It’s Wednesday, June 8th, 2016…but before we begin, a quick thought on the theory of anthropogenic climate change occasioned by this spectacular photo from our middle son Mike’s (four of his toes are visible just left of bottom center) visit to one of the Environazis’ most sacred sites:

Absent the retreat of the massive North American ice cap at the end of the last Ice Age, unquestionably the result of catastrophic “climate change”, Yosemite wouldn’t exist.  So what caused the planet to warm and the glaciers to retreat tens of thousands of years ago absent the impact of man?  And does this make global warming good, as long as it provides Gaia worshippers a significant enough shrine?!?

Now, here’s The Gouge!

First up, an item that literally makes one want to go postal, at least on the subject of this sordid story:

Federal immigration boss at center of turf war over terror suspect transferred on heels of damning report

 

“The federal bureaucrat who blocked armed law enforcement agents from apprehending a man involved in the San Bernardino terror attack last December, then allegedly lied to investigators about her actions, has been reassigned to another post, but likely won’t face further investigation, FoxNews.com has learned.

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services supervisor, who an Inspector General’s report did not name but blasted for keeping Department of Homeland Security agents from Enrique Marquez, is Irene Martin, who, according to her Linkedin.com account, has been with the agency for at least 16 years, 13 years as a field supervisor.

It is not clear what disciplinary action Martin could face, but the report last week faulted her for making agents wait more than 90 minutes before she gave them access to related files on the suspected terrorist, and then she dismissively ordered them to hand copy files, according to the federal report. Agents told building security they intended to arrest Marquez to prevent him from killing anyone, but Martin had them wait 30 minutes just to see her. When questioned by IG investigators later, Martin repeatedly changed her story and also contradicted what other witnesses said.

“We concluded that the USCIS Field Office Director at the San Bernardino office improperly delayed HSI agents from conducting a lawful and routine law enforcement action…” the report said. “We have also concluded that the Field Office Director was not candid with OIG investigators during her interview.”

Jeff Carter, chief of media relations for USCIS, told FoxNews.com late Monday that “to his knowledge there is no further investigation into Martin,” and her transfer become acting deputy district director was planned before the audit was released.

Martin, who formally oversaw San Bernardino and Riverside as well as Los Angeles counties, did not return emails to FoxNews.com. USCIS in California referred calls to its Washington headquarters, where officials refused to comment. However, experts and former law enforcement agents told FoxNews.com Martin’s actions amounted to obstruction of justice…”

Yet she STILL HAS A JOB!!!  This story is so wrong on so many levels, not the least of which is why the agents involved didn’t bust this bloviating broad’s door down and clap the cuffs on her along with Enrique Marquez.

Such conduct would be inexcusable enough even for a common citizen; it should be grounds for criminal prosecution and serious jail time for a management-level federal civil servant!  As we noted in the June 6th edition, it’s apparent no act is so heinous it results in the termination, let alone indictment and imprisonment, of a federal employee.

In a related tale of bureaucratic overreach and ignorance, writing at NRO, Julie Gunlock details the latest from…

The Food Marxists at the FDA

Scientists disagree on how much salt we should consume, but the government is rushing ahead with low-salt regulations.

 

“…Those unaware of how the regulatory process works might innocently believe that because the nice guys at the FDA made these guidelines voluntary, food manufacturers can just ignore them and carry on as they always have. But, sadly for those of us who like the way our food tastes right now, Washington doesn’t quite work that way. When an extremely powerful federal agency issues “voluntary guidelines,” food producers and companies know that the guidelines need to be treated like legally binding regulations. In business — big and small — to survive, you comply.

And so, industry will submit, and in two years, consumers will start to taste a difference in their crackers, their breads, their favorite soups and canned goods. It’s truly an astonishing affront to the basic concept of liberty: The federal government is forcing food makers to reformulate time-tested consumer favorites. And, if that isn’t outrageous enough, consider also that food manufacturers are already providing consumers an abundance of low-salt and no-salt products, and they have been for years.

That isn’t good enough for the Obama administration or for food Marxists such as Michael Jacobson, the smarmy head of the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI). Jacobson actually sued the FDA for not moving fast enough to bully the food industry into making their products taste bland and flavorless — he wrote the book on bullying the food industry.

Of course, Jacobson and the many other vocal food Marxists (Alice Waters, Marion Nestle, Mark Bittman, and Michael Pollan — all of whom I’ve written about for NRO) have a problem with consumers’ having a choice. Freedom is troubling to this lot because when people have the power to make choices, there’s always the possibility they will make a bad choice. So the solution is simple: Take away people’s choices. It’s best for us stupid mouth stuffers to leave the really hard questions (like . . . hmmm, what’s healthier: Ice cream or carrots? I need a label for that!) to Jacobson and his pals. It’s best if we let them point their finger and dictate what should and shouldn’t be on store shelves.

…Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell seemed to hint that this bold new regulatory model would be one of Obama’s more troubling legacies. Reacting to the FDA’s new salt guidelines, Burwell told ABC News that making these changes gradually would help consumers adjust their taste for salt. You see, huddled masses, you just need to “adjust” to these new rules. You’ll get used to it. You’ll grow to love your bland food. If you like your crackers, you can keep your crackers…

“I’m so hypocritically humorous I crack myself up!”

But this time the FDA’s authoritarian behavior isn’t just an assault on freedom of choice; these policies are also medically questionable (But what does Scientific American know?!?).

…Even Susan Mayne, who directs the FDA’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, denied the latest medical research, saying in a press release this month, “The totality of the scientific evidence supports sodium reduction from current intake levels.” She then cited a 2009 Institute of Medicine report that concluded that reducing sodium intake to 2,300 milligrams per day can significantly help Americans. But Mayne failed to mention the more recent report, also by the Institute of Medicine, which reversed the 2009 opinion and concluded that government sodium-reduction policies were inadvisable and possibly dangerous…”

But hey, it’s not like Barry and Moochie won’t be able to keep eating exactly what they’re banning for the rest of us:

Since we’re on the subject of government misconduct deserving of a prison sentence, in the Follow-Up segment, more on a story we hope and pray ain’t going away: 

They’re not on the same page because they’re telling so many different lies so quickly they can’t keep track of them all!

For more on the subject of liars infesting the highest levels of government, we turn to FOX News‘ Catherine Herridge as she reports on the latest example of Dimocrat deception:

Former US attorney: Clinton aides’ legal strategy is ‘red flag‘

 

“Four central figures in the FBI’s criminal investigation of Hillary Clinton’s email practices are all using the same lawyer, a move described as a “red flag” by a former U.S. attorney who now runs a government watchdog group. Lawyer Beth Wilkinson is representing: Clinton former chief of staff Cheryl Mills; policy adviser Jake Sullivan; media gatekeeper Philippe Reines; and former aide Heather Samuelson, who helped decide which Clinton emails were destroyed before turning over the remaining 30,000 records to the State Department.

“I think it would be a real red flag,” Matthew Whitaker, executive director of the Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust, or FACT, told Fox News, in reference to the legal defense. He suggested having a single lawyer would help the four Clinton aides align their stories for FBI interviews.

“The benefit is to have one lawyer’s brain have all the knowledge of the various pieces and parts, and so each of those potential targets or subjects of the investigation get to share information across that same attorney — and quite frankly get their story to sync up and understand what other people know of the situation,” he said.

Wilkinson is a well-respected Washington, D.C., attorney who successfully argued in favor of the death penalty for Timothy McVeigh in the Oklahoma City bombing case. Wilkinson has deep ties in Washington and is married to former NBC “Meet the Press” host David Gregory, who is now a regular political commentator on CNN…”

How far our nation has fallen from the days of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, when Ben Franklin observed, “We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.”  The Founding Fathers were risking their very lives for the cause of liberty and their fledgling nation.  These pieces of human excrement are lying through their teeth purely in pursuit of personal power and profit, without any concern whatsoever for our country or its Constitution.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch with the man who’s living proof there are no barriers to entry in real estate development, at least not when you inherit tens of millions from your father, courtesy of NRO, Ian Tuttle opines on…

Trump’s Outrageous Attack on Judge Curiel

It plays into the Left’s identity-politics game, in which one’s heritage or sex determines whether one can render a fair judgment.

 

“It turns out that Donald Trump’s legal philosophy, such as it is, is like his philosophy of everything else: Donald Trump likes judges who like Donald Trump.

That’s the simplest way to explain his ongoing rhetorical savaging of federal judge Gonzalo Curiel, who has the lamentable task, in California’s Southern District federal court, of presiding over a class-action lawsuit against the defunct real-estate “school,” Trump University.

Curiel has decided to let the case proceed to trial, so Trump has taken to attacking him in the media with race-baiting insinuations. Late last week, Curiel released 400 pages of previously sealed documents from the case. This set off a wave of stories about Trump University sales representatives’ sketchy tactics to get “students” to sink significant sums of money into the program, so it’s hardly surprising that Trump has chosen to intensify his assault. On Thursday, he stooped to explicit ethnic nationalism, telling the Wall Street Journal that Curiel has “an absolute conflict” when it comes to the lawsuit because he’s “of Mexican heritage.” “I’m building a wall,” said Trump. “It’s an inherent conflict of interest.”

It’s not, of course, and if Trump actually believes that, he’s a bigger dunce than even his most vociferous critics have surmised. More likely, Trump knows that he’s in trouble in this trial, so he found the only plausible angle he could use to prejudice his supporters against the judge.

The problem with Donald Trump, though (let me rephrase: one of the inexhaustibly many problems) is that his personal beefs become the ideological framework for hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of (ignorant, angry or ill-informed) Americans. In this latest instance, for example, Trump has implied that no law can be interpreted disinterestedly and applied dispassionately. There’s really no such thing as reason; there are only inescapable tribal prejudices. Because his parents were from Mexico, Gonzalo Curiel is always going to be loyal first and foremost to Mexico, so he will never be able to render a fair decision on anything involving Donald Trump.

What follows from that is the effective end of the Anglo-Saxon legal tradition. Consider: Who could rule in Trump’s case? Trump has strong opinions about Chinese product-dumping, so it couldn’t be a judge whose family came from China. It couldn’t be a black judge, because that judge would obviously be opposed to the candidate who flirted with the Ku Klux Klan. And — to push the thought further — what single judge could fulfill Trump’s ludicrous criteria when applied to the nearly 7,000 former students who are plaintiffs in this case?

“I’m sorry, I can’t hear you over my greatness; either that…or its the roar resulting from the vacuum between my ears. Either way, it’s…

…’cuz I’m totally tone-deaf!”

Obviously, Trump has not thought through the implications of his cheap slander, and few of his supporters will, either. But they’ll accept it, because that’s what cults do, and a growing mass of people will say that Sonia Sotomayor can’t fairly decide immigration cases because she’s Hispanic, and Sri Srinivasan can’t fairly decide cases involving Christians because he’s Hindu, and Merrick Garland can’t decide cases involving money because he’s Jewish.

This is already the direction in which the Left is headed. Following the Burwell v. Hobby Lobby decision, which struck down Obamacare’s contraception mandate for closely held companies, Harry Reid declared that “women’s lives” were not going to be governed by “five white men” — men apparently being unable to rule on matters of law pertaining to women. Left-wing commentators made a similar argument after the Shelby County v. Holder decision in 2013 striking down a portion of the Voting Rights Act: White people are incapable of making responsible decisions about laws that involve black people.

For more than half a century, conservatives have been combating this cheap reduction of the law to the color of skin or the slant of eye or the spelling of the name of the judge making the decision. A person’s birthplace or bloodline or bone structure or sex does not dictate his capacity to exercise reason in the service of making fair and informed judgments. But Trump, unthinkingly, has avowed just the opposite and pushed a mass of his followers to follow suit. In yet another realm, he has come down on exactly the opposite side of genuine conservatives.

On Friday afternoon, Trump doubled down on his attacks. “We’re building a wall,” Trump told CNN. “He’s a Mexican.”

No, Donald, he’s American. During the time when Trump was advertising his (first) divorce in the New York City tabloids and trying to strong-arm an elderly widow out of her home to make way for a casino parking lot, Curiel was a federal prosecutor in California, working to bring to heel Mexican drug cartels who were pushing their operations into the United States. For much of a year in the late 1990s, he was forced into hiding when a gunman with the Arellano Félix cartel admitted that he “had requested and received permission from the leaders of the Arellano cartel to have Curiel murdered.” The closest Trump has come to putting his life on the line for America is risking STD infection as a young man during his “personal Vietnam.”

Now, Trump is using his bully pulpit to slander Curiel — and in the process undermining the notion of an impartial rule of law. The country and Judge Curiel deserve better.

And The Donald’s belated “apology” was almost as offensive as his original statement:

‘It is unfortunate that my comments have been misconstrued as a categorical attack against people of Mexican heritage,’ the billionaire said. ‘I am friends with and employ thousands of people of Mexican and Hispanic descent.’

Trump has all the empathy of Ty Webb at the 1:01 mark of this clip from Caddyshack:

Attaboy, Donald…you arrogant, dimwitted douche nozzle.

Which brings us to the latest from Commentary Magazine‘s Jonathan Tobin, who confirms what most us already knew to be true:

Dissent is a Dirty Word for Trump

 

“From the start, the Donald Trump campaign has been something of a one-man band. But in the last few days, we’ve seen just how much a lone wolf (El lobo loco!) Trump has become. While it was not surprising that some of the mainstream Republicans that had been reluctantly dragged into supporting the presumptive GOP nominee would seek to distance themselves from his racist attacks on Judge Alonzo Curiel, one of his most faithful supporters in recent months has now also condemned his comments.

Sure, as Tobin goes on to note…

“To be fair, Trump isn’t the only leader to have such a rule. Though the man he is seeking to replace in the White House can act publicly with far more grace than Trump, his is an administration where entry in the inner circle requires not merely loyalty but a determination never to disagree with Obama.“

BUT…and like Hillary’s, this is a big but…

“The analogy to the president’s management style is no compliment to Trump.“

Trump (along with both Hillary and Barry) reminds of an observation of Hitler made by Colonel-General Alfred Jodl, Chief of Staff of the OKW (Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, or Supreme Command of the Armed Forces of Nazi Germany) after he was temporarily demoted as a result of one of the Fuhrer’s frequent fits of pique (as quoted by Alan Clark in Barbarossa: The Russian-German Conflict 1941-45):

“A dictator, as a matter of psychological necessity, must never be reminded of his own errors – in order to keep up his self-confidence, the ultimate source of his dictatorial force.“

Also applicable to Trump, Hillary and Barry, Clark went on to observe:

“Vanity and self-delusion are among the lesser vices of despotic courts – indeed, they are to be welcomed, for it is in such ground that the seeds of self-destruction flourish.“

Unfortunately for America…or fortunately, we can’t honestly decide which…the seeds of The Donald’s self-destruction have sprouted, grown and are ripe for Hillary’s harvest.

So thanks, Trumpeteers; like the chain-smoking, too-smart-for-his-own-good Captain Tupolev in The Hunt for Red October, you’ve ignored all the danger signs, released a lethal weapon after disabling the safety features which would normally prevent it coming back at you, and as a result…

So…

If we want the benefit of your fatally flawed judgment in the future, we’ll feel free to beat it out of you.

In any event, we don’t expect The Donald to go gently into that good night…

…but we’re afraid the Mexican-judge-from-Indiana kerfuffle has him well on his way.  And though we’ve thought that any number of times before, this doesn’t bode well:

Trump-Endorsed Renee Ellmers Loses Reelection After ‘Betraying’ Pro-lifers

 

Which brings us to The Lighter Side…

Finally, we’ll call it a wrap with the latest entry in our “Do As I SAY, Not As I DO!” segment, courtesy today of PJ Media and the would-be Wicked Witch of the West Wing…and the biggest hypocrite since her husband and…

Moochie Obama:

Hillary Wears $12,000 Suit During Income Inequality Speech

 

In progressive circles, it’s always been fashionable to lash out at the rich. Progressives try to paint themselves as men and women of the people. The thing is, most of the time, they’re not. Especially when they can drop more on an article of clothing than most can afford to spend on a car.

Hillary Clinton wore a jacket that costs more than $12,000 when she discussed income inequality and other economic issues following her victory in the New York Primary earlier this year. According to the New York Post, Clinton sported the $12,495 Giorgio Armani jacket when delivering remarks in New York City in April after defeating competitor Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) in her home-state primary.

The price of the jacket constitutes roughly 40 percent of what the average American worker makes in a year. According to the most recent data provided by the U.S. Census Bureau, the median income for U.S. workers in 2014 was $30,815.

Now, let’s leave aside that the garment looks more like it was designed by Hefty or Glad than Armani. Instead, let’s look at the idea that someone who is wearing a jacket costing more than $12,000 — and who, along with her husband, made $153 million in speaking fees between 2001 and the launch of her presidential campaign, an average of just under $11 million per year — is presuming to lecture people on income inequality.

No one should begrudge them that money made legally. Especially … Hillary Clinton. In 2010, Clinton claimed:

The rich are not paying their fair share in any nation that is facing the kind of employment issues [America currently does] — whether it’s individual, corporate or whatever [form of] taxation forms.

With her income, she’s clearly part of “the rich.” Further, there’s nothing stopping her from sending the majority of her income to the IRS. The IRS is more than willing to accept money from the wealthy who think they’re not taxed sufficiently.

But no, she hasn’t done that. Neither have any of the other wealthy people who have parroted the claim about the rich not paying enough in taxes.

Of course, at this point no one is genuinely shocked by evidence that Hillary Clinton (and every other Dimocrat) is a hypocrite.

Magoo