P. J. O'Rourke is a know nothing, about the dress of Donald Trump and of George Washington

Here:

Show me one candidate who has the dignity of Washington . . ..

[T]ypical of modern Americans is Trump’s bad taste. ... He puts his own individual stamp on gaucherie. And we like it. We’re a country that cherishes being individuals as much as we cherish being gauche.

Trump’s suits have a cut and sheen as if they came from the trunk sale of a visiting Bombay tailor staying in a cheap hotel in Trump’s native Queens and taking a nip between fittings. Trump wears neckties in Outer Borough colors. And, Donald, the end of your necktie belongs up around your belt buckle, not between your knees and your nuts. Trump’s haircut makes Kim Jong Un laugh.

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Washington abandoned the parodied powdered wig of custom and tied and powdered his own long hair, and to his first inauguration as president he deliberately wore a suit made from brown broadcloth from Connecticut instead of the formal black imported from Britain in order to drive home his Americanism.

To say one likes Trump's gaucherie is completely disingenuous while pivoting to correct it. It shows that P. J. O'Rourke's libertarianism is short on the Americanism and long on the snobbery of cosmopolitan liberalism, the readership of The Daily Beast.

The Wall Street Journal decides to ignore Donald Trump on trade

That way, maybe he'll just go away.

Here, where the easy mark is Huckabee:

"Candidates who oppose free trade don’t belong in the Oval Office."

Donald Trump when no one is watching

Erick Erickson, here:

There is one more thing I want you to know about Donald Trump. I’ve met him and interviewed him before. When the camera was not on and the interview was not going, he was not The Donald. He was a guy who cared deeply for his staff and the people who merely walked in the front door of his building. I want you to know that the Donald Trump I’ve seen in private is not the Donald Trump you see on stage because I think we are not going to see that Trump. It’s our loss and it will be his own loss. The person, a separate entity from the personality, is a good man.

The reason I don’t much care for Rick Santorum is that I’ve seen him, off camera and behind the scenes when no one was supposed to be watching, behave like a spoiled and entitled rich kid snapping at people in a lower position than himself when he did not need to. It’s also why I have a soft spot for Trump. From the same vantage point, I’ve seen him behave kindly to people far lower on the rung of life than him when he did not have to. Character when the camera isn’t rolling counts in my book.

National Review libertarian wastes no time expressing his fear of what Donald Trump will do to the 2016 race

Kevin Williamson, here, goes first in the politics of personal destruction (a National Review specialty):

"Witless ape rides escalator down"

"the ridiculous buffoon with the worst taste since Caligula"

"grunting like a baboon" (I'll leave out what he said about his wife)

"Trump is an ass of exceptionally intense asininity"

"a billionaire dope"

"The problem with messiah complexes is that there’s no way to know whether you are going to rise on the third day unless somebody crucifies you. Trump has announced, and I say we get started on that." 

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

Get started? There's more?

Hillary Clinton was for the TransPacificPartnership only 45 times before she was against it

John F. Kerry was a piker by comparison.

CNN reports:

'But as members of the Obama administration can attest, Clinton was one of the leading drivers of the TPP when Secretary of State. Here are 45 instances when she approvingly invoked the trade bill about which she is now expressing concerns:'

The rest is here.

Welcome to the new age of belief: credo ergo sum

I believe therefore I am . . .

a woman

an African-American

skinny and conservative!

part Cherokee

a climate expert

a success!

Trump pulls the trigger, runs for president as a Republican

[H]e said he'll be "the greatest jobs-president that God ever created" . . ..

He said he will: "repeal and replace the Big Lie, Obamacare";

"build a great, great wall on our southern border, and I will have Mexico pay for that wall" ("nobody builds walls better than me");

and "find the General Patton or … General MacArthur" in the U.S. military to fight the Islamic State.

More here.

Glengariff poll in Michigan obviously skewed by opinions of Lansing elites, designed to get the results it wanted

The socially liberal results of the Glengariff poll reported here were skewed by polling "Lansing leaders" and "Michigan residents". What counts is voters, and a decent sample size of same.

From the story:

"The 600-person representative sample of state voters, Lansing leaders and Michigan residents found that participants have different views on gay rights."

Parsing the meaning of Libya email: Oh we thought you just wanted the BENGHAZI email, you want the Libya too?

Hillary better hope the State Dept. has all the same email Sidney Blumenthal has just turned over.

From the Politico story here:

'House GOP Benghazi investigators have discovered additional Libya communications between Sidney Blumenthal and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, a congressional source told POLITICO — suggesting that either the State Department or the 2016 Democratic presidential contender withheld correspondence the panel had requested. ...

'At the crux of the back and fourth is whether the committee specifically asked State for all Clinton’s Libya emails or only Benghazi-related emails. State says the panel initially asked for Benghazi material and only recently expanded that request to include all correspondence on the Middle Eastern nation. But the initial requests for information from Clinton did include all Libya correspondence, according to the congressional source.'

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Obstructing justice. The Hillary gift that keeps on . . . er . . . not giving.

British newspaper and David Cameron government try to smear Edward Snowden

The Guardian reports on the story, here:

'Downing Street and the Home Office are being challenged to answer in public claims that Russia and China have broken into the secret cache of Edward Snowden files and that British agents have had to be withdrawn from live operations as a consequence.

'The reports first appeared in the Sunday Times, which quoted anonymous senior officials in No 10, the Home Office and security services. The BBC also quoted an anonymous senior government source, who said agents had to be moved because Moscow gained access to classified information that reveals how they operate. ...

'[Eric King of Privacy International] added that if Downing Street and the Home Office believed that Russia and China had gained access to the Snowden documents, then why was the government not putting this out through official channels.

'He added: “Given Snowden is facing espionage charges in the US, you would have thought the British government would have provided them with this information.”'

The Guardian destroyed the Snowden hard drives in front of British security in July 2013 after the British government threatened to shut down the newspaper, as reported here:

'New video footage has been released for the first time of the moment Guardian editors destroyed computers used to store top-secret documents leaked by the NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.

'Under the watchful gaze of two technicians from the British government spy agency GCHQ, the journalists took angle-grinders and drills to the internal components, rendering them useless and the information on them obliterated.'

The Guardian acknowledged at the time that the Snowden files exist in other jurisdictions:

'[The Guardian's] Rusbridger told government officials that destruction of the Snowden files would not stop the flow of intelligence-related stories since the documents existed in several jurisdictions. He explained that Glenn Greenwald, the Guardian US columnist who met Snowden in Hong Kong, had leaked material in Rio de Janeiro. There were further copies in America, he said.'

So . . . who in the United States would want the twofer of smearing Snowden by outing British operatives?

The 86 Republicans who voted for TAA/the 54 who voted against TPP: Just five appear in both lists

Aderholt Barletta Barr Barton Benishek Bishop (MI) Blum Bost Boustany Brady (TX) Brooks (IN) Calvert Coffman Cole Comstock Costello (PA) Crenshaw Curbelo (FL) Davis, Rodney Dent Dold Donovan Emmer (MN) Fitzpatrick Fortenberry

Frelinghuysen Graves (MO) Grothman Guinta Guthrie Hanna Herrera Beutler Huizenga (MI) Hurt (VA) Issa Johnson (OH) Jolly Katko Kelly (PA) King (NY) Kinzinger (IL) Kline Luetkemeyer Marino McCarthy McHenry McKinley McMorris Rodgers Meehan Messer Mica Miller (MI) Moolenaar Murphy (PA) Nunes

Paulsen Pitts Reed Reichert Rigell Rogers (AL) Rogers (KY) Rokita Roskam Royce Ryan (WI) Scalise Shimkus Shuster Simpson Stefanik Stivers Thompson (PA) Thornberry Tiberi Trott Turner Upton Valadao Wagner Walberg Walden Walters, Mimi Whitfield Wilson (SC) Young (IA)

The roll call vote for the TAA is here. John Boehner notably voted "No" with Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats to defeat TAA in order to be able to say at election time that he has street-cred as a conservative. Typically the Speaker doesn't vote unless the outcome the Speaker supports is in doubt. This was obviously a throw-away vote for him.

Failing 126-302, the bill was one half of a binary bill passed by the Senate which would have provided assistance to US workers displaced by the trade agreement. Its defeat meant the whole bill including the free trade half of the bill, TPP, would not advance to the president's desk for a signature.

A symbolic vote (roll call here) for the free trade half of the bill, TPP, passed 219-211, with these 54 Republicans voting "No" (note the five in blue, who appeared in both lists and voted in this instance ostensibly for the worker and against free trade):

Aderholt Amash Brat Bridenstine Brooks (AL) Buck Burgess Clawson (FL) Collins (GA) Collins (NY) Cook Donovan Duncan (SC) Duncan (TN) Farenthold Fleming Garrett

Gibson Gohmert Gosar Griffith Harris Hunter Jenkins (WV) Jolly Jones Jordan Joyce Katko Labrador LoBiondo Lummis MacArthur Massie McKinley Meadows Mooney (WV) Mulvaney

Nugent Palmer Pearce Perry Poliquin Posey Rohrabacher Rothfus Russell Smith (NJ) Webster (FL) Westmoreland Wittman Yoho Young (AK) Zeldin

Democrats who voted for TAA and against TPP were similarly few in number, just thirteen: Bass, Carney, Clyburn, Eshoo, Foster, Heck (WA), Hoyer, Israel, Larson (CT), Perlmutter, Price (NC), Richmond, and Smith (WA).

Romney's apt description of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton

"Secretary of Schlep".

Here.

Apparently WaPo doesn't read Foreign Policy.

Completed foreclosures in April 2015 reported by Corelogic still running 90% above normal

The level has not budged much from October 2014 when there were 41,000 completed foreclosures.

Seen here:

There were 40,000 completed foreclosures nationwide in April 2015, down from 50,000 in April 2014. ... 

Completed foreclosures are an indication of the total number of homes actually lost to foreclosure. Since the financial crisis began in September 2008, there have been approximately 5.7 million completed foreclosures across the country, and since homeownership rates peaked in the second quarter of 2004, there have been approximately 7.8 million homes lost to foreclosure. ...

As a basis of comparison, before the decline in the housing market in 2007, completed foreclosures averaged 21,000 per month nationwide between 2000 and 2006.

George Will appears content with judicial tyranny, the price we pay for stymieing the legislative and executive

Here:

With the composition of the Supreme Court likely to change substantially during the next president’s tenure, conservatives must decide: Is majority rule or liberty — these are not synonyms, and the former can menace the latter — America’s fundamental purpose?

A healthy housing market would have 1-2% underwater, but we still have 15% with negative equity

Mostly in the lowest third of valuation.

From the Bloomberg story, here:

"A decade after U.S. home sales peaked, 15.4 percent of owners in the first quarter owed more on their mortgages than their properties were worth, according to a report Friday by Zillow Inc. While that’s down from a high of 31.4 percent in 2012, it’s still alarmingly above the 1 or 2 percent that marks a healthy market, said [Stan] Humphries, the chief economist at the Seattle-based real-estate data provider. Worse yet: The pace of healing is losing steam. ... While 25.5 percent of homes valued in the lowest third are underwater, just 14.1 percent of those in the middle have negative equity. For the top group, the figure is even lower -- 8.3 percent."

Underwater mortgages still number 8 million, down from 25.5 million in 2011

From the story here:

"Nearly eight million borrowers, or 15.4 percent of homeowners with a mortgage, still owe more than their homes are worth, according to Zillow. While the numbers continue to improve, about half of those borrowers owe the bank at least 20 percent more than their homes are worth."

Once conservative National Review magazine is all-in on free trade bill written by the corporate oligarchy

Here:

"Republicans should side with free trade".

Poverty thresholds for 2014

The thresholds are used for statistical purposes in the estimation of the number of people actually in poverty on a yearly basis, while the guidelines are a simplified form used to determine current eligibility for government assistance.

Poverty guidelines for 2015

I just got the call from the fraudsters posing as the IRS trying to shake-down the sheeple

The call originates from Bainbridge Island, Washington, and the number is 206-201-2799.

The voice is female, obviously a computer.

Presidents ranked by average monthly additions to total nonfarm employment in the post war, not seasonally adjusted

Clinton: 235,000

Carter: 215,000

Reagan: 166,000

JFK/LBJ: 164,000

Obama to date: 136,000 (77 months 1-1-09 to 5-1-15)

Nixon/Ford: 115,000

Truman: 111,000 (1949-1952/drops to 87,000 going back to April 1945 when FDR died)

GHW Bush: 49,000

Eisenhower: 34,500

GW Bush: 13,500

John Crudele isn't running for president

But he has some good ideas and some not so good ideas, just like those who are:

"When there are plenty of jobs, immigrants are no longer as unwelcome."

"[A]ll you have to do is change the rules regarding how people can use their trillions in retirement savings, and you’ll give a big boost to the economy that neither spendthrift politicians nor the Federal Reserve can accomplish now."

Read the rest, here.

Doug Short makes our point: Part-time surged because of the recession, not because of ObamaCare

Here:

"With regard to Obamacare and part-time employment, the surge in part-time employment was triggered by the recession, not by the Affordable Care Act, as the next chart clearly illustrates."

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After studying the issue since 2010 we first began to express doubts about the meme that ObamaCare part-timed the country in July of 2013, here.

In August 2013 here we realized a part-timing trend, to be real, would have to show up in the hours data and wasn't.

By September 2013 here we were calling the meme a myth, and here we identified the part-time statistics as incapable of capturing such a trend due to the high bar set by the government definition of part-time as less than 35 hours worked.

In October 2013 here we blamed the part-time explosion on the recession.

In February 2014 we noted here that The Atlantic had finally caught on.

Mish started to catch on in September 2014, here.

Now Doug Short joins the party.

Hooray.

I still want my Pulitzer.

Reason dot com caves to the tyranny's censors

Libertarianism doesn't really believe in what it says it believes in, and can't save you from what's coming. They fold like a house of cards.

Seen here:

"Wielding subpoenas demanding information on anonymous commenters, the government is harassing a respected journalism site that dissents from its policies. The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York claims these comments could constitute violent threats, even though they’re clearly hyperbolic political rhetoric. ... Reason has since removed the offending comments."

Newspeak from the Orwellian president: Ending ObamaCare would punish millions with higher costs of care

Oldspeak from the true born sons of liberty: ObamaCare has already punished millions with higher costs of care, when they can find it.

Here.

A clear majority of Americans has a stupid view about Vladimir Putin

Seen here:

It helps [Republicans] that the 62-year-old former KGB officer is deeply unpopular in the United States. A survey by the non-partisan Pew Research Center in February said Putin was viewed unfavorably by 70 percent of Americans.

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Russia is nominally a Christian country, like the United States. It is ethnically northern European, like the United States whose single largest hyphenated population remains German. Both countries share an interest in countering an increasingly aggressive Communist China as well as radical Islam, especially in Syria, Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan. Both powers share an interest in a free, demilitarized and prosperous Europe with which both can trade to everyone's benefit.

It should be a no-brainer for the West to embrace Russia. Once China moves on Taiwan and the South China Sea that may become easier, if then is not too late.

Matt Latimer forgets that the Clintons win only by pluralities

In other words, Clintons win only when they can successfully divide the opposition, usually along the conservative/libertarian fault lines of taxes, sex and trade. Right now, however, it is Hillary who is more than decisively on the wrong side of an issue which divides her side. She's been dumped before for the better candidate, and can be again.

Here:

Much is now being made of a CNN poll finding that a majority of Americans—57 percent—do not believe Hillary Clinton is honest or trustworthy. But is that really news? Roughly half of the country has felt that way for a long time. Forty-three percent of Americans said that a year ago. And forty-six percent said that back in 2007. Under the headline, “Hillary Clinton’s honesty problem,” an earnest reporter for The Hill newspaper asks, “Is it possible to win the White House if more than half the electorate thinks you’re dishonest?” Uh, of course, it is, people. The Clintons do this all the time.

Democrats broke nearly every promise about ObamaCare

Jack Kelly here:

Nearly every promise Democrats made has been broken. The average family pays more (some much more) for insurance, not $2,500 less. About 9 million Americans (so far) have learned they couldn’t keep the health plans they had if they wanted. Or some of their doctors.

Federal spending for health didn’t go down. It’s zoomed upward. So have emergency room visits. Overhead costs are exploding.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that Obamacare will lower full-time employment by 2.3 million in 2021, compared with what might have been without reform.

The ACA has hurt millions more than it’s helped. The worst is yet to come. President Barack Obama delayed or altered (mostly illegally) unpopular provisions at least 50 times. If they’re implemented fully, up to 100 million who get insurance from their employers could have their policies canceled, the American Enterprise Institute has estimated.

The Chicago Sun-Times ignores the fact that people HERE haven't answered for ONE DAMN THING

Edward Snowden has already answered for what he has done. He's sacrificed everything, and lives in exile for defending a principle called the Fourth Amendment.

The conclusion of the stupid effing Sun-Times editorial here:

"Edward Snowden, for all the undeniable good he has done, still has much to answer for."

Crackpot Rand Paul thinks proportional justice is putting James Clapper and Edward Snowden in the same jail cell

With friends like this, who needs enemies?

Snowden's already in a jail cell. It's called exile. He gave up everything to defend a principle Americans used to believe in.

Meanwhile Clapper lied under oath and obstructed justice, did not lose his job, and will not lose any of his taxpayer-funded retirement, but the government's violation of Americans' fourth amendment rights continues unabated.

Video here.

Does that suit Hillary's wearing come with a helmet?

Quick! Find my helmet!

Deep sea diver suit, or space suit?

Whichever it is, she looks like she's out of oxygen!

Russia's Sergey Lavrov: Obama is failing because he hates Assad more than terrorism

Quoted here:

"If people continue to acquiesce with what is going on, and continue to acquiesce with those who categorically refuse to start the political process until Bashar Assad disappears then I am not very optimistic for the future of this region," he said.

"Because these people put the fate of one person whom they hate on top of the fight against terrorism," Lavrov said.

"We have been through this repeatedly. Saddam Hussein was the one person after whom the United States went and they ruined the country."

"Gaddafi is the same," he said, referring to Libya's fallen dictator.

Grand Rapids, MI, 2015 temperature anomaly through May: 18 degrees F below normal

May 2015 was 2.2 degrees F above normal in Grand Rapids, MI.

The total anomaly for 2015 to date contracted from 20.2 degrees F below normal in April to 18 degrees F below normal in May.

The total anomaly for 2014 January through May was 24.2 degrees F  below normal, 34% colder than presently to date.

Security Theatre still the rule at airports: DHS punks the TSA 95% of the time

Sneaking through explosives and weapons.

And forget about baggage screening.

From the story here:

"In addition, the review determined that despite spending $540 million for checked baggage screening equipment and another $11 million for training since a previous review in 2009, the TSA failed to make any noticeable improvements in that time."

It would have been all right if Hillary Clinton had flown nearly a million miles . . .

. . . if they all had been in the same direction and away from the Earth.

Americans are drowning in Obama's GDP toilet and all Republicans can say this weekend is . . .

Comment of the day: "I'm sick of hearing about Greece . . . Greece is a country that peaked in 450 BC"

Larry Kudlow, today on his show on WABC Radio.

A jury could indict a ham sandwich

OK, two ham sandwiches.

The guy was being blackmailed for crying out loud.

Smells just like how Obama got the courts to discredit his Democrat and Republican opponents in his race for the US Senate.

Lefty "Hope" artist says Obama hasn't come close to living up to his promise

What promise?

He did promise transformation. You just didn't know he meant from rich to poor. Stupid Trotskyite.

Delusional Rand Paul might as well run as a Democrat, blames Republicans for creating ISIS

Rand Paul, quoted here:

"ISIS exists and grew stronger because of the hawks in our party who gave arms indiscriminately, and most of those arms were snatched up by ISIS. These hawks also wanted to bomb Assad, which would have made ISIS’ job even easier. They created these people."

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

ISIS wouldn't exist if Obama hadn't pulled out of Iraq, had not opposed Mubarak in Egypt, Gaddafi in Libya, Assad in Syria and the state of Israel, and let ISIS' leader out of Camp Bucca.

Hysterical Glenn Beck makes hysterical liberals, well, hysterical

It's hard to keep all the hysteria separate at The Daily Beast, where libertarian hysteria meets liberal hysteria and proves what we knew all along: hysteria is a defining feature of both liberalism and libertarianism.

Glenn Beck:

'“I would open it up to all drugs [potentially being legalized],” and leave it up to the states.'

The Daily Beast:

'In Beck’s telling, the main consequence of this police escalation and the war on drugs was not the mass incarceration of millions . . .."

The one exaggerates what society can stand, the other what it can't.

Beer, wine and liquor have a long record of being more or less controllable while opiates do not. No one with much experience of the latter is clamoring for their wider use.

On the other side 2.3 million adult incarcerates barely qualifies as millions in a society of 321 million people. The only people demanding the release of the duly captive are Democrats and other racists.

Blame the libertarians for handing Romney his loss in 2012, not conservatives

Third parties bled away over 60% of the few votes Romney lost by in his failed eastern strategy in Election 2012.

Mitt Romney's bid to win the White House failed by 64 electoral college votes, all of which he narrowly lost in an eastern strategy in just four states by a total of only 429,522 popular votes:

Florida, lost by 74,309 votes, where third parties garnered an unbelievable 90,972 votes;

Virginia, lost by 149,298 votes, where third parties garnered 60,147 votes;

Ohio, lost by 166,272 votes, where third parties took a whopping 101,788 votes;

and New Hampshire, lost by 39,643 votes, where third parties took 11,493 votes.

That's a loss for Romney of 64 electoral college votes, enough to have taken him from 206 to 270 to take the presidency, losing 429,522 total popular votes in just four states where third parties all told took 264,400 votes, 61.5% of the total needed by Romney to win.

This isn't to say that those were all necessarily Republican votes which went third party, but fully 50.5% of the 264,400 were cast for the libertarian candidate, Gary Johnson of New Mexico, who had been a Republican candidate for president until late 2011 when he was excluded from the Republican debates. At that point he bolted to the Libertarian Party, and openly stated his intention to play a spoiler role:

“I hope that I would get labeled as a ‘spoiler’ from the standpoint of people actually focusing on what it is I am saying, and that this changes the way whoever wins governs,” Johnson told Sunshine State News in an exclusive interview Saturday at the 2012 Ron Paul Festival.

Combine the pique factor around that with the natural alienation felt by libertarians toward a Mormon candidate who was himself socially conservative in his habits and loathe to exercise himself on behalf of libertarians' usual limited government ideas and you can make a case that it was libertarians who cost Romney the election, by casting spoiler votes, staying away from the polls entirely, or even voting for Obama out of spite.

This is a better explanation for the Romney loss than some mythical 4 million conservatives staying away from the polls in 2012 as Rush Limbaugh keeps saying. The numbers themselves disprove that, as Romney garnered 1 million more votes in 2012 than McCain in 2008. It was a much closer election than the (mostly libertarian) punditocracy wants you to know.

Conservatives, most of whom are Christians, aren't put off by abstainers like Mitt Romney the way libertarians might be (many Christians are abstemious too), and Christians find it much more morally problematic to stay away from the polls, or to vote out of spite, in a way which libertarians would not. Christian voters are nothing if not preoccupied with their moral and social responsibility, but libertarians care little for that.

In fact, withdrawing from social responsibilities is elevated to the level of a moral principle by libertarians. Staying away from the polls is a John Galt tactic straight out of the playbook from Ayn Rand. It's an ongoing and adolescent fantasy of theirs. It's not a Christian tactic, which is to say it's not a conservative tactic. Conservatives love their country too much to let it go down the drain, and they actively admired Mitt Romney for his commitment to and long record of public service even if his religion and social policy positions bothered them.

It remains a question if Republicans can expect to succeed in future with a brood of vipers in their party such as the libertarians. Republicans should reconsider their tilt toward libertarianism and seriously ask themselves whether things might not go better for them if they more actively pursued the social conservative vote. From the Christians Republicans can expect forgiveness, but from the libertarians only vindictiveness. Isn't that how the Bushes got elected after turning their backs on the Reagan revolution? Isn't that the conceit of moderate Republican presidential aspirants still today?

Why isn't that an easy call? After all, the libertarian Ron Paul who bitterly lost to Romney in the Republican primaries never left the Republican Party, but he never endorsed Mitt Romney either: "I don’t fully endorse him for president,” he said, as late as August 2012, less than three months before the election. Message to libertarians: good ahead, stay home, see if I care.

Call it an ironic payback to Romney, whose moderate Republican father likewise wouldn't endorse the conservative Barry Goldwater after losing to him in 1964, but it's also another sign in a long list of signs that libertarians have more in common with liberals than with conservatives.

They're content if they too can defeat Republicans.

What a shock: Now beholden to Amazon, WaPo approves of Senate's TPP vote

Here:

This action is a great victory for the president, who aggressively lobbied wavering members of his party, and for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who piloted the measure past every last-minute obstacle its opponents threw up.

This bipartisan vote was also, we’re obliged to say, a victory for truth. 

Libertarian anarchist Murray Rothbard ripped off Christian idealist G. K. Chesterton

“The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.”

-- G. K. Chesterton, WHAT'S WRONG WITH THE WORLD? (1910)

“Liberty has never been fully tried in the modern world."

-- Murray Rothbard, FOR A NEW LIBERTY (1973)

Top 47 organization contributors in politics, mostly unions, gave $2.4 billion and 75% of that to Democrats

The Kochs come in 48th, giving just $27 million to Republicans.

When it comes to money in politics from organizations as opposed to individuals, Democrats easily get the majority of it . . . mostly from the unions both public and private. Almost all the top 20 contributors to Democrats are unions, contributing $1.4 billion total with unions accounting for $1 billion of that. The top 20 contributors to Republicans can't even crack the $600 million level.

Open Secrets has the data, here.

Americans are gay propaganda victims, overestimating LGBT population by at least six times

Gallup reports here:

"The American public estimates on average that 23% of Americans are gay or lesbian, little changed from Americans' 25% estimate in 2011, and only slightly higher than separate 2002 estimates of the gay and lesbian population. These estimates are many times higher than the 3.8% of the adult population who identified themselves as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender in Gallup Daily tracking in the first four months of this year."

Liberals caught lying again: SSM study published in SCIENCE was faked

From the story here, which just shows that "co-authorship" is often simply designed to lend authority to the findings and is specious because the co-author really isn't contributing anything meaningful and is never intended to:

The study’s co-author [Donald P. Green], an esteemed Columbia University political science professor, asked the journal Science to retract the groundbreaking paper, saying he was deeply embarrassed by the incident. ... “Michael LaCour’s failure to produce the raw data coupled with the other concerns noted above undermines the credibility of the findings,” he wrote. “I am deeply embarrassed by this turn of events and apologize to the editors, reviewers and readers of Science.”

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Green got just what he deserved. The practitioners of "science" aren't worthy of the name.

48 Senate Republicans and 14 Democrats give Obama trade power and sell-out American workers

Why are our enemies on the left our friends?

The roll call vote is here, at 8:51pm on the Friday night before a holiday weekend just to make doubly sure you weren't paying attention. But of course you're too poor to pay attention anyway.

The handful of Republicans who did the right thing include Susan Collins, Mike Lee, Rand Paul, Jeff Sessions and Richard Shelby. Mike Enzi didn't vote. Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio notably voted Yea, along with a bunch of freshmen who have dutifully fallen in line with the establishment.

Story here.

The bill doesn't go to the president for signature unless the House passes the measure. Fortunately it is on vacation this weekend.

On Memorial Day we honor the memory of the war dead, but who will honor the walking dead of America's Zombie working class?

US Supreme Court's brains mysteriously found on a street in upstate New York

Story here:

GOUVERNEUR, N.Y. -- Nine brains inexplicably appeared earlier this week along a street in a St. Lawrence County village. How the brains got there and where they came from remains a mystery. Residents discovered the brains on Beckwith Street near railroad tracks and called the police.

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At least someone in this country still has the presence of mind.

Kathy Shaidle is wonderfully quotable yet again

While discussing the purely accidental discovery of a real traitor, here:

"Conspiracy theories are History for stupid people."

It doesn't get much better than that.

She doesn't get out much, but it obviously helps. 



Drudge's headline writer has homo on the brain

Obama's winter GDP isn't a victim of bad BEA methodology, it's just UNUSUALLY bad

CNBC and Obama's other excuse makers in the media don't want you to focus on how unusually bad Obama's winter GDP has been.

The fact is nominal GDP over the 69 winters from 1947 has improved from 4Q to 1Q on average by 1.77%. That includes every recession year, and Obama's entire record to date which pulls down the average. Pulling Obama's record out lifts the average to 1.94%.

Obama's record over the 7 winters from 2009 has averaged just 0.24%.

Whatever may be said about the existence of methodological problems with BEA's seasonal adjustments and the lack of transparency involved with its raw data, the point is those problems have persisted over time and infect the whole record. They aren't new to the Obama era. What is new is how CNBC and The New York Times have offered up this red herring this spring since it became clear the 2015 winter was nowhere near as bad as the last one and couldn't be plausibly blamed for the 1Q2015 GDP disaster.

Traditionally the BEA is always involved in revising its reporting based on better information and methods. That's the whole point of the comprehensive revisions published every five years in the summer (one of which we just had in 2013) and of the annual revisions every summer. BEA's decision to revise the Obama record and going back only to 2012 in the upcoming summer 2015 annual revision looks as unusual as Obama's GDP record itself, and smacks of pure politics. If the BEA had any integrity it would follow its normal process.

It is a complete red herring to focus on those problems as if they can in any way excuse Obama's awful record.

The political hacks who never stopped telling you how bad the economy was under George W. Bush aren't telling you now that Bush's winter GDP averaged 1.15%, almost five times better than under Obama.

We should be so lucky to have George Bush's rotten economy today instead of Barack Obama's.

State budget funding gaps and low reserves are the evidence of the nation's growing poverty under Obama

Like the people in general who have experienced their median annual household income fall below 2000, 2007 and 2009 levels, the majority of states now have less to spend in real terms as tax revenues decline and have less in reserve for a crisis, having plundered their savings to make up for the shortfalls.

Bloomberg reports here:

Thirty-two states faced budget gaps in fiscal 2015 or 2016 or both, according to an April 27 report by Standard & Poors. The fiscal year ends June 30 in all but four states. ... State governments have about half the reserves that they had before the recession, according to the Pew Charitable Trusts. ... A dozen states still haven’t recovered all jobs lost since the start of the downturn in December 2007 . . . Aggregate general-fund revenue and spending haven’t rebounded to inflation-adjusted fiscal 2008 levels, according to a survey by the State Budget Officers released in December. Revenue of $748 billion for fiscal 2015 would have to be $15 billion higher to match real 2008 levels, the group said.

Libertarianism in Michigan now means smokers and drinkers pay 111% more in taxes than businesses

A fine how-do-you-do from the ménage à trois between Republican libertarianism, Democrat liberalism and the dry Dutch.

The Detroit News reports here:

Revenue from so-called sin taxes on tobacco, beer, wine and liquor totaled $290.5 million in the 2014 fiscal year, more than twice the $137.6 million net income taxes paid by Michigan businesses after receiving $768.8 million in refunds from tax credits, a Detroit News analysis of tax data shows.

Since Gov. Rick Snyder and lawmakers delivered sweeping tax relief for businesses in 2011, net business income taxes dropped 90 percent, depleting the state's main operating fund of $1.33 billion, according to state revenue data.

The percentage of general fund revenue from business income taxes also has plunged as tax credit payouts to companies have soared. Tax data show business income tax receipts declined from 21 percent of the general fund revenue a decade ago to about 2 percent last year. ... Last year, the balance of business income taxes as a share of general revenue began to turn when companies holding tax credits triggered a surge in refunds, from $75.8 million in 2013 to $723.3 million in 2014. The Democratic administration of former Gov. Jennifer Granholm was responsible for most of the state's surge in handing out tax credits to businesses.

Crazed libertarian pledges allegiance to liberty for all, but wants tobacco outlawed

Broadcaster Steve Gruber, here and here:

"I am writing this column to outline one of my more controversial positions. It is time to outlaw smoking altogether. In fact it is time to ban tobacco for any recreational purposes. The kinds of death linked to tobacco from lung cancer, bladder cancer, emphysema, COPD and a host of other horrible diseases need to be stopped."

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Glad you quit again though, Steve. And best of luck to you this time.

Milestones in the growth of the federal regulatory state

• 1950: Code of Federal Regulations, 13 volumes
• 1970: 73 volumes
• 1990: 170 volumes
• 2013: 235 volumes

From an interesting presentation, here, asserting the existence today of over 1 million specific restrictions in the code.

Reuters lies about the fall of Ramadi: Obama isn't "pounding" ISIS from the air

Ramadi has fallen to ISIS because Obama is sitting on his hands, not as reported here:

The United States and its allies have been pounding the militants for months with air strikes in both countries. Washington said on Saturday its special forces had killed a senior IS figure in a raid into Syria.

Over a period of 24 hours up to 0500 GMT on Sunday, the U.S.-led coalition carried out seven air strikes near Ramadi, according to a statement - the highest number on any single location in Iraq and Syria.

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Here's what "pounding" really looks like:

Combat operations began the next day [March 20, 2003] and the USAF participated in air strikes on key targets in and around Baghdad, launching more than 1,700 coalition air sorties and missile launches against Iraq. ... Coalition Air Forces flew nearly 1,000 Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) sorties during the initial weeks of Operation IRAQI FREEDOM, collecting 42,000 battlefield images and more than 3,000 hours of full motion video. As of April 30, 2003, coalition air forces numbered 1,801 aircraft, 863 of which were U.S. Air Force fighters, bombers, tankers, special operations and rescue aircraft, transport aircraft, and ISR and command and control aircraft. In the first six weeks, coalition air forces flew more than 41,000 sorties and the USAF accounted for more than 24,000 of the total. Likewise, Air Force C-130 aircraft transported over 12,000 short tons of materiel during the initial stages of the operation, while Air Force tankers flew more than 6,000 sorties and disbursed more than 376 million pounds of fuel.

The US winter of 2015 was not severe by any measure, so its unremarkable cold and snow can't be blamed for poor GDP

Snow cover averaged 1.19% below the baseline since 1967 for the first quarter.

For average temperature the first quarter ranked 95th warmest out of 121 years, 5.6% above the baseline.

For minimum temperature it ranked 96th, 6.7% above the baseline.

For heating degree days it ranked 75th, just 2.3% colder than the average. By contrast 1Q2014 was 6.8% colder than the average, and the 18th coldest by this measure since 1895.

For cooling degree days, a measure of uncomfortable warmth, 1Q2015 ranked tied for 12th warmest winter at 40% above the baseline. 1Q2012 was the warmest in the series at 136% above the baseline.

Better to blame the languid GDP on the heat than the cold.

Vox details the Hillary triple players who didn't just lobby or donate to her foundation, but also enriched her and Bill personally

Here:

The latest episode in the Clinton money saga is different than the others because it involves the clear, direct personal enrichment of Hillary Clinton, presidential candidate, by people who have a lot of money at stake in the outcome of government decisions. ... Together, Hillary and Bill Clinton cleared $25 million on the lecture circuit over the last 16 months, according to a Hillary Clinton's personal financial disclosure required of presidential candidates. ... Corning's in good company in padding the Clinton family bank account after lobbying the State Department and donating to the foundation. Qualcomm and salesforce.com did that, too. ... And Microsoft, the American Institute of Architects, AT&T, SAP America, Oracle and Telefonica all paid Bill Clinton six-figure sums to speak as Hillary Clinton laid the groundwork for her presidential campaign. And that list, which includes Clinton Foundation donors, is hardly the end of it. There's a solid set of companies and associations that had nothing to do with the foundation but lobbied State while Clinton was there and then paid for her to speak to them. Xerox, the Biotechnology Industry Organization, and the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries, in addition to Corning, all lobbied Clinton's department on trade matters and then invited her to earn an easy check.