Power Line

One of the staples of Portland, Oregon—”Portlandia” to TV viewers— is the annual Rose Festival, now in its 82nd year, and it has for several years now featured a kickoff parade, akin to the Rose Parade in Pasadena on January 1 every year. But this year’s parade, scheduled for this weekend, has been cancelled. The reason: It was going to include—gasp—Republicans! And this is too much for the hardened left, which threatens to shutdown the parade by violent means if it includes Republicans. And the city of Portland has caved.

The Nazis are not the people marching peacefully. The Nazis are the people threatening violence to prevent others from marching peacefully.

Judicial Watch

This week Campa resigned as chief of the Marshall Police Department, according to a local newspaper story that quotes him saying “I have made the decision to step aside to pursue other opportunities that have developed.” The article says Campa wouldn’t elaborate on the opportunities. It also reveals that Campa is under investigation by the Texas Municipal Police Association (TMPA) for inappropriately monitoring officers’ vehicles and chastising employees that speak out against his administration. Sources tell Judicial Watch Campa practiced similar management skills in El Paso. The TMPA represents more than 24,000 local, county and state law enforcement officers across Texas and the association was in the process of obtaining records that apparently could be detrimental to Campa. The abrupt resignation will end the TMPA investigation, a north Texas representative reveals in the news article.

Apparently we can't trust the police not to illegally spy on each other, why would we trust the government not to spy on us?

PJMedia

The biggest fish, though, was Seyed Abolfazl Shahab Jamili, who had been charged with being part of a conspiracy that from 2005 to 2012 procured thousands of parts with nuclear applications for Iran via China. That included hundreds of U.S.-made sensors for the uranium enrichment centrifuges in Iran whose progress had prompted the nuclear deal talks in the first place.

The more we learn about the deal, the less we like it.

Since it was never properly ratified by the Senate, it is not binding. Trump should remind the Iranians of this at an opportune time.

Judicial Watch is suing for documentation on how the IRS handles document preservation, under the theory that they will take any opportunity they can to destroy records. Specifically, Judicial Watch wants to know about the IRS policies and procedures for records retention, any changes to those policies and procedures since 2010 (and we know already that there were some, and even some in which Lerner was involved), and any communications about preserving or retaining those records. So far, the IRS is lending credence to the Judicial Watch hypothesis by ignoring their FOIA request, thus resulting in the suit.

In the True the Vote case, lawyers provided by the Department of Justice are still stonewalling even after Trump's election. Trump's appointees at Justice need to make some heads roll until behavior changes in this case. Or simply retain outside counsel, since Justice was itself involved with the targeting and is likely compromised. How likely is that? Trump doesn't even seem to know the IRS exists, aside from paying his personal taxes and bitching about being audited. We're not likely to see Trump pushing this issue personally, but if we can get the attention of someone lower on the totem pole, we might see something happen.

Judicial Watch is also pursuing records recording the BATFE's attempt to ban AR-15 ammunition as "armor-piercing".

Free Beacon

Hundreds of illegal voters participated in the 2016 general election in North Carolina, according to a new report.

The post-election audit report, released by the North Carolina State Board of Elections (NCSBE), an independent and bipartisan agency that oversees elections in the state, found hundreds of illegal votes, including votes cast by felons and non-citizens, double voting, voter impersonation, and irregularities that affected mail-in absentee ballots.

Over 400 cases of felons voting alone. About a hundred cases of non-citizens voting.

The Abode of McThag

The correlation we have is that the massive spending engendered by LBJ and continued for the past 53 years have done nothing to reduce the poverty rate and that millions more people are living in poverty than were before we began this massive expenditure.

I'll throw my own causitive relationship in here. The rate was coming down from 1959 because the economy was expanding. The Economic Opportunity Act removed literally millions of able-bodied and capable workers from the labor pool and had a mainly deleterious effect on poverty because it established a floor to compare entry level work against.

Why get a job that doesn't pay substantially more than doing nothing? Especially when the money to not work was substantially reduced in response to any, reported, legitimate income.

I'll take this one step farther. If you can't improve your position in life by working a legitimate job for fear of reducing your welfare benefits, but you still want to improve your position in life, what career paths are open to you? Illegitimate ones. That means crime, whether theft, smuggling contraband (ie, drugs), or low-skilled under-the-table labor that isn't reported to tax agencies.

Sure, working in the criminal sector bears a substantial risk of being caught, convicted, and put in prison. But it also bears a substantial potential upside: successful criminals star in Hollywood movies or have careers as rap artists or get away with successful complex heists that result in billions of dollars in loot. No, not really, but that's what Hollywood sells as the upside to a life of crime. I happened to be browsing Netflix last night, and there must have been two or three separate file projects about a widow whose husband ran a drug business and how she had to take it over when he died. Two or three different ones just about that one scenario. Quite a few others about the more broadly viewed drug trade, even more about various heist movies, and so on.

Sure, on one level it's just entertainment. On another, what do the options and incentives look like for a man or woman on welfare considering what they can do to improve their lives? Work hard for years, keep their nose clean, go back to school to learn a skill (and what if their experience of the school system tells them they don't learn very well?), get a job (possibly hampered by criminal history), pay taxes... or make a few quick criminal scores and relax until you need to make the next few quick criminal scores?

The incentive structure is all screwed up.

The Hill

U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, an appointee of President Obama's, has been fired by the Trump administration. Murthy had been surgeon general since 2014 and his sudden departure surprised employees at HHS, The New York Times reported.

Trump to appoint his own choice to Surgeon General post.

Vivek Murthy is an anti-gun crusader who used his medical credentials to push gun control after promising the Senate during his confirmation hearings that he would not do so.

The Hill

President Trump dined out at his Washington, D.C., hotel on Saturday night, his third trip there in as many months.

Trump eats at his own restaurant once a month.

The Hill

Almost half the respondents in a new poll say President Trump is off to a “poor start” in office.

Forty five percent of Americans in an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released early Sunday said the president’s first 100 days in office have been “poor.” Fourteen percent said he’s off to a “great start” while 21 percent said it has been “good” and 19 percent said it was “fair.”

So let's put aside the massive, indeed unprecedented, arguably literally insane response from both the media and the Democrats (but I repeat myself) to Trump's electoral victory. Obviously such a temper tantrum will work up Democrat partisans and the media -- but I repeat myself again -- to a fever pitch of disapproval and disgust. That accounts for the 45% right there: they were stupid enough to vote for Hillary Clinton, so obviously they aren't happy.

What about the rest?

Well, 14% say "great" start, 21% say "good" start. That's 35%. That covers the portion of the Republican base that actually liked Trump. Add the 19% who said "fair" start and you get 54%.

The headline should be Majority of voters think Trump's doing fine. Or maybe Nearly all who supported Trump in election say it was right thing to do. (In Texas, that's called the "Dance with him who brung ya" rule).

Dallas News

About three dozen voters in Grand Prairie reported that someone fraudulently used their names to request mail-in ballots, mirroring a pattern of recent complaints in West Dallas, the county's elections head said Monday.

A suspicious man has shown up in both places offering elderly residents "assistance" with their mail-in ballots, raising the possibility that he could tamper with the ballots, said Dallas County Elections Administrator Toni Pippins-Poole.

The man knocked on the residents' doors and in some cases identified himself as a Dallas County elections department employee there to help them with the mail-in ballots they had requested, Pippins-Poole said. But the residents who complained said they hadn't requested mail-in ballots.

But the Left keeps telling me that vote fraud is a myth!

WattsUpWithThat has the details. Multiple shots fired from a handgun striking on the same floor of the building where a prominent climate science skeptic works. Not much is known yet.

Chicago Sun Times

I write, often harshly, about The People of the Gun. I harbor a dim view of Second Amendment advocates. With each new shooting in Chicago, I have become more terrified of guns and the people who carry them. It’s time I actually met one.

So why should anyone pay attention to anything this person wrote about guns before this?

National Review

On the second point, to understand legislative strategy, you must first understand legislative procedure. There are a series of procedural problems presented by the so-called “Byrd Rule,” which Yuval Levin explains here, and which precludes the Republican Senate majority from ramming through everything it would like without 60 votes — despite the fact that Obamacare was passed by the very 51-vote reconciliation procedure that now stands in Republicans’ way.

Can Republicans just ignore the Byrd Rule? In theory, they could limit or abolish the legislative filibuster, but that’s a drastic step with a lot of future downsides. And they can’t just unilaterally change the Byrd Rule itself, which derives from a statute (the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974, the father of the modern, out-of-control budget system) rather than just from Senate rules. In the Senate, even a single senator can raise Byrd Rule objections to any individual item in the bill, obtaining rulings from the Senate parliamentarian that can be overruled only by . . . 60 senators. Worse, even if violations of the Byrd Rule make it past the Senate, their statutory origin means that, at least in theory, they could be challenged in court.

The above is from a lengthy article that claims to be about how to repeal Obamacare. I tried to read the whole thing, but when I got to the above passage, my tolerance for stupidity ended.

The Democrats passed Obamacare through reconciliation. Therefore, Republicans can repeal it through reconciliation. The whole thing, not bits and pieces. It may be politically difficult, but increasing the political difficulty by insisting on respecting political hurdles the Democrats do not is just a way to lose.

The Byrd Rule (by which he means the filibuster) objection is likewise absurd. Yes, the "rules" require 60 votes on some issues. Yes, the Senate parliamentarian may rule that 60 votes are required. The Republican majority can then vote to overrule the parliamentarian with 51 votes, just as they did recently to put Justice Gorsuch on the bench. Collecting 60 votes is harder; collecting 51 votes is not as hard. Insisting on 60 votes is just another way to lose.

And what does the author recommend as a way forward?

Surrender.

National Review

But any path forward, to be politically viable, will probably require Republicans to swallow hard and continue having the federal government lay out more money than we would like, for longer than we would like, to subsidize health insurance one way or another for Groups B and C.

Why is it so hard to just repeal the whole damn thing -- like they have been promising since it passed -- and then try to pass specific reforms issue by issue? Why does everyone insist on a "master plan" for healthcare? Why can't we have a free market?

France 24

A gunman killed one police officer and wounded two others before being killed himself in an attack on the Champs-Elysees in the heart of the French capital on Thursday evening.

The attacker was recently questioned by police before the attack.

Even if we can somehow use pervasive global surveillance to identify terrorists ahead of time, it does not help us if we cannot then do something ahead of time. The logical thing to do is to deport anyone (not already a citizen) who poses a terrorist threat.

The US has its own problems with not doing anything about the known wolves amongst us.

Daily Caller

A top FBI official whose wife received political donations from an ally of Hillary Clinton’s last year does not need to recuse himself from the ongoing Trump-Russia investigation, the bureau said Wednesday.

He didn't "need" to recuse himself from investigating Hillary's email server, either, and we saw how credible that investigation turned out to be. This is, by the way, the same "investigation" that was going to pay for a Democratically-sourced anti-Trump "dossier" that our own intelligence agencies regarded as bunk, yet the FBI used that document to justify their FISA warrant on Carter Page.

So in other words, after donating $700,000 to a Deputy Director at the FBI, Hillary's campaign got away with chronic felonius mishandling of classified information and deliberate violations of the federal records act, got the FBI to "investigate" the presidential candidate of the opposing party, used a faked Democratic party hit piece to justify a national intelligence wiretap, AND turned the intelligence agencies of multiple allied nations into pawns.

And STILL failed to win.

So Hillary's defense to the whole email server fiasco was that she didn't know anything about how email worked and just relied on technical employees to manage things for her. But a recent campaign-autopsy expose suggests she knew what she was doing and understood what it meant to be the person who owned the email server, because she took advantage of that after her 2008 campaign and downloaded the emails of her top aides to find out who was leaking and backstabbing her.

That's paranoid and creepy, but it also contradicts her earlier defense about just not knowing what a server is.

Someone should double-check her statements about that while under oath. Just in case she, you know... perjured herself.

The Federalist

The fastest, most efficient way to remove the United States from the Paris Climate Treaty is to withdraw from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), negotiated in 1992. Doing so would keep President Trump’s promise to defund the United Nations’ global warming projects, and it could be done in one year rather than the four years required to withdraw from the Paris treaty. Withdrawal from the UNFCCC would automatically mean leaving the Paris treaty.

Actually, the fastest way to withdraw from the Paris Climate Treaty is to point out that it was never ratified by the Senate and simply refuse to abide by any of its terms, including (especially) refusing to pay any money and clawing back as much as possible from the funds Obama illegally transferred.

But read the whole thing to find out why getting out is a good idea, whatever the mechanism.

Free Beacon

Federal authorities have open investigations into radical Islamic terrorists in all 50 states, according to the Department of Homeland Security, which is warning that the threat of terrorism in the United States has reached an all time high with radicalized individuals in the country plotting to strike "each and every single day."

That's certainly a lot of terrorist threats. But an "all time high"?

Free Beacon

The FBI has "open terrorist investigations in all 50 states," according to DHS Secretary John Kelly, who disclosed on Tuesday that there have been at least 37 "ISIS-linked plots to attack our country" since 2013, a number that shows no signs of diminishing.

I hate to say it, Adam, but total numbers like that one do not ever diminish. There have been 37 (according to your source) ISIS linked plots. If they find a new one, there will be 38. Then 39. Then 40. They don't go away if the FBI closes an investigation. They just keep getting higher and higher.

The number of open investigations and active plots is concerning, but let's not abandon numerical literacy in order to hype the threat.

The Hill

Juan Manuel Montes, who first arrived in the U.S. at age 9, is now in his native Mexico despite having active protection under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, USA Today reported Tuesday.

But a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security disputed Montes’s story, saying that he was arrested by Border Patrol after illegally climbing over a fence in Calexico on Feb. 19.

So he was arrested climbing over a border fence at age 23, yet claims protection under DACA due to his first illegal entry at age 9, and is living with relatives in Mexico?

Yeah. He belongs in Mexico until he follows the correct procedures to legally enter the United States.

Over at American Greatness. No one lost their job. No one went to jail. No one was even charged with a crime.

Now a judge has ruled that discovery may proceed in a lawsuit related to the targeting.

PBS

Much like some prior orders, however, Trump’s executive action Tuesday essentially looks for detailed reports rather than making decisive changes. In this case, the reports are about granting visas for highly skilled foreign workers and ensuring that government purchasing programs buy American made goods as required by law.

Buying American (as required by law) is a good thing when you're talking about government purchases. And starting with "detailed reports" on the H1B situation is a good idea. It collects data which can be used to act effectively, and it puts companies that use extensive amounts of H1B labor on notice. If they aren't following the rules -- and many of them aren't -- they may well attempt to clean house voluntarily before the government begins actually enforcing the law.

Over at Liberty's Torch, there's a great description of the parallels between the current political environment in leftist-controlled states (think California) and the rise of the Nazi party. It's not yet at the level of genocide, but in those states, the police are deliberately leaving the streets to violent leftists. The left's public opinion leaders are openly calling for denying "white men" the vote (and only backing down because they discovered the author doesn't exist).

We've not there yet, but the leftist cause advanced quite a ways under Obama, taking over the Democrat party (which used to respect free speech) and replacing it with thinly disguised fascism. The election of Trump is causing those leftists who remain in regional power to rip off their masks and expose themselves. Everything from desperate attempts at impeachment, to frantically trying to pass laws to declare Trump invalid, to literally rioting on the streets with the tacit support of the police.

Remember, the Nazis lost, politically. Their party had support, but not control of the government. They used street violence and created crises to claim temporary power, and then consolidated until temporary became permanent.

We're in for a rough 4 years if the Left doesn't change course and return to seeking political power democratically.

The Hill

The nation’s largest Muslim advocacy group on Monday said it received a page of the Quran smeared with “a foreign substance” assumed to be feces.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said the message sent to its Washington, D.C., headquarters also contained a “racist” image depicting former President Obama as monkey.

If I was a betting man, I'd lay down a substantial sum in favor of the proposition that the sender, when identified, turns out to be a black Muslim.

And I won't allow this incident to distract me from mentioning that the three people shot in Fresno were shot by a black Muslim shouting "Allahu Akbar" whose Facebook page includes posts attacking "white people".

The Hill

A House Democrat has introduced legislation to enhance the Constitution’s presidential removal procedures in response to concerns about President Trump’s behavior.

Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) filed the bill during the House's two-week April recess to empower former presidents and vice presidents of both parties, in coordination with the sitting vice president, to determine if a president is fit for office.

Impeachment theater. They know this sort of thing will not succeed, but they have to do something to sell their base on the idea that they will get rid of Trump somehow.

The Hill

Former President Barack Obama thought his former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s handling of the scandal surrounding her use of a private email server was "political malpractice," a new book reveals.

The Hill’s Amie Parnes and Sidewire’s Jonathan Allen report in “Shattered: Inside Hillary Clinton's Doomed Campaign” that while Obama campaigned for Clinton for president in public, he kept his concerns over the scandal private.

“He couldn’t understand what possessed Hillary to set up the private e-mail server, and her handling of the scandal — obfuscate, deny, and evade — amounted to political malpractice,” the authors wrote.

So why didn't he ask her during the 4 years or so she served as his Secretary of State and he was sending her emails on her illegal private server?