Monday, October 31, 2016

It's in their nature

Here's Ann Althouse on the recently fired Donna Brazile, who shared questions for a CNN town hall with Hillary:
It was a debate in Flint, Michigan, so it was completely predictable that there would be questions about Flint's water problem. The help isn't even that helpful. Why cheat for so little reason? It suggests cheating means just about nothing to you.
Exactly right.  Aesop's fable reference in title.

Extra - The Hill: "Poll: Public overwhelmingly thinks media is in the tank for Clinton."  No kidding.

Happy Halloween

Hit and Run: "Political Correctness and Cultural Appropriation Panic Are Killing Halloween = College campuses must stop humoring the idea that offensive costumes should be banned."

Saturday, October 29, 2016

Whelp, they lost my bag again

I just got back from a trip and it's a funny feeling when you finally make it down to the baggage carousel and you have to make a mental calculation of how long it would take for a bag to make a complete circuit.  And then you "benchmark" a certain distinctive bag so you know that's the sign of a full revolution so your bag should be found before that grey one with Sharpie graffiti comes around again.

But it's not there.  And if you're Logan airport in Boston, you want to twist the knife a little bit, so you start up the conveyor belt and disgorge a couple more late bags.  It's just enough to make you think: "oh, well, another baggage cart is sending up my bag."  But it's not there.

Now it's time to schlep your way down to baggage services where they'll take down all your personal information so that, if the bag shows up, they can bring it to you.  But probably not Sunday because, you know, that's the weekend dude.

This has happened to me at least twice before and they'll likely find the bag that I verified was marked BOS when I checked in.  In some weird way, this is a clarifying moment: I'll never check a bag again.  I'm going to be one of those people that used to annoy me, the kind that brings their ridiculously oversized bags on board to defy the laws of packing physics by cramming them into overhead bins.

Hurry up before the news gets out

When James Comey declined to pass along a recommendation to the Justice Department a few months ago, I concluded then that Comey didn't want the FBI to sway the Presidential election.  How do I now square that with events of the past 24 hours?

I'm inclined to believe this won't change the outcome but then...I don't know.  But the fact the Comey came out at this late date perhaps suggests the evidence could not be suppressed.  At least that's what Carl Bernstein believes:
We don't know what this means yet except that it's a real bombshell. And it is unthinkable that the Director of the FBI would take this action lightly, that he would put this letter forth to the Congress of the United States saying there is more information out there about classified e-mails and call it to the attention of congress unless it was something requiring serious investigation.
And as Bookworm Room notes, maybe Hillary knows what's coming since she'd really like you to vote right away quick before the truth comes out.

Suspicions confirmed

CBS News: "Poll: National Anthem Protests Leading Cause For NFL Ratings Drop."  Can't you guys just run up and down the field with a football?

Friday, October 28, 2016

October super surprise

The Hill: "FBI reopening Clinton email investigation."

Congratulations, Director Comey.  You delayed just long enough to (probably) make a new investigation irrelevant. 

Wednesday, October 26, 2016

CBS anchors on Obamacare: "What just happened?"

This clip, via Hot Air, encapsulates everything I hate about the mainstream media.  It was the media's job to report on the trainwreck known as Obamacare in an objective manner, weighing the cost and benefits, and the likely long-term effects.  Now they're bewildered at the consequences predicted years ago by people who understand economics and human nature.

Monday, October 24, 2016

There's no talking to this guy

Bloomberg: "Why Obama Won’t Listen to Reason on Obamacare."  "One of President Obama’s cherished conceits is that disagreement with him can have no rational basis, and it was the theme of his most recent speech in defense of his health-care law."

A while ago, I wrote that if you want to understand Obama, look at everything through the prism of his ego.  His signature legislation cannot be failing and the fault must lie somewhere else.

Sunday, October 23, 2016

Friday, October 21, 2016

Garbled message

Hot Air: "Obama: ObamaCare is like a defective cellphone, or something."  Ed Morrissey retorts:
In other words, this is the Samsung Note 7, only worse. Imagine that the Affordable Cellphone Act had mandated that all cellphones operate like the Note 7, but the prices increased from $700 in Year One to $1,292 in Year Four without any improvement in quality or service. Now imagine that consumers have to pay for the first 5,000 minutes out of pocket before getting free coverage, and that if they actually try to use it, the phone has an almost-even chance of catching fire in their pockets, but that the only response from the White House is to try to get Congress to offer a subsidy for Neosporin. Now we have an actual analogy to ObamaCare.
Don't forget that you won't be able to actually make a phone call.

Thursday, October 20, 2016

Man, you Republicans really screwed up Obamacare

Twitchy: "Wow, Obama’s REALLY desperate to get Republican fingerprints on O-care train wreck."

Yeah, I was

I was less-surprised that no real answers were offered.  Hot Air: "Was anyone else shocked when the deficit was actually mentioned in the debate?"  "If we get a fresh chance to do this again in two or four years, perhaps we could get back to a serious discussion of the fact that our country is going bankrupt. Both parties have contributed to this sorry state of affairs and neither is putting a serious proposal on the table to change that reality."

Wednesday, October 19, 2016

Winner of the debate: Chris Wallace

I thought he was, to coin a phrase, fair and balanced.  I was very happy to hear - for once - a question about runaway entitlement spending and the effect on the national debt.  I was less thrilled with the answers which did not address the problem at all.  And away we go....

Iran wants more untraceable cash

Fox News: "Iran seeking 'many billions of dollars' in ransom to free US hostages."

Whatever gave them the idea we would pay ransom for hostages?  Oh, yeah, that $1.7 billion delivered on shipping pallets.

Tuesday, October 18, 2016

HuffPost is gonna HuffPost

From "Social Security Beneficiaries Are Getting A Modest Raise — But Many Say It’s Not Enough"
Some seniors react to the COLA as if it were a policy crafted by lawmakers, expressing anger at elected officials when, as was the case this past year, they do not get a yearly increase.
In reality, the size of the COLA is not in politicians’ hands. Designed to keep inflation from eroding benefits, the COLA is automatically based on growth in the consumer price index designed for wage earners and clerical workers, a metric known as the CPI-W. A year-over-year rise in the CPI-W means an increase in benefits for Social Security recipients.
However, that doesn’t mean progressive groups are engaging in empty political posturing. To be sure, they are using the meager COLAs to advance their larger argument that Social Security benefits are too modest, particularly in light of the growing role the program plays in providing retirement security.
So there's this government program and the rise in benefits is dictated by the current law which is based on the inflation rate.  The inflation rate has been historically low, so the rise in benefits is low.  But that's no fair!  And it's not political posturing - perish the thought.

The answer, of course, is to raise the Social Security tax rate so that seniors can receive more generous benefit hikes.  And since SS is universal program with a flat tax rate, this tax hike would apply equally to all income.  What do you say, Bernie Sanders?  Let's have a tax hike for everyone.

Monday, October 17, 2016

Everybody act surprised, election-year edition

Hot Air: "Surprise: 96% of campaign contributions of more than $200 by people who work in news media have gone to Clinton."

Don't worry: unlike you mortals, journalists have the super-human ability to act objectively and put personal feelings aside in the interest of the free press.

Extra - You'll get whiplash from this Chris Cillizza turnaround.

Saturday, October 15, 2016

Friday, October 14, 2016

Sorry, Canadians

There's a guy in the stands of tonight's Toronto Blue Jays/Cleveland Indians game holding up a sign reading: "85 Blue Jays chokers."  I confess that I'm not a big enough baseball fan to know what that means, but Wikipedia never forgets.

I like this headline. It gets right to the point.

Federalist: "The United Nations Is Run By A Bunch Of Depraved Totalitarians, Villainous Barbarians, And Anti-Semitic Scum."

Kinda like "Snakes on a Plane."

Wednesday, October 12, 2016

Milhouse wins one

Hollywood Reporter: "'The Simpsons' Predicted Yesterday's Nobel Prize in 2010."

This and $2 will get you a cup of coffee

Fox News: "FBI, DOJ roiled by Comey, Lynch decision to let Clinton slide by on emails, says insider."  "The decision to let Hillary Clinton off the hook for mishandling classified information has roiled the FBI and Department of Justice, with one person closely involved in the year-long probe telling FoxNews.com that career agents and attorneys on the case unanimously believed the Democratic presidential nominee should have been charged."

Cool story, bro.

Sunday, October 09, 2016

I just can't watch

I've been a political animal all my life but I'll be watching baseball then the Giants-Packers game.  Hot Air has it right: "If you’ve got anything made of Kevlar lying around the house, you might want to wrap that around you too. Trump is a loose cannon even under the best of circumstances; a Trump who sees his grand project crumbling around him under the biggest spotlight of his life will lose all restraint."

It's a double-double

The NASCAR race got rained out last night, so they'll be running both the Sprint Cup and XFinity races back-to-back.

Then it's the ALDS doubleheader where the Boston Red Sox will make an epic comeback at Fenway.

Better load up on the salsa.

An awful man

Here's John Podhoretz in Commentary: "Unfit".  "Trump is unfit to be president of the United States–and has been since he traveled down that gilded escalator in June 2015–for reasons having nothing to do with policy. Simply put, he is an unspeakable human being, as we have learned yet again in the past 24 hours. He takes everything he touches or wants to touch and reduces it to a pornographic puddle. I don’t just mean the way he talked about a woman on that disgusting tape released yesterday, though that’s the straw that may have broken the camel’s back. I mean the way he talks about everybody and everything."

To wit: Trump feels the need to throw counter-punch haymakers at everybody who makes the slightest jab.  I thought his comment about John McCain was revealing since it shows Trump doesn't have the discipline to think about the consequences of his statements before he opens his gaping maw.  The interceding months have not shown that he has the capacity to learn or adapt.

What it must be like to work on this guy's campaign.

Saturday, October 08, 2016

Bring in Mike Pence

I'm going to link to a post I made back in August, suggesting that the RNC choose somebody - anybody at all - instead of this certain loser.

Once again: thanks Republican primary voters!  I think we'll still win Idaho, so we got that goin' for us.

Thursday, October 06, 2016

My dog's sensitive, floppy ears

After Cleveland took the lead in the ALDS tonight on two third-inning home-runs, I yelled out an expletive.  My dog got up and left the room as if she was offended by my outburst.

Update - Now three home-runs in the inning.  C'mon Boston!

Obama's blame/credit when things are bad/good

WashPost Fact Checker: "Clinton, Kaine airbrush out inconvenient details about U.S. troop departure from Iraq."  These two paragraphs say it all:
When the negotiations collapsed, Obama was happy to make the withdrawal of U.S. troops a key part of his 2012 reelection campaign. “Four years ago, I promised to end the war in Iraq. We did,” he declared at the 2012 Democratic National Convention.
...
When the growing power of the Islamic State forced Obama to send troops back to Iraq, the spin changed. The president in 2014 acknowledged that “we had offered to leave additional troops” but said the blame for the United States leaving Iraq rested on the Iraqi government.
He didn't draw that red line...unless it worked, then he did!  Also, Obamacare is the Republican's fault.

Tuesday, October 04, 2016

Monday, October 03, 2016

Saturday, October 01, 2016

Undisciplined, part 2

Here's Jonah Goldberg on why candidate Trump can't reel it in:
And that’s Trump’s Achilles’ heel: He can’t resist punching down. He can no more stop himself from “counter-punching” the little guy than my dog can agree not to chase rabbits. (“It’s just so hoppy! I must kill it!”)

Everyone knows this. Hillary Clinton knew it and she baited him. She almost literally could have said, “Donald, I’m going to bait you. You would be a fool to take the bait. But I know you will.” And he still would take the bait. In fact, I think he would be more likely to take the bait if she said she were baiting him, because he would want to prove that he could take the bait and win.
There's a scene in "Mad Men" where one of the "creatives" is angry at Don because he didn't pitch his idea to a client.  He criticizes Don and then concludes: "I feel bad for you."  Don responds flatly: "I don't think about you at all."

Trump can't do that.