HILLARY CLINTON CLAIMS no one ever told a male loser to shut up.

Oh?

NATIONAL REVIEW'S DEAD TREE EDITION (1 April) asks "What Is Man For?" The answer, it appears to me, is to produce more feminists.

GOOD NEWS! Hillary’s still talking!

Please, please Hillary—keep on making speeches. better still, please run again in 2020. I have a large popcorn futures position that I’m hoping to cash out and retire on. And besides, clearly you need the boost: I see Rutgers only paid you $25,000 for this speech, a 90 percent reduction in your pre-2016 rate. Which only goes to show what people thought they were paying for back then. But what are they paying for now?

And still running. She'll keep running, from the cemetary if necessary, until she wins.

ANSWER: ALL OF THEM. Question: "What kind of dumbass colleges don't want you?"

TRUMP'S FIRST YEAR: a 2.3% growth economy.

Despite a record $700 billion bank bailout, a $50 billion bailout of GM and Chrysler, and a $787 billion stimulus, the American economy shrank 2.8% in Obama's first year in the Oval Office.

Which do you prefer?

WHY PHARMACEUTICAL PRICES are so high.

ERIC HOLDER: Gerrymandering is bad - unless Democrats do it.

AMMO GRRRLL: Congratulations on 4 years of brilliant commentary.

And I wish I could shoot as well as you....

HERE’S THE DEAL – everything the liberals say about guns is a lie. Every.Single.Thing.

THE PROBLEM WITH COMMON SENSE is it’s not so common.

And with Democrats, it's nonexistent.

TODAY'S THOUGHT for Social Justice Warriors:

JUST DESSERTS for the 'progressive' media.

Don't let the door hit you in the ass backside on your way out....

PENNSYLVANIA SCHOOL DISTRICT rejects NRA grant for its rifle team; local businesses more than make up for the lost grant.

This is known as 'punching back twice as hard'. The school's rifle team got even more money than the NRA grant; the community struck back at rebuked the school district; and the NRA was able to give the grant to another deserving team.

A trifecta rebuke to virtue signaling.

DON SURBER: West Virginia has had a soda tax since 1951. So why aren't West Virginians skinny?

From the comments: "Can we implement an idiot tax? Even politicians would not be able to spend all the revenue that tax would raise."

Better yet, it would mostly be paid by progressives....

MOLON LABE: Of laws and men.

If only we could find the right law....

Read it all.

FORMER EPA HEAD GINA McCARTHY a fan of 'secret' science. She obviously believes we proles are too stupid to understand how real science is done made up.

But we are smart enough to know when the books are being cooked....

OH, THE HORROR: Toronto chef butchers, cooks, and eats a deer (i.e., venison) in front of animal rights protesters outside his restaurant.

I don't think he offered to share....

MORE PROOF (IF ANY IS NEEDED) THAT CALIFORNIA IS NUTS: Coffee needs cancer warning.

WHO RUNS MARCH FOR OUR LIVES? One thing's for sure -- it isn't the useful idiots student activists from Parkland, Florida.

DONALD J. TRUMP: the only sane man in Washington, D.C.

He may not be alone, but I can say from 16 years experience that the sane ones are few and far between. And there's one less since I left....

SURPRISE: Some parts of California aren't insane.

One can hope, probably futilely, that there enough sane ones to take back the asylum.

YES, LET'S BAN 'ASSAULT WEAPONS' ... from the IRS and other federal regulatory agencies.

BUILD A WALL AT THE NEVADA BORDER: California doomed by ruling class of liberal kooks.

YOU MAY KNOW your Facebook account isn't private, but you may be surprised at how public it is.

A QUESTION FOR HILLARY: If the blue states are so damn dynamic and forward-looking, why are they losing population?

I COULDN'T HAVE SAID IT BETTER: "Anti-gun groups have lots of money, lots of organization, and lots and lots of media help. What they don’t have is lots of supporters. There’s no shortage of bad faith, though."

I'M SURE CALIFORNIA HAS ENOUGH SANCTUARY CITIES TO HOUSE THEM ALL: Battle over what to do about the homeless continues in Orange county.

A THOUGHT FOR CONSERVATIVES: “A quasi third party while maintaining ballot access via GOP is not a bad idea.”

Yes, keep the GOP; toss the GOPe(stablishment).

THE NEW, NARCISSISTIC, AMERICA: From 'We, the people' to 'Me, the people'.

SOCIAL JUSTICE WARRIORS TO INTERIOR SECRETARY RYAN ZINKE: Aren't you aware that diversity trumps competence?

OMNIBUST FRIDAY: I refuse to lose my mind over the omnibus fiasco.

What do [we] do? Not quit. Get up, brush off, and get ready to fight. Tighten the hell up and jump back in the game. If you can’t take a hit, if you can’t stand to encounter an obstacle, if you’re giving up everything because something goes wrong, you’re not really committed to recovering your country and your own freedom. This is going to be hard. This is going to take time, a lot of it. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and draining the swamp will not be done in a day either. We are going to have more days like Omnibust Friday in the future, lots of them. That’s how it goes. But also remember that we will have days like November 8, 2016, where liberals are spread out before us, sobbing as their hideous libfascist dreams die before their eyes.

And those days make it all worthwhile.

Now read the rest.

IT CAN'T HAPPEN SOON ENOUGH: Obama “guidance” on school discipline to be revoked.

AMERICAN CAPITALISM: Providing the plenty which socialists can only promise.

WHY OMNIBUS FUNDING BILLS are bad:

Tucked into Congress’s 2,200-plus-page omnibus spending bill are a few paragraphs that will prohibit restaurant owners from sharing server tips with supervisors, managers and themselves. But the provision will also allow employers, in some circumstances, to share tips with dishwashers, cooks and other back-of-the-house employees who have traditionally been underpaid compared with their counterparts in the dining room.

Congress is now in the business of running restaurants? Hell, it can't even run itself efficiently.

IT'S WHAT HAPPENS when you close insane asylums and create progressives: Americans blame shootings on poor mental health care.

And I suspect the Left will continue to blame the innocent (guns) to protect the guilty (shooters).

THE 'MARCH FOR OUR LIVES' DAVID HOGG: a soon-to-be familiar face at the window.

SO TELL US WHAT YOU REALLY THINK: Seven reactions to the "March for our Lives".

They're pompous, preening, progressive idiots.

MARCH FOR OUR LIVES crowd count well below expected and initial reports.

In all my years of watching leftist demonstrations and reading reports in the media, on two continents, I’ve never seen or heard of one whose numbers the press didn’t grossly exaggerate.

To be fair, there's never been a conservative rally/demonstration they didn't underestimate....

KEEP THIS IN MIND: Neither Facebook nor Google (which makes Android) gives a damn about your privacy.

THE DEEP STATE: protecting friends and punishing enemies.

THE STUPIDITY of the "March for Our Lives". Unfortunately in today's academic and 'social justice' media environments there will be a plethora of useful idiots.

SHOPPING FOR A 'RETIREMENT' VILLA? Kim Jong Un made a surprise visit to Beijing on his first known trip outside North Korea since taking power in 2011.

GOP MULLS DRASTIC MANEUVER after Democrats block Trump diplomatic picks.

Go ahead, nuke the filibustering. The Democrats would do it in an instant if the roles were reversed.

THE PROGRESSIVE LEFT: You must stay in your designated victim group or you will be targeted for killing.

I'm exaggerating, of course, but only a little bit. The thought is there; just not the will.

A MOST PLEASANT THOUGHT ON THE OMNIBUS SPENDING BILL: President Trump is the Chief Executive of the United States. What if he chooses to not spend all the money Congress has allocated?

Or reinterprets Congressional allocations? Remember President George W. Bush's Presidential signing statements? I can easily see building the border wall from the military budget as a force protection issue, or from Health & Human Services as part of the programs to combat drug (opiod) addiction.

BEARING ARMS: The AR-15 is an ideal weapon for home self-defense. So why is it hated?

Racism.

NSC ADVISOR DESIGNATE JOHN BOLTON responds after Tim Kaine questions security clearance over Russia gun video.

Tim Kaine is an idiot. He was an idiot as a Vice-Presidential candidate, as a former Governor of Virginia, and is still an idiot as the junior Senator from Virginia.

SECRETARY OF DEFENSE GEN. JAMES MATTIS on military service by transgender individuals.

Transgender persons with a history or diagnosis of gender dysphoria are disqualified from military service military service, except under the following limited circumstances: (1) if they have been stable for 36 consecutive months in their biological sex prior to accession; (2) Service members diagnosed with gender dysphoria after entering service may be retained if they do not require a change of gender and remain deployable within applicable retention standards; and (3) currently serving Service members who have been diagnosed with gender dysphoria since the previous administration’s policy took effect and prior to the effective date of this new policy, may continue to serve in their preferred gender and receive medically necessary treatment for gender dysphoria.

Transgender persons who require or have undergone gender transition are disqualified from military service.

Transgender persons without a history or diagnosis of gender dysphoria, who are otherwise qualified for service, may serve, like all other Service members, in their biological sex.

The military is not an organization dedicated to social justice; it is an organization dedicated to killing people and breaking things.

SEVEN OBSERVATIONS on the "March for our Lives" protest.

All of them correct.

TWITTER, in four sentences.

R-i-i-i-ght. Twitter is for twits.

[Update] On the bright side, it allows the twits to self-identify....

RIGHT TO TRY: dismantling the Nanny State one bit at a time.

The premise of the Nannystate, the place to which all progressive roads lead, is that the people are not informed enough, smart enough, and do not care enough to take care of themselves. Therefore, we all need the state to act as our safe-guard and intermediary.

Progressives may be too stupid to manage their own affairs, but the rest of us are not.

HILLARY CLINTON confirms the 'marriage gap'. Women (and men) tend to become more conservative when they're faced with the personal responsibility of taking care of other living beings.

SEVEN THINGS to know about life.

And if you have a cat, you'll know them to be true....

ANDREW McCABE throws James Comey under the bus.

The progressive Deep State is becoming totally unglued in its rage that we 'deplorables' won't allow ourselves to be controlled by them.

POWERLINE'S WEEK IN PICTURES, faceplant edition, has provided the pitch-perfect response to Hillary Clinton's latest excuse for losing the 2016 presidential election.

Now go and see the rest.

WHAT A SURPRISE: The Deep State doesn't believe there's a deep state.

DEREK HUNTER: So.Much.Stupid. Highly recommended is his antidote: The Psychology of Progressive Hostility.

AND HE'S very successful.

PROGLODYTES outraged. Again. And again. And ....

I absolutely love the term 'proglodyte'. It perfectly describes the feeling you have when turning over a rock only to find something icky underneath.

DON'T LET LIBERALS WIN by letting them think you care.

IF YOU CAN'T PRODUCE SOMETHING USEFUL, YOU CAN'T KEEP YOUR JOB: Market discipline comes to the university.

More, please.

WITHOUT BROKEN EGGS, THERE WOULD BE NO OMLETS: Students are useful pawns for gun control zealots.

JUST WHEN does a child become an adult?

The progressive Left wants our young to remain 'children' for as long as possible, the better to control them.

MICHAEL RAMIREZ: Faceplant. The only thing to be learned from the Facebook imbroglio is that social media isn't.

PUNCH BACK: Demand Liberals have exactly - and only - what they say they want.

GUN RIGHTS FOR ME BUT NOT FOR THEE: The hypocrisy of gun control activists.

But, but ... it's okay for me since I hired someone else to carry the weapon.

OH NO! He has memos!

"Andrew McCabe, the onetime FBI deputy director long scorned by President Donald Trump and just fired by the attorney general, kept personal memos detailing interactions with the president that have been provided to the special counsel’s office and are similar to the notes compiled by dismissed FBI chief James Comey...."

If I were questioning him, I'd ask if he kept 'personal memos detailing his interactions with James Comey'. If he didn't, then I'd suggest that like James Comey and former UN Ambassador Samantha Power before him, he's just covering his own ass.

Answer me this question: Why would someone near the pinnacle of his career suddenly choose to (very) early retire (at age 50!) if he weren't a rat deserting a sinking ship?

IT’S THE ARROGANCE, STUPID! Ammo Grrrll doubles, nay, triples down on Hillary. It's a brilliant post - one of her best - and the comments are equally worthy.

RANDOM THOUGHT: Tolerant, virtuous, and progressive; social justice warriors are bigots.

MARCH FOR OUR LIVES: It's 'Useful Idiots Day' in Washington, DC (and much of the rest of the nation).

That this 'march' is astroturf was obvious within a few days after the Parkland shootings.

About two weeks after what was reported as a movement by the students, forensic science specialist David Hines discovered that the whole “movement” was actually a coordinated plan from the Left. Within two days of the shooting, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., was helping the kids; teacher’s unions, groups associated with Michael Bloomberg, and people connected to the Women’s March were all assisting in securing funding and promotion. Planned Parenthood, George Clooney, and Oprah Winfrey all donated money to the effort.

Basically, the left had money and infrastructure ready to go for an all-out assault on guns and the NRA, they just needed the right moment — the right victims.

The progressive 'deep state' was prepared, primed, and - if you'e half the cynic I'm rapidly becoming - subtly pushing for the next school shooting. High schoolers can't vote, but they can make great eggs for progressive thugocracy omlets.

A QUOTE from a true Democrat:

For it has been said so truthfully that it is the soldier, not the reporter, who has given us the freedom of the press. It is the soldier, not the poet, who has given us freedom of speech. It is the soldier, not the agitator, who has given us the freedom to protest. It is the soldier who salutes the flag, serves beneath the flag, whose coffin is draped by the flag, who gives that protester the freedom to abuse and burn that flag.

Sen. Zell Miller, R.I.P.

JUST DON'T LET THEM DISCOVER MINE: New data reveals Americans rediscovering small towns.

MR. PRESIDENT: veto the Omnibus spending bill

and tell the GOPe (GOP establishment) to pound sand.

FRIDAY MORNING:

And now that I've had my coffee, a thought...

Welcome to Friday.

THANK YOU, CNN: CNN probably did more to elect Trump than Facebook.

THE LITERAL INSANITY coming from our alleged best-and-brightest in the wake of the 2016 election (undiminished in 2018!) is proof that our ruling class is unfit to rule.

STILL INSANE AFTER ALMOST 2 YEARS: Hillary Clinton thinks she might have found someone else to blame for her loss.

AND IT'S SO EASY: the joy and necessity of driving Liberals nuts.

NOT ONLY ARE THEY THUGS, they're anti-Semitic thugs.

OH, MY: Michael Ramirez nails it.

FEMINISTS ARE WEAK, FRAGILE, AND STUPID; women are not.

I PREFER accuracy to poetry.

PLEASE, DEMOCRATS, STAY STUPID: Keep Nancy Pelosi.

COMMENT OF THE YEAR from a Fox business analyst this morning: "The only bipartisan thing in Washington DC is incompetence."

Truer words never spoken.

PERCEPTIONS? PERCEPTIONS? You've got to be kidding me. Not only are these idiots bubble-bound, their bubble is opaque.

UTTERLY DISGUSTING: The Politicization of the FBI.

Read the whole thing. Is it any wonder that sensible people have zero trust in America's governing class?

SO THAT'S A BAD THING? "Tillerson's replacement [for Secretary of State] Mike Pompeo, was described in a New Yorker fright-piece as an 'über-hawk' with 'positions identical to — and in some instances tougher than — the President’s on four pivotal issues: Iran, North Korea, Russia, and Jerusalem'."

THE GOLDEN YEARS:

So true.

VENEZUELA: "Even an inept and corrupt military junta is preferable to energetic socialists."

DUMBOCRATS DEMOCRATS: Taxes must go up for the benefit of the working class even if it makes them poorer.

SO YOU CONTINUE TO BELIEVE THE NANNY-STATE EXPERTS? Drink skim milk, get fat.

PROTECT OUR EGOS: Ban scary-looking guns.

SOCIAL JUSTICE WARRIORS should cut their losses now.

WHY PUBLIC SECTOR UNIONS should be outlawed.

THEY'RE THUGS: What conservative women can learn about liberals from the way they treat Dana Loesch.

FLUSH TWICE, win an election?

FROM POWERLINE'S Week in Pictures, my favorite:

But there many good ones this week; go and enjoy.

URBAN MYTH: the scandal-free Obama administration.

DEREK HUNTER: To hell with California.

I remember as a kid being told California was going to fall into the ocean, be destroyed by an earthquake. If it continues down the path is heading now, there’s a chance it will be the whole country that gets destroyed.

If we let California go, and we split the country along ideological lines we could fend off what seems to be looming just over the horizon, which is an ugly divorce. We simply don’t get along anymore and want completely different, irreconcilable things. Manifest Destiny was a nice idea, and we made it work for a long time, but it’s heading toward not working anymore. So maybe we let California go we’d all be a lot happier, if not better off.

I'd prefer the earthquake. Cleaner.

A COMPUTER'S GENDER

A language instructor was explaining to her class that in French, nouns unlike their English counterparts, are grammatically designated as masculine or feminine.

"House," in French, is feminine - "la maison."
"Pencil," in French, is masculine - "le crayon."

One puzzled student asked, "What gender is computer?" The teacher did not know, and the word wasn't in her French dictionary. So for fun she split the class into two groups appropriately enough by gender, and asked them to decide whether "computer" should be a masculine or feminine noun. Both groups were required to give four reasons for their recommendation.

The men's group decided that computers should definitely be of the feminine gender ("la computer"), because:

1. No one but their creator understands their internal logic;
2. The native language they use to communicate with other computers is incomprehensible to everyone else;
3. Even the smallest mistakes are stored in long-term memory for possible later retrieval; and
4. As soon as you make a commitment to one, you find yourself spending half your pay check on accessories for it.

The women's group, however, concluded that computers should be masculine ("le computer"), because:

1. In order to get their attention, you have to turn them on;
2. They have a lot of data but they are still clueless;
3. They are supposed to help you solve problems, but half the time they ARE the problem; and
4. As soon as you commit to one, you realize that if you'd waited a little longer, you could have gotten a better model.

The women won.

MICHAEL RAMIREZ: California Dreamin' (revisited).

DEMOCRATS HIT BOTTOM; get power excavator.

They've been using dynamite and a steamshovel for years....

ONLY SOME? Some reporters are becoming ‘emotionally unhinged’ covering Trump.

TWO MIRAMAR SWAT OFFICERS suspended for heading to Parkland massacre.

Couldn't have them interfering with the Broward County Sheriff deputies running away....

MICHAEL RAMIREZ: Why they're called 'Dreamers'.

CONNECTICUT GOVERNOR: NRA members are akin to terrorists.

A "terrorist" responds.

THE PERFECT HYPOCRISY JOKE: "A socialist with three homes, an anti-capitalist worth millions of dollars and a woman who stole a Native American’s spot at Harvard Law by faking her heritage walk into a bar to lecture everybody about inequality."

THE WAGES OF GENTRY LIBERALISM: move out of a college dorm and into a company dorm.

Isn't liberalism great?

When we lived in Virginia, my wife and I visited several 'company towns' dating back to Virginia's 'gold rush' in the early-to-mid 1880's. They didn't survive; neither will gentry liberalism.

For those who are interested - and can find a copy - there is a (Analog, February 1987) novella by Stephen L. Burns ('In the Kingdom at Morning') about the ultimate in company towns.

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: The rapid 'progress' of progressivism.

GOOD IDEA? "[I]f someone has to suffer the pain that comes with unfair trade, I vote it be the people trading unfairly."

TOTALLY [IN]SANE DEMOCRATS push ban on armed teachers in schools. Because, because ... shut up.

VIRGINIA SNOWFLAKES DEMOCRATS are ‘offended’ and ‘emotionally shaken’ by historical facts.

It's tough when reality stomps on your ego....

BREAKING NEWS: a gun won't give you the guts to run toward danger. No, but a concealed carry permit accompanying the gun might.

I say that because people who've gone to the time and trouble to acquire a legal carry permit have probably thought long and hard about what they might do if called to the sound of shots fired.

BECAUSE THE MEDIA HATES THEM: Why the 'deporables' hate the media.

TRUMP ADMINISTRATION sues California over interference with immigration enforcement.

Now is the time for President Trump to put his DACA proposal back on the table as a best-and-final offer to Congress. He should tell them to pass it as is or he will vigorously enforce current immigration law as is.

TWO OP-EDS: A stark portrait of left vs. right.

I'm reminded of two posts I wrote a few years back suggesting progressives in their bubble were akin to monkeys in a zoo exhibit. I'm now inclined to believe the zoo is too weak an analogy; a mental hospital is better.

ANOTHER JOB LOSS for future liberal arts graduates: Flippy the Robot starts work in California restaurants.

IF YOU WERE A SCHOOL SHOOTER, which sign would you rather see?

I ALWAYS KNEW ...

Cats rule the world.

RANDOM THOUGHT: How come Africa writ large is such a 3rd world dung heap if the natives are so willing to offer me millions and millions of dollars via email?

HAH: CNN complains; Instapundit explains.

And I love this comment: "Really his seat should be given to NRATV. They hv [sic] more circulation."

PAJAMA BOY REDUX: The male in modern society. I'll settle for strength.

WRONG NARRATIVE, KID: Parkland shooting survivor wonders why the media’s ignoring him.

IMPRIMIS: The politicization of the FBI. PowerLine's Scott Johnson is a little more direct: his post is titled 'The Case Against Comey'.

THE CLOSED-MINDEDNESS of lightweight liberals. They/re 'lightweights' because their closed minds are full of hot air.

[G]RATING DISASTER: Viewers flee Oscars.

Heh.

SOCIAL JUSTICE WARRIORS: hecklers and hypocrites.

PUBLIC SECTOR UNIONS need to be destroyed.

My experience with unions (private sector, mostly) is that they tend to coalesce their membership around a rather low bar of mediocrity. That said, though, they were critical (pre-OSHA) in improving workplace safety. Today, however, I think society is better off without them - especially in the public sector.

USS LEXINGTON found 76 years after WWII sinking.

PRESIDENT TRUMP needs to control his staff.

Maybe, maybe not. it all depends on your confidence that the media is accurately reporting the 'chaos' in the White House. See this post; again, my sense is that they're so sure of themselves that they have no need to look outside their fantasy bubble.

THEY DON'T HATE THE NRA, they hate you.

CALM DOWN: Charles Payne on tariffs.

CALIFORNIA - the lunatic asylum state.

Personally, I think America would be better off if President Trump put the border wall around California and left the border with Mexico open.

Related post here.

QUIT TRASHING OBAMA'S ACCOMPLISHMENTS. He has done more than any other President before him. Here is a list of his impressive accomplishments:

1. First President to be photographed smoking a joint.

2. First President to apply for college aid as a foreign student, then deny he was a foreigner.

3. First President to have a social security number from a state he has never lived in.

4. First President to preside over a cut to the credit-rating of the United States.

5. First President to violate the War Powers Act.

6. First President to be held in contempt of court for illegally obstructing oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.

7. First President to require all Americans to purchase a product from a third party.

8. First President to spend a trillion dollars on "shovel-ready" jobs when there was no such thing as "shovel-ready" jobs.

9. First President to abrogate bankruptcy law to turn over control of companies to his union supporters.

10. First President to by-pass Congress and implement the Dream Act through executive fiat.

11. First President to order a secret amnesty program that stopped the deportation of illegal immigrants across the U.S., including those with criminal convictions.

12. First President to demand a company hand-over $20 billion to one of his political appointees.

13. First President to tell a CEO of a major corporation (Chrysler) to resign.

14. First President to terminate America’s ability to put a man in space.

15. First President to cancel the National Day of Prayer and to say that America is no longer a Christian nation.

16. First President to have a law signed by an auto-pen without being present.

17. First President to arbitrarily declare an existing law unconstitutional and refuse to enforce it.

18. First President to threaten insurance companies if they publicly spoke out on the reasons for their rate increases.

19. First President to tell a major manufacturing company in which state it is allowed to locate a factory.

20. First President to file lawsuits against the states he swore an oath to protect (AZ, WI, OH, IN).

21. First President to withdraw an existing coal permit that had been properly issued years ago.

22. First President to actively try to bankrupt an American industry (coal).

23. First President to fire an inspector general of AmeriCorps for catching one of his friends in a corruption case.

24. First President to appoint 45 czars to replace elected officials in his office.

25. First President to surround himself with radical left wing anarchists.

26. First President to golf more than 150 separate times in his five years in office.

27. First President to hide his birth, medical, educational and travel records.

28. First President to win a Nobel Peace Prize for doing NOTHING to earn it.

29. First President to go on multiple "global apology tours" and concurrent "insult our friends" tours.

30. First President to go on over 17 lavish vacations, in addition to date nights and Wednesday evening White House parties for his friends paid for by the taxpayers.

31. First President to have personal servants (taxpayer funded) for his wife.

32. First President to keep a dog trainer on retainer for $102,000 a year at taxpayer expense.

33. First President to fly in a personal trainer from Chicago at least once a week at taxpayer expense.

34. First President to repeat the Quran and tell us the early morning call of the Azan (Islamic call to worship) is the most beautiful sound on earth.

35. First President to side with a foreign nation over one of the American 50 states (Mexico vs Arizona).

36. First President to tell the military men and women that they should pay for their own private insurance because they "volunteered to go to war and knew the consequences."

37. Then he was the First President to tell the members of the military that they were unpatriotic for balking at the last suggestion.

I feel much better now. I had been under the impression he hadn't been doing anything.

From my email (naturally).

POWERLINE: Who's fantasy of the past?

The wannabe governing class of the Left are so sure of themselves (and their knowlege of everything) that they have no need to check in to the real world.

They're pathetic.

PROOF OF EDUCATIONAL MALPRACTICE: We need less self-esteem.

Children - and Democrats - should be seen and not heard.

JUSTICE ALITO highlights the cultural double-standard that benefits progressives. According to them, "it's okay if we say it's okay ... unless we change our minds and it's no longer okay."

A TRADE WAR WILL BE ECONOMIC ARMAGEDDON ... and the Dow Jones Industrial Average closes 336 points higher.

More Armageddon, please....

CALIFORNIA IS A SANCTUARY STATE ... for lunatics.

GO AHEAD, MILLENIALS, destroy us. I've never read anything so boneheadly, blindingly stupid, but then it's the New York Times.

ON TARIFFS, hold the hysteria.

[I]t isn’t as though tariffs and import quotas have become extinct. Imported clothing is subject to tariffs averaging 10% to 15%, and we have a domestic sugar beet industry, I believe, only because of quotas on cane sugar from the Caribbean. I haven’t noticed the press agitating to get rid of the tariffs we already have, even though the same economic arguments they now make–newly-discovered in some cases–would apply equally. Nor do I recall the press rushing to condemn Bernie Sanders’ protectionist views during the 2016 campaign.

This is all about President Trump, of course. If Trump came out for a big increase in the minimum wage, the Washington Post would suddenly realize that it would increase unemployment among minority youths.

Even the 'fair and balanced' Fox News cable channels have gone berserk over the tariffs. Let's calm down, people. The world isn't ending ... yet.

KURT SCHLICTER: Progressives are not people of good faith.

LASER-WORN LEVI’S are the start of something big. By hand or by laser, can someone please explain to me why I would want to buy new worn jeans? I wear them out fast enough by myself.

NEVER TRUST anyone who has no skin in the game.

Corollary: Don't trust the media.

ANTI-NRA ACTIVISTS should be careful what they wish for -- they might get it.

And they won't be happy....

KURT SCHLICTER: Progressives are not people of good faith.

AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI, free speech is expensive. My thought is that if 'security costs' are to be levied by the University, they should be levied on all organizations equally, not by the expectation that there will/won't be violence at any particular venue.

HEH: "They must be handing out Frequent Liar Miles at Delta’s office today."

WASHINGTON, D.C.: Democrats consider torpedoing gun control bill because ... it could pass.

PAYING TOO MUCH to heat your home? Thank an environmentalist.

HEH: Can real men punch out virtue-signaling twerps? The temptation is certainly there.

MORE LIKELY IT WAS THE DESTINATION: Turbulence makes passengers, pilots sick on DC-bound flight.

COUNTERATTACK HARD against liberal attacks on our rights and civil liberties.

Conservatism is not a suicide pact, and our principles are not a mandate to unilaterally disarm. We need to make them hate the new rules. Maybe they won't learn anything, but at least they won't win by cheating.

Read the whole thing.

FLORIDA’S MARJORY STONEMAN DOUGLAS HIGH SCHOOL: why we must arm teachers.

[T]he only real thing that gun confiscation has proven is that the increase of gun free zones in our society is also an increase in targets for people who never abide by laws on guns or anything else.

And it's important to reiterate: no one is thinking about requiring teachers to be armed; only allowing those who are willing - and trained - to do so if they wish.

IT’S TIME to raise the voting age back to 21. The only exception I would make would be for those who are active duty military. If they're willing to serve, it's a good bet they're responsible enough to vote.

More from Don Surber.

PROGRESSIVES MUST STOP USING TERROR to try and intimidate conservatives.

When you normalize hate, you end up with hate being normalized for everyone. You do not want that. You really don’t.

As Kurt Schlichter has repeatedly pointed out, it's the conservatives who have the weapons - and know how to use them.

MASS SHOOTINGS: What changed? I'm a bit older than Mr. Lehman, since I graduated high school in the early 60's, and short a few minor details, he's right on both history and culture.

The take-away, for me at least, is that the current gun control contremps isn't about guns; it's about the collision of two cultures. One is a victim-oriented culture of no personal responsibility where fault is replaced by circumstance, consequence shifted to society, and reparations required for any loss, perceived or real. The other is a responsibility-oriented culture where actions have consequences, consequences are personal, and 'reparations' are for damaged goods, not damaged feelings,

The former pushes gun control; the latter, gun responsibility.

CNN ANALYST: Women carrying guns is not practical.

Read the comments. My favorite: "If this guy carries it's not up his butt. His head would get in the way."

QUIZ: Can you identify all these historical objects? I missed 3 out of 100.

THE POLITICS OF [GUN CONTROL] OUTRAGE: "I simply can’t listen to pinheads railing on removing freedoms so they can feel safe. If I can feel safe, in spite of these events, so can they."

GET WOKE, GO BROKE: Not a single CNN show is in the Top 20 for cable news.

Fifteen of the top 20 are on Fox; five, on (gasp!) MSNBC.

Heh.

NOT MSM NEWSWORTHY: Demonized AR-15 used to stop brutal attack.

IF WE'RE GOING TO BAN THINGS, let's ban the right things.

THE ATLANTIC on gun control:

Progressive policy prescriptions, like assault-weapons bans and bans on large-capacity magazines, are opposed because they’re perceived to have exactly the wrong effect. They’ll present only the most minor of hurdles for the lawless, while the law-abiding experience the law’s full effect. It’s a form of collective punishment for the innocent, a mere annoyance—at best—for the lawless.

It's not just gun control; the progressive prescription for any perceived ill is to punish the innocent to protect the guilty from the consequences of their actions.

Read it all.

TEEN ANTI-GUN ACTIVIST claims he won’t return to school without gun control.

The thing is, it’s no skin off anyone else’s nose if he doesn’t go back to school. He could drop out for all we care. Or he can get homeschooled. Frankly, no one outside of his family is really concerned about whether or not Hogg ever goes back to school. No one at all.

But we should care - a little. These days you can hardly make it as a Starbucks barista without an elite university liberal arts degree....

AN EXCELLENT IDEA: So now the White House wants to privatize the International Space Station.

Despite Time Magazine and Jazz Shaw's misgivings, it is an excellent idea. For proof, I suggest that Mr. Shaw look at that smart phone in his hand or the navigation system embedded in his car's dashboard. Both are chock full of technology that was developed on the military's dime. Suppose none of that technology had been privatized.

Space-X has already proved that spent rocket boosters can be landed and reused; and launch costs have dropped dramatically since Space-X has entered the marketplace.

Bigelow Aerospace has as a goal the development and use of expandable space habitat. Can space colonization, space commerce and exploration be far behind?

Finally, NASA is the U.S.'s premier aerospace research and development organization. It is long past time to return it to its original - and proper - role: R&D.

Yes, it's time to privatize.

NYC POLICE COMMISSIONER says it would be “insanity” for the feds to force one state to recognize another’s lax gun laws. What this morally superior pinhed of a law enforcement officer has failed to recognize is that those of us who have gone to the trouble to acquire concealed carry permits (from whatever state) have typically thought long and hard about the responsibility that choice entails.

As a favorite fictional character of mine once said of such bumptiousness, "Son, suppose you tend to your knitting and I tend to mine."

[Note: the quote is from Heinlein's Double Star , p. 91. Those who are interested in the libertarian view of personal responsibility should read more of Heinlein's writing.]

POOR GUY. He thought he taught in America.

NO, IT WASN'T THE NATIONAL RIFLE ASSOCIATION; it was the National Missile Association.

TRIGGER WARNING: Men are on average taller than women.

I'd be all in favor of global warming if it would cause these snowflakes to melt away....

A NOTE TO THE 'EXPERTS': Obama is not a top-10 President. I don't know where Jimmy Carter is on the ranking list, but to my mind he certainly has improved his status since Barack Obama joined the list.

RANDOM OBSERVATION: On one of the network news shows the other night, it was suggested that there may be as many as 20 Democrat candidates for the 2020 Presidential election. Chief among them (pun intended) were these two Native Americans:

       Fauxcahontas (Elizabeth Warren)                       Raging Bull (Cory Booker)

YES, let's ban child killers.

MATH IS NO LONGER A 'SAFE SPACE': student faces expulsion after saying a math symbol looks like a gun. Square roots are hard, but I didn't know they were killers.

Read the comments ... and never go to math class without your multiplication vest.

IMMIGRATION REFORM: an amazing new way to reduce mass shootings.

TRUTH: "INSIDE EVERY PROGRESSIVE IS A TOTALITARIAN SCREAMING TO GET OUT" - tagline of the David Horowitz Freedom Center.

AMMO GRRRLL on ass-covering. Susan Rice should take notes on how to do it right.

ANOTHER RANDOM THOUGHT: I'll believe the billionaires call for more taxes on the rich when I see the canceled checks for the taxes they voluntarily paid.

POWERLINE'S WEEK IN PICTURES has posted. There are many, many good ones this week - especially the Adam Schiff look-alike and the Zombie Apocalypse, but in light of the Democrat meltdown over gun control, this has to be my favorite:

Now go and see the rest.

DON'CHA KNOW? Some women are 'male supremacists'.

[Note: Dr. Helen Smith (pictured) is the wife of Glenn Reynolds (aka Instapundit).]

MORE CHURCH BULLETIN BOARDS:

- Don't have a prayer? Come on in; we have refills.

- Honk if you love Jesus; text if you want to meet Him sooner.

Southern Baptist churches always seem to have great senses of humor.

MALLARD FILLMORE explains why I haven't watched the Olympics for years....

SO MAYBE MORE GOVERNMENT isn't the answer:

[The Parkland] Florida [school] shooting yet another government failure to keep us safe: From the FBI to local law enforcement to the schools, every institution failed.

And the knee-jerk reaction, every time, especially but not exclusively from Democrats, is for more government control.

RANDOM THOUGHT: Virtue signaling is the Progressive's excuse for not having any.

GOOD GRIEF: 'Politically Correct' is a microaggression. I guess that means that it's no longer politically correct to be politically correct.

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: Republican embarrassments.

Republican elites were always much closer in spirit to their Democratic counterparts than they were to their own so-called grassroots conservative base. Translated, they mildly were displeased with the Obama agenda, but loathe Trump’s.

Read it all.

THE RULING CLASS hates you. No surprise here; they hate us because we refuse to be 'ruled'.

TOWNHALL REVISITED: Liberals may regret their new rules.

This a repost of a 2015 column by Kurt Schlicter. It's just 3 years later and Liberals are now finding out that they should have paid attention.

THE ANTI-CHRISTIAN ALT-RIGHT is a long and tedious (i.e., boring) article, the gist of which (to me) is that what conventional wisdom associates as 'white supremacy' is really more characteristic of the progressive Left. Read it and see if you agree.

AMMO GRRRLL: it's all about recruiting new Democrats.

The Democrat Party has lurched so far left that it has alienated yuge swaths of the electorate. It is peddling the same stale, tired, hateful, divisive, grievance-grubbing ”material” with the same ancient pitch-coots and spokes-crones. They desperately need a “new audience” of voters to replace the white working class and tax-paying middle classes of all colors whom they have gratuitously insulted and driven away. They are counting on voters who are young, stupid and influenced by endorsements from brain-dead celebrities. Sadly, these people frequently do not bother to vote, like Colin “Cops R Pigs Socks” Kaepernick. But more importantly, they need people who don’t understand English with the exception of two words: “free stuff.”

Their old electorate has failed them. Read it all.

LEGAL LAUGHTER:

ATTORNEY: What gear were you in at the moment of the impact?
WITNESS: Gucci sweats and Reeboks.

ATTORNEY: Are you sexually active?
WITNESS: No, I just lie there.

ATTORNEY: What is your date of birth?
WITNESS: July 18th.
ATTORNEY: What year?
WITNESS: Every year.

ATTORNEY: How old is your son, the one living with you?
WITNESS: Thirty-eight or thirty-five, I can't remember which.
ATTORNEY: How long has he lived with you?
WITNESS: Forty-five years.

ATTORNEY: Now doctor, isn't it true that when a person dies in his sleep, he doesn't know about it until the next morning?
WITNESS: Did you actually pass the bar exam?

ATTORNEY: The youngest son, the 20-year-old, how old is he?
WITNESS: He's 20, very close to your IQ.

ATTORNEY: Were you present when your picture was taken?
WITNESS: Are you shitting me?

ATTORNEY: So the date of conception (of the baby) was August 8th?
WITNESS: Yes.
ATTORNEY: And what were you doing at that time?
WITNESS: Getting laid.

ATTORNEY: She had three children, right?
WITNESS: Yes.
ATTORNEY: How many were boys?
WITNESS: None
ATTORNEY: Were there any girls?
WITNESS: Your Honor, I need a different attorney. Can I get a new attorney?

ATTORNEY: How was your first marriage terminated?
WITNESS: By death.
ATTORNEY: And by whose death was it terminated?
WITNESS: Take a guess.

ATTORNEY: Can you describe the individual?
WITNESS: He was about medium height and had a beard.
ATTORNEY: Was this a male or a female?
WITNESS: Unless the Circus was in town I'm going with male.

ATTORNEY: Is your appearance here this morning pursuant to a deposition notice which I sent to your attorney?
WITNESS: No, this is how I dress when I go to work.

ATTORNEY: Doctor, how many of your autopsies have you performed on dead people?
WITNESS: All of them. The live ones put up too much of a fight.

ATTORNEY: ALL of your responses MUST be oral, OK? What school did you attend?
WITNESS: Oral.

ATTORNEY: Do you recall the time that you examined the body?
WITNESS: The autopsy started around 8:30 PM.
ATTORNEY: And Mr. Denton was dead at the time?
WITNESS: If not, he was by the time I finished.

ATTORNEY: Doctor, before you performed the autopsy, did you check for a pulse?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: Did you check for blood pressure?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: Did you check for breathing?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: So, then it is possible that the patient was alive when you began the autopsy?
WITNESS: No
ATTORNEY: How can you be so sure, Doctor?
WITNESS: Because his brain was sitting on my desk in a jar.
ATTORNEY: I see, but could the patient have still been alive, nevertheless?
WITNESS: Yes, it is possible that he could have been alive and practicing law.

From my email.

YES! GEORGIA LAWMAKERS yank tax break for Delta after airline cuts ties with NRA.

Virtue signaling has consequences.

RACIST: Sen. Chuck Schumer[D(umb)-NY] voted no on judicial nominee because he is white.

They don't even bother to hide their racism any more. Perhaps Sen. Schumer should consider relinquishing his seat in the Senate to some other developmentally disabled progressive but nonwhite candidate....