This thing had to happen first before we paid, but it's not a ransom

The Obama Administration: "we don't know how words work."

Legal Insurrection: "$400 Million Payment to Iran Looking More Like Ransom for American Prisoners."

Your Obamacare update

Shot: "ACA may not be ‘terrific,’ but it’s making a difference."

Chaser: "Aetna's exit deals blow to Obamacare, patients."

Hangover: "21% of New York manufacturing companies hiring fewer workers because of Obamacare."

That means it's working!

These laws apply to everyone

Hit and Run: "Against Special Tax Breaks for Olympians - Politicians would be better off just lowering everyone's taxes, rather than picking and choosing a few already lucky Olympic athletes to reward with tax cuts."

They are who we thought they were

Here we go again with this loser talk.  Hot Air: "Trump is now running against the crooked media."

Really?  The unskewed polls can't be far behind.  Study after study has shown that the American media is irredeemably liberal yet every four years this comes as a surprise to national candidates.  (For example: OMG, I can't believe Candy Crowley injected herself into this debate!)  A Republican candidate needs to run against the Democrat and the media.  But, for heaven's sake, don't start whining about it like it's something new.  Trump needed to walk a fine line.  He didn't need to reinforce the narratives that Hillary is throwing out there.  The media is who they are, right Dennis?

Go for broke

Contra Corner: "Funny Money Accounting—-Why Social Security Will Be Bankrupt In 10 Years."

Yeah, screw you, Bob

Every obituary should be like this one:

William Ziegler escaped this mortal realm on Friday, July 29, 2016 at the age of 69. We think he did it on purpose to avoid having to make a decision in the pending presidential election.

William stated that there was no better group of morons and mental patients than those he had the privilege of serving with (except Bob, he never liked you, Bob).

Unlike previous times, this is not a ploy to avoid creditors or old girlfriends.

Classic.

What story did the NYT bury in the Saturday edition today?

If it's Saturday, it's time for the New York Times to reluctantly reveal some bad news about a left-wing shibboleth.  Via the Minuteman, here's "Cost, Not Choice, Is Top Concern of Health Insurance Customers."

The unexpected laser focus on price has contributed to hundreds of millions of dollars in losses among the country’s top insurers, as fewer healthy people than expected have signed up. And that has created two vexing questions: Will the major insurance companies stay in the marketplaces? And if they do, will the public have a wide array of plans to choose from — a central tenet of the 2010 Affordable Care Act?

“The marketplace has been and continues to be unsustainable,” said Joseph R. Swedish, chief executive of Anthem, one of the nation’s largest insurers.

Any minute now, we'll stop calling it Obamacare.

Demographics is destiny

Bloomberg: "More Old Than Young: A Demographic Shock Sweeps the Globe - By 2030, 56 countries will have more people aged 65 and over than children under 15."

Mark Steyn wrote extensively about the demographic shift in "America Alone" and how Europe needs to import immigrants to prop up the Socialist state because the native birthrate is so low.  And if these immigrants don't assimilate and there's the occasional bombing, well, that's the price you gotta pay to keep the trains running on time.

Fiji!

All I know about Fiji is that Truman wanted to go there to find his old girlfriend.

Sydney Morning Herald: "Wild celebrations across Fiji as rugby sevens team wins gold at Rio Olympics."

It's Fiji's first-ever medal of any kind and it's gold.  Wow.

Told ya so

Investor's Business Daily: "ObamaCare Is Failing Exactly The Way Critics Said It Would."

It's the Iran nuclear deal of domestic programs.

Christian Slater in an 80s flashback

Damn, tonight's episode of "Mr. Robot" is trippy.

Extra - Here's the Mr. Robot subreddit.

Clock boy becomes a pawn

PowerLine: "Clock Boy's family brings dubious lawsuit."  At first this kid annoyed me for capitalizing on his self-victimization after taking apart a Radio Shack digital clock and presenting it as his own.  Now I think he's just being manipulated by his family for financial gain.  This is a silly attempt at a shakedown.

A shameless slush fund for Hillary

Via Maggie's Farm, here's "Shut it down: The Clinton Foundation is too corrupt to exist."

During Secretary Clinton’s tenure, at least 181 individuals, companies, and foreign governments gave money to the Clinton Foundation while officially lobbying the State Department.

From 2001 to 2015, the Clinton Foundation raised over $2 billion in donations. From February 2001 to May 2015, Bill Clinton gave 637 speeches and made $132,021,691 in speaking fees alone. Hillary gave 92 speeches from February 2013 to March 2015. She was paid $21,648,000. While the Clintons made speeches to Goldman Sachs and Citigroup, it was the foreign donations to the Clinton Foundation that were the most disturbing.

Hey, where did all our uranium go?

You voted for it, Chicago

Hot Air: "In Chicago, Rahm Emanuel finds a typically Democratic solution to his pension fund problems."  You like your water and sewer utilities, right Chicago?  Well pay up.

Time for the "Seven Days in May" maneuver

Politico: "Insiders to Trump: Drop out".  I agree with this guy:

“I’d rather take our chances with nearly anyone else than continue with this certain loser who will likely cost the Senate and much more,” said a New Hampshire Republican — who, like all respondents, completed the survey anonymously.

I said from the get-go that this was a fool's errand and now Trump is behind in Georgia.  Georgia!  That's not just a firebell in the night; that's the foreshadowing of a Reagan-Mondale beatdown.

There was a movie in 1964 called "Seven Days in May" about a planned coup d'etat in America and, if I remember correctly, one scene involved the Vice President and a majority of the cabinet signing a declaration that the President was unfit which gave the imprimatur for a military takeover.  (It might have been the 1994 remake that had this scene).  This scene invokes section 4 of the 25th Amendment where, if a majority of the Cabinet says the President is a nutcase, he can be removed.

Surely the RNC has some kind of proviso or codicil in their charter to remove the Mad Hatter.  Call it whatever you want, although I prefer the "Torricelli switcheroo."  Hillary stole the nomination from a decrepit socialist by colluding with the DNC and using her charity as a slush fund.  Invoke a sanity clause and install someone who, as a minimum, will not embarrass the Republican party by losing Utah.

You mean the one they never signed?

Zero Hedge: "Iran is cheating on the nuclear deal.  Now what?"

Nothing, that's what.  Because it's a fantastic, legacy-building achievement of foreign policy, so shut up.

Flashback - We got these sweet magic beans, tho.

This Iranian deal is great stuff

MassLive: "Obama denies $400M shipped to Iran was ransom, says it wasn't 'nefarious deal'."

Obama allowed that the one piece of new information, first reported this week by The Wall Street Journal, was that the $400 million was paid in cash. It was delivered to Iran on palettes aboard an unmarked plane.

"The only bit of news is that we paid cash," he said. "The reason is because we couldn't send them a check and we couldn't wire the money. We don't have a banking relationship with Iran which is part of the pressure we applied on them."

That sounds perfectly normal to send an unmarked cargo plane into Tehran with a pallet full of Euros because we "don't have a banking relationship."  I mean, you have to open an account, then fill out one of those signature cards - oh, it's a hassle.

Also, "we do not pay ransom for hostages."  Just because the hostages were released on the exact same day and the Iranians were waiting for their payoff, well that's a coincidence.

We all know this obvious lie will never be challenged by the mainstream media, so why bother?  And....it's old news.

Dang, these kids are dumb

Phi Beta Cons has a letter from a Kansas professor: "I taught at a college in the ’50s and then again 40 years later, and the downward slide in the typical student’s learning capability was alarming. So when we see that most jobs today go to folks with a college degree, it means the employer is, probably knowingly, hiring someone with the ability—and performance prospects—of yesterday’s high-school grad."

Placeholder post because I don't want to discuss politics

Hey, how about rookie Chris Buescher winning the fog-shortened (!) Pennsylvania 400 at Pocono Raceway yesterday?  He took a big gamble on fuel mileage and stayed out on the track while everybody pitted, just as the fog and rain rolled in to red flag the race.  It's his first Sprint Cup win.  Good for Chris.

The Left hates free speech, continuing

Hit and Run: "DePaul Bans Ben Shapiro Over Safety Concerns Caused by Liberals - The heckler's veto in action."

If DePaul can't stomach allowing students to hear from a conservative, it has no business touting itself as an institution where free inquiry is valued.

Protect the snowflakes from unpleasant thoughts.