It's Illegal Immigration, Stupid!

Convicted
Her conviction would be critical in persuading Mr. Obama to join allies in bombing Colonel Qaddafi’s forces. In fact, Mr. Obama’s defense secretary, Robert M. Gates, would later say that in a “51-49” decision, it was Mrs. Clinton’s support that put the ambivalent president over the line.

The consequences would be more far-reaching than anyone imagined, leaving Libya a failed state and a terrorist haven, a place where the direst answers to Mrs. Clinton’s questions have come to pass. (New York Times, 2/28/2016)

So even the New York Times believes that Hillary Clinton made a massive strategic mistake with respect to Libya. Wait a minute! Didn't they endorse her for president?

You can bet your last nickel that when she goes up against Republican nominee Donald Trump the Times will talk about her foreign policy expertise and his lack thereof. 

When Liberals Fight

In an unusually public flare-up, one of MSNBC’s television personalities clashed with the network on Friday in a dispute about airtime and editorial freedom and said she was refusing to host the show that bears her name this weekend.

The host, Melissa Harris-Perry, wrote in an email to co-workers this week that her show had effectively been taken away from her and that she felt “worthless” in the eyes of NBC News executives, who are restructuring MSNBC. (New York Times, 2/27/2016)

No doubt the four people who watched Harris-Perry's show will be devastated.

First MSNBC ditches Sergeant Ed Schultz, then the Right Rev. Al Sharpton and now "Professor" Harris-Perry. The network grapples with an existential problem: what to do when no one watches. 

Pander Game

The Democratic candidates don’t want to be seen as “pandering” in South Carolina. (New York Times, 2/27/2016)

Well, Dems may not want to be "seen" as pandering to blacks, but that is exactly what they do.

RedStateVT Exclusive! Obama's SCOTUS Nominee List

RedStateVT has obtained a copy of the closely guarded secret list of President Obama's potential Supreme Court nominees. We present the list below along with our commentary explaining the likely rationale for Obama's choices.

1) Hillary Clinton (if she does not get the Democrat nomination for president)

Rationale: Consolation prize for Hillary. Plus Barack is tired of hearing that Bill and Hillary think he jumped the line in 2008 and squeezed Hillary out of her presidential birthright. Obama: I let you play at Secretary of State and now you can be a pretend Justice. The debt is paid. 

2) Bernie Sanders (if he does not get the Democrat nomination for president)

Rationale: Consolation prize for Bernie. Plus Barack wants to keep Sanders busy with something else besides disparaging the rich given that he (Obama) has every intention of getting rich after he leaves office. Also, it will give Sonia Sotomayer someone to have lunch with.

3) Johnnie Cochran

Rationale: No one has successfully used the court system more to gin up racial conflict in the U.S. than the flamboyant JC. If the Republican racists in Congress refuse to consider Cochran's nomination on the grounds that he is dead, Obama will default to the Rev. Al Sharpton. While Sharpton is not a lawyer, Obama will make the case that Sharpton knows the legal system well given his 'representation' of assorted criminals and his own legal travails. No Justice No Peace!

4) Barack H. Obama

Rationale: No one knows more about (shredding) the Constitution than the former constitutional law professor.


Not on the list:

President-in-Waiting Elizabeth Warren
Rationale: She is the President-in-Waiting.

Nevada Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval
Rationale: Obama's rope-a-dope about nominating a Republican didn't even fool the normally gullible Republicans.

Joe Biden
Rationale: Obama has finally had enough of Biden's mouth. The VP's comments arguing against filling a SC vacancy in an election year may have come decades ago, but Republicans are now calling it "the Biden rule." It's a no go for Joe. 

Why Democrats Should Like Donald Trump

In many regards, the persona of Donald Trump is entirely consistent with many of the things that Democrats have practiced over the years; things that have given Republicans pause, but which Democrats have insisted are (pick one) no big deal, nobody's business/private matters or representative of mainstream behavior. Far from criticizing Trump, Democrats should embrace him. Let's review several of the popular knocks on Trump and explain why.

The Donald has been married three times. 

In the distant past, anything other than a happily married candidate was a non-starter for political viability. While Ronald Reagan opened the door to a divorced president, it was Bill Clinton and his MoveOn supporters who ended the notion that a president's conduct in and around marriage mattered. 

The Donald may have engaged in some dubious real estate deals.

No doubt when faced with Republican nominee Trump Democrats will want to talk about real estate. Do they really want to go there? Democrats are heavily burdened with Whitewater, Harry Reid's Nevada shenanigans and, oh yeah, Barack and Michelle's dubious Chicago land deal. You remember, don't you? The one where they bought an adjoining parcel at a sweetheart price from a convicted felon. It doesn't get talked about that much, but if the Dems want to talk real estate, let's talk real estate. 

The Donald speaks off the cuff and sometimes says outrageous things. 

One name. Joe Biden. End of discussion.

The Donald changes his position. 

Most politicians do. Why Obama and Hillary were once even against gay marriage!

The Donald is rich.

Trump was born rich, but went out and made himself richer through hard work. So apparently Democrats believe that is worse than getting rich by giving six figure speeches to special interest groups seeking to curry favor? Like the previous issues, being rich is not a point on which Democrats can argue. In fact, Democrats should embrace their inner Trump. Why he can even be the country's first true consensus candidate! 

Make America Great Again!


Burn Down the Missions
The Plan to Shut Down Gitmo: Congress should carefully consider the Obama administration’s viable plan to shut down the prison at Guantánamo Bay by the end of the year. (New York Times editorial, 2/23/2016)

Imagining a Rikers Island With No Jail: The sensible thing to do with the jail complex is to close it. (New York Times editorial, 2/24/2016)

We are starting to see a pattern here. Do you? 

Liberals are NOT soft on crime (repeat ten times).

And here's another thought: With the New York Times closing down a prison a day, why do we even need to replace Justice Scalia? At this rate, there will be little for judges to do!


Strained
Mr. Sanders, those who know him say, exemplifies a distinct strain of Judaism, a secular offshoot at least 150 years old whose adherents in the shtetls of Eastern Europe and the jostling streets of the Lower East Side were socialists, anarchists, radicals and union organizers focused less on observance than on economic justice and repairing a broken world. (New York Times, 2/24/2016)

Yes, you read that correctly. Bernie comes from a long line of socialists and anarchists. 

Source: Obama Will Nominate Illegal Alien To Supreme Court

The Supremes
Democrats said that if Mr. McConnell persisted in trying to block a nomination, he should anticipate little cooperation from them moving forward, and that they would strive to frame the refusal to act as a radical and unprecedented move. (New York Times, 2/15/2016)

Why kind of like using reconciliation to pass Obamacare!


Mr. McConnell’s threat to block a confirmation could complicate the re-election chances of Republican senators in swing states. (New York Times, 2/15/2016)

And President Obama's insistence on nominating someone could complicate re-election chances of Democrats in other swing states. 


Reid to GOP: For the good of the country, stop your nakedly partisan obstruction: Mr. McConnell’s threat to block a confirmation could complicate the re-election chances of Republican senators in swing states. (Harry Reid, Washington Post, 2/16/2016)

Has there ever been a more hypocritical politician in the United States than Harry Reid? The same Harry Reid who used parlor tricks to pass Obamacare. Who obstructed at every turn. Who accused Mitt Romney of not paying his taxes. Who never submitted a budget. Who has gotten wealthy through a career in politics. 

We think not. 

The Democrat attack line on the brewing fight over the Supreme Court is that the public will turn on Republicans who obstruct Obama. No they won't. Fifty percent of the country will stand up and cheer. 


Appetizers
This attitude intensified the unappetizing solipsistic subtext of her campaign, which is “What is Hillary owed?” It turned out that female voters seem to be looking at Hillary as a candidate rather than as a historical imperative. And she’s coming up drastically short on trustworthiness. (Maureen Dowd, New York Times, 2/17/2016)

Maureen Dowd is as partisan as one can get. Her unending attacks on the Bush family long ago crossed the line of basic decency. We'll give her kudos, however, for this biting column on the Clintons. 


Singular
Mr. Sanders’s synecdoche for his idea is Wall Street. Everything wrong with American life can be charged up, in his telling, to a small neighborhood in lower Manhattan. Something old-fashioned there is about blaming Wall Street for all the country’s deficiencies. But, then, lunatics of one idea, basking in the pleasure of Manichaeism, like to focus all their enmity on one target. (Joseph Epstein, Wall Street Journal, 2/17/2016)

Must read column on One Trick Pony Bernie Sanders. 

Vintage

Coming From Reality
...the most persuasive repudiation of Mr. Obama’s economic record is coming from Democrats. Mr. Sanders and Mrs. Clinton are both campaigning against the economic status quo, deploring the lack of income growth, rising income inequality and unaffordable health care, among other problems. (Wall Street Journal, 2/11/2016)

One of the most striking things about Barack Obama's life story, and presidency, is the absence of accountability. He never has to answer for anything. Whether it be his early drug use, his "present" votes as a senator, rising - not falling - health care premiums or his economic stewardship over the past seven years. Both Sanders and Clinton deplore economic conditions in the U.S. at the same time that they argue over who loves Barack more.


Missing
Mr. Obama was otherwise in a reflective mood on the show, taking stock of his seven years in office and talking about what he will miss most when he leaves the White House. At the top of the list: Air Force One. When Ms. DeGeneres asked him if he would go back to flying on commercial airlines as a private citizen, he replied with an emphatic “No.” (New York Times, 2/12/2016)

Global climate change warrior Obama ain't going back to commercial air travel. It's private aviation only, proving yet again that Liberal hypocrisy knows no limits.


Entitled
His (Sanders) socialism is farcical in a country that can’t afford the entitlements it already has. (Holman W. Jenkins, Jr., Wall Street Journal, 2/12/2016)

One of the great services that Hillary Clinton can do for the country is to expose Bernie Sanders on the issue of how he intends to pay for the welfare state that he aims to create. She has done a bit so far, but she can certainly hammer him a lot harder. For his part, Bernie has two, equally ludicrous, responses. First, he denies the facts.*  For example, he is on the record already as saying that Social Security is fully funded for years into the future. Second, he is going to pay for it all by taxing stock trades which, of course, hurts anybody with a mutual fund.

*With the latest report of the Social Security and Medicare Trustees, the programs’ unfunded liabilities, in present value terms, are $60 trillion. The worker-to-retiree ratio, which was 5.0 when Medicare was created in the mid-1960s, today is 2.5, and headed for less than 2.0 after 2030. Left out of this calculation, of course, is the growing rank of non-retired entitlement recipients whom taxpayers must also support. (Wall Street Journal, 2/12/2016)


Face Lift
However, I do want to explain why I so firmly believe that, even today, women have an obligation to help one another. In a society where women often feel pressured to tear one another down, our saving grace lies in our willingness to lift one another up. (Madeline Albright, New York Times, 2/13/2016)

We are awaiting the correction which will read "...Liberal" women have an obligation to help one another." Because otherwise, how can Albright pass over the abuse suffered by Michelle Bachmann, Nikki Haley, Sarah Palin, Carly Fiorina and scores of other non-Liberal women?


Doctor My Eyes
Dr. Imani Perry of Princeton University (a transgender-friendly institution of higher learning!) was arrested on an outstanding warrant. Of course she insists that it was racially motivated and that she was mistreated by the police. Here is what the arresting officer said to her (as quoted in the New York Times yesterday) as evidenced by the video dashcam:

“Just give me a couple minutes; let me just look over everything, just make sure everything else is valid by checking your registration and everything, and we’ll get you out of here,” the officer told her, going back to his squad car.
...
“Unfortunately, anytime we transport anyone, because you’re under arrest because of the warrant, we have to put you in handcuffs, O.K., that’s anyone,” the male officer said.

“It’s just a parking offense, so nobody else has to know about it,” he added.
...
He said, “When we get there, you can call them, you can make as many phone calls and texts as you want.”
...
“We just gotta be sure that you’ve got nothing sharp, not saying you do,” the officer said.
...
“Are you O.K.?” he asked.
...
“No? Are you hyperventilating?” he asked. 
...
“As long as you have the money ... we’re just going to process you real quick.”

Sounds like yet another case of police brutality. How could the arresting officer fail to offer her a decaf cappuchino? 


Reject
In nearly every speech, Bernie Sanders reminds voters that he doesn’t have a super PAC, doesn’t want money from Wall Street and rejects establishment politics. Yet the Vermont senator has benefited from at least $1.5 million in backing from super PACs and from political groups that don’t have to fully disclose their donors, according to filings with the Federal Election Commission. (Wall Street Journal, 2/13/2016)

So why doesn't Bernie disavow these efforts on his behalf?


Indications
The fact that emails sent on Mrs. Clinton’s unclassified server must now be reviewed on the department’s classified network — with hundreds being released only with redactions — could be viewed as an indication that at least some of the information in the roughly 33,000 emails turned over by Mrs. Clinton’s lawyers should never have been sent on an unclassified network. (New York Times, 2/14/2016)

Well yes, it could, couldn't it? You would have to read down to paragraph twenty-one of this twenty-four paragraph article to see this admission.

Hillary Clinton and the Art of the Smear

In the face of brutal attacks from Bernie Sanders about her use of Wall Street firms as her personal piggybank, Hillary Clinton hits back calling it an "artful smear." Hillary knows a thing or two about smears having engaged in a few of her own along the way. Knowing that a forceful rebuttal is required, Hillary's team  comes up with "artful smear." Not just a run-of-the-mill smear, mind you, an "artful" smear. Someone at Team Hillary will get something extra in their paycheck this week for that one. Even Geraldo Rivera was using it in her defense. 

Which leads us to ask Democrats the following: how would you characterize the attacks on Mitt Romney four years ago? Romney is a church elder, a tither, charity patron, successful businessman, a model husband and father. Dems made him out to be a rapacious capitalist whose business practices killed people. Harry Reid said on the Senate floor that he had it on good knowledge that Romney had not paid taxes for ten years. Now those are "artful smears."


Rolling
The evidence continues to roll in: Broad increases in the minimum wage destroy jobs and hurt the working-class Americans that they are supposed to help. The latest evidence is an announcement that Wal-Mart, America’s largest employer, will close more than 150 U.S. stores, a move that will affect 10,000 employees. (Andy Puzder, Wall Street Journal, 2/6/2016)

Liberals will probably criticize Wal-Mart for closing stores and laying off people. 

The same Liberals who complain when Wal-Mart opens a store. 

The same Liberals who complain that Wal-Mart does not pay its employees enough.  


Programmed
Hillary Clinton’s older feminist supporters have a message for young women who are not backing her candidacy: Shame on you. ...Two feminist icons of Mrs. Clinton’s generation made their frustration known over the weekend, calling on young women who view Mr. Sanders as their candidate to essentially grow up and get with the program. (New York Times, 2/7/2016)

So young females should support Hillary Clinton because she is a woman. Just as all blacks are supposed to support Barack Obama. Funny that no one is saying that blacks should support Ben Carson or Hispanics should support Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio. For that matter, what about Carly Fiorina? She fits the criteria. But Carly Fiorina does not run as a woman. Ben Carson does not run as a black candidate. Ted Cruz does not run as a Hispanic. The difference, of course, is that with Democrats it is all about identity politics. So Hillary Clinton runs as a woman. (Also a grandmother!) That is the Democrat "program." 


Whistle Stop
There were reports of secret waiting lists to hide long delays in care. Whistle-blowers said as many as 40 veterans had died waiting for appointments. And Congress was demanding answers.

Despite mounting evidence of trouble at the Department of Veterans Affairs, Senator Bernie Sanders, then the chairman of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, initially regarded the complaints as overblown, and as a play by conservatives to weaken one of the country’s largest social welfare institutions.

“There is, right now, as we speak, a concerted effort to undermine the V.A.,” Mr. Sanders said in May 2014, two weeks after the story was picked up by national news organizations. “You have folks out there now — Koch brothers and others — who want to radically change the nature of society, and either make major cuts in all of these institutions, or maybe do away with them entirely.” (New York Times, 2/7/2016)

The New York Times largely ignored the VA scandal when it was uncovered for several reasons. Most importantly. it could not be pinned on Republicans. A Democrat, Bernie Sanders was in charge of Senate oversight for the VA. Furthermore, the VA is the Democrat model for single payer, government run, health care. How would it look to expose any of that?

Now, of course, it is convenient for the Times to bring it up in order to check Sanders in the face of his challenge against their favored candidate.

Motif

Shifty
...Secretary Clinton’s public statements have shifted markedly. Initially, she maintained that no classified information had been communicated through her private system. This claim became untenable with the revelation that hundreds of her emails contained classified information (the current count exceeds 1,500). So Secretary Clinton adopted the similarly unsustainable position that this became classified only after she received it. Now, faced with the undeniable fact that much of the information was “born classified,” she claims that it was not “marked” classified, and that any mishandling may be the fault of underlings. (Andrew C. McCarthy, former federal prosecutor, New York Times, 2/4/2016)

A concise rendering of how Hillary has lied.


As They Say
Mrs. Clinton, lobbing her harshest assault yet in their race for the Democratic presidential nomination, said months of criticism by Mr. Sanders over her taking speaking fees from Wall Street banks amounted to a suggestion that she was corrupt — or, as she put it, a “very artful smear.” (New York Times, 2/5/2016)

Why is Hillary so mad at Berns over his bringing up her Wall Street speaking fees? It's simple. The Bern is breaking a cardinal rule among Liberals. Namely, Liberals are allowed to do the things that they criticize others for doing. Whether its trying to avoid taxes (John Kerry), flying around in private planes (any Hollywood actor), or taking money from Wall Street (B. Hussein Obama, Hillary Clinton), it is not a sin if Liberals do it. By the way, good for The Bern!


ICUed
Filmmaker Michael Moore is in an intensive-care unit with pneumonia, he said Thursday through his verified Twitter account. (USAtoday.com, 2/5/2016)

Oddly, Moore is rumored to be receiving care in the U.S. and not in a Cuban hospital... Another Liberal hypocrite.


DOA
President Obama will propose a $10 fee for every barrel of oil to be paid by oil companies in order to fund clean energy transport system, the White House announced Thursday -- although Republicans were quick to declare the plan "dead on arrival" in Congress. (Foxnews.com, 2/5/2016)

Liberals still don't get it no matter how many times that we try to educate them. Obama's $10 tax is not going to be paid by the oil companies. It will be passed along to the consumer just like a carbon tax or any other brilliant Liberal idea for raising revenue to pay for the welfare state. Working people - who Liberals claim they want to help - will be penalized. 

Barack Goes to a Mosque

Spikey
Concerns about Muslims and Syrian refugees in the United States grew after terrorist attacks in Paris in November claimed the lives of 130 people and after a mass shooting by a husband-and-wife team in San Bernardino, Calif., in December killed 14 people and seriously wounded 22. Both sets of attackers were inspired by the Islamic State.

Since then, attacks on American Muslims and mosques have spiked, according to the Council on American-Islamic Relations. At a meeting at the White House last month, prominent Muslim Americans pleaded with senior administration officials to have the president visit a mosque in the hopes of stemming such attacks. (New York Times, 2/3/2016)

If the numbers are coming from CAIR, you can be absolutely convinced that they are bogus. We're guessing....between 3 and 5 attacks max. Whatever the number, you can bet that it is less than the number of attacks on Jews and synagogues. No matter, however, Brother Barack goes to the mosque anyway and apologizes to Muslims.

There is no truth to the rumor that Obama will then visit a Coptic church to express solidarity at the genocide being perpetrated on this ancient Christian sect at the hands of ISIS. 


Separately
As he and Mrs. Clinton took separate charter flights from Iowa to New Hampshire before dawn on Tuesday, Mr. Sanders and his team were making plans to spend more than $1 million on television commercials... (New York Times, 2/3/2016)

How do we know that Liberals are hypocrites when it comes to global warming? Because Bern and Hill took separate charter flights. Why couldn't they plane-pool and go together? For that matter, why didn't they take a commercial flight? The answer is simple: the prescriptions they tout for the common man do not apply to the Liberal political elite.

Bienvenida a Los Estados Unidos

Ann Coulter's latest smash best seller is entitled Adios America. The sub-title is The Left's Plan to Turn Our Country into a Third World Hellhole. The topic is America's immigration policies and Coulter's exhaustively researched analysis presents a truly frightening picture of how under the banner of diversity Liberals have endangered the country by admitting hoards of foreign welfare recipients and criminals. We have only one quibble with Coulter. Based on our recent experience returning to the U.S. at New York City's JFK airport recently, it may already be too late. JFK is already a Third World Hellhole, albeit one with marginally cleaner toilets. Here is what we found.

At JFK Customs and Immigration one enters a large brightly lit room with modern looking kiosks to scan your passport. But before you get to them you are forced to snake through miles of aisles. When one finally reaches the aforementioned kiosks, it is a free-for-all. Personnel from Customs are present, but they are quite obviously diversity hires. English does not appear to be their native language, they provide no direction, and they simply mill about in groups talking among themselves. You will long for the higher level of courtesy and efficiency found at the average post office. After you get your passport scanned... well you are basically on your own. There is a line that weaves randomly around and between the scanners, but it is not marked, the end of the line cannot be found, and there is no indication of where the line goes or what it is for. 

As luck would have it, this line eventually heads in the direction of the U.S. Immigration stations. It is worth noting that there are approximately ten or more such stations. Approximately eight are dedicated to handling non-U.S. citizens entering the country. Only two are solely for returning Americans. By our estimation, English speakers on the line for residents totaled no more than 40%. 

The entire experience reminds one of what movies depict of airports in the third world backwaters of Africa and the Middle East. The only thing missing were the AK-47 wielding armed guards.

Welcome to America. Or should we say Bienvenida a Los Estados Unidos.