One Big Happy Riot

From The City Journal via H/T at Instapundit:

“The task before them is formidable: to sell Americans on the notion that eight years of Democratic rule have left the country better off, while at the same time convincing swing voters in Ohio and Florida that a host of ills—from patriarchy and institutional racism to corporate greed and police brutality—plague us still, and require ever greater levels of government intervention to solve.”

It's a dilemma recognized by the Drive-By Media, so they are trying the best to sell a sow's ear as a silk purse.

Quote of the Day

From Weaponsman via H/T at Ace of Spades HQ:

Remember, the police and the FBI cannot protect you. They can only avenge you. You have to protect yourself.

-- WeaponsMan commenting on the long list of missed signals that Omar Mateen was destined for some kind of Sudden Jihad Syndrome.

This is why the 2nd Amendment is so important. The police can't and WON'T protect you. They can on;y get involved AFTER a crime.

Feds Divert MILLIONS To ‘Slush Fund’ That Fuels These Liberal Activist Groups

From The Daily Caller:

Department of Justice officials diverted millions of dollars slated for victims of the 2008 housing meltdown to politically favored third parties, including “left-wing radical groups,” according to the chairman of a House of Representatives oversight subcommittee.

Rep. Sean Duffy , a Wisconsin Republican and chairman of the House Financial Services oversight and investigations subcommittee, said Friday the officials “skimmed” off three percent from mortgage-related bank settlements. This created what he called a $500 million “slush fund” that could be steered toward favored groups.
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“Many of us in Congress were alarmed when we found out about the bank settlements and the fact that money was not just going to victims and to the Treasury but there was a setup for settlement dollars to go to third-party groups,” he said.
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Duffy charged that Justice and HUD officials “at a high level” cooperated in shutting out conservative housing and community organizations from access to federal funds set aside for housing assistance.

Under terms set by the Justice Department, Duffy said he could read documents about the bank settlement disbursements but could not reproduce them for public dissemination.

Corruption, corruption, corruption!!!

Van Jones Admits Dems Need Minorities to Remain Poor and Resentful

From Powerline Blog:

CNN contributor Van Jones has taken to Facebook with a video in which he warns that Trump is likely to win the election because of his mastery of the new social media landscape of today. This might be true, but his electoral math is more interesting:

“70 percent of African Americans have a horrible view of Donald Trump,” Jones continued. “In order for the Democrats to win the White House they don’t have to get 50 percent of the black vote or 60, or 70, or 80, or 90, Democrats in order to win historically need 90 to 92 percent of the black vote. If only 70 percent don’t like Donald Trump, that means 30 percent are open to his argument. If he gets half of those, he’s president.”

Let this sink in slowly. Ensuring that Democrats continue to receive black votes in a monolithic block, it is in their interest for blacks to remain poor and resentful, which is why agitators like Jones work overtime to keep racism alive and boiling. If blacks in larger numbers entered the middle class, more of them would likely start voting Republican. No wonder the left makes sure to reinforce the idea that your skin color or ethnicity should determine your ideology and your vote, and why dissenters like Clarence Thomas are demonized. It’s rare to see this implicitly acknowledged. Jones is right to be scared.

I have said for years, if racism were to end, Jessie Jackson and Al Sharpton would be out of a job, so they have a vested interest in 'keeping the blackman down.'

Federal Court Blocks Dem’s Attempt to Out Conservative Donors

From The Washington Free Beacon:

A federal court on Tuesday blocked efforts by officials in California to force a conservative group to hand over the names of its donors, saying the order could violate those donors’ First Amendment rights.

Kamala Harris, California’s attorney general and a Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate, demanded last year that the Americans for Prosperity Foundation (AFPF) turn over its donor rolls. The court enjoined that demand pending the outcome of AFPF’s suit attempting to invalidate the order.

Another liberal violating black letter law and previous SCOTUS precedents to attack political rivals. She needs to be pay for all the legal bills of AFPF!

Taxing $1,000 per Gun Became a Reality in One U.S. Territory — and Some Worry It Could Spread

From The Blaze via H/T at Instapundit: Civil Rights Update:

Gov. Ralph Torres signed the gun tax and regulation bill into law Monday and stressed that his first priority is the safety of law enforcement and the community.

“It’s something that none of us want, and we want to make it as strict as possible,” Torres said in a statement.

Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, blasted these as examples of the left targeting guns and noted that Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has backed taxes on guns in the past.

“The left is now seeking to tax guns out of existence,” Norquist said in a statement Monady. “The Second Amendment makes it difficult to legally ban guns, but Hillary has led the way to explaining you can achieve the same thing with high taxes.”

There must be a solid case to be made that a $1,000 tax on a $500 pistol is an unconstitutional infringement on a court-recognized individual right.

Taxes Chased GE Out of Connecticut

From National Review:

GE’s decision to leave Fairfield for Boston is another sad marker in the downhill slide brought about by Connecticut’s high-tax, high-regulation, anti-business policies of the last 25 years.

Governor Dannel Malloy (D.) accelerated the state’s economic freefall with another huge tax hike passed last summer. Despite his 2014 reelection promise of no new taxes, Malloy signed a $2 billion tax hike that falls heavily and businesses and individuals. This came only a few years after his near $1.5 billion tax hike.

Does anyone doubt that massive tax hikes on successful earners and corporations drive those same folks out of state? That’s the new Connecticut story. A recent Pew poll shows that 60 percent of current residents want out.

Tax and spend, SOP for liberals.

Why Would Anyone Want a Firearm?

From Charles C. W. Cooke at National Review:

To propose that a government could restrict access to ammunition without gutting the Second Amendment is akin to proposing that a government could ban churches without hollowing out the First. If a free people are to enjoy their liberties without encumbrance, the prerequisite tools must be let well alone.
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That those who would engage in such supervision do so with good intentions is neither here nor there. When, in their infinite wisdom, the legislators of New Jersey passed the draconian permitting requirements that have led to their constituents’ waiting months for the chance to buy a gun, they presumably believed that they were striking a strong blow for public safety. In truth, however, they were overstepping their legitimate bounds and condemning a handful of American citizens to ignominious death. One such citizen, a diminutive woman named Carol Bowne, found this out firsthand in June of this year, when, having waited long beyond the statutory processing window, she watched her stalker of an ex-boyfriend come into her driveway with a knife and stab her to death. “Who does not see that self-defense is a duty superior to every precept?” asked Montesquieu in his magisterial Spirit of the Laws. Judging by our present debate, the answer to this question is “Too many.”

The State of New Jersey, the local Sheriff, and Governor Chris Christie is responsible for her death. Why? What have they done since Ms. Bowne murder to fix the situation? Have they changed the law, so at the end of the 30 day processing time, the permit is automatically granted, if the local sheriff causes any delay? No. Have they done anything to improve the situation? No.

That puts any future murders on their bloody hands, period.

California, Leading from Behind

From Victor Davis Hanson at National Review:

California has given us three new truths about government.

One, the higher that taxes rise, the worse state services become.

Two, the worse a natural disaster hits, the more the state contributes to its havoc.

And three, the more existential the problem, the more the state ignores it.

California somehow has managed to have the fourth-highest gas taxes in the nation, yet its roads are rated 44th among the 50 states. Nearly 70 percent of California roads are considered to be in poor or mediocre condition by the state senate. In response, the state legislature naturally wants to raise gas taxes, with one proposal calling for an increase of 12 cents per gallon, which would give California the highest gas taxes in the nation.

Because oil prices have crashed, state bureaucrats apparently believe that the public won’t notice the tax increase in their fill-up costs – even though special California fuel mandates already help make gas prices 25 percent higher than the national average.

Consider California’s upside-down logic. The state wanted to discourage driving and promote hybrid vehicles by upping taxes on carbon fuels. It worked, though it cost the public dearly. People drove less and bought more fuel-efficient cars. But now, because less gas is burned, fewer taxes are collected. So the state wants to reward motorists for their green sacrifices by raising their taxes even higher to make up for missing revenue. If state motorists drive even less and cram into two-seat commuter cars, will California further reward them with even higher gas taxes?
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If California motorists are driving far fewer miles, shouldn’t roads wear out more slowly – and additional taxes not need to be raised for repairs? Could state revenues that have been diverted to the high-speed rail boondoggle instead be used for road repairs?

The State is run by a bunch of nincompoops. Why, because they are elected by a large group of nincompoops. That is why this stat is doomed.

San Francisco's Self-Defeating Housing Activists

From The Atlantic via H/T at Instapundit:

Is it just me, or is the Atlantic blaming preservationist for skyhigh rents in San Fran?

The cost of housing in San Francisco is a burden to the working and middle classes. It is the product of choices fueled by the self-interest and even greed of the well-off at the expense of the less well-off. But many of the San Francisco activists most passionate about improving affordability in theory are pursuing that goal in economically dubious ways that are, as often as not, counterproductive.

Actually, more the rich people, who are home owners AND landlords. They understand basic economics. Limit supply and the price will rise.

Democrats' problem -- Americans have little faith in government

From Michael Barone at the Washington Examiner via H/T at Instapundit:

The Republican party certainly has its problems: a chaotic presidential race, a despised congressional party, unpopularity among the rapidly growing number of non-whites.

But the Democratic party has its problems as well. One of them is the fact that the two signature policies of Barack Obama—the Affordable Care Act or Obamacare, the nuclear agreement with Iran—are unpopular with most voters.

Seven years of Obama'll do that.

"The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the Government, and I'm here to help. "

-- Ronald Reagan

That is the problem.

Our Bitter And Graceless President.

From Commentary Magazine via H/T at Instapundit:

We all know people of towering arrogance and we all know people of staggering incompetence, but Barack Obama is quite possibly the perfect package. No one on the scene today combines these two qualities in quite the same way as Mr. Obama.

On the incompetence side, and sticking just with the president’s policies and record in the greater Middle East, there is Mr. Obama’s mishandling of the rise of the Islamic State, which just last year he referred to as the “jayvee team” and just last week declared was “contained.” Recall his threat to Syrian President Assad that if Assad used chemical weapons on his own people it would constitute crossing a “red line” (Assad did and Obama did nothing), and his stop-start-stop support for opposition forces in Syria.

Then there is the president’s decision to pull out all American troops from Iraq, which had disastrous consequences; his failures in Afghanistan (including announcing a withdrawal date even as he was announcing a surge in troops); his bungled relations with Egypt; his failure to support the Green Revolution in Iran in 2009 and his nuclear deal with Iran in 2015, which Charles Krauthammer called “the worst agreement in U.S. diplomatic history.” Add to that Mr. Obama declaring his policies in Libya, Yemen and Somalia to be models of success before things collapses in all three countries, his alienation and mistreatment of Israel, and his botched handling of relations with our Arab allies – not to mention policies that have allowed Russia a presence in the Middle East unlike any its had since Anwar Sadat expelled the Soviet Union from Egypt in the early 1970s – and you have a catastrophic foreign policy record. It was only in the summer of last year that the Wall Street Journal reported, “The breadth of global instability now unfolding hasn’t been seen since the late 1970s” – and things are more disordered, chaotic and violent now then it was then. Things are so bad that the president has even lost CNN’s Christiane Amanpour.

You’d think that this would have instilled at least a small measure of humility, but no such luck.

It's almost as if he 's intentionally trying to make the worst possible choice.

Or the results prove, once and for all, that liberalism is ALWAYS a bad choice.

A Liberal’s Ten Commandments

From Victor Davis Hansen at PJ Media:

The best way for liberals to advance their various causes would be to take a pledge to live the rather progressive lives that they advocate. Here are a modest Ten Commandments to lend them credibility in the eyes of the American people.

Read the whole thing.

Are America’s tax migrants bringing California and New York’s high-tax views to sunny low-tax shores of Texas and Florida?

From Glenn Harlan Reynolds at USA Today via H/T at Instapundit:

If I were one of those conservative billionaires (hello, Koch brothers! hi, Sheldon Adelson!) who are always donating tens of millions to support Republican candidates, I think I might try spending some of the money on something more useful: A sort of welcome wagon for blue state migrants to red states. Something that would explain to them why the place they’re moving to is doing better than the place they left, and suggesting that they might not want to vote for the same policies that are driving their old home states into bankruptcy.

That's why Colorado and Florida have turned purple.

MSNBC Panel Can’t Name One Policy That Would Have Prevented Oregon Shooting (Updated)

From The Daily Caller:

Charles C. W. Cooke framed the debate this way:

"And the way they talk, is as if they have the answer and there are just these recalcitrant forces in the country that say, “No, no, no.” Even though somewhere deep down, they know their legislation will work. That’s simply not the case, It’s far more complicated than that.

And then asked the panel,

“All right then, with respect, what’s your plan?”

Silence! ......... Not one suggestion.

Charles Cooke of the National Review stumped the panel, including Bloomberg’s Mark Halperin, Howard Dean and Mika Brzezinski. Only Dean was able to articulate a pair of ideas that he said “might be helpful,” never asserting that they would have stopped the Oregon shooting.

Update: via H/T at Instapundit:

Explain why @charlescwcooke didn't mic drop, slap on sunglasses, & saunter out to "Thug Life" at end of this video http://t.co/vU7MayRr3F

— Sean D Sorrentino (@sdsorrentino) October 3, 2015

If you tax it too much, they will go

From Glenn Harlan Reynolds of Instapundit at USA Today:

IRS data show that taxpayers are migrating from high-tax states like New York, Illinois, and California to low-tax states like Texas and Florida. And it’s not just sports stars or star scientists, doing that, but fairly ordinary people — though, of course, people who earn enough money to pay taxes. If you’re living on welfare benefits and don't plan to change that, you won’t move to a low-tax state to escape taxes; if you move anywhere, it’ll probably be to a state that offers better benefits than the one you live in now.

This phenomenon has numerous implications, but let’s talk about two: In time, if taxpayers tend to migrate from high-tax states to low-tax states, and if people receiving government benefits tend to stay in place or migrate from lower-benefit states to higher-benefit states, then over time lower-tax states will tend to accumulate more people with high earnings, while higher-benefit states will tend to accumulate more people who live on the dole.

Which is why I plan to move out of Kalifornia when I retire.

New England to shiver from the lack of those natural gas pipelines the Democrats so hate.

From Moe Lane via H/T at Instapundit:

Political stances have consequences: “Natural gas is so abundant and cheap in much of the U.S. that producers want to export it overseas. Except in New England, where gas is so hard to get that companies are importing it from as far away as Yemen.” In this particular case, the stance was we do not want any of those dirty, dirty fossil fuel pipelines in our backyards; and the consequences are soaring natural gas prices (2/3rds higher than the rest of the country) according to the WSJ, with the price probably continuing to skyrocket because of increased demand from consumers and what may be a really, really cold winter*. There’s also apparently the consequence that New England air pollution levels have been rising in the last year due to the need to burn stuff that’s less efficient than natural gas, but that’s a whole different issue**.

…Well. Loathe as I am to see a bunch of Americans pay through the nose for electric – and more importantly, heat – many, many people are going to not-really-nicely note that New Englanders have largely brought this fate down upon themselves by voting in Democrats. And it’s true! New Englanders did, and they have.

But who could have seen this coming? Actually lots of people – including Nick Schulz, my editor back in the day at Tech Central Station, who warned:

For example, energy market analysts predict this winter will see steep rises in home heating bills as the demand for natural gas grows and supply remains tight. And yet, for years politicians have known of the need to bolster supply and yet obstructed efforts to help do so.

Consider the Bay State, where politicians are considering energy price controls. Massachusetts Sens. Kerry and Kennedy have opposed siting LNG terminals in their region. They also recently voted against an energy bill that would help get more natural gas to market. The Bay State political class has been blocking the surest way to decrease energy costs for their constituents by opposing measures to ease supply. And now it wants price controls? This makes no sense.

In the past 30 years, most people have learned critical lessons. The knee-jerk reaction of capping prices is seen as deeply imprudent by nearly every serious economist and by most political leaders. The basics of free-market dynamics are now pretty well engrained in the culture… but there are holdouts in bell bottoms.

Of course, the Dear Leader will say the prices of natural gas for the northeast jumped unexpectedly.

Democrats face potential crack-up over crime; Republicans shouldn’t bail them out

From Paul Mirengoff at The Powerline Blog:

Neither, though, will they feel free to return to the tough on crime stances of Bill Clinton. Why? Because, as Frum explains, the party is highly dependent on black votes and thus constrained to accept the de-incarceration, de-policing agenda of groups like Black Lives Matter.

Thus, the issue of “law and order” (as we used to call it) has the potential to crack open the Democrats’ coalition.
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But why, I wonder, are the Republicans working with the Democrats on this issue at all? Why not stick with the existing legislation that has worked so well and let the Democrats contend with their coming crack-up unassisted?

So the Republicans in the Senate should follow this piece of advice, "Never Interfere With an Enemy While He’s in the Process of Destroying Himself."

Taxpayers Flee Democrat-Run States For Republican Ones

From The TaxProf Blog via H/T at Instapundit:

Just don't vote for the same loser policies when you get there.

In 2013, more than 200,000 people on net fled states with Democrat governors [led by New York, Illinois, California, Connecticut, and Massachusetts] for ones run by Republicans [led by Texas, Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Arizona], according to an analysis of newly released IRS data by Americans for Tax Reform.

"People move away from high tax states to low tax states. Every tax refugee is sending a powerful message to politicians," said ATR President Grover Norquist. "They are voting with their feet. Leaders in Texas and Florida are listening. New York and California are not."

Of course, if they’re actual taxpayers, not just voters, then there’s hope. . . . . . .

High taxes are bad, something Governors like Andrew Cuomo doesn't seem to get.

Quote of the Day III

From Thomas Sowell via H/T at Ace of Spades HQ:

“I have never understood why it is “greed” to want to keep the money you have earned but not greed to want to take somebody else’s money.”

— Thomas Sowell (@ThomasSowell) August 31, 2015

Because it's all about spending "other people's money."