Wednesday, January 11, 2017

The first name in fake news

Trump's first news conference since the election was highly entertaining:

"Your organization is terrible," Trump told CNN’s Jim Acosta when he tried to ask a question.

"You're attacking us, can you give us a question?” Acosta replied.

"Don't be rude. No, I'm not going to give you a question. You are fake news," Trump responded, before calling on a reporter from Breitbart.

A very small John McCain reduced to role of courier for the Trump opposition fake news machine

From the story here:

"Late last year, I received sensitive information that has since been made public. Upon examination of the contents, and unable to make a judgment about their accuracy, I delivered the information to the Director of the FBI. That has been the extent of my contact with the FBI or any other government agency regarding this issue."

Just 9 more days until Mr. All Talk and No Action is out the door


Tuesday, January 10, 2017

Mr. All Talk and No Action is talking again one last time tonight as president . . .

. . . but as usual I'm not listening.

After all, a fella has to keep in shape not listening, because you know this guy is going to keep on talking, and talking and talking AFTER he's no longer president, and I want to be prepared not to listen whenever I have to. It's worked pretty well for me so far. He's going away, everything he's done is going away, and all I had to do was not listen.

I like to think of it as negative exercise. It's been good for me, and so easy to do.

Why quit when you can feel the burn?

Weapons cache of long guns, pistols and ammo found hidden last week just 6.5 miles from Inauguration site

By an alert citizen, not the police.

Story here.


USA Today story says Obama leaves a complex legacy, completely ignores this complexity


Monday, January 9, 2017

And Piers Morgan reminds the world Meryl Streep once gave a standing ovation to the child rapist Roman Polanski

It's like finding Nazis in the closet.

Homeland Security swoops in on states at the last minute, designates election systems "critical infrastructure"

These bastards need to be rounded up, locked up and the key thrown away. We run this country, not the political appointees of a failed president. 50 US Secretaries of State, the Electoral College and the US Congress all have certified Election 2016. We don't believe a bunch of Obama hacks' fancy report.

From the story here:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A last-minute decision by the Obama administration to designate election systems as critical infrastructure drew intense criticism from state and federal elections organizations on Monday.

U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson announced the move Friday with 30 minutes' notice to the National Association of Secretaries of State and U.S. Election Assistance Commission, an independent bipartisan federal agency that develops voluntary voting guidelines and certifies voting systems. ...

McCormick said Homeland Security ignored commissioners' requests to delay a decision until there is more discussion. She called the move an example of "federal overreach" and said she will ask President-elect Donald Trump to review the decision. ...

Johnson's announcement came hours after U.S. intelligence agencies released a declassified report that said Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign aimed at the U.S. presidential election. The report said Russian intelligence services had "obtained and maintained access to elements of multiple U.S. state or local electoral boards," but didn't elaborate.



Yeah, but Meryl Streep was too ugly for a MONKEY


China flummoxed because it doesn't know how to intimidate Donald Trump

Good!

Story here.

Are Obama's intelligence agencies blaming Russia for hacking the election to deflect from their own?

Newsmax won't let the story go, here 10 days ago:

[T]here is a far more ominous sequence of events that’s taken place on our own shores. ...

Over the last 10 months, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) attempted to infiltrate the Georgia Secretary of State’s voter database network. It did so without Georgia’s consent and, in fact, over its explicit rejection of DHS’s offer to "help" the state check for vulnerabilities in its firewall.

DHS didn’t just try once; it made 10 attempts.

This wasn’t an accident. It was a pattern.

Who ordered the cyberattacks and who conducted them are unclear. ...

Ten hack attempts made by a federal agency against a state-protected voter network over a 10 month period, and each attempt coinciding with an election or congressional testimony in opposition to DHS "help." ...

[N]obody is asking about verified hack attempts made by a federal government agency against a state-protected voter database network.

Sunday, January 8, 2017

Final Grand Rapids, Michigan, climate summary for 2016: Fifth warmest and fifth wettest

2016 was the fifth warmest full year on record by average temperature, at 51.2 degrees F. The warmest full year by average temperature was 2012, at 52.8. The coldest full year by average temperature was 1917, at 44.6. The mean annual monthly mean average temperature is 48.1.

The lowest minimum temperature recorded in 2016 was in February, at 1 degree F. The record lowest temperature occurred in February 1899, at -24. The mean annual monthly lowest minimum is -7.

The coldest winter season on record by heating degree days occurred in 1903-1904 with 7712 HDD. The warmest was 2011-2012 with 5253. The mean annual is 6713. December was just slightly above the December mean for HDD. For the season-to-date ending in December there were 2104 HDD. The mean for the season to date is 2488. By contrast, in 2015, which was part of the third warmest season on record by HDD, there were only 1855 HDD July-December. 

It was the fifth snowiest December on record with 37 inches. The snowiest December ever was in 2000, with 59.2 inches. The December mean snowfall is 16 inches.

The maximum temperature in 2016 occurred in June, with 93 degrees F. The record maximum temperature occurred in July 1936, with 108 degrees F. The mean annual monthly highest maximum temperature is 95.

The warmest summer season on record by cooling degree days occurred in 1921 with 1200 CDD. The coolest summer occurred in 1992, with 316. The mean annual is 696. Summer 2016 ranked 15th warmest by CDD, which totaled 936.

2016 turned out to be the fifth wettest year on record, with 46.29 inches of rain. The wettest year on record was in 2008, with 48.8 inches of rain. The driest year on record was 1930, with 20.92. The mean annual rainfall is 34.48.


Congress sucks: Let's make it bigger!

As we all know, Congress sucks.

About only 17% of Americans approved of the Congress in 2016 according to Gallup, which is indicative of the historical lack of esteem for it. The average is just 31% approval since 1974. Real Clear Politics has its own tracker here, going back only to 2009. It is a composite of various polls, yielding an even lower average of 14.5% approval than Gallup's current 18%.

You get the idea. At best only about a third of the people approve of the job Congress is doing at any given time. And the top reasons given are 1) gridlock, bickering, not compromising and 2) not getting anything done, not making decisions.

So why make Congress bigger?

In a word, to make it more representative, end the gridlock and get something done.

In short, make Congress overwhelmingly Republican . . . because the country is.

Currently, just 435 congressmen and women represent districts unnaturally carved out of America's 3,144 counties, parishes, boroughs, census areas, independent cities and the District of Columbia.

I say unnaturally carved out because after every census the gerrymandering fight begins to redraw the congressional district lines to favor incumbents of the party in power whose boundaries transgress all over those counties, parishes, boroughs, census areas, independent cities and DC.

We've already got all these boundaries and units that go back to the beginning of the country in many cases, so we don't need these 435 fake Congressional districts anymore.

My own county with a population of just over 600,000 is carved up by two congressmen who each represent over 700,000 spanning many other counties. That doesn't make any sense.

The constitution never intended this.

It intended representation to grow with population, but in the 1920s Congress saw a loophole and fixed representation at the then current 435. There's nothing magic about 435. Why not 439? 394? 943? Did Moses decree 435? George Washington? The founders never settled the question, but they never intended representation to stop growing with population. If we followed an early formula, we'd have one Congressman for every 50,000 people. That would mean 6,473 in the US House today!

Ever since the 1920s we've been treated to an increase in oligarchy where just 218 votes are needed to ram something down the throats of more and more people.

You know, like Obamacare, which was passed without a single Republican vote.

Meanwhile Republicans just showed that they own the grassroots politically, winning the counties 2623 to 489. Here's the map that shows that, from brilliant maps dot com:




































If you want to end the gridlock and get something done, reform the Congress to represent the country for a change. Abolish the Congressional districts, and elect representatives to the US House from every county across this land.

You say you want a revolution . . ..




Nat Hentoff, who called Obama the most un-American president we have ever had, has died at 91

Despite Obamacare, or because of it? The obit here doesn't tell us. WaPo reports it was natural causes.

Neither story tells us how Hentoff really felt about Obama. Neither does his Wikipedia entry. For a sampling, follow my label "Nat Hentoff" below.

He was a true born son of liberty. May he rest in peace.

Friday, January 6, 2017

Secure Fence Act of 2006 may be Trump's vehicle for The Wall

Politico reports here:

Republican leaders, in tandem with Trump’s transition staff, are considering using a 2006 law signed by former President George W. Bush that authorized the construction of 700 miles-plus of “physical barrier” on the southern border. The law was never fully implemented and did not include a sunset provision, allowing Trump to pick up where Bush left off — with the help of new money from Congress. ...

The 2006 Secure Fence Act, included as part of a broader immigration reform package, originally called for 850 miles of double fencing along the nearly 2,000-mile southern border. Lawmakers amended the law in 2008 to reduce the length to a minimum of 700 miles, a change that also gave the secretary of Homeland Security discretion over what kind of “physical barrier” to construct.

Ultimately, only 36 miles of double-layer fencing was erected. U.S. Customs and Border Protection built roughly 350 miles of single-layer pedestrian fences, most which stand about 18 feet, and 300 miles of low-level vehicle barriers that any person could easily walk through, according to sources following the matter.

Liberals believe Russians celebrated Trump's win, but not that US Muslims celebrated 9/11

Hm.

Thursday, January 5, 2017

How Obamacare hides federal spending

Seen here:

Obamacare's direct subsidies to insurers are falsely labeled as "tax credits," hiding some $104 billion in federal spending in the process.

Don't miss Chris Plante in the queue at Real Clear Politics talking about all the Democrat hacks still working in "journalism"

Medicaid enrollment, healthcare for the poor, has exploded by 46% under Obama

In 2009 Medicaid enrollment stood at 50.9 million, but in October 2016 it's 74.4 million.

Generally speaking, you are eligible when your income, if you have any, is up to 133% of the poverty guideline, which came to about $15,650 in 2015. In that year there were only about 52 million individual workers who earned up to that much.