Previously John McCain was angered when it was pointed out “his people” (the rebels in Syria) were actual kidnappers.   Now he embarrasses himself to the extent Lindsey Graham needs to apologize for McCain’s angry and petulant behavior.

WASHINGTON DC – Hell-bent on arming opposition forces in Syria—despite strong evidence that they’re run by Islamic terrorists—John McCain displayed behavior unbecoming of a United States Senator during a recent meeting with Syrian Christian leaders touring Capitol Hill.

The delegation of Syrian clergy came to Washington to raise awareness among lawmakers of the growing crisis among the region’s minority Christian community. Christians make up about 10% of the Syrian population and they are being targeted and ruthlessly murdered by radical elements of the rebel forces, according to the visiting church officials. They say the media and human rights groups in the west have been largely silent on the ordeal of the Christians in Syria. (more…)

2.5 Million Full Time Equivalent Jobs = 100 million hours of productivity removed from the economy.  

EVERY WEEK. 

As a consequence, @ $15/hr, that’s a $1.5 billion removal of positive production value from the economy and replaced with $1.5 billion dependency entitlement under the guise of a subsidy.  EVERY WEEK.

In very direct essence – This shifts $1.5 billion in additional taxation to the remaining productive class every week.   Or $78,000,000,000.00 ($78 Billion) per year. 

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama’s healthcare law will reduce American workforce participation by the equivalent of 2 million full-time jobs in 2017, the Congressional Budget Office said on Tuesday in a report that could fuel Republican efforts to paint the law as a job killer.

In its latest U.S. fiscal outlook, the nonpartisan CBO said the health law would prompt some lower-income workers to limit their hours to avoid losing federal subsidies that are available under the law to help pay for health insurance.

The CBO said the biggest impact on work hours from the health law would begin in 2017 because major provisions of the law will be well under way by then. The CBO said there would be smaller declines in work hours that would occur before then.

Work hours would be reduced by the equivalent of 2.5 million jobs in 2024, the agency said. (more…)

If you know even a cursory history of this creepy man – you know he has no concept of decency or boundaries in relationships.

At 43 he was dating a 17-year-old and began a sexual relationship.    In his fifties he became attracted to his 13-year-old step-daughter.   When the step-daughter turned 19 he dumped mom and married his step-daughter.   This alone is NOT ok.   Period.  It’s more than a little damned creepy, it’s perverse.

Now, as time has moved along, the other little girl (step-daughter #2) says when she was seven, creepy step-daddy was molesting her.

Yeah, sorry but I believe Dylan Farrow – Not the creepy touchy “daddy wants to marry me, mommy” guy.

*Note* Except for a legal marriage contract – Woody Allen has fathered his own grandchildren.  Think about it.

NO, actually having a Supreme Court Justice who cannot apply the term “illegal” to unlawful criminal behavior is what I would consider insulting.

Remember, this is one of the Supreme Court Justices. 

As in – a co-equal branch of government whose very charter is “interpreting” laws, and legal definitions therein.   Legal definitions are then used to frame judicial opinion toward the constitutional authority of the law to stand.  

In a very specific sense all the Supremes do is interpret law 24/7/365 and apply opinion toward definitions contained within the words.

CBS – […]   On the Supreme Court since 2009, Sotomayor said it was tough at first as justices made references that went over her head. She said joining the high court amounted to joining an ongoing conversation among justices who had served for years.

“I figure I may not be the smartest judge on the court but I’m going to be a competent justice,” she said. “I’m going to try to be the best I can and each year I think my opinions have been getting better. And I’m working at finding my voice a little bit.”

Sotomayor was asked at a talk at Yale Law School later in the day about her use of the term “undocumented immigrants” rather than the traditional illegal alien. Sotomayor characterized the issue as a regulatory problem and said labeling immigrants criminals seemed insulting to her. (more…)

Abortion Barbie apparently has a propensity toward letting other people pay for her housing and lifestyle choices.     First indulged by her parents, then came her husband(s), followed by campaign donors and now she wants taxpayers to do it….  

When you think about it, she’s the exact opposite of everything her campaign story claimed she was.

TEXAS – Embattled Democratic gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis has spent more than $131,000 in campaign funds to pay for luxury apartments in Austin, Texas, since her election to the Texas State Senate in 2008, according to a Washington Free Beacon analysis.

While such use of campaign funds islegal in Texas, the amounts involved and properties rented may undermine Davis’s campaign persona of a working class single mom, observers tell the Free Beacon.

Davis, whose permanent address is in Fort Worth, lists government accountability as a primary issue on her campaign website, which says she opposes elected officials who “have turned state agencies and programs into their own personal piggy bank, granting favors to their friends, rewarding donors, and furthering their own interests.” (more…)

There is a considerable amount of chatter amid the blog-o-sphere for an interview Hugh Hewitt had with former Clinton White House Counsel Lanny Davis. [ Transcript here ]

Most of the attention has focused on the final segment question where Hewitt challenges Davis to summarize Hillary’s accomplishments as Secretary of State, and Davis cannot name one:

LANNY DAVIS: … more time, which is at some point, at some point, if she runs for president, Benghazi and every other issue she’s being criticized for, and I happen to believe that there are only a handful of people that hold Benghazi against her. I don’t think that that’s a serious political issue for her.

HUGH HEWITT: Okay, then give me one more thing.

DAVIS: But she’s got to do it. She’s got to do it if she runs for president. And she knows that.

HEWITT: All right, one question, you’ve got a minute. Summarize for me what she accomplished as Secretary of State.

(more…)

Outside the DC beltway bubble I guess taxpayers are now “ordinary Americans”.  That would make the non-taxpayer(s), non-ordinary Americans.   Strange world we live in where the majority views have to be quantified, or defined so, as to reach beyond the propaganda…..

Note to DC and liberals:    WE OUTNUMBER YOU !

(Via Breitbart)  Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) announced Friday that throughout 2013 his three campaign arms raised $4.16 million.

Cruz made the massive haul over 2013 through his re-election committee, Ted Cruz for Senate, his joint fundraising committee, Ted Cruz Victory Committee, and his leadership PAC, the Jobs, Growth & Freedom Fund.

About $1.5 million of this fundraising happened in the fourth quarter of 2013. This began during the government shutdown caused by Democrats’ and President Obama’s refusal to compromise on Obamacare after Cruz’s stand, with Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) at his side, against the unpopular healthcare law. Conventional wisdom inside the beltway was that Americans disapproved of Cruz’s and Lee’s tactics, but these fundraising details are yet another indicator that ordinary Americans craved someone who would stand up against Obamacare on their behalf.   (read more)

First Lady Michelle Obama took a jab at rural Americans during a speech she delivered to Democrats at the posh Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco, according to a White House transcript of her remarks.

Her comments came as she was imploring the high-dollars donors to dig deep and “max out” their checking accounts.

“Leave San Francisco,” she told the laughing audience. “Leave this bastion. Go out in the wilderness. And roll up your sleeves because we know that those person-to-person contacts, those calls and doors knocked on, all of that can also mean the difference between victory and defeat.”  (link)

(more…)

New York Times Headline:  “Rebel Conservatives Excel in G.O.P. Fund-Raising, Heralding a Tug Right“…

WOLVERINES !

(Via New York Times)  Insurgent conservatives seeking to pull the Republican Party to the right raised more money last year than the groups controlled by the party establishment, whose bulging bank accounts and ties to major donors have been their most potent advantage in the running struggle over the party’s future, according to new campaign filings and interviews with officials.

The shift in fortunes among the largest and most influential outside political groups could have an enormous impact in the 2014 election cycle, as the warring Republican factions prepare to square off in a series of Senate and House primaries around the country and as Republican leaders seek to rein in activists who they believe have fractured and endangered the party with policies that alienate independent-leaning voters. (more…)

SPLODEY HEAD DEFCON Level 4 –  Progressives rush to hide this in the liberal “Keep This From The Media” file.

(Volokh Conspiracy Blog – Via Washington Post)  There was a small furor yesterday over an MSNBC staffer’s intolerant views of conservatives and the political right. Erik Wemple at the Post published MSNBC’s apology, which announces that a staffer was fired. You can also follow the dispute at New York Magazine, Reason, Michele Malkin, Instapundit, and Gateway Pundit (which captured the fullest screenshot of the now-scrubbed tweet).

My interest today is not in what happened or in the responses of MSNBC and the people it insulted, but rather in the substance of the claim: that people on the right side of the political spectrum would be opposed to mixed-race families including an adopted child.  This follows a somewhat similar MSNBC kerfuffle over jokes implying that an African-American grandchild was somehow out of place in a Romney family photo.

I thought perhaps a little academic light might clear up some of the press’s ignorance about adopted and step-families in America (the Romney case). (more…)