Laugh of the Day, 2.0: Terrible day at Cape Canaveral

Laugh of the Day: Map of countries with cars in space (Elon Musk, eat your heart out)

We have met the enemy and it's corporate America, for supporting amnesty

Farcebook, IBM you bm we all bm, Microsoft, Marriott and NAM, the National Association of Manufacturers.

Gee, US manufacturers want the cheap foreign labor just as much as the hotels. What was that again about bringing the manufacturing jobs back to America, Mr. President?

Corporate America ADMITS they hire illegals instead of you, here:

Ending protected status for DACA recipients would push them out of the legal workforce – costing companies as much as $1.8 million a day in restaffing, according to the think tank New American Economy. America's corporate titans have cited the potential damage to the nation's labor force in urging Congress to find a solution for those workers before the program officially winds down March 5.

More FBI incompetence: "Unable to further identify the person who made the comment 'I'm going to be a professional school shooter'"

According to the story here.

These malcontents can get a FISA warrant on the basis of Democrat opposition research to surveil Trump, but somehow can't get to the bottom of whose YouTube account was used to post what appears to be the Florida shooter's threat.

Reminds me of James Comey, the former head of the FBI, testifying about the San Bernardino shooting that he did not know how guns are purchased on the internet (they are not).

As I recall, Google can be compelled by a court order, but the FBI was obviously keeping the court busy with something "more important".

I don't remember ever seeing this during the Obama administration

The president doesn't need any stinkin' reason to revoke any Executive Order, legal or otherwise

The judges in this country need a good ass whoopin'.

If Trump has any balls he'll ignore this.

The story, "Court orders full restoration of DACA program", here.

Obamas' gay artist Kehinde Wiley uses four to ten assistants in Beijing to produce art cheaper, admits some of his paintings are complete frauds

Kinda like the former president himself, wouldn't you say?

Here:

The spectacle is always carefully staged, particularly with “the boys,” which can sell for more than $100,000. “There are certain ground rules,” says Wiley. Eight to ten paintings per show. Men, usually. Street casting: Wiley goes out with a team to recruit young men as models. Back in the studio, they leaf through art-history books, and the subject gets to decide which old-style work he wants to be portrayed as. He poses for photos, and the photos become templates for full-size paintings, which Wiley produces with his assistants in New York, Dakar, and Beijing.

Or not. In many cases, Wiley acknowledges, none of that official process—the street casting, the selection of poses from art books, the painting based on those ­poses—happens at all. “The clothing, sometimes completely made up,” he says. “The models themselves, brought in from a fashion agency.” And in at least one case, the “boy” is in fact a girl. “Oftentimes, if there’s a show of ten paintings, four of them will be complete frauds.”

Brian Wesbury is back in the excuse-making business for future GDP

Here, complaining that the upcoming two-year Republican $300 billion discretionary spending extravaganza will crowd out the private sector.

Really?

Republicans were quite content under Obama to permit deficits of $7,313 billion over eight years, and Wesbury chirped the whole time about his good old Ploughhorse Economy which produced, for him, passable GDP.

Republicans now are rewarding their constituencies through spending, no less than Democrats did under Obama. The constituencies are different.

We'll see if the spending gets as out of control as it was formerly, but the handwringing, given the disparities, is misplaced. 

The debt bomb rearmed

Republican tax reform in 1986 resulted in a FLOOD of investment out of the country, so how will this time be different?

Investors Business Daily forgets that Bill and Hillary Clinton had FBI files on hundreds in the 1990s

Here in "Russia-Trump Investigation: How Did Hillary Clinton Get FBI, FISA To Do Her Political Dirty Work?".

The Clintons have lots of information on lots of people and have had for a very long time, since they occupied The White House for eight years from 1993-2000. Their unethical and illegal acquisition of the FBI files, Filegate, was a huge scandal in 1996.

That's how they run the FBI.

It's called blackmail.

I don't know about you, but I can't stand Pelosi for 8 minutes

What, and she didn't tip over?

Listen to me, that's not really Donald Trump! He's been taken over by aliens!

Obviously we've been invaded by the Body Snatchers and that's not really Donald Trump up there in The White House

China has taken over and militarized the Spratly Islands, and Trump has done nothing about it

Story and new photos here.

Translating Ann Coulter: Trump is full of BS

Translating Ann Coulter: Why is Trump such a stupid pansy?

Employment in January 2018 still lags the pre-recession high by 4.8 million on a percentage of population basis

Unemployment in January 2018 is now lower than the immediate pre-recession low

YOUR average hourly earnings are NOT up 2.9% as widely reported, for example by Larry Kudlow this weekend

Yes, average hourly earnings of TOTAL PRIVATE, seasonally adjusted, is up 2.9% year over year in January 2018.

Well, whoop dee do. Not seasonally adjusted it's up only 2.2%.

What to believe?

Average hourly earnings of TOTAL PRIVATE reports as much of the total universe of earnings as possible, but that's not the universe of 80% of American workers. It includes everybody, including the higher rollers in the top 20% whose big increases can skew the reported number dramatically. 

80% of American workers inhabit the world of production and nonsupervisory workers, whose average hourly earnings have always been tracked by the government going back to 1964.

Seasonally adjusted those earnings are up 2.4% year over year in January, but not seasonally adjusted BARELY 2%, a below average figure for the measure which is in keeping with what's been going on since 2008.

The little guy in this country has been getting crumbs from the masters' tables since 2008 when the routine increases averaging 3.4% before that went away. The new era averages a gain of 2.2% year over year, a cut of 35%.

The biggest gain in recent memory was 2.8% for January 2017, meaning most workers got their best increases since 2008 in 2016, not in 2017, and the 2% gain for 2017 means . . . THIS IS NOT A BOOM.

When the average worker starts getting ROUTINE year over year increases above 3% you'll know things are better.

They aren't.