clinton, user of multiple phones and devices said two weeks ago: "I don't throw anything away, I'm like two steps short of a hoarder"

About 1:15 into the video of an interview fifteen days ago here.

But yesterday she was a user of only one phone to simplify things, and deleted over 30,000 emails:

"First, when I got to work as secretary of state, I opted for convenience to use my personal email account, which was allowed by the State Department, because I thought it would be easier to carry just one device for my work and for my personal emails instead of two." ...

"In going through the e-mails, there were over 60,000 in total, sent and received. About half were work-related and went to the State Department and about half were personal that were not in any way related to my work. I had no reason to save them, but that was my decision because the federal guidelines are clear and the State Department request was clear."

--------------------------------------------

Liar.

Based on religion Russia and the United States should be natural allies and friends

Think what we could do together, instead of to each other.

The Pew study is here.

Hillary Clinton cleverly hides within the sacrosanctity of her husband's presidential email server

But when is she going to stop needing her president husband and stand on her own two feet?

The answer is never. Elect Hillary and Bill Clinton will be president all over again.

From the story here:

Hillary said she emailed with Bill, but the thing is ... Bill Clinton doesn't use email.

At a press conference on Tuesday, Hillary Clinton said the server that housed her emails while she was secretary of state (that was reportedly housed at her home in New York) was set up for President Bill Clinton. She also said that some of the "personal" emails she deleted were between her and her husband.

But just before Hillary began the press conference at the United Nations building, the Wall Street Journal reported that Bill Clinton does not use email.

"The former president, who does regularly use Twitter, has sent a grand total of two emails during his entire life, both as president, says Matt McKenna, his spokesman," WSJ reported. "After leaving office, Mr. Clinton established his own domain that staff use — @presidentclinton.com. But Mr. Clinton still doesn't use email himself, Mr. McKenna said." . . .

But Hillary said during her press conference that her email server "contains personal communications from my husband and me."

It appears at least one Clinton is not telling the whole truth.

Illinois Republicans are a joke, grossly overestimating the cost to deport millions of illegals

Seen here:

Five Illinois Republican lawmakers are reviving the call for Congress to act on comprehensive immigration reform that includes provisions to expand visas for high skill, low skill and agricultural workers, and a path to citizenship for the undocumented population. At an immigration reform panel discussion sponsored by the Illinois Business Immigration Coalition (IBIC), Reps. Aaron Schock (R), Adam Kinzinger (R), Bob Dold (R), Sen. Mark Kirk (R) and Gov. Bruce Rauner (R) remarked that it was time to their colleagues in Congress to move on a comprehensive immigration bill.

“It’s naive to think that the 11 to 12 million people are going to disappear,” Schock said, citing a new right-leaning American Action Forum study, which reported that mass deportation of 11 million immigrants would cost the government anywhere between $400 billion and $600 billion. The study found that the impact on real gross domestic product would drop by about $1.6 trillion.

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As I've shown before (here) the cost to round up and deport 11 million illegals should run no more than $500 million per year. 

Republicans today just don't have any imagination like they did in the era of Eisenhower.

The American Action Forum, incidentally, is run by Douglas Holtz-Eakin, John McCain's economic advisor, and Norm Coleman, who was defeated for his Senate seat from Minnesota by a comedian.

George Will falls in love with Bill Clinton's free-trade utopianism

George Will here:

'You who are reading this column probably have a chronic, indeed incurable trade deficit with your barber or hair dresser. You regularly buy what he or she sells, yet he or she never buys anything from you. But things somehow work out. As they do between nations, because as the late Robert Bartley, editor of the Wall Street Journal’s editorial page, once wrote, “International transactions are always in balance, by definition.”

'“Protectionism,” said Clinton during the NAFTA debate, “is just a fancy word for giving up; we want to compete and win.”'

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Do we really need to point out that if transactions are always in balance then there is no such thing as winning? Trade is an endless struggle between competing interests just as is politics. It is pure utopianism to dream otherwise. There is no finality in politics or trade, simply a pause before the next confrontation or negotiation, which usually ensues after a party to the transaction realizes it got shortchanged in some way, or will be.

Karl Marx was all for free-trade because it hastens the transition from capitalism to socialism by shifting political power to a growing, impoverished proletariat and the elites who run them. 

Its odd bedfellows today are Barack Obama and George Will, and too many members of the two political parties.

"Don't Know" beats NBC, CBS, ABC and MSNBC for most trusted news

Seen here.

Obama was born because of Selma in 1965 like Hillary was named after the 1953 conqueror of Everest

You can blame the families of these two for producing their grotesque self-images.

The worst thing you can do to your kid, and to the world, is to lie to him or her.

Stories here and here.

Moochelle and Barack have milked the taxpayers well over $40 million for vacations with two years left to go

Moochelle with mother and daughters on safari in June 2011 

As reported here, where there appear to be some lacunae involving the extracurricular activities enjoyed while on official trips:

"Costs are hard to pin down, and most come as a result of Freedom of Information Act suits from taxpayer watchdog Judicial Watch which pegged the Obama-Biden vacation tab at $40 million last year [2014]. That was before first lady and daughters took spring break in China, and the first family's annual summer vacation in Martha's Vineyard, Christmas in Hawaii, and this year's holidays [2015]."

Rep. Peter Roskam thinks Lois Lerner may get away with her crimes

Seen here:

Lerner’s name now has an indelible Nixonian stain, but there probably will be no prosecution. If the administration’s stonewalling continues as the statute of limitations’s clock ticks, [Rep. Peter] Roskam says, “She will get away with it.” 

Pro-amnesty Democrats in the US Senate conservatives should target in 2016

Michael Bennet (Colorado)

Richard Blumenthal (Connecticut)

Barbara Boxer (California) retiring in 2016

Patrick Leahy (Vermont)

Barbara Mikulski (Maryland) retiring in 2016

Patty Murray (Washington)

Harry Reid (Nevada)

Brian Schatz (Hawaii)

Charles Schumer (New York)

Ron Wyden (Oregon)

Incumbent Republicans in the US Senate conservatives should primary in 2016

The following pro-amnesty Republicans should be primaried in 2016 by conservatives:

Ayotte of New Hampshire

Coats of Indiana

Johnson of Wisconsin

Kirk of Illinois

McCain of Arizona

Murkowski of Alaska

Thune of South Dakota

Toomey of Pennsylvania.

We'll have to wait longer to get rid of these:

Barrasso of Wyoming

Corker of Tennessee

Flake of Arizona

Hatch of Utah

Heller of Nevada

The Republicans' biggest traitors on immigration amnesty: Mike Enzi, Mitch McConnell, Thad Cochran, Shelley Capito

The biggest traitors on immigration are Republicans Mike Enzi of Wyoming, who got an "A" grade from NumbersUSA for his anti-amnesty views, and Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Thad (tell-me-what-to-do) Cochran of Mississippi who received "B" grades. Capito, who got a "C", was a crapshoot, as was Daines. Daines came through for us, Capito did not.

Based on such grades it looked last November like we had 14 newly elected/re-elected anti-amnesty Republicans in the Senate and 9 pro-amnesty (Louisiana had yet to be decided). Based on last Friday's vote in the Senate, however, we have 14 anti-amnesty, just not the same 14, and 10 pro-amnesty Republicans beginning new Senate terms as a result of the November 2014 election (individuals in red more or less surprised with their votes based on pre-election evaluations; expect them to surprise in the future, too).

Anti-amnesty:

Sessions of Alabama
Sullivan of Alaska
Cotton of Arkansas
Perdue of Georgia
Risch of Idaho
Ernst of Iowa
Roberts of Kansas
Cassidy of Louisiana
Daines of Montana
Sasse of Nebraska
Tillis of North Carolina
Inhofe of Oklahoma
Lankford of Oklahoma
Scott of South Carolina.

Pro-amnesty:

Gardner of Colorado
McConnell of Kentucky
Collins of Maine
Cochran of Mississippi
Graham of South Carolina
Rounds of South Dakota
Alexander of Tennessee
Cornyn of Texas
Capito of West Virginia
Enzi of Wyoming.

Oops: Bibi Netanyahu says the enemy of our enemy is our enemy

Let's see.

Iran is our enemy. The enemy of Iran is Israel. Therefore Israel is our enemy.

Boehner uses Bibi Netanyahu speech to Congress to divert attention away from House capitulation on immigration

Dopes like Michael Savage tonight think Boehner is a genius for bringing in Netanyahu to speak, while the rest of us know Netanyahu provided convenient cover for the House vote this afternoon on the clean Senate bill which funds DHS and Obama's illegal alien amnesty.

Boehner could have voted on the bill tomorrow, or Thursday, or Friday for that matter, but that would have shifted attention back on the immigration issue, which had to be avoided at all costs.

Republicans have no excuse this time. They overwhelmingly own the House and Senate and should be able to work the will of the people who elected them.

They just don't want to.

23 Republican traitors in the US Senate vote to fund Obama's illegal immigration amnesty

From the Roll Call Vote in the Senate, Vote Number 62, Friday, February 27, 2015, here [the bill passed 68-31, requiring a simple majority, meaning the Republicans, who control the Senate, could have stopped this by not authoring it or voting for it; not a single Democrat voted against the bill]:

Alexander (R-TN)

Ayotte (R-NH)

Barrasso (R-WY)

Capito (R-WV)

Coats (R-IN)

Cochran (R-MS)

Collins (R-ME)

Corker (R-TN)

Cornyn (R-TX)

Enzi (R-WY)

Flake (R-AZ)

Gardner (R-CO)

Graham (R-SC)

Hatch (R-UT)

Heller (R-NV)

Johnson (R-WI)

Kirk (R-IL)

McCain (R-AZ)

McConnell (R-KY)

Murkowski (R-AK)

Rounds (R-SD)

Thune (R-SD)

Toomey (R-PA)

75 Republican traitors in the US House vote to fund Obama's illegal immigration amnesty

From the Clerk of the House, here, Roll Call Vote 109, passing 257-167 [Republicans Long, Roe (TN) and Smith (MO) did not vote; not a single Democrat voted Nay]:

Benishek Bishop (MI) Boehner Bost Brooks (IN) Buchanan Calvert Carter (TX) Coffman Cole Collins (NY) Comstock Costello (PA) Curbelo (FL) Davis, Rodney Denham Dent Diaz-Balart Dold Ellmers (NC) Emmer (MN) Fitzpatrick Frelinghuysen

Gibson Granger Guinta Hanna Hardy Heck (NV) Hurd (TX) Jolly Katko King (NY) Kinzinger (IL) Kline Knight Lance LoBiondo MacArthur McCarthy McCaul McHenry McMorris Rodgers McSally Meehan Miller (MI) Moolenaar Murphy (PA) Noem

Nunes Paulsen Pittenger Pitts Poliquin Reichert Rogers (KY) Ros-Lehtinen Royce Ryan (WI) Scalise Schock Shimkus Simpson Smith (NJ) Stefanik Stivers Thompson (PA) Tiberi Trott Turner Upton Valadao Walden Walters, Mimi Young (IN)

Ron Fournier: The rest of us are required to play by the rules. Why does Hillary think she's above them?

Because liberals think the rules don't apply to them, dummy.

From the story here about the discovery that Hillary Clinton used a personal email account for government business while Secretary of State, a violation of federal requirements:

Many senior Democrats are angry, though not yet mad enough to publicly confront the Clintons. "This story has legs as long as the election," said a Democrat who has worked on Capitol Hill and as a presidential campaign manager. "She will be tripping over this crap until the cows come home."

Why no one cares Obama is a miserable failure

48.5 million prescriptions in 2013

41.4 million prescriptions in 2013

Prescriptions for the top 25 psychiatric drugs have soared almost 37% from 2009 to 429 million in 2013. Data here and here. 

Scott Walker pulls a Romney, flip-flops on amnesty

This weekend, Scott Walker disavowed amnesty for illegals, as reported here:

“My view has changed. I’m flat out saying it. Candidates can say that,” Walker said in an interview that aired on “Fox News Sunday.”

---------------------------------------------------------

The-girl-can-change-her-mind excuse is fine, except that this is obviously a political ploy, a fake to the right by an otherwise libertarian immigration enthusiast, coming as it does in 2015 after the election of 2014 as Walker dips his toe in the water for 2016 and finds the temperature acceptable.

Genuine conservatives have usually thought things like this through long before they have become candidates and have formulated their policy positions accordingly. It doesn't speak well for the depth of Walker's convictions that he's only just suddenly realized that illegal immigrants are law-breakers. Walker's conversion to this point of view is welcome, but he hasn't yet earned the right to sing in the choir about it, let alone lead the choir.

Walker gave every indication that serving out a second term as governor of Wisconsin was his intention, too, and that's gone out the window:

“It was only about two months ago he was running for re-election and when people asked him if he was going to serve his term or run for president, his standard line was ‘I`m committed to being Governor,'” [UW Professor] Lee said.

In fact, during the October 10th gubernatorial debate in Eau Claire, Walker was asked whether he’d serve a full term if re-elected.

“My plan if elected is to be here for four years,” Governor Walker said at the time.

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It's already clear that a President Walker would be another president we cannot trust, whose promises come with expiration dates.

The tripod goes up on the Tanana River in Nenana, AK next Sunday, March 8th at 3:30pm

The Tripod Days schedule is here, inaugurating the Nenana Ice Classic 2015.

The latest ice-out ever was May 20th, 2013, covered here. The earliest was April 20th, 1940. In 2014 ice-out was pretty early, on April 25th.

You can watch for the ice-out on the Nenana Ice Cam, which is updated every 30 seconds, here. Next week you can watch this cam as the tripod is installed on the frozen Tanana River. A raffle is held awarding a big jackpot to the closest guesser of the ice-out. When the ice goes out, the tripod goes whoosh! with the ice. People have been known to park in the parking lot on the shoreline and amuse cam-viewers with their antics in the runup to the ice-out.

Great Lakes average ice cover climbs to 88.75% after 59 days of 2015

Here's the recent history of day 59 data for average ice cover in the Great Lakes:

2011: 34.87%

2012: 06.09%

2013: 18.67%

2014: 85.40%

2015: 88.75%.

Ice cover conditions can change rapidly in the Great Lakes as temperatures drop.

2014 began the year with just 20% coverage, surpassing 60% by the first of February as the average air temperature plunged in January. For example, Grand Rapids, Michigan finished January 2014 6.3 degrees below normal on average. Ice coverage peaked above 92% by the end of the first week of March after a much colder February than normal. Again for example Grand Rapids air temperature finished February 2014 9.1 degrees below normal on average.

2015 is repeating this pattern to a significant degree. Beginning the year with just 5.65% ice coverage, the average cover climbed to only 38% by the first of February 2015 as January was not as cold as the previous year. For example, average air temperature in Grand Rapids was only 3.2 degrees below normal vs. 6.3 degrees the year before. Ice cover rocketed up on average in February, however, as the temperature plunged to finish the month 13.5 degrees below normal on average in Grand Rapids vs. 9.1 degrees below normal the previous year. It took just 11 days in February 2015 for average ice cover to surpass 60%, and just 16 days to surpass 80%.

Average ice cover in the Great Lakes may well surpass 92% as average air temperatures have averaged 1.3 degrees colder in the first two months of 2015 than in 2014.

Temperature in Grand Rapids, Michigan, averaged 13.5 degrees F below normal in February

The average temperature in Grand Rapids, Michigan, was 13.3 degrees F in February 2015. The normal average is 26.8 degrees.

So far in 2015 Grand Rapids is 16.7 degrees below normal. In 2014 at this point average temperature was 15.4 degrees below normal.

Scott Walker's immigration problem is that he doesn't put Americans and legal immigrants ahead of violators

"If people want to come here and work hard and benefit, I don't care whether they come from Mexico or Ireland or Germany or Canada or South Africa or anywhere else. I want them here."

"Not only do they need to fix things for people already here, or find some way to do it, there's got to be a larger way to fix the system in the first place. Because if it wasn't so cumbersome, if there wasn't such a long wait, if it wasn't so difficult to get in, we wouldn't have the other problems that we have (with people living here illegally)."

-- Scott Walker, July 3, 2013, "Walker Endorses Path To Citizenship"

We know from this that there's a way to make the enemy cry

Here.

Cry he must.

The Euro for Europeans but Germany, Raus!

Seen here:

German actions have not themselves been entirely pure. In 2002, Germany, along with France, began the process of easing the strict rules of the Maastricht Treaty when it was able to get an exemption from the cap on budget deficits at 3 percent of GDP, essentially scrapping the Stability and Growth Pact. German banks also had their eyes wide open in awarding loans to Greece and the other weaker European economies, throwing prudential caution aside. In fact, some major financial and corporate entities have allegedly facilitated deceptions by earlier Greek governments or to have been involved in outright corruption in connection with some loans. Then, there is also the inconvenient fact that outstanding German debt is itself well above the 60 percent cap in the euro zone ground rules. Another inconvenient fact is that just 11 percent of the facilities extended to Greece have been used to support the Greek state, as the facilities have ultimately been used to prop up the banking sector in the lending countries.

Although Germany was not responsible for the financial collapse of 2008 that set the stage for the long crisis in the euro zone, its neo-mercantilist economic and trade policies, which one Philippe Legrain dubbed Merkelism, has exacerbated the situation and impeded an effective response. Germans take justifiable pride in the excellent quality of their industrial products, which produced yet another record trade surplus of €215 billion in 2014, second only to China. Yet, large balance of trade surpluses in Germany mean that other European countries are running large balance of trade deficits, which exert downward pressure on those other economies. The counter that other countries should attempt to be more like German industry rings only partially true. Once again, Germany is itself not adhering to European rules in that a trade surplus of 7.4 percent of GDP well exceeds the target cap under the Macroeconomic Imbalance Procedure. Even worse, that cap was set abnormally high as, on the flip side, euro zone countries are not supposed to run trade deficits greater than 4 percent of GDP. The very rules build in and sanction a balance of trade advantage to Germany. This advantage is enabled not just by German industrial competitiveness but by the fact that the euro confers a much more favorable exchange rate than were Germany still operating under its own independent Deutsche Mark. This fact has led some commentators to brand Germany a stealth currency manipulator and even for the country itself to be removed from the euro zone.

When Muslim fanatics destroy artifacts, now that's extremism to CNBC

Cutting off heads and burning people alive in cages is one thing, but destroying priceless artifacts? O.M.G!

Seen here.

Liberal National Journal runs time clock counting down to DHS funding deadline

Here.

Hype. Advocacy. Partisanship.

Latest graph from the CDC shows Ebola epidemic is still out of control in West Africa

Oh yeah that'll work: Amazon hires Obama's liar to run PR and lobbying

Jay Carney.

Story here.