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Democrats, the party of corruption since before the Civil War.

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Democrats, party of corruption since before the Civil War.

#BlackLiesMatter.

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FATCA, which was passed in 2010 by a Democratic Congress and enacted by President Barack Obama, requires law-abiding Americans with legitimate bank accounts outside the country and foreigners working in the United States to turn over information about their overseas holdings of more than $50,000.

Under new treaties with the United States, some 100,000 foreign financial institutions in more than 100 countries must report to the Treasury on an account of any so-called “U.S. person”—a U.S. citizen or someone with a green card or U.S. work permit—with $50,000 or more in it, or they risk being hit with a 30 percent withholding tax on their U.S. earnings.

Not surprisingly, FATCA compliance costs are large. Various reports by the Chamber of Commerce, foreign governments and banks show that as of 2016, compliance costs were anywhere between $200 billion and $1 trillion.

As a result, overseas banks are refusing to deal with Americans. And who can blame them?

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The University of California’s administration kept millions of dollars in a secret fund even as it sought permission from the Board of Regents, and approval from the public, to raise tuition. It also overpaid employees who were already handsomely compensated, and provided them expensive perks.

Public institutions exist to provide the Crust and their offspring with affluence at taxpayers’ expense.

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Hillary Clinton’s Department of State aides threatened a South Asian prime minister’s son with an IRS audit in an attempt to stop a Bangladesh government investigation of a close friend and donor of Clinton’s, The Daily Caller News Foundation’s Investigative Group learned.

A Bangladesh government commission was investigating multiple charges of financial mismanagement at Grameen Bank, beginning in May 2012. Muhammad Yunus, a major Clinton Foundation donor, served as managing director of the bank.

Democrats, the Party of Corruption since before the Civil War.

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

Riddle me this: Why do sailors need to wear camouflage on board a ship? In order to better hide from work?

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Missouri Governor Eric Greitens took part in a SWAT team competition over the weekend.

The Republican governor, a former Navy SEAL, was invited to compete in the Southeast Missouri SWAT Challenge with the St. Louis County SWAT team, his office said.

Funny how you never find former Navy SEALs running as Democrats.

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Aya Hijazi, 30, a U.S. citizen and humanitarian worker, had been in prison for three years on child abuse and trafficking charges — which the U.S. dismissed as false — because she operated a nonprofit dedicated to helping kids on the street with her husband. Last week, an Egyptian court dropped all charges against her.

And where was Obama during all of this? Busy playing golf, perhaps, or perhaps bitching about racism and bitter clingers in the U.S.

“We’re very grateful that President Trump personally engaged with the issue. Working closely with the Trump administration was very important for my family at this critical time. It let us be reunited as a family. We’re so grateful.”

Not that he’ll get any credit from the Usual Suspects.

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Obama is gone, but his spirit of WASTING TAXPAYER MONEY lives on.

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The United States has immigration laws. They were passed by Congress. Jeff Sessions went to Nogales, Ariz., last week and stated he will enforce those laws. All the right people are apoplectic.

After eight years of ideologically selective enforcement of immigration — and other — laws by Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch, Sessions’s otherwise anodyne statement was bracing: If aliens unlawfully enter the country a second time and certain aggravating circumstances are present, they will be charged with a felony. Horrors.

The unremarkable statements of Jeff Sessions and President Trump over the last few months already have had an effect: Since December, illegal border crossings are down an estimated 72 percent, to the lowest level in nearly two decades. Combine that with tackling visa overstays, withholding certain federal funds from sanctuary cities, expanding E-verify, and addressing H-1B visa abuse, and we might just reclaim our sovereignty and the rule of law.

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I’m sure the Mafia appreciates the business opportunity. You’d think that politicians would have learned something from Prohibition but apparently not.

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One hand washes the other. Democrats, of course, the party of corruption since before the Civil War.

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The U.S. officer in charge of the crew that Iranian forces temporarily detained in January 2016 will be allowed to stay in the Navy, Foreign Policy reports.

Lt. David Nartker was previously recommended to be “separated” from the Navy because of his role in the international incident. Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps navy personnel detained Nartker and nine other sailors for nearly 24 hours after their riverine boats drifted into Iranian waters.

“His peers have looked at this, and they have decided that this doesn’t warrant separation, they want to keep him as a colleague,” Nartker’s lawyer told Foreign Policy.

If he’s smart he’ll look for another line of work. I wouldn’t want to work for this guy, nor would I want him in my crew.

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Hint: Yes.

Attorney General Sessions should ask the mayor of Berkeley and the governor of California if they intend to enforce California’s law against masked intimidators and remind them of this federal law and his powers to protect the Constitutional civil rights of citizens and to sanction officials who fail to do so.

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Somewhat tongue-in-cheek….

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I am not making this up.

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Two top aides to Boston Mayor Martin Walsh are accused of strong arming concert officials into hiring union labor — a move prosecutors say amounted to extortion.

Hey, it’s what Democrats do.

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Just in case you are at all unclear on how guilty you are, honky.

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The capital of Michigan was a self-designated “sanctuary city” for just 10 days before it rescinded the decision Wednesday under pressure from business leaders concerned the status would draw unwanted scrutiny from the federal government.

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Hey, after a hard day of protecting the environment, you need to relax.

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Executive Summary: All your money belong to us. Sometimes we let you keep some, but don’t depend on it.

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And weep.

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Well, I’ve always thought so.

Considering what I’ve seen of Clemson’s student body, they may be right.

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The fate of reform measures hangs on ballot language written by the state attorney general, usually a Democrat elected with strong union support.

When you’re buying votes using Other People’s Money, there is no incentive to stint.

As California becomes more and more Democrat, i.e more and more socialist, it comes closer and closer to the point where it will just collapse. See Venezuela for how this works in a place that doesn’t have so much Other People’s Money as California.

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On Friday, New York decided to become the first state to offer four years of tuition-free public college to its residents.

Starting in the fall of 2017, any student from a family who is making less than $100,000 annually can qualify for free tuition, under certain conditions, such as a requirement to maintain a minimum grade point average and commit to living and working in New York for four years after graduation.

Like all tuition-free proposals, this policy kicks the can down the road, leaving taxpayers and future generations with the bill.

Not to mention the fact that New York state will now be even more of a magnet to low-income people than it has been because of its generous welfare benefits. So the tax burden on New York residents will grow ever larger, and middle-class people will be squeezed out to other less expensive states (welcome in Texas, guys, really). So eventually New York state will contain only very rich people, very poor people, and very stupid people — the very definition of a Democrat utopia! Win-win!

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Well, you can imagine the conniptions on Capitol Hill when it was realized that the political class wasn’t exempt from such terrible health coverage. Faced with the howls of congressional staffers on both sides of the aisle, even the most ardent Obamacare supporters raised their hands in supplication and cried: “Please protect us from the monster we created!”

And, lo and behold, the White House heard their pleas and, in clear defiance of the provisions of the Affordable Care Act, announced in 2013 a special bailout for members of Congress and their staff. The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) allowed members of Congress to get healthcare through the D.C. Small Business Exchange, normally limited to businesses with less than 50 employees (combined, there are 535 Congressmen and Senators). The requirement to go through Obamacare magically disappeared.

The Crust take care of their own.

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Nobody will get fired, nobody will go to jail.

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We’ve known it all along.

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The latest wrinkle in the United debacle is that the airline’s CEO, Oscar Munoz, sent a letter to company employees laying most of the blame on the victim: the doctor who was dragged off his flight by Chicago aviation police. This passenger “defied” officers after being “politely asked to deplane” and became “disruptive and belligerent,” according to the letter.

How dare he! You’d think he’d paid for that seat or something.

But while United’s treatment of the passenger in the video was stunning and uniquely awful, let’s not forget that the entire airport experience is oriented toward misery—and that’s the fault of government policies that treat every passenger like a potential security threat. Paying customers aren’t people with rights and dignity, according to this model: they are nails to be hammered into place.

Which is why I don’t fly.

We live in an age of transportation security theater, and the party responsible for much of the flying-related misery is the Transportation Security Administration. Created in response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks, this federal agency is solely responsible for screening passengers for contraband and dangerous items as they enter airport terminals. In practice, this means subjecting people to intrusive pat-downs and body scans while rifling through their personal items. There is no boundary too private for the TSA to cross. That this incredibly inconvenient, dehumanizing system routinely fails to prevent illicit items from actually entering the airport is almost beside the point, since the TSA provides little actual security. Indeed, the dirty secret of airport safety is that the materials necessary to construct an explosive can be found inside the terminal, beyond the security checkpoint.

Nobody ever accused government employees of being intelligent. Otherwise, they’d have gotten a real job.

United is not the TSA. And many airlines have better customer service track records than United. But it’s no accident that flying has become one of the most stressful and uncomfortable recurring experiences for millions of Americans. It’s the result of policy choices, enacted by government agents, and propelled by overwhelming safety paranoia. Until and unless some basic level of sanity prevails, customers should expect further “re-accommodations” at the hands of overzealous police officers and security officials, no matter which airline they fly.

Don’t hold your breath….

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The New York Times broke a story Sunday revealing that the former administration “knew” Syria’s president Bashir-al-Assad had more chemical weapons hidden, despite John Kerry, President Obama, and Susan Rice telling the American people that they had destroyed all of Assad’s chemical weapons. Yet the networks have ignored these reports, not giving any airtime since the first story broke.

And yet Trump is the Great Liar.

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Well, to be fair, the Democrats don’t want to burn books that point out how unscientific the global warming scare is. They want to recycle them.

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As part of Ted Kennedy’s not very successful efforts to import more Irishmen to vote for Kennedys, America has had since the 1990s a diversity visa lottery that lets in 50,000 lucky winners per year from obscure countries that don’t send all that many immigrants through other channels. It establishes beachheads for, say, Nepalese who can then launch the chain migration process.

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Advocates for big government often equate expanding government with concern for the poor. But reality speaks to the contrary: Expanding government often has very harmful effects on the poor.

This reality is precisely what is addressed in a forthcoming special report from The Heritage Foundation, “Big Government Policies That Hurt the Poor and How to Address Them.”

Rather than looking at welfare policy—a usual focus of analysts when discussing policies that impact the poor—the report focuses on economic policy, including regulation.

The authors identify 23 policies and provide concrete solutions that would allow those struggling financially to have more opportunities and a higher standard of living. As indicated in the report, these policies are just the tip of the iceberg.

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Civil forfeiture lets the government confiscate property allegedly linked to crime without bringing charges against the owner. Since law enforcement agencies receive most or all of the proceeds from the forfeitures they initiate, they have a strong financial incentive to loot first and ask questions never, which explains why those sheriffs were not eager to enlighten the president about the downside of such legalized theft.

A new report from the Justice Department’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG) highlights the potential for abuse. Between fiscal years 2007 and 2016, the OIG found, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) took $4.2 billion in cash, more than 80 percent of it through administrative forfeitures, meaning there was no judicial oversight because the owners did not challenge the seizures in court.

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We’re from the government, and we’re here to help … ourselves.

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Knoxville, Tenn., could be the first city in the U.S. where Obamacare completely collapses, leaving tens of thousands of people without the option to buy a subsidized insurance policy.

Humana, the city’s only remaining insurance provider on its Obamacare exchange, announced it is exiting the market in 2018. If that happens, Knoxville citizens will be in a rough spot. Unless another insurance provider fills Humana’s place, some 40,000 people in the Knoxville area will likely be left without the option to purchase an Obamacare-subsidized insurance policy, CNN reports.

Knoxville is illustrative of one of the main problems with Obamacare: It doesn’t promote market-based competition. Insurers pull out of marketplaces where it is not cost-efficient for them to provide services, and, as a result, consumers are left with fewer options at higher prices.

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

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Former President Barack Obama’s national security adviser Susan Rice ordered U.S. spy agencies to produce “detailed spreadsheets” of legal phone calls involving Donald Trump and his aides when he was running for president, according to former U.S. Attorney Joseph diGenova.

“What was produced by the intelligence community at the request of Ms. Rice were detailed spreadsheets of intercepted phone calls with unmasked Trump associates in perfectly legal conversations with individuals,” diGenova told The Daily Caller News Foundation Investigative Group Monday.

Oops.

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The Solar FREAKIN’ Roadways project generated an average of 0.62 kilowatt hours (kWh) of electricity per day since it began publicly posting power data in late March. To put that in perspective, the average microwave or blow drier consumes about 1 kWh per day.

On March 29th, the solar road panels generated 0.26 kWh, or less electricity than a single plasma television consumes. On March 31st, the panels generated 1.06 kWh, enough to barely power a single microwave. The panels have been under-performing their expectations due to design flaws, but even if they had worked perfectly they’d have only powered a single water fountain and the lights in a nearby restroom.

Solar FREAKIN’ Roadways has been in development for 6.5 years and received a total of $4.3 million in funding to generate 90 cents worth of electricity.

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Susan Rice, the national security advisor for President Obama, made dozens of requests seeking to unmask the identities of Donald Trump associates identified in raw intelligence reports.

Rice’s involvement in the request to unmask the Trump officials was discovered by White House lawyers last month, Bloomberg View’s Eli Lake reported on Monday.

Michael Cernovich, the pro-Trump publisher of Cernovich Media, first identified Rice in a report on Sunday night.

According to Lake’s sources, Rice’s requests to unmask Trump advisers was discovered by Ezra Cohen-Watnick, the National Security Council’s senior director for intelligence.

Nothing to see here, move along, move along.

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Another reminder that the F-35 is a flying piece of shit.

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If someone offered you a chance to invest millions of dollars in a business nobody wants, would you take it?

If you’re the U.S. government, the answer is a resounding yes. Since 2007, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration—despite major political, social, and environmental headwinds—has poured almost $100 million (PDF) into aquaculture, also known by the more pedestrian moniker of fish farming.

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Democrats, of course. The Party of Corruption since Republicans took their slaves away.

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During the 2016 campaign, Catherine Pugh was one of dozens of Democratic politicians calling for the implementation of a $15 per hour minimum wage.

Since being elected mayor of Baltimore in November, though, Pugh has changed her mind about the merits of forcing employers to pay such a high hourly rate. Last week, Pugh announced she would veto a $15 minimum wage bill passed by city council, citing concerns about how it would hurt the city’s economy, nonprofits and charities working in the city, and the city government’s bottom line.

After doing “some research,” Pugh said at a press conference on March 24, “it is not appropriate at this time that I will sign this bill, so I am vetoing this bill.”

The surprise here is that a Democrat actually ‘did some research’ and acted on the basis of it.

Michael  Barone blows the whistle.

“Dare I suggest,” writes the economist and blogger Tyler Cowen, “that the quality of governance in this country has taken a downward turn of late?” Or as Casey Stengel, while managing the New York Mets on their way to a 40-120 season in 1962, reportedly asked, “Can’t anybody here play this game?”

In successive weeks, both Democrats and Republicans have shown a downward trend in the quality of governance and raised questions about whether anybody in Washington can play this game.

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And we’re just the people to let them.

Economists sometimes talk about a fictional $1 million tax on, say, beagles to illustrate the perverse effects of a poorly designed tax code. In theory, the tax could bring in $20 billion, given there are about 20,000 registered members of the breed. But in reality, the tax would yield little, because few people would claim to own such dogs, suddenly “discovering” that their beagles were really something else, maybe mixed breeds or schmeagles.

That idea is useful when discussing what’s benignly referred to as the “estate tax.” Critics refer to it by the ominous-sounding “death tax,” given that it imposes a 40 percent hit on accumulated wealth after its owner heads to that great estate in the sky. It’s really the “Tax on Your Dead Neighbor’s Family,” given it’s all about grabbing others’ inheritance.

The first thing Democrats think is “I can spend your money better than you can” and the second thing is “How can I use the power of government to rob you?” After a while of this, people start moving to Texas.