Kid jumps off bridge, dad sues for wrongful death

I realize that in the U.S., anyone can sue for anything.  But getting the permission of a court to actually have a trial can be more difficult.  One would hope judges would use some care in keeping frivolous suits from clogging the legal system.  Admittedly, what one person considers a frivolous lawsuit another may find meritorious.

In any case...After a Cornell freshman was found dead under a bridge, his dad sued Cornell University and the City of Ithaca for $168 million, alleging wrongful death and negligence.

A U.S. district court judge has now ruled that the suit can go to trial.

The lawsuit alleges the university and the city failed to exercise reasonable care in designing, constructing and maintaining the bridge.  But the bridge had railings higher than required by code, and the railings were new and structurally sound, so it's hard to see how negligence or wrongful death can be involved.  But apparently a judge thinks there's enough merit to the suit to warrant a trial.

My guess is that the city will offer half a million to settle the case.  After all, it ain't their money, right?

It'd be nice if a small business could afford to pay half a mil to avoid a million in legal fees.  Oh, wait...the owner would have to come up with that money out of his own pocket.  With any government entity the taxpayers foot the bill.  Makes making costly decisions a hellofa lot easier, eh?

Candidate for Secretary of State of a huge state arrested for weapons-smuggling scheme; media ignores party affiliation

Ever hear the name Leland Yee?

If not, don't be concerned, because what and who he's involved with probably isn't important enough--or even interesting enough--to warrant national attention.

Yee is a state senator from one of the largest, most politically powerful cities in the country.  Until a week ago he was running for Secretary of State of his state--one of the largest and most politically powerful in the U.S.  He was widely regarded as a rising member of his party.

Last Wednesday the feds arrested him for allegedly offering to help procure and ship military-grade weapons--including shoulder-fired missile launchers--to Islamic militants.  Oh, and also for taking bribes.

Even more amusing, as he was setting up the gun-running operation Yee was also an extremely strong, vocal proponent of stricter gun-controls on law-abiding Americans.  So we can add hypocrisy to the story.

By rights this story should be what journalists call “good copy.”  It's got almost everything: political corruption, gun-running and sheer hypocrisy in a rising political star--exactly the kind of story you'd think the national media would have instantly picked up and run with.

How curious, then, that four of the most prominent news outlets in America ignored the story even two days after it broke.

I'm pretty sure you can guess why most national outlets have kept quiet: Yee is a Democrat, and a valued member of the party that elected Californians Nancy Pelosi and Babs Boxer.

In their first stories on Yee, neither CBS nor ABC bothered to note that Yee is a Democrat.

If Mr. Yee had been a conservative Republican or had ever attended a Tea Party rally, do ya think the MSM would have so assiduously ignored either the story itself or the guy's party affiliation?

Democrat senate majority leader videotaped lying about his own statements

Democrat senator Harry Reid is the majority leader of the senate.  As such he'd probably be considered the second-ranking leader of the Dem party after Obama.

On February 26th Reid was videotaped addressing the assembled senate--by CSPAN--and stating that ALL of the ghastly storied being told by people whose health insurance had been cancelled by the issuing company--due to the deliberate, intentional language of the ludicrously-misnamed "Affordable Care Act" (Obamacare)--were "lies."  Tales "made up out of whole cloth"--which for younger readers has long been a genteel way of saying lies.

Three days ago--exactly one month after he was captured on tape calling ALL of these stories "lies"-- Reid addressed the Democrat-controlled senate again, saying...that he *never* said the horror stories about Obamacare were lies.

A lot of Americans don't believe *anyone* would actually be brazen enough to stand before his fellow senators--and the cameras--and deny saying something he was videotaped saying just a month earlier.  I had a hard time believing it myself.  But here he is:



But then it occurred to me that Democrats have grown accustomed to operating this way:  Say something, then later deny you ever said it...because they absolutely know they can count on two things to give 'em cover:  First, a Democrat-loving mainstream media, which can be counted on not to report Democrat lies.

Second, the fact that most people don't have any idea how corrupt and morally bankrupt the Democrat leadership is, and thus are inclined to doubt that such a high-ranking Dem leader could ever actually lie so brazenly.

Thus Bill "Slick Willy" Clinton, when asked--in a videotaped deposition--whether he had ever had a sexual relationship with Monica Lewinski--felt comfortable dodging the question by saying something as nutty as "It depends on what the meaning of is is," and feel confident he wouldn't get raked over the coals for more than a couple of days for insulting everyone's intelligence with such a non-response.

He knew that flatly lying in a sworn deposition would cost him nothing, because his friends in the Democrat media would roll out defense talking points like "He was tricked."  Or "It was just about sex...and *everyone* lies about sex!"

And stupid, low-information voters would laugh and nod and that would be the end of it.

Which, of course, is exactly how it turned out.

Sometimes I forget that all my college students were all of five years old when Slick was shown to have lied under oath.  They can't believe it could have happened.  Surely, they say, the American people would never put up with a president who would lie so brazenly to them!


But hey, how can anyone expect college students to know anything about government or recent history?  After all, it's not in the textbooks.  And the media sure as hell doesn't utter a word about it.  So as far as they're concerned, it never happened.

In five more years no one under the age of 30 will believe that Obama ever said "If you like your health insurance you can keep your health insurance.  Period."

Who said this?

Who said this:

Let me begin by saying this to you and to the American people: I know that there are millions of Americans who are content with their health care coverage -- they like their plan and, most importantly, they value their relationship with their doctor. 

And that means that no matter how we reform health care, we will keep this promise to the American people:  If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor, period. ... If you like your health care plan, you'll be able to keep your health care plan, period. ... No one will take it away, no matter what.

Why, that would be Barack Obama, on June 15th, 2009.

And millions of Americans--almost all liberal Democrats--believed him.

Flat.  Out.  Lied.

California DMV to open five centers for issuing licenses *only to illegal immigrants*!

Everyone understands that people--including elected officials and employees--almost never make decisions arbitrarily, but only after weighing the factors they feel are relevant.  Sometimes one of those factors is "What's best for my constituents?", or my state or nation.  Unfortunately all too often the overriding factor seems to be "What decision will let me harvest the most bribes?" or "What will get my party the most votes?"

With that background, consider the recent announcement by the California DMV that it would open five centers in southern CA devoted *solely* to processing driver's licenses for illegal immigrants.


Yes, you read that right.  Last October the state's solidly-Democrat-controlled legislature passed AB-60 ordering the DMV to issue DLs to illegals.  Of course the lawmakers didn't use that term, since illegals have been throwing fits whenever anyone uses that term.  Also, calling illegal immigrants "illegal" would expose the whole process for what it is:  A wholesale attempt by Democrats to create 30 million new voters who can be counted on to vote for Democrat.

Naturally y'all think I'm just putting you on about this.  Well comrade, here's the actual text from the signed law:

   (1) Existing law [i.e. before this new law was passed] requires the

Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) to require an applicant for an original

driver's license or identification card to submit satisfactory proof

that the applicant's presence in the United States is authorized under

federal law.
Existing law prohibits the department from issuing an original driver's
license or identification card to a person who does not submit
satisfactory proof that his or her presence in the United States is
authorized under federal law.
   This bill would require the department to issue an original driver's
license to a person who is unable to submit satisfactory proof that
the applicant's presence in the United States is authorized under
federal law if he or she meets all other qualifications for licensure
and provides satisfactory proof to the department of his or her
identity and California residency.

[This] bill provide[s] that information collected pursuant to those 

provisions is not a public record and shall not be disclosed by

the department, except as required by law. 

Now in my humble opinion everyone who's in the U.S. illegally should be deported, period, but that's actually not the point I wish to make here.  Rather, I'd like you to ask yourself why the cash-strapped government of the state of California would spend $60 million on leasing facilities (not to mention hiring 1000 new employees) to open processing centers *solely for the benefit of illegal aliens.*

The state already has thousands of DMV offices, and using the state's estimate of 1.4 MILLION illegals driving in CA, spreading that number over the existing thousands of DMV offices wouldn't seem to add enough work per office to be objectionable. 

So why did the state spend all that money on five new DMV offices solely for the benefit of illegals?

I submit it's because legislators didn't want legitimate citizens (and voters) to be able to see lines of illegals in their local DMV office getting non-citizen driver's licenses, since it would likely ignite a firestorm of opposition to the Democrat-controlled government.  Far safer for the pols to keep the illegals out of sight of taxpaying, insurance-buying, law-abiding American citizens.

This would be consistent with the provision of the law that said all information collected on illegal licenses would NOT be a public record and could not be disclosed by the DMV.

So if a year or two from now anyone ever wants to know how many illegals have gotten DLs from this POS law...well, tough shit, cuz da legislature says we don't gotta' tell ya nothin'.  Cuz y'all are just stupid taxpayers who are absolutely NOT entitled to know what the corrupt government your tax dollars fund is doing.

So there.

A clear-headed, logical defense of Obamacare from Democrat Nancy Pelosi

When you're debating someone and manage to get out a sentence that totally destroys their logic and position, they often respond with the verbal equivalent of "Well, uh...well, uh...well, uh...well you hate puppies and kitties, and our side *loves* 'em!"

If you've ever seen that happen, you know exactly what I mean.  And once you've seen it it's a lot easier to recognize it when you see it again.  (It's a form of "cognitive dissonance.")

With that background, consider this crisp, well-reasoned answer from the former speaker of the House (amazing--how in the world did that happen to a rational nation?).  A reporter asked her a simple, polite question:

REPORTER: You have been championing the benefits of the health care law for the last four years, but you don't see a lot of other Democrats celebrating the anniversary today.  In fact, some of the messaging the Democrats are running on this term is fixing the problems with the health care law since the rocky rollout.  Is the law proving to be more of a political liability for your party?

PELOSI:  This isn't about politics, this is about the health of America. This is about standing tall as the country did on Social Security, Medicare, the Affordable Care Act. So this isn't -- we don't weigh its value as to what it means politically. We weigh its value as to what it means to the health/well-being, economic and health security of America's families.

I take issue -- I see these little things in the paper about this or that. [Very informative.]  But our members -- the story that you don't write or see, maybe because you're in Washington and our members are out in their districts. And as I travel, I see our members standing tall. As I said to you before, we're not running on this; we're running on what the American people want us to run on and that is job creation. Show us the jobs. Where are the jobs?

Why are we not here passing a jobs agenda [instead of?] 51 times having political nonsense on the floor of the House? But I'm very proud of our members. Yeah, any bill that is passed is not perfect. I wanted single-payer, I wanted a public option.

You know, I have some changes I would make myself. But as the implementation takes place, as we see improvements that can be made to any compromise, which the bill was, we will do that. But just because people say I don't want to repeal it but I do want to fix it doesn't mean they are walking away from it.

One can't help being stunned by the level of denial of reality--or else brazen lying, take your pick--shown by the Democrat former speaker of the house.

Pelosi has the gall to claim the ACA (Obamacare) was a compromise?  Must be some novel, Democrat-invented meaning of the word, since it was rammed through without a single Republican amendment or vote.

Note how she starts the Big Con with "This isn't about politics, it's about the health of America."  Well Nan, six million Americans with individual, private health insurance policies had those policies cancelled by the direct and intentional operation of your beloved law.  And now roughly five million people have signed up for health insurance under Obamacare (though the government brazenly refuses to say how many of those have paid their first premium).  Seems like we've got a million *fewer* with health insurance than before you rammed through that piece of shit.

If your goal was to improve health, you didn't.  You just used taxpayer dollars to GIVE favored Democrat support groups--your beloved "base"--health insurance.  That's pure socialist politics.  Yet you claim Obamacare is not about politics.

You also gotta love the reflexive bullshit to the reporter about 'Oh, you're in Washington so you don't see what our members see, cuz they're out in their districts.'  Sure they are, sweetie.

Oh, and you gotta love that reflexive bullshit about "We're not running on this, we're running on what the American people want us to run on and that is job creation. Show us the jobs. Where are the jobs?"  What Pelosi doesn't seem to realize is that most jobs are created by small businesses--which are owned and run by individuals who make decisions every day to keep their businesses alive.  They are extremely attuned to the impact of laws either already passed or being considered by careless thieves like you.

And here's a shock for ya, Nan:  So far, at least, you can't force business owners to hire more people if they don't want to.  Though I fully suspect your party will try to change even that.  Hell, your Democrat-controlled "Equal Employment Opportunity Commission" actually ruled that employers could NOT decline to hire someone just because the applicant had been convicted of a felony.  And that a trucking company couldn't turn down a person applying to be a driver who'd been convicted of drunk driving!

With your party endorsing insane, batshit-crazy rulings like that you ask "Where are the jobs?"  You cannot possibly be that dumb.

And of course she's not:  This is the woman who, when she was speaker of the House, had her staff pick up the phone and order the Air Force to provide her with a VIP jet to whisk her home from to San Francisco every week or two so she wouldn't have to bother rubbing shoulders with ordinary taxpayers flying on commercial airlines (well, those flying first-class, anyway).  No previous Speaker had ever done that, and no law allowed it.  She simply...ordered it, and no one was willing to tell her no.

Of course not one percent of the public has ever heard of this--which means Pelosi is free to utter this pure horse-shit about how "our members"--i.e. her fellow Democrat congresswhores--are really just common folk who actually spend most of their time in their districts listening to voters, and all the Dem voters believe it.

But by all means, Democrats, keep telling us how great Obamacare is, and how it was really a wonderful compromise.  Tell us how your Democrats in congress are proud to run on this great accomplishment, except you're NOT running on it because...um..."We're running on what the American people want us to run on and that is job creation."  Hoo-eee, keep the bullshit comin,' Nancy.

Keep spouting new lies fast enough and the rubes will be so dazzled and confused that no one will realize it's all bullshit.

Just one more example of Nan's either willful lies or stupidity:  Florida's 13th congressional district voted for Obozo in 2008 and 2012, and for a Democrat for governor in 2010.  In other words, it's a Dem-favoring district.  But three weeks ago a Republican beat Democrat Alex Sink in for the seat.  Nancy's response? 

With all the money spent, with all the criticism of the Affordable Care Act and a 13-point advantage Republican district, we got it down to below 2 points.

A 13-point Republican advantage?  Utter crap.  It's the 13th *congressional district,* though, so perhaps Nan was confused.  Nah, standard defensive crap.  In fact, the district's voters had backed the same Democrat (Sink) in the 2010 governor's race.  So presumably the loss wasn't because the Democrat was less attractive than in 2010, but simply because voters are beginning to wake up to the disaster that is Obamacare.

But Nan can't admit that, because she played such a key role in ramming it through the House.

BBC host cuts off question on live TV that would have exposed Islamic intolerance

Free speech has been a cornerstone of life in free countries.  But perhaps Britain is falling out of that class--as seen in the following story:

The BBC has a live show called Free Speech, and on March 12th it was doing a live feed from a mosque.  One of the pre-recorded questions asked--and broadcast--was “When will it be right to be Muslim and gay?”

But of course, no one is allowed to ask Muslim imams tough questions, so before anyone on the panel or studio audience had a chance to answer, the host interrupted, saying the question had been dropped in response to the concerns of the mosque.

Well isn't that special.  Wouldn't wanna ask 'em any questions that might prove to western chowderheads that Islam is *not* a system they should be supporting.

WaPost writer re-writes history; somehow it gets past those "layers and layers of editors"

Wanna see how clever propagandists operate?  A couple of days ago the Washington Post ran a photo piece looking at relations between the U.S. and Russia.  It featured this caption:

In 2014, the fall of Viktor Yanukovych's pro-Russia government in Ukraine creates a crisis. Here President Obama talks on the phone with Putin after reports that Russian troops have entered the Russian province of Crimea.

"...Russian troops have entered the Russian province of Crimea"?  Hey comrade, did you know Crimea was a Russian province?  Well of course it was before 1954, and now it is, but before a week ago that would have come as a huge surprise to Ukraine, which had a big naval base there.

See how easy it is to fool a million readers (many of whom are members of the so-called "elites" who write news scripts and do gummint analyses)?  Let alone to fool the millions of ordinary Americans who lack enough awareness to know the actual facts.  But hey, isn't that the media's job--telling low-information voters anything that will reassure them about Democrat competence?

Note that this can't have been accidental either, because the Lying Media keep telling us that they have "layers and layers" of editors who would obviously caught such an egregious mistake.  (And the captions were cut & pasted from the online version, so weren't hard to read.)

Elite "news magazine" claims Russia doesn't want a nuclear Iran??

I've written about the "profoundly unserious people" in the chattering classes--the so-called "elites" who run the so-called "mainstream media" and rotate in and out of government.  And here's an example:

There's apparently a dead-tree "news" magazine called "Time" which seems to be read by the elites.  A writer there named Michael Crowley recently noted that the Russia's deputy foreign minister threatened to cause trouble in the Iran nuclear talks if the U.S. continued sending strong notes about Russia's annexation of Crimea.

Crowley then asks, “Could the crisis in Crimea spoil Barack Obama’s nuclear diplomacy with Iran?”  But of course he then goes on to show why this is absolutely un-possible.  After all, Time doesn't print news critical of the emperor's policies.  Cuz if they did they might risk losing their A-list part invitations.

Crowley uses his brilliant intellect to deduce that the Russians wouldn’t dare test Obama on the Iranian talks, for two reasons:

The good news for Obama is that Russia probably won’t derail an Iran deal. A nuclear Iran isn’t in Russia’s interest. Neither is a potential U.S. military action to prevent it if diplomacy fails.

Reason one is that a nuclear Iran would be bad for Russia as well as America. … Reason two is that the failure of diplomacy with Iran would likely lead to the thing Putin hates most: American-led military action.

Wow.  And to think this guy actually gets *paid* for "reasoning" like this.

First, if I were Putin I'd be perfectly happy for Iran to develop nuclear weapons, since there are only two places Iran would use 'em--and neither would be on Russian territory.  Why?  Because Iran's leaders--whether religious nuts or hard-headed realists--know, beyond any doubt, that if they hit Russia with a nuke they'd all be killed--probably by multiple thermonuclear detonations on Iranian cities and mullah hidey-holes.

The mullahs know this--again, beyond any doubt--because they know Putin is a profoundly serious man--one who understands that when it hits the fan, force--and the willingness to use it--matter.

Second:  Russia has a strong interest in getting the U.S. to continue the charade of endless talks and "great diplomatic deals" between the U.S. and Iran because when the Iranians--just days after the "great breakthrough" that ended sanctions--openly broadcast that they made no concessions at all and will continue to develop nuclear weapons, it demonstrates to everyone who's paying attention that Iran has conned the U.S.  This helps Russia because it shows that U.S. leaders are both naive and weak.  This helps draw more nations into abandoning alliances with the U.S. (or simply leaving them in place but with no intent to honor them).  Eventually such nations are more likely to gravitate toward the Russians.

Third:  Crowley's assertion that "the failure of diplomacy with Iran would likely lead to the thing Putin hates most: American-led military action" is utter nonsense.  It's self-delusion, whistling in the dark.  Putin has no reason whatsoever to be concerned that Obama might order military action, because Obama is desperate to retain his dwindling support from his base--Leftists and "low-information voters."  Has Crowley forgotten that Obama was actually awarded the Nobel Peace Prize after a whopping three weeks in office?  Do you think he wants to take flak for being the Peace Prize winner who started a war?  Not on your life.

One can't read the stuff people like Crowley--indeed, everyone who works at Time and the NYT and WaPo--write without coming to one of two conclusions:  Either they are all profoundly unserious--children playing at being adults--or else they know exactly what they're doing:  committing the U.S. to a policy of not intervening as the world slides toward Soviet and Chinese domination.

Neither conclusion is pleasant.

If this is Thursday this must be a food line. But where?

Look at all the peeps in that *huge* line.  Wow, must be election day!  Or maybe some store is giving away free diamonds or similar.

Oh, wait:  This is a pic in Venezuela, and the people are lining up to buy *food.*

Ask your nearest socialist, "progressive" or Democrat to explain why people have to line up to buy *food* in the socialist workers' paradise of Venezuela.  Just see what kind of bullshit excuse they come up with.

Odds are they'll claim a) there is no shortage of food or coffee or cooking oil or toilet paper in Venezuela; b) any claim that there are shortages is simply anti-socialist propaganda by eeebil rich folk trying to cheat the po' folk by higher prices; c) that this photo is NOT a line for food; d) that this photo was not taken in Venezuela; and e) anyone implying that socialism doesn't result in a workers' paradise is a raaacist.

Russia annexes Crimea, prepares to invade rest of Ukraine and possibly Estonia; Obama sanctions 8 individual Russians

A writer for the New Yorker spent some time on the road with Obama in late January, and wrote of a conversation he had with the Resident.  Obama, he concluded, was unperturbed by what would normally be considered ominous events in world affairs.  All would be right, said Obama, as soon as he found somebody to talk to: the right strategic partners.

In the aftermath of Obama's declaration of a "red line" in Syria, then his threat to take military action, with or without congressional approval, then his quiet back-down, no one takes U.S. threats seriously.  Nor should they.

Historically there are two ways to deter an enemy:  You can send in the military; or the enemy can *think you might,* and decide not to take the risk.  Obviously the second method is far less costly, in both money and lives lost.  But because Obama has totally ruled out any military action, the second method is no longer effective.

When the threat of military action is gone, no opponent bothers to worry whether you *might* act.   Under Obama, the world is confident that America's strongest response to aggression will be a strongly worded note.  The word is out: every thug government knows Obama is an appeasing screw-up and worse, one with delusions of grandeur.

Opponents know they are faced with the ultimate incompetent--the sort who keeps doubling down on a losing hand because he’s too vain to admit error.  As Jennifer Rubin wrote in the Washington Post: "Obama is never wrong, never responsible."  He can’t admit to a mistake. It will all work out if he can just find the right strategic partner.

New York Times writer David Sanger uses every trick of the writer’s art to soften Obama's foreign-policy failures.  He begins by listing the things Obama did differently and sadly concludes that none of them seem to have worked as planned. “For five years, President Obama has consciously recast how America engages with the world’s toughest customers. But with Russia poised to annex Crimea after Sunday’s referendum, with a mounting threat to the rest of Ukraine and with the carnage in Syria accelerating, Mr. Obama’s strategy is now under greater stress than at any time in his presidency.”

But so far those tools — or even the threat of them — have proved frustratingly ineffective.... Sanctions and modest help to the Syrian rebels [i.e. sending munitions to the jihadist beheaders] have failed to halt the slaughter; if anything, the killing worsened as negotiations dragged on.

The White House was taken by surprise by Vladimir V. Putin’s decision to invade Crimea, and also by China’s increasingly assertive declaration of exclusive rights to airspace and barren islands. Neither the economic pressure nor the cyberattacks that forced Iran to reconsider its approach have prevented North Korea’s stealthy revitalization of its nuclear and missile programs.

In short, America’s adversaries are testing the limits of America’s post-Iraq, post-Afghanistan moment.

“We’re seeing the ‘light footprint’ run out of gas,” said one of Mr. Obama’s former senior national security aides, who would not speak on the record about his ex-boss.

Sanger doesn’t even have the grace to say: mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. You would have thought it was the least they could do.

Sanger and those like him have a profoundly unserious worldview.  They are people for whom everything has always been a game.

Obama was chosen by such "unserious" people to be president of the country that has led the fight for freedom.  They never considered the possibility that such an unqualified, unserious person would have to face serious, determined leaders like Vladimir Putin.  And American allies — those who face invasion if they oppose Russia or China — know it.

The intellectual elite who endorsed Obama have never been hungry or felt paralyzing danger. They've lived their whole lives under a Pax Americana, and seem to have considered this condition to be both permanent and effortless.  Having no personal knowledge of the costs and sacrifices required to bring that condition about, they were vain enough to believe no one else could know any more about it than they did.  Thus by their deliberate acts they have allowed Pax Americana to lapse--or more precisely, they've thrown it away.

Whether they did this because they felt guilty for being Americans or were just too stupid to recognize the astonishing value of the thing they trashed will be left to historians to deduce. 


Now, I don't know any military strategist who favored a U.S. military response to Russia's annexation of Crimea.  The point is that Putin didn't have to bother with a moment's concern with how the U.S. might respond to that move, because he saw how Obama reacted to the situation in Syria.

The United States I grew up in is rapidly disappearing under this sorry excuse for a president (ably assisted by Democrat control of the senate under the infamously crooked Harry Reid).  Those of us of a certain age look at what's happening and can only shake our heads. The Left and the Democrats, in their determined quest for a permanent majority, have turned the United States into a third world country.

H/t Wretchard at Belmont.

Michigan school system awards hiring preference to "those of the non-Christian faith"

Apparently there's a town in Michigan called Ferndale.

Ferndale reportedly has a school board or members thereof who are...well, either crazy or way cunning.

Specifically, take a look at next-to-last sentence in the following...which is reportedly from the Ferndale school system:

Note:  "Special consideration shall be given to women and/or minority defined as: Native American, Asian American, Latino, African American and those of the non-Christian faith."

You gotta be shittin' me.

Interestingly, earlier in the contract there's a “no discrimination clause” that states no employee can be discriminated against based on their religion.  And yet they're clearly giving hiring preference to non-Christians, which would seem pretty prima-facie proof of discrimination.

But what the hell--the people who wrote this are either cunning or have the IQ of plants--and it's a 50/50 guess at this point.  I've definitely met a bunch of "educators" who seemed to be in the latter category.

You'd have to hope some denied applicant would sue their ass off.  But of course the courts today are just as fucked up.

If you'd predicted this a decade ago, only "progressives" would have believed it.

Putin now gravely concerned about Russian speakers in Estonia having to...learn Estonian?

The main reason Putin gave for Russia's takeover of Ukraine's Crimea peninsula was to claim that ethnic Russians in the Crimea were "at risk" and that Russia has the right to protect Russian-speakers outside its borders.

Wow, pretty ballsy excuse to take over someone else's territory, eh?

But of course if you're a lib/"progressive" you prolly think I'm making that up, right?  If you're so sure about that, click on the fucking link.

See, that wasn't something I just made up.  And Reuters is no friend of the U.S.  Well, at least it wasn't until our new emperor ascended to the throne.  Maybe it is now.

Anyway, the kicker is that Russia has now "signaled" the exact same concern over the (mythical) possible mistreatment of Russian-speakers in *Estonia*.

Let me explain:  Estonia wants all its residents to be able to speak Estonian.  How dreadful!  And Putin--looking for an excuse to reclaim what was once Russian territory--claims this is an intolerable outrage.

Those who know history may recall that's how Hitler persuaded Britain and the rest of the civilized world to "cede" the Sudetenland to Germany in the last dramatic clusterfuck before WW2.  But then, if you're under 40 or so you don't know fuck-all about history, since the public schools haven't taught anything like *real* history for decades.  Eh, so it goes.

See the future yet?  If you're a Democrat or liberal or "progressive" you'll claim you can't, but then some of you are almost certainly lying about that.  

No matter--by the time it gets serious I'll have died of old age, and I don't have any children, so...not my problem!  Complain to the 52% who elected this cunning piece of shit.  You bought it, you can deal with the consequences.

So if your kids have to speak Russian or Arabic to get along?  Hey, no skin off my teeth.  I've had a great time, flown lots of exciting missions and paid my dues.  I've tried my best to convince people I've met that socialism and communism are crappy systems (though incredibly seductive to "low-info/low effort" types).  Unfortunately, to stupid people, logic is instantly overcome by "vote for us and we'll *give you lotsa free shit!*

Just so you know: you could have stopped the rush to socialism.  But Dems/"progressives" guilted you into believing that the most important goal was to care for our less-fortunate brothers and sisters.

Hey, Amen.  But when the gummint does it, it ain't charity.  It ain't love.  It's buying votes to ensure perpetual re-election and control of the government, period.

If you haven't figured that out...well, you're apparently a Democrat.

And at this point, as Rhett Butler famously said to Scarlett, "Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn."

Leftist prof at leftist college claims Muslim professor threatened to have her killed; college's administrators laugh it off

At liberal Oberlin college a male Muslim professor threatened a female professor with death.

EunJung An, associate professor of French and cinema studies, filed suit in Lorain County Common Pleas Court charging that professor Ali Yedes, during a 45-minute tirade, yelled that “in his culture, he could have had the female department chair killed because of his perceived mistreatment by her in postponing his tenure,” the lawsuit claims.

The suit also alleges that Yedes told another professor that he'd brought his nephew to the United States on a student visa specifically to “stab and kill someone from his department.”  When the nephew didn’t follow through, Yedes allegedly beat him and the nephew fled the country, the suit said

I can't decide which way to come down on this.  I mean, gosh, misogynistic Muzzie males?  Is this supposed to be some sort of shocking revelation and no one had any inking?  I'm not at all excusing this or minimizing it.  The thug should be deported, then beaten severely.  But that's not my point.

It's the irony of a female prof at a hard-leftist/feminist college suddenly coming face to face with Islamic...uh...thinking.  I mean, American feminists and leftists have uniformly supported the Muslims through virtually every atrocity committed by the latter.  They've wailed that Americans are the bad guys, and American *males* are just...well, just awful, terrible, beyond the bounds of civilized behavior! 

Hey, we warned you that you were *way* off there.  You wouldn't listen, of course.  You were *so* convinced you were right about Islam, and about America, and no one and nothing could convince you otherwise.

So I'll be watching all the leftist/"progressive" sites to see if there's any muttering about this.  Pretty sure there won't be.

Communism had a phrase--in fact Stalin himself used it:  "useful idiots." 

Yeah.

Venezuelan street scene

If you have enough brains to come in out of the rain, the vid below will tell you a great deal.

It's from Venezuela, and shows long queues outside three markets.  The people line up because--because they see *other* people queuing up. 



In Venezuela, under the woeful socialist mismanagement of N. Maduro (hand-picked successor to Hugo Chavez), *every* consumer good is in short supply.  So when you see a queue, it's probably because someone's brother gave 'em a tip that the market he works at got a shipment of...anything.  So if you join the queue, you might get one package or kilo or liter of...X.  Same thing happened daily in the former Soviet Union and other East Bloc countries.

Multiply all the people in all the queues in the whole country by...what, five bucks an hour?  What's the total national cost of all those wasted hours?

But of course Maduro and his socialist cronies running the gummint don't have to stand in line, so it don't mean shit to them, right?

Endless shortages are the inevitable result of socialist thugs running governments.  And if you think we can keep listening to the Left, and electing their unqualified socialist candidates to office, and still avoid this fate, you deserve to live it.

Socialism sounds *so* seductive, but is a prescription for shortages and failure.

Best and brightest leaving France...because...same government policies as the U.S.

You need to watch this video.  It's about French youth and rich French families leaving France.

Why are they leaving?  Because the French government has made it prohibitively difficult to start and run a business.  Oh, and because their president has said he hates the rich.



Translation:  "You feelthy riche aw not welcome here in Frahnce."

Yeah, I think that would pretty much clear out most of the rich all right.  Just like it's doing it here.  The "resident" of the White House has made it clear that eliminating income inequality is his top priority.  His wacko liberal media have been taking up that call in spades.

Ten years from now, anyone having 20% more money than the "average"--which will be determined by some pencil-necked gummint bureaucrat (think Lois Lerner) will be declared a criminal and enemy of the State.

Didn't Debbie W-Schultz say Dems were going to run ON Obamacare? This one runs *from* it

What do you do if you're a Democrat congressperson and someone asks you a tough question about Obama's changing the Obamacare law by decree?

If you answer the question you either rat out your party or look like you don't know squat about the Constitution (not that that's a problem for Democrats).

Ooooh, what to do?

Ah, solution!  Simply refuse to answer.  Say "Call my office" or start singing to yourself as you scurry away to the safety of...well, anywhere out of range of the camera crew.

Meet Democrat congressman Luis Gutierrez.



Face of the Democrat party, fer shure.

Don't worry, comrades.  We're being ruled by top people.  Top.  People.

After having 8 months to sanitize 'em, IRS now says it will turn over Lerner emails

It's such a hoot watching how government officials "play" hard-working, taxpaying, rule-following Americans.

Let me explain:  A year and a half ago conservative groups seeking "tax-exempt" status began comparing notes.  They discovered that as part of the application process the IRS had demanded that virtually all conservative groups turn over every text, tweet and Facebook page, along with explanations of their political views, donor lists, membership lists and even statements of the religious beliefs of the executives.  Liberal organizations didn't have to jump through any of those hoops.

The endless demands had the effect of delaying the grant of tax-exempt status for years--greatly reducing the ability of such groups to raise money.

Needless to say, such a discriminatory use of the IRS was and is illegal.

Eight months ago the Government Oversight Committee of the House of Representatives asked the IRS to turn over all official emails to and from one Lois Lerner, who has been implicated in the use of IRS tax rules to delay or deny tax-exempt status to conservative groups while fast-tracking the same applications from liberal groups.

The key phrase there is "eight months ago."

The IRS told the committee they'd decide whether they'd condescend to do that.  Cuz, you know, the Obama administration has demonstrated time and again that it will do whatever it wants to, regardless of what congress does.

We've come a long *long* way since Watergate, eh folks?  But back then we had a president who at least recognized the importance of the Constitution and the importance of all three branches of government.

Finally a couple of days ago the IRS announced that they were turning over "all relevant" Lerner emails.

Isn't that just so *gracious of 'em*?

They've had eight months to comb thru those emails and pull any that would incriminate any government official higher than some poor GS-2 who didn't know squat and can be safely sacrificed if necessary.

It's an axiom of powerful organizations that they *never* confess wrongdoing.  Reason is that they've got an "in" with the administration, which ultimately controls virtually all investigations--unless congress stands up and does their constitutional duty, which they aren't about to start doing.

The immediate corollary is that a lawless gummint organization would never turn over the emails if its managers knew they contained a scintilla of evidence of wrongdoing.

The mere fact that the Obama administration announced that it would turn over the emails means they've scrubbed 'em.  They've either deleted all incriminating ones or "redacted" (blacked out) "smoking gun" exchanges in the ones they've turned over.

But if you read liberal sites, the IRS agreeing to turn over a gazillion emails is absolute proof that they're cooperating fully with those mean, nasty Republicans to absolutely get to the bottom of this.

After all, the Emperor has already declared that there's "not a smidgen of corruption" in the IRS targeting of conservative groups.  That means y'all don't need to take your investigation any further, see.

I lived through Watergate.  This is the same thing all over again.  But the Dems learned a big lesson from Nixon's response to that investigation:  Always say you're cooperating fully--and then use your media allies to scream this point over and over again.  And never, never turn over anything incriminating.  Instead, quietly scrub and sanitize the files--all the while piously insisting that you're cooperating fully.

Compared to Obama, Nixon was an amateur.

Ah, the good old days: Pelosi telling us "Gotta pass the bill to find out what's in it."

Just 4 long years ago we were astonished to hear then-speaker of the House, Democrat Nancy Pelosi, telling Americans "We have to pass the bill so you can find out what's in it." 

When I heard some blogs reporting that I thought it had to be a fake.  Couldn't believe any sane rep would ever say such a dumb thing.  But here it is again:



Also had a hard time believing the then-totally-Democrat-controlled congress would pass such a thing if they really didn't know what all its provisions were, in great detail.  But sure enough, none of the Dems had read it.  A handful of Repubs had, but they couldn't get any media attention.

Figures.

Obozo budget chief refuses to answer simple question from senator about the budget

You simply must watch the video below.

It shows just one more example of how nations led by cunning, arrogant, lying sociopaths ignore those quaint things called "laws."  We are no longer a nation of laws, but a nation of arrogant sociopathic leaders and their henchmen.

Or in this case, henchpersons.  The female is Obozo's budget chief, Sylvia Mathews Burwell.  She's appearing before the U.S. senate, and has been asked a simple question:  Does the budget just submitted by the Obama administration propose more spending than permitted by a law passed by congress just ten weeks ago?

It does, proposing $56 Billion more in discretionary spending than the law that was laboriously negotiated and passed ten weeks ago.  But as you'll see, Burwell absolutely refuses to answer this simple question.



With people like Burwell and her bosses running the government it's no wonder so many young people (certainly not all by any means, but frighteningly large numbers) are choosing to stay video-game-playing stoners.  Why bother working to get an education, find and hold down a good job, pay your taxes and 'fight the good fight' when the people at the top just piss it all away anyway?  The law means nothing anymore.  Ditto the Constitution.

Now watch a single minute of the video of Lois Lerner's farcical "testimony" before the House Government Oversight Committee last week.  The committee had obtained emails in which Lerner was cautioning other IRS crooks to treat the agency's targeting of conservative "c4" organizations "carefully."  When Lerner was asked "Who told you 'We need to be careful about this?'" she took the 5th, refusing to answer.



I'm not a lawyer but I don't see how answering that question could possibly incriminate her.  But she'll get away with it.  They all do.

No one seems to be willing to prosecute corruption and law-breaking by government employees.

But you can see the administration's lackeys are learning:  Rather than flatly lie to the senate committee, Burwell simply refused to answer.  How...clever.

U.S. foreign policy just changed

Obama's "hope for the best" foreign policy, his "red line"/"wait, I never set a red line" fiasco in Syria and his continuous cuts to the military mean the U.S. is no longer a force to be reckoned with by the world's thugs.

And ya know what?  I'm okay with that.  Since the end of WW2 Democrats, liberals and "progressives" have wailed that the U.S. is just awful for trying to be "the world's policeman," and it looks like they've finally gotten their wish.  Looks like future international conflicts will be settled by the Russians, the Chinese, Iranians, Pakistanis and various jihadist factions, thanks to liberals, Democrats and their media supporters.

Wait...I forgot about the Democrats' strongest ally, the United Nations!  After all, the U.N. has been a highly effective effective peacekeeping force in the past.

And of course the Russians have always talked about the importance of peace, so they'll probably do a great job taking over for us.

And of course Obama has repeatedly shown us that thugs around the world are really just misunderstood, and that if you just talk to 'em enough they'll see the wisdom of becoming peaceful.

Democrats and "progressives" constantly tell us how smart they are, and how their policies are better than those of conservatives.  So we're gonna get the chance to see on this one.  And frankly I can't wait to see the results.

I don't see any point in shedding one more drop of American blood for anyone in the rest of the world, no matter how cruel some tyrant may be.  Let 'em ask the Russians or Chinese or Saudis for help. 

Feds sue to bar a dress code

The federal government has sued a Philadelphia school system.  The school had a "grooming policy" that said school security officers couldn't have beards more than a quarter of an inch long.

A school security officer who hadn't cut his beard in 25 years refused to comply with the policy on religious grounds, and was issued a letter of reprimand.  The Department of Justice then sued the school system on his behalf, demanding that the school system make an exception to its policy to accommodate religious beliefs.

As everyone surely guessed, the bearded employee was Muslim, which explains why the DOI [sic] was in such a hurry to sue on his behalf.  Cuz everyone knows the feds are always standing up for the rights of religious folks who claim their religious bars them from complying with some law.

You know, like...um...a private Catholic university that claims that Catholicism bars it from providing employee health insurance that offers abortions or provides birth control.  (Google "Notre Dame health insurance.")

Or Christian parents who want to home-school their kids because they believe the public schools encourage immoral behavior in kids.

But I digress.  I wanted to write about this federal lawsuit not because of its effect on a city school system but for what I think is a more important reason:  If the feds will file a lawsuit against a school system, does anyone believe they wouldn't be willing to sue any business that has any code of behavior or dress or policy?

This is just one more example of the feds making it harder for people to run a business.  For example, they decreed that a business owner can't refuse to hire someone who has a felony conviction.  Then when a lot of people started complaining about how utterly insane that was, they got canny and decreed that an employer can't use background checks to do much more than verify a job applicant's name and address--can't use past convictions or bad behavior to decline to hire.

Wow.  Just...wow.

Imagine some bright American was thinking about starting a business, and learned about these decrees.  Do you think this might make them decide not to start that business?

Let me try again:  Starting a business is risky enough without the government demanding that you hire a felon. Or a person whose appearance scares customers.  And when someone decides the risk outweighs the benefits, that business won't get started. 

Multiply by 100,000.

That is all.

Obama set to postpone painful start of an Obamacare mandate AGAIN

You gotta hand it to Obama and the Democrats:  After they bribed senators and reps and twisted every arm they could find to ram Obamacare into law--including the use of the charming phrase "deemed passed"--without allowing a single GOP amendment, it slowly dawned on 'em that what they'd done would be *really* unpopular with over half the electorate.

Oooh, what to do?  Obama to the rescue:  Let's just issue decrees as desired to delay the start dates of the painful parts until after the November election!

Yep.  Last year Obama unilaterally ordered that the "employer mandate" that would force all employers to implement Obamacare would be delayed by a year--pushing it safely past the November election.

Ain't it wonderful what a dictator can do?  Yes, I said dictator, because--brace yourself--THE CONSTITUTION DOES NOT ALLOW THE PRESIDENT TO UNILATERALLY WRITE OR CHANGE LAWS.

Those of you educated in our abysmal public schools may not know that that core principle is in the Constitution.

Eh, no matter.  He has good intentions, right? 

Ah, but what a tangled web when you start doing things dictatorally.  Turns out the Obamacare law also contains a provision ordering insurance companies to *notify* customers of any known changes to their policies 90 days before such change would take effect.

As a result, tens of millions of voters would be getting such notices just a few weeks before the November elections.  

Ooooh, ya think that might cost Democratic candidates a few votes? 

But no problem:  If the first Obama order didn't fix things enough, just issue another one!  Yep, he's set to announce a *second* postponement of the same mandate--this time pushing the start date back far enough so that voters won't get the politically damaging notices until *after* the election.

Ain't it cool what a dictator can do?  SOoo much neater and faster than having to try to get actual amendments through a "gridlocked" congress, eh?  And what's all this talk about a Constitution?  It's just some old piece of paper written by old white guys, so it can't possibly have any relevance to us cool, modern leaders.  So would you bitter clingers stop with the whining about "the Constitution" like it's something important?

We'll tell you when something's important.  Cuz we're a lot smarter than you are.

Wheee!  "Vote Democrat--the flexible party!"

Oh, for those of you who are absolutely convinced this is a libelous fiction from Faux News:  Click the link above.  Hint:  It's from a staunchly liberal source.

Socialists with typewriters: "You shouldn't be *scared* by plan to downsize the army."

I know you really shouldn't hate people who advocate things that will destroy the U.S.  I know it's not a positive or constructive thing.  But it's getting harder not to succumb to that emotion when you read articles like the crap written by the authors of "Think Progress."

This particular piece was about Hagel's plan (i.e. Obama's order) to cut the size of the Army down to what's been described as "1940 levels."  Now, history will be the ultimate judge of whether this is a good or bad idea.  I think it's bad, but that's not the point.  Rather, I'd like you to carefully consider the *arguments* used by the TP kiddies to support the cuts:

Moreover, the kind of war you really worry about if you’re an American war planner — wars with another state, like China or Iran — are practically extinct. “Since the end of the Second World War, the number of ongoing interstate conflicts involving...battle casualties has ranged from zero to six,” war scholars Christian Davenport and Scott Gates write. “Moreover, the trend has been one of decline:” from 2003-2008, there wasn’t a single interstate war.  In short: we live in the safest time in human history.

How fascinating, then, that at the top of the Think "Progress" web page--under "Trending," no less--were the words "Russia" and "Ukraine."  (They may not be there when you click the link, of course.)

Tell us--my Kumbayah-singing, soft-handed socialists--what do these two words "Russia" and "Ukraine" mean, in the context of "trending"? 

Here's a hint:  At this moment armed Russian *army* troops are surrounding garrisons of Ukrainian troops--in a part of Ukraine--and demanding the latter surrender.

I'm sure the Ukrainians are thrilled by your assurance that "interstate wars" are so f'ing rare.  In fact, since you tell us "we live in the safest time in history," this probably isn't even really happening.  Yeh, dat's it--it's all a fiction created by Faux News.

How did you charming socialists put it?  Oh yeah:  The kind of war one would "really worry about"--but only if you were "an American war planner"--no others need worry, see--is "practically extinct."

I'm sure your rock-solid conclusions are great comfort to the men, women and young people of Ukraine, who now face an interesting choice:  Surrender, or fight even though outnumbered and out-gunned.

Would that we could exchange these people for you and yours.  Then you'd have a chance to see the folly of your "assurances" and your lofty pontifications on war--a subject about which you clearly know absolutely nothing.

Oh, and about the "Hagel plan:"  It'll happen, because no one but congress has the authority to stop Obama from doing anything he wants, and congress has abdicated its duties.  And with that, a tiny bit more of the "design margin"--the margin that protects against stupidity or miscalculation by a foe--is given away.

Meanwhile America's little army of so-called "progressives"--believing there's nothing worse than income inequality or carbon or fossil fuels or religious bakers who resist baking wedding cakes for gay weddings--will keep chipping away at the armed forces for the rest of their lives.

Corruption in a small California town models the world scene better than you'd think

According to a mainstream news outfit, one-third of the cops in King City, CA--including the acting chief--were taken off duty following corruption charges.  The recently retired police chief was also arrested.

Seems the cops were impounding cars owned by people with unpaid tickets, and if the owners couldn't or didn't pay the tickets the cops would either personally take the cars or sell 'em and pocket the proceeds.

Neat scam, eh?

To my personal knowledge King City ain't the only place that happens.

The key enabling factor was that the local towing "service" was owned by...can you guess?...a relative of one of the cops.

Wanna bet the towing service paid a juicy kickback to the chief of police?

Okay, now let's get serious:  You don't live in King City and I don't either.  And while the corruption of two dozen cops there is a big deal to the folks whose cars were sold, on the global scale it doesn't even make the needle twitch.

So why did I mention it?  Because it's a perfect model for how much, MUCH bigger things get corrupted and go south.  Like rogue national governments.

And why should you care about *that*?

Because we're living in one.  Let me explain:

Government corruption--like the cops in King City--happens because the local honchos have found a loophole in the local internal control system--the system of rules or accounting procedures that the locals work under.  Because these rules were almost never designed to find theft or corruption, it's usually pretty easy to find a way around them.

Having a relative who owns the towing service would make it pretty easy.

Once started the corruption is self-perpetuating.  It will only stop if some outside, more-powerful agency *both* learns about it *and* has a vested interest in stopping it.  Got it?

Now follow me here:  When we're talking federal government, what outside agency has more power?  Well the first level is something like an Inspector-General's office.  But as anyone with an IQ over 70 easily realizes, those employees serve at the pleasure of the ruling party, so can be pressured into either ignoring the entire problem, or else returning exactly the finding desired by the president or top party officials.

A second level of power would be voters, who could theoretically vote bad actors out of office.  The problem here is that some elected officials--like Harry Reid--may not have to stand for office for five years.  By then not one voter in a thousand will have any direct recollection of the corrupt acts charged or alleged.

A second problem is low-information voters, who will reliably vote for a member of their party regardless of proof of corruption.  Indeed, the "right kind of corruption"--reappointing known corrupt judges or declining to file charges against popular local thugs, for example--is often a positive thing to local voters.

On the world-size scale the phenomenon noted above explains why someone like Hitler, Napoleon or Stalin can do so much damage:  Because once they overcome the local control system of their respective countries and start being thugs on a national scale, nothing short of world war can stop them.

Now consider a national leader--the head of an entire country.  What happens when his rise to the top has been by skulduggery, knocking his opponents out of competition by nefarious means?
  
In case you weren't sure, I'm talking now about Vladimir Putin, not B. Hussein Obama.

Anyone wanna try to make the case that Putin has NOT overcome all internal control systems in Russia?

Anyone wanna make the case that he *won't* do whatever the hell he wants to do, regardless of propriety or legality?  I mean, Obama violates the Constitution at least once a month and no one has the balls to say boo about it, so can you really imagine Russia's leader is any *more* fastidious about obeying silly little "laws"--whether national or international? 

This can only lead to one conclusion.  It can no more end up at any other outcome than the sun can rise in the west tomorrow.

Putin will take over Ukraine, and Obama will make fundraising speeches for Democrats.

Putin will take over some other distant piece of real estate, and Obama will declare that it's happy hour for Democrats.

Hey, c'mon, you don't really care who owns someplace you never heard of and never intend to go, right?  So there ya go, Sparky.  Putin and his successors can do anything they wish, without opposition from a weakened U.S.

And hey, more power to 'em.  Maybe large, successful Russian expansion is what it'll take for them to defeat Islam.  Cuz heaven knows *we* don't have the stomach for it.  Maybe the Russians do.  So it may all be for the best after all, eh?

Oh, the report on King City is from that right-wing news agency CBS.  And a sincere hat tip to Wretchard at Belmont Club.

Do "progressives" hate America, or are they just unable to see obvious outcomes of their policies?

On conservative blogs one often sees a question being debated that goes something like, Do Democrats/"progressives" push the policies they do because they hate America, or is it that they just can't foresee the results of obviously-bad policies?

I'm not trying to be sarcastic here.  Most conservative bloggers do seem to be really, truly mystified as to the answer to that question.  Example:  If the government institutes a policy that makes it more expensive and risky to hire people, how can any rational person possibly be surprised when rational business people adjust to the new conditions by offering fewer jobs?

Yet I have yet to hear a single Democrat acknowledge that there's any link between those two things.

Similarly, if the government increases the benefits of not working, can anyone possibly be surprised to find more people deciding that not working beats working--even if he or she could earn, say, 30% more by finding a job?  Because obviously, everyone values their free time, and if working eight hours a day only pays 30% more than being on welfare, the difference ends up amounting to just a couple of bucks an hour.

Who'd want to work eight hours a day for two or three bucks an hour?  Almost no one.  Yet I have yet to hear a single Democrat acknowledge that.

When government pays teenage girls for having kids out of wedlock, can any rational person be surprised that you get more kids born without benefit of marriage?  Now I understand completely that the rationale for such programs was that the innocent child shouldn't suffer for a bad decision by his teenage mom--and I agree.  And if Democrats would agree that having increasing numbers of "fatherless" kids is a negative thing for society, maybe we could devise some different way to protect the kids without incentivizing teenage girls to have more of them without being married.  But I've never heard a single Democrat make the connection between subsidizing births by single girls and getting more of that outcome.

History teaches--repeatedly and at huge cost--that having a strong military reduces the chances of another nation attacking us, while cutting the military has the opposite effect.  Yet Democrats seem not to have heard of that effect, and happily join Obozo in cutting military strength again and again.  It's like they refuse to learn.

Or consider the federal government's spending in general:  Virtually every conservative thinks spending a trillion dollars a year more than the government takes in is crazy.  When Bush was in office Democrats wailed and moaned endlessly about a $250 Billion deficit, but starting one minute after Bush left office got selective amnesia and now don't have a critical word to say about trillion-dollar deficits. 

Is that sane?  Is that likely to improve the condition of our nation for more than, say, six months?  But the Democrats' fix is to simply violate the law by refusing to pass a budget.  (So far the Democrat-controlled senate has failed to pass a budget in all but one year of Obama's time in office.)

Is this good governance?  Is this likely to help or harm our nation?  And yet, they persist.

A lot of people have asked, "If Obama and the Dems were trying to destroy America, what would they have done differently?"  I don't have an answer.

Russia sends thousands of troops into part of Ukraine

As everyone who's not a "low-information voter" surely knows by now, Russia has sent armed troops into Crimea, which is part of Ukraine.

They started by taking over two major airports, so they could land cargo aircraft without risk.  At the same time, convoys of trucks loaded with troops drove across the border.  So far no shots have been fired.

Everyone on the right knew this would happen.  Hell, way back in 2008 GOP V-P candidate S. Palin warned that if Obama was elected, Russia would probably invade Ukraine.  Predictably, the Lying Media loudly ridiculed that prediction.

You might think at least one member of the MSM would have the grace to admit that ridicule was wrong, but of course being "progressive" means never admitting anything, so...

Oh, one other piece of the puzzle:  Back when the charming, politically sophisticated William Jefferson Clinton was prez, he and the Brits and the Ukrainians and the Russians signed a piece of paper called the "Budapest Memo," in which all parties pledged to respect Ukraine's borders as an incentive to get them to give up their nuclear weapons, which they'd inherited when the former Soviet Union broke up a year earlier.  Among other things the signing nations acknowledged an

...obligation to refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Ukraine, and that none of their weapons will ever be used against Ukraine except in self-defense or otherwise in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations.

So now that Putin has used the threat of force, Obama must find a way to ignore or repudiate that document.  Of course, for a president who has repeatedly ignored our own Constitution--which was at one point said to be the supreme law of our nation--repudiating a mere "memo" is child's play.

And indeed, CNN reported that administration sources described the mass entry of Russian troops not as invasion but as an "uncontested arrival."  So no threat of force.  Not even a hint.

Just as Obama said there was "not a smidgen of corruption" at the IRS.

Blogger Wretchard at Belmont notes that for deterrence to work, it must be self-evident.  That is, if an aggressive national leader isn't already fairly certain that his doing "X" will result in unacceptably painful consequences from the U.S. and/or allies, making somber warning statements isn't going to have any effect.

And it hasn't.  In fact most observers have interpreted Obama's statements about the "arrival" as a signal to Putin that the U.S. won't object.

Interesting times, eh? 

Oh, I see the Democrats are noting--correctly--that the "Budapest memo" is not a treaty so the U.S. has absolutely no obligation at all to honor it.  And sure enough, I can find nothing in the record to indicate that the Clinton administration even thought about submitting it to the senate.

This suggests that Clinton never had any intention of honoring it, and never considered it a serious piece of work.  But in that case, why did he push to create it in the first place?  To put it another way, it seems the height of cynical depravity to solemnly sign an agreement you have no intention of honoring.  That seems a pretty lousy way to run a government.

Gosh, if only there were people who had access to presidents and were paid to ask them pointed questions, one might ask Clinton--who is on the news every week so apparently still alive--what his Grand Plan was in doing such a cynical thing. 

Let's see:  He could say that even though a non-ratified agreement wouldn't bind Republican presidents, it was his belief and hope that future Democratic ones would make good on it.  Ooooh, wait, that would reflect badly on...never mind.

Or he could say that he didn't bother trying to get it ratified because he knew it wasn't worth the paper it was written on, and he just did it as a favor to his good friends the Russians--who absolutely, positively didn't want their former vassal states to keep the nukes they had in place when it all went kaboom.  But that would reflect badly on...never mind.

And it's all academic anyway, because we don't have anyone in the U.S. who actually asks public figures anything but slobbering questions.

And in any case, as one of those famous public figures once said: "What difference, at this point, does it make?"