So-called National People's Congress of China votes 2,959-2 to remove term limits for Xi Jinping, with 3 abstentions

The story is here.

So, our two main rivals in the world are now each ruled by perpetual dictators, as they were in the past.

And to think from 1992 some in the West foolishly accepted the idea of the end of history, "that the worldwide spread of liberal democracies and free market capitalism of the West and its lifestyle may signal the end point of humanity's sociocultural evolution and become the final form of human government."

Not even Francis Fukuyama believed it for more than three years.

Unfortunately the George W. Bush administration, in its ignorant hubris, did.

But here we now are, having squandered the intervening years, and Trump is just fine with the new dictatorships. He admires them no less than Obama did. They are grandiose, like he is, like Obama is. He wishes he could be one of them, too.

When was the last time you heard a statesman from the West call on these rival powers to throw off their chains and embrace freedom?

I can't remember, either.

Freedom as we have known it in the world is in great peril, and we hardly care.

Therefore we will lose it, sooner rather than later.

Laugh of the day: Trump's goal is reportedly 208,333 new jobs every month for 10 years

So says the story at The Daily Caller here.

Har har HAR........dee har har.

After 16 months (November 2016 inclusive through February 2018) the actual monthly rate of gain has been 182,500.

If you prefer from inauguration month instead of election month (January 2017 inclusive through February 2018), 14 months, the actual monthly rate has been 177,214.

February 2017 inclusive, first full month of presidency, through February 2018, 13 months, the rate has been 175,461.

From the post-recession low in February 2010 (not inclusive), exactly 8 years ago, through February 2018 the actual monthly rate of gain has been 192,197.

So by no measure of Trump's performance is he yet anywhere near the actual average performance post-recession of 2007, let alone near his own goal.

The best overall performance in living memory was under Bill Clinton when monthly gains averaged over 242,000 monthly over 8 years. But this coincided with the peaking of the Baby Boom in 1957 clocking in 20 years in the labor force by the end of the Clinton era, in 1999. The Baby Boom fueled the Clinton boom in every way, from jobs to housing to GDP, and also the stock market.

It's been all downhill from there.

Since peak total nonfarm employment in February 2001, just before the recession of that year through February 2018, the economy has added only 75,500 jobs a month. 

Good luck to Mr. Trump, but the demographic odds are not in his favor, on top of the headwinds from his own immigration policy.

In this context Trump's stated goals do not reflect knowledge of reality or self-knowledge, only hubris.

Larry Kudlow is brain dead and he's on the radio

Like Rush Limbaugh, Larry Kudlow doesn't accurately remember the Reagan era.

It's embarrassing coming from these self-appointed spokesmen for Ronald Reagan.

Unlike Limbaugh, however, Kudlow actually served in the Reagan Administration so he really ought to know better, but today on the radio he kept saying that the jobs created in February 2018 (313,000) don't get any better than that.

Flashback to February 1984: jobs added 481,000. Or February 1988: jobs added 453,000.

Need more?

June 1983: +379,000. July 1983: +418,000. September 1983: +1.115 MILLION.

1.115 MILLION!

IN ONE MONTH!

Do I need to go on?

Yes, I think I do.

November 1983: +353,000.

December 1983: +356,000.

January 1984: +446,000.

April 1984: +363,000.

June 1984: +379,000.

July 1984: +313,000.

November 1984: +349,000.

March 1985: +346,000.

July 1986: +318,000.

September 1986: +347,000.

April 1987: +338,000.

July 1987: +347,000.

October 1987: +492,000.

June 1988: +363,000.

September 1988: +339,000.

November 1988: +339,000.

The current jobs boom isn't a boom, not yet, not by a longshot, and is NOTHING like the Reagan era, and Kudlow is doing a disservice to the historical record in which he played a part.

You've become a political hack, Larry.

Funny how this week's Democrat Senate combined primary wins in Texas all seem to hug the border with Mexico

Pace Ann Coulter and The NY Times, core employment in February 2018 still hasn't recovered to the 2007 peak

In February 2018 core employment, ages 25 to 54, is 100.1 million, peak was 100.7 million, 11 years ago.

Count 'em.

Spare me the Rah! Rah! Trump! until there's something significant to cheer about.

Xi Jinping is now Winnie the Pooh . . . for life

Xi Jinping being mocked as Xi Zedong in China and around the world

From the story here:

The government’s censorship apparatus had to spring into action after the term limit proposal was unveiled, suppressing keywords on social media ranging from “I disagree” to “shameless” to “Xi Zedong.” Even the letter “N″ was blocked after it was used as part of an equation for the number of terms Xi might serve. ...

On Wednesday, International Women’s Day, law students at the prestigious Tsinghua University in Beijing — Xi’s alma mater — hung red banners that ostensibly celebrated the school’s female classmates but also satirized national politics. “I love you without any term limits, but if there are, we can just remove them,” read one, while another banner declared that “A country can’t survive without a constitution, we can’t go on without you.” University administrators weren’t amused. A student witness said the banners were quickly removed and notices posted requiring campus shops to register students who use printers to make large banners.

Chinese studying overseas have been more blunt. Posts in recent days popped up at the University of California, San Diego, with Xi’s picture and the text “Never My President” and spread to more than eight overseas universities, said Lebao Wu, a student at Australian National University in Canberra.

Trump to dignify a vicious little tyrant by meeting with him, and they're calling it a victory

For the presidency, it's not:

North Korea: Trump's scored a real victory but don’t expect complete denuclearization any time soon

Editorial: On North Korea, Trump is right

Panetta: Trump Meeting "Positive Step," World "Breathing Sigh Of Relief"

Could Donald Trump end up with the Nobel Peace Prize?

Kim Jong Un can spin this any way he likes, but Trump has taunted and tortured Little Rocket Man into blinking first and the world can (temporarily) breathe a massive sigh of relief

Inhofe: The More Aggressive Trump Gets, The More He Gets Done; Brought Kim Jong-un To The Table

Trump’s Meeting With Kim Jong-un Is Another Pledge to Do What Nobody Else Can

Trump says North Korea is ‘sincere’ on reported offer to hold nuclear talks

Reagan free-trade globalism has gutted growth of worker earnings and suppressed job growth

It's not a boom: The pay increase for the vast majority of workers in February 2018 was merely average

Hey Rush, 95 million eating but not working in February 2018 under Trump!

Heh heh heh.

Why dontcha talk about it anymore, huh?

Nitwit.

Job gains in February 2018 are good but still Bush-league and not really booming

Bill Clinton's oral sex legacy: About 7 million men and 1.4 million women are walking around with oral HPV infections

From the story, "Oral sex is causing an oral cancer epidemic in men by outwitting natural defenses", here:

HPV-related tumors, in contrast, have increased more than 300 percent over the last 20 years. The virus is now found in 70 percent of all new oral cancers.

About 13,200 new HPV oral cancers are diagnosed in U.S. men each year, compared with 3,200 in women, according to federal data. Treatment – surgery, chemotherapy, radiation – can have disfiguring, disabling side effects. About half of late-stage patients die within five years.

Oral HPV infection rates are skewed by gender, just like the resulting cancers. The latest national estimates of this disparity, published in October, come from Deshmukh and his University of Florida colleagues. They used a federal health survey that collected DNA specimens to estimate that 7.3 percent of men and 1.4 percent of women have oral infections with high-risk HPV types. That translates to 7 million men and 1.4 million women.

Sorry, ADP private payrolls aren't booming now and haven't boomed since briefly doing so in 2005-2006

The reading is +2.2% in February 2018 vs. +4.05% in February 2006, twelve years ago.

Count 'em.

"Corporations are people" is based on the 14th Amendment, except it wasn't

Adam Winkler of the UCLA School of Law for The Atlantic explains, here.

The fool of a president George W. Bush is as pathetic as Trump in seeking validation at this point in his life

George W. Bush was easily the worst post-war president until Barack Obama came along.

And a lot of water has to go under the bridge before the verdict is in on Trump.

Meanwhile, these presidents who constantly look for validation or constantly assert their egos are a reflection of the decline of America, not its greatness. Comparisons between them amount to nothing more than sorting out the cleanest dirty shirt in the laundry.

Are there no real men left?

Poverty for persons 65+ and under 18 has been declining since 1986, but rising for everyone else

Grand Rapids, Michigan, Climate Update for February 2018

Grand Rapids, Michigan, Climate Update for February 2018

Max temp 63, Mean Max temp 50

Min temp 7, Mean Min temp -2

Av temp 29.8, Mean Av temp 24.5

Precip 4.93, Mean precip 1.78

Snowfall 20.7, Mean snowfall 13.1

Snowfall season to date 66.8, Mean Snowfall season to date 54.5

Heating Degree Days 978, Mean Heating Degree Days 1136

HDD Season to date 4656, HDD Mean Season to date 4895

Using Heating Degree Days, the cool season to date has been 4.88% warmer than the mean.

The dildo available only in Hollywood

Broward County officials responsible for Cruz' crimes because none of his prior to the massacre were reported or prosecuted, ON PURPOSE

Ann Coulter, here:

When it comes to spectacular crimes, it's usually hard to say how it could have been prevented. But in this case, we have a paper trail. In the pursuit of a demented ideology, specific people agreed not to report, arrest or prosecute dangerous students like Nikolas Cruz. 

These were the parties to the Nov. 5, 2013, agreement that ensured Cruz would be out on the street with full access to firearms: 

Robert W. Runcie, Superintendent of Schools 

Peter M. Weinstein, Chief Judge of the 17th Judicial Circuit 

Michael J. Satz, State Attorney 

Howard Finkelstein, Public Defender 

Scott Israel, Broward County Sheriff 

Franklin Adderley, Chief of the Fort Lauderdale Police Department 

Wansley Walters, Secretary of the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice 

Marsha Ellison, President of the Fort Lauderdale Branch of the NAACP and Chair of the Juvenile Justice Advisory Board 

Nikolas Cruz may be crazy, but the parties to that agreement are crazy, too. They decided to make high school students their guinea pigs for an experiment based on a noxious ideology. The blood of 17 people is on their hands.