The shutdown is as fake as most of the news Official Washington reports.

Don Surber

. . . "But everyone knows that is BS. Some government offices will close, some government employees will stay home, and Congress will make sure they get back pay. Anywhere else that is called a vacation.
"This means the Post's precious advertisers will stay in business.
"The shutdown is as fake as most of the news Official Washington reports.
"President Trump's plan is simple. Shut the government down when the holidays have closed the offices anyway. Only 6 of the first 15 days of the shutdown are workdays.
"Besides, not much of the government gets shut down.
"NPR reported, "Three-quarters of the government will not be affected, because budget bills funding those operations had already been approved. But the remaining 25 percent subject to the shutdown includes Homeland Security, Justice, Commerce, Interior, Agriculture, Housing and Urban Development, and Transportation departments.
" 'Even among those affected, some personnel are deemed essential and will be expected to report to work without pay, for now. That includes FBI officers, Border Patrol agents and Transportation Security Administration agents — during one of the busiest travel periods of the year. In the past, however, Congress has approved back pay for furloughed federal workers.' " . . .

US government shutdown appears set to continue until Thursday as fight over Trump's border wall stalls spending talks

CNBC

• Parts of the U.S. government shut down early Saturday as Congress missed a deadline to pass spending bills.
• A disagreement over whether to fund President Donald Trump's border wall stalled efforts to keep the government running.
• Lawmakers will try to come to an agreement to reopen the government over the weekend.

A senior Trump administration official offered no signs of compromise. He told reporters on Saturday, "We continue to articulate our expectations of $5 billion for border security and physical barriers."  A spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said his boss would be meeting with Vice President Mike Pence. He said Schumer "intends to remind the Vice President that any proposal with funding for the wall cannot pass the Senate."

"President Donald Trump threatened a government shutdown for weeks. He got one when the clock turned to Saturday.

"Congress missed a Friday midnight deadline to fund nine departments, or about a quarter of the government, and the Senate adjourned for Christmas without voting on a deal to bridge the impasse. Parts of the government closed after lawmakers failed to strike an agreement on seven spending bills.

"Lawmakers failed to reach a funding agreement as Trump demanded $5 billion for his proposed wall along the border with Mexico. Democrats refused. Then House Republicans dug in, declining to pass a bill to keep the government running into February after the president threatened to veto it Thursday.

"Trump took to Twitter on Saturday morning, threatening a "long stay" if he does not get the "Border Security" he's demanding." . . .

Feds spend more in food stamps in ONE month than POTUS wants for entire YEAR of wall funding

. . . “In October, according to the Monthly Treasury Statement, the federal government spent $5,892,000,000 on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which is also known as the food stamp program,” Bannister writes.“In November, according to the statement for that month, the federal government spent another $5,428,000,000 on the food stamp program, bringing the total so far for fiscal 2019 (after only two months) to $11,320,000,000—or an average of $5,660,000,000 per month,” he added. . . .

When Democrats mention "green", hold onto your wallet. They want their power and your money

Daily Caller  "As they assume control of the House, Democrats are pushing a carbon tax as part of a “Green New Deal.” A carbon tax means new hard power for the federal government. It means more taxpayer money flowing to Washington. It means everything will cost more.

"This will turn off voters, and that’s why Democrats will pull out all the stops to get Republican fingerprints on a carbon tax in 2019. "Democrats will work with a compliant media to kick up a dust cloud labeled “bipartisanship” in the hopes voters won’t know who to blame.

All Republicans should steer clear.

"A carbon tax is both bad policy and bad politics. As a simultaneous tax and spending hike, carbon taxes raise the cost of living and hit lower-income workers and small businesses hard. They give the government more control over private decisions.

"It’s no wonder all but six House Republicans voted for a resolution noting a carbon tax is detrimental to the U.S. economy. "Only seven Democrats supported the resolution.

"There is a clear contrast between the two parties, and voters favor the Republican position." . . .

California transformed its justice system. But now crime is up, and critics want rollbacks

LA Times

Stolen objects are displayed while Capt. Lillian Carranza, second from left, commanding officer of the Los Angeles Police Department's Commercial Crimes Division, shares details about arrests made in connection with recent burglaries at the homes of celebrities.

"Over the last decade, California has led the nation in reducing its prison population.
"The state has shortened sentences and diverted some offenders to the counties for incarceration and supervision, transforming California’s criminal justice system into what supporters hope will become a humane model around the country.
"But amid the changes, crime has increased in recent years, sparking debate about the causes and giving ammunition to those leading a new effort to roll back some of the reforms. 
"An analysis by the Marshall Project and the Los Angeles Times found that California’s crime rates remain near historic lows, but overall crime spiked in both 2012 and 2015, the years that immediately followed two major statewide measures aimed at decreasing the number of people in prison. Those jumps were mainly driven by increases in property crimes, particularly thefts from motor vehicles.

The California Experiment  This is one of an occasional series examining the impact of recent justice measures aimed at reducing incarceration. It is a collaboration between the Los Angeles Times and the Marshall Project, a nonprofit news outlet.

"After decades of mirroring national downward trends in violent crime, California saw a 12% increase from 2014 to 2017, while the violent crime rate in the other 49 states together increased only 3%, the analysis showed. In 2014, California voters approved a ballot measure that reduced sentences for many low-level drug and property crimes."

. . . Three years later, California voters approved Proposition 47, which turned drug use and most theft convictions from felonies to misdemeanors. In 2016, voters overhauled the state parole system by backing Proposition 57, which gave thousands of inmates the chance to earn an earlier release from prison.The undeniable result of all these measures is that people are on the street today who would have been locked up in previous years.

. . .
Speaking of California voters:  Bienvenidos a Mexico: California's ballot-harvesting, sure enough, is borrowed from Mexico

Most congressional elections there showed Republican candidates in the lead on election night in the last midterm, but all of them flipped to Democrats as the Democrat-led ballot-harvesting brought in votes and votes and votes from supposed precincts, harvested by their political operatives, until the result went the other way.  

. . . 

When is a girl a boy?

During a saner time in our history, those so-called "parents" would have been charged with child abuse or tossed into a rubber room for psychiatric counseling.  When did the human race become so twisted in its reasoning?  And when did the logical members of society become so frightened that they won't dare stand up against this perversion of our culture?

American Thinker  "Every time I think I've heard the most outrageous example of cultural decline I can imagine, another one emerges to fracture any connection to commonsense reasoning.  The latest illustration of how distorted our educational institutions have become is the news that a West Point Virginia high school has fired a teacher because he refused to refer to a girl as a boy.  The girl, in this increasingly dysfunctional society, has decided "she" is a "he."  In the current vocabulary, which seems to be evolving into Twilight Zone territory, she is now a person of "transgender," the definition of which is "a person whose sense of personal identity and gender does not correspond with his birth sex."

"Therefore, if you wake up one day and decide you're not what you were born as, you can simply force the rest of the world to be as frivolous in its thinking as you are in yours.  The West Point school district voted unanimously (which tells you how scared they are to be politically incorrect) to terminate Peter Vlaming, a veteran French teacher who is adored by his other students.  Accusing him of (here comes another bizarre addition to our vocabulary) "misgendering" a student, the board said he was creating a hostile environment by such "discrimination."  Incidentally, the teacher happens to be a devout Christian who feels that his religious rights are being violated.  Even if he were an atheist, he shouldn't be forced to reject thousands of years of historical precedent regarding the two sexes." . . .

From 2016: Overpriced University Tells Students To Use Fake “Gender Inclusive” Pronouns  . . . "The pronoun posters instruct students and professors to start introducing themselves with their “name and pronouns — even to familiar colleagues and students.”

"For example, the posters advise that you might say — maybe at a football game or a sorority mixer: “I’m Steve and I use he/him/his pronouns. What should I call you?”

It’s ok, the posters tell us, if you make a mistake the first time. All you have to do is apologize and promise to do better next time:

"For example, the posters advise that you might say — maybe at a football game or a sorority mixer: “I’m Steve and I use he/him/his pronouns. What should I call you?”

“ 'Thank you for reminding me,” Vanderbilt students are now supposed to say. “I apologize and will use the correct pronoun for you in the future.' ” . . .

The war on Christmas, and Thanksgiving, and Columbus Day, and...

Apolo Villalobos

Regardless, leftists are not going to be very successful in abolishing Thanksgiving Day.  Or Halloween.  Or Valentine's Day.  Or Christmas.  Or the National Anthem.  Not even in California. But they will try.  In the meantime, pass the gravy.

"Columbus Day has been attacked every year because Christopher Columbus supposedly personally carried out genocide, a complete fabrication by Marxists who are famous for falsifying history for ideological purposes.  For those students who are not obsessed with Columbus's "crimes," their ignorance of his achievement is cringe-worthy.  While Indigenous Peoples Day started innocently enough in 1989, leftists now want to put it in place of Columbus Day, thereby tarnishing both holidays.

"Halloween is becoming less and less fun as liberals either cry out "cultural appropriation!" or claim that certain ethnic costumes (Polynesian, Mexican, Arabic, Oriental, etc.) will put someone in a coma.  For some unstated reason, even the name "Halloween" is objected to in favor of ..."Orange and Black Day" (doesn't exactly roll off the tongue, now does it?).

"Valentine's Day is under attack in India and in Muslim countries and here as well from liberals.  Campus Reform had a mock petition for outlawing Valentine's Day that the mindless cattle – that is, the college students – signed.  Jamie Glazov gives a detailed analysis of the parallels between the pathological hatred of Muslims and leftists for Valentine's Day, a day of love." . . .

What Is the ‘NPC’ Meme? Liberals Rage at Cartoons Mocking Their Scripted Thoughts

Breitbart  "The new “NPC” meme mocks leftists by depicting them as unthinking and reflexive automatons. The meme has upset the left so much that Twitter is now banning people posting it for “dehumanizing speech,” but its humble origins are the computer-controlled characters of limited intelligence found in most video games.

"The popular NPC meme trend frames its targets as non-player characters (NPCs) who reflexively spout neo-Marxist axioms in response to real-world events. Actual NPCs are computer-controlled characters in video games with limited scripted responses given the parameters of the games in which they appear. For example, NPCs may assign quests to the player in games like Skyrim, or join the player as a companion in Fallout.

"Built on the long-running Wojak meme, the NPC meme mocks leftists as expressionless in appearance and bot-like in behavior. The universal standard appearance illustrates the left’s political homogeneity." . . .

"The trending NPC memes can be seen on several Facebook pages, and are spreading quickly on Twitter, Reddit, and 4Chan as well. Below is a selection showing the versatility and creativity of the right’s meme creators

"News media outlets such as CNN and MSNBC are targeted by the NPC meme:"  . . .

Federal Panel Of Judges Dismisses All 83 Ethics Complaints Against Brett Kavanaugh

Nina Totenberg 

 "A specially appointed federal panel of judges has dismissed all 83 ethics complaints brought against Justice Brett Kavanaugh regarding his conduct at his confirmation hearings.
"The judges concluded that while the complaints "are serious," there is no existing authority that allows lower court judges to investigate or discipline Supreme Court justices.
"The complaints against Kavanaugh ranged from allegations that he had misled the Senate about some of his activities in the George W. Bush White House to his angry, partisan statements in denying charges of sexual assault in high school.
"At his contentious confirmation hearings, Kavanaugh railed against Democrats, accusing them of engaging in a liberal conspiracy, a sort of payback for his onetime role as a prosecutor investigating President Bill Clinton.
" 'This whole two-week effort has been a calculated and orchestrated political hit fueled with apparent pent-up anger about President Trump and the 2016 election, fear that has been unfairly stoked about my judicial record, revenge on behalf of the Clintons, and millions of dollars in money from outside left-wing opposition groups," Kavanaugh thundered. "This is a circus. ... And as we all know, in the United States political system of the early 2000s, what goes around comes around.' " . . .

Oh, by the way...
Kavanaugh hearing showed Democrats for the sexists they are  "The caller to the senator's voicemail had few words, “You are so f---ing naïve. You will go down in history as the most naïve person ever to be in Congress. You f---ing, f---ing feckless naïve woman. Trying to make Americans more equal. F--- you.”
"Another caller's message said, “Don’t be a dumb c---. Don’t’ be a stupid f---ing hypocrite. If you care at all about women’s stories, vote no on Kavanaugh.  Don’t be a dumb b----.  F--- you also.”
"The target was Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine. The sexist tirade came because she supported the nomination of Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
"While many Trump supporters did not appreciate her dithering, no one abused her like this." . . .

The government shutdown: Never forget what it revealed about Obama's character.

Rich Terrell

NO DEAL: Government Heads to Partial Shutdown at Midnight After Congress Fails to Reach a Funding Deal  . . . "It should not be controversial to ensure the security of any of our borders, and yet… the Democrats have made this a hill to die on." . . .

It’s not about the $5 billion for border security in the bill the House passed tonight. It’s about Democrats wanting to break Trump.

Remember the shutdown in Obama's day? Dr. King said we should never judge a man by the color of his skin but by the content of his character; I've judged Obama by the content of his character and found him reprehensible. The Tunnel Dweller


Obama Acting Like Vindictive Child With National Parks Shutdown  . . . "As with the sequester, this President is using the shutdown of 17% of the government to punish the American voters into submission.  For example case of open-air monuments that have no physical barrier, such as the World War II memorial in downtown D.C., the White House has ordered park police to take the extra step of making sure no one can get to the memorials.  This led to the now famous incident where WWII veterans, who took an “honor flight”  to D.C.  went through the temporarily erected barricades to visit their monument." . . .

"Obama is one mean, vindictive bastard"  " . . .There is no other way to put it. During the last government “shutdown” Obama blockaded the WWII memorial, which is normally is open and ungated. He spent money on personnel and materials to prevent WWII vets from gaining access to their own shrine."

Shut Down Obama - Simply Vindictive

It is not hyperbole to say with the utmost clarity that the narcissist-in-chief is not a leader, but a petty, vindictive despot working his damndest to offend, hurt, and punish as many real Americans whom he is charged to serve. Obama is personally inflicting as much pain, suffering, and inconvenience upon veterans, children, and vacationers as possible, not just in these United States, but overseas as well.

There are more than 9,300 American World War II troops turning over in their graves in the Normandy American Cemetery in France while Obama has ordered it off limits to visitors – people who have traveled at pronounced expense to pay homage to real heroes of the Greatest Generation. Obama is simply spitting on their memories.

The Departure of Mattis and Engagements in the Middle East

With the Mattis departure ends the Kelly/Mattis/McMaster troika of generals, who in retrospect served the administration — and the country — honorably and effectively in difficult times.

Victor Davis Hanson  The near-destruction of ISIS in a matter of months (losing 99 percent of its landed caliphate), the restoration of sound defense budgeting, a reestablished sense of deterrence, and stable recalibration with allies were the signature achievements of James Mattis. And it seems a mistake not to have him finish a four-year stint at Defense.
"No doubt continued U.S. deployments in both Afghanistan and Syria loomed large in Trump’s sudden decision to leave the latter even if it would cause Mattis’s departure, as well as the sense that as 2020 looms he wants MAGA orthodoxy throughout the cabinet.
"The abrupt pulling of U.S. troops out of Syria is likely a mistake — given that for the size (about 2,000 troops on the ground) and cost of the deployment (few casualties), we were keeping ISIS moribund, somewhat checking Iran as well as Russia, and protecting the Kurds and what was left of the democratic Syria resistance. True, Syria was a mess, unlike a relatively stable Iraq in late 2011 (see the comments of Vice President Biden and President Obama), when the U.S. likewise abruptly left and opened the door for ISIS.  Yet Syria’s future now is either going to be much more of a mess or soon a calmer colony of Russia and Iran.
"No doubt the U.S. will likewise be reexamining the soon to be 18-year-long slog in  

Afghanistan.

"The problem with all these deployments as they transitioned from emergency interventions to near-permanent stationing was that grand strategists never clearly articulated to the public how such investments kept the U.S. far safer and how long such basing would be necessary, especially in terms of costs to benefits. Both arguments in theory could be made (cf. South Korea), but the public at least never was assured by a series of Afghan deadlines, surges, redirects, recalibrations, withdrawals, and radical changes in command, tactics, and strategies, or by a Syrian tragedy of false red lines, lies about the elimination of poison gas, invitations to the Russians to adjudicate U.N.-enforced WMD compliance and with it entrance back into the Middle East after a 40-year hiatus, ISIS as “jayvees,” the role of NATO “ally” Turkey, and prior restrictive lawfare tactics, etc. Ditto the Clinton “We came, we saw, he [Khadafi] died” misadventure in Libya, ending in Benghazi." . . .

NRO contributor Victor Davis Hanson is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and the author, most recently, of The Second World Wars: How the First Global Conflict Was Fought and Won. @vdhanson

Hall of shame: Advertisers sign up for boycott of Tucker Carlson for telling the truth on illegal immigration

Thomas Lifson  . . . "Update: Fox News has provided us a statement on the boycott:

Statement from FOX News 12-18-18

"We cannot and will not allow voices like Tucker Carlson to be censored by agenda-driven intimidation efforts from the likes of Moveon.org, Media Matters and Sleeping Giants.

Attempts were made last month to bully and terrorize Tucker and his family at their home. He is now once again being threatened via Twitter by far left activist groups with deeply political motives.

While we do not advocate boycotts, these same groups never target other broadcasters and operate under a grossly hypocritical double standard given their intolerance to all opposing points of view."

"HuffPost seems to approve of the boycott and repeats the common distortion of conflating illegal aliens with immigrants.  But it usefully provides a list of advertisers trying to silence Carlson for me – and maybe you –  to boycott.  Go and read the whole thing, but here are numbers one through three:

Stephen Colbert Piles On Tucker Carlson: ‘The Little Racist Who Could’

HuffPo gives us the list of sponsors boycotting Tucker's show:

What’s Happening to Tucker Carlson (and Others) Is Called ‘Blacklisting’ 
. . . "Back in the 1950s, a number of private corporations (most famously, movie and television studios), that had every legal right to choose who they did and did not want to do business with, enforced an appalling blacklist as a means to intimidate, silence, and punish those who held beliefs and opinions unpopular with the establishment.
"This never should have happened in America, and today we rightly look back on this era with shame.
"Moreover — and this is important — no one looks back at the infamous 1950’s Hollywood blacklist and says, “Hey, the studios were corporations, not the government, so they had the right to hire and fire whoever they wanted.”
. . . 

"We even have large media corporations, like the far-left CNN, openly demanding the blacklisting of certain opinions.

"What’s more, in a truly ironic example of history repeating itself, we have the powerful in Hollywood calling for the blacklisting of certain opinions.

"Yep, just as we saw happen to television personalities in the McCarthy era, Hollywood director Judd Apatow is openly calling for Fox News primetime star Tucker Carlson to be blacklisted, for his commercial sponsors to pull their support, for him to lose his platform and career." . . .

Syria: President Trump, let Obama's cut-and-run foreign policy die in shame!

Trump Courts Catastrophe in Syria

Islamic State is not defeated, and a U.S. withdrawal would be an abandonment of Kurdish allies.

Does the U.S. really want to abandon them?

"President Donald Trump is on the verge of making a spectacularly bad decision. The White House is soon expected to announce its plans to remove the 2,000 U.S. troops now serving in northeastern Syria. 

"This is not totally unexpected. Trump ran for president in part on the idea of smashing the Islamic State, but he also said there was no point in trying to stabilize the country after the terrorists were defeated. Since getting elected, he has regularly signaled that its time for U.S. forces to leave Syria. In March he promised the U.S. would be getting out of Syria “like, very soon.” In June, he floated a plan for an all-Arab army to replace the U.S. in a meeting with Jordan’s King Abdullah.

"Nonetheless, special-operations forces have remained in Syria, where they train and fight alongside largely Kurdish troops. Together they coordinate air strikes against the remaining pockets of Islamic State fighters and serve as a buffer between Turkey and Kurdish militias.

"This time it looks like Trump is serious. " . . .

The Syria Trickery  . . ."The move, the Times says, has “sowed new uncertainty about America’s commitment to the Middle East, its willingness to be a global leader and Mr. Trump’s role as commander in chief.” So, suddenly, the Times is on the side not only of Mr. Bolton but of Senators Marco Rubio and Lindsey Graham and our own famed leg at the United Nations, Benny Avni." . . .

U.S. Prepares to Fully Remove Troops From Northeastern Syria  "The Wall Street Journal has reported that the US military has started preparations to remove all of its forces from northeastern Syria:

U.S. officials began informing partners in northeastern Syria of their plans to begin immediately pulling American forces out of the region where they have been trying to wrap up the campaign against Islamic State, the people said.

The move follows a call last week between President Trump and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has threatened to launch an assault on America’s Kurdish partners in Syria. . . .

Trump’s troop pullout from Syria is a terrible idea  . . . "We knew Trump wasn’t a foreign policy wizard, but we hoped he’d surround himself with smart people.  It took him a while but he had a good team with Haley, Bolton and Pompeo.  I wouldn’t be surprised if Bolton bails after this completely boneheaded move by Trump.

"The bottom line is that everyone wise enough to understand how awful it was for Obama to pull out of Iraq is either a hypocrite for not calling this out or sick to their stomachs that this is happening.

"If President Trump does follow through with this, he should officially recognize Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights just as he moved the embassy to Jerusalem. Senators Cruz and Cotton have introduced a resolution in the Senate to that effect. That’s the least he can do to help Israel survive attacks by Iran and its proxies that surround her. " . . .