John McCain calls for lethal aid to Ukraine

Major Kong rides again

Story here.

The Swamp organizes using Signal app, already committing sedition in the act

At a minimum Trump should seek a law outlawing the practice at once.

Story here.

Trump Proposes "NAFAFTA": Sorta rhymes with a laundry soap

Story here.

Rush Limbaugh says there was zero immigration into the US after 1920, but of course that wasn't true

Relative to other periods it was practically zero, in other words quite neglible.

Between 1930 and 1950, legal immigration never exceeded 250,000 a year, and plunged to 23,000+ in 1933 and 1943.

The worst presidential administration for legal immigration in the post-war is George Herbert Walker Bush's. In fiscal 1991 he let in over 1.8 million

You can examine the interactive chart, here.

Gee, Chris Plante is as smart as Barack Obama

Just like Barack, he just said "forebearers" when he meant "forebears".

And I'll bet Chris didn't even go to Harvard Law.

Which just goes to show that a poor education doesn't have to cost an arm and a leg.

Senators Susan Collins of Maine and Liza Meercowskie of Alaska get bitchy, won't vote for Betsy DeVos for EDSEC

Trump's entitled to his appointments, no matter what anyone says, unless of course one of them is Charles Manson.

Get on with it already girls. You are wasting our time and our money, just like Democrats.

Trump suggests cutting off Federal funds to U.C. Berkeley as fascist left riots against free speech

Gotta love it, here.

The 1250 "refugees" in Australia aren't refugees, they're illegal immigrants Obama agreed to take

Ann Corcoran has been all over this from the beginning last November, here.

She calls it another dirty deal Obama made late in his tenure, part of the continuing revolution don't you know.

Salena Zito counsels the fascist left to cool it or Democrats will lose even bigger in 2018

Ja.

Here.

Mary Matalin, who bailed on the Republicans last year, is stunned by how much Trump is accomplishing

Here:

It is just stunning what he is getting done, and his people are getting done. And because they are doing it with such authority... they are, it is a complete breakthrough to a new kind of politics we haven't seen since our founding.

What Charlie said

Turley likes Gorsuch

I think that says more about Turley than it does about Gorsuch.

Story here.

Trump's nominee for the Supremes is good as far as it goes

But honestly, if Trump were really dreaming big he would have made three appointments to the highest court, not just one.

Seriously. The Supremes could get so much more nonsense settled with the extra help.

Trump could dramatically reduce the size of government by firing all 900 State Dept. employees opposed to his refugee pause

Story here.

Republicans develop a spine, advance nominees Mnuchin and Price without Democrats who are boycotting the process

From the story here:

By unanimous consent, the Republicans gathered in the hearing room agreed to change the committee’s standing rules, which normally require at least one member of each party to be in attendance for committee work to proceed.

“It’s just another way of roughing up the president’s nominees,” said committee Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah). “They have been treated fairly. We have not been treated fairly.”

Republicans made the unusual move after Democrats refused to attend a vote on the nominees for two days running, arguing the pair had made misleading statements to lawmakers that needed to be rectified.

The Biden Rule: No nominee for a Supreme Court vacancy in a presidential election year is in keeping with the past practice of a majority

Senator Joe Biden in 1992, here:

But in a speech on the Senate floor in June 1992, Mr. Biden, then the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said there should be a different standard for a Supreme Court vacancy “that would occur in the full throes of an election year.” The president should follow the example of “a majority of his predecessors” and delay naming a replacement, Mr. Biden said. If he goes forward before then, the Senate should wait to consider the nomination.

“Some will criticize such a decision and say that it was nothing more than an attempt to save a seat on the court in hopes that a Democrat will be permitted to fill it, but that would not be our intention,” Mr. Biden said at the time. “It would be our pragmatic conclusion that once the political season is underway, and it is, action on a Supreme Court nomination must be put off until after the election campaign is over.

“That is what is fair to the nominee and essential to the process. Otherwise, it seems to me,” he added, “we will be in deep trouble as an institution.”

Biased Neil Swidey article in Boston Globe never tells you how the Democrats' Immigration Act of 1965 flooded the country with non-Europeans

He just slides right over that part of the history, here, and never mentions Operation Wetback under Eisenhower, either:

In 1850, 9.7 percent of the US population was foreign-born, according to the Pew Research Center. By 1890, it had jumped to 14.8 percent, spurring Hall into action. In 1920, though, that figure began its steady drop, and by 1970 it had plummeted to 4.7 percent.

By 2015, fueled largely by surging immigration from Latin America, it had rebounded to 13.7 percent, nearly the same level that Hall had found so intolerable at the start of his crusade.

But you can figure it out from this graph, which clearly shows the flood in (non-European) immigration after 1965:

Sen. Tim Kaine, you know, the almost Vice President, calls for rioting in the streets

Here:

Democrats have to "fight in the streets".

Ann Coulter hates Hardiman for Supremes, so if he's the nominee and Dems stop his confirmation . . .

. . . mission accomplished.

Next!

Dilbert warns the morons could get what they wish for, or maybe just what they deserve

Here.

Jonathan Turley: It's not a Muslim ban

Here.

Basic principles of Americanism as understood by Mark Tooley

Here, from what is expected of applicants for US naturalization:

• Embrace the principles of the US Constitution
• Support the good order and happiness of the US
• Reject communism, totalitarianism, Naziism, persecution, genocide and terrorism

New Rasmussen poll finds 57% support Trump's temporary ban on refugees

Reported here:

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 57% of Likely U.S. Voters favor a temporary ban on refugees from Syria, Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen until the federal government approves its ability to screen out potential terrorists from coming here. Thirty-three percent (33%) are opposed, while 10% are undecided. 

Dear President Trump, Fire 'em all . . . let the unemployment office sort 'em out

Trump fires acting attorney general who would not defend his immigration order

Now we're talking.

From the story here:

The acting Attorney General, Sally Yates, has betrayed the Department of Justice by refusing to enforce a legal order designed to protect the citizens of the United States. This order was approved as to form and legality by the Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel. Ms. Yates is an Obama Administration appointee who is weak on borders and very weak on illegal immigration.

Quinnipiac poll found plurality of Americans want immigration suspended from terror prone regions

But of course Americans also want infrastructure spending increased and their taxes cut.

From the poll, here:

A Quinnipiac University national poll conducted January 5 - 9 showed American voters support 48 - 42 percent "suspending immigration from 'terror prone' regions, even if it means turning away refugees from those regions." 

The independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University Poll also found in the January 5 - 9 survey that American voters support 53 - 41 percent "requiring immigrants from Muslim countries to register with the federal government." 

Mark Levin covers a multitude of sins tonight, reams Ben Sasse and Justin Amash in the first hour

Over their opposition to Trump's executive orders on immigration and refugees.

Black Lives Matter communist calls for killing whites, taking their property

Here. Also here. That woman should be in jail already.

If that's protected speech there will be blood.

Lock and load.

Kim "Smoochy Lips" Strassel doesn't remember protests and lawsuits over Obama's immigration ban

Me either.

Video here.

Obama denied Iraqi Abu Hassan a visa in 2011 but no one rallied for him

Story here and here.

"Where was the outrage when Obama was hurting innocent foreigners?"

Justin Amash raises hell over Trump's immigration ban in 2017, but not over Obama's in 2011 or 2016

. . . working on a movement

The reason?

Because Amash was basically on Obama's side on the broader immigration issues, that's why.

Justin Amash is soft on illegal immigration.

He's against deportations of any of the illegals already here, which the law calls for, and he's for giving illegals legal status and a path to citizenship despite the fact they've broken the law.

Because he's an open borders libertarian.

Reuters falsely reports Trent Lott hails from Missouri in slanted story on "Muslim" ban

Here:

By executive order on Friday, Trump banned immigration from seven Muslim-majority countries – Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen – and temporarily halted the entry of refugees.

Obama and Congress singled out the seven Muslim countries two years ago, not Trump

Seth Frantzman doesn't like it, but admits it, here.

The link for the  travel restrictions issued by Obama's DHS in February 2016, naming the 7 Muslim countries, is here. 

Noah Millman at The American Conservative discovers the inverse of "Employment Population Ratio: 25 - 54 years"

Here, excitedly writing about the inverse of this chart which has been around for a long time:

The problem with measuring employment with this chart, or unemployment with its inverse as Millman advocates, is that this cohort (25 to 54 years of age) has been shrinking due to declining birth rates. The meaning it conveys has changed over time for this and other reasons.

Rising birth rates of the Baby Boom until 1964 help explain the dramatic upward movement in the chart thereafter in the first place, along with the entry of Baby Boom women into the workforce at the same time, a second most important variable.

Additionally, at the peak of the Baby Boom in 1957, the birth rate was 25.3. Twenty years later in 1977 it was only 15.1 and has remained thereabouts and even lower ever since.

The lower birth rates have been winding their way through the employment statistics while female employment was peaking at the same time, like the inverse of a goat going through the belly of a snake but undetectable because of the female phenomenon. The peak in the employment population ratio of this cohort notably coincides with the 1957 peak of the Baby Boom hitting 20 years in the workforce in January 1999, shown above. They hit 30 years in the workforce in 2009, right in the middle of the Great Recession.

Ask how many 52 year olds lost their jobs that year (29.5 million of all ages lost their jobs in 2009), and then passed out of the range of this chart within two years, only to be replaced by . . . not enough people born after 1964.

Interestingly, employment for women in this cohort, while still not fully recovered, is off only 600,000 from the 2007 peak, but for men is off 1.8 million, both on an average basis through 2016. That's a deficit of 2.4 million, but based on declining birth rates I'd estimate most of them won't ever materialize in the future . . . because they never existed.

During the Baby Boom between 1946 and 1964, births per year averaged 4.0 million. But between 1965 and 1992, today's 25 to 52 year olds, births per year averaged just 3.6 million per year.

That's 11.6 million fewer people to take up today's slack.

This is probably as good as it gets.

Never Trumper David French calls Executive Order on refugees "a dramatic climb-down from his worst campaign rhetoric"

Here:

Trump’s order isn’t a betrayal of American values. Applied correctly and competently, it can represent a promising fresh start and a prelude to new policies that protect our nation while still maintaining American compassion and preserving American friendships. 

Ann Coulter v Obama judge from the Cow College of Law

Fiallo v. Bell, 430 U.S. 787, 792: "Our cases have long recognized the power to expel or exclude aliens as a fundamental sovereign attribute exercised by the Government’s political depts LARGELY IMMUNE FROM JUDICIAL CONTROL."

Trump overwhelms the enemy just like the Alinskyite Obama, except Obama was lazy

With an outrage a day (to the left), sometimes two or three, Trump is overwhelming the enemy in the MSM and Democrat Party (but I repeat myself) just as Obama did us. Most of us were busy working jobs at the time, if we still had them, or trying otherwise to survive the transformational diktats with which that tag team of codependents sick with liberalism tried to subvert the country. We had no allies except ourselves.

The difference now is that Trump is the Energizer Bunny Obama could only dream of being. Trump isn't doing this just from 10AM to 2PM Monday through Friday hyphenated by lunch, content to have organized the hive to do the heavy lifting so that he can head for the links or the next soirée with the rich and famous. Which is another important difference between Trump and Obama. Trump is already rich and famous, and owns the golf courses. Been there. Done that. He doesn't need the presidency to gain access to that life. He has bigger fish to fry.

Trump's vigor has already made Obama's legacy the size of a golfball in the sand trap Newt Gingrich predicted, but after only one week in office not three months.

And he works weekends.

It's going to be a long eight years for the left.

And I hope the right can keep up.

FOMC minutes from November 2011 show Federal Reserve presidents laughing at us, quick to blame unemployment on the unemployed

Including at the time Dennis Lockhart, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, Charles Plosser, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, and Jeffrey Lacker, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond.

Story here.

Plosser

Lockhart

Lacker

Alan Blinder's alternative facts about the politics of GDP

Alan Blinder, Bill Clinton's Vice Chair of the Federal Reserve, quoted and discussed here:

“Here is an interesting historical fact. Since Harry Truman, the growth rate has fallen every time a Republican president replaced a Democrat and has risen every time a Democrat has replaced a Republican.”

No, not every time, in either case.

Nixon/Ford current dollar GDP growth (Republican) was better than previous JFK/LBJ GDP (Democrat), up 100% vs. 80%.

And Obama current dollar GDP growth (Democrat) was worse following Bush GDP (Republican), up 30% vs. 39%.

For best growth of current dollar GDP in the post-war, Democrat presidents own positions one and four covering 12 years, but Republicans own positions two and three covering 16 years:

Carter: 13.5%

Nixon/Ford: 12.5%

Reagan: 10.1%

JFK/LBJ: 10.0%.

Four Republican administrations lasting 8 years each have averaged 8.2% in the post-war, and four Democrat administrations lasting 8 years each have averaged 7.5%.

Democrat Carter's 4 years at 13.5% easily beats Bush 41's 4 years at 6.0%, but this hardly offsets the better Republican performance over the long haul compared with the Democrat (see here for the figures).

Current dollar GDP growth by president in the post-war shows Obama in last place as the Baby Boomers fizzle

Obama:   29.6%

Bush 43: 39.0%

Clinton:  56.3%

Bush 41: 23.8% (4 years)

Reagan:  80.9%

Carter:    54.1% (4 years)

Nixon/Ford: 100.0%

JFK/LBJ:       79.6%

IKE:       42.1%

FDR/Truman: 72.7%

Ranked by performance divided by years in office:

Carter: 13.5

Nixon/Ford: 12.5

Reagan: 10.1

JFK/LBJ: 10.0

FDR/Truman: 9.1

Clinton: 7.0

Bush 41: 6.0

IKE: 5.3

Bush 43: 4.9

Obama: 3.7

Vote fraud in 2016: Old Dominion University study estimates 800,000 aliens voted for Hillary

Apparently none were from Mars.

Story here.

Pretty costly affirmative action: Obama delivers his final GDP dud with 2016 growth coming in at just 1.6%

Average report under Obama: 1.475%, the worst in the post-war

Gallup poll finds Americans most want the same old same old two incompatible things: Government spending and tax cuts

George Will excommunicates himself from the Republican Party

Yippee.

Story here.

Mickey Kaus is right: Stop adding new Dreamers

Here:

'Trump could focus on stopping any new work permits to undocumented “Dreamers,” while giving existing Dreamers whose work permits are expiring an extension of two or three months — or 6 months — while he tries to cut the “deal” he says he wants'

Trump doesn't need to end DACA for those already approved under Obama's unconstitutional amnesty . . .

. . . but he does need to stop approving new cases immediately.

He can show discretion to illegals under the program already, as he calls them and which they are, by continuing to grant temporary extensions pending his policy finalization.

But he must stop approving new cases, immediately. Otherwise this is a magnet for continuing illegal immigration.

Turn it off.

DACA cases still being approved despite Trump promise to stop program immediately

From the story at Bloomberg two days ago here:

The program, created by former President Barack Obama in 2012, has allowed more than 700,000 people brought to the country as children to obtain renewable two-year work permits. It can be reversed at any time by the president. On his campaign website and at rallies, Trump said he’d cancel it, decrying it as “unconstitutional.”

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services said Tuesday in an unsigned e-mail from its media office that it has continued to issue new work permits since Trump’s inauguration. The agency said it is still processing applications, as the Obama policy remains unchanged.

“We can confirm that DACA cases have been approved, and some denied, since 1/20/17,” the agency said, using an acronym for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.

How Mexico will pay for THE WALL: OK collects $11m from its 75k illegals sending money home by wire transfer

That's about $147 per head.

With 11 million illegals in the US, that's about $16 billion, enough to pay for THE WALL in a year or two. 

Story here. Map of illegals by state here.

The turnout for Hillary's inauguration: 0

The sexism and vulgarity of the Women's March on Washington is more equal than everyone's

CNBC and AP report here with a straight face in "Sexist, vulgar posts on women's marches rebound on officials":

A school board member in Hillary Clinton's hometown resigned after making a derogatory reference on Twitter to the female anatomy in describing women marching against President Donald Trump. An Illinois teacher was pulled from the classroom for a tweet deemed sexist. And a freshman Indiana lawmaker was inundated with criticism over a Facebook post mocking "fat women."

Female Secret Service agent in Denver defies the Hatch Act, says the Hatch Act be damned

And you thought the swamp was in a low area in DC.

Obama lawlessness has bred lawlessness everywhere, not just in Ferguson, Missouri, Dallas, Texas, . . ..

Story here.

The men's march against fascism didn't get a permit first, and didn't need no stinkin' signs

Non-violent drug offender whose sentence was commuted by Obama hunted down and assassinated in Saginaw

Though thought defunct, Saginaw's Sunny Side Gang strikes again, apparently.

Story here.

Obama's illegal order DACA was done on Friday, June 15, 2012, so maybe Trump will wait until this Friday

This Friday is as long as I give him for him to act "immediately".

MSM says Russians hacked the election, but illegal aliens didn't

It's the reverse of whatever they say, as usual.

Trump promised to overturn DACA amnesty "immediately": Well, we're waiting . . .

Immediately was yesterday. Thanks for ending TPP yesterday, but . . ..

From the story here:

His campaign website still includes a pledge to "immediately terminate President Obama's two illegal executive amnesties," a reference to DACA and a later executive action — Deferred Action for the Parents of Americans (DAPA) — applying to illegal immigrants with American children.

"That's crazy and confusing," said William Gheen, founder of the Americans for Legal Immigration PAC. "Donald Trump promised to end Obama's unconstitutional executive orders, and that's DAPA and DACA."

Reuters and CNBC call the dollar at 100 "wallowing" when 5 years ago it was a hog in slop below 80

Democrats call your office: Gallup says Obama ended up less popular than Dubya and Nixon

Here.

Feminist actress Pat Arquette obviously never read an Employment Situation Summary from the BLS

Here:

"We have 60% of our families now with female breadwinners".

In December 2016 women who maintained families numbered 9.998 million out of 71.43 million women aged 16 and over employed (not seasonally adjusted), or about 8% of all US households, 14% of the women employed, and 6.5% of the total employed.

Upset about a private Trump vulgarity 470,000 feminists prove they're infinitely worse than him

On-duty DC pussy police: No wonder DisruptJ20 succeeded

Five days before the inaugural it was known DisruptJ20 would try to block Americans from entering

So why didn't police act to prevent them?

WTOP reported here on January 15:

DisruptJ20 said it planned to have protests at each entry point to the Inaugural Day parade. The organization said it was planning blockades, including blocking traffic.

USA Today lies about checkpoints being shut down at inaugural

Here:

Small groups of protesters popped up at various security checkpoints across the spectator zones, attempting to block entry. One group, affiliated with Black Lives Matter, chained themselves to metal barricades. But police said no entrances were completely shutdown.

Protesters blocked entry to the inaugural at C Street, depressing attendance: Police just let it happen

Reported here:

Police, Secret Service officials, and other law enforcement personnel were all seen turning away from the protesters rather than attempting to pass through the human barrier protesters assembled on C Street. Law enforcement officials present at the protests mainly attempted to break up skirmishes that broke out between the protesters and those looking to get to the inauguration and parade.

Protesters shut down 50% of the access to the inaugural two hours before the swearing in, depressing attendance

Reported here:

Hundreds of protesters on Friday shut down multiple entry points to President-elect Donald Trump's inauguration. Masses of protesters in support of causes that included climate change, Black Lives Matter, NoDAPL, women's rights, immigrant rights, LGBT rights, and anti-fascism descended upon the nation's capital and formed blockades in front of security checkpoints. ... 

Protesters successfully shut down 6 six of the 12 inauguration access points as of 10am ET on Friday morning. 

Of course the inaugural attendance estimates were lower: Protestors blocked and delayed entry

Reported here:

After almost two hours of delays, the security gates at 7th and Independence Avenue opened to cheers from the restless crowd. ...

At John Marshall Park’s checkpoint, Black Lives Matter protesters - chanting “Shut it down” - did just that. Five men chained themselves together, preventing anyone from passing and forcing police officers to redirect attendees to other entrances. “It feels great that we closed the checkpoint,” said 28-year-old Aaron Goggans, one of the organisers. “But we know this is just the beginning.”

At the 10th and E streets in downtown Washington, protesters blocked the entrance to another checkpoint. A group of women tied themselves together with purple yarn and sat on the ground to prevent people from passing through.

White Privileged Women's March in DC can't face it that Hillary underperformed with women

White privileged women have only themselves to blame for Hillary's loss to Donald Trump. Their candidate didn't appeal to women unlike themselves.

Hillary underperformed Obama 2012 with all women by one point, black women by 2 points, Latino women by 8 points, and unmarried women by 5 points. The only groups of women with which Hillary outperformed Obama 2012 were WHITE WOMEN and MARRIED WOMEN, in other words with the PRIVILEGED class of women which has the luxury of time to knit pink hats and the surplus cash to travel to one of America's most expensive cities to bathe in each other's estrogen. 

The good little communists of DisruptJ20 justify their violence against private property

Here:

[Lacy] MacAuley is the spokeswoman for DisruptJ20, a collection of anti-capitalist, antifascist and progressive groups rooted in the District and elsewhere that organized the protest. ...

The violence “helps demonize and delegitimize us,” said Payton McDonald, 23, of Ann Arbor, Mich. But, McDonald added, “The violence of the state needs to be met with a level of protest that complements it.” ...

Henry Hughes, 61, dressed in jeans, a flannel shirt and a North Cascades National Park hat, held a jug to collect money for those arrested. A copy editor for a transcription company who lives in Marblemount, Wash., he said that although he was blocking entrances Friday and was nowhere near the torched limousine, he didn’t object to the destruction.

Ignored for years for preaching catastrophe, CNBC suddenly pays attention to David Stockman

You know, right on schedule, as soon as a Republican takes the helm.

Story here.

Obama is spending his first 2 weeks as ex-president vacationing with gay couple James Costos and Michael Smith

Sure, sure, he wasn't for gay marriage in 2004 and 2008.

Story here.

Nasty sore loser Democrats march in Washington DC to protest Trump

From the story here:

Instead of red “Make America Great Again” popular at the inauguration the day before, many marchers wore pink knitted caps with ears evoking a cat and dubbed “pussy hats,” as a symbol of defiance to the new president.

NATO member Turkey on the brink of an elected dictatorship under Erdogan

Crazy. Ataturk set the country on a course of secularization. Erdogan is doing the reverse, in the style and guise of Ataturk.

From the story here:

Bulent Turan, a whip from the Islamist-rooted AK Party, which Erdogan co-founded, rejected opposition claims that the amendments would create an elected dictatorship, saying they sought to allow for greater government oversight and to speed up decision making. ... Turkey’s parliament was founded by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk in 1920 as part of a secular and Western-oriented revolution that replaced the theocratic Ottoman Empire. Should Erdogan succeed, Turkey is set to a have a president who will basically concentrate as much power as Ataturk.