It’s Monday, March 16th, 2015…but before we begin, a rare photo of a what is now, thanks to gross Liberal over-regulation, an all-but extinct species:

Yes, it’s the increasingly-elusive 100-watt interior incandescent flood light!  We found it hiding in the deep recesses of our 2nd-floor hallway, and are preserving it to prove to posterity America was once able to manufacture and market products which benefited the needs of consumers rather than the personal preferences of nameless, faceless government bureaucrats.

Oh…and if you think a 20-year-old Yo could hit two cops with a handgun from 125′ with one shot, let alone two out of four, in the dark, we’ve got some swampland in Florida we’d like to show you.

Now, here’s The Gouge!

First up, courtesy of George Lawlor, breaking but unconfirmed news from Ed Klein writing at The New York Post:

Obama adviser behind leak of Hillary Clinton’s email scandal

“It’s the vast left-wing conspiracy. Obama senior adviser Valerie Jarrett leaked to the press details of Hillary Clinton’s use of a private e-mail address during her time as secretary of state, sources tell me. But she did so through people outside the ­administration, so the story couldn’t be traced to her or the White House.

…I’m told that the e-mail scandal was timed to come out just as Hillary was on the verge of formally announcing that she was running for president — and that there’s more to come…”

The contempt with which the Obamao and Clinton camps hold each other evokes the relationship between the two primary branches of another godless cult; the Sunnis and Shiites hate each other only slightly less than their shared enemy: the West.  Curiouser and curiouser.  As Yogi Berra so aptly observed, when it comes to Election ’16, it ain’t over ’til it’s over.

In a related item brought to us by Bill Meisen, and which deserves to be read in its entirety, William Safire had Hillary’s number back in 1996:

Blizzard of Lies

Americans of all political persuasions are coming to the sad realization that our First Lady — a woman of undoubted talents who was a role model for many in her generation (whatever Safire viewed as her “undoubted talents” escapes us!) — is a congenital liar.

Drip by drip, like Whitewater torture, the case is being made that she is compelled to mislead, and to ensnare her subordinates and friends in a web of deceit.

1. Remember the story she told about studying The Wall Street Journal to explain her 10,000 percent profit in 1979 commodity trading? We now know that was a lie told to turn aside accusations that as the Governor’s wife she profited corruptly, her account being run by a lawyer for state poultry interests through a disreputable broker.

She lied for good reason: To admit otherwise would be to confess taking, and paying taxes on, what some think amounted to a $100,000 bribe. (Can you say “Maureen McDonnell”?!?)

2. The abuse of Presidential power known as Travelgate elicited another series of lies. She induced a White House lawyer to assert flatly to investigators that Mrs. Clinton did not order the firing of White House travel aides, who were then harassed by the F.B.I. and Justice Department to justify patronage replacement by Mrs. Clinton’s cronies.

Now we know, from a memo long concealed from investigators, that there would be “hell to pay” if the furious First Lady’s desires were scorned. The career of the lawyer who transmitted Hillary’s lie to authorities is now in jeopardy. Again, she lied with good reason: to avoid being identified as a vindictive political power player who used the F.B.I. to ruin the lives of people standing in the way of juicy patronage.

3. In the aftermath of the apparent suicide of her former partner and closest confidant, White House Deputy Counsel Vincent Foster, she ordered the overturn of an agreement to allow the Justice Department to examine the files in the dead man’s office. Her closest friends and aides, under oath, have been blatantly disremembering this likely obstruction of justice, and may have to pay for supporting Hillary’s lie with jail terms.

Again, the lying was not irrational. Investigators believe that damning records from the Rose Law Firm, wrongfully kept in Vincent Foster’s White House office, were spirited out in the dead of night and hidden from the law for two years — in Hillary’s closet, in Web Hubbell’s basement before his felony conviction, in the President’s secretary’s personal files — before some were forced out last week.

Why the White House concealment? For good reason: The records show Hillary Clinton was lying when she denied actively representing a criminal enterprise known as the Madison S.& L., and indicate she may have conspired with Web Hubbell’s father-in-law to make a sham land deal that cost taxpayers $3 million.

Why the belated release of some of the incriminating evidence? Not because it mysteriously turned up in offices previously searched. Certainly not because Hillary Clinton and her new hang-tough White House counsel want to respond fully to lawful subpoenas.

One reason for the Friday-night dribble of evidence from the White House is the discovery by the F.B.I. of copies of some of those records elsewhere. When Clinton witnesses are asked about specific items in “lost” records — which investigators have — the White House “finds” its copy and releases it. By concealing the Madison billing records two days beyond the statute of limitations, Hillary evaded a civil suit by bamboozled bank regulators.

Another reason for recent revelations is the imminent turning of former aides and partners of Hillary against her; they were willing to cover her lying when it advanced their careers, but are inclined to listen to their own lawyers when faced with perjury indictments.

Therefore, ask not “Why didn’t she just come clean at the beginning?” She had good reasons to lie; she is in the longtime habit of lying; and she has never been called to account for lying herself or in suborning lying in her aides and friends.

No wonder the President is fearful of holding a prime-time press conference. Having been separately deposed by the independent counsel at least twice, the President and First Lady would be well advised to retain separate defense counsel.

To say Hillary lies like a dog would be putting it mildly…as well as insulting honest canines the world over.

Next up, today’s Environmental Moment, and this snippet from the late, great Michael Crichton’s 2003 address at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco:

Today, one of the most powerful religions in the Western World is environmentalism. Environmentalism seems to be the religion of choice for urban atheists. Why do I say it’s a religion? Well, just look at the beliefs. If you look carefully, you see that environmentalism is in fact a perfect 21st century remapping of traditional Judeo-Christian beliefs and myths.

There’s an initial Eden, a paradise, a state of grace and unity with nature, there’s a fall from grace into a state of pollution as a result of eating from the tree of knowledge, and as a result of our actions there is a judgment day coming for us all. We are all energy sinners, doomed to die, unless we seek salvation, which is now called sustainability. Sustainability is salvation in the church of the environment. Just as organic food is its communion, that pesticide-free wafer that the right people with the right beliefs, imbibe. . . .

There is no Eden. There never was. What was that Eden of the wonderful mythic past? Is it the time when infant mortality was 80%, when four children in five died of disease before the age of five? When one woman in six died in childbirth? When the average lifespan was 40, as it was in America a century ago. When plagues swept across the planet, killing millions in a stroke. Was it when millions starved to death? Is that when it was Eden?

Yes; though only if you’re of the opinion humans should…

But since actions speak louder than words, what’s America to make of the example recently set by the leading climate-change authorities on the planet?

Obama, first lady fly to Los Angeles on same day but take separate flights

 

“…The president went to appear live on comedian Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night show on ABC, while the first lady went to Warner Bros.’ studios in nearby Burbank to tape an appearance on Ellen Degeneres’ popular daytime show that is scheduled to air on Monday.

Obama traveled on Air Force One, which reportedly costs taxpayers at least $200,000 per flight hour. So the price of his five-hour, coast-to-coast trip will be roughly $1 million. The cost of an Air Force flight like the one the first lady took reportedly costs more than $28,000 an hour.

After appearing on “Late Night with Jimmy Kimmel,” the president attended a Democratic National Committee fundraiser, then left Friday morning for Phoenix to visit a veterans’ hospital before returning to Washington. The first lady returned directly to Washington.”

So much for reducing their carbon footprints, let alone the girth of Moochie’s midsection; and let’s be honest, the visit to the VA was simply a write-off.

Since we’re exposing the hypocrisy and fraud endemic in Environazism, here’s a must-read, most excellent essay from Matt Ridley in the WSJ:

Fossil Fuels Will Save the World (Really)

There are problems with oil, gas and coal, but their benefits for people—and the planet—are beyond dispute

“…That fossil fuels are finite is a red herring. The Atlantic Ocean is finite, but that does not mean that you risk bumping into France if you row out of a harbor in Maine. The buffalo of the American West were infinite, in the sense that they could breed, yet they came close to extinction. It is an ironic truth that no nonrenewable resource has ever run dry, while renewable resources—whales, cod, forests, passenger pigeons—have frequently done so.

…The result of this great boost in energy is what the economic historian and philosopher Deirdre McCloskey calls the Great Enrichment. In the case of the U.S., there has been a roughly 9,000% increase in the value of goods and services available to the average American since 1800, almost all of which are made with, made of, powered by or propelled by fossil fuels.

Still, more than a billion people on the planet have yet to get access to electricity and to experience the leap in living standards that abundant energy brings. This is not just an inconvenience for them: Indoor air pollution from wood fires kills four million people a year. The next time that somebody at a rally against fossil fuels lectures you about her concern for the fate of her grandchildren, show her a picture of an African child dying today from inhaling the dense muck of a smoky fire.

…Notice, too, the ways in which fossil fuels have contributed to preserving the planet. As the American author and fossil-fuels advocate Alex Epstein points out in a bravely unfashionable book, “The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels,” the use of coal halted and then reversed the deforestation of Europe and North America. The turn to oil halted the slaughter of the world’s whales and seals for their blubber. Fertilizer manufactured with gas halved the amount of land needed to produce a given amount of food, thus feeding a growing population while sparing land for wild nature.

To throw away these immense economic, environmental and moral benefits, you would have to have a very good reason. (i.e., other than your feelings!)

…We should encourage the switch from coal to gas in the generation of electricity, provide incentives for energy efficiency, get nuclear power back on track and keep developing solar power and electricity storage. We should also invest in research on ways to absorb carbon dioxide from the air, by fertilizing the ocean or fixing it through carbon capture and storage. Those measures all make sense. And there is every reason to promote open-ended research to find some unexpected new energy technology.

The one thing that will not work is the one thing that the environmental movement insists upon: subsidizing wealthy crony capitalists to build low-density, low-output, capital-intensive, land-hungry renewable energy schemes, while telling the poor to give up the dream of getting richer through fossil fuels.“

In a related proof prevaricative Progressive policies are specifically purposed to impoverish the public while preserving political power, writing at Townhall.com, Michael Hausam details… 

Seattle’s Minimum Wage Law: A Slow-Motion Accident Right Before Our Eyes

“The city of Seattle is providing the nation the economic-planning equivalent of a Funniest Home Video face-plant compilation movie. And it promises to be a doozy. Except for in this case, the face-plant is occurring to an entire city’s population and there’s no hope for a big cash prize at the end for those getting hurt. In fact, just the opposite is waiting for them. Unfortunately, the impact has already happened to some.

…The first face-plant scene in the compilation occurred in February, when a recreational gear manufacturer announced it was moving some operations to Nevada. The owners specifically stated that the new wage law was the sole reason for the change. As an aside and mentioning it may be unnecessary, it is probably not accidental that the relocation occurred in a state without an income tax.

Multiple additional sequences of the compilation were announced this week. A number of restaurants across the city have recently closed their doors, according to Shift Washington, a local political action group. They quote Seattle Magazine in attributing the wage hike as a “major factor” in the decision to cease operation…”

So to all you Seattleites who continue to elect Dimocratic majorities in the hopelessly misguided belief Liberal ignorance will somehow overcome the basic laws of free-market economics:

Oh, and Pete, the only possible call on was Marshawn up the middle; three times if that’s what it took!

On the Lighter Side…

We’ll be out of town on business through Wednesday morning, so look for us to be back in touch on Friday.

Magoo