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Rep. Ted Lieu, a Democrat from California, walked out of Congress’ moment of silence for the victims of the Texas church shooting on Monday.

Keepin’ it classy.

“I am heartbroken about the children and the adults that were killed in the worst mass shooting in Texas history this Sunday,” Lieu stated. “My colleagues have a right to do [a moment of silence] and I myself have participated in many of them.”

“I cannot do this again. I have done too many moments of silences,” he asserted. “What we need is we need action, we need to pass gun safety legislation now.”

Lieu called for a universal background check, a ban on bump stocks, and a ban on assault rifles.

Except that this shooter passed the background check (because the Air Force screwed up), didn’t use a bump stock, and actual assault rifles are controlled as automatic weapons.

Those who depend on the government for their safety wind up in the ground.

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Saudi Arabia deployed its U.S.-provided Patriot missile defense system against a Yemeni missile targeting the capital city of Riyadh Saturday.

The missile was launched by Houthi rebels, an Iranian backed Shiite militia Saudi Arabia is actively fighting in the neighboring gulf country. The missile was reportedly towards an airport in the capital city if Riyadh, spreading panic throughout.

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Drafted and enacted in response to the 2007–2009 financial crisis, the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (Dodd-Frank) became law in 2010. Dodd-Frank’s drafters hoped the law would repair the flaws in the financial system that had so painfully manifested themselves during the financial crisis. Rather than addressing the regulatory failures that led to the crisis, Dodd-Frank’s core solution was to shift decision-making from the private sector to regulators—the same regulators whose lapses had contributed to the crisis. Dodd-Frank has been costly in the short term, as any major regulatory overhaul would be. The financial industry and regulators have poured countless hours and dollars into implementing the new law. Of greater concern than these short-term implementation costs are Dodd-Frank’s potential long-run costs. Rather than averting crises, Dodd-Frank’s rejiggering of the financial system has created the preconditions for a future crisis, while inhibiting economic growth and dynamism.

A reminder that government workers are bad at nearly everything they touch, and so ought not to be placed in charge unless there is literally no other option.

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The brownshirts of the Left are on the march.

Yet Trump is the New Hitler.

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Having cast the clay model and shipped it off to the foundry for a casting mold, the Washington, D.C. city council is set to approve a new statue honoring…Marion Barry.

Since Muriel Bowser is the Major of D.C., the inscription really ought to read ‘Bitch set me up.’

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You might think so.

According to a Supreme Court brief filed today, Utah prairie dogs “produce nothing of importance except the annoyance of the surrounding population,” and “they make terrible pets.” The brief, which urges the Court to hear a constitutional challenge to a federal regulation protecting the rodents, concedes that they are “adorable little critters” but notes that “the protection of cuteness is not a congressional power” granted by the Constitution.

…

“The government seeks to protect an abundant, commercially irrelevant, and wholly intrastate rodent without regard for whether such regulation has any connection to economic activity, let alone commerce among the several states,” says the Cato/Reason/IRF brief. “The Utah prairie dog is not a marketable commodity. There is no illicit trade in prairie dog horns or hides for the government to suppress. They carry no firearms into school zones. Their domestic relations are none of the government’s business. Finally, they have neither purchased health insurance nor plan to do so in future.” Those are references to Supreme Court cases in which the government claimed (mostly without success) that a federal law was constitutional because the activity it regulated had a “substantial effect” on interstate commerce.

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Hoist by their own retard.

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Legislation to codify the U.S. attorney general’s recent ban on diverting millions in legal settlements to outside groups is now in the Senate’s court, following last week’s House action.

The Justice Department practice, widely criticized as a $1 billion “slush fund” benefiting liberal advocacy groups in the last 30 months of the Obama administration alone, would be outlawed under the House bill.

Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., is sponsor of the Senate version of legislation to prohibit U.S. government officials from creating and enforcing settlement agreements with corporations and other entities that steer funds in the form of donations to third-party, special-interest groups.

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The ‘rich’ not only pay Their Fair Share, they pay a lot of other peoples’ as well.

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Thanks to an obscure provision of the 1986 Water Resources Development Act, the federal government and the South Florida communities hit by Hurricane Irma have been prohibited from procuring foreign sand for their beach replenishment projects until all other feasible domestic sources have been tapped.

Foreign companies have offered to contain these costs by importing white sand from the Bahamas by barge at as little as half the cost of domestic sand. But thanks to current federal law, these battered communities have had to tell these willing sand suppliers to take a hike, hamstringing local recovery efforts.

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I missed this story at the time, but earlier this year the New York Times reported that the New York Board of Regents eliminated a requirement that aspiring teachers in the state pass a literacy test to become certified. The Board eliminated the requirement because Black and Hispanic candidates for teaching jobs passed the literacy test at significantly lower rates than white candidates.

Unbelievable.

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A new report on transportation equity demonstrates that Dallas Area Rapid Transit’s zeal to build the largest light-rail system in America has harmed the city’s low-income population. While the report (really a PowerPoint show) itself is fairly mild in tone, the interpretation by Dallas Observer columnist Jim Schutze is anything but moderate.

DART light-rail lines, “built at costs in the billions, reach up into Carrollton, Plano and Rowlett — suburban areas that need light rail like they a ski lift,” says Schutze. Meanwhile, “DART does an appalling job of providing mass transit to inner-city, low-wage workers who need it.”

DART isn’t stupid — they serve the areas that pay the high taxes that support their service. The Underclass are graciously allowed to piggyback on that arrangement.

Schutze makes this out to be a debate between cities vs. suburbs, compact development vs. sprawl. But really, it is a question of what is the appropriate mission for transit agencies. Outside of those few urban areas with large downtowns–New York, Chicago, and a few others–most people don’t ride or need transit, so transit agencies have to come up with some rationale for continued subsidies. At one time, that rationale was that poor people needed mobility too. But now, most poor people have cars, so today the rationale is the need to get middle-class people out of their evil automobiles.

I’ve used DART and it suffers from the same flaws as every public transport system: If you’re live and work near a rail line, you’re golden; if not, it’s of no use to you. There are never enough hipsters available to cover the (unionized worker) costs, so it needs massive subsidies in order for fares to be ‘affordable’ — if passengers were charged full freight, minority representatives would scream bloody murder. Transit subsidies are just another way that race pimps buy votes.

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President Barack Obama’s Justice Department created a “slush fund” of nearly $1 billion using legal settlements with banks and steered those funds to political allies on the left while excluding conservative groups, internal documents show.

The financial institutions, which made legal settlements with the Obama administration regarding mortgage securities that imploded during the 2008 financial crisis, include Bank of America Corp., Citigroup Inc., Goldman Sachs Group Inc., and JPMorgan Chase.

Public records of the settlement agreements with the Justice Department show that when cash donations to liberal groups are combined with other donations in the form of loans and a separate settlement with Volkswagen of America Inc., the slush fund may have topped $3 billion.

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As Microsoft found out in the 70s, if you don’t spread some cash around inside the Beltway the pack will be coming after you next. Politicians have many ways to make you squeal.

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Oh, they just loved Big Brother.

Obama and Holder were well trained in the racial shakedown business by Jackson and Sharpton.

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Protectionism, pure and simple.

That’s why Bob Smith, owner of the Pacific Coast Horsehoeing School, used to train students to be farriers—the technical term for someone who makes and fits horseshoes—regardless of how much formal schooling they had. It’s a good-paying job, one that comes with flexibility and independence. There are no licensing laws restricting who can be a farrier or mandating a certain level of training. If you can find someone to teach you the skill and find someone to pay you to practice it, you’re all set.

At least that’s what Smith thought, until the California Bureau for Private and Postsecondary Education sent him a letter last year. During an inspection of Smith’s records, bureau officials discovered that he had been teaching students who lacked a high school diploma or GED certificate.

The letter informed him by a 2010 state law Smith could face fines or have his school shut down by the state if he accepted students who lacked a high school education.

This sort of shit is why we can’t have nice things. It’s also one of the reasons so many people are moving from Mexifornia to Texas.

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Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt’s decision to curb a common Obama-era legal practice could keep billions of dollars worth of regulations off the books, according to a new report.

The right-leaning American Action Forum found 23 regulations stemming from “sure and settle” lawsuits “resulted in a total cost burden of $67.9 billion, with $26.5 billion in annual costs.”

AAF looked at 23 major regulations imposed by EPA from 2005 to 2016, and found they resulted in hefty economic price tags. Settlements reached during the Bush and Obama administrations resulted in some of the costliest rules on the books.

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In the early 1990s, California tax authorities traveled to Las Vegas in pursuit of Gilbert Hyatt, an inventor who earned a fortune as the patent holder of the microcomputer. They staked out his home, dug through his trash, and hired a private eye to look into his background. He’d moved to Nevada in 1991, but California made a claim that the state was entitled to millions of his recent earnings.

What transpired over the next twenty-five years is a story of greed, harassment, anti-semitism, and the abuse of power. And it wasn’t the first time that the California tax agency has strong-armed a former state resident. What’s so unusual about Gilbert Hyatt is that he fought back—and won.

The major difference between taxing authorities and the Mafia is that taxing authorities don’t speak Italian.

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You can’t make this stuff up.

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UCLA used to be a highly-respected university. They appear to be throwing that away with both hands.

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I think General Kelly ought to demand that all Congressional Black Caucus women apologize to the country. Every damned one of them looks as if she’d been sucking on a lemon for the last twenty years.

Wilson is just letting her inner Black Congresswoman out.

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Can’t say that I blame her.

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The chief of staff to Rep. Bennie Thompson spends his days in the halls of Congress and his weekends in jail for tax evasion, after the Mississippi Democrat violated his pledge to fire his wealthy chief if the aide was found guilty of stiffing the treasury of $150,000.

A Democrat violating a pledge is news?

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What would you think of someone who got sued, lost in court, and celebrated the loss? You’d think there is something seriously amiss. In fact this has been the longstanding practice of a number of federal agencies, who actively cooperate with activist groups (invariably on the left) to set up lawsuits against agencies that result in the agencies having more power and instituting more regulations.

To give a good example, when the EPA lost the 2007 case of Massachusetts vs. EPA (that was the one that said the EPA could regulate greenhouse gas emissions), employees at EPA opened champagne to celebrate their “loss” at the Supreme Court. Much of the time these legal actions never actually make it very far in court, because the agency will “settle” with the plaintiffs through a consent decree, which means in practice that the agency conveniently consents to having more power. It is called “sue and settle,” but I call this “crony administration.” Much of the time these faux lawsuits are filed with the active participation of the agency, making a mockery of the rule of law.

A very bizarre form of ‘regulatory capture‘.

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A Minnesota judge will allow four anti-pipeline activists who damaged an oil pipeline to present evidence supposedly showing the threat of climate change justified their actions.

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I personally find no credibility in a ‘representative’ whose persona includes a rhinestone-encrusted cowboy hat.

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My, what a surprise. Aren’t you surprised? I’m sure surprised.

Yet Trump is the New Hitler.

The Antiplanner blows the whistle.

Here’s a difference between government-run businesses and private businesses: when private businesses face competition, they are forced to innovate to survive. When government-run businesses face competition, they can regulate or tax their competitors out of business.

…

Now consider the Chicago Transit Authority, which has lost riders in every year since 2012, partly if not mostly because of the growth of Uber and Lyft. Ridesharing has also reduced car rentals (which are taxed by the city) and downtown parking (which is taxes by the city). Although Uber and Lyft also pay taxes to the city, the city estimates it lost a net of $40 million in revenues (including transit fares and vehicle taxes) in 2016. So Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel wants to increase taxes on Uber and Lyft to make up the difference.

Meanwhile, in San Francisco, Ford subsidiary Chariot is running buses in competition with publicly subsidized Muni. This has led to demands that the city “regulate Chariot to save public transit.” The term public in public transit doesn’t refer to ownership; it refers to transport that is available to all of the public. So what they really mean is “regulate privately owned transit to save publicly subsidized transit” because, for some reason, subsidized transit deserves to be “saved” from private competition.

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Another win for Trump.

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Sounds like another win for Constitutional government.

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A Democrat, of course.

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Which is worse: committing to sell off public land at millions below its market value, or not remembering you’d made that commitment in the first place?

That’s the question the Atlanta Housing Authority (AHA) is no doubt asking itself as it tries desperately to get out of a deal it made to sell $138 million of land to a property development company for the recession-era price of $17 million.

The company, Integral, claims it was promised the $120 million discount by former AHA chief Renee Glover in a 2011 agreement. AHA’s current president, Catherine Buell, says she knew nothing about the 2011 deal until Integral tried to make good on it in late 2016, and that the terms are wholly inappropriate.

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The rising cost of public employees’ retirement benefits has prompted the state to raise taxes three times in the last eight years. The public employee unions are adamant that the problem can be solved only by more taxation, and they have threatened to sue if any changes are made to the present payouts. Gov. Dannel Malloy and the General Assembly haven’t been able to agree on what to do, leaving the state without a budget for more than 100 days.

The state is $74 billion short of what it needs to fund those retirement benefits and the state’s bonded debt obligations. As of 2014, according to The Wall Street Journal, Connecticut ranked 48th in pension funding, meeting only 50 percent of its obligations. The state is looking at a budget deficit of $3.5 billion, out of a budget of about $19 billion.

The last time Connecticut faced financial difficulties of this size was in 1991. From 1984 and 1990, the cost of state pensions increased by 119 percent, according to The Connecticut Mirror. That led the state to impose its first-ever income tax. But the income tax revenue—$126 billion over the following 25 years—did little to restrain spending, and funding for pension programs is still inadequate. Retirement costs and debt services were 12 percent of the state budget 20 years ago. In this fiscal year, they will be 31 percent.

The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.

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CBS on Sunday and Monday hammered Republicans in Congress for supporting a law in 2015 that changed how the Department of Drug Enforcement could regulate opioid distribution. The network minimized the fact that the law was signed by Barack Obama (as the opioid crisis grew). On 60 Minutes, Sunday, Obama’s name was mentioned just once.

What’s truth to a pig?

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And he’s black, so they can’t blame White Privilege, although I’m sure they’ll find a way.

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Machine politics in the United States is pretty much an invention of the Democrat party, and they certainly dominate it today. This is one of the reasons why I would never live in a major city, all of which are run by Democrat machines (even in Texas).

Michelle Malkin brings the heat.

Two weeks ago, my husband and I received yet another cancellation notice for our private, individual health insurance coverage. It’s our fourth Obamacare-induced obituary in four years.

Just repeal the damned thing already.

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Gee, just as Obama used to do.

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New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio wants to bring the same policies that worked so well in the Soviet Union, and more recently in Venezuela, to New York City. “If I had my druthers, the city government would determine every single plot of land, how development would proceed,” he says. “And there would be very stringent requirements around income levels and rents.”

As shown in the urban planning classic, The Ideal Communist City, soviet planners also believed they were smart enough to know how every single plot of land in their cities should be used. The cities built on their planning principles were appallingly ugly and unlivable. They were environmentally sustainable only so long as communism kept people too poor to afford cars and larger homes.

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The State of Florida is threatening a woman with jail unless she stops telling people what to eat.

To clarify: Heather Kokesch Del Castillo of Fort Walton Beach is not wandering around the supermarket in giving unsolicited advice. People have been asking her—and paying her—for dietary and nutritional advice. Though all she is doing is talking to people as a health coach, the state has declared her an unlicensed dietitian and fined her more than $750. She faces misdemeanor charges if she doesn’t shut her mouth, with further fines of up to $1,000 for each incident and possibly even a year in prison.

She has turned for help to the lawyers at the Institute for Justice, who have been fighting overreaching occupational licensing schemes for years.

Occupational licensing is typically a method for existing players in a market to use the coercive power of government to restrict entry and reap oligopoly profits, all in the name of ‘protecting the consumer’, even though in most cases the consumer is neither consulted nor desires such protection. But you knew that.

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I am not making this up.

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Food waste and the school lunch program are intimately linked. While former First Lady Michelle Obama—and her campaign to make school food healthier—is not responsible for creating the problem of food waste in our nation’s schools, the law she championed, the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act, has made an already bad problem far worse.

Proglodytes just assume that people will queue up like sheep and do what they’re told. Maybe Europeans do that, but not Americans.

“That directive is costing schools an added $5.4 million a day, of which $3.8 million worth of produce goes directly into the trash, according to national estimates,” reads one recent editorial in a Connecticut paper chastising the USDA for all of the food waste its program creates. “A Harvard Public Health study found that 60 percent of the vegetables and 40 percent of the fruits are being tossed. Researchers at the University of Vermont found an overall increase of 56 percent in wasted food as a direct result of the mandate.”

Of course, in the old days, Mom made your lunch, which you carried in a paper bag, if you were me, or a colorful decorative metal box, if you were an Obama.

“If kids aren’t eating the food, and it’s ending up in the trash, they aren’t getting any nutrition—thus undermining the intent of the program,” said USDA Secretary Sonny Perdue in May.

Hey, why let facts get in the way of virtue-signaling?

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Great. More people will be leaving there. We have plenty of room in Texas, folks, and no ThoughtCrime laws.

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Perhaps he thought, being in the Security Theater profession, that they were colleagues of a sort.

I just listened to a podcast (look in iTunes for “Jonah Goldberg Remnant” by Jonah Goldberg (of National Review and the American Enterprise Institute) in which he has a conversation with Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska. I enjoyed it a lot. I almost wish I lived in Nebraska so that I could vote for him. Sasse is a very articulate, very witty guy, and it’s a very fun time. Highly recommended.

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My, what a surprise! Aren’t you surprised? I’m sure surprised.

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“I don’t know why you’re still, like, sitting down, y’all. I don’t understand. I really don’t understand. Y’all can take your f**king test, but people are dying out there,” one protester, who remained behind, stated, then accusing students of supporting white supremacists.

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Too little, too late.

That flapping sound is chickens coming home to roots. Unless they clean house among the faculty, the problem will persist.

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Yeah, let’s just RUSH RIGHT OVER and help these people….

Why is Puerto Rico even our problem? Every other two-bit island in the Caribbean is independent; LET THEM GO.