Federal Budget in Pictures

"Now, more than ever it’s critical that we understand the nation’s spending, taxes and debt."

Heritage Two of many graphs.

Take the budget quiz:

• What is the root cause of growing federal deficits and debt?
• Which federal programs spend the most money per year?
• What is the share of the public debt for every American in 2017?
• Who pays how much of the federal tax burden?

Nearing retirement? Not good:

PragerU: Dear Celebrities, No One Cares What You Think

Legal Insurrection  "Celebrities have misconstrued the public’s appreciation for their talent for the public’s willingness to be lectured about politics and rightness.

"PragerU has a message for celebrities that should help clear up any confusion here:

We adulate celebrities so much, it’s no wonder they’re under the impression that we care about their political opinions. The truth is, we don’t. In this video, Candace Owens, Director of Urban Development for Turning Point USA, lets unaware celebs in on the reality: no one cares what they think.

Trump’s CIA Director Pick Gina Haspel Will Likely Face Questions About Role in Torture

Obama and Eric Holder would have sought her prosecution after taking office.

Legal Insurrection

Haspel ran secret CIA prison in Thailand that used “enhanced” interrogation methods.

"President Donald Trump fired Secretary of State Rex Tillerson this morning and nominated CIA Director Mike Pompeo to take over that role. He also nominated CIA Deputy Director Gina Haspel to lead the spy agency.

"If confirmed, Haspel will become the first woman CIA director. However, she may face a rocky road to confirmation due to her role in torture sessions at a secret prison in Thailand.

"The Republicans have a one seat majority in the Senate. That incredibly slim lead may dissolve with Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) who has always been one of the leading voices against these “enhanced” interrogation techniques the government has used." . . .

CNN will love this.

“Cultural Appropriation” May Have Finally Crashed And Burned

Hot Air  "You’re surely familiar with the “cultural appropriation” outrage running around liberal social media sites these days, right? It’s when one particular demographic group (and their inevitable supporters who take up every progressive cause on the planet) lays claim to an entire genre of performing arts and then chooses to scold anyone who isn’t “authentic” enough and dares to be creative in that field. And as I’m sure you already know, by “authentic” they refer to the color of your skin.

"Another episode of this annoying kvetching broke out this week. It wouldn’t have been worth a mention were it not for the target. Rather than going after yet another white artist, this time the forces of progressive fury fixed their sights on none other than Bruno Mars. Now, to be honest here, I wouldn’t even know the man’s name had he not played at the Super Bowl a while back, but I did hear him perform there and he’s got an impressive set of pipes. But, as it turns out, he’s singing the wrong kind of music."

"Here’s the episode of The Grapevine in question."

"Normally this would be the end of the story. After being appropriately shamed by his progressive betters, the artist would shuffle up to a microphone to deliver some sort of apology and then slink off stage, promising to try to do better. (Or at least that’s how it works if they are marketing their work to a largely liberal audience.)" . . .

Opinion Rex Tillerson: hapless, hopeless and tragic. Now his time is up

“There is strong sense of relief at State. The last year has been traumatic to put it mildly."

"That’s the other way in which State’s influence grew today. It’s not just a matter of Trump being more amenable to persuasion by Pompeo, it’s a matter of Pompeo potentially being more amenable to persuasion by career diplomats at the Department. "

The UK Guardian

“I told Rex Tillerson, our wonderful secretary of state, that he is wasting his time trying to negotiate with Little Rocket Man,” his wonderful boss tweeted in October. “Being nice to Rocket Man hasn’t worked in 25 years, why would it work now? Clinton failed, Bush failed, and Obama failed. I won’t fail.”

"Rex Tillerson was a part-time truth-teller. In one national security meeting, he had the piercing insight and honesty to call Donald Trump “a moron” – possibly an Anglo-Saxon kind of moron. Yet, like his boss, he lacked the self-awareness to know that the same critique applied to himself, as the moron’s secretary-of-state.

"There were clues along the way, many of them spotted by the man he so openly disdained. It was the moron-in-chief who challenged the moron-of-state to an open contest of intellectual power. “I think it’s fake news,” Trump told Forbes magazine, dismissing the moronic comments. “But if he did [say] that, I guess we’ll have to compare IQ tests. And I can tell you who is going to win.”

Trump fires Tillerson: president swings axe after series of policy clashes

 

Read more

"Genius. At some point, you just have to surrender to this kind of brainpower.

. . . 

"Sadly all those executive skills did not include the ability to retain or build a senior staff at the state department, where the exodus of experience and talent has been a diplomatic blowout. He refused briefings from senior staff and refused to talk to the press. He hollowed out the senior ranks with no rhyme or reason, leaving critical posts unfilled, while others simply quit or retired. Among them was the leading foreign service official on North Korea, who retired just two weeks ago.

"Tillerson’s tenure was so bad, it prompted some rare bipartisan agreement. “America’s diplomatic power is being weakened internally as complex global crises are growing externally,” warned John McCain and Jeanne Shaheen, the Republican and Democratic senators, in a letter to Tillerson late last year." . . .

Teacher and students beat Trump piñata in HS Spanish class … this is a US public school, folks

Liberals love to speak out against inciting violence, but seem to be okay with it as long as the violence is being incited against Republicans.

BPR  "Students and teachers in a Spanish class at Laguna Hills High School were allegedly filmed beating a piñata resembling President Trump during class time, prompting the school district to investigate, CBS 2 reports."

The video showed teachers and students taking turns hitting a yellow-haired, red tie-wearing piñata that featured a photograph of the president’s face. A representative of Saddleback Valley United School District told CBS 2 that the incident was investigated and “immediate action” was taken.

‘Backwards’:"Mother of the Country" Hillary Clinton Apparently Still Has No Clue Why She Lost

The "mother of the country"?

The Federalist

Her condescending words targeted voters in states that twice voted for Obama, and show she still doesn't understand why Americans didn’t vote for her.

"Hillary Clinton isn’t ready to let go of her election loss to President Trump. Clinton is in Mumbai, India, at the India Today Conclave, a “a meeting point for the best minds from India and around the world to map the geopolitical and economic future of the country.” But instead of keeping her focus on the complex and numerous problems facing India, Clinton took aim Monday at Americans who voted for Trump. Her patronizing and condescending words targeted voters in states that twice voted for Obama, and show she still doesn’t understand why Americans didn’t vote for her.

"Clinton compared herself to the mother of the country, trying to enforce something wholesome that the children aren’t fond of. She said, “She ran the presidential campaign like a mother who was telling the kids to eat spinach because it was good for health while the other guy was asking them to go eat fast food and have ice-cream,” India Today reported. Clinton may not have realized it, but this also sheds a lot of light on how she sees the average American. She views them as short sighted, more interested in junk than substance, and in her words, they’re “backwards.' ” . . .

Hillary Nearly Falls Down Stairs Twice In India
. . . "Clinton is in the country to participate in the India Today Conclave, where she claimed President Donald Trump only won the election because [she got] the support of people she famously called “deplorables.” . . .

No wait! It was because of this:

Clinton Blames Her Loss on White Women Listening to Their Husbands

Brendan Tevlin’s Jihadist Killer Pleads Guilty

Legal Insurrection

"The murder has received precious little national media coverage."

. . . "In September 2014, we asked, Why is the Brendan Tevlin murder so underreported?

On June 25, 2014, 19 year-old Brendan Tevlin hopped into his car to return home after spending the evening at a friend’s house. Minutes later, Ali Muhammad Brown approached the vehicle as it was stopped at a red light and fired ten rounds into the car, killing Brendan.

Originally, the teen’s murder was labeled an attempted robbery, allowing the media to remain silent.

Now, court documents have revealed that Brown’s motivation for killing Tevlin had less to do with thievery, and more to do with America’s pushback against Jihadist terrorism in the Middle East….

Whether or not Brendan’s murder was part of a systematic plot to introduce jihad to our shores or a self-directed act, is beside the point.

What’s important here is that an innocent American is dead because of Jihadist violence, and the media is keeping it relatively quiet.

The Obama policies that have put us all in danger

Jack Hellner  . . . "For the last 25 years, Presidents Clinton, Bush, and Obama have been toyed with by North Korea while the North Koreans continually built up their nuclear weapons, and the media go to the very people who let this happen for analysis on Trump."
. . . 
"When has appeasement ever worked?

"Obama, Hillary, and Kerry, surrounded by experts (lifers), came up with the "smart" foreign policy of leading from behind, and we got policies that:

• Had us pulling all of our troops out of Iraq, which allowed ISIS and Iran to build up their power in the region.
• Had us pull out of our commitment to put missile defense in Poland and the Czech Republic which certainly pleased Putin.
• Had a gun-running operation to Mexico where we lost track of the guns. 
• Had us watching North Korea as it expanded its weaponry – but we kept telling them to stop.  (It is a good thing we didn't use rough language on Rocket Man, because then he would have really gotten dangerous.)
• Had us watch as Putin invaded Crimea and Ukraine, and our smart policy-makers told him to stop, but we wouldn't even give Ukraine defensive weapons, even though we are obligated to defend that nation.
• Had our president promise Putin we would be more flexible if he was re-elected.
• Had us leave our diplomats vulnerable to attack in Libya, and then pretended a video was responsible in order to protect the political power of Obama.
• Had us allowing NATO countries to pay less than their treaty obligations.
• Had us kowtowing to the U.N.
• Had us negotiate secretly with Iran, the biggest sponsor of terrorism in the world; give them hundreds of billions of dollars; and even pay them ransom.  They lied throughout the process and then signed a deal with the devil to pretend the world was now safer.  Now we have Iran, which continues to sponsor terrorism and continues to threaten death to America with more money, which continues to build more weapons.  The Iranians are also helping Assad in Syria.  Thank goodness for the "experts" Obama surrounded himself with to get this "smart" policy!
• Had the U.S allowing  the terrorist group Hezb'allah to have a drug-running operation to appease the tyrants in Iran.
• Had Obama's wife respond with a "Bring Back Our Girls" hashtag when 276 girls were kidnapped in Nigeria by terrorists.
• Had us saying climate change is more dangerous than terrorism.  Some even told us the crisis caused by Syrian and other refugees escaping was because of a potential couple-of-degrees rise in temperature rather than because tyrants were killing and raping them.
• Had the president draw a red line in Syria over chemical weapons use and, when Syria used chemical weapons, essentially did nothing.  He and Kerry did pretend Assad got rid of all his chemical weapons.
• Had us sign the Paris Climate Accord, which would have cost trillions and slowed down the U.S. and world economies to pretend that government officials could adjust temperatures downward by one degree forever.  Does that sound smart or true?
• Had the State Department spending taxpayer money to interfere in Israel's election.  Why didn't the media do an investigation of that if collusion in elections is so dangerous?  Where was Adam Schiff?
• Had the president and agencies under his control refusing to enforce immigration laws Congress passed in violation of their oath of office and the Constitution.
• Had a purported 17 out of 17 intelligence agencies blame Russians for the DNC computer hack, without ever examining the computer.  Is it smart to claim that you can analyze a computer based on a piece of paper from someone else?

"Not once do I remember the media caring about any of the above disastrous and dangerous policies.  But now I am supposed to believe that things are more dangerous because Trump doesn't know what he is doing?" . . .

The Clapper Caper currently closed

Rich Terrell

Below: One of the funniest moments on the Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. Jack Webb and Johnny Carson appear in the "Copper Clapper Caper" sketch. Johnny Carson has a hard time keeping a straight face in the classic moment of TV comedy history.

Trump fires Rex Tillerson, will nominate Mike Pompeo to replace him

Read the Trumptweet yourself

If true, how tacky was this?:  "Tillerson found out he was fired when Trump tweeted about it." 
So out of place for a man of Trump's background and accomplishments, don't you think?

The Washington Post reported Tuesday that Trump asked Tillerson to step aside on Friday. Tillerson thus cut his trip to Africa short to return to Washington.

. . . "Pompeo will have to be nominated and approved by the Senate before he can take Tillerson's spot in the government. Republicans can approve anyone they want in the Senate as long as they stick together, and Pompeo was confirmed for his current post in a 66-32 vote.

“ 'His experience in the military, Congress, and as leader of the CIA have prepared him well for his new role and I urge his swift confirmation,” Trump said in a statement Tuesday, as he wished Tillerson and his family well.

"Vice President Mike Pence backed Trump and urged the Senate to confirm Pompeo, "a man of highest integrity with unquestionable qualifications who will do an outstanding job.' " . . .

. . . "Tillerson's ouster ends a tumultuous year for him in Foggy Bottom, where an ambitious plan to redesign the State Department never reached fruition and where the top U.S. diplomat often found himself at odds with Trump's foreign policy instincts.

"In July, a visibly uncomfortable Tillerson was forced to hold a press conference to defend his boss after he was accused of calling Trump a "moron" during a Pentagon meeting earlier last spring. He never explicitly denied using the derogatory name to describe the president, but the State Department press spokeswoman did." . . .

Tillerson firing set to showcase just how little the media know  . . . "But here's what's really going on.  Tillerson was good for his task as he made it, but as a new stage in foreign policy dawns, particularly around Trump's high wire act in North Korea, some different talents are required.  Tillerson was a corporate man, a person with the right savvy to rise all the way to the top in the rock-hard bureaucracy of Exxon, and he tended to retain some of that style of governance at State.  That was fine.  He also had a bit of a lefty tinge, as many corporate types do, on the social justice front, and that wasn't as useful.  The fact that he said he took the job of secretary of state only because his wife told him to suggests someone whose heart wasn't all in it anyway.  Tillerson had a desire to retain respectability with all sides, which isn't useful to Trump now that he is going unconventional in his diplomacy with North Korea.  Something new is required, a new mindset, and from someone willing to take and go along with risks." . . .

After 14 months in the White House, Trump knows most of the non-leftist crop. He sees Pompeo as its cream. I think he’s right.  . . . "At the CIA, Trump will nominate Gina Haspel, currently the deputy director, to succeed Pompeo. If confirmed, she will become the agency’s first female director." . . .

I don’t know anybody who joined the CIA to run an interrogation program,” he continued, “But in the aftermath of 9/11, Gina Haspel and other colleagues stepped up to what is frankly a dirty job – because they were repeatedly assured that it was not only legal but necessary for the safety of the country. And they did it – Gina did it – because they felt it was their duty.

"That speaks well of her, in my opinion. Expect a bloody confirmation battle, though."

Gina Haspel nominated as CIA's first female director: 5 things to know about the career spymaster 

• She has been with the CIA for more than 30 years . . .
• She ran the CIA's first overseas detention site . . .
• She is well respected by former intelligence officials . . .
• She has held several top positions in Washington . . .
• She has won a handful of prestigious awards . . .

Wait for the Democrats confirming her to make a big deal over this:
"President Trump’s pick to head the CIA is a seasoned spymaster who has avoided the limelight during a 32-year career that has included stints running overseas “black sites” where dangerous terrorists were waterboarded."

Fox News executive VP suddenly out after writing a non-PC article on the Olympics

Fair, balanced, but be very, very afraid.
No, not Juan Williams - someone else. I vehemently disagreed with Juan's defense of Farrakhan and do not care for many of his other opinions as well, but get so sick of people, left and right, losing their livelihood over statements they make that anger some. But it seems John Moody angered the left, including Media Matters and CNN, which must have been too much for Fox.  TD

Peter Barry Chowka  "Fox News appears to have given one of its marquee hosts – Juan Williams – considerable slack for his on-air defense of controversial Nation of Islam head The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan.  John Moody, a longtime Fox News executive and vice president who authored a column questioning the P.C. nature of this year's Olympics, did not fare so well.

. . . "Never a shrinking violet, on February 7, 2018, the day before the start of the 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea, Moody wrote a column about the Olympics that was published at Fox News's website.  The title was "In Olympics, let's focus on the winner of the race – not the race of the winner.' " . . .

I loved that statement.

. . . 

"Based on the immediate negative reaction to the article on the part of the left, you would think Moody had written a promotional flyer for the KKK.  Within hours of its appearing online, Fox News's sworn enemy, David Brock's Media Matters for America, took aim in a slanted summary of Moody's article: . . ."

. . . 

"Interested readers are directed to Moody's original February 7, 2018 article on the Olympics, archived here, for a fuller understanding before weighing in on the question: John Moody – retirement or forced departure?"