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No good deed goes unpunished, especially when you work for the government.

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The federal deficit will be a whopping $56 billion more than initially anticipated, coming in at $590 billion by the end of the 2016 fiscal year.

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

Read it.

Government involvement in anything always leaves people with fewer choices and higher prices. History is unanimous on that.

You’d think that people would learn that — but you’d be wrong.

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Massachusetts is, of course, run by Democrats. (Yeah, they elect a Republican governor every now and then, but that’s just for fun.)

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A U.S. District Court judge on Sunday blocked the Obama administration from implementing new rules aimed at allowing transgender students to use bathrooms and locker rooms of their choice.

The ruling, by Judge Reed O’Connor of Fort Worth, Texas, is a win for the 13 states that had sought to prevent the administration’s directives from taking effect. It comes a month after the Supreme Court blocked a lower court order allowing a student in Virginia to use the boys’ bathroom during the upcoming school year.

…

In his 38-page ruling, O’Connor found the Obama administration had failed to follow the Administrative Procedures Act, which requires the federal government to allow for comments on new proposed rules. O’Connor did not rule on the constitutionality of the directive itself.

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It’s all about passing on money to people who will vote for your party and, more important, contribute to Democrat campaigns.

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That’s why they called it the Affordable Care Act, because legislation is always called the opposite of what it really does.

Don’t believe me? Look at the Department of Education, which has never successfully educated one person since it was founded.

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But you knew that.

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After six years, the United Nations has finally admitted it deserves at least some blame for the death of thousands of Hatians in a 2010 cholera epidemic.

Despite the admission, the U.N. says it deserves no legal liability for the deaths, and will continue to avoid making reparations.

Remind me why we have a United Nations? Seems as if everything they touch turns to shit.

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What business is that of the government?

“Of the many challenges facing the NPS in the 21st century, the lack of ethnic and racial diversity among the visiting population may be the most critical,” the NPS said in a grant announcement posted on the government’s grant website Wednesday.

Perhaps without ‘ethnic and racial diversity’ we’ll have more forest fires? This makes no sense.

White people are twice as likely to visit parks as black people, the document states. Park visitors are predominately white, and minorities make up only 22 percent of park visitors, even though minorities make up 37 percent of the U.S. population, according to research conducted by the NPS in 2008 and 2009.

Maybe the don’t like tramping around in the woods. Maybe somebody ought to ask some black people and find out why they’re not conforming to the SWPL ideal.

U.S. parks reflect America’s racist roots, according to KangJae Lee, assistant teaching professor at the University of Missouri.

There you have it. Blacks don’t go tramping around in the woods because white people are racist. It’s all clear to me now.

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I solve this problem by not traveling. That might not work for everybody.

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Because we really don’t have enough lesbian farmers in this country, don’t you know.

The agency is working with singer and LGBT activist Cyndi Lauper for a “day of conversation” about the struggles of gay and transgender individuals in rural America. The agency says its wants to change the perception of what it means to be a farmer in America away from the “white, rich male.”

At your expense, of course. No doubt you missed the part of the Constitution where that was one of the delegated powers to the Federal government.

“The Office of the Assistant Secretary of Civil Rights, in collaboration with the National Center for Lesbian Rights and The True Colors Fund, will engage with LGBT rural communities across the country to host the LGBT Rural Summit Series,” the USDA said. “Each series will offer a unique opportunity for USDA and other federal agencies to share information relating to policies, programs, and services that exist to protect, promote and strengthen LGBT rural communities.”

I am not making this up.

“Contrary to widely held myths that the LGBT community is largely living in affluent metropolitan areas, studies show a very different and more realistic picture of the LGBT community,” the USDA said. “For a number of reasons, many people in the LGBT community choose to live, work, and raise their families in the rural communities that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is proud to serve.”

Perhaps that’s because ‘affluent metropolitan areas’ are behavioral sinks in which no rational adult would want to live or raise kids.

The agency said nearly 10 percent of all same-sex couples in the United States live in rural areas and are “actually more likely to be families of color and raising children.”

How microscopic a part of the population is represented by 10% of an already negligible portion of the population is left as an exercise for the reader. But no victim class is too small to be ignored by the people spending YOUR tax money.

“We are trying very hard to change people’s mindsets,” Davis said. “When [people] hear ‘rural America,’ I don’t want them to think that means one type of person: a white, rich male.”

Although ‘progressives’ and the Drive-By Media expend millions of dollars every year pounding that message into people’s brains.

“You do have gay farmers who are growing your food,” said Marcus Hollan. “You have lesbian agricultural teachers in your high schools and your colleges teaching youth. It’s time we start recognizing them but also celebrating them.”

That’s like recognizing and celebrating the Zika virus. The zombies have taken over the police department.

Read it.

“Santelle’s actions exhibit a disregard for safeguarding the department’s role as a non-partisan institution,” the IG said. “Santelle’s deliberate indifference to the effect his actions could have on the U.S. Attorney’s Office was particularly concerning, given that he was a 30-year career employee and the recipient of clear and repeated guidance from the department on such matters.”

Santelle retired from the DOJ in July, 2015, during the IG’s probe of his political activity and his alleged misuse of a government credit card. No charges have been filed against him and he has not received other employment-related penalties.

Democrats investigating Democrats: Nobody gets fired, nobody goes to jail.

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Notably missing from the current discussion of Obamacare is any sign of disappointment, let alone panic, from the Democrats. The ACA was supposed to be Barack Obama’s signature legislative achievement. Doesn’t he care that the program that bears his name is falling apart? Seemingly not.

Likewise with Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and the other Democrats who pushed Obamacare through Congress without a single Republican vote. Pretty much everything they said about the ACA has been proved wrong. Do they mind? They don’t appear to.

Democrats don’t expect to be punished for inflicting an expensive, failed program on the American people. Instead, they believe they will be rewarded. As Obamacare continues its slow-motion collapse, they will shift to Plan B. “We tried the market-based approach,” they will say, “and it didn’t work. Now there is only one alternative left: single payer health coverage.” At that point, with the government already dominating health care through Medicare, Medicaid and Obamacare, and with genuinely free and private health care a dwindling remnant of the industry, they think the road to socialized medicine, the holy grail of modern leftism, will be open.

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So much for ‘safe spaces’.

Well, girls, you wanted ‘diversity’, and you’re getting it, good and hard.

Read it.

One year has passed since the Environmental Protection Agency caused a discharge of 3 million gallons of toxic water into the Animas River, and no one has been held accountable, although private parties have been criminally prosecuted under similar circumstances in the past.

Democrats investigating Democrats: Nobody gets fired, nobody goes to jail.

The Navajo Nation’s lawsuit claims that the EPA “failed to prepare for known risks of a mine blowout;” that workers for the EPA “‘recklessly’ burrowed into the Gold King Mine;” and that the agency has responded to the nation’s requests to provide compensation for the economic and environmental harms of the spill “with resistance, delays, and second-guessing.”

The EPA commissioned a report on the spill from the Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Reclamation, which was released last October. That report stated that an EPA backhoe operator hit a spring, causing the spill, but the report did not say who was responsible or why that happened.

Of course not.

Read it.

Gee, thanks, Barry. Well, at least it’s better than the nothing that Hillary plans to give them.

Obama administration efforts to train laid-off coal miners and their spouses for the “jobs of the future” are turning out to be somewhat of a double-edged sword.

A new report by the Cleveland Federal Reserve Bank found some coal miners have successfully gotten jobs in other industries, but the report also hints that those re-employed miners are making way less than before.

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I’ll bet you thought that knothole was just there by accident, didn’t you.

NEH announced a total of $79 million in grants to humanities programs across the country this year. “Through films, original research, and new intellectual insights, our grants strengthen the nation’s cultural fabric and identity,” William D. Adams, chairman of NEH, said in the grant announcement.

Or, alternatively, they just waste shitloads of YOUR money.

We report, you decide.

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When officers categorize wallets or cellphones as evidence, getting them back can be nearly impossible—even if the owner isn’t charged with a crime.

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Walmart is currently running an election-themed back-to-school promotion in which students can nominate their teacher to be a “commander-in-teach.” Winners of the contest will receive $490 to pay for school supplies in their classroom.

And that has the Washington Teachers’ Union (WTU) irate. The union, which represents over 5,000 current and former teachers in D.C., says that it’s wrong for Walmart to help teachers when members of the Walton family have also donated money to support charter schools.

Fine. Don’t take the money. But don’t pretend that you’re working for the students.

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Message: He cares.

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Two years ago, the Antiplanner predicted that self-driving cars would put most transit agencies out of business. So it’s not surprising to see push-back against self-driving cars from transit supporters. What’s surprising is that it took so long.

Entrenched public transit bureaucracies (and unions) resisting technological change that empowers individuals? Who could have seen that coming?

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Good. It’s a stupid idea, and a prime example of how government inconveniences everybody in order to favor a special interest lobby.

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Thank God for those strict gun control laws, or the place would be another Texas.

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

Read it.

Even in our age of ever expanding federal power, the breadth of this statute (and the discretion it lodges in prosecutors) is awesome. Congress has regulated so many areas of our lives and federalized so many functions that the reach of Section 1001 is virtually boundless. This is what caused many federal courts to create an “exculpatory no” doctrine, holding that falsely answering “no” to an inquiry from a federal agent was, standing alone, not a crime under Section 1001. In 1998, however, the United States Supreme Court rejected this doctrine (as being inconsistent with legislative intent) in Brogan v. United States , 522 U.S. 398, 805 (1998). Thus, the only avenue for reform with respect to Section 1001 is in Congress, where politicians seldom get brownie points for narrowing the reach of federal criminal statutes.

Two words: Martha Stewart. So zip it.

It may be true that most federal agents and prosecutors are decent people who would not intentionally abuse Section 1001. Moreover, it is very important from a law enforcement perspective for federal agents to be able to informally question witnesses during the initial stages of an investigation. And certainly citizens are under no obligation to speak to a law enforcement agent in the first place, although, as shown below, it is essential to learn how to decline to speak to government officers. But power corrupts, and the potential for abuse of this statute is great, especially during periods of public outcry over corporate and other white-collar crimes. When we reflect upon how many petty rules and regulations get broken and how many white lies are told during the course of an average American business day, it is apparent that Section 1001 can easily be applied and misapplied to normally upstanding folk.

If power can be abused, it will be abused. Don’t volunteer to be the victim.

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Security theater at your expense.

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Let’s see — I take it out of the back pocket and put it in the front pocket — and I get a tax deduction! How cool is that?

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

Read it.

To put this in context, fewer than 300 people chose to cease being Americans in all of 2006, meaning renunciation rates have arisen about 15-fold in a decade.

So why are so many folks saying so long to Uncle Sam? The Treasury Department, which is obliged to publish quarterly lists, doesn’t offer any explanations.

But the best guess is probably not Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump (yet), but the the U.S. tax system.

Read it.

As a condition of $1 billion worth of contracts from the New York Port Authority to build the One World Trade Center, Larry Davis, CEO of DCM Erectors, was required to work with minority- and women-owned businesses. The companies Davis claimed to work with were fake.

“The construction work awarded to Davis came with the obligation to employ minority and women-owned businesses, an obligation that Davis shirked and then lied about,” Preet Bharara, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York said. ” We cannot allow major public projects – particularly ones on the sacred World Trade Center site – to be built on a foundation of fraud.”

Whenever such political set-asides exist, people are going to try to game the system; and they don’t feel guilty about it because they have no relevance to the actual quality of the work being done, merely to cronyism on the part of those in control of the project.

Read it.

Federal law bans fugitives from living in taxpayer-funded public housing, and federal officials have no idea how many criminals are doing it anyway.

An estimated 1,300 felony fugitives were found living in federally funded homes in just one region of the country in 2012. Local public housing authorities refused to evict them, according to an unpublished Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Inspector General (IG) investigation first reported July 26, 2016, by The Daily Caller News Foundation.

Those residents faced warrants for crimes ranging from felony theft to rape and murder. But four years later, HUD officials don’t know what happened to the 1,300, or how many live in taxpayer-funded residences now.

Read it.

Lynch knows which side her bread is buttered on.

The Department of Justice declined a FBI request to open up a public integrity investigation into the Clinton Foundation, CNN reported on Wednesday.

According to the news network, the FBI made the request earlier this year, but the DOJ said it did not have enough evidence to open a formal probe.

Democrats investigating Democrats: Nobody gets fired, nobody goes to jail.

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University of California, Davis (UC-Davis), chancellor Linda Katehi has finally resigned her post, after a rocky tenure that included wasting thousands on shady PR campaigns, spending lavishly on “work-related” travel, and taking paid positions on corporate boards without permission. In return for finally leaving, Katehi is being rewarded with what amounts to a year-long, taxpayer-funded $420,000 vacation.

I should have such a job. And she’s not even a Woman of Color.

According to the Los Angeles Times, under the terms of her departure, Katehi will spend a whole year on administrative leave as the school’s “chancellor emeritus,” for which she will receive her entire $424,360 salary. At the end of her year-long leave, Katehi will be guaranteed a tenured faculty post in UC-Davis’ electrical engineering department, along with an interdisciplinary position with the women’s and gender studies department. The school agreed not to pursue any misconduct charges against Katehi, which could have endanger Katehi’s tenure status.

In return for what amounts to a six-figure yearlong vacation along with a guaranteed taxpayer-funded job for life, Katehi agreed not to sue the UC system over her departure.

Democrats investigating Demcrats: Nobody gets fired, nobody goes to jail.

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So many young people believe Obamacare is helping our society and will make health care more affordable, but now it is abundantly clear that the plan is harming young people.

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Hillary Clinton put the State Department up for sale, with top aides pulling strings and doing favors for fat-cat donors to the Clinton Foundation — including a shady billionaire, according to smoking-gun emails released Tuesday.

The stunning revelations include how wealthy contributors seeking influence or prestigious government gigs could fork over piles of cash to get access to Clinton’s inner circle, including top aides Huma Abedin and Cheryl Mills.

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

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Auburn University maintains a lengthy roster of employees dedicated to advancing diversity that costs taxpayers at least $800,000 annually, a payroll analysis by The College Fix has found.

The cost comes at a public university that has not only raised its tuition every single year since 2005 – but also has been ranked as having a poor record of enrolling students from lower-income families.

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As if that would ever happen.

A leading Republican critic of the Obama administration’s policy toward Iran is alleging that the U.S. government violated federal law when it delivered $400 million in cash to Tehran on the same day the country freed four American prisoners.

‘Federal law? We don’t need no steenkin’ federal law.’

“I want to know what Obama administration employees were involved with this and how long do they serve in prison,” said Rep. Mike Pompeo, R-Kan., a member of the House Intelligence Committee. “There is no doubt they violated federal law when they transferred U.S. taxpayer funds to a state sponsor of terrorism.”

…

“Until the president made an affirmative decision to pay that claim, it wasn’t Iran’s money,” Pompeo said in an interview. “It was American money. So they broke the law. The thrust of it is, ‘It’s illegal. You did it.’ And Congress has a role of identifying a breach of law and referring violators to the Justice Department for prosecution.”

I wonder what the weather’s like on his planet.

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On the heels of the Energy & Environment Legal Institute (E&E Legal) releasing the copy of the a secrecy pact between Democratic Attorneys General led by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, obtained after a months-long fight with these AGs to keep it from the public, E&E Legal has posted a March 7th 2016 letter sent by Schneiderman and Vermont AG William Sorrell to other ideologically aligned AGs inviting them to join in using their law enforcement offices in an “informal coalition…to stem climate change and expand the availability and usage of renewable energy”.

The letter, also obtained under state open records laws, targets “Attorneys General who share this mission” of protecting and advancing “climate” policies, through “the formation of an Attorneys General climate change and energy coalition”.  This coalition’s members have launched investigations targeting industry and non-profit think tanks toward this end, under the guise of racketeering laws to promote this inherently political agenda.

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The University of Wisconsin-Stout has removed two historic murals from their places of prominence after members of the Diversity Leadership Team complained that they might make Native American students feel uncomfortable.

It’s hard to see why. Both murals are rather innocuous. One depicts fur trappers and Native Americans canoeing down a river. The other depicts an American fortress from colonial times. There’s no violence depicted in the works of art. Indeed, the white traders and natives seem to be getting along perfectly well.

Ah, but the murals could theoretically be offensive to someone, so they have to go.

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Criminal investigations into the Environmental Protection Agency’s disastrous handling of its Gold King Mine spill are under way. This is a laudable step toward accountability for the agency, which for one year has avoided accountability for conduct that would in all likelihood have resulted in criminal prosecution had the acts been performed by private parties.

Prediction: Democrats investigating Democrats — nobody will get fired, nobody will go to jail.

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ObamaCare was always going to be a questionable deal for taxpayers if the only people who signed up were poorer people whose premiums were largely paid by taxpayers. That was fine as far as insurers were concerned. They can make a profit even if taxpayers are the only ones paying.

For insurers, the problem lies elsewhere: ObamaCare policies have proved so unattractive that even customers eligible for subsidies are turning away unless they also happen to be seriously or chronically ill. That’s because deductibles and copays keep going up with each successive renewal period. For a family of four on a bronze plan, the deductible is now above $11,000. This is the equivalent, in the case of routine illness or injury, of not being insured at all.

And the problem only gets worse as insurers, to stem their losses, keep hiking premiums, copays and deductibles. With each turn of the wheel, ObamaCare becomes an insurance program that appeals only to those who already know they face large health-care costs.

Welcome to the Obamanation.

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The CIAB declares it “was created to assist the industry in dealing with the erratic production cycle of red tart cherries and to improve returns to the growers and processors of red tart cherries in the United States.” Its “primary goal is to establish orderly marketing conditions by alleviating supply/demand imbalances,” reads a 1985 report issued by the GAO.

In service of this goal, the board oversees all cherry handling in at least seven states. It sets annual quotas for tart cherries, establishing the portion of each year’s cherries that may reach the marketplace.

A marketing order—and cherries represent just one of many enforced by the USDA—is just that: an order. “A marketing order, with or without handler approval, is binding on all handlers in the industry,” reads a 1975 USDA report on marketing orders. Compliance is not optional.

And the ghost of Franklin Roosevelt arises to jerk on your chains.

Obama on Iran payment: ‘We do not pay ransom’

PROOF OBAMA LIED=> US Iranian Hostage Abedini Says Iran Held Plane on Tarmac Until (Ransom) Plane Arrived (VIDEO)

The US did not pay a $400 million “ransom” to Iran. Here’s what actually happened.

The President’s Non-Ransom to Iran

Iran Ransom 2016: A Bigger Deal Than Iran-Contra 1985

How Iran spent its $400M ‘ransom’ windfall

Obama paid $400M ‘ransom’ to Iran

‘We Do Not Pay Ransom,’ Obama Declares, Calling Criticism of Iran Deal Illogical

Was the $400 million in cash paid after the Iran prisoner deal really ransom?

Read it.

The University of California at Berkeley has just finished construction on an extra door—dubbed an “escape hatch” by some—that will allow the chancellor to leave his office without encountering student-protesters.

Note that Chancellor Nicholas Dirks did not personally request the door, which cost $9,000, according to The Daily Californian. Other staff members, as well as the police, thought public safety would be improved if the administrative building had a second exit.

Evidently the thought of just arresting the trespassers and removing them never occurred to anybody.

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While we have often heard that members of Congress, who are not only exempt from insider trading oversight, are also ardent daytraders we had never seen it in action.

Until now.

The following publicly filed monthly Periodic Transaction Report by Democrat Congresswoman, Judy Chu, shows us just how pervasive daytrading is not only for algos, but for those who supposedly are paid to serve their constituents. What is interesting is the size of the trades – between $1,000 and $15,000 each, this is not some novice, penny pincher; what is even more interesting are the underlying securities of choice: volatile, and levered, calls and puts on not only the S&P500, but also on some of the most volatile securities out there, such as the VIX.

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For those of us who have been paying attention, it is all too believable.

A male University of Southern California student expelled for sexual assault appealed the decision on grounds that the adjudication process was wholly inadequate and stacked against him from the start. USC’s Title IX coordinator responded with shocking hostility—bureaucrats don’t like when their authority is questioned, it seems.

“Does that college motherfucker know who I am?” USC Title IX Director Gretchen Dahlinger Means asked Title IX Investigator Patrick Noonan, after a conference call during which the student, “John Doe,” had explained his intention to appeal. It was a hot mic moment: Dahlinger and Noonan thought the student and his lawyer had already exited the call.

That was not the only outburst. Means also said, “Who do those motherfuckers think they are?” in reference to the student and his lawyer, who had asked for USC to release the identities of the panel members who had voted to expel Doe. The administrators did not merely refuse this request; they were apparently incredulous that such a request had been made at all—that a student could possibly have the gall to ask for some basic transparency with respect to the Kafka-esque procedure that ruined his life.

The venomous statements of USC’s Title IX team give this case a unique flavor, though the rest of the details make for a textbook Title IX dispute: spurned female student, bad breakup, after-the-fact accusation, total absence of due process, predetermined finding of responsibility. Doe recently filed suit against USC, and a state court issued a stay preventing his expulsion from going into effect. As KC Johnson writes, “On this record, it’s not hard to see why.” (Special thanks to Johnson for providing the relevant court documents.)

Betcha she voted for Obama.

Read it. And watch the video.

ABC’s World News Tonight on Friday revisited the health care scandal at the Veterans Administration and pointed out the recent revelation that the federal agency spent millions of taxpayer money on abstract art. Correspondent Mary Bruce spotlighted how the V.A. defending the spending by claiming that the art pieces foster “a healing environment.”

I see no reason why veterans require a separate ‘national health service’ system when their needs could easily be handled by existing programs such as Medicare and Medicaid. Of course, as Jerry Pournelle is fond of saying, the purpose of government is to hire and pay government workers….