FIVE YEARS AGO TODAY: Hillary Clinton visits the foreign country of Texas.

HERE'S AN IDEA FOR WORLD PEACE: Let NASCAR sponsor a 'Taliban 500'.

STENY HOYER (D-MD): ObamaCare is going to be, at worst, neutral in the midterm elections. And at best, the Republicans will win a veto-proof majority in both houses of Congress.

THEY'LL GO TO THEIR [POLIICAL] GRAVES insisting they never lied about Benghazi.

HEALTHY PEOPLE fart more. Now that ObamaCare mandates healthy people, I can see the headlines: "ObamaCare increases global warming."

“IT’S HIGHLY UNUSUAL for an administrator or director of a Cabinet-level department to request an IG stop an investigation.” From which I think you can safely infer that something's not on the up-and-up.

Plus the fact that it's the EPA....

OBAMA TIP-TOES past the graveyard of his foreign policy.

[T]he President and all the people around him totally failed to understand the first thing about Vladimir Putin and his foreign policy agenda. They were caught utterly flatfooted by his move on Ukraine. To both the average layperson and the seasoned foreign policy professional, this looks like a major misreading of a major issue. Many will wonder how an administration that was listening in to Angela Merkel’s cell phone calls could have misread Russia so comprehensively.

They were are so invested in the fantasy world they call 'reality' that they cannot fathom that the adults are no longer playing childrens' games.

THOMAS SOWELL: Demonizing the Helpers.

With the education establishment, I'm having trouble deciding whether it's more about retaining control or protecting incompetence. But then neither choice makes the establishment look good.

WHITE HOUSE BENGHAZI DEFENSE detonated by email bomb. All that's left is to investigate the smoking ruins.

And they will be investigated.

EVERY DAY OF THE YEAR has been declared a national day of some food. What's yours?

EPA CHIEF promises to 'go after' Republicans who question agency science.

That reads like a threat to me. It's time to abolish the EPA.

CHANGE 'OBAMACARE' to 'progressive' and you've more than adequately described their 'reality' world.

HEH: "Democratic Senate blocks federal minimum wage bill."

TWENTY-THREE (23) PERCENT: the cost of the ruling class. Oh, and that's before taxes.

DARTMOUTH COLLEGE CONTROVERSY: Is a burrito racially or culturally insensitive?

Does that mean I can't put up my luminiarias this coming Christmas Winter Solstice Holiday Eve?

More here. Follow the link.

INCOME INEQUALITY EXPLAINED: "Administrators control the money, so naturally they wind up with more of it."

It's not confined to just education. Think government as well.

VICTORY GIRLS on Cliven Bundy and Racism.

LOSER WHINES, does 'stompy feet' dance.

THOUGHT CONTROL disguised as 'manners'.

Instapundit has a point: the Right should start redefining the Left's favorite terminology to demonstrate the vapidity of their thought processes. I'd start by redefining 'microagressive behavior' as 'whining'.

I still like "Sod off, swampy" though.

JONAH GOLDBERG: The myth of the wild. The environmentalists' pristine wilderness is not what they think it is.

'PLAYING POLITICS?' Sen. James Inhofe, (R-OK), says the EPA may have delayed issuing a regulation limiting carbon emissions from new power plants so the rule would not be finalized until after the midterms.

'May' have delayed? May? What's the problem with accurately writing just plain 'delayed'?

MEGAN MCARDLE bashes MSNBC's Chris Hayes: "Poor People Have Carbon Footprints, Too."

A bashing that is well deserved.

SO SUE THE BASTARDS. Sue them personally and individually. Make 'em pay for their hubris and arrogance.

Much more here.

UPDATE: Another reason to sue the bastards.

NEWSPEAK RETURNS: "Some people just need to man person up already and quit whining about words they don’t like."

INSTAPUNDIT: "It’s beginning to seem as if campus hate-crime reports are usually fake." True that. When Leftists can't find real hate crimes to be outraged over, they have to manufacture them.

LOIS LERNER: Contempt charge would be 'un-American.' Uh, huh. And what she did is pro-American?

INVENTION AWARDS 2014: A Personal Electric Airplane That Won't Need A Runway.

Doesn't look like it'll fit into a garage, though.

AMERICAN SPECTATOR: The Gospel According to Mark Steyn.

OH, MY: "... university policy took precedent [sic] over Constitutional rights".

More idiocy from overly-edjumacated shmoes.

RANDOM THOUGHTS from the retirement lane. Yesterday we got 2-3/4 inches of rain. Today it's supposed to really rain.

OBAMA ON FOREIGN POLICY: I don't have time to explain my complex, nuanced Obama Doctrine, so let me explain the Bush Doctrine instead.

The Obama Doctrine can succintly be explained as the "Strawman Doctrine" (i.e., he doesn't have one). Here's an example:

SOUNDS LIKE A GOOD IDEA TO ME: Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) will introduce a bill this week to cut off aid to the Palestinian government unless it recognizes Israel’s right to exist. It should be 'until', not 'unless' and all future appropriations should be contingent upon the Palestinian government living up to that recognition.

TEA PARTY PACs spend most of their cash on themselves.

This based on this Washington Post article. Somehow I don't think it would be 'news' if the Post were to do a similar analysis on Democrat Party PACs.

STEVEN F. HAYWARD: Conservatism and Climate Science.

Linked from his PowerLine post.

CRIME: High Schoolers’ Gun Battle Lands Them in Deep Trouble With Police, Administration.

If these lunatics had held sway when I was growing up, I'd have never graduated from elementary school.

MONOWHEELS: The coolest deathtrap on one wheel.



Linked from Instapundit.

OBAMA'S ALOOFNESS hits new height on budget and sparks Hill anger:

In other administrations, the president and his team have met with members of the budget committees, authorizing committees and appropriators to discuss priorities. That, said the sources, hasn’t happened in years, and now some are considering retaliating with blunt spending cuts on the president’s agenda.

Even (especially?) Democrats are unhappy.

IS IT TIME for impeachment proceedings? Yes, but for political reasons, it won't happen.

COMEDY CENTRAL: the Democrat campaigns in Texas.

CONGRATULATIONS, you got insurance through ObamaCare. Will you be able to afford it next year?

THE LEFT is black, brown, yellow, red, and every other color of the rainbow -- but not at the top.

TOYOTA BAILING OUT ON CALIFORNIA ... to guess where?

"Toyota Motor Corp. plans to move large numbers of jobs from its sales and marketing headquarters in Torrance to suburban Dallas, according to a person familiar with the automaker’s plans.

"The automaker won’t be the first big company Texas has poached from California.

"Occidental Petroleum Corp. said in February that it was relocating from Los Angeles to Houston, making it one of around 60 companies that have moved to Texas since July 2012, according to Texas Gov. Rick Perry."

JIM GERAGHTY on Those Guys (of which, unfortunately, I'm only a hanger-on).

"SINCE 2012, after President Barack Obama declared the government-fostered recession had ended, the average age of actual retirement has climbed from 60 to 62...."

Alan Grayson's 'die early' campaign seems to be working....

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON on Cliven Bundy, racism, politics, and history.

Separating the wheat from the chaff.

THOMAS PIKETTY wants income equality --- and the hell with growth.

Translation: everyone deserves an equal share of nothing.

INSIGHT INTO THE NANNY'S MIND: if it's not regulated, it's not happening.

We're not to the "if it isn't mandatory, it's proscribed" government mindset yet, but we're closing fast.

'QUIET BOOMS': are overland supersonic flights in the future?

'SMART' DIPLOMACY: "I think they gave him [Kerry] this job so Hillary’s tenure would look good by comparison, but for the first time in his life he’s over-performing."

VICTORY GIRLS: Sarah Palin’s NRA “Stand and Fight” Rally.

HEY, DEMOCRATS: check your donor lists.

HEH: Time columnist Joe Klein calls Fox ‘only option’ for straight news at 6 p.m.

Some liberals can think.

WASHINGTON POST: Sarah Palin soldiers on as a diminished figure in the Republican Party.

I think they're underestimating both Palin and the Tea Party. So much better for us.

BILL KRISTOL: The Closing of the Academic Mind. It's not just closed, it's been welded shut.

SAY IT ISN'T SO! Even the New York Times begins to admit Obama is global flop.

TOUGH QUESTIONS for the President:

Asked by Julie Pace of the AP if he slept well, he said, “I’m still on 4 am time.”

Another reporter asked Obama if he like the ice cream dessert in the shape of Mt. Fuji served at the state dinner.

Obama nodded, saying, “They have the green tea at the bottom that I’ve spoken of having when I was six, and I was very pleased,” Obama said.

“It was delicious.”

These things we really need to know.

IS IT JUST ME, or has America seemed steadily more third-world since Obama came in?

THE UNBEARABLE WHITENESS OF THE AMERICAN LEFT: "[P]rogressive movements need to do a better job empowering the people whose interests they claim to serve."

The answer, of course, is that progressives don't want to empower them, they want to control them.

SPACE-X gets closer to making a reusable rocket.

VOX.COM'S MASTHEAD -- the smartest thinkers, the toughest questions -- is a lie.

“WE GET IT OREGON — You People Live in a Cartoon.”

OF COURSE NOT; THEY'RE NOT 'VICTIMS': Asians not ‘people of color.’

PJ MEDIA: ‘Microclimates of Totalitarianism’.

TREE-RING CIRCUS: Michael Mann versus National Review.

OBAMA SUPPORTER can't find job with Obama administration. Okay, there's obviously more to the story than is reported in this link (and I commend both the father and his daughter for their resourcefulness), but still....

SPRING LEAVES, Week Seven: finally, some real green.

Almost all the trees are showing leaves now, although the taller oaks are still in the 'just beginning' stages. The beech trees have begun to leaf out, and it's always startling to see how fast they go from bud to full leaf.

Last week's picture is here, and of course you can click back in time from there.

FROM THE SCOREKEEPER (#3):

"If Bundy can break the law, why can’t I?”

Yes, just who does Cliven Bundy think he is?

An illegal alien?

Or the President of the United States?

PIKETTY'S PEOPLE: the income inequality struggle isn't at the bottom -- it's at the top.

The richest of the rich (a Warren Buffett, say, or a George Soros) also have a vested interest in making sure that in making sure that their position at the top of the heap is not challenged by wannabe magnates. Higher taxes (which they can easily afford) would be a small price to pay for keeping the not quite so wealthy riffraff out. And that’s a good part of why they fund what they fund and why they vote how they vote.

They're having a hard time because those wannabes are so damned inventive.

SPAM: How a tiny minority makes wavelets.

ACADEMIA'S CORE VALUES: "cowardice in the face of Islamists and timidity in the face of intolerance."

Read it all.

REPUBLICRATS TAKE NOTE: Tea Party, Rand Paul Stomp Establishment in Maine GOP Convention Straw Poll.

Anyone who thought the Tea Party dead is dead wrong.

ON KEYSTONE PIPELINE, Democratic stalwart Laborers Union finds itself outbid by one enviro-billionaire.

Heh. $38M just doesn't go as far as it used to....

IS FREE SPEECH endangered in America? More than free speech -- freedom itself.

I'VE WONDERED ABOUT THAT MYSELF: How Did We Survive Childhood Before the ’90s Safety Nannies Came Along?

But it’s worth thinking about the consequences of raising a generation or two of bubble kids and definitely worth considering how we can give our kids more unstructured time to invent, to create, and to imagine — to just be – free from structure and hovering helicopter parents. Because it’s becoming apparent that all the hovering and over-parenting, rather than helping our kids, has led to a generation of approval-seeking, naval-gazing, adult dependents who cannot navigate the world of adulthood without Buzzfeed or a government official telling them what to do and what to think about everything.

Well said. I think my children were the last generation to grow up 'nanny-free' -- but just barely.

TAXATION is the deadbeat brother of innovation.

HOMELESS IN ORLANDO? It's Disney's fault.

CAT TALES TAILS: Just in case you didn't know....

FREE SPEECH. For me. But you have to pay.

Read the comments as well.

ONLY BECAUSE THEY'RE RUNNING OUT OF OTHER PEOPLE'S MONEY: Illinois Democrats back off Obama library plan after accusations of 'shenanigans'.

PIERS MORGAN tries to insert both feet in his mouth -- and succeeds.

EVERYTOWN FOR GUN SAFETY: Guns for me, but not for thee.

DEMOCRATS: Hey, we need another squirrel, stat!

[T]he Democrat Party is the country’s natural home to racists and ethnic eliminationists. And now we have über liberal real estate mogul and sports owner, Democrat Party contributor and philanthropist, Donald T. Sterling in the news with yet another case of vile leftist racial hatred.

Read the whole thing.

RAND PAUL tells doctors Democrats will be begging for ObamaCare cure. I propose they be prescribed the 'hair of the dog'.

This could be in addition to VOX.COM's prescription for confiscatory taxation.

Added: I can't help myself, I have to note this comment. "'Liberals have big hearts,' Paul said, 'but small brains. They haven’t thought through what the repercussions are.'" Heh.

THE POWER OF INSTAPUNDIT: Glenn touted the benefits of 'foam rolling', so I clicked on this link to see what one looked like. Within minutes, I was seeing ads for them on every web site I visited....

VOX.COM: the case for confiscatory taxation.

Maybe this isn't as stupid as it first looks. Here's the idea. Since the purpose of confiscatory taxation is to discourage bad behavior, let's tie lawmakers' tax rates to the number of laws they vote for -- on a steeply progressive scale: one law, 5%; two laws, 15%; three laws, 40%; and so on, ending at 99%.

Remember, these VOX.COM folks are the 'smartest thinkers' addressing the 'toughest questions'.

CHAOS IN AMERICA'S CLASSROOMS:

After being forced to subdue an 18-year-old classroom drug dealer with hostility towards authority and an apathy for education, Santa Monica High School science teacher and wrestling coach, Mark Black, immediately found himself under attack from a second teenager inside his inner-city classroom. As if enduring multiple attacks were not enough for the day, Black then found himself abandoned by his politically-correct superintendent.

My wife is a suburban elementary school teacher. With the possible exception of drug dealing, the problems described of disruptive behavior, parental uninvolvement, and administration cowardice 'political correctness' are equally at home in suburban elementary schools.

DAVID HARSANYI: What Thomas Piketty's popularity tells us about the liberal press. Inequality is growing. Mobility is shrinking. Meritocracy is dead. We all live in a sprawling zero-sum fallacy. So we must embrace redistribution on a massive scale.

I’d ask if there are any historical examples that prove that skewed wealth in a generally prosperous nation is more damaging to its democratic institutions than the reallocation of wealth by a coercive state. But then I realize, as with any Marxist revival, the answer is: This time we’re gonna do it right!

Think Cuba. And Venezuela.

JAPAN'S PLAN for centimeter-resolution GPS location/navigation.

My first job -- while I was still in college in the early 1960's -- was to work on the initial attempts at satellite-based location. Location, not navigation. We were thrilled that after years of data collection we were finally able to distinguish two stationary antennas at the opposite ends of a 300-foot long building. Today, only 50 years later, we can tell whether a moving antenna (e.g., car) is driving on the wrong side of a 20-foot wide highway.

Note: if you bother to read the comments, they are mostly wrong.

BIG DATA and 'social engineering'.

[O]ur greatly expanded ability to gather behavioral data will allow scientists to develop “a causal theory of social structure” and ultimately establish “a mathematical explanation for why society reacts as it does” in all manner of circumstances. As the book’s title makes clear, Pentland thinks that the social world, no less than the material world, operates according to rules. There are “statistical regularities within human movement and communication,” he writes, and once we fully understand those regularities, we’ll discover “the basic mechanisms of social interactions.”

We may think of ourselves as rational actors, in conscious control of our choices, but most of what we do is reflexive. Our behavior is determined by our subliminal reactions to the influence of other people, particularly those in the various peer groups we belong to. “The power of social physics,” he writes, “comes from the fact that almost all of our day-to-day actions are habitual, based mostly on what we have learned from observing the behavior of others.” Once you map and measure all of a person’s social influences, you can develop a statistical model that predicts that person’s behavior, just as you can model the path a billiard ball will take after it strikes other balls.

This strikes me, unfortunately, as a technocratic Nineteen Eighty-Four. This comment,

Pentland’s idea of a “data-driven society” is problematic. It would encourage us to optimize the status quo rather than challenge it,

seems especially appropriate, although I'm inclined to think more in terms of stagnation than status quo.

CAN THIS MARRIAGE BE SAVED? The Republican establishment needs the grassroots, and vice versa. Of the first part, I'm certain. But vice versa? I'm not so sure.

ALABAMA DEMOCRAT offers $100K for proof of white families adopting black kids; families show up to take his offer.

Needless to say, he didn't pay up.

And as a side note, when my wife and I were at breakfast this morning, one such family showed up at the restaurant -- and no one paid any attention.

THOMAS SOWELL on the high cost of liberalism:

Liberals don't talk -- or perhaps even think -- in terms of the actual consequences of their policies, when it is so much more pleasant to think in terms of wonderful goals and lofty rhetoric.

Progressivism -- all emotion, no brain.

OBVIOUSMAN STRIKES AGAIN: "Biofuels produced from waste products left from harvested corn plants are worse than gasoline in terms of carbon emissions, according to a $500,000 study paid for by the federal government (my emphasis) and published in the journal Nature Climate Change."

But that won't stop the environmentalists from going ballistic.

Deep down in the emotions where they keep their 'reality world' they know they're right.

IT'S PUNDAY! Bad, bad, Punday.

IT IS SPRING, INDEED. Outside this morning, I notice that the beech trees have finally started unfurling their leaves. Around here, that's the definitive sign of spring.

A POSSIBLE REASON I gave up reading science fiction a few years back.

Linked from Instapundit.

NOW WE KNOW what Hillary Clinton accomplished as Secretary of State.

EXCELLENT! Mia Love wins GOP nomination for Utah seat.

RIGHT HAND, LEFT HAND ... NO BRAIN: State Dept Launches ‘Free the Press’ Campaign Same Day DOJ Asks Supreme Court To Jail Reporter.

WITH ALL THE MEDIA ATTENTION focused on Cliven Bundy's alleged 'racism' it interesting to note that Bundy is not the first to have a 'range war' with the Bureau of Land Management.

REPUBLICANS: our priorities are your priorities. With Democrats, it's the opposite: your priorities are our priorities.

SATURDAY NIGHT VIDEOS: Gun rights and political correctness run amok.

Enjoy.

CAUSE FOR CONCERN: Health-care costs are rising — and the experts aren't sure why. Well, they could take a careful look at the middle of the third paragraph:

According to Altarum, [health care] expenditures started to rise more quickly in the middle of 2013.

And guess what really got the nation's attention starting the middle of 2013? That's right -- ObamaCare.

Failure to see the obvious is the primary reason that 'expert' has been defined as a has-been drip under pressure.

PROOF THAT SYSTEMS INTEGRATION IS HARD (as someone with over 20 years experience can attest): Oracle Assails State’s “False Narrative” Explaining Cover Oregon Debacle.

A lesson that government know-it-alls should -- but probably certainly won't -- learn.

OUR NEW RODNEY DANGERFIELD: Chuck Hagel’s Russian Counterpart Won’t Return His Calls. Follow the link.

Every Cabinet-level department in this administration is just another ring in the Ringling Bros., Barnum and Obama circus.

POWERLINE'S WEEK IN PICTURES: Word salad edition. My favorite:

Also, PowerLine discovered the location of President Obama's real birth certificate....

AFTERBURNER: ‘Five Alarm Fire.



Linked from Pajamas Media.

AMMO GRRRLL strikes again. Bill Maher is the target.

IT AIN'T CHEAP, but jeez, it splits wood.

HOSTILE, BOORISH JACKASS FROM ACADEMIA displays his tolerance.

YEA, THOUGH I WALK THROUGH THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH, I will fear no evil ... for I am the meanest son-of-a-bitch in that valley.

Linked from Instapundit.

THIRTY-EIGHT REPUBLICAN(!?) LAWMAKERS demand equal treatment under the law.

Politicians demanding to be held to the same laws they pass for the rest of us? Stranger things must have happened, but I must admit I'd be hard-pressed to find an example.

ONLY $140 MILLION WASTED: Cover Oregon officially calls it quits.

BUT AREN'T DOCTORS PART OF THAT OBSCENELY RICH 1%? ObamaCare's premium grace period may end up costing doctors, hospitals.

They should be grateful for the opportunity requirement to 'give back' part of the wealth they stole from the 99%....

STANDARDZ: I don't know about engineering, though. The Laws of Physics are particularly unforgiving when you try to mess with them.

SUNSEEKER: Watch A Solar Plane Fly Over Milan Countryside. It's not clear to me whether this is truly a solar-powered aircraft or just a glider capable of taking off by itself.

THE DEMOCRATS are in trouble in Oregon.

This is a tough one for me. Sure we need good Republican senators (and this woman certainly appears to be a good candidate), but perhaps we need good pediatric neurosurgeons more.

DEATH PANELS: More deaths from bad care at Veterans Affairs health facilities. More to come when ObamaCare is fully implemented.

EASY DECISION: Who Has More Integrity, Barack Obama or Kim Kardashian?

Kardashian.

HARRY REID: "As Majority Leader, he holds the mirror up to President Obama. They illuminate each other. It’s not a pretty sight."

GUN CONTROL: Don't let it happen here.

DEMOCRATS: "Their candidates are as new as their ideas." No, their candidates are newer.

MORE STUPIDITY FROM GOVERNMENT: Connecticut lawmakers consider banning day care centers from serving whole or 2% milk.

Just as honest - fact based - research is beginning to show that whole milk is not the demon it once was thought to be.

But they're progressives; they don't need no stinkin' facts...

OBAMA'S KEYSTONE PIPELINE: the only one that counts.

DRAGON LADY outlasts Cold War, but (perhaps) not defense cuts.

BUT OTHER THAN THAT, everything is just peachy.

PAUL KRUGMAN claims America becoming an ‘oligarchy’. Yes, and guess who's lining himself up solidly on the side of the oligarchs....

TERRI LYNN LAND: The real war on women is ObamaCare. And ObamaCare is not a war on just women.

THINK PROGRESS SELF-PARODIES: "There's even a gender gap in children's allowances."

AMITY SHLAES: How the Affordable Care Act could collapse. Not with a bang, but with a whimper....

THE OBAMA RACE CARD keeps being played. And it keeps failing.

WILL STARBUCKS no longer be welcome on college campuses?

Heh.

MSNBC HOST CHRIS HAYES pens radical 'climate justice' manifesto.

Luckily Chris Hayes isn't smart enough to be considered stupid.

WHY THE DEMOCRATS' 'WAR ON WOMEN'? Because they can't say 'recovery'; nor can they say 'ObamaCare'.

And the race card has played out....

K STREET battles Tea Party in GOP primaries. The only question is whether or not they'll be good losers.

SANITATION COMES TO MIND: What's the difference between Bundy and Occupy Wall Street?

See also here.

A COMPARISON OF TWO RECOVERIES:

From the Scorekeeper (#8).

FOR ACADEMIC ELITES evidence is irrelevant. Well, of course. Since they know it all already.

ELIZABETH WARREN should run for president. "She's the perfect nominee for a Democratic Party that has degenerated into a coalition of cronies, rent-seekers, limousine lefties and grievance-mongers of both the ethnic and sexual varieties and is anything but 'democratic'."

ANOTHER GREAT CAMPAIGN AD: The Tea Party GOP knows how to use mockery effectively. It's something the establishment GOP could learn.



More from PowerLine. Senator Posterior. Heh.

POWERLINE: Earth Day after-action report.

Occupy Wall Streeters.

BRING BACK SHOP CLASS: Pipeline welders make $150,000 in Ohio, while liberal arts majors flounder.

BUT VOTER FRAUD ISN'T A PROBLEM: Over 40,000 voters are registered in both Virginia and Maryland.

Question: How do you know voter fraud isn't a problem?

MICHELLE MALKIN diagnoses NBC'S David Gregory problem: He's a jerk.

GOP’S TERRI LYNN LAND mocks Democrats' ‘war on women’ line. Here's the ad:

TOM STEYER: I am absolutely nothing at all like the Koch brothers. He's right; he's worse. Much, much worse.

Much more on Steyer's hypocrisy here. Click through and follow the links.

TELL THE SIERRA CLUB: Jaguars don't get 54.5 miles/gallon.

Mock them. Mock them incessantly.

ELIZABETH WARREN: Things Were Great Until the 1980s'. Yes, and that was about the time that Fauxahontas and those of her ilk showed up on the political scene.

SUMMARY JUDGMENT.

A DIVORCE and everything you need to know about Washington power politics.

SURE, THE ECONOMY IS RECOVERING: Older Americans Working Longer and Fighting to Stay in the Jobs Market.

We needn't worry; ObamaCare's 'death panels' will soon solve that pesky problem....

AND ON THE SEVENTH INAUGURATION DAY ... there were rainbows and unicorns.

THOUGHTS FROM THOMAS SOWELL:

Much of the social history of the Western world, over the past three decades, has been a history of replacing what worked with what sounded good.

'What works' is called tradition.

I think this man [Obama] really does believe he can change the world, and people like that are infinitely more dangerous than mere crooked politicians.

Obama is both a 'believer' and crooked.

It is amazing that people who think we cannot afford to pay for doctors, hospitals, and medications somehow think that we can afford to pay for doctors, hospitals, medication and a government bureaucracy to administer it.

That's because someone else is writing the check with money stolen from their wallet.

It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong.

With cell phones and cell phone videos, that's slowly coming to an end.

If you have always believed that everyone should play by the same rules and be judged by the same standards, that would have gotten you labeled a radical 60 years ago, a liberal 30 years ago and a racist today.

I don't go back in time far enough to have been a radical, but 30 years ago I was indeed a liberal -- and stupid.

I have never understood why is is "greed" to want to keep the money you've earned, but not greed to want to take somebody else's money.

By that definition, I am and always have been 'greedy'.

If you have been voting for politicians who promise to give you goodies at someone else's expense, then you have no right to complain when they take your money and give it to someone else, including themselves.

Unless you're a progressive, then whining is not a right, it's an obligation.

One of the consequences of such notions as "entitlements" is that people who have contributed nothing to society feel that society owes them something, apparently just for being nice enough to grace us with their presence.

Assuming we want to be 'graced' with their presence.

Taken from my email.

THE HIGH COST OF LIBERALISM: domestic and foreign.

LAID-OFF MALE WORKERS lose 1.0 to 1.5 years in life expectancy. From my experience, that number is way too low.

REPUBLICANS WARN BLM eyeing land grab along Texas-Oklahoma border. I almost hope they try; Texas would hand the Fed's ass back on a silver platter.

"IT’S CLEARER BY THE DAY that progressives are perfectly happy to leave others free to do exactly what progressives demand, no more and no less."

[REDACTED]: "In matters of transparency, the Obama Team can always be counted on to do the right thing — after exhausting all other legal options and being forced into it by the federal courts."

YES. NEXT QUESTION? Should the bankrupt, blighted city of Detroit turn in its charter?

FOR THOSE wondering what a real political scandal looks like . . . here's one. But it can't be a real a political scandal -- can't be -- because it involves a Democrat.

OBAMA SENDS strongest signal yet that he expects Democrats to lose the Senate. Impeachment a possibility? Nah, but it is a pleasant thought.

HAH: "[T}he threshold for “earning too much” is just above what a two-earner journalist or academic couple can plausibly make."

IN THE 'WAR ON YOUTH' the youth strike back.

I hope it's not too late.

SALON on Fox News’ demented poster boy.

I find it interesting that in the entire article, running to about 1500 words, Fox News was never mentioned. There was a single reference to Sean Hannity, who of course has a show on Fox, but it isn't clear that 'poster boy' Cliven Bundy was on Hannity's Fox News show or his separate radio show.

WHO IS FASTER than a speeding bullet? Answer: anyone who is not directly underneath the 'bullet' when it exits the barrel.

I've got tree stumps on my property smarter than whoever did this graphic.

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON on the death of real America: "[Cliven Bundy's] our past, Harry Reid and the bunch in Washington our future. To paraphrase the ancients, sometimes we’d rather be wrong with Cliven Bundy than right with Harry Reid — and the SWAT teams that will revisit Mr. Bundy and his clan very, very soon to enforce a dispute over grazing fees and insensitivity to a tortoise."

SETTLED SCIENCE.

ROGER KIMBALL on President (*).

(*) the worst President in U.S. history.

THE GROWING financial disaster that is ObamaCare:

The largely unwritten ... story ... is that the ACA is rapidly becoming a colossal fiscal disaster as enrollment proceeds heedless of the concurrent collapse of the law’s financing structure.

Do tell. But not to worry, per Obama the government isn't running out of other people's money; it's printing its own.

ONLY 'BLIND LUCK' has prevented worse disasters as push begins for a $250 million telescope to spot asteroids on collision course with Earth.

What the health and safety nannies out there fail to understand is that even with a 7-plus billion world population there's a whole lot of empty on Earth.

OBAMACARE: when lying doesn't work, cheat.

YOU JUST THOUGHT YOUR RECORDS WERE PRIVATE: Scientists embark on unprecedented effort to connect millions of patient medical records.

This is only the beginning....

GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS are down, largely thanks to ... fracking.

And a crappy economy worldwide.

INSTAPUNDIT: "The world has been taken over by chuckleheads."

Best comment: "I think it's time to take The Onion offline - the real world is stealing its material."

COLORADO EMINENT DOMAIN CASE settled with $115,000 sale.

A contentious eminent domain case in which a local government sought to take private backcountry land for open space has been settled, with the landowners agreeing to a $115,000 sale.

"To me, what just came out of it is, you can't win, you can't fight the government," landowner Ceil Barrie said Wednesday.

Asked what lessons they shared, Ceil Barrie said with teary eyes, "Yeah, don't annoy the government."

Pity. I was hoping they'd sue.

SURE YOU CAN 'KEEP YOUR DOCTOR' -- if you can find one.

SEARCH & RESCUE DRONES grounded by FAA.

Because government doesn't want the public to know it can be done without. It can't control you if you don't need its help.

SPRING LEAVES, Week Six: today's view. It's bright and sunny, and the white oaks are all beginning to bud out. The beech trees, oddly enough, are behind again. They're showing signs of activity, but no leaves yet.

Last week's picture is here.

THE EDUCATION BUBBLE IS POPPING: Mid-Continent University, a private institution in Kentucky, will close.

SHORTEST -- AND BEST -- graduation speech ever.

THE EPIC HYPOCRISY of Tom Steyer. More here.

I wish I could say I'm surprised, but hypocrisy is a synonym for progressivism. It's always about control; they just can't admit it.

THE EASTER DRAGON ARRIVED.

GOOGLE EARTH ENGINE brings big data to environmental activism.

I'd consider it good news if Google watched environmental activists....

FROM MY EMAIL: Obama is my co-pilot.

Oops!

INSTAPUNDIT: Maybe we should have just delayed Obama's entire presidency until after he left office. Perhaps the mid-term elections can do just that for the rest of his term....

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: Run, Bucky, run.

FOUND: The Most Potentially Life-Friendly Exoplanet So Far.

DANA LOESCH on Harry Reid's 'terrorists' at the Bundy ranch.

From my email.

THE EUROPEAN UNION'S new Sentinel-1a radar satellite has returned its first images of Earth.

Its maiden pictures depict Brussels, flooding in Namibia and one of the mightiest ice features on Earth - Pine Island Glacier in Antarctica.

What? There's ice on Planet Earth? Alert the global warmists, stat!

WESTERN STATES debate retaking control of federal lands. Based on what's happening in Nevada, this strikes me as a good idea. At the very least, graft at the state level is likely to be a bit more obvious and a lot less profitable.

OBAMA JUST SET UP a headfake for the Democrats on the Keystone pipeline.

Plausible, I suppose. But do you really think Obama is that smart?

FEDERAL LANDS:

So sell it! Sell it all.

POWERLINE'S WEEK IN PICTURES: royal baby edition. My favorite:

Another Friday afternoon, another job-killing, freedom-killing policy in place.

CAPTION CONTEST AT THE TATLER: how to subtitle Hillary's new book Hard Choices.

The clear winner is 'What Difference Does It Make?'

THERE'S NO PLACE for the middle class in the Democrats’ top/bottom coalition. Which conveniently explains why the Democrats are so intent on destroying what remains of the middle class.

The Democrats won't be happy until there's only two classes: controllers and controllees.

"MAYBE THE CLIMATISTAS should shoot the moon and go back to an ice age scare. A lot more people would buy it."

BIRDS OF A FEATHER flock together.

SOME SYMPATHY for Cliven Bundy and his family.

They don’t have a chance on the law, because under the Endangered Species Act and many other federal statutes, the agencies are always in the right. And their way of life is one that, frankly, is on the outs. They don’t develop apps. They don’t ask for food stamps. It probably has never occurred to them to bribe a politician. They don’t subsist by virtue of government subsidies or regulations that hamstring competitors. They aren’t illegal immigrants. They have never even gone to law school. So what possible place is there for the Bundys in the Age of Obama?

Read it all.

AT 30? An emerging adult? Give me a break. Seriously.

WHY I'VE ALWAYS LIKED SOUTHWEST AIRLINES: watch the video.

CONSERVATIVE LEADER calls for a new movement to stop the loss of self-government. The Tea Party is alive and well.

FORMER SUPREME COURT JUSTICE John Paul Stevens has suggested the following modification to the Second Amendment to ensure its 'proper interpretation' as a collective, not individual, right:

“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms when serving in the Militia shall not be infringed.”

Many take issue with that interpretation, and I would just add the following thought. The 'militia' in colonial America consisted of "a subset of 'the people'—those who were male, able-bodied, and within a certain age range", defined then (and codified in the Militia Act of 1903) as 17 to 45 years of age. Since the average age at death of males was 45-50 years well into the early 20th century, that would seem to indicate that the entire male population of the U.S. is -- or should be -- a member of the militia. Thus Justice Stevens 5 words add nothing.

HOT AIR has more on Justice Stevens 'helpful' comments.

THE DOWN SIDE OF BEING LIBERAL, and other amusing puffery: "[having to pretend that] the Democrats’ politically-inspired claims make sense, even though they are contrary to his own (and everyone else’s) experience."

X-47B WINS COLLIER: The Northrup Grumman X-47B autonomous combat drone for carrier operations is the winner of the 2013 Collier Trophy, what many consider aviation's top prize.

GLENN HARLAN REYNOLDS: Why are the Democrats waging a war on their own women?

Because their own women are dumb?

BUT DOES HE ACCEPT OBAMACARE? Don’t Worry About Hillary’s Health — She’s Got A Great Doctor!

NEW YORK, NEW YORK: What a progressive city looks like.

In a word, ugly.

FOR A MERE $3M, you can have dinner with Obama. Bring your checkbook.

STOP RUNNING? How can runners be saved from cardiac arrest?

Notice that the solution is always more government intervention, never less.

RESET? No, regret. And it must be replaced by the 'impeach' button.

DEATH PANELS? We don't need no stinkin' death panels (#6).

FROM MY EMAIL:

On the bright side, Putin correctly judged the American citizenry; Obama did not.

RELATED: Putin Isn’t a Genius — We Are Complete Idiots.

DEMOCRAT CANDIDATE seeks Communications Director. Republican sends him an epic application letter.

Mock them.

FROM THE SCOREKEEPER (#21): "Mayor Mike Bloomberg announced he will spend $58 million -- three times what the Koch Brothers have spent in 25 years -- to take on the 5 million members of the NRA."

So we'll only have to spend 12 bucks each to outspend him -- a box of ammo costs more.

UNIONIZATION FOR THEE, BUT .... Media Matters for America is resisting SEIU's effort to unionize its staff.

Hypocrisy without limits.

DR. KEITH ABLOW: My dinner with the family of Justina Pelletier.

REGULATOR WITHOUT PEER: By at least one measure, Obama surpasses all of his predecessors.

NEWT GINGRICH: Obama betrays [yet another] American ally.

GOP CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATE shoots down drone in new ad.

ALABAMA WIDOWS kicked off of insurance because of ObamaCare.

Unintended consequences?

DON SURBER on saving Social Security. He's right, but so's this comment: "With Obamacare - social security will be fine.....we'll all be dying sooner....problem fixed. "

THERE ARE no such things as ‘scientists’. But if one says he's an engineer, you can take his word as gospel.

EIGHT INFURIATING FACTS to remember about tax day. My favorite is #7: "only 37 percent of Democrats said the amount they paid in taxes was too high." Would it be overly bold to suggest that only 37% of Democrats actually pay income taxes?

"LIBERALISM has a kind of Tourette’s Syndrome these days."

UH, YES, HE DID: Did a professor advocate censorship of conservative student newspaper?

CONGRATULATIONS! It’s a baby… moon?

BIOMEDICINE: "Researchers have made an electronic skin patch that can monitor muscle movement, store the data it collects, and use stored data patterns to decide when to deliver medicine through the skin."

MITT ROMNEY’S SON tweets at Harry Reid with picture of Mitt paying taxes: "Hey @SenatorReid here's a shot of @MittRomney paying taxes. Does it every year. It's how you get your paycheck. "

FROM THE SCOREKEEPER (#6): "Putin if you invade Ukraine we will remove Smirnoff vodka from the congressional dining room."

Making sanctions really hurt....

MICHELLE OBAMA'S food police are leaving your school kids unfed.

TAX DAY POST MORTEM: Donald Rumsfeld has ‘no idea’ if he paid taxes correctly. Neither do I. Every year it's a hope and a prayer.

THOMAS SOWELL on the 'war on women' wage gap:

If the 77 percent statistic was for real, employers would be paying 30 percent more than they had to, every time they hired a man to do a job that a woman could do just as well. Would employers be such fools with their own money?

Government employers would since it's not their money; private businesses, not so much.

HOW HARD IS IT to shoot down a small drone with just machine guns (video)?

Really, really hard.

CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET OFFICE: ObamaCare premiums and healthcare spending will rise by less than expected, because…

In a nutshell, the CBO initially made its projections under the assumption that the plans offered through the exchange would be largely similar in terms of benefits to the sorts of plans being offered by employers — but that definitely isn’t going to be the case. The narrowed networks that insurers are using to keep costs down and the lower reimbursement rates for doctors and hospitals are things that neither consumers nor providers tend to like in the long run — which will likely mean more strain on the system and higher costs further down the road.

Uexpectedly, of course....

WHITE IS NOT RIGHT: Campus admins ask for help weeding out white people.

I think they succeeded just by asking. If you're a white person, why would you go there?

BEN CARSON: White House wanted apology for ‘offending’ Obama.

So Obama's thin-skinned ... we already knew that. I don't think it's much of a stretch to argue that thin skin is a prerequisite for being a Democrat.

REJOICE? If a nuclear bomb exploded in downtown Washington, what should you do?

For a serious answer, follow the links.

LACKING FACTS, Democrats call names and tell lies about Republicans.

THE NEW REPUBLIC: A bigger April 15 bill would mean a better society.

I think the author's chart proves the vacuity of the his claim. Yes, the U.S. is near the bottom in terms of tax collections as a percent of GDP, but I rather suspect the U.S. is at or near the top in terms of citizen standard of living.

Isn't that the proper measure of tax efficiency?

VIRTUAL PRESIDENT Bill Whittle on tax day:



Linked from Hot Air.

Instapundit comments: "You know, if Bill and Barack would just switch their actual/virtual presidencies, I think the country would be better off."

UH, OH. Harry Reid's wallet is in jeopardy. Day by Day has it covered.

ON TRAVEL: blogging will be intermittent the next few days....

YES. NEXT QUESTION? Does collapsing America's rule of law qualify as high crimes and misdemeanors?

DO AS I SAY, NOT AS I DO. Taxes are for the little people.

Somehow I expected better (meaning higher) from our rulership leadership.

TERM LIMITS: the 91% solution. Not quite 99%, but getting there....

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH: Standoff at the OK Corral Bundy Ranch.

Is it about land tortoises? Or money? I'm prepared to believe it's about Harry Reid's pocketbook.

Breitbart has a good summary.

FROM INSTAPUNDIT: A tax day reminder.

VERMONT: the single-payer dream is becoming the taxpayer's nightmare.

Running out of other people's money is a bitch....

PARODY? Global warming alarmist wishes for mass deaths.

Unfortunately, I suspect it is not; progressives have a suprisingly cavalier attitude about other people dying.

REMY: Happy (Tax Day Edition). You, too, can get a 'thank you' letter (at 2:00).

HAPPY DEMOCRAT DAY!

Democrats should be thrilled.

HAS HOUSE OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE ranking Democrat Elijah Cummings been colluding with the IRS?

True the Vote's attorney is on the case.

This could get interesting, but the MSM will do its best to provide cover for the Democrats.

WHAT'S HE GIVING AWAY NOW? Obama speaks with Putin on Ukraine.

UPDATE: Now we know.

IT'S NOT ABOUT JOBS OR THE ECONOMY, it's about control.

YES, LET'S EXPAND MEDICAID: make the poor poorer as we kill them off with 'death panels'.

Virginia's new governor and legislature are in the midst of a battle to expand (McAuliffe) or not (Legislature) Medicaid. I'm (slightly) hopeful that the legislature will prevail.

FOR PROGRESSIVES, it's a feature, not a bug.

JEFF JACOBY: Islam, 'honor' violence, and the silence of the progressives. They're silent about Islamic extremism because deep down, they're shallow, and their blood runs yellow.

ONCE AGAIN, Democrats prove their racist bona fides. Every time they look in a mirror, they see their worst enemy -- themselves.

UNEXPECTEDLY, to be sure: Survey shows ObamaCare sending premiums rising at fastest clip in decades.

SPRING LEAVES, Week Five: today's look at the onset of Spring 2014. It was gorgeous yesterday, but has turned cloudy and breezy today. Still, the trees are delighted and beginning to bud out.

You can see bits of green at the top left and in the tops of the white oaks at the top right of the picture.

The pear tree across the street from our house fully blossomed out on Friday; as you can see, the blossoms are beginning to fall as the leaves take command. Here's what it looked like just a few days ago.

Last week's picture is here. You can to continue to scroll back in time from there.

VOTER FRAUD: the Left's tool for 'social justice'.

NEWT GINGRICH on ObamaCare's latest casualty. Kathleen Sebelius's tenure at HHS was a disaster, certainly, but she deserves the strongest criticism for her failure to stand up to the buffoons in the White House.

IT'S NOT ABOUT HEALTH; it's about control (and taxes).

MONOTONY MOTORS: Why today’s cars all look alike.

You may thank your government safety nanny. You're welcome.

THE BEST THING for the environment is for the government to stop controlling it.

UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES: Background check backlog to blame for gun sales to Maryland fugitives, felons:

A tough new gun-control law pushed by Gov. Martin O'Malley and passed by the legislature spurred gun sales leading up to Oct.1, when the law took effect.

By then, the wave of buyers, racing to get ahead of the state's new handgun licensing requirement and ban on the sale of assault weapons, had grown to a tsunami.

More gun purchase applications were received in September 2013 alone than the state often sees in a year, police said.

Ban guns to increase sales ... who'd have thunk it?

ERIC HOLDER: Maybe lawful gun owners should have to wear electronic bracelets to use them. I think a more appropriate use of bracelets (the non-electronic kind) would be on Holder himself.

COMMENT OF THE DAY:

It never fails to impress me that lefties always agree that taxing is done to hurt something you don’t like, subsidizing is done to help things you do like…and then completely disagree that subsidizing laziness and broken homes creates more of them, while taxing hard workers makes them work less.

Their religion truly is a cult.

From the comments this post.

AND NOW FOR some female GOP candidates for President.

ROGER SIMON on Gov. Rick Perry for President in 2016. Despite his gaffes in 2012, I've always been impressed with Perry.

HIT HIM WHERE IT HURTS: Rep. Frank Wolf to withhold funds from lawless Eric Holder.

Wolf has sought dozens of reports required from the DOJ under the FY 2013 Omnibus Act.... The law required Holder to provide Congress and Wolf’s committee 66 separate reports about DOJ activity.
...
“Today, I am announcing a new policy that these overdue reports will no longer be tolerated by the committee. When our FY 2015 bill is marked up this spring, I intend to withhold $1 million for every overdue report from the FY 2013 and FY 2014 bills.

Wolf is retiring at the end of this current session. I will be sure to ask his likely successor, Barbara Comstock, if she will continue to support his aggressive stance.

THE 'WAR' ON WOMEN: Democrats in Senate continue to pay women significantly less than men.

It's actually bipartisan; I read somewhere that the Republican senators also have a 'pay gap', though not as bad.

The reality is that after controlling for experience and hours worked, there is no pay gap.

SHOCKER: Democrat incumbents want White House to abuse regulatory power to boost their re-election chances.

This isn't to say that if the roles were reversed, the Republicans wouldn't do the same. It is to say that government is too damn big and intrusive.

THE CULTURE OF SHUT UP: Is it better to just ignore the ignoramuses?

OBAMACARE: on the road to progressive dhimmitude. A tax on your religion.

POWERLINE'S WEEK IN PICTURES: Names, claims, and autonubiles. My favorite:

But "this is just wrong" is a ve-e-ry close second.

IT LOOKS LIKE God is going to have trouble enrolling in ObamaCare.

I wonder if Jesus Christ will too? [I have a Navy civilian driver's license issued by him.]

ERIC HOLDER WHINES; Michael Ramirez strikes.

THE WORLD BANK’S plan to end poverty.

It sounds innocous enough, until the 'aid' word appears in the 5th of 7 paragraphs. Properly interpreted, that means higher taxes to significantly lower living standards of 'the rich' (and by world standards the U.S. middle class is rich) to insignificantly raise the living standards of 'the poor' whilst skimming enough cumshaw off the top to recompense the ruling class 'public servants' for their travails as they try to control minister the poor.

THE WAR ON WOMEN:

Heh.

MORE ON BRANDEIS: “A Short Quiz for Sniveling Cowards.”

MINIMALLY INVASIVE SURGERY: New Da Vinci Xi Surgical Robot Is Optimized for Complex Procedures.

Still, I wouldn't want to wake up with that thing hovering over me.

UNDER FIRE: Brandeis University for disgraceful conduct.

Hit 'em where it hurts -- in the pocketbook and the conscience of real Americans.

NEAT: Molecular Gears Turn Under Pressure [video]. Well, they're not gears exactly, but still....

IT’S NICE THAT THEY APOLOGIZED, but what kind of person thinks that’s okay to begin with?

A bigot or a progressive (but I repeat myself).

THE SCOREKEEPER: "Somewhere, a bridge is missing its troll (#11)."

THOUGHT POLICE ON PATROL: No longer trying to win the debate, the Left is trying to stop debate altogether.

VIDEO: Mentally ill man can’t stop talking about the monsters under his bed.

Heh.

KOCH INDUSTRIES RESPONDS TO WHITEHOUSE AND WAXMAN: "Sod off, swampy."