DEMOCRATS: First it was "You didn't build that"; now it's "You can't keep that". It must really hurt their feelings to find out that the average consumer isn't as stupid as the average Democrat.

NEW BUILDING BLOCKS for 2-D circuits. In the long run, you could be wearing your computer rather than carrying it. It gives a whole new meaning to the phrase 'pocket computer'.

READY, SET, PANIC: More than a quarter of young people don’t think the price of health insurance is worth it.

If only their progressive elders were half as smart....

AWESOME AIRCRAFT from the Paris Air Show.

76% OF AMERICANS are living paycheck-to-paycheck. No surprise. You need only read the comments to understand why. It isn't poverty.

JUST IN THE NICK OF TIME: PayPal goes galactic.

FIVE SIGNS Obama is losing control. Here's a sixth.

THE IRS, OBAMACARE, AND YOU.

Only ... where are you? And your doctor?

Nowhere in the chart do the words doctor or patient appear—as clear a sign as any that ObamaCare is not about health care; it’s about government power.

More about the IRS, ObamaCare and You here, here, here, and here.

FAILURE DENIERS: Climate Change and Public-Sector Science.

If a new idea or product is failing or initially seems destined to fail, bureaucrats, their corporate beneficiaries, and their cronies work to get them underwritten or subsidized. The fact that the government is even involved likely indicates that the private sector knows better than to touch it without putting taxpayers on the hook. This explains why the Obama administration has had losers like Solyndra, A123 Battery, Beacon Power, and so many others in its energy “loan” portfolio.

And in his Georgetown University speech, Obama just 'doubled down' on failure.

SLATE: Why White People Don't Feel Black People's Pain. So George Zimmerman, a 'white Hispanic' who is "8 times as black as [Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth] Warren is Native American" is now a 'white person'?

Having been discovered, the racist Left is in full attack mode.

THE WEEK IN PICTURES. Here's a sample:

BLUE STATE MAYOR bolts from Bloomberg’s anti-gun crusade.

I was amused by Mayor Morrissey's "police can't be everywhere" comment. He's right. In Mayor Bloomberg's America, they're busy providing security details for bigwigs.

DUMBOCRAT DEMOCRAT WANTS TO amend the immigration bill to allow 'stateless people' in the U.S. to seek conditional lawful status if their nations have been made uninhabitable by climate change.

There oughta be a law against aggravated aggravating stupidity.

MICHAEL WALSH: What is it you [the Obama administration] want us [conservatives] to do? Right: die.

IT'S OKAY to be homophobic if you're a member of the Angry Left.

HOW CRAZY ARE DEMOCRATS? Tea Party Republicans are more of a threat than al Qaeda.

CHARGES DROPPED against kid who wore NRA shirt to school. The judge either had a 'sanity attack' or realized he was about to be hammered in the media. I suspect the latter.

MUCH MORE from the racist (and/or incredibly stupid) Left.

I NOW KNOW why my spare magazines and front sight have been delayed. It's for a good cause.

"JUST REMEMBER that 'social justice' has no intrinsic meaning apart from 'what we want'.”

WE'RE WATCHING YOU. We're all watching you:

MSNBC TALKING HEAD proves she's racist. Or incredibly stupid. Take your pick.

OPEN LETTER to Virginia Senators Mark Warner and Tim Kaine:

I urged you to VOTE NO on the immigration reform bill. You chose to ignore my concerns as eloquently expressed by your colleague, Sen. Ron Johnson. The Senate bill you passed is a complex, pork-laden mess that cannot possibly secure our border -- as any sovereign nation must do to survive.

I had hope that Democrats had learned their lesson in the aftermath of ObamaCare. Obviously you have not, and having voted as you did, I must reluctantly conclude that you are unworthy of the office to which you have been elected. I will vote against you if/when you seek reelection.

I can now only hope that your colleagues in the House of Representatives will reject the monstrosity you have created, and offer a serious, staged series of bills that will first, secure our borders; second, provide legal pathways foreigners to come to the United States to visit, live, and work legally; and only then address the problem of those who have come to live in the United States illegally.

Sent 27 June 2013.

NEWT GINGRICH: the war on coal.

IN LIGHT OF NSA LEAKS, the government has compromised its moral capital.

It's not just the NSA leak; it's all the scandals that have come home to roost. The Obama administration's 'end justifies the means' mentality has utterly destroyed any remaining trust in our federal government. Obama needs to go, and there should be a wholesale housecleaning of the current political class.

We, the people, are the masters; not the slaves. A lesson our political class needs to relearn every so often.

BLOWING SMOKE: Obama climate speech a dangerous, arrogant, fact-free tirade.

"TAKEOUT IS NOT AN OPTION."

MICHAEL BARONE: A libertarian turn on social issues. With a warning:

[A]t the bottom of the social scale we have seen an unraveling, with out-of-wedlock births, continuing joblessness, lack of social connectedness and civic involvement.

In conformist America the old prohibitions [marijuana, gay rights, abortion, gun control, among others] provided these people with guardrails, as the Wall Street Journal's Daniel Henninger has written. In today's more libertarian America the guardrails may be gone.

Liberty requires a modicum of personal responsibility, the one thing that is an anathema to the liberal social welfare vision.

TODD STARNES: Professor Orders Students to Support Gay Rights.

For the Left, there's no difference between 'education' and 'indoctrination'.

SPACEPORT AMERICA:



Las Cruces, NM is my adopted 'home town'. Congratulations.

NOW YOU CAN cosponsor legislation introduced in the House of Representatives. Frankly, given the quality of our political class, I'd be ashamed to cosponsor anything for fear of damaging my own reputation.

WEINER TOP BANANA in NYC mayor's race. Well, if anyone deserves him, New York does....

"Have you no shame?" doesn't apply to Democrats.

IS OBAMA CLIMATE CHANGE AGENDA just a cover for a ... 'War on Coal'? Yes. Next question.

JOHN BOEHNER press release on the benefits of ObamaCare.

THE ESCHERIAN STAIRWELL:



Here's how it works.

PROGRESS: "[I]f you build a better mousetrap, you might have to apologize to other mousetrap manufacturers, then to the Humane Society, for your accomplishment."

SINCE OUR MIND IS ALREADY MADE UP, there's no need for peer review.

QUESTION: What happens when “settled science,” isn’t?

CHELSEA CLINTON: My great-grandparents didn’t have access to Planned Parenthood’s crucial services. Pity.

FORGET WHETHER THEY'LL WORK: Are X-Ray guns legal?

NEWT GINGRICH: The continuing Alaska energy scandal.

GET FOOD STAMPS out of the farm bill. Contra one commenter's opinion, food stamps aren't agriculture.

OK, MILLENIALS: It's time to prove your loyalty -- sign up for ObamaCare.

HEH: Armed citizen shoots robber; gets back in line to buy shoes.

“IT’S TRUE, WE HAVE A TWO-PARTY SYSTEM IN AMERICA: The Evil Party, and the Stupid Party. And every once and a while the Evil Party and the Stupid Party get together to pass something really evil and stupid. That’s called ‘bipartisanship.’”

Linked from Instapundit.

LAMENTING THAT the slaves aren't represented at a slaveholder meeting.

THIS WEEK in pictures, courtesy of PowerLine. Here's a sample.

NEWT GINGRICH: Return to Verdun.

SCHUMER-RUBIO IMMIGRATION BILL: A Plan To Shaft America’s Poor.

THE STATE OF SOCIETY: Employers are replacing employees with iPads; now Los Angeles is replacing students with iPads.

NEWT GINGRICH: Requiring paychecks for food stamps.

SPY PROGRAM mistakenly targets innocent people: "[E]very now and then there may be a mistake."

May? ... May?

TEXAS: If you love Big Government, please ... move somewhere else.

JUST THE FACTS that support our narrative.

RELATED: And if the facts don't support our narrative, manufacture some.

CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET OFFICE: Senate immigration bill would expand Obamacare.

Another reason to vote down the comprehensive immigration bill. Also a reason to vote down all 'comprehensive' bills -- there's too much room to hide pork.

ELBERT GUILLORY: "Why I am a Republican."



Elbert Guillory may be black, speaking to blacks, but when he speaks of Democrats and control, he speaks to - and for - me.

MORNING EXAMINER: The Schumer-Rubio Higher Unemployment, Lower Wages, and Illegal Immigration Preservation Act. Not good.

I WANT ONE: Project Zero tiltrotor makes Paris debut. But I want the manned version.

RESPONSIBLE ADULTS ONLY: Why I got my CCW permit and why you should too. Democrats need not apply.

VENEZUELA: No smart phone, no toilet paper.

NASA WANTS TO BETTER TRACK ASTEROIDS that threaten Earth: "We want to prove that we are, in fact, smarter than the dinosaurs."

Given the current Administration's track record, that may be difficult....

BARACK OBAMA BOMBS IN BERLIN: a weak, underwhelming address from a floundering president. "Not so," says MSNBC's resident twit, Chris Matthews. It was TOTUS's fault for not having a sunproof screen.

RELATED: Tea Party Rally May Have Drawn Bigger Crowd than Obama Speech in Berlin.

HEH.

WHY SHOULD THEY? The young won't buy ObamaCare.

Hell, if I were young, I'd pay cash and try to purchase something like AFLAC to help cover catastrophic expenses.

AUDIT THE IRS: Some thoughts about the Tea Party rally on the Capitol's east lawn yesterday.

The rally was scheduled from 12 noon to 2 pm; when I left about 3:30 pm it was winding down with only a couple of speakers left. Attendance? My guess is at least 3,000; less than 10,000 at peak, and average about 5,000. Here's why:

Here's the Capitol grounds at the west end of the Washington mall. The yellow trapezoid marks the rally site, and the yellow bar measures a distance of 100 feet. Roughly, the area encompassed was about 80,000 square feet. Most of the crowd (shoulder-to-shoulder) was in the speaker end of the trapezoid; the other end was populated more sparsely. I made several 'density' estimates from several vantage points, to guess at an average density of about 1 person for every 120-150 square feet; hence the estimate. Here are two crowd pictures. This was taken from about the middle of the trapezoid, looking toward the speaker's podium:

The young lady in the pink top was very animated; she needed the extra room to jump around.

This one was taken farther back, near the base of the trapezoid.

Both pictures were taken at the same time, shortly after the rally began but before the crowd peaked.

Here are some of the signs I saw.

Most were IRS related,

and these two were very sharply worded.

Orwell was a big hit,

and one elderly lady took a swipe at Obama (his politics; not his birth - I spoke with her).

And my absolute favorite:

There were plenty of potential bumper stickers. Among them: DC - District of Cronyism; TEA - Targeted Enough Already, IRS - Internal Revenge Service and Internal Rotten Scandals; Freedom Does Not Mean Free Stuff.

While the rally 'theme' was the IRS, it was not limited to the IRS. The speakers hit all the Obama administration scandals at one time or another: ObamaCare, Benghazi, NSA, immigration, gun control, all as evidence of a 'moral rot' at the White House.

Glenn Beck was the 'headliner' at the rally, and he pushed the 'moral rot' theme hard, though much of the time he spoke in the context of religious values.

Congresscritters speaking in cluded Senators Rand Paul, Mike Lee, Ted Cruz, and Representatives Michelle Bachmann, Louie Gohmert, Tim Huelscamp, Dave Camp, Tom Price, and Jim Jordan.

SUCCESS:

"As democracy is perfected, the office of the President represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day, the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be occupied by a downright fool and complete narcissistic moron."

-- H.L. Mencken, The Baltimore Evening Sun, July 26, 1920

And in an ironic twist of fate, noted on Juneteenth.

From my email.

THOMAS SOWELL: The Loss of Trust.

Having chosen an untested man to be president, on the basis of rhetoric, style and symbolism, we have ourselves to blame if we now have only a choice between two potentially tragic fates -- the loss of American lives to terrorism or a further dismantling of our freedoms that has already led many people to ask: "Is this still America?"

Read it all.

THAT WAS QUICK. I attended the Tea Party 'Audit the IRS' rally in Washington DC today. When I returned home just now, my IRS audit was in the mailbox.

EVEN IN CALIFORNIA, greenbacks outvote green enthusiasts.

POWERLINE ON DR. BENJAMIN CARSON: "[T]o be a leader, you don’t have to be a politician. In fact, it sometimes helps not to be one."

ARE YOU afraid of global warming? Maybe you shouldn't be.

PRIORITIES: Thousands of civilian workers at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center -- the country’s top facility for wounded combat soldiers -- are facing furloughs this summer, as a result of sequester and other federal budget problems, according to the Defense Department.

But President Obama's Africa safari will cost between $60-$100 million.

In the age of sequester, is all the President's travel really necessary?

SIX BIG PROBLEMS with the immigration bill from someone who has actually read it.

The video is long (nearly 20 minutes) but watch it anyway.

LESS THAN HALF OF THE SENATE shows up for briefing on NSA.

We can look at this in one of two ways. Maybe only 47 of the current 100 US Senators didn’t know enough about the NSA surveillance programs to consider themselves fully informed and satisfied that the intelligence community doesn’t cross the line when it comes to spying on Americans. Or, perhaps 53 of the current 100 US senators don’t really care whether the NSA is spying on Americans — at least not enough to put off plans for a long weekend.

I know which way I'll bet.

KEN BLACKWELL: The President's Ghastly Gun Gaffe.

ZERO TOLERANCE of school kids gun play could backfire: "[K]ids can handle make-believe games, even if their educators can't." We've reached a point where kindergarteners are more mature than their 'progressive' teachers.

THE DISCOVERY of 'pathological altruism'. Sarah Palin would call the discovery 'common sense'. So would I.

OBAMACARE SUPPORT in a death spiral. Good. Kill it before it kills us.

JEFF JACOBY: Employers Are Not Immigration Officers. I don't buy the 'slippery slope' argument (if the government can force an employer to do 'X', then can they not force the employer to do 'Y' as well?), but I can appreciate the mandate part -- we don't have self-service gas stations because I want to pump my own gas, we have them because the seller wants to minimize his own cost by having me do part of the work.

I would also add one point Jacoby neglected: removing the employer mandate also removes at least part of the justification for some kind of national identity database/card. And that I find very desirable indeed.

OBAMACARE and the cost of a free lunch.

SECRET SERVICE visits outspoken Obama critic because of tweets. 'Outspoken' is mild, but I've seen nothing in his Twitter feed that I could call threatening.

His Twitter feed is here.

HOW DUCT TAPE patched up the world. Forget dogs; duct tape is still a man's best friend.

NEW YORK TIMES: Is it still warming if we don't understand why it isn't warming?

Linked from Instapundit.

HEH. ATTEMPTED LAND GRAB ENDS when voters boot out entire city council. Kudos to the voters of Hackensack NJ.

SUE THEM: Sue the school board, superintendent, principal, and teacher. Sue them severally and individually. Pull an 'Al Armendariz' on them. Make the lesson painful enough and it may be learned.

IMMIGRATION REFORM: Legalization first, then border control (maybe), then amnesty.

It's time to abandon 'comprehensive' reforms of any kind.

UPDATE: Dan Holler and I differ only on the order.

OBAMACARE: Medicaid for all. If we're lucky....

LIFE in a paperless world.

MAUREEN SCOTT: The Architect of Destruction.

Obama appears to be a tormented man filled with resentment, anger, and disdain for anyone of an opinion or view other than his. He acts in the most hateful, spiteful, malevolent, vindictive ways in order to manipulate and maintain power and control over others. Perhaps, because, as a child, he grew up harboring an abiding bitterness toward the U.S. that was instilled in him by his family and mentors…it seems to have never left him.

It is not the color of his skin that is a problem in America .

Rather it is the blackness that fills his soul and the hollowness in his heart where there should be abiding pride and love for this country.

Think: Have we ever heard Obama speak lovingly of the U.S. or its people, with deep appreciation and genuine respect for our history, our customs, our sufferings and our blessings? Has he ever revealed that, like most patriotic Americans, he gets "goose bumps" when a band plays "The Star Spangled Banner," or sheds a tear when he hears a beautiful rendition of " America the Beautiful?" Does his heart burst with pride when millions of American flags wave on a National holiday - or someone plays "taps" on a trumpet? Has he ever shared the admiration of the military, as we as lovers of those who keep us free, feel when soldiers march by? It is doubtful because Obama did not grow up sharing our experiences or our values. He did not sit at the knee of a Grandfather or Uncle who showed us his medals and told us about the bravery of his fellow troops as they tramped through foreign lands to keep us free. He didn't have grandparents who told stories of suffering and then coming to America , penniless, and the opportunities they had for building a business and life for their children.

Away from this country as a young child, Obama didn't delight in being part of America and its greatness. He wasn't singing our patriotic songs in kindergarten, or standing on the roadside for a holiday parade and eating a hot dog, or lighting sparklers around a campfire on July 4th as fireworks exploded over head, or placing flags on the gravesites of fallen and beloved American heroes.

Rather he was separated from all of these experiences and doesn't really understand us and what it means to be an American. He is void of the basic emotions that most feel regarding this country and insensitive to the instinctive pride we have in our national heritage. His opinions were formed by those who either envied us or wanted him to devalue the United States and the traditions and patriotism that unites us.

He has never given a speech that is filled with calm, reassuring, complimentary, heartfelt statements about all the people in the U.S. Or one that inspires us to be better and grateful and proud that in a short time our country became a leader, and a protector of many. Quite the contrary, his speeches always degenerate into mocking, ridiculing tirades as he faults our achievements as well as any critics or opposition for the sake of a laugh, or to bolster his ego. He uses his Office to threaten and create fear while demeaning and degrading any American who opposes his policies and actions. A secure leader, who has noble self-esteem and not false confidence, refrains from showing such dread of critics and displaying a cocky, haughty attitude.

Mostly, his time seems to be spent causing dissention, unrest, and anxiety among the people of America , rather than uniting us (even though he was presented to us as the "Great Uniter"). He creates chaos for the sake of keeping people separated, envious, aggrieved and ready to argue. Under his leadership Americans have been kept on edge, rather than in a state of comfort and security. He incites people to be aggressive toward, and disrespectful of, those of differing opinions. And through such behavior, Obama has lowered the standards for self-control and mature restraint to the level of street-fighting gangs, when he should be raising the bar for people to strive toward becoming more considerate, tolerant, self-disciplined, self-sustaining, and self-assured.

Not a day goes by that he is not attempting to defy our laws, remove our rights, over-ride established procedures, install controversial appointees, enact divisive mandates, and assert a dictatorial form of power.

Never has there been a leader of this great land who used such tactics to harm and hurt the people and this country.

Never have we had a President who spoke with a caustic, evil tongue against the citizenry rather than present himself as a soothing, calming and trustworthy force.

Never, in this country, have we experienced how much stress one man can cause a nation of people - on a daily basis!

Obama has promoted the degeneration of peace, civility, and quality of cooperation between us. He thrives on tearing us down, rather than building us up. He is the Architect of the decline of America , and the epitome of a Demagogue.

From my email.

HEADLINE: Girly man creates jobs for burly women while denying jobs for burly men.

D.C COUNCILMAN and former Mayor Marion Barry still seems to think the rules don't apply to him. Well, why shouldn't he? In the past he's gotten away with crack cocaine use and tax evasion with hardly more than a tap on the wrist and severe finger wag.

Until D.C. throws the book (and kitchen sink and a few dirty diapers) at him he'll continue to believe he's above the law. An he'll be right.

FATHER'S DAY:

I knew we were good for something....

OBAMA'S disastrous second term. How is it different from his first term? (Other than all the chickens coming home to roost....)

ON SECOND THOUGHT, "[L]et’s get a sledge hammer and smash apart this government until all those bureaucrats who think they can bully us are completely powerless to do anything but whine at deaf ears. Rubble don’t make trouble."

ANDY PUZDER: Of Burgers, Bikinis and ObamaCare. Mostly ObamaCare.

SENATOR BIRDBRAIN: Senate to craft legislation to prevent contractor access to classified data. Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Dianne Feinstein: “We will certainly have legislation which will limit or prevent contractors from handling highly classified technical data.”

Does Sen. Feinstein have the faintest idea of who develops the systems that acquirethat (highly classified technical) intelligence data? And who operates those systems? And who processes the data? And who interprets the data? Contractors all...

The only things the government does are a) fund the programs and b) misuse the data. It does neither well.

LIBERAL IDIOT: If she tries to load it, I doubt there'll be a Week Two. The article is here.

THERE'S HOPE...

... and then there's snoop. From the Washington Times (10 June 2013)

THE CASE FOR POLYAMORY: and while we’re at it, let’s privatize marriage. Instapundit: "For those who say 'what about the children?' note that we’ve basically separated marriage from childbearing already."

Personally, I think that getting government the hell out of marriage is a fine idea provided there remains a body of law dedicated to respecting the obligations of parenthood and protecting the rights of minor children.

PALIN ON SYRIA: ‘Let Allah Sort It Out’. I approve this message. I would only add that the U.S. should make it absolutely, unequivocally clear (unfortunately something Obama can't do) that any attack on any U.S. territory will be met by the U.S. immediately turning the attackers' homeland territories into rubble, bouncing the rubble, salting the earth underneath, and leaving any survivors to fend for themselves.

BLUE DOGS TO OBAMA: ‘Time to Approve Keystone Has Come’. Obama still has his base; it's just no longer the Democrat base.

A GOOD BEGINNING: Chicago Public Schools lays off nearly 850 employees.

STEVE DEACE: The Libertarians Were Right.

"THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION has made mistakes that can’t be corrected — at least not anytime soon and not without a fearful toll in human lives. The citizens of the world allegedly desperately wanted Barack Obama in 2008. How do they like the world he helped make?"

MARK STEYN: "[T]he bozo leviathan blunders on. Big Politically Correct Brother sees everything . . . and nothing."

Justice is blind. Now it's deaf and dumb as well. But it doesn't profile.

WAY BACK IN THE 60'S, we didn't abolish insane asylums, we just renamed them 'universities': Berenstein Bears, Franklin the Friendly Turtle Perpetuate "Racist," "Socially Dominant Norms" to Children.

Linked from National Review Online.

CAPITALISM V. SOCIALISM: which do you prefer?

ORGANIZING FOR ACTION (President Obama's personal 'community organizing committee') to put a bumper sticker on your car declaring your love for ObamaCare. Here it is:

Greg Gutfield (of Fox News' The Five) has a different take:

More here.

LOWERING THE CRIME RATE by legalizing crime.

JUST WHO in America has a race problem?

NEWT GINGRICH: There's a 'level of illegality and bureacratic arrogance' in the government taken from Obama's attitude.

Fish ... rot ... head. More needs not be said.

PEGGY NOONAN: The surveillance state threatens Americans' love of country.

The price is a now formal and agreed-upon acceptance of the end of the last vestiges of Americans' sense of individual distance and privacy from the government. The price too is a knowledge, based on human experience and held by all but fools and children, that the gleanings of the surveillance state will eventually be used by the mischievous, the malicious and the ignorant in ways the creators of the system did not intend.

I feel that almost everyone who talks about America for a living—politicians and journalists and even historians—is missing a huge and essential story: that too many things are happening that are making a lot of Americans feel a new distance from, a frayed affiliation with, the country they have loved for half a century and more, the country they loved without every having to think about it, so natural was it.

This isn't the kind of thing that can be quantified in polls—it's barely the kind of thing people admit to themselves. But talk to older Americans—they feel they barely know this country anymore. In governance its crucial to stay within parameters, it's important not to strain ties, push too far, be extreme. And if you think this does not carry implications for down the road, for our healthy continuance as a nation, you are mistaken. Love keeps great nations going.

Read it all.

HEH: What happens to ObamaCare if insurers decline to participate?

MSNBC RATINGS COLLAPSE 'unglues' Chris Matthews: "All of Obama's MSNBC minions and all of Obama's Tweety McTingles' are frustrated at not being able to put Obama back together again."

RANDOM THOUGHTS from the retirement lane. This picture of the Marine holding Obama's umbrella is a sad reminder of the low esteem this President has for the military under his command. Rather than get wet, hold his own umbrella, or have one of his staffers hold it, he tasks his Marine honor guard.

The arrogance and narcissism of the man is astounding.

HEH: First-Time Buyers Bolster Gun Makers. And those first-time buyers become second-time buyers, and third-time....

I have to admit Obama has been a marketing genius for gun manufacturers.

BACK TO THE FUTURE: cargo-carrying airships.

THE ACCOUNTING HAS ARRIVED....

From the Washington Times (5 June 2013)

THE OATH KEEPERS ON EDWARD SNOWDEN. I'm not surprised, and frankly less worried about them than I am of the unchecked arrogance of the Obama administration. As I noted in an earlier post, it's not the data, it's who controls it that matters.

THE ALL-SEEING EYE: I smiled, because the video cameras on my computers are all pointed at the ceiling where NSA can quietly watch the paint peel.

OLD WHITE MALES who advocate diversity should resign so their jobs can be opened up to minorities. Something I've long advocated, just as I've advocated that those who want to decrease the world's population should volunteer to go first.

CONNECTICUT HEALTH OFFICIALS bully barber giving free haircuts to the homeless. Silly barber. Doesn't he know that only the government can hand out free stuff?

TRUST MY GOVERNMENT? Are you kidding?

OBAMACARE: the (un)Affordable Care Act for low-income workers.

Some day, maybe, voters will wake up to realize that our so-called 'Political class' is more accurately described as our 'Stupidity class'.

JUNE 18, 1972 REVISITED? Is the 'I-word' about to raise its ugly head?

MARK STEYN: When Your W-2 Meets an AR-15.

BRYAN PRESTON: "It sounds like ObamaCare is so bad it may drive many in the political class out of the political class. That’s probably ObamaCare’s only redeeming quality, and it’s the only thing in that monstrosity that must stay if the rest of it stays."

Heh.

MICROWAVE BALLOONS: overcoming satellite transit delays.

PAUL MIRENGOFF: Are we on the verge of a conservative crackup?

TALKING POINTS MEMO'S JOSH MARSHALL on the Washington Post story about the immense cost of President Obama's coming trip to Africa: "Wapo has story on the immense costs of taking black presidents on trips to Africa." Marshall obviously didn't read the tenth paragraph (unless he thinks Bill Clinton and George W. Bush are black):

Former presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush also made trips to multiple African nations involving similarly laborious preparations. Bush went in 2003 and 2008, bringing his wife on both occasions. Bush’s two daughters went along on the earlier trip, which included a safari at a game preserve on the Botswana-South Africa border.

Charlie Martin [PJ Tatler] calls him out: "Some idiot has a notion WaPo is emphasizing *black* Presidents."

RAND PAUL: The Constitution is not negotiable.

WE'RE TOO BUSY with our Tea Party surveillance to be bothered with Islamists....

POWERLINE: The Week in Pictures. Here's a sample.

SAP: Autism works for us.

CINCINNATI IRS EMPLOYEE doesn’t like the view from under the bus. What? They're not your friends under there with you?

OBAMA ADMINISTRATION: Some religions are more equal than others. And it's not hard to guess which ones are 'more equal'.

HMM. "It would be interesting, wouldn’t it, to pull out some of the Romney campaign’s computers and see if they show the kind of evidence that CBS’s experts found on Attkisson’s computer?"

JUSTICE DEPT: 'To Our Knowledge' We Did Not Hack [CBS News investigative reporter Sharyl] Attkisson's Computer. And we're not going to investigate any further....

SOYLENT: It's Not People. Or Food. Just boring.

NSA DIRECTOR says dozens of attacks were stopped by surveillance programs. I can be convinced, but you're going to have to show me evidence.

HOUSE MAJORITYY LEADER ERIC CANTOR: ‘Increasingly Clear’ Obama ‘Does Not Have a Coherent Plan’ for Syrian ‘Catastrophe’.

Charles Krauthammer agrees.

BIG HEALTH CARE: How Obamacare — and Big Hospitals — Will Raise Health Costs.

Unexpectedly (of course).

WASHINGTON EXAMINER: Metadata helps find terrorists -- and Obama voters. So ... [snark intentional] Obama voters are like terrorists?

THE MOST UNIQUE ECLIPSE IMAGE YOU’LL EVER SEE

Here's how it was made.

MORNING EXAMINER: Will Democrats really kill immigration reform over the Cornyn amendment? I certainly hope so. I want it dead, dead, dead.

UPDATE: It isn't looking to good for immigration supporters.

NYC'S SURFACE-BOUND CITIBIKES are so last week.

CARTOON OF THE DAY.

IT'S EASY TO BE APPALLED AT THESE TWITS, but can you imagine the damage they could do if they actually resorted to governing?

Goodell didn't fine them enough. And the suspension should have been ejection from the 2013-2014 'season'.

DC MEDIA & WHITE HOUSE: more inbred than a 7-toed Kentucky lot lizard.

As someone who has been watching the media closely for twenty-years, I can tell you that even without all this incest, the media would still be guarding Obama's palace just as aggressively as it does now. Family relations have nothing to do with it.

Our media would be just as corrupt, just as unwilling to dig into scandals, just as obsessed with The War On The WomanParts and gay marriage; just as dishonest, partisan, and lazy were no one in any way related to top officials within the Obama administration.

These relations are not the cause of the media's corruption; they are a symptom of it.

Sad, but undoubtedly true. They are part and parcel of the regulatory state.

PARANOID GOVERNMENT: What do to about ‘federal fringe’. It's satire (I think).

Instapundit: "I think they should be disarmed and sent for mandatory therapy."

SUPREME COURT JUSTICES rule human genes cannot be patented.

COMMENT OF THE WEEK: "Green energy, Global Warming, the list is long -- if it involves energy and the Government is involved, you can be sure that the science is bad, the economics is worse, and the corruption is total."

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: America's Vast Margin of Error. Only today, it's half-vast and declining rapidly.

ESSENTIAL LIBERTY: They Came for Your Guns. Instapundit comments: "Don’t be ridiculous. A gun registry would be in violation of federal law. Our law enforcers would never break the law."

WHY DOCTORS are bailing out of health insurance. I can understand. My wife and I will soon be joining a 'concierge plan' at a cost roughly similar to that described in the post.

Catastrophic care is a problem, but for us, at least partly solved by Medicare Part A, which we can't get out of anyway. My expectation (read as hope) is that insurers will eventually step in with AFLAC-type insurance plans, which will simply pay a fixed flat daily dollar amount for every emergency room/hospitalization visit.

EVERY TIME, it's money over principle. Academia at its best....

MISS ME YET? More Americans now view George Bush favorably than Barack Obama.

Heh.

YOUR CAT may be even smarter than you think. They are, and mine have trained me well.

RANDOM THOUGHTS from the retirement lane. On l'affaire Snowdon: If any legislation results, it should be named the SCI Clearance Holders' Protection Act of 2013, since the granting of new clearances is about to come to a sudden, screeching halt. On the bright side, however, maybe -- and I emphasize maybe -- the government will learn something and quit trying to classify the obvious.

HEH: Appeals court openly skeptical, borderline derisive of Bloomberg’s big-soda ban.

MORE ON the coming IRS as healthcare enforcer nightmare: An audit AND a colonoscopy?!

CINCINNATI: Clear our city's name!

TWEETS ARE FOR TWITS: Barbara Mikulski halts NSA hearing to answer a Twitter critic.

ARMEGEDDON is back; just about on schedule. The wind picked up suddenly at about 3:45 pm, and the radio is in full panic mode. This time, the cats took notice as well -- they're outside, watching.

More as time progresses....

UPDATE, 8:10 PM EDT: Uh, never mind ... clear skies, no rain, gusty winds, maybe reaching 30 kts tops.

TINY SUBMARINE for planetary exploration. What's interesting is that by the time we may be able to use it, it may be able to be printed onboard the spacecraft.

MSNBC: George Wallace a ... Republican? He must have changed his voter registration posthumously. Democrats like to do that....

Best comment: "I keep waiting for the punchline that MSNBC is a prolonged April Fool's Day joke perpetrated by the Onion."

OH, MY GOODNESS: the diversity establishment has a diversity problem. Who'd have thunk it?

WHEN SURFING THE INTERNET, have you ever had that feeling that those medical pop-up ads are coming awfully close to home? Well, there may be a reason.

ROBOT HELPERS: technologies to improve quality of life. I hope they hurry.

RANDOM THOUGHTS from the retirement lane. A one-word definition of arrogant narcissism: progressive.

We don't share your knowledge, your common sense, your culture, your beliefs ... but we know what's best for you. And since you choose not to voluntarily accept our benevolent guidance, we're going to shove it down your throat.

Any questions?

MARK STEYN: on the NSA surveillance programs: The gist, in one sentence: "It's okay if we do it."

NEWT GINGRICH: Are big scandals too hard to fix? Answer: Not if you have the balls to start firing (and prosecuting) the malefactors.

STOP BLAMING ‘ROGUE AGENTS’: The myth is debunked, and key IRS officials in D.C. are quietly retiring just in time.

Retirement should not be a barrier to persecution prosecution.

PEGGY NOONAN: The era of metadata. It's not the data. It never is. It's the people who can access the data, and over at least the last 4-1/2 years, the Obama administration has proven itself to be corrupt, venal, vindictive, ruthless and petty.

As has been commonly observed, a fish rots from the head, and President Obama has directly (possibly) or indirectly (certainly) given license to his minions throughout government to lie to, cheat, bully, and steal from the citizens of the United States.

E.J. DIONNE: “Why are there no libertarian countries?” Well, perhaps it's because

every country practices it to one extent or another. This is the reason we experience progress, enjoy wealth, and have access to things like longer lives, food to eat, cities, smartphones, financial markets, useful websites, shoes, clothes, and the like. It’s why we can mostly say what we want, fall in love and act on that, and do what we want in a general way provided we don’t hurt others.

Dionne would be well-advised to open his window and look around.

I'M NOT A TRAITOR. In his own mind, perhaps. But 'traitor' is defined by law, not opinion.

OMG! IT'S PANIC TIME. Drenching rain, hail, lightning, thunder, raging winds, floods, plagues of locusts cicadas .... Oh, wait, ... never mind.

That was the forecast for this morning. It hit at 9:13 am, with one thunderclap, 30 mph winds, and 217 raindrops on my back porch (I counted).

But that's okay ... the 'end of times' is due back this afternoon about 4 pm.

JEFF JACOBY: A conservative's case for confirming Samantha Power.

I'm still not convinced.

SMILE! You're probably on candid surveillance camera.

OBAMA'S POWER GRAB: The common thread running through his scandals is an abuse of power.

BIG LABOR unprepared to battle new right-to-work laws. That's because they're busy battling the ObamaCare they voted for.

MORNING EXAMINER: The Schumer-Rubio-Obamacare (immigration) tax on employing Americans. If this is true, and I have no doubt that it is, then it follows that the ObamaCare mandate will encourage even more hiring of illegal immigrants if the comprehensive immigration bill fails (which it will).

Much more here.

Can politicians spell 'u-n-i-n-t-e-n-d-e-d c-o-n-s-e-q-u-e-n-c-e-s'?

IN THE OBAMA ERA, it’s not whether you’re paranoid. It’s whether your paranoid enough. "I really do not want to start wearing a tinfoil hat, but it’s seemingly more stupid every day to do otherwise."

NOW THAT Tim Tebow has become a Patriot, he's being audited by the IRS....

EXACTLY WHAT I need for retirement.

Well, I don't really need it; I just want Obama to give me one since he took my job (and about 40 others, I've since learned).

AN ASTUTE OBSERVATION: "When you're carrying water for the President, everything looks like a bucket."

Any excuse in an emergency....

CIA DEPUTY DIRECTOR Michael Morell has just retired. This may be harsh, but it seems to me that the Obama administration is replacing CIA's senior management with cronies.

THE CORNER: New Study Blames Collective Bargaining for Education Stagnation.

I'm sure Wisconsin's Teacher of the Year would agree.

MORNING EXAMINER: Pro-amnesty Republicans can’t get their legalization talking points straight.

DEAR NSA. Wednesday is inconvenient for me unless you are willing to do the interview at the gun range.

TRYING TO BUY MORE UNIONISTAS: SEIU launching pro-immigration-reform ad buy.

IN RESPONSE to all the recent e-mails, please be advised, we are sick and tired of answering questions about our dog!

Yes, he mauled six people wearing Obama T-shirts, four people wearing Pelosi T-shirts, two other Democrats, nine teenagers with pants hanging past their crack, and three flag burners.

For the last time... the dog is not for sale!

And no, I do not approve of his smoking, but - he says it helps get the "bad taste" out of his mouth.

From my email.

RAND PAUL: Big Brother really is watching us.

What is objectionable is a system in which government has unlimited and privileged access to the details of our private affairs, and citizens are simply supposed to trust that there won't be any abuse of power. This is an absurd expectation. Americans should trust the National Security Agency as much as they do the IRS and Justice Department.

That is to say "Not at all."

THOMAS SOWELL: Who 'needs' immigrant labor?

NATIONAL REVIEW (dead tree edition): "The IRS is targeting people who make Obama look bad. Eric Holder, call your accountant."

SPEAKER JOHN BOEHNER: "The federal tax code is more than 74,000 pages long when you add up all of its regulations, annotations, and explanations. It’s confusing, a headache for families, and a nightmare for small business owners – and dangerous if you disagree with the president...."

PICK YOUR SCANDAL: So many to choose from....

WHERE IS GUN CONTROL WHEN YOU NEED IT? Another defensive gun use.

UPDATE: And another.

'CONSERVATIVE REPUBLICAN' behind IRS abuse. And Rep. Cummings (D-MD) will provide a name as soon as he finds one....

MORE PROOF that Twitter is for twits.

COMMENT OF THE DAY:

It is kind of ironic, the founders, whatever else they disagreed on, believed certain things to be absolute bedrock truths:

1. Government is incompetent;

2. Government is complicated;

3. Government is heartless;

4. Government is secretive; and

5. Government can't be trusted.

It seems I’ve seen this list somewhere before.

The founders also understood government is necessary, but given 1 through 5 above they realized that government must be fettered, and kept as weak and divided as possible so when evil and or incompetent people get power, the damage they can do is limited.

The harm which results from keeping the government from doing what it should, is always less than the harm which results from failing to keep the government from doing what it should not.

In response to this post.

A ROGUE'S GALLERY of Social Security fraud.

WHY BE CONCERNED? We elected him, and Obama is just being Obama. Click through to Victor Davis Hanson's post.

THE LOW NO INFORMATION VOTER:



I can hope that 'proud to be a Democrat' is not typical, but I'm afraid I'm being optimistic.

IT'S NOT CLIMATE CHANGE; it's deer pee.

WHAT? I have to pay for my free ObamaCare? The view from 'ground zero' is, I suspect, all too real.

IT MAY BE politically incorrect to be overweight, but it's not necessarily unhealthy. The science journal Nature rebukes Harvard nutritionist.

The PC Police are often wrong, but they're never uncertain.

CALIFORNIA SCHOOL to sponsor toy gun exchange. "But it’s attitudes like the one held by that principal — glorying in their own ignorance and being so smug in their supposed moral superiority — that really gets to me."

Me, too.

GUN CONTROL OVERREACH: Colorado counties proposing the 51st state of Northern Colorado. I's suggest they rejoin Texas, but unfortunately in 1836 only the western part of Colorado was part of Texas.

IT'S TIME to quit feeding the global warmists.

A RARE CASE where I agree with Bob Beckel. (And this was before the internet spying [PRISM] was disclosed.)

MOVE TO MEXICO: The Mexican economy is doing better than the Obama economy.



Which might explain why net migration from Mexico has fallen to zero.

AGREED: An Open Letter to the Republican national Committee.

IS YOUR COMPUTER BUGGING YOUR HOUSE? Possibly, even probably.

MARK STEYN: "When the state has the capability to know everything except the difference between right and wrong, it won’t end well."

Read it all.

THE STAGNANT MEDITERRANEAN: Short of a Muslim embrace of the modern, there’s no hope for the future.

COMMENT OF THE DAY: "The quickest way to control global warming is to remove grant money for studying it."

NEWT: And the next surprise will be ...?

THE WEEK IN PICTURES, eavesdropping edition.

OBAMA ON SNOOPING: Not 'Big Brother'. Of course not; Big Brother is too paltry for his ambitions.

THE IRS CAN'T PLEAD INCOMPETENCE: If the agency didn't know what it was doing, it wouldn't have done it so well.

MORNING EXAMINER: Do Americans care if Big Brother is watching? I don't think it's about caring as daring. After 4-1/2 years of letting the Obama administration screw up nearly everything, I suspect most Americans have decided to go about their business and dare the feds to do anything about it.

A POLITICAL TIMELINE: President Obama spent months in 2010 warning Americans about the 'threat' to democracy posed by conservative groups, right at the time the IRS began targeting these groups.

And a couple of rogue employees at the IRS 'just happened' to start targeting conservative tax-exempt organizations at the same time. Yeah, that'll work. Remember, a fish rots from the head, not the tail.

NANCY PELOSI ON OBAMACARE: It will cost you more but you'll pay less. Ri-i-ight.

FAA GIVES Eclipse jets a longer lease on life. Interesting, if only because the 'friction stir' welding process apparently lowers production costs.

A NEW HOUSE BILL would task the Department of Health and Human Services with creating exercise guidelines for all Americans. How long do you think it will take to become part of the ObamaCare mandate?

OBAMA'S GOVERNMENT HELPLINE.

A PEEK INTO THE MIND (I use that word loosely) of an anti-human environmentalist. It's not pretty.

I often wonder why they're so willing to sacrifice me when it would be so much easier to sacrifice themselves.

RAMESH PONNURU: Obama’s Dangerous Contempt for the Rule of Law.

THE STRANGE CASE of True the Vote vs the IRS ... and lots of other bureaucrats.

According to Jim McDermott (D-WA) it's Catherine Engelbrecht's fault for applying for tax-exempt status in the first place.

GET READY FOR RATE SHOCK: In California, Obamacare To Increase Individual Health Insurance Premiums By 64-146%. More here.

UPDATE: the Washington Post's Ezra Klein disagrees, and Avik Roy responds.

UNDER OBAMACARE you cannot be denied coverage or charged extra for preexisting conditions. Right, no higher charges for preexisting conditions ... unless you smoke, or are overweight, or have any other politically incorrect habit.

'Change' defined - to change you for the better (as we define better).

SPEECHLESS.



President Obama strolled out to the podium today in San Jose, CA and was immediately at a loss for words. Not only did the President not have teleprompter, his aides forgot his speech.

Photo via Althouse.

POLITICO: The Lois Lerner state and the rise of the fourth branch of government.

And the Fourth Estate has become the Lapdog Estate....

MORE OBAMA SNOOPING: Can you track me now?

INTELLIGENCE CHIEF blasts leaks after web surveillance program revealed.

This looks to me like an Administration afraid of serious jail time. They should be; this is well beyond the 'tar and feathers' level.

HMM. IRS officials visit White House 322 times since 2011. For a so-called 'independent agency' one must wonder why.

POOR NAIVE EZRA KLEIN: Politics Was Hijacked by Partisans. Oh, come on ... 'politics' and 'partisan' are essentially synonyms. What disturbs Ezra is the number of normally uninvolved citizens (read that as 'voters') trying desperately to drag our political class back to the center.

The Tea Party is extreme only if you're a committed socialist.

DEMOCRATS: Your health care premiums are going up under ObamaCare -- and that's a good thing.

RAND PAUL:

The National Security Agency's seizure and surveillance of virtually all of Verizon's phone customers is an astounding assault on the Constitution.

After revelations that the IRS targeted political dissidents and the Department of Justice seized reporters' phone records, it would appear that this Administration has now sunk to a new low.

When Sen. Mike Lee and I offered an amendment that would attach Fourth Amendment protections to the FISA bill last year, it was defeated.

And FISA passed by an overwhelming majority of the Senate.

At the time, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid remarked that FISA was "necessary to protect us from the evil in this world."

The Bill of Rights was designed to protect us from evil, too.

Particularly that evil which always correlates with concentrated government power.

I put together a video last fall to explain that exact point.

Here's the video:

"[I]T TURNS OUT that the f***ing Nascar [sic] retards got 2008 right, far more than the Juiceboxers or their fellow leftists at the Economist did."

Linked from Instapundit.