Hey Comey, I write memos everyday!

Mark Levin: Let's see ALL Comey's memos

Levin correctly asks why Comey reveals a memo about a possible Trump misdeed now. If it's the real deal, he might have lied to Congress months ago when he said Trump was not a target of his investigation.

Here's the testimony of Comey's number two, who stresses there has been no interference "to date":

The notes taken by Comey appear to contradict testimony offered just last week by his temporary successor, acting FBI director Andrew McCabe.

"There has been no effort to impede our investigation to date,'' McCabe said last week in response to a question posed by Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida. "Simply put, sir, you cannot stop the men and women of the FBI from doing the right thing, protecting the American people and upholding the Constitution.''

Law enforcement officials declined to explain the apparent contradiction between Comey's notes and McCabe's testimony.

New York Times blames housing unaffordability on mortgage interest deduction, never mentions how the Fed just reinflated the housing bubble quite apart from it

Here.

Housing was on its way to being affordable again until the Feds stepped in to stop foreclosures from rising and prices from falling, late in 2008. As a result of rock bottom interest rates which existing owners used to refinance their mortgages, housing is now more expensive than it has ever been, but the Times attacks the mortgage interest deduction for causing the problem.

Prices are up 47% since the 2009 low, in just eight years! The mortgage interest deduction was invented over 100 years ago, and helped to build the post-war middle class.

The Times seems bent on further destroying it.

Thousands of Muslims march through a German village, shouting about something

Remind you of anyone?

Here.

Why did the president cross the road, Mark?

Because he was chasing the chicken.

Voter fraud: Is it really unimaginable that 3 million voted fraudulently in 2016?

In 2004 there were just short of 114,000 polling places in the United States. The number has doubtlessly grown considerably since then, but take 114,000 for a fact even though 12 years out of date and all it takes to get to 3 million is 26 illegal votes per precinct.

Fraud is complicated by in-person early voting in 21 states and DC, making it possible for determined fraudsters to vote multiple times in one state and/or states. Alternative voting methods other than by in-person on election day are now estimated to account for more than a third of all votes cast. These include absentee/by-mail voting in many states, which liberals typically find more susceptible of fraud than in-person systems.

Governments often raised funds with lotteries in the past, but how about $7 trillion in FY2017?

I don't think so.

Lotteries started to fall out of favor after 1830, according to the story here, mostly due to corruption. The guys running the things would run off with the dough. So much for the golden age of the past.

Government at all levels in the US will shell out $7.04 trillion in fiscal 2017, 36.5% of GDP.

In 1817 the number was in the neighborhood of $23 million, about 3% of GDP.

The problem with raising revenues today is only a problem because government is too damn big. Spending 3% of GDP today on government at all levels compared with current outlays means they are twelve times the size they should be, $7 trillion instead of $0.6 trillion.

Besides, you couldn't possibly raise enough using lotteries. In fiscal 2014 lottery revenues countrywide barely totaled $70 billion, just 1% of current total outlays.

Every man, woman and child in this country would have to purchase at least $21,757 in lotto tickets this fiscal year in order to fund government at all levels. And that's before any jackpots are paid out, or lottery workers paid.

Or we could just tax everyone that much.

It would be easier and fairer, right?

After all, we're all "equal".

Except 60 million Americans don't make even that much. If government took it all what would they live on?

Hope, no doubt.

Wow, Sen. Mike Lee falls 28,000 feet directly into the sea from Mt. Tea Party Olympus

Another phony like Sen. Ron Johnson and Rep. Justin Amash.

Somebody please tell The Nation that Hillary won Middlesex County MA with 65% of the vote

It's May and the top two issues remain healthcare and immigration

Here, but Obamacare is still the law of the land, and not one mile of The Wall has been built.

Robert Tracinski skewers some libertarians for the socialism in their heads, but still misses why it's there

Here, chalking it all up to "unexamined collectivist assumptions" and mistakenly allowing "a little dominion of socialism over their thinking" and the left "trying to preserve that territory they own in your head" through various schemes like the estate tax.

In other words, they're insufficiently indoctrinated. You know, like all those intractable Russians who were sent to the Gulag for nothing more than mistakenly expressing incorrect thoughts.

It never dawns on Tracinski that ideology is a coin with socialism on the one side and libertarianism on the other.

The article is amusing because the "conservatives" he skewers for being insufficiently libertarian are or were aligned with the left and leftism: Charles Murray (former labor unionist, six years in the Peace Corps, "rebel"), Ronald Reagan ("I didn't leave the Democratic Party . . ."), Stuart Butler of health mandate infamy (Brookings), Milton Friedman (FDR functionary) and Megan McArdle (self-described former "ultraliberal").

With the example of McArdle on the estate tax before him, one might have hoped that Tracinski had stumbled into the origin of the socialism in our heads, but no, "there is no such collective entity as 'society.'"

The man wishing to leave his estate to that little society called his family might have begged to differ.

Grassley wants to end the EB-5 visa program altogether, but Cornyn wants to end the EB-5 cap

Grassley would end the issuance of these "buy-your-way-in" visas, but the Texas Senator would open up the program to thousands more.

Story here.

Libertarianism is adolescence dressed up as a political philosophy

No surprise that it was cooked up by Baby Boomers.

And as we all should know by now, there's no arguing with adolescents, not even after they've wrecked the family car.

What P. J. O'Rourke doesn't get is that free individuals would never make babies without hormones

And they'd never make war, either. So O'Rourke's ideal libertarian world of individual freedom would die out first, from failure to reproduce, and then from war. Compulsion is inevitable. You know, like death.

Looks like we're well on our way.

Here:

And what defines a mob? Mobsters. That Cosa Nostra with its code of omertà at the Clinton Foundation. Those "Make America Great Again" Crips and Bloods wearing their colors on their baseball caps with brims bumped to the right.

We should be learning the value of individual liberty from the failure of the elites and the fiasco of their vast political power. Good things are made by free individuals in free association with other individuals. Notice that that's how we make babies.

Individual freedom is about bringing things together.

Politics is about dividing things up.

Elites would have us make babies by putting the woman on this side of the room and the man on that side of the room while the elites stand in the middle taxing sperm and eggs.

The Grauniad complains P. J. O'Rourke's new book is "rural" and "lazy"

One David Runciman, here, who evidently does not know that the old boy has slowed down since he became sick with cancer:

[O'Rourke] operates more in the mould of HL Mencken, one of his heroes, who rarely felt the need to leave his beloved Baltimore in order to lambast the idiocy of his fellow Americans. O’Rourke lives, as it says on the dust jacket, “in rural New England, as far away from the things he writes about as he can get”. This is American politics as viewed from the back room in front of the TV, feet up on the recliner chair. ... O’Rourke forfeits the reader’s patience and simply comes across as lazy.

Dilbert thinks James Comey took one for the American team

Scott Adams, here, who covers all the bases.

Senate Intelligence Committee aide anonymously tries to smear Trump with money laundering

Probably a Democrat aide. Democrats on the committee include Diane Feinstein, Ron Wyden, Martin Heinrich, Angus King (I), Joe Manchin, Kamala Harris and Mark Warner.

Here:

The Senate Intelligence Committee wants to see any information relevant to its Russia investigation the Treasury agency has gathered, including evidence that might include possible money laundering, according to a committee aide who spoke on condition of anonymity. Also at issue: to what extent, if at all, people close to Vladimir Putin have invested in Trump's real estate empire.

Trump showed patience in waiting to fire Comey and Krauthammer finds it inexplicable

Here.

Well, they pay Krauthammer to say something.

Susan Collins proves the old adage that even a broken clock is right twice a day

Here.

When the liberal Republican FBI director loses the support of a Susan Collins, he'd better believe he's had it.

Laugh of the Day: Trump fires Comey to distract from making no progress on border wall

Ann Coulter, here.

Why we love him still

The firing of James Comey presents the opportunity of a lifetime

Seen here.

Trump fires Comey from FBI, let's hope he fires Turkey from NATO next

Erdogan, our supposed ally, calls on Muslims to occupy Jerusalem.

The Dems say if they hadn't been caught lying they would be running the country right now

Seen here.

Ann Coulter gets it: Americans are paying higher taxes through their health insurance premiums

Here. How come nobody else talks this way?

War is the father of everything

Tea Party darling Sen. Ron Johnson of WI introduces massive guest worker/amnesty: 500k annually

The Tea Party was one half open-borders-libertarian from the beginning. That's why it went no farther than it did.

And Wisconsin narrowly reelected Johnson in 2016 why? It was the price we paid for the very narrow Trump victory there.

Story here.

Joe Klein says thanks to Trump we currently live in Pat Buchanan's world

Here in The New York Times.

He hopes it's only for a moment.

Emmanuel Macron doesn't know how to speak of France, only of Europe and its citizens

Emmanuel Macron, the new president of France, quoted in the story here:

"I know the anger, the anxiety, the doubts that very many of you have also expressed. It's my responsibility to hear them," he said. "I will work to recreate the link between Europe and its peoples, between Europe and citizens." ...

[Marine Le Pen's] tally was almost double the score that her father Jean-Marie, the last far-right candidate to make the presidential runoff, achieved in 2002, when he was trounced by the conservative Jacques Chirac. ...

[A]ny idea of a brave new political dawn will be tempered by an abstention rate on Sunday of around 25 percent, the highest this century, and by the blank or spoiled ballots submitted by 12 percent of those who did vote.

Grand Rapids, Michigan, climate update for April 2017

Mean average temperature was 51.9 degrees F in April 2017 in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The mean for April back to 1896 is 46.5.

The lowest minimum temperature was 27. The mean for April is 22.

The highest maximum temperature was 81. The mean for April is 79.

Precipitation was 6.27 inches. The mean for April is 3.3. Sixth wettest April on record.

April snowfall was 0.4 inches. The mean for April is 2.3.

Heating degree days came to 391. The mean for April is 553. The total through April from July 2016 comes to 5366 vs. mean to date of 6404.

The heating season to date has been about 16% warmer than normal.

Obama's SECDEF said nukes were an option against North Korea

From the story here:

Last month, former Secretary of Defense Ash Carter said about an attack on North Korea, “We’ve always had all options on the table… I wouldn’t take any off.”  Were North Korea to commence a massive artillery barrage on Seoul, and especially if they used chemical or biological weapons, one potential U.S. response could be nuclear retaliation against Pyongyang and/or their artillery at the border. (Perhaps dialing down the “variable yield” of our B-61 nuclear bombs to reduce radioactive fallout and civilian casualties). As outlandish as this response may seem right now, some U.S. war planners do not think so; it could be considered “proportional” and therefore within the laws of armed conflict. If a nuclear bombing were ordered under Obama–who was widely perceived as thoughtful and hesitant to use force—the world may have been largely willing to listen to his logic. Unfortunately, because much of the international community views President Trump as reactive, even unstable, any such U.S.-initiated action would likely be met by ferocious global condemnation. This perception of our President may be a tactical consideration for our war planners led by the very talented head of Pacific Command, Adm. Harry Harris.

Just 18 Republicans in the US Senate voted against the $1.1 trillion spending bill

The roll call is here. So-called conservatives Rubio and Johnson notably voted for it.

Laugh of the Day: Mark Levin calls caller employed as an electrician without health insurance a parasite

Just now.

They don't call Levin "the great one" for nothing.

Noted cardiologist predicts Republican healthcare reform will fail and lead to single payer

Here.

On Hannity with Mark Simone, Stephen Moore just said we still have 94 million Americans "of working age" still out of work

There's a statement which is utterly false, and should end Steve Moore's credibility as an economist forever, but it won't.

The metric measures everyone aged 16 and older who is not in the labor force, the vast majority of which are not in the labor force for very good reasons.

For one example, young people in high school, college and graduate school are included in this number. In 2017 they number about 37 million people.

For another, in March 2017 another 45.7 million were over 65 and getting Social Security. In other words, retired.

Together that's nearly 88% of the current 94.4 million "not working".

That leaves 11.7 million "not working", some of whom are disabled receiving Social Security but some disabled are still working, trying to lead productive lives despite their handicaps.

Typically the rest are homemakers, who are trying to make sure their kids aren't rotten like yours.

George Mason University should take away Steve Moore's MA in economics, if you ask me.

And even if you don't.

Total employment lags 2008 by at least 2.4 million while Drudge plays Trump propagandist

In April 2008 total employed, not seasonally adjusted, hit 145.9 million, which was 48.1% of the US population of 303.38 million.

In April 2017 we're at 153.3 million, 47.4% of the US population of 323.58 million.

If we had employment at the 2008 rate, there would be at least 2.4 million more employed today than there are.

But no, Trump is making America great again, you see.

American Health Care Act of 2017 passes US House 217-213

The roll call is here.

20 Republicans and 193 Democrats (which is all of them) voted against it.

It's a Rube Goldberg fix to the Rube Goldberg machine known as Obamacare.

Remember all those Trump rallies where the crowds shouted "Repair 40 miles of fence!"?

Yeah, me neither.

[Spicer] said about a fifth of the funding allotted to the Department of Homeland Security in the spending bill moving through Congress this week will be used to erect a barrier 20 feet high to replace some 40 miles of the current 700-mile border fence along the 1,900-mile border. That 40-mile replacement alone will cost $341.2 million.

Republican $1.1 trillion spending bill includes $18 million to combat misogyny in the Marine Corps

Now Republicans take a whack at turning the Marine Corps into the Marine Corpse.

Story here.

France's Emmanuel Macron is with her

Frau Merkel is "more attractive than you think"

Marine Le Pen rocks the vote: France will be led by a woman, either me or Frau Merkel

Yeah baby.

See it all, here.

The vehicle for the obscene $1.1 trillion House omnibus spending bill was the HIRE Vets Act

They can't even tell the truth about the name of the bill.

The $1.1 trillion bill passed with support from both parties in a 309-118 vote. Fifteen Democrats and 103 Republicans voted against it. ... House Democrats have repeatedly been needed to help pass spending bills since Republicans took over the majority in 2011.

The roll call vote is here.

131 Republicans united with 178 Democrats to pass the bill, which once again defies regular order for appropriations.

Spineless Michigan Republicans Upton, Trott, Bergman, Walberg, Mike Bishop, Huizenga, Moolenaar and Mitchell all voted for the included Christmas tree of goodies for Democrats in order to get the increased defense spending in the bill.

Only Justin Amash of the Michigan Republican US House caucus voted against the damn thing.

Hillary: I was on the way to winning . . . until I came under sniper fire in Bosnia

The only three things Trump needs to do: Build The Wall, don't start a war, and golf

Hillary supporter Gersh Kuntzman says Hillary got what she deserved, and since she won't apologize she should just shut up and go home

Very entertaining.

Here.

Also entertaining is his litany of her lies, here. He voted for her anyway.

Just remember that when feeling blue about our boy Donald.

Over and over again, Donald Trump promised he would build a Big Beautiful Military

You just didn't hear him right.

Here's a compilation.

Ya'll misunderstood . . . He said he's going to build The Big Beautiful Military

The person destined for political oblivion now is Mike Pence

"Rush, let me be real clear. The number one priority of President Trump is to rebuild our military, to restore the arsenal of democracy."

Mark Levin lies again, says Obamacare was passed under reconciliation when it wasn't

As if it's germane anyway. Levin is just trying to appear to respect the tradition of the Senate.

Well, Harry Reid did away with that by going nuclear on appointments.

And Mitch McConnell went nuclear on Gorsuch.

Two blows to tradition right there.

Like tits, if you've seen one you might as well see the other.

So, Mitch just needs to keep going nuclear.

The Republican Senate should simply jettison the filibuster rule, and pass repeal with the clean Republican majority.

Trump's instincts on this are correct on spending, which means on Obamacare as well, and on every bill which might come the Senate's way.

Then we can focus our attention on Paul Ryan, who hides behind the Senate's filibuster rule like a little boy hides behind his mommy's skirts to restrain what he does in the House.

Talk radio and Republicans are trying to defend this latest indefensible continuing spending resolution

When Democrats took control of the Congress under Obama in 2009, they promptly added about $700 billion to Bush's outlays in the middle of his last fiscal year, and successfully made the new level of spending the baseline for the rest of Obama's two terms. This was done in the name of rescuing the country from the financial/housing crisis.

They sold it as an $800 billion stimulus, but it was in reality the most outrageous expansion of federal spending ever: $5.6 trillion over 8 years. The sum is $1.28 trillion in excess of Obama's entire dollar GDP increase for his presidency. It means we spent $1.30 for every $1 of Obama's GDP.

But you have heard nothing about it because Republicans are co-dependents in government spending.

Spending soared overnight from $2.8 trillion to $3.5 trillion, and stayed at that level right through the final days of the Obama administration, despite Republicans taking the House in 2010 and the Senate in 2014.

Now that the tables are turned, Republicans are claiming "the rules" mean they have to compromise with Democrats and continue spending on Democrat items under the Christmas Tree, like Planned Parenthood, sanctuary cities, border security without The Wall, and a variety of non-defense spending items, in order to get what they want in the $1.1 trillion continuing spending resolution, which basically boils down to a big increase in defense spending, but not much for what Trump advocated and promised the people.

Disappointed doesn't begin to describe our displeasure with this disgraceful pack of spendthrift bastards occupying The Swamp.

And they appear to have eaten Donald Trump.

Delusional Hillary today blames "Russian" Wikileaks and Comey for her loss

Everybody and everything but herself.

Here.

VP Pence in the spin zone on The Rush Limbaugh Show: Trump's number one priority is defense spending

Oh, well, that clarifies things.

Here I thought Trump's campaign for president was all about stopping illegal immigration, restoring law and order, and repealing Obamacare.

Silly me. I must have misunderstood Donald Trump.

First quarter GDP has fallen from an average of 2.95% under Truman to 0.53% under Obama

Truman: 2.95%

IKE: 1.05%

JFK/LBJ: 2.97%

Nixon/Ford: 2.52%

Carter: 2.77%

Reagan: 1.70%

Bush I: 1.27%

Clinton: 1.10%

Bush II: 0.95%

Obama: 0.53%

Michael Moore to star in one-man Broadway show because there's no room on stage for anyone else

Somebody please tell The Steve Gruber Show that it's not The Stop Female Genital Mutilation Show

Gruber is fixated on the issue. Everyday he talks about it lately.

Male genitals have been mutilated from time immemorial, Steve. But I don't want to hear about that everyday either.

Especially with my morning coffee.

France to be ruled by perverts: It turns out Emmanuel Macron of France fell in love at 16 with his 39 year old married teacher, a mother of three

And they've been together just about ever since. And he's about to defeat Marine Le Pen for the presidency of France. Unbelievable.

They change partners over there like pants, but still.

Story here.

Video of Tanana River Ice Out in Nenana AK today at noon

Here. And here.

The siren goes off at about 16 seconds in at the first link. The second link is not video but patched together shots from the Tripod cam.

Another Chinese forced laborer writes a plea for help and sequesters it in a purse purchased at Walmart

And Trump expects the Chinese authorities to do something about North Korea.

Yeah right.

From the story here:

“Inmates in the Yingshan Prison in Guangxi, China are working 14 hours daily with no break/rest at noon, continue working overtime until 12 midnight, and whoever doesn't finish his work will be beaten. Their meals are without oil and salt. . . .."

Democrats continue to ignore the revulsion Democrat voters felt for Hillary

It's not like they didn't have information about this in 2008 when primary voters ended up picking Obama over Hillary in the first place.

Here:

[N]ew information shows that Clinton had a much bigger problem with voters who had supported President Barack Obama in 2012 but backed Trump four years later. ... Turning out the base is not good enough, the data suggest. 

But Hillary didn't turn out the base in 2016 anymore than she did in 2008. Every single story from the Democrats ignores that Democrats revolted against Hillary in 2016 just as they did in 2008. Just as they did in 1993. 

Just look at the top vote-getters by state since 2004.

Trump 2016 was the top-vote-getter in AL, AZ, AR, FL, GA, IN, KY, LA, MO, MT, NC, ND, SC, TN, TX, WV, and WY for a total of 26.4 million votes. Seventeen states, two of them swing states.

But eight years ago Obama 2008 is still today the top-vote-getter in CT, DE, HI, IL, IA, ME, MI, MN, NH, NJ, NM, NY, OH, OR, PA, RI, VT and WI for a total of 28 million votes. Eighteen states.

Hillary 2016 was the top-vote-getter only in CA, CO, DC, MD, MA, NV and VA for a total of 16.6 million votes, over half of which were in California. Six states and DC.

Obama 2012 was top-vote-getter in WA, Romney 2012 in ID and UT, McCain 2008 in AL, MS and OK, and Bush 2004 in KS, NE and SD.

That's all fifty states plus DC.

Trump is somewhat weak with his base in 8 states going back to 2004, but Hillary is far weaker with hers.

That's the story which has been ignored over and over again since election night. Hillary underperformed Obama 2012 in 34 states, but Obama 2008 in 39.

They weren't with her. Ever.

We have Tanana River ice-out in Nenana AK today at noon

Here.

There's something strangely familiar about Rebekah Mercer

Rebekah Mercer

Basil Fawlty

It looks like Emmanuel Macron has become Marine Le Pen's chief advocate

He's pointing at his head, but he's not using it.

Macron, quoted here:

“When the rights and values of the European Union are not respected, I want sanctions to be taken.”

“In the three months after I’m elected, there will be a decision on Poland.”

“You cannot have a European Union which argues over every single decimal place on the issue of budgets with each country, and which, when you have an EU member which acts like Poland or Hungary on issues linked to universities and learning, or refugees, or fundamental values, decides to do nothing.”

Rush is right: Congress' mission now is to deny Trump any significant legislation

And we thought the Democrats couldn't accomplish anything.

Now the Republicans wouldn't.

NeverTrump lives.

The difference between the 3% economy Trump wants and the one he's got

$428 billion.

Current dollar GDP just increased $137.9 billion in 1Q2017, about 0.73%.

At 3% the increase would have been $566 billion.

Laugh of the Day: Stupid liberal shackle dragger actually believed in her messiah, Barack, until he took the banksters' money

Here, in The Sydney Morning Herald:

This one seemingly greedy act has put all that in jeopardy. He's no different from all the others. Just another money-grubbing politician. I can scarcely believe it. I certainly don't want to. It's just weeks since he said, just before he left office: "I won't stop; in fact, I will be right there with you, as a citizen, for all my days that remain."

"And lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age", or the banks open at 0900.

Phyllis Schlafly correctly understood natural born citizenship to turn on the question of jurisdiction

Here is Schlafly in 2004:

The extensive litigation concerning American Indians illustrates that consent rather than place of birth is what controls citizenship. Indians did not receive citizenship until conferred by congressional acts in 1887, 1901 and 1924, long after ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment.

The Constitution states that "no person except a natural born citizen" is eligible to be President. Everyone recognizes that this provision disqualifies the Governors of California and Michigan who were born in Austria and Canada, respectively.

On the other hand, then Michigan Governor George Romney, whose birthplace was Mexico, ran for president in 1968, and Senator John McCain, whose birthplace was the Panama Canal Zone, ran for president in 2000. Both were "natural born citizens" because their parents were U.S. citizens and subject to the jurisdiction of American sovereignty.

It's not the physical location of birth that defines citizenship, but whether your parents are citizens, and the express or implied consent to jurisdiction of the sovereign.

Trump's territorial tax plan gives no incentive for business and manufacturing to relocate to the US

What's up with that, huh? Maybe he's not really serious about bringing the jobs back here after all.

From Phyliss Schlafly here in 2011:

Although the Perry plan's most striking feature is its anti-marriage bias, his proposal for corporate income is equally pernicious. Perry would shift businesses to a "territorial" tax system, which means that corporations would be taxed only on the profits they earn inside the United States. 

We should do exactly the opposite. We should reduce or eliminate taxes on businesses that employ Americans producing goods and services inside our own country, while increasing taxes on the profits that corporations earn by outsourcing or manufacturing overseas. 

Above all, we should eliminate the foreign tax credit, a self-destructive provision that allows corporations to pay China or Venezuela or Saudi Arabia the money they would otherwise owe the U.S. government. Let's also cut out the deductions that U.S. corporations take for hiring foreigners to do work that Americans can do. 

Those who support a territorial business tax argue that it will encourage multinational corporations to bring home the profits they earn overseas, but that's unlikely so long as it remains more profitable for them to invest in cheap-labor countries. Of Republican presidential candidates, only Herman Cain and Rick Santorum understand that what corporations need is lower taxes on their operations inside the United States rather than on the profits they earn in other countries. 

"Middle class" according to Pew Research Center is just trying to make everyone feel better

MarketWatch here says that Pew estimates middle class household income for a family of 3 at between about $35,000 and $105,000 for 2011.

To understand how too liberally defined that is, consider that in 2011 almost 60% of individual wage earners made $35,000 or less . . . about 91 million wage earners out of 151 million.

Actually the middle third of all those paycheck earners, 50 million, made between just $15,000 annually and not quite $40,000, the average of which is about $27,500. Make over $40,000 and you were already in the top third of individual wage earners that year.

A couple making $27,500 can survive in this world, but it wouldn't have been able to buy the median priced home of $225,000 in 2011. Just financing that without a down payment, an impossibility, at the average 30-year rate of 4.5% in 2011 would have meant 50% of income going to principal and interest.

Putting 10% down would drop that to 45% of income, still hardly affordable. And who do you know making $27,500 with $22,000 saved for a down payment on a house?

They'd be renting, most likely, and not yet solidly middle class.

In 2016 the average median sales price of a home in the US soared to nearly $314,000, putting the American dream even farther out of reach than ever before for the majority.

US drone captures Afghan men having their way with a couple of goats

And you thought retired US Supreme Court Justice David Souter was a goat-fucking child molester.

We should have blown these sick bastards to kingdom come 16 years ago and not wasted one drop of American blood on them.

Video here.

Middle Class: The 30-30-30 countries according to wealth distribution are primarily Germanic

The following are the countries with relatively equal sized lower, middle and upper classes in 2013, meaning roughly 30% have wealth under $10,000, roughly 30% have wealth $10,000 to $100,000, and roughly 30% have wealth in excess of $100,000 up to $1M:

USA: 31-33-31

Austria: 28-32-37

Germany: 29-33-35

New Zealand: 26-34-38

Qatar: 25-38-35

Taiwan: 23-45-31

He ain't dead yet: Ted Cruz sees Trump's Wall, raises him one

Here:

"El Chapo led the Sinaloa drug cartel," Cruz explained. "There is a sense of justice. A sense of, this is what is right, that the people who are violating the border like crazy, we should use their ill-gotten gains [$14 billion] to finally build the wall, and to finally ensure we have the assets to secure the border."

Republicans to fund Planned Parenthood, but not The Wall

Republicans. Doing the opposite of what they promise, just like Democrats.

Story here.

Trump's Mick Mulvaney is letting the Senate's 60-vote rule stand in the way of funding The Wall

Screw the 60-vote rule.

It's a rule dating to 1917, last revised by the Democrat-controlled Senate in 1975.

It's not in the constitution, and the Senate can change the rules any time it wants.

Now would be a good time, but Trump, McConnell & Co. seem content to leave some water in The Swamp, the better to bog down what the people want, my dear.

Mulvaney, quoted here:

MICK MULVANEY, DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT & BUDGET: Yes. The problem is the Senate rules, people forget this sometimes, that the spending bills are different than the budget. The underlying budgets sort of move through the House and Senate differently. Anything that passes on reconciliation moves differently. But most bills, including spending bills, take 60 votes in the Senate.

TAPPER: So you need eight Democrats. 

MULVANEY: Got to have eight, which means that Chuck Schumer and the Democrats have a place at the table. We recognize that. But that's why we just can't do it on our own.

TAPPER: A source close to efforts to avoid a government shutdown tells CNN that the Republican proposal in the House will not include funding for President Trump's border wall with Mexico. 

Is President Trump willing to sign a government spending bill that does not include that money? 

MULVANEY: Yes, because I think the bill -- at least the offer that we received from the Democrats the last couple of days included a good bit of money for border security. The Democrats said they would go to the mat and shut the government down over the border wall, the bricks and mortar. 

Laugh of the Day: The top one percent in brains tend to become our senators

Gotta be a typo.

Seen here:

Reflecting on the latest findings of longitudinal studies on gifted students, Jonathan Wai, a psychologist at the Duke University Talent Identification Program, concluded that children with early cognitive ability “control our society…The kids who test in the top one percent tend to become our eminent scientists and academics, our Fortune 500 CEOs and federal judges, senators and billionaires.”

Michael Savage: There's an easy solution to the shortage of lethal injection drugs, just give 'em an overdose of street heroin

Beautiful!

And clean out all the death rows already.

I've been workin' on the railroad . . ..

The Wall delayed is justice denied

As socialist Venezuela starves, remember Bernie Sanders once said that's the American Dream

Equal poverty for all!

Here, August 2011:

These days, the American dream is more apt to be realized in South America, in places such as Ecuador, Venezuela and Argentina, where incomes are actually more equal today than they are in the land of Horatio Alger. Who's the banana republic now?

Marine Le Pen is popular with France's multitudes of unemployed youth

From the profile, here:

Part of her allure is rooted in the plight of young people in the world’s sixth-largest economy, nearly a quarter of whom are unemployed. On the eve of Le Pen’s rally in Metz, 20-something supporters from across the country came together in the city’s party headquarters to discuss their plans for the following day. It had more the feel of an awkward school dance than a strategy session – they had put out bowls of potato chips and bottles of soda.

Emilien Noé, a former Socialist who coordinates the youth movement in the region, says young people are drawn to the FN’s promise to restore French glory, something they’ve never known. “A lot of young people are living abroad instead of in France, and this is sad for a country like ours,” he says.

Le Pen #I'mWithHer

MOAB left Afghan tunnels used by ISIS "apparently undamaged"

Should have bombed the damn dams of Afghanistan instead.

Put out their lights for good, waste all their water. Send them back to the Stone Age where they belong. And leave.

From the story here:

Afghan special forces troops entered one of the caves used by suspected Isil fighters and found the tunnels apparently undamaged by the explosion. ... Afghan officials claimed that nearly 100 militants and no civilians were killed by the blast but those claims have not been independently verified.

Illegal alien workers in US get $4.2 billion in tax credits: Times five years is plenty to pay for The Wall

From the story here:

[A] July 2011 report by the Treasury inspector general for tax administration ... said individuals who are not authorized to work in the U.S. have been paid $4.2 billion in refundable tax credits.

Marine Le Pen sounds just like Michael Savage, calling on France to choose French borders, language and culture

Quoted here after coming in 2nd in the first round of the French elections yesterday: 

It is a very simple choice for France. Either we carry on towards total deregulation without any borders or protection, and all that entails. With international unfair competition, mass immigration, the free trade, and the free circulation of terrorists. 

Or you choose the France with borders that are going to protect her, employment, and a national identity. 

So you have two choices. ...

I am the candidate of the people. I appeal to all sincere.. patriots to join us and abandon old-fashioned quarrels and particpate in the best interest of our country... and the survival of France. We will unite behind the project of renewal and they will be our brothers.

121 years of National Weather Service temperature data show a cooling trend in Grand Rapids, Michigan

Single deadliest attack in 16-year Afghan war, perpetrated by just 10 Taliban, kills over 140

This is payback for the MOAB attack. 

So bomb the water supplies in Afghanistan now. Cut off the money they make from well-irrigated opium.

From the story here:

Dressed in military uniforms, a squad of 10 Taliban militants drove in two army Ford Ranger trucks past seven checkpoints. They arrived inside northern Afghanistan’s largest military installation just as hundreds, perhaps thousands, of unarmed soldiers were emerging from Friday Prayers and preparing for lunch.

For the next five hours, the militants went on a rampage, killing at least 140 soldiers and officers in what is emerging as the single deadliest known attack on an Afghan military base in the country’s 16-year war. Some assailants blew themselves up among the soldiers fleeing for their lives, according to survivors, witnesses and officials.

Pat Buchanan still believes 3,407 votes "mistakenly" cast for him in Palm Beach County made W president

Here:

[Buchanan] won 3,407 votes in Palm Beach County, Florida—a liberal, heavily Jewish community—thanks to the “butterfly ballot” famously confusing many voters. George W. Bush won Florida by 537 votes, and Buchanan makes no bones about what happened. “The Lord intervened,” he says, grinning. “We sunk Al Gore and won the election for Bush.” 

Like Nader wasn't to blame, or the libertarians, or "other".

There are many ways to cut the cake George W. Bush ate:

Florida Results  Election 2000

Palm Beach County Results Election 2000

Tim Alberta profiles our old general, Pat Buchanan: This is the last chance for our ideas

Here in Politico Magazine.

Hungarian razor wire border fencing like this has cut illegal immigration to a trickle, so to speak