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Well, duh – Democrats.

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At least ICE haven’t turned into the Portland Police.

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The rise of the costs of the American higher educational system began when expansion became the aim of education policy. The new objective was to have as many students as possible in college. Students’ increased ability to pay, which came with easy access to student loans, allowed universities and colleges to raise prices and to invest in areas such as sports and recreational facilities that had little to do with education but made campus life more attractive. Inasmuch as private universities also depend on public subsidies, the whole university system has come under the control of the state and must meet the criteria set by it. The current system puts pressure on the young to go with the crowd. While the costs keep on rising, the benefits fall.

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President Donald Trump issued an executive order effectively freezing federal pay for 2019 at current 2018 levels.

Had the president not issued this executive order (and lacking congressional action on federal pay), federal workers would have received a 2.1 percent across-the-board pay increase, as well as a 25 percent increase in locality-based pay.

A 2.1 percent across-the-board increase would have cost roughly $5 billion in 2019 while the locality-based increase would have cost a reported $26 billion.

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The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) ruled in 2015 that companies and franchisers with “indirect and direct control” of employees could be held liable for labor violations committed by contractors or franchisees. The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 that the board did not sufficiently define “indirect” control and sent the 2015 decision back to the board for a more restricted explanation.

The 2015 NLRB ruling overturned more than two decades of precedent while placing businesses at increased risk of violating labor laws. The ruling also empowered unions to negotiate directly with a franchise’s corporate headquarters if franchise employees sought to unionize.

Always looking for that deepest pocket…

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The Climate Change Chicken Little Syndrome will now be paid for by YOU.

Democrats: Party of Fear–Party of Hate–Party of Death

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At YOUR expense, of course.

As Jerry Pournelle liked to say, the purpose of government is to hire and pay government workers.

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Obama’s famous ‘phone and pen’ comes back to bite Democrats square on the butt. Even their puppet judges can stop Trump everywhere.

The Imperial Presidency isn’t quite so hot once the Emperor is one of the Dirt People.

Ace of Spades pulls it all together for you.

Just another day in paradise….

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Pelosi is spending the holiday at The Fairmont Orchid resort on Hawaii’s Big Island, according to The Washington Free Beacon. A standard room at the luxury resort starts at just under $1,000 per night and accommodation can cost nearly $5,000 per night for the presidential suite.

Hey, botox doesn’t grow on trees, you know.

Ace of Spades likes the ongoing Democrat soap opera.

Congresswoman is the sort of Young Pioneer that socialism throws up every now and then to rouse the masses. She really needs to wear a red neck cloth and strike a heroic pose now and again.

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Well, it’s actually Schumer and Pelosi’s shutdown. Welcome to our world, parasites.

Victor Davis Hanson points out some inconvenient truth.

After 19 months, special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation has charged a number of targets with almost every conceivable sin — except collusion with Russia to throw an election. Yet suspicion of collusion was the reason that Mueller was appointed in the first place.

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Recently, Sen. Mazie Hirono claimed that Democrats have a hard time connecting with voters because they (Democrats) are so “smart” and “know so much.” If Democrats are smart and knowledgeable, you can’t prove it by Hirono. She embarrasses herself routinely on the Senate Judiciary Committee, where she almost invariably finds herself in over her head.

The latest embarrassment is her attack, along with Sen. Kamala Harris, on a judicial nominee for belonging to the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic social and charitable organization founded in 1882 that, in the words of Ramesh Ponnuru, has heretofore been roughly as controversial as the Rotary Club.. Hirono and Harris are insisting that Brian Buescher, nominated for a U.S. district court judgeship, drop his membership in that organization and recuse himself from cases in which it has taken a position.

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The pettiness of proglodytes never ceases to amaze me.

On the other hand, the fact that Ryan can use the House gym during the ‘shutdown’ suggests that the government is not, in fact, shut down.

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Lies and the lying liars who tell them.

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I’m comfortable not re-opening the government. How about you?

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With the proliferation of different camouflage uniforms since the 1960s it was only a matter of time before someone collected images and data on the thousands of different camouflage patterns that have been put to use in the last century of so. The site in question is camopedia.org and it organizes the patterns by nation with another section for non-military patterns (for police mainly). The adoption of camouflage patterns for uniforms accelerated after 2003, in part because so many of them could be seen via digital pictures posted on the Internet. That proliferation of camouflage patterns led to their use for non-camouflage uniforms. In other words work and dress uniforms began to use camouflage patterns. And so it continues, but the process was not without its bumps, detours and utter failures.

Among other fatuities, this led to the Navy adopting a blue-green based camouflage pattern, nicknamed ‘blueberries’, that seemed specifically designed to make sure that if somebody went overboard on a cruise they would never be found by rescuers. Seriously, what need has anybody on board a ship for a camouflage uniform? Who are they going to be hiding from, their CPO? This was sure and certain proof, if anybody needed it, that the people in charge of determining what sailors wear are on some serious drugs.

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“Shame on everybody that separates children, that allows them to stay at the other side of the border fearing death, fearing hunger, fearing sickness,” Gutierrez said angrily. “Shame on us for wearing our badge of Christianity during Christmas and allow the secretary to come here and lie.”

“Calling me a ‘liar’ are fighting words, I’m not a liar, we’ve never had a policy for family separation — I’m happy to walk the gentleman through it again,” Nielsen responded, meeting Gutierrez’s anger.

“A policy of family separation would mean that any family that I encounter in the interior, I would separate,” she continued. “It would mean that any family I found at a port of entry, I would separate. It would mean every single family that I found illegally crossing, we would separate. We did none of those.”

The notion of a Democrat Congressman calling anybody a liar is pretty amusing.

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Anything that inconveniences Democrats has my vote. They certainly cause enough inconvenience for me.

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Proglodytes are experiencing the powers of the Administrative State being used against them and they are not happy.

I, on the other hand, am hugely enjoying myself.

Pass the popcorn.

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White House senior policy adviser Stephen Miller defended the president’s position on troop withdrawals during a Thursday night CNN appearance.

“This president got elected to get our foreign policy back on the right track after years of being adrift,” Miller told CNN host Wolf Blitzer. “One foreign policy blunder after another in Iraq and Afghanistan and Libya hasn’t worked out for our national interest.”

“Wolf, when did the American people sign up to be in every war in every place in every side of every conflict all over planet earth?” he asked

I’d love to have every Democrat in Congress (and maybe every Republican too) be forced to answer that question.

Kim Strassel lays out what we know so far and what the next step ought to be.

House and Senate investigators get pride of place for unraveling one of the greatest dirty tricks of our political times, in which a Democratic administration, party and presidential campaign either co-opted or fooled the FBI into investigating the Republican campaign. Lawmakers got to the bottom of this despite partisan attacks and institutional obstruction. Congress has taken that probe about as far as was ever going to be possible. The next steps are up to the White House.

Government has exactly two legitimate functions: (1) Keep people safe, (2) Keep people honest.

The next time you see or hear of ‘government’ doing something, ask yourself which of these two functions that doing is in service of. I think you’ll find that it’s merely somebody or group using the coercive power of government to make you do or pay for something that they think you ought to do or pay for without asking you first.

I like government shutdowns. Unfortunately a government shutdown never shuts down what it ought to.

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Adolescents always poop on the floor on their way out the door.

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That trick never works. Would you buy drugs manufactured by the equivalent of the Post Office? I wouldn’t.

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I realized one day that I’m a grown man with better things to do, with children who need a father who isn’t covered in third degree burn scars because some hippy in California is convinced leaking gas can vapors is what the real global warming problem is, and the industry is just as good at making leak-proof safety gas can valves as they are mousetraps, and generally speaking, dying in a burst of flames when a “safety” spout leaks fuel onto a hot exhaust seems like such an ironic and anti-climatic way to go.

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Their lavish pensions forced the city to establish an “Excess Benefit Plan” to pay what the pension system cannot legally cover, using money that could otherwise be tapped to fix sidewalks, fight homelessness or hire more cops.

In all, the little-known fund has paid $14.6 million to 110 retired employees since 2010, The Times’ analysis showed.

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Obama had a great deal of fun giving away other people’s money.

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Trump, the gift that keeps on giving.

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Gotta pay for the welfare state somehow.

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Of course he does. He’s a Democrat.

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New York State officials offered to use the power of eminent domain to seize private property for Amazon’s “HQ2” project, according to documents obtained by the Wall Street Journal.

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The Transportation Security Administration has set out an alarming vision of pervasive biometric surveillance at airports, which cuts against the right to privacy, the “right to travel,” and the right to anonymous association with others.

The FAA Reauthorization Act of 2018, which included language that we warned would provide implied Congressional endorsement to biometric screening of domestic travelers and U.S. citizens, became law in early October. The ink wasn’t even dry on that bill when the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) published their Biometrics Roadmap for Aviation Security and the Passenger Experience, detailing TSA’s plans to work with Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to roll out increased biometric collection and screening for all passengers, including Americans traveling domestically.

This roadmap appears to latch on to a perceived acceptance of biometrics as security keys while ignoring the pervasive challenges with accurately identifying individuals and the privacy risks associated with collecting massive amounts of biometric data. Furthermore, it provides no strategy for dealing with passengers who are unfairly misidentified.

Worst of all, while the roadmap explicitly mentions collaborating with airlines and other partners inside and outside the government, it is alarmingly silent on how TSA plans to protect a widely distributed honeypot of sensitive biometric information ripe for misuse by identity thieves, malicious actors, or even legitimate employees abusing their access privileges.

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California already has a problem with insufficient new homes being built to satisfy demand, and high housing prices exacerbating population outflow and homelessness. This will just make that situation worse. But I guess they don’t care.

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I should think so.

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Immigration attorney Linda Vega appeared on “Fox & Friends” Friday to explain how a 19-year-old illegal immigrant can use her newborn anchor baby to achieve U.S. citizenship.
The pregnant mother from Honduras scaled a fence near the southern border to have her child on American soil in November, to exploit the loophole of birthright citizenship.
“What happens now is she will be processed either to determine whether she has a credible fear to remain in the United States for a political asylum claim,” Vega said.

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That’s where the money is, as Willie Sutton famously said.

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A judge reportedly allowed an immigrant in court on drugs charges to leave through the back door to avoid immigration enforcement who had arrived to arrest him.

Shelley Joseph, a judge in the suburbs of Boston, is reportedly being investigated by a federal grand jury over the claims she helped the man – Jose Medina-Perez – escape arrest by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

The incident is said to have happened in April when Mr Medina-Perez was appearing before Judge Joseph’s court after being arrested on drug charges. Mr Perez-Medina was ordered to reappear before the court on the drugs charges in May and then allowed to leave.

The Boston Globe said the Dominican had already been deported from the United States twice before.

In the audio recording of the courtroom, Judge Joseph can be heard saying ICE “is going to get him” and “I’m not going to allow them to come in here” before telling a clerk to turn off the recording.

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The Ninth Circuit is the most overruled appellate court in the Federal system.

You can guess why.

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Both are of course Democrats. Presumably they see themselves as Muslims first and Americans a distant second.

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Heading downtown Minneapolis several times a week, we watched a so-called homeless encampment grow on a small strip of land along Hiawatha Avenue just before it funnels traffic downtown onto Seventh Street. A tribute to the broken-windows theory of policing, the encampment grew up virtually overnight. Bordering a subsidized Native American housing complex, residents of the encampment reflect the Indian tilt of their neighbors. At one point we saw teepees join the tents.

As the encampment turned into a shithole, municipal authorities jumped to it. They moved four port-o-potties onto a fringe of the strip. That didn’t do anything to clean up the detritus of addiction that littered the grounds. Between September and November four residents of the encampment died of overdoses. The Star Tribune quoted the father of one of the deceased: “It’s a drug house without walls and everyone knows it.” Yet the encampment continued to grow, spilling over the small strip of land on which it originated. It was something like an attractive nuisance.

Long after the encampment had become a disgusting eyesore and menace to public health, the authorities came up with a creative solution of a sort. They installed a green mesh screen to render the encampment less visible to passing traffic.

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

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We’re in the holiday season, but that doesn’t mean conservative legislators should take a holiday from their conservative principles. Unfortunately, the farm bill devised by House and Senate negotiators would require them to do just that.

Farm bills past have repeatedly disappointed those who believe in free markets, reduced dependency on government, and individual freedom. This latest farm bill, according to published reports, would be the worst in recent memory. It doesn’t just ignore these core principles—it flouts them.

Whenever any bill gets ‘negotiated’ it always winds up worse than either of the two original positions.

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This is part of the ongoing conflict between metropolitan areas in Texas, which are run by Democrats for Democrats, and the rest of the state, which is run by Republicans for Republicans.

Opponents dismissed the lawsuit from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, based on a Republican-backed law, as a “publicity stunt.”

Of course it was, just as the whole Sanctuary City schtick is a ‘publicity stunt’ — politicians are the original Virtue Signallers, and that applies to Republicans as well as Democrats.

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In a city run by Democrats, which most of them are, things go to shit really quickly.

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The suit lists curtailing the duration of early voting as among the election board’s barriers, making it more difficult for residents to vote. However, Abrams was a co-sponsor of the bill to shorten the early voting period when she was a member of the Georgia General Assembly.

Heh.

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Two Pennsylvania bus drivers are suing the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) after the workers were prevented from holding a vote to throw off their union representation.

Krise Transportation employees Marcia Williams and Karen Wunz are challenging the NLRB’s “settlement bar” rule that prevents workers from challenging a union for a set amount of time after a settlement.

The NLRB stacks the deck in favor of unions so many ways that I’m surprised that Trump hasn’t attacked them.

There’s a reason why ‘union’ and ‘thug’ go together, like pizza-topping.

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The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has paid $424,000 to insure itself against a significant drop in tuition revenue from Chinese students.

In what is thought to be a world first, the colleges of business and engineering at the university signed a three-year contract with an insurance broker to pay the annual six-figure sum, which provides coverage of up to $60 million.

The university came up with the idea in 2015 and implemented it last year but received permission from the broker to discuss it in public only earlier this month.

I guess they’re waiting for Trump to slap a tariff on ’em. This ought to solidify the position of Asians as Honorary White People.

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Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler suggested the Obama administration told the authors of the latest National Climate Assessment (NCA) to emphasize “worst-case” global warming predictions.