June 28, 2016

Obama statement re Supreme Court ruling rejecting "Deferred Action for Parents of Americans"

Washington D.C.--Transcript of president Obama's press conference in the Rose Garden, Monday, 10:35 a.m.:
"Good morning.  As you all know, three years ago I instructed the Department of Homeland Security to implement a program called "Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals," or DACA.  Under this program any person who was under the age of 15 when he or she arrived in this country would be permitted to stay indefinitely, and would be given a "green card" allowing them to work.  Many progressive states have offered them in-state tuition at state colleges and universities.
The reason for this program was simple:  The innocent children who were brought to the U.S. by their parents had no choice in the matter, so it's simply unfair to deport them.  That's not who we are. 
Unfortunately, if these children were brought in by others, then when the parents of these innocent children attempted to join their children here our immigration laws--which everyone agrees is broken but which Republicans in congress refuse to fix--demanded that the parents of these innocent children be deported.   
It simply was not fair to tear these families apart when the children had no choice, and their parents simply wanted to join them.
So a year later, in response to thousands of complaints from undocumented Americans that our broken immigration laws were tearing innocent families apart, I approved a second proposal, called "Deferred Action for Parents of Americans."  This thoughtful, compassionate program--which has been enthusiastically praised by all good Americans--allowed the parents of these innocent children--who are in effect American citizens--to remain in the U.S. with their children.  Who, as I just noted, are almost American citizens.

The governor of a reactionary, racist southwestern state challenged this second program, claiming I didn't have the authority to implement it.  This of course is nonsense.  As most of you know, I used to teach Constitutional law, and the Constitution clearly says that the president is the supreme executive of the nation, so whatever he or she says must be legal by definition.

The case was heard by the most conservative appeals court in the country, which--in a totally unconstitutional decision--agreed with the plaintiffs.

The Department of Justice appealed this ruling to the Supreme Court.  A week ago that court revealed that it was unable to make a decision on this question, as the vote was tied.

By tradition, a tie vote means the lower court's ruling stands.  However, neither I nor my team of top Constitutional scholars have found any legal authority stating that this must always be followed.  Accordingly, my administration has chosen to interpret the Supreme Court's tie ruling as rejecting the lower court's decision instead of leaving it intact.

Consistent with this finding, I have directed DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson to continue current federal policy of not deporting parents of innocent children--who after all are American citizens in every way except for paperwork.

The Republicans and their presidential candidate believe parents of children who have entered the U.S. and are now, in effect, American citizens, should not be allowed to stay here with their innocent children.  They claim that the parents sent their children here knowing we would allow them to stay, and that I then implemented the second policy to allow their parents to stay with their children in the U.S. 

Even if this is true, tearing families apart is not who we are.  Once the innocent children made it to the U.S., even if their parents sent them unaccompanied as a way to ensure they'd be allowed to stay, simple decency demands that we let their parents join them. 

In conclusion, vote Democrat, and encourage all your friends to do so.  And if they've just arrived in the U.S, tell them how important it is to vote, even if they haven't quite gotten their paperwork in order.  Because no one wants to be denied the right to vote Democrat because some silly piece of paper has gotten lost in the mail.

Thank you.
Sounds plausible, eh?  And note how cleverly--how cunningly--the Executive Order was named:  "Deferred Action for Parents of Americans."  Except the kids aren't citizens.  They're illegal immigrants.  But one of the oldest tricks in D.C. is to name acts or laws or EO's something that has nothing to do with what they do--and sometimes is the opposite of what they really are.

"Orlando was a hate crime!" Wait..get me re-write! Scary gun made him do it! Wait... Republican hate!

The first Narrative on the Orlando killings was that the guy did it because he hated homosexuals. 

That explanation was *totally plausible* to every liberal, Democrat and journalist since we've been hammered with this meme for years:  Since Christians and Republicans opposed gay marriage, it must follow (so the media and the emperor tell us) that they must hate homosexuals.

Yeah, they're serious.  And journalists can always point to the Westboro "Baptist" church as proof.

In any case the Narrative took a hit when it was discovered that the killer had been a regular at the very club he shot up for a couple of years, and had gay hookup apps on his phone.  Three men claimed he propositioned them, or that they'd had affairs with him.

Uh-oh.  Kinda makes the "did it cuz he hated gays" Narrative look...like total caca.  So after a quick trip to re-write, the new Narrative is that all these reports--yes, all of them--*may* be wrong.  Seriously.

An FBI spokesjerk said that their investigation had turned up no "solid" evidence that the killer was gay.  Okay, I'd expect some reporter to ask "Mr. FBI guy, are you saying *all* of the reports were fabricated?"

"And when you say your agency has found no *solid* evidence that he was gay, do you mean that in the same way that your agency denied for decades that FBI director J. Edgar Hoover was a gay cross-dresser who promoted his gay lover to Assistant Director?  *That* kind of "no solid evidence"?

Of course that will never happen, but it would be amusing to see. 

And of course if the guy was secretly gay, the gay lobby can't use the theory--already pushed by some leftist papers--that they guy was a conflicted or self-hating gay because...well, how could anyone be "conflicted" about something so self-evidently faaabulous?  Well, unless the guy had been raised in a religion that regarded homosexuality as...uh...wait, that won't do either.

Oooh, can't let the Narrative make any connection between Islam and killing gays.  I mean, any stories alleging that must be nothing but right-wing propaganda, designed to fan Islamophobia.  You right-wingnuts don't have a shred of solid evidence that Muslims kill people for being gay!

You say ISIS kill gays by throwing them off buildings?  That's ridiculous!  You're just making that up!

What videos?  Come on, "everyone knows" videos can be faked, just like the alleged videos of the so-called "moon landing"!  In fact the building in that video you just showed us is on Sunset next to that new nightclub.

And even if ISIS did it, everyone knows they have nothing whatsoever to do with Islam.  Our wonderful president has repeated that many times.  And he lived in a Muslim country growing up so he should know.  Besides, ISIS is a nutty group.  You don't have any evidence that a responsible Muslim *nation* executes people for being gay, so...

What?  You say the "Islamic Republic of Iran" has executed gays by hanging them from cranes in the center of cities?  That's crazy!  A responsible Muslim government of a major nation like Iran would never... 

What photographs?  I don't believe it.

Besides, our wonderful president negotiated a treaty with them about nuclear weapons, so they can't possibly be so barbaric as to...uh...  I don't believe it."

Leaving our befuddled liberal friend: Not that it's all that meaningful, but it also turns out that the killer was a registered...Democrat.

So with all of the above, what did the liberals and gays finally settle on as the last word in Narratives?  Take a look:





Yep: Not just "hate kills" but *Republican* hate. 

It's probably wrong to conclude that these people are utterly impervious to reason.  A far better guess is that they've discovered that lying--massively, consistently, outrageously--fires up their base and gets more low-info voters (i.e. their base) to support 'em.

June 27, 2016

Elites want to throw out the Brexit vote and take another swing; Obama threatened UK if they voted to leave the EU

The Brexit vote ended up about 52/48 to leave, and now a member of the UK parliament has started a petition calling for that vote to be thrown out and for a second vote to be held. 

Wait...they want to throw out the results of last week's vote?  On what possible rational grounds?

I haven't read where "remain" backers state a reason why they think the result should be rejected, which leads me to conclude that the only reason is that they simply didn't like how it turned out.

Interestingly, liberals and elites in the U.S.--who were horrified by the vote to leave the EU--seem to support the push to nullify the vote.  To them a 52 to 48 vote isn't enough of a margin to be considered legitimate.

Wait, wasn't the emperor "elected" by that same margin (ignoring fraud)?

And speaking of incompetent emperors:  Did you hear that just two months before the UK vote on the question, your utterly tone-deaf emperor threatened the Brits that if they voted to leave the EU the U.S. wouldn't be much interested in making any trade deals with them? 

Yep.  As he put it, he'd kick the UK to the end of the queue when it came time for trade deals.  Here's the quote from London's Telegraph:

Attacking Eurosceptic ministers for “ascribing to the United States certain actions we will take if the UK does leave the EU”, he said: “I figured you might want to hear from the president of the United States what I think the United States is going to do.

"And on that matter, for example, I think it's fair to say that maybe some point down the line there might be a UK-US trade agreement, but it's not going to happen any time soon because our focus is in negotiating with a big bloc, the European Union, to get a trade agreement done.

"The UK is going to be in the back of the queue."
And then right after threatening them, he brazenly insisted that his message was NOT a threat.  Unbelievable!  You really need to see the Telegraph story to believe it.  Otherwise it's almost impossible to believe that a president would be that incompetent and offensive.

Imagine if the king of, oh, Saudi Arabia visited the U.S. and said "If you people vote to leave NAFTA we'll have to re-evaluate selling oil to you."  How do you think most Americans would view that kind of outrageous meddling?  Yet that's exactly what your amazingly inept emperor did in the UK.

And like so many other of his brilliant foreign-policy moves, this angered the nation he was visiting:  A poll of 1000 Brits taken soon after that showed that 60 percent viewed his statement as a threat, and offensive as well.  They were mad as hell.  Just 36 percent saw the comment as inoffensive. 

With such a huge margin being offended by Obama's explicit threat, if the poll even remotely reflects the reaction of UK voters nationwide, that alone would have enough effect to give "leave" its slim margin of victory.  So it would seem that your brilliant emperor swung the result to support "leave."

Wow, some kinda ironic, eh?

One of the many, many reasons the Brits voted to leave the EU is shit like the following:  The unelected dickheads--that's right, "unelected"--in the "European parliament" have drafted rules to ban "high-powered" tea kettles and toasters--ostensibly in order to reduce "catastrophic global warming" caused by electricity generating plants emitting CO2.

Naturally you're skeptical about this claim:  No idiot bureaucrat, you naively think, would be so dumb as to ban tea kettles and toasters--especially in the UK, where a huge percentage of Brits have this odd devotion to tea and toast.

This just shows that you don't understand the bureaucratic "mind."  They see everything as a nail and they've got the biggest hammer.  All they have to do is decree, and any problem will be solved.  Or even a non-problem like AGW.

Kinda reminds you of your emperor:  Issue a decree--like telling federal employees to stop deporting illegal aliens.  Laws can be overruled by imperial decree ya know.  It's right there in the Constitution.  Hussein knows because he says he taught Constitutional law.

So...do the EU bureaucrats believe the British people will simply give up their afternoon tea and toast?  Doubtful.  If the bureaucrats believe that, they're even stupider than we imagined.  So if the Brits continue to want to make tea after the EU bans "high-powered" electric kettles and toasters, what's the alternative?

Turn on the electric oven for toast and the stove for the kettle--which will use far more electricity.

Wait, wasn't the stated goal of the EU decree to *reduce* electrical use?

Why yes, yes it was.  So it's a fail, like most attempts to solve things by decree. But you haven't heard the most outrageous part yet.

It's this:  The proposed rules were finalized months ago, but the EU deliberately delayed announcing them until after the UK vote, because they knew it would anger the Brits and increase the likelihood of "leave" winning.

Now *that's* some Stalinesque plotting, delaying any unpleasant decrees until after the vote.

Starting to understand yet?

Director of Homeland Security says illegal immigrants are "in effect, U.S. citizens"

Meanwhile back in the USSA...If you think the laughably-misnamed "Department of Homeland Security--run by the ludicrous buffoon Jeh Johnson--is serious about protecting "our" (whose?) country from illegals, guess again.  A few months ago Johnson, in a speech at Harvard, said that illegal aliens "are in effect, U.S. citizens."

WTF??  No way are they American citizens.  Oh wait...the emperor wants 'em to be citizens, because they'll vote Democrat for their whole lives, so naturally Johnson agrees with his boss.

Beyond belief--the head of the agency charged with keeping our borders secure blows off any semblance of responsibility by saying "Well, *in effect* they're citizens, so..."

That explains everything.  Traitorous, Constitution-shredding, lawless bastards, every one of 'em.  But not to worry, citizen: transforming into the United States of Mexico won't be so bad.  Hell, most of you won't even notice any difference.

On a related topic: did you hear the emperor say that illegal immigration "is the lowest it's been in decades"?  He did.  That's a brazen lie, of course:  it's on pace to be an all-time HIGH this year.  Of course that's not even a tiny problem for the emperor, since not a single mainstream "news" (propaganda) organ will mention that fact.

Wheee!

Why are the elites screaming about Brexit while virtually ignoring millions starving in Venezuela?

Conservative pundit Greg Gutfeld (sp?) notices that the elites are screaming bloody murder about a vote in the UK.  Meanwhile they're almost completely ignoring the fact that in Venezuela the people are so close to starvation (due to...the mainstream media doesn't want to tell you) that they're having deadly riots trying to get food.

In fact for the past 3 years they've been short of such basics as toilet paper and cooking oil.  Astonishingly the country has even had to import coffee.  To Venezuela.  Inflation running 500 percent per year, destroying the value of any savings. 

So the outrage is totally misplaced.  Crazy.  Why all the concern about Brits voting to leave the EU but virtually none about the people starving in Venezuela?

Oh, got it:  Venezuela's disaster was caused--and is being worsened--almost entirely by dumb, disastrous socialist policies--which is to say, all socialist policies.  But elites here and in Europe love socialism, so they can't permit themselves to even notice the disaster in Venezuela...because to do so might make people question the wisdom of socialism.

And we just can't have that.  Cuz, you know...Hillary.

One commenter noted that Venezuela has some interesting characteristics:
   1. Government has spent more than its income for a couple of decades;
   2. Government prints money like mad (actually it orders currency from printers in other countries, but same effect);
   3. Government imposes hundreds of dumb, micro-managing rules on businesses--including telling 'em what they can charge for products;
   4. Routinely threatens political opponents and businesses;

The commenter then summed up by asking...what's the difference between Venezuela's policies and the policies of the Democratic party and its presidential candidate?

June 24, 2016

The enduring mystery of this age: Incompetent and stupid, or intentional and malicious?

I suspect one of the enduring mysteries of this time will be, Was Obama trying to destroy the nation, or was he just astonishingly, unbelievably incompetent--and surrounded by people either equally incompetent or just unwilling to tell him he was pushing amazingly stupid policies?

For example, right after Orlando the administration quietly announced it’s increasing the number of Syrian muslim refugees it's paying to fly to the U.S. and give permanent residency.  Yet an article in the Washington Post --generally a huge Obama fan--claims there are simply not enough security personnel to monitor all terror suspects in the U.S. now, let alone more.  It would take about 63% of the US police force to track just the 25,000 individuals on the watch list.

If that's true--and it would be great if some enterprising reporter would ask the emperor if he thinks it is--why would any rational policy-maker suggest or order bringing in more? 

Well consider it's being done by the same crew that gave you Benghazi, the "Arab spring" and Hillary's "Reset."  Their only real skill seems to be virtue signalling.  They imported a threat which as Foreign Policy points out is effectively a state-sponsored shock unit and now discover they can't afford to monitor it.

There would seem to be only two plausible alternative explanations for this fiasco:  The first is pure unadulterated arrogance and stupidity.  The emperor and his lackeys--elites who were and are totally protected from any threat--either didn't think through the consequences of their policies, or did and ignored those consequences.  The second is that the probable ghastly consequences were intentional.


Most Americans--indeed, most people--believe the so-called elites are smarter than "ordinary" folks. But when civilizations teeter it is usually because the elites have proved stupider than the common man. 
H/T Richard Fernandez at PJM.

Orlando: Root causes?

Following the mass killing in Orlando, it's clear that virtually all Democrats follow the lead of their Preciousssss and believe the problem is a) gun control, and/or  b) hate against gays--but not hate by Muslims, just hate by your average white Christian bigot.

For example, when the emperor's attorney-general, Loretta Lynch, was discussing the killer's conversation with 911 operators during the attack she said
...that conversation does not include any mention of the LGBT community.  But obviously we know that he apparently had some concerns or issues with the LGBT community.  This is a community that is often targeted by acts of hate. And so we’re very concerned about that issue as well.
Hate against gays.  Let's really lean on that point, Loretta, because that will help us avoid making any connection with Islam.

Republicans believe the problem is radical Islam--and in some quarters just Islam.

Very shortly after the event the emperor quickly assured us that this was not terrorism.  He was able to deduce this because no evidence had been discovered of the killer being *instructed* to kill.  Instead he told you the killer was "self-radicalized."

But this misses a key point:  It's been thoroughly shown that the Iranian mullahs hang gays from cranes, and ISIS throws 'em off tall buildings.  The murderous, implacable hostility of Islam toward homosexuals seems undeniable.  If Mateen acted in a manner consistent with this hostility, can a rational person seriously claim that the teaching of Iranian mullahs and ISIS religious experts had nothing to do with the act?

Democrats propose a law to make America's kids safer

WASHINGTON (AP)--Democrats in congress have proposed a law requiring anyone wanting to buy a pressure-cooker to undergo a background check and wait three days before picking up the device.  People on Homeland Security's "no-fly list" would be barred from buying pressure-cookers.

The bill would also outlaw private sales of pressure-cookers, such as at garage sales.  And if an original owner of a pressure-cooker died, they wouldn't be allowed to will the cooker to a family member unless that member went through the same screening procedure as that needed to buy such a device initially.

"This bill is a common-sense measure that's badly needed," said former Democratic Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.  "Right now any ordinary American can buy a pressure-cooker without any background check or fingerprinting or any means of identification.  It's a security nightmare.  These deadly devices must be controlled to ensure the safety of all our children."

Democratic representative John Lewis said "We've been trying for years to close the private-sales loophole.  There's simply no need for ordinary Americans to own a pressure-cooker, particularly if we don't know who they are and where they live.  It's far too easy for domestic terrorists and Christians and other racists to get hold of these devices and use them to kill our children."

The head of Mothers Against Pressure-Cookers agreed that it was an outrage that these devices could be purchased without any type of background check, and by people suspected of anti-government leanings.  "If the Republicans weren't carrying water for the National Pressure-Cooker Association we would have had this common-sense law in place before the Boston bombing, and could have saved those who were killed and injured."

Democrats do a sceaming sit-in on the floor of the House; national media slobbers with praise

You've all surely heard about the "sit-in" staged in the House of Representatives, right?  Noisy demonstrators shouted and chanted endlessly, grabbed microphones and literally sat in the "well" of the House to prevent any business from being done.

So naturally the Speaker had the demonstrators thrown out and arrested for their disruptive actions, right?

Ah, no.  Because the screaming demonstrators were...Democratic representatives.

Democracy at its finest, eh citizen?  It's probably just me but I consider this sort of behavior a hanging offense.  No one is considering censoring *speech* in the House, but there are rules of order for a reason, and the Dems have made it clear they don't give a shit about those rules.

If one wants to demonstrate, do it somewhere else.

Here's the kicker:  The Democrat-loving website Politico absolutely loved this.  They wrote a piece positively slobbering with eagerness over the disruptive tactic:
rank-and-file Democrats, energized by nationwide publicity and praise they received for occupying the House floor over demands for a gun vote, are saying they’ll likely use the same strategy again. 
“It’s a new day in Washington; it’s a new way to fight,” said Democratic Caucus Vice Chairman Joe Crowley.... “We’re going to get in the way until we see action.”
Wednesday’s sit-in was supported by virtually all House Democrats...
Astonishingly, one lone Democratic conressman admitted to being appalled.  Politico again:
"On the House floor we have rules, order and a system where democracy is supposed to work itself out in a deliberative and respectful way," he said. “We watched a publicity stunt, a fundraising stunt, descend an institution that many of us care a great deal about.”
Wait, that wasn't a Democrat, it was speaker of the House Paul Ryan.  Not a single Democrat would go on the record as opposing the demonstration. You'd think former Dem Speaker of the House Pelosi would speak against the breach of all normal decorum, but Pelosi joined the demonstrators.
Some Democrats said Republicans better get used to it.

“There’s a consensus that when we come back, it’s not going to be business as usual — we’re not going to roll over,” said Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.).... “We’re fed up with being treated so terribly, being locked out of everything and having our views not respected. So whether it’s more ‘sit ins’ or whether it manifests itself in other ways, we’re not going to take it anymore.”

“Absolutely,” said Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) when asked whether Democrats would occupy the floor again. She said the partisanship of this day and age has pretty much forced them to become more aggressive.
These people are moronic hypocrites.  "Fed up with being treated so terribly"?  "Having our views not respected"?  All the fault of "partisanship" that only started "today"?  They've apparently forgotten the tactics Dems used during the "debat"e before the Dems passed Obamacare:  Dems controlled both houses of congress then, and the leaders refused to let even a single GOP amendment get a full vote.  The Democrat-controlled House--under Pelosi--refused to pass a budget for something like six years, since that would enable the emperor to spend as he wished, without having to worry about criticism.

And imagine the screams from the Mainstream Democrat Media if the Republicans had done this!  They'd have been shrieking about "thuggish behavior" and "tantrums."  But not a single mainstream organ has said a critical word about the Dem tantrum.  Because...double standard.

Oh, here's a pic of the Dem representatives throwing their fit.  Charming group, don't ya think?


June 23, 2016

The guy who set up Hillary's private email server takes the Fifth 125 times in just 90 minutes

Our nation is falling so fast.
Jun 22, 2016

The person who set up and maintained Hillary's unsecured private email server in her home cited the 5th Amendment more than 125 times to avoid answering virtually every question during a 90-minute, closed-door deposition Wednesday.

For liberals and others too busy to follow the lawbreaking, Clinton used a personal email account--handled by her own server--to conduct government business while she was Obama's secretary of state. The State Department inspector general found Clinton violated government rules with that arrangement.  A federal judge concluded there was "reasonable suspicion" Clinton and her aides set up the private email to avoid federal open-records laws.

One of the stunning aspects of this case is that last December the ludicrously mis-named "justice department" offered Pagliano immunity from prosecution in exchange for his testimony in the matter.  Normally a person accepting immunity can't take the 5th since they can't be prosecuted for anything they admit. 

But not only did Pagliano take the 5th--despite the immunity grant--the "justice department" refused to reveal the terms of the agreement.  This was immediately challenged in court, and a couple of weeks ago a federal judge agreed that the government could keep the terms of the offer secret.  
The thugs running the federal government have decided you don't have the right to know a single thing about what they're doing if they don't wanna tell you.  A huge majority of federal judges agree, and congress refuses to act.  So no power can touch the thugs running the government.

Tick tick tick.

This is an outrage.  If only a single reporter had the courage to ask Hillary "If you didn't do anything wrong, and want to get that across to voters, and your tech guy was offered immunity, why haven't you asked him to answer all questions instead of taking the 5th 125 times in 90 minutes? "


Ah, but the only reporters allowed near the queen are loyal Democrats--who aren't about to ask that question.  Or any other that might show voters who she really is.

June 22, 2016

Dem/progressive writer for lefty blog: "I'm totally down with president banning guns"

The creature in the pic below is the new standard bearer for politically correct democrats in the U.S.  


His latest inspiring thought for good Democrat/"progressive" fascists was "I'm totally down with the prez banning all guns." 

Let that sink in for a minute:  I realize I'm jumping to conclusions here, but the pic leads me to suspect that this person wouldn't know a semi-automatic from a revolver.  To put it somewhat diplomatically, he doesn't look like he's all that bright, or in any way competent to lecture anyone about anything.  But he's using the killing in Orlando to support Democrat calls to ban guns.

Tell ya what, precious:  You assholes get Hillary to give up all her armed SS protection and then I might think there's some merit there.  Until then, STFU.

And for any readers who might have liberal/Democrat friends or family members:  Email this link to 'em.  Ask 'em if they want to be led by the like of this creature.  Ask 'em if they'd sleep well knowing this guy was a key political advisor or strategist for the Dems.  Cuz that's where he's headed.


June 21, 2016

As Venezuela's disaster worsens, detailed NY Times story avoids mentioning socialism as cause

What happens when a once-wealthy nation, with huge natural resources, ends up with a socialist government?  Hillary, Bernie and the dems/liberals/"progressives" say the result would be great: paradise--total equality.  Everything equally shared.  Abundance for all.  Yay!!

Really?  Does any sane person really think Hillary would give up her luxurious lifestyle and share her vast wealth with the poor?  Of course not:  she'd declare that she had zero income, carefully omitting that her tax-free "foundation" was paying all her living expenses.

Clever, huh.  "Foundations"--funded largely by foreign governments as a barely-disguised bribe of U.S. politicians--are a great thing to have if you're a senator or sec-state.  Not so useful for us little people, but hey....

Back to the opening question:  Since the crazy 48% of American voters are about to elect (with the help of 4% fraudulent votes) a second full-blown socialist as president, y'all might wanna see what socialism does to a country. 

And fortunately you don't have to take my word for it.  We don't need to guess, because we have an example going on right now in what used to be the richest country in South America.

Venezuela's predictable plunge into starvation and literal darkness is getting worse.  There's so little food that people are ambushing food delivery trucks.  Deliberate power cuts--ordered by the president but of course not imposed on him or his government supporters--have cut power to hospital operating rooms and respirators, literally killing patients. 

Hospitals lack the funds to buy medicines, bandages, sheets.  Government troops are killing starving people rioting for food.

Of course most Americans believe this is just a scare story created by republicans who oppose Hillary.  Can't be true, because they haven't heard a word about it in the Mainstream Democrat Media.  (And be honest: you haven't either.) 

They naively believe that if something this awful were actually happening to an entire country, our media would be reporting it.  But (with a couple of rare exceptions) the Democrat media haven't said much about Venezuela's problems.  Gosh, why do you suppose that is?

Because most Democrats and Dem media outlets were very enthusiastic about Venezuela's socialist revolution.  They think socialism, with its guaranteed government care, subsidized food and housing, equally shared wealth--is great.  As does their presidential candidate. 

So you can appreciate the media's dilemma: Pointing out the horrible, ghastly, deadly problems in Venezuela might make a few million voters wonder if perhaps socialism might not be quite as faaabulous as Hillary and the Dems make it sound. 

In any case, in a rare break with peer pressure one mainstream media organ ran a piece on Venezuela's latest problems.  Believe me, it's well worth your time to click the link and read the whole thing.  Heart-wrenching stuff.

Of course the Times story doesn't blame socialism.  Perish the thought!  Any reporter or editor who blamed socialism would be thrown off the A-list for DC parties. 

In fact, astonishingly, the article doesn't even mention socialism.  The author notes that the politician who ran the first socialist government said "the country’s inability to provide for its people, and the state’s repression of the uprising, were the reasons Venezuela needed a socialist revolution."  But that's it.

So what does the author think has caused their misery if not socialism?  There's a line or two about "some economists think..." unspecified "policies" might have something to do with the problems, but quickly comes back to the normal party line that the evil U.S. has sabotaged their economy.  While this might have resonated back in 1950, one wonders who could possibly be dumb enough to believe the Obama regime would want to sabotage a fellow socialist.

It's not really a surprise that even this rare media article doesn't put the blame where it belongs--on abysmally stupid socialist policies.  Instead the author blames electricity shortages on a long-term drought that's cut hydroelectric output.  Food shortages are blamed on a drastic drop in the government's oil income, due to the sharp drop in world oil prices that started about two years ago.

Thus even in reporting the disaster in Venezuela, the Times and other mainstream Dem media seek to protected its darlings--the emperor and his successor.  And in so doing it's avoided educating American college students--because according to several polls a majority of American college students believe socialism is better than capitalism.

Finally, given the historic tradition of American presidents to give billions of dollars of aid to any nation anywhere in the world that's been hit by disaster, you might wonder why the emperor hasn't sent megatons of food and a few billion dollars to help Venezuelans.  I think the answer is that because this disaster was caused by dumb-ass socialist policies, the emperor and Dems leaders don't want to get American voters thinking that their problems might have anything to do with the totally predictable results of socialism.  Because Dems are pushing socialist policies very, very hard.

Emperor's "Narrative" on Orlando--"nothing whatsoever to do with Islam"--takes some major hits

Immediately after a 29-year-old muslim killed 49 in Orlando, the emperor's administration determined what "the narrative"--the "official" version of the event--would be, regardless of any contrary findings.

The official line--The Narrative--was that the mass murder had nothing whatsoever to do with Islam.


"Oooh, wait--the 911 dispatchers are telling us the guy called between after he killed the first group, claiming he did it for ISIS, and pledging loyalty to that group's leader.  If those tapes are released it could be a problem for us."

"Hey, not a problem.  We'll just demand that the city turn the tapes over to us 'to further the investigation.'  No one will ever be able to prove he said anything!"
And that would have worked--except the killer also called a local TV station and said the same thing.  So now what?  No problem.  Just change the Narrative.
 

Anyone who knows anything about psychology and propaganda knows that after any off-the-charts event, most people will believe the first explanation they hear--no matter how many later findings totally contradict that explanation.

There are three main reasons for this: The first is simply that most people are too busy to re-visit a "black swan" event a year or so later to find out whether later findings supported or contradicted the first narrative. 

A second reason is based on psychology:  First impressions--no matter how wrong--are hard to shake.  And as just noted, only a tiny percentage of people will bother searching for the full findings, and then trying to reconcile any contradictions with The Narrative.

This was the case when president John Kennedy was fatally shot in Dallas in 1963:  The Narrative was that Oswald acted alone.  The fact that there were hundreds of facts that contradicted this conclusion made no difference:  The hand-picked commission charged with investigating the assassination simply ignored any witness who gave testimony that would contradict that story.  Literally:  the commission simply refused to call the most devastating witnesses against The Narrative.

The third reason is also psychological:  Anyone who bothers doing their own research, finds the contradictions and then mentions them is considered a "conspiracy nut."  The people who believed The Narrative don't want to believe any other conclusion.  Thus they will insist there isn't any contradictory evidence, or that any alleged is simply wrong.  They're uncomfortable discussing or debating such evidence and its meaning, because they realize (subconsciously, at least) that even the idea that their president would deceive them so hugely--and on such a vital issue--has implications that are simply too disturbing to contemplate. 

The ultimate defense mechanism for these folks is "At this point what difference does it make?"

So it is with the murders in Orlando:  The first narrative was that the shooter must have hated gays.  Then evidence emerged that he'd been a regular at this club for 3 years.  Hey, no problem:  Just change the Narrative.

Next was that the killer was crazy--a conclusion most were very eager to believe.  But consider this:  The killer made at least 3 phone calls after killing many of his victims, in which he calmly said that he was killing for the Islamic State.  Doesn't sound any crazier than any other muzz fanatic.

In a press briefing *the Monday after the killings* FBI director James Comey said that after opening fire within the club at around 2 a.m. Sunday morning, around 2:30 Mateen called 911 for the first time. but quickly hung up without saying anything.  He then called back, spoke briefly with the 911 dispatcher and hung up again. The dispatcher called Mateen back, and they had a second brief conversation.

“During the calls he said he was doing this for the leader of [the Islamic State] who he named and pledged loyalty to,” Comey said. He said the gunman also expressed support for the Boston Marathon bombing, and pledged support to the leader of ISIS, by name.

Then Mateen made the call the emperor's damage-control team didn't expect: 

When the killer started shooting, around 2 a.m., Matthew Gentili was manning the phones at local channel 13.  His phones began to ring with people reporting hearing shots, or asking what was going on.  Then around 2:45--just after the killer's 2nd 911 conversation--Gentili got a call from a man saying he was the killer.

According to Gentili the caller said “I did it for ISIS. I did it for the Islamic State.”

Yet for the rest of the week the emperor continued to say the killings had nothing whatsoever to do with Islam.  And to imply that the killings were motivated by homophobia--even though one of the killer's former co-workers had already said that the killer had made homosexual advances to him, and that Mateen was well-known at the club, having been there for 3 years..

Now, there's ample evidence that Mateen was unhinged.  And obviously crazy isn't limited to followers of one religion.  But he was rational enough to want to make at least 3 calls to explain his support for ISIS.  And while only a fraction of muslims engage in the mass shootings and beheadings and setting prisoners on fire or slowly immersing captives in acid--all of which ISIS routinely does-- the killer's methodical, un-rushed working of the phones and social media suggest a substantial rationality.

If he says he was killing for ISIS, doesn't it seem crazy for the emperor to *insist* that the killings had nothing to do with Islam?

Now that The Narrative has been so badly damaged, the propaganda chiefs are pivoting, changing it to "He was 'self-radicalized.'  If his murder of 49 unarmed Americans wasn't actually *ordered by ISIS,* the argument went, it couldn't possibly have anything to do with Islam.

So nothing at all to worry about, citizen.

You're being led by people who put the welfare of Muslims before yours.  People whose top priority is importing 100,000 muslim "refugees" *per year* for the next two years.  And that's their words, not mine.

If you think president Hillary will stop that program you're an idiot.  Like most liberal pols, Hillary's constant trait--other than lying--is "virtue signalling" to her fellow progressives: demonstrating to them that she's totally politically correct.

Sweden's pols have done the same thing.  Sweden is now the rape capital of the world--virtually all committed by immigrants, who laugh at how the Swedish government constantly makes excuses for their ghastly, brutal attacks, and routinely sentences them to 100 hours of community service for even the most horrible rapes of young Swedish girls.

"How ridiculous, citizen!  That couldn't possibly ever happen here, citizen!  Cuz our federal gummint enforces our laws totally evenhandedly, without regard to whether the perp is an illegal immigrant."

Oh wait...the emperor has already ignored bona fide immigration law, refusing to deport hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants, letting 'em stay in the U.S. indefinitely with no penalty and no threat of deportation.  Because he and his fellow Democrat congreswhores are lookin' out for Americans, ya know?

But don't worry, citizen, cuz he promises you that all the illegal immigrants and "refugees" are thoroughly, thoroughly "vetted," to make sure they don't support terrorism.

Oh wait...they're not vetting ANY illegals.  If you make it to the U.S, that's all you need.  And the so-called vetting of tens of thousands of Syrian muslims they're bringing in and settling in small towns across the country consists of asking "Are you a terrorist?  No?  In that case welcome to the U.S."

Finally, just for fun here's a thought experiment:  If any president--not just the Dems' Precioussss emperor, but anyone--was trying to destroy the U.S. as we've known it, what would they do different from what Obama has done?

NY Times blames Orlando killings on...Republicans. Other Dem outlets blame Christians

After the shooting in Orlando, the NY Times--like virtually every leftist outlet--immediately blamed Republicans and Christians.

If you're a liberal or Democrat you probably dismiss that as a paranoid delusion.  After all, the shooter wasn't Christian but Muslim, and was a registered Democrat.  How in the world could any rational person blame Republicans and Christians?  But the Times sees the connection.  Here's the quote:

...it is evident that Mr. Mateen was driven by hatred toward gays and lesbians. Hate crimes don’t happen in a vacuum. They occur where bigotry is allowed to fester, where minorities are vilified and where people are scapegoated for political gain. Tragically, this is the state of American politics, driven too often by Republican politicians who see prejudice as something to exploit, not extinguish.
Admittedly the Times only blamed Republicans, but other Democrat organs were quite open about blaming Christians too.

June 16, 2016

Delusion from the White House--again

Did you hear that the emperor's spokeswhore said the U.S. is safer than at any time in the past 8 years?

Wow--totally delusional.

This is how wacked-out the emperor is.  Because spokeswhore Josh Earnest didn't just go out and make this up.  He was ordered to say it.  (Of course he may well believe it, but that's another matter.)

Your emperor is either a liar or delusional.

Tell us, Democrats:  On what conceivable rational basis--remember, rational--can anyone claim the country is safer than at any time in the past 8 years?

June 15, 2016

More Americans may be starting to realize how bad the emperor's policies really are

Leftist policies are almost always wrong, but Leftists are rarely called out even when those policies produce horrible results, for two reasons:  First, the mainstream media makes it a top priority not to connect the disastrous results to the people who crafted the disastrous policies and forced them on the rest of the country.

Second, as long as those disasters were cushioned by wealth and security they were easy to overlook.  For example, the huge increase in the cost of health insurance for anyone not getting a government subsidy, and the obscenely higher deductibles may not be due to any flaw in the magnificently-conceived disaster called Obamacare, but could simply be due to, say, global warming.  See how easy that was?

The Democrat-run media is also very good at blaming any disaster of a horribly ill-conceived or executed program on Republicans--again, insulating the actual liberal/Democrat authors from criticism.

For example, every leftist and mainstream media outlet effusively praised the faabulous socialist policies of Venezuela's Hugo Chavez.  But when the inevitable happened and those policies destroyed what had been the richest economy in South America, the U.S. mainstream media almost couldn't be bothered to do a story on the disaster.  They mostly ignored it.

So when roughly 100,000 Venezuelans massed in the broad streets of the capital to protest government killings of protesters--a number easily confirmed by cell phone pics from the tops of buildings--CBS reported "hundreds of protesters."



Besides, Leftists are certain Bernie or Hillary would do better than Hugo and his hand-picked successor.
--

One of the foundations of liberal social and foreign policy is that by pushing the supposedly faaabulous benefits of multiculturalism, and bringing in 100,000 unvetted muslim refugees per year, our society will be much improved--"vibrant with diversity," as they like to say.

But the killing of 49 people in an Orlando gay nightclub by a muslim--who took time out between killing long enough to call a local TV station and explain that he was killing his victims "for ISIS"--has rocked the left.  Not, as you might think, because of the large death toll but because such events seem likely to increase the number of Americans who realize that damn near all of the government policies the emperor and his comrades in the Democrat party have rammed down our throats are insane.  Suicidal.

But finally the U.S. has used up almost all the safety and prosperity margin that formerly masked the failures of liberalism.  Normal Americans now see themselves under immediate threat.

Increasing numbers of Americans are starting to recognize the emperor's lies and bullshit reassurances about Islam for what they are.  A consistent pattern of bad decisions and failures of his policies--and repeated attacks on westerners by muslim extremists around the world--have made a lot of Americans suspect that either he's incompetent, or else may not actually be putting our nation's interests first.

Death and poverty have at last come to the West and this fact is burning holes in the liberal narrative. With all Trump's flaws--and they're certainly many--it's no surprise that his "we will make America rich again, we will make America safe again, we will make America great again" strikes many Americans as a message of sanity after 8 years of the opposite.

It would appear that many liberals, miffed at seeing their once invincible rhetoric fall flat more and more often, assume the problem is simply that they're not using the right phrasing.  "We just need better platitudes."  Yeh, that's it.

Democrats and leftists have never been called to account for their disasters, but after a few years passed they always ended up claiming that if only we'd give them another trillion dollars, and approve all the powers they demanded, then this time everything would work just as they predicted.  Success was just around the corner, always in the future.  Suddenly a fair number of Americans are realizing that the future isn't worth much if you can't get there.  What matters is now--and what will get us through current problems is competence and putting America's interests first.

Trump may not be more competent than Hillary but at least he knows a government won't succeed without it, and knows how to hire competent people rather than hiring to make a diversity quota.  It seems unlikely that Hillary realizes either of those things.

H/T Richard Fernandez at PJM

June 14, 2016

Orlando shooting

While we can expect more info to keep coming in for several more days, the wacko Left has gotten right on top of this one:  They were instantly tweeting that the shooter was filled with "straight rage" against gays.  Oh, and the shooting was caused by Republicans and Christians opposing gay marriage.

I'm not kidding.  A strange person--Chase Strangio, an attorney for the ACLU specializing in transgender issues--was all over this, bitching about Republicans causing the shooting.  (Warning:  don't click the above link unless you have a strong stomach.  Strangio seems to be a really nasty piece of work.)

And even though the shooter was a muslim, liberals were absolutely certain Christians were really to blame, and that the shooting had nothing whatsoever to do with Islam.

Islamic groups like CAIR jumped in:  To say the shooter might have been motivated by the crazy dictates of his "religion" was simply Islamophobia.  Others said the cause of the mass shooting was islamophobia.  Seriously.  Astonishingly, their spokesman sought to make the killer's muslim upbringing vanish, by linking Islamophobia to homophobia:
Homophobia, transphobia, and Islamophobia are interconnected systems of oppression and we cannot dismantle one without dismantling the others.
'You gays shouldn't be upset at muslims cuz we're all being equally oppressed and mistreated, right?'

Then reports started coming in that Mateen was actually gay.  He'd been coming to this club for months and was well known to the regulars.

Hmmm...seems like that kinda defeats the "straight rage" bullshit blame, eh?

Now a serious question: How in the world could a wacko killer have gone into a nightclub and killed 49 people?  I don't see how that could possibly happen, because Democrats and liberals have been telling us for years now that if we'd just put up stickers saying "gun-free zone" the wackos and killers wouldn't bring any guns inside.

Florida has a law banning guns in bars.  Perhaps a liberal can tell me why this crazed Muslim guy had the brazenness to violate that law--and those cute stickers that say "This is a gun-free zone."  It's just a total mystery.

And of course the anti-gun crowd blamed--not the shooter but the guns he used, and howled that all this could have been avoided if we'd just let the Democrats ban guns--which has been their agenda for a couple of decades now.

Obama plan--already running--will force cities to build low-income housing in middle-class neighborhoods

Unless you live in a city where commuting times are outrageous, or you're a hip millenial or gen-Xer, if you can afford it you've probably moved out of the inner city to where it's quieter, safer and the schools are infinitely better.

So...are you ready to move back to the inner city, where it's noisier and less safe--and more important, where the schools are such a disaster that girls are raped in bathrooms and students regularly punch out teachers?

No?  Ah, well...too bad for you, because in his final months in control of his wildly Constitution-shredding government, the emperor has started a program to bring inner city living to you.

Did that sentence make sense?  It shouldn't.  It sounds insane, and you should be mad as hell.  But sadly, in the age of Obama voters simply shrug and say "What can ya do, ya know?"

The emperor has announced plans to use three federal agencies to prod cities and states to build a low-income housing in middle-class suburbs.  And those agencies have already announced plans to force cities to build low-income housing--also known as "the projects"--in your neighborhood.

It’s part of a carefully-contrived plan at the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to expand a program it calls Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH).  The emperor has now expanded this program so that two other federal agencies--the Department of Transportation and the Department of Education--will also get into the act.

Under AFFH--and keep in mind, this is NOT a law but a decree issued by the agencies at the emperor's demand--any city or town that receives block grant funding from HUD to rezone neighborhoods must obey the federal diktat if they want to get the funds.  And of course all local pols always want that pot of federal gold, no matter the strings attached.

In a joint letter released at the beginning of the week, the secretaries of the three agencies--including Democratic golden child Julian Castro--said
We recognize that a growing body of research supports the benefits of socioeconomic and racial diversity in schools and communities, and that such diversity can help establish access points for opportunity and mobility.  We also recognize that children raised in concentrated poverty or in communities segregated by socioeconomic status or race or ethnicity have significantly lower social and economic mobility than those growing up in integrated communities.

“Rising economic segregation means that an increasing number of low-income households are located in distressed neighborhoods where they face challenges such as failing schools, high rates of crime, and inadequate access to services and jobs, making it harder for individuals and families to escape poverty.
They "suggest" that state and local educational agencies allow “boundary-free open enrollment or lottery schools when drawing school attendance boundaries, and selecting sites for such programs as charter schools or magnet schools.”

Connecticut Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy announced Wednesday he will introduce legislation that promotes “positive” research for federal monitoring over local community demographics.

Okay, so if inner-city schools have ghastly problems with sex assaults and students punching out teachers, what will your suburban schools--which will be compelled by the emperor's new program to accept out-of-control inner-city students--do differently that will magically transform problem students into good citizens?

That wasn't a rhetorical question, liberals.  Seriously, I'll wait while y'all tell us what new approach your brilliant school administrators will take to change outrageous and disruptive behavior to normal behavior.  You may have the best intentions, but tell us exactly what you'll do differently that will solve the problems being experienced by inner-city schools.

Remember, the emperor's Department of Ed won't let you suspend--or even discipline in any way--a greater percentage of minority students than others.  Cuz that's raaaacis'.  So...we eagerly await your grand plans.  Seriously.

June 11, 2016

Emperor proposes $10 per barrel tax on oil; media yawns

Obama minions say he's about to propose a tax on oil.

Democrats: "Yay!  Way to go, Excellency!  Tax those damned oil companies out of existence!  Make 'em pay for producing stuff that heats up the planet changes Earth's climate!"

Hmmm...  First, every serious economist (so we omit the ones whoring themselves out to the emperor, since they'll call up down if it helps the emperor get his awful ideas into law) knows that companies don't just absorb taxes, but pass them along to consumers.  So that means any tax on "oil" will be paid by...American citizens.

Wait, didn't the emperor say (years ago) that "I won't raise your taxes by a dime!"?  Why yes, he did, but never mind.

So how large a tax will his budget propose?  Aids tell the left-wing rag Politico it'll be $10.25 per barrel.

If we broadly estimate the current price of oil as $50 per barrel, that would amount to a 20 percent tax on oil.

Democrats:  "Yay!  Make those nasty oil companies scream for mercy!  Why do we need oil, anyway?  Everyone we know drives a Prius anyway, right?"

Well maybe folks who live in DC and NYC and never haul anything bigger than a poodle do, but those of us out here in flyover country need more range or cargo capacity than your cute li'l Prius.

BTW, best estimates are that a $10.25 per barrel tax on oil would increase the cost of gasoline by...25 cents a gallon.

Democrats:  "Yay!  Wait, what did you say?"

Yeah, that's right you dumb bastards.  Your emperor is about to pull the trigger on a proposal that would hike the price of gas by 25 cents a gallon.  This from a guy who once claimed he'd never raise taxes on the "middle class."  (And of course not on "the poor" either.)

FYI, right now the federal gruberment (that's not a typo--economist Jon Gruber famously said the Dems were only able to pass Obamacare because Americans were stupid and easily confused by the numbers) taxes gasoline at 18.5 cents per gallon, so the proposal will have the effect of raising that tax by 135 percent!

You have to admire the cunning--the sly cleverness--behind the way they did this:  If the emperor and his party imposed a 135% tax directly on gasoline, voters would revolt.  But by taxing oil, only a few people will be angry; most voters are too dumb to make the connection.  Hell, the articles I've read even use the phrase "Most economists assume..." that companies will pass this tax on to consumers, as if this is just some goofy economic theory that may not be true.

But just in case some blogger makes the connection, the emperor isn't calling it a tax, but a “fee” on every barrel of oil.   Here are the first two sentences of CNN's story on the proposal:
The White House on Thursday proposed a wave of clean transportation investments that would be paid for through a $10-per-barrel fee on oil.
The tax...would be paid for by oil companies.
The left-wing rag Politico joins CNN in calling this not a tax but a "fee"--or alternatively, a "surcharge that would be paid by oil companies but would presumably be passed along to consumers."

Wow, three layers of mislead in a single sentence.  Very impressive.

In case this much political cover wasn't enough to protect their Preciousssss, Politico goes even farther, noting that "There is no real chance that the Republican-controlled Congress will embrace Obama’s grand vision of climate-friendly mobility in an election year..."

But that's not the point.  Just by introducing the proposal, the Dems have a launching point for this weapon when Hillary takes over.

Democrat Ed Rendell, who was briefed about the plan, says it's "the boldest transportation blueprint since Eisenhower envisioned the interstates."

So raising the federal tax on a gallon of gas by 135%--more than doubling it--is "bold"?  Well to Dems, yes, because of the sly cleverness of taxing OIL instead of directly taxing gasoline--since they know not one voter in a thousand has enough knowledge to make the connection between the two.

Wait, maybe the emperor plans to use the huge revenue from this tax to "rebuild our crumbling infrastructure"--highways neglected due to scarce funds.  Yeah, dat's it.  See, he's brilliant!

Uh, no.  Instead aides say the bill will do things like increasing the number of "competitive grants" awarded for "multi-modal transportation projects with measurable economic and environmental benefits."

That's virtually the same type of bureau-babble the emperor used to give away billions of taxpayer dollars to croneys running "green energy" companies--virtually all of which are now bankrupt.

Similarly, the emperor will propose spending about $10 billion a year to "encourage local, regional and state governments to plan and build smarter infrastructure projects, including incentives to reduce carbon emissions through land-use planning, public transit, electric-vehicle charging, and other strategies."  He'd also fund a "Climate Smart Fund to reward states that make greener choices with existing federal dollars, as well as competitive grant programs to promote region-wide planning, more livable cities, and infrastructure projects with greater resilience to climate impacts."

Yeah, I don't see any possibility of corruption or croney-grant-suckage there, do you?
Finally, Obama will call for more than $2 billion in annual investments in clean transportation research and development, including efforts to deploy self-driving cars, charging stations for electric vehicles, greener airplanes, and other climate-friendly technologies. The thinking is that traditional transportation bills—including the five-year, $305 billion FAST Act that Obama signed in December after 36 consecutive short-term patches—basically pour federal dollars into band-aids for a decrepit system. The White House memo envisions a new approach that would develop a “more integrated, sophisticated and sustainable transportation sector,” financing forward-looking projects like rapid bus lines under development in Indianapolis and Richmond, or a massive transit expansion in Denver.

“We’re still living in a vision that was great for its time, but not for this time,” one senior administration official said. “This is a new vision. We’re realistic about the near-term prospects in Congress, but we think this can change the debate.”
Politico goes on to blame Republicans if they should vote against a single aspect of the emperor's brilliant proposal, "even though it would be phased in over five years, and would include relief for low-income families and Northeastern households that transition away from heating oil."

So yet again--as with Obamacare--the emperor imposes another tax on working Americans but will create an elaborate system to reimburse his Dem voters from paying that tax.

Finally, in case any of you still doubts that Democrat want you to drive less--a LOT less--and see raising taxes on oil and gasoline as a good way to do this, consider this argument from the Huffington Post in support of the "fee":
Finally, and most importantly, it could save lives.
Gas prices were high between 2010 and 2014, then there was a sharp drop, with prices way lower than people were used to for most of 2015.
What happens when gas prices rise? People drive less. That means not only less air pollution but also fewer traffic deaths.
In the first nine months of 2015, 26,000 people died in traffic accidents, a 9.3 percent increase from the same period in 2014. By contrast, annual traffic deaths fell by 22 percent between 2000 and 2014, according to the Department of Transportation
[S]afety is something Americans should be willing to pay for.
Didja get that?  Raising the price of gas is actually great because not only will it clean up the air, it will cut traffic deaths.

Gosh, your emperor is so thoughtful!  Here you thought you were getting a bad deal from hiking the tax you pay for driving, but actually he's saving your life AND cleaning up the air.  Oh, and also cutting global warming--so he can fly on Air Force One to more vacations.

So have you heard about this proposal?  No?  Well that's certainly...odd, dontcha think?  I mean, don't you think a proposal to raise the federal tax on gasoline by 135% is pretty...newsworthy?  Let alone all that wonderful, wonderful bureau-babble about the wonderful things the emperor plans to do with all that new tax revenue.  Yet you never heard a word about it, did you?

Must be because the proposal was just made Friday, eh?  No, the HuffPoS article was posted February 11th, so the proposal has been around for 4 months, so....

You didn't hear about it because you weren't supposed to:  the proposal wasn't intended for you.  The "mainstream media" know roughly 70% of Americans would strongly oppose this, so telling 'em about it would have hurt Hillary's chances in November.  Best keep it quiet til after the election.  THEN we can spring it on the rubes, eh?

June 09, 2016

State Department claims it would take 75 YEARS to find and turn over Clinton emails to 3 top aides

If not classified under formal national security rules, e-mails to and from government employees on government computers are supposed to be open to the public.  But as with many other laws, the emperor's regime doesn't want to comply with this one either.

 So...in response to stonewalling by Hillary and Obama's State Department, the Republican National Committee made a request to the emperor's state department under the so-called Freedom of Information Act, asking for copies of all emails between Hillary's 3 closest top aides and the queen herself while she was secstate. 

Predictably, the State Department didn't respond, so the RNC filed a lawsuit demanding that these public records be produced--something the law requires the government to do.

Faced with the lawsuit--and ONLY because if you don't respond to a lawsuit you usually lose by default--two days ago the state department responded.  And it said..."we estimate that it would take 75 years to fulfill this request from the Republican National Committee for emails of three top Hillary Clinton aides."

Excuse me?  75 years to produce those emails?  This is absurd.  An insult.  Hell, it only took 'em 4 years to created the damn things in in the first place.

State Department spokesman Mark Toner admitted the estimate was shocking but said it's accurate because the RNC's request is "very complex," a "very broad range involving a number of people over a period of four years.

The emails being sought are between Hillary and three of her former aides: Cheryl Mills, Jacob Sullivan and Patrick Kennedy.
Brazenly defying U.S. law like this is one more sure sign that the emperor's minions--and indeed, all Democrats--have nothing but contempt for the law, and voters, and know there won't be any consequences for telling the people to fuck off.  Any reasonably competent computer programmer could write a routine in 3 hours that would flag all emails from any of the aids to Hillary, or vice-versa.  To whine and lie and say it would take 75 years is such an egregious lie that someone should be fired or jailed for trying that bullshit.

But such is life under the obscene rule of emperor Obama.

Mob attacks in San Jose--and the mayor's stand-down order--show that Democracy itself is under attack

How do you know when you've just witnessed a key historical moment--a "game changer"?  Consider the brutal attacks on unarmed civilians who wanted to hear what Trump had to say in San Jose last week. 

The attack by a mob estimated at 350 the thugs in San Jose--armed with bags of rocks, eggs and garbage to throw, as well as fists and kicks, and carrying Mexican flags--was nothing less than an effort by the Left and Democrats to intimidate anyone who wanted to hear what the GOP presidential nominee had to say. 

That by itself is an outrage--a rape of Democracy.  But it was made far worse by the fact that the Democrat mayor of San Jose seems to have ordered the cops to take no action to protect the folks who came to hear Trump speak.  That is, he allowed the mob to attack the Trump fans with virtually no police intervention.

Of the scores of individual attacks--including rioters hitting people with rocks and eggs--the cops made a grand total of 4 arrests.

Democracy itself is under attack, by the Dems and the Left.  When partisan politicians--in this case the Democrat mayor of San Jose--allow a mob to get away with throwing rocks and eggs, democracy is finished--because the next step is stationing thugs with clubs outside polling places to intimidate voters who look like they're unlikely to vote "correctly."

The first issue in this election was how the two major political parties could nominate such awful candidates, but the major issue has now become the assault on democracy, and the question of whether the latter will survive.

The clearest indication that you've just witnessed a "game-changer" is when you realize there is suddenly no way back how things were before.  That seems to be what happened last week in San Jose.

Politicians in the Democrat party seem mostly unconcerned about both events in San Jose--both the mob attacks and the mayor ordering the cops to stand down.  As far as Democrats are concerned both events were actually good thing, since they'll reduce turnout for Trump rallies, and thus reduce the number of fraudulent votes Dems will need to fabricate.  And after all, Democrats know you can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs--or heads.  When it comes to winning the presidency, what are a few small mob attacks, eh?


H/T Richard Fernandez at PJ media.

June 07, 2016

Emperor keeps telling whoppers

Last week the emperor gave a speech in Indiana, intended, he said, “to bust this myth of crazy, liberal government spending.”  Robert Knight was recording. 
“So [my opponents'] basic story is: America’s working class, America’s middle class — families like yours — have been victimized by a big, bloated federal government run by a bunch of left-wing elitists like me. And the government is taking your hard-earned tax dollars and it’s giving them to freeloaders and welfare cheats. And we’re strangling business with endless regulations. And this federal government is letting immigrants and foreigners steal whatever jobs Obamacare hasn’t killed yet.”
Obama also boasted of cutting “unemployment in half, years before a lot of economists thought we would.”  But in the real America--the nation outside the Beltway--you can see boarded-up buildings and talk to people who have given up looking for work.

According to the emperor's administration the unemployment rate is 4.7 percent.  But a year ago in February, Gallup CEO Jim Clifton said his polls showed unemployment running nearly double the then-reported official figure of 5.6 percent.  “The official unemployment rate is extremely misleading,” he wrote, lambasting the media, the White House and even Wall Street for “the big lie.”

Then later--astonishingly--he retracted his statement on CNBC, saying the government was right and “I need to make that very, very clear so that I don’t suddenly disappear. I need to make it home tonight.”


The president’s speech in Elkhart was so full of whoppers that it’s a wonder lightning didn’t strike him on the spot. Here are more, most of which need no comment:

• “I’m going to start with the biggest myth, which is that the federal government keeps growing and growing and growing, and wasting your money and giving your tax dollars to people who don’t deserve it.”

• “Today, the average family’s health insurance premium is $2,600 less than it would have been if premiums had kept on going up at the pace before Obamacare.”

The laughably mis-named Affordable Care Act canceled millions of perfectly good health insurance policies, and forced the millions whose policies were so cancelled to buy new, more expensive policies with huge deductibles. Meanwhile 13 of 23 Obamacare state "health co-ops" have failed, costing taxpayers billions of dollars. The rest are on life support.


• “Right now the number of people trying to cross our border illegally is near its lowest level in 40 years.”

Bullshit.  Illegal entries are up 50 percent in the last two years alone.

• “Immigrants pay a lot more in taxes than they receive in services.”
• “Middle-class families have paid lower federal income tax rates during my presidency than during any other time since the 1950s.”

If the middle class has it so good, how do you explain this next statement?
“Let’s face it — a lot of Americans don’t have retirement savings. They’re just barely paying the bills.”
Could that be because government is confiscating so much?

Economy added just 38,000 jobs in May; concensus estimate had expected 155,000. Media unconcerned.

Unless you're a political junkie you probably don't pay any attention to the monthly job report issued by the Gruberment's Labor Department.  I don't blame you--they're not exactly exciting.  But they tell you a lot about what's happening.

For those of you too busy making a living or raising your kids to wade thru that stuff, here's a summary:  Businesses constantly fail or downsize, producing people who need a job.  And new high school and college grads enter the labor market each year.  Just to find jobs for those in both classes, the concensus of economists is that businesses need to create or fill about 225,000 new jobs each month. 

Again, that's just to stay even.  If fewer new jobs are created, the number of unemployed Americans should rise.

Economists are paid to estimate the strength of the economy, and to estimate the number of new jobs they expect each month.  For May the concensus estimate was 155,000 or so.  Turns out the economy didn't do quite that well last month.

In fact last month the economy added just 38,000 jobs.

No, I didn't drop a "1" before the 3.  The official figure--reported by the Democrat minions in the Labor Department--was just 38,000.

Furthermore, the same Labor Department that reports last month's jobs numbers also revises the initial job creation figures for the two months prior to the one just ended, to account for later updates.  And virtually every time during the emperor's reign, these revisions are in one direction:  Down.

Sure enough, the recent jobs report revised March and April figures downward--by 59,000.

So they 'vaporized' 20,000 more jobs in correcting too-generous jobs reports from prior months than the entire economy added in May.  Interesting...
 Now: For the past seven years Team Obama and their media supporters have kept telling us that the economy is booming!  Absolutely roaring.  Wow, too, too, great!  And true to form, all the major networks reported that this was simply not possible.  "There has to be an error someplace."  Anything to support their faaabulous emperor and his divinely brilliant policies.

For example, after a one-sentence lede 'graf here's how the LA Times quickly jumped to Obama's defense:
But economists cautioned not to overreact to a single bad jobs report...."It’s kind of a yellow flag, I wouldn't call it a red flag,” said Stuart Hoffman, chief economist at PNC Financial Services.  “It’s not time to panic,” he said.

Still, the weak numbers bolster Republican arguments that President Obama and his fellow Democrats haven’t been able to fully revive the economy after the Great Recession.
Note the cunning inference in italics:  According to the Times "Obama and his fellow Democrats"  have actually revived the economy, but the mean Rethuglicans "argue" that he and the Dems haven't been able to do so fully.

One wonders how the Times would have reported this exact performance had it occurred under G.W. Bush.

So with the disastrous job performance, you might expect unemployment to rise.  Surprise!  The "official" unemployment rate declined--not just by a tenth of a percent, but by a whopping 0.3 percent.

And most of you believe that, because you're convinced "your" government--like your emperor--wouldn't lie to you--at least not so brazenly.

Did we mention that over 37% of work-force-age Americans have given up looking for work?  Yep.  That's the highest percentage in 40 years, and the highest actual numbers of people ever.  And even the Times realizes they'll lose all credibility if they don't at least mention it.  So they do--in the 30th paragraph:
...a large number of people dropped out of the labor force for the second straight month.  About 458,000 people gave up looking for work in May, pushing the percentage of working-age Americans in the labor force to near a four-decade low of 62.6%.

That was the main reason why the unemployment rate in May fell to 4.7%, the lowest since 2007.

So to review:  Economy needs about 225,000 new jobs each month.  The concensus forecast was for about 155,000, which is way under the break-even level.  But in the brave new world of governmedia no one calls this a shitty economy, because that would make the emperor and his party look bad.

Then when the real figure is released showing just 38,000 new jobs--less than one-fourth of the concensus forecast, and barely one-sixth of the level needed to break even--it barely gets a mention on the nightly network "news."

And keep in mind that these numbers came from the emperor's own Labor Department--which has every reason to make the emperor look great, and no reason at all to bias their reports against his brilliance.

Ah, but not to worry:  Next month they can always revise those numbers up the whatever the governmedia thinks will look good.

June 06, 2016

San Jose: Did the Democrat mayor order cops to stand down and let Mexican mob beat Trump attendees?


For those of you who depend on the tv networks for your news, you may have missed an event of nation-shattering significance:  In San Jose Trump was giving a speech at a local convention center.  About 300 to 350 anti-Trump protesters--waving Mexican flags and carrying signs written in Spanish--massed outside and started beating attendees.

While that's unconscionable and should result in death sentences, it's what we've come to expect from La Raza and Leftists in general.  No, the shattering thing was that someone ordered the cops not to intervene--i.e. to let the mob beat and stomp heads and egg defenseless people as they wished.

I'll repeat that because you probably didn't get the significance:  At a rally, the Left started attacking people, and instead of the cops arresting the folks who were assaulting the victims, someone ordered the cops to stand down.

That someone seems to be the Democrat mayor of San Jose, a golden boy named Sam Liccardo.  Astonishingly, this asshole initially blamed Trump for the assaults, claiming that he said things that incited the thugs, who were absolutely compelled to attack, because...well, he wasn't clear on the why, but certainly he didn't blame the largely-Mexican mob.

In this case the mayor issued a statement that said, in effect, "Well, we couldn't go arresting these fine folks because we were afraid that might incite the mob."

Except the press release used "insight"--which is sorta' ironic since that seems to be missing in Democrat circles.

Folks, we've just crossed the Rubicon.  (If you graduated from a public high school after 1980 or so you'll probably need to google that.)  When the mayor of a city--and a strong partisan--orders cops to pull back and let a mob beat people at will, the law effectively no longer exists.  That is, it is used only to control and jail YOU, but will allow others to plunder you at their leisure.

Although the Left is dumber than dirt on many topics, they're super-quick to detect when the cops are standing around with their thumbs up their asses instead of being "regular cops." 

In this case they learned that they can attack and physically beat those who have opposing political views, and get away with it--simply by being in a Democrat-run city.  Cool, huh.

I'm not a Trump fan, but this shit should be met with a firing squad.  Instantly.

So the takeaway:  the cops won't protect you from Leftist thugs.  'Nuff said.

The insanity continues--part 584,695

While your attention was diverted by news stories about a gang of 350 Mexican nationals beating up U.S. citizens who were attending a Trump rally in San Jose, California (Republic of Northern Mexico), the emperor's minions pulled yet another fast one on ya.

Before last month, when illegal aliens entered the U.S.--illegally, in case any of the special snowflakes were a bit confused on that point--Homeland Security would hold 'em in dorms (and in one case in a resort) near the border while it asked 'em the most basic questions trying to establish whether they were who they purported to be.  A second purpose was a quarantine to see whether they had obvious signs of infectious diseases before they were released into the entire U.S. population.

But according to Judicial Watch, Border Patrol sources report that last week (DHS) began releasing illegals with no vetting or quarantine period at all, just quietly transporting illegal immigrants from the Mexican border to Phoenix and releasing them at the bus station.

This is a concern because one-third of Syrian refugees (for example) sent to Vermont tested positive for tuberculosis, which is far more common in third-world countries than it is here.

Of course the Obama regime advised the state government of Vermont about this known problem, and asked the state to advise its citizens to take proper health safety measures, which at least minimized the possibility of passing this often-fatal disease to Americans.

OH WAIT, the emperor's minions did no such thing.  As far as is known, no one at the federal level said jack-shit about any TB problems.

Your emperor is infinitely wise--at least according to his fellators in the mainstream media.  The only way he could not have realized this was a problem was if his minions at DHS, ICE, CDC and all the other alphabet nightmares failed to tell him.  If they failed, they should all be fired.

But if they told him...if they told him and he still allowed illegal f'n immigrants with f'n TB, fer cryin' out loud, to settle in the U.S.--often wherever they liked--this is a crime of the first order.

Which is to say, business as usual for the emperor.

June 04, 2016

Bill in California senate would have made it a crime to cast doubt that global warming is caused by oil, gas & coal

The Left--more specifically the Democratic party--is trying to make speech it doesn't like illegal.

Of course you think that's tinfoil-hat stuff, utterly impossible.  Hyperbole.  A fiction designed to scare voters into voting Republican.  But it's not.

The Democrat-controlled California legislature has been considering a bill to make it illegal to utter or publish material dissenting from the Leftist dogma that the Earth's climate is heating up changing in a dangerous manner, and that the overwheming cause is humans burning oil, gas and coal.

It's called the "California Climate Science Truth and Accountability Act of 2016," Senate Bill 1161,  and it would have authorized prosecutors to sue fossil fuel companies, think tanks and others that, in the bill's language, have “deceived or misled the public on the risks of climate change.”  The bill stated “There is broad scientific consensus that anthropogenic global warming is occurring and changing the world’s climate patterns, and that the primary cause is the emission of greenhouse gases from the production and combustion of fossil fuels, such as coal, oil, and natural gas.” It also claimed that there is no legitimate disagreement on the causes and extent of climate change.

People who still think politicians--at every level--in this country retain at least a modicum of sanity immediately counter that such a law would immediately be ruled unconstitutional--you know, that old meaningless piece of paper called the Constitution says something about free speech not being infringed--whatever that means.

Silly people!  When you seek to force pols to obey the Constitution--or indeed, any law--you are defenseless as babes against tigers.  Pols know how to craft words to get what they want, the Constitution notwithstanding.

See, the Democrats who drafted the bill making criticizing "climate change" a crime--which cleared two Senate committees--couched it as coming under the state’s Unfair Competition Law.  And who could possibly defend "unfair competition," right?

The senate Rules Committee’s floor analysis of the bill described it like this:
“This bill explicitly authorizes district attorneys and the Attorney General to pursue UCL claims alleging that a business or organization has directly or indirectly engaged in unfair competition with respect to scientific evidence regarding the existence, extent, or current or future impacts of anthropogenic induced climate change.” 
Didja get that?  No?  Well that's because this and all modern laws are written in a language that's deliberately designed to be impossible for ordinary citizens to understand.  They do this because if written in clear language, the rape of the Constitutional right would be so fucking obvious to everyone that no legislator would be safe.

The criminalization of "climate dissent" is where the bill implicitly defines dissent from the Left's version of climate change as unfair competition.

The bill is a cunning variation of the legal theory used by national Democrats and activist groups to use the legal system to prosecute climate change dissent under the theory that any such dissent is actually fraud.

A coalition of 17 state attorneys general, including California Attorney General Kamala Harris, have joined forces to pursue climate change skeptics. At least four state attorney-generals prosecutors  have launched investigations into Exxon Mobil and the Competitive Enterprise Institute under this novel idea that criticizing the dogma of AGW--formerly "global warming," now "climate change"--is “fraud.”

The bill is considered dead for the moment because the senate failed to take it up before the deadline.  However, the same language could be reintroduced under a waiver of the rules or inserted into another bill as part of the gut-and-amend process.

Ah yes, the "gut and amend process."  They taught you about that one in high school civics, right?  It was one of the amendments to the Constitution or something.

I suspect Hillary's minions called the senate's top officer--a Democrat--and urged him to delay this bill until after the election, since passing it before then might alarm a few thousand voters--meaning it would require that much more work to manufacture ballots to offset the lost votes. 

And of course we know Hillary is all about efficiency.

Descent continues...part gazillion

How far down the toilet bowl is the U.S.?  I offer the following for your consideration:

  • The supreme court declared (some years ago, in fact) that burning an American flag is "free speech," thus protected.  But burning a Mexican flag is considered a hate crime.   
  • High school students in the Peoples' Republic of California have been suspended from school for wearing a T-shirt with a pic of the American flag.  Leftist school administrators claim that wearing such a shirt causes bad feelings in illegal alien students, or students who have recently immigrated.  Of course once upon a time people who came to this country were expected to become Americans, and not to resent the flag.  But those times are gone, thanks to the Left.
  • In the totally wacked-out state of Rhode Island, a local "official"...well, here:
In Rhode Island some firefighters fly the U.S. flag on their trucks.  But a local official has compared this to ISIS flying its black flag on their vehicles, and has told firefighters not to fly the American flag from their trucks.

"They look like a bunch of yahoos," Gralinski said at a board meeting. "Like in the paper, like ISIS in Syria going to take over a city. I don’t think they need that big flag on the back of the truck. That’s not America to me. Those are a bunch of terrorists. So, I’m going to ask you to take the flag off that truck."

Gralinski later said through a spokesman that he chose his words poorly and apologized.
I know, I know...it's just a piece of cloth, right?  At least that's what teachers and judges keep telling us.  Means nothing at all.  Can be burned with impunity.  But can't be worn to school, or flown from a fire truck.  You might try asking why the fuck not.