Maybe you shouldn't brag about these...

Amy Morin writes,

Here are five things people brag about all the time, even though it actually makes them look worse:

1. “I’m a really good multitasker.”

What it really means: “I’m constantly distracted.”

Nobody is “good at” multitasking. Research conducted at Stanford University found that multitasking actually reduces productivity. Worse, multitasking takes a toll on your attention and your memory, and damages your ability to switch from one task to the next. And before you decide that you’re the exception to the rule, know that the Stanford team discovered that heavy multitaskers also lack insight. The heaviest multitaskers thought they were doing a good job, but, in reality, they performed worse than their peers.

You may be good at handling a lengthy to-do list or be excellent at prioritizing tasks, but there’s a good chance you aren’t really an expert multitasker. Try to rephrase your self-accolades when you’re tempted to say you’re able to juggle 12 tasks at once like a pro.

2. “I hardly ever sleep.”

What it really means: “Sleep deprivation is killing me.”

Many successful celebrities and entrepreneurs contribute to the idea that less sleep means more time to be productive. Donald Trump, Tim Cook, Martha Stewart, Condoleezza Rice, and Jack Dorsey are among the many who claim to be among the “sleep elite.” But glorifying a lack of rest is a strange phenomenon. After all, your brain needs sufficient sleep to function at its peak, and studies have linked sleep deprivation to poor cognitive function. We know that a lack of sleep reduces attention, working memory, and long-term memory, and impairs decision-making. Chronic sleep deprivation takes a serious toll on your mental and physical health. That’s not really something others should be impressed by

3. “I’m a perfectionist.”

What it really means: “My impossible standards make it hard for me to function.”

Wearing the perfectionist label shouldn’t be a badge of honor. True perfectionists set unrealistically high standards for themselves. As a result, they struggle to get their work done because their performance never measures up to their expectation.

It’s natural to be a perfectionist about some things—if you’re performing heart surgery on me, I prefer that your work be flawless—but true perfectionists expect perfection in all areas of their lives. They establish unrealistically high expectations for others as well, which makes them harsh leaders. Their intolerance for mistakes and excessively high standards cause subordinates to hide their mistakes, rather than find ways to recover from them.

Studies also show that perfectionists have a much higher risk of burnout, physical health problems, and mental-health issues. So before you throw around the term, think twice about whether it’s really a bragging right.

4. “I’ve never failed.”

What it really means: “I don’t challenge myself and I’m afraid I can’t handle failure.”

There’s a big difference between trying to succeed and trying to avoid failure. If your goal—and bravado—center on not failing, there’s a good chance you aren’t living up to your potential.

Studies show that people who avoid failure don’t enrich themselves. They adopt goals that will help them look good and only try new things when they’re fairly certain they’ll succeed. Their motivation stems from their desire to fuel their ego, rather than a true interest in personal development. People who refuse to fail are also more likely to resort to unsavory methods of achievement, like cheating, because they aren’t really interested in lear

5. “I hustle 24/7.”

What it really means: “I’m paying the price for being a workaholic.”

You don’t have to look very far to find people who believe hustling all day, every day is the key to success. “Grind while they sleep,” “Let them party while you work,” and other internet memes tell you that success is directly tied to the number of hours you put into your work each day. But studies show that working more than 50 hours a week typically does more harm than good, and that workaholics experience a reduced quality of life.

Researchers have linked workaholism to a variety of psychiatric disorders, including ADHD, OCD, anxiety, and depression. Working long days also takes a serious toll on your physical health and ability to manage stress.

So rather than insist that you’re proud to be on call 24/7, or that you enjoy skipping leisure activities because you value your work, focus on being productive. It doesn’t really matter how many hours you work; what matters is how much you accomplish during your working hours.

Read more here.

Freedom of . . . Whatever

Guest post by Suzann Darnall

Sorry, another pet peeve rant! Does anyone have an idea for how we get the Leftists, liberals, snowflakes, Progressives, and just the unthinking in general to read a dictionary and learn the meaning of the word “freedom”???

I am not even asking that they understand the Constitution or the Bill of Rights, just the simple definition of a basic word. A word that has a whole lot of meaning to an American patriot like me. F-R-E-E-D-O-M.

A few definitions I discovered include:
The power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint.
The power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants.
Unrestricted use of something.
The state of not being subject to or affected by (something).
The condition or right of being able or allowed to do, say, think, etc. whatever you want to, without being controlled or limited.

There are numerous other definitions and meanings, but I am just looking at the basic idea that American citizens are entitled to freedom to think, act, and speak. That we are entitled to do this without restrictions and limitations, beyond those laws set in place by government or the boundaries of common sense, common decency, and common courtesy.

This means the so-called Social Justice Warriors and others who would take it upon themselves to “police” our language, fashion, and society in general need to back off! Freedom means women can wear hoop earrings no matter their ethnicity. It also means we can refer to our female friends as friends, sister-friends, or even girlfriends . . . no matter whether we are straight, lesbian, or none-of-your-business!

I could go on to list nearly endless items where the SJWs are trying to infringe on pert near every aspect of life with their liberty-reducing practices. But, these two are the ones that to me most symbolize the idiocy of what the sneering snowflakes are currently deciding to be offended about. And, they are basing both of them on profiling. They say only certain ethnicities are allowed to wear hoop earring and only actual lesbians should refer to actual girlfriends as girlfriends. HUH??? Isn’t profiling, especially based on race or sexual preference supposed to be wrong?

As a side note, is there an additional sexual preference now known as an “inactual lesbian”? Or, is it just that there are lesbians and actual lesbians . . . and, if so, what is the actual difference? ‘Cause I am actually very confused. Not about my gender or sexual preference, but about what some of these actual terms are trying to actually say!

I am going to use the language pretty much as I wish. I am going to wear pretty much whatever I want. In short, I am going to exercise my freedom. By the way, I am wearing a hoop earring in one of my ear piercings AND I wanna send a shout out to all my American patriot girlfriends who are reading this little essay!



Sayonara,
Suzann Darnall

"The concentric circles of irrelevance expand into the infinite horizon of nothingness"

Sundance brings us ABC's This Week in which Reince Priebus is interviewed by Jonathan Karl.

President Trump’s Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, sat down for an in-studio interview with Jonathan Snarl on ABC’s “This Week.”

Snarl was particularly offended by President Trump talking to Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte. Reince Priebus pointed out that the Philippines has a critical role in the SE Asian issues surrounding North Korea.

Unfortunately, Priebus did not point out that Duterte is not only president of the Philippines but also current President of the ASEAN (Association of South East Asian Nations) alliance.

Jonathan Snarl is one of a key group of eight reporters in DC media who use the exact same strategy of narrative building: Media reports on media reports, of media reports, and the concentric circles of irrelevance expand into the infinite horizon of nothingness…
Read more here.

"Somebody just won the night!"

Greg Gutfeld Show from last night: "Trump wisely skipped that show of preening self-importance (the Washington Correspondents Dinner) to hold his own event in a state that helped him win the presidency."

Also on Greg's show: taking a look at oil-rich but socialist Venezuela. First, they took everyone's guns. Now they are redistributing guns to "loyalists."

The world's most successful hate group

Robert Stacy McCain writes,

The Democrat Party is the world’s most successful hate group.

It attracts poor people who hate rich people, black people
who hate white people, gay people who hate straight people,
feminists who hate men, environmentalists who hate
the internal combustion engine, and a lot of
bratty college kids who hate their parents.
However, the real secret of the party’s success
is that it attracts the support of
journalists who hate Republicans,
and who therefore work tirelessly to convince
the rest of us that we should vote for Democrats. . . .

No matter who the Republicans nominate for president,
the Organized Forces of Liberal Journalism will paint him
as a greedy, cold-hearted, woman-hating racist.
If the GOP nominated a Buddhist monk or a Latina lesbian,
still the New York Times and NBC News would find
a way to convince themselves that the Republican candidate
represented everything liberals hate about America —
the military, the police, Christianity, capitalism,
the internal combustion engine and
heterosexual white men who work for a living.

First 100 days of Obama's ex-presidency

At The Washington Examiner, Todd Shepherd looks at the first 100 days of Obama's ex=presidency. Included are: Syria uses chemical weapons after Obama said they were gone; "Unmasking" of Trump transition officials; Iranian prisoners released by Obama; Obama's questionable $400,000 speech; Obamacare survives ... for now.
Read more here.

Is it The Onion, or The Southern Poverty Law Center?

Mike Sabo reports at American Greatness,

The Southern Poverty Law Center is at it again.

At the hundred-day mark of President Trump’s administration, the center has released a report that purports to expose the rampant “white nationalism” the president and his “alt-right” advisors have unleashed upon the nation.

Instead of judging President Trump’s actual record, the report rehashes left-wing conspiracy theories and tired Democratic National Committee talking points. Dressed up in somber but hilariously misplaced language, the report reads more like an article from The Onion than anything of actual substance. It is replete with lies, overstatements, calumnies against upstanding Americans, Soros-approved talking points, smears, and a militant close-mindedness typically found on elite college campuses. The report is a testament to the depths to which anti-Trump forces have sunk to try to overrule the will of the people who put Trump into office.

...Fortunately, Americans have had it with the bullying tactics of hard-Left organizations like the SPLC. They know that Trump’s first 100 days—to the extent that such a measurement even matters—have been an overwhelming success. He has issued a vast array of executive orders that have overturned much of Barack Obama’s legacy, nominated now-Justice Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, begun enforcing immigration laws, which has already put a major dent in the number of illegal immigrants coming across our border, put forward an ambitious tax plan, expanded offshore oil drilling, and strategically deployed American power in Syria and Afghanistan that has shown the world that America will not hesitate to secure its interests.

Let’s hope that the next 100 days are even better.

Read more here.

Unstoppable

hat tip my teens

Trump Derangement Syndrome or Borderline Personality Disorder?

This morning at The Conservative Treehouse, Sundance believes that many of the progressives exhibiting Trump Derangement Syndrome actually are Borderline Personalities. He explains the condition here.

China returns to America a woman held captive since 2015

Jack Davis reports at Western Journalism,

A Houston woman detained by China in 2015 arrived back in the United States on Friday after the Trump administration negotiated for her release.

Phan Phan-Gillis, also knows as Sandy Phan-Gillis, had been charged as a spy, a claim she and her family denied. Although the Obama administration protested that charge in 2015, she was held until this week.

On Tuesday, the 57-year-old woman was tried and pronounced guilty, then deported to the United States on Friday without having to serve the three-year term to which she was sentenced.

Read more here.

How to be Right: The Art of Being Persuasively Correct

Greg Gutfeld spoke at the Reagan library about his book, How to be Right: The Art of Being Persuasively Correct. He says that the Left is really good at selling deadly ideas, while the Right is really bad at selling great ideas. He advises us to step away from being angry, shrill, emotional in our arguments with the other side. We need more humor. We need to be prepared. The Right has had a long period of success emphasizing individual opportunities and accomplishment. The Left has had opposite results with its emphasis on socialism.

Anti-police attitudes, MS 13 gang

In last night's Tucker Carlson show Tucker wonders if stopping a murderous gang is something that would unite people. He is referring to the MS 13 gang of criminals Obama let into this country as unaccompanied minors. The Long Island, New York area answered Tucker's question with a resounding "NO!" Jeff Sessions visited the area this week and was greeted by protestors who don't want ICE in the area.

Another place taking the side of criminals is California. An actor named Fabio appeared on Tucker's program. He and some forty of his friends have been burglarized. California's Governor, Jerry Brown, is releasing people from prison before they have served their time.

Trump's first 100 days, Jihad Watch

Andrew Klavan talked about two main things in this episode 304 of his show on The Daily Wire.

Trump's first 100 days included some significant accomplishments. The appointment of a conservative Justice of the supreme Court tops the list of Trump accomplishments. The rescind two for every regulation you add is another. Freezing hiring, and focus on American jobs has been awesome.

Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch pointed out that 72 Jihadists had been convicted of jihad in the countries where Trump wanted a temporary travel ban. The hudges who stopped his temporary ban did not mention the law that gives Trump the power to ban anyone from any country.

This Klavan episode is one you can watch here.

Why are we permitting two North Korean satellites to orbit across America each day?

Daniel John Sobieski reports in The American Thinker,

The nightmare scenario of an America sent back centuries in time before electricity, refrigeration, and smartphones has grown unnervingly closer with the presence of two North Korean satellites with orbits over a blissfully unaware American populace and an Obama administration that was indifferent to the apocalyptic threat of an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack.

On Feb. 7, 2016, North Korea launched a second satellite, the KMS-4, to join their KMS-3 satellite launched in December of 2012. In an article in the Washington Times on April 24, 2016, R. James Woolsey, former director of the Central Intelligence Agency, and Peter Vincent Fry, executive director of the Task Force on National and Homeland Security as well as director of the Nuclear Strategy Forum, both congressional advisory boards, warned of the dangers of an apocalyptic EMP attack that these and similar satellites pose:

Both satellites now are in south polar orbits, evading many U.S. missile defense radars and flying over the United States from the south, where our defenses are limited. Both satellites -- if nuclear armed -- could make an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack that could blackout the U.S. electric grid for months or years, thereby killing millions.

Technologically, such an EMP attack is easy -- since the weapon detonates at high-altitude, in space, no shock absorbers, heat shield, or vehicle for atmospheric re-entry is necessary. Since the radius of the EMP is enormous, thousands of kilometers, accuracy matters little. Almost any nuclear weapon will do.

Moreover, North Korea probably has nuclear weapons specially designed, not to make a big explosion, but to emit lots of gamma rays to generate high-frequency EMP. Senior Russian generals warned EMP Commissioners in 2004 that their EMP nuclear warhead design leaked “accidentally” to North Korea, and unemployed Russian scientists found work in North Korea’s nuclear weapons program.

Read more here.

Optimal solutions

Sundance writes today at The Conservative Treehouse,

A report from Bloomberg highlights the anxiety within the professional state department apparatus as Secretary Tillerson begins substantive cuts in the number of pontificating elitist bureaucrats. It’s amazing how the ankle-biters never seem to recognize these consequential shifts in policy and approach toward dismantling the bureaucracy.

The State Department is the cornerstone of Deep State operations. It is a massively bloated institution filled with some of the most entrenched political globalists and ideologues.

...You and I will be anti-Trump trolls one day and MAGA heroes the next. Get used to it. Trump speed is the new normal. Some will call it flip-flopping, but that’s not what it is. Trump is dodging and weaving through reality faster than the reality can react to disrupt his plans.

I was explaining this to my wife. This is a roller-coaster now. Trump is no longer waiting for people to keep up. He is taking his bewildering art-of-the-deal campaign schtick into geopolitics, and for a lot of people who can’t keep up or hold on, it will be a rough ride.

Trump is no longer playing only with evil and cunning players who are still predictable, easily beatable dopes, like Hillary. He is playing against killers, with his own team of killers, and all the while he has scheming creeps like Hillary, BGI, SPLC, and the neocons gunning for him. Snake Ryan ready to bite when nobody is looking. “Warhead” McCain screaming for Russian blood. Psycho Kim and Samoa Obama plotting some kind of intrigue to take him down. And THOSE are the lightweights.

This is the majors now. Trump has to outwit world-class adversaries and “frenemies” by defining the deals that they will agree to. One minute they will think Trump is their friend – the next minute, a cunning, bitter foe.

And he has to do this with evil cheerleaders like Warhead, Linderace, Dipsy Dowd, Maggie Haterman, and Fake Yapper trashing him or praising him alternately, no matter which way he goes. They can’t keep up, either.

Neither can many around him. I think that half of the problem with advisers crashing into each other is they don’t realize what Trump is doing.

And people will trash you, and they will trash me. Get used to it. I’ve already caught plenty of people mocking me. Well, just wait a week in Trump time. Look stupid and conned by Trump one minute, and you look like a sage three days later.

Trump will not find perfect solutions. He will find OPTIMAL solutions. We cannot ask for more. Trump has stood by and watched Perfect murder Good for 8 years – maybe longer. He’s not gonna do it. He’s going to deliver the best outcome possible, and he’s not waiting for us to feel relaxed about it.

Read more here.

We know who

Antifascists? Leave out the Anti!

The city of Portland, Oregon has canceled the Rose Festival Parade tomorrow, because it received an anonymous email complaining that

Set to march in the parade’s 67th spot this year was the Multnomah County Republican Party, a fact that so outraged two self-described antifascist groups in the deep blue Oregon city that they pledged to protest and disrupt the April 29 event.

Then came an anonymous and ominous email, according to parade organizers, that instructed them to cancel the GOP group’s registration — or else... 200 people would “rush into the parade” and “drag and push” those marching with the Republican Party.

Read more here.

Will President Trump release records of JFK assassination investigation?

Will Donald Trump allow the release of

a trove of thousands of long-secret government files about the event that, more than any other in modern American history, has fueled conspiracy theories – the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy?

Read more here.

North Korea, first 100 days

Tonight on Special Report with Bret Baier, the main story was North Korea, who, by the way, launched another missile today. The missile did not make it out of the Korean peninsula. You don't suppose our cyber-hacking had anything to do with that?

The government will not shut down today, but it is only open for another week before the next possible shutdown.

Trump's first 100 days ends tomorrow. He has hosted 16 foreign leaders, successfully added a conservative justice on the Supreme Court, conducted 17 meetings with business leaders, 21 Cabinet members have been approved, 28 bills have been signed into law, and he has tweeted 485 times!

ESPN mass firings, black students segregated housing at Oberlin College, cruelly enveloping students in propaganda

Andrew Klavan begins his show today by poking fun at the people who run ESPN, which has just fired over 100 on-air personalities and many more. Klavan said surely their ratings dip has nothing to do with their Leftist slant on sports.

Most of the program is devoted to Andrew's trip this week to Oberlin College in Ohio, where all 300 posters announcing the event were taken down by leftist students. At Oberlin, black students are segregated into a safe space entitled "Building A," for African Americans (shouldn't that be AA? Every bathroom at Oberlin is gender neutral, and Andrew said he hasn't been to the bathroom in three days.

Andrew correctly notes that it is an act of cruelty to envelop these young people in propaganda. They know they must either echo back the professor's political opinions or fail! Klavan notes how the left silences our side, but is in control of Hollywood, academia, and the media.

A nation divided

Ann Coulter was on Tucker Carlson's show last night. She is welcome there any time, but not in Berkeley. If the university would have allowed her to speak, she says she would have spoken about the need to enforce the nation's immigration laws. The head of the university system in California is Janet Napolitano, who used to be head of Homeland Security for our entire nation. Now, however, she cannot even ensure safety for one speech?

Charles Krauthammer reminds us that fascism in Germany got its start by gangs of thugs committing violence, just like what is happening now in Berkeley.

Remember when Obama allowed huge numbers of unaccompanied minors to enter America? Many of these adolescents are now committing violence in America. There have been thirteen murders in the Long Island area by undocumented illegal teens.

President Trump has recommended cutting funding for the National Endowment for the Arts. Tucker wonders why rich actors don't pick up the slack and fund it with some of their own millions.

"The façade of humor is falling away from the left’s worship of its ideological idols and fanatical hatred of its enemies."

Daniel Greenfield writes at Front Page,

The Atlantic’s May cover features Alec Baldwin covered in orange makeup holding up a Trump wig. The cover asks, “Can Satire Save the Republic?”

What is satire saving the Republic from? Republicans. While making America safe for Socialism.

...Journalism is dead. And replacing it with snarky lefty spin hasn’t saved the Republic. Or anything else.

But the left’s faith in the power of its contempt has nothing to do with its tactical effectiveness.

The left remains convinced that Jon Stewart brought down Bush and Tina Fey brought down Palin because ridiculing the right isn’t just an ugly tactic. Instead it carries an almost religious meaning. Mocking Republicans can save us. Every ideology expresses its superiority through its own triumphalism. Sneering is the left’s own invocation of its own superiority. These are the grown up politics of kids who were convinced that they were better than everyone else because they looked down on them.

...Saturday Night Live is still the only place that progressives have been able to beat Trump.

Mocking Bush didn’t save the Republic from him. If anything, liberal disdain helped make him a two-term president the way that it helped put Trump in office. Obama won by taking the opposite road. He kept his contempt and arrogance just enough in check to appear aspirational during his original race.

Liberals need to believe that even their pettiest acts are ennobling. Their Whole Foods organic avocadoes are saving the planet. Their fair trade yoga pants are saving indigenous tribes. Even their ridicule of the “Other” on TV is the redemptive and salvific process by which they save America.

This isn’t idealism. It’s elitism. They’re not spitefully lashing out because they lost an election. Instead they’re saving the country by watching a lefty hack who had become more famous for his credit card commercials, and racist and homophobic slurs do a tepid slurred imitation of Trump.

...Contempt is the final refuge of failed tyrants.

...Baldwin's bad acting won't save the Republic.. He isn't funny, but he doesn't need to be. Funny is surplus to requirements. The point isn't laughter, it's barely sublimated hatred. Baldwin understands hatred far better than comedy. He knows that what his prog audience wants is not a good imitation but a contemptible one. One they can despise and feel superior to. And that is what he gives them.

Saturday Night Live could not satirize Obama to save its life. It can't satirize Trump either for the same reason. The façade of humor is falling away from the left’s worship of its ideological idols and fanatical hatred of its enemies. And hatred isn’t funny. It’s clumsy. It’s stupid. And it’s ugly.

Comedy is creative. Contempt isn’t comedy. Ultimately it’s just contemptible.

Read more here.

Secretary of State Tillerson's speech to the UN Security Council

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson spoke this morning to the UN Security council about the need to stop North Korea from committing any further provocations. The US taxpayers have given North Korea 1.3 billion dollars since 1995. We have removed our nukes from South Korea. North Korea persists in threatening us and its neighbors. 90 percent of its trade is with China.

The DC Quagmire

At The Conservative Treehouse, Sundance continues his effort to educate us on how the DC legislative system works.

♦The “Associated American Southern Border Wall and Security Builders” – special interest and lobbying group – simply doesn’t exist. Nor are there any entities creating legal briefs (bills) to facilitate the southern border wall construction.

♦There is no “Associated Illegal Immigrant and Deportation Enforcement” group lobbying for the removal of undocumented illegal aliens; or writing legislation to fast-track deportation of illegal aliens.

♦There’s also no official corporate political action committee or group office on K-Street creating legislation to repeal ObamaCare, or lobby for the removal of government interventionism into the healthcare system. etc.

...So the next obvious question is: what can be done about it?

The only viable solution, under the current system in place, is for the Trump Administration to generate their own legislative product to deliver to congress for passage. It sounds weird, but essentially that appears to be what is taking place right now with the White House staffing up with their own groups of bill authors, constructionists and administration lobbyists.

President Trump’s team will create the legislative product, and hopefully the republican controlled house and senate will pass it.

However, even this process also runs head first into the positions of the UniParty.

Example: Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross sends the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation a statutorily required “letter of intent” to renegotiate NAFTA (North American Free Trade Association) mid-March, and the Republican Committee Chairman John Thune doesn’t accept it. (Today is 4/28/17).

Now what? The GOP wing of the UniParty is beholden to lobbying interests (U.S. CoC) who are adverse to NAFTA renegotiation.

...This example is not even a legislative product that needs a vote. This example is simply a statutorily required notification that requires being accepted.

The White House paying for their own staff to hire outside people to write legislation because congress doesn’t have an ideological enterprise to create their own is what has lead to this ridiculous situation we are in right now.

This DC quagmire might improve over time as new enterprises (legislation builders) move into DC to do work with a more favorable ideological outlook in-line with the new administration. But in the interim nothing is getting done, the simple tasks of budgets are at loggerheads, and time is wasting.

Read more here.

Why Trump's legislative inbox is empty

Sundance explains further what is going on in Washington D.C.

When you are voting for a Congressional Rep or a U.S. Senator you are not voting for a person who will write laws. Your rep only votes on legislation to approve or disapprove of constructs that are written by outside groups and sold to them through lobbyists who work for those outside groups.

While all of this is happening the same outside groups who write the laws are providing money for the campaigns of the politicians they need to pass them. This construct sets up the quid-pro-quo of influence, although much of it is fraught with plausible deniability.

...Now, think about this reality against the backdrop of the 2016 Presidential Election. The entire system within DC was not structurally set-up to receive a Donald Trump presidency.

If Hillary Clinton had won the election, her Oval Office desk would be filled with legislation passed by congress which she would be signing. Heck, she’d have writer’s cramp from all of the special interest legislation that would be flowing to her desk.

Why? Simply because the authors of the legislation, the special interest and lobbying groups, were spending millions to fund her campaign. President Hillary Clinton would be signing K-Street constructed special interest legislation to repay all of those donors/investors. Congress would be fast-tracking the passage because the same interest groups also fund the members of congress.

President Donald Trump winning the election threw a monkey wrench into the entire DC system…. The modern legislative machine is frozen in place.

Lastly, when you understand this reality you begin to see the difference between legislation with a traditional purpose and faux-legislation with a political agenda.

Remember, politicians don’t write laws – outside groups do.

If you asked a DC Senator or House Member to actually write a law they’d look back at you like a cow just licked them on the forehead. The politician would have no clue what you are asking them to do, and would immediately look to their staff as their closest reference point (the go-betweens) for outside lobbyist assistance.

This helps to understand when Senator Rand Paul, Mike Lee or Ted Cruz are “pitching” a “bill they’ve written”, it’s a gimmick – a ruse – a pure fundraising ploy. Nothing more. That’s why the bills they talk about (ie. El Chappo, Clean Repeal etc.) never actually materialize…. they are raising money, not legislation.

And that’s why Trump’s legislative inbox is empty.

Read more here.

The man who pulled the trigger on Bin Ladin, Berkeley's mob rule, time to get out of Afghanistan?

On Laura's show today she had on the man who pulled the trigger on Bin Ladin. He has a new book entitled The Operator. Definitely worth a listen, it is the last segment on the show.

Laura wonders if it might be time to pull out of Afghanistan after being there fifteen years.

She devotes a lot of time to Berkeley's mob rule.

The wall

Wild boars killing ISIS, colleges shutting down free speech, faculty members with tenure hiding in cowardice, young thugs beating and robbing BART passengers, Obama raking in Wall Street cash

Tucker Carlson's show last night covered everything from wild boars to college campuses. The wild boars came out of some woods to attack ISIS, killing three and injuring several more. Do you realize how embarrassing that would be for an ISIS member to be killed by pigs?

Heather McDonald noted that we protect faculty at our colleges with tenure, but faculty members do not seem to be doing anything about the shutting down of free speech on campuses.

Did you hear about the young thugs who boarded a BART train in San Francico, beat up passengers and stole money from passengers?
BART officials refused to release video, because they thought some of the perps were juveniles.

Obama is giving a one-hour speech to a Wall Street firm, for which he will be paid $400,000.

More here:

Planned Parenthood Exec caught on tape...again!

Just in time for the government shutdown deadline this weekend, The Center for Medical Progress releases another video of a Planned Parenthood Exec discussing the price of fetal parts. She is the same woman who was caught on film discussing prices for fetal parts a few years ago. Some people never seem to learn! She asks, "What kind of volume do you need and what gestational ages?"

Texas takes the lead in dealing with officials in "sanctuary cities."

Jazz Shaw writes at Hot Air,

The 9th Circuit may be trying to gum up the gears for President Trump (at least until the matter reaches the Supreme Court), but the states still have their own cards to play if they choose to do so.

...While many other states, particularly California, are seeking out new ways to “fight Trump” and defy the enforcement of immigration law, Texas is taking a decidedly different approach. Out in the Lone Star State, Republicans are moving forward with a bill which would essentially ban sanctuary cities and impose some stiff penalties for those not in compliance. This is in keeping with statements that Governor Abbott has made in the past, so if it makes it to his desk it will likely go through. Part of it is the usual route of cutting off state funding and grants, but this one takes the additional step of holding leaders, including police chiefs and sheriffs, accountable. And that could mean fines or even jail time. (Associated Press)

Read more here.

Keep it up, Democrats!

Historian Victor Davis Hanson takes a look at some electoral history, and writes at Town Hall,

it appears that Democrats may be on their way to another hard-left McGovern-style blowout.

Democrats are now even blaming Clinton for being too centrist rather than for running a terrible campaign. The newly elected chairman of the Democratic National Committee, Tom Perez, is a polarizing far-left figure.

The highest-profile Democratic Party supporters are increasingly smug Hollywood actors, rich Wall Street and Silicon Valley elitists and embittered members of the media, along with careerist identity groups and assorted protest movements -- a fossilized 1972 echo chamber.

Democrats' politically correct messaging derides opponents as deplorable racists, sexists, bigots, xenophobes, homophobes, Islamophobes and nativists. That shrill invective only further turns off middle America.

Read more here.

Getting back into the good graces of his employers?

It looks like Andrew Napolitano is trying to get back into the good graces of the Murdoch sons, his new bosses at Fox News. He writes about FBI Director Comey's actions during the presidential campaign.

How could Comey justify the public revelation of a criminal investigation and a summary of evidence of guilt about one candidate for president and remain silent about the existence of a criminal investigation of the campaign of another? How could he deny knowledge of surveillance that was well-known in the intelligence community, even among his own agents? Why would the FBI director inject his agents, who have prided themselves on professional political neutrality, into a bitterly contested campaign having been warned it might affect the outcome? Why did he reject the law's just commands of silence in favor of putting his thumb on political scales?

I don't know the answers to those questions. But the American public, and Hillary Clinton, is entitled to them.

Read more here.

Hated

Kurt Schlichter is a

person of absolutely no color who embodies an intersectional reality that includes my utter lack of genderfluidity and my unemployment-questioning, differently-veteraned, and non-pagan experiences, I am totally oppressed by progressivism’s hegemonic power structure.

Go here to read what he is going to do about it.

Avoiding hiring snowflakes

How do you hire good people? You can't ask the person's previous employer anything other than the dates the person worked there. Oregon Muse tackles the subject at Ace of Spades.

Full speed ahead!

Here are the stories being covered today over at The Conservative Treehouse.

The Democrat congressional delegation, the one that a couple of months ago was all upset because President Trump talked on the phone with the leader of Taiwan, now wants Trump to punish the Chi-Coms for not doing more to control North Korea's dictator.

President Trump spoke with the leaders of Mexico and Canada.

President Trump agreed not to terminate NAFTA at this time and the leaders agreed to proceed swiftly, according to their required internal procedures, to enable the renegotiation of the NAFTA deal to the benefit of all three countries.

President Trump has a simple economic platform: “Buy American and Hire American“; toward that goal all economic and fiscal policies are now directed to assist U.S. manufacturing companies and retain U.S. workers. Period.

Two days ago Commerce Secretary Wilbur “Wilburine” Ross announced a 20% tariff, countervailing duties, on imported Canadian soft wood lumber. Today, Pleasant River Lumber Co. in Jackman Maine announces their wood mills will now expand as a direct result of the beneficial impacts of even trade practices.

Drugging and driving

In the Washington Post Ashley Halsey III writes a post about drugs and traffic deaths.

In Colorado, marijuana-related traffic deaths increased by 48 percent after the state legalized recreational use of the drug.

...For the first time, statistics show that drivers killed in crashes are more likely to be on drugs than drunk.

Forty-three percent of drivers tested in fatal crashes in 2015 had used a legal or illegal drug, eclipsing the 37 percent who tested above the legal limit for alcohol, according to a report released Wednesday by the Governors Highway Safety Association (GHSA) and the Foundation for Advancing Alcohol Responsibility.

Of the drivers who tested positive for drugs, more than a third had used marijuana and more than 9 percent had taken amphetamines.

...The report is narrowly focused on fatal crashes. It shows that among fatally injured drivers with known test results, 2015 was the first time that drug use was more prevalent than alcohol use.

Read more here.

Nixonian in his scheming, Carteresque incompetence -- and spent the bulk of his presidency in the 44-46% approval range.

In a post about ESPN, Ace makes these political observations:

Bush proved -- through most of his term -- that you didn't need all of the country to support you if 40% of the country strongly supported you, and 10% were indifferent. (At the end of his term, when the financial crisis hit, he also proved you definitely needed more than 29% support.)

Obama took that lesson and ran with it. Obama was the most divisive and partisan president in several lifetimes -- Nixonian in his scheming, Carteresque incompetence -- and spent the bulk of his presidency in the 44-46% approval range.

But the bulk of that approval was strong approval from intense partisans, who saw them as their avatar in the unending Culture Wars, and quite possibly an actual Messiah or Buddha sent down by Heaven to redeem that part of humanity that lived in the better zip codes of at least a dozen coastal US cities.

Read more here.

Gratitude and humor

At Ace of Spades, Warden writes an inspiring post about gratitude and humor.

Denier

The French favorite

At The Daily Wire Joseph Curl brings us information about the man who is favored to win the French election next month. The French have different views of sexual relationships than we do. Or, do they?

Do you have a child who tries to provoke you? How do you get him to control himself?

North Korea, Palestinian terrorism, tax reform, White House decision-making

On Special Report with Bret Baier tonight, tax reform was a big point of emphasis.

Oh yeah, and North Korea. America launched an intercontinental ballistic missile today. All US Senators came to the White House for an intelligence briefing and discuss sanctions on North Korea.

There is a substantial interview with White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus.

Senator Lindsey Graham has a bill to stop the Palestinian Authority from rewarding jihadists and their families when they commit acts of terrorism. No Democrats have signed on to the bill! The US gives the Palestinian Authority more than $300,000,000 a year, which they shell out to the families!

Connecting dots in Asia

Sundance reveals some of the strategy the Trump team employs in dealing with North Korea.

Instead of President Trump calling out President Duterte for the severity of his approach, President Trump moderated any criticism and said he understood that Duterte was confronting the problem the best way he knew how for his country.

That was in December of 2016.

Well, guess who is now the rotating (every year) Chairman of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN)?

Yup, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte.

And just yesterday, after a visit last week from Vice-President Pence, ASEAN announced:

Southeast Asian nations would adopt a softer than usual tone about South China Sea disputes at a leaders’ summit on Saturday in Manila, and exclude references to militarization or island-building, according to a draft of the chairman’s statement.

Although some Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) leaders will express “serious concern” over the “escalation of activities” in the disputed sea, ASEAN will drop references, or even allusions, to China’s construction of artificial islands and the military hardware it has placed on them, according excerpts of the draft seen by Reuters. (link)

China has been expanding its seven man-made islands in the Spratlys (South China Sea) for several years, and the action has been a considerable point of angst for the region and for U.S. geo-political strategists in the former Obama administration.

However, despite the activity, and despite the protestations by the Obama White House and Obama State Department, the general consensus has been there’s nothing any nation can do about it because China exerts tremendous economic leverage in the entire region. Additionally, the man-made Islands are too far along for any substantive international efforts to thwart them.

The horse giant panda is now fully out of the barn.

There’s no President Trump policy capable of reversing the position of China in this action. Done is done. However, the international view of legitimacy around these islands still carries some major political leverage if applied toward a greater regional need of similar consequence.

Enter the need for the international community, and ASEAN specifically, to see North Korea pull-back from their doomsday nuclear ambitions…. and President Trump understanding that given the nature of entire issue – it all comes down to leveraging China, using complex terms of political currency, valuation and international legitimacy, against North Korea.

The Giant Panda can eliminate the problem that is Kim Jong Un.

ASEAN Chairman, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, modifying the confrontational tone of Asian nations toward China is yet another useful carrot by U.S. President Trump to stimulate China’s increased pressure upon North Korea.

That’s a really big ‘get’ for President Xi Jinping.

...Again, a review of the activity timeline reveals a long-term strategic approach:

♦February 10th – President Trump hosted Japanese Prime Minister Abe at the White House and at Mar-a-Lago, w/both spouses, to discuss regional issues (including N-Korea).

♦February 27th – President Trump and Chinese State Councilor Yang Jiechi meet in the White House Oval Office to discuss regional issues (including N-Korea).

♦March 15th – Secretary of State Rex Tillerson visits Japan, South Korea and China to follow up on February’s conversations and discuss the forward path (including N-Korea).

♦April 6th and 7th – President Trump hosts Chinese President Xi Jinping in Mar-a-Lago where they discussed all of the critical bilateral and regional issues (including N-Korea). President Trump seeded the background by appointing Ambassador Terry Branstad, a 30-year personal friend of President Xi Jinping.

♦April 8th – Secretary Rex Tillerson debriefs the media. <– CRITICAL READ WHAT HAPPENED NEXT? For the first time ever, China did not support Russia in a U.N. Security Council veto vote surrounding Syria. China abstained. China turned around 12 fully loaded cargo ships laden with imported coal from North Korea. 400,000 metric tonnes refused unloading. China begins an embargo against North Korean coal. China begins importing coking coal for steel-making from the U.S. coal mines. Additionally, in furtherance of economic sanctions – China halts oil exports to North Korea. Additionally, in furtherance of political isolation – China halts direct flights between Beijing, China and Pyongyang, North Korea. And in the most stunning seismic shift of geo-political alliances, China says it is now open to discussions of a denuclearized North Korea, meaning getting rid of N-Korean nukes, WITHOUT N-Korea being included in the talks. Hello? China, the United States, Japan, Russia and South Korea discussing how to de-nuke North Korea. (A new Marshal Plan of sorts) ♦April 14th – President Trump announces policy directive to Treasury Secretary Mnuchin that there’s no need to label China as a currency manipulator. ♦April 15th – Vice President Pence arrived in Asia for a ten day visit (South Korea, Japan, China, Indonesia, Australia); positioned as the steady, stable and reliable administration policy closer (including N-Korea). ♦April 23rd – President Trump followed up on Pence’s visit with personal phone calls to China’s President Xi Jinping and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe; again, the topic was North Korea. ♦April 24th – U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley brings the U.N. Security Council to the White House for lunch with President Trump. The President spoke of the need for the U.N. to fulfill its original charter. ♦April 25th – ASEAN (Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte – rotating ASEAN Chairman) releases policy statement saying Southeast Asian nations agree to go easy on Beijing over South China Sea dispute. Although some Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) leaders will express “serious concern” over the “escalation of activities” in the disputed sea, ASEAN will drop references, or even allusions, to China’s construction of artificial islands and the military hardware it has placed on them, according excerpts of the draft seen by Reuters. ♦April 26th – President Trump invites all U.S. Senators to the White House for a classified briefing on North Korea. ♦April 28th – (THIS FRIDAY) U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will be traveling to the U.N. to speak to the Security Council personally.

Read more here.

Death by despair?

Mark Steyn tackles a gloomy subject today: death by despair. In 2015 there were more deaths from heroin in the US than from gun homicides. Upward mobility? How about downward mobility? We've gone from a farm economy to a factory economy to a service economy. What's next? What if there is no next? How will a life of self-worth be attained? A life of purpose? When you turn on the t.v. do you find that other people matter more than you do?

Pay up, Canada!

Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross is cool! He announced that as of today, Canada must begin paying one billion dollars a year in fines for dumping soft lumber in America. The government of each province subsidizes lumber companies so that they can dump the lumber in America at a price American companies can't compete with.

Where does Trump find these guys?

`

Evil

Judge Orrick

The judge that blocked Trump's executive order targeting communities that protect immigrants from deportation

is a campaign bundler to former President Obama for over $200,000, and is married to a pro-abortion activist. You might remember Judge Orrick from 2015 when he blocked the release of videos made by the Center for Medical Progress, the group that unveiled Planned Parenthood’s participation in the sale of organs harvested from aborted children.

Read more here.

" Fleecing the Sheeple"

Sundance at The conservative Treehouse is no fan of Ted Cruz or Rand Paul.

This is more than a little funny. Senator Ted Cruz must not be having much success fundraising for his re-election campaign, as his latest publicity stunt outlines: (build the wall and make El Chapo pay for it.)

In essence, the architect of Obama’s Fast Track Trade Promotion Authority bill is using the border wall, which he is paid to oppose, as a tool to “gruber” his sheeple followers. Judging by the number of people responding to the tweet, he’s found a goldmine.

As many people are aware, Senator Cruz is part of the ‘controlled opposition’ ploy. As a dedicated UniParty benefactor of the U.S. CoC lobbying expenditures Ted’s role is to plow through the political field giving a crony-constitutional impression of one thing while loyally working to deliver the end result of the thing he optically rails against, like TPP or TPA.

The El Chapo/wall angle as a narrative and fundraising mechanism, is similar to the dead-end ploy previously exhibited by Senator Rand Paul in last month’s ObamaCare repeal narrative used as his fundraising tool. Both are fallacies of false choice. Both have no foundation in actual goal or intention. Both are ruses.





Almost all of these donors are Washington DC lobbyists. All of them directly funding Ted Cruz, not a Super-PAC, his direct campaign. – SEE FOR YOURSELF – The entire statement:

…”I will never get — nor do I want — money from the DC lobbyists”…

…is a flat out lie. It is not a misstatement, it is a complete and total falsehood.

♦ Then take a look at the #2 Bullet Point: “After winning Iowa the Washington cartel is most certainly more determined than ever defeat me”. Again, look at the truth:



Stand for Truth is the Super-PAC of Mitch McConnell’s attorney. You don’t get much more “inside the DC cartel” than that. Notice they were funding support for Ted Cruz in Iowa.

It certainly doesn’t appear the DC Cartel was ever out to defeat Ted Cruz.

This is what we reference when we point out that almost all of Ted Cruz supporters have some weird ideological way to reconcile being lied to based on some odd, possibly religious, need to believe -against all common sense- what is factually taking place.

Even when presented with this factual information which proves, beyond any doubt, that Ted Cruz is lying to his supporters in his campaign letters, somehow they are able to disconnect themselves from the sunlight of truth and retain a belief he’s not lying to them. It’s odd, really odd.

Additionally, you might remember seeing Senator Rand Paul on TV for 10-consecutive-days (just this past March), proclaiming that RyanCare must be defeated.

Toward that end Senator Paul put on a tuxedo went to the House of Representatives, lobbied them personally, and handed out instructions and books telling Hillary’s Favorite Caucus (HFC) if they simply blocked President Trump and Secretary Price he (Paul) would, within two weeks, provide a clean repeal bill from the Senate. Senator Rand Paul said he and Senator Ted Cruz and Senator Mike Lee already had the legislation written for the clean repeal. Senator Paul stated if the House members simply followed his plan he would guarantee the “repeal only” bill would advance within two weeks.

You see, this is where CTH refuses to be co-dependents in our own abuse. We fully understand, and more importantly ‘accept’, the DC UniParty congress has no intention of: Providing a budget to lower spending; repealing and replacing ObamaCare; allowing enforcement of immigration law to include deportation and a southern border wall.

It can be difficult to accept these realities. It can be difficult to confront your abuser. However, until the larger electorate understand the structural concept of the UniParty, there will be hours-upon-hours of talking in circles, and tens of thousands of column inches typed in an effort to reconcile the irreconcilable and avoid accepting the diagnosis:

….Battered Conservative Syndrome !

Codependent no more!

Read more here.

"Egregious overreach"

The White House has responded to the San Francisco judge's sanctuary cities injunction. Go to the Conservative Treehouse to read it. It will be the best thing you read today.

Another close encounter with an Iranian ship today in the Persian Gulf

Fox News reports,

A U.S. Navy destroyer had another close encounter with an Iranian Revolutionary Guard "fast attack craft" in the Persian Gulf Monday.

Two U.S. officials tell Fox News that the Iranian ship came within 1,000 yards of the guided missile destroyer USS Mahan with its weapons manned.

The officials said the Mahan altered course to avoid the Iranian warship, sounded the danger signal, fired flares and manned its own weapons.

The Iranian ship did not come closer than 1,000 yards and no warning shots were fired.

"Coming inbound at a high rate of speed like that and manning weapons, despite clear warnings from the ship, is obviously provocative behavior," said one American official in describing the Iranian actions.

Read more here.

Could North Korea launch an EMP attack?

John R. Moore writes at PJ Media about the terrifying prospect of an EMP (Electromagnetic Pulse) attack.

North Korea can launch an EMP attack before it has developed nuclear missile technology, and EMP may be far more deadly.

...An EMP disaster from a high-altitude blast seems like science fiction: There is a silent flash high in the sky, and everything using electricity just … stops. Cars stop, power goes out, the Internet dies, satellites quit working, landline and mobile phone systems go out, and computers are destroyed. In a moment, we are back to 1850, as was dramatized in William Forstchen's 2009 novel One Second After.

...As former CIA chief James Woolsey recently said:

"If you look at the electric grid and what it's susceptible to, we would be moving into a world with no food delivery, no water purification, no banking, no telecommunications, no medicine. All of these things depend on electricity in one way or another."

...To nuke one of our cities, the North needs to master ICBM construction, nuclear weapons miniaturization, precision long-range guidance technology, atmospheric re-entry vehicles, and fusing to trigger detonation at the right time after the hazardous re-entry. In contrast, an EMP attack requires only a small, light nuclear weapon and the ability to launch it as a satellite. Once over the U.S., it is detonated.

Already, two satellites launched by North Korea cross the U.S. every day.

Read more here.

Is Trump backing away from seeking funding for the wall, in order to avert a government shutdown this weekend?

Is Trump backing away from seeking funding for the wall, in order to avert a government shutdown this weekend? Who gets higher marks for the first 100 days, Trump or Congress? These are two of the questions Laura Ingraham looks at on her show today.

Obama reappeared on the scene with a speech in Chicago. He admitted, "I am the first to acknowledge that I did not set the world on fire." The "Divider-in-Chief" encouraged his listeners to have a protest mentality.

Trump invited 17 conservative journalists to the White House yesterday. Laura attended. She noted that everyone had to turn in their phones ahead of the meeting, which was "off the record." Nevertheless, some are writing about the meeting! Laura said she purposely stayed in the back of the room to watch people.

The latest criticism of Trump by the media is that he is not traveling abroad. Yes, his Vice President is everywhere, his cabinet members are everywhere, but Trump is staying home. He has hosted many world leaders here in America. He is not out there apologizing everywhere for America's shortcomings like Obama did. Trump's first scheduled trip abroad is the NATO meeting in Brussels May 25.

Laura's two guests were Byron York and Marc Thiessen, both of whom have recently written articles Laura recommends.

Laura touched on the subject of ideological differences. When Trump was doing business deals, these were not obstacles. Now they are. I wish she would say more about that.

Forming friendships

Did you know that President Trump invited all of the members of the UN Security Council and their spouses to lunch the other day at the White House?

Canada finds out the US means business

Trade talks between the US and Canada on Canada's decision to undermine U.S. dairy farm exports "fell through." So what is the next step for the Trump team? Hit Canada with tariffs on soft lumber! From CNN:

The tariffs — also called duties — ranged from 3% to 24% on specifically five Canadian lumber companies. For all other Canadian lumber companies, there’s a nearly 20% duty imposed on exports to the US.

The duties were imposed to create a level playing field for American lumber companies.

U.S. lumber companies allege Canadian firms are provided with unfair subsidies by the Canadian government.

Canadian exports of softwood lumber to the U.S. were valued at $5.6 billion last year, according to the Commerce Department.

The Commerce Department said the duties are preliminary and a final determination will be made in September. The U.S. Lumber Coalition, which represents the industry, said the duties will likely take effect starting sometime next week.

The Hill reports,

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, applauded the Commerce Department’s decision.

“Unfairly traded softwood lumber from Canada has for decades hurt mill towns and American millworkers in Oregon and across the country,” Wyden said.

“Today’s announcement sends the message that help is on the way,” he said.

Read more here and here.
hat tip the Conservative Treehouse.

Trust

hat tip Theo

Oh Oh!

hat tip Theo

An optimistic Democrat, a pessimistic Republican, a UN absurdity, North Korea, fake jeans to wear when you watch fake news

Tucker Carlson's show debuted in the O'Reilly time slot tonight. His first guest was a Democrat who seemed optimistic that things are getting better for Dems.

His second guest was Michael Malice, biographer of Kim Jon-un. Malice was on Tucker's show last week, when he painted a vivid picture of what life is like in North Korea. Michael says the North Koreans are masters at making others fear a calamity, then offering a back door to avoid catastrophe.

Mike Rowe believes in market solutions, rather than government mandates. Nordstroms is charging over $400 for a pair of jeans that still have mud attached! Oh wait, It is polyurethane fake mud! Hey, you can wear your fake jeans to watch fake news!

Saudi Arabia has been placed on the UN Commission on the Status of Women, which exists to promote gender equality around the world. Tucker summarized, "The country that as a matter of official policy treats women as less than human is going to be lecturing the rest of us on feminism! If you had to sum up the United Nations in a single perverse sentence, that would be it!"

Caitlyn Jenner is releasing a new memoir tomorrow entitled The Secrets of My Life. She voted for Trump, but so far has not been happy with the Trump administration's actions affecting the "LGBTQ community."

Taking a new look at energy

Ace writes,

...By the way: You know who doesn't want Alaska pumping out oil?

Putin.

And Saudi Arabia.

Low oil prices are objectively good for the American economy and good for its foreign policy goals -- most major oil exporters are hostile or at best frenemies, and being able to open the spigots whenever we want to send a message would be a terrific piece of foreign policy leverage that also amounts to putting money in American pockets.

Read more here.

Government shutdown, are you an essential or non-essential worker, holding off on criticizing China, dreamers and non-dreamers, French election and the media, Laura's new book

The next thing I listened to at work today was today's Laura Ingraham show. Although Laura was an early and consistent Trump supporter, she is not a mindless cheerleader for him. She thinks he is making a mistake to hold back on criticizing China's dumping of steel on the world's markets. There has been a 19.6% increase so far this year. Trump is holding back criticism of China because he wants their help in dealing with the crazy dictator in North Korea. But, Laura believes China does not respect someone who backs down off previous criticism. There is something called "Market Economy Status" China is trying to get from the World Trade Organization, which Laura says would be disastrous to US interests.

Laura wonders if it is time to end our involvement in Afghanistan, where over 100 Afghan troops were killed this weekend.

One solid Trump supporter is Senator David Purdue of Georgia, who was a guest on today's show.

Government shutdown? Essential and non-essential workers? Laura criticized Republicans for once again failing to have a narrative ready three weeks before the shutdown date.

Laura notes how the media called the election results in France. Everything they said about Le Pen was negative; everything about Macron positive. The Establishment parties were rejected in the election.

Laura has a new book coming out in October entitled Billionaire at the Barricades, about Trump's election victory.

Western civilization, Obama's crease in his pants, the Left, #Never Trumpers, Ann Coulter, Berkeley

Are you like me in that you like to be thinking while doing mundane work? Andrew Klavan's podcasts work well in that regard. In this episode #300, he quotes from "The King of Knucklehead Row," David Brooks of the former newspaper called the New York Times. Brooks liked "classy" Obama, who did not believe in western civilization.

The University of California is so scared of a 100-pound woman, Ann Coulter, that they have to put on masks and beat people up.

Klavan says it is not a matter of class, but a matter of ideas. He talks with Michael Duran about the #Never Trumpers. Trump is more of a threat to them than he is to the Left. CNN has gone hard Left, and their ratings are up. The Never Trumpers continue to be critical of Trump, and he doesn't care; he has rejected their views. He doesn't care what they think!

"Patriots face a stark choice!"

Kurt Schlichter writes at Town Hall,

...This “I don’t like what you are saying so it’s hate speech now shut-up” footnote to the First Amendment is well-known at our colleges and universities. These bastions of free thinking freely admit thinking that we normals have no right to think freely at all. The fact that California law enforcement is regularly ordered to stand back and allow conservative speakers and their audiences to be intimidated and beaten in order to silence them is just a preview of the new America that liberals dream of. If you imagine the unholy love child of the economic basket case/police state of Venezuela and the grim intolerance of your local campus, you have a pretty good idea of the new, fascist America the Democrats seek to breed.

Liberals should be ashamed of themselves, but then they wouldn’t be liberal if they were born with shame genes. So, since we patriots are the only ones who actually support free speech, what do we patriots do to protect it?

Whatever it takes.

We fight peacefully in the political arena, in the courts, and in the shrinking marketplace of ideas while we can, but we must also be ready to fight in the streets when those punky puffboys try to shut us up. No quarter, no compromise, no surrender – we fight and win, or they shut us up forever.

Look, the left has told us what it wants – the power to force us to be silent and submit. That’s not wacky supposition; that’s not fevered imagination. They are open about their agenda, and it’s happening before our eyes. To pretend that our republic is not facing an existential threat from progressives who would use violence to silence their political opponents is to willfully ignore the evidence, just like a climate cultist ignores cold weather. And the violence has already begun: in fact, it is key to their plan for a free speech-free future. Today its gangs of masked thugs attacking us. Tomorrow, it’s uniformed men with guns – or at least those few spineless cowards among our security forces will ignore their oaths to defend the Constitution in exchange for a paycheck and a pension – dragging us off to jail for illegal speech. Or worse.

We patriots face a stark choice. We could choose the easy path of submission and hope that the left will leave us be if we just give in to their demands and give up on our right to participate in our own governance. But that won’t ever work – the true joy of leftism comes from imposing the leftists’ collective will upon its designated villains, and one guess as to the identity of those designated villains.

No, they don’t want to leave us alone – that misses the whole point of being a leftist. A leftist yearns to be the one doing the bullying and dominating. If we give in, we will spend the rest of our lives with their soft, girly hands around our necks.

And if we are so gutless as to give up our God-given rights in exchange for “peace,” we deserve that pathetic, dishonorable fate.

But we won’t give up. We won’t surrender. No matter how hard they punch, as Instapundit urges, we’ll punch back twice as hard.

It was funny seeing those antifa dorks get wedgies in Berkeley, but our enemies are serious about stripping us of the rights that our Creator endowed upon all men and women. Many of us are veterans or law enforcement, and our oaths to defend the Constitution even at the cost of our lives did not come with an expiration date. Millions more who did not take one of those oaths subscribe to them nonetheless. We promised not to let a fascist regime take hold, and we intend to keep our promise.

The First Amendment is followed by the Second Amendment for just this reason – history will record that our people’s unique refusal to be disarmed by those who seek to steal our liberties was a key factor why we will never be Venezuela II: The Revenge.

Our only chance of avoiding a catastrophe is if our would-be progressive overlords understand that for us normal Americans, there are only two possible outcomes. And living at their mercy as their serfs is not one of them.

The outcome we want is that we normals live free in a democratic republic exercising the rights enshrined in the Constitution, whether because leftists choose to respect our civil rights, or because we force them to respect our civil rights.

The other alternative is that we die on piles of spent brass surrounded by the bodies of our enemies. Either one’s cool – but submission to slavery is not an option.

That un-American, wannabe fascist Howard Dean need only look at a license plate from neighboring New Hampshire to understand how this is going to end. We’ll either live free or die.

Read more here.

That person was our president for eight years!

Josh Meyer does investigative journalism at Politico on Obama selling out America on the Iran deal.

Clarifying expectations

The Chairman of the DNC says all Dem candidates must be pro-choice. Read more here.

"Some of us will have to work that night!"

Do you want to hear a journalist whine? Here is Ken Vogel, chief investigative reporter for Politico. He is upset that President Trump is holding a rally on the same night as the Washington correspondents Dinner. Here is his tweet:

Power outages in New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles Friday

Did you know that there were power outages in New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles Friday at about the same time? Zero Hedge reports,

...The cause of the outage has not yet been made clear, though given the current geo-political climate it is not out of the question to suggest a cyber attack could be to blame. It has also been suggested that the current outages could be the result of a secretive nuclear/EMP drill by the federal government.

As we have previously reported, the entire national power grid has been mapped by adversaries of the United States and it is believed that sleep trojans or malware may exist within the computer systems that maintain the grid.

In a 2016 report, it was noted that our entire way of life has been left vulnerable to saboteurs who could cause cascading blackouts across the United States for days or weeks at a time.

Read more here.

"The free countries of the world are going to face quite a reckoning of conscience."

At PJ Media, Claudia Rosett writes about North Korea,

...Someday, the Kim regime will fall. Whether that comes sooner or later, whether it comes in some manner of our choosing, or, against the totalitarian odds, from inside North Korea itself, all these things are hard to predict. But one thing I'm sure of. When the Pyongyang regime falls, and its inner recesses are exposed to daylight, the free countries of the world are going to face quite a reckoning of conscience. In calculating the sacrifice that might be needed to bring down Kim Jong Un and his obscene regime, one of the questions we should also be asking is, what are we sacrificing if we don't?

Read more here.

It will be Le Pen versus Macron on May 7 in France

Sundance reports that Marine Le Pen has won today's first round of voting in France with 23.41% of the vote. She will face a runoff with Obama's favorite, Emmanuel Macron, who got 22.6%.

Marine Le Pen represents nationalistic socialism and carries a platform to close the borders, halt the refugee influx and she supports exiting the EU. Emmanuel Macron represents the option for globalist socialism: open borders, more refugees, and more EU influence.

The second round of voting will be May 7. Three other candidates have now dropped out.
Read more here.

Trump's first 100 days, tax reform, building the wall, Trump's tax return, French election

100 days! Next Saturday will be 100 days of the Trump presidency. Do you like how it has gone? What do you like most and least?

On Fox News Sunday Chris Wallace looked at several facets of the first 100 days. Mick Mulvaney, Trump's highly capable and articulate director of the Office of Management and Budget, answered Wallace's questions clearly and concisely. So did Senator Langford of Oklahoma.

It appears that Trump wants Marine LePen to win the French election this week.

"Shattered," Rick Perry, Patriots at White House, every day life in North Korea

Have you seen Watters' World? Like Greg Gutfeld, Jesse Watters is another guy with a sense of humor on the right. On his show yesterday he had the woman who has authored the book "Shattered," about the Clinton campaign. His most interesting guest might have been the fellow who has written a book about his experiences in North Korea, entitled "Dear Reader." Jesse also has an interview with former Texas Governor, now Energy Secretary, Rick Perry.

Georgia run-off election, climate change, endless array of options

On the Greg Gutfeld Show last night, Greg reported on the 30-year-old filmmaker Ossoff, who won the right to be in a run-off election in June in Georgia. Greg compared him to Barack Obama, totally full of himself. In L.A. a 30-year-old filmmaker would be called a waiter.

Some in the media are giving Trump an F in climate change. Do you know what an F in climate change means? It means an A in climate change! It means Trump pissed off the people who cry on Earth Day!

What Greg likes about Trump is that he doesn't imprison himself with just two choices on any issue. He sees things as having an endless array of options.

Not Cool

Are you, like me, a fan of Greg Gutfeld and also of Dana Perino? Here is a program they put on at the Bush library to promote Greg's book Not Cool.

Greg believes that one of the reasons people make bad decisions is because they want to be liked by "special" people. Who decides what is cool? Progressives. They take evil and put it in a prism of cool. Darkness is cool. Hollywood is against guns, unless they want to use them in a movie. It is cool to be a pacifist, as long as there is a patriot willing to risk death so you can have that freedom.

One of the concepts in Greg's book is the free radical. Example: Andrew Breitbart. Sense of humor, but resists the desire to be liked. Has a spine. Is a Happy Warrior. Combines humor with facts.

The politically correct progressives will smear you if they don't agree with what you are saying. Who is the referee? The media. Which is owned by the other side.

An audience member asks about plastic bags. Greg correctly points out that cloth bags are much more dangerous, because people do not wash them, and they then develop food-borne illnesses.

The Clinton email "matter"

Did you know that FBI Director Jim Comey is 6'8" and his former boss Loretta Lynch is 5' tall? That is one of the details in a report in yesterday's New York Times by Matt Apuzzo, Michael S. Schmidt, Adam Goldman, and Eric Lichtblau. The report takes a look at the ways in which the decisions made by Comey may have influenced the November election (like Putin?).

On other issues, Mr. Comey bucked the administration but won praise from his agents, who saw him as someone who did what he believed was right, regardless of the political ramifications.

The 6-foot-8 Mr. Comey commanded a room and the spotlight. Ms. Lynch, 5 feet tall, was known for being cautious and relentlessly on message. In her five months as attorney general, she had shown no sign of changing her style.

At the meeting, everyone agreed that Mr. Comey should not reveal details about the Clinton investigation. But Ms. Lynch told him to be even more circumspect: Do not even call it an investigation, she said, according to three people who attended the meeting. Call it a “matter.”

Ms. Lynch reasoned that the word “investigation” would raise other questions: What charges were being investigated? Who was the target? But most important, she believed that the department should stick by its policy of not confirming investigations.

It was a by-the-book decision. But Mr. Comey and other F.B.I. officials regarded it as disingenuous in an investigation that was so widely known. And Mr. Comey was concerned that a Democratic attorney general was asking him to be misleading and line up his talking points with Mrs. Clinton’s campaign, according to people who spoke with him afterward.

...As the Clinton investigation headed into its final months, there were two very different ideas about how the case would end. Ms. Lynch and her advisers thought a short statement would suffice, probably on behalf of both the Justice Department and the F.B.I.

Mr. Comey was making his own plans.

A chance encounter set those plans in motion.

In late June, Ms. Lynch’s plane touched down at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport as part of her nationwide tour of police departments. Former President Bill Clinton was also in Phoenix that day, leaving from the same tarmac.

Ms. Lynch’s staff loaded into vans, leaving the attorney general and her husband on board. Mr. Clinton’s Secret Service agents mingled with her security team. When the former president learned who was on the plane, his aides say, he asked to say hello.

Mr. Clinton’s aides say he intended only to greet Ms. Lynch as she disembarked. But Ms. Lynch later told colleagues that the message she received — relayed from one security team to another — was that Mr. Clinton wanted to come aboard, and she agreed.

When Ms. Lynch’s staff members noticed Mr. Clinton boarding the plane, a press aide hurriedly called the Justice Department’s communications director, Melanie Newman, who said to break up the meeting immediately. A staff member rushed to stop it, but by the time the conversation ended, Mr. Clinton had been on the plane for about 20 minutes.

The meeting made the local news the next day and was soon the talk of Washington. Ms. Lynch said they had only exchanged pleasantries about golf and grandchildren, but Republicans called for her to recuse herself and appoint a special prosecutor.

Ms. Lynch said she would not step aside but would accept whatever career prosecutors and the F.B.I. recommended on the Clinton case — something she had planned to do all along.

Mr. Comey never suggested that she recuse herself. But at that moment, he knew for sure that when there was something to say about the case, he alone would say it.

...Two days later, on the morning of July 5, Mr. Comey called Ms. Lynch to say that he was about to hold a news conference. He did not tell her what he planned to say, and Ms. Lynch did not demand to know.

On short notice, the F.B.I. summoned reporters to its headquarters for the briefing.

...With a black binder in hand, Mr. Comey walked into a large room on the ground floor of the F.B.I.’s headquarters. Standing in front of two American flags and two royal-blue F.B.I. flags, he read from a script.

He said the F.B.I. had reviewed 30,000 emails and discovered 110 that contained classified information. He said computer hackers may have compromised Mrs. Clinton’s emails. And he criticized the State Department’s lax security culture and Mrs. Clinton directly.

“Any reasonable person in Secretary Clinton’s position” should have known better, Mr. Comey said. He called her “extremely careless.”

The criticism was so blistering that it sounded as if he were recommending criminal charges. Only in the final two minutes did Mr. Comey say that “no charges are appropriate in this case.”

...The Daily Mail, a British tabloid, was first with the salacious story: Anthony D. Weiner, the former New York congressman, had exchanged sexually charged messages with a 15-year-old girl.

The article, appearing in late September, raised the possibility that Mr. Weiner had violated child pornography laws. Within days, prosecutors in Manhattan sought a search warrant for Mr. Weiner’s computer.

Even with his notoriety, this would have had little impact on national politics but for one coincidence. Mr. Weiner’s wife, Huma Abedin, was one of Mrs. Clinton’s closest confidantes, and had used an email account on her server.

F.B.I. agents in New York seized Mr. Weiner’s laptop in early October. The investigation was just one of many in the New York office and was not treated with great urgency, officials said. Further slowing the investigation, the F.B.I. software used to catalog the computer files kept crashing.

Eventually, investigators realized that they had hundreds of thousands of emails, many of which belonged to Ms. Abedin and had been backed up to her husband’s computer.

Neither Mr. Comey nor Ms. Lynch was concerned. Agents had discovered devices before in the Clinton investigation (old cellphones, for example) that turned up no new evidence.

Then, agents in New York who were searching image files on Mr. Weiner’s computer discovered a State Department document containing the initials H.R.C. — Hillary Rodham Clinton. They found messages linked to Mrs. Clinton’s home server.

And they made another surprising discovery: evidence that some of the emails had moved through Mrs. Clinton’s old BlackBerry server, the one she used before moving to her home server. If Mrs. Clinton had intended to conceal something, agents had always believed, the evidence might be in those emails. But reading them would require another search warrant, essentially reopening the Clinton investigation.

The election was two weeks away.

Mr. Comey learned of the Clinton emails on the evening of Oct. 26 and gathered his team the next morning to discuss the development.

Seeking a new warrant was an easy decision. He had a thornier issue on his mind.

Back in July, he told Congress that the Clinton investigation was closed. What was his obligation, he asked, to acknowledge that this was no longer true?

It was a perilous idea. It would push the F.B.I. back into the political arena, weeks after refusing to confirm the active investigation of the Trump campaign and declining to accuse Russia of hacking.

The question consumed hours of conference calls and meetings. Agents felt they had two options: Tell Congress about the search, which everyone acknowledged would create a political furor, or keep it quiet, which followed policy and tradition but carried its own risk, especially if the F.B.I. found new evidence in the emails.

...The next morning, Friday, Oct. 28, Mr. Comey wrote to Congress, “In connection with an unrelated case, the F.B.I. has learned of the existence of emails that appear to be pertinent to the investigation.”

His letter became public within minutes. Representative Jason Chaffetz of Utah, a Republican and a leading antagonist of Mrs. Clinton’s, jubilantly announced on Twitter, “Case reopened.”

...Mr. Trump immediately mentioned it on the campaign trail. “As you might have heard,” Mr. Trump told supporters in Maine, “earlier today, the F.B.I. … ” The crowd interrupted with a roar. Everyone had heard.

Polls almost immediately showed Mrs. Clinton’s support declining. Presidential races nearly always tighten in the final days, but some political scientists reported a measurable “Comey effect.”

“This changes everything,” Mr. Trump said.

...A few hours later, Mr. Strzok and his team were back in Mr. Comey’s conference room for a final briefing: Only about 3,000 emails had been potentially work-related. A dozen or so email chains contained classified information, but the F.B.I. had already seen it.

And agents had found no emails from the BlackBerry server during the crucial period when Mrs. Clinton was at the State Department.

Nothing had changed what Mr. Comey had said in July.

That conclusion was met with a mixture of relief and angst. Everyone at the meeting knew that the question would quickly turn to whether Mr. Comey’s letter had been necessary.

That afternoon, Mr. Comey sent a second letter to Congress. “Based on our review,” he wrote, “we have not changed our conclusions.”

...Many factors explained Mr. Trump’s success, but Mrs. Clinton blamed just one. “Our analysis is that Comey’s letter — raising doubts that were groundless, baseless, proven to be — stopped our momentum,” she told donors a few days after the election. She pointed to polling data showing that late-deciding voters chose Mr. Trump in unusually large numbers.

Read more here.