Socialism in Venezuela: No toilet paper, TV, or long distance call service

"So, here’s socialism for you–still making people’s lives miserable."

Hot Air  "In 2005, the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez moved quickly to remodel his nation by weaving “21^st Century Socialism” into its socioeconomic fabric. Chavez was known for being an unabashed leftist, who chided the Bush administration pervasively–remember when he said the podium at the United Nations smelled of sulfur? Then-President George W. Bush addressed the assembly a day prior to Chavez. Well, Chavez is now gone, succumbing to a heart attack while fighting cancer in 2013. So, how has 21^st century socialism treated Venezuela? It’s a total disaster. In January, The Washington Post reported that the country is on the verge of economic collapse. For starters, Chavez’s anti-poverty programs have sucked the nation dry, which is completely dependent on petro dollars to stay afloat:" . . .

Remember we will choose more than just a President this November;. . .

. . . We will be choosing a Commander-in-Chief.

Obama and his "legacy" snubbed by Saudi royal family.

Just bow low and apologize, then all will be well.

President Obama begins Saudi Arabia trip with snub by King Salman, as activists unearth more evidence of Saudi links to 9/11

. . . "The newly unearthed evidence, however, underscores renewed suspicions of Saudi involvement in the horrific terror attacks and growing criticism over Obama’s opposition to legislation that would give victims’ families the right to sue the Saudi government for any role it may have played in the terror attacks.

"That stance has long infuriated those families, who have also called on the commander-in-chief to declassify and release a 28-page portion of a congressional report on possible links between the Saudi government and the attack. The report was issued in 2002, but those pages were held back by the George W. Bush administration in the interest of national security."

NRO: Restore America’s Alliance with Saudi Arabia  "Foreign leaders believe President Obama is an arrogant and unreliable ally. Conversely, President Obama believes he’s on an inexorable path toward history-book glory. But one striking facet of the president’s foreign policy is the reciprocal disdain now defining America’s relationships in the Middle East. Consider Saudi Arabia. Visiting the Sunni kingdom yesterday, President Obama received the diplomatic equivalent of a one-fingered salute. Breaking with Arab custom, King Salman failed to greet the American president at Riyadh airport. It was a deliberate and significant insult. And while pathetic, the slight epitomizes the crisis in U.S.–Saudi relations.
. . . "Put simply, President Obama’s strategy toward Iran reflects an utter repudiation of realism. That infuriates the Saudis."

Obama’s Saudi Problem Stems from His Tilt toward Iran  . . . "His real Saudi problem is his unacknowledged alliance with Tehran to displace Saudi Arabia as the dominant power in the Middle East. It’s a policy he’s been pursuing since he took office, and it has led to his embarrassingly bad nuclear agreement with Iran. It’s also destabilizing the last stable regimes in the region and may force the Saudis, along with Egypt and possibly Jordan, to seek out nuclear weapons of their own now that they know the Obama administration has largely conceded the bomb to Tehran in the next decade."

For all this mess in the Middle East, let's give a shout-out to Obama's voters, many of whom many cannot find Iran on a globe if you showed them the right hemisphere. To those rock celebrities who had voter registration areas open as fans filed out of their concerts, TV shows that exalted the man as a majestic leader. In fact, to the entire media and their politically correct silliness: thank you for your contribution to this world. TD

NY Daily News had their perspective on the Saudis. I'm sure they meant it in a nice way:

GOP culture war breaks out over transgender bathrooms

"Trump escalates debate with his own shrug on an issue that has the GOP in fits."

Politico  "Donald Trump on Thursday freshly exposed the fissures dividing the Republican Party by responding to the transgender bathroom wars with a shrug – setting off a fierce response from Ted Cruz who accused the Republican front-runner of being no better than the “politically correct leftist elites.”

"The latest front in the culture wars is now a bathroom stall. The raging debate over whether transgender people should be forced to use bathrooms of their gender at birth is acutely playing out within the GOP, and it’s now become a central topic on the presidential campaign trail.

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"Social conservatives see big business — once a close ally — becoming a pawn of the left, joining forces to convince Republican governors that anti-LGBT bills will kill their economy. Some more moderate Republicans, on the other hand, once again see the party picking divisive fights that will hurt them at the ballot box." . . .

Enough with the Hillary cult: Her admirers ignore reality, dream of worshipping a queen

"Clinton voters overlook money lust, shadowy surrogates, sociopathic policy shifts, horrific overseas record. Why?"

By Camille Paglia at Salon

"As a lifelong Democrat who will be enthusiastically voting for Bernie Sanders in next week’s Pennsylvania primary, I have trouble understanding the fuzzy rosy filter through which Hillary fans see their champion. So much must be overlooked or discounted—from Hillary’s compulsive money-lust and her brazen indifference to normal rules to her conspiratorial use of shadowy surrogates and her sociopathic shape-shifting in policy positions for momentary expedience.

"Hillary’s breathtaking lack of concrete achievements or even minimal initiatives over her long public career doesn’t faze her admirers a whit. They have a religious conviction of her essential goodness and blame her blank track record on diabolical sexist obstructionists. When at last week’s debate Hillary crassly blamed President Obama for the disastrous Libyan incursion that she had pushed him into, her acolytes hardly noticed. They don’t give a damn about international affairs—all that matters is transgender bathrooms and instant access to abortion.

"I’m starting to wonder, given the increasing dysfunction of our democratic institutions, if the Hillary cult isn’t perhaps registering an atavistic longing for monarchy." . . .

Obama and racism

The Obama legacy on race  . . . "Has Obama’s presidency improved race relations, as we hoped and expected it would? Or have things actually gotten worse?" . . .

How the Obama-Sharpton Alliance Began   . . . The backdrop to the incipient Obama-Sharpton alliance was the then-senator’s 2008 presidential campaign, which still hadn’t locked away the black vote, and the political cross-currents created by two other controversial reverends, Jesse Jackson and Jeremiah Wright. That tentative relationship has now grown into a full-blown partnership that has vastly increased the once-shunned Sharpton’s influence and prestige and elevated him into a key White House ally at a time of heightened tension over policing and race." . . .

How campus speech codes silence the pro-Israel community along with all others.

Jerusalem Post  "College students today are facing the most serious threats to their civil liberties."

"The infamous Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaigns and “apartheid week” displays on college campuses are not the only threat to Jewish students. A much greater threat looms: the inability for students to publicly defend their beliefs. While universities claim to be havens of open debate and intellectual curiosity, they are in reality black holes of political correctness. On campus, only certain ideas are worthy of consideration and Zionism is definitely not one of them. This culture doesn’t just threaten members of the Jewish community, who are terrified to challenge those who accuse Israel of the most heinous crimes. Rather, it threatens all of us who value free speech and its ability to encourage criticism, debate, and original thought on college campuses.

"While speech codes are thought to be a thing of the 90s, the truth is that college students today are facing the most serious threats to their civil liberties. From “trigger warnings” to “free speech zones,” universities are slowly training students to become hypersensitive and incapable of deviating from ideologies that are in vogue. " . . .

This is a much-discussed topic, including here:

American colleges sweep 'Jefferson Muzzle Awards'  . . . "So the question we should be asking is, are these just islands of intolerance, or is the cancer spreading across the country?  I think we know the answer to that question.  Led by the rabid left and aided by the Democratic Party, there is a steepening price for conservatives to speak their mind anywhere.  And it's likely to get a lot worse before there's a chance for it to get better.

"When political opponents can be throttled by accusing them of using "hate speech," we approach the reality of a one-party dictatorship.  Criminalizing freedom of expression has already begun and, as Germany's descent into Nazism showed, it is not a huge leap from jailing people for expressing unpopular thoughts to jailing people for opposition to a leader. 

"The American people would barely look up from their smartphones to notice they've become slaves."

Sleeping Dogs Are Waking

Victor Davis Hanson

"The university will either change soon or simply implode; its present course is unsustainable and rests on the premise that schizophrenic deans and presidents can still manage to write and say things to student cry bullies that they hope their donors and alumni never read or hear.

"Colleges overcharge insolvent students through tuition increases far beyond the annual rate of inflation—the Ponzi scheme predicated on guaranteed federal loans that cannot be repaid by poorly educated graduates and drop-outs, many with little skills or demonstrable education. Obama has already promised relief to the disabled student debtor: expect that more amnesties will follow, probably predicated on the basis of race, class, and gender. In the meantime, the number of disabled indebted students will mysteriously soar.

"In response, the university freely imposes speech codes, allows racial segregation, and winks at censorship of texts. It has suspended due process in cases of allegations of sexual assault, and allows 1930s-like violence (reminiscent of the Brownshirts) to disrupt public lectures and assemblies—if the agendas of the protestors profess social awareness. Only the hard sciences and professional schools in engineering, mathematics, and medicine have for the moment partially escaped the ruin." . . .