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

Seen here.

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

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

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

Stories here and here.

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

Moochelle with mother and daughters on safari in June 2011 

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

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

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

Seen here:

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

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

Michael Bennet (Colorado)

Richard Blumenthal (Connecticut)

Barbara Boxer (California) retiring in 2016

Patrick Leahy (Vermont)

Barbara Mikulski (Maryland) retiring in 2016

Patty Murray (Washington)

Harry Reid (Nevada)

Brian Schatz (Hawaii)

Charles Schumer (New York)

Ron Wyden (Oregon)

Incumbent Republicans in the US Senate conservatives should primary in 2016

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

Ayotte of New Hampshire

Coats of Indiana

Johnson of Wisconsin

Kirk of Illinois

McCain of Arizona

Murkowski of Alaska

Thune of South Dakota

Toomey of Pennsylvania.

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

Barrasso of Wyoming

Corker of Tennessee

Flake of Arizona

Hatch of Utah

Heller of Nevada

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

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

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

Anti-amnesty:

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

Pro-amnesty:

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

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

Let's see.

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

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

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

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

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

They just don't want to.

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

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

Alexander (R-TN)

Ayotte (R-NH)

Barrasso (R-WY)

Capito (R-WV)

Coats (R-IN)

Cochran (R-MS)

Collins (R-ME)

Corker (R-TN)

Cornyn (R-TX)

Enzi (R-WY)

Flake (R-AZ)

Gardner (R-CO)

Graham (R-SC)

Hatch (R-UT)

Heller (R-NV)

Johnson (R-WI)

Kirk (R-IL)

McCain (R-AZ)

McConnell (R-KY)

Murkowski (R-AK)

Rounds (R-SD)

Thune (R-SD)

Toomey (R-PA)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why no one cares Obama is a miserable failure

48.5 million prescriptions in 2013

41.4 million prescriptions in 2013

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

Scott Walker pulls a Romney, flip-flops on amnesty

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2011: 34.87%

2012: 06.09%

2013: 18.67%

2014: 85.40%

2015: 88.75%.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here.

Cry he must.

The Euro for Europeans but Germany, Raus!

Seen here:

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

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