Monday, July 17, 2017

The Senate ceased being a gentlemen's club when they started letting just anybody in in 1913

Spare me the blather about its august rules, traditions and decorum, especially when propounded by the gaggle of mediocrities, grifters, hacks, and perverts now occupying it, and aspiring to it. 

Remember the Republican motto: In order to save the Union we have to destroy it


Saturday, July 15, 2017

Michigan Doctor Men with funny names charged in $1.3 billion healthcare fraud conspiracy: Mashiyat Rashid, Yasser Mozeb, Abdul Haq, Tariz Omar, Mohammed Zahoor

From the story here:

More than 400 people across the country were charged Thursday for taking part in health care fraud and opioid scams including six Michigan doctors in connection with a raid Wednesday at the Fisher Building in Detroit. ... Rashid and Mozeb are charged with conspiracy to defraud the United States and pay and receive health care kickbacks.

Laugh of the Day: Leave it to Rod Dreher to crank out 2,000 to 3,000 words about so much bologna

Here, in the comments section.

Friday, July 14, 2017

Peter Beinart suddenly discovers "projection"

I'm not surprised after he swam in it for eight years under Obama, whose fault nothing was.

If an Hawaii judge can ignore the Supreme Court, Trump can ignore the Hawaii judge


Trump tells 64-year old Brigitte Macron "You're in such good shape": At least he didn't call her a "corpseman"

Melania can't take that guy anywhere.

Story here.

Kid Rock's tired of Michigan Senator Debbie Stabenow's "bullshit", plans to run against her


J. P. Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon complains "stupid shit" is distracting America from implementing better tax and spending policies

Blame the Democrats and NeverTrumpers, Jamie.


It's almost an embarrassment being an American citizen traveling around the world and listening to the stupid s--- we have to deal with in this country, and at one point we all have to get our act together or we won't do what we're supposed to [do] for the average Americans and unfortunately people write about this saying like it's for corporations. It's not for corporations. Competitive taxes are important for business and business growth, which is important for jobs and wage growth. And honestly we should be ringing that alarm bell, every single one of you, every time we talk to a client.

Thursday, July 13, 2017

Trump Jr. saga: Loretta Lynch personally signed off on Moscow lawyer entry to US in October 2015, but it appears the lawyer overstayed and no one followed up

The Hill reports here:

The Moscow lawyer had been turned down for a visa to enter the U.S. lawfully but then was granted special immigration parole by then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch for the limited purpose of helping a company owned by Russian businessman Denis Katsyv, her client, defend itself against a Justice Department asset forfeiture case in federal court in New York City.

During a court hearing in early January 2016 as Veselnitskaya’s permission to stay in the country was about to expire, federal prosecutors described how rare the grant of parole immigration was as Veselnitskaya pleaded for more time to remain in the United States. ...

The U.S. Attorney’s office in New York confirmed Wednesday to The Hill that it let Veselnitskaya into the country on a grant of immigration parole from October 2015 to early January 2016.

Justice Department and State Department officials could not immediately explain how the Russian lawyer was still in the country in June for the meeting with Donald Trump Jr. and the events in Washington D.C.


Wednesday, July 12, 2017

Watch Maxine Waters' eyes get real big when Pelosi mistakenly refers to Trump as Bush

At least Maxine was paying attention to the dingbat.

Here, but I repeat myself.

Pelosi has now made the mistake five times according to the story here, raising questions about her fitness for office.

David Brooks, who thinks he's so much smarter than a high school graduate, mistakenly calls stirato bread striata bread


All the recipes by the people who actually know Italian bread call it stirato. Here, here, here, here, here, here and here.

When gathering up your cultural signifiers with which to preen and beat the illegitimi over the head, David, maybe you should first make sure that they are intelligible. Looks like all those layoffs of the striata eaters at the Times are starting to expose the columnists for the ignoramuses they are.

Ralph Peters becomes irrational about Putin like Bush, under questioning by Tucker Carlson

"I looked the man in the eye. I found him very straightforward and trustworthy – I was able to get a sense of his soul."
Here:

[Vladimir Putin] is malevolent and he is as close to pure evil as I can find. ... [H]e is as bad as Hitler. ... Vladimir Putin hates America, he wants to hurt us. ... Russia is evil, Russia is our enemy.

Laugh of the Day: Baloney sandwich Joe Scarborough says he's not going to be a filet mignon anymore

Seen in the comments section, here.

Politico's real story from January was that the DNC, the Hillary campaign, Alexandra Chalupa, Rep. Marcy Kaptur, journalists, government officials and intelligence operatives all colluded with Ukraine to take out Manafort and disrupt Trump's campaign

You should read it to appreciate the four fingers pointing back at the Democrats every time they point at Republicans yelling "collusion".

The whole article was designed to run interference for Chalupa and the Democrats, putting the best spin on it they could after uncovering the dirty details. The heart of the story begins seventeen paragraphs in, after trying in the first sixteen to make what follows not say what it says, here:

The Ukrainian efforts had an impact in the race, helping to force Manafort’s resignation and advancing the narrative that Trump’s campaign was deeply connected to Ukraine’s foe to the east, Russia. ...

Manafort’s work for Yanukovych caught the attention of a veteran Democratic operative named Alexandra Chalupa, who had worked in the White House Office of Public Liaison during the Clinton administration. Chalupa went on to work as a staffer, then as a consultant, for Democratic National Committee. The DNC paid her $412,000 from 2004 to June 2016, according to Federal Election Commission records, though she also was paid by other clients during that time, including Democratic campaigns and the DNC’s arm for engaging expatriate Democrats around the world.

In an interview this month, Chalupa told Politico she had developed a network of sources in Kiev and Washington, including investigative journalists, government officials and private intelligence operatives. While her consulting work at the DNC this past election cycle centered on mobilizing ethnic communities — including Ukrainian-Americans — she said that, when Trump’s unlikely presidential campaign began surging in late 2015, she began focusing more on the research, and expanded it to include Trump’s ties to Russia, as well.

She occasionally shared her findings with officials from the DNC and Clinton’s campaign, Chalupa said. In January 2016 — months before Manafort had taken any role in Trump’s campaign — Chalupa told a senior DNC official that, when it came to Trump’s campaign, “I felt there was a Russia connection,” Chalupa recalled. “And that, if there was, that we can expect Paul Manafort to be involved in this election,” said Chalupa, who at the time also was warning leaders in the Ukrainian-American community that Manafort was “Putin’s political brain for manipulating U.S. foreign policy and elections.”

She said she shared her concern with Ukraine’s ambassador to the U.S., Valeriy Chaly, and one of his top aides, Oksana Shulyar, during a March 2016 meeting at the Ukrainian Embassy. According to someone briefed on the meeting, Chaly said that Manafort was very much on his radar, but that he wasn’t particularly concerned about the operative’s ties to Trump since he didn’t believe Trump stood much of a chance of winning the GOP nomination, let alone the presidency.

That all started to change just four days after Chalupa’s meeting at the embassy, when it was reported that Trump had in fact hired Manafort, suggesting that Chalupa may have been on to something. She quickly found herself in high demand. The day after Manafort’s hiring was revealed, she briefed the DNC’s communications staff on Manafort, Trump and their ties to Russia, according to an operative familiar with the situation. ...

Chalupa asked embassy staff to try to arrange an interview in which Poroshenko might discuss Manafort’s ties to Yanukovych. While the embassy declined that request, officials there became “helpful” in Chalupa’s efforts, she said, explaining that she traded information and leads with them. “If I asked a question, they would provide guidance, or if there was someone I needed to follow up with.” But she stressed, “There were no documents given, nothing like that.”

Chalupa said the embassy also worked directly with reporters researching Trump, Manafort and Russia to point them in the right directions. ...

Andrii Telizhenko, who worked as a political officer in the Ukrainian Embassy under Shulyar, said [Shulyar] instructed him to help Chalupa research connections between Trump, Manafort and Russia. “Oksana said that if I had any information, or knew other people who did, then I should contact Chalupa,” recalled Telizhenko, who is now a political consultant in Kiev. “They were coordinating an investigation with the Hillary team on Paul Manafort with Alexandra Chalupa,” he said, adding “Oksana was keeping it all quiet,” but “the embassy worked very closely with” Chalupa.

In fact, sources familiar with the effort say that Shulyar specifically called Telizhenko into a meeting with Chalupa to provide an update on an American media outlet’s ongoing investigation into Manafort.

Telizhenko recalled that Chalupa told him and Shulyar that, “If we can get enough information on Paul [Manafort] or Trump’s involvement with Russia, she can get a hearing in Congress by September.”

Chalupa confirmed that, a week after Manafort’s hiring was announced, she discussed the possibility of a congressional investigation with a foreign policy legislative assistant in the office of Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio), who co-chairs the Congressional Ukrainian Caucus. But, Chalupa said, “It didn’t go anywhere.”

Asked about the effort, the Kaptur legislative assistant called it a “touchy subject” in an internal email to colleagues that was accidentally forwarded to Politico.

Kaptur’s office later emailed an official statement explaining that the lawmaker is backing a bill to create an independent commission to investigate “possible outside interference in our elections.” The office added “at this time, the evidence related to this matter points to Russia, but Congresswoman Kaptur is concerned with any evidence of foreign entities interfering in our elections.” ...

In [an] email [released by Wikileaks], which was sent in early May to then-DNC communications director Luis Miranda, Chalupa noted that she had extended an invitation to the Library of Congress forum to veteran Washington investigative reporter Michael Isikoff. Two days before the event, he had published a story for Yahoo News revealing the unraveling of a $26 million deal between Manafort and a Russian oligarch related to a telecommunications venture in Ukraine. And Chalupa wrote in the email she’d been “working with for the past few weeks” with Isikoff “and connected him to the Ukrainians” at the event.

Isikoff, who accompanied Chalupa to a reception at the Ukrainian Embassy immediately after the Library of Congress event, declined to comment.

Chalupa further indicated in her hacked May email to the DNC that she had additional sensitive information about Manafort that she intended to share “offline” with Miranda and DNC research director Lauren Dillon, including “a big Trump component you and Lauren need to be aware of that will hit in next few weeks and something I’m working on you should be aware of.” Explaining that she didn’t feel comfortable sharing the intel over email, Chalupa attached a screenshot of a warning from Yahoo administrators about “state-sponsored” hacking on her account, explaining, “Since I started digging into Manafort these messages have been a daily occurrence on my yahoo account despite changing my password often.”

Dillon and Miranda declined to comment. ...

The [Financial Times] noted that Trump’s candidacy had spurred “Kiev’s wider political leadership to do something they would never have attempted before: intervene, however indirectly, in a U.S. election,” and the story quoted Leshchenko [Ukraine's parliamentarian] asserting that the majority of Ukraine’s politicians are “on Hillary Clinton’s side.” ...

[A]n operative who has worked extensively in Ukraine, including as an adviser to Poroshenko, said it was highly unlikely that either Leshchenko or the anti-corruption bureau would have pushed the issue without at least tacit approval from Poroshenko or his closest allies.

“It was something that Poroshenko was probably aware of and could have stopped if he wanted to,” said the operative. ...

Telizhenko, the former embassy staffer, said that, during the primaries, Chaly, the country’s ambassador in Washington, had actually instructed the embassy not to reach out to Trump’s campaign, even as it was engaging with those of Clinton and Trump’s leading GOP rival, Ted Cruz.

“We had an order not to talk to the Trump team, because he was critical of Ukraine and the government and his critical position on Crimea and the conflict,” said Telizhenko. “I was yelled at when I proposed to talk to Trump,” he said, adding, “The ambassador said not to get involved — Hillary is going to win.”

This account was confirmed by Nalyvaichenko, the former diplomat and security chief now affiliated with a Poroshenko opponent, who said, “The Ukrainian authorities closed all doors and windows — this is from the Ukrainian side.” He called the strategy “bad and short-sighted.”

Andriy Artemenko, a Ukrainian parliamentarian associated with a conservative opposition party, did meet with Trump’s team during the campaign and said he personally offered to set up similar meetings for Chaly but was rebuffed.

“It was clear that they were supporting Hillary Clinton’s candidacy,” Artemenko said. “They did everything from organizing meetings with the Clinton team, to publicly supporting her, to criticizing Trump. … I think that they simply didn’t meet because they thought that Hillary would win.”

Tuesday, July 11, 2017

Monday, July 10, 2017

At this point in the Obama administration the Senate had confirmed 202 appointments, in the Trump just 50

Story here.

And Republicans are in the majority in the Senate.

The immediate effect of NAFTA passage in late 1993 was pushing 2.3 million more Americans into part-time employment by the end of June 1994


Laugh of the Day: NYT calls blaming Palin for Giffords' shooting for six years "an honest mistake"


Comey's "private" memos were government property, contained classified information which he may have mishandled, improperly stored or shared

From the story here:

FBI policy forbids any agent from releasing classified information or any information from ongoing investigations or sensitive operations without prior written permission, and mandates that all records created during official duties are considered to be government property. ... 

[T]he revelation that four of the seven memos included some sort of classified information opens a new door of inquiry into whether classified information was mishandled, improperly stored or improperly shared. 

Ironically, that was the same issue the FBI investigated in 2015-16 under Comey about Clinton’s private email server, where as secretary of State she and top aides moved classified information through insecure channels.

Russia derangement syndrome, from the pen of David Frum . . .


Trump’s not wrong to perceive a threat to the Euro-Atlantic from the south and east. But the most recent and most dramatic manifestation of that threat was the Russian intervention in the U.S. election to install Donald Trump as president.

John O'Sullivan still refuses to accept the meaning of "ourselves and our Posterity"


Notice that Ronald Reagan did not say that the great civil ideas of the West were the property of those Notre Dame graduates who were descended from the Founding Fathers and their generation. Nor did he say that they were the property of white Anglophone Protestants who had fetched up on these shores in the meantime — since that would have excluded the son of an Irish Catholic father like himself. Nor that the children of black slaves or other non-white migrants were excluded from that same moral and intellectual Western inheritance which the black former slave and passionate reader, Frederick Douglass, so cherished and claimed as his own.

Sunday, July 9, 2017

Kevin Williamson of National Review, CNBC's kind of conservative, tries out for job with better liberals, calls Trump a coward and a fool

Here, saying Trump is no different than Obama for being all talk and no action.

Williamson is unhappy that Trump hasn't yet started a shooting war with North Korea, which makes Williamson actually little different from Trump, who gave China all of two months to get North Korea under control.

Williamson has a BA in English from UT-Austin. Travis County Texas, home of UT, went for Hillary over Trump by nearly 66% to 27% in 2016, and gave libertarian crank Gary Johnson over 4.5% of its vote.




Saturday, July 8, 2017

Over 42,000 still without power in southwest lower Michigan 42 hours after storm


Full-time jobs still haven't recovered after 10 years: We are at least 4.6 million behind

Full-time jobs in June 2007 stood at 122.2 million.

40.58% of the population then had full-time jobs.

In June 2017 127.3 million had full-time jobs, but that is only 39.16% of the population.

At the 2007 rate, 131.9 million would have full-time jobs in June 2017.

One can say the level has recovered, but the percentage sure hasn't.

We are at least 4.6 million full-time jobs behind what could reasonably be called full recovery, after 10 long years which millions will never get back:

Like people with already long careers which were cut short in their peak earning years, to the stillborn careers of young people whose college preparations got them ready for nothing but debt payments, to the people who finally found full-time jobs again but at salaries 20% behind what they were paid for the same work a decade ago, to the many millions who struggled through income stagnation throughout the period.

That's just some of the true crime of what has just transpired, and it's all on Barack Obama, the enemy of the middle class.






Have you noticed that all the dumb ass conservatives in talk radio have stopped talking about this number?

And it's not because they have finally come to understand what this number means. No, it's because they have a different president now, and they're not going to beat him over the head with it.

That's all.

Hey Rush, 94.8 million people not working but still eating! Take the food away! Kids in high school and college and retired people on Social Security have no right to eat if they're not working!

Dumb ass.




About 27 hours after the storm hit, nearly 100,000 are still without power in southwest lower Michigan


Friday, July 7, 2017

Loretta Lynch may have testified falsely before the House in July 2016, may have spoken with Amanda Renteria

From the story here:

The Senate Judiciary Committee, which has launched a bipartisan investigation into Lynch for possible obstruction of justice, recently learned of the existence of a document indicating Lynch assured the political director of Clinton’s campaign she wouldn’t let FBI agents “go too far” in probing the former secretary of state.

Thursday, July 6, 2017

CNN: Clown Network News, where everyone follows the company dress code


Linda Sarsour, co-chair of Women's March on Washington, says fighting Trump is Jihad, must protect the Muslim Community and not assimilate



I'm guessing "Shinnecock Hills" Man is an illegal immigrant from Guatemala, but that's just me


Steve Scalise back in intensive care after being shot by left-wing extremist supporter of Bernie Sanders

Reported here in WaPo, which never mentions Scalise was shot by a left-wing extremist supporter of Bernie Sanders.

Bet you didn't know this: Vladimir Putin gave John Podesta's company Joule Unlimited $35 million

Democrats colluding while accusing others of what they do themselves.

From the story here:

[W]hen he joined the Obama White House, Podesta transferred his Joule shares to an LLC controlled by his adult children. He also resumed communicating with Joule and Joule investors after leaving the White House and joining Hillary Clinton’s campaign. In fact, he received an invoice from his lawyers in April 2015 — a consent request for Dmitry Akhanov of Rusnano USA to join Joule’s board.

But nothing to see here, Podesta insisted. ...

In 2012 the company claimed it had raised $110 million to date.

That meant the Kremlin-backed $35 million investment given to Joule after Podesta’s board appointment represented over 30 percent of Joule’s outside financing.

Infections kill 380,000 in nursing homes annually, mostly Medicaid recipients

Forget dying in the streets, they already drop like flies on Medicaid and no one gives a rat's rear end.

From Betsy McCaughey, here:

The real threat to seniors isn’t Medicaid funding levels. It’s that Medicaid officials tolerate substandard nursing-home care, when they could use the program’s market clout to demand better conditions. About 66 percent of long-term patients are paid for by Medicaid.

Wednesday, July 5, 2017

Trump's right, gas should go lower

After all, gasoline was $1.02 as recently as January 2002.


After just 5 months Trump has ISIS, the JV team, surrounded in Raqqa and Mosul

"This is good! How many did they behead as Obama played Golf?" 

Story here.

John Batchelor: The professors are lying about the Medicaid "cuts"

Here, where we learn that the Obamacare Medicaid expansion actually was UNFAIR because it is far more generous, by 100%, to childless, non-disabled, non-elderly adults earning less than $16,000 a year than it is to poor children, the disabled and seniors who were already on Medicaid.

The Republican Senate plan cuts that back 50%, equal to the existing, traditional reimbursement for poor children, the disabled and seniors on Medicaid.

Equality. It's a bitch brought to you by Republicans, not Democrats. 

Tuesday, July 4, 2017

AEI is full of crap: This country was formed for "ourselves and our posterity", not for the sake of ideas, or hordes of future immigrants

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.



What's not to like this July 4th: Hillary's not president and gasoline averages $2.22 nationally


The American Revolution: Not an upheaval, but a return, a restoration

From the story here:

First, there were those who admired the English constitution that they had inherited and studied. Believing they had been deprived of their rights under the English constitution, their aim was to regain these rights. Identifying themselves with the tradition of Coke and Selden, they hoped to achieve a victory against royal absolutism comparable to what their English forefathers had achieved in the Petition of Right and Bill of Rights. To individuals of this type, the word revolution still had its older meaning, invoking something that “revolves” and would, through their efforts, return to its rightful place—in effect, a restoration. Alexander Hamilton was probably the best-known exponent of this kind of conservative politics, telling the assembled delegates to the constitutional convention of 1787, for example, that “I believe the British government forms the best model the world ever produced.” Or, as John Dickinson told the convention: “Experience must be our only guide. Reason may mislead us. It was not reason that discovered the singular and admirable mechanism of the English constitution…. Accidents probably produced these discoveries, and experience has given a sanction to them.” And it is evident that they were quietly supported behind the scenes by other adherents of this view, among them the president of the convention, General George Washington.

The revolving revolution of 1776

From an op-ed in The Washington Times here:

"This was the object of the Declaration of Independence," [Jefferson] wrote in a letter to Henry Lee in May 1825. "Not to find out new principles, or new arguments, never before thought of, not merely to say things which had never been said before; but to place before mankind the common sense of the subject, in terms so plain and firm as to command their assent, and to justify ourselves in the independent stand we are compelled to take."

In that vein, the "revolution" was conservative and indeed conforms to Edmund Burke's original use of the word with its common meaning of something revolving. A full revolution returns affairs to an original condition.

It wasn't about being original in the sense of being new; it was about telling the world who we are as Americans. "Neither aiming at originality of principle or sentiment, nor yet copied from any particular and previous writing, it was intended to be an expression of the American mind, and to give to that expression the proper tone and spirit called for by the occasion," Jefferson added.

Tens of thousands of refugees stuck in Italy

From the story here:

With France and Switzerland closing their borders to migrants since last year, the tens of thousands in Italy have nowhere to go. The EU came up with a plan to relocate around 160,000 asylum seekers stuck in Italy and Greece but so far only 12,000 have been resettled. Italy says it can no longer be expected to deal single-handedly with the vast number of asylum seekers, most of them economic migrants, streaming across the Mediterranean. ... 

The Italian government has warned that after years of taking in hundreds of thousands of migrants, the country is now at breaking point.

Italy's jobs debacle continues while stupid leaders let in refugees by the millions

From the story here:

Italy's chronic unemployment problem has been thrown into sharp relief after 85,000 people applied for 30 jobs at a bank – nearly 3,000 candidates for each post. ... It is not the first time that huge numbers of young Italians have applied for a small number of posts. When the region of Umbria advertised 94 public administration jobs in 2015, more than 32,000 people applied. A hospital in Milan that needed to recruit 10 nurses was inundated with more than 7,000 candidates.

Remember when Obama boasted of creating 2.1 jobs?

Six years ago at Real Clear Politics:


Employers immediately panicked after Obama was elected, shedding jobs by the millions

From November 2007 through October 2008, there were 19.6 million first time claims for unemployment.

Not good, but nothing like what followed.

Immediately after Obama was elected, the figure jumped by over 52% in November 2008 and never looked back. For the first twelve months after Obama's election, jobless claims jumped by 56% to 30.6 million.

The average per month jumped from 1.6 million per month to 2.6 million.

And in the first eight months since Trump was elected?

The average is 1.1 million per month.

Happy Independence Day!

Monday, July 3, 2017

Rahm Emanuel just lies about economic growth in Chicago: He's presiding over decline, not growth


Cities with reliable, modern mass transit are more economically competitive, have higher productivity, fewer carbon emissions and a better quality of life. And as we have seen in Chicago, mass transit not only connects people to opportunities, it also fuels growth. Modernizing our existing mass transit is one reason Chicago’s economy has expanded faster than the economies of New York and Washington, and faster than the national average for the last five years.



Grand Rapids, Michigan, climate update for June 2017

Mean average temperature was 69.5 degrees F in June 2017 in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The mean is 67.6.

The lowest minimum temperature was 46. The mean is 43.

The highest maximum temperature was 93. The mean is 91.

Precipitation was 4.88 inches. The mean is 3.55.

Snowfall was zero. Seasonal snowfall 2016-2017 ends at 60.1 inches. The mean is 66.6.

Heating degree days came to 22. The mean is 54. The season ends with 5635, the fifth warmest on record. The mean is 6703. Seasonal maximum is 7712. Seasonal minimum is 5253.

Cooling degree days to date come to 162. The mean to date is 139. Seasonal maximum is 1200. Seasonal minimum is 316. 

Fake wrestling doesn't exist, you see: Disinformation radio news media keep referring to Vince McMahon in 2007 Trump wrestling video as "a man"

The C-students in the media, all descended from Piltdown Man and with faces made for radio, don't want anyone to make the connection with fake news and maybe laugh at Trump's joke. This is about VIOLENCE against the media dontchaknow!

Ohio Man, Pennsylvania Man, Michigan Man, Asian Man, and Gun Man all get arrested for terrorism according to news reports but have absolutely nothing in common. Hm. What could it be?

And now Vince McMahon is just A Man and can't get no respect!

He might as well be Muslim Man.

Sunday, July 2, 2017

"Ohio Man" is terrorist born in Somalia, trained in Syria


Trump's funniest stunt yet: Mocks fake news with fake wrestling


Better than "only Rosie O'Donnell" and giving out Senator Grahamnesty's phone number.

There's no business like the loan shark business: Federal student loan rates jump 18.4% effective July 1

The 10-year Treasury pays barely 2.3% but the Feds will now gouge students over 93% more than that.

From the story here:

For new loans disbursed from July 1, 2017, to June 30, 2018, undergraduates will pay 4.45 percent. That's an increase from this year's rate of 3.76 percent. ... [Graduate students] will pay 6 percent for a direct unsubsidized loan — which begins accruing interest as soon as the borrower takes out the loan — an increase from 5.31 percent this year. Finally, rates on direct PLUS loans, which both graduate students and parents of undergrads can use, will rise to 7 percent from the current 6.31 percent. ... Last year, the average college graduate owed $37,172, up 6 percent from 2015, according to data from Student Loan Hero. ... Total student debt in the United States is now over $1.4 trillion — the majority of which is from federal loans.

Hey Mark Warner, these are the only Trump words that matter!


I got your frickin' CBO score right here

Government at all levels now costs 36% of GDP.

We can't afford another pencil.



Reuters gets it exactly backwards on $1.42 billion Taiwan arms deal: It pressures China to help on North Korea

Trump is playing chess with China, which has been provoking the free world by building illegal islands in the South China Sea and militarizing them. Arguably Trump needs to move even more pieces in their direction on the board.


China's anger over the U.S. plan to supply Taiwan with weapons risks undermining Trump's attempts to press China to help on North Korea. ... The sales, which require congressional approval, would be the first since a $1.83 billion sale that former President Barack Obama announced in December 2015, also to China's dismay.


Reuters should stick to reporting the news instead of opining about it.

Friday, June 30, 2017

CNBC's Jake Novak says Trump finally came to his senses with Obamacare "clean" repeal tweet


[I]n a tweet Friday morning, President Trump strongly suggested the Republicans just repeal Obamacare and worry about the replacement later. Thank you for finally coming to your senses, Mr. President!

Dan Bongino for Sean Hannity brings on Mark Meadows to talk about Obamacare repeal, and do they discuss Trump's clean repeal tweet?

No. Zip, zero, nada, bupkis.

Unbelievable.

Worthless.

This is talk radio malpractice.

OK, we're basically 0-5: Neither Michael Savage nor Dan Bongino on Hannity are leading with Obamacare repeal

We'll see about Levin in three hours.

It's pretty disappointing that conservative talk radio can't follow President Trump's talking points even when he spells them out on Twitter.

Trump has made a YUGE move to the right and everybody's just shrugging their shoulders today.


Gallup: Middle-class self-identification normalizes at 62%, same as in 2003 after bottoming out at 50% under Obama



Mark Belling turns to Trump Obamacare repeal tweet

Finally. Right now.

We didn't elect a king to worship like Obama's slaves worship him, we elected a fighter


Not to be outdone by P. J. O'Rourke, libertarian Mark Perry also genuflects toward the hypocritical French today

Namely toward Frederic Bastiat, here, who wrote against "legal plunder", never once mentioning that the estate off of which Bastiat derived his living had been stolen from the aristocracy during the French Revolution.

Mark Perry is not just a one-off, either. Bastiat is a hero to libertarians generally. For example, to Rep. Justin Amash, who not coincidentally owes his fortune to the family business in tools, which are manufactured in China, not the united States.

Protestations against legal plunder, my foot.

And Mark Belling also wastes our time defending Trump in L'Affaire Joe Mangina

Filling in for Rush Limbaugh today.

Trump hands off the rhetorical baton on repeal of Obamacare, and so far today 3 talk radio hosts have dropped it.

Trump moves far right on Obamacare, morning talk radio gives us crickets

Both Laura Ingraham and Chris Plante had more important things to talk about today than President Donald Trump expressing willingness to forego Obamacare replacement for simple repeal.

Idiots.

P. J. O'Rourke discovers the limits of individualism, gets wet for (French) state capitalism

Arianespace.

Here.

When regular capitalism won't do, there's always the comparatively smaller French state capitalism:

"An individual could not build a rocket like these, no matter what his wealth or how much time he was allotted." 

Hey, P. J., would it be too much to ask you at least to admire our own?

Yes, it would be from a frog-licker.



Justin "Might as well be a Democrat" Amash also voted against "No Sanctuary for Criminals Act"

Amash and six other Republicans (Curbelo of FL, Diaz-Balart, Donovan, King of NY, Reichert, Ros Lehtinen) went down to defeat with 188 Democrats.

HR 3003.


Republicans Chaffetz, Gosar, Long, Mark Meadows, Nunes, Scalise, Smith (NJ) and Stivers did not vote.

Defeated Leader of the Party of Street Violence and Abortion Death calls the kettle black


Laura Ingraham is ripping Justin Amash as an embarrassment right now, the only Republican to vote against Kate's Law

HR 3004.

If you're a big fan of John Locke, you're not a conservative

Read What is Conservatism? to understand why.

FINALLY: Trump tweets support for full repeal of Obamacare without "replace"


Send him HR 3762, stat.

Laugh of the Day: Traitor Joe is bleeding from his mangina

Seen here, in the comments section.

"Sorry mom"!

The servile Kim Strassel has no fight in her, thinks the Senate healthcare bill simply comes down to pre-existing conditions

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
From the story here, where Strassel counsels bowing to federal mandates, which means bowing to the left-wing extremist who bankrupted America:

Republicans lost this argument nearly a decade ago, when Mr. Obama won. More than 90% of Senate Republicans understand this.

Which is another way of saying that protections for pre-existing conditions are here to stay, and conservatives face a choice. They can work with their colleagues to minimize the costs of the mandates (there are innovative ways to do this) and build in different free-market reforms to lower premiums. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the current Senate bill will reduce premiums by about 30%, and the GOP can and should build on this.

Yes, the simple solution is always to bow, to submit, whether to the king, or to Allah.

Real Americans don't settle for easy.