It’s Monday, June 10th, 2013…and here’s The Gouge!

First up, as featured on our home page in The Video of the Day, we offer The Obamao’s ham-fisted attempt to drag Congress and the Courts under the scandal bus with him:

Even were the dubious constitutionality of such blanket information gathering not bad enough, as our old friend Steve Boss asked, how ELSE is the most cutthroat, partisan Administration in American history using this information?!?

Not to mention, as Townhall.com‘s Guy Benson noted on Friday, “The president undercut his rationale for maintaining these programs in his speech at NDU last month.  You can’t argue that these pervasive measures are necessary, but “large scale” threats are no longer an issue.”

You can when the MSM gives you a free pass on even the most glaring inconsistency, obvious flip-flop or outright lie.

But what we found the most illuminating aspect of The Dear Misleader’s news conference wasn’t its substance, but what occurred before his latest attempt at deliberate misrepresentation, dissimulation and misdirection even began:

Not only doesn’t this self-absorbed Socialist know the name of the minion who tripped rushing his speech to him, he never even thanks them.  Talk about a total…

…and a useless one at that!

Meanwhile, well west of Washington, the natives are increasingly restless:

Colorado Counties Mull Forming New State, North Colorado

Officials in eight northern Colorado counties united in opposition to the state’s new gun control laws and oil and gas regulations are reportedly considering forming a 51st U.S. state called North Colorado. The Denver Post reports that a proposal to separate Weld, Morgan, Logan, Sedgwick, Phillips, Washington, Yuma and Kit Carson counties from the rest of the state was hatched at a meeting of county commissioners last week.

Weld County commissioners Sean Conway, Mike Freeman and Doug Rademacher said they will conduct public meetings and decide whether to draft a ballot measure by Aug. 1., according to a report in The Greeley Tribune. The U.S. Constitution requires that Legislatures must first approve any state that is to be created within its jurisdiction. Commissioners said Thursday that failed legislative efforts to crack down on oil and gas [over-regulation], as well as increases in rural renewable energy standards were “the straws that broke the camel’s back.”

Conway told the Tribune that Weld County’s main economic drivers, agriculture and energy, are under attack, even though those sectors contribute significantly to the state’s economy. He said the county’s return on its financial contributions to the state are minimal. Commissioners are also concerned about the lack of funding for infrastructure and education and believe the split would allow them to leverage financial investments from energy companies in the region, the newspaper reported.

Rep. Cory Gardner, R-Colo., whose district would be included in the split, said in a statement last week that he is sympathetic to the commissioners’ concerns and doesn’t blame them for wanting to form a new state, The Tribune reported. “The people of rural Colorado are mad, and they have every right to be,” Gardner said. “The governor and his Democrat colleagues in the statehouse have assaulted our way of life, and I don’t blame these people one bit for feeling attacked and unrepresented by the leaders of our state.”

Gov. John Hickenlooper’s spokesman Eric Brown said in a statement obtained by the paper that “background checks on gun sales, increasing renewable energy and supporting responsible development of oil and gas are popular with rural and urban voters.”

Yeah…

Liberals will not, indeed can not, allow such an effort to succeed, as similar referendums on secession would surely follow.  The vast majority of rural and even many suburban voters in states like Washington, California, Oregon, New York, Illinois, Nevada, Missouri, Pennsylvania and Maryland, where Liberal urban enclaves consume much and contribute little, yet dominate state-wide elections, would gladly grant themselves self-government…along with the benefit of their own tax dollars.

And if Republicans oppose statehood for the District of Columbia (ignoring for the moment the clear contents of the Constitution) because of the likelihood of two more dependably-Dimocratic senators and one congressman, Liberals would rightly view secession as presaging permanent minority status in what they’ve made the World’s Greatest Debilitative Body.

Next up, James Taranto highlights the obvious hypocrisy at the heart of every Liberal policy:

Grumpy Old Klein

Sexagenarian Journolist veteran Joe Klein isn’t happy with kids today. To improve them, he writes at Time.com, he would like to see Congress enact “a robust national-service plan that would try to re-create a sense of community among our disparate parts”:

(It would be morally bracing to see the children of Jay Z and Issa spend a year living in barracks, doing disaster relief together.) We have to tilt the balance of rights and responsibilities back toward the responsibility side of the spectrum. The past 40 years have been a time of vaulting libertarianism; we need a communitarian corrective, which seems quite impossible at this moment.

See why people hate baby boomers? Klein got to enjoy the fruits of “libertarianism” in his youth and middle age. As his dotage approaches, he wants to impose a harsh “communitarian corrective”–even the draft!–on younger people. And by the way, those are the same younger people Klein will be counting on to support him in his retirement.

And since we’re on the subject of hypocritical Liberals, here’s a little video montage we put together which reveal Chris Matthews’ of absolute ignorance of…well…just about any subject he discusses.  First, the racial make-up of the Senate:

Next, Matthews offers a rather creative definition of “racism”:

Yeah…and Major Hassan’s Ft. Hood massacre was “workplace violence”.  Finally, Matthews demonstrates either an Obama-like command of geography, or the same willingness to lie in support of a time-worn Liberal fable:

Matthews not in the District of Columbia, but in Chevy Chase, MD, an exclusive, tony suburb where 1% represents not only the average household income, but Black population level.  And there’s no doubt anytime Matthews crosses Florida Avenue, he locks his doors just like the rest of us.

Then again, what should one expect from a man who idolizes Jimmy Carter, and who could say the following of the most crooked, unqualified, narcissistic individual…

…ever to (pardon the phrase) darken the Oval Office?!?

Which brings us, appropriately enough, to today’s installment of Tales From the Darkside, in which the WSJ‘s Jason Riley asks a question, the answer to which inquiring minds already know:

Do Most People Support Affirmative Action?

Liberals claim that we need to have an honest discussion about race in America, so it would be helpful if they stopped misrepresenting racial data.

According to the New York Times, their new poll shows that “more than half of Americans, 53 percent, favor affirmative action programs for minorities in college admissions and hiring,” immediately adding that “other surveys that frame the question in terms of giving minorities ‘preference’ find less support.” In other words, the more accurately you describe “affirmative action,” the worse it polls.

In fact, surveys going back decades—even those which omit words like “preference” but frame the question fairly—have shown that most Americans, including most black Americans, oppose affirmative action policies.

A 2001 Washington Post poll asked: “In order to give minorities more opportunity, do you believe race or ethnicity should be a factor when deciding who is hired, promoted, or admitted to college, or that hiring, promotions, and college admissions should be based strictly on merit and qualifications other than race or ethnicity?” Ninety-two percent of all respondents and 86% of blacks said that such decisions “should be based strictly on merit and qualifications other than race/ethnicity.” In a 1997 New York Times/CBS News poll, 69% of all respondents, and 63% of blacks, said that “race should not be a factor” when asked how “equally qualified college applicants” should be treated.

The poster child for everything wrong with Affirmative Action.

As Stuart Taylor Jr., co-author of “Mismatch,” an excellent new book on racial preferences, has written, “despite its wide currency, ‘affirmative action’ is a misleading phrase, because most Americans interpret it as including aggressive anti-discrimination measures, recruitment and outreach efforts, and preferences for poor people to promote genuine equality of opportunity—policies that are in fact supported by almost all opponents of racial preferences.”

Yes, it’s true that when pollsters include phrases like “racial preferences” or “preferential treatment” to describe affirmative action, it can impact the answer. But polls that avoid those terms while still using language that accurately describes what affirmative action means in practice—rather than in theory—show that opposition to such policies is deep and widespread in the U.S.

Moving on, here’s another reason we’ll never make political contributions to anyone but individual candidates:

Republican Senator Ayotte endorses immigration bill

“Ayotte, an ally of Senator John McCain of Arizona, one of the bipartisan “Gang of Eight” senators who crafted the bill, said it would improve border security and ensure the U.S. economy, particularly its high-tech sector, was able to attract the best workers.”

Yes; so Silicon Valley can draw upon that vast, untapped pool of software engineers waiting patiently in Juarez and Tijuana!

On the Lighter Side…

Finally, we’ll call it a day with Idiots on Parade, as we turn to the story of a…

Woman attempting to live on nothing but water and sunlight for 6 months

A Seattle woman is attempting to live without food for six months — planning to sustain herself on water and sunlight alone.

Navenna Shine is calling her experiment “Living on Light.” “This is a paradigm for living in which we as human beings do not have to ingest any kind of food whatsoever into our stomachs in order to thrive,” Shine said.

Shine, 65, says her experiment is an attempt to follow an obscure group of yogis called The Breatharians, who for thousands of years have claimed they have the ability to live on light alone.

Gee; what are the odds Ms. Shine voted for Hope ‘n Change…TWICE?!?

Magoo