It’s Monday, March 20th, 2017…but before we begin, two headlines which encapsulate all which is rotten in contemporary, politically-correct Progressivism.  Exhibit “A”: this item from the AP via FOX News which wonders whether it should be left to a…

New York court to determine if chimp is legally a person

Chuck Schumer searching for Nancy Pelosi’s brain.

Quick question: should this learned jurist determine chimpanzees are entitled to the same rights enjoyed by humans, would simians thus be similarly permitted the “right” to slay their unborn offspring?

Put another way, if a rogue federal judge were to inform us it’s constitutionally-okay to slaughter Jews, does said decision make it legal, let alone right?!?

Sorry, folks: this is the province of the kangaroo courts organized under Adolf, Josef and Chairman Mao; and we adamantly refuse to be a party to them…let alone be a member of the party which promotes them.

Which brings us to Exhibit “B”, courtesy today of NRO‘s Katherine Timpf, who records how…

NDP Candidate Removes Post with Beyoncé Lyrics after Cultural Appropriation Accusations

Another case of PC in Canada

Niki just SCREAMS “Educated Idiot”!!!

“New Democratic party candidate Niki Ashton has deleted her social-media posts containing Beyoncé lyrics because a Twitter account attributed to Vancouver’s Black Lives Matter said that using those lyrics was “appropriating black culture.”

Ashton had posted “Like Beyoncé says, to the left. Time for an unapologetic turn to the left for the #NDP, for social, racial, enviro, and economic justice. #ndpldr” above a meme that read “To the Left, to the Left. nikiashton2017.ca,” according to a screenshot of the tweet obtained by the Huffington Post Canada.

Now, this may seem like a harmless post. It may seem like just another politician shamelessly trying to connect with voters by demonstrating that she, like, knows things about pop culture.

But apparently not, because in response, a Twitter account attributed to Vancouver’s chapter of Black Lives Matter tweeted:

Ashton, being the self-described “intersectional eco-feminist” that she is, immediately removed the post and thanked BLM for calling her out on her ignorance:

Well, Ashton, since you asked, here’s my feedback: What the f$%^ is happening?…”

In all honesty, The Left is so far beyond “What the F$%^ is happening?” as to defy all imagination, let alone logic.

So now, here’s The Gouge!

First up, proof positive The Donald’s initial budget hit the mark:

“Part of your answer is focusing on efficiencies and focusing on doing what we do better. As to climate change, I think the President was fairly straightforward saying we’re not spending money on that anymore. We consider that to be a waste of your money to go out and do that.” – OMB Director Mick Mulvaney

“People will die because of this budget. People will suffer. Diseases will spread, and cures will not be found…our nation will be much darker and more dangerous.” – Lying Dan Rather

Who to believe?!?  If any questions remain, this next entry ought to answer them; as also courtesy of NRO, Walter Olson observes the MSM’s…

Outrage on Wheels

The story that Trump’s budget would kill the Meals on Wheels program was too good to check. But it was false.

“Dan Rather reporting” at its finest!

“It made for great copy — irresistibly clickable and compulsively shareable. “Trump’s Budget Would Kill a Program That Feeds 2.4 Million Senior Citizens,” blared Time’s headline. “Trump Proposed Budget Eliminates Funds for Meals on Wheels,” claimed The Hill, in a piece that got 26,000 shares. But it was false.

And it wouldn’t have taken long for reporters to find and provide some needed context to the relationship between federal block grant programs, specifically Community Development Block Grants (CDBG), and the popular Meals on Wheels program.

…For many editors, “Administration wants to zero out Meals on Wheels” made good, emotionally satisfying copy — too good to check. But around the country, in coming days, thousands of persons touched by the program are likely to ask their visiting community member or supervisor whether it’s really true that they’re going to do away with the Meals on Wheels program, the way the man on TV or the lady on Facebook said. And after they hear a fuller explanation, they might decide that they trust news reports a little less.“

That’s not reporting; it’s pure and simple propaganda!

And for those of you interested in the intricacies involved in repealing/replacing an abomination which was by design created and passed so as to be incredibly difficult to repeal/replace, Philip Klein, writing at the Washington Examiner, presents them:

Republicans’ Obamacare repeal fight turning into battle over Senate procedure

To Hell with Senate “procedures”; go nuclear…and beat the Dims to the button!

“Frustrated conservatives are complaining that Congressional leadership isn’t being straight about the latitude that exists to repeal and replace Obamacare, which is quickly turning the GOP’s intraparty healthcare policy debate into a battle over the complex procedural rules governing the Senate.

At issue is a process known as reconciliation, which allows certain bills to pass through the Senate with a simple majority (rather than the typical 60 votes) as long as all of its provisions meet a certain series of tests, which were spelled out decades ago in a rule named after the late Sen. Robert Byrd.

That the GOP would allow obscure Senate rules not delineated in the Constitution…let alone rules in any way connected to a former Exalted Cyclops who not only started his own chapter of the KKK, but who filibustered against the 1964 Civil Rights Act, to hold up the dismantling of ObamaCare…

…says they care more about their status and privilege than their country.

In a related item, also courtesy of NRO, Doug Badger reports the…

CBO’s Alternate Facts about Obamacare

Congress should set policy based on reality, not on CBO’s speculations.

“Millions may lose coverage next year if Congress does not repeal Obamacare. That’s not what this week’s Congressional Budget Office (CBO) analysis says, but it is reality. CBO’s estimating models seem impervious to reality.

In the real world, the Obamacare exchanges are in crisis, millions of uninsured people willingly pay or avoid IRS penalties, and consumers struggle with rising premiums and cost-sharing requirements.

But for CBO, Obamacare is a sea of tranquility…

…A rational observer might worry that the exchanges were on the brink of doom. Not CBO. Its analysts believe that Obamacare is on the cusp of a miracle…”

Since we’re on the subject of miracles, as James Freeman relates at Best of the Web, Progressives are the experts on…

Mere Budgetary Christianity

What would Jesus say about big government?

Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times is having fun implying that Speaker of the House Paul Ryan’s effort to replace ObamaCare is at odds with Mr. Ryan’s Catholic faith. (Which begs the question why Kristof has never penned a similar column highlighting the irreconcilable differences between Nancy Pelosi’s unflagging support for unrestricted abortion-on-demand and her supposed Catholic beliefs.) The column is of a piece with the “Jesus was a socialist” arguments that bounce around the left half of the social media universe.

The ancient book has numerous admonitions to perform charity and various condemnations of greed, but it’s not easy to find a passage in which Jesus says that government is the best vehicle to provide aid, or that anyone should force others to donate.

Fortunately, in part because of the influence of the Bible on America’s founders, we enjoy a form of government that is much more humane than the one that Jesus encountered. This raises the interesting question of what Jesus would say about our contemporary political debates. Perhaps he would gaze approvingly upon the $4 trillion annual federal budget and intone, “Whatever you do to the least of my appropriations, you do to me.” But would he still say that after examining all the line items? Beyond questions of specific allocations for Planned Parenthood and the like, would Jesus see even a relatively benign government like ours as superior to individual acts of charity in comforting the afflicted?

In contrast to Mr. Kristof’s drive-by, John Gehring nicely limns the issues at the heart of this debate in a 2015 piece for the National Catholic Reporter. He notes that the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has condemned GOP attempts at budget-cutting but also mentions that a few church leaders are on Mr. Ryan’s side of the argument.

Mr. Gehring refers to a 2012 lecture Mr. Ryan delivered at Georgetown University. “Simply put, I do not believe that the preferential option for the poor means a preferential option for big government,” said the Speaker. “Look at the results of the government-centered approach to the war on poverty. One in six Americans are in poverty today – the highest rate in a generation. In this war on poverty, poverty is winning.” He concluded that “relying on distant government bureaucracies to lead this effort just hasn’t worked.”

In a related item highlighting the Liberal brand of Christianity:

Brazile admits she forwarded debate questions to Clinton camp

This comes after Brazile, lying like a rug, played the persecuted Christian ploy:

“As a Christian woman, I understand persecution, but I will not sit here and be persecuted,” Brazile said. “Your information is totally false.”

Here’s the juice: what we find so objectionable about Donna Brazile and Nicholas Kristof isn’t their sins.  After all, plenty of genuine Christians (ourselves included) have lied and acted the hypocrite, and thus, absent the intercession and unmerited grace of Christ, would and should be condemned to the eternal fires of Hell for said sins.

Rather, we take strong exception to the embodiment of those who Jesus warned against in Matthew 7:15: “Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves.”

This is what we love about Progressive Christian theology:; if Jesus didn’t say it, it’s not gospel; whether it be the Ten Commandments or anything Paul of Tarsus had to offer.

But since their grasp of Scripture is on the same level of our understanding of Einstein’s Theory of Relativity (i.e., about as deep as Bill’s love for Hillary), their ignorance is apparent to anyone with a working knowledge of the Bible.

To wit: as Paul writes in 2 Timothy 3:16 (Donald, that’s 2nd Timothy!), all Scripture is inspired by God.  Thus, Paul’s classification of homosexuality as sin carries the same weight of Christ’s condemnation of the hypocrisy of the Pharisees…or any other book, chapter or verse in the Bible.

Furthermore, Liberals truly don’t understand the entire Bible was written by men; including the accounts of Christ’s teachings and words in the Gospels According to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.  Thus, absent divine inspiration, the sections of Scripture to which they attribute such authority are no more definitive than the meanderings of an Alzheimer’s victim.  

In other words, they know not of what they speak.

And please, don’t even get us going on their unqualified support of utterly unrestricted abortion!

Which brings us, appropriately enough, to The Lighter Side…

Then there’s this accurate depiction of how videos work their way around the web courtesy of our middle son Mike:

Finally, courtesy of Ed Harvey, a Progressive proposal actually worth exploring:

Portland pilot program puts homeless in residents’ backyards

“Faced with an intractable homeless problem, officials in Portland are thinking inside the box.

A handful of homeless families will soon move into tiny, government-constructed modular units in the backyards of willing homeowners. Under the pilot program taking effect this summer, the homeowners will take over the heated, fully plumbed tiny houses in five years and can use them for rental income.

The project, called A Place for You, is believed to be the first in the nation to recruit stable residents to address a homeless crisis that’s gotten so bad the city last year declared a state of emergency and made it legal to sleep on the street.

Portland has an affordable rental shortage of 24,000 units and nearly 4,000 people sleep on the street, in a shelter or in transitional housing each night. Residents just passed a $260 million housing bond, but it will be two years before those units are ready, said Mary Li, director of Multnomah County’s new Idea Lab, which developed the concept. The first phase is very small — likely just four families — with hopes to expand significantly if it works out or regroup if there are problems, Li said.

…Housing officials are still ironing out many details, but they will buy the first four modular units with $365,000 in government money and a charitable donation. The 200-square-foot units under consideration will be large enough to house an adult and one — or possibly two — children, Li said.

All families will be screened and the homeowner and the tenants will sign a lease that spells out what behaviors won’t be tolerated. The families will receive social services that the county already provides to all homeless families they house, Li said, and they will pay 30 percent of the rent themselves.

…A pilot project in the city’s Kenton neighborhood, for example, will place 14 homeless women in portable sleeping pods, 8-by-12 foot units with a space for a bed and some storage. The pod village was recently approved by the neighborhood association…”

First, the potential problems:

(1). Though one would expect the price per/s.f. of such diminutive dwellings to run on the high side (for example, a $500 toilet in a 2,400 s.f./3-bedroom home runs $.21/s.f., where in a 200 s.f. modular it’s $2.50/s.f.), $456.25 still seems a might steep.  We’d be curious to see the costs in an identical program be run a private charity.

(2). Given the increasingly onerous hurdles landlords face in residential evictions, we’re we of a mind to participate in this program, we’d want multiple belts and several pairs of suspenders in whatever lease we signed prior to permitting what would amount to a squatter in our backyard.

(3). Despite being impressed Portland authorities are instituting their program via volunteers rather than through governmental decree, what about the residents in said neighborhoods not possessed of their fellows sense of noblesse oblige?  And will the Portland authorities compensate them should their property values plummet as a result of the programs failure? 

(4). Based on our experience working with their Baltimore counterparts over the last 10 years, the vast majority of Portland’s homeless aren’t where they are simply because they cannot afford housing.

That being said, and though the devil remains in a host of other details, here‘s wishing them success!

Magoo