Obama Administration Orders All Schools to Go Transgender — or Else

The Obama Administration today is issuing a letter to every public school in the land telling them to allow “transgender” students to use whichever bathroom they please, according to the New York Times.

The letter is signed by officials from the Departments of Justice and Education does not have any legal authority behind it, as the federal government does not technically have legal authority over local public schools.

However, that has not stopped them from threatening schools that don’t comply, ... Read more.

What Did Trump Do to This Student?

It’s like a Stephen King horror story.

Everything starts off fine. Just another quiet day beginning at the student dorms on the sleepy campus of Scripps College in Claremont, California.

An unsuspecting college coed awakens and innocently pokes her head outside her dormitory door, only to find …

Read more.

Obama to Terrorists: Play Ball

After President Obama’s soft-serve “we stand in solidarity” speech responding to the latest Islamic terrorist massacre in Brussels, the Left spent a good deal of Tuesday afternoon defending his latest shirking of presidential duty.

They needn’t have bothered. Obama had things well in hand.

Asked by an interviewer on ESPN — yes, that ESPN — how he could bring himself to attend a baseball game after the slaughtering of at least 30 people and wounding of 230 others, Obama said it was important that he go to the game to show that he wasn’t intimidated by terrorists.

Read more.

Clinton Outrage: Benghazi Didn't Happen

Vile. Despicable. Liar.

“Libya was a different kind of calculation, and we didn’t lose a single person,” presidential candidate Hillary Clinton dared to say at an MSNBC townhall meeting Monday night.

Chris Stevens.

Sean Smith.

Tyrone Woods.

Glen Doherty.

Remember Benghazi, Hill? Read more here.

How is the Daily Mail Getting Away With Calling Justice Thomas This?

When Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas found something so important to say that he spoke from the bench for the first time in 10 years yesterday, the Daily Mail responded with the headline “It Speaks” and there was hardly a fuss raised.

It. Thomas was literally described as a thing.

Then we come to transgender model Andreja Pejic, a natural born male who had his manhood surgically removed, went through the whole hormone therapy process and now models as a “woman.”

Breitbart News’ Kipp Jones wrote a story referring to Pejic as “he” instead of “she,” a rationally and scientifically sound conclusion, and the Huffington Post devoted one-third of its regular transgender column to Jones’ “gross misgendering” of Pejic.

Click here to read more.

Mexico's Fox F-Bombs Trump

The sounds of desperation wafted across the U.S. border on Thursday as yet another Mexican authority figure warned that Mexico will not pay for presidential candidate Donald Trump’s plan to build a border wall.

"I'm not paying for that f***ing wall," exclaimed Mexican ex-President Vicente Fox.

Trump had other ideas. Read more.

It's Not Easy Being 'Pro-Rape' Muslim Blogger

A popular Iranian-American blogger who last year created a storm with an article seemingly advocating the legalization of rape is having a hard time just getting together with like-minded guys these days.

Earlier this month, blogger Daryush Valizadeh, aka “Roosh Vorek” and “Roosh V.,” was prevented by public outcry from following through on a plan to hold 165 “neomasculinist” meetings in 43 countries, including many in major American cities.

Apparently, putting your secret plans on the Internet for the world to see is not the best way to actually pull off said secret plans. Read more.

Hillary Goes Insane

Hillary Clinton, who is in the midst of a campaign to persuade Americans that she is mentally, emotionally, spiritually capable of being the president of the United States, barked at Republicans during a campaign stop at Truckee Meadows Community College in Reno, Nevada.

That’s right. Barked. Read more.

Justice Scalia's Death Creates Congressional Crisis

Justice Antonin Scalia’s death in Texas on Saturday threatens to throw American politics into crisis.

Scalia, 79, was spending the weekend at the Cibolo Creek Ranch, a resort in the Big Bend region. He had arrived on Friday and attended a party with around 40 people. But when he didn’t show up for breakfast on Saturday, hotel employees went to his room and discovered his body.

Almost immediately upon his death, Democrats were calling for a quick nomination of a new justice by President Obama. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell beat them back by insisting that the voters have a say in choosing the new justice by waiting until the presidential election has been decided.

Read more.

FBI Arrests Cliven Bundy, Oregon Holdouts

Cliven Bundy, the Nevada rancher who led a standoff against the federal government in 2014 and who cheered the more recent Oregon standoff led by his sons, was arrested late Wednesday at the Portland airport.

On Thursday, the feds also arrested the last holdout of the five-week standoff at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in eastern Oregon, officially bringing an end to the siege that began as a protest against the double-jeopardy jailing of two ranchers on charges of arson.

Read more.

Trump Says He'll Bring Back Waterboarding

Presidential candidate Donald Trump, who is normally so shy about expressing his opinions, on Sunday reiterated that if he were president he would bring back waterboarding and “a hell of a lot worse” in dealing with captured terrorists.

One thing The Donald can be counted on to do is to call ’em like he sees ’em, and he was mincing no words about Islamic terrorism at his Sunday campaign stop in New Hampshire.

Read more.

I'm Right, You're Gauche: Pentagon Goes to War With Phantom Menace

I'm Right, You're Gauche: Pentagon Goes to War With Phantom Menace: In a new directive issued to military officers, the Pentagon has ordered that essentially every task and mission the military undertakes sh...

I'm Right, You're Gauche: Abortionists flip over Super Bowl ad

I'm Right, You're Gauche: Abortionists flip over Super Bowl ad: One of the best parts of Super Bowl Sunday is watching all the clever new ads aired by major sponsors. The ad aired by Doritos, which you ca...

Abortionists flip over Super Bowl ad

One of the best parts of Super Bowl Sunday is watching all the clever new ads aired by major sponsors. The ad aired by Doritos, which you can watch here, is hilarious.

Naturally, the Left can’t stand it. NARAL Pro-Choice America, the former National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League, went on a Twitter fit after the commercial was shown to the millions of Super Bowl viewers.

Read more.

Pentagon Goes to War With Phantom Menace

In a new directive issued to military officers, the Pentagon has ordered that essentially every task and mission the military undertakes should now be planned around fighting climate change.

You read that right. The U.S. military is going to war against the weather.
According to a weekend story by the Washington Times, the theme of the directive is “the U.S. Armed Forces must show ‘resilience’ and beat back the threat based on ‘actionable science.'”

The directive presumes that climate change will make the military less effective unless the forces are proactive, and to that end, it calls for a whole new military bureaucracy of councils, advisory boards and working groups to infuse the climate change agenda into just about every aspect of military activity.

Read more.

What's Wrong With Socialism?

As voters stream to the polls for the first presidential caucus of 2016, Sen. Bernie Sanders’ candidacy has many millennials asking, “What’s wrong with socialism?”

The fact that people even have to ask that question speaks volumes about the value of a socialist-inspired public education system.

But in a world where the mass media vilify a movement like the Tea Party and praise the wastrels of the Occupy movement, there’s a lot of confusion being spread around, much of it deliberate.

One of the biggest lies going around at the moment is the suggestion that there’s a difference between “democratic socialism” and regular socialism. There isn’t. “Democratic socialism” just means people voted for their own misery.

Continue reading here.

Administration Admitted This About Hillary

The Obama Administration on Friday afternoon confirmed that at least 22 emails on Hillary Clinton's personal server contained top secret information, according to the Associated Press.

The State Department released its latest batch of Clinton's emails on Friday, mere days before she is to participate in the Iowa presidential caucuses.

The Associated Press reports that it found out that 37 withheld pages, including seven email chains, contained top secret information. The State Department is still trying to determine if the information in the emails was classified at the time Clinton handled it.

Clinton has previously insisted that no classified information went through her private server.

Clinton's presidential campaign on Friday insisted that the 22 secret emails withheld from the latest release were "over-classified."

Campaign spokesman Brian Fallon said that Clinton long ago called for the complete release of all her emails and that withholding certain emails for allegedly being top secret was not justified.

"This flies in the face of the fact that these emails were unmarked at the time they were sent, and have been called 'innocuous' by certain intelligence officials," Fallon said. "... This appears to be over-classification run amok."

Clinton's email scandal has cause consternation all around. Her supporters are worried it will hurt her chances to win the White House. Her opponents are hoping she gets arrested. Pretty much everyone seems to wonder how she could be so dumb.

But the actual effect of the ongoing revelations is anybody's guess. Going into Iowa, the Washington Times reports she has an 8-point lead over Sen. [score]Bernie Sanders[/score]. Time magazine reports the two candidates deadlocked. CNN has Clinton ahead but with her lead slipping away fast.

The State Department still has about 7,000 emails to be released. Department representatives say they will miss the deadline because department officials mistakenly neglected to send the last 7,000 to other agencies that need to review them.

Guess Why We Can't Find ET

Dead.

That's what the extraterrestrials all were when we found them, huddled together and burned till they were dry and chewy like pork chops that had sat too long in a grocery store deli case.

I stuck an e-cigarette between my teeth and let out a cloud of noxious Froot Loops-smelling vapor that covered everything to a radius of a city block.

"Any witnesses?" I asked my partner.

"Nah, they're all dead," said my partner in a thick New York accent.

I switched off my e-cig out of respect and put it in my pocket. "Climate change," I growled.

All right, maybe that's a bit melodramatic, but according to Discovery News, it's not unreasonable.

Astronomers from Australian National University recently published a study in the journal Astrobiology that concludes that the reason we have not discovered extraterrestrial life despite the apparent abundance of habitable worlds is that climate change got 'em.

It sounded a little more scientific when they said it, but that's the gist.

Oddly, the study's authors conclude, the lack of alien life may indicate that life forms on other worlds didn't cause enough climate change. "Most early planetary environments are unstable. To produce a habitable planet, lifeforms need to regulate greenhouse gases such as water and carbon dioxide to keep surface temperatures stable," said lead author Aditya Chopra.

Wow. Climate change caused by lifeforms actually may be crucial to survival. Someone point that out to Al Gore.

According to the authors' theory, most worlds never develop life fast enough or for long enough to become sustainable.

Climate change is already blamed for rising sea levels (aka "erosion"), killer storms (because no one ever died in a storm before the 1970s), massive crop failures (famine's a new thing, too), mass extinction of species (like polar bears, which don't know how to swim at all), increased immigration, low sex drive and terrorism.

Add "kills aliens" to the list.

Although that could be a good thing, depending on the aliens in question.

I wouldn't want to be an alien. Most of them, even the seemingly tough ones, are downright fragile.

Think about it. Except for Superman and Martian Manhunter, virtually every alien that's ever tried to invade America (the only country besides Japan that people who've traveled millions of light years ever deem worthy of invasion) has been driven back by the common cold, a drunken pilot with a broken missile or the Avengers.

Not to mention all the weird appendages and protuberances aliens seem to have. Like Klingons. I've seen trains with less prominent cowcatchers. Good luck finding a hat to fit your Klingon-sized head.

All things considered, it's probably for the best that all those extraterrestrials that could have been out there in space croaked. We would have just signed them up as Democrats and taxed them to death anyway.

The weird thing about the recent study is that it points to the virtual inevitability of climate change, theoretically across the entire galaxy.

It's truly a peculiar thing that it's only on Earth that climate change is caused by conservative "deniers" and their SUVs.

Who's Taking Homeland Security's Guns?

If you thought misplacing your keys was bad, the Department of Homeland Security has you beat hands down.

According to inventory reports obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request, the DHS has lost hundreds of firearms, badges, credentials and cell phones since 2012.

The reports were obtained by news site Complete Colorado and showed that 165 guns, 589 cell phones and more than 1,300 badges have disappeared right under the noses of DHS agencies.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) all reported missing badges and credentials.

The biggest losers of guns were CBP employees, though ICE and the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) also reported missing weapons.

I’m going to go out on a limb here and suggest that the United States of America has a gigantic security problem. The guns are actually less of a worry than the thousands of police credentials that are now floating around in the hands of who knows what type of criminals.

Given that the agencies reporting the losses mostly have to do with border control and tracking immigrants, we can probably safely make a ballpark guess that some of those credentials and weapons have ended up in the hands of drug cartel members and possibly Islamist terror groups.

Forget the sheer embarrassment of a federal department whose agencies are dedicated to national security not being able to secure its own property. The people charged with protecting us have helped create a gaping hole in our defenses.

In the hands of clever criminals or terrorists, real credentials can be modified to allow access to any range of secure facilities. Just contemplate a terrorist able to bluff his way into an airliner loading dock, or a daring cartel member walking into a police armory or evidence locker.

There may be methods for locking down the cellphones, but there’s always a way around technical security for an experienced hacker, and even DHS cellphones may find a use in criminal activities.

Fox News quoted retired Secret Service special agent Tim Miller, who said, “The thing that’s particularly concerning is that if you get real credentials, it’s very easy to manipulate them, and you’ve got someone else’s picture on what law enforcement would see as valid. Then you factor in terrorism, it’s a significant concern that people would run around with authentic credentials and be able to access areas they wouldn’t otherwise be able to access.”

Some of those credentials have apparently been used to do just that. The Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee in December approved legislation that would tighten TSA security regulations and screening of workers after the committee received reports of stolen badges being used to bypass security checkpoints.

Committee chairman Sen. John Thune said, “When the Commerce Committee looked at lost and missing airport security credentials, we discovered that existing rules weren’t being effectively enforced.”

The DHS occasionally likes to issue reports about “home-grown” terrorism threats, but with lackadaisical attitudes toward security like the department has exhibited, it sounds like the real danger may come from an overbearing, incompetent government.

Guess What Mob Did When Police Rescued Raped Boy

Sweden is providing a possible preview of things to come for the U.S. as it struggles with the incredible influx of mostly Muslim refugees into its country.

The story is the same throughout other European countries. The migrants bring with them large numbers of people who clearly feel contempt toward Western laws and societal norms. The wave of New Year's rapes in Germany was perhaps the most stunning and repulsive example of the problems Europe is dealing with, but reports of crimes committed by immigrants are growing day by day.

On Monday, Swedish authorities revealed that a squad of 10 police officers last week was forced to flee from a violent mob of migrants when the police arrived to rescue a 10-year-old boy who had been repeatedly raped at a refugee center.

A police officer described the scene for the Vestmanlands Läns Tidning newspaper: "Even more people appeared behind us. I was mentally prepared to fight for my life. We were 10 police officers in a narrow corridor. And I hear someone yell that there is an emergency exit."

Staff at the the Signalisten asylum in Västerås had tried to recover the boy, but had been unable to because of the hostile refugees, so they called police.

Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven on Monday called for an increase in police staffing, as authorities are struggling to get a handle on the migrant situation.

The refugee centers are proving to be Ground Zero in a clash of cultures that is frequently erupting into violence.

Also on Monday, a refugee center worker, 22-year-old Alexandra Mezher, was stabbed to death at a center in Mölndal by a 15-year-old suspect. According to authorities, Mezher had written a thesis in which she had argued that creating a trusting relationship with people was essential for a social worker.

The number of sexual assaults in Stockholm public swimming pools has risen with several incidents involving refugees, and Swedish police have warned about gangs of migrants who grope and fondle women in train stations.

Earlier this month, Swedish authorities were accused of covering up several sexual assaults by migrants from Afghanistan during a music festival.

U.S. officials seem oblivious to what's happening in Europe.

Last Wednesday in Washington, D.C., Democrats in the Senate successfully filibustered a bill that would have blocked President Obama's plan to allow 10,000 Syrian refugees into the U.S.

"Women, children and families fleeing persecution are not the enemy," said Minority Leader [score]Harry Reid[/score], who is once again carrying Obama's water. "We should be focusing all our effort on defeating the real enemy."

George Soros? Oops, did I say that out loud?

Speaker of the House [score]Paul Ryan[/score] blasted the Democrats for their pig-headedness, saying, "By blocking this measure, Senate Democrats are making it that much harder for us to keep Americans safe. Even the administration’s top law-enforcement officials say there are gaps in our refugee program that terrorists can exploit."

Obama claims his program can screen out potential terrorists, which is highly doubtful. Even more doubtful is that the overburdened federal system can expect any success in screening out refugees who just have a bad attitude and general hatred for all things Western.

But the White House shows no signs of even recognizing the potential problems.

Refusal to learn from the experiences of Sweden and the rest of Europe means Americans can expect the same sort of violence to be coming to a neighborhood near them soon, courtesy of our president.

FBI, Militia Shootout -- 1 Dead

It was probably inevitable, but rancher Ammon Bundy and several of his militia followers were in FBI custody Tuesday night after a shootout that left one person dead.

Bundy, his brother Ryan and other ranchers turned militiamen were the ones who took over an abandoned government building at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge several weeks ago in protest of two ranchers being jailed a second time for arson.

Ammon and Ryan Bundy are two of the sons of rancher Cliven Bundy, who had his own confrontation with federal authorities who tried to impound his cattle in 2014.

According to authorities, the Bundy brothers and eight other activists were driving to a community meeting Tuesday afternoon in Burns when they were stopped by police officers and FBI agents.

It is unclear at this point why they were pulled over or who shot first, but the shootout that followed left one militia member dead and Ryan Bundy wounded. The Oregonian identified the slain man as Robert "LaVoy" Finicum.

"My dad was such a good good man, through and through," said his daughter Arianna Finicum Brown. "He would never ever want to hurt somebody, but he does believe in defending freedom and he knew the risks involved."

Nevada Assemblywoman Michele Fiore, a supporter of the Bundy family, said that Ammon Bundy told his wife that Finicum was cooperating with police when he was shot.

The Oregonian reported that their sources said Finicum and Ryan Bundy resisted arrest.

Those arrested include Ammon Bundy, Ryan Bundy, Ryan Payne, Brian Cavalier and Shawna Cox, according to the Daily Mail.

An FBI statement said, "All of the named defendants face a federal felony charge of conspiracy to impede officers of the United States from discharging their official duties through the use of force, intimidation, or threats, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 372."

About an hour later in Burns, Oregon State Police also arrested Oregon State Police also arrested Joseph Donald O’Shaughnessy. The FBI said independent broadcaster Peter Santilli, who live streamed events at the wildlife refuge was also arrested later.

Oregon Gov. Kate Brown last Wednesday had indicated her patience with the militia protesters was finished. "[Federal officials] must move quickly to end the occupation and hold all of the wrongdoers accountable," she said at a press conference. "The residents of Harney County have been overlooked and underserved by federal officials’ response thus far."

Many residents of Harney County had been represented in the media as not wanting the ranchers in their community, but the Bundy brothers and other militia members had been invited to speak to a community group and were on their way there when they were collected by the feds.

What remains to be seen yet is how the remaining militia members, not to mention members of other militia groups nationally, will respond. It might not be over yet.

Hillary May Face Indictment, DeLay Says

It's a tough time to be Hillary Clinton.

After a lifetime of hanging on to a philandering husband's coattails as he strode into the White House, then being rejected in her own first bid for the presidency in 2008, she finally has some street cred as secretary of state running again for the White House, and then those darn FBI folks get on her case.

Her case being the case of her home-brew email server and the alleged sieve-like approach she took to handling sensitive and classified materials.

The revelations about her emails have been piling up for months as the State Department has dripped out copies of her messages as slowly as possible despite court orders to release new batches every 30 days. The State Department just on Friday asked the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to delay the final release by a month.

State claimed that it mistakenly overlooked an additional 7,200 pages of emails and that employees would have a hard time meeting the deadline because it's snowing.

Well, it is snowing on the East Coast this week, that part is true.

According to former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, the FBI is ready to pounce on Clinton with an indictment. Further, he told Newsmax, if Attorney General Loretta Lynch doesn't follow the FBI recommendation, some investigators say they are prepared to go public as whistleblowers.

"One way or another either she's going to be indicted and that process begins, or we try her in the public eye with her campaign. One way or another she's going to have to face these charges," DeLay said.

Clinton campaign spokesman Brian Fallon in one breath denied that the email allegations were taking a toll on the candidate's campaign, then in the next breath accused Republicans of using the email scandal to damage her chances.

Who buys into this stuff, really?

"I think that Republicans are continuing to try to trumpet up and resurface these allegations for the purposes of hurting her campaign," Fallon said last week.

He went further and accused Intelligence Community Inspector General I. Charles McCullough III of coordinating with Republicans to hurt Clinton. "I think that he put two Republican senators up to sending him a letter so that he would have an excuse to resurface the same allegations he made back in the summer that have been discredited," Fallon said.

Fallon was referring to a letter sent by McCullough on January 14 to congressional committee chairs about the email investigation.

Yeah, that "vast Right-wing conspiracy" that follows the Clintons around and causes all of Hillary's problems has always been a real bear.

"She has been through the wringer in terms of Republicans targeting her," Fallon added.

Somebody cue the violins.

'13 Hours' Challenges Hillary's Benghazi Story

Liberals really want you to skip seeing “13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi,” and with good reason.

It’s very existence defies the White House narrative of “phony scandals” and answers back in defiance Hillary Clinton’s screeching whine, “What difference at this point does it make?”

It makes quite a bit of difference, as it turns out, and that’s part of what makes “13 Hours” a great movie. It makes that point without ever trying to. Rather than spending any time finding fault or laying blame, the movie just lays out what happened (ramped up by director Michael Bay’s action aesthetic), and the point comes screaming out from behind the details.

If you’re not mad at your government at the end of “13 Hours,” you weren’t paying attention or you’re one of those people who lives in a state of permanent denial.

It’s always advisable to apply some salt when Hollywood tackles “real” events. But featuring a superb cast, including compelling performances by John Krasinski (Jim in “The Office” TV series) as Jack Silva and James Badge Dale as Tyrone “Rone” Woods (one of the four men killed), the movie is an invaluable illumination of a modern-day event that has been whitewashed by the media at large and highly watchable as a pure action picture. Other notable performances include David Costabile (Gale Boetticher in “Breaking Bad”) as the hapless CIA station chief and David Giuntoli (Nick Burkhardt on “Grimm”) in a supporting role as the ambassador’s bodyguard.

Clinton is not mentioned once in the entire two-hour-24-minute film, and POTUS is only mentioned once in a line about a briefing, but anyone who’s even peripherally aware of politics will hear the former secretary of state, now presidential hopeful, coming through loud and clear. There is one brief mention by one of the characters in the middle of all the mayhem that he’s heard from his family that news reports back home are talking about protests over a video.

And that’s pretty significant.

Told from the viewpoint of people who were there, the lack of support for Americans in the middle of what was a full-scale battle with multiple sorties by the enemy is palpable.

The movie tries to be fair to the higher-ups at the Pentagon and elsewhere, showing scenes at the beginning of the fight of military intelligence personnel scrambling and generals being briefed, with orders being given to “spool up” reaction forces.

But then, nothing. Except for a small evacuation team, no help comes until dawn, and even then it’s a security force of Libyans. “Still no Americans,” one of the team comments.

The absence of the White House and the U.S. military covers the entire series of events like a smothering blanket.

To its credit, the movie doesn’t attempt to explain why things happened the way they did, including the stand-down order that to this day the CIA and White House deny happened but that the people who risked their lives trying to save Ambassador Chris Stevens say they heard with their own ears.

But one thing the movie establishes is that the security situation in Benghazi was known, and it was understood by the personnel stationed there, particularly the potential danger to the ambassador, who insisted on staying in an embassy compound that didn’t even have the standard basic security precautions of other embassies and that relied on protection by mercenary forces.

There is much about the activities of Islamist groups in the area, and the combat action itself as depicted, that suggests the assault first on the embassy outpost and then on the well-known “secret” CIA compound was planned in detail.

Which makes the mention of blame being placed on a nonexistent protest over an Internet video so important. It’s a specific but strangely random explanation for a complex series of events that itself seems to have been well-coordinated but that oddly drew no response from the White House and Pentagon. How that happened and what more may have been behind that cover story is the question Clinton was trying to dodge with her shrieking reply to the congressional hearing.

During her testimony, Clinton said it was less important "why these militants decided they did it than to find them and bring them to justice."

So how's that search going, Hillary? A little like O.J. Simpson's search for the "real killers"?

Why Benghazi happened and why it was covered up is a question that still needs answering, particularly as one of the people at the center of the situation wants to be the next leader of the free world.

“Thirteen Hours” doesn’t ever ask that question. But it demands an answer nonetheless.

Improved Relations With Iran Pay Off Big Time

Now that's what John Kerry's talking about.

The Obama Administration's chief Pollyanna gave the Davos World Economic Forum a pep talk this week, listing all the reasons that amid looming economic collapse, rising terrorism and the specter of war that people should really be upbeat about the world's future.

"We are not the prisoners of a predetermined future," he said. "Change is occurring in our world for the better and it is occurring faster, moving faster than ever before."

Kerry cites a global increase in life expectancy, rising numbers of girls being educated, that Paris climate agreement and, oh yeah, the Iran deal that quote-unquote ended that country's nuclear program.

In Paris, the world powers vowed to prevent the weather from just going all willy-nilly as it has been wont to do in the past and to keep that global warming under a couple of degrees above pre-Industrial levels.

The agreement doesn't exactly explain which pre-Industrial level -- the Medieval Warm Period, which was warmer than now, or the last Ice Age, or anything in between -- but it's obviously paying off quick dividends as sections of the East Coast are being buried under record levels of snow this week that have shut down Washington, D.C., to the great benefit of the entire country.

So that's a plus.

The Iran agreement -- similarly successful. Iran has vowed to continue it's nuclear development and its long-term goal of destroying Israel. (That was the point of those talks, right?)

Plus, after capturing two of our Navy vessels and 10 of our sailors, humiliating them publicly in violation of the Geneva Convention, examining our boats for our latest military technology and castrating President Obama in front of the entire world on the night of his last State of the Union speech, Iran actually gave our military personnel back to us -- all in exchange for a huge PR coup and a few billion dollars from the lifting of sanctions.

But that's not even the best payoff or surest sign of the world becoming safer.

No, that came from Iran's Supreme Leader Snoke -- excuse me, I meant Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei -- who downgraded us in a speech from "The Great Satan" to "The Great False Idol."

I don't know about you, but I'm touched. Kinda gets you right in the ol' ticker.

Rest assured, we are still at the top of Iran's list of enemies, but even our allies in Europe and elsewhere have been downgraded to "Secondary False Idols."

So you see "Lieutenant Ketchup" Kerry was right, the world clearly is a safer place. Thanks to Supreme Leader Obama, instead of vowing to kill us with nuclear fire, Iran now promises to kill us quickly with nuclear fire.

Hey, it's a step.

Could We Pick Worse Candidates?

One of the top items on my bucket list: I would like, just once before I die, to experience a presidential election in which I get to choose between two good candidates.

Maybe it's just a pointless fantasy. Perhaps the cynics are correct and there have never been any qualified presidential candidates, just members of the establishment who have waited in line long enough.

I wish I could have voted for Reagan, but he was before my voting time.

Instead, I've been faced with two Bushes, a Clinton and an Obama. Not a stellar lot.

I'm relatively certain that Hillary Clinton won't make it to election day without being clapped in irons or at least having to post bail, so I'm feeling at peace on that count.

But right now, the race is shaping up to be Trump and Sanders ... and Sanders is slightly ahead in the latest poll.

When Americans voted Obama -- twice -- I took it as proof positive that the Left was insane and liberalism was a mental illness.

I've seen nothing that would incline me to change that opinion, as the same bunch of morons are gravitating to avowed socialist Bernie Sanders, if they haven't already donated a kidney to the Spider Woman.

But now all of a sudden, people on the Right are falling for Trump's born-again conservative act, which I find just as transparent as any of Obama's campaigns.

Is it just desperation? Is the Right so anxious to get somebody -- anybody -- into the Oval Office that they'll overlook Trump's truckload of character faults?

Meanwhile Ted Cruz, the guy who should be the nominee, is running a distant second.

Trump is such a showboat that the conspiracy talk about him being a false flag candidate designed to get Hillary (or Bernie) elected doesn't sound so far fetched.

Trump's narcissism certainly seems to be just as raging as King Obama's. I can definitely see him continuing the rule by executive order and other mischief.

The only reason I'm not suicidal this time around is that I do believe Trump when he says he loves America, something I can't say about Obama. He's also a devoted capitalist, which is a major plus after eight years of barely concealed socialist agendas.

Willie Robertson came out this week and endorsed Trump for president. I like the "Duck Dynasty" boys, but it's Willie.

The Duck Commander Phil Robertson, on the other hand, is a Cruz man, so I've got to go with the Cruz missile.

I just hope Uncle Si doesn't endorse Bernie Sanders.

Bill Would Force Journalists to Register With State

There are always politicians who want to shut up journalists and control the media, going all the way back to the days when a “journalist” was essentially a guy with a knapsack and a horse who would bring messages to the local king. Enough kings didn’t like what they heard that to this day we have the saying of “don’t kill the messenger.”

President Obama loves to blame Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and the conservative blogosphere for the well-deserved criticism of him and his policies. But he’s far from the only complainer.

In our modern day America, politicians on both sides of the aisle like to rail against the media, and with the boom in online information including video, there’s no real wonder why. Still, most politicians seem to understand that the First Amendment protects the conveyers of information, and if they don’t most of them have staff members who will soon remind them.

Not so apparently in South Carolina, where a Republican lawmaker, Mike Pitts, has proposed a bill that would require journalists to register with the government and pay a fee before reporting on the state’s news.

The full text of the bill isn’t available at the time of this writing, but according to the Associated Press, the “responsible journalism registry” would come with requirements that someone would have to meet before he could work for a news outlet anywhere in the state.

The bill would also provide for fines and criminal penalties for people who violate the law.

Ashley Landess of the South Carolina Policy Council said, “I hope that this insane attempt at shutting up any hint of criticism finally wakes everyone up to how dangerous and how out of control our legislators are.”

It won’t, of course. Such is the state of education and civic duty in this country.

The effort by the state to control the media, either directly or indirectly (such as through PR managers), is never good. It’s one of the hallmarks of every tyranny that’s ever existed throughout history.

Truth is always the first victim.

Still, it’s not like the media are so innocent or responsible that they haven’t brought this sort of thing on themselves.

Case in point, the AP story about this bill also mentions that Pitts opposed removing the confederate flag from the state capitol, as if there’s a direct connection. It’s one of those little tricks the professional media like to pull to make you the reader equate conservatives with racism, which is the closest the liberal wing of the media will come to using the word “evil.”

Efforts to make journalists more responsible aren’t actually a bad idea. It just can’t come from government because there would always be ulterior motives other than delivering the truth to the public. The government manipulates the media now when it’s mostly illegal. Imagine if there was a law allowing that to happen?

Those who consider themselves professional journalists (a very small percentage of information producers these days) should give some thought to issues like responsibility and respectability. It would ultimately be to the benefit of journalists and the public they are supposed to serve.

College Reserves Month for Shaming Whites

"Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns." -- Matthew 16:23

If you've hung around a college campus in recent decades, you've no doubt heard of Black History Month, Hispanic Heritage Month, Asian Pacific American Heritage Month and maybe a few others.

What you likely have not heard of is anything like a White History Month.

Well, Portland Community College aims to rectify that, but with a twist.

Rather than a month devoted to celebrating the contributions of "white" culture, Whiteness History Month will be committed to the idea of deconstructing the skin color and culture that is apparently the root of all racism.

That's right. A publicly funded educational outlet is going to spend an entire month shaming people for their skin color, in the name of creating "a nationally renowned culture for diversity, equity and inclusion."

That is, unless you're a Honky-American.

On the college's Whiteness History Month website, the college's Cascade Campus Diversity Council states, "Whiteness History Month: Context, Consequences and Change is a multidisciplinary, district-wide, educational project examining race and racism through an exploration of the construction of whiteness, its origins and heritage. Scheduled for the month of April 2016, the project seeks to inspire innovative and practical solutions to community issues and social problems that stem from racism."

The event is needed, according to the council, because "the construction of the white identity is a brilliant piece of social engineering. Its origins and heritage should be examined in order to add a critical layer of complexity to a national conversation sorely lacking in nuance."

In case you missed it, the nuance is that whites cause racism, and everything about "white" culture -- which you can suppose means Western civilization in general -- is racist, designed to keep nonwhites at bay.

The site goes on to state:

"Whiteness is a socially and politically constructed behavior. It has a long history in European imperialism and epistemologies. Whiteness does not simply refer to skin color but an ideology based on beliefs, values, behaviors, habits and attitudes, which result in the unequal distribution of power and privilege based on skin color. Whiteness represents a position of power where the power holder defines social categories and reality—the master narrator. Whiteness originates racism. It is relational. “White” only exists in relation/opposition to other categories in the racial hierarchy produced by whiteness."

So if "whiteness" is an ideology, does that make freckles a denomination?

Wonder if the month will include studying how white liberals created the KKK, supported the Nazis and Communists, and opposed the Civil Rights Movement?

Probably not.

But I'm betting it will include a good deal of talk about racist white conservatives.

I'm hoping they might go so far as to have a booth selling traditional white foods. Like vanilla. Or Wonder Bread. Or bologna sandwiches on Wonder Bread with mayonnaise, and vanilla ice cream for desert. The culinary possibilities boggle the imagination.

At any rate, the program's goals are still being developed, although among the questions listed on the website for students to contemplate are "What are alternatives to a culture of white supremacy?" and "What are approaches and strategies to dismantling whiteness?"

Let's see. Strategies to dismantle whiteness. Hmm ... tanning beds?

As for alternatives to a culture of white supremacy, how about ... a culture in which as many as 850,000 people died in the fight over ending slavery? And where countless more fought to build a country that lived up to the words of its founding document, "that all men are created equal"?

Nah. That would never fly.

Obama's Next Bad Idea: Wage Insurance

By Tad Cronn

Just in case you thought there wasn’t a worse economic idea in the Democrats’ bag of tricks than raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour, President Obama has just found one.

The president’s proposal is looking to “reform” the federal unemployment insurance system by forcing all states to provide coverage for at least 26 weeks (nine states don’t). But the crown jewel in Obama’s plan is to force states to provide not just unemployment insurance but wage insurance.

The way this will work, according to the Associated Press, is if someone loses a decent paying job and goes out looking for work but can only find something that is less than they were making, up to $50,000 annually, then the state would have to make up half of the difference.

As it stands currently, the proposal would limit the coverage to $10,000 over two years. But we all know how government programs work. That $10,000 is just a starting point.

So if the Democrats get their druthers, not only will McDonald’s be paying a minimum wage of $15 per hour, but the states will be forced to kick in several thousand a year more, even if the person is not collecting unemployment.

From one angle, it sounds like an OK deal for someone who needs to pay his bills, but that money will essentially be coming out of thin air. The employees won’t actually be earning it, and it’s not being generated on the free market.

That means the only way to pay for this scheme is higher taxes all around, which means dragging everybody down with higher costs of goods and services, caused by your government.

Unlike raising the minimum wage, this doesn’t sound like it would cause a new wave of unemployment, but it might tend to encourage people who should be looking for higher-paying jobs or perhaps creating businesses to become content with lower-paying work.

Plus it’s for a limited time and amount, which is setting up a situation where some people likely will demand to be on the state payroll longer or for higher pay.

The most insidious thing about this proposal, however, is that it’s a sleight-of-hand way to promote the move toward a centrally planned economy. Once the state starts paying employees of allegedly private businesses, it’s just a hop, skip and a jump to state ownership of industry.

That’s the ultimate plan for the Democratic Party, of course, everyone under the state’s thumb with the political elites doing the squashing of anyone who stands up to them.

It’s been coming for years, with numerous Democrats barely concealing the fact of their socialist tendencies behind the “Progressive” label – a label that anyone familiar with the history of the 20th century should be leery of.

Their advances have been slow and steady, to the point that the founder of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, Bernie Sanders, is now comfortable with running for president as an open socialist.

The election and then re-election of Barack Obama were huge missteps for this country. If a Sanders or a Clinton wins the upcoming election, the spiral will only accelerate.