Obama's Axis of Evil

Is this the Only Law that Might Pass Congress in 2016?

Big news:

“U.S. Speaker Paul Ryan and his Republican lieutenants want to hit fellow lawmakers with fines and potential ethics violations if they engage in live-streaming or other disruptions on the House floor.

The move is a belated response to this summer’s 25-hour sit-in by Democrats protesting Republican inaction on gun-control legislation”  (...LAST JUNE!) **

Oh, Bravo

Origin Story

Where Does This Toughness on Russia Come From?

"...and, after they talked back to their mother again last night,

I am announcing tough new economic sanctions on the allowances of Sasha and Malia"

Out with a Whimper

'Cuz There's No Better Reason to Abandon Your (Lofty) Principles than Personal Spite

"Peace is hard work. Peace will not come through statements and resolutions at the United Nations" - President Obama in 2011 vetoing the same sort of UN proposal

by Mark Goldfeder - What He Said

(Additionally, it contains good historical background on the settlement lands)

With an incoming President-Elect arguably devoid of principles (at least unselfish ones), the Administration's betrayal of Israel in a final fit of pique towards Israeli President Netanyahu is both highly disappointing and diminishing to the last occupant of the office.

Fox in Charge of the Henhouse

Scott Pruitt, Oklahoma Attorney-General, named to head EPA

When horizontal fracturing ("fracking") began a booming decade or more of production in Pruitt's home state of Oklahoma

(Indirect measure of contaminated wastewater pumped into ground for oil & gas production)

Earthquakes in OK went from 3 to 600+ per year

And "potable water" started to look like this:

And do this:

Ironically, as AG for Oklahoma, Pruitt has spent much of his time in office fighting against the mission and the regulatory efforts of the very agency he has been picked to lead.  (It's a highlight on his LinkedIn page....)

• Instead of going after the frackers, he filed suit against the EPA - TWICE.
• He's actively opposed regulatory efforts intended to stop pollution of water and the rivers.
• He's joined in a suit to stop EPA attempts to rein in toxic air pollutants like mercury, arsenic and smog contributors. 
• "Impartial" guy that he is, he saw fit to sign and send out missives written on his letterhead devised by lobbyists and lawyers from Devon Energy, a fracking company.

So, yeah, sure, he's just the right fox guy to protect the environment.

Welcome Back, Nancy!

'Hey, the voters just don't understand...'

In line with the media's overused "Double Down" phrase, 

Democrats in the House voted last week for

More of the Same 

Reaching into President Obama's bag of usual excuses, Pelosi said the 2016 election losses were merely a "communications problem."  (Apparently Obama's favorite line: "Inherited it from Bush back in ought-8" is being saved for when something truly bad happens to the Democrats.) 

Actual Democratic policy and priority changes are evidently off the table

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Trump-the-Disruptor won 2600 counties compared to just 500 won by Clinton

That's just one indicator of how little the Washington, DC elitists and the media, particularly the Democrats, represent America.  This result was reflected across the board at the state and local levels - this is where future national Congressmen/women come from. 

How bleak is the situation for Democrats?

"With a firm grip on the presidency, Congress, and soon the Supreme Court, Republicans have won more political power in 2016 than in any election since at least 1928" (Daily Kos)

The GOP went up to 33 governors, and now control 68 state legislative bodies vs 31 for the DNC.  Republicans dominate in number of states where all three (Gov/Sen/House) state bodies are in their control.

Democrats control states shown in Blue, Red for Republicans

Nationally in the 2010 election, the Democrats under Speaker Pelosi ceded control of the House with an astonishing loss of 25% of their seats to the Republicans.  They wallowed around that impotent level for the next three elections, even with a presidential win in 2012.

Geographically, the "Big Tent" Democrats could, until recently, say they had a sizable representation across the nation, particularly in the South.  For example, Blue Dog Democrats were a contingent originally united as a block because the "Democratic Party had gone too far left and was rejected by the American people."(Blue Dog Caucus)  In the 2008 election they were a force to be reckoned with a healthy 54 representatives.

Just the Blue Dog Democratic Representatives in 2009

They sought to represent the middle of the partisan spectrum, but under Pelosi's San Francisco-centric leadership that did not last.  Support for their positions and state needs, rallies for their candidacies and campaign money simply dried up.  In the new Congress there are just 14 lonely Blue Dog Democrats left in a sea of 435 congressional representatives.

The party under Pelosi has become a coastal coalition with islands of progressive resistance in population centers.  Obviously, the rest of America just doesn't appreciate how beneficial the Democrats' free-spending liberal-elitist values are for them.

Fortunately for Leader Pelosi, any qualified Democrat who might say different was purged long ago.

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IN OTHER NEWS
Apparently the DNC is also looking for a new chairman.  I hear Debbie Wasserman Schultz is available....
  

A Disruptive President Begins at Home

How Might Things Be Different Under a Trump Presidency?

Constant Media Access to the President

No Media Access to the President 

 

The Traditional Presidential Pardoning of the Thanksgiving Turkeys

The State of the Union Tweet

Presidential Bill Signings

And the distribution of ceremonial pens

Muzzled by the Left: The Middle Bites Back

It takes a whole lot of sanctimonious hypocrisy to condemn half the population because they didn't agree with the

Party of Tolerance

  

This is what the left would have had the electorate believe

(Funny thing is, there are still a large number of progressive media types, politicians and Hillary supporters who sincerely feel - and what matters more than feelings? - this to be the case)

Censorship, like elections, has consequences.  As part of the wholesale revolt against elitism on both sides, the carefully crafted walls of political correctness have cracked, most notably in the dismissal of candidate Trump's almost complete disregard of political sensitivities.  By and large this censorship campaign was a decade's old product of the progressive side, and their well-trained media sheep.  It would appear 'the boys who cried racist' have done it too many times to be believed any more.

The Pendulum is Swinging

 (found this online - credit Benjamin Studebaker except for the odd string lengthening when it swings to each side)

I had been struggling with how to express this sentiment without being labeled a racist or misogynist (that’s how pernicious this censorship is), when I read an editorial that pretty much summed it up.  Peg Tyre’s piece in Politico (“Why Women Rejected Hillary” 14 Nov 16) addressed why women are not simply a voting block politicians can take for granted or assume will act as one, but her last point hit upon the silence imposed using political correctness. 

  

“Lesson Five: Please Stop Talking and Listen, Lefty Feminists

When Trump talked about his rejection of political correctness, it may have been a coded call for racism for some. But for a lot of the former Barack Obama, now Trump, supporters, it was a reaction against what they see as the tyranny of the left. It was a rejection of the kind of discourse, first found on campuses and enforced by the Title IX compliance squads and increasingly accepted into progressive society at large, where political engagement takes the form of policing the language and expressions of others. This is a tricky point to raise right now, when social media is filled with the worst kind of hate, but in spaces that purport to have room for civil discourse—starting with college classrooms—one side cannot express its point of view and then claim that the other side is victimizing it by merely expressing its side.

The left muzzled the middle of the road and the right and mistook their silence for tacit agreement. Now the left is shocked to see that those women who said nothing not only disagreed, but wanted to exercise their right of free expression all along. Now they are.”

Turns out, this concept doesn’t just apply to women, but regular people across the board.  The establishment doesn’t listen or want to hear views that might rock their comfortable little boat and worldview.  Even worse, disagreement isn’t just ignored but suppressed.  Frustration builds up and when the only way to vent is to cast a vote in the privacy of the booth, surprises result.