BEFORE COMPASSION KICKED IN, there was greater equality — how could that be?

KAMALA HARRIS: ‘assault weapons’ don’t belong in ‘civil society’. But infanticide apparently does.

Never mind that abortion kills far more humans than gun violence every year.

EXPERTS: If there's weather outside, it's because of global warming.

ON THE BRIGHT SIDE, it's nice to know my saving is financing your spending.

Uh, wait ... did I really say that? Well, sorta ... your spending enables the companies I invest in to make more money, which they return to me in increased dividends and higher stock prices. Now if the government would quit spending so much, you could spend more of your money and I could save more of mine.

And maybe become one of those hated billionaires....

I AM A LIBERAL DEMOCRAT -- and 'Medicare for all' is a bad idea. Having been struck by the 'get-a-clue' bat, even some Democrats are beginning to pay attention.

Hard to believe, I know, but it's happening.

A NEW APPROACH for subway systems? The Boring Company is on it.

MISSED OPPORTUNITIES: Why aren’t bills on infrastructure, tax reform and free speech lined up like planes on a runway?

As much as I dislike Democrats, they do know how to hang together and move a train....

VICTORY GIRLS: Five issues President Trump should address at the State of the Union speech next week.

FIRST DEMOCRAT PRIMARY DEBATE: Kamala Harris v. Kamala Harris on eliminating private health insurance.

Lose-lose for sure.

LIBERAL SOCIAL DARWINISM in action. I have no problem with Darwin Awards for liberals, but in this case it's the kids, not the parents, who are the 'winners'.

And credentialed does not imply educated....

STRAW & ORDER: Washington Post reporter goes 'on patrol' with the enforcer of DC’s plastic straw ban. The story is behind the Post's paywall, a place I will not go.

IT'S NOT JUST NEW YORK STUPID EVIL: Virginia Democrat pushes bill that would allow abortion up to the moment of birth.

The Repeal Act ... would repeal restrictions on third trimester abortions, allow abortionists to self-certify the necessity of the procedures, eliminate informed consent requirements, repeal health and safety standards for abortion clinics, allow late term abortions to be performed in outpatient clinics, waive ultrasound requirements, and eliminate the 24 hour waiting period for abortions in Virginia.

And Virginia Governor Ralph Northam is okay with that.

Judging from the insanity on the Left, I'm beginning to be willing to accept post-birth abortions to keep the progressive population down....

MORE: Gosnell - the exoneration.

MICHAEL BLOOMBERG falls into his own giant carbon footprint.

It's getting harder and harder to not notice the Left's rules never seem to apply to the Left....

WELL WRITTEN AND THOROUGH: When is a climate model useful?

When I was teaching -- and as a system engineering lead in industry -- I would always emphasize that a model was at best an abstraction of the most well-known, well-understood, and prominent characteristics of the system being modeled.

That being said, the point I always tried to make (and that most of my students and coworkers missed) was that the less well-known, less well-understood, and less prominent characteristics not modeled were exactly the ones most likely to make the model crash and burn in the real world.

Remember that as you read Charlie Martin's post.

RANDOM THOUGHT: Women are the leading cause of abortions, so we must ban women.

Makes about as much sense as gun bans....

CANADA TO BERNIE: single-payer socialist medicine sucks. You can get to the back of the line for free - where you will stay until you die.

GOLLY, GEE: New Yorkers shocked to find food prices rising after minimum wage hike.

Who could have seen this coming?

THE STATE OF THE UNION WOULD BE A FINE TIME FOR AN ANNOUNCEMENT: President Trump can build the border wall without declaring emergency.

HIGHER EDUCATION: You're not innocent unless we say so.

ENVIRONMENTAL NARCISSISM has Georgetown residents paying more than $1,000 per household in higher electricity charges over the last four years.

Georgetown is the north end of the progressive metroplex known as Austin, Texas. It's going to take a lot more fencing/concertina wire to contain them than I had originally anticipated, but then everything is bigger in Texas.

IT'S CALLED HISTORY: Lessons From the Past. And if you can't learn from it, you'll be condemned to repeat it (until you learn).

The one thing I've learned from history is that Liberals never learn from history.

JUST ANOTHER LIBERAL DUNCE wanting to control the world for its own good.

HMM: Record cold forces rethink on global warming. I'm old enough to remember when anthropogenic global warming staved off a new ice age. Maybe it's time to try it again....

WASHINGTON POST COLUMNIST MONICA HESSE: Kamala Harris’ “love life” should be out of bounds.

Was Trump's?

IF YOU TAX THEM, they will go. Elsewhere.

THE EXPERTS TOLD US SO: "[C]old temperatures are a thing of the past, even in northern Minnesota."

ABSOLUTELY NOTHING: What 'big media' learned this week.

"Get Woke, Go Broke" is not a viable business model....

RANDOM THOUGHT: Good fences make good neighbors.

I found it interesting that Robert Frost's "Mending Wall" has supporters on both the pro- and anti-wall sides of the fence. My thought is that the U.S. should have border fences 'from sea to shining sea' on both the northern and southern borders, solid barriers in some places to prevent illegal entry, wooden fences in others as a reminder that our side belongs to us, that you're welcome to visit, but that our laws and customs must be respected while you visit.

VICTORY GIRLS ON BEING THE GOOD SAMARITAN: the man who fell at WalMart.

THE REASON THE LEFT HATES BILLIONAIRES is that the billionaires have money that the Left believes rightfully belongs to them.


Here's Binswanger's earlier post, which caused frothing paroxyms of rage within the progressive Left.

HE NEEDS TO GET OUT MORE: Washington Post reporter calls Trump supporters 'rubes'.

He might find out that we don't have nearly that high opinion of him or his 'journalist' colleagues.

JOURNALISM: Stop-me-before-I-tweet-again. I would suggest they think before they tweet, but that would be too hard - they're journalists, after all.

WE DEMAND ... something! I watched maybe 30 seconds of the first (Austin,TX) 'couple' before I gave up in disgust. See if you can do better.

GREGG JARRETT: Stone indictment shows no evidence of Trump-Russia ‘collusion’. What it - and Mueller's other indictments - does show clearly is that there should never, ever be another Special Counsel with prosecutorial powers appointed for any reason whatever.

I might be willing to consider something along the lines of a 'Special Investigator', provided that office's sole authority would be to issue a report detailing its findings to the American citizenry. I would also require that office be severely limited in time (say, 1 year), scope, and budget, with all authorizing documents made publicly available;
have no prosecutorial authority; be required to issue periodic reports to the American public; and report only to a designated bipartisan subcommittee of Congress.

Short of that, never again.

THE DESTRUCTION OF VENICE BEACH epitomizes California’s idiocracy.

WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO THE LEFT?

The core Left have always been foaming-at-the-mouth crazy; all Trump did was pull the curtain aside.

CAN'T WIN THE DEBATE? Change the rules.

A THOUGHT EXPERIMENT FOR PROGRESSIVES: How about we try the shoe on the other foot?

I will no longer tolerate any clothing featuring the hammer and sickle. The hammer and sickle is the symbol of a totalitarian ideology that has murdered millions since its conception. The very sight of this iconography triggers me to such a degree that I feel perfectly justified abusing total strangers who've made the choice to wear it on their bodies. I don't care about their reasons. I don't care about their excuses. I don't even care how old they are. If anyone displays that Commie crap in my presence, he deserves whatever he gets.

Now go read the rest.

EVEN GOOD INTENTIONS can have bad consequences.

They could try sending them to New York, but the benefits are only available to illegal immigrants.

It's a no-brainer that when you offer people free -- or almost free -- stuff, they're going to take it. But, then, progressives have no brains.

I GUESS THE CHUCK & NANCY SHOW DIDN'T GO OVER VERY WELL.

So [former Georgia gubernatorial candidate] Stacey Abrams was chosen to give Democratic response to Trump's State of the Union. Abrams, like Chuck & Nancy, is a firm 'Resister'.

LEARN TO CODE: Lawyers everywhere rejoice at finding a profession even more pompous, privileged and thin-skinned than themselves.

Guess who?

WHAT WILL IT TAKE to make you understand and accept that they hate you?

GOOD LUCK WITH THAT: "We are coming to take your guns."

DOES THE NONSTOP VIOLENT RHETORIC against Trump and his supporters mean that leftists don’t actually believe that a “climate of hate” leads to violence? No. It means they believe violence will be confined to their side.

QUESTION: Should the FBI run the country?

ANSWER: Not as long as it takes 29 agents to nab an elderly lobbyist.

Common sense, we hardly know ya'.

NO WALL? No problem. I know it's a purely rhetorical question, but it's an idea I could get behind if the claymores were designed to disperse some nonlethal incapacitating agent.

WHEN MEN WERE MEN: Bonnie and Clyde would be ashamed.

From the comments: "Meh, it's Austin. The whole town gave up its Texas card a long time ago."

MORE: Austin has clearly lost its cachet as a Texas city.

ILHAN OMAR: Evil in the House.

President Trump - aided by normal Americans - has forced them to fly their true colors.

RANDOM THOUGHT: After skimming the comments from a number of recent blog posts, I've come to the following conclusion based on two of many:

From simple minds ...

... comes the Democrat party.

Pretty much all you need to know in today's world.

SECRETARY OF STATE MIKE POMPEO speaks on Venezuela at the United Nations:

[I]t is time for every other nation to pick a side. Either you stand with the forces of freedom, or you’re in league with Maduro and his mayhem.

Stand tall, and stand with freedom.

MORE: Mike Pompeo humiliates Venezuelan President Maduro.

MORE AND MORE AMERICANS don’t just distrust the mainstream media — they are coming to loathe and despise them, and deservedly so.

Uh, huh.

IT'S NOT WHAT THEY SAY, IT'S WHAT THEY DO: A better guide than elite opinion is public revulsion at it.

HEY AL [GORE], can I get a refund on some of those carbon credits?

DEMOCRAT BILLIONAIRE DONOR TOM STEYER: 2020 Democrat nominee had better support impeachment. I'm more than a bit confused ... if the Democrat wins, impeachment is moot; if he/she/it loses, impeachment isn't an issue.

Little wonder that “inside the Beltway everybody thinks I’m a low-double-digit IQ.”

I disagree with that. 'Double-digit' is too high a bar....

MORE POSTS that seem to qualify for Instapundit's "Harsh but Fair" criterion.

MOCK THE PROGRESSIVES: It's a target-rich environment.

BUT, BUT ... DIDN'T HE KNOW GUNS ARE BAD? Legally licensed gun owner brought to an end a high speed road rage incident on the Masschusetts Turnpike.

THEY DON'T CARE; SOMEONE ELSE IS GOING TO PAY FOR IT: True price of Democrat-backed ‘Medicare for All’ plan could bust budget.

THE ONLY WAY to stop hillary from running in 2020 is to jail her in 2019. Which I fully support.

On the other hand, her running would ensure a Trump landslide....

NATIONAL EMERGENCIES generally aren’t conditional, right?

True, but the responses can be -- especially if one or more branches of government refuse to act in the best interest of the United States. I do respect the 'slippery slope' argument and can only hope that the bipartisan committee will conclude that a 'barrier' is a necessary component of border security and can fund it appropriately.

PROGRESSIVE POLICY: The Kulaks must be liquidated.

Liquidation is a bit extreme for America, but 'cowed into submission' is well within the Progressive playbook.

INSTAPUNDIT seems to be having a boom in "Harsh but Fair" posts.

LATEST ZUMWALT-CLASS DESTROYER MICHAEL MONSOOR is commissioned in San Diego.

POOR BABY: Ocasio-Cortez says she’ll ‘miss’ Sundance film premiere ‘due to complications’ from partial government shutdown.

The 'complication' is that it wasn't a complete government shutdown so she'll have to go to work....

ELIZABETH WARREN'S WEALTH TAX: It's not enough to just tax your income; She wants to tax your accumulated income (i.e., savings) if you were smart enough to have not spent it all.

I GUESS SHE'S PREPPING FOR HER NEW WEALTH TAX: Elizabeth Warren's castoffs? Priceless!

REPORT FROM THE WAR ON THE UNBORN: Unborn babies in New York identifying as convicted criminals so they can’t legally be executed.

It's satire. But is it really?

THE WAR ON CHRISTIANS:

The public schools are now mostly about political and cultural indoctrination, not education–as their steadily declining quality reflects. Elite private schools are almost all the same, or worse, but Christian schools stand in the way of the Left’s indoctrination project. So they are slated for destruction.

Read it all.

WONDERFUL STORY: The day they came to tell me my husband died.

THANKS TO TRUMP, China’s economy is rapidly decelerating.

LIBERALS TAKE NOTE: “A wall won’t stop everyone, but no wall won’t stop anyone.”

A wall only matters to Democrats if the crossers are not future Democrats....

A PEAK MOMENT in the history of the internet. Click on the Twitter link and enjoy the video.

IOWAHAWK is always tweaking the establishment; stop by every so often and enjoy.

HARDNOXAND FRIENDS: Make damned sure you've finished your coffee before clicking on this link. Here's why:

Now go enjoy.

HEH: Learn to code, media.

More Trumpenfreude.... And a little more 'harsh' but 'fair'.

HOW SOCIALISM turned Venezuela from the wealthiest country in South America into an economic basket case.

But the socialist 'elite' got very, very rich. Income equality, you know; everyone not the 'elite' got very, very poor.

REPORT: Bernie Sanders is about to announce his (final?) run for the White House.

“What the senator has this time that he didn’t have last time is he is the most popular elected official in the country…”

That's not saying much more than he's the biggest tadpole in the mud puddle.

KURT SCHLICHTER: We're going to lose lots of fights before we win this war.

But that's only if we don't stop fighting.

I'D SETTLE FOR THEM JUST RESIGNING: Why can't our elected leaders resign first, then run for president?

CONSERVATIVES, REMEMBER THIS: "There is no good faith with the Left. I’ve never seen anyone negotiate with Socialists or Communists and get anything but destroyed."

Remember it well. And act on that knowledge.

NAUSEUM NEWSEUM to close after hemorrhaging money.

I never visited there when I lived in the D.C. metro area. Now you know why.

COMPLETE AND UTTER LUNACY: This is what you get when you elect Social(ist) Democrats to office.

SAD BUT TRUE.

DAILY MAIL apologizes to Melania. Pays damages, too. Best comment:

1. Never trust the Left
2. Never let the Left off lightly.
3. Go early, go hard, go billfold.

Remember it, Republicans. Punching back works!

BUZZFEED AND HUFFINGTON POST just got hit with the karma stick.

Couldn't happen to a nicer group of maroons (c.f. Bugs Bunny).

UPDATE: President Trump noticed as well.

MAKING COMMUNITY COLLEGE ‘FREE’ will harm serious students, not to mention the unserious ones.

I think that's right. And I think proof can be found in the decline of 4-year colleges and universities. Here's a recent example from an almost-free education:

With freely-granted student loans to almost anyone who can fill out the application, even 4-year institutions have filled with unqualified, unmotivated students who hang around for a few years, then leave still uneducated, still unqualified, and with a debt load that's for all practical purposes unpayable.

Here's the nut graf: "There is nothing like spending one’s own money to force people to take the coursework seriously.”

GET WOKE, GO BROKE: Who wants these professors?

Army, maybe? See next post.

UNCLE SAM wants liberal snowflakes for US Army. Provided they're used for cannon fodder, I have no objection.

GOOD NEWS FOR LAID-OFF JOURNALISTS (see post below): WalMart is hiring. So is McDonalds.

Sadly, you may have to move to flyover country....

GET WOKE, get unemployed.

SO FAKE NEWS OUTLETS AREN'T BIASED? New York Times reporter trolling Twitter for dirt on Christian schools.

Tell me it isn't true....

SARAH SANDERS: So Hillary will be arrested now right?

God, I hope so.

THE WASHINGTON POST (where Democracy Dies in Darkness): Older, right-leaning Twitter users spread the most fake news.

Have they checked Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's Twitter account?

I'VE NEVER (YET) FALLEN FOR ONE, but this is a perfect solution.

NOW DO YOU UNDERSTAND why the Democrats don't want a wall?

It's time to demand voter registration in person at least 1 week prior to an election, proof of residency on registration, in-person voting with photo ID on election day, paper ballots, and no absentee ballots without adequate reason: sickness, disability, verifiable absence.

A THOUGHT FOR ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ: "Once people decide you are ignorant, it's hard to recover -- just ask Sarah Palin or Dan Quayle. Of course, they were conservatives, so the standards are different."

WHEN IS A CLIMATE MODEL “USEFUL”? Click here for the answer.

THE REAL Spirit of Texas.

Real Texas, not Austin, Texas....

IF YOU CAN’T RELY ON THE GOVERNMENT, why rely on the government?

I like the concept; now let's apply it beyond just TSA.

THE GREEN REAPER mascot the Department of Energy created is not merely ludicrous, it's evil, because the idea is to scare children. Would this propaganda work?

The Grim Reaper is Death. He's scary. You don't want him coming for you. You try to avoid Death as long as you can. The Green Reaper is an environmentalist. He's scary. You don't want him coming for you. Isn't this teaching the kids to avoid environmentalists?

If it truly teaches kids to avoid environmentalists, it'll be a success.

GET READY: California-style elections are coming to your state. Stephen Green over at Instapundit asks the obvious question: "Why bother winning elections the precise, factual, and correct way when you’re morally entitled to victory by any means?"

BOATLOADS OF WORKERS ARE DROPPING OUT OF UNIONS; now Liberals and Democrats (to repeat myself) have a new plan to save their cash cow.

Rather than paying a state employee a salary of $50,000, for example, from which $1,000 in agency fees would be deducted, the bill proposes to simply alter the arrangement on paper so that the employee’s revised salary is $49,000, with the state diverting the remaining $1,000 to the union itself.

If this becomes law, I'll have to increase my popcorn consumption as the lawsuits fly.

DAN BONGINO: Hey, Ocasio-Cortez, Sanders, Venezuela's socialism has been a disaster. What say you?

LOOK IN THE MIRROR, CHUCK: Chuck Todd's pretty disappointed in 'those trying to tar all media' after Buzzfeed's bombshell blew up in journolists' faces.

NO WONDER THE LEFT WANTS FREE COLLEGE FOR EVERYONE: it’s the only hope many academics in the humanities have to keep their phony-baloney jobs.

CONFESSIONS of a MAGA hat terrorist.

Well done, MAGAhat Lady!

I'M ABOUT READY TO BUY A MAGA HAT just to spite these child-hating assholes.

Me, too.

ONGOING: Our political-media class is mostly trash, and their “have you no decency” talk is a sham.

MIKE ROWE defends - and encourages - dirty jobs. And he's right. While I most definitely needed an advanced (graduate level) education to pursue my professional career, the doctorate wasn't necessary; it was both a personal triumph and financial loss.

I tend to lean somewhat toward this quote from Lazarus Long:

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, built a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly.

While I'm nowhere near as good as a 'dirty job' professional, I can do - and have done - carpentry, plumbing, electrical wiring, fencing, ditch digging and many other of the dirty jobs required to keep America running smoothly.

A liberal education is most certainly a nice-to-have (and I encourage it), but it is neither necessary or sufficient for a life well lived.

SCHUMER ON SHUTDOWN: 'Hopefully now the president has learned his lesson'.

I'm sure he has -- to never to trust a Democrat. Get any promise in writing, Mr. President. In blood. And notarized.

ABSOLUTELY NOT. NEXT QUESTION: Does the media deserve to be respected and believed?

ELIZABETH OCASIO-WARREN: Let’s use a “wealth tax” to take a few trillion from the very rich.

I'm sure Alexandria Warren-Cortez will be on-board with Ocasio-Warren's proposal.

POWERLINE'S WEEK IN PICTURES: Epidemic Fakery Edition.

This was the week that featured more fakery than a plastic surgeon’s office in Beverly Hills: fake news about high school kids, fake Vietnam War veterans, fake budget votes on Capitol Hill, fake economic conferences in the Swiss alps, fake punts, fake field goals, fake everything. It’s like we’re besieged with motherfakers....

There were too many motherfakers to select just one this week, so I'll leave you with this from the comments

Why is it that the women who dance naked in Waffle House parking lots are never the women you want to see dancing naked in Waffle House parking lots?

before begging you to put your covfefe coffee down before clicking through to see them.

MANY THINK CLIMATE-CHANGE DENIERS “get what they deserve” when disasters strike.

I think if you live in a disaster-prone environment (think midwest tornados, east coast beaches, west coast forests) and don't prepare for the possibility, you're an idiot, not a climate-change denier.

TWENTY QUOTES that explain why capitalism is better than socialism.

THIS ONE WOULD WEAR OUT SARAH HOYT'S SHOCKED FACE: Lesbian couple identifying as straight couple prepares to transition 5-yr-old son into a daughter.

Proof that truth is often stranger than fiction. I feel sorry for the kid.

DON'T LOOK IN THE DEMOCRAT PARTY. Where are the adults?

The full article is here.

THE FBI HAD ALREADY promised CNN good footage.

HEH: Sometimes a crap product doesn't sell.

Unless the price is low [in the sense of IQ] enough.

CRITICAL THEORY QUOTES: At the intersection of idiocy and insanity. I think this is the best description of the progressives' group stupidity I've seen yet.

Linked from Instapundit here.

YOU'LL FIND IT AT THE BOOKSTORE IN THE 'FICTION' AISLE: CNN’s Jim Acosta to write book about media’s relationship with Trump.

And if you can't find it there, try the 'fantasy' aisle....

IF YOU LOVE SELF-DRIVING CARS, you might want to think again.

YEAH, the Covington kids have a case.

It’s a new age. It’s brought forth new atrocities. We need to decide as a society whether we are going to accept this dreadful phenomenon or stamp it out by making the perpetrators pay. If the old legal framework cannot right this wrong, then we need to create a new legal framework that will. And you do that by suing the hell out of them.

Lawfare isn't just for Liberals any more.

DIMOCRATS (not a misspelling) block Republican move to pay federal workers. Impoverished workers make better cudgels.

UPDATE: the cudgel worked. This time.

OH, YOU SUCK: Washington Post eats it over their Nathan Phillips Vietnam war veteran story. Kurt Schlichter was not kind on Twitter...

Now if only the Washington Post would check on his 'tribal elder' status. My bet is that the correct term is 'tribal older'.

AMMO GRRRLL: Girls and 'girly men' gone vile!

STOP US BEFORE WE BECLOWN OURSELVES AGAIN! Twitter is ruining journalism, mostly by revealing the smug partisans who make up its ranks:

Speaking of the media, in particular the NY Times: “Millions of Americans believe you hate them and that you will causally harm them.” So long as journalists remain on Twitter they will continue to reveal to the rest of us what knee-jerk, smug, contemptuous left-wing hacks many of them are behind the facade of neutrality. As a window into what journalists really believe, Twitter may be a danger to their individual reputations, but it’s a public service to the rest of us.

Too true.

DEREK HUNTER: The soft bigotry of Liberal preconceptions.

Sorry, but there's nothing 'soft' about their bigotry.

MAGA HAT WEARING PATRON shames rude 'resistance' waitress (video plus commentary).

JESSE WATTERS: The Left's 'brains have been furloughed' during shutdown.

Sorry, Jesse, but you can't furlough something that's never worked to begin with.

I THOUGHT HE WAS A SOCIALIST: Bernie Sanders calls Venezuela economy a 'disaster'. And if you think he's a bloomin' idiot, check out Minnesota's Ilhan Omar.

WALLS CAN BE MADE FOOLPROOF; idiot-resistant is harder.

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: Auditing Our Auditors.

Key quote: "Inevitably, elites will insist that they should not be subject to the very rules they enforce on others." And I would add that they insist that they be paid extra for the burden of enforcing rules on others that they exempt themselves from.

DEMOCRATS UNHAPPY WITH 'INTEMPERATE' LANGUAGE. I wonder why....

A TRUISM: one we're seeing (in vivid color) played out today.

BE CAREFUL what you wish for on the minimum wage. You might get it.

MAYBE THIS IS WHY ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ RAN FOR OFFICE: Artificial Intelligence is coming for 36 million jobs, and sooner than you think.

I suspect bartenders are high on the list of replaceables....

ANOTHER THOUGHT: If artificial intelligence can drive cars and wait tables, would it be that difficult for AI robots to legislate? (On second thought, perhaps they already do.)

NANCY PELOSI as Dr. (Speaker) No:

Kellyanne Conway had it right.

THESE ARE THE PEOPLE who tell us Trump’s the crazy one.

THE ‘GREEN NEW DEAL’: It’s a dessert topping and a floor wax!

[T]he purpose of the Green New Deal is to advance the entire progressive policy wish list in a neat and tidy omnibus package using the messaging of Doomsday to sell it to a public normally skeptical of the hard left’s grandiose plans for social engineering. No matter how they package it, it’s still the same old socialism.

Socialism has never been more insanely expensive.

IF THERE ISN’T MAN-MADE CLIMATE CHANGE BEFORE THE DAVOS MEETINGS, there will be afterwards.

Record private jet flights into Davos as leaders arrive for climate talk.

There appears to be a trend towards larger aircraft, with expensive heavy jets the aircraft of choice....

Heh.

REMEMBER: these are the people who lecture us on decency.

HATERS GOTTA HATE: First we start with the Jews, then move on to Christians and Catholics, and then ....

Hey, progressives, if you really want to drive agnostics (like me) back to the church, you're doing a damn fine job.

TOXIC MASCULINITY DOESN'T MATTER, toxic media does.

THOUGHTS ON THE 'COVINGTON AFFAIR': "The way to stop the rush to judgment is to stop rushing to judgment."

HAS THE DEMOCRAT RESISTANCE 'WALL' BEGUN TO CRACK? Centrist Democrats are preparing a letter to Pelosi calling on her to give Trump a vote on the wall.

WE DON'T NEED HIGH SPARROWS. We need companies to do their jobs.

If advertisers think their virtue signaling will cause me to buy their products, they're sadly mistaken. The one thing it will do is encourage me to find other suppliers. And hope for them to rapidly go out of business.

MEDICARE FOR ALL may be losing its appeal with Democrats. Could it be because they realize it's completely unaffordable? Nonsense; they're Dimocrats.

COULDN'T HAPPEN TO A NICER 'LADY': Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee [D-TX] resigns as CBC Foundation chairwoman.

HUH? Billionaire Democrat criticizes Democrats for accepting his money: "That's a bit like McDonalds criticizing Americans for buying hamburgers (paraphrased)."

Has Bloomberg been taking Ocasio-Cortez's stupidity pills?

SETTLED SCIENCE: Liberals more closed-minded and intolerant than conservatives. That's the conclusion you can draw after you boil out all the goo and dribble and translate the remainder of the academic gibberish into plain english.

It's also a good explanation of why you can find the most progressive of the Progressives hiding in their parents' basements.

LINDSEY GRAHAM 2.0 HAS BEEN UPGRADED TO VERSION 2.1: Graham to investigate Obama and Hillary scandals.

MAYBE NANCY PELOSI WAS RIGHT about there being a security issue with the State of the Union being delivered in the House.

#JOURNALISM: Everything you need to know about the mainstream media.

THE GRINCH AND THE GROUCH: New nicknames for Pelosi and Schumer. Or is it Schumer and Pelosi? Or does it even matter?

From the comments at this Fox News story.

NOW THAT the Democrat party is returning to power....

JOHN KERRY: President Trump should resign.

Methinks former Senator and Secretary of State Kerry should put on his spandex, get on his bicycle tricycle, and pedal off into the sunset.

IT'S BEGINNING TO LOOK A LOT LIKE TRUMP-MAS: Hasta la vista, Socialism?

Venezuela’s catastrophic experiment with Bernie Sanders/Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez style socialism appears to be drawing to a close. Mass demonstrations against the Chavez/Maduro regime have broken out across the country:

The Venezuelan Army, which has kept the socialists in power through brute force–how else does a socialist government ever maintain control?–appears to be wavering. Today, President Trump recognized opposition leader Juan Guaido, the President of the Venezuelan National Assembly, as interim President of Venezuela. Trump’s move was followed by Brazil, Argentina, Chili, Canada, Peru, Colombia, Paraguay, Ecuador, Guatemala and Costa Rica. Of course no one can say it in polite society, but this is one of a number of impressive foreign policy successes the Trump administration has scored.

I'm posting this tonight in the hope that by tomorrow morning I can proclaim that Trump-mas has arrived.

WITH EVERY PASSING TWEET, the Dimocrats are proving I haven't misspelled their party name.

IT'S CHICK-FIL-A TIME: Covington kids going to the White House.

OPEN LETTER TO SPEAKER PELOSI:

Two thoughts, Miz Nancy:

(1) It's not your House of Representatives; it's MINE.
(2) If the government is closed, why are you getting paid?

Respectfully,

For anyone willing to join in, her contact page is here.

REP. ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ (D-NY) continues her relentless career of not knowing things by getting her facts wrong about the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

PRESS THAT SICCED MOB ON TEENAGERS based on 10-second video clip unsure why some people call them ‘fake news.’ To paraphrase Whoopi Goldberg, just because it was fake news doesn't mean it wasn't 'fake-fake' news.

WOULDN'T YOU KNOW IT? Washington D.C. forced segregation on the nation.

Read the whole thing, and then, a thought for you to consider: during the roughly 34 years covered in the article (1929-1963) the Party of 'Tolerance' (Democrats) was in charge roughly 2/3 of the time. Democrats held the Senate 26 of 34 years, the House 24 of 34 years, and the Presidency 22 of 34 years.

Keep that in mind the next time some Democrat calls you racist, sexist, homophobic, or bigoted.

ANOTHER MILESTONE IN CALIFORNIA'S DECLINE -- The LA teacher strike.

While the public school system claimed it “only” spent $12,073 per pupil in 2017, this number excludes the cost of buildings and other depreciable assets. A study noted that were these expenses to be included, the per-pupil cost would more than double the official figure. In other words, the lousy education that Los Angeles public schools provides actually costs taxpayers more than sending students to most private schools. The problem isn’t money; it’s government incompetence.

I am so glad we no longer live there.

JUST NOT FOR ME: A cold winter jump.

Snow is what you look at from afar (preferly Florida) and not from above.

NATHAN PHILLIPS’ DD-214 RELEASED – and shows he’s not quite what he claims. Not by a long shot.

From the comments:

(1)  This isn't his first stunt and if we don't make him too toxic for even the left to touch, I guarantee it won't be his last. That "old man" stuck his nose and tom-tom into our faces demanding attention. Well, he's got it and we need to make him damned sorry he did get our attention. He's an old man but not an innocent one any more than "old man" Sharpton is or old man Reid was.

(2)  We're about the same age and if I went out looking to make trouble I'd deserve to find it and be burned by it as does he.... As a cautionary tale to the left [not that they'll learn from it] if nothing else.

Mostly because we need to scorch some patches of their earth, too.

(3)  [W]e need to burn this guy to the ground so he's never again able to pull a stunt like this. He needs to be made radioactive.

My sentiments exactly. Now if someone could just find out what 'tribe' he belongs to and whether or not he's actually an 'elder'. My guess is 'no' on both counts.

SO, IS HE A 'TRIBAL ELDER'? Nathan Phillips is not a Vietnam vet.

MORE: 500,000 more votes for Trump in 2020.

UPDATE: what I've been reading about Mr. Phillips suggests that he's in fact a tribal older, not a tribal elder, meaning that he appears to hold no leadership role within whatever Native American tribe he belongs to.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: 26 of 26 gun control bills fail to pass in Virginia. Here's a thought for the gun controllers:

Think seriously.

LAWYER FOR COVINGTON HIGH SCHOOL FAMILIES threatens lawsuits against mainstream media unless they retract their false stories.

It's too bad he can't threaten criminal prosecution; I think an 8'x8' jail cell is a more appropriate solution.

UPDATE: Are lawsuits on?

BERNIE SANDERS: 'It gives me no pleasure' to call Trump a racist.

Seriously? You expect me to believe you?

DAVID BERNSTEIN on MAGA hats. "Seemingly" is the key adjective.

THE PRESIDENT WEIGHS IN on the Covington contremps.

I agree with Instapundit; he should invite them to the White House for Chick-fil-A. And as his guests at the State of the Union....

YES, LETS PUNCH BACK: David Hogg meets protestors at Penn State speech.

His 15 minutes of fame are turning into 15 hours of disgrace....

SHE'S THE LEAST WORST: Here's why Kamala Harris is still my pick to win the Democratic nomination.

The cream of the Democratic party has risen to the top -- and soured.

I HOPE IT'S PERMANENT: Twitter suspends account that spread the false narrative about Covington School students.

“IF I WALKED UP TO A GROUP OF ANTIFA THUGS and started banging a drum inches from their faces, what would happen to me?” And would the Leftist 'twitterettes' condemn them?

IF IT WEREN'T FOR DOUBLE STANDARDS ... Liberals believe tolerance requires Republicans be banned.

Will they feel differently when Republicans take control of Congress?

LIBERALS ARE BIGOTS, but it's okay because that kid had a MAGA hat.

Remember, only Republicans are allowed to be official bigots.

VILE RACISM IS ALIVE AND WELL in every region of the United States. What are you doing to end it?

Welll, first, I'd look at the data to see who the 'vile racists' are. My guess, and it's only a guess, is that the vast majority will prove to be members of the professional victimhood. And their enablers.

SURPRISED? Abortion is the world's leading cause of death.

WHEN YOU’RE IN A BAR FIGHT, it’s nice to have a guy at your side who realizes that you’re in a bar fight.

AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION has made choosing a therapist easy.

An easier way is to just 'fuggedaboudit'.

WELL, YES, SCHIFF IS A DRIP: Donald Trump Jr. accuses new House intel chief of drip campaign in Russia probe.

Actually, more like a dribble....

NO, IT SHOULD BE A LEARNING EXPERIENCE (FOR THE JOURNALIST). Should assaulting a journalist be a felony?

COVINGTON OUTRAGE and the enemies within.

THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA: Narrative Maintenance Technicians for the Left.

THE LEFT FEARS MEN. Which is exactly why the corporate-media-activist ideological conglomerate is currently losing its collective mind.

BECAUSE SHE'S NOT ONE? Ocasio-Cortez: a world that allows for billionaires is immoral.

38 (AT LEAST) 'BOMBSHELLS' that blew up in the mainstream media's face.

Enjoy the reminders.

A PLEASANT THOUGHT: Now Pelosi (and Schumer) own the shutdown.

BECAUSE THEY LIKE SELLING GOVERNMENT CHEESE: Why are Democrats opposing Americans in every way?

BREAKING: However low your opinion of the global warming hysterics may be, it isn’t low enough.

STOLEN VALOR AT ITS FINEST: Nathan Phillips, fake Marine.

I suspected as much.

MY THOUGHT EXACTLY: Sue the bastards!

I've been pointing out for years that progressivism is basically an evil 'religion' but it took Trump to make it obvious. Now it's time to do something about it.

Instapundit has more thoughts on legal action. When sweet reason doesn't suffice, it's time to hit them where it really hurts: in the pocketbook, and I wouldn't take jail time off the table.

RELATED: This witch is one of the many reasons I left Austin (TX) many years ago, never to return. If she is a 'de-escalation expert' then I am the Queen of Sheba (and clearly I'm neither female nor rich).

ON THE BRIGHT SIDE, OCASIO-CORTEZ WILL BE AROUND TO WITNESS IT. 'World is gonna end' in a dozen years due to global warming.

See much more 'moronity' here.

YES, LET'S KEEP AMERICA GREAT: Ex-Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz weighs 2020 run as independent.

He should have stuck with making bad coffee, but I'm glad he's helping to ensure President Trump wins re-election.

WATCH OUT for far (only far?) left presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren.

Elizabeth Warren reminds me of a British nanny (but without Mary Poppins' intelligence, beauty, charm, wit, and singing ability).

LYSENKOISM and modern climate science.

I'm old enough to remember when man-made global warming prevented a new ice age.

PRESIDENT DONALD JOHN TRUMP: living rent-free in the Democrats' hive mind.

More popcorn, please....

AMERICAN GREATNESS: It's all about Trump's our wall.

AND THEN IT KILLS THEM: The Affordable Care Act turns patients into guinea pigs.

No surprise; that's the inevitable result of socialism, Democratic or otherwise.

LIBERTARIANS WERE RIGHT AFTER ALL: Individuals in the private sector really can handle a lot of tasks traditionally handled by the government.

And just as badly....

WHAT A SURPRISE: New York City's minimum wage increases; workers' take-home pay decreases.

A SWORD HAS TWO EDGES, AND TRUMP KNOWS HOW TO USE ONE: Giving Pelosi a taste of her own medicine.

It's past time for the Republican party to get off its high horse and join the battle....

THIS COULD GET REALLY, REALLY INTERESTING: Punch back twice, no thrice, as hard. I'm looking forward to lawsuits, lots of them, and apologies won't be sufficient recompense.

MAYBE HOME INVASIONS AREN'T SUCH A GOOD IDEA AFTER ALL: Homeowner shoots, kills 3 men and injuries 2 more during home invasion.

PJ MEDIA: BuzzFeed, Acosta and the non-existence of journalism.

SOME SURPRISE: Bigots rule at Yale University.

Heh.

IT'S MORE THAN JUST WOMEN: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is setting women back light years in politics.

You could replace all the Progressives in Congress with bricks and increase the average IQ of the Democrat caucus.

UNFORTUNATELY IN TODAY'S WORLD, this is all too true.

IT'S ABOUT WHAT MY LYIN' EYES KEEP TELLING ME: Presidential net worth before and after being elected.

PAY NO ATTENTION TO THE MAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN: The Left's suspension of disbelief.

SCHIFF FOR BRAINS misleads Congress.

I'm going to have a hard time watching the news the next two years with that bug-eyed miscreant on television every night.

ONLY IF WE EXHALE: Is it time to tax the air we breathe?

AS IF YOU DIDN'T ALREADY KNOW, Mazie Hirono is a bigoted idiot.

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: Trump's re-election chances may be better than you think. I hope he's right, because it will take 8 solid years to reverse the damage caused by Democrats over Obama's term in office.

CALLING JOURNALISTS "schmucks with Underwoods' insults typewriters.

SO THERE IS NO GOD? How to design your own atheistic personal philosophy.

I'm agnostic; willing to accept the possibility, but not personally involved. I figure I'll find out soon enough.

HE COULD HAVE BEEN A LITTLE MORE CREATIVE: Sebastian Gorka Calls Abilio 'Jim' Acosta a 'Dickhead'.

Heh.

THIS IS WHERE I PART WAYS WITH THE DO-GOODERS: When the shelter sues to take your pet away. While I have always adopted my pets from animal shelters, I would never sign on to such nonsense.

This is the worst kind of moral preening from the far-Left do-gooder class that has apparently taken over environmentalism, animal rescue, public health, child care -- just to name a few. As a commenter from a previous post noted, "We really need to hire a better caliber of ruling class to sneer down at us."

I'm reminded of an axiom I learned long ago in my engineering career: "Perfection is the enemy of good enough."

WHY AM I NOT SURPRISED? Democrats immediately reject Trump's offer to end shutdown.

MORE: Trump takes "no" for an answer.

RANDOM THOUGHT: President Trump should deliver the State of the Union speech from the Super Bowl at halftime.

DAY BY DAY and MICHAEL RAMIREZ capture Nancy's reaction to President Trump's shutdown offer yesterday.

AMMO GRRRLL STARTS 2019 with good oral hygiene and other news.

JONAH GOLDBERG: The border wall is a MacGuffin. Except in the case of the border wall, it's a case of each sides wanting to deny the other a victory. By way of analogy, Goldberg points out that the border wall fight isn't really a MacGuffin:

To say that the KGB and the CIA [i.e., Democrats and Republicans] engage in similar practices is the equivalent of saying that the man who pushes an old lady into the path of a hurtling bus is not to be distinguished from the man who pushes an old lady out of the path of a hurtling bus on the grounds that, after all, in both cases someone is pushing old ladies around.

I doubt the old lady would agree that the acts are [morally] equivalent either.

QUESTION: Why did the Democrats fight so hard to keep Brett Kavanaugh off the Supreme Court?

Answer from the comments: "Amy Coney Barrett and Don Willett. We got this."

BREAKING? Ruth Bader Ginsburg has pneumonia and will retire from the Supreme Court this month.

Color me skeptical, but that said, she should retire, relax, and enjoy her remaining years.

THOMAS SOWELL: Fact-free politics. So much misinformation; so few facts. And so little thought, particularly intelligent thought.

KILLING THEM 'IN UTERO' does keep the infant mortality rate down.

POWERLINE'S WEEK IN PICTURES is ^*fantabulous today. Here's my favorite:

Now go see the rest.

^*Yes, I just made that word up.

YES! Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes....

LIKE LEFTY DIET NOSTRUMS GENERALLY, it’s crap: "It doesn’t matter what the problem is, the solution is always for us to give the government more money and power, while we eat less meat."

BURGERGATE: We must impeach Trump!

Surely inflicting innocent college students with "health problems from fat & sodium intake as well as the climate change wrought by meat consumption" must be an impeachable offense. Especially if inflicted by a crony capitalist masquerading as a populist.

INTERSECTIONAL HYPOCRISY: Freddie Mercury and toxic masculinity.

A REMINDER FROM 2012: Happy Dependence Day!

A rest stop on the way to serfdom....

THE REAL MINIMUM WAGE IS ZERO: NYC's new minimum wage law is forcing restaurant owners to cut workers' hours.

That, after all, is the real purpose of the progressives' perennial quest for a higher minimum wage -- to get more Americans on government cheese.

AND YET THEY WERE OFFERED SHELTER: Homeless already returning to the illegal camp site cleared by Seattle authorities last week.

Apparently the offered shelters won't let them drink or do drugs....

INTERSECTIONALITY: the new name for rank hypocrisy.

A NEW WORD TO DESCRIBE OUR GOVERNING CLASS:

On both sides of the political spectrum.

BEST.FAKE.PARTIAL.SHUTDOWN.EVER.

WALL SHUTDOWN drives Hispanics to back Trump. And 24% of the Black population ain't bad either.

GLOBAL WARMING is good.

WOMB TO TOMB: Oregon could become the first state to require in-home surveillance of newborn babies.

Next step: delivery rooms in government-run day care centers. Heinlein's 'crazy years' are in full swing.....

LOOSE ENDS (2ND ITEM): Twit teaches Twitter to tweetless twits.

HEY, NANCY! You can still fly commercial.

- Donald J. Trump

That is post-doc level trolling. Thank you, Mr. President.

'WRONG PEOPLE' MEANS 'NOT ME': NYC Mayor Bill De Blasio says the 'wrong people' have all the money.

DEMOCRATS: We don't need no stinkin' Constitution.

I DIDN'T KNOW THAT: Blacks have white privilege.

More proof that CNN lives in an alternate universe....

TRUMP VS. THE CRAZIES: If the Democrats win on the shutdown, the rest of America will know what it's like to live in California.

Been there. Done that. Didn't like it. Moved back to a sane world.

NEW YORK CITY MAYOR MARXIST announces plans to seize private property.

If you live or work in NYC, start making plans to get out ASAP.

IT'S WHAT PROGRESSIVE MORONS DO: [Soon-to-be-former] Sheriff Scott Israel gets suspended, blames NRA, then whines about false narratives.

So ... 'false narrative' is NewSpeak for 'fact'?

HOW ON EARTH DO YOU NAVIGATE a flat Earth cruise around the world?

TOXIC MASCULINITY isn't what it used to be.

HMM: WWW I German submarine unearthed (again) in northern France.

SAN DIEGO TV STATION KUSI: schools CNN on reality that border walls work. But, but ... it's the narrative, stupid!

RELATED: All the news that's fit to bury.

KURT SCHLICHTER: Apocalypse Ruth.

A suggestion for RBG: Retire. Rest. Live.

EVEN A COLOSSAL GREEN WEENIE isn't big enough for the Green New Deal.

AT LEAST THE KIDS AREN'T GETTING FURTHER BEHIND: 30,000 LA teachers go on strike.

RANDOM QUESTION: What is the correct gender designation for a barking mad moron of either sex?

MARX ON THE HUDSON: Super progressive polition (guess who?) sums up the Socialist-Communist mindset.

IT ONLY TOOK 10 MONTHS: Seattle finally clears homeless encampment. Key graf: "At some point, compassion has to move toward getting these people off the path to self-destruction even if they say all they want is more drugs and alcohol."

But progressives will never learn.

ONE WOULD NEED A HEART OF STONE not to laugh.

FOR DEMOCRATS, it's not a wall, it's an impenetrable barrier.

IT'S A PRETTY BIG VOID: Our Tweeter-in-Chief takes on the 'fake news' morons.

Trump, 1; Fake News, 0.

WHO KNEW? Stealing is what socialists do.

MEET YOUR RULING ELITE: California lawmakers traveled to Hawaii with utility executives as wildfires raged.

ARMED AND READY: What the gun control nutters should know.

I BELIEVE IN PROGRESSIVE VALUES ... just not in my neighborhood.

JIM ACOSTA gets served his head on a platter.

MICHAEL RAMIREZ sees a dip in the road wall.

BEST TWITTER COMMENT EVER: "We really need to hire a better caliber of ruling class to sneer down at us."

From this Twitter post.

AMMO GRRRLL writes on 2019 and the 2020 election:

I think that no matter how many human errors The President makes, that we can count on the Depraved Democrats to do whatever is the one thing that will irritate the electorate enough to re-elect DJT.

Now go read it all.

JOE LIEBERMAN: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez isn't the future of the Democrat Party. He's right; she's the future of a defunct Democrat party.

MEXICO ALSO PAYS THE COST of not having a border wall.

Here's an idea: the U.S. pays for a wall on our southern border; Mexico pays for a wall on their southern border. It would be a win for both countries.

DEAR DIARY: President Trump and his son double-team Jim Acosta.

'GIRLY' MEN: What are the demographics of (male) psychologists?

That's been my experience as well.

POWERLINE'S WEEK IN PICTURES (government shutdown edition) is up. It is so good this week - and so long - that I forced myself to pick this non-political cartoon as my favorite:

Now go and enjoy the political cartoons.

STROKING THEIR OWN EGOS because no one else will.

MICHAEL RAMIREZ catches Jim Acosta in a rare moment of self-reflection.

CLIMATE CHANGE: Snowfalls are just a thing of the past.

Oh? It's snowing in Virginia as I post this. I wouldn't be surprised to see our rain here in Georgia to turn to snow.

SO NEXT we have 'unwanted vagina visitors'?

RULES ARE FOR LITTLE PEOPLE: Ocasio-Cortez campaign fined for not providing worker's compensation.

MAYBE, JUST MAYBE the Democrats should share blame for the government shutdown?

CHRISTIAN JUST VOTING FOR WHICHEVER POLITICAL PARTY less likely to make his faith illegal.

It's supposed to be satire; sadly it really isn't.

JIM ACOSTA: I’m here at the border in front of some fencing and don’t see any “emergency”.

Um, Jim, maybe that's because there's a wall fence there?

IF THE DEMOCRATS WANT TO LOSE THE WALL FIGHT, all they have to do is keep talking.

ISN'T MATH WONDERFUL: solving one of the great issues of our time.

THIRTY YEARS AGO: Ronald Reagan's farewell speech to the nation.

Hard to believe it was that long ago....

THE TOP TEN THINGS Liberals will try to ban in the next decade.

Good luck with that....

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON on the ironies of illegal immigration.

SCHUMER AND PELOSI own the shutdown even as they try to blame Trump.

RELATED: They're still mad that he won the election. Remember that Electoral College thingy? Pelosi (55) and Schumer (29) can directly influence at most 84 of the 270 votes needed to win an election. (The coasts - including North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida - have only 245 votes.) He won that part of the country that Shumer/Pelosi don't even know exists.

WELL, YES: Starbucks goes down the toilet. But, hey ... they're woke!

BACK ON THE KOREAN PENINSULA: Kim Jong Un reaffirms denuclearization commitment, vows efforts for second summit with Trump.

SECRETARY OF STATE MIKE POMPEO: “the age of self-inflicted American shame is over.”

Pompeo said that “it was here, in this city, another American stood before you” and “told you that radical Islamist terrorism does not stem from ideology.”

“He told you that 9/11 led my country to abandon its ideals, particularly in the Middle East,” he said at the American University in Cairo. “He told you that the United States and the Muslim world needed ‘a new beginning.’ The results of these misjudgments have been dire.”

Read it all through the final quote: “Let me be clear: America will not retreat until the terror fight is over.”

THEY CAN'T STAND SEEING (OR HEARING) THE TRUTH: The networks need to de-platform Trump.

SHORT FIELD TAKEOFF: A Marine Corps F-35B Lightning II from Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 211, 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU), takes off from the Wasp-class amphibious assault ship USS Essex (LHD 2).

BUILDING THE WALL/BARRIER/FENCE: A quick solution to defiant landowners along the border.

I have a better idea: just don't build the wall on their property; let the gaps funnel illegals into their homes and see how long their opposition lasts.

BEING 'WOKE' (OR A COMMUNIST) is a money loser.

CALIFORNIA’S NEW GOVERNOR is promising the most populous state will be a “sanctuary to all who seek it”. Now put up a fence around the entire state. Just make sure all the gates are one-way (in).

RELATED: California’s ongoing suicide attempt.

TAKE OCASIO-CORTEZ BACK TO WALMART: "The refund should be enough to get a pack of chewing gum."

I don't think the refund amount would be that high. Remember, a pack of chewing gum no longer costs a nickel....

WITH ILLEGALS FLIPPING ELECTIONS NOW, Democrats’ opposition to a wall is all about their grip on power.

"Illegals are now the Democrats' meal ticket." You're surprised?

NO, WE'RE NOT KIDDING: Democrats say they aren’t refusing their pay during shutdown because it would be a 'distraction'.

Poverty is for little people.

THE 'GREEN NEW DEAL': Back to the Renaissance.

YES. Our leadership is pathetic.

DILBERT: Our leadership is artifically intelligent. For our leadership I can't decide whether that's a step up or a step down.

WE ALL KNOW that the Demcrats want Trump to lose his wall more than they want their constituents to win.

HUBRIS: the 2020 Democrat presidential candidates.

I wouldn't vote for any of them for dogcatcher; dogcatchers are too valuable.

OH COME NOW: Judge rules Florida election official Brenda Snipes' constitutional rights were violated.

And whose constitutional rights did Brenda Snipes violate? Oh, that's right; we're just little people. Sorry, I forgot.

ED ROLLINS: Here's what we saw on Tuesday night.

THERE'S NEVER ENVIRONMENTAL OUTRAGE unless committed by the white American Republican patriarchy.

SO WHAT? The IRS has 4,500 guns, 5,000,000 rounds of ammunition.

UNFORTUNATELY too true.

SEAN SPICER ON THE DEMOCRATS' BORDER WALL RESISTANCE: If we called it the 'Schumer Border Security Bill' they'd pass it.

In a heartbeat.

IT'S TIME MAGAZINE SO YOU KNOW IT'S STUPID: Of course non-parents are happier than parents.

Having children is an open invitation to the universe to visit misery upon you. Suddenly, a formerly carefree human who has just about figured out how to meet his or her basic needs has to provide for the needs of another human, who is (a) completely dependent (b) apparently intent on self-destruction and (c) incapable of expressing what those needs are — or anything resembling gratitude. And that's just when they're teenagers.

People who have children are pouring much of their emotional capital — and capital capital — into an investment fund they cannot control, nor withdraw from. If that fund goes belly-up, it takes their happiness with it. Their well-being is permanently under existential threat. As is their wealth. And their sanity.

Obviously written by a non-parent. As Instapundit noted, there are many (including my wife and I) whose biggest regret is that we didn't have more children.