It’s Friday, June 10th, 2016…but before we begin, two headlines which highlight why, whoever the Republican nominee may be (except for Satan himself, though he’d undoubtedly run as a Dimocrat)…

…we cannot afford even four more years of Progressive policies:

Commissioner says fraud from Obamaphone program approaching $500 million

Please note: $500,000,000 is merely the cost to taxpayers of the inevitable FRAUD in the program; in other words, just the rounding error on this particular government giveaway.

Feds spend nearly $20,000 to settle every refugee

$20,000 per head to settle “refugees”…from utterly alien cultures, who don’t speak English, possessed of no real marketable job skills (how many Somali taxi drivers does Minneapolis need?!?), have the remotest connection to our country, and many of who aren’t really “fleeing for their lives“…while hundreds of thousands of those who risked their lives in the service of their country…

…literally die waiting for medical treatment.

This isn’t unacceptable; it’s beyond unforgivable.  It’s criminal…particularly under a President who’s run up untold tens, perhaps even hundreds of millions of dollars in personal vacations and travel while it happened.

Now, here’s The Gouge!

First up, since we’re on the subject of criminals, writing at his Morning Jolt, Jim Geraghty captures the true significance of Clinton clinching the Dimocratic nomination for President:

Next up, also courtesy of Jim Geraghty writing at NRO, a little background information on the latest object of Trump’s thin skin and ill temper:

We’ve said it before, we’ll say it again: if had The Donald a legitimate beef with Judge Curiel, there were a thousand different ways he could have expressed his displeasure which were far less incendiary.  The man conflates volume of words with quality of speech, calumny with clarity of communication.

In a related item, the WSJ‘s Kimberly Strassel suggests, with good reason, why…

Trump Can’t Wing It Forever

He needs a campaign—to raise cash, cut ads and keep him focused on Clinton.

“The problem with accomplishing the impossible is that it leaves the impression doing so can be routine. In that mind-set may rest the question of whether Donald Trump has a shot at the presidency.

Give the man credit: He broke every law of political physics and still won the primary. He rambled; he barely spent a dime on TV; he skipped entire states; he ignored delegate math; his focus group was himself. An entire generation of political consultants is debating checking in to a psych ward.

His impossible victory in hand, Mr. Trump is proceeding as if he can win the general election the same way. Fundraising and advertising? Mr. Trump told Bloomberg that he had no plans to raise the $1 billion his campaign initially estimated, since “I get so much publicity” and free airtime. He wrapped up the nomination more than a month ago, yet only this week did his national finance team hold its first official meeting.

A data operation? The real-estate mogul last month said the whole know-who-your-voters-are thing is “overrated.” After all, he says he can reach nearly 20 million people on social media. How about a fully staffed campaign operation? No need. Mr. Trump is running a bare-bones effort—reported to be about 80 people in total—and he told the New York Times that such leanness is “smart.”

In short, he’s winging it. He continues to operate on the assumption that he will bask in free airtime forever, that the masses will flock to him come November, that he can tweet his way to the Oval Office. And perhaps, given his primary achievement, he gets the benefit of the doubt.

Save one thing: It isn’t working. Mr. Trump’s past rule-breaking succeeded because of a crowded primary field, in which Mr. Trump was the most entertaining figure, and in which (and this is HUUUGE!) the press didn’t have a stake. (Hells bells; the press wanted him to win to better Hillary’s chances in November!) It succeeded because a decade of specific frustrations had made conservatives unusually open to his style and message.

That’s all over now. Mr. Trump is in a race against a seasoned politician who commands a machine and is already savaging him daily. The mainstream media are in the tank for her, and their airtime will be devoted to skewering him. Mr. Trump’s supporters remain the minority in a fractured party that he has yet to unify.

There’s no need to guess whether Mr. Trump’s lack of a campaign is hurting him. It’s proven by two irrefutable weeks of negative press coverage, missed opportunities and eroding poll numbers…”

We couldn’t care less about Donald Trump; frankly, we’re still uncertain he even wants to be President.  Our concern is exclusively our country…and what will happen when this bloviating blimp finally…

…blows up.  Hat tip to the incredibly talented Stilton Jarlsberg for the rendering of the Hindendouche.

Next up, again courtesy of NRO, the brilliant Kevin Williamson alerts us to…

The Lemonade Menace

“…Alex was born in Connecticut, but the Scotts lived in affluent Lower Merion, Pa., during most of Alex’s life. In the greater Philadelphia area, she had access to some of the finest medical care in the world, and she was fortunate enough (“fortunate enough” are strange words to write about a little girl who spent practically her entire life fighting cancer) to be from a family with some resources. Alex was, unlike most children her age, very much aware that this was not the case for all children, and so she launched, with her brother’s help, a lemonade stand, with the intention of using her profits to help other children with cancer.

They raised $2,000, which is a fair amount of money for a lemonade stand. One assumes that a few of those Main Line bankers and heiresses were paying $100 a cup. Once her story hit the headlines — we do sometimes forget that the press can be an awesome instrument for good — that $2,000 became $1 million, and that $1 million became a movement, with children around the country opening their own summer lemonade stands in tribute to Alex and, later, in tribute to her memory. Alex died of cancer at age eight.

It was inevitable that men with guns would shut this down.

As the idea of selling lemonade for charitable purposes caught on, police around the country and the turbocharged bureaucracies behind them found themselves faced with an unexpected public menace: outlaw lemonade. Alex’s Lemonade stands around the country were shut down by armed men at the behest of city health inspectors, tax collectors, licensing czars — and for-profit competitors. In Philadelphia, police were sent to shut down an Alex’s Lemonade stand for want of a permit and a hand-sanitizing station. (Philadelphia had 320 murders that year.) In the Hamptons, Jerry Seinfeld’s family was visited by police for selling lemonade to support a charity founded by the comedian’s wife. In Wisconsin, vendors resenting the competition demanded a stand be closed, and so it was. New York City insists that Alex’s Lemonade stands be licensed city concessions, like hot-dog stands; do treat your four-year-old to a bedtime reading of “Title 12 of the Rules of the City of New York,” which has 17 section headings and dozens of subsections, every jot and tittle of which must be satisfied.

Your toddler may need a lawyer.

Not all lemonade stands are philanthropic, nor should they be. Those that aren’t run into trouble, too. In Montgomery County, Md., children were fined $500 for operating an illegal lemonade stand outside the Congressional Country Club. In Texas, police shut down two little sisters’ lemonade stand for want of a $150 “peddler’s permit”; the town fathers agreed to waive the $150 fee — but insisted that the girls needed the health department’s sign-off first. In Iowa, men with guns were dispatched to stop a four-year-old girl from selling lemonade during a bicycle race. In New Castle, N.Y., city councilman Michael Wolfensohn dispatched armed men to a local park to stop children from selling unlicensed cupcakes and — horrors! — unregulated Rice Krispie treats.

The phenomenon is maddening in general, but it is particularly galling where the Alex’s Lemonade stands are concerned. Here is Jennifer Hughes of the Montgomery County, Md., Department of Permitting Services: “It wasn’t that we were the big hand of county government trying to come down and squash anything…We were attempting to do what a government is charged with doing, which is protecting communities and protecting the safety of people.” Which is to say: We cannot let these people raise money for children with cancer — somebody might get sick!

We are ruled by power-mad buffoons…”

The scariest part to us?  Any question the incredibly benighted Ms. Hughes actually believes what she said!!!  THIS is what some 60 years of almost uncontrolled Progressivism has wrought; and we say “almost” only because of 8 years of respite under Reagan, i.e., not Nixon nor either Bush.

Which brings us to an outstanding two-part series from the great Thomas Sowell, who wonders…

Is Personal Responsibility Obsolete?

“Among the many disturbing signs of our times are conservatives and libertarians of high intelligence and high principles who are advocating government programs that relieve people of the necessity of working to provide their own livelihoods.

Generations ago, both religious people and socialists were agreed on the proposition that “he who does not work, neither shall he eat.” Both would come to the aid of those unable to work. But the idea that people who simply choose not to work should be supported by money taken from those who are working was rejected across the ideological spectrum.

…Before there can be a welfare state in a democratic country, there must first be a welfare state vision that becomes sufficiently pervasive to allow a welfare state to be created. That vision, in which people are “entitled” to what others have produced, is at the heart of the social degeneration that can be traced back to the 1960s.

Teenage pregnancies, venereal diseases, dependency on government and murder rates were all going down during the much disdained 1950s. All reversed and shot up as the welfare state, and the social vision behind the welfare state, took over in the 1960s.

That vision featured non-judgmental rewards and non-judgmental leniency toward counterproductive behavior, whether crime or irresponsible sex and its consequences. But relieving people from the responsibilities and challenges of life is doing them no favor. Nor is it a favor to society at large.

American society has become more polarized under the welfare state vision. Nor is it hard to see why. If we are all “entitled” to benefits, just by being present, why are some entitled to so little while others have so much?

In an entitlement context, all sorts of “gaps” and “disparities” automatically become “inequities,” and a reason for lashing out at others, instead of improving yourself. Only in a society in which rewards are based on contributions is there any reasonable reply to the question as to why Bill Gates has so much and others so little. (Speaking of Bill Gates…?!?)

The track record of divorcing personal rewards from personal contributions hardly justifies more of the same, even when it is in a more sophisticated form. Sophisticated social disaster is still disaster — and we already have too much of that.“

Just ask the Pilgrims; or, as our eldest son Jonathon would say, “The dudes in the black hats and with buckles!”

Then there’s this from Regated via our youngest son Travis:

Who’s Afraid of Leftists Anymore?

Liberal authoritarian mind control is reaching unprecedented lows in America’s 2016 election. Like a wounded predator, the left is swinging blindly at any perceived threat — and looking weak and paranoid as a side effect.

“If our brains were bassoons we couldn’t blow a note; but if our mindless empathy determined the size of our brassieres, we’d be Dolly Parton!”

“…Instead of any productive counter-measure, 20 minutes into the live stream of Dave and Milo two pale Southern Californian feminists jumped from their seats to squeal, “You’re spreading hate!” Twice. With absolutely no end game strategy. They then had to stand sheepishly and get the beration of their lives in a video now viewed by hundreds of thousands. Dumb move.

Milo was dismayed at their predictability and complained to the room, “So confident am I, that they are the most intellectually lazy people on the planet, I wrote them a guide on how to beat me.”

“I don’t want to beat you!” interjected the unkept military jacket clad feminist, “I hate you!”

Then something transcendent happened. A crowd of Trump supporters near the two protesting girls started shouting “HATE SPEECH! HATE SPEECH!”

Watch:

The two girls guffawed. You could see their minds ticking. They smiled sheepishly, as they realized saying “I hate you” is literally hate speech. And the whole room was against them.  Their tactic had turned against them.  They were the assholes there.

And that is what the left is reducing to. Saying “I hate you” to those they accuse of hate speech.  And looking weak as a side effect.  They’re being exposed as either insane or apathetic to reality…”

Their feelings so overwhelm their thinking they’re quite literally incapable of recognizing the hypocrisy inherent in their ideas.

On The Lighter Side…

And in yet another titillating tale torn from the pages of The Crime Blotter…

Man Shoots Own Father At Church — During Memorial Service For Murdered Brother

Antonio Addison, who shot his father at a memorial service for his brother, Antonio Addison.

“…A service for Antoni[o] Addison, who was murdered last month, took an unexpected turn on Tuesday when police say the murder victim’s brother pulled out a gun and shot his own father.

The New Song Worship and Arts Center on Calhoun Street was packed with mourners who saw everything. “They got into some sort of an argument at this repast over what was said or how it was said at the funeral, and the suspect in this case decided to pull out a gun that he brought with him to this event and shot his own father,” said T.J. Smith, Baltimore Police Department.

…Police believe the fight may have broken out because of a disagreement over the obituary.

…Charges are pending against the 26-year-old who shot his own dad. Police say they will release the suspect’s name after he’s been charged…”

Another victim of White repression in Charm City!

Finally, since we’re on the subject of bitter, misshapen Baltimorons, we’ll call it a wrap with this startling story in the Science Section:

Archaeologists discover 700,000-year-old fossils of ‘hobbit’ ancestors

Rumors this archeological breakthrough came only as a result of Barbara Mikulski researching her roots on Ancestry.com remain unsubstantiated.

Magoo