Sarah Palin predicted the Ukraine invasion. Obama predicted 7 million Obamacare enrollment.

Yes, I could see this one from Alaska. I'm usually not one to Told-Ya-So, but I did, despite my accurate... http://t.co/H3H8t6d8hi
— Sarah Palin (@SarahPalinUSA) February 28, 2014

Sarah Palin may not be able to see Russia from her living room but she has a better insight into the behavior of the repressive Russian police state than the whole damn US intelligence community and she does it all without collecting metadata. She posted this on Face Book;

Yes, I could see this one from Alaska. I’m usually not one to Told-Ya-So, but I did, despite my accurate prediction being derided as “an extremely far-fetched scenario” by the “high-brow” Foreign Policy magazine. Here’s what this “stupid” “insipid woman” predicted back in 2008: “After the Russian Army invaded the nation of Georgia, Senator Obama’s reaction was one of indecision and moral equivalence, the kind of response that would only encourage Russia’s Putin to invade Ukraine next.

This speech was made in October of 2008.

About that ego trip to Capitol Hill?

All those empty seats are senators who are not prioritizing Alzheimer's. Unless more noise is made, it won't change. pic.twitter.com/xDW6tlMHmH
— Seth Rogen (@Sethrogen) February 26, 2014

Let's hope this news spreads and then maybe we'll see less celebrity testimony on Capitol Hill. It takes quite a bit of vanity to assume that subject not the speaker bores people especially when the speaker is an actor- comedian. Could it be the senator are not prioritizing Seth Rogen? I'm sure playing to an empty house is no fun but, hey, that's show biz. We all have personal tragedies in our lives but most of us do not expect to have 100 senators, most of them awake, listening to our personal travails. Did Rogen think Barbara Boxer was going to pass him a Kleenex? or that John McCain would even knows who he was? or that Kelly Ayotte would grant him a private audience? Hell yes he did and he is damn disappointed.
So how did Rogen handle his diappointment. By going to Twitter to cry.

Not sure why only two senators were at the hearing. Very symbolic of how the Government views Alzheimer's. Seems to be a low priority.
— Seth Rogen (@Sethrogen) February 26, 2014

 Maybe keeping comedians happy is a low priority.

They think you're stupid because you are

  Well, now, this is just embarrassing.
  The Obama people gave us the ridiculously dependent and easily spoofed Julia campaign, depicting a young woman who couldn't do anything without government assistance and couldn't seem to keep a man around the house.
  Maybe she couldn't because the man was like the "insufferable man child" Pajama Boy who arrived on the scene advertising Obamacare with his cold tootsies tucked into his footies and bearing a cuppa cocoa with marshmallows, presumably the little colored ones.
  Then there are the bros and hos advertisements that appeal to only the most cro-magnon among us who think copulating like animals with whom or whatever walks by the desk is the most noble way to exist .
  And don't forget the cutesy Obamacare animal advertisements that are all over the internet, the target demographic of whom are young women, though one has to assume these are young women over the age of 26 once they're off their parents' insurance. 
  Insulting? Creepy? Infantilizing?
  Uh, yeah.
  Speaking of sickeningly sweet, digest this.

  Well, keep 'em stupid and laughing at cat videos.
  Most recently Michelle Obama went on the Jimmy Fallon show to advertise kale chips and dancing as exercise.
  Wow. Is this an improvement on Jay Leno or what? I mean, can you stand it?
  <squeal> Don't you love her new drawn on eyebrows? The ones that aren't drawn on devilishly pointed? They're called "boyish brows" and we're lovin' em!
  Like, ew! 
  This is comedy in its truest, most intellectual form, guys!!!
   
   And now, even in the midst of war, a complete upheaval and takeover of Ukraine and the advance of Russian ships below the coast of Florida, the American president shows us how to work it, baby!
  Running for 45 seconds in a tie and pleated plants! Now that's a workout, topped off with that 8 ounce glass of water! Is that even better than a cat video or what? For a guy who wears mom jeans, he must be sweating! 
  Well, now, America, I realize the title of this post is objectionable.
  But YOU elected this man...twice.
  As an elderly retiree, I have determined I will have #nosympathy for you because you bought this guy's shtick , you might say, ho-sale, and now you're paying for it. 
  If you'd done your homework, you'd have known what a poseur this guy and his liberty grabbing commies were.
  So, yeah, you're stupid. 
  It's just the way they want you.
  Bah.

The Rand Paul counter attack

One perceptive Kentuckian noticed that during the primary run for the senate that Trey Grayson, the GOP establishment's candidate began every stump speech with a reference to UK basketball and or the Kentucky Derby while Rand Paul never did. Now mister Grayson has plenty of time to sip mint juleps at Churchill Downs while he regales the glory days of Adolph Rupp. Rand Paul is a different breed of cat with a natural aversion to Mickey Mouse games. He is the anti Obama candidate. Instead of fawning over the crease in his trousers pundits write that he looks as if he slept in his suit. He does not indulge in soaring oratory about sea levels ceasing to rise and he doesn't seem interested in being a friend to the rich and famous. Denouncing Ted Nugent came natural to him as he has little use for celebrity endorsements. His modus operandi is subtlety and in that respect he could give Dun Scotus lessons.
In an interview with Vogue Paul’s wife, Kelley opined that Bill Clinton's "predatory" behavior in the White House could derail Hillary's fast train to Washington.
“I would say his behavior was predatory, offensive to women,” she said.
When asked about it on Meet the Press Paul defended his wife's comments;
“The Democrats, one of the big issues they’ve concocted is saying Republicans are committing a war on women,” he said. “One of the workplace laws and rules that, I think, is good is that bosses shouldn't’t prey on young interns in their office.”
“This isn’t having an affair. I mean, this isn’t me saying, 'He’s having an affair, and we shouldn’t talk to him,' ” he continued. “Someone who takes advantage of a young girl in their office? I mean, really, and then they have the gall to stand up and say, 'Republicans are having a war on women?' ”
Everyone thought the matter was over but it was just beginning. Of course, they reasoned, he had to defend his wife's position but somewhere along the Paul saw a tactical opening.
Paul is clever enough to know that if you want to kill a dog to give it a bad name first but the media has no idea which dog he wants to kill. The dog Paul has in his sights is Alison Lundergan Grimes not Hillary Rodham Clinton. By killing Grimes in her bid to unseat fellow Kentuckian Mitch McConnell Paul would win the gratitude of the establishment GOP without ever having to say a kind word about McConnell. It goes well beyond Grimes and Kentucky. Obama is anathema in red states many of which have senate races so nervous Democrats have enlisted Bill Clinton to do their talking for them. If Paul can paint Bill Clinton as a dirty old man he can deprive them of a much needed asset. He will do a number on Bill while the friendly media defends Hillary. Will he succeed? Probably not entirely but just knee capping Bill Clinton, making him have to defend his actions in the White House to the local media, cannot be helpful to struggling Democrats.
Not content to stop with Clinton, Paul has dug up another dirty old man, Woody Allen.
In “Kentucky, we’re not quite Hollywood as far as accepting sort of different kind of things like that. Woody Allen is apparently a big contributor of hers, too. Woody Allen has been now accused of you know having relations with his children,” Paul said. “That’s not really acceptable in Kentucky. And I think she has to decide whether she’s representing Kentucky or Hollywood.”
It's as fair as the Democrats attacking the Koch brothers. Expect to see more of the Paul counter attack in the war on women.

Cory Gardner puts Colorado senate seat in play

Congressman Cory Gardner will run for senate.
This is a game changer! Rep. Cory Gardner has given the Republican's "expand the map" strategy a huge boost. In Colorado, incumbent Sen. Mark Udall has polled fairly well against the second string field of primary senate candidates but now the Republicans have a big dog in the fight. Upon hearing Gardner's announcement two candidates, Amy Stephens and Ken Buck dropped out of the race. State Senator Owen Hill remains in the race and accused Gardner of making "backroom deals". At one point Gardner was a favorite of the Tea Party Express. That came to an end during the government shutdown when Gardner backed out of a scheduled rally with the Tea Party Express earning the wrath of Erick Erickson who called him a weasel.
Ken Buck, who ran for the senate in 2010, will seek Gardner's seat and has endorsed him. Amy Stephens calls him a uniter. "I told Cory 'I think you're the great uniter. I think you come to the table with resources quadruple of Ken and me and everyone else.' I said 'I do not want to divide this party,'" she said.
Notwithstanding the differences he may have with Erickson and the Tea Party Express, Gardner is no RINO, at least on his voting record. Compare his voting record as compiled by Congressional Quarterly.

	Presidential Support	Presidential Opposition	Participation in Presidential Support Votes.
Trey Gowdy	8	92	99
Jim Jordan	8	92	99
Justin Amash	25	75	99
Michele Bachmann	13	87	93
Cory Gardner	12	88	99

 

No immunity for Lois Lerner

There will be no immunity for Lois Lerner; at least not without her cooperation in the investigation. Intuitively we have all known that she was at the center of the IRS scandal ever since it became know that she planted the question at the ABA tax seminar. As Rep. Trey Gowdy points out immunity will come at a price. One suspects that Democrats would like to keep a lid on this scandal at least until after the mid terms. Lerner and her attorney must be aware that Obama will not be president forever and that this case would move forward under any Republican administration when she could face the prospect of spending the rest of her life in jail.

Can Jolly David Sink Alex?

There is a danger of reading too much into a special election but yesterday's election to fill a vacant representative's seat for the Virginia's 100th district was a clear win for Republicans and a stinging defeat for Democrats. Robert Bloxom coasted to an easy win, taking 60 % of the vote in his first quest for elective office. Clearly something is amiss. Barack Obama carried this seat by 10 points in 2012 and more recently Terry McAuliffe won it 48% to 46%.
Is this a harbinger of a wave election this fall? Does it signify an in-your-face rejection of Obamacare? Are Democrats suffering from voter fatigue as possibly evidenced by their low turnout? Unequivocally maybe.
Maybe what happens in Virginia Beach stays in Virginia Beach but the results of Florida's special election to fill the vacant seat created by the death of Congressman Bill Young should provide more guidance. Stuart Rothenberg who publishes the authoritative Rothenberg Report has called it a must win seat for the Democrats.

It’s rare in politics that anything other than a presidential contest is viewed as a “must win” — but the special election in Florida’s 13th District falls into that category for Democrats.
A loss in the competitive March 11 contest would almost certainly be regarded by dispassionate observers as a sign that President Barack Obama could constitute an albatross around the neck of his party’s nominees in November. And that could make it more difficult for Democratic candidates, campaign committees and interest groups to raise money and energize the grass roots.

The Democrats have gone with their heaviest hitter, Alex Sink. She is a top shelf candidate who lost to Rick Scott in the governor's race by a mere 61,550 votes out of 5.3 million cast. The Republicans fielded a former congressional aide turned lobbyist, David Jolly. Obama has twice carried the district and it should be an easy win for Sink except it isn't.
Early voting has already begun and 64,000 ballots have been received. Of these 42% have been cast by Republicans and 39% by Democrats but Republicans have been there before. In 2012 Republicans held a 6 percent lead yet Obama, with his massive get out the vote campaign, won the district but so did  Young. This election neither Obama nor Young are on the ballot and a low voter turnout could sink the Sink.
 

Biden to run on World Peace

  If Joe Biden runs for president in 2016, as he said there's a 50/50 chance he might, there are many reasons he will be an attractive candidate, he explained today on "The View," where Barbara Walters greeted him with a hug and the declaration that he is a a "superb" Vice President, a "fact" she says no one can deny.
  Biden's reasons for being a "superb" candidate for POTUS are as follows:
He's spearheaded many projects, particularly that spectacular withdrawal from Iraq.
He has great amount of "knowledge of foreign policy."
He's had a great deal of "engagement with foreign leaders."
There was that great report on Obamacare from the CBO, if you can get "beyond" the job numbers.
Single mothers can stay home with their kids because they'll have free health care. Or something.
Obamacare's a "great program."
Obamacare's "about freedom."
His wife supports his run.
  There seems to be some cognitive dissonance here. 
  Iraq's a mess; even Malaki asked for help the other day.
  Has Biden been sent around the world as a foreign policy leader representing the US and Barack Obama? Guess we missed that.
  Does Biden not know that millions have already lost their jobs and will lose their jobs because of Obamacare?
  Does Biden not realize how high the unemployment rate is, and that the underemployment rate is devastating?
  Well, etcetera.
  There's more but I'll stop at this laugher.
  Biden says he's running on Obama's agenda of world peace......"my experience uniquely positions me to follow through on the agenda Barack and I have of bringing world peace that is real and substantive....”
  Um. 
  Ya looked out the door lately, Biden? 
UPDATE: In my haste to take advantage of the intermittent wi-fi here, I neglected to mention that Biden also covered himself with, well, laughter last night on Late Night with Seth Myers, complete with error upon error, and even taking second billing behind another SNL alum.
  All in all, a couple of auspicious performances.

Kesha Rogers, a new kind of Democrat!

Kesha Rogers certainly breaks the old Democratic stereotype. While Wendy Davis has grabbed the national headlines in her quest for the Texas governor's mansion Rogers has persevered in her quest to face John Cornyn in the senate race. A loyal disciple of Lyndon LaRouche, she won her primary for congress in 2010 only to be ignored by the Texas Democratic Party. Members were not required to support her, nor was she to be recognized at party meetings or mentioned on the party website's list of candidates. The resolution cited the "illegal activities, discriminatory proclamations and thuggish behavior" of the LaRouche movement.
They may get away with that in a little watched congressional race but when she faces John Cornyn she will be hard to ignore especially with bold photographs such as this.



It's doubtful Obama, with his low poll numbers, will campaign for Rogers but I suspect she will run better against Cornyn than many expect. She launched this ad during her congressional campaign. I doubt if Cornyn has the cojones to top it.

“Super-Ego-Genocidal-Narcissist-Psychosis!”

Connecticut Governor, Attorney General, Senator and Congresswoman Subpoenaed in RICO Case

This could get embarrassing. More than a year ago on this blog I reported that Connecticut Governor Dan Malloy appeared at an SEIU rally in support of striking workers at a Healthbridge's 8 nursing home facilities. Also walking picket for the SEIU was Attorney General George Jepsen who refused to investigate charges of vandalism and patient abuse when SIEU employees removed elderly patients' identification bracelets and tampered with patients' medical records. Jespen said that was all a matter for local police. Anyway that his office isn't responsible for enforcing the law at nursing homes and besides that he was recusing himself since he had walked picket with the SEIU.

“There is no need for appointment of a special counsel. The Department of Public Health is the agency with authority to investigate adverse events at nursing homes. Healthbridge told the Office of the Attorney General that it was making a report to DPH. DPH confirmed with the OAG that it was aware of the reports and was looking into them. To the extent Healthbridge is asking for a criminal investigation, the OAG does not have criminal authority and Healthbridge should report the matter to the Chief State’s Attorney’s Office. Apparently Healthbridge has confused the OAG and the Chief State’s Attorney’s office. It was the latter, not the OAG, that investigated reports in 2001. Referral to law enforcement is consistent with the role of that office in 2001. The Attorney General has a responsibility to represent the broader public interest and his participation today was aimed at drawing attention to important issues in hopes of expediting resolution of the conflict. Because Attorney General Jepsen has walked the picket line, he has recused himself from any legal matters involving Healthbridge and SEIU. The Office of the Attorney General, however, continues to serve as counsel to the Department of Public Health. If the agency’s investigation results in a request for legal assistance, the office is certainly prepared to provide it.”

We are not talking about dirty bed pans or how often the bed linens are changed but rather criminal vandalism and patient abuse. Now, to quote an often quoted mentor of the president, "the chickens have come home to roost". Healthbridge has filed suit under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) and the list of those served with subpoenas looks like Who's Who in Connecticut Politics. HealthBridge subpoenaed Jepsen and Malloy’s office, plus both of their campaign committees, Senator Richard Blumenthal, Congresswoman. Rosa DeLauro, state Senator John Fonfara and state Representative Russ Morin.



Election year and you are involved in a RICO case! The suit was filed in federal district court in New Jersey, the home state of the plaintiff. Lead attorney representing Healthbridge is Rosemary Alito, sister of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito.


The suit makes it clear that this is no ordinary labor dispute. Better yet it attached a copy of the SEIU's Contract Campaign Manual which advocates breaking the law.

The Manual is the antithesis of the orderly process established under the National Labor Relations Act, 29 U.S.C. § 151 et seq.(“NLRA”).
The Manual, which was attached as an exhibit to the pleading in a similar RICO action filed against the SEIU and other affiliated unions
and individuals, condones and encourages illegal, immoral and unethical behavior in the pursuit of the unions’ goals. It instructs SEIU members, and members of its affiliated local unions, to destroy businesses, ruin reputations, and invoke legal process improperly. It candidly admits that
breaking the law is often required and glamorizes extortionate behavior.

This is damning! One wonder why the union would let such a document exist. It not only condones illegal activity it encourages it. You may view a copy of it here. One gets the idea that somewhere there was a master copy that was xeroxed or faxed to local unions as needed. The document was discovered in the Sodexo case. Sodexo is a food catering company that serves public institutions, nursing homes and hospitals. In its suit Sodexo accuses the SEIU of:

Throwing plastic roaches onto food being served by Sodexo USA at a high profile event;
Scaring hospital patients by insinuating that Sodexo USA food contained bugs, rat droppings, mold and flies;
Lying to interfere with Sodexo USA business and sneaking into elementary schools to avoid security;
Violating lobbying laws to steer business away from Sodexo USA, even at the risk of costing Sodexo USA employees their jobs; and
Harassing Sodexo USA employees by threatening to accuse them of wrongdoing.

From Healthbridge's web site:

The SEIU has never hesitated to cozy up to politicians, providing them with both on-the-ground organizational support and all-important financial support. SEIU alone spent $400,000 to help elect Governor Dannel Malloy and others in the last days of the 2010 election. SEIU’s support has certainly engendered no small bit of loyalty from Connecticut’s politicians.
U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal, Governor Malloy, Lieutenant Governor Nancy Wyman, Attorney General George Jepsen and state House Speaker and Congressional candidate Chris Donovan have all joined the strikers on the picket line and have spoken out in favor of the union and against the patients and citizens of Connecticut.

Lest readers think that such accusations are unfounded a quick visit to Homefront.Homestead reveals a long and loving relationship between Connecticut Democrats and the SEIU. That site was set up during SEIU's fight with Spectrum Healthcare Services.

With Senator Chris Dodd in the lead, the entire Democratic Congressional delegation has written to Spectrum CEO Howard Dickstein to express their deep concern over the current strike and has called for his "immediate response and personal engagement" for a "fair and just" settlement. The delegation has also called for the end to the "heavy handed tactic" of using permanent replacement workers.

Presently the Democrats are trying to get the scope of the subpoenas narrowed. They lawyered up and are represented by the law firm Bredhoff & Kaiser which warns;
“Absent intervention by this Court, sitting elected officials and their staffs will be forced to take time away from working for their constituents.”
What a loss!

Great reading for a lazy Sunday afternoon

If you enjoy reading well written and jaunty prose you would be hard pressed to find a better post today than Michael Schulson's Whole Foods: America’s Temple of Pseudoscience at the Daily Beast.

If you want to write about spiritually-motivated pseudoscience in America, you head to the Creation Museum in Kentucky. It’s like a Law of Journalism. The museum has inspired hundreds of book chapters and articles (some of them, admittedly, mine) since it opened up in 2007. The place is like media magnet. And our nation’s liberal, coastal journalists are so many piles of iron fillings.
But you don’t have to schlep all the way to Kentucky in order to visit America’s greatest shrine to pseudoscience. In fact, that shrine is a 15-minute trip away from most American urbanites.
I’m talking, of course, about Whole Foods Market. From the probiotics aisle to the vaguely ridiculous Organic Integrity outreach effort...

Schulson has much to say about Whole Foods and its customer base but two observations that come quickly to mind are that the left is only concerned about pseudoscience when it is practiced by non profits such as religions and embraces it when done by for profit institutions and that Whole Foods (and the left) often leap from the pseudoscientific to the religious in their zeal for their own favored nostrums and high tech snake oil.
This is a great read!

Rand Paul calls on Ted Nugent to apologize

Ted Nugent's derogatory description of President Obama is offensive and has no place in politics. He should apologize.
— Senator Rand Paul (@SenRandPaul) February 21, 2014

Frankly I think Greg Abbot owes the voters of Texas an apology too. RINO Republicans have learned very little from the Tea Party so it may be too much to expect them to master civil debate at this date. Surely they aspire to be more than a source of constant embarrassment.
While the recalcitrant RINO wing of the GOP reckons that selling out its base on immigration reform is essential to broaden its support Paul's principled stand has earned him an invitation to address the NAACP.
“We’d love to talk with him about it and work with him on it,” interim president Lorraine Miller said, adding that her comments amounted to an invitation to Paul to address the group. Miller was referring to Paul's position on economic freedom zones.
And Paul is down with the idea too.
“Senator Paul is pleased to hear that the NAACP would like to work with him on reforms like economic freedom zones and he would be honored to address the organization,” Doug Stafford, a senior adviser to Paul said.

Ohio's Frackingate-the scandal is the media coverage

As awkward as it may feel I'm standing with John Kasich on this one. The anti fracking left is breathlessly attacking Governor Kasich over what it terms frackingate. The governor supposedly maintained a Nixonian enemies list and deceived the public except he didn't. The infamous "fracking memo" which you can read here, is essentially a pr strategy to assuage fears and criticisms should drilling and fracking occur in three Ohio State Parks, Barkcamp, Wolf Run, and Sun Fish.
Omitted in the frantic coverage and feigned outrage are two surd and undisputable facts. First, the document was drafted in 2012. Ohio lawmakers approved drilling in state parks in 2011. Second, the state failed to lease any park land for drilling so the presumed atrocities never happened and the case is moot. As to the enemies list, do we really need John Kasich to tell us the Sierra Club is opposed to fracking and progress in general? Nixon's enemies list contained the names of individuals not organizations; people such as CBS correspondent Daniel Schorr and actor Paul Newman to name two. The Kasich list named two individuals who were members of the Ohio General Assembly, Rep. Robert Hagan and Rep. Nickie Antonio ( not exactly innocent bystanders) but the remainder were organizations that have publicly taken an anti fracking position.
Basically the document anticipates opposition to drilling on state land just as there is inevitable opposition to drilling, logging, grazing or anything productive on federal land. It identifies those who would be friendly to fracking and the administration's point of view; the US Chamber of Commerce, American's Natural Gas Alliance, Halliburton, Third Base Politics and the Youngstown Vindicator to name a few.
The neutral groups includes national, state, and local media, Stateline/Pew, the Network for Public Health Law and several more.
The opposition list-no they don't call them enemies- includes the Sierra Club, Ohio Fracktion, Eco Watch, the two state representative and a few more.
The memo notes the need to marginalize the opposition. It advocates such hardball tactics as writing editorials and letters to the editor, creating a pro fracking web page on ODNR's website, and using Face Book, Twitter and YouTube to make their point. Wow!
The Akron Beacon Journal through its web presence, Ohio.com seems to lose its coherence several times in the post. It leads with Kasich’s office reportedly involved in 2012 Ohio report to promote fracking in state parks, forests (Of course it was. It was pursuant to Ohio law) Then it puts the word marginalize in quotation as if there was something nefarious about showing the opposition in a bad light. It then treats its readers to this hyperbole,

“John Kasich is a bully. He’s looking more like Ohio’s answer to [New Jersey Gov.] Chris Christie,” said Brian Rothenberg, ProgressOhio’s executive director. “First came the plans to make life tough for those that disagree with him, and now the endless staff cover-ups.”

After another quote from Rothenberg the writer turns it over to Brian Kunkemoeller of the Sierra Club for his unbiased insight.

“unprecedented collusion between oil and gas companies and the agencies that regulate them. This isn’t just bad news for our parks and forests. It is bad news for our democracy.”

Gimme a break! I would encourage readers to read the entire memo. There is no there there.

So how broken is our broken immigration system?

Regardless of what the US Chamber of Commerce and their servile vassals in the Senate Gang of 8 may say the immigration system is not broken. Enforcement of existing law is abysmal which is something both the Senate and the House should address in their role of oversight. Do not fall into their linguistic trap. Repeating Obama's trite "broken immigration system" cant, as especially Marco Rubio is wont to do, only serves to delegitimize immigration enforcement which is just one result of a decade long decline in governmental integrity. The fault lies not with the Tea Party and the American middle class but with a ruling elite that is incompetent, corrupt, and decadent. In Washington's point of view its failures are the result of callous and bigoted taxpayers. Why would a government that has ruined both education and healthcare  show a minimum of competence when it comes to immigration?
Luckily, those who enter our country legally for the most part respect our laws. They come and go in numbers that would surprise most Americans. On both borders some come and go everyday. Others come on business, to visit relatives, to work temporarily or to study, conduct and conclude their personal business and leave. How many enter the country legally each year? Would you believe 165 million? Not too bad for a broken immigration system! Unfortunately the honor system only works with honorable people. From a DHS publication:

During 2012, there were 165 million nonimmigrant admissions to the United States according to DHS work-load estimates. These admissions included tourists and business travelers from Canada, Mexican nationals with Border Crossing Cards, and admissions of nonimmigrants who are issued Form I-94 (I-94 admissions3). I-94 admissions accounted for 33 percent (53.9 million) of the total admissions. The majority (89 per-cent) of I-94 admissions were temporary visitors for business and pleasure, while 5.7 percent were temporary workers and families and 3.1 percent were students.

Before you say, sure, most all of them go home but we are a nation of immigrants and we don't welcome immigrants because we have become a nation of xenophobic white separatists catch your breath. How many immigrants enter the country legally each year? Again using DHS data, for the year 2012, the latest available year, the number was 1,031,631. The largest nation was Mexico, 146,406, followed by China, 81,784, and India with 66,434. Canada is the sole predominately white nation in the top 20 countries, placing 18th with 12,932. Here we should compare ourselves to the rest of the world. China reciprocated our magnanimity by allowing 1,100 foreign nationals to have immigrant status. Great Britain allowed 490,000 which is pretty good considering its size, while tiny Australia with a population of about 25 million allowed in 220,000.
The United States is not reluctant to grant citizenship to immigrants. Unlike many European countries where masses of immigrants are confined to non citizenship status for lifetimes and even generations the US welcomes the tempest tossed and accepts them as her own. In 2012 the nation conferred citizenship on 757,434 immigrants. Leading the list was Mexico with 102,181, the Philippines with 44,958, and India with 42,928.
The system is broken. Not the immigration system but the political system and many in the Congress are in bad need of termination. We simply cannot continue to employ so many dishonest and incompetent legislators. They have put the need for cheap labor for their friends at FaceBook, the Chamber of Commerce and the Business Round Table above the needs of the middle class. To put it mildly they have aligned themselves with the lawbreakers. They have subordinated the legal to the illegal. The legal fight to deport illegals is lamentable, currently the government loses about half its court cases which is too bad to blame on mere incompetence. Foreign nationals requesting permission to migrate to the US face an 18 month backlog because federal resources have been shifted to processing questionably legal paperwork for the Dreamer generation who can get a permanent permit in about 4 months.
Citizenship is a gift the country bestows on those who obey its laws. Illegal aliens have no right to demand it. It is the prerogative of we the people to make decisions that affect us and our children. As immigration legislation has been stalled by the voices of citizens the non citizens who have no respect for law have promised to intimidate and shame members of congress who will not capitulate. Now is the time to tell congress if it intends to pursue any sectional interest it had better damn well be ours.

A World Without the United States

  I have a relative--a liberal lawyer, it's true but a valued friend--with whom I argue occasionally. One day he contended that the United States had no right to intervene in any country's workings, whether in pursuit of liberty or not. He spoke contemptuously of our involvement and nuclear capacity, saying we had no right to deny countries like Iran the nuclear bomb.
  This is a common attitude among my young liberal friends: they view the US as a power in decline, one whose best days are over and one who has no rights on a global scale. 
  In fact, a former boss said much the same thing in conversation, asking wonderingly why I would believe that the US had any leadership role internationally.
  So now we have a president who feels the same way. The United States has more obligation not even to increase wealth in this country, but rather to enjoin "fairness" through punishing the successful. 
  He and his ilk would rather protect a feeder fish like the Delta smelt than help the farmers in California.
  Iran, Syria and Egypt have young people desperately seeking liberty; now, the Ukraine.
  In between golfing, Obama has emerged to declare that those Ukrainians had better stop the violence or there will be "consequences." This isn't the first time he's threatened a "red line" which makes this situation only worse. The last time was Syria.
  From The Daily Caller:

After condemning the violence, the president made no bones about where the United States’ sympathy lay. “We hold the Ukrainian government primarily responsible for making sure it is dealing with peaceful protesters in an appropriate way,” he said, “that the Ukrainian people are able to assemble and speak freely about their interests without fear of repression.”

“And I want to be very clear that as we work through these next several days in Ukraine, we are going to be watching very carefully and we expect the Ukrainian government to show restraint, to not resort to violence when dealing with peaceful protesters,” he continued. “We’ve said that we also expect peaceful protesters to remain peaceful.

“And we’ll be monitoring very carefully the situation,” he added, “recognizing that, along with our international partners and the international community, there will be consequences if people step over the line.”

  An impotent president who wields a heavy hand of power domestically, Obama is pretty much unwilling to do anything but lamely and dismissively threaten vague consequences if bullies abroad don't do what Obama wants them to do.
  We seem to be witnessing what my Leftist friends have been envisioning for many years: a world without the United States.
  One problem appears to be that bullies don't seem to understand the nature of other bullies; I'm not suggesting that the US get militarily involved in any of these situations. There are other measures that could be taken.
  The truth is that Obama is a narcissistic bully who believes that, when ordered, people will naturally do what he wants because he said so. One can only imagine the grandparents who raised him, praising his every achievement, many of which seemed to center around smoking dope.
  One has to wonder if he's still doing that.
 

Obama poised to relax border control

The Obama Administration is set to relax border controls in concert with the Mexican government. Supposedly the relaxation would only affect "trusted business travelers" but the last unofficial relaxation of the trusted resulted in a scandal called Fast and Furious. Presumably the drug cartels will not enjoy trusted status but then again no one thought the DHS would identify patriotic military veterans as potential terrorists or the children of illegal aliens as potential Democratic voters.
The Guardian post reads in part;

Mexican and US negotiators are poised to announce a relaxation of border controls for “trusted” business travellers during a summit that is likely to underscore the growing gulf between North American economic liberalisation and stalled immigration reform.
President Enrique Peña Nieto of Mexico, prime minister Stephen Harper of Canada and US president Barack Obama will meet on Wednesday in the Mexican industrial city of Toluca, to mark the 20th anniversary of the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta) by holding talks on further commercial integration between the countries.

Minnesota Tea Party disses McFadden

Seeing Al Franken defeated means more to most of us than just picking up another senate seat. Many of us continue to think that he holds office by virtue of voter fraud. He should be True the Vote's poster boy. For some reason national Republicans do not view Senator Franken as vulnerable notwithstanding the fact that he won by only 351 votes over a very weak Norm Coleman in an election dominated by Barack Obama. The young voters who came out for Obama gave Franken 50% of the vote in a 3 way race, something that is not apt to happen again.
In early February grassroots activists met all throughout the state for their precinct caucuses. State Senator Julianne Ortman won 31% of the vote and "centrist" businessman Mike McFadden 23%. Four other candidates split the remaining vote. The votes were non binding and the official nomination will be voted on in the May state convention. Essentially the race is between Ortman and McFadden.
McFadden's forte seems to be raising Washington money. That and glad handing Minnesota Tea Party groups, expressing enthusiasm at the idea of working with them but curiously never finding time to meet with them. It's a safe bet he has the makings of another Norm Coleman whose TARP vote may have cost him his seat. Activist delegates, more than money, will determine the nominee and McFadden may not have a chance to spend his money in the general election. While prowling Tea Party web sites, I found this podcast at the Minnesota Tea Party Alliance. I strongly recommend it to your attention. McFadden's name comes up at the 7 minute mark.

Leftists going craaaaaaazzy

  You're probably aware Facebook has changed its terms for gender identification.
  Confused? You can browse a helpful list of explanatory terms and definitions here. Slate has done a great deal of research into these terms, which include "Two Spirit" and "FTM."
  Quite frankly, these terms are absurd but it appears to be in response to the Leftist trend of pushing the boundaries of society (Oh, for the bare feet/jeans boundary pushers) and attempting to offend anyone who isn't on board with MIley Cyrus's tongue licking a huge foam finger on international television.
  We caught a whiff of what was coming when a young friend posted something about being "privileged" by being "cisgendered," which immediately sent me scuttling to dictionary.com.
  If you've been watching tv at all, you also know that just about every program has been pushing the gay agenda, including acceptance of "trans-gendered" folks. 
  Criminy, if you've been to Home Depot you may have wandered into a transgendered person staring you down in the screw aisle. 
  Another currently fashionable trend is for persons (often appearing to be female by birth) to dress as a sort of unidentifiable gender, manifested by partially shaved head, piercings, plaid shirt and baggy jeans, and accentuated by the bold, unrepentant, piercing stare.
  Another agenda currently being pushed is the global warming climate change global weirding meme.
  I guess the pushers figured since they lost on the first two terms, they'd better find new explanations that can fit any climate condition, such as when Bob Schieffer plaintively asked  " Is this a result of things that are happening here on Earth?"or when a meteorologist complained "we've forgotten how to be cold" because there are so few big storms because of global weirding.
  This climate gabbing was the result of a doggie press dutifully responding to a Democrat/Leftist temper tantrum that climate change has gone off the radar when they, dammit, need the issue of global warming climate change global weirding to get back on track because of the Obamacare  Law Affordable Care Act debacle failure to launch unraveling glitches.  
  (Update: Sebelius has described the nightmare website opener as a "soft launch.") 
  Add into the mix the unremitting avalanche of fear PSAs like the ones we hear on talk radio all the time, offset by the gauzy upbeat tv commercials about how great windmills are, disregarding how many birds they kill.
  Baby hasn't smiled yet? He might be autistic.
  A bit achy lately? Have you looked at the lupus website to see if you're a candidate?
  And do you know that 17 million children go to bed hungry every night? It's the food deserts, of course, (which have been proven to not exist), because America is a hard place to get food stamps, right? 
  This PSA runs on talk radio constantly, sometimes back to back, same ad, over and over, and I'm beginning to wonder if it's intentional to drive talk radio listeners (who tend to be conservative) insane. 
  Or there's the cute little jingle about getting rid of mold in your house.
  Or the cute little jingle about animals signing up for health care. (That link goes to the EPA website which in Firefox, at least, doesn't appear to be appropriately configured.)
  UPDATE: Let's not bypass the many person marches for impossible causes, which often appears to be a sort of spiritual replacement of a true religion.
  AND all those charges of micro-aggression, a gussied up name for when petty grievances appear to be, well, petty.
   My point is we're seeing what a world governed by Leftists looks like and it ain't pretty.
  But to keep that world governed by Leftists, I'm convinced that the psy-ops people Obama and his ilk have employed have also put into place a drumbeat of fear and terror to scare their opponents from talking about the reasons 71% of Obama voters regret having voted for him.
  Obviously health care has been weaponized, as exemplified by the IRS et al targeting of Tea Partiers who oppose the mess Leftists have made out of this economy and this nation.
  This would all be funny if it weren't so pathetic.
  They really screwed up health care; now they're pushing psychologists who are expert in behavior modification called "nudge teams" to convince you that you shouldn't notice. 
  That the economy is fine, booming. 
  That this mess is the fault of everyone but his people.
  Squirrel! 
  And did you notice Kim Kardashian lost a few pounds? Wonder how she did it? Could we get her diet online?

The Tea Party has gone international!

This newspaper is sympathetic to the Tea Parties’ insight that the modern state often seems designed to look after itself, rather than the citizens it is supposed to serve. The Economist.
The fact that a rather sedate British publication can grasp the Tea Party's ideals that escape the American mainstream media confirms what we have been saying for five years. The American media is willfully ignorant, corrupt, and biased. The subject of the post is not, however, about the American Tea Party but rather European political parties that are, in some cases, doing a pretty good job of imitating the Tea Party. The Tea Party has gone international!
The Economist identifies three principles that unite the newer European parties with the American Tea Party movement.

SINCE 2010 or so, the Tea Party, a Republican insurgency, has turned American politics upside down. It comes in many blends, but most of its members share three convictions: that the ruling elite has lost touch with the founding ideals of America, that the federal government is a bloated, self-serving Leviathan, and that illegal immigration is a threat to social order. The Tea Party movement is central to the conflict that has riven American politics and the difficulty of reforming budgets and immigration laws.

The European movement faces an array of problems. The Tea Party attached itself to one of the two major parties but in Europe with multi-party governments the populists have sought entry into the system through right wing fringe parties. To further complicate a cohesive response the movement is spread throughout the nations that comprise the European Union. There are some factions that want to scrap the EU while other want to control it.

But there are common threads linking the European insurgents and the Tea Party. They are angry people, harking back to simpler times. They worry about immigration. They spring from the squeezed middle—people who feel that the elite at the top and the scroungers at the bottom are prospering at the expense of ordinary working people. And they believe the centre of power—Washington or Brussels—is bulging with bureaucrats hatching schemes to run people’s lives.

Extravagant White House galas, 21 presidential vacations costing well over $2.5 million, million dollar federal agency "training seminars", congressional efforts to debase the State of the Union speech into a celebrity showcase, White House correspondents dinners that exude opulence even in the worst of times, incompetent and corrupt federal contractors that are paid hundreds of millions to perform slipshod work, the influence of former congressional aides turned K Street lobbyist on public policy, and the contempt for budgetary constraint have caused the squeezed middle in this country to rebel. When coupled with executive agency job killing mandates, ostentatious public assistance in the forms of free food, homes, and cell phones and the subordination of the rights of citizens to those of non citizens, Washington has jaundiced the perception of government on this side of the Atlantic.
In Europe added to the burdensome presence of national elites with their frequent contempt for national values is an overweening bureaucracy in Brussels that claims expertise in all things human, from the price of olives to the tenants of Islam and the peasants' need to understand and befriend the latter which adds further to the contempt Europe's squeezed middle feels toward government in general. While Americans on the right fear becoming a European style economy, the European populists see the deficiencies of their own failed economy and near totalitarian intrusion into their personal live. They have to live in a European style economy and they have had enough.
As in American the European populist movement has been resisted by the powers elite. They have been slandered as extremists, racists, and fascists. They have been forced to co-op fringe parties with questionable histories and reform them into respectability but they have enjoyed much success.

In May voters across the 28-member European Union will elect 751 deputies to the European Parliament. Polls suggest that the FN could win a plurality of the votes in France. The United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) has similarly high hopes, as does the Freedom Party (PVV) in the Netherlands. Anti-EU populists of the left and right could take between 16% and 25% of the parliament’s seats, up from 12% today. Many of those votes will go to established parties of the Eurosceptic left. But those of the right and far right might take about 9%. And it is they, not the parties of the left, who are scaring the mainstream. (Euroscepticism is the body of criticism of the European Union, and opposition to the process of political European integration, existing throughout the political spectrum.)

The Economist predicts that the insurgent political parties will see the most success minority parties have enjoyed since the end of World War II. The times, they are a changing.

An envoy to the Arctic is a metaphorical bridge to nowhere

This looks suspicious to me. Arctic Sea ice has been receding for 40 years (there is a good argument to be made that trend is reversing) so the countries with territory in the arctic Canada, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Iceland, Russia, and the United States are making long range plans to extract the oil and minerals that they think lie below the Arctic Sea. The countries have formed the Arctic Council to do what politician will do and one would think representing US at this would be a job for a mid level bureaucrat from Energy or Interior. Guess again. John Kerry will name an envoy to the Arctic. Alaska's two senators, Begich and Murkowski have long argued that this and previous administrations have ignored this vast treasure at their peril.
“It’s not always easy explaining to Washington bureaucrats how things are different at home in Alaska," spoke Begich who hasn't polled better than 43% against any probable GOP contender. Without saying when, Kerry promised to appoint a "high-level individual of substantial stature and expertise" which would certainly be an improvement over the flock of campaign contributors who have recently been named as ambassadors but Begich is using the term "ambassador" not Kerry. Ambassador Begich? Hell, he already speaks English and he has visited the Arctic.
Someone should remind Kerry that the US already has between 5.7 and 16 billion barrels of oil in ANWR which is in the Arctic Circle that the Obama Administration and for that matter the entire Democrat Party will never allow to be extracted. So we will spend more money to find more oil we will never use? An envoy to the Arctic is a metaphorical bridge to nowhere.

No global warming is not ruining the Olympics

You may have noticed over the years that the athletes who make to the Olympics are not always Mensa material so it should come as no surprise that 105 Olympic athletes penned a statement calling on the rest of us to put all else aside and commit to the good fight against climate change. Never mind that the frequent flyers of international competitions have probably logged more air miles by the time they reach maturity than the rest of us will in a lifetime. It's not about them it's about the planet.

Sochi Olympic Village

We have heard much about the warm temperatures and lack of snow in Sochi but we have not heard that the mean winter time temperature is about 52 degrees. The Atlantic has a post, Do the Winter Olympics Have a Future in a Warming World? Probably not if the IOC insists upon locating them in subtropical environments.

This week, however, over 100 Olympians, 85 of them American, blamed more than warm weather for the poor conditions. The real culprit, the athletes said in a statement, is climate change—and world leaders better do something about it during climate talks in Paris next year.

Midway down the post we do learn that Sochi's warm weather is not itself a sign of climate change and that the subtropical city's current temperature is consistent with what it's usually like this time of year which seems to begs the point of the post. A Google search "winter olympics global warming" brings pages of warnings from the, from the NYT to Slate, from the Hill to USA Today all with the same overused arguments. It's become a feeding frenzy with nothing to eat.

The US ranks below Romania in the World Press Freedom Index

During the Carter and Reagan as years civil war raged in El Salvador many of us feared for their freedoms. Silly us! To the embarrassment of our own nation El Salvador ranks above the United States in the Reporters Without Borders World Press Freedom Index. Of course the UK and most of Western Europe also do better than the US which is ranked 46th just behind Romania and a rung above Haiti. During the glory of the Reagan years would anyone have dreamed that one day the United States would lose so much freedom that it would be sandwiched between the countries of Nicolae Ceaușescu and Papa Doc Duvalier? This is a disgrace, a scandal, and a moral failing. It dishonors our parents and betrays our children!
What is most alarming is the liberal media is content to swim in this slime. It refuses to fault Obama for his unconstitutional war in Libya and his mendacity following the Benghazi raid. It has demurred as American citizens were killed in drone strikes on the sole authority of the president. It has allowed the Justice Department to tap a reporter's phones without consequence. It has refused to independently investigate the unconstitutional targeting of conservative groups and retaliatory IRS audits of individuals. It has, on occasion, denounced Edward Snowden as a traitor and accepted the NSA's collection of phone metadata as a legitimate role of government. It has sat through daily press briefings as the administration has refused to answer innocent and almost prosaic questions relative to Obamacare enrollment numbers; numbers that are treated by the Obama administration as secret solely to avoid political embarrassment. It would sell its collective soul for a ride on Air Force One.
As if the US ranking was not low enough the Federal Communications Commission seems hell bent on driving it lower. In Wall Street Journal editorial Ajit Pai, a Republican FCC commissioner, blew the whistle on the so called independent agency for what he called an attempt at "newsroom policing". Unfortunately that editorial is behind a pay wall. Pai expressed alarm that the FCC could soon start questioning why Fox spends so much time covering the attacks in Benghazi, or why NBC has focused on the controversy over lane closures in New Jersey. Pai described the FCC's proposal as sending "researchers to grill reporters, editors, and station owners about how they decide which stories to run." This blatant attack on the freedom of the press was justified by the FCC as an attempt to serve the needs of "the undeserved community"
Following that editorial Republican members of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce fired off an angry letter to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler asking, in effect, what the hell did he think he was doing.

The Commission is not a research institution but rather a government entity with
authority to regulate some targets of the CIN Study. The Commission has no business
probing the news media's editorial judgment and expertise, nor doe it have any business
in prescribing a set diet of "critical information." These goals are plainly inappropriate and are at bottom an incursion by the government into the constitutionally protected operations of the professional news media.
Beyond the fact that many of the goals of the study are inappropriate, we are equally
concerned by the Commission's failure to state an adequate statutory basis for action. The Commission has not offered any legitimate justification for how a study of "the critical information needs" of communities directly contributes to its statutory duties, i.e. to review the impact of law on market entry barriers for entrepreneurs and other small businesses.

Don't expect to hear any gratitude on behalf of the Obama personality obsessed media toward the Republicans for saving the freedom they pretend to value. The Democrats are putting themselves in a precarious position if the public decides they have had enough of the abuses of liberty. At that time the Democrats are going to be left holding the bag and are risking being the ones who will be blamed for the losses of liberty and freedom. That could end up being a long term pall that might take many elections for them to overcome.

First of 18 wells drilled on single pad goes on line in Monroe County, Ohio

In a post dated July16, 2013 I reported that Magnum Hunter Resources planned to drill 18 wells on its Stadler Pad in Monroe County, tapping both the Marcellus and Utica Shales from the same location. Today the company announced that the first well has been placed in production this week. It taps the Marcellus and produces 97% pure methane meaning that it is pipeline quality with no need for further processing. The well was drilled to a depth 10,653 feet with a 5,050 foot horizontal lateral and fracked in 20 stages.
The company is currently drilling the lateral of its second well on the pad. After completion of the third well Magnum Hunter will walk it drilling rig to the Utica portion of the pad a begin its first Utica well sometime in March.
 

Obama "cult of personality" crisis? Ya THINK?

   It appears some scrawny chickens are coming home to roost.
  A new Fox News poll finds voters are--wait for it--disillusioned with Obamacare.
  Fifty five percent of people under 30 think it stinks and now wonder why. They're the ones who are supposed to be paying for the rest of us, even though they are the healthiest.
  Though it's mind numbingly bizarre that 37 % are "glad the law passed," (suggesting they haven't been in the doctor's office recently), it's encouraging that:

Fifty-five percent of voters wish the health care law had never passed.  That includes majorities of young people under age 30 (55 percent) and those with annual household incomes under $50,000 (52 percent), as well as more than a quarter of Democrats (28 percent).

  Are most Americans waking up to the fraud that is being perpetrated in DC? It appears so, which is why so many Democrats are begging Obama to fraudulently continue to abuse the power of the IRS to stop those with whom they do not agree and help them get reelected.
  Though only Democrats think the Obamacare mess was a good idea, the fact that young people who usually identify themselves as Democrats is a source of curiosity. In fact, 64% of voters believe that the law wouldn't have passed if they were given all the facts while they were awake.
  In fact, James Taranto and others have termed this POTUS the *asterisk President" since, quite frankly, Barack Obama has been proven over and over to be a willing and cheerful liar, willing to bend any rule and reconfigure both promises and laws to suit his will.
  Brilliant Leftist Jonathan Turley has finally figured out that perhaps Obama is not worthy of the worship he's been according, suggesting that following the (ludicrous) leadership of Obama "borders on the cult of personality.:

Law professor Jonathan Turley said he's astonished by how passive Americans -- especially Democrats -- have been to President Obama's abuse of executive power, which he said has become so dangerous it's making the U.S. political system unstable.

"I think that we've become a nation of enablers. We are turning a blind eye to a fundamental change in our system. I think many people will come to loathe that they remained silent during this period," Turley, who teaches at George Washington University, told Fox News host Megyn Kelly on Wednesday.

"I'm afraid this is beginning to border on a cult of personality for people on the Left."

  Gee, I dunno, Professor Turley, what was your first clue? Where were you in 2008?

I'm so tired of defending Obamacare!

If you don't read James Taranto's WSJ column you are missing one of life's great pleasures. His latest post, The Tired Ones, refers to Ron Fournier of the National Journal and Fox News contributor and Daily Beast columnist Kirsten Powers. Fournier recently conceded that he had lost that loving feeling in his NJ piece, "Why I'm Sick of Defending ObamaCare." A day or two later Powers paraphrased Fournier on Fox News Special Report
 "The headline was 'Why I'm Getting Tired of Defending ObamaCare,' and I'm going to say, 'Amen, brother.' . . . People who have supported this law, who support universal health care, are constantly put in a position where they have to defend the president, who has really incompetently put this together, rolled it out."
The question Taranto raises is why these two journalist feel compelled to defend Obamacare? Did they draw the short straws? If they are tired I would imagine former fellow journalist Jay Carney could tell them stories that would make them cry. Working almost exclusively as a columnist, Fournier has the luxury of mounting his defense in the relative tranquility of his office or even his bathroom but Powers has to make a fool of herself in plain sight of millions of cable news viewers, over and over and over again.
That's the sort of stuff novels are written about. An innocent young lady leaves her home in placid Fairbanks, Alaska strikes gold at USA Today, the WSJ, the Daily Beast and is deemed to be "emerging as one of the Democratic Party’s national voices" only to find herself working with two knaves, Krauthammer and Will who verbally slap her about in public view. Eventually the sadder but wiser girl relents and acknowledges that Obamacare is only for the lucky and the strong.
It could be that the "tired ones" are really what the Baptists call backsliders, a term that for some reason always caused me to envision dozens of mud turtles sliding down a muddy creek bank on their backs, as the rest of the media is keeping the faith. There was certainly no weariness on Morning Joe this morning as the gang celebrated Obamacare's triumphant comeback. Nothing like this since the Russian counter offensive at Leningrad!
"Amazing How Quickly We Are Starting to See the Obamacare Story Change its Tone", intoned guest host Katty Kay of the BBC.
 


Pass the kool-aid, please. Even if we accept the HHS's numbers at face value 3.3 million enrolled from a projected 7 million with only 7 weeks to go is hardly over the top success. And there is ample reason not to accept the 3.3 million figure. As it has been pointed out redundantly actual enrollment begins when the insured remits payment not when he clicks on the "buy" button. One insurance official says a majority but not an overwhelming have paid. So 60% have paid? That would be 1.98 million. Seventy percent would mean 2.31 million.
Then there is a convenient flaw built into healthcare.gov. Insurance industry consultant Robert Laszewski writes that there is an inability for people to cancel once a selection is made because that functionality was never built into the web site. He expects they will be reporting bloated enrollment numbers for some time.
In spite of their weariness Fournier and Powers should count their blessings. They are employed. I'm sure Senators Begich, Hagan, Landrieu, Pryor, Shaheen, and Udall are just as tired but they may not have jobs next year.

Ninth Circuit finds Second Amendment includes a right to carry a gun

When pigs fly! I presumed sooner or later a court would define "bear" as in "to keep and bear arms". Never did I dream that that court would be the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. At issue was the conditions California local governments place on concealed carry permits. In the case it decided the city of San Diego required the applicant to demonstrate a need for a permit. The court used the original text of the second amendment to reach its decision.

The Second Amendment secures the right not only to “keep” arms but also
to “bear” them—the verb whose original meaning is key in this case. Saving us
the trouble of pulling the eighteenth-century dictionaries ourselves, the Court
already has supplied the word’s plain meaning: “At the time of the founding, as
now, to ‘bear’ meant to ‘carry.’”

Pretty straight forward! If the 9th Circuit can get this right what the hell is the matter with the rest of California? You may read the opinion here and Eugene Volokh provides a legal analysis at the Washington Post.

Vulnerable Democrats demand new IRS rules

It's seldom The Hill is this forthright. Generally the online publication meanders through controversy with profuse "on the other hand" caveats that only invite tedium but this post has some bite.

In the wake of the IRS targeting scandal, the Democrats are publicly prodding the agency instead of lobbying them directly. They are also careful to say the IRS should treat conservative and liberal groups equally, but they’re concerned about an impending tidal wave of attack ads funded by GOP-allied organizations. Much of the funding for those groups is secret, in contrast to the donations lawmakers collect, which must be reported publicly.

In other word they view the IRS as the political action wing of their Democratic Party.

“If they’re claiming the tax relief, the tax benefit to be a nonprofit for social relief or social justice, then that’s what they should be doing,” said Sen. Mark Begich (D), who faces a competitive race in Alaska. “If it’s to give them cover so they can do political activity, that’s abusing the tax code. And either side.”

What the Senator is saying is that the IRS should change the rules in the middle of the game. We now know that the proposed regulations the IRS plans to enact were begun "off line" in 2012. We also know that this conspiracy to silence the right involved not only IRS administrators but also the IRS's office of general counsel and Treasury officials. The regulation were drafted in part in secret and now Senate Democrats want them implemented before the election.
The Citizens United case did not cause the proliferation of political action committees. They have long existed on the left but when the Democrats get beat at their own game the rules must change. Publicly funded presidential elections were created by Democrats and supported by Democrats until 2008 when the Obama campaign sensed it could out raise the McCain campaign. Say good-bye to public financing.
Congressman Dave Camp has introduced legislation to stop implementation before the election but that is just symbolism. It will never be put to a vote in the Senate much less be signed by Obama. I'm no lawyer but I think someone will be able to find a federal judge to block the new regulations considering the IRS violated its own rules in drafting them. The targets here are the big players; Americans for Prosperity, The Club for Growth, and American Crossroads and they are playing for the 2016 elections. Even if the Republicans win the Senate and keep the House Obama will veto any reform.This is an uphill fight.

Obama fiddles while economy burns

  Unlike Leftists, I don't begrudge wealthy people for their parties, fancy clothes and lavish vacations.
  I don't like the Obamas, but I don't even begrudge them their parties, fancy clothes and lavish vacations.
  Wait a second.
  Americans should put on great parties for our visitors, especially the president. It's part of the way things work in the world.
  But I keep hearing this record needle scratch every time I read about the Obamas' finger-in-your-eye excesses.
  Take the latest party, for example. Beautiful. 
  Yeah, but why an outside party in the dead of winter? An outside party so far away from the White House the guests need to take a trolley to get there. 
  This is a pattern of behavior with the current mobsters in the White House.
  The people in this country are suffering from lack of jobs, pinched budgets and fear of the future. 
  We are at war; the world is in an insufferable turmoil, much of it caused by this administration. 
  We are profoundly in debt, having just pushed that debt "limit" up even further.
  Uncle Sam's got osteoporosis, standing on fragile bones.
  And yet somehow this administration throws extraordinarily expensive parties for vacuous Hollywood celebrities. They take separate planes to Hawaii, costing millions of dollars to taxpayers. They even fly their dog separately on vacation, when necessary. 
  This is a pattern of behavior. 
  Obama mouths platitudes about some of the more desperate situations in the country--Benghazi murders, IRS harassment, Fort Hood "workplace violence", gunwalking to Mexico, the Obamacare debacle--and then promotes the very people who committed the crimes and insults, as if to say, "I'm President so I can do whatever I want."
  Now that's in step with the country, non?
  It's infuriating, which is exactly what these people want. They want us to be fearful, angry, frustrated and powerless.
  They want Americans to be dependent on the government, to watch the antics of The Capitol from afar, to feel as if we are in District 11, victims under the iron fist of our "rulers."
  It's just too bad there are so many incompetent boobs running the shows we're watching.
  Sebelius? Biden? Obama? Wow. They've made a complete mess.
  We've mentioned repeatedly the "optics" of flaunting such opulence in the face of economic crisis. It's all part of the plan.
  No one's asking them to not have fun, not have parties or serve the kind of gruel most of us out here eat.

  But seriously? The added expense of heating a tent in February?
  Meh. I guess when you're wearing a $12,000 dress you need the appropriate backdrop. 
  And that's a purty big-ass dress, ain't it?

Tea Party groups forced to file through Soros funded Urban Institute

This smoking gun is going to be hard to explain away. Small tax exempts with $50,000 in annual receipts or less are required to file- not with the IRS but with the George Soros funded Urban Institute. According to US New and World Reports the Urban Institute donates 100% of it political contributions to Democrats. To put this in context suppose small liberal tax exempts were required to file with the Heritage Foundation which the Bush Administration had deemed a " trusted partner". The Urban Institute advocates for totally socialized medicine, carbon taxes and amnesty for illegal aliens. The Form 990, which the IRS directs exempt groups to file through the Urban Institute, provides the public with financial information about the group, and it also is used by the government to keep up to date with nonprofits and supposedly  prevent such organizations from abusing their tax-exempt status
This IRS directive was hidden in plain sight until WND called attention to it. Cleta Mitchell, attorney for George Will and a number of Tea Party group who were targeted by the IRS said,
"If true, this is a violation of federal law. And since most of the tea-party groups have annual revenues of [$50,000] or less, this would redirect their filings to a group whose mission is fundamentally at odds with tea-party organizations.”
She continued, “Federal law strictly prohibits the disclosure of confidential taxpayer information to persons outside the IRS. It is a felony to disseminate the information.
“Surely this cannot be happening. Surely,” she said. “This would be well more than a ‘smidgen’ of corruption.”
To view this screen capture and see for yourself click here.

The first link in this box will take you to the IRS. It will tell you that you are leaving the IRS web site. A whois search reveals that the domain epostcard.form990.org is registered to the Urban Institute.

How to File Use this link to file the e-Postcard. If you have trouble accessing the system using that link, you may be able to access the filing site directly by typing or pasting the following address into your Internet browser: http://epostcard.form990.org. When you access the system, you will leave the IRS site and file the e-Postcard with the IRS through our trusted partner, Urban Institute. The form must be completed and filed electronically. There is no paper form.

The Western Maryland Secession

I have a deep personal interest in this issue. My dad's family settled in Allegheny County before the Revolutionary War. I suspect much of the divide is centered on geography. The capital of Annapolis is an abstraction in Allegheny County. When I lived there in the 50's Ralph Kiner of the Pittsburgh Pirates was every kid's hero. Taverns served Pittsburgh beers and only Pittsburgh television was accessible. Men went to Charleston, West Virginia when they need a job not Baltimore or Annapolis.
One fact this video omits is that these counties are mineral rich while the downstate effete are imbued with drippy environmentalism and fears of global warming. Only Allegheny and Garrett counties have natural gas and oil that could be exploited through fracking but in an effort to save the good simple souls who live there from themselves Maryland outlawed fracking.

The blacked out Edward Snowden interview

Today Rand Paul will file a lawsuit against the NSA in the D.C. district court. He was criticized by Congressamn Peter King on Morning Joe this morning for having the temerity to defend the Fourth Amendment while the mainstream media, probably at the behest of the Obama Administration, blocked the this intensely interesting video of Edward Snowden.
This interview was conducted by the German television network ARD. It has not been rebroadcast, excerpted, or even acknowledged in the American popular media. It was removed from YouTube each time it was posted. This is conduct worthy of a police state. Much of this video is devoted to the technical details that make the NSA's activities so menacing. It is not about Edward Snowden as is much of the propaganda and polemic coming from Washington insiders who prefer to malign him than to speak to the legality and morality of NSA spying.


“If I am traitor, who did I betray? I gave all my information to the American public, to American journalists who are reporting on American issues. If they see that as treason, I think people really need to consider who they think they’re working for. The public is supposed to be their boss, not their enemy. Beyond that as far as my personal safety, I’ll never be fully safe until these systems have changed.”