Nancy Pelosi: without Government you wouldn't have an iPhone

Even if you concede this dopey point, and you shouldn't because it's irretrievably stupid, the point is fundamentally irrelevant. In a Democracy like ours here are literally millions of hinge Government could do, but just because Government CAN do something, doesn't mean it should, and as free citizens it is our responsibility to decide those things that are outside the sphere of things Government should do... Especially when the only way for Government to "do" something is to spend tax dollars extracted from its citizens by force.

And when Government is as broke as our Government is, then that list gets very short.

Oh and I'm sure Apple would be happy for Government to assume as much of the cost of their R&D as possible, they'd be crazy not to. But to say that without Government largess, that the iPhone would not exist is an unbelievable stretch.

Happy new year!

let's all get ready for what will likely be the most interesting Presidential election in any of our lifetimes...

Also, the first year in 35 years that there is no touring version of Motley Crue.

Yet another Rubio argument

Let's talk about Rubio and Immigration... You Trumpkins and "EVERYONE NOT NAMED REAGAN IS A RINO!!!" Folks can stop reading here... 

Of course his participation in the Gang of 8 deal was stupid, and yes, it was unConservative, but why must it disqualify him from the Presidency? No matter how much the ideological purity crowd wants to believe it, Rubio is not some Manchurian Sleeper Agent sent by the Chamber of Commerce and the Illuminati to help usher in the dawn of a new era in GOP-sponsored Progressivism-lite. I think the truth is much more simple. Rubio was a young politician at the time, still is really, with Presidential ambitions and not much in the way of signature achievements. I think he looked at the tactical situation and thought hey, I'm a young Latino, if I can pull of a 40-years-in-the-making grand bargain that provides real border security with a path to citizenship as long as illegals in the country pay a price then I would have to be considered a front runner for the Presidency... And I think that could have been absolutely true. If he'd pulled it off, he would have been personally responsible for bringing in a huge new wave of Latino voters to the GOP. That would have been a huge win for all of us and a massive defeat for the Democrats who have been looking for a way to lock those up votes for years.

It's just that he miscalculated in getting into bed with people who did not share his vision for his own future. I do think that McConnell, and Reid, and Boehner, and even McCain are, at this point, in this to maintain their own power and position, and Rubio was a sacrifice to that effort. To misquote Animal House, "he fucked up, he trusted them."

So he made a mistake. He reached high and came up short. And when it didn't work, he apologized and promised to do better in the future. What else can you want in a President?

But let's get down to brass tacks. Let's say I'm wrong and Rubio is a sleeper agent bred in a lab by the GOPe to deliver Amnesty in 2016... So what? Amnesty won't come from the President... It can't. If there is going to be an Immigration law, it will, in fact must, come from the House. So if a border security first bill makes it to his desk, do you really believe a President Rubio would veto it? I mean even if deep down he really REALLY wants to? Of course not... But you know who WOULD veto such a bill? President Hillary.

And so no matter who wins next November, the Immigration fight will still be in the House... Right where it's always been. And if by some miracle the Conservative base is successful in getting the right bill through that battle, I'd be thrilled to see Rubio sitting behind the Resolute Desk waiting to sign, because I'm confident he'd do the right thing.

UPDATE: it occurs to me that, despite angry base claims to the contrary, it IS possible to be both the GOP establishment choice AND and good Conservative... Oh and by the way angry base voter, you already won! The GOPe wanted Jeb! and they're not getting him... So you forced them to compromise and support Rubio instead. That's how a negotiation works... Everybody gets a little something. It's not a negotiation if one side loses everything and the winners salt the Earth. Why not stop being angry for five seconds and try to enjoy your victory... Thing is, we rarely make good decisions when we're in the middle of a tantrum.

The eerie prescience of Bluto Blutarsky's sweatshirt

Ah College... Those heady days when you spent your time practicing the finer points of grifting... Learning to suck the system dry for your own benefit and with a minimum of effort.... Never having to worry if that degree for which you paid 100K would actually result in a job after graduation.... Because if it didn't, you'd simply force the University to create a six figure "Diversity Consultant" position for you...

What? You say that wasn't your experience? Well Things have changed. There's a new normal on America's college campuses that can best be described as "Everything is offensive and must be removed"... Memory-holed as Orwell would have said. All other considerations are secondary.

First, college age Social Justice Warriors went after current, sitting University Presidents and Professors, not because they were racist, but because... Well, no one is exactly sure why. But having gotten their scalps, most notably at Mizzou and Yale, these SJWs... Terrorists without the beheadings, decided to go after bigger fish.

It started with Woodrow Wilson. I was inclined to let this one go because Wilson was, apparently, an actual racist... And also a Democrat, as most historical racists were, and it's fun to watch the Left eat its own.

But this monster is insatiable, and it won't stop with Wilson... in fact, it did NOT stop with him.

At Harvard Law, the venerable School Crest, founder, and the word "Master" have all been declared problematic... They've got to go. At Oxford, the most famous scholarship in the world is in danger of losing its name because this Rhodes guy was apparently not a 21st Century Renaissance Man... as is entirely typical of men who lived in the 19th Century of course, but no matter. The movement has no time for such trivialities. Like a shark it must continue relentlessly forward to its next meal or die.

But statues and names are pedestrian pursuits. What these people want is real power, real control, not over College Adminstrators, but over the lives of everyday citizens with different (read: WRONG) ideas about what it means to be free.

And so, having gotten everything they've ever asked for with a bare minimum of fuss and muss, these young Alinskys in training have moved on to more practical battlefields, like Dining Halls. At Oberlin, undercooked rice is now "culturally disrespectful." This guy wants you to know that the fact that there's no fried chicken on the menu proves Oberlin doesn't care about honoring black culture... Even though if fried chicken WAS on the menu, somebody, probably this same idiot, would be calling THAT racist.

Trying to appease these people is like being one of Jigsaw's victims in the SAW franchise. You can't win, and anything you try only makes things worse, until your head is crushed by a bladed Rube Goldberg contraption while the discorporated voices of Cloward and Piven cackle on the staticky speaker of an Occupy Campus (TM) bullhorn. But off these college administrators go anyway, somehow believing that if they can only say the right thing, apologize in the right way, offer the perfect ritual sacrifice, that they'll be left alone.

They won't.

Having won every battle they've fought, often without even trying very hard, the smell of blood is in the water. The SJWs are basically trolling these Universities at this point. What else should we ban to appease their insatiable desire to punish the white male Patriarchy? Should we ban the Rolling Stones and The Beatles? "It's the End" and "Under My Thumb" prove pretty conclusively that both bands had, at best, a problematic view of women's rights.

Frankly, It's a miracle that no one has tried asking for straight up cash payments yet.... Oh wait, they actually have.

If this keeps up, eventually, like Bluto Blutarsky's sweatshirt, every University in America will simply be called COLLEGE.... every other potential name having been declared highly problematic. When a young college man (or person who identifies as a man) asks his gender-fluid date where he should pick Xer up, Xe'll tell him "Dorm 1138". And the only thing on the dining hall menu will be locally sourced, culturally respectful, cruelty-free diet Soylent Green.

The real legacy of the Obama years

Cowardice masquerading as courage...

If you watched the news at all this past Tuesday then you know that Los Angeles Unified School District closed some 900 schools, stranding 650,000 kids and their parents because of a dubious threat of terrorism.

The threat, in the form of an email, was also sent to a New York City school system who deemed it so preposterous that not only did they keep schools open, but Police Chief Bratton was out in the media within hours openly mocking Los Angeles for falling for this hoax. On cue, the LAUSD Superintendent, in full on CYA mode, appeared before cameras spouting that most odious of Bureaucratic weasel phrases "out of an abundance of caution"....

I'm sure that was a relief to a million or so parents who had to scramble for childcare that day with less than a half hour's notice.

But it was the response to the overreaction the following day that revealed what I think is the true legacy of the Obama years, and that is this... across America in towns big and small, are public officials by the thousands... each with a staff, and a salary, and an office, but without much in the way of courage or basic common sense. But what they've learned from the man in the White House, is that there is no amount of stupidity that can't be covered up with a flowery, meaningless speech.

Take the President of the LA School Board, who obviously spent the night getting an earful from pissed off parents. He walked in front of the microphone this morning and, hoping that he could use an elegant turn of phrase to make us forget how badly he and his colleagues overreacted to a threat so bogus the author couldn't even be bothered to capitalize "Allah", said "what you saw yesterday was a community turning towards one another, not against one another"...

Really?!

I mean what hell does that even mean? Who in god's name wrote that and how much do they get paid? Did you write that WHILE parents were scrambling to find a place to park their kids for the day? 

Listen, that crap may work with the President, who has been getting passes he doesn't deserve since he took office, but this is a low level Bureaucratic functionary we're talking about. I don't need to hear poetic bon mots about the better angels of our nature from this guy. I need him to shut up, do his job, and let me know when it's done.

And then our own Police Chief stood up and, flashing his anger that we mere citizens would dare to challenge his judgment, complained "it's easy to sit in judgment when you're not responsible for the outcome..."

What!?

I'm not responsible for the outcome!? These are OUR kids we're talking about you douchecanoe. To misquote Breaking Bad... "I AM THE RESPONSIBILITY!!!"

Oh and by the way, we only know the contents of the email threat because it was leaked (probably by New York in an effort to shame LA). LA Officials tried to keep it secret because they were worried, correctly, that we would all see what reactionary pussies they really are and call them on it.

Look I'm not highly a paid public servant, but this is not hard. Here's what a smart, confident, capable Authority Figure would have said...

"My Fellow Angelenos,

This morning we received an email threat of terrorism. You can read it yourself as I have directed my Deputies to immediately release the full contents of this email to the Public. In short, an anonymous terrorist claims he and others have planted bombs and nerve gas in several Los Angeles area schools. They claim to have done the same in New York City.

We cannot, as of yet, verify the claims contained in this email but I want to stress that we have no credible evidence to suggest that this threat is real.

Nevertheless, I know how scary this must sound. We are talking about the safety of your children and I do no want to give the impression that we are taking that lightly. I have asked the Police Chief to give me two armed officers to place on the front steps of every LAUSD school... that's eighteen hundred armed men and women... who have pledged to protect your children with their very lives. SWAT and Bomb Disposal units will spread throughout the city doing random checks on school across the area.

You will feel an armed presence today and you will feel safe. I can promise you that.

Any parent who elects to keep their child home today, I want you to know that I understand. And to any LAUSD teacher who feels uncomfortable coming in to work today, I get it, and we will work hard to accommodate you.

But LAUSD schools WILL be open for business today.

To the terrorists who would threaten our children I say this. We will take every precaution to defeat your plans and deny you these victories you seek, but make no mistake, we will not upend our lives at your every whim.

This is Los Angeles... we can take it.

Have a great day at school."

The speech that could dump Trump

Rush Limbaugh made an interesting point. Regarding how to shut down the Donald, he said that there is no major Conservative figure with the moral authority to stand up and say to Republican voters, "this man cannot be our nominee. You must not vote for him. And here's why..." He argues that the Party Establishment has been so feckless and tone deaf over the last two decades that the voters have simply tuned them out and are now flocking to the Donald in a pique of "screw you."

I think he's almost right...  there is one exception.

George W. Bush

(and a righteous howl of rage and indignation rose up over the Internet such that children covered their ears in pain and flocks of birds took wing in sheer terror)

Yeah yeah I know, but stay with me here. I'm not saying Bush could step to the podium and heal all our party divisions with one sentence. But I do think there is a speech in him that could solve this. Here's what I think it would sound like:

----------------------------------------
My fellow Republicans,

We need to have a conversation about where we are as a party. I have never been more excited about the future of the Republican Party. I look at our outstanding field of Candidates and Party leaders and I see the future. I see two Cuban-Americans whose personal stories are literally the story of America. Both are the product of working class parents who came to this country to escape large oppressive Governments and the tyranny of Socialism so that their children could have a chance at a brighter future. And now two of those children sit a hair's breadth away from the Presidency. That's an incredible story that could only have happened here.  I see a brilliant businesswoman who is the embodiment of the American dream. A woman who started her career as a secretary and worked her way up to CEO of one of the largest and most forward thinking tech companies in the world... another amazing story that must be filed under "only in America." I see Governors who have led States like Texas to economic success that has dwarfed what many thought possible in the face of a massive recession, Governors who have broken racial and ethnic barriers in states like Louisiana, and Governors who have broken through iron-strong blue walls of power in historically Democratic States like New Jersey.

Across the aisle, on the Democratic side, I see a stale past. Old... white... tired. The same failed ideas of Socialism and Big Government that have brought us to this sad place of weakness abroad and economic disaster at home.

We should be killing them. But we aren't, and we won't... not as long as Donald Trump is our front runner.

To those of you who support Donald Trump I want to say this. I understand the message you're sending. I do. You're angry. You're angry that for twenty years the establishment leaders of your party, backed by corporate interests and big money donors, have tried to force upon you things that you hate. Things like open borders and Amnesty. Things like more and more spending and bigger and more frightening levels of National Debt. And worse, when The Democrats and their media allies have called you racist, or backwards, or small-minded for opposing those policies, those same Establishment leaders have not had your back. They have caved in the face of false charges of racism and sexism and selfishness over-and-over again, and it has been nothing short of disgraceful. You want someone to fight for you, to demand that our leaders stop accusing you of dark and evil motivations. To say dammit, this is NOT how you treat people who are your fellow countrymen and who have legitimate concerns about the direction in which this country is headed.

Instead we fought for our own entrenched interests.

Yes I said "We". I understand your anger and frustration because I am partly responsible for it. You have been asking for smaller less-intrusive Government, better security abroad, and safer borders for two decades and we have not listened. It's become an article of faith in the media that the Tea Party was created in racist opposition to the first African-American President, but that is an awful lie. The Tea Party was born under my leadership. It was a reaction to MY policies, not Barack Obama's. And I should have listened. We all should have listened. That's on me...

It's on all of us.

You have done nothing wrong except believe passionately in your nation's potential. We have done just about everything wrong. And I'm sorry as hell about it. There's not much I can do about all that now except to say that I do not believe that it's too late to fix this... to heal the rift that has sprung up between us. But we cannot fix it with Donald Trump as our nominee.

I believe Donald Trump will destroy this party. I believe it in my heart. It's not just that I think he would lose to any Democratic nominee in a landslide, though I certainly think that's true. It is that he will squander an historic opportunity to expand the tent under which the Party ought to be thriving. He will give the Democratic Party and their media allies cover to expand upon the vicious lie that Republicans are racist, sexist and backward. It's not true. It's never been true. But I promise you this, they'll do it, and it will work.

And we will lose.

I used to work in Baseball. Baseball is unique among sports because it carries with it a set of rules that don't appear in the rule book, but that are just as iron-clad as the rule saying three strikes and you're out. Politics is a lot like that. The unwritten rules of Politics say I'm not supposed to be giving this speech. It's unseemly for a former President to speak out against a sitting President, much less to speak out against the front-runner of his own Party's nominating process.

But these times we live in are extraordinary. We face challenges that the people who agreed upon those unwritten rules could never have imagined. We face a National Debt so large that it can never be paid back. Think about that. We can never pay back our National Debt. What does that even mean for our future? No one really knows, and no one seems to care... certainly not Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders. We are still a year away from the Presidential election and already both Candidates have proposed programs that, while they may buy votes, would also add trillions of dollars to our debt.

Trillions.

We face an enemy so evil it burns people alive and drowns them in cages. An enemy that rapes and murders captive women because they don't share the same faith. An enemy that even now is looking for ways to kill as many Americans as possible in attacks on our homeland. Believe me when I tell you this because I've seen the intelligence... if they could get their hands on a nuclear weapon and set it off in New York City tomorrow, they would. And they may yet.

One hundred million Americans are out of the work force. Put another way, one third of the nation is not working... an historic number. Another fifty million are on food stamps. The Democrats like to talk about sustainable systems... does that sound sustainable to you?

Like sugary sweets, Donald Trump says things that make us feel good. "I'm gonna build a wall." "I'll bomb the shit out of ISIS" (his words, not mine). But the things that make us feel good are rarely good for us. Donald Trump is not a serious man. He's certainly not a Conservative, this man who once supported in thought, word, and deed, the Woman he now claims he would run against and defeat.

He is an entertainer. He is a master showman and I don't know that anyone has ever been better at manipulating the media than he. But he cannot be our nominee.

My fellow citizens, we must not vote for this man. We cannot. Anger is not the same thing as sound policy. We have an historic opportunity to grow our party under the leadership of a smart, sober, and thoughtful leader. Let's seize it. We must... for if we travel down that other path... well, that way lies madness.

Thank you. good night, and may God bless the United States of America.

What if it's ISIS?

So now we're starting to get stories that the San Berdoo killers pledged allegiance to ISIS, although Obama and his media allies are still pushing the workplace violence angle...

If you're wondering why that might be, I'll tell you. Obama has spent a lot of time and political capital explaining to us how much of a threat ISIS is not, and that's allowed him to do several things that he seems absolutely fixated on for some reason... closing Gitmo, bringing in tons of Syrian Refugees even he admits we can't vet properly, and refusing to close our Southern border.

If it turns out he's been wrong about ISIS (spoiler alert: he is) then he won't be able to do all those things he's unnaturally fixated upon... for some reason. And the worst thing that can happen to Obama is not getting his way.

But there's another angle here. If it turns out this was an ISIS attack, or even an 'ISIS-inspired" attack, then it's yet another detail to add to a growing mountain of evidence that Government is completely incompetent and totally unable to defend us from this growing threat... despite Obama's continuous claims that they are a contained Javee squad and there is no evidence of any imminent attacks on the homeland now or ever.

If people begin to wake up to this reality, they might realize that if they find themselves in the midst of such an attack, that they are on their own.  No one will be coming to help them.

And you want to know the first thing people do when they come to the conclusion that they are on their own in the face of a violent existential threat?

They buy a gun.

UPDATE: It's impossible to stay focused on a breaking news story forever. Eventually we will all get tired of this and focus on other things, like living our lives. I think Obama is going to try and ride this "workplace violence" pony as far as he can and hope to get past that point where people stop paying attention. If he can do that, our Idiocracy Culture will move on never having heard that these killers were Islamic Jihadists and ten years from now, everyone will parrot the Workplace Violence line as if it's established history.