Tuesday, April 7, 2015

Scott Walker could be the middle class' punk: Gabba Gabba, we accept you, we accept you, one of us

From a story here:

In an age when most potential presidential contenders are millionaires, Walker may end up being the closest thing to a middle-class presidential candidate that voters will see in 2016.

For most of the 1990s, the son of a Baptist minister made less than $40,000 a year from his salary as a lawmaker. As recently as 2006, Walker was making about $70,000 a year and living in a two-bedroom house with an unfinished basement, in part because as Milwaukee County executive he was giving a chunk of his salary back to taxpayers. ...

"They're as common as an old shoe," said Betty Balsley, who got to know the Walker family while the now-governor's father was serving as a pastor in Plainfield, Iowa.

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Ramones, Pinhead, here


Sunday, April 5, 2015

Scott Walker's school voucher program is enormously popular with the poor in Wisconsin, but not with the establishment

The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reported here last May about applications for the school year just now winding down:

Under state law, the 25 private schools that receive the most applications are selected for the statewide voucher program. Because of a tie, 26 schools are selected for the upcoming school year.

Six new participants in the program are Fox Valley Lutheran High School in Appleton, Saint Paul Lutheran School in Bonduel, Winnebago Lutheran Academy in Fond du Lac, Twin City Catholic Educational System in Menasha and Neenah, and Saint Paul Lutheran School and Trinity Lutheran School, both in Sheboygan.

Each of the 26 schools will receive at least 10 voucher slots, with the remaining assigned through a random selection process. ...

A total of 1,000 vouchers are available, up from 500 in the first year of the program. ...

"Once again, applications far exceeded the cap," Jim Bender, president of School Choice Wisconsin, said in a statement. "For the second year in a row we have thousands of parents — over 70% — on the outside looking in." ...

The statewide program, called the Wisconsin Parental Choice Program, is in its second year and is separate from voucher programs in Milwaukee and Racine. There are 1,220 students in the Racine Parental Choice Program and 25,397 in the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program, according fall enrollment data.

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

Governor Walker has proposed a complete elimination of the caps for the next two years, expanding the vouchers apparently at reduced amounts, and paying for it all by reducing allocations to the public school system by $150 per pupil in the first year.

School officials are predictably livid, as this story about a day long public hearing at Brillion High School recently reported:

Nearly all of the administrators who spoke opposed the expansion of the Wisconsin Parental Choice Program, which allows low-income students to attend private or religious schools using a taxpayer-subsidized voucher.

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

Here's a novel idea. True "parental choice" would allow the taxpayers themselves to decide which schools their taxes fund. Imagine a check off list on your income tax form or property tax form like they have now for various charitable causes to which you may allocate all or a portion of your tax refund. Let's see how the taxpayers vote to spend their education money. Now that might really upset the establishment.

Let the people decide!

Saturday, April 4, 2015

Try getting a gay wedding cake in Dearborn: So when are the corporations packing up to leave Michigan, huh?

Trolling the bakeries. Video here.

The Anthropocene Follies

Seems some people at Nature want to change the name of the current geological interglacial period now commonly known as the Holocene (the "completely newest period" for you Greek men out there, a very small part of, or the end of the much larger "most recent" Pleistocene and its Ice Ages, depending on who you read) to the Anthropocene (the new human epoch). To some this signifies that if you thought science had long ago killed-off anthropocentrism, you must think again because geology is being pressured to ascribe change to human influence just as has climate science. 

The wags here have suggested some amusing alternatives to the Anthropocene:










  • Hubrisocene
  • Windowsocene
  • Googolocene
  • Neocene
  • Hollowscene
  • Hollowcene
  • Misanthropocene (very popular)
  • Stultucene (probably the most anthropologically apt)
  • Epicene (not that there's anything wrong with that)
  • Crimescene
  • Hubriocene
  • Absurdopocene (has a real ring to it)
  • Alarmistocene
  • Nihilicene
  • Anthroporcene (my personal favorite, but should be Anthropoporcene)
  • Bulshitocene
  • Horshitocene
  • Whorshitocene (tmi if you ask me)
  • Algoreopocene (quite)
  • Narcissistocene
  • Narcissene (not to be confused with Nazarene but gets at the religious underpinnings)
  • Narcissicene
  • Climeobscene
  • Preposterousocene
  • Mommymommylookatmeocene
  • Bureaucrocene
  • Anthropobscene
  • Plasticene (for all you Beatles fans)
  • Wherethehelldidiputitcene
  • Mannthropocene (that's inviting a lawsuit I'd say)
  • Sputnikocene (too brief to be measured)
  • Incrediblyobcene
  • Anthropoidiotcene
  • Needtobecene (for the selfie craze)
  • Egocene (nice)
  • Fantacene
  • Herbacene
  • Vulcacene
  • ChickenLittleocene
  • Idiocene.
Perhaps more amusing is how contemporary science still must fall back on a long dead language of the Bronze Age in order to fish out the finest distinctions which only the Greek language can offer. Some animals are indeed more equal than others.




Friday, April 3, 2015

Memories Pizza has raised over $225K since this morning at 8:30


Obama's shitty jobs machine sputters out in March 2015: 3 month average adds falls to 197K (watch 'em blame the weather)


Support for Memories Pizza on GoFundMe soars above $500K, putting it in the top six causes ever
















To avoid the Gay Mafia, almost all of the donations are anonymous.

Ronald Machen's miscarriage of justice in the matter of Lois Lerner

Seen here:

'Ellis [1969] involved a defendant who voluntarily testified before a grand jury but then refused to testify at trial, asserting his Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination. Once Lerner voluntarily spoke to Justice Department prosecutors without receiving a grant of immunity, she lost her ability to invoke the privilege to avoid answering congressional questions about the same information she had already provided.

'Machen says that a “team of experienced career prosecutors” was assigned to review this matter, so certainly they would know about the Ellis rule. They also must know about Lerner’s extensive testimony to the prosecutors. So why would Machen completely ignore this in his letter?

'Ignoring highly relevant, although perhaps inconvenient, facts, outgoing U.S. Attorney Ronald Machen has issued a flawed legal analysis. It reaches an erroneous, but politically expedient, conclusion — one that gives Lois Lerner a pass and further hinders congressional efforts to get to the bottom of this scandal. It’s a pretty slick trick. No wonder Machen’s pulling a disappearing act.'



Wednesday, April 1, 2015

Winter in Grand Rapids Michigan was 23% colder in 2014 than in 2015

Grand Rapids, Michigan, was 3.2 degrees F below normal on average in March 2015, bringing the cumulative anomaly for the first three months of 2015 to -19.9 degrees F. The corresponding deficit from normal in 2014 was -24.4 degrees F, almost 23% colder. 

To that stupid prick, Josh Earnest, the Treaty clause of the Constitution doesn't exist

Seen here:

EARNEST: Well, again, I think it's hard to take seriously from some members of Congress who deny the fact that climate change exists, that they should have some opportunity to render judgment about climate change agreements.

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[The President] shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur...

-- Article II, Section 2

What's hard to take seriously is anyone from this administration.







Tuesday, March 31, 2015

Hillary Clinton promised full cooperation with Congress in 2012, but still withheld at least 850 pages of Benghazi emails

Byron York reports:

[W]hen Clinton's secret email system was exposed this year, she turned over about 850 never-before-seen pages of Benghazi-related documents to the State Department, which in turn gave them to the House. Those documents had been under a request from Congress since the September 20, 2012 letter. The former secretary of state let more than two years pass before producing the information.

Take Clinton at her word that she turned over everything on her secret system related to Benghazi. The 850 pages still show that she withheld information from Congress for more than two years.

Concealing information from Congress is not a minor offense. The law allows for fines and punishment of up to several years in jail for anyone found guilty of doing it. Three examples:

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

For the rest, go here.

Monday, March 30, 2015

Wrong about immigration, Marco Rubio joins the mouth-breathers dissing the education which helps keep us free

From the story here:

Earlier this month, addressing the issue of student debt, Sen. Marco Rubio joked that students ought to know in advance “whether it’s worth borrowing $40,000 to be a Greek philosophy major. Because the market for Greek philosophers is tight.” His remarks echo North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory, who in 2013 mocked liberal-arts courses and said, “I don’t want to subsidize [a major] that’s not going to get someone a job.” Gov. Rick Scott of Florida and former Gov. Rick Perry of Texas have passed legislation encouraging students to major in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) disciplines rather than the liberal arts. ...

Thomas Jefferson recognized that a broad education could ensure the survival of the new democracy. He recognized that “even under the best forms, those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.” To defend against this threat, Jefferson wanted “to illuminate, as far as practicable, the minds of the people at large, and more especially to give them knowledge of those facts, which history exhibiteth, that, possessed thereby of the experience of other ages and countries, they may be enabled to know ambition under all its shapes, and prompt to exert their natural powers to defeat its purpose.” ...

Considered in light of Jefferson’s argument, Mr. Rubio’s choice of Greek philosophy as a useless major seems especially inapt.

Friday, March 27, 2015

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.

Thursday, March 26, 2015

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." 

Tuesday, March 24, 2015

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


Monday, March 23, 2015

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


Sunday, March 22, 2015

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.'

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

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."

Friday, March 20, 2015

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.

Thursday, March 19, 2015

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.”

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

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.

Wednesday, March 18, 2015

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.

Tuesday, March 17, 2015

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.”

Monday, March 16, 2015

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.

Saturday, March 14, 2015

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.

Thursday, March 12, 2015

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


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.



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

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.

Wednesday, March 11, 2015

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.

Tuesday, March 10, 2015

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.


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


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.

Monday, March 9, 2015

"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.

Sunday, March 8, 2015

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]."

Thursday, March 5, 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

Wednesday, March 4, 2015

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.





Tuesday, March 3, 2015

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.