MSNBC ASKS THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: Is the world suffering from lack of racial diversity in emoticons?

Does anyone care?

OH, THOSE POOR ENVIRONMENTALISTS.

WE NEVER TRIED TO IMPEACH BUSH says Democratic lawmaker who a co-sponsored Bush impeachment bill. Of course the Democratic 'lawmaker' was Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) who can be forgiven because she doesn't have a brain.

TAKE THIS, you Obama tweenies.

DNC CHAIR Debbie Wasserman Schultz: "Obama does his job less often than any other President." But it's the Republicans' fault....

I WISH I could say I didn't believe this, but ... it's Sheila Jackson Lee.

BUT THEY’RE COMPETENT TO RUN THE ENTIRE HEALTHCARE SYSTEM: Government investigation finds massive mismanagement wasted millions in botched HealthCare.gov rollout.

Of course. Managing one-sixth of the economy is not nearly as difficult as creating a website....

THE SCOREKEEPER on why Sandra Fluke could not afford $9/month birth control (#8): "It's hard to get change from a $100,000 bill."

OBAMANOMICS:

If you want to see the end result of Obama's plans and programs, look at Zimbabwe. Under Mugabe it has gone from a food exporter to having a population on the verge of starvation. Winston Churchill said that the pity of capitalism was the unequal distribution of wealth, but that the pity of communism was the equal distribution of poverty.

From the comments following this post. The post itself was about how the energy costs of the new EPA coal rules will 'devastate' seniors, but that argument is somewhat disingenuous; the rules will hurt almost everyone living on fixed incomes.

SEEMS SORT OF OBVIOUS TO ME: “Internet of things” looking more like an internet of targets.

HEH: Vegetables more likely to make you sick than beef.

IT'S CALLED 'WELFARE': Obama says he wants to lower the retirement age a whole lot. "Just what you might expect from a man who treats the hardest job in the world as if it’s just an opportunity to spend a third of his time playing golf and going to parties."

TOO MUCH PACIFISM can get you killed.

PUNCHING BACK: "You know what makes a plane missile-proof? Nasty and near-certain consequences for anyone who shoots it down."

AS CALIFORNIA GOES, so goes the nation: Californians paid up to 88 percent more for individual health insurance this year than last. But that's okay, because subsidies.

The little teensy overlooked detail is that the 'subsidies' are paid out of the taxpayers' other pocket.

WHY WILLIE NELSON would be a great governor for the new state of Central Texas. I know a number of current and former Texans (including me) who would be happy to see Austin fenced off from the rest of the state....

SMARTER THAN THOU: Neil deGrasse Tyson and America’s nerd problem.

One part insecure hipsterism, one part unwarranted condescension, the two defining characteristics of self-professed nerds are (a) the belief that one can discover all of the secrets of human experience through differential equations and (b) the unlovely tendency to presume themselves to be smarter than everybody else in the world.

Prominent examples include MSNBC’s Melissa Harris-Perry, Rachel Maddow, Steve Kornacki, and Chris Hayes; Vox’s Ezra Klein, Dylan Matthews, and Matt Yglesias; the sabermetrician Nate Silver; the economist Paul Krugman; the atheist Richard Dawkins; former vice president Al Gore; celebrity scientist Bill Nye; and, really, anybody who conforms to the Left’s social and moral precepts while wearing glasses and babbling about statistics.

Ouch. Read it all.

UNFORTUNATELY there's no 'human nature' in the Liberals' reality world.

THE WORLD'S ILLS? It's all the fault of Thomas the Tank Engine.

There are too many people in the world who desperately need to be told to sit down, shut up, quit whining, and get a life.

ONE BOX OF SUDAFED OVER THE LINE: Florida Woman Arrested for Trying to Relieve Allergy Symptoms.

The bureaucratic mind: we can only protect you by jailing you.

POWERLINE: Inversion therapy for liberals.

Even if Congress were to be so foolish as to prohibit the current “inversion” strategy, nothing prevents American corporations from relocating overseas for real. I’m sure most Apple executives ands engineers would find Switzerland a pleasant place to live and work.

They'll only get it after it's too late.

WALTER E. WILLIAMS: Please Stop Helping Us.

GOOD LORD, what planet does VOX.com reside on?

OBVIOUS ON DAY ONE: ObamaCare Was Designed to Punish Uncooperative States.

BEING AN IDIOT? What was Kerry doing?

NOT SURPRISING UNLESS YOU'RE A LIBERAL: Most Hispanics favor deportations. Liberals might understand if it was expressed in terms they understand: "not in my back yard".

A NEW MEANING FOR THE TERM 'SELFIE': Hamas rocket attacks Gaza's own Al-Shifa hospital.

SO TELL US HOW YOU REALLY FEEL: Former IRS official Lois Lerner refers to some in the Republican Party as '---holes' and "crazies'.

IT'S NOT A LIE if it serves the cause. Remember "extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice"? That was sooo 'then'; today lying in the defense of 'the cause' is a virtue.

SO TELL ME AGAIN which party is extreme.

I KIN 2 REDE: A Twitter exchange for the ages.

NO THANKS TO THE FAA: Model drone finds elderly man missing 3 days alive.

NARCISSM, ARROGANCE, OR JUST PLAIN STUPIDITY? Woman in labor can’t cross street because of Obama’s motorcade. My vote is for stupidity, though with Obama....

BUT IT WAS JUST A 'SPEAK-O': I didn't really mean what I just said.

Oh?

Update: Still more.

SURPRISE: Bureaucrats oppose easier termination for bureaucrats.

'Reform' is simply kicking the can beyond the 3-day news horizon....

MORE BIKE LANES, OF COURSE: "Which will make morning and evening commutes easier and safer, spending highway trust funds on more and better roads, or more bike lanes?"

More than 90 percent of Americans depend upon their personal cars and trucks to get to and from work every day. But many government officials at all levels seem determined to make life miserable for drivers.

They won't say it in those words, but that is what many public officials, including especially the bureaucrats who run zoning, transportation and economic development agency, intend to be the result of their policies.

Why? So commuters will leave their cars at home and take mass transit instead. That justifies bigger budgets and staffs for the bureaucrats.

This is the ugly secret at the heart of federal transportation policy. It's why one of every four tax dollars collected for the Highway Trust Fund is actually spent, according to the Heritage Foundation, on "subways, streetcars, buses, bicycle and nature paths, and landscaping."

Bureaucrats love mass transit because mass transit goes where they want it to go when they want it to go there. Bureaucrats hate private cars and trucks because drivers decide where to go instead of bureaucrats. Government control versus individual freedom.

As usual, it's all about control. Their control, not yours.

FAA PROPOSES $12M fine against Southwest Airlines. Which goes into FAA coffers to pay for what? More safety? Or more bureaucrats?

NASA MOVES to protect (contractor) whistleblowers. But not their own....

HOW TO FIND EXTRATERRESTRIAL LIFE: Search for polluted planets.

BECAUSE 97%: The eternal spotlessness emptiness of the Sunshine Mind.

TECHNOLOGY: ARES combat drone.

POLITICO: How the Left took over the Democratic Party.

I remember the date: "We bought it, we own it, and we're going to take it back."
MoveOn.Org, December 9, 2004.

POWERLINE: The case for mandatory nametags.

With the plethora of company IDs, almost any urban downtown is a mandatory ID environment.

"ECONOMIC PATRIOTISM means not turning the US economy and government into an unAmerican slough of cronyism, graft, and redistribution. President Obama is an economically unpatriotic President."

DODO'S ARE EXTINCT, but on the bright side....

WATCH THE CRIME RATE DROP: Legal Carry in D.C. Until Further Notice.

More here.

THE SCOREKEEPER (#16): "Democrats nominated a black man so they could use his race to protect their socialism from criticism."

Context: lying about ObamaCare, and sometimes correlation is just correlation.

BECAUSE THEY'RE RIGHT: Let's guillotine climate change skeptics.

WHITE HOUSE fuming over Israeli criticism of Kerry.

National Review Online has taken note: Diplomacy Doesn't Get Any Smarter Than This. And the NRO commenters have redubbed 'smart diplomacy':

A better phrase might be "smart-assed diplomacy". I have never heard any Israeli official ever refer to Kerry as a superluous, arrogant caricature of a diplomat, a butt-boy for Hamas. I don't think any Israeli official would ever say such a thing, but it is true.

"Supercilious, arrogant caricature" accurately describes the entire Obama administration. The only adjective missing is 'thin-skinned'.

MEET THE PEOPLE Obama doesn’t want to come to America. They would probably vote Republican....

INSTAPUNDIT: "If today’s immigrant wave were likely to vote Republican, all right-thinking people would be demanding deportations and a mile-wide belt of barbed wire and minefields along the border."

CATO Institute: The War on Work.

THE WEEKLY STANDARD: A New Disorder.

SKIP IMPEACHMENT: Congress should vote to overturn and/or defund Obama's executive orders.

I notice, though, that the White House is seriously hyping impeachment (look! a squirrel) even though no one, including Republicans, is even considering it (though I would note that it's increasingly clear that impeachable offenses have occurred).

RIGHT WING’S WORST NIGHTMARE: The master stroke that turns red states blue. Salon lost me with this statement in the third paragraph:

Most notably, both Clinton and Obama really did try to reach out to Republicans — and were both soundly rebuffed for their troubles.

Clinton made no real effort to 'reach out' until after the 1994 mid-terms; President 'I Won' has never reached out of the Oval Office.

Salon has mistaken kool-aid for tea....

A DO-OVER? Romney in a landslide. The regret is becoming palpable.

DRONE 'ATTACKS' Seattle's Space Needle: police report it's still standing.

Related: Professors Object to FAA Restrictions on Drone Use. My knee-jerk reaction to any professorial complaint is to dismiss it immediately, but in this (rare) instance they're right.

IS THE Obama administration losing touch with reality? Were they ever in touch with it?

K-MAX drone helicopter a success in Afghanistan.

HELLBUGS FOR HAMAS: US Army working on pocket-sized surveillance drones.

'Hellbug' is from a science-fiction story published in Analog many years back. Just add a .50 caliber single-shot weapon to it and it becomes a precisely targeted anti-terrorist weapon.

SMOKING IS HEALTHIER THAN FASCISM. Anything is healthier than fascism.

THE UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES of progressive economics.

A reminder: the progressives' 'reality world' has no unintended consequences. Our world does....

THE CHECKED-OUT PRESIDENCY:

Obama’s vision of the future never involved compromise. It relied on everyone suddenly seeing just how right he was and how wrong they were. That didn’t happen, and not having a backup plan in the event that the rabbit failed to emerge from the hat, Barack Obama threw in the towel.

It's going to be a long 2-1/2 years before we can have a real President.

INSTAPUNDIT on the Democrats who passed ObamaCare: "They took a crappy bill that they hadn’t read, they rammed it through on a party-line vote using a budget-reconciliation technicality, then they did an 'I won' victory dance. Now it turns out the bill sucks and they’re blaming Republicans for not stopping them."

FEDERAL JUDGE: Washington D.C. ban on gun carry outside the home (i.e., concealed carry) is unconstitutional. Better yet, it now has to honor permits from other states.

POWERLINE'S WEEK IN PICTURES is up. Here's my favorite:

AS USUAL, Michael Ramirez nails it.

PAUL GREENBERG: Like a Hotel Burglar...

THE SCOREKEEPER on Massachusetts government (#8): "For a state that is home to Harvard and MIT, they sure are a bunch of slow learners." Perhaps it's because Massachusetts is home to Harvard and MIT....

SEN. TED CRUZ: Did President Obama Just Launch an Economic Boycott of Israel? My guess? Probably not; the FAA is perfectly capable of bungling on its own.

DO REPUBLICANS have an unmarried voter problem? The answer appears to be 'yes'.

IF YOU THOUGHT 'Lois Lerner syndrome' was limited to the IRS, you were wrong. Government -- at all levels -- is too big, too powerful, too intrusive.

THINGS WE MAY NEVER KNOW: Do geckos have sex in space?

OBAMA: Corporate 'inversions' are unpatriotic.

Obama criticized companies that seek inversions, telling them that "you are not doing right by your country."

"Companies thrive in the U.S. in part because they benefit from the best university system in the world, the best infrastructure," said Obama. "For you to benefit from that entire architecture that lets you thrive but move your technical address,” he claimed, "is neither fair nor good for the economy in the long term.”

Elizabeth Warren must be livid at Obama stealing her "you didn't build that" shtick.

PAUL GREENBERG: Quick, Hide the Past.

BREAKING NEWS: Michelle Obama favors obesity ... when it's in the form of fat checks delivered to her.

GOOD QUESTION: Do Republicans Face Political Peril if Obamacare Subsidies are Deemed Illegal in 27 States?

HEH: Will Businesses Use U.S. Territories as Safe Haven from ObamaCare? Any shelter in a storm....

Progressives have never heard of the Law of Unintended Consequences since there are never any consequences in their 'reality' world.

STARVATION ALSO WORKS: Let's combat global warming climate change climate disruption by making people smaller.

BREAKING NEWS FOR ENVIRONMENTALISTS: People take better care of things they own.

HEH: FLORIDA ORTHODONTIST is suing the Obama administration for delaying the employer mandate.

Suing for lost earnings for time wasted planning compliance with a mandate that didn't happen. It's only the first lawsuit; more will follow.

SO YOU WANT PROOF that Hamas uses civilians as human shields? Well, here it is.

THESE COSTLY REGULATIONS could hit right after the 2014 mid-term elections. Think about it before you go to vote. Don't wait until after unless you enjoy regretting your decision.

OBAMA'S ILLEGALS heading to Massachusetts? Couldn't happen to a more deserving state.

But then I wonder how the bleeding hearts will feel when they find out they're on the bleeding edge....

ON IMMIGRATION: Gov. Rick Perry leads; Obama fundraises.

FREEMAN DYSON speculates about the next 50 years.

DRAWING THE LINE between peer-to-peer and jerk-to-jerk technology. Now that I'm back 'riding the rails' to work (albeit temporarily), it appears to me that jerk-to-jerk is winning, at least in the city.

ARE THE OCEANS WARMING? Maybe. Maybe not. My guess is not.

WOULD THE LAST TAXPAYER LEAVING MARYLAND please turn out the lights?

NO, INVERTERS AREN'T DESERTERS; they're just trying to earn a living.

THE NUTROOTS ARE WORRIED. Naw, they're just nuts.

SPACE-X releases a video of its reusable rocket landing.



In the ocean this time, but landing on a pad is coming soon.

HAS GOV. RICK PERRY thrown down the gauntlet to Obama on immigration? I certainly hope so; it's time someone did.

THE MORALS of the welfare state. Morals? What morals?

AND THERE'S NO DUCT TAPE ON MARS: Curiosity rover facing harshest journey yet.

ANDREW KLAVAN: How to properly address the the Arab grievances with Israel.



Colonization works for me.

WHY AM I NOT SURPRISED? Voters say Obama White House incompetent at governing. The obvious is getting harder to ignore....

FROM THE SCOREKEEPER (#1): "Forget gun control. Ban Democrats from running for mayor."

BREAKING NEWS:

The Coast Guard intercepted a boatload of people off the Texas coast today.

This placed the Coast Guard in an awkward position, as the boat was not heading to the US, but towards Mexico and Central America.

Another surprise finding was the people were white American retirement age seniors from Ellicott City and Middle River, Maryland.

They claimed that they were trying to get to Central America or Southern Mexico as they wanted to return to the US as illegal immigrants.

Then they would be entitled to far more benefits than they were receiving as legitimate American retirees.

It is believed the Coast Guard gave them food, water and fuel and assisted them on their journey.

People from the Essex Senior Center are booking on the next boat out followed by Perry Hall, White Marsh, Kingsville, Belcamp, Havre de Grace and Bel Air senior centers. More are expected in the future, as the news gets around from center to center.

From my email.

RON FOURNIER: Ordering a cheeseburger with fries while a downed airline smolders may not have been a great decision.

"May not have been a great decision"? May?

POWERLINE: Israel seems ready to tune John Kerry out.

They'd be following America's lead: most thinking Americans are already tuning the whole damned Obama administration out.

AMERICA IS JUST TOO GOSH-DARNED HARD TO GOVERN. Especially if you're a total incompetent.

OH, NO, ... NO. We're not doing race/ethnic grading. Read the comments, starting with "In other words, it's bullshit."

LESSONS FROM THE NANNY STATE: The day I was nearly arrested for having an autistic son.

'FOX FOREIGN POLICY EXPERT' Carley Fiorina tells Obama how to handle Putin. That's what so great about blog Left -- when they're wrong, they're Right.

OBAMA'S TRANQUILITY: The ego has landed.

TENURED PARTISANS: The promise of employment for life has bred corruption in the civil service and should be eliminated.

REMY: What are the Chances? (An IRS Love Song)

AN EMPTY PANTSUIT: Hillary Clinton is the political equivalent of the Kardashians -- being famous for being famous. Unfortunately with the plethora of low no information voters available, it may be enough to win.

LEADERSHIP THEN AND NOW: KAL 007 vs. MH 17. Then was better.

REGULATORY CAPTURE: Just another tool in crony capitalism's toolbag.

And yet another reason for dramatically cutting the size of government at all levels.

PATHETIC:

Hamas, even with its all its longer-range missiles, is capable of inflicting no more damage on the Zionist Entity than a lone killer armed with only a steak knife.

Still, even one crazed killer armed with a steak knife is one too many.

SANCTUARY CITIES: A modest proposal for housing illegal immigrants. In addition to San Francisco, Baltimore, and the White House, I'd recommend Berkeley, CA; Austin, TX; Seattle, WA; Elizabeth Warren's digs in Massachusetts, and of course the Clinton estates in Washington DC and New York.

A complete list of sanctuary cities/states is here.

SO IF YOU don't like them, are afraid of them, or are jealous because you can't afford them, then they must be banned regulated into oblivion? The Dangers of Private Planes.

UKRAINE REBEL LEADER claims Flight MH17 was filled with already-dead bodies. Well, yeah, by the time it hit the ground I'm sure that was true....

BILL WHITTLE on Apollo's legacy.

Or rather, lack of one.

THE BENEFITS OF FEMINISM: Who’s Unhappiest? She’s 42, Single, and Working.

SUBMERGED BAGS OF AIR could turn wind and solar power into round-the-clock resources. And if we could inflate the bags with the hot air generated by Congress, we wouldn't need wind turbines....

GOOD NEWS: If you're a taxpayer, you only owe $151,342.

SHOE on government:

Perfect.

ARIZONA (CHARTER) SCHOOL requires students to read books by Glenn Beck's Tea Party hero.

But liberal hero Howard Zinn gets a pass....

Actually they're probably mad because the charter school kids can read.

MOTHER JONES: Scientists Are Beginning to Figure Out Why Conservatives Are ... Conservative.

And of course it's because conservatives are knuckle-dragging Neanderthals, slavering for an opportunity to bash someone/something, and suitable only for "successfully monitoring and attending negative features of the environment" (read as digging ditches and shoveling sh stuff).

FROM A TRICKLE TO A FLOOD: An endless wave of illegal immigrants.

So tell me again it's not Obama's fault.

ERIC HOLDER: Let's try that race card again. Get over it, Eric. We don't dislike you because you're black; we dislike you because you're a narcissistic, incompetent, race-baiting bungler.

RANDOM THOUGHTS: Police arrest ex-Marine in murder of New York mom. Never mind the story itself; it's all too common to waste words on. But why is it that nearly every time a violent crime is reported, the perpetrator's military history (if he or she ever served) is reported regardless of its relevance to the crime?

I don't think I've ever seen a headline "Police arrest Harvard grad in ... (whatever crime)."

ONE SMALL STEP FOR A MAN, July 20, 1969.

Where were you when the Eagle landed? I shouldn't be surprised, I guess, but still, I am. Most of the people in the videos were either young children, or not yet born, when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin stepped on the Luna's surface for the first time.

My wife and I, newly married, were sitting on our living room floor in our first (rented) house in Waianae, HI, watching on a tiny black-and-white Sony MicroTV. I still have that television.

That was many, many moons ago....

THE SCOREKEEPER insults cats (#3).

POWERLINE'S WEEK IN PICTURES: Negligence edition. My favorite:

But all are good.

A VACATION? What Would Cause President Obama to Cancel a Fundraiser?

YOU CAN'T FIX STUPID: "You can, sometimes, if you win an election. We should try it some time."

Steven Hayward, commenting on a comment to his post on today's climate embarrassment.

DAMNED IF YOU DO, AND DAMNED IF YOU DON'T: California couple faces fine for brown lawn after complying with water-saving rules.

It's axiomatic that bureaucracies and liberals (an oxymoron, I know) are stupid, but California carries stupidity to a whole different level.

AT SOME POINT, HAVEN'T YOU MADE ENOUGH MONEY? Is Hillary Worth $2,777 Per Minute? It's all about money laundering.

NASA SCIENTISTS: Optimistic about finding alien life one day. My suspicion is that the aliens have already found us ... and are hiding.

FOX NEWS: Obama hits Russia with more sanctions, hints at extending Iran's nuclear deadline.

Uh, huh.

LAWLESSNESS is now the dominant theme in the Obama saga. It explains why so many Americans simply ignore the government (to the extent possible) and go on about their business.

VENUS EXPRESS survives daring atmospheric dive.

BLUE COLLAR PERSPECTIVE: "The presidency isn’t too big ... [Obama] is just too small."

I THINK IT'S CALLED 'FREEDOM OF SPEECH': http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/court-rules-texas-allow-confederate-flagFederal Court Rules Texas Must Issue Confederate Flag License Plates.

The Left is all for freedom of speech, provided it's their speech. Your speech, not so much.

HEH: Company run by daughter of Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) ator moves to Europe to escape US corporate tax. You do what you have to do in order to remain in business.

No sales. No profits. No business.

AN ELECTION PREDICTION from the Scorekeeper (#9): "Republicans go with the most patriotic. Democrats ... always choose the the biggest liar."

TWO VIEWS ON BORDER CONTROL:

From my email.

ENLIGHTENMENT:

I became confused when I heard the word 'service' used with these agencies:

Internal Revenue 'Service'
U.S. Postal 'Service'
Cable TV 'Service'
Civil 'Service'
State, City, County & Public 'Service'
Customer 'Service'

This is not what I thought service meant. But today, I overheard two farmers talking, and one of them said he had hired a bull to service a few cows.

BAM!!! It all came into focus. Now I understand what all those agencies are doing.

I hope that you are now just as enlightened as I am.

Yes. We're from the government and we're here to 'serve' you.

FOR ANTI-SEMITISM, it’s deja vu all over again. "Perhaps this time Israel will clear Hamas out of Gaza once and for all. Or perhaps, as David Goldman argues, events and demographics will inevitably lead Israel to annex Judea and Samaria, which, when it happens, will hardly provoke a whimper. Or maybe the collapse of almost all of the region except for Israel, too horrific to ignore, will finally abash the anti-Semites into silence...."

SHUN THE NON-ALARMIST: New York Times spotlights sophomoric treatment of climate science pariah.

DYING IN A FLURRY OF POLITICAL CORRECTNESS: Did Archie also invent a cure for global warming before taking a bullet?

It was a dumb comic even back in the days of the dinosaurs when I was a kid.

BYRON YORK: Why Obama won't take strong action in border crisis.

EXOGRAPHY: Wall Street migrates south to low-cost Southern cities. Just don't bring your blue-state culture with you.

MORNING EXAMINER: Voters want a political solution to executive overreach. Agreed, but can we afford to wait at least six months, or more likely nearly 2-1/2 years, to make it happen?

ON OBAMACARE, the president's pen may have run out of ink.

KIDNEY STONES: another consequence of global warming climate change disruption. Is there anything it doesn't cause?

Linked (with glee) from PowerLine.

MICHAEL BARONE: Political fallout from underage illegal immigrants may spread far from the Rio Grande Valley. And my current home of Manassas, Virginia, may be one of those spots 'far from the Rio Grande valley'; (unconfirmed) rumor has it that some may be housed here on the County fairgrounds.

STEPHEN HAYES: More than a smidgen of corruption.

MORNING EXAMINER: Is the IRS scandal the ultimate test of the Constitution's checks and balances?

AFTER LAPSES, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention admits a lax culture at labs. What do you expect from a government agency for whom gun violence is a disease?

ON GLOBAL WARMING, follow the money ... to the federal government. But there's no 'agenda' there. Is there?

OUR NATION'S CLOWNS: Leftism's Wonderful Absurdity. (I tuned out after the first minute; it's a clown show all right, but pointless.)

BUT THEY CAN'T INVESTIGATE THE IRS: DOJ investigates Nebraska parade float critical of Obama.

Worst.Administration.Ever.

ERIC HOLDER: If You Oppose Obama, It’s Probably Because You’re A Racist. No, it's because I can walk and chew gum at the same time.

WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Obama 'absolutely' the most transparent president. Instapundit: "True. You can see right through the lying S.O.B."

SELFIES ARE AWESOME. No, they're incontrovertible evidence that you're a narcissistic twit.

IMAGINE IF a Republican made this gun ad. Well, to begin with, the Republican would have probably hit the target squarely. Beltran barely managed to hit the elephant's ass from what appears to be about 20 feet -- with a shotgun!

CATCH-22: IRS Fines Marijuana Merchants for Refusing to Commit a Felony.

TRUMP PLAZA in Atlantic City expected to close. You know the economy is in trouble when Americans can't afford to gamble....

'GOBBLE HAWK' wins NASA UAV design competition. Follow the links to other clever high altitude long endurance (HALE) UAV designs.

THE BORDER CRISIS: "Maybe the Democratic Party’s cynical disregard of African-Americans with respect to immigration will finally push large numbers of blacks out of the party that treats them with condescension and contempt."

HEH. I'll treat HHS's immigration facility restrictions the same way Obama treats laws: as suggestions.

'TRANSFORMER': a sophisticated concept plane that's actually made up of three separate smaller planes, designed to "split apart to quickly adapt to any scenario".



It's a new take on what is essentially quite an old concept.

THE DEMOCRATS' BORDER CRISIS: "How cold do you have to be to use children in this way?"

CHICAGO: A town that won't let you down? More like one that won't let you up....

MICHELLE MALKIN: Hey, Snotty Bloomberg: Mind your own crumbling city!

"Mayor Snotty" has a nice ring to it....

BIRDS OF A FEATHER: It's an establishment thing.

OBAMACARE: Brace for the next round of rate shock. Just in time for the 2014 mid-term elections.

POWERLINE'S WEEK IN PICTURES, Border Edition:

There are many, many more good ones; don't miss out.

UH, NEVER? When is Obama going to take some responsibility for something?

There's plenty of blame to pass around, but Obama clearly deserves the lion's (loon's?) share for his 5-1/2 years of 'my way or the highway' leadership (leadershit?).

IT LOOKS LIKE ISEE-3 may not make it back home.

I wrote earlier about the attempt to repurpose the satellite here.

WHO'S THE REAL HOBBY LOBBY BULLY? The Left, simply because their emotional narcissism and intellectual hubris won't allow them to understand that others may have principled objections to their plans.

QUIT BEING STUPID: the border crisis isn't "Obama's Katrina". President Bush responded well to a natural disaster despite the best efforts of another human disaster, former New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin (now in jail). Obama's "border crisis" is one he himself brought on in his hubris.

INVERSIONS (leaving the U.S. to reduce taxes) are un-American? Well, call me un-American because I'm seriously beginning to consider expatriation. My wealth (such as it is) is mine, not a holding account for what is euphemistically becoming known as "other people's money".

AFTER HOBBY LOBBY: The Supreme Court term wrapped up nice and neat last week. Unless you are a woman feminist.

There, fixed. To the extent this post makes any sense at all, it must be directed toward those of the 'feminist' persuasion, since I don't know any women who would find this at all convincing.

JOB OPPORTUNITIES IN SPACE? Bigelow Aerospace now hiring former astronauts.

THEY'RE NOT AFRAID OF DEMOCRATS? The real reason why liberals are scared of women with guns.

And Republicans like them.

I KNOW IT'S HARD TO BELIEVE, but a few journalists may be starting to resent being the palace guard for Obama. Perhaps they're beginning to realize their jobs may be on the line.

FCC TO REQUIRE closed captioning of cat videos. Every 'meow' must be thoroughly documented....

IT WAS TRAPPED BY ITS IDEOLOGY: Why the White House Ignored All Those Warnings About ISIS.

MANHATTAN INSTITUTE: A One-Sided White House Report on Medicaid Expansion. This is good to know, given that Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe is planning to try an 'end run' around the Virginia House of Delegates, which opposes Medicaid expansion.

THE 'REASONABLE' RESPONSE TO HAMAS: Obliterate them.

AT LEAST REPUBLICANS RENOUNCE THEIR IDIOTS: Virginia Democrat offers reward for nude photos of hunter-cheerleader Kendall Jones. For far lesser sins.

NASA launches carbon-tracking satellite.

OCO-2 will collect more than 100,000 measurements of CO2 concentrations per day beginning in early 2015. It will also monitor plant growth and health by tracking fluorescence given off by plants as they photosynthesize and take up carbon dioxide.

very good question from the comments: "What if OCO-2 indicates that human use of fossil fuel (CO2) is not a major contributor to climate change/global warming?" But the answer is obvious ... "shut up, they said". And OCO-2 will go the way of Lois Lerner's hard drive....

SMART GRID, SMART GADGETS: Networked Gadgets Waste 400 Terawatt-Hours of Energy Every Year.

QUESTION OF THE DAY: Can a dress code be racist?

ALL THAT LOVELY GRAFT AND CORRUPTION: Crony capitalists go to the mat to defend the Export-Import Bank.

OUR ROOST, OBAMA'S CHICKENS: And all the eggs are rotten.

UNEXPECTEDLY, OF COURSE: Long wait times in emergency rooms due to ObamaCare.

MICHAEL BARONE: Obama skitters, scampers and scuttles away from failure.

It’s not a very effective way to make public policy and it tends to put you in an embarrassing public posture. But that’s what happens when you start off believing you know all you need to know and that the world is endlessly enchanted with you.

Nemesis is a bitch.

MEXICAN TRAIN carrying 1,300 migrants heading toward US derails. But all will be well; Obama's sending buses to pick them up and return them to the U.S.

NO, MILLENIALS ARE STILL STUPID: proof that the millenial mind can still simultaneously hold two (or more) diametrically opposed opinions.

SPACE FLORIDA: Cape Canaveral risks irrelevance. Resting on one's laurels is not a wise thing.

WHERE DO OUR POLITICAL VIEWS COME FROM? Presidential performance or policies with personal impact?

TEL AVIV FORECAST: Sunny with light missile cover.

ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER OBAMACARE DELAY: Even Democrats are troubled by ObamaCare's politically toxic employer mandate.

THE FEDERALIST: Media Ignorance Is Becoming A Serious Problem. But not really a surprise when you realize the media is predominately of the Left.

BREAKING NEWS: Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is white! And so Justice Stevens must be black....

IF HILLARY RUNS FOR PRESIDENT, it won’t be as a Clinton Democrat. No, moderate Democrats have long ceased to exist in the 'Move-On' Democrat party.

PUNCHING (HOLES) BACK: Veteran shoots back at Chicago thug. A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do....

LOIS LERNER did print out ‘some’ emails after all. But her hard drive was so badly damaged it couldn't read them....

EVEN MSNBC? MSNBC panel wonders whether Obama can run government at all.

Miracles do happen....

THOMAS SOWELL: A primer on race. Jason Riley's new book is worthy of a full read.

NO, HE'S THE WORST: If James Buchanan was America's first catastrophic president, is Barack Obama the second?

ROBOT MINESWEEPER demonstrated in mock military missions. If only we'd had than when I was in Iraq. We'd have lost a lot more trucks, but a lot fewer soldiers.

THE CORNER: the problem with science is political scientists.

THANKS, RAHM: Chicago regulations drive jobs to Texas.

OBAMA IS NOT AN EVIL LEFTIST GENIUS: He is just a hapless putz.

[H]is ideas are all wrong, his application of his ideas is incompetent, and the chaos that he causes with his wrongness and incompetence will not lead in the direction he thinks it will.

Check, check, and ... check.

[W]hen the history of the 21st century is written, Obama will not merit more than a single line. Even the fact that he was the first black president may come to seem irrelevant in a couple of decades. In which case, he will not merit any line at all.

The guy is just a sad little schmuck who played cynical politics well and got promoted way above his competence. His policies won’t change the face of the nation. They’ll just make a mess that those who come after him will have to clean up.

Americans are far more durable than Obama thinks. He'll leave a helluva mess for us to clean up, but clean up we will.

SPACE STATION MODEL built from 282,000 matchsticks.

So how many would it take for a full-size space station?

FORGOTTEN VIALS OF SMALLPOX FOUND IN STORAGE ROOM. I'm with Instapundit on this one: "May I suggest that our disease-fighting experts focus more on addressing this kind of stuff, and less on junk food and gun control?"

FRIGHTENING: Meet Obama's handpicked successor. Hillary's a saint by comparison.

GLAD YOU ASKED; here's the answer.

SENILE SENATE MAJORITY LEADER prioritizes going after Hobby Lobby. 'Senile' clearly misrepresents Harry Reid's mental health; 'insane' is better, 'rabid partisan' is more accurate.

LEFTIST LOOKS IN MIRROR, SEES SELF: We the People are violent and filled with rage.

The pictures at the top of the post tell it all. Almost without exception every one of those pictures are swallowers of the Left's 'victimization' kool-aid.

ELEVENTH HOUR: AN ALL-VOLUNTEER TEAM managed to activate the propulsion system on NASA’s International Sun-Earth Explorer (ISEE)-3 on July 2, setting the stage for a down-to-the-wire attempt to return the vagabond spacecraft to Earth-sun Lagrange Point 1.

From there, hopefully, back to science operations.

GOOD LUCK WITH THAT: White House is trying to pre-empt sticker shock on September's ObamaCare premium increases. They're doomed to fail for the simple reason that employer-based health care premiums will also rise as those health plans will start preparing for the inevitable.

GOOD NEWS: D.C. public schools forced to actually convince people to go to them. Unless it changes dramatically, and soon, the death knell for public education has begun.

“IF YOU TAKE MY GUN, I will simply print another one.”

THAT'S THE ONE!

Bob: "Hey Jim, did you hear about the Obama administration scandal?

Jim: "You mean releasing 5 of the most dangerous terrorists for a deserter?"
Bob: "No, the other one."

Jim: "You mean corruption and terrible conditions at the VA after Obama attacked Republicans for it and said he would fix all those problems?"
Bob: "No, the other one."

Jim: You mean the IRS “losing” all of the Lois Lerner e-mails pertaining to targeting conservative groups?
Bob: No. the other one

Jim: "You mean outing the CIA station chief in Afghanistan?"
Bob: "No, the other one."

Jim: "You mean the Mexican gun running?"
Bob: "No, the other one."

Jim: "You mean SEAL Team 6?"
Bob: "No, the other one."

Jim: "Obama saying the avg family would save $2,500 on their premiums?"
Bob: "No, the other one."

Jim: "Obama having NSA spy on 124 Billion Phone Calls in One Month?"
Bob: "No, the other one."

Jim: "Obama intentionally ignoring our immigration laws?"
Bob: "No, the other one."

Jim: "Bailing out Detroit after decades of corrupt Democratic management?"
Bob: "No, the other one."

Jim: "You mean the State Dept. lying about Benghazi?"
Bob: "No, the other one."

Jim: "You mean voter fraud?"
Bob: "No, the other one."

Jim: "You mean Obama saying we can keep our insurance and doctors if we wanted to?"
Bob: "No, the other one."

Jim: "You mean the military not getting their votes counted?"
Bob: "No, the other one."

Jim: "The NSA monitoring foreign diplomats?"
Bob: "No, the other one."

Jim: "You mean the use of drones in our own country without the benefit of the law?"
Bob: "No, the other one."

Jim: "Giving 123 Technologies $300 Million and right after it declared bankruptcy and was sold to the Chinese?"
Bob: "No, the other one."

Jim: "You mean the president arming the Muslim Brotherhood?"
Bob: "No the other one:

Jim: "The IRS targeting conservatives?"
Bob: "No, the other one."

Jim: "The DOJ spying on the press?"
Bob: "No, the other one."

Jim: "Sebelius shaking down health insurance executives?"
Bob: "No, the other one."

Jim: "You mean Obama spending $3.7 Trillion on Welfare Over Last 5 Years"
Bob: "No, the other one."

Jim: "Giving SOLYNDRA $500 MILLION DOLLARS and 3 months later they declared bankruptcy and then the Chinese bought it?"
Bob: "No, the other one."

Jim: "The NSA monitoring our phone calls, emails and everything else?"
Bob: "No, the other one."

Jim: "Millions of Americans losing their health care coverage?"
Bob: "No, the other one."

Jim: "Forcing Americans to include coverage in their insurance policies of items they do not want?"
Bob: "No, the other one."

Jim: "The president's ordering the release of nearly 10,000 illegal immigrants from jails and prisons, and falsely blaming the sequester?"
Bob: "No, the other one."

Jim: "The president's threat to impose gun control by Executive Order in order to bypass Congress?"
Bob: "No, the other one."

Jim: "Providing weapons to Syrian rebels many of whom apparently are Al Qaeda?"
Bob: "No, the other one."

Jim: "The president's repeated violation of the law requiring him to submit a budget no later than the first Monday in February?"
Bob: "No, the other one."

Jim: "The 2012 vote where 115% of all registered voters in some counties voted 100% for Obama?"
Bob: "No, the other one."

Jim: "The president's unconstitutional recess appointments in an attempt to circumvent the Senate's advise-and-consent role?"
Bob: "No, the other one."

Jim: "The State Department interfering with an Inspector General investigation on departmental sexual misconduct?"
Bob: "No, the other one."

Jim: "Clinton, the IRS, Clapper and Holder all lying to Congress?"
Bob: "No, the other one."

Jim: "The President using nearly $1 trillion dollars of stimulus money to fund his cronies?"
Bob: "No, the other one"

Jim: "You mean Fast & Furious?"
Bob: "No, the other one."

Jim: "I give up! ... Oh wait, I think I got it! You mean that 65 million low-information voters who don't pay taxes and get free stuff from taxpayers and stuck us again with the most pandering, corrupt administration in American history?"
Bob: "THAT'S THE ONE!"

From my email, just trying to keep track of 6 years worth of scandals.

MICHAEL RAMIREZ: From 'Hope' to 'Change'.

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON on California's environmental drought.

OBAMA'S JOURNEY from 'yes we can' to 'so sue me'.

The distance to 'impeach me' is getting shorter and shorter. Even for me Biden is looking better and better as an interim President....

THEY'RE LOSING, AND THEY KNOW IT: CostCo removing D'Souza's America from their bookshelves. I'd boycott CostCo except for the fact that I patronize WalMart instead.

NOT YOURS: Whose 'smart city' is it, anyway? And therein is the problem with smart anythings.

OBAMACARE? What ObamaCare?

AFTER CRITICISM, Obama offers to meet with Texas Gov. Rick Perry on the border crisis. In Dallas.

Perry ought to counter with 'in Laredo'. Or Brownsville. Or McAllen. Or Eagle Pass. Or Del Rio. Or Presidio. Or Fort Hancock. Or El Paso.

WHY THE FORMER ICE AGE became global warming, then climate change.

Anthony Sadar is exactly right about the college campus climate in the 1970's; I was there as a graduate student, instructor, and Assistant Professor. Global cooling and the coming Ice Age was, as Joe Biden is prone to say, "a big f'ing deal".

WHY THE FORMER ICE AGE became global warming, then climate change.

Anthony Sadar is exactly right about the college campus climate in the 1970's; I was there as a graduate student, instructor, and Assistant Professor. At that time, global cooling and the coming Ice Age was, as Joe Biden would say, "a big f'ing deal".

ABC NETWORK NEWSCAST ignores its own White House reporter. Of course; Madonna and singer Taylor Swift are so-o-o much more important than mere illegal aliens.

HOW THE LEFT DEALS WITH CONSERVATIVE VIEWS: Ban them: "diversity of viewpoints is such an archaic concept".

Apparently so is freedom of speech. And religion.

"PROTESTERS AND ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT SUPPORTERS have drawn battle lines once again in Murrieta, the California city where angry residents last week turned back busloads of border crossers."

I have a better idea. Why not transport the illegals to places such as Austin, TX, Detroit, MI, Seattle, WA, and Berkeley, CA, liberal basitions all, where I'm sure the 'unaccompanied children' will be welcomed with open arms, cared for, fed, housed, and ... oh, wait, we're not spending other people's money? Never mind....

CONGRATULATIONS! If you work for a living, you've almost earned enough to start paying for your own needs.

OBAMA holding off on deportation changes. Until the kids are old enough to vote.

WHITE HOUSE: Obama not responsible for his own tweets.

Question: Is he responsible for anything?

OBAMA WONDERS why our border is inundated with illegals.

BOEING? In a fish fight?

BLED DRY BY THE NEW CLASS: Bureaucrats push pencils at the expense of real workers.

If only we could refuse to sell to bureaucrats ... maybe it's time to return to the days of "we reserve the right to refuse service to anyone".

IS THE INTELLECTUAL CLASS “naturally hostile” to the market economy?

The growth of the intellectual class is not a response to consumer demand, but to the expansion of higher education. Passing through the higher education system does not necessarily confer valuable skills, but it often does convince graduates that work in the market is beneath them.

There. Fixed.

HOW TO MAKE A LIBERAL'S HEAD EXPLODE:

That's a Chick-fil-A cup in her hand, and she's also a gun owner. From the Scorekeeper (#1).

PAYBACK'S A BITCH: Michelle Obama pays men 46% more than women on her staff.

Okay, it's a little bit silly, but given that the whole "war on women" schick is a tried-and-true Democrat hoax, it's good to see them hoist on their own petard.

BORN ON THE FIFTH OF JULY: "On the matter of illegal immigration, we are effectively governed by criminals."

NO DEFENSE: "If only we had a real secretary of defense. If only we had a real president."

YES. NEXT QUESTION? Are the Natural Resources Defense Council, Environmental Defense Fund and Sierra Club three of the richest bullies on the block? And they're joined at the hip to the Environmental Pollution Protection Agency.

DROWNING SLOWLY: Despite some good news on the unemployment front, "the Obama economy isn’t quite treading water."

HOW TO ORGANIZE YOUR CATS:

Taken from here.

FROM THE SCOREKEEPER (#4): "If fences don't work, why is there one around the White House?"

A STARTLING NUMBER of Millennials are overqualified for their jobs. A startling number? Oh, c'mon; this has been well known for at least ten years, if not longer.

I SHOULD BE SURPRISED, BUT.... "The Berkeley, CA city council has tentatively voted to force the ... medical marijuana dispensaries to give away 2% of their marijuana to the poor and homeless in their community each year."

RI-I-I-IGHT: The real IRS scandal is Republican budget cuts. For liberals, the solution to every problem is to spend more money. Especially if it's other people's money.

SHOOTERS GRILL has made Twitchy.

Liberals not happy.

HILLARY CLINTON donates speaking fees to the Clinton Foundation. “From your foundation, to ours. For the our children.”

PRESIDENT PETULANT: "There’s never been a president more interested in the trappings of the office but less interested in the duties of it."

RETHINKING GEORGE W. And our first 'black' President was even better.

BUT STARBUCKS IS HIRING: Academia and the people without jobs.

THE CONSUMER FINANCIAL PROTECTION BOARD (CFPB) pulls an IRS, ‘loses’ documentation. Our taxpayer dollars are just a slush fund for a protection racket promoted by Democrats.

LESSONS for the Obama economy.

BADLY NEEDED: Dissenters in a one-party statehouse.

This is the state that 'kidnapped' Connecticut resident Justina Pellitier from her family; it desperately needs more dissenters from liberal orthodoxy.

A RIFT IN THE REPUBLICAN PARTY? 'Establishment' candidate taking heat from Tea Party challenger. This could get interesting as a populist (Tea Party) Republican takes on an establishment (Old Guard) Republican for the right to challenge the incumbent Democrat.

RED TORTOISE, BLUE TURTLE: Observations on the Chinese space program.

[I]f two tortoises are in a race, no matter how slow they’re moving, you should put your money on the one that is at least moving in a straight line.

The winning tortise is the determined one....

YES, VIRGINIA, the EPA is at war with America. Especially
rural America.

UNEXPECTEDLY, OF COURSE: University to decrease jobs after state increases minimum wage.

YOU MUST BE A HOMOPHOBE if you're disturbed by intersex fish.

I’m disturbed by the blatant hetero-normativity of Pennsylvania’s Dept. of Environmental Protection. How do we know that these asexual fish haven’t simply decided to be gender neutral “intersex” after a period of questioning?

Surely as Amercans, the environmentalists are beyond this bias against the transgendered.

HOBBY LOBBY: It's time for employer-based health insurance to go. "Health coverage decisions shouldn’t be made by the government or by employers. They should be the sole province of individuals."

Yes.

GRASPING AT STRAWS, ARE WE? A Republican victory in the mid-term elections means Obama is winning.

Dana Milbank is spinning so hard it's no wonder he's dizzy.

GO TO THE LIBRARY, check out a drone.

HOUSTON CHRONICLE: The rocket's red glare tape.

NEWS THAT'S NOT NEWS: Resentment Behind the Waning Patriotism of Liberal Americans.

Losers do tend to be resentful.

NO, IT'S NOT BUSH'S FAULT; these are failures Obama owns.

A FINE SUMMER'S DAY IN THE FOREST THAT IS OUR HOME:

Can't get any better than today....

VIRGINIA 'CLIMATE' FORECAST: Hazy, with a 100 percent chance of nothing.

SUNDAY FAMILY PHOTOS:

Shadow - the patriarch

Diamond - aka Ivana the Terrible

Daisy Mae - Shadow's sister (believe it or not)

Rusty - our latest 'kitten'

SO YOU WANT TO BE AN AMERICAN? take the citizenship test.

I took the short version (and just barely passed). I took the long version and did only a little better. Read the questions carefully; I missed several simply because I misread the question.

My guess is that Millenials (and younger) will have a hard time passing, simply because Civics and American government is no longer taught in our public schools.

IT'S HARD when even union members don't want to be union members.

POWERLINE'S WEEK IN PICTURES is up. As usual, here's my favorite:

STOP GLOBAL WARMING! Eat your vegetables and quit farting.

MEMO TO THE LEFT: It's hard to boycott businesses you don't patronize in the first place. Money talks; moral superiority whines.

MORE GOVERNMENT OVERREACH: It was a toy, now it's a drone.

NINE-NIL: Even his own side on the Supreme Court won't support him.

USEFUL IDIOTS: The Democrats Provide the IRS the Best Defense Money Can Buy.

If all the government unions can buy is idiots, that's just another reason to disband them....

PLASTIC BAG FANTASY ISLAND vanishes like Atlantis: Scientist corrects million-ton floating estimate. He was only off by a factor of around 100 ... but that's good enough for government work.

THE DARK SIDE OF LIBERALISM: "[F]or many contemporary liberals, individual rights are whatever the government decides they are, not the inalienable possession of every individual."

THE STOLEN JOB MYTH: Immigrants aren’t taking jobs that ‘belong’ to Americans. Jacoby's analysis is (at least to me) a bit overwrought, or underwrought, depending on which side of the immigration fence you reside.

Either way, the jobs debate is only a small part of the real immigration issue, which is this: Is the United States a nation? Or a refugee camp with benefits?

GOVERNMENT SCIENTISTS: Antarctic sea ice is growing — because of global warming. But in May, the Antarctic ice sheet was melting. Was that because of global cooling?

I wish the environmentalist climate mongers would make up their minds....

REP. TREY GOWDY (R-SC), sponsor of the "Enforce the Law Act," gave an very passionate speech defending the need for legislation that would authorize the House or Senate to sue the executive branch for not enforcing laws. Here is that speech.

A FEW WEEKS before she retired, my wife had a couple of workplace 'accidents', resulting in a bruised ego and a bump on the noggin. Neither incident cost her (or her employer) so much as an aspirin or a bandaid, and she missed not a minute of work.

Yet within a couple of days of each, she received a "Notification of Injury Letter Follow Up - Claimant PIN for WebFile" from the Virginia Workers' Compensation Commission. Here's how it reads in part:

Recently, the Commission was notified of a work-related injury where you were listed as the Injured Worker/Claimant. Listed above is your PIN - Personal Identification Number - which enables you to log in to the Commission's WebFile system. WebFile allows you to see your claim, view claim-related documents, and protect your rights by filing a Claim Form. A Notification of Injury has also been sent, containing information required for viewing your claim online. You will need both these documents to access WebFile.

This reads - to me, at least - as almost a demand letter from an ambulance-chaser: You must have had an injury requiring financial compensation. You must file a claim so we can evaluate your loss (otherwise we may no longer have jobs).

What has this world come to when one is expected - no, almost demanded - to file a workers' compensation claim for a non-injury that didn't even require a bandaid, much less time away from work?