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."

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?

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. 

The Left hates free speech, continuing

The heckler's veto wins out at the University of Maryland.

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.

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.

Tinker to Evers to Chance

In honor of the Cubs advancing to the World Series tonight: "9 Phrases the Cubs Gave Baseball."

The Left hates free speech, a continuing series

Hit and Run: "Columbia U. Students Tear Down Posters Advertising Christina Hoff Sommers Visit."

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.

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."

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.

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.

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.

Feed the beast

Fox News: "Proposition 55 would extend "temporary" tax for 12 years."  That's in California where the original "temporary" tax was for seven years.

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."

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.

It's a mystery

CBS News: "NFL Ratings Set To Drop Again In Week 5 As NFL Downplays The Problem."

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.

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.

Because there's a Democrat in the White House

Why is the word "solid" in here? pic.twitter.com/OQ9BRysWs3

— James Taranto (@jamestaranto) October 7, 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.

Thank heaven there's a baseball game on tonight

I can't bear to watch any more debates.  Let's rip this band-aid off.

Obama says Obamacare has "real problems"

I'll give you three guesses whose fault that is, and the first two don't count.

Extra - PJ Media: "Obamacare collapsing."

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.

Undisciplined

The "WTF" moment for me in the first Presidential debate was when Trump went on (and on) about how he was "extremely underleveraged."  He had already made it obvious that he had done virtually no preparation for the debate and, at this nadir, he was going to wing it through any and all topics and fall into Clinton's traps over and over.  I cannot agree with this commentary from Jim Geraghty more: "You can't save the candidate from himself"

Why should anyone be emotionally invested in this man’s victory, if he refuses to learn, refuses to improve, and refuses to avoid making the same mistakes, over and over and over and over again? I’d love to see Hillary Clinton defeated. I just have no faith that Donald Trump is capable of doing that. Every now and then, he gains some traction, the polls get closer… and then he goes and does something stupid. And all of his supporters insist it doesn’t matter, and that we should all avert our eyes, and that we’re betraying something good and righteous by noticing what just happened right in front of us. And then they insist it’s not stupid, that there’s some brilliant nine-level chess going on that we can’t possibly understand from the outside, and if we just wait and see, Donald Trump will win in the end. Unless he doesn’t, because the election is rigged.
That’s not a campaign; that’s a cult.

Thanks a bunch, Republican primary voters.  Before the debate, I spoke to a friend and said that Trump had two things he needed to do: 1) focus on the economy and 2) not look nuts.  Instead, he threw up one word salad after another culminating in Miss Universe.  The audience made a gasp/laugh when he said he had a "great temperament" and with good reason.

Related - Powerline: "Does Trump really want to win?"  "Because once again the Trump presidential campaign is looking more like a college frat prank that got out of hand."

Extra - Debate prep is for chumps.

The bestest President evah

Here's Jeff Jacoby in the Boston Globe: "Obama has shed his vanity. Just ask him."

Nothing oozes hubris like Barack Obama putting on a humble act.

“There’s a point where the vanity burns away and you’ve had your fill of your name in the papers, or big adoring crowds, or the exercise of power,” the president tells historian Doris Kearns Goodwin in an “exit interview” published by Vanity Fair. “And for me that happened fairly quickly.” Since he no longer revels in his own grandeur, he explains, he won’t fall into the trap of making decisions out of ambition or “thirsty” attachment to the prerogatives of high office.

Do tell.

Jacoby then details how a guy who put himself in the same class as FDR, LBJ and Lincoln has left a trail of wreckage around the world from Syria (he's "haunted") to the security vacuum filled by ISIS.  The Globe's token conservative doesn't even get into Obama's domestic record of low growth, Obamacare and national debt.  You're welcome, America.  You've been blessed.

After Arnold Palmer died, a lot of wags on the Right were wondering how long it would take for "the bride at every wedding" to post a selfie with Arnie.  They were not disappointed.

We are deep in debt

Here's a favorite of mine, Veronique De Rugy on last night's debate and the rest of the election season:

I think, in the end, what is so depressing is how substance free this debate was. No mention of Obamacare, no mention of reforming entitlements, no mention of cutting government spending, or no mention of how Clinton’s minimum wage and paid family leaves would make the labor market even more rigid than it already is. The truth unfortunately is that neither candidates want to reform entitlements. Even though Trump talked about our huge debt, he won’t touch the driver of our future debt, Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare and Obamacare subsidies. Both of them have talked about raising the minimum wage, and we know that neither of them have a good solution for Obamacare. And both of them are awful on trade.

Overall, this election continues to be substance free. It continues to be a choice between two very unpopular candidates. It continues to be a choice between big and bigger government. 

Emphasis added.  Trump had his soundbite about doubling the national debt but both candidates are talking about record levels of spending on top of soaring mandatory spending on entitlements and debt service.

The smart set

Hit and Run: "Why Obamacare exchanges are collapsing"

The architects of Obamacare could have foreseen today's crisis, says NYU Law Professor Richard Epstein, except they were intellectual "super jocks" with a "superior Ivy-League sneer," who knew so much better than anyone else "how to run this Rube Goldberg contraption" designed to "defeat the law of gravity."

Sounds about right.  It's just Jonathan Gruber, top to bottom.

Update - There goes Tennessee.

After the debate

Who dug up a sacred graveyard and/or pissed off a dark wizard to curse America with these two candidates?  Good gravy, that was awful.

#Debates2016 pic.twitter.com/6RzQke9kMt

— Ian Tuttle (@iptuttle) September 27, 2016

The first debate

Good background review by James Fallows in the Atlantic: "When Donald meets Hillary."  "The most accurate way to predict reaction to a debate is to watch it with the sound turned off."  Optics.

Immunity for everyone!

NY Observer: "The FBI Investigation of EmailGate Was a Sham - NSA Analyst: We now have incontrovertible proof the Bureau never had any intention of prosecuting Hillary Clinton."

Good question, Huma

Politico: "Obama used a pseudonym in emails with Clinton, FBI documents reveal"

"Once informed that the sender's name is believed to be pseudonym used by the president, Abedin exclaimed: 'How is this not classified?'" the report says. "Abedin then expressed her amazement at the president's use of a pseudonym and asked if she could have a copy of the email."

Well, it wasn't marked classified so of course Hillary wouldn't know if communication from the President of the United States to the Secretary of State would be classified.  Who could determine such a thing without a big red C on the page, which is probably just a paragraph identifier anyway.

Obamacare fades

Hot Air: "Blue Cross Blue Shield of Nebraska drops out of Obamacare exchange."

Obamacare reminds me of the Sorites paradox: how many exchanges have to collapse before we can declare the whole program a failure?  At this stage, it's just Medicaid with higher premiums.

My favorite things

On tonight's season finale of "Mr. Robot", there was a song playing in the background as Darlene was led through the FBI headquarters.  It was a cover of Aimee Mann's "The Moth" from her excellent album "Lost in Space."

The pain of McCain is mainly to declaim

Golly, wonders the WashPost, why do we care about the health of these candidates?

The Left hates free speech, a continuing series

The "heckler's veto" wins again.  Hot Air: "Using “security” as a reason to shut down free speech on campus."  As if these snowflakes could do anything more violent than throwing a cream pie.

BleachBit Bingo

This timeline on Reddit reveals how the computer tech tasked with erasing Hillary's emails went ahead and deleted emails even though there was a Congressional subpoena...and then deletes his entire Reddit history when the Internet detectives started to close in.

Extra - How about this:

It should also be noted, that the House select committee on Benghazi reached an agreement with the State Department on the 23rd to produce records.
And the next day the Server tech was asking questions about how to alter/remove header information.

I question the timing.

Follow-up hypothetical - If this Reddit "Stonetear" account can be definitively linked to Paul Combetta, who was deleting emails for a VERY VIP, doesn't this resurrect the issue of intent?  After all, cui bono?

Birds gotta fly, fish gotta swim

The Corner: "Clinton's pointless lies."  "But she couldn’t help herself. She couldn’t level with the public — even when it would have helped. She seems to have a pathological determination to mislead."

This guy is on to something

Scott Adams of "Dilbert" fame has been writing for months that Donald Trump will win by a landslide and I dismissed him as an entertaining, contrary crackpot (Adams, not Trump).  But as reality has turned inside-out, I'm starting to believe Adams has the long vision.

The Clinton slush fund

Daily Caller: "Just 5.7 Percent Of Clinton Foundation Budget Actually Went To Charitable Grants."

Trump wins again

Yesterday, Trump held a press conference where he said the following: "Hillary Clinton and her campaign of 2008 started the birther controversy."  The media predictably revealed their bias and rushed into the fold to declare this statement false.

But, oh-ho, what's all this?  McClatchy: "2 Clinton supporters in ’08 reportedly shared Obama ‘birther’ story."

Two supporters of Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign reportedly shared the claim that then-rival Barack Obama was not born in the United States and thus was not eligible to be president.

One was a volunteer in Iowa, who was fired, Clinton’s former campaign manager said Friday. The other was Clinton confidant Sidney Blumenthal, according to a former McClatchy Washington Bureau chief.

In fact, there were several people publicly pushing the theory, which was repeated extensively on conservative news outlets. There were the two Clinton supporters, but there is no evidence that Clinton herself or her campaign spread the story.

Yeah, that's what a hatchet-man like Sid "The Shiv" Blumenthal is for, to keep Hillary's hands nice and clean.  Here's a guy so toxic that the Obama White House banned him from contact with the Clinton State Department...so Hillary set up her private email server to keep up communications.  He's denied the story, so of course it's the word of a known Clinton partisan versus a veteran journalist with nothing to gain.

Extra - Also, don't forget that a Clinton campaign staffer spread the birther conspiracy in 2008 but it's OK because he/she was fired really quick.

More - There's this 2011 Politico piece:

Then, as Obama marched toward the presidency, a new suggestion emerged: That he was not eligible to serve.
That theory first emerged in the spring of 2008, as Clinton supporters circulated an anonymous email questioning Obama’s citizenship.

"First emerged."

Feelin' alright!

MassLive: "San Diego 'hid players' medical information'."

The San Diego Padres hid medical information of their players from the Major League Baseball database, according to ESPN's Buster Olney.
The Padres could face discipline after team officials "instructed their organization's athletic trainers to maintain two distinct files of medical information on their players — one for industry consumption and the other for the team's internal use," Olney reported.
The different medical files were a way for the Padres to hide information about players' health from potential trade partners.

Can you believe that somebody would conceal health information for personal gain?  It's unseemly.

A new low

The Corner: "Krauthammer’s Take: CBS Covers for the Clintons – ‘Makes You Want to Walk Away in Disgust’."

That's just one example of a phenomenon that has led, inevitably, to this moment: "Americans' Trust in Mass Media Sinks to New Low."

Protect the Queen

Hot Air: "CBS News edits out Bill Clinton’s ‘frequently’ remark about Hillary’s fainting episodes."

Modern journalism is all about deciding which facts the public shouldn't know because they might reflect badly on Democrats.

— Jim Treacher (@jtLOL) August 18, 2014

Hillary's M.O.: Always conceal the truth

NY Post: "Clinton team avoided ER to conceal details of her medical treatment."  "Hillary Clinton was headed to an emergency room following her sudden collapse during the Sept. 11 memorial ceremony — but ditched her NYPD escort and detoured to daughter Chelsea Clinton’s apartment to keep details of her medical treatment under wraps, The Post has learned."

Nyet

Federalist: "The Media’s Russia Policy In 8 Words: If A Republican’s For It, We Hate It - The New York Times is alarmed by Trump's friendliness with Russia. It's weird, considering their freakout when Mitt Romney called Russia a geopolitical foe."

We're supposed to stop calling it Obamacare

Chicago Tribune: "Why Obamacare failed."  Commentary from Hot Air: "Remember, the original idea was that Obamacare was going to be a new kind of portable insurance that might even lure people away from their employer-based plans over time. The reality, as the NY Times pointed out last month, is closer to “Medicaid, only with a high deductible.”."

Hillary can't keep her own lies straight

If you're wondering why Hillary's email saga never goes away, it's because - as a rule - people don't like to be lied to.  And Hillary just insists on insulting your intelligence over and over.  To wit:

There is no classified information.
OK, there's classified information but it was not classified at the time.
OK, it was classified at the time, but there were no markings.
OK, there were markings but there were no classification headings.

But wait a minute: back a couple months ago, Hillary said "headings are not classification notices."

The whole "markings" excuse is a complete red herring anyway since (as only George Stephanopoulos has the temerity to notice) it was Hillary's duty to protect classified information whether marked or unmarked.  Is Hillary really so dim that she couldn't recognize that emails about pending drone strikes may rise to the level of classified information?  Is that really her go-to excuse: I was too dumb to know and depending on State Department flunkies to tell me?  Well, give that woman Air Force One.

C'mon American media: do your job.

What is with these Americans, amirite?

Federalist: "In Laos, Obama Repeatedly Calls Americans ‘Lazy’."

As always, this is about Obama's ego.  By calling Americans "lazy" he testifies to his own terrificness.

When asked for a comment, Hillary said: "cough"

Power Line: "Hillary's State Department cemented lucrative gig for Bill."  Read the whole thing.

Obama keeps his word

You'll never see that $2500 in savings from Obamacare but you can rest assured that President Four-Putt will honor one vow.  Hot Air: "A promise kept: More than 80K coal mining jobs lost during Obama's tenure."

Hammering Blackberries

Sounds like the good name for a metal band.  That appeared to be Hillary's preferred method for safekeeping national secrets.  Federalist: "FBI Interview Catches Hillary Clinton In Multiple Lies."

I raise a practical - if futile - question.  Can the FBI change its mind about a recommendation for indictment?  Couldn't James Comey say something like: "In light of recent information, we are reversing our decision?"  Hillary and her minions engaged in a massive and illegal effort to delete thousands of emails three weeks after the illegal server was discovered.  Included among these emails were (at least) 30 emails related to the Benghazi investigation, emails that were specifically requested by a Congressional review committee.  How is this not contempt of Congress?

As somebody noted, the only secrets that Hillary strained to keep private were her own.

C is for cookie (not confidential)

And that's good enough for Hillary.

Snowflakes on the edge

Hit and Run: "How to Be an Adult 101: The New College Curriculum? = Anguished students are more likely to support forms of censorship."

Religious cult bans free speech at American university

Watts up with that: "Intolerance by the Climate Thought Police at University of Colorado."  "Three professors co-teaching an online course called “Medical Humanities in the Digital Age” at the University of Colorado-Colorado Springs recently told their students via email that man-made climate change is not open for debate, and those who think otherwise have no place in their course."

Probably not work-related

Hot Air: "State Dept: FBI found 30 deleted e-mails on Hillary’s secret server about … Benghazi."

The rest were wiped by BleachBit.

Rest in peace, Gene Wilder

He was Willy Wonka but I'll always remember him from "Stir Crazy":

What's the big secret?

I have a question about this article from ABC News: "Clinton Foundation Official Requests State Lunch Invitation, Special Seating for Foundation Allies, Emails Show."  Quote:

The State Department said it could not provide a list of attendees.

What?  The visit in question is a State affair for Chinese President Hu Jintao in January 2011.  Why can't we know who attended this official government event?  I find it interesting that the Chinese probably have all of Hillary's emails but we can't know who shared a butter dish with the Chinese delegation.

"Far short" = less than half

WashPost: "Health-care exchange sign-ups fall far short of forecasts."  "Enrollment in the insurance exchanges for President Obama’s signature health-care law is at less than half the initial forecast, pushing several major insurance companies to stop offering health plans in certain markets because of significant financial losses."

Bad quarterbacks don't matter

Hit and Run: "Is 49ers' QB Colin Kaepernick Right To Sit During the National Anthem?"

My feeling is: go ahead and ride the pine, buddy.  That's your right to free speech.  And if the endorsement deals dry up and the 49ers attendance starts to resemble the University of Missouri then, oh well, gotta break some eggs to make that omelette.

That's our narrative and we're sticking to it

The New York Times had a problem.  Omar Mateen had killed 49 people at a gay nightclub, but they couldn't blame a Muslim, so it's time for the ol' standby:

Evidently, an Eighth Avenue blamestorming session was convened to alleviate liberal cognitive dissonance. The result was this postulate: if a) Islamophobia is evil, and b) homophobia is evil, but c) Islam is homophobic, then d) it’s all the Republicans’ fault. The news must be made to do its duty. When a story undermines, complicates, or merely fails to support the master narrative about the more and less privileged, facts in evidence are ignored, and ones not in evidence are assumed. The epistemological humility that led the Times to express uncertainty about Mateen’s precise motivations waxes and wanes at the paper. Columnist Paul Krugman, for example, needed mere hours after a lunatic shot an Arizona congresswoman to conclude that the crime was no “isolated event,” but the result of a “national climate” rendered “toxic” by conservatives’ “eliminationist rhetoric.”

The NY Times editorial page is an embarrassment.  Even their own public editor knows the paper has no integrity.

The Left and Right agree: Hillary is a bigot

Daily Kos: "Hillary Clinton: Gangs of kids are "super predators" with "no conscience, no empathy"

Breitbart: "Hillary Clinton praises 'friend and mentor' Robert Byrd [a KKK recruiter]"

Miracle Max says: "It's just mostly dead."

Hot Air: "Princeton health economist: We’re now seeing a ‘mild version’ of the Obamacare death spiral."

"He said to 'Gruber' which means to lie."

Bernie sells out

Minuteman: "The man who would be President."  Bernie Sanders is starting a new political group and half his senior staff resigned when they found out he would be accepting the "dark money" he railed against during his campaign.

John Oliver's sloppy and slippery schtick

I enjoy some of John Oliver's bits on "Last Week Tonight."  This commentary on sub-prime car loans was pretty eye-opening and I literally LOL'd at the lobster trying to sell the "devil car" to an unsuspecting fluke.

But his recent bit on charter schools was a litany of logical fallacies and sub-prime rhetoric.  Over at Ricochet, Jon Gabriel details the argument against charter schools that wasn't:

His argument, if you can call it that, is basically, “Here’s a bad charter school, therefore all charter schools are bad.” If he was truly interested in not taking a side on whether the model is good or bad, he would have spent at least as much time promoting the good examples.

Yes, that was the argument against charter schools, wrapped in incredulous f-bombs for maximum audience reaction.  Oliver found some charter schools behaving badly.  Guess what: there are public schools out there that are worse.  Furthermore, Oliver didn't deign to do an actual comparison of outcomes in the aggregate, almost certainly because the results didn't fit his narrative.

Influence-peddling at low, low prices

David Harsanyi: "New revelations show a nation for sale under Hillary Clinton."  "The Democratic Party often warns us that mixing big money and politics will corrupt democracy. They must have nominated Hillary Clinton to prove it."

I don't think those were all yoga routines

Hot Air: "State Dept: FBI uncovered 15,000 previously deleted Hillary e-mails during probe."  You're not going to believe this, but they don't appear to be chit-chat about Chelsea's wedding.  It's almost like Hillary was trying to hide evidence of her State-department shakedown operation:

Included among the Abedin-Band emails is an exchange revealing that when Crown Prince Salman of Bahrain requested a meeting with Secretary of State Clinton, he was forced to go through the Clinton Foundation for an appointment. Abedin advised Band that when she went through “normal channels” at State, Clinton declined to meet. After Band intervened, however, the meeting was set up within forty-eight hours. 

You'll never guess what happened next.  Go on, and try to gue$$.

According to the Clinton Foundation website, in 2005, Salman committed to establishing the Crown Prince’s International Scholarship Program (CPISP) for the Clinton Global Initiative. And by 2010, it had contributed $32 million to CGI. The Kingdom of Bahrain reportedly gave between $50,000 and $100,000 to the Clinton Foundation. And Bahrain Petroleum also gave an additional $25,000 to $50,000.

Coming right on the heels of this story is this report from Fox News: "Clinton Foundation executive left 148 phone messages for Hillary Clinton's top aide."

A review of State Department call logs for Cheryl Mills, the longtime Clinton confidant who served as chief of staff for the entirety of Clinton’s four-year tenure as America’s top diplomat, reflects at least 148 messages from Laura Graham – then the Clinton Foundation’s chief operating officer – between 2010 and 2012. No other individual or non-profit appears in the logs with anything like that frequency or volume, the review found.

As the NY Post would say: Quid Pro Dough.  It's too bad other people in the State Department didn't have this kind of access.

"Media gonna media"

Washington Examiner: "Media predictably treats Bush, Obama differently on Louisiana disasters."

Obamacare's Hobson's choice

Hot Air: "Next year 17% of Americans will have no choice of insurer on the Obamacare exchange."  It's strange since price controls have a long history of success.  /sarc

Hillary has NOT admitted a mistake

This is from the conclusion of Chris Cillizza's column in the WashPost: "Hillary Clinton’s ‘Colin Powell did it’ defense of her email practices is just plain wrong"

For whatever reason — and despite the fact that Clinton has said on several occasions that she knows she made a mistake — she seems incapable of accepting that responsibility and moving on.

Like a blind journalist, has Cillizza stumbled upon the truth here?  Hillary "admits a mistake" in the sense that you, America, fail to understand that the rules were clarified later, or Colin Powell told her it was kosher, or other people in the State department knew she was using the private email account, etc.

But it's never her fault and she accepts no responsibility except in the sense that it affects her campaign.  Just once, I'd like to hear a journalist ask Hillary just what was her personal mistake.

Welcome to the party, pal

NY Observer: "A History Lesson for Howard Kurtz: Honest Reporting Died Long Ago - Fox News critic only just discovered the media is 'flat-out' unfair."

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.