Outgoing US Attorney Ron Machen has stonewalled Lerner contempt case for 10 months, as has Obama

From the story here:

Ronald Machen, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia appointed by President Obama and set to step down next month, has not acted on a contempt of Congress charge for former IRS official Lois Lerner. 

Machen, who announced at the beginning of the week he'd step down April 1 to return to private practice, has not referred Lerner's case to a grand jury. Her contempt citation for not testifying at two hearings has been in Machen's hands since May 2014. ...

The Obama administration has also not publicly released hundreds of documents related to the IRS's targeting of Tea Party groups.

M'bala M'bala of France gets two months in jail, suspended, just for saying he's Charlie Coulibaly

The cartoonist Coco let the terrorists into the offices of Charlie Hebdo.

The story is here.

Condoning terrorism is punishable in France, unless you work for Charlie Hebdo.

Hey Rush! The only people who really believe in a two-state solution are liberals like George W. Bush, right?

From today's Rush Limbaugh show, here:

So you terrorize Israel with bombs from Gaza and bombs from Hamas and bombs from Hezbollah, and then while the peace process is going on you then demand the right of return.  And both of those stratagems are designed to effectively bring about the end of the Jewish state.  The people who believe in this two-state solution, like our caller here from the last hour, the only people who really believe in it are Western liberals such as American liberals, Western European socialist liberals.

Dateline Washington, December 2008, here:

US President George W. Bush summed up eight years of his administration's affairs in the Middle East on Friday, and said he still believed that "the day will come when the map of the Middle East shows a peaceful, secure Israel beside a peaceful and democratic Palestine. I was the first American President to call for a Palestinian state, and building support for the two-state solution has been one of the highest priorities of my Presidency."

Bibi beats Obama by six points

Story here.

The American Conservative is still a conmag

Oh yeah, like "relations" with Iran haven't been poisoned since the time of Jimmy Carter.

Hillary Clinton should be in jail, not running for president

From Ronald D. Rotunda, here:

Whether or not Mrs. Clinton violated a State Department rule, her admitted destruction of more than 30,000 emails sure looks like obstruction of justice—a serious violation of the criminal law. Let’s consider some of the basic, undisputed facts, and then the law.

First, Mrs. Clinton was worried that communicating through email would leave a trail that might be subject to subpoena. “As much as I’ve been investigated and all of that,” she said in 2000, “why would I ever want to do email?” But when she became secretary of state, she didn’t have much choice. So she set up a private server in her house. That way, in the event of an investigation, she could control which emails would be turned over. ...

By her own admission, Mrs. Clinton destroyed more than 30,000 emails once the subpoenas started coming in. She claims that she only destroyed personal records. Team Clinton initially explained that her work emails were separated from her personal emails using keyword searches. Now, after the outcry about how much this method might have missed, Mrs. Clinton is insisting that every email was individually read before the deletion. ...

The law says that no one has to use email, but it is a crime (18 U.S.C. section 1519) to destroy even one message to prevent it from being subpoenaed. Prosecutors charging someone with obstruction don’t even have to establish that any investigation was pending or under way when the deletion took place. As T. Markus Funk explained in a journal article for the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, the prosecutor “need only prove that the defendant shredded the documents, at least in part, to make life more difficult for future investigators, if and when they eventually appear.”

Legal commentators call this “anticipatory obstruction of justice,” and the law punishes it with up to 20 years imprisonment. The burden of proof is light. The Justice Department manual advises that section 1519 makes prosecution much easier because it covers “any matters” or “’in relation to or contemplation of’ any matters.” It adds, “No corrupt persuasion is required.”

The completely daft and utterly ridiculous political news suitable only for a Monday: Lindsey Grahamnesty for president!

The story here about John McCain's closest ally says he's going to explore a run for president for a couple of months.

And just to show old Lindsey hasn't completely cornered the market on tin ears:

"[P]otential rival Rick Perry, the former Texas governor, last week noted he takes advice from Graham on foreign affairs."

The only way I can imagine those three characters together is with Rick Perry holding a bottle in one hand and a six shooter in the other telling those two lovebirds to start dancing.

Where's Vladimir?

From a story about Putin's "disappearance" since the 5th of March, here:

Those keeping track insist Putin has not been seen since March 5.

Regardless of how or when this speculation ends, it tells us much about the political realities of Russia.

This whole thing started after Putin's trip to Kazakhstan was canceled on Wednesday and a Kazakh official told a reporter that the Russian President had fallen ill. Then the Kremlin released a picture of Putin speaking with the leader of the Republic of Karelia. But it turns out that happened on March 4.

On Thursday, Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said the President would miss his regular meeting with the Federal Security Service (FSB). When asked about his boss's health, Peskov said he is "absolutely healthy," his handshake so strong he could "break your hand." To illustrate the point, the Kremlin's Russia Today posted a picture of the mighty President slamming a judo opponent hard against the ground. Peskov says Russia is in the grips of a "spring fever" that is causing people to dream up harebrained scenarios.

Michigan voters want to dump daylight saving time by 1.5:1

 Story here.

Hey Elton John! Tell it to Obama!

"We can’t just let people refuse to follow a law because they don’t like it."

Rand Paul steals Joe Biden's thunder, supports the creation of a Kurdish state

December 1, 2011

Rand Paul, quoted here:

"I think they would fight like hell if we promised them a country. It’s a little easier to say than it is to actually make it happen, because in order to actually draw a new country you’d have to have the complicity of Turkey and probably Iraq a little bit as well. There really is no Syria to be complicit with, but there is just a little piece of Syria—Kobani and in there is predominantly Kurdish. I think if you did that and could get piece peace between the Kurds and the Turks, and then the Turks would actually fight if the Kurds would give up any claim to Turkish territory."

Joe Biden, discussed here in early 2014:

Although Biden denied it at the time [of the 2007 troop surge], his proposal would almost certainly have led to the de facto soft partition of Iraq into three autonomous regions dominated by Shiites, Sunnis, and Kurds. A similar approach in the 1990s patched together Bosnia out of the detritus of the Balkans civil war between Serbs, Croats, and Muslims. In a 2007 op-ed, Biden warned, "If the United States can't put this federalism idea on track, we will have no chance for a political settlement in Iraq and, without that, no chance for leaving Iraq without leaving chaos behind."

George Will confuses self-defense with imitation

Here:

When Fred P. Hochberg, the [Export-Import] bank’s chairman and president, defends it, an old joke comes to mind: A pastor officiating at a man’s funeral asks if anyone in the congregation would like to say something about the deceased. After a long, awkward silence, a voice shouts: “His brother was even worse.” South Korea, Hochberg says, provides “four to five times more export support than we do.” Thus does sound policy get defined down: Others are even worse, supposedly forcing us to emulate them.

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Nice try, George. War is evil, but when we are attacked, that we fight back doesn't mean that we are evil, too.

In this case a paraprosdokian aptly applies: We dispense with so-called free-trade in order to defend free-market principles.

Hillary Clinton, user of multiple phones and devices said two weeks ago: "I don't throw anything away, I'm like two steps short of a hoarder"

About 1:15 into the video of an interview fifteen days ago here.

But yesterday she was a user of only one phone to simplify things, and deleted over 30,000 emails:

"First, when I got to work as secretary of state, I opted for convenience to use my personal email account, which was allowed by the State Department, because I thought it would be easier to carry just one device for my work and for my personal emails instead of two." ...

"In going through the e-mails, there were over 60,000 in total, sent and received. About half were work-related and went to the State Department and about half were personal that were not in any way related to my work. I had no reason to save them, but that was my decision because the federal guidelines are clear and the State Department request was clear."

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

Liar.

Based on religion Russia and the United States should be natural allies and friends

Think what we could do together, instead of to each other.

The Pew study is here.

Hillary Clinton cleverly hides within the sacrosanctity of her husband's presidential email server

But when is she going to stop needing her president husband and stand on her own two feet?

The answer is never. Elect Hillary and Bill Clinton will be president all over again.

From the story here:

Hillary said she emailed with Bill, but the thing is ... Bill Clinton doesn't use email.

At a press conference on Tuesday, Hillary Clinton said the server that housed her emails while she was secretary of state (that was reportedly housed at her home in New York) was set up for President Bill Clinton. She also said that some of the "personal" emails she deleted were between her and her husband.

But just before Hillary began the press conference at the United Nations building, the Wall Street Journal reported that Bill Clinton does not use email.

"The former president, who does regularly use Twitter, has sent a grand total of two emails during his entire life, both as president, says Matt McKenna, his spokesman," WSJ reported. "After leaving office, Mr. Clinton established his own domain that staff use — @presidentclinton.com. But Mr. Clinton still doesn't use email himself, Mr. McKenna said." . . .

But Hillary said during her press conference that her email server "contains personal communications from my husband and me."

It appears at least one Clinton is not telling the whole truth.

Illinois Republicans are a joke, grossly overestimating the cost to deport millions of illegals

Seen here:

Five Illinois Republican lawmakers are reviving the call for Congress to act on comprehensive immigration reform that includes provisions to expand visas for high skill, low skill and agricultural workers, and a path to citizenship for the undocumented population. At an immigration reform panel discussion sponsored by the Illinois Business Immigration Coalition (IBIC), Reps. Aaron Schock (R), Adam Kinzinger (R), Bob Dold (R), Sen. Mark Kirk (R) and Gov. Bruce Rauner (R) remarked that it was time to their colleagues in Congress to move on a comprehensive immigration bill.

“It’s naive to think that the 11 to 12 million people are going to disappear,” Schock said, citing a new right-leaning American Action Forum study, which reported that mass deportation of 11 million immigrants would cost the government anywhere between $400 billion and $600 billion. The study found that the impact on real gross domestic product would drop by about $1.6 trillion.

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As I've shown before (here) the cost to round up and deport 11 million illegals should run no more than $500 million per year. 

Republicans today just don't have any imagination like they did in the era of Eisenhower.

The American Action Forum, incidentally, is run by Douglas Holtz-Eakin, John McCain's economic advisor, and Norm Coleman, who was defeated for his Senate seat from Minnesota by a comedian.

George Will falls in love with Bill Clinton's free-trade utopianism

George Will here:

'You who are reading this column probably have a chronic, indeed incurable trade deficit with your barber or hair dresser. You regularly buy what he or she sells, yet he or she never buys anything from you. But things somehow work out. As they do between nations, because as the late Robert Bartley, editor of the Wall Street Journal’s editorial page, once wrote, “International transactions are always in balance, by definition.”

'“Protectionism,” said Clinton during the NAFTA debate, “is just a fancy word for giving up; we want to compete and win.”'

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Do we really need to point out that if transactions are always in balance then there is no such thing as winning? Trade is an endless struggle between competing interests just as is politics. It is pure utopianism to dream otherwise. There is no finality in politics or trade, simply a pause before the next confrontation or negotiation, which usually ensues after a party to the transaction realizes it got shortchanged in some way, or will be.

Karl Marx was all for free-trade because it hastens the transition from capitalism to socialism by shifting political power to a growing, impoverished proletariat and the elites who run them. 

Its odd bedfellows today are Barack Obama and George Will, and too many members of the two political parties.

"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]."