"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.

When Muslim fanatics destroy artifacts, now that's extremism to CNBC

Cutting off heads and burning people alive in cages is one thing, but destroying priceless artifacts? O.M.G!

Seen here.

Liberal National Journal runs time clock counting down to DHS funding deadline

Here.

Hype. Advocacy. Partisanship.

Latest graph from the CDC shows Ebola epidemic is still out of control in West Africa

Oh yeah that'll work: Amazon hires Obama's liar to run PR and lobbying

Jay Carney.

Story here.

Senator Rand Paul is clearly desperate for attention, accuses Jeb Bush of marijuana hypocrisy

Seen here:

Paul, who like Bush is considering whether to seek the 2016 GOP presidential nomination, contrasted Bush's opposition to legalizing medical marijuana with his admitted drug use while a student at Phillips Academy, an elite prep school in Andover, Mass.

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

Notice the libertarian Paul isn't going after Bush's amnesty stand. No, it's not that Jeb isn't conservative enough, it's that he isn't libertarian enough.

Meanwhile Scott Walker and Jeb Bush have sucked all the air out of Rand Paul's room. Paul is way back in the polling, pulling 9.5% compared to 13% and 14.5% for the respective front runners in the latest Real Clear Politics average.

At this stage of the game it looks like this is going to be a Bush Walker ticket in 2016.

US Senators Lindsey Graham and John McCain remind me of the spineless Michigan Republican legislature

Here's Lindsey Grahamnesty:

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said on ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanopolous” Sunday that he supports voting for a clean DHS bill and letting the court decide on immigration.

“I hope that Republicans will come together and back the court case, file a friend of the court brief with the court, and fund DHS,” Graham said. “I am willing and ready to pass a DHS funding bill and let this play out in court. The worst possible outcome for this nation is to defund the Department of Homeland Security, given the multiple threats we face to our homeland, and I will not be part of that.”

Graham’s main Senate cohort, Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain, had a similar sentiment Sunday on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”

“We now have an exit sign. And that is the federal court decision saying that the president's actions unilaterally are unconstitutional,” McCain said. “And I think we have got a great argument to the United States Supreme Court, where it will go, because 22 times the president of the United States said it was unconstitutional for him to take the action that he had decided to take.”

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

In other words, elected representatives to Washington DC should do everything but represent their constituents in order that nothing may make them a target on election day.

These spineless cowards hide behind the skirts of the judicial system in a way which reminds me of nothing so much as the politics of the state of Michigan, where legislators defer everything controversial to the decision of the electorate.

Here in Michigan incendiary issues like taxes and spending are typically put to a referendum and made a part of the constitution, which can't be changed without another such vote of the people, giving the politicians a skirt to hide behind less black than the robes worn by the judiciary, but just as effete.

We might as well dispense with the expense and farce of representation, and let the courts decide everything, or the people, since we have no men left to lead us.

Great Lakes Ice Cover is 25% ahead of this time last year: a warning for GDP?

Last year on this date the total ice cover was just 67%, when GDP was going negative supposedly because of the terrible winter we were having. The year before, ice cover on this date was 74.3%. As of yesterday, ice covers 84.4% of the Great Lakes, 25% ahead of last year.

Will GDP tank in 1Q2015 because of this?

We won't have what passes for complete knowledge about this until the end of June.

Data here.

If Obama can say Edward Snowden and George Bush aren't patriots, then Rudy Giuliani can say whatever he wants about Obama

Obama called Snowden unpatriotic in August 2013

Obama called Bush unpatriotic July 3, 2008

WaPo worries about Jeb's wife's spending of personal money, totally ignores Michelle Obama's marathon milking of the taxpayers

It took a FOIA request of the most transparent government ever to find out that Moochelle Obama milked the taxpayers for a $250,000 vacation in Ireland in 2013, but the Washington Post is all abuzz tonight over Jeb Bush's wife's personal spending on jewelry.

Keith Koffler reported here in April 2014 about Moochelle:

"First Lady Michelle Obama’s egregious use of the G-8 Summit in Northern Ireland last June to stage a luxury, touristy side-trip for herself and her daughters to Dublin cost taxpayers at least $251,161 according to documents obtained by Judicial Watch.

"But the cost is almost certainly much higher. For example, a separate Air Force jet that appeared to be Air Force Two, which costs more than $10,000 an hour to fly, was dispatched to Ireland to handle Michelle’s vacation-related travel. This cost is not included in the figures provided to Judicial Watch."

But WaPo's story, "Documents show the expensive tastes of Jeb Bush’s low-key wife", here, only has this to stay about the extravagant and unethical spending of President Obama's wife:

"First lady Michelle Obama drew fire for wearing a pair of sneakers that cost upward of $500 when she went to bag groceries at a food bank in 2009."

Senate Democrats to mount fourth filibuster to block funding of Dept. of Homeland Security before it runs out of money

Here's the lede from Politico:

Late Monday afternoon, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell will force the fourth vote in three weeks on a bill to fund the massive agency that protects Americans from terrorists, floods and incursions across the borders. Senate Democrats will almost certainly block it again.

Former NY Mayor Rudy Giuliani tells it like it is about Obama the commie

Quoted here:

“I know this is a horrible thing to say, but I do not believe that this President loves America. He doesn’t love you. He doesn’t love me. He wasn’t brought up the way you were brought up and I was brought up: To love this country."

“Look, this man was brought up basically in a white family, so whatever he learned or didn’t learn, I attribute this more to the influence of communism and socialism. I don’t (see) this President as being particularly a product of African-American society or something like that. He isn’t. Logically, think about his background. . . The ideas that are troubling me and are leading to this come from communists with whom he associated when he was 9 years old."

Germany blinks: Greeks win time, funding and an end to previous austerity agreements

Reported here:

Mr Tsipras added the extension would finally put an end to the "asphyxiation" Greece has suffered since 2012.

"Yesterday's agreement with the Eurogroup cancels the commitments of the previous government for cuts to wages and pensions, for firings in the public sector, for VAT rises on food, medicine," added the prime minister.

"We averted plans by blind conservative powers, within and outside the country, to asphyxiate Greece on February 28," he said.

More jobs for ISIS!

Sausage stuffer operator!

Pig roast supervisor!

Pig castrator!

Ann Coulter: It looks like Republicans are throwing the fight on illegal alien amnesty

Seen here:

"It's hard to avoid concluding that Republicans aren't trying to make the right arguments. In fact, it kind of looks like they're intentionally throwing the fight on amnesty. If a Republican majority in both houses of Congress can't stop Obama from issuing illegal immigrants Social Security cards and years of back welfare payments, there is no reason to vote Republican ever again." 

Note to Ann: "intentionally" is redundant when throwing a fight.

I knew there was a reason I never much liked Newsmax

Seen here:

"Newsmax, a conservative news organization, last year pledged $1 million to the Clinton Foundation over a five-year period, according to a spokesman for Chris Ruddy, the organization’s CEO. Mr. Ruddy has been friends with the Clintons since 2007," reports the [The Wall Street] Journal.

Three jobs for ISIS, courtesy of the US State Department

hog farmer!

hog processor!

sausage chef!

Record low to date in 2015 in Grand Rapids, MI is minus 13 degrees F

Libertarian John Tamny displays the anti-intellectualism characteristic of the breed

Here in "The Beatles And Wealth Inequality: A Reminder That Education Is Irrelevant To Success".

It's a veritable cornucopia of wrong, sentimental tosh in pursuit of a thesis.

It ignores the fact that George Harrison went to a pretty good school in Liverpool. It doesn't understand that Ringo was prevented from making academic progress as a child by recurring severe illnesses. It is unaware that Ringo actually was punching a time clock at a day job when he became interested in the drums, and that though it was his life's work he didn't play when the band wasn't recording.

Tamny also makes a mountain out of the molehill of Ringo Starr's two-week hiatus from the Beatles in 1968, which supposedly showed the rest of the Beatles how much they needed him. They didn't. Ringo spent much of his time in studio playing cards while the others whacked out their tracks as the group headed for a breakup.

Tamny would have made a better case using Rush Limbaugh as his example. The man's made piles and piles of dough but routinely slaughters math, attacks college education and has a lazy mind.

Judge appointed by George W. Bush blocks Obama's deportation gambit

From the story here:

A federal judge in South Texas on Monday temporarily blocked President Barack Obama's executive action on immigration, giving a coalition of 26 states time to pursue a lawsuit that aims to permanently stop the orders.

U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen's decision comes after a hearing in Brownsville in January and puts on hold Obama's orders that could spare as many as five million people who are in the U.S. illegally from deportation.

Hanen wrote in a memorandum accompanying his order that the lawsuit should go forward and that without a preliminary injunction the states will "suffer irreparable harm in this case."

"The genie would be impossible to put back into the bottle," he wrote, adding that he agreed with the plaintiffs' argument that legalizing the presence of millions of people is a "virtually irreversible" action. ...

Hanen, who's been on the federal court since 2002 after being nominated by President George W. Bush, regularly handles border cases but wasn't known for being outspoken on immigration until a 2013 case. In an order in that case, Hanen suggested the Homeland Security Department should be arresting parents living in the U.S. illegally who induce their children to cross the border illegally.

Gretchen Morgenson smells a rat: Fannie/Freddie bailout cost us nearly $188 billion, but Treasury rakes in the profits

Gretchen Morgenson for The New York Times, here:

For decades, the companies had maintained that their mortgage operations posed no risk to taxpayers; their pals in Congress echoed this refrain. But then came the mortgage debacle, and taxpayers had to shore up the companies with $187.5 billion. Initially, Fannie and Freddie had to pay interest on the loan. But in August 2012, the Treasury and F.H.F.A. abruptly changed the agreement; under the so-called third amendment, the government began sweeping all the companies’ profits into the Treasury. Since then, Fannie and Freddie have been immensely profitable. As of last December, the Treasury had received a total of $225.4 billion from the companies. ... 

The initial $187.5 billion loan remains outstanding, however, because of the deal’s structure. ...

But recall what was going on in mid-2012. The presidential election was in full swing, and Democrats and Republicans were clashing over the debt ceiling. That May, in a shock to many, Fannie and Freddie reported profits from their operations for the first time since the mortgage crisis. The amount: $4.5 billion. And plenty more was to come. Certainly, giving the Treasury access to billions of dollars in the companies’ profits during this time provided financial flexibility to the executive branch that Congress might not otherwise have approved.

Rate of citizenship renunciation soars from 700 a year under Bush to 2300 a year under Obama

CNN Money reports here that the number of people turning in their US passports for the four years 2011-2014 totals 9129, which is a rate of 2282 per year.

Starting under George Bush in fiscal 2005 through fiscal 2010 a total of 4000 said goodbye to US citizenship, a rate of 667 per year.

Howard Dean thinks a president must have a college degree, unless the president is a Democrat

Yeaaaaaaahhhhhh!

Seen here:

SCARBOROUGH: Are you serious? You're saying [Scott Walker] might not be qualified because he didn't finish college?

DEAN: I think there are going to be a lot of people who worry about that. 

SCARBOROUGH: Do you worry about people that don't finish college? 

DEAN: I worry about people being President of the United States not knowing much about the world and not knowing much about science. I worry about that. 

SCARBOROUGH: Oh my God. Let's name the people that didn't finish college that have changed this world. 

DEAN: Harry Truman, who was a great president, there's no question about it.

NBC is so incompetent it can't report accurately how old its own reporter was when he died

The audio, the chyron and the caption say he was 56, but the headline and the lede both say he was 58.

Conservatism, tortured

Just one more for the record, showing that National Review is now sadly many more bricks short of a load than it used to be, here:

"Paradoxical though it may sound, blasphemous or offensive speech is a God-given right."

h/t chroniclesmagazine.org 

Brian Williams of NBC garnered just 18 college credits from THREE colleges and universities

But all you're going to hear about is how Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin never finished at Marquette, where he still needs 34 credits to graduate.

WaPo is already on the warpath, here, saying Walker "was not close to graduating", under the headline "questions linger over college exit".

Hm. When it comes to Brian Williams, I'd say questions linger over his (many) college entrance(s). Whereas Walker is "about one-quarter of the required total away from earning his degree", Brian Williams is more than three-quarters of the required total away, having attended a community college, Catholic University of America, and George Washington but accumulating only 18 college credits.

Williams is not even in the same class of serial matriculators as Sarah Palin because she actually finished her degree after six whacks at it, but Williams still got to quote an NBC poll to her face in October 2008 in which 55% of Americans supposedly didn't see Palin as qualified to be president because the fourth estate doesn't really care about qualifications, just about who it is who doesn't have them.

Well, 33% of Americans today have now developed an unfavorable view of Williams in the wake of the revelation of the history of his many fabrications, according to Rasmussen here:

"Thirty-three percent (33%) view him unfavorably, with 18% who hold a Very Unfavorable view."

They are a little late, but we'll take it.

Brian Williams on leave from NBC for 6 months to make new movie called "Shambo"

h/t Theo

Crusades used to be viewed positively in America

h/t Patrick J. Buchanan

CNBC libertarian says Ron Paul taints the movement with anarchism

Jake Novak goes off the reservation, here:

With his recent call against vaccination laws of any kind, Ron Paul, a former Republican congressman and Libertarian presidential candidate, undermines the cause just as much [as statists] by acting like an anarchist.

Congressman Paul also borrows another aggravating rhetorical weapon overused by statists against libertarians, when he wrote: "Giving the government the power to override parental decisions regarding vaccines will inevitably lead to further restrictions on liberties." ...

This anti-vaccine law stance is just another all-or-nothing mispackaging of libertarianism.

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

That no two libertarians can agree about much of anything is proof of the anarchism inherent in the thinking.

Peter Thiel isn't serious about giving up on competition

Here.

Anyone who is homosexual who claims to be both a Christian and a conservative is nothing if not competitive . . . for attention.

Conservatives are prisoners of the '3 million Republicans stayed home in 2012' meme

The meme began with Jeffrey Lord at The American Spectator, here, whose real motive was to beat up the party for nominating another moderate:

"On Tuesday night, it comes clear, as this is written using the latest Fox News figures, Mitt Romney lost to President Obama by 2,819,339 votes. And the news ekes out that Moderate Nominee Number 10 Romney received some 3 million Republican votes less than Moderate Nominee Number 9 -- John McCain in 2008."

Blurted out as it was on November 8, 2012, no one could possibly have known that to be true at the time or trust it, but it has been accepted and remains endlessly repeated as the truth, mostly by the likes of Rush Limbaugh who uses it to browbeat his audience whenever someone spills some lemonade on the still open wound of the Romney defeat. The Republican base was at fault for not showing up, we are told, and Rush is never going to let you forget it. He's as angry at the right as John McCain is, but the meme just reverberates down through the conservative food chain through every microphone until you just want to scream out loud because it simply isn't true.

This is demoralizing for everyone and needed to stop long ago. But why it hasn't stopped has more to do with conservatives' penchant for self-flagellation for their failure to find a new Reagan than with anything else. What they should be doing is trying to learn something from the episode so that they do win next time, but you get the feeling that they don't do that because they really don't believe that they can win next time. Republicans want a Saviour to do the job for them, instead of doing it themselves.

I know why this is, and so do you.

Conservatives have become prisoners of a utopian dream. They keep thinking that if the right guy or gal comes along in the mold of the Gipper, we'll finally, finally, be able to take over the government and show everybody how it's supposed to be done once again, and all will be right with the world.

This is crazy.

The fact is there were just eight states lost by Romney to Obama in 2012 where McCain did better. Here they are, showing how many more votes McCain got than Romney:

Ohio: 16,383

New Mexico: 11,044

California: 171,823

New Jersey: 134,458

New York: 262,275

Maine: 2,997

Vermont: 6,276

Rhode Island: 8,187

Total votes by which McCain did better than Romney, but still lost: 613,443 . . . nowhere near 3 million.

Keep in mind that Romney garnered a net 984,084 more votes nationwide than McCain did in 2008, despite that under-performance in eight states detailed above, and despite what Jeffrey Lord told you in the wake of the election and people like Rush Limbaugh have endlessly repeated ever since. On top of that net better performance, Romney also won North Carolina and Indiana, both of which McCain had lost in bitterly narrow outcomes in 2008. Romney ended up winning 24 states vs. only 22 for McCain. You don't do that with 3 million Republicans staying home in 2012 who didn't in 2008.

To think so now at this late date is a form of mental illness.

Romney's better performance than McCain overall was despite two important factors working against Romney: a lower turnout nationwide in 2012 by 1.6% overall compared to 2008 (2.2 million); and a suppressed voter turnout in New Jersey and New York because of Hurricane Sandy right before the election, which makes McCain's better performance than Romney in those two liberal states in 2008 look questionable, quite apart from being inconsequential.

In New Jersey and New York in 2012 5.9% and 7.3% fewer votes respectively were cast than in 2008, alone totaling a whopping 789,000 votes. Based on Romney's performance in those two states in 2012, as many as 288,000 of those votes could have been his but were not, due to weather related impacts on the election. But they hardly mattered except to show that McCain's so-called out-performance was nothing of the kind.

The only state of the above eight which really mattered for Romney in the 2012 calculus to win was Ohio, where Romney lost by 2.98 points, or 166,272 votes.

Turnout in Ohio was also down in 2012, by 2.3% or 131,000, a rate of no-showing almost 44% higher than in the country as a whole (Just where was Gov. John Kasich when we needed him, hm?). With third party voting in Ohio turning out the same percentage in 2012 as it had in 2008, you have to reckon with the fact that Ohio's 101,788 third party votes in 2012 had a greater impact on the outcome in the lower turnout environment of 2012, and they did.

49,493 of those third party votes in Ohio went to the self-described Republican spoiler from the Libertarian Party, the Republican Governor Gary Johnson of New Mexico, who was just coming off being snubbed by the Republican Party in the presidential debates of late 2011. Another 33,722 votes in Ohio went to assorted libertarian and right of center fruits, nuts and flakes. Then add in the known 16,383 who voted for McCain in 2008 but not for Romney in 2012 and you're up to 99,598 of the 166,272 Romney lost by in Ohio in 2012. That leaves 66,674 additional votes Romney lost to account for, which as luck would have it is about 51% of the total reduced turnout, closely enough mirroring the 47.6% by which Romney ended up losing in Ohio to satisfy the equation's solution. The point is there was nothing terribly unusual about this outcome which couldn't have been remedied by a better boots on the ground operation than Romney fielded, outnumbered as it was by Obama by 10 to 1. Romney's failure in Ohio was remediable.

One gets the feeling from that that Romney too was looking for a Saviour when he should have been working harder. Only after the election was it confirmed by his family that he really didn't have the fire in the belly. We should have known. "ObamaCare's not worth getting angry about". "I'm not going to light my hair on fire".

Ohio, plus New Hampshire, Virginia and Florida in the east together would have given Romney the 270 electoral votes he needed instead of the 206 he actually received. Romney lost those four states, and the presidency, by just 429,522 votes.

Not.3.million.